Explore every episode of the podcast #Hashtags, The Gartner Marketing & Communications Podcast

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Jason Daigler discusses how CMOs and digital commerce leaders can use consumer insights to make better digital commerce decisions. The discussion includes insights discovered in recent consumer surveys and how the data paints a picture of where CMOs should invest and where they should pull back.

Jason Daigler is a vice president analyst at Gartner focused on digital commerce technologies, including topics such as launching a commerce site, multichannel strategy, B2B commerce, channel integration, digital shelf analytics and marketplaces. Jason has 20+ years of business experience in digital commerce, software development and product management.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Rick LaFond discusses how to create compelling value propositions and marketing communications that address the emotional side of B2B buying. Conventional wisdom suggests that while B2C buying might be emotionally charged, B2B buying is highly rational. However, B2B buying is heavily driven by emotions, and buyer perception of “personal value” from a brand is nearly 3x more strongly associated with positive brand outcomes than perception of “functional value.”

Rick LaFond is a Gartner Senior Director Analyst for Gartner for Marketers. He leads Gartner's B2B customer acquisition & account growth research. As an analyst, Rick supports Gartner's clients with insights and guidance on various marketing topics, including demand generation, digital marketing strategy, sales enablement, content marketing and account-based marketing.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analysts Matt Moorut and Suzanne Schwartz discuss the annual 2023-2024 Genius brands research, which identifies trends across top performing digital marketing brands. This discussion includes how CMOs can emulate, learn from, and surpass this year's Genius brands’ digital marketing efforts by executing robust marketing operations, brand governance, and cross-channel activation.

Matt Moorut supports Gartner's clients in the retail industry with insights and guidance on various marketing topics, ranging from budget strategy to digital marketing trends and best practices. He is the lead analyst for Gartner’s In the Company of Genius research, which highlights cross-sector digital marketing best practices.

Suzanne Schwartz advises on multichannel marketing strategy and execution, orchestrating campaign execution across channels, scaling marketing content across channels, analyzing cross-channel campaign performance, and mobile marketing strategy.

In this episode of the #Hashtags Podcast, Gartner analysts Aprill Baughns and Iliyana Hadjistoyanova discuss how CMOs can ensure their teams succeed in the face of ongoing disruption. We’ll talk about current marketing employees’ concerns and anxieties, as well as their assessment of existing career opportunities. The conversation will also advise CMOs on how to leverage collaboration, martech and smart skills development to improve employees’ well-being, engagement and readiness to embrace and benefit from change.

Iliyana Hadjistoyanova supports marketing and communications leaders in managing their functions and teams. She covers areas such as strategy building, operating models, governance, measurement, benchmarking and talent development. She is passionate about helping clients prioritize high-value work and connect it to business goals in clear, measurable ways.

Aprill Baughns analyzes marketing and communication’s organizational structure, development, transformation and effectiveness trends, resulting in scalable, actionable solutions. With experience spanning a vast array of unique industries, she partners with Gartner clients to provide outcome-oriented, human-centric solutions.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Lizzy Foo Kune talks shop on Gartner’s first-ever Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms, providing an overview of trends in the customer data platform (CDP) market. The discussion includes how CMOs can manage through an era of change, as customer data becomes not just a marketing asset, but also an enterprise asset.

Lizzy Foo Kune is a Gartner VP Analyst, specializing in marketing data and analytics. She co-leads the Gartner Futures Lab. Her research focuses on customer data management, including customer data platforms. In addition, she covers marketing dashboard technology and reporting processes, and marketing analytics organization and operations.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner experts Kassi Socha and Emma Mathison discuss what more than 2,000 U.S. consumers surveyed in December 2023 are feeling and reacting to. These timely consumer insights inform B2C CMOs on how to prepare for 2024 — a year that holds an election, the Olympics, and tech challenges in the form of continued cookie deprecation and the rapid impacts of generative AI (GenAI). The discussion includes how CMOs can anticipate and respond to the shifting consumer landscape — and actually acquire and retain consumers who are signaling they are wary and more disloyal than ever.

Kassi Socha is a Director Analyst in the Gartner for Marketers business, and is based in California. She is responsible for delivering cross-industry insights on strategic website redesigns and supporting retail CMOs on their most pressing mission-critical priorities. Her expertise is uncovering trends, specifically in e-commerce, digital marketing, emerging tech, organizational and consumer insights.

In this #Hashtags episode, Gartner analyst Halle Stern surfaces a glaring flaw in many loyalty programs: the lack of a clear plan for communicating about them. The discussion includes how marketing leaders should leverage customer insights to communicate about the program across the customer journey, and how to collaborate with internal partners to get buy in for the program.

Halle Stern is a Senior Principal Analyst in Gartner’s marketing practice. She helps clients to better understand their customers’ needs and challenges to improve customer experience outcomes such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and advocacy.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analysts Nicole Greene and Suzanne Schwartz discuss how to establish a firm foundation for generative AI (GenAI) initiatives within your organization. The discussion includes how CMOs can stand up pilot programs, understand use cases, instill governance initiatives and lead on responsible use policies.

Nicole Greene analyzes marketing strategy, trends and practices with an emphasis on artificial intelligence, content marketing and digital experience. Nicole helps clients lead transformation through the use of creative, technology and data. Her work on generative AI crosses these disciplines and includes responsible use and risk management.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Kate Muhl leverages Gartner’s proprietary quantitative and qualitative consumer research to resolve the seeming disconnect between indicators and attitudes in 2024. The discussion hones in on the consumer trends and cultural themes that will matter to CMOs in 2024, potential impacts of the 2024 presidential campaign and how all of that is shaping consumer expectations for brands.

Kate Muhl is a Gartner Analyst specializing in cultural and consumer Insights.

She has been researching and advising on the consumer and U.S. culture for more than a decade.

In this episode, Gartner researchers Jessica Dervyn and Wilson Zhao join to discuss the impact of generative AI on search marketing. The discussion includes how the changes in the search landscape are driving a decrease in brand visibility on Google SERP, challenging brand website traffic from organic search. Consumer search behavior is constantly changing, and Google SGE (Search Generative Experience) further transform how consumers search and receive information. Digital marketing leaders must experiment with Google SGE, monitor top-performing content, and strategically refine onsite content for optimal engagement and differentiation in this evolving GenAI area.

Jessica Dervyn is a researcher in the Digital Performance Benchmarking team. She leverages her digital expertise and experience along with Gartner data to write valuable research for CMOs and digital marketing leaders.

Wilson Zhao is a digital advisor at Gartner for Marketer with coverage in consumer retail (i.e. beauty, luxury, activewear, CPG) in the APAC and U.S. market. He provides data-driven market insight, performance benchmarking, competitive analysis, and growth strategy to C-suite clients at major global consumer brands.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Rick LaFond discusses how B2B CMOs should align their customer acquisition and account growth strategies to the preferences and behaviors of the modern B2B buyer. This discussion includes the latest trends in B2B buying, as well as strategic and tactical tips for how CMOs should respond accordingly.

Rick LaFond works with marketing leaders to optimize customer acquisition and account growth strategies, specializing in B2B marketing and the manufacturing and natural resources industry.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Ant Duffin discusses how CMOs can decide if D2C is the right strategy for brands based on the strength of the Three Ps — Purpose (why), Potential (how) and Priority (what). The discussion will provide CMOs with strategic D2C guidance as to whether they should start, shift or stop D2C depending on that assessment.

Ant Duffin is a Senior Director Analyst in the Gartner for Marketing Leaders practice covering digital commerce.

Ant advises on digital commerce business transformation across the end-to-end value chain, including digital marketing, multichannel ecommerce, business capabilities (talent, partners and martech), and cross-functional enablement (i.e., IT, HR, supply chain).

Ant has over 15 years global digital consumer/brand experience across a range of industries including CPG, retail, UK government and automotive.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Audrey Brosnan shares how to build a clear vision for journey orchestration, highlighting key differences between campaign management and journey orchestration. The discussion offers practical advice on achieving results, using agile strategies, and overcoming challenges to position CMOs for success.

Audrey Brosnan helps marketing leaders and digital marketers understand, evaluate, and optimize first-party marketing technologies to deliver results. She analyzes how capabilities like multichannel marketing, customer journey orchestration, personalization, and customer data management contribute to successful digital marketing programs.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Michael McCune discusses the evolution of marketing operations and its role in changing the way marketing works. How can CMOs effectively leverage investment in the MarOps function? What capabilities do they need in a MarOps leader? What metrics should they track as leading indicators of commercial impact? Many ask if rapid transformation is even possible. Is it?

Michael McCune is a Gartner advisor who works with marketing leaders on organization strategy and operations. His current research focuses on driving transformation through the advancement of journey orchestration capabilities, martech optimization, and the pursuit of operational excellence in marketing.

Gartner analysts Julie Reeves and Augie Ray discuss the importance of supplementing brand-building with increased down-funnel emphasis on customer experience — ultimately leading to more growth. They offer tips for bringing Brand and CX teams together: their relative strengths, where they differ in approach, how to collaborate effectively, and more. This is the catalyst and context you need to effectively plan for growth and better brand experiences in 2024.

Julie Reeves is a Gartner Senior Analyst who helps clients to better position their brands for success through strategic use of consumer insights and executional considerations. She has a deep understanding of brand strategy, architecture and positioning creation and management in various stages of business maturity across a multitude of industries and competitive situations.

Augie Ray is a Vice President Analyst covering customer experience (CX) for marketing and CX leaders. His coverage topics include the ROI of CX, CX strategy and governance, how CX leaders secure and retain sponsorship, the buy/own/advocate customer journey, voice of the customer (VoC) and survey strategies, customer journey mapping, CX analytics and measurement, the importance of word of mouth in CX, persona development and marketing's role in corporate social justice initiatives.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Leah Leachman discusses how to ensure that your organization has the customer experience capabilities that support your brand promise. The discussion includes how CMOs can improve their approach to designing and measuring experiences that drive customer loyalty and growth.

Leah Leachman is a director analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders. She advises customer experience, customer loyalty, and marketing leaders develop strategies that drive customer loyalty, retention, and advocacy. Her coverage topics include how brands can develop a customer-first experience design strategy for omnichannel experiences; customer journey mapping; enhancing customer listening effectiveness (VoC); developing customer-centric culture; competitive differentiation through CX; and the prioritization of projects to enhance the customer experience.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Chris Ross discusses how CMOs and CCOs can improve how they communicate about value and impact, transcending the limitations of dashboards and KPIs. The discussion includes how CMOs can better assess and understand the value they create, how to distill a core value narrative, and how to deliver marketing value stories with more resonance and fidelity.

Chris Ross is a Gartner analyst working with CMOs at the world's leading organizations on marketing strategy, brand, leadership and innovation. As the author of over 100 Gartner research documents, his insights have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, AdAge and other leading industry publications.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Ben Bloom discusses the 2023 Gartner Marketing Technology Survey, which saw martech utilization falling further while generative AI is poised to rise. We review how CMOs can assess martech adoption, leverage relationships with IT, and preserve resources for tomorrow.

Benjamin Bloom is a VP, Analyst helping marketing leaders with martech stack optimization, personalization, and customer data management.

Mr. Bloom's experience spans customer engagement, direct response, CRM, data management, analytics, web development and brand marketing roles, as both a consultant/strategist and client-side team leader. He has developed and optimized marketing campaigns, as well as selected and implemented technology and advertising solutions for over 10 years. Prior to entering the marketing world, he analyzed the technology, media and telecommunications industries at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University.

In this episode, Gartner analysts and authors of When Machines Become Customers Don Scheibenreif and Mark Raskino discuss how the rise of machine customers will impact the discipline of marketing and the marketing profession itself. What does it mean to market to a machine? What are the implications for how you position your brand? And what do marketing leaders need to start doing right now to take advantage of the huge growth opportunities on the horizon, as potentially billions of machine customers are headed their way?

Don Scheibenreif is a Vice President, Distinguished Analyst with Gartner’s Customer Experience research group. Mr. Scheibenreif works with customer experience and IT leaders on how emerging trends and digital business will impact customer experience. He is a founding member of Gartner’s research on digital business and digital business transformation and he has served clients in Gartner’s Industries Research and Technology Innovation practices.

Mark Raskino is a Gartner Fellow in the CEO and Digital Business Leadership research team. Mark works primarily with CIOs and their business executive colleagues. He covers business and technology trends and their implications for business strategy, innovation, business models, leadership and executive relationships. Mr. Raskino’s research includes Gartner’s annual CEO survey and CIO resolutions. He co-authored the books “Digital to the Core” (Gartner, 2015) and “Mastering the Hype Cycle” (Harvard Business Press, 2008). He is a frequent keynote speaker and keynote interviewer.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Kassi Socha and researcher Emma Mathison join to discuss Gartner's latest findings around incentives. The fear of continual price increases and, an appetite to try new brands, and XX are driving consumers to react differently to discounts and promotions than they have in the past. For those targeting a younger consumer, learn how the coupon became cool again, and free shipping is a mandate. To exceed consumers’ expectations, B2C CMOs must prioritize discounts with customer appeal, tailor discounts to specific audiences, and make discount experiences more interactive.

Kassi Socha is an analyst covering trends across the retail industry, specifically eCommerce, digital marketing, and consumer insights. Key expert in Industry Marketing Execution, Digital Marketing Strategy and Execution, as well as Customer Acquisition and Retention.

Emma Mathison is a Research Analyst, with the consumer insights team in the Gartner for Marketers business. She studies consumer values and attitudes as well as cultural shifts and patterns that impact consumer behaviors.

Her current research focuses on studying young consumers, parents and family, LGBTQ and gender topics as well as global consumers.

Digital engagement is getting more complex, and CMOs are under pressure to show results. In this episode, Gartner analyst Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone shares Gartner’s latest research on “catalytic” digital interactions that change customer behavior, increase customer confidence and, most importantly, generate business value. The discussion includes how CMOs can find the perfect moment for “catalytic” experiences, examples of what a great catalytic digital interaction looks and feels like, and how this new approach might fit into the rest of your marketing strategy.

Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone helps enterprise marketers better understand customers (B2B and B2C) buy and make decisions. This includes topics like how buying groups research potential suppliers and make purchase decisions, creating compelling content marketing aligned to the customer journey, improving overall digital experiences (industry-agnostic) to impact customer behavior, and customer journey mapping and persona building. Ms. LaRocca-Cerrone also covers marketing leadership and strategy, and marketing organization trends.

In this episode, Gartner analysts Ewan McIntyre and Alex de Fursac Gash share insights and explore key themes from Gartner’s 2023 CMO Spend & Strategy Survey. The discussion includes how marketing must learn to do more with less, the trap of digitization for the sake of digitization, and the growing pressures for CMOs to reduce marketing technology spending.

Ewan McIntyre is a VP Analyst and Chief of Research for the Gartner for Marketers Practice. Mr. McIntyre is focused on how CMOs and leaders build strategies and align marketing's capabilities, resources and budgets to deliver measurable, optimized performance. He has a deep understanding of how to build the right team by combining in-house and outsourced resources, having built from the ground up multidiscipline digital teams in both the B2B and B2C space.

Alex de Fursac Gash is a Senior Director in Gartner's Marketing (GML) Research & Advisory team. In this role, Alex serves as a thought partner to clients and facilitates a wide range of executive-level discussions for heads of marketing and their teams globally. His responsibilities include: advising marketing leaders on their functional objectives; sharing best practices and providing strategic guidance; and supporting senior leaders and their teams to plan and implement a number of initiatives. He also facilitates workshops and delivers keynote speeches at Gartner events and other special industry conferences.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Penny Gillespie discusses rogue thinking, Gartner’s approach to idea generation and execution. Rogue thinking uses a fresh perspective, often going against conventional, mature business wisdom. Discover the common habits of rogue thinkers, the key skills they share and the barriers that often get in the way.

Penny Gillespie is a Vice President and Gartner Fellow within marketing and communications. Ms. Gillespie is responsible for conducting research and developing publications aimed at helping executives recognize digital opportunities, develop a competitive strategy for digital commerce, and improve digital commerce performance and value. She focuses on best practices for digital customer experience (CX) interactions, personalization and trust building, as well as overcoming hurdles to online selling.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Halle Stern discusses how to ensure that personas are created using prescriptive data to create customer understanding assets that improve marketing strategies. The discussion covers how to involve stakeholders from other functions in the creation of personas and to see the value in using personas in their day-to-day work. Halle also discusses how to keep personas relevant and refresh them to change as target customers change.

Halle Stern is a Senior Principal Analyst in Gartner’s marketing practice. She helps clients to better understand their customers’ needs and challenges to improve customer experience outcomes such as customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and advocacy.

In this #Hashtags episode, Gartner VP Analyst Andrew Frank discusses how marketers and communicators should organize their thinking around generative AI and what they can do to position themselves and their brands for success amid this generational disruption.

As VP Distinguished Analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders, Andrew Frank specializes in best practices for data-driven marketing, including how organizations can use data to drive sales, loyalty, innovation, brand value and other business goals. He also focuses on emerging marketing technology and trends, including marketing applications of AI and machine learning, algorithmic marketing, and marketing in emerging environments such as metaverse and Web3.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Jason McNellis discusses how CMOs can be more data–driven without having to be experts in analytics or machine learning. Today, cherry-picking results and going with one’s gut are serious obstacles for CMOs who want their teams to make better and more timely decisions. We’ll cover how CMOs can assess their teams current use of analytics. Then we’ll use marketing examples from multiple companies as we discuss how experimentation, better questions and a “caterpillar’s-eye view” – not more data science – improve data-driven decisioning.

Jason McNellis is a Gartner senior director analyst who specializes in marketing analytics and building insight-generating organizations with a focus on enhancing marketing through machine learning, artificial intelligence, marketing mix modeling, and campaign measurement. Jason helps clients concentrate on the right data and right approach to guide their critical decisions.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Jason Daigler discusses how digital commerce practitioners often cross the line in the way they sell products. The discussion includes how marketers and digital commerce practitioners can avoid unscrupulous behavior and build customer trust — and what will happen if they don’t. 

Jason Daigler is a Gartner VP analyst focused on digital commerce technologies, including topics such as launching a commerce site, multichannel strategy, B2B commerce, channel integration, digital shelf analytics and marketplaces. Jason has 20+ years of business experience in digital commerce, software development and product management.

Join us from 22 to 24 May in Denver for the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo — the world’s most important gathering of CMOs and Marketing Executives™. In this episode of #Hashtags, conference Co-Chairs Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone and Brianna Lux discuss how attendees can use their time at the conference to gain insight, define and validate their marketing strategies, build their networks, and get ahead of the curve.

To register for the conference, visit the 

Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo homepage

In this #Hashtags episode, Gartner Analyst Chad Storlie discusses what true customer centricity looks like. Many companies remain product-focused rather than moving to a customer-centric model where they emphasize meeting customers’ needs and metrics such as loyalty, satisfaction and advocacy. CMOs must adopt processes to unite their organizations on customer centricity. Customer centricity places the customer at the center of decisions, activates employees to act in the customers’ best interest and drives multilevel process changes that result in customer experience (CX) improvements in loyalty and advocacy.

In this #Hashtags episode, Gartner Research Director LK Klein discusses the cost of unmanaged information overload on key business metrics like strategic alignment and intent to stay, as well as solutions marketing and communications leaders can use to reduce the burden of information on employees across the organization.

LK Klein is the research director for Gartner for Marketers Corporate Communications and Executive Communications research agendas, leading large-scale research studies on topics such as change management, executive communications, organizational culture, employee engagement and DEI branding.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner’s Halle Stern speaks about how to incorporate new tactics into loyalty program strategies, such as offering experiential benefits and experiential earning. Consumers are looking for more than just discounts, and Halle talks about the importance of understanding customer values, motivations and needs in order to deliver a unique loyalty program experience.

In this episode, Gartner analysts Alex de Fursac Gash and Suzanne Schwartz share key insights from the newly released 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey. The survey shows that a customer-centric “holistic channel strategy” is an effective approach to managing channel complexity. Yet if it was so easy, everyone would be doing it. We also talk about how CMOs can take these insights and apply them to their organizations, cutting through this channel complexity.

Gartner Senior Director Alex de Fursac Gash serves as a thought partner to clients and facilitates a wide range of executive-level discussions for heads of marketing and their teams globally. His responsibilities include advising marketing leaders on their functional objectives; sharing best practices and providing strategic guidance; and supporting senior leaders and their teams to plan and implement a number of initiatives.

Senior Director Suzanne Schwarts advises marketers on multichannel marketing strategy and execution, orchestrating campaign execution across channels, scaling marketing content across channels, analyzing cross-channel campaign performance, and mobile marketing strategy. Suzanne has more than 12 years of global marketing experience across a range of industries, such as retail, e-commerce, IT, advertising, apparel, personal care, and luxury.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Ant Duffin discusses the state of social commerce, outlining what it is, what it’s not and its future potential as it rapidly evolves. The discussion also provides digital marketing leaders with insights and guidance on how to evaluate social commerce opportunities, navigate the risk of constant change, and where to place short- and long-term bets.

Ant Duffin is a senior director analyst in the Gartner for Marketing Leaders practice, covering digital commerce.

Ant advises on digital commerce business transformation across the end-to-end value chain, including digital marketing, multichannel e-commerce and business capability (talent, partners and martech), enabling functions such as IT, HR and supply chain.

Ant has over 15 years of global digital consumer/brand experience across a range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, retail, U.K. government and automotive.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Nicole Greene discusses the proven impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on content and the customer experience. We’ll cover the promise and the risks of bringing AI to your organization across data, creativity, culture, and ethics. The discussion outlines how CMOs should approach harnessing the power of generative AI.

Nicole Greene analyzes marketing strategy, trends, and practices with an emphasis on content marketing and management, digital experience and artificial intelligence. Nicole helps clients achieve business results by focusing on storytelling to make relevant connections with consumers. She has held content, digital experience and social marketing roles for more than 15 years with industry leaders including The United States Tennis Association (U.S. Open), Viacom and ESPN.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Alex de Fursac Gash explores the evolution of personalization and shares how CMOs are placing their bets right now based on a flawed set of underlying beliefs and assumptions. The discussion includes how CMOs should revise their bets and investments in order to drive more effective personalization outcomes.

Alex de Fursac Gash is a Gartner VP Analyst who supports Gartner’s clients with insights and strategic guidance on a wide range of areas, including marketing and brand strategy, performance measurement, marketing budgets and organization design.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Kate Muhl leverages Gartner’s proprietary quantitative and qualitative consumer research to cut through the clutter and hone in on the consumer and cultural trends that will truly matter to CMOs in 2023. 

The discussion includes insight into inflation’s impact on brand relationships and the growing generation gap in attitudes and expectations for brands.

Kate Muhl is a Gartner analyst specializing in cultural and consumer insights. She has been researching and advising on the consumer and U.S. culture for more than a decade.

In this episode, Gartner researcher Emily Weiss dispels some common misconceptions about Gen Z’s attitudes toward social media. She explores the values they espouse that make them different from their Millennial predecessors. We also dive into several trends in digital culture — from A.I.-generated artwork to the Dark Academia aesthetic — and uncover lessons learned about how to appeal to this up-and-coming cohort of consumers.

Emily Weiss is a principal researcher with expertise in consumers and culture, brand, and value proposition. Weiss works to identify and track consumer trends, produce syndicated content, and translate the implications of those trends for marketers.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Chris Ross discusses how to establish a firm foundation for innovation initiatives, the critical distinctions between “Big I” and “little i” innovation, and how to more effectively communicate innovation impact.

The discussion includes how CMOs can anticipate and respond to common innovation challenges and establish more robust support for innovation initiatives.

Chris Ross advises CMOs at the world's leading organizations on marketing and brand strategy, innovation, and agency selection and management.

In this episode, Gartner Advisor Alexandra Earl discusses why trust is so important to get right — especially right now. Change-fatigued employees, burned out from the COVID-19 pandemic, have serious concerns about those in charge of their organization.

Lack of visibility and transparency into change and future strategy are leaving employees to question their commitment to perform and remain. Trust is critical and carries many benefits for organizations — but so many are missing the mark. As such, leaders must rethink their communication to (re)build trust if they are to stand a chance of retaining employees and achieving strategic goals.

We’ll share the key drivers of trust and what leading organizations are doing to enhance their executive communications at this critical time.

In this episode, Gartner analysts Brad Jashinsky and Mike Froggatt discuss how retail media networks are changing the digital advertising and media landscape. They also examine how brand marketers can take advantage of this new channel to reach customers online. We’ll provide an overview of the top three retail media networks, discuss why many retailers are launching their own, and focus on how retail media can fit into both brand and performance advertising strategy.

Brad Jashinsky is a director analyst at Gartner covering the retail and travel and hospitality industries. Brad has spent his career at the intersection of marketing and technology, with over 15 years of experience in digital marketing. He has driven successful business results by creating and executing industry-leading digital marketing strategies for companies in the consumer electronics, enterprise technology, entertainment, travel and hospitality industries. As a Gartner analyst, Brad helps marketing leaders achieve their strategic objectives and improve their digital businesses by providing actionable, objective insight into digital marketing, personalization, loyalty and commerce strategies.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Jason McNellis discusses what economic uncertainty and inflation mean to marketers.

The beginning of 2022 saw many marketers attempting to claw back budgets to pre-COVID-19 levels. As 2022 progressed, new macroeconomic challenges started blocking the path to higher budgets. While some marketing organizations today are working through cuts — often starting with their media or brand building budgets — others are investing to gain share. 

Most marketing leaders will have to wear both hats over the next six months: on some days, playing defense to bolster the evidence of marketing’s ability to drive business outcomes, and on other days, playing offense and outlying plans demonstrating how investments in marketing will increase growth. The most successful will combine the two approaches, such as using marketing automation to increase efficiencies and drive conversions with minimal incremental investment.

Jason McNellis specializes in marketing analytics and building insight-generating organizations with a focus on enhancing marketing through machine learning, artificial intelligence, marketing mix modeling, and campaign measurement. Jason helps clients concentrate on the right data and right approach to guide their critical decisions.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Claudia Ratterman discusses the missed opportunity of paid on social media platforms. Even though marketers and communicators are publishing engaging organic content on social platforms, data shows a minimal number of current followers will ever see it. We’ll cover the reasons for the limited reach as well as ways to help brands maximize potential return on investments by focusing on specific content types and platforms with higher organic reach potential.

In this episode, Gartner analysts Kassi Socha and Suzanne Schwartz discuss how marketing leaders need to shift their holiday strategy to meet the expectations of skeptical consumers. 

For consumers, the fear of continual price increases, lack of discounts, and continued supply disruptions means they are prepared to shop earlier, focus on value, and adopt omnichannel solutions that remove hybrid shopping barriers. To exceed consumers’ expectations, brands must make it easy to find and share holiday gift inspiration, be transparent about pricing, and make shopping seamless and fun — across online, in-store, and everything in between.

Kassi Socha is a Gartner analyst covering e-commerce, digital marketing, and consumer insights. Kassi has spent more than 10 years leading digital and customer strategies for fashion, beauty, and consumer tech brands, including Nordstrom and Drybar.

Suzanne Schwartz is a Gartner analyst covering omnichannel campaign management, orchestration, and mobile marketing. She advises on multichannel marketing strategy and execution, orchestrating campaign execution across channels, scaling marketing content across channels, analyzing cross-channel campaign performance, and mobile marketing strategy. Suzanne has more than 12 years of global marketing experience across a range of industries including retail, e-commerce, IT, advertising, apparel, personal care, and luxury.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Benjamin Bloom discusses new challenges to marketing’s role as a technology steward. While IT and marketing have improved their collaboration efforts, marketing’s position as a growth driver cannot survive in the face of remarkably low utilization of the technology capabilities in the stack. CMOs must overcome customer data frictions and disrupted customer journeys, but our 2022 Gartner Marketing Technology Survey reveals that talent training and integration remain critical ROI bottlenecks.

We’ll cover new insights into where martech teams are placing their bets, from today’s critical components to the emerging technologies to battle the cookieless future.

Benjamin Bloom is a VP analyst helping marketing leaders with martech stack optimization, personalization, and customer data management. Benjamin’s experience spans customer engagement, direct response, CRM, data management, analytics, web development and brand marketing roles, as both a consultant/strategist and as a client-side team leader. He has developed and optimized marketing campaigns, as well as selected and implemented technology and advertising solutions for more than 15 years. Before entering the marketing world, he analyzed the technology, media and telecommunications industries at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Sally Witzky discusses insights from Gartner's Marketing Organization Insights Survey for 2022, with her perspective of what CMOs seemed to get right, and other data points that make us scratch our heads. Either way, CMOs changed all aspects of their marketing resource ecosystem from org structures to operating models to agency roster. The episode covers what they changed and what we’ve heard from CMOs since the survey’s release.

Sally Witzky analyzes marketing organizational and operational trends and best practices. She advises CMOs to leverage proven and actionable techniques, systems and tools for building in-house strategic marketing capabilities that maximize value creation and strengthen competitive advantage.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Noam Dorros discusses the current state of the rapidly evolving landscape that is search marketing. The discussion includes the missteps of AI releases from Google and the aftermath, search algorithm updates, and where CMOs and digital marketing leaders should focus their efforts to maintain success amid the turmoil.

Noam Dorros is a director analyst for consumer goods at Gartner. Noam transforms data driven insights into actionable opportunities for various clients within the consumable goods sector. Working with top brands in the consumer packaged goods, personal care and food and beverage categories, Noam advises on everything from best practices and industry trends to deriving customized digital recommendations that fit various client objectives.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Jay Wilson discusses how marketing leaders are in a position to influence their organization’s approach to internal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), while ensuring those efforts are accurately represented in marketing communications. 

As an increasingly diverse customer base demands that the brands they buy from take action on DEI, the CMO must advocate for that mandate internally. In doing so, a CMO can improve her influence within the C-suite, while making a positive impact on marketing and business outcomes. Success depends on new approaches to hiring, retention, agency selection, and — ultimately — marketing that is more relevant and representative of our world.

Jay Wilson focuses on helping CMOs achieve optimal results from their agency rosters, including agency selection. He works with clients on their social media marketing strategies, including influencer and employee advocacy programs. Jay led social marketing efforts at a large digital advertising agency in New York, with hands-on experience in the airline, consumer packaged goods and high-tech industries.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Iliyana Hadjistoyanova reveals key insights from an organizational survey of 182 Communications leaders. We discuss the positive trend of the function’s growing influence and debate the implications of high reorganization rates. And we try to answer the question, “If all seems to be trending well, why are communicators quitting in droves?”

Iliyana Hadjistoyanova supports Communications leaders in optimizing structure and skills within their own teams, prioritizing high-value work and connecting it to business goals in clear, measurable ways.

Her expertise includes strategic planning and measurement, functional design, and talent development and training. She leverages insights, best practices and benchmarks to help executives make smart decisions that elevate their functions to become true business partners.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Andrew Frank discusses how marketing, communication, HR, legal, and IT roles need to align to address the wide-ranging implications of new laws and law enforcement actions that raise the risks associated with personal data routinely collected and processed by their organizations. For consumers, the fear of digital surveillance is becoming more concrete while, for businesses, the ethical and operational complexities are becoming more acute.

We’ll cover some specific situations where organizations’ commitment to protecting the health and well-being of stakeholders is being challenged.

As VP Distinguished Analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders, Andrew Frank specializes in best practices for data-driven marketing, including how organizations can use data to drive sales, loyalty, innovation, brand value and other business goals.

Andrew also focuses on emerging marketing technology and trends, including marketing applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, algorithmic marketing, and marketing in emerging environments such as metaverse and Web3.

Run Time: 27:57

In this episode, Gartner Director Analyst Leah Leachman discusses how marketing leaders all too often make a commitment toward customer centricity when all signs lead to the opposite effect. Marketing’s efforts are really more channel-led vs customer-led, focusing on acquisition and demand generation versus understanding customer needs. But does that strategy really lead to sustainable, long-term growth? Or will customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy suffer as a result? There is a way to balance company and customer.