August 7, 2023 • 26 mins
On this episode, Steven and Marisa talk about each of their recent work trips, which spins into a conversation or why “brand” matters and needs to be measured better, why “short term-ism” is a problem, and how their industries have an uncommon magic of “community.” Then the hot topic: in honor of Back-to-School, the co-hosts discuss the importance in this dynamic business world of being continuous learners. (And teachers… and learners). Give a listen and learn a little too!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, and welcome to brand New from the iHeart Podcast
Network and Brand New Labs. I'm Marissa Thalberg.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Stephen wolf Paneda. Happy to be back in
La Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Well, so, how was your trip to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Mexico City is amazing. If any listener has not been there,
please go. I mean the food, obviously, the culture. But
this was special. It was a kind of a hybrid
work trip where you know, we're doing stuff for three
pass but at the same time I was able to
bring my family. Marisa so really trying to integrate both
the personal and professional. So my wife Nudia, who's amazing,
(00:44):
and my two awesome kids, Sea Stan and Sienna came.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We have a great family.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's that kind of prioritization, right. I want to make
sure that my kids get to see what I do,
that they're able to travel the world, be citizens of
the world, tiny travelers if you will. But yeah, it
was great. What about you? What's going on?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Well?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I love that you did that. We talked about that
last time. The importance in our crazy work lives of
integrating and bringing kids along something I feel so strongly about.
I did just take a trip myself this time. I
brought the hobby. I brought David, but no kids along.
On this one, I was at an industry board meeting.
One of the boards I'm on, it's the MMA Global,
(01:21):
which is one of the big industry groups that I
think is really strong because it's all about that's a
great or changes that are happening in marketing. Yeah, it's
really good, and really having a learning agenda and a
research agenda, so that's really powerful. And then I was
followed by their CEO and CMO summit, so it was
in northern California.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
This's go to get you back to California. That's the
universe saying come back to Cali.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I realized it hadn't been in northern California in a while,
so it was nice to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Of course, the best part is just.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Being reconnected with our peers in our industry and living
in Charlotte right now, it's not a bastion of our industry,
so that sense of camaraderie, real person connection is just
an unbelievable source of energy for me. But the learning
part was great too.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
What'd you learn?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, there was a lot, and some of it was
presented both within our board meeting, and then also talked
about on the stage in the summit lots of different
projects that are trying to really get at these key
key issues that we face as marketers and in this
broader world of team the way we've been talking about
so of course very inclusive of technology for sure, advertising media, marketing,
(02:31):
maybe a little less on the entertainment side, but some
For me, the one that really stuck out is this
big piece of research that's really trying to corroborate this
idea of brand as performance. And I got to explain, like,
so what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah? Please, what's the difference?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, So for anyone who is in a marketer listening,
let me tell you what we've done to ourselves. That's uh,
and I say down to ourselves because it feels a
little self inflicted. Is we call a part of marketing
performance which is really really bad branding and we're supposed
to be good branding. And what it means is the
(03:08):
parts that you think of as further along the purchase journey.
Sometimes we call this the low funnel part. So if
I am searching for something in Google and then I
see the ad for what I'm searching for, and I
click on that ad and I buy it looks really
really good in terms of how that ad performed. So
we think of.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
That I did everything right, there was nothing else involved.
Would that be last touch attribution?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Lie is the problem? Right? We give that the credit
for all the heavy lifting, and that's not how our
brains work and our minds and our hearts work. And
so then you have something that must be on the
other side of performance, and we've put brand on the
other side. And if you call something the opposite of performance,
what are you essentially employing that it's not performance. This
is a very, very, very bad structure we've created. So
(03:52):
first of all, we've got to reframe this whole thing
as an industry. Feel so passionately about that, because brand
is not a bad word. Brand is a really good word.
We buy brands, we connect to brands, we badge ourselves
with brands, and even what we call brand marketing is
some of the most effective marketing that there can be.
We just haven't had the right measurement in all cases.
(04:14):
This is a big, heavy piece of research, and I
wish we could all just snap our fingers and replicate it.
But boy, did it show what you'd expect that some
of the kind of marketing that we have maybe not
been as committed to in certain shall we say, industries
where there's just pressure to get to that bottom line
so fast. We're seeing the longer term effects and it's
(04:37):
not like long long term, just not immediate term like
we call it midterm or that is where the value
creation comes from.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
The irony is for a group of marketers, we do
a really bad job of marketing. All the wonderful things
that we do. We very purposely called our podcast brand New, right,
And for me, you know, I've always loved brand. I
mean a brand. You know, it's a person's perception of
a product, a service, and experience, an organization, a company.
(05:07):
It's it is all about brand. When you talk to
a CEO, guess what they care about their brand? Right?
You're always reading the Wall Street Journal. You know the
brand took a hit. I mean obviously when a brand
makes a mistake, you know, it actually damages the company.
You lose sales. So brands are paramount. I almost feel
like marketing is really a tactic that ladders up. I mean,
(05:27):
you were a chief brand officer, right, So I mean
for me, it really is all about brand. But we
have to figure out a way to kind of get
out of this brand versus performance. It's a false academy.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Can I tell you something. I've had the titles of
chief Marketing Officer, chief brand Officer when that was considered
a promotion inclusive of marketing. I've had a title that
was chief brand and Marketing Officer. To try to delineate
the two or say that they both matter, I guess
I prefer that interpretation. I've had brand not in the title.
(05:57):
It's it's just I don't know, I don't know what
that all means about how variable the definitions are. If
we're just I've tried not to think too much about it,
but when the rubber meets the road in the work,
it matters. It really really matters. As that really does it,
Steve and I would just add that there's such short
termism in industry right now, and whether you're in an
(06:21):
upstart company that has to quickly show growth or whether
you in a public company that is the pressure of
those quarterly earnings and boy oh boy, those are intense,
and how do we get out of this mindset of
not just measuring the ease You.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Can just do it all in ninety days, right, that's
all you need to actually turn around the company, turn
around a brand. I mean, look, this whole idea of
being short term it actually permeates every aspect of society.
I feel like our attention spans continue to dwindle. But
the reality is as a public company, there's a whole
movement actually to get out of the quarterly reporting, right,
because the whole idea of you really being able to
(06:56):
move the needle, it's really harmful to a company. There's
actually a handful of tech companies where the founders actually
have dual class share structures where they're you know, kind
of a shares. They actually have the super voting rights
so they actually control the company, and then the B
shares are the ones that you know, investors in the
public markets can buy, but they're the ones that actually
set the terms and they could say, yeah, you know what,
(07:18):
we're not going to give guidance or we're going to
focus in the long term. We have a ten year
vision that is very few and four between. But the
whole idea of having this short term focus, it actually
it's harmful to both brands as well as businesses.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Wasn't that cool last episode when we had Justin Smith,
a CEO of someophore on and he was talking about
almost the universal commitment between their staff, their leadership team,
and their investors all locking arms and saying, this is
a ten year journey. That blew me away because it's
just not Patience is not a virtue and it should
(07:52):
be in business. But it's tough because we all are
pressured against deliver tomorrow, delivered tomorrow, delivered today, and sometimes
that's achievable, but sometimes the things that will really turn
a company around. I mean, we're not going to get
into the hole because it's had its moment already, the
whole Barbie thing. But I think we should acknowledge that
that didn't happen overnight either. I was talking to an
(08:13):
industry friend who said, hey, I was part of planting
those seeds eight years ago. Maybe he said even longer.
I actually think he did. Maybe he said it was
something like twice that. So you know, we just forget that,
you know, the old it took me years to be
an overnight success. There's a little bit of fact. So
what missing in the way we talk about what works
(08:36):
in marketing and that brand is a part of that,
and it's not fluff, and it's not extraneous, and it's
not a nice to do. It's actually fundamental. And what
I appreciate about the MMA is just trying to find
the tools and the measurement to substantiate that, because that's
a missing link.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But what you were talking about is truly learning, and
I think this is exactly what we want to get into.
So up next is going to be our hot topic.
Stay tuned, and we're back ready to talk about the
hot topic for this episode. So Marisa, it's back to
school time. I think in LA next week, folks are
(09:13):
getting ready to get back to school. I know my
kids are going back at the end of August. But
from marketers, back to school is almost like a time
period that you put on the calendar. I would love
to take it in a different direction. How are we learning?
How do we as marketers, as executives, as professionals, How
are we going back to school? It's something that I'm
very passionate about because I believe in being a lifelong learner. Certainly,
(09:36):
coming out of your MMA Global Summit, how are you
thinking about this idea of lifelong learning and what are
you doing to always keep on learning.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I love that we're spitting back to school this way.
I do because when you grow up in school, it's
a dichotomy. You're a teacher or you're a student. It's
this one way exchange of learning. And of course, what
we've realiz as adults, more so now than ever in
the professional world, is it's a virtuous cycle that continues.
(10:07):
And I think that is a really interesting reminder for
everyone that no matter how far advanced we get in
our careers, and you and I are somewhat advanced to
our careers at this point.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, I've got some of the grace to prove it.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So same my friend, that you are still a student.
You have to continuously be learning, and then you're teaching,
and then you're learning. And that idea of it being
continuous is really really important because our world is changing
so much, so there's absolutely no way to survive and
(10:40):
thrive if you're going to be static about it. It's
intimidating though, because there's so much to figure out. I
harken back to my days when I started at the
Estay Laughter Company, and I was very intimidated to take
on a role that was supposed to teach the organization
about how to move into what was then kind of
the early days of digital and social marketing, so early
(11:03):
that when I started, it wasn't even yet called social media.
Just to put a bit of a time stamp on it.
And what I realized is that was gonna be my process.
That I didn't have to have years of historic knowledge
on it, because it didn't even have years of historic knowledge.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It was just.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
About taking it in, trying to do my best to
parse it and what does it mean? How do you
interpret it for your company was the important part. So
that idea of being student teacher, that constant cycle, I
think really hit me hard then, and I've tried to
take that with me specifically as i've moved different industries.
Of course, I've had to learn the industries figure it out.
(11:40):
So I'm gonna throw it now over to you. Okay,
sounds great, but there's so much out there. Yeah, how
do you do it? Who are you learning from?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
For me, I truly believe in the quote never stop learning,
because life never stops teaching. I just feel that I've
always been this kind of learn it all approach versus
this know it all. I think it's really important to
distinguish those two, and that starts from my upbringing. My
parents were teachers. I feel like in the Latino household,
(12:11):
you're always taught that education is the one thing they
can never take away from you, and so just really
understanding how to be passionately curious. And also for me,
it was the It was the kind of thing where
I had to learn on my own because my parents
didn't really know the educational system or they didn't really
know about these industries. So I really felt like I
was almost in like the Sims video game where it
(12:32):
was all dark and I was just trying to like,
you know, go into a new corner of the world
and learn about it. So I was just always voracious.
I mean, obviously there was no Internet when we were
growing up, but just trying to understand about industries, and
I think that's part of the reason why I was
always interested in just kind of trying to understand all
these different angles to what is ultimately where we are today.
(12:53):
You know, I worked a bit in finance, I worked
a bit in technology and advertising again, all the team
industries that we talk about. But for me, I feel
like my learning approach has also been you know, kind
of segmented across those different buckets. I feel like there's
organizations that are news organizations that you're going to trust
their information. So whether it's the New York Times, Wall
(13:14):
Street Journal, Financial Times, you know, I do that for
like my business information. Then there's like world events. There's
certainly things like Semaphore or The Economist.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I read obviously a lot about technology, so I love
the information or you know, the Verge tech Crunch. But
then I've also curated individuals and I feel like that
is where we're going this whole idea of fragmentation and media.
You've also had fragmentation and education, and I feel like
where people are learning are from subject matter experts. So
I think about everything that's happening, you know, kind of
(13:43):
in web three. You know, no, it's not dead, it's
just evolving. But I read a lot from Chris Dixon,
who's a partner at Juries and Horowitz, right. I really
try to seek out folks that are either the practitioners
the operators that are doing the work so they could
actually help teach me something about that area that discipline.
But how are you approaching kind of different folks that
you learn from.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I think The hard part of articulating it is it's
not so conscious and deliberate anymore. They're definitely outlets that
I rely on. Some of what you named in terms
of general news publishers, industry publishers like an Adweek and
Adage of Forbes Fast Company. For me, that I subscribe
(14:24):
to doesn't mean every time I open I get their email.
I open it because so time starved. But I look
there for headlines, and if I see something important, I
think those come to me in a very choiceful way.
But the rest is way more ambient. Right now, it's
about who do I follow that I think is interesting,
(14:45):
what they're curating, and oftentimes a lot of that learning
is coming through my LinkedIn newsfeed or maybe even some
other social channels feeds based on who I follow and
what they post. And so there's that curating the curated
and cherry picking from that what strikes my interest, which
means it's not organized for me. And there's something both
(15:08):
really great and really challenging about that in terms of
making sure that I'm getting to what I really need
to know, particularly through the lens of learning from my
job and for my industry and how to make us
better so it is a blessing and a curse. There's
so much that you're relying on different ways of getting
(15:29):
to it. But there are lots of people that I
learn from and that I trust, just like you named
a couple. And also some of them are not deep reads.
They are more just thoughts that inspire me. Like Adam Grant,
the famous Wharton professor, who I mean, he's really done
a great job just distilling these thought starters into sound
bites that he posts on multiple channels, and sometimes they
(15:50):
have a great piece of data. So sometimes it's not
about a deep reed. Sometimes it's just about learning through
how someone provokes your thinking. In other times, it's like, Okay,
who's going to really teach me about a new topic
like AI because everyone's pontificating about it and it's overwhelming,
and it's now ten o'clock at night and I just
stopped working or you know, started to do something else.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Now this is night school.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
That's a problem. That's the problem, and I want to
talk about that because I think we should address what
keeps people from learning.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, well, first off, you're you're hitting on something which
is really important, because I feel that what keeps people
from learning is both personal and kind of structural, right.
I mean, on the one hand, you have to not
be afraid to put yourself out there. I remember when
I was at Publicity's and I had lots of you know,
kind of fortune one hundred cmos. They would bring me
(16:43):
into their office behind closed doors and they would say,
I don't understand data. Can you teach me?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And you know, I was like the data guy, so
really helping folks get out of their comfort zone. But
there was this fear of looking dumb in front of
their teams. For any listener that's hearing this, if you're
kind of early in your career or mid level, the
boss doesn't necessarily know everything. There is this level of
almost imposter syndrome. As you see all these new technologies
come out, they don't know. So back to that learn
(17:10):
it all culture. You see a lot of folks wanting
to learn these things, and you have to have the
card to say, hey, I don't know. And the truth
of the matter is, as you get more senior in
your career, as you get into the C suite, you
are not going to be able to be the subject
matter expert. You become more of a general manager. So
you need to have experts on your team or partners
like agencies or you know, other companies that are going
(17:32):
to help you learn these things. But I think the
other thing that prevents people from learning is actually structural.
It's actually the companies. You know, they don't give you
the ability because of back to short termism, you're not
going to be able to learn these things. And by
the way, AI is just the flavor of maybe not
the month, maybe it's the decade. But the reality is
there's always going to be something new. I mean back
in the day you had to learn mobile, right that
(17:54):
you were learning and helping everyone learn about digital and
so there's always going to be something new. But back
to the ructual environment, how does your company become a
learning organization? And the truth of the matter is most
folks aren't instilling the ability for your team, your company
or leaders to keep on learning.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Look, that is so true. And as much as sometimes
companies talk the talk, will they walk the walk in
terms of prioritizing that when there's so much pressure in
the business, and lots of businesses have lots of pressure,
So how do we not make that a luxury but
see that as the same kind of investment almost like
what you're talking about in brand. Come to think of it,
(18:30):
I'll just say one more thing on this, which is
a bit of a call to action to those out
there who are the teachers in our industry and the
pundits and the writers. Is in a world of clickbait
that we mock, don't give into it in terms of
fear mongering and make it overwhelmingly daunting for people to
(18:54):
jump in and learn. I mean, these complicated topics need
voices that are in some ways helpful, reassuring, parting the clouds,
not putting you in this place of if you don't
do this, you're already behind, or you're probably already defined.
I mean, I feel like there are a lot of
those headlines and you see that in your brain starts
(19:15):
to shut down because you think, how am I supposed
to take that on on top of everything else. So
I think if we are going to continue to be
the supportive industry that we are, it needs the both
the inside and the outside voices to recognize that we
need to be not just a learning culture, but a
supportive learning culture. Because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
There's a lot just a double quick on the supportive
learning culture. I think that is one of the best
things about this industry. Anyone that's listening, I'd really encourage
you to be truly candid about where do you find
a nurturing environment. Where do you find an industry that
helps build you up not tear you down. And took
a while for me to find this industry again what
(19:54):
we effectually calls as team. But when I started in finance,
I didn't find that the most nurtured environment. It was
not really a learning environment. It took a while for
me to find you know this as home. But I
feel like, you know, certainly there's trade rags and kind
of news organizations, there's subject matter experts, but I also
feel like we learned from our community. You were just
at the MMA learning from your peers, and I think
(20:16):
that is one of the best things about what we
have in this industry, where we are always trying to
help each other out, you know, to the point where
you know now that I'm in more of the entertainment
side of the business. A lot of folks here in
LA and Hollywood, they're always fascinating. Wow, you guys really
like each other. You spend a lot of time together.
You're always talking to each other, and I'm like, yeah,
(20:37):
we like each other. Yeah, we don't really like each
other that much. It's more it's more cutthroat, more zero sum.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, let me tell you something that is so true.
I was talking to a CEO who came as a
guest to this conference, and it was like watching an
anthropologist in a new environment, surveying the landscape. And I'm
standing with him on the buffet line and he turns
to me and he says.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
This industry is very supportive, isn't it. And I said, yes.
It's actually one of the things that I love and
cherish most is I feel a genuine sense of camaraderie
and the learning to the theme of our hot topic
comes from anuine conversation with each other. And he said,
I don't feel like other sectors of business have this,
(21:22):
and I said, I know. And so it is really
one of the things for all of the difficulties and
hardships maybe because of it. There are two ways it
could have gotten Like you said, it could be all
knives out and for some reason, some very magical special reason.
More often than not, this marketing, media, advertising publishing community
(21:42):
tends to when you get within it, really immersed in
it and you commit yourself to it like you and
I have. There's a lot to be gained from those relationships,
and a big part of that is making sure that
we continue to really help each other but also learn
from each other. So in that spirit, we like to
make sure that we're learning about what's on your minds
(22:04):
and trying to answer those questions too. So that's what's
up next.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well, we're back with what's on your mind and we
always want to hear from you, So do let us
know what you're wondering about want us to answer, Just
shoot us a question at ideas at Brandashnew dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Right, and this week's question is from Roco in New
York City. Great New Podcasts. You both have such different
career trajectories and different CMO experiences. Can you talk a
little bit about the differences between big brand CMO roles
and B to B CMO roles and provide advice, tips
and tricks for aspiring B to B cmos. Appreciate the show,
Thanks for doing it. Oh thanks Rocome MRSA. What do
(22:51):
you think as a big brand CMO? What do you
think has been the difference between that B two C
and B to B role.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's a really interesting question. I just want to make
sure from defining it, so B to B means business
to business, B two C business to consumer. I've been
primarily on the really the big as you said, B
two C brand to consumer, business to consumer side. And
the way that I think about this, admittedly not having
(23:18):
spent as much time on one as the other, is
there are the differences in the nuances of the businesses themselves,
and hey, that's been true for me having gone across
different industries. But at the end of the day, the
way I think about it and the way I've talked
to teams about this is you're always trying to connect
(23:40):
with and be successful with an audience. And guess what
that audience is made up of people, And as much
as the goals, needs, et cetera may be different, we're
wired as humans. We want things, we need things. What
does success look like? It's funny. I was having a
conversation just the other day with my communications team, like
(24:03):
the PR team, and I was trying to remind them
that they're marketers. In a sense, they're B to B
marketers because they have to motivate journalists and other media,
and so I said, think of yourself as targeting an
audience like other forms of marketing too.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Exactly right.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Imagine with empathy what they're up against, time pressures, lots
of press releases in their inboxes. So how are you
going to reach them away that makes their life easier,
makes them do their job better. That's actually an example
of B to B marketing, just not normally frame that way.
So for me, that's the way to frame it. Rocco
and anyone else who had this question is at the
(24:43):
end of the day, reduce it to what's essential, which
is that we're talking about humans.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I mean I would maybe disagree a little bit with
how you set it up, but I think we end
up in the same place.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Where Okay, I really don't think.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I don't think there's a difference between B to B
and B two C. I've always spoken about it as
H to H human to human.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Oh that's better, that's better, I admit it.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
But the reality is, you know, these are just kind
of very anachronistic in a digital world. Ultimately, these constructs
don't really make sense because at the end of the day,
it's always going to be a person, whether you are
in the security industry, right, or the tech industry you're
still selling to a chief security officer or you know,
a CISO, whether you're selling to a CFO and you're
(25:26):
doing financial services software, whatever it is, you ultimately need
to understand what motivates them and how do you connect
with them. Again, the brand matters ultimately your value proposition,
but understanding all those human levers and what you're going
to pull to kind of really connect. Whether it's a
pain sale, whether it's a pleasure sale, you really need
to understand how to stand in the shoes and the
pain of your customer, whoever it is, in whatever industry
(25:48):
it is. And so for me, it's almost this construct
that it's a false economy. There really is no difference
between those And again, how you get there. I mean,
I've been a B to B marketer at places like
Data lie Ads and Oracle, Data Cloud and New Star,
but I've also done B two C as well, even
with my own startup. So again, what you said about
understanding the artist is critical and how you get there,
(26:08):
I think even more so in this day and age,
you need to understand audience first. So that was a
great question from one of our listeners. I love our listeners, Marisa.
It just shows the importance of continuous learning, lifelong learning.
And if you like this content, please don't forget to
follow us to the Brand New podcast wherever you listen
to your podcast, so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
We want to hear from you, so let us know
what you're wondering about. You can just email us your
questions at ideas at brand dashnew dot com, or drop
us a question wherever you find us on social.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Leave a rating, leave a comment on Apple podcasts, tell
us how much you like the content that helps spread
the word, feeds the algorithm and until next time, let's
make it brand new
Hi, and welcome to brand New from the iHeart Podcast
Network and Brand New Labs. I'm Marissa Thalberg.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Stephen wolf Paneda. Happy to be back in
La Oh.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Well, so, how was your trip to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Mexico City is amazing. If any listener has not been there,
please go. I mean the food, obviously, the culture. But
this was special. It was a kind of a hybrid
work trip where you know, we're doing stuff for three
pass but at the same time I was able to
bring my family. Marisa so really trying to integrate both
the personal and professional. So my wife Nudia, who's amazing,
(00:44):
and my two awesome kids, Sea Stan and Sienna came.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We have a great family.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It's that kind of prioritization, right. I want to make
sure that my kids get to see what I do,
that they're able to travel the world, be citizens of
the world, tiny travelers if you will. But yeah, it
was great. What about you? What's going on?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Well?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I love that you did that. We talked about that
last time. The importance in our crazy work lives of
integrating and bringing kids along something I feel so strongly about.
I did just take a trip myself this time. I
brought the hobby. I brought David, but no kids along.
On this one, I was at an industry board meeting.
One of the boards I'm on, it's the MMA Global,
(01:21):
which is one of the big industry groups that I
think is really strong because it's all about that's a
great or changes that are happening in marketing. Yeah, it's
really good, and really having a learning agenda and a
research agenda, so that's really powerful. And then I was
followed by their CEO and CMO summit, so it was
in northern California.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
This's go to get you back to California. That's the
universe saying come back to Cali.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I realized it hadn't been in northern California in a while,
so it was nice to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Of course, the best part is just.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Being reconnected with our peers in our industry and living
in Charlotte right now, it's not a bastion of our industry,
so that sense of camaraderie, real person connection is just
an unbelievable source of energy for me. But the learning
part was great too.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
What'd you learn?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, there was a lot, and some of it was
presented both within our board meeting, and then also talked
about on the stage in the summit lots of different
projects that are trying to really get at these key
key issues that we face as marketers and in this
broader world of team the way we've been talking about
so of course very inclusive of technology for sure, advertising media, marketing,
(02:31):
maybe a little less on the entertainment side, but some
For me, the one that really stuck out is this
big piece of research that's really trying to corroborate this
idea of brand as performance. And I got to explain, like,
so what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah? Please, what's the difference?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, So for anyone who is in a marketer listening,
let me tell you what we've done to ourselves. That's uh,
and I say down to ourselves because it feels a
little self inflicted. Is we call a part of marketing
performance which is really really bad branding and we're supposed
to be good branding. And what it means is the
(03:08):
parts that you think of as further along the purchase journey.
Sometimes we call this the low funnel part. So if
I am searching for something in Google and then I
see the ad for what I'm searching for, and I
click on that ad and I buy it looks really
really good in terms of how that ad performed. So
we think of.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
That I did everything right, there was nothing else involved.
Would that be last touch attribution?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Lie is the problem? Right? We give that the credit
for all the heavy lifting, and that's not how our
brains work and our minds and our hearts work. And
so then you have something that must be on the
other side of performance, and we've put brand on the
other side. And if you call something the opposite of performance,
what are you essentially employing that it's not performance. This
is a very, very, very bad structure we've created. So
(03:52):
first of all, we've got to reframe this whole thing
as an industry. Feel so passionately about that, because brand
is not a bad word. Brand is a really good word.
We buy brands, we connect to brands, we badge ourselves
with brands, and even what we call brand marketing is
some of the most effective marketing that there can be.
We just haven't had the right measurement in all cases.
(04:14):
This is a big, heavy piece of research, and I
wish we could all just snap our fingers and replicate it.
But boy, did it show what you'd expect that some
of the kind of marketing that we have maybe not
been as committed to in certain shall we say, industries
where there's just pressure to get to that bottom line
so fast. We're seeing the longer term effects and it's
(04:37):
not like long long term, just not immediate term like
we call it midterm or that is where the value
creation comes from.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
The irony is for a group of marketers, we do
a really bad job of marketing. All the wonderful things
that we do. We very purposely called our podcast brand New, right,
And for me, you know, I've always loved brand. I
mean a brand. You know, it's a person's perception of
a product, a service, and experience, an organization, a company.
(05:07):
It's it is all about brand. When you talk to
a CEO, guess what they care about their brand? Right?
You're always reading the Wall Street Journal. You know the
brand took a hit. I mean obviously when a brand
makes a mistake, you know, it actually damages the company.
You lose sales. So brands are paramount. I almost feel
like marketing is really a tactic that ladders up. I mean,
(05:27):
you were a chief brand officer, right, So I mean
for me, it really is all about brand. But we
have to figure out a way to kind of get
out of this brand versus performance. It's a false academy.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Can I tell you something. I've had the titles of
chief Marketing Officer, chief brand Officer when that was considered
a promotion inclusive of marketing. I've had a title that
was chief brand and Marketing Officer. To try to delineate
the two or say that they both matter, I guess
I prefer that interpretation. I've had brand not in the title.
(05:57):
It's it's just I don't know, I don't know what
that all means about how variable the definitions are. If
we're just I've tried not to think too much about it,
but when the rubber meets the road in the work,
it matters. It really really matters. As that really does it,
Steve and I would just add that there's such short
termism in industry right now, and whether you're in an
(06:21):
upstart company that has to quickly show growth or whether
you in a public company that is the pressure of
those quarterly earnings and boy oh boy, those are intense,
and how do we get out of this mindset of
not just measuring the ease You.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Can just do it all in ninety days, right, that's
all you need to actually turn around the company, turn
around a brand. I mean, look, this whole idea of
being short term it actually permeates every aspect of society.
I feel like our attention spans continue to dwindle. But
the reality is as a public company, there's a whole
movement actually to get out of the quarterly reporting, right,
because the whole idea of you really being able to
(06:56):
move the needle, it's really harmful to a company. There's
actually a handful of tech companies where the founders actually
have dual class share structures where they're you know, kind
of a shares. They actually have the super voting rights
so they actually control the company, and then the B
shares are the ones that you know, investors in the
public markets can buy, but they're the ones that actually
set the terms and they could say, yeah, you know what,
(07:18):
we're not going to give guidance or we're going to
focus in the long term. We have a ten year
vision that is very few and four between. But the
whole idea of having this short term focus, it actually
it's harmful to both brands as well as businesses.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Wasn't that cool last episode when we had Justin Smith,
a CEO of someophore on and he was talking about
almost the universal commitment between their staff, their leadership team,
and their investors all locking arms and saying, this is
a ten year journey. That blew me away because it's
just not Patience is not a virtue and it should
(07:52):
be in business. But it's tough because we all are
pressured against deliver tomorrow, delivered tomorrow, delivered today, and sometimes
that's achievable, but sometimes the things that will really turn
a company around. I mean, we're not going to get
into the hole because it's had its moment already, the
whole Barbie thing. But I think we should acknowledge that
that didn't happen overnight either. I was talking to an
(08:13):
industry friend who said, hey, I was part of planting
those seeds eight years ago. Maybe he said even longer.
I actually think he did. Maybe he said it was
something like twice that. So you know, we just forget that,
you know, the old it took me years to be
an overnight success. There's a little bit of fact. So
what missing in the way we talk about what works
(08:36):
in marketing and that brand is a part of that,
and it's not fluff, and it's not extraneous, and it's
not a nice to do. It's actually fundamental. And what
I appreciate about the MMA is just trying to find
the tools and the measurement to substantiate that, because that's
a missing link.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But what you were talking about is truly learning, and
I think this is exactly what we want to get into.
So up next is going to be our hot topic.
Stay tuned, and we're back ready to talk about the
hot topic for this episode. So Marisa, it's back to
school time. I think in LA next week, folks are
(09:13):
getting ready to get back to school. I know my
kids are going back at the end of August. But
from marketers, back to school is almost like a time
period that you put on the calendar. I would love
to take it in a different direction. How are we learning?
How do we as marketers, as executives, as professionals, How
are we going back to school? It's something that I'm
very passionate about because I believe in being a lifelong learner. Certainly,
(09:36):
coming out of your MMA Global Summit, how are you
thinking about this idea of lifelong learning and what are
you doing to always keep on learning.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
I love that we're spitting back to school this way.
I do because when you grow up in school, it's
a dichotomy. You're a teacher or you're a student. It's
this one way exchange of learning. And of course, what
we've realiz as adults, more so now than ever in
the professional world, is it's a virtuous cycle that continues.
(10:07):
And I think that is a really interesting reminder for
everyone that no matter how far advanced we get in
our careers, and you and I are somewhat advanced to
our careers at this point.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah, I've got some of the grace to prove it.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So same my friend, that you are still a student.
You have to continuously be learning, and then you're teaching,
and then you're learning. And that idea of it being
continuous is really really important because our world is changing
so much, so there's absolutely no way to survive and
(10:40):
thrive if you're going to be static about it. It's
intimidating though, because there's so much to figure out. I
harken back to my days when I started at the
Estay Laughter Company, and I was very intimidated to take
on a role that was supposed to teach the organization
about how to move into what was then kind of
the early days of digital and social marketing, so early
(11:03):
that when I started, it wasn't even yet called social media.
Just to put a bit of a time stamp on it.
And what I realized is that was gonna be my process.
That I didn't have to have years of historic knowledge
on it, because it didn't even have years of historic knowledge.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It was just.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
About taking it in, trying to do my best to
parse it and what does it mean? How do you
interpret it for your company was the important part. So
that idea of being student teacher, that constant cycle, I
think really hit me hard then, and I've tried to
take that with me specifically as i've moved different industries.
Of course, I've had to learn the industries figure it out.
(11:40):
So I'm gonna throw it now over to you. Okay,
sounds great, but there's so much out there. Yeah, how
do you do it? Who are you learning from?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
For me, I truly believe in the quote never stop learning,
because life never stops teaching. I just feel that I've
always been this kind of learn it all approach versus
this know it all. I think it's really important to
distinguish those two, and that starts from my upbringing. My
parents were teachers. I feel like in the Latino household,
(12:11):
you're always taught that education is the one thing they
can never take away from you, and so just really
understanding how to be passionately curious. And also for me,
it was the It was the kind of thing where
I had to learn on my own because my parents
didn't really know the educational system or they didn't really
know about these industries. So I really felt like I
was almost in like the Sims video game where it
(12:32):
was all dark and I was just trying to like,
you know, go into a new corner of the world
and learn about it. So I was just always voracious.
I mean, obviously there was no Internet when we were
growing up, but just trying to understand about industries, and
I think that's part of the reason why I was
always interested in just kind of trying to understand all
these different angles to what is ultimately where we are today.
(12:53):
You know, I worked a bit in finance, I worked
a bit in technology and advertising again, all the team
industries that we talk about. But for me, I feel
like my learning approach has also been you know, kind
of segmented across those different buckets. I feel like there's
organizations that are news organizations that you're going to trust
their information. So whether it's the New York Times, Wall
(13:14):
Street Journal, Financial Times, you know, I do that for
like my business information. Then there's like world events. There's
certainly things like Semaphore or The Economist.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I read obviously a lot about technology, so I love
the information or you know, the Verge tech Crunch. But
then I've also curated individuals and I feel like that
is where we're going this whole idea of fragmentation and media.
You've also had fragmentation and education, and I feel like
where people are learning are from subject matter experts. So
I think about everything that's happening, you know, kind of
(13:43):
in web three. You know, no, it's not dead, it's
just evolving. But I read a lot from Chris Dixon,
who's a partner at Juries and Horowitz, right. I really
try to seek out folks that are either the practitioners
the operators that are doing the work so they could
actually help teach me something about that area that discipline.
But how are you approaching kind of different folks that
you learn from.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I think The hard part of articulating it is it's
not so conscious and deliberate anymore. They're definitely outlets that
I rely on. Some of what you named in terms
of general news publishers, industry publishers like an Adweek and
Adage of Forbes Fast Company. For me, that I subscribe
(14:24):
to doesn't mean every time I open I get their email.
I open it because so time starved. But I look
there for headlines, and if I see something important, I
think those come to me in a very choiceful way.
But the rest is way more ambient. Right now, it's
about who do I follow that I think is interesting,
(14:45):
what they're curating, and oftentimes a lot of that learning
is coming through my LinkedIn newsfeed or maybe even some
other social channels feeds based on who I follow and
what they post. And so there's that curating the curated
and cherry picking from that what strikes my interest, which
means it's not organized for me. And there's something both
(15:08):
really great and really challenging about that in terms of
making sure that I'm getting to what I really need
to know, particularly through the lens of learning from my
job and for my industry and how to make us
better so it is a blessing and a curse. There's
so much that you're relying on different ways of getting
(15:29):
to it. But there are lots of people that I
learn from and that I trust, just like you named
a couple. And also some of them are not deep reads.
They are more just thoughts that inspire me. Like Adam Grant,
the famous Wharton professor, who I mean, he's really done
a great job just distilling these thought starters into sound
bites that he posts on multiple channels, and sometimes they
(15:50):
have a great piece of data. So sometimes it's not
about a deep reed. Sometimes it's just about learning through
how someone provokes your thinking. In other times, it's like, Okay,
who's going to really teach me about a new topic
like AI because everyone's pontificating about it and it's overwhelming,
and it's now ten o'clock at night and I just
stopped working or you know, started to do something else.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Now this is night school.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
That's a problem. That's the problem, and I want to
talk about that because I think we should address what
keeps people from learning.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, well, first off, you're you're hitting on something which
is really important, because I feel that what keeps people
from learning is both personal and kind of structural, right.
I mean, on the one hand, you have to not
be afraid to put yourself out there. I remember when
I was at Publicity's and I had lots of you know,
kind of fortune one hundred cmos. They would bring me
(16:43):
into their office behind closed doors and they would say,
I don't understand data. Can you teach me?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And you know, I was like the data guy, so
really helping folks get out of their comfort zone. But
there was this fear of looking dumb in front of
their teams. For any listener that's hearing this, if you're
kind of early in your career or mid level, the
boss doesn't necessarily know everything. There is this level of
almost imposter syndrome. As you see all these new technologies
come out, they don't know. So back to that learn
(17:10):
it all culture. You see a lot of folks wanting
to learn these things, and you have to have the
card to say, hey, I don't know. And the truth
of the matter is, as you get more senior in
your career, as you get into the C suite, you
are not going to be able to be the subject
matter expert. You become more of a general manager. So
you need to have experts on your team or partners
like agencies or you know, other companies that are going
(17:32):
to help you learn these things. But I think the
other thing that prevents people from learning is actually structural.
It's actually the companies. You know, they don't give you
the ability because of back to short termism, you're not
going to be able to learn these things. And by
the way, AI is just the flavor of maybe not
the month, maybe it's the decade. But the reality is
there's always going to be something new. I mean back
in the day you had to learn mobile, right that
(17:54):
you were learning and helping everyone learn about digital and
so there's always going to be something new. But back
to the ructual environment, how does your company become a
learning organization? And the truth of the matter is most
folks aren't instilling the ability for your team, your company
or leaders to keep on learning.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Look, that is so true. And as much as sometimes
companies talk the talk, will they walk the walk in
terms of prioritizing that when there's so much pressure in
the business, and lots of businesses have lots of pressure,
So how do we not make that a luxury but
see that as the same kind of investment almost like
what you're talking about in brand. Come to think of it,
(18:30):
I'll just say one more thing on this, which is
a bit of a call to action to those out
there who are the teachers in our industry and the
pundits and the writers. Is in a world of clickbait
that we mock, don't give into it in terms of
fear mongering and make it overwhelmingly daunting for people to
(18:54):
jump in and learn. I mean, these complicated topics need
voices that are in some ways helpful, reassuring, parting the clouds,
not putting you in this place of if you don't
do this, you're already behind, or you're probably already defined.
I mean, I feel like there are a lot of
those headlines and you see that in your brain starts
(19:15):
to shut down because you think, how am I supposed
to take that on on top of everything else. So
I think if we are going to continue to be
the supportive industry that we are, it needs the both
the inside and the outside voices to recognize that we
need to be not just a learning culture, but a
supportive learning culture. Because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
There's a lot just a double quick on the supportive
learning culture. I think that is one of the best
things about this industry. Anyone that's listening, I'd really encourage
you to be truly candid about where do you find
a nurturing environment. Where do you find an industry that
helps build you up not tear you down. And took
a while for me to find this industry again what
(19:54):
we effectually calls as team. But when I started in finance,
I didn't find that the most nurtured environment. It was
not really a learning environment. It took a while for
me to find you know this as home. But I
feel like, you know, certainly there's trade rags and kind
of news organizations, there's subject matter experts, but I also
feel like we learned from our community. You were just
at the MMA learning from your peers, and I think
(20:16):
that is one of the best things about what we
have in this industry, where we are always trying to
help each other out, you know, to the point where
you know now that I'm in more of the entertainment
side of the business. A lot of folks here in
LA and Hollywood, they're always fascinating. Wow, you guys really
like each other. You spend a lot of time together.
You're always talking to each other, and I'm like, yeah,
(20:37):
we like each other. Yeah, we don't really like each
other that much. It's more it's more cutthroat, more zero sum.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Well, let me tell you something that is so true.
I was talking to a CEO who came as a
guest to this conference, and it was like watching an
anthropologist in a new environment, surveying the landscape. And I'm
standing with him on the buffet line and he turns
to me and he says.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
This industry is very supportive, isn't it. And I said, yes.
It's actually one of the things that I love and
cherish most is I feel a genuine sense of camaraderie
and the learning to the theme of our hot topic
comes from anuine conversation with each other. And he said,
I don't feel like other sectors of business have this,
(21:22):
and I said, I know. And so it is really
one of the things for all of the difficulties and
hardships maybe because of it. There are two ways it
could have gotten Like you said, it could be all
knives out and for some reason, some very magical special reason.
More often than not, this marketing, media, advertising publishing community
(21:42):
tends to when you get within it, really immersed in
it and you commit yourself to it like you and
I have. There's a lot to be gained from those relationships,
and a big part of that is making sure that
we continue to really help each other but also learn
from each other. So in that spirit, we like to
make sure that we're learning about what's on your minds
(22:04):
and trying to answer those questions too. So that's what's
up next.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well, we're back with what's on your mind and we
always want to hear from you, So do let us
know what you're wondering about want us to answer, Just
shoot us a question at ideas at Brandashnew dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Right, and this week's question is from Roco in New
York City. Great New Podcasts. You both have such different
career trajectories and different CMO experiences. Can you talk a
little bit about the differences between big brand CMO roles
and B to B CMO roles and provide advice, tips
and tricks for aspiring B to B cmos. Appreciate the show,
Thanks for doing it. Oh thanks Rocome MRSA. What do
(22:51):
you think as a big brand CMO? What do you
think has been the difference between that B two C
and B to B role.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's a really interesting question. I just want to make
sure from defining it, so B to B means business
to business, B two C business to consumer. I've been
primarily on the really the big as you said, B
two C brand to consumer, business to consumer side. And
the way that I think about this, admittedly not having
(23:18):
spent as much time on one as the other, is
there are the differences in the nuances of the businesses themselves,
and hey, that's been true for me having gone across
different industries. But at the end of the day, the
way I think about it and the way I've talked
to teams about this is you're always trying to connect
(23:40):
with and be successful with an audience. And guess what
that audience is made up of people, And as much
as the goals, needs, et cetera may be different, we're
wired as humans. We want things, we need things. What
does success look like? It's funny. I was having a
conversation just the other day with my communications team, like
(24:03):
the PR team, and I was trying to remind them
that they're marketers. In a sense, they're B to B
marketers because they have to motivate journalists and other media,
and so I said, think of yourself as targeting an
audience like other forms of marketing too.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Exactly right.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Imagine with empathy what they're up against, time pressures, lots
of press releases in their inboxes. So how are you
going to reach them away that makes their life easier,
makes them do their job better. That's actually an example
of B to B marketing, just not normally frame that way.
So for me, that's the way to frame it. Rocco
and anyone else who had this question is at the
(24:43):
end of the day, reduce it to what's essential, which
is that we're talking about humans.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I mean I would maybe disagree a little bit with
how you set it up, but I think we end
up in the same place.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Where Okay, I really don't think.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I don't think there's a difference between B to B
and B two C. I've always spoken about it as
H to H human to human.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Oh that's better, that's better, I admit it.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
But the reality is, you know, these are just kind
of very anachronistic in a digital world. Ultimately, these constructs
don't really make sense because at the end of the day,
it's always going to be a person, whether you are
in the security industry, right, or the tech industry you're
still selling to a chief security officer or you know,
a CISO, whether you're selling to a CFO and you're
(25:26):
doing financial services software, whatever it is, you ultimately need
to understand what motivates them and how do you connect
with them. Again, the brand matters ultimately your value proposition,
but understanding all those human levers and what you're going
to pull to kind of really connect. Whether it's a
pain sale, whether it's a pleasure sale, you really need
to understand how to stand in the shoes and the
pain of your customer, whoever it is, in whatever industry
(25:48):
it is. And so for me, it's almost this construct
that it's a false economy. There really is no difference
between those And again, how you get there. I mean,
I've been a B to B marketer at places like
Data lie Ads and Oracle, Data Cloud and New Star,
but I've also done B two C as well, even
with my own startup. So again, what you said about
understanding the artist is critical and how you get there,
(26:08):
I think even more so in this day and age,
you need to understand audience first. So that was a
great question from one of our listeners. I love our listeners, Marisa.
It just shows the importance of continuous learning, lifelong learning.
And if you like this content, please don't forget to
follow us to the Brand New podcast wherever you listen
to your podcast, so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
We want to hear from you, so let us know
what you're wondering about. You can just email us your
questions at ideas at brand dashnew dot com, or drop
us a question wherever you find us on social.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Leave a rating, leave a comment on Apple podcasts, tell
us how much you like the content that helps spread
the word, feeds the algorithm and until next time, let's
make it brand new
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