Marketing Today With Alan Hart

And now for something completely different…This week's episode of Marketing Today was recorded live before an audience and features conversation and performances from Magic Giant, a Los Angeles band that combines equal parts alternative, indie-folk, and pop with infectious spirit and passion to deliver magical, uplifting shows. The band came to Alan's attention at, of all places, a CMO Club Summit in Santa Monica, and a friendship was formed on the common ground of connecting with people in powerful ways.The band has been touring incessantly behind their debut album “In The Wind,” and they are appearing at festivals this spring and summer, including this month at Coachella — Billboard calls them a Top 10 Act to see there.The case can be made that musicians are the original cause marketers, and Magic Giant certainly fits that mold. They have relationships with a cryptocurrency, greening organizations, and a nutrition bar, among others. And the thing tying them together with the brands

This week in “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Molly Catalano, vice president of marketing and communications at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Catalano joined Five Guys over 13 years ago when the company had just 30 stores. Today, through sustained growth fueled by franchising, Five Guys has over 1,500 locations in 10 countries.At the heart of the Five Guys success story is the importance they place on the customer experience, a flag planted by the founders, the Murrell family, from day one. It's something the company — and Catalano — have never lost sight of. “The hardest part of my job is I don't want to ruin that,” says Catalano. “I never want to do anything marketing-wise that takes away from the purity of the brand, which is that focus on the customer experience.”   Highlights from this week's “Marketing Today” podcast include: Catalano relates the Five Guys story — growing from a single store to an international prese

In this episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Manoj Goyal, who joined Marketo as chief product officer in May of 2017 before assuming his present role there as chief technology officer just this year. In his role as CTO, he is responsible for engineering teams that oversee the Marketo engagement platform.During his conversation with Alan, he touches on a wide range of topics, including the difficulty in implementing and driving innovation, which has played a major part in many stops in his career. “The best innovations I've seen are ones that simplify the experience,” says Goyal. “If you can't use it in 10 to 15 minutes, if you can't understand the value in a half hour or less, then it's probably not a great innovation.” Highlights from this week's “Marketing Today” podcast include:Goyal discusses his career and the path that led to Marketo. (1:35)Goyal talks about being named to the Adweek 50 and Marketo's partnership with Google. (4:00)For Goyal,

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Tom Klein, chief marketing officer at MailChimp, the world's largest marketing automation platform. He worked at Nabisco and Chanel before landing at MailChimp, a company he long admired, and he is an authority on digital marketing, e-commerce, and brand marketing.During the podcast, Klein talks about his views on the best use of marketing automation: “I see automation as doing the things automation is good at and, ideally, it's opening a window for a marketing person to really put heart and soul into communication.” Later in his discussion with Alan, Klein touched on where he believes marketing is heading and where automation fits in. “What's fascinating is, in many ways, everybody's being turned into a marketer…all of marketing is being democratized,” says Klein. “I feel like marketing and communication is just going to keep getting better and better. And I think it's up to us to take advantage

This week on “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer and President, Healthcare Business at Mastercard. Rajamannar started his career at Asian Paints before moving over to the payment industry, holding numerous positions with Citi as well as two years spent as chairman and CEO of Diners Club of North America. He then spent time in the health care industry at Humana and WellPoint before assuming his current role at Mastercard.Rajamannar and Alan spend a great deal of time discussing the incredible 20-year run and global impact of Mastercard's “Priceless” campaign, which has cut across cultures, manifesting itself in 58 languages and 110 countries. Most recently, Rajamannar and his team shifted the focus of the campaign with its new iteration, “Start Something Priceless,” which launched at this year's Grammy Awards.Rajamannar also talks about the importance of brands being socially aware and standing for something at a tim

This week on “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Susan Vobejda, chief marketing officer at The Trade Desk, the fastest-growing demand-side platform (DSP) agencies, aggregators, and their advertisers can use to manage their digital campaigns.Vobejda's career started in finance, but she quickly made the leap to advertising — confessing that advertising seemed so cool to her that she thought it was something she would do without getting paid — beginning at Leo Burnett as an account supervisor. From there, she moved on to stops at Gap Inc., Walmart, Bloomberg, and Tory Burch, among others, before landing in her current role at The Trade Desk.During the course of her conversation with Alan, Vobejda touches on many topics, but perhaps most interesting was her discovery of just how special the people and culture at The Trade Desk are.She and her team were in Ventura, California, for a planning session in December of 2017. While there, they were forced to flee from the Thomas Fire, the largest

For this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Cory Treffiletti, CMO of Voicera, a technology company that has created an AI virtual assistant named Eva (Enterprise Voice Assistant). Eva can be invited to meetings and will listen and take notes as well as follow up on identified action items and decisions.Previously in his career, Treffiletti was the head of marketing for the Oracle Data Cloud, SVP and CMO of BlueKai, and was co-founder of numerous startups. Treffiletti also writes a long-running column for MediaPost (every Wednesday for the past 18 years, without fail), one of which, “The Future of AI? Just Watch Your Kids,” he discusses with Alan.During the podcast, Trefffiletti also talks about the importance of building teams that are driven by ideas, not egos. “You can set up any kind of culture, and process and incentives, and organizational structures you want,” says Treffiletti. “But the people that you have and their approach to business, and

This week on “Marketing Today,” Alan talks artificial intelligence, big data, and entrepreneurism with Carlos Mendez, the founder and CEO of Data Gran. After starting his career in advertising at JWT and then reviving an agency that had been owned by his family for 40 years, Mendez made another leap. With the knowledge gained from his career along with his educational background and entrepreneurial spirit, he decided to launch Data Gran, a company that is putting machine learning and AI into the hands of marketers.For Mendez, it's not so much that AI and big data are taking over marketing, it's providing more efficiency and effectiveness with less waste. “We believe in something called AI augmentation,” says Mendez. “It is how we bring AI to work with people…we don't want to replace people, we want to empower people with information so that they make better decisions.” He goes on to add, “We want to provide the tools so that we make people better.” H

This week on “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Adam Pierno, chief strategy officer at Santy and the author of “Under Think It.” Pierno is a living, breathing example of invention and reinvention. He started on the creative side of advertising — where he was an art director and, ultimately, a creative director — before making the leap to strategy. And, when faced with a paucity of solid, comprehensive training materials for his strategy team at Santy, he wrote a book to fill the void.In discussing his approach with the book, Pierno talks about his decision to steer away from what he calls the “jargonization of strategy” in an effort to communicate ideas powerfully and effectively. “Don't use jargon. Use little words,” Pierno says. “People can get their heads around them. People can pick them up and do something else with them on their own…it sets people free. And that's really what ‘Under Think It' is all about, is how to give peop

In this week's “Marketing Today,” Alan talks to Allen Adamson, co-founder and managing partner of the marketing company, Metaforce. Adamson is also the author of four books, the latest of which is “Shift Ahead: How the Best Companies Stay Relevant in a Fast-Changing World.”During his conversation with Alan, Adamson touches on a wide variety of topics. In addition to talking about the issue facing companies today that serves as the title of his book, he addresses the challenge of people's resistance to change — though, intellectually, they know they should embrace it — and how it affects the companies they work for and lead. “The notion is familiar is comfortable,” says Adamson. “Yesterday is more comfortable than tomorrow. You have to go in with the mindset that human nature is resistant to change.”He later weighs in on how a CMO can be an effective change agent for their company, something he refers to as “See and Seize.” In doing so, Ad

This week on “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with David Baldwin, CEO of Baldwin&, an advertising, design and strategy company in Raleigh, North Carolina. Baldwin is also the CMO of Ponysaurus Brewing Company, a film producer and, most recently, an author. His book, “The Belief Economy — How to Give a Damn, Stop Selling, and Create Buy-in,” takes a look at the seismic shift occurring in the marketing landscape and how brands can reach the next generation of influencers.During the course of the podcast, he offers his take on Millennials and iGen, who he sees as the key players in The Belief Economy, “We better figure out what they're about, we better figure out how they're wired, and we better figure out how to change the way we talk to them.” He goes on to add, “If you are being true to who you are, and you're smart about getting aligned with the people out there who love that, I think you can win.”As to why this book and why now, he says, “I'm a ca

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with David Aaker, who is widely recognized as the father of modern branding. He's the vice chairman of Prophet, a global marketing and branding consultancy, and, in 2015, he was inducted into the American Marketing Association's Hall of Fame. He's written 16 books, and the most recent is “Creating Signature Stores: Strategic Messaging that Energizes, Persuades and Inspires.”In explaining his belief in the power of stories as a tool of persuasion, Aaker says, “Stories are so much better at changing perceptions and at changing attitudes and even in gaining attention than are facts.” He goes on to say, “That's how stories persuade, they inhibit counterarguing, they attract attention, and they allow people to deduce their own conclusions.”And, as Aaker explains, the stories companies create and live into provide meaning for their employees, too: “Employees are looking for meaning in their work, and they'r

This week's episode of "Marketing Today," finds Alan talking with Jose Aguilar, global brand management director for Nestlé Nutrition. Aguilar leads Nestlé's billion-dollar super premium infant formula category and also heads up innovation projects, geographic expansion, and renovation of the communications platform for the company. He is a true global executive who has led businesses the world over, from Europe and Asia to the United States and Latin America.In talking about his experience as a global marketer, Aguilar voices his belief in the synergistic importance of a strong understanding of both data and culture. "You need a very deep understanding of the data that you have in front of you. And, actually, one of the key things a global marketer needs to bring to the table is an understanding of the local market."Not surprisingly, coming from someone who places great importance on the emotional intelligence necessary when working with people of different cultures, Aguilar adds, "What I've le

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Eric Asche, chief marketing and strategy officer for Truth Initiative, the largest nonprofit public health organization in the United States. Under Asche's stewardship, the nonsmoking initiative “Truth” campaign has taken dead aim at Big Tobacco and was named by Ad Age as one of the Top 15 Ad Campaigns of the 21st Century.During the course of the podcast, Asche touches on the difficulty in taking on the tobacco industry, which has a product that is legal and addictive and spends more on advertising in a day than Truth Initiative spends in a year: “We can't solely rest on the moral high ground,” says Asche, “because that's not the reason why individuals make this type of decision. And so, for us to have an impact on that buy-in behavior, to use a sort of marketing lens, we have to compete and understand how the tobacco industry is positioning themselves in the marketplace and the role the product is playing i

This week's episode of “Marketing Today” finds Alan talking with Laura Paz, regional senior marketing manager for Subway, who is responsible for their Latin American market and its more than 4,000 shops.In the course of her discussion with Alan, Paz made it clear that the future is now in regard to the use of technology, machine learning and, in particular, AI. “I think that right now, with the technology and everything shifting, we have to test everything,” offered Paz. “I think that technology is that opportunity…that could support all of our teams to achieve better performance.”Highlights from this week's “Marketing Today” podcast include:Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Paz learned the value of preparation and perseverance. (1:33)Paz talks about the challenge of balancing motherhood and a family with a career. (2:41)Paz discusses Subway's use of AI, how it works for them, and the success it has enjoyed. (6:15)Paz on the importance of overcomin

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Tom Fishburne, the founder of Marketoonist, a content marketing agency that employs cartoons to make its point, and the author of “Your Ad Ignored Here.” His work reaches several hundred thousand marketers every week, and Seth Godin calls him the David Ogilvy of cartooning.In discussing his work, Fishburne says, “It's fun for me, as someone who comes from both marketing and cartooning, to think about how cartoons can help solve marketing challenges.”He goes on to add, “Cartoons can ultimately bring empathy to a topic that can otherwise be very technical. Use humor as a bit of a Trojan horse — you get people laughing at certain behaviors or pain points — and it opens up a window to then deliver a deeper message.”Highlights from this week's “Marketing Today” podcast include:Fishburne's decision to move to Prague on a whim cured his aversion to risk and changed his life. (1:36)Fish

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan sits down with Jennifer Saenz, CMO at Frito-Lay. Saenz has a self-described “pretty meaty role” at Frito-Lay, where she oversees the full-portfolio of Frito-Lay brands, including long-term strategy of all the businesses, oversight of communications planning and creation and all creative work that's done, oversight of the innovation pipeline and insights-capability building, and design and analytics.During the podcast, she underscored the importance of asking the right consumer-centric question to optimize a company's brand-building efforts. “You have to start with the consumer,” says Saenz. “You can't really ask the question, ‘What does my brand want to accomplish?' You actually really need to ask the question, ‘Where is my consumer and what do they need from me right now?' And I think if you go in with that perspective first, you're in a much better place to come up with an idea that adds value to their li

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Augustine Fou, a digital marketing thought leader and cybersecurity and ad fraud researcher. In the course of his conversation with Alan, Fou speaks at great length about the damage rampant fraud is causing in the programmatic arena and how critical it is that industry begins to police itself in earnest to clean things up to provide solutions for a healthy, thriving digital marketing landscape.In talking about ad fraud and programmatic as the culprit, Fou says, “It's way bigger than anyone thinks it is, and that's because the bad guys — who are the bot makers and the hackers — have really good technology. And their bots are able to avoid or basically get by our defenses, and most of our detection.”But Fou does have hope: “If we can solve for fraud, and if we and eliminate fraud, the digital marketing industry is going to look very, very different a year from now — and years from now.”Highlights f

In this week's episode of “Marketing Today,” Alan talks with Alegra O'Hare, vice president of global brand communications for Adidas. O'Hare led the Adidas team in the creation of the “Original Is Never Finished” campaign that took home a Grand Prix at Cannes, and she was honored by Adweek in 2017 as a Brand Genius.In the course of her conversation with Alan, O'Hare talks about the value of courage in leading a brand. “You have to embody and show it,” says O'Hare. “I think you really have to transmit it, be authentic and genuine about it — and be championing it. And be celebrating it when it's successful.”That isn't to say O'Hare endorses a “fools rush in” approach when it comes to courage: “It's not about taking risks for risk's sake,” she adds. “It's got to be part of the strategy, it's got to be close to the values of the brand, it's got to make business sense.”Highlights from this week's “Marketing Today”

This week's episode of “Marketing Today” is a change of pace — a podcaster talking to a podcaster. Alan engages in a lively discussion with Drew Neisser, whose Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast has recently reached the 50-episode milestone. Neisser is also the founder and CEO of Renegade, an agency that focuses on helping CMOs develop their innovative and strategic thinking, and the author of “The CMO's Periodic Table: A Renegade's Guide to Marketing.” At the heart of Neisser's marketing approach is a seemingly simple touchstone: strategy. “If the CMO doesn't spend enough time on strategy, they're not going to win,” says Neisser. “And if a CMO has a solid strategy and a big idea, they have an easier job.”But Neisser also believes a marketer has to possess a certain bravery to succeed, especially at a time when their consumers are seeking brands that take a stand: “I'm in the business of giving CMOs the courage to have their brands mean something.&