In this episode, Seth speaks with Chris Davis, Brand President & Chief Marketing Officer at New Balance Athletics, not just because he is likely to be the family-owned private company’s CEO, but because as a marketer he’s acutely aware that he’s not just a brand leader but a commercial one, and because of his perspective on strategic and calculated risk taking. 

Chris Davis, started working at New Balance in 2008. As a member of New Balance’s Senior Leadership Team since 2016, Davis is responsible for New Balance’s product and demand creation initiatives and commercial strategies around the globe.

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Despite everything that’s changed and changing, a lot of the c-suite still thinks marketing just means “advertising”—which is a pretty outdated perspective.

In this episode Seth speaks with David Droga, for decades a legend of the advertising, marketing and business worlds, to get the POV of a CEO who both understands marketing and who talks to CEOs who do not. Founder of the eponymous Droga5 in 2006, which has been named Agency of the Year more than 25 times, since September 2021, David’s been the CEO of Accenture Song, the world’s largest tech-powered creative group and a part of Accenture, where he has taken it from a $12.5 billion company to a $19 billion tech-powered creative giant in just 3 years.

Show Notes:

Article referenced at 8:20: https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2023/06/15/filling-in-the-missing-middle-between-brand-and-performance/

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Among the things CEOs, CFOs and other c-suite executives without marketing experience tend not to understand is the relationship between, what Les Binet and Peter Field, have termed the long and short of it...and how what businesses do to drive one does to effect the other——for good or ill.

So, in this episode, Seth speaks with serial entrepreneur and media executive Joe Marchese, not just because he’s a widely recognized leader in the media and technology industries but because of his CEO experience, his deep understanding of marketing and the Attention Economy, and his insights into how the long and short of it interact.

Joe is the co-founder and General Partner at both Human Ventures, and at Casa Komos Brands Group (CKBG), where he serves as co-CEO. He also leads Human.AI, the venture’s dedicated studio exploring the potential for AI to reshape the attention economy.

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In thinking about how too many CEOs don’t understand that there are fundamentally different types of CMOs, marketers and marketing, Seth speaks with Dara Treseder, the Chief Marketing Officer at Autodesk, about where B2B marketing is the same as—and different than—B2C marketing.

At Autodesk, a leading technology & software company, Dara oversees the worldwide marketing, brand, communications, demand generation, e-commerce, and education business teams.

Show Notes:

At 16:33 I get the name of the author of How Brands Grow wrong, crediting Les Binet when this classic book is in fact written by Byron Sharp. Les, along with Peter Field, is the author of among other equally important books, 'The Long and Short of It'

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There was a time when—in a predominantly CPG world—product and brand were inextricably linked parts of the marketer’s remit, but now—in a tech driven world—they’ve become increasingly separated organizationally. Engineers and product developers here—marketers over there.

In this episode Seth speaks with Lorraine Twohill, the long-time CMO at Google, someone who understands product marketing, arguably as well as anyone ever, and better than almost anyone ever. As Google’s CMO, Lorraine oversees a global team responsible for telling the story of Google’s brand and bringing to life how its many tools—products and services both—help millions of businesses grow. Her teams oversee global marketing for some of the most used brands in the world including, Google Search, Android, Pixel, YouTube, Google Cloud, and the company’s expanding suite of AI tools.

Show Notes:

At 9:30, I credit Bill Bernbach with the quote “Within every brand is a product, but not every product is a brand”...when in fact it was David Ogilvy who said it. Apologies to both.

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In this episode, Seth sits down with Andréa Mallard, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Pinterest. Dré has a broad portfolio and a relatively unusual breadth of accountability, overseeing teams responsible for marketing, comms, product design, UX and all go-to-market efforts for both consumers and advertisers. Among other things, her perspectives on how marketing earns the right to grow bigger and better, and why no CEO has ever loved a brand because of its bottom of the funnel strategy, made this a great conversation.

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In this episode, Seth sits down with Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, CMO at DoorDash. Kofi’s perspective on what CEOs (and the rest of the c-suite) need to better understand about marketing has been informed by his years as a strategist at Leo Burnett and Weiden, and as VP of Consumer Marketing at Meta. Kofi talks about accountability, the challenges of serving a three-sided marketplace and, among other topics, where a strategist’s remit converges and diverges with enterprise strategy.

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For this conversation, Seth sits with Ally Financial’s Chief Marketing and PR Officer Andrea Brimmer for a wide-ranging conversation about what can either facilitate or get in the way of marketing’s role in value creation, the false narrative that’s been painted of CMO tenure specifically and the CMO generally, and the relentless pace of change—cultural and otherwise—today’s marketers are supposed to keep up with.

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In this episode, Seth talks with Frank Cooper, who has been the CMO at Visa, Blackstone, and Buzzfeed about causation, correlation and dispelling the myth that marketing doesn’t drive commercial outcomes.

Here's a link to the article mentioned around 3:40: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethmatlins/2024/12/16/marketing-that-fails-to-consider-the-human-context-is-out-of-context/

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In this conversation, Seth and Chime CMO Vineet Mehra talked about the CAC (customer acquisition cost) valley of death, explaining unit economic payback, and how a CFO’s willingness to invest money—especially when they don’t understand the consequences of not investing it—can effect growth for good or ill.

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In this episode, Seth sits with Calvin Klein CMO Jonathan Bottomley to talk about lessons learned from—and applied outside—luxury; the important distinction between overthinking and overcomplicating, and the way ideas travel.

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In this episode, I sit down with Linda Boff, now CEO of Said Differently, and the long-time CMO of GE. I wanted to talk with Linda about her experience working with three different CEOs (at GE alone), humanizing an industrial monolith, and her legacy of firsts.

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In this episode, Seth sits down with Walmart CMO, William White, to talk about the commercial value of brands even when you’re selling every-day-low-prices, how every touchpoint connects—or doesn’t, and using the emotional to drive the transactional.

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In this episode, Seth sits with Antonio Lucio, Chief Marketing and Corporate Affairs Officer at HP, to talk about Antonio’s advice to CEOs and CMOs, what marketing is in service to, the consequences of isolating and not integrating marketing, and pitching an idea to Mark Zuckerberg.

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In this episode, I talk with Jonny Bauer about his thesis on enterprise value creation, one formed by his years as Droga5’s Chief Strategy Officer and Blackstone’s Global Head of Brand Strategy and Transformation. Now, the founder and CEO of Fundamentalco, Jonny’s insights into the upstream role of brand in driving business strategy and not just downstream marketing outputs are well worth every CEO, CFO and Board considering.

In the episode, Jonny refers to one of the earliest pieces of work to come from then new agency, Droga5. The 2006 spot for streetwear brand ECKO is known as “Tagging Air Force One.” See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP0iSJQLfJ4

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In this episode, I talk with Tim about creative courage, marketing to and with the Commissioner and owners, and how to both focus on and transcend the game.

Note:

In the episode, Tim tells us the story of how Volkswagen’s 2011 Super Bowl ad, Darth Vader, came to be. And how it almost didn’t. See the spot that’s been credited with changing Super Bowl advertising here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpL_DcT6ko8

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In this episode I talk with Hasbro‘s first-ever CMO Jason Bunge about working with the c-suite to build marketing capabilities in a 104-year-old-company, the different strategic roles marketing plays across different parts of the business, and the possibilities that can live within constraints.

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In this bonus episode, the tables turn and Seth goes from interviewer to interviewee as he sits with Jon Evans, on his Uncensored CMO podcast.

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When I first heard Tomás speak at a conference about problem-solving and attribution, I knew I wanted to have him on the show. In this conversation, we talk about marketing's deep hunger for actual solutions, the cost of vanity metrics, and among other things, the difference between certainty and statistics.

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In this episode I talk with Meta’s CMO and VP Analytics Alex Schultz, whose work has probably influenced the work of more marketers than just about anyone else’s over the past decade. Besides correcting my misperception about the origins of the “performance marketing” phrase, Alex explains why he thinks performance marketing should die, driving change, the value of full funnel approaches, and how to properly evaluate that which can’t be measured among other things.

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In this episode I talk with Rare Beauty CMO Katie Welch about CEO’s who give CMOs the permission to do what they do best, the lessons beauty-category marketing has for others, and why you have to avoid “tactic soup.”

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In this conversation I sit with Cannes Lions CeO Simon Cook, to talk about what we both heard at the Festival’s inaugural Global CEO Forum, which I moderated and facilitated. Some 50 CEO’s from around the world took part (Under The Chatham House Rule), and in this episode Simon and I explore what we heard from them, creativity as a financial engine, and why CEOs who don’t embrace it may be quietly choosing stagnation.

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In this conversation with Esi, we covered a lot of ground but kept coming back to some fundamental truths about desire, reach, engagement, and conversion. Esi’s been a CEO, GM and President and she brings all that and more to our conversation and everything she does as a marketing and growth leader.

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In this conversation, Kelsey and Shelley unpack McKinsey’s latest research into the CEO and CMO relationship which at the risk of giving away the punchline isn’t that good. We get into and underneath the numbers and the broader and bottom-line implications on growth that they illustrate. (Look for their full report here: The CMO’s comeback: Aligning the C-suite to drive customer-centric growth)

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In this episode, Colin and I talk about why he drove a strategic shift from product-led marketing to brand-led, the end of the funnel, what all marketing—and buying—has in common, and how simplicity can help anchor marketing in times of great complexity.

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In this episode Micky, the one-time CEO of Bonobos, and I talk about her experiences on both sides of what’s all too-often a divide, what’s missing in the CEO/CMO conversation, and why company culture should be seen as a pre-requisite for growth.

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In this episode Mark and I talk about the evolution of one of the quintessential brand battles in marketing history, why word-of-mouth is the original algorithm, and his framework for deciding when to extend a brand into a new category or build a new one for new tastes.

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The one with David Droga, as he exits his role as CEO of Accenture Song, about the CEO learning curve, the value of intimidation, friction and starting at the end.

In this episode, releasing as the legendary marketer and executive steps down from the CEO’s role, David and I talk about why every great CEO is a prompter, what it takes to be completely disruptive, how organizational complexity can emerge as a tax on growth, and the enduring (maybe increasing) need for emotional connection.

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In this conversation, Nicole and I talk about why problem-solving is a team sport, the value of intrigue, the too-often divorce of product and marketing teams and why it’s okay not to achieve every big goal.

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In this season-ending episode I talk with Diageo CMO, Cristina Diezhandino, about what CEOs need to know about organizing to meet and lead marketplace evolutions, managing investment across a massive brand portfolio, and What can get in the way of marketing delivering against its growth mission.

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