Building Better CMOs and Marketing Leaders

Full transcript GE has changed a whole lot since Global CMO Linda Boff started working there, more than 20 years ago. It was once a sprawling portfolio company that made everything from microwaves to television shows; recently, it spun off its healthcare, energy, and aerospace divisions into three distinct public companies, and executives like Linda take these core areas of focus very seriously. "We are a company, I like to say a capital-P Purpose company," she says. "A third of the world has power because of GE. Planes with our engines take off every two seconds. So as you and I are talking, there are probably, give or take 900,000 people in the sky right now with our engines under wing. And our health care equipment, MRIs and CTs and so much more, touches 2 billion patients a year." Today on Building Better CMOs, Linda and MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart discuss how to punch above your weight with a smaller marketing team, why B2B businesses don't have to be boring, the importance of communicating to the rest of the C-Suite in their language, and more. Plus: Why you need to separate stories from facts. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Linda's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript It doesn't matter how good your marketing is if you can't communicate its impact to the larger organization, says Charisse Hughes, senior vice president and Chief Growth Officer of Kellanova. Her firm spun off of the Kellogg Company last year to manage iconic brands like Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats, as well as breakfast cereal outside of the U.S. Those have been household names for a long time, but Charisse says that across the marketing world, it's easy to lose sight of the long term. "Marketers are missing the mark in terms of our communication strategy within the organization—as well as how we look at, measure, and think about immediate versus long-term business results or long-term brand equity," she says. "I feel like we, as a marketing community, have to get better at educating our organization, our CEOs, our CFOs, on what is the value of a click today, what is the value over the course of time, and what tradeoffs are we making here and why?" Today on Building Better CMOs, Charisse and MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart discuss all of that, as well as how to unlock the value of brand marketing, purposeful career pivots and getting to the C-suite, balancing hard truths with optimism, and more. Plus: What makes a Chief Growth Officer different from a CMO? Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Charisse's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript Some marketers think of themselves as operators and some see themselves as visionaries. But only the great ones, says Ulta Beauty CMO Michelle Crossan-Matos, understand that they have to be both. Just before the POSSIBLE conference in Miami, where she spoke to MMA CEO Greg Stuart, she was in Orlando, working to inspire 3000 leaders from Ulta's massive retail operations. "But when I get in the office tomorrow, it is about how are my sales doing? How can I pivot? How can I get even more this Friday?," she says. "So ask yourself deeply right now, how comfortable do you feel between that toggle? And if you don't enjoy that, that's okay. How can you learn to enjoy it?" In this special live episode of Building Better CMOs, Michelle and Greg also talk about her unusual path to the C-Suite, managing a gigantic loyalty program, creating your own framework, preparing for every scenario, why every marketer should take a stint in retail, and more. Plus: How business leaders can prepare for unexpected scenarios like COVID. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Michelle's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript Marketing is both an art and a science, but unless the science is sound, the rest of the company won't believe that you're driving results. So says Morgan Stanley Wealth Management CMO Andrea Zaretsky, who has devoted her entire marketing career — starting at American Express in 2003, with stops at Sephora and Toys-R-Us in between — to improving measurement. "From the beginning, it's been really important for me to understand how to use analytics," Andrea says. "How to make sure that we're setting up the right test and control, how do we ensure that we're getting learnings and cascading them, and then how do we scale wins to truly drive growth for the company?" Today on Building Better CMOs, Andrea talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the three things companies can do to measure better, how to work with non-native marketers, and why the Super Bowl really matters. They also discuss the underrated importance of customer experience to business results and — most importantly — how E*TRADE makes those talking baby ads. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Andrea's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript "At the end of the day," says Impossible Foods CMO and Chief Creative Officer Leslie Sims, "we're helping save the planet, we're helping the environment, but people don't necessarily want to hear that when they're eating a cheeseburger." The arrival of the plant-based meat industry came in the form of a scientific breakthrough: Foods made from plants that behave like meat when cooked, which have been steadily added to restaurant menus around the world; in the case of Impossible's chicken nuggets, many critics have declared them "better than the real thing." But our emotional attachment to the foods we eat means that, if Impossible wants people to make different decisions in the grocery store, Leslie and her team have their work cut out for them. Today on Building Better CMOs, she and MMA CEO Greg Stuart talk about her background working at ad agencies, the disconnect between CMOs and CFOs, and her guiding philosophy that marketers must always remember the human on the other end of their work. Plus: The danger of over-reliance on data, and the enduring power of the Super Bowl. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Leslie's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you like Building Better CMOs, we think you'll also like "Stories and Strategies For Public Relations and Marketing," hosted by Doug Downs. In this episode, originally released in May 2021, Doug interviews Ogilvy UK vice chairman Rory Sutherland about nudge theory — the behavioral science concept popularized by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's book "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness." We'll be back in two weeks with a new episode of Building Better CMOs! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript By her own admission, First Command Financial Services exec Kellie Richter's official title is a mouthful. It's "EVP, Chief Marketing and Client Experience Officer" — but those aren't empty words to her. The clients who First Command cares about are military service members, veterans, and their families; even more than a regular financial services customer, Kellie says, "they do their research ... they're protective of their services and they should be." Having Client Experience in her title gives Kellie an added layer of accountability, and serves as an invitation to anyone researching the privately-owned firm to reach out about their experiences, good or bad. "A lot of times, it's not about getting a one or a five star," she says. "It's about, are you listening? Are you paying attention to the feedback? And are you responding to that? And that's what people want to see." Today on Building Better CMOs, Kellie talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about how First Command's mission motivates its employees, why marketing can't fix a broken client experience, and why she believes some of the best marketers in the business are at Trader Joe's. Plus: What happens to military families during a government shutdown? Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Kellie's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript To connect with their customers, companies have to understand them. But current approaches just don't work, says Anywhere Real Estate CMO Esther-Mireya Tejeda. Breaking those customers into demographic groups obscures important differences, and psychographic profiles are not easily targetable. The missing link is an emerging neuroscience-backed framework called emographics, which explains why people do what they do. "The majority of human behavior upwards of 95 percent is actually emotionally driven by the unconscious," Tejeda says. "The closer we get to actually understanding that unconscious persona — and we marry that data set with the demographics and the psychographics — now we're talking about a truly 360 robust understanding of that person. Now we can understand what makes that person tick. Now we can start building personalized, targeted, precise campaigns." Today on Building Better CMOs, Esther-Mireya talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about why no one is "just" a marketer, the irreplaceable human element in real estate, and why the era of "one size fits all" marketing is over. Plus: How technology is simplifying the home-buying experience, and how brands can respond to an era of widespread distrust. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Esther-Mireya's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript Laura Jones is Instacart's CMO and was previously the former global head of marketing, but she never explicitly set out to get jobs like those. "How did I end up here?" she asks. "It really centers on proactively seeking out learning opportunities." After stints at Deloitte, Visa, and Google, Laura's last two job hops were both motivated by a realization that she had learned what she could from those roles and "that I wanted to continue pushing myself ... every day has been hard. It's the opposite of comfortable." That helped her reach the C-Suite because, in marketing, you need to be able to talk to all types of people — designers, data analysts, CFOs, and more. Through it all, she has been grateful for the opportunities to learn, and loved the challenges thrown at her daily. Today on Building Better CMOs, Laura talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the convergence of commerce and video, customer-centric design, and building different products for different marketer objectives. They also discuss the challenges of today's AI, developing a unified marketing voice, and the differences between pre-IPO Uber and post-IPO Instacart. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Laura's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript When Aron North was hired to lead marketing and creative at Ultra Mobile — the fastest-growing private company in the world, in 2016 — he had no idea what would be waiting for him on day one: The outlines of a new prepaid cell phone plan aimed at consumers, then called Mint SIM, which would be sold online only. Aron was blunt with the company's president: "Oh, this is incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, this is never going to work the way you've laid it out. There's no chance this succeeds." At the time, the consumer proposition of what would eventually become Mint Mobile was confusing, and it wasn't clear how consumers would benefit from switching to Mint. Aron and his team worked until they arrived at a clear insight that would define the company's early years: "How can it be any good if it's this cheap?" Today on Building Better CMOs, he talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about what happened next, why marketers' opinions of a product don't matter, and hiring fiercely competitive “killers." They also discuss the importance of failing often, and the benefits of playing "jump ball" with creative teams. Plus: Why AI is overrated. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Aron's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript The "brand versus performance" marketing debate happens in all industries, but no one appreciate the value of brand as performance better than Zena Arnold, the CMO of Sephora US. Her job requires her to balance the demands of both online and in-store operations ("I get emails every hour during our great sales," she notes), so performance means more than just clicks. "One of our key roles of marketing and retail is driving traffic, whether that's into a store or whether it's to our site or our app," Arnold says. "And it's pretty awesome when you turn things on to see that having a direct effect almost immediately ... One of the things that's been growing for us a lot is buying online, picking up in-store. So people are thinking about it, they want something maybe right away, they know the store's on the way home, but let me just order it, have it waiting for me, I can run in quickly, grab it and go. So that blurring of the channels has been really good for our customer client experience." Today on Building Better CMOs, she talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about her background in computer science, her past roles at firms like P&G and Google, and why you need to learn and adapt constantly to thrive in senior executive roles. Plus: What is the future of AI in marketing? And how do you turn customers into brand ambassadors? Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Zena's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript "We have this East Coast, West Coast dynamic going on in our industry," says Vineet Mehra, the CMO of Chime. But rather than 2Pac and Biggie, the split is between brand marketing and performance marketing — which Vineet says shouldn't be mutually exclusive. "Instead of integrating our worlds and realizing that all of this is now marketing, we have marketed marketing in an absolutely divisive way," he says, "and actually split the community as opposed to recognizing that there's just a new way of marketing and these two things need to be integrated and live together." Today on Building Better CMOs, he explains his vision for that new, integrated way, which he calls "Performance Storytelling." Vineet and MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart also talk about treating everyone as a future customer, building credibility with your CFO, and hiring for more than culture and fit. Plus: Why everyone who wants to be a marketing leader should aim to be an executive in both a big public company and a private PE- or VC-backed firm. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Vineet's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript One of the three core principles of successful marketing operations, says McKinsey & Co senior advisor Rebecca Messina, is articulating and keeping to a clear mission. Sometimes, companies already have one, but "engagement in the mission is low." Other times, business leaders may think they have a mission, but it's wildly inconsistent across the organization. Formulating a proper answer to the mission question means asking some fundamental questions. "It's based on the bigger question, which is where in the value equation are you?," says Rebecca, the former global CMO of Uber and longtime marketing leader at the Coca-Cola Company. "Are you that exchange company? Are you that engagement company? Are you that experience company? ... Whatever you are, how is it that you uniquely create that experience? How is it that you're going to uniquely deliver on engagement?" Today on Building Better CMOs, Rebecca talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about cultivating the right mindset for marketing, the complexities of changing strategies, and what it takes to get into leadership roles. They also discuss the softening of the brand vs performance debate, how Rebecca redefined herself outside of Coca-Cola, and the dangers of opening a car door in Amsterdam. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Rebecca's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript “You need content to deliver a good customer experience.” Sounds obvious, right? Except in today's marketing environment, says Adobe's chief brand officer Heather Freeland, one campaign can require 5,000 unique assets: Consider every possible channel, multiply that by the number of audiences you're trying to reach, and that by the number of customer segments within those audiences, and that by the number of markets you're launching in. "It is virtually impossible to keep pace," she says. "So we've had to fundamentally rethink how we're building content to keep pace with this. And if we didn't have a solid operational backbone, we'd be hosed." One saving grace, though, comes from Adobe itself: New generative AI solutions like the image model Firefly, which can make in seconds multiple versions of an asset that might have once needed hours of tinkering. "We need to help the rank-and-file marketer scale and move faster and accelerate workflows," Heather says. "And we need to help people find new ways to accelerate their thinking and think even bigger." Today on Building Better CMOs, Heather talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the challenges of keeping pace with technology, what everyone can learn from how Disney World operates, and the difference between a career ladder and a career jungle gym. She also looks back on her time at Facebook, where her first product was launching mobile ads, and explains why the most over-hyped thing in marketing today is advertising itself. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Heather's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript Once upon a time, Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder was selected by her then-employer for an assessment with a professional coach, to see if she was executive material. "I knew I could, but I didn't think I would" make it to the C-Suite, she recalls. "And I didn't think I would because I didn't think anyone would give me the shot." The big takeaway of the session reduced Dara to tears: Her CEO really believed in her, so much so that — if she improved on some problem areas — she could be a great CMO. So, Dara made a PowerPoint deck and took it to her husband with a pitch: Let's hire a professional coach on her own dime, "so that when I do get that top job, I am ready to go, and I can keep it," she says. "I think about that a lot, because many times, people are waiting for someone else to invest in them. You know what? You've gotta invest in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, how do you expect anyone else to believe in you?" Today on Building Better CMOs, Dara talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about why marketing is art AND science; the danger of falling in love with your own ideas; and Autodesk's campaigns at the Oscars and during the series finale of The Walking Dead. They also discuss Dara's journey from Nigeria to the US, having gratitude for your life, Apple's new "Mother Nature" ad, and more. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Dara's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript How do you advertise a streaming movie or TV show? "Flashy campaign assets" like a trailer and key art are certainly part of it, says Paramount Streaming's head of marketing Domenic DiMeglio. But in the modern entertainment business, that's just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, he says, you need hundreds of assets that will appear on every platform, and a plan to "manage the customer life cycle as part of that process." "There's just so much that goes into successfully building and managing and executing a campaign that you don't necessarily see beyond those flashy moments," Domenic says. "... If you're not placing that trailer in the right places, you're not giving it the right fuel to get viewed by folks, then you're also letting it down." Today on Building Better CMOs, Domenic talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about competing with TikTok for viewers’ attention, the science of making an entertaining trailer, why Paramount bundled Showtime into the streaming service Paramount+, and more. They also discuss how to lead with empathy, the success of the company's free ad-supported streamer Pluto TV, and the return of Damian Lewis' character Axe to Showtime's "Billions." Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Domenic's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript Uber's big Super Bowl campaign this year was a hit: In the ad, actual Uber executives try to convince Diddy to produce a jingle for the company's membership program, Uber One. The entertaining spot was "about as blatantly overt about selling as you can get," says VP of Marketing David Mogensen — and he's proud of that. "As an industry, I think we tend to think that selling is a bit of a dirty word," David says. "And so we do all this beautiful work that, as you said, wins all kinds of awards, but it's so afraid of being seen as selling that it doesn't actually sell anything. And in turn, it doesn't move the needle for the business." Today on Building Better CMOs, David talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the impact of COVID-19 on Uber's business, thriving in different work environments (including overseas), and the challenges of measuring a campaign's performance, especially in the mid-upper funnel. He also talks about his previous roles at Google and BMW, what makes Uber's marketing culture more intense than other companies', and changing how the public thinks and feels about the Uber brand. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: David's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript As recently as the late 2000s, if you wanted to launch a new banking brand you needed brick-and-mortar branches. But GMAC, a spinoff of GM that was bought by private equity firm Cerberus, didn’t have the liquidity to build or buy a network like that. Joining the company as a brand executive and later becoming its CMO, Andrea Brimmer recalls how risky it felt to debut GMAC’s new identity, Ally Financial, as an online-only firm. “It sounds funny to say that now, 15 years later when everybody's banking in the palm of their hand, but it was a huge challenge to convince people to send their money to the internet, and that was exactly what we had to do,” Brimmer says. “We really underestimated how big this franchise could really be … I think it's one of the best turnaround stories in American business history." Today on Building Better CMOs, Andrea talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the research Ally and the MMA have done together on "brand as performance marketing,” sharing data with marketing leaders at other companies, and what it takes to make the leap from account manager to marketing leader. They also talk about Ally’s commitment to investing equally in men’s and women’s sports, and why no responsible company can ignore generative AI. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Andrea's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript There are some necessary dividing lines in FanDuel CCO Mike Raffensperger's line of work. The most obvious one is that online sports gambling is legal in 19 states, but not others. The company also refuses to do name & likeness deals with college athletes because many of them aren't old enough to gamble, Mike explains. But he outright rejects the idea — widely accepted in some marketing circles — that there needs to be such a bright line between brand and performance marketing. "What human being experiences a brand or marketing that way?" he says. "'Ah, I see their new television campaign is out, building their brand attribute... I've formed a more intimate relationship with this company.' A little bit later, I'm on Twitter: 'Oh, they've got a special offer that is 20% off this week! I should click on this and activate.' Nobody does that! That's not the way anybody actually has a consumer journey." Today on Building Better CMOs, Mike talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about why CMOs are becoming more like strategic leaders, how FanDuel became "one of the most successful second-screen experiences in the world," and the challenges he is tackling beyond just legalization. Plus: Why FanDuel is able to says it airs more live sports than any other company in America. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Mike's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full transcript When CMO Kellyn Smith Kenny joined AT&T in 2020, she led an ambitious overhaul of the company's purpose; as is the case in many companies, this required a huge amount of customer research, and countless workshops and conversations with employees from across the company. But after landing on a stronger brand — to connect people to greater possibility through expertise, simplicity, and inspiration — Kellyn realized the new identity couldn't be launched to the public yet. Internally, AT&T's staff would have to "live it" first. "We needed to get our employees excited about it, our employees inspired by it," she says. "We needed for every single employee of the company to have their own connection story, to be able to tell a story that showcased how AT&T was bringing greater possibility either to communities or customers or even members of their own family so it felt real and personal, and it felt like a purpose that they could sign up for." Today on Building Better CMOs, Kellyn talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the incredible success of that rebranding, and why it worked. They also discuss the fatal mistakes that marketers can make in measurement and attribution; the enormous impact AI will have on marketing; embracing change to grow in your marketing career; and more. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Kellyn's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices