June 11, 2020 • 40 mins
From Estee Lauder to Taco Bell to now EVP, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at Lowe’s, Marisa Thalberg hasn’t had the most obvious career path. But when you’re as creative as she is, it’s easy to connect those dots! (Did you realize that Taco Bell markets like a fashion brand?) Tune in to hear Marisa and Bob discuss how writing plays as a second-grader shaped her schooling, why she started the “Executive Moms” blog, and the simple reason she’s been championing audio as a vital marketing tool for years. Plus, discover how she’s ushered Lowe’s through a period of growth during this pandemic while showcasing the company’s spirit.
[Interview recorded on May 19.]
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production I Heart Radio.
My favorite thing we did recently was for Mother's Day.
We recognize that there are a lot of mothers but
weren't going to have the opportunity of physical contact with
the loved ones. And at the same time, we know
that small businesses have been impacted, so we partnered with
(00:23):
some of the small growers. We purchased a million dollars
worth of flowering plants. Then we went to Uber and said, hey,
can we help support your drivers and we had Uber
drivers deliver these flowering plants to senior living facilities across
the country, particularly in cities that were hard hit to me.
That's how a brand with a heart celebrates Mother's Day
(00:46):
at a time like this. Hi'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to
Math and Magic. Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing Today.
On another one of our work from Home episodes, we
(01:07):
have someone who has seen marketing from the client and
agency side, who has worked in many dramatically different sectors
and it's even left marketing a few times to be
an entrepreneur. She has great stories and unique insights. She's
now the CMO of Lowe's Marissa Thalbern. Marissa is at
(01:33):
one of the few companies that's actually growing through the
pandemic and is providing an essential service and a focus
on the part of life we're all focused on now
our home. Marissa grew up in New York Bronx Science
grad which means that she was really a smart kid.
After an impressive Ivy League experience, she hit the ground
running ad agencies, TV production, her own blog for executive Moms,
(01:57):
and on the client side, her marketing ex variants fans
a surprising wide range of companies Revlon Calvin, Klein Cosmetics,
Estate Lauder, and Taco Bell. She even sang cabaret in
New York City. She's a role model and a mentor
too many, a big think or a marketing and a
good friend. Marissa, welcome, Thank you, Bob. What an intro?
My goodness. Well we're gonna get into all of that,
(02:21):
but first, I want to do you in sixty seconds
to get going. You ready to go? I think? So?
Do you prefer sunrise or sunset? Sunset California or New
York Tide? Mets are Yankees, Mets, beach or mountains beach,
Corn tortillas or flower tortillas? Corn, Casa Lupa or Nacho fries.
(02:42):
Oh man, that's like choosing children. I will say, Casa lupa.
It's about to get harder. Smartest person you know besides you. Oh,
I love that childhood, he wrote my parents. First job,
first real real draw was being an assistant account executive
in a big ad agency. Last book, you read the
(03:05):
Dutch House favorite app. I think I would be lost
without ever note secret tempt. I think people would be surprised.
I'm really good at puzzles. I'll bet you're getting a
lot of use out of that. Right now, poolside cocktail,
a nice fresh prozen mohito. And what did you want
to be when you were growing up? An actress or
(03:25):
a lawyer. Let's get into the meat of it right now. So,
during your tenure, Taco Bell achieved record sales growth, the
highest passion index among fans of any brand in the
restaurant industry, and was the second fastest growing brand in
the US, following only Netflix. How did that prepare you
for lows and this COVID nineteen pandemic change in the
(03:46):
American consumer? I think because I've had the benefit of
doing things that you know, people look at and think
we're bold or unusual, and I don't know that I
saw them so much that way. It was my curiosity,
in my sense of opportunity and taking on a really
interesting new challenge that enabled me to go from some
(04:06):
of the things I had done earlier in my career,
to then moving onto beauty, to being a digital leader
when I didn't necessarily see myself as a digital leader,
to then being able to make a massive industry shift
with Taco Ball, and now going to LOWS. I think
all those things have taught me how to really lead
with an agile mind and connect dots that aren't obvious,
(04:28):
and I think that's one of the greatest joys I've
found as my career has progressed as a marketer and
as a leaders. When you've just done the same thing
your whole career, you have a lot of expertise, but
it doesn't necessarily give you other perspectives that allow you to,
you know, view the world in a different way. And
so I really felt that that was the perspective I
(04:50):
was going to bring to LOWS. I come in with
a sense of humility, like I'm clearly not coming in
as a longstanding home improvement industry expert. And that's okay,
because if you counterbalance all the people that do have
that with a totally fresh way of approaching the brand
and creating a real connection with with people, which is
(05:11):
our job, then I feel very equipped for it. Of course,
none of us were really prepared for a crisis of
this magnitude personally or professionally, but again, having to learn
and on board the company three thousand miles away in
a zoom, I just said to myself early on, I
just have to think of this as another test of leadership.
Let's jump into that point. You obviously had a plan
(05:33):
for Lows coming in. How did that plan change in
this pandemic? In a couple of ways. I think that
my plan was to be a little bit more sequential
in how I tackled things in an ordinary assimilation process.
As a big executive, you want to really take the
time to listen and to learn and to ingest everything
(05:54):
and have it tumble around in there and start jotting
your notes and putting it together into a vision and
a plan. And I didn't have the luxury of time
to do that as much as I would have liked,
so it round up being very much like a parallel
path of still having to do that assessment, but also
immediately having to triage the work that was already in
(06:17):
place because the world was changing so quickly and so profoundly,
and what would have been perfectly acceptable and relevant a
week earlier was suddenly now potentially risking being just totally
toned up or wrong. Everything's changing quickly. How do you
track the change in consumer sentiment and the needs of
(06:37):
the consumer that are changing this quickly and this radically.
You know, I can tell you there's tons of data sources,
and there are, and I would say we're absolutely looking
at all those, But you know, I think part of
the reason we're in our roles is because you better
have a certain intuition and instinct for how this is
all playing out and from the signals you're just seeing
in culture, in media, and you've got to put that
(06:58):
all together to be able to make decisions in the moment,
which is really what we were doing. I mean, this
really was a first in terms of how truncated this
all was. Where I would be working on some new
creative so new to the brand, and then feeling like
even a few days later, suddenly some of the nuance
of that that felt right just a few days ago
(07:19):
suddenly wasn't so right. And I think now it's getting
a little bit more elongated. But this what I would
call it, maybe the first four to six weeks of
this crisis being so prominent in the United States was
very much an exercise of trying to scramble and and
figure it out. And I think there's now been a
lot written about the sameness of certain advertising that's come out,
(07:42):
and and I agree with that, but I also have
a certain amount of empathy because if you think about it,
we were all operating on the same insight. You were
an early advocate of audio. You've now seized the lead
and share a voice in audio. First time I can
remember in this category, why is audio important? And what
does radio do that TV or digital don't. I will
(08:04):
tell you that for a significant chapter of my career
in the two thousands, let's say, in a little beyond,
I guess I found myself being an early digital marketing leader,
which I found amusing because I always thought of myself
as a marketer, but marketing was becoming digital. So my
question even back then was, well, why isn't everyone a
(08:24):
digital marketer? But there was that era where you had
to lead it by kind of owning it, and so
I found myself kind of being a bit of a
bias champion for certain channels. And then when I was
in a CMO role, I had the ability to be
agnostic again and not just be champion digital but really
(08:45):
saying I want to look holistically and champion what works.
And audio also has a really interesting and important place
in It was in our channel mix for Taco About,
and it's for sure a big part of our channel
mix at Loews. And I think it's because there's an
intimacy that comes from the experience of how people connect
to music or how they want to listen to news,
(09:08):
and I think right now the voices of audio are
particularly important. I mean, there is really a sense of
having companionship and feeling like you know those people and
they're really in some ways talking to you, and when
we're all at sheltering in place and feeling isolated. While
on the one hand, audio has been known to be
a very out of home, on the go medium and
we've loved it for that reason, especially with our professional customers,
(09:31):
but I still think there's a role for just you know,
that sense of relationship and the trust that you feel
with those people. That's one of my favorite parts of
working in this medium. It's interesting you're on that point.
You know, research is showing right now that the consumers
are reevaluating brands during this pandemic and they're favoring the
ones that have a mission to help the community. How
(09:53):
is that factoring into your marketing plans and what are
you doing to address that? Let me back up and
saying that the outset of this crisis really hitting. One
thing was clear is that we had to change what
we were doing, but not everyone knew exactly how I
raised what I felt were a few key tenants of
(10:14):
what was the right way to connect and communicate as
a brand in time of crisis, and one of them
was being much more about the relationship than the selling,
and another was making sure we spoke with relevance and
usefulness that if there's a role for our brand to
be heard at this time, people want and need us
to be heard. And you think about brands as the
(10:36):
new authorities of trust, even over political leaders. And that's
not a partisan statement. It's actually been proven out through
the data. Sort of a bit of a commentary on
the state of our world, that we actually looked to
brands as authority figures, and that means that if we
deliver on that trust, it's really quite magnificent, and if
we don't, it can be conversely, really quite a betrayal.
(10:58):
And that lastly, it is a I'm a social responsibility.
And I look back on the work that we then
did over just the next four weeks and purposefully or not,
we checked all those boxes and I'm really proud of
that because it takes a lot to swing an organization
the size of a lows you know. You know, it's
interesting big businesses are valued. Again, how does that play
(11:20):
into your marketing thinking? You know the advantage of a
big brand as you tend to have the ability to
have a bigger voice. So I guess, tied to what
I said previously, you have the power of a large
media sandbox to play and you just have to how
you choose to do it is up to you. This
was not a time to go yell and scream promotions,
(11:40):
really a time to reflect on what home means to people,
to mirror the way in which homes were, you know,
quickly being transformed in terms of living rooms becoming offices
and garages becoming gyms, and it's just so relatable. And
then using our social channels to create content that that
reflects even further and gives people examples and showcases users
(12:03):
who are doing creative things. And so, you know, that
sense of just being able to have a shared experience
and connect over that even through broadcast media, but also
through social when everyone's living these individualistic lives, I think
becomes a real opportunity for a brand like ours. And
then the reason why we've stayed open through this period
is that, you know, we are an essential retailer and
(12:25):
consider that two thirds of what we sell as non discretionary.
So there's the inspirational side of home improvement, which I love,
but then the very real fact that if you're running
a household right now and your dishwasher breaks, it's really
important that you get a dishwasher a washing machine to
keep your home running smoothly and with cleanliness. So making
(12:46):
sure that people understood that we were there for them
through all that. My favorite thing we did recently was
for Mother's Day. On Mother's Day, instead of just doing
traditional Mother's Day marketing, we did something very different as
we recognize that there are a lot of mothers, particularly
seniors who you know, if they're in a senior living facility,
(13:07):
this is a time where the you know, the social
distancing is particularly strict because of the health ramifications and
so likelihood as they weren't going to have the opportunity
of physical contact with the loved ones. And at the
same time, we know that small businesses have been impacted
by this period. So to me, this was a real
win win where we partnered with some of the small
growers UM that might be hurting a little bit. We
(13:30):
purchased a million dollars worth flowering plants. Then we went
to Uber and said, hey, can we help support your
drivers who we know are hurting business wise? And Uber
helped facilitate it, and we had Uber drivers deliver these
flowering plants to senior living facilities across the country, particularly
in cities that were hard hit, and brought some joy
(13:51):
to um mother's, grandmothers and some motherly figures all around
the country. That to me, that's how a brand with
Heart celebrates Mother's Day at a time like this. Before
we dig into your career some more, I want to
go back in time you grew up in Queens, New
York City during the seventies and eighties. Can you paint
a picture of that world, what was important to you
(14:14):
and the influences on you? Oh? Wow, I can. It
was very lucky to have to extremely devoted, loving parents.
I had a combination of a public school education and
a private school education. I'm grateful for both. I learned
(14:34):
a lot from both my parents. But I think the
funny thing is I was driven and they didn't even
necessarily know why, because they didn't think that they pushed
me terribly hard. But I just had that driving instinct
to get straight a's, to figure out my future, and
so a lot of that was just really self propelled.
(14:55):
What was it in your environment that propelled you? Were
your parents that way or was that you? Just because
it's you. I'll be vulnerable and tell a personal story
that I don't think i've ever shared. Is So I
was in the local public school in Queens, and I
was the kid that was getting straight a's. And in
second grade I was writing plays and casting my you know,
(15:17):
fellow second graders in it. And in third grade I
started to get bullied a bit. The principle of the
school told my parents that maybe they should tell me
to stop being so creative, that maybe i'd fit in better.
And that was such a horrific answer to my mother
that my mother, who was the product of two public
school teachers herself, realized they had to do something different
(15:40):
for me, and they pulled me out of public school
and put me in private school. You know, like any
kid who has an experience like that, it was it
was a little bit scarring, but I wound up having
just an extraordinary experience at this private school Buckley on
Long Island that I went to, and then I went
to this giant, albeit magnet high school called Bronxide side.
These like wildly different school experiences. And you know, when
(16:02):
you're young, and I'm raising two teenagers right now, it's
so hard to feel comfortable being yourself. I think that
only comes much later. And my mom was just to
this day will always be the most unabashedly authentic person
I know. And I think one of the gifts of
age and experience and rising in leadership is I think
I've gotten much more confident just being that way, being
(16:23):
truly and unapologetically myself, um and allowing that to influence
my leadership style, and I think some ways that really
actually build closeness as opposed to distance. You were talking
about your creativity when you were young, and you started
out with an interest after college and film, TV and production,
(16:44):
but instead of doing all that, you jump to advertising.
Why advertising? What was it that captured you? So they're
very few times in your life where you can actually
picture yourself standing at at a fork in the road
and seeing to pass and try I figure out which
to pick. But that point, right at the edge of
college going into my professional career was one of them.
(17:07):
My career in audio actually started in college where Brown
had this fantastic commercial radio station that was nationally known,
and I did the news. It was pretty amazing. I
was a college student and I covered elections interview at
the Governor of Rhode Island. I loved it. But then
I also had this rising appreciation for marketing, and I
had done a great internship in advertising, and so I
(17:28):
had a chance to go interview with the TV station
in Plattsburgh, New York, which is up by Niagara Falls.
I was told that the weather man at the station
worked at McDonald's part time and make ends meet. And
then I also had an opportunity to go work in
advertising in New York City, which was home where I
felt socially, I'd be happier and I could dress up
and go to work and and frankly be with my
(17:50):
mom because my father died suddenly in college and that
was a very traumatic experience for all of us. And
so I chose the advertising in the New York path
And a few years later I did wind up doing
a stint in broadcast journalism because I guess I hadn't
totally gotten it out of my system. But it's just
funny how it all comes back and connects, and I
(18:11):
realized how much of my job today is about being
a communicator and packaging information. But that was a real
fork in the road moment. You started on the agency side,
and you had a pretty impressive career there Saci and Sacchi,
J W. T. Tarlow, clients like J and J. Claire
all Revlon, and then you made the jump to the
(18:31):
client side at Calvin Clin Cosmetics. Why agency to client?
I knew I wanted to be on the client side
because I wanted that sense of real ownership and stewardship
of the totality of brands it's just so funny when
you're young and ambitious, like I was thirty. I was
now head of global advertising at Calvin Clin Cosmetics side
(18:52):
a big team, but it was just a chance to really,
I think, have influence, which was important to me, and
to be able to bring a combination of skills. But
I'll tell you a lot of my twenties was very
angsty about why was I in this business world when
I was really a creative person at heart? Because I
wound up in the what was the strategy side, and
(19:14):
back then, being an account management was they didn't have
planners yet, so you were like the strategic person and
I did love that, but I also had this bizarre,
we're a little bit of a nagging sense of resentment
that there were people actually named creatives in the building
and I wasn't one of them. And I felt like
I wanted to walk around with a big sign around
my next saying no, I'm really a creative too. So
(19:35):
I really struggled early in my professional life trying to
reconcile who I was that way, like, couldn't I still
be a creative person but really on this very professional track?
And I think it's only later as I advanced to
my career that I feel really good that it is integrated.
But in those early days, it felt like I had
made this weird choice and I wasn't totally comfortable with it.
(19:58):
You've had this analytical side going and you were struggling
with your self perception of a creative person. What did
you learn though, on the agency side that when you
got to the clients side, realized they gave you an edge. Well,
I've said this before and I'll say it again. What
I always have been drawn to about this world of
marketing is this really cool intersection of psychology, culture slash
(20:22):
pop culture, and business. I like all those things in
different ways, and and the alchemy of that and putting
that together is interesting to me. And agencies are good
at that when they're at their best. Agencies are good
at kind of mining what's happening in society and culture
and then coming up with ideas. So I love that.
(20:43):
I was twenty five and I had the claral account
and I don't know why I was empowered to do this,
but I was the one writing like a whole portfolio
strategy for how all the brands would fit together. And
I just I really did love that part, and to
this day, I still find that kind of work really
fun and really interesting. You know, we're talking earlier about audio.
You were probably one of the first to sort of
(21:06):
recognize this renaissance of audio and as you talk about
companionship and and other aspects of it that other media
doesn't provide and has a unique place in the mix.
But you were an early expert on digital. Where did
that come from. The role that put me on a
stage as one of the early client pioneers of digital
(21:26):
was when I started at the Estay Later Companies in
two thousand and seven as the first corporate head of
digital marketing. And just to put a little bit of
a time stamp on this, two thousand and seven, we
didn't even yet say social media, So just thinking about that,
my earliest presentations were kind of preaching this idea of
something called web two point oh was coming, which was
(21:47):
social media. So it's just kind of amazing, like two
thousand and seven is forever ago, but also really not
that long ago. And when I got hired for the job,
I'll be honest, I mean, you put on a brave face,
but I wasn't even sure if I should have that job.
Yet I had done things that led me, of course,
to get hired from back in my early days at
(22:08):
Calvin Klein, starting first interactive marketing there literally when the
CEO said to me, this internet thing seems pretty important.
We should have a strategy. I kid you not. Those
were her exact words, and that's how I started my
journey of digital marketing and then founding my own website
and content platform, Executive Moms. Before anyone talked about curating content,
(22:29):
it was just something I felt I wanted to do,
to go into a multi channel business as head of
marketing and getting into the intricacies of how you can
use other media to drive ecommerce. So I became self
taught because it was where marketing was going and I
had a real curiosity and appetite and ability to put
it all together. And then I think equally important was
(22:50):
I had an ability to explain it and motivate others
without them feeling put off by it. I think that
was my real success. I want to go back and
pick up something you just mentioned about two thousand. You
had your first child and you discovered a void for
support for executive Moms. You started Executive Moms as really
(23:11):
a blog newsletter, especially for women. How on earth did
you find the time to do a second career at
the same time you had a career and what did
you learn from that experience? I was absolutely terrified, had
no interest in giving myself a second career. I didn't
consider myself a bold entrepreneur. It was none of that.
(23:31):
It was genuinely born out of a personal insight. When
I became a mom for the first time in New
York City, bastion of work life went to you know again,
remember pre social media, there was like one game in
town for new mothers. It was this new Mother's luncheon,
and we had to go around and introduce ourselves, our
baby's name, what street in the city we lived on,
(23:52):
and whether or not we're going back to work. And
all these moms are saying they're not going back to work.
And I'm like, okay, this is New York City. Did
you all all marry guys who run hedge funds? Don't
you want to have a career? In other words, where
are my people? Because I felt lonely and isolated and
concerned and was trying to figure it out, as new
mothers often are well fast forward. Of course I did
(24:14):
go back to work. This was when I was at
Calvin Klein Cosmetics, or Unilever Cosmetics as it became named.
And because of my connections in the media world, I
would have lunch with editors and publishers of parenting magazines
and say, what can I join? And I was shocked
that these were the nation's experts on this stuff, and
they were all universally saying there isn't anything except Working
(24:38):
Mother magazine, which didn't feel quite modern, and enough people
said you should go start it. Then I did, and
and because I guess I'm a marketer, the brand was
instant for me. I knew the brand was going to
be executive moms. I just loved the dichotomy that you
could be a serious executive and a you know, warm
and friendly mom all at once, because that's what I
felt like. And lo and behold our first event, because
(25:02):
you know, I knew how to be entertained as a client,
was not a brown bag lunch. It was a hundred
and fifty people in a ballroom with a corporate sponsor
and guest speakers and gift bags. I stuff myself and
that was the beginning. And then I just kind of
kept going, We're going to be right back after a
quick break. Welcome back to math and magic. So let's
(25:34):
jump back to your client job. You go to estate Water.
As you point out, you had this new digital job.
How did you convince them that there was more than
the beautiful print ads? It was not a hard sell.
I mean, you were really at that era where the
big print ads still dominated companies like that. I would say,
looking back with hindsight as to how I accomplished it,
(25:57):
of course it wasn't necessarily this methoughtally thought through, but
it was a combination of finding the early adopters within
the organization, the people that want to try, and partnering
with them and getting some little winds. And you know,
in a company like the stay Lauder companies, where it's
a portfolio of well over thirty brands at the time,
(26:18):
it would be like taking the Argent's team who said
we want to try something, and or getting Mac, which
was a cool brand to do things like that. But
I think in terms of the bigger question you're asking,
I had to find a way to contextualize this new
world as not a betrayal of the heritage of these brands,
(26:39):
but rather the right thing to do because of the
heritage of those brands, and because the stay Lauder Companies
has had a founder, stay Lauder, one of the great
women entrepreneurs of the twentieth century. I don't want to
say this was a light switch moment that maybe it was.
I found this wonderful archable photo of Mrs stay Lauder,
(26:59):
probably back from the nineteen fifties at a beauty counter
in a department store and the heyday of that with
women surrounding her. And she was a real pioneer of
that one to one sampling that we associate now, of
course with, you know, a makeup counter and department store,
but that was she pioneered that. And I looked at
that photo and I put a headline on it, just
the photo and slide, and I put it up and
(27:21):
the slide said st. Lauter was the original social networker.
And what I was implying was that we're she's still
here today. She'd be the first one all over web
two point oh or social media because she was the
original one to one seller and technology was just enabling
us to do that note new ways. And suddenly I
think it reframeed this from scary tech stuff to really
(27:43):
just new ways of communicating in relationship building, which very
much was the heritage of the brand. So let's fast
forward two thousand fifteen. You moved to Taco Bell, big
change in sector and product, A big risk for you
personally to say I can do something that's that far
from what I've done. What excited you about Taco Bell? Well,
(28:05):
the funny thing is, Bob I wasn't even really a
Taco Bell consumer, being of an hatt night. I mean,
my fast food was the local corner deli. And I
say that not with embarrassment, but with acknowledgment that that
just shows the power of brands. Is I didn't even
have to be a die hard Taco Bell consumer to
feel something. When I heard that name, it interested me.
(28:26):
It felt like a brand that already had a certain
presence in culture, but also a lot of opportunity. So
that's what drew me to have a conversation. But it
really felt like a bit of a lark. I mean,
getting on a plane flying to California have these interviews.
I mean, what I thought was one of my hard
and fast rules was that we were never leaving New
(28:46):
York and I guess such a shows that's good never
to say never, because conversations got serious, and my husband
and I got serious and we did what was really
for us as a family, unthinkable, and we relocated our
family two beautiful Orange County, California, where we've been for
five years and we absolutely love it. And as I'm
(29:06):
talking new we're obviously very close to making another move
again because of Lows. So in a way, the bravery
for me with Taco Bell is less. Who goes from
luxury beauty to fast food and more going from New
York to California. You said you started with a lark.
There must have been something. What was that pivotal moment
when the interview prosper he said, you know what, I
(29:27):
actually want to come here to Taco Bell. It goes
back to what I said earlier about everyone can see
the dissimilarities between luxury beauty and fast food tacos. I mean,
that's really obvious. And for me, the excitement was trying
to figure out how I could draw connections and think
about that brand in new ways. And what I started
(29:49):
to realize even probably before I started, was the way
Taco Bell behaved. It was really like the fast fashion
of food. I started to see commonality in the Maybe
it's just how my mind works in quirky ways, but
I think that ability to draw the unexpected connections made
me feel excited about the fact that I could come
(30:10):
in and bring a fresh perspective while also recognizing that
I had to learn an entire industry that was unfamiliar.
Let me jump to brands. All great marketers have their
own individual philosophy about brands. How do you think about brands?
What are they? What do they do for a company?
And how do you build a nurturing growth. I think
(30:32):
brands really are the soul of a company, the heart
and the soul. And this feels like a trite thing
to say, and I don't know how to make it
less so, but you really do have to personify them,
and you have to think about how they'd act and
behaved in a personified way in the world, and then
(30:52):
really get behind it. I love trying to get into
the essence of a brand and bringing out its best,
true self, because it's very easy in the pursuit of
some competitive opportunity or some new trend, to take a
brand off kilter, and there are many many incidences that
(31:16):
kind of hit the business graveyard along the way of
brands that fell off their proper path. And I think
what is most important of leading a brand is that
stewardship of how do you bring out the best of
who it really is so it connects on an authentic level.
But at the same time, just like the best people
we know, you understand them, but then they surprise you
(31:38):
in really interesting, beautiful ways, and those are people that
are worth knowing. So let's jump the company culture. How
do you build it and how do you use it? Well?
I feel more comfortable talking about team culture because that's
something a little bit more in my control than total
company culture. Um. Not surprisingly, I believe that creativity is
(32:01):
a really good energy source for culture. Some of my
happiest moments in leading a team have been doing things
that just bring out people's creativity. And again going back
to my my resentment in my twenties that I was
in advertising but not pulled the creative I really do
believe creativity can come from all sorts of phenomenal places,
(32:23):
and I think speaking with openness and honesty and not
being patronizing to people just because it's a hierarchical structure
is a really really important way of engendering trust and
um and getting people motivated. So let's go to you again.
You're a mentor to many people, your role model. What
(32:44):
advice would you offer to someone who's building their career
and would like to be able to accomplish what you
have to be you? Well, I have to say, I
think there's still a part of me that doesn't believe
you when you say that that's how people see me.
I still feel like I'm striving and still feel like
I have so much more to do and achieve. So
I'm flattered and a little always a little indisbelief by that.
(33:06):
And I guess what I would then say is we
are in a bit of the world of short attention
span theater wanting instant gratification. Will be interesting to see
how this crisis maybe reshapes our behaviors that way. And
there's nothing that still shines through more than someone who
(33:27):
has a great attitude and incredible work ethic and humility,
along with just a tremendous level of curiosity and willingness
to try. I worked really hard in college because it
was pre internet. I opened up the Yellow Pages and
looked up communication companies and called them and said I'd
(33:47):
like to be your intern. Like I mean, it's so
preposterous and probably reflective a very different era, but I
just have that hunger and that desire to try and
to learn and to do. Perhaps that explains it as
best as anything. And maybe the means and the methods
are different now, especially in such a digitally enabled world,
(34:08):
but I think the underlying ethic that drove that still
shines as I'm looking to recruit people and mentor people.
You know it, You know the real deal when you
see it. So I want to end this episode a
little differently than I normally do. Math and magic are
the two sides of marketing, analytics and the creative ideas
you've done both. We talked about it a good bit today,
(34:30):
thinking about your career. What's your best example of one
of your success is driven by math the analytics side.
I think it sometimes surprises people how data driven, in
business driven I can be because I want to win,
and I don't believe that you just do that purely
an instinct. I think it's beautiful when you bring those
two things together. So, whether it was bringing multivariate data
(34:52):
and information to make decisions in building a Taco Bell
calendar that could exceed in terms of the business expect
patients a year before. Whether it was you know, early
in my career taking a leap on leaving beauty to
go be head of marketing for a home furnishing company,
and what intrigued me was it was omni channel before
(35:15):
there was omni channel as a phrase, and it was
the data point that we could show how if we
dropped a catalog that that helped Internet sales and that
in turn helped the retail business. So just again using
data connect interesting dots. I mean, those sort of just
a couple of examples I would say in my early
days at St. A. Lauder, really using all sorts of
(35:39):
new data, like how you could show the correlation between
a paid search ad and behavior and commerce, and starting
to say, actually, there's more science to this whole world
of marketing than we've ever had before. That's been one
of the real revelations of this era of marketing is
how much there is and what we do with it,
of course, is the continued challenge. So being able to
(36:03):
take those as signals that's how I see them, and
then putting what I like to say, like the magic
fairy dust on top of it. That's actually what describes
this job for me in some ways better than anything. Okay,
so let's jump to the magic side. What's the best
example of the great creative idea that made a difference
that if you look back on your career say, well,
(36:24):
that was a great one. Well, I think about some
of the things that really became giant headline grabbers at
Taco Bell. What makes me proud about them? This a
couple of things. One, they didn't all have to be
my ideas, but I like to think that I inspired
that kind of thinking and as a leader, that makes
me proud. Two when they happened, they hit people at
(36:47):
this beautiful intersection of being so surprising and yet also
making total sense. That is a really hard bulls eye
and nail, But boy does it feel good when you nail.
And a couple of examples, or like when we launched
our ag Ship restaurant in Las Vegas for Taco Bell,
and we thought about things iconic to Vegas and this
idea of doing weddings within this Tacoball location, but it
(37:09):
actually really had a big underlying strategy as we were
trying to push the brand into more of a lifestyle direction,
and then that led to sort of this idea of
Taco Ball parties, and then that ultimately led us to
doing a Taco Bell hotel, reservations for which sold out
in two minutes. And it was so fantastical to dream
a dream like that. And all goes back to just
(37:30):
feeling like such a strong steward of a brand that
it felt right even if no one believed it could
be done. And that to me is creativity in a
business context. Marissa, You've had an amazing career. You've got
great stories and important insights. Thanks for joining us today.
(37:50):
Thank you so much, Bob. It is truly an honor,
so thank you. Here are a few things I picked
up in my conversation with Marissa. One personify your brand.
Rissis says that to understand branding, she gives it a persona.
That way, it's easier to understand how your brand cannot
only exist in the world, but how it should react
(38:11):
to the world or adapt in times of crises to
take on new challenges. Moving from Estate Lauder to Taco
Bell to Lows might seem like a zig zag, but
risks of credits or successes with being able to take
lessons she learned at one company and relate them to another.
As Merissa says, working within different sectors has taught her
to lead with an agile mind, connect dots that are
(38:34):
always obvious, and bring fresh perspective. Three. As the world changes,
it's important to use both data and instinct to track
changes in consumer sentiment. As Merissa says, data is a
key component, but without the intuition and instinct she's picked
up from cultural signals, she wouldn't be able to make
the right decisions quickly in the moment. Thanks for listening.
(39:34):
I'm Bob Pittman. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so
much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of
I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Nikki Tore for
pulling research bill plaques, and Michael Asar for their recording help,
our editor Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gail Raoul, Eric Angel,
(39:57):
Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring bring this show
to your ears. Until next time, H
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production I Heart Radio.
My favorite thing we did recently was for Mother's Day.
We recognize that there are a lot of mothers but
weren't going to have the opportunity of physical contact with
the loved ones. And at the same time, we know
that small businesses have been impacted, so we partnered with
(00:23):
some of the small growers. We purchased a million dollars
worth of flowering plants. Then we went to Uber and said, hey,
can we help support your drivers and we had Uber
drivers deliver these flowering plants to senior living facilities across
the country, particularly in cities that were hard hit to me.
That's how a brand with a heart celebrates Mother's Day
(00:46):
at a time like this. Hi'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to
Math and Magic. Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing Today.
On another one of our work from Home episodes, we
(01:07):
have someone who has seen marketing from the client and
agency side, who has worked in many dramatically different sectors
and it's even left marketing a few times to be
an entrepreneur. She has great stories and unique insights. She's
now the CMO of Lowe's Marissa Thalbern. Marissa is at
(01:33):
one of the few companies that's actually growing through the
pandemic and is providing an essential service and a focus
on the part of life we're all focused on now
our home. Marissa grew up in New York Bronx Science
grad which means that she was really a smart kid.
After an impressive Ivy League experience, she hit the ground
running ad agencies, TV production, her own blog for executive Moms,
(01:57):
and on the client side, her marketing ex variants fans
a surprising wide range of companies Revlon Calvin, Klein Cosmetics,
Estate Lauder, and Taco Bell. She even sang cabaret in
New York City. She's a role model and a mentor
too many, a big think or a marketing and a
good friend. Marissa, welcome, Thank you, Bob. What an intro?
My goodness. Well we're gonna get into all of that,
(02:21):
but first, I want to do you in sixty seconds
to get going. You ready to go? I think? So?
Do you prefer sunrise or sunset? Sunset California or New
York Tide? Mets are Yankees, Mets, beach or mountains beach,
Corn tortillas or flower tortillas? Corn, Casa Lupa or Nacho fries.
(02:42):
Oh man, that's like choosing children. I will say, Casa lupa.
It's about to get harder. Smartest person you know besides you. Oh,
I love that childhood, he wrote my parents. First job,
first real real draw was being an assistant account executive
in a big ad agency. Last book, you read the
(03:05):
Dutch House favorite app. I think I would be lost
without ever note secret tempt. I think people would be surprised.
I'm really good at puzzles. I'll bet you're getting a
lot of use out of that. Right now, poolside cocktail,
a nice fresh prozen mohito. And what did you want
to be when you were growing up? An actress or
(03:25):
a lawyer. Let's get into the meat of it right now. So,
during your tenure, Taco Bell achieved record sales growth, the
highest passion index among fans of any brand in the
restaurant industry, and was the second fastest growing brand in
the US, following only Netflix. How did that prepare you
for lows and this COVID nineteen pandemic change in the
(03:46):
American consumer? I think because I've had the benefit of
doing things that you know, people look at and think
we're bold or unusual, and I don't know that I
saw them so much that way. It was my curiosity,
in my sense of opportunity and taking on a really
interesting new challenge that enabled me to go from some
(04:06):
of the things I had done earlier in my career,
to then moving onto beauty, to being a digital leader
when I didn't necessarily see myself as a digital leader,
to then being able to make a massive industry shift
with Taco Ball, and now going to LOWS. I think
all those things have taught me how to really lead
with an agile mind and connect dots that aren't obvious,
(04:28):
and I think that's one of the greatest joys I've
found as my career has progressed as a marketer and
as a leaders. When you've just done the same thing
your whole career, you have a lot of expertise, but
it doesn't necessarily give you other perspectives that allow you to,
you know, view the world in a different way. And
so I really felt that that was the perspective I
(04:50):
was going to bring to LOWS. I come in with
a sense of humility, like I'm clearly not coming in
as a longstanding home improvement industry expert. And that's okay,
because if you counterbalance all the people that do have
that with a totally fresh way of approaching the brand
and creating a real connection with with people, which is
(05:11):
our job, then I feel very equipped for it. Of course,
none of us were really prepared for a crisis of
this magnitude personally or professionally, but again, having to learn
and on board the company three thousand miles away in
a zoom, I just said to myself early on, I
just have to think of this as another test of leadership.
Let's jump into that point. You obviously had a plan
(05:33):
for Lows coming in. How did that plan change in
this pandemic? In a couple of ways. I think that
my plan was to be a little bit more sequential
in how I tackled things in an ordinary assimilation process.
As a big executive, you want to really take the
time to listen and to learn and to ingest everything
(05:54):
and have it tumble around in there and start jotting
your notes and putting it together into a vision and
a plan. And I didn't have the luxury of time
to do that as much as I would have liked,
so it round up being very much like a parallel
path of still having to do that assessment, but also
immediately having to triage the work that was already in
(06:17):
place because the world was changing so quickly and so profoundly,
and what would have been perfectly acceptable and relevant a
week earlier was suddenly now potentially risking being just totally
toned up or wrong. Everything's changing quickly. How do you
track the change in consumer sentiment and the needs of
(06:37):
the consumer that are changing this quickly and this radically.
You know, I can tell you there's tons of data sources,
and there are, and I would say we're absolutely looking
at all those, But you know, I think part of
the reason we're in our roles is because you better
have a certain intuition and instinct for how this is
all playing out and from the signals you're just seeing
in culture, in media, and you've got to put that
(06:58):
all together to be able to make decisions in the moment,
which is really what we were doing. I mean, this
really was a first in terms of how truncated this
all was. Where I would be working on some new
creative so new to the brand, and then feeling like
even a few days later, suddenly some of the nuance
of that that felt right just a few days ago
(07:19):
suddenly wasn't so right. And I think now it's getting
a little bit more elongated. But this what I would
call it, maybe the first four to six weeks of
this crisis being so prominent in the United States was
very much an exercise of trying to scramble and and
figure it out. And I think there's now been a
lot written about the sameness of certain advertising that's come out,
(07:42):
and and I agree with that, but I also have
a certain amount of empathy because if you think about it,
we were all operating on the same insight. You were
an early advocate of audio. You've now seized the lead
and share a voice in audio. First time I can
remember in this category, why is audio important? And what
does radio do that TV or digital don't. I will
(08:04):
tell you that for a significant chapter of my career
in the two thousands, let's say, in a little beyond,
I guess I found myself being an early digital marketing leader,
which I found amusing because I always thought of myself
as a marketer, but marketing was becoming digital. So my
question even back then was, well, why isn't everyone a
(08:24):
digital marketer? But there was that era where you had
to lead it by kind of owning it, and so
I found myself kind of being a bit of a
bias champion for certain channels. And then when I was
in a CMO role, I had the ability to be
agnostic again and not just be champion digital but really
(08:45):
saying I want to look holistically and champion what works.
And audio also has a really interesting and important place
in It was in our channel mix for Taco About,
and it's for sure a big part of our channel
mix at Loews. And I think it's because there's an
intimacy that comes from the experience of how people connect
to music or how they want to listen to news,
(09:08):
and I think right now the voices of audio are
particularly important. I mean, there is really a sense of
having companionship and feeling like you know those people and
they're really in some ways talking to you, and when
we're all at sheltering in place and feeling isolated. While
on the one hand, audio has been known to be
a very out of home, on the go medium and
we've loved it for that reason, especially with our professional customers,
(09:31):
but I still think there's a role for just you know,
that sense of relationship and the trust that you feel
with those people. That's one of my favorite parts of
working in this medium. It's interesting you're on that point.
You know, research is showing right now that the consumers
are reevaluating brands during this pandemic and they're favoring the
ones that have a mission to help the community. How
(09:53):
is that factoring into your marketing plans and what are
you doing to address that? Let me back up and
saying that the outset of this crisis really hitting. One
thing was clear is that we had to change what
we were doing, but not everyone knew exactly how I
raised what I felt were a few key tenants of
(10:14):
what was the right way to connect and communicate as
a brand in time of crisis, and one of them
was being much more about the relationship than the selling,
and another was making sure we spoke with relevance and
usefulness that if there's a role for our brand to
be heard at this time, people want and need us
to be heard. And you think about brands as the
(10:36):
new authorities of trust, even over political leaders. And that's
not a partisan statement. It's actually been proven out through
the data. Sort of a bit of a commentary on
the state of our world, that we actually looked to
brands as authority figures, and that means that if we
deliver on that trust, it's really quite magnificent, and if
we don't, it can be conversely, really quite a betrayal.
(10:58):
And that lastly, it is a I'm a social responsibility.
And I look back on the work that we then
did over just the next four weeks and purposefully or not,
we checked all those boxes and I'm really proud of
that because it takes a lot to swing an organization
the size of a lows you know. You know, it's
interesting big businesses are valued. Again, how does that play
(11:20):
into your marketing thinking? You know the advantage of a
big brand as you tend to have the ability to
have a bigger voice. So I guess, tied to what
I said previously, you have the power of a large
media sandbox to play and you just have to how
you choose to do it is up to you. This
was not a time to go yell and scream promotions,
(11:40):
really a time to reflect on what home means to people,
to mirror the way in which homes were, you know,
quickly being transformed in terms of living rooms becoming offices
and garages becoming gyms, and it's just so relatable. And
then using our social channels to create content that that
reflects even further and gives people examples and showcases users
(12:03):
who are doing creative things. And so, you know, that
sense of just being able to have a shared experience
and connect over that even through broadcast media, but also
through social when everyone's living these individualistic lives, I think
becomes a real opportunity for a brand like ours. And
then the reason why we've stayed open through this period
is that, you know, we are an essential retailer and
(12:25):
consider that two thirds of what we sell as non discretionary.
So there's the inspirational side of home improvement, which I love,
but then the very real fact that if you're running
a household right now and your dishwasher breaks, it's really
important that you get a dishwasher a washing machine to
keep your home running smoothly and with cleanliness. So making
(12:46):
sure that people understood that we were there for them
through all that. My favorite thing we did recently was
for Mother's Day. On Mother's Day, instead of just doing
traditional Mother's Day marketing, we did something very different as
we recognize that there are a lot of mothers, particularly
seniors who you know, if they're in a senior living facility,
(13:07):
this is a time where the you know, the social
distancing is particularly strict because of the health ramifications and
so likelihood as they weren't going to have the opportunity
of physical contact with the loved ones. And at the
same time, we know that small businesses have been impacted
by this period. So to me, this was a real
win win where we partnered with some of the small
growers UM that might be hurting a little bit. We
(13:30):
purchased a million dollars worth flowering plants. Then we went
to Uber and said, hey, can we help support your
drivers who we know are hurting business wise? And Uber
helped facilitate it, and we had Uber drivers deliver these
flowering plants to senior living facilities across the country, particularly
in cities that were hard hit, and brought some joy
(13:51):
to um mother's, grandmothers and some motherly figures all around
the country. That to me, that's how a brand with
Heart celebrates Mother's Day at a time like this. Before
we dig into your career some more, I want to
go back in time you grew up in Queens, New
York City during the seventies and eighties. Can you paint
a picture of that world, what was important to you
(14:14):
and the influences on you? Oh? Wow, I can. It
was very lucky to have to extremely devoted, loving parents.
I had a combination of a public school education and
a private school education. I'm grateful for both. I learned
(14:34):
a lot from both my parents. But I think the
funny thing is I was driven and they didn't even
necessarily know why, because they didn't think that they pushed
me terribly hard. But I just had that driving instinct
to get straight a's, to figure out my future, and
so a lot of that was just really self propelled.
(14:55):
What was it in your environment that propelled you? Were
your parents that way or was that you? Just because
it's you. I'll be vulnerable and tell a personal story
that I don't think i've ever shared. Is So I
was in the local public school in Queens, and I
was the kid that was getting straight a's. And in
second grade I was writing plays and casting my you know,
(15:17):
fellow second graders in it. And in third grade I
started to get bullied a bit. The principle of the
school told my parents that maybe they should tell me
to stop being so creative, that maybe i'd fit in better.
And that was such a horrific answer to my mother
that my mother, who was the product of two public
school teachers herself, realized they had to do something different
(15:40):
for me, and they pulled me out of public school
and put me in private school. You know, like any
kid who has an experience like that, it was it
was a little bit scarring, but I wound up having
just an extraordinary experience at this private school Buckley on
Long Island that I went to, and then I went
to this giant, albeit magnet high school called Bronxide side.
These like wildly different school experiences. And you know, when
(16:02):
you're young, and I'm raising two teenagers right now, it's
so hard to feel comfortable being yourself. I think that
only comes much later. And my mom was just to
this day will always be the most unabashedly authentic person
I know. And I think one of the gifts of
age and experience and rising in leadership is I think
I've gotten much more confident just being that way, being
(16:23):
truly and unapologetically myself, um and allowing that to influence
my leadership style, and I think some ways that really
actually build closeness as opposed to distance. You were talking
about your creativity when you were young, and you started
out with an interest after college and film, TV and production,
(16:44):
but instead of doing all that, you jump to advertising.
Why advertising? What was it that captured you? So they're
very few times in your life where you can actually
picture yourself standing at at a fork in the road
and seeing to pass and try I figure out which
to pick. But that point, right at the edge of
college going into my professional career was one of them.
(17:07):
My career in audio actually started in college where Brown
had this fantastic commercial radio station that was nationally known,
and I did the news. It was pretty amazing. I
was a college student and I covered elections interview at
the Governor of Rhode Island. I loved it. But then
I also had this rising appreciation for marketing, and I
had done a great internship in advertising, and so I
(17:28):
had a chance to go interview with the TV station
in Plattsburgh, New York, which is up by Niagara Falls.
I was told that the weather man at the station
worked at McDonald's part time and make ends meet. And
then I also had an opportunity to go work in
advertising in New York City, which was home where I
felt socially, I'd be happier and I could dress up
and go to work and and frankly be with my
(17:50):
mom because my father died suddenly in college and that
was a very traumatic experience for all of us. And
so I chose the advertising in the New York path
And a few years later I did wind up doing
a stint in broadcast journalism because I guess I hadn't
totally gotten it out of my system. But it's just
funny how it all comes back and connects, and I
(18:11):
realized how much of my job today is about being
a communicator and packaging information. But that was a real
fork in the road moment. You started on the agency side,
and you had a pretty impressive career there Saci and Sacchi,
J W. T. Tarlow, clients like J and J. Claire
all Revlon, and then you made the jump to the
(18:31):
client side at Calvin Clin Cosmetics. Why agency to client?
I knew I wanted to be on the client side
because I wanted that sense of real ownership and stewardship
of the totality of brands it's just so funny when
you're young and ambitious, like I was thirty. I was
now head of global advertising at Calvin Clin Cosmetics side
(18:52):
a big team, but it was just a chance to really,
I think, have influence, which was important to me, and
to be able to bring a combination of skills. But
I'll tell you a lot of my twenties was very
angsty about why was I in this business world when
I was really a creative person at heart? Because I
wound up in the what was the strategy side, and
(19:14):
back then, being an account management was they didn't have
planners yet, so you were like the strategic person and
I did love that, but I also had this bizarre,
we're a little bit of a nagging sense of resentment
that there were people actually named creatives in the building
and I wasn't one of them. And I felt like
I wanted to walk around with a big sign around
my next saying no, I'm really a creative too. So
(19:35):
I really struggled early in my professional life trying to
reconcile who I was that way, like, couldn't I still
be a creative person but really on this very professional track?
And I think it's only later as I advanced to
my career that I feel really good that it is integrated.
But in those early days, it felt like I had
made this weird choice and I wasn't totally comfortable with it.
(19:58):
You've had this analytical side going and you were struggling
with your self perception of a creative person. What did
you learn though, on the agency side that when you
got to the clients side, realized they gave you an edge. Well,
I've said this before and I'll say it again. What
I always have been drawn to about this world of
marketing is this really cool intersection of psychology, culture slash
(20:22):
pop culture, and business. I like all those things in
different ways, and and the alchemy of that and putting
that together is interesting to me. And agencies are good
at that when they're at their best. Agencies are good
at kind of mining what's happening in society and culture
and then coming up with ideas. So I love that.
(20:43):
I was twenty five and I had the claral account
and I don't know why I was empowered to do this,
but I was the one writing like a whole portfolio
strategy for how all the brands would fit together. And
I just I really did love that part, and to
this day, I still find that kind of work really
fun and really interesting. You know, we're talking earlier about audio.
You were probably one of the first to sort of
(21:06):
recognize this renaissance of audio and as you talk about
companionship and and other aspects of it that other media
doesn't provide and has a unique place in the mix.
But you were an early expert on digital. Where did
that come from. The role that put me on a
stage as one of the early client pioneers of digital
(21:26):
was when I started at the Estay Later Companies in
two thousand and seven as the first corporate head of
digital marketing. And just to put a little bit of
a time stamp on this, two thousand and seven, we
didn't even yet say social media, So just thinking about that,
my earliest presentations were kind of preaching this idea of
something called web two point oh was coming, which was
(21:47):
social media. So it's just kind of amazing, like two
thousand and seven is forever ago, but also really not
that long ago. And when I got hired for the job,
I'll be honest, I mean, you put on a brave face,
but I wasn't even sure if I should have that job.
Yet I had done things that led me, of course,
to get hired from back in my early days at
(22:08):
Calvin Klein, starting first interactive marketing there literally when the
CEO said to me, this internet thing seems pretty important.
We should have a strategy. I kid you not. Those
were her exact words, and that's how I started my
journey of digital marketing and then founding my own website
and content platform, Executive Moms. Before anyone talked about curating content,
(22:29):
it was just something I felt I wanted to do,
to go into a multi channel business as head of
marketing and getting into the intricacies of how you can
use other media to drive ecommerce. So I became self
taught because it was where marketing was going and I
had a real curiosity and appetite and ability to put
it all together. And then I think equally important was
(22:50):
I had an ability to explain it and motivate others
without them feeling put off by it. I think that
was my real success. I want to go back and
pick up something you just mentioned about two thousand. You
had your first child and you discovered a void for
support for executive Moms. You started Executive Moms as really
(23:11):
a blog newsletter, especially for women. How on earth did
you find the time to do a second career at
the same time you had a career and what did
you learn from that experience? I was absolutely terrified, had
no interest in giving myself a second career. I didn't
consider myself a bold entrepreneur. It was none of that.
(23:31):
It was genuinely born out of a personal insight. When
I became a mom for the first time in New
York City, bastion of work life went to you know again,
remember pre social media, there was like one game in
town for new mothers. It was this new Mother's luncheon,
and we had to go around and introduce ourselves, our
baby's name, what street in the city we lived on,
(23:52):
and whether or not we're going back to work. And
all these moms are saying they're not going back to work.
And I'm like, okay, this is New York City. Did
you all all marry guys who run hedge funds? Don't
you want to have a career? In other words, where
are my people? Because I felt lonely and isolated and
concerned and was trying to figure it out, as new
mothers often are well fast forward. Of course I did
(24:14):
go back to work. This was when I was at
Calvin Klein Cosmetics, or Unilever Cosmetics as it became named.
And because of my connections in the media world, I
would have lunch with editors and publishers of parenting magazines
and say, what can I join? And I was shocked
that these were the nation's experts on this stuff, and
they were all universally saying there isn't anything except Working
(24:38):
Mother magazine, which didn't feel quite modern, and enough people
said you should go start it. Then I did, and
and because I guess I'm a marketer, the brand was
instant for me. I knew the brand was going to
be executive moms. I just loved the dichotomy that you
could be a serious executive and a you know, warm
and friendly mom all at once, because that's what I
felt like. And lo and behold our first event, because
(25:02):
you know, I knew how to be entertained as a client,
was not a brown bag lunch. It was a hundred
and fifty people in a ballroom with a corporate sponsor
and guest speakers and gift bags. I stuff myself and
that was the beginning. And then I just kind of
kept going, We're going to be right back after a
quick break. Welcome back to math and magic. So let's
(25:34):
jump back to your client job. You go to estate Water.
As you point out, you had this new digital job.
How did you convince them that there was more than
the beautiful print ads? It was not a hard sell.
I mean, you were really at that era where the
big print ads still dominated companies like that. I would say,
looking back with hindsight as to how I accomplished it,
(25:57):
of course it wasn't necessarily this methoughtally thought through, but
it was a combination of finding the early adopters within
the organization, the people that want to try, and partnering
with them and getting some little winds. And you know,
in a company like the stay Lauder companies, where it's
a portfolio of well over thirty brands at the time,
(26:18):
it would be like taking the Argent's team who said
we want to try something, and or getting Mac, which
was a cool brand to do things like that. But
I think in terms of the bigger question you're asking,
I had to find a way to contextualize this new
world as not a betrayal of the heritage of these brands,
(26:39):
but rather the right thing to do because of the
heritage of those brands, and because the stay Lauder Companies
has had a founder, stay Lauder, one of the great
women entrepreneurs of the twentieth century. I don't want to
say this was a light switch moment that maybe it was.
I found this wonderful archable photo of Mrs stay Lauder,
(26:59):
probably back from the nineteen fifties at a beauty counter
in a department store and the heyday of that with
women surrounding her. And she was a real pioneer of
that one to one sampling that we associate now, of
course with, you know, a makeup counter and department store,
but that was she pioneered that. And I looked at
that photo and I put a headline on it, just
the photo and slide, and I put it up and
(27:21):
the slide said st. Lauter was the original social networker.
And what I was implying was that we're she's still
here today. She'd be the first one all over web
two point oh or social media because she was the
original one to one seller and technology was just enabling
us to do that note new ways. And suddenly I
think it reframeed this from scary tech stuff to really
(27:43):
just new ways of communicating in relationship building, which very
much was the heritage of the brand. So let's fast
forward two thousand fifteen. You moved to Taco Bell, big
change in sector and product, A big risk for you
personally to say I can do something that's that far
from what I've done. What excited you about Taco Bell? Well,
(28:05):
the funny thing is, Bob I wasn't even really a
Taco Bell consumer, being of an hatt night. I mean,
my fast food was the local corner deli. And I
say that not with embarrassment, but with acknowledgment that that
just shows the power of brands. Is I didn't even
have to be a die hard Taco Bell consumer to
feel something. When I heard that name, it interested me.
(28:26):
It felt like a brand that already had a certain
presence in culture, but also a lot of opportunity. So
that's what drew me to have a conversation. But it
really felt like a bit of a lark. I mean,
getting on a plane flying to California have these interviews.
I mean, what I thought was one of my hard
and fast rules was that we were never leaving New
(28:46):
York and I guess such a shows that's good never
to say never, because conversations got serious, and my husband
and I got serious and we did what was really
for us as a family, unthinkable, and we relocated our
family two beautiful Orange County, California, where we've been for
five years and we absolutely love it. And as I'm
(29:06):
talking new we're obviously very close to making another move
again because of Lows. So in a way, the bravery
for me with Taco Bell is less. Who goes from
luxury beauty to fast food and more going from New
York to California. You said you started with a lark.
There must have been something. What was that pivotal moment
when the interview prosper he said, you know what, I
(29:27):
actually want to come here to Taco Bell. It goes
back to what I said earlier about everyone can see
the dissimilarities between luxury beauty and fast food tacos. I mean,
that's really obvious. And for me, the excitement was trying
to figure out how I could draw connections and think
about that brand in new ways. And what I started
(29:49):
to realize even probably before I started, was the way
Taco Bell behaved. It was really like the fast fashion
of food. I started to see commonality in the Maybe
it's just how my mind works in quirky ways, but
I think that ability to draw the unexpected connections made
me feel excited about the fact that I could come
(30:10):
in and bring a fresh perspective while also recognizing that
I had to learn an entire industry that was unfamiliar.
Let me jump to brands. All great marketers have their
own individual philosophy about brands. How do you think about brands?
What are they? What do they do for a company?
And how do you build a nurturing growth. I think
(30:32):
brands really are the soul of a company, the heart
and the soul. And this feels like a trite thing
to say, and I don't know how to make it
less so, but you really do have to personify them,
and you have to think about how they'd act and
behaved in a personified way in the world, and then
(30:52):
really get behind it. I love trying to get into
the essence of a brand and bringing out its best,
true self, because it's very easy in the pursuit of
some competitive opportunity or some new trend, to take a
brand off kilter, and there are many many incidences that
(31:16):
kind of hit the business graveyard along the way of
brands that fell off their proper path. And I think
what is most important of leading a brand is that
stewardship of how do you bring out the best of
who it really is so it connects on an authentic level.
But at the same time, just like the best people
we know, you understand them, but then they surprise you
(31:38):
in really interesting, beautiful ways, and those are people that
are worth knowing. So let's jump the company culture. How
do you build it and how do you use it? Well?
I feel more comfortable talking about team culture because that's
something a little bit more in my control than total
company culture. Um. Not surprisingly, I believe that creativity is
(32:01):
a really good energy source for culture. Some of my
happiest moments in leading a team have been doing things
that just bring out people's creativity. And again going back
to my my resentment in my twenties that I was
in advertising but not pulled the creative I really do
believe creativity can come from all sorts of phenomenal places,
(32:23):
and I think speaking with openness and honesty and not
being patronizing to people just because it's a hierarchical structure
is a really really important way of engendering trust and
um and getting people motivated. So let's go to you again.
You're a mentor to many people, your role model. What
(32:44):
advice would you offer to someone who's building their career
and would like to be able to accomplish what you
have to be you? Well, I have to say, I
think there's still a part of me that doesn't believe
you when you say that that's how people see me.
I still feel like I'm striving and still feel like
I have so much more to do and achieve. So
I'm flattered and a little always a little indisbelief by that.
(33:06):
And I guess what I would then say is we
are in a bit of the world of short attention
span theater wanting instant gratification. Will be interesting to see
how this crisis maybe reshapes our behaviors that way. And
there's nothing that still shines through more than someone who
(33:27):
has a great attitude and incredible work ethic and humility,
along with just a tremendous level of curiosity and willingness
to try. I worked really hard in college because it
was pre internet. I opened up the Yellow Pages and
looked up communication companies and called them and said I'd
(33:47):
like to be your intern. Like I mean, it's so
preposterous and probably reflective a very different era, but I
just have that hunger and that desire to try and
to learn and to do. Perhaps that explains it as
best as anything. And maybe the means and the methods
are different now, especially in such a digitally enabled world,
(34:08):
but I think the underlying ethic that drove that still
shines as I'm looking to recruit people and mentor people.
You know it, You know the real deal when you
see it. So I want to end this episode a
little differently than I normally do. Math and magic are
the two sides of marketing, analytics and the creative ideas
you've done both. We talked about it a good bit today,
(34:30):
thinking about your career. What's your best example of one
of your success is driven by math the analytics side.
I think it sometimes surprises people how data driven, in
business driven I can be because I want to win,
and I don't believe that you just do that purely
an instinct. I think it's beautiful when you bring those
two things together. So, whether it was bringing multivariate data
(34:52):
and information to make decisions in building a Taco Bell
calendar that could exceed in terms of the business expect
patients a year before. Whether it was you know, early
in my career taking a leap on leaving beauty to
go be head of marketing for a home furnishing company,
and what intrigued me was it was omni channel before
(35:15):
there was omni channel as a phrase, and it was
the data point that we could show how if we
dropped a catalog that that helped Internet sales and that
in turn helped the retail business. So just again using
data connect interesting dots. I mean, those sort of just
a couple of examples I would say in my early
days at St. A. Lauder, really using all sorts of
(35:39):
new data, like how you could show the correlation between
a paid search ad and behavior and commerce, and starting
to say, actually, there's more science to this whole world
of marketing than we've ever had before. That's been one
of the real revelations of this era of marketing is
how much there is and what we do with it,
of course, is the continued challenge. So being able to
(36:03):
take those as signals that's how I see them, and
then putting what I like to say, like the magic
fairy dust on top of it. That's actually what describes
this job for me in some ways better than anything. Okay,
so let's jump to the magic side. What's the best
example of the great creative idea that made a difference
that if you look back on your career say, well,
(36:24):
that was a great one. Well, I think about some
of the things that really became giant headline grabbers at
Taco Bell. What makes me proud about them? This a
couple of things. One, they didn't all have to be
my ideas, but I like to think that I inspired
that kind of thinking and as a leader, that makes
me proud. Two when they happened, they hit people at
(36:47):
this beautiful intersection of being so surprising and yet also
making total sense. That is a really hard bulls eye
and nail, But boy does it feel good when you nail.
And a couple of examples, or like when we launched
our ag Ship restaurant in Las Vegas for Taco Bell,
and we thought about things iconic to Vegas and this
idea of doing weddings within this Tacoball location, but it
(37:09):
actually really had a big underlying strategy as we were
trying to push the brand into more of a lifestyle direction,
and then that led to sort of this idea of
Taco Ball parties, and then that ultimately led us to
doing a Taco Bell hotel, reservations for which sold out
in two minutes. And it was so fantastical to dream
a dream like that. And all goes back to just
(37:30):
feeling like such a strong steward of a brand that
it felt right even if no one believed it could
be done. And that to me is creativity in a
business context. Marissa, You've had an amazing career. You've got
great stories and important insights. Thanks for joining us today.
(37:50):
Thank you so much, Bob. It is truly an honor,
so thank you. Here are a few things I picked
up in my conversation with Marissa. One personify your brand.
Rissis says that to understand branding, she gives it a persona.
That way, it's easier to understand how your brand cannot
only exist in the world, but how it should react
(38:11):
to the world or adapt in times of crises to
take on new challenges. Moving from Estate Lauder to Taco
Bell to Lows might seem like a zig zag, but
risks of credits or successes with being able to take
lessons she learned at one company and relate them to another.
As Merissa says, working within different sectors has taught her
to lead with an agile mind, connect dots that are
(38:34):
always obvious, and bring fresh perspective. Three. As the world changes,
it's important to use both data and instinct to track
changes in consumer sentiment. As Merissa says, data is a
key component, but without the intuition and instinct she's picked
up from cultural signals, she wouldn't be able to make
the right decisions quickly in the moment. Thanks for listening.
(39:34):
I'm Bob Pittman. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so
much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of
I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our
wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Nikki Tore for
pulling research bill plaques, and Michael Asar for their recording help,
our editor Ryan Murdoch, and of course Gail Raoul, Eric Angel,
(39:57):
Noel Mango and everyone who helped bring bring this show
to your ears. Until next time, H
Host
Bob Pittman
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.