Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast The Array.
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
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| Can AI build brand love? Doug Zarkin on trust and growth | 16 Oct 2026 | 00:28:56 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.com In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper speak with Doug Zarkin, CMO at Take 5, bestselling author, and TEDx speaker, about what it takes to build brands that earn customer trust and drive lasting growth. Across a career spanning Avon, Victoria's Secret PINK, Pearle Vision, and Take 5, Doug has learned that effective marketing starts with understanding people, not just measuring them. He shares why his experience selling Avon door-to-door and working on the frontline shaped his approach to brand strategy, and why marketing without operational excellence is just stuff. This conversation explores how marketers can use AI without losing the human touch. Doug sees AI as a powerful tool for research, idea generation, and exploring possibilities, but warns against treating it as a substitute for curiosity, judgment, or human connection. He also explains why tracking endless metrics can lead to analysis paralysis, and why trust, reputation, and customer sentiment matter alongside sales and lifetime value. From anticipating customer needs to empowering frontline teams, Doug makes the case for designing experiences that build relationships beyond a single transaction. Ultimately, the goal isn't simply to get customers to choose your brand once. It's to give them a reason to choose you again. What You’ll Learn:
Doug Zarkin is the Chief Marketing Officer at Take 5 Oil Change, part of Driven Brands, and a brand transformation leader, bestselling author, and TEDx speaker. His career spans agency leadership and senior operating roles across beauty, fashion, retail, healthcare, wellness, and automotive services. Doug helped build Avon’s mark. brand to $118 million in 18 months, scale Victoria’s Secret PINK to $400 million, and grow Pearle Vision’s franchise business from $500 million to approximately $1 billion. At Take 5, he has led marketing transformation across brand strategy, customer experience, CRM, media, analytics, and omnichannel marketing. Through his book Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone and his “Thinking Human” philosophy, Doug champions a customer-first approach that connects brand strategy, frontline execution, trust, and commercial performance. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. | |||
| AI can build 200 campaigns. Should you use it all? | 14 Oct 2026 | 00:41:51 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.com In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper chat with Rachel Kamel, Director of CRM at Zwift and a growth marketing leader with experience across B2B, gaming, entertainment, and fitness. Together, they explore what it really takes to keep customers engaged when marketers have more tools, more data, and increasingly powerful AI at their disposal. Rachel explains how different industries have shaped her approach to retention, from the annual cycles of B2B to the constant engagement demanded by gaming and fitness. This conversation then turns to AI and CRM. Rachel sees the biggest opportunity in automating repetitive work and giving marketers more time for strategy, analysis, and creative thinking. But she warns against assuming that because teams can produce twice as many campaigns, they should. More messages can create customer fatigue, and AI can make it easier to automate the wrong things at scale. Rachel also shares a smarter approach to experimentation: instead of testing isolated creative variations, marketers should look for repeatable insights that can influence future campaigns. Finally, she explains why the numbers behind funnels, retention, and performance ultimately connect back to something more human: creating a better customer experience. For her, the most rewarding marketing work is work that makes people's lives better. What You’ll Learn:
Rachel Kamel is Director of CRM at Zwift, where she leads customer relationship marketing for a fitness platform built at the intersection of sport, technology, and gaming. A growth marketing leader with experience across B2B, gaming, entertainment, and fitness, Rachel specializes in building and refining customer journeys across acquisition, onboarding, retention, churn prevention, and winback. She is also passionate about making cycling more accessible and using marketing to help people have better experiences with the products they use. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Resources: | |||
| The CRM makeover your growth team needs | 06 Oct 2026 | 00:35:02 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.com In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper chat with Marina Vogt, Head of CRM at loveholidays, to explore how CRM can evolve from a campaign-led function into a strategic driver of commercial growth. Drawing on her experience leading large-scale CRM transformation at loveholidays, Marina explains what it takes to build lifecycle programmes around the customer journey rather than simply sending more campaigns. From trigger-based journeys and segmentation to experimentation and personalization, she explores how CRM teams can create more relevant customer experiences while delivering measurable commercial outcomes. This conversation also examines the importance of experimentation in modern CRM. Instead of relying on assumptions about what customers want, teams can use structured testing and incrementality frameworks to understand what actually drives additional conversion, engagement, and retention. This creates a more disciplined approach to customer marketing and helps teams separate correlation from genuine commercial impact. Toby, Jasper, and Marina also discuss the challenges of scaling CRM across markets and building the technology, processes, and cross-functional relationships needed to support meaningful personalization. This episode offers a practical perspective for CRM, marketing, and growth leaders looking to build customer engagement capabilities that scale, generate incremental growth, and become an integral part of the wider commercial strategy. What You’ll Learn:
Marina Vogt is Head of CRM at loveholidays, where she leads the transformation of CRM from a generic, campaign-led function into a strategic, lifecycle-driven growth channel. At loveholidays, Marina has led large-scale CRM transformation across strategy, technology, experimentation, and lifecycle journeys, partnering closely with product and engineering teams to enable more meaningful personalization. Her work has helped connect CRM more closely to measurable business outcomes across conversion, retention, sessions, and bookings. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Resources: | |||
| What happens when every marketer has an AI team? | 25 Sep 2026 | 00:31:09 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.com In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper chat with Ingrid Sierra, Brand & Marketing Director at Zego and a global marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience across fintech, insurtech, loyalty, telecom, and retail. Together, they explore what happens when marketing moves beyond rapid AI experimentation and starts thinking more intentionally about where the technology can create meaningful impact. Ingrid explains why the first wave of AI adoption was about giving teams permission to experiment, build fluency, and get comfortable with new tools. But once everyone starts using AI, experimentation alone is no longer enough. The next step is identifying the biggest problems within the marketing function, building around those pain points, and measuring whether the resulting solutions actually deliver value. Her guiding principle is simple: just because something can be done with AI doesn't mean it should be. This conversation also looks at how AI is changing the way marketing teams work. Ingrid discusses how tools such as AI agents, MCP, and connected systems can remove traditional handoffs and give marketers the ability to execute tasks that previously required other teams. At the same time, she argues that strong subject-matter expertise is becoming even more valuable because marketers need enough judgment to assess, improve, and guide AI-generated work. Toby, Jasper, and Ingrid also explore what this means for hiring and developing marketing talent. Curiosity, continuous learning, and adaptability are becoming critical qualities in a profession where the tools and channels keep changing. Yet Ingrid argues that the customer remains the constant. The episode offers a practical look at the changing role of AI in marketing and what leaders need to rethink as AI becomes less of an experiment and more of an everyday part of the team. What You’ll Learn:
Ingrid Sierra is Brand & Marketing Director at Zego, focused on shaping the future of insurance marketing through AI and real-time technology. A French-British marketing leader with 20+ years of experience, she has held senior roles across fintech, insurtech, telecom, loyalty technology, and retail, building global teams and leading product marketing, brand, digital, customer experience, and go-to-market strategies. She has been recognised among the Top 30 Most Influential Fintech Marketers in 2026 and Top 100 UK Marketing Influencers in 2025, and is a mentor and advisor to the next generation of marketing talent. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Highlights and YouTube Chapters:
Episode Resources: | |||
| What should CMOs actually do with AI? | 03 Sep 2026 | 00:42:37 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Kacy Roseberry, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Hornblower Group, to explore what it takes to connect brand, customer experience, technology, and commercial strategy in an increasingly AI-driven world. Drawing on more than two decades of experience across hospitality, travel, and global brand leadership, Kacy explains why the strongest marketing organizations start with a clear understanding of the business, the customer, and the opportunity rather than jumping straight into technology. For Kacy, AI is most valuable when it strengthens an existing growth strategy and helps organizations make better decisions, move faster, and create more connected customer experiences. This conversation explores how marketing leaders can bridge the gap between brand strategy and business performance, using customer insight, data, digital commerce, lifecycle marketing, and personalization to drive measurable growth. Toby, Jasper, and Kacy also discuss the evolving role of the CMO, the importance of aligning teams around a shared commercial vision, and why successful transformation requires more than new technology. This episode offers a practical perspective for marketing and commercial leaders looking to use AI and digital transformation to build stronger brands, improve customer experiences, and create sustainable enterprise growth. What You’ll Learn:
Kacy Roseberry is Senior Vice President of Marketing at Hornblower Group, where she leads brand, growth, customer experience, digital transformation, and commercial strategy. With more than 20 years of experience, she has helped shape some of the world's most recognized hospitality brands and destinations, including Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Kimpton, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Angel Island, and Alcatraz. At Hornblower Group, Kacy has spearheaded digital and AI transformation across customer-facing channels serving more than 20 million passengers annually, while leading a cross-functional team of more than 100 professionals. Her leadership focuses on turning complex business challenges into clear growth strategies and building the capabilities required to execute them at scale. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Highlights and YouTube Chapters:
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| AI Isn’t the Strategy: How Marketing Leaders Can Turn Technology Into Growth | 25 Aug 2026 | 00:28:22 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Victoria B. Lozano, former Chief Marketing Officer at Crayola, to explore what it really takes to turn marketing from a campaign function into a driver of enterprise-wide growth. Drawing on extensive leadership experience across Crayola, Cadbury, and The Clorox Company, Victoria explains why marketers should start with business strategy and a clear growth thesis before investing in AI. Rather than treating AI as a standalone strategy, she argues that technology should be used to solve specific business challenges, accelerate growth, and improve the way organizations operate. Toby, Jasper, and Victoria also examine how AI can shorten the distance between customer signals and strategic action. By synthesizing social listening, customer feedback, and market data, AI can help marketers identify emerging needs and opportunities faster but human judgment remains essential for determining what those signals actually mean and where the business should go next. This episode offers a practical guide for CMOs and marketing leaders looking to move beyond campaign execution and use AI as an enabler of meaningful commercial growth. What You’ll Learn:
Victoria B. Lozano is a former Chief Marketing Officer and EVP at Crayola, where she led global brand, marketing, education, partnerships, digital content, and experiential businesses while overseeing new growth platforms with full P&L responsibility. A Forbes 50 Entrepreneurial CMO and Fast Company CMO of the Year, Victoria has built brands and businesses across CPG, experiential, retail, media, and entertainment. Her career includes leadership roles at iconic companies including Crayola, Cadbury, and The Clorox Company, as well as experience building new ventures from the ground up. At Crayola, Victoria helped reposition the company from a traditional arts-and-crafts brand into a broader platform centered on creativity, learning, and experiences. She drove new go-to-market models and revenue streams while modernizing capabilities, strengthening teams, and aligning cross-functional organizations around long-term growth. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Highlights and YouTube Chapters:
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| The human advantage: Why curiosity still beats algorithms in marketing | 30 Jul 2026 | 00:34:42 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Nic Brandenberger, Chief Marketing Officer at Mammut Sports Group, to explore why the future of marketing depends on understanding people, rather than focusing entirely on data collection. Drawing on more than two decades of experience leading marketing at organizations including Procter & Gamble, eBay, Fandom, and Mammut, Nic explains why technology should amplify human creativity rather than replace it. This conversation explores why marketers must avoid assuming they are their own customers, how curiosity and experimentation uncover insights that dashboards alone cannot, and why asking "why" repeatedly often reveals opportunities hidden beneath surface-level metrics. Toby, Jasper, and Nic also discuss the evolution of lifecycle marketing from transactional campaigns to long-term relationship building. From repair services and customer care to loyalty and product longevity, they examine how brands can create meaningful experiences that extend well beyond the initial purchase. This episode offers a practical playbook for marketers looking to balance data with empathy, innovation with heritage, and AI with the uniquely human skills that continue to define exceptional marketing. What You’ll Learn:
Nic Brandenberger is Chief Marketing Officer at Mammut Sports Group, where he leads global brand and business growth for one of the world's most respected outdoor brands. With more than 20 years of experience, Nic has held senior marketing leadership roles at Procter & Gamble, eBay, Fandom, and DDB, helping organizations build brands, accelerate growth, and drive customer engagement at global scale. Nic’s expertise spans brand strategy, lifecycle marketing, customer experience, experimentation, ecommerce, media optimization, and organizational capability building. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. | |||
| Why global brands need local intelligence to win across cultures | 03 Jul 2026 | 00:37:03 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Katherine Melchior Ray, global marketing executive and lecturer at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, to explore the challenges and opportunities of building brands across cultures in an increasingly AI-driven world. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience leading marketing and brand strategy for global organizations including Louis Vuitton, Shiseido, Nike, Gucci, Hyatt, and Babbel, Katherine explains why successful international growth requires far more than translating campaigns from one language to another. The most effective brands understand how to adapt meaning, experiences, and messaging to local cultural realities while maintaining a consistent global identity. This conversation explores the tension between heritage and innovation, consistency and customization, and how the world's strongest brands embrace these opposing forces rather than choosing between them. Katherine introduces practical frameworks for balancing global brand equity with local market relevance and explains why curiosity, cultural immersion, and human judgment remain essential even as AI becomes increasingly embedded in marketing workflows. Katherine also discusses the growing role of AI in content creation and personalization, highlighting where AI can accelerate execution and where it still depends on human expertise to provide cultural context, creative taste, and strategic direction. This episode is a practical guide for marketers, executives, and business leaders seeking to expand internationally while maintaining authentic connections with consumers across diverse markets and cultures. What You’ll Learn: - Why cultural intelligence is becoming a critical competitive advantage for global brands - The difference between translating language and translating meaning across markets - The "Brand Fulcrum" framework for managing the tension between heritage and innovation - How ethnographic research and local immersion uncover insights that data alone cannot reveal - Why creative taste and marketing judgment are built through experience, not algorithms- The risks of AI-generated brand homogeneity and how to avoid it - How leading brands adapt products, messaging, and experiences without diluting their identity - How marketers can leverage cultural differences as a source of innovation and growth - The role human expertise will continue to play as AI becomes more integrated into marketing workflows Katherine Melchior Ray is a global marketing executive, consultant, author, speaker, and lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. With more than 25 years of international leadership experience, she has helped some of the world's most recognizable brands, including Louis Vuitton, Shiseido, Nike, Gucci, Hyatt, and Babbel, build meaningful connections with consumers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Having served as Chief Marketing Officer for both Shiseido in Tokyo and Babbel in Berlin, Katherine specializes in global brand strategy, cultural intelligence, international expansion, digital transformation, and cross-cultural leadership. She is also the co-author of Brand Global, Adapt Local: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures, a practical guide to international brand building that draws on real-world case studies from leading global organizations. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here [https://www.fame.so/follow-rate-review]. Episode Resources: Katherine Melchior Ray LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherinemelchiorray/] UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business Website [http://haas.berkeley.edu/] | |||
| The difference between being data-rich and insight-rich | 23 Jun 2026 | 00:36:28 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Lynn Teo, globally experienced CMO, Chief Experience Officer, and digital transformation leader, to explore what truly separates modern marketing organizations from those simply adopting the latest tools. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience leading global marketing, customer experience, and digital transformation initiatives, Lynn explains why marketing leaders must move beyond the outdated distinction between brand and performance marketing. Instead, she argues that all marketing should be accountable to business outcomes, supported by organizations that are culturally and operationally prepared to embrace change. This conversation explores the growing importance of transforming raw data into actionable insights, highlighting why being data-rich is not the same as being insight-rich. Lynn shares practical frameworks for creating a single source of truth across global teams, uncovering region-specific customer behaviors, and using collaborative interpretation to turn analytics into strategic action. Toby, Jasper, and Lynn also discuss how AI and agentic technologies are reshaping marketing organizations. As automation increasingly handles campaign execution and content production, marketers will need to develop stronger capabilities in orchestration, analytics, customer understanding, and strategic decision-making. This episode is a valuable guide for leaders seeking to build high-performing marketing organizations that combine creativity, technology, data, and customer-centric thinking to drive measurable business growth. What You’ll Learn:
Lynn Teo is a globally experienced Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Experience Officer, and digital transformation leader with nearly three decades of experience leading complex, matrixed organizations across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Australia/New Zealand. Throughout her career, Lynn has helped organizations modernize their marketing capabilities by building performance marketing functions, predictive analytics programs, customer experience strategies, demand generation engines, and full-funnel growth initiatives. Her expertise spans industries including advertising, publishing, education, retail, financial services, travel, healthcare, and technology. Lynn specializes in helping businesses combine creativity, data, technology, and operational excellence to drive growth. She has led large global teams, developed customer-centric transformation strategies, and built collaborative cultures that enable innovation while delivering measurable business impact. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Resources: | |||
| The riches are in the niches: Why brands must go deeper, not broader | 16 Jun 2026 | 00:37:06 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Ariela Nerubay, Chief Brand Officer at Walker Advertising, to unpack why cultural fluency is rapidly becoming one of the most important competitive advantages in modern marketing. Drawing from decades of experience building culturally resonant brands across media, retail, and consumer products, Ariela explains why authentic connection goes far beyond surface-level diversity or stereotypical representation. Instead, brands must deeply understand the lived experiences, values, humor, language, and emotional signals of the communities they want to serve. The conversation explores why “the riches are in the niches,” how fragmented audiences are reshaping brand strategy, and why Gen Z’s multicultural identity is forcing marketers to rethink traditional mass-market approaches. Ariela shares practical frameworks for maintaining a consistent global brand identity while still adapting messaging, creative, and experiences to local cultural realities. Toby, Jasper, and Ariela also discuss the hidden costs of cultural blindspots, why diverse teams are essential for avoiding reputational missteps, and how small cultural “winks” often create stronger emotional resonance than broad attempts at inclusivity. This episode is a powerful roadmap for marketers navigating a future where personalization, cultural relevance, and authenticity increasingly determine which brands grow and which become invisible. What You’ll Learn:
Ariela Nerubay is the Chief Brand Officer at Walker Advertising. Throughout her career, Ariela has led brand strategy, marketing transformation, and business growth initiatives across media, retail, entertainment, and consumer products. She previously helped launch Univision telenovelas, the first Univision-branded Spanish-language cable network, and served as a founding executive at TuTv, a joint venture between Univision and Grupo Televisa that culminated in a $110 million acquisition. Known for combining business strategy with deep cultural fluency, Ariela specializes in helping organizations move beyond performative representation toward authentic, emotionally resonant brand building that drives measurable growth. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here.
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| Why emotional connection matters more than product features | 09 Jun 2026 | 00:38:06 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Sally Barton, Director of Marketing Growth Strategy at Mondelez International, to unpack how iconic consumer brands can navigate the growing tension between hyper-personalization and maintaining a consistent brand identity in an AI-driven world. Drawing on experience across categories ranging from chocolate and snacks to skincare and household products, Sally explains why the strongest marketing strategies are rooted not in product features, but in deeply understanding human psychology, emotional need states, and cultural context. This conversation explores how brands can create one-to-one relevance without sacrificing the distinctive assets, tone, and heritage that make consumers trust and love them in the first place. Sally also explores the evolving role of data, social listening, and retail partnerships in helping brands stay connected to consumers without relying solely on direct-to-consumer ecosystems. Along the way, Sally outlines a practical framework for future-proofing marketing organizations through curiosity, adaptability, and stronger brand foundations. What You’ll Learn:
Sally Barton is the Director of Marketing Growth Strategy at Mondelēz International, where she focuses on driving business growth through strategic marketing, brand building, and capability development across some of the world’s most recognizable consumer brands. With experience spanning categories from chocolate and snacks to skincare, detergents, and healthcare products, Sally has built a career around understanding consumer behavior, emotional connection, and the evolving role of marketing in a rapidly changing media landscape. Throughout her tenure at Mondelēz, she has led brand strategy and equity initiatives across iconic brands including Cadbury, Oreo, Toblerone, Triscuit, and Green & Black’s. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here.
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| How to escape the AI experimentation trap | 03 Jun 2026 | 00:44:16 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Scott Brinker, widely recognized as the “godfather of MarTech,” to explore the realities of AI adoption in marketing and why most organizations are still far from production-ready AI systems. Drawing from insights in his MarTech for 2026 report, Scott explains why AI success starts long before deploying models or tools. Without clean, accessible, and properly governed data, even the most sophisticated AI systems struggle to create measurable business value. This conversation dives into the importance of semantic alignment across organizations, the hidden complexity of context engineering, and why distributed governance is becoming essential for scaling AI without creating operational chaos. Scott also unpacks the rise of agentic systems and introduces the three types of marketing agents reshaping the industry: agents for marketers, agents for customers, and agents of customers. Together, these systems are fundamentally changing customer relationships, brand interaction models, and competitive dynamics. This conversation is a practical roadmap for leaders navigating the shift from AI pilots to real business transformation while preserving creativity, authenticity, and strategic control. What You’ll Learn:
Scott Brinker is a globally recognized martech analyst, entrepreneur, author, and advisor widely known as the “godfather of MarTech.” Over the past two decades, he has helped define the marketing technology industry through his influential research, writing, and ecosystem leadership. Scott previously served as VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, where he led the company’s global technology partner programs and platform ecosystem strategy. Before HubSpot, he co-founded ion, a pioneering no-code interactive content platform acquired in 2017. He is also the creator of the renowned Marketing Technology Landscape, which tracks the explosive growth of martech vendors from a few hundred companies to more than 15,000. Through his publication ChiefMartec, conference leadership at MarTech, and bestselling books including Hacking Marketing and The New Automation Mindset, Scott has become one of the leading voices shaping how businesses think about marketing, technology, AI, and organizational transformation. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. Episode Resources: | |||
| Why data is becoming the center of modern marketing | 26 May 2026 | 00:41:08 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Rustom Dastoor, EVP, Head of Marketing Communications for the Americas at Mastercard, to discuss how AI is reshaping enterprise marketing, customer relationships, and competitive strategy. Rustom argues that most companies are thinking too small about AI. While many organizations focus on cost reduction and productivity gains, the real opportunity lies in building AI-native enterprises that use data to drive entirely new levels of effectiveness, personalization, and growth. Rustom also explains why brands must prepare for a future where AI agents and algorithms increasingly make decisions before consumers ever interact with a business directly. In that world, companies must optimize not just for people but for machines, APIs, and large language models that act as invisible gatekeepers to customer attention. This episode is a forward-looking blueprint for leaders trying to understand how AI will reshape marketing, enterprise operations, and competitive advantage over the next decade. What You’ll Learn:
Rustom Dastoor is a global marketing and communications executive serving as Executive Vice President, Head of Marketing Communications for the Americas at Mastercard. With leadership experience spanning North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, he specializes in enterprise growth, marketing transformation, brand strategy, and go-to-market execution. His expertise also spans both B2B and B2C marketing, including brand development, sponsorships, digital strategy, demand generation, communications, public relations, and content. Known for his transformation-focused leadership style, Rustom has been at the forefront of modernizing marketing organizations through AI, data analytics, personalization, and scalable martech systems. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. | |||
| From personas to people: What’s the real future of CRM personalization? | 28 Apr 2026 | 00:33:10 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comIn this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with Brian Best, Head of Group (xLOB CRM) at Samsung, to unpack how enterprise organizations are evolving from persona-based journeys to true one-to-one personalization in an AI-driven world. They explore why data unification remains the biggest barrier to personalization at scale, and how fragmented systems prevent marketers from delivering consistent, meaningful experiences. Brian shares how Samsung balances global brand consistency with localized, personalized messaging, proving that personalization doesn’t replace brand strategy, it strengthens it. The conversation dives into the nuances of creative performance, including why overused words like “exclusive” lose impact over time, and how simple shifts like verb-first subject lines can significantly improve engagement. They also unpack the evolving role of AI, not as a replacement for marketers, but as a partner, where human creativity and strategic direction guide AI-driven execution. From building trust with legal and compliance teams to embedding AI into daily workflows, Brian outlines a practical roadmap for turning AI into a true ROI engine. This episode is a must-listen for marketers navigating the complexity of scaling personalization while maintaining brand integrity in a rapidly changing landscape. What You’ll Learn:
Brian Best is Head of Group (xLOB CRM) at Samsung, where he drives customer engagement and eCommerce strategy for one of the world’s largest consumer electronics brands. With over 15 years of experience in digital transformation, Brian has generated more than $500M in eCommerce revenue and led CRM strategies contributing to multi-billion-dollar business units. Prior to Samsung, Brian held senior digital strategy roles at Publicis Groupe, where he helped global brands modernize their marketing technology stacks and unlock growth through data and AI. He specializes in leveraging machine learning for “Next Best Action” and “Next Best Product” strategies, as well as building AI-driven CRM ecosystems that deliver personalized, multi-channel customer experiences. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here. | |||
| Why AI agents will replace A/B testing in modern marketing | 21 Apr 2026 | 00:36:42 | |
Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.comWhat if the biggest missed opportunity in marketing isn’t what you send but what you shouldn’t send at all? In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper sit down with George Khachatryan, Head of AI Decisioning at Braze, to explore how reinforcement learning and AI agents are transforming marketing from static, segment-based campaigns into dynamic systems that make real-time, one-to-one decisions for every customer. They break down why traditional A/B testing is fundamentally limited, how AI decisioning continuously balances exploration and exploitation to maximize outcomes, and why true personalization requires more than just the “right message, right time, right channel.” The conversation dives into the importance of knowing when not to engage, the tension between short-term performance and long-term brand identity, and the three key bottlenecks - content generation, data integration, and experimentation, that prevent most organizations from realizing AI’s full potential. This episode also reframes the marketer’s role in an AI-first world: from executing campaigns to managing intelligent agents, setting guardrails, and making strategic trade-offs that data alone can’t solve. For teams looking to move beyond manual segmentation and unlock meaningful ROI from AI, this conversation provides a clear, practical framework for the future of marketing. What You’ll Learn:
George Khachatryan is the Head of AI Decisioning at Braze, a pioneering platform in AI-driven lifecycle marketing. He specializes in applying reinforcement learning and AI agents to optimize customer engagement at scale, enabling brands to move beyond manual segmentation and rule-based systems toward fully autonomous, one-to-one decisioning. Under his leadership, AI decisioning platforms have helped enterprises dramatically improve campaign performance across use cases like cross-sell, retention, and winback by making real-time, individualized marketing decisions. George is at the forefront of redefining how marketers leverage AI - not just for automation, but for continuous learning, experimentation, and strategic growth. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. | |||
| 3 ways to cut through the sea of sameness. | 01 Apr 2025 | 00:04:09 | |
Grace Cowlard, creative director and former global brand lead at Adidas, reflects on the rise of AI in marketing—and why it’s led to a growing wave of sameness across brand messaging. But all isn’t lost. Grace shares how emotional intelligence, brand-specific wordbanks, and human nuance are the keys to standing out in an AI-saturated world. Want to learn how your brand can break through the noise? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| How NOT to sacrifice your creativity in the AI era. | 25 Mar 2025 | 00:43:41 | |
“It’s not about if we use AI—it’s about how.” Grace Cowlard—Creative Director (formerly of Adidas)—joins The Array to talk about using AI to amplify human creativity, not replace it. Drawing from her experience across fashion, lifestyle, and sustainable brands, Grace offers an honest and hopeful take on where marketing is headed. Together, we explore how enterprise brands can: - Keep emotional intelligence at the heart of creative work (3:57) - Use AI to scale volume—without compromising brand expression (10:12) - Avoid the "sea of sameness" by flexing tone across channels (19:20) - Embrace AI experimentation while protecting what makes your brand human (26:33) Plus, we discuss AI as aesthetic, why creatives should treat AI like an intern, and the debut of “Go Out and Play” as our unofficial 2025 motto. | |||
| Will AGI be possible within the next 5 years? | 11 Mar 2025 | 00:04:34 | |
“I'm starting to believe [AGI] will be possible within the next 5 to 10 years.” Dr. Neil Yager, Chief Data Scientist of Jacquard, charts his journey from AGI skepticism (“This is not a technology that we’ll see in my lifetime, if ever.”) to optimism – before offering his thoughts on what’s required to achieve it, what exactly it is, and what it could mean for our world. Get exclusive insights not shared in episode #007 with this 4-minute bonus episode, “What’s going on behind closed doors.” Want to learn how personalisation can help you deliver your own messaging breakthrough? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| What lies ahead for AI? An insider perspective from Jacquard's Chief Data Scientist. | 04 Mar 2025 | 00:42:10 | |
“Don't spam people. Don't over-optimise and send clickbaity stuff.” “You need to be working with technologies that allow you to tailor [content] to yourself, to your own brand voice, to your own image.” “It’s just: who's going to find out how to do that?” Dr. Neil Yager, Chief Data Scientist of Jacquard, joins The Array to offer “a brief history of time as it relates to AI” – mapping the milestones that brought us to where we are, then laying out what lies ahead for enterprise brands as they adopt new technologies. Neil shares a true data science insider’s perspective for marketers and creatives eager to explore 20 years of AI breakthroughs – and what’s needed to continue unlocking its potential (4:28), find out what the evolution of AI imagery could mean for marketers (16:07), and produce high-quality content in an era of “dead Internet” mediocrity (26:03) Then we the return to (almost) everybody’s favourite future-of-employment segment, “Will AI Take Jasper’s Job?” (Spoiler: it’s not looking good for Jasper, but at least his dreams might offer a future revenue stream.) Watch or listen now to “Be willing to take risks.” Want to see why high-quality content goes hand-in-hand with personalised messaging? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| What does the future hold for marketing teams? | 25 Feb 2025 | 00:03:15 | |
“People actually suck at repetitive tasks.” Warrick Godfrey, Founding Partner of Fuse.cx, looks to the future of marketing and sees transformed team structures – where creatives spend their time “focusing on inventing new stuff and new ways of solving problems” and AI tools take care of repetition and amplification. Get exclusive insights not shared in episode #005 with this 3-minute bonus episode, “Create more remarkable experiences.” Want to learn how you can deliver remarkably personalised experiences? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Are your customers ignoring you? | 18 Feb 2025 | 00:41:55 | |
“Who's opening those emails anymore?” “Customers are tired.” “You've got these cool tools. Let's use them better.” Warrick Godfrey, Founding Partner of Fuse.cx, arrives to help us kick off season 2 of The Array – with his honest take on the state of customer engagement. (Spoiler: most brands are coasting on old tactics and need to do better. Fortunately, better is within reach.) Get Warrick’s generous insights into how brands can sort the AI and MarTech hype from reality (05:07), address customer fatigue in traditional CRM channels (12:30), and use old and new tools to build more creative customer engagements (20:12). And don’t miss the debut of “Pipeline or Hype Line?” – the new game where we debate whether we’re getting our money’s worth from recent tech innovations. Watch or listen now to “Reimagine how we engage.” Want to learn how you can personalise every customer engagement more effectively? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Start with the problem, not the tech. | 28 Jan 2025 | 00:06:46 | |
How are you planning to bring your brand (and creatives) on the AI journey? Learn how with an inspiring 6-minute investment. Lucy Colback, Tech Writer for The Financial Times, leads the conversation in the final recap episode of season 1 – getting the answers that enterprise brands need to earn creative buy-in and grow more rewarding customer connections. Watch or listen now to “Start with the problem, not the tech.” Want to learn more about how to maximise the value of your AI efforts? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| AI's real value to brands and consumers. | 21 Jan 2025 | 00:37:31 | |
“This is not a cost-cutting exercise, people. This is a revenue-generating exercise.” Lucy Colback, Tech Writer for The Financial Times, switches things up for the final episode of season 1, taking over The Array to ask some tough questions – on behalf of the companies and creatives trying to find the right way forward with AI. Hosts Toby Coulthard, CPO, Jacquard, and Jasper Pye, CTO, Jacquard, share their AI-insider (and creative background) perspective into the value of seeing AI as an opportunity to scale creativity, rather than outsource it (11:56), enabling brands to speak to consumers the way they want to be spoken to (19:50), showing creatives how AI can empower them (and earning their buy-in first) (22:46), using AI as a tool to help generate revenue, not cut costs (25:41), and figuring out the problem that you want to solve, before choosing the AI tool (28:19). Then stick around for “Around Our World In 80 Seconds” – the game that delivers plenty of TL;DR perspective on good, bad, and bizarre stories from the world of AI. Watch or listen now to explore “AI’s real value to brands and consumers.” Want to see how you can make your marketing more effective? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Teaching the machine. | 14 Jan 2025 | 00:05:26 | |
Watch the 5-minute recap of our conversation to learn how enterprise brands and creatives can get lasting value from AI technologies. Daniel Head, CEO, Jacquard, joins The Array to explain how the right brand guardrails can help marketers bring their new machinery into compliance, increase performance without creating clickbait, and enable greater human creativity. Watch or listen now to begin “Teaching the machine.” Want to learn more about making new AI technologies work for your brand? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Marketing's future waits for no brand. | 17 Dec 2024 | 00:43:06 | |
Automation has “always been about amplifying human ingenuity and creativity.” “Technological development is not going to stop and wait for anyone.” “You have to dive in and have a go.” Daniel Head, CEO, Jacquard, joins The Array to discuss how AI technologies can help experimentation-minded enterprise brands to:
Watch or listen now to tell us why “Marketing’s future waits for no brand.” Then learn more about delivering content that’s always relevant and on-brand. Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Rethink speed, scale, performance. | 10 Dec 2024 | 00:04:24 | |
Catch up with our 5-minute recap to learn how marketers can increase relevance and performance of their brand messaging through AI experimentation. Jay Pattisall, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, joins The Array to discuss why generative AI should have a permanent place in the marketing toolkit. This is essential listening for do-more-with-less marketers looking to bring greater efficiency to the creative production process and drive better performance at scale. Watch or listen now to explore “Rethink speed, scale, performance.” Want to learn more about elevating performance at scale? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Can AI 'speak' your brand language? | 03 Dec 2024 | 00:37:19 | |
“Is the value of AI to brands too much to ignore?” “Will there always be a place for human creativity?” “What's your advice to people who are cautious about AI adoption?” Jay Pattisall, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, joins hosts Toby Coulthard and Jasper Pye to share expert guidance into how enterprise marketers can:
Watch or listen now to answer the question “Can AI ‘speak’ your brand language?” Then learn more about using AI tools to better promote your brand voice. Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| Implicit vs. explicit personalisation. | 19 Nov 2024 | 00:10:15 | |
Short on time? Get expert perspective on personalisation and key takeaways – with our swift 10-minute recap of episode one. Scott Zalaznik, Digital Advisor & ex-CDO of adidas, joins “The Array” to explore the differences between implicit and explicit personalisation, the right way to use customer data, and how brands can leverage technology to better connect with individual customers and drive long-term success, at scale. Watch or listen now to explore “Implicit vs. explicit personalisation.” Want to learn more about effective and impactful personalisation? Visit Jacquard.com | |||
| What good personalisation looks like. | 12 Nov 2024 | 00:40:13 | |
“Who’s doing personalisation well?” “What are the right success metrics?” “You’re winning clicks, but at what cost?” Scott Zalaznik, Digital Advisor & ex-CDO of adidas, joins hosts Toby Coulthard and Jasper Pye on the first episode of “The Array” to offer clear, actionable insights into:
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| Welcome to "The Array." | 08 Nov 2024 | 00:01:01 | |
“The Array” is the new weekly podcast dedicated to delivering AI clarity to the marketing community. Hosts Toby Coulthard and Jasper Pye connect with informed and inspiring guests to get the kind of fresh perspectives and actionable insights that enterprise marketers can use to better navigate change, make the most of new opportunities, and resonate with customers everywhere. Join us for season one, starting Tuesday, November 12. | |||