Audience First Marketing And A Culture Of Learning With Lauren Weinberg, CMO At Square

Lauren Weinberg is a proud boy mom, a loving dog mom—and currently—the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Square, driving the brand’s global marketing and communications strategy. She started her career by measuring media metrics, then entered B2B media and eventually moved over to the consumer side of marketing strategy. Lauren spent some time running her own consulting business, then landed at Square, where she has been for the past six years. Previously, she held leadership roles at Yahoo!, MTV, and AOL. Lauren sees marketing at Square as the growth engine, and her team is responsible for the brand, the perceptions, and acquiring new customers.

In this episode, Lauren and I discuss Square’s business model, how it has dimensionalized and expanded over the years, the impact of data on Square’s marketing efforts, and the incrementalism and principled risks that marketing organizations need to take to be competitive. Square started in 2009 with the purpose of enabling any individual or business to participate and thrive in the economy with the little white card reader. Now, 14 years later, they have a full ecosystem of software and hardware that allows companies of all sizes to run their entire operation through Square. With such a diverse audience, Square thrives on implementing an audience-first marketing perspective. By focusing on key audiences and tailoring messaging for each, Square can drive discoverability and cultivate relationships with a variety of different demographics and businesses in all sectors and scales. Square is very data-driven and informed, so everything they do and plans for is tied back to the overall strategy, metrics of success, and business results. Their category is competitive, so they have to be responsive and adapt quickly while also being smart with their risk-taking. Lauren tells us taking small incremental risks gives them space to break through and try new things. Thankfully, experimenting and learning from failures is in Square’s DNA, which serves them well in being innovative. Lauren’s marketing teams measure their success on how much revenue they bring in from the new customers they acquire. She tells us it’s a blessing and a curse to be in the spotlight with their contributions so directly linked to the business’s success, but she thrives on the challenge.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • The benefits and challenges of implementing “audience first” marketing
  • How incrementalism, principled risks, and a culture of learning drive innovation at Square
  • Laurens take on marketing cuts in light of an oncoming recession

Key Highlights:

  • [01:30] A cross-country pandemic move
  • [05:00] Where Lauren got her start and how she ended up at Square
  • [09:00] What is Square today
  • [10:30] How does Lauren think about marketing role in driving growth
  • [12:00] What has Lauren learned at Square over the past six years?
  • [13:20] How is Lauren using data to inform her marketing efforts?
  • [15:40] Data in understanding long-term investments
  • [16:48] Marketing mix modleing
  • [19:05] Educating a variety of audiences
  • [21:40] Audience first marketing
  • [24:30] Marketing cuts in light of an oncoming recession
  • [27:50] Benefits of constant communication and transparent decision making
  • [30:00] The impact of her first job and being a boy mom
  • [32:30] Advocate for yourself and trust your intuition
  • [34:30] Generative Ai and unlocking TikTok
  • [36:00] Trends and subcultures to watch
  • [38:45] Returning to a beginners mindset

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Differentiation And Design Ops With Amrita Mathur, VP Of Marketing At Superside

When Amrita Mathur joined Superside as their first marketing hire in 2019, there was no product, no platform, and no recurring revenue. She is no stranger to being called in when companies are at a strategic inflection point with their growth strategy, so she did what she spent a career in B2B marketing learning how to do: implement a marketing-led growth strategy that translated into $8 million in subscription revenue in the first year and 400% year-over-year growth since then. Amrita is passionate about community, but she denotes an important difference between community building and a sense of community. For her, it’s about a sense of goodwill and feeling like you have someone in your corner. Now as VP of Marketing, with that sense of community top of mind, she and her team are revolutionizing design at scale for ambitious brands like Amazon, Meta, Shopify, and Coinbase.

In this episode, Alan and Amrita discuss her journey from developer to Marketing VP, the moves that played a key role in taking Superside from $0 to $55 million in annual recurring revenue in just four years, and the importance of Design and Creative Ops in running an efficient and effective team. Superside is a fully managed design subscription company that serves marketing and creative teams to help them un-bottleneck their design challenges and empower them to get creative work done in a fast and efficient manner. Unlike an agency, freelance marketplace, or internal team, Superside acts as a point solution for key problems inside a company. They optimize for efficiency, speed, and scale, which allows them to cater to companies that are pivoting and changing rapidly. Amrita says an understanding of the importance of Design and Creative Ops helps Superside be an extremely efficient and effective partner. When it comes to Superside’s rapid and sustained growth, Amrita tells us they did make smart moves but also attributes some of their good fortune to good timing. One key move was figuring out their differentiation early. With marketing, the problem is well-defined, but the solutions are messy, so from the start, Superside dove deep into their best use cases and what value they would provide in that space. Another key move was the founder’s investment in marketing from day one to intentionally “build an efficient machine” for lean operations.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • What is the Superside use case?
  • How Amrita took Superside from $0 to $55 million in ARR in four years
  • The benefits of a marketing-first mindset

Key Highlights:

  • [02:05] An appreciation for “community”
  • [07:30] Path to becoming CMO of Superside
  • [10:20] What is Superside?
  • [14:00] ARR increased from $0 to $55 million in four years.
  • [18:30] No convincing is needed when the higher-ups get
  • [20:00] What are “moon shoots,” and what is an example of a win?
  • [28:10] The nexus of design, creativity, and operation
  • [31:50] A crazy (and impressive) designer to design operations ratio
  • [36:00] Being a chameleon isn’t such a bad thing.
  • [39:00] Advice for her younger self
  • [40:05] Be aware of dilution in marketing.
  • [42:40] Misconceptions around mass amounts of data

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Bringing Your Brand Purpose To Life With Raj Pudipeddi, CMO Of Align Tech, Makers Of Invisalign

Raj Pudipeddi currently serves as the Chief Product and Marketing Officer for Align Technology, makers of Invisalign, and its Managing Director for the Asia Pacific region. Through his dual roles, Raj has global responsibility for product, marketing, strategy, and clinical teams, as well as for the market development and commercial execution of all Align Technology products and services in the Asia Pacific region. Raj is an engineer by training who spent nearly 22 years at Procter & Gamble after he received his MBA. Today, he considers himself an “accidental marketer” who gets his joy out of serving the business and believes that ordinary people can deliver extraordinary outcomes when they are empowered to do so.

In this episode, Raj and I discuss the first steps he took when he arrived at Align Technology and how he has transformed the organization to deliver on the brand purpose. Align Technology encompasses several brands (Align Tech, Invisalign, Itero, and Exocad) that combine to provide end-to-end service, from generating interest to helping doctors model and use their products. They operate in a two-sided market by serving consumers and doctors, but a common purpose of “transforming smiles and changing lives” brings the two together. Align Technology is creating a whole new market and modernizing a discipline that has been stationary for hundreds of years. By ensuring the seamless integration of their products, Align Technology is able to increase throughput, drive demand in the general population, and match it in the doctor’s office.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How seamless integrations are increasing throughput and driving demand
  • How Align is creating a new market and modernizing a stationary discipline
  • Where Raj learned his leadership style

Key Highlights:

  • [01:50] Poker pro
  • [02:45] From engineering to CMO
  • [04:50] What brought Raj to Align?
  • [06:30] The huge market opportunity
  • [08:00] Wire-crossed lovers
  • [09:15] The complexity of the system
  • [11:40] Where did Raj start when he got to Align?
  • [13:40] How does purpose make a difference?
  • [11:25] The power of a smile
  • [20:40] Lessons learned
  • [23:30] How Align is keeping the brand authentic
  • [25:00] The transformation needed to bring the vision to life
  • [26:45] Consumer marketing vs. doctor marketing
  • [29:45] Being a market maker
  • [31:45] Personalization and seamless integration to create demand
  • [33:00] Modernizing a stationary discipline
  • [34:50] Measuring the effectiveness of marketing
  • [37:50] Learning to make people feel respected and valued
  • [41:05] Stop and smell the roses.
  • [42:55] AI doesn’t preclude thinking.
  • [44:30] Brands to watch
  • [46:15] The pace of innovation is increasing.

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Simply Honest Ads And In-House Creatives With Hiroki Asai, Global Head Of Marketing And Creative At Airbnb

Hiroki Asai is the Head of Global Marketing at Airbnb, overseeing all marketing efforts and in-house creative teams. Hiroki grew up as a skateboarder in the 80s, loved the design aspect of that world, and started his career as a graphic designer. Eventually, he learned how to apply what he knew about creativity and design to solve business problems. He spent 18 years at Apple and served as Vice President of Global Marketing Communications and Executive Creative Director, where he was responsible for a variety of iconic marketing campaigns for a range of products, including the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Now, Hiroki is responsible for maintaining Airbnb’s strong global brand and sharing the stories of our millions of hosts who offer unique homes and experiences to guests around the world.

In this episode, Hiroki and I discuss Airbnb’s post-pandemic rebalancing of spend between performance and brand, why he is a firm believer in the importance of in-house creative teams, and what he thinks makes a great campaign today. Hiroki is an advocate for the creation of in-house creative teams for the benefit of the company, brand, and creatives alike. He believes in-house teams offer the distinct advantages of having creatives closely connected to business challenges and maintaining a close integration between “in-bound” and “out-bound” aspects. When hiring creatives, Hiroki looks for individuals who can both take a broad perspective and execute artistic visions while understanding the larger business impact. He also touches on the importance of storytelling and differentiation in marketing, highlighting the need to shift the narrative through brand tactics rather than solely focusing on performance metrics. In his opinion, a good campaign shows truthfulness and real stories by embracing simplicity, authenticity, intelligent messaging, and shared experiences as a response to the proliferation of overproduced advertisements. To this point, Hiroki tells us how Airbnb’s newest campaigns around Rooms and The Host’s Passport were influenced by first-hand user experiences, leading to a transformation in people’s perceptions and overcoming hesitations they may have about staying with strangers.


In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • The benefits of in-house creative teams
  • What Hiroki looks for when he’s hiring new creative team members
  • What makes a great campaign?

Key Highlights:

  • [01:40] Hiroki’s recent travel
  • [02:50] From skateboarder to graphic designer to CMO
  • [05:30] Coming to Airbnb
  • [06:40] Hiroki’s view on in-house creative
  • [08:20] Advantages of in-house creatives
  • [09:50] What to look for when hiring an in-house creative team
  • [12:00] “The Great Rebalancing”: shifting post-pandemic marketing mix
  • [14:00] The interplay between the ethos and the product
  • [15:50] What makes a good campaign?
  • [19:50] Airbnb Rooms
  • [25:15] The Hart Family’s Airbnb experience
  • [30:20] Advice for your younger self
  • [31:05] Close the gap between design and marketing.
  • [32:45] Brands to watch
  • [33:55] Marketing shouldn’t be your differentiator.

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Striking The Balance Between Intuition And Information With Oded Netzer, Co-Author Of “Decisions Over Decimals”

Oded Netzer is a world-renowned expert in data-driven decision-making. He serves as the Vice Dean of Research and the Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. As the son of a Holocaust survivor, Oded is the first in his family to attend college. After graduation, he spent some time working in a chicken house but quickly decided that wasn’t for him. After a quick stop at a consulting firm, he returned to college to climb the academic research ladder and pursue a career in education. Currently, he splits his time between teaching as an affiliate of the Columbia University Data Science Institute and consulting as an Amazon Scholar. He has published dozens of papers in the world’s leading marketing and management science journals, and his award-winning research is widely read and highly cited.

In this episode, Oded and I discuss “Decisions Over Decimals,” Oded’s latest co-authored book with Christopher Frank, Vice President of the Global Advertising and Brand Management team at American Express, and Paul Magnone, Head of Global Strategic Alliances at Google, who are also professors at Columbia. Having worked on the front lines and taught future executives, they identified two data myths that served as the inspiration for this book. Oded presents these myths and explores the three core pillars of quantitative intuition covered in the book, highlighting how marketers can improve decision-making by understanding these concepts.

Oded advises against the inclination to rush to find a solution and instead encourages spending more time understanding the problem. According to Oded, a well-thought-out problem is already half-solved. This interview and the book emphasize the significance of asking insightful questions and properly defining the problem. This approach is evident in the emergence of Prompt Engineers for tools like ChatGPT, where precise questioning leverages quantitative intuition to achieve desired outcomes.

The conversation also touches upon unstructured data and its implications for marketers in terms of analysis, decision-making, customer listening, and demonstrating that marketing is not just a cost but can also drive revenue.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • “Decisions Over Decimals”: Why this book and why now?
  • What we should be thinking about in terms of good data-based decision-making
  • How quantitative intuition is relevant to Prompt Engineers using tools like ChatGPT

Key Highlights:

  • [01:50] The son of a Holocaust survivor
  • [03:45] From the chicken house to the university classroom
  • [06:30] Why this book and why now?
  • [09:25] Three pillars of quantitative intuition
  • [16:30] “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
  • [18:00] Analyst in Wonderland
  • [21:00] Prompt Engernerrs
  • [23:15] What is so special about ChatGPT?
  • [25:45] The best is yet to come with AI.
  • [28:00] How should we think about unstructured data?
  • [30:50] Connecting marketing with unstructured data
  • [35:20] Gen Z pushing for “doing well by doing good”
  • [38:00] What excites Oded in the marketing space now?
  • [39:55] Travel is the best teacher.
  • [40:50] Enjoy the journey.
  • [41:30] Generative AI and creating a win-win
  • [42:10] Brands to watch
  • [44:30] Gen Z and AI are driving the future

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Establishing A Mutually Beneficial Partnership Model With Guillaume Bouvard, CMO At Extend

Guillaume Bouvard is the COO, CMO, and co-founder of Extend. He founded the company with two friends and credits their success to complementary skill sets, trust, shared values, and education. Before starting Extend, Guillaume spent 12 years at American Express in various roles, advising the C-Suite as a leader of the Strategic Planning Group for several years. Before Amex, Guillaume led marketing efforts at Capital One and earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

In this episode, Guillaume and I discuss what Extend does, why it uniquely benefits marketers and agencies, and how they utilize marketing within their B2B2B model. Extend is a platform that turns business credit cards into a full spend management platform. They do not compete with banks but rather partner with them and empower them to offer better add-on products to their clients. Those banks then have to give Extend access to those clients, the real end users. This B2B2C or B2B2B model has unique challenges. Extend must be strategic about how it markets and communicates to its banking partners to gain access to cardholders and ensure the partnership is beneficial for all parties. Guillaume and his co-founders believe that effective marketing efforts continue well after customers walk in the door. Whether it be through cross-selling or continued engagement, you have to get them, keep them, and increase their usage. The nature of marketing is understanding how to create a strategy to influence consumers. Guillaume tells us that marketers and marketing agencies are a large portion of Extend users, and he outlines several use cases that highlight why.


In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Guillaume’s founding story and how he has found success with his two other friends
  • What Extend does today in the virtual card and payment spaces
  • How Extend conceptualizes marketing to support their goals

Key Highlights:

  • [02:00] A friendship/business partner success story
  • [05:37] Guillaume’s career path
  • [08:20] What does Extend do?
  • [09:40] Extend isn’t competing with banks; it is partnering with them.
  • [11:30] How does extending help marketers specifically?
  • [17:20] Getting banking partners to promote Extend
  • [22:40] Halo benefits
  • [24:10] The value added for banking partners
  • [25:40] Organizing marketing to support GTM
  • [29:05] Measuring the impact of marketing
  • [32:30] Being pulled in two directions
  • [37:30] Advice to your younger self
  • [38:50] Everyone is talking about AI.
  • [40:40] Brands to watch
  • [42:50] The landscape is evolving. Marketers must do the same.

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Brands Navigate Constant Disruption By Reimagining Marketing’s Role

According to a new report based on a survey of leaders of the Consumer Goods Forum, a group of 400 major retailers, manufacturers and service providers across more than 70 countries, brands are facing the formidable challenges of today’s marketplace by finding creative ways of driving revenue through a transformed approach to marketing.


The New Role Of Marketers: Navigating Uncertainty, Driving Innovation, Optimizing Spend

According to the report, “Pursuit Of Harmony In Turmoil: Working Together To Make A Difference,” developed in collaboration with EY, brands face a slew of growth barriers that require leaders to adjust to constant, disruptive change.

“Companies are forced to make tradeoffs between margin versus growth, investment versus cost, and price versus purpose,” the report reads, with some of the largest producers of consumer products in the world having to “strike a balance between rising costs, priceconscious consumers, shareholders’ needs, and their commitments to sustainable longterm growth.”

Brands are doing this by investing in new business models and a digital infrastructure that includes creating cross-functional teams that often place the onus for digital transformation on CMOs and by enacting new mandates to drive revenue amidst economic uncertainty. In a recent EY survey, seventy percent of CMOs stated that their roles had begun to blend with that of a chief digital officer, thereby increasing their responsibilities. That tracks with the new shift among business leaders toward harnessing the power of CMOs to drive revenue-focused optimization processes across the entire organization.

Dirk Van de Put, chairman and CEO of Mondelez International Inc., a brand with over $26 billion in annual sales in 160 countries, sees the challenges that businesses face as transforming how sales and marketing teams interact and are defined and driven by digital innovation, per the report.

“Sales these days is all about Revenue Growth Management and digital tools,” Van de Put said. “It’s no longer about talking well and being in front of your client. Our next CMO could come from our digital group rather than somebody that grew up in brand management.”

Despite these shifts in duties, most CMOs in EY’s recent study reported that they had to petition for digital funding as needed, with 64 percent stating that their peers in finance “found it difficult to accept the unplanned nature of marketing expenses.”

That “difficulty” may be linked to many CMOs’ experience of flat budgets, even amid inflation.

Source: Gartner

According to a May 2023 report from Gartner, CMOs must do more with less while driving digital innovation and ensuring that branding duties are maintained. At the same time, new sales pressure due to marketplace uncertainty is making long-term, customer-focused strategy management challenging.

“In 2023, CMOs need to become a new type of enterprise leader,” said Ewan McIntyre, chief of research and VP analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “This goes beyond serving at the helm of the brand but also assuming a more business-focused role that pivots into a period of investing for profitability versus growth. Those that carry on status-quo will face significant challenges in the near-term.”

According to a LinkedIn global survey of C-level executives and 494 CMOs from late 2022, 77 percent of CMOs report feeling pressure to “prove their campaigns are providing an enhanced short-term return on investment.” Their feelings are likely based on fact: A survey of 1,619 brand marketers by Marketing Week revealed that 37 percent saw a marked increase in ROI tracking in 2022. Another 31 percent stated they would likely have to curb their creativity while 30 percent said they would have to operate more reactively.

With 75 percent of marketers reporting that they feel pressure to cut MarTech spending, delivering on performance and engaging customers while juggling innovation means a renewed focus on the customer. But today, optimizing customer experience is not enough.

Decoding The “Disrupted” Consumer

It’s no secret that consumers are concerned about inflation, but for marketers seeking to deliver on a new ROI mandate, those concerns make performance more complicated. Per EY’s “Pursuit Of Harmony In Turmoil: Working Together To Make A Difference,” 74 percent of consumers are concerned about the rising cost of living, and 56 percent are worried about their ability to purchase household necessities. Fifty-four percent also expect rising costs to worsen in the next six months. With 67 percent of surveyed consumers reporting that they now try to repair rather than replace items and nearly one-third shifting away from brand-name products, marketers have to do more than stoke brand loyalty—they have to focus on amplifying consumers’ willingness to spend at all.

“Consumers don’t just shift based on the way they buy; they shift their opinions faster than you think,” Van de Put said. “Since we are in such a period of turmoil, we are seeing big shifts in the mindset of consumers. There’s a change in shopping habits. They want to try more things. What was true before the pandemic and this inflationary period won’t necessarily be true after.”

The Takeaway For Marketers

First-quarter sales figures for 2023 show that consumers are spending on experiences and products and services that deliver unique value. They are even willing to cut back on tried-and-true brands or go-to products to try new things or brands that align with what matters most to them now. Consumers’ willingness to splurge in the midst of inflation worries suggests that marketers’ insights into their audience’s needs and priorities can convert them back to their brands.

That means it may be back to basics for consumer engagement—allowing CMOs to leverage their expertise to bring back “disrupted” consumers with a combination of value and values—a heightened expression of what makes a brand worth its price. That could occur either by alignment with ESG principles that drive much of Gen Z purchasing, for example, or the overall emotional impact of the product or the experience of it.

Marketing Is A Team Sport With Katie Krum, SVP And CMO At PURE Insurance

Katie Krum started her career at PURE in 2006 as the sixth employee at the insurance start-up. She played a significant role in shaping the brand, and throughout this process, she discovered her passion for marketing. Katie eventually left to develop her skill set at Nickelodeon, Marriott, Under Armour, and Weber Shandwick. She now leads a “small but mighty team” as the CMO at PURE, where she oversees all aspects of marketing communications and PR. One of the driving factors that drew her back to PURE was her incredible boss and her determination to explore innovative approaches to generate interest in insurance. She firmly believes in the power of collaboration, as she sees teams achieve more together than as individuals.

In this episode, Katie and I discuss the challenges involved in transitioning PURE from a company to a brand tailored specifically for high-net-worth families. Katie highlights the significant impact that service experiences have on driving progress. Katie’s expertise from other industries is instrumental in bringing attention to PURE’s distinctive “membership model” that sets them apart. Despite boasting a strong membership base with high renewal rates and an impressive net promoter score, consumer research revealed a lack of understanding of what PURE is all about to prospects and what they do for their members. This led to the launch of the “Join the Club” campaign, the development of a mobile-first brand book, and the redefinition of “excellent service.” As a first-time CMO, Katie infuses the insurance industry, which typically lacks excitement, with her enthusiasm and fresh perspective. She actively spearheads transformative changes and anticipates significant shifts in marketing team structure, performance evaluation, and the utilization of AI.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why Katie returned to PURE
  • What sets PURE apart in the insurance industry
  • The benefits of having marketing communications and PR handled by one team

Key Highlights:

  • [01:25] Katie’s dearest dad
  • [05:00] Starting at PURE, leaving and learning, then coming back
  • [10:15] Why did she come back to insurance?
  • [12:30] What does PURE do?
  • [15:15] How is Katie building the brand?
  • [18:05] Research and ideation inform the plan.
  • [19:10] The history of insurance and what makes it PURE
  • [21:10] Benefits of blending marketing and PR into one team
  • [25:10] First-time CMO excitement
  • [26:00] Marketing is a team sport where we embrace crazy ideas.
  • [28:50] Pat yourself on the back and be the one that shows up.
  • [31:20] 3 important topics
  • [33:45] State and brands to watch
  • [36:45] The importance of post-pandemic reconnection

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Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Capitalizing On Shifting Consumer Behaviors With Tony Marlow, CMO At LG Ad Solutions

Tony Marlow is the Chief Marketing Officer for LG Ad Solutions, where he uses data-driven insights to lead all aspects of marketing and communications. Since the beginning of his career, Tony has always been interested in technology, thought leadership, and helping people understand why they should embrace emerging tech. He has served as CMO at Integral Ad Science, CMO at Data Axle, Global Head and VP of B2B Marketing at Yahoo, and a consultant for Nielsen Online. As an avid athlete, his training for triathlons and Iron Man races has taught him a lot about efficiency in planning and tenacity in execution, which he brings to his professional life as well.

In this episode, Tony and I discuss “The Big Shifts” in consumer viewing behavior and how CTV is accounting for the new ways in which people consume media. LG Ad Solutions is a CTV advertising company with over 150 million smart TVs worldwide, delivering video and native units on the biggest screen in the home. The first phase of the shift in consumer viewing behavior coincided with the beginning of the pandemic when people were staying home and streaming more than ever before. The second phase is happening now, with people moving away from subscriptions and leaning into ad-supported TV to get free or less expensive on-demand TV. In contrast to the “spray and pray” approach of traditional TV advertising, the increased user data associated with CTV allows advertisers to reach a target audience with more sophisticated and relevant creative messaging and then track performance and brand objectives all in one place. Tony highlights the importance of marketers being cognizant of how they are connecting with their audience on the different screens they are engaging with, as well as finding the balance between relevancy and data privacy.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Causes and Impacts of “The Big Shift” in consumer viewing behavior
  • Performance and optimization opportunities with CTV
  • How LG is balancing ad relevance with data privacy

Key Highlights:

  • [02:00] Bike, swim, and rum
  • [03:20] Tony’s path to LG
  • [07:45] What are LG Ad Solutions?
  • [10:20] What should we know about the big shifts happening in TV?
  • [16:30] We can do TV better.
  • [19:50] Balancing ad relevance with a sense of privacy
  • [22:00] Data-informed ads
  • [24:30] The correlation between relevance and effectiveness
  • [25:30] It’s less of a walled garden and more of a gated community.
  • [28:10] Brand safety in CTV
  • [30:40] Performance and optimization opportunities with CTV
  • [35:15] How high-performance training impacts Tony’s life
  • [37:50] The Eisenhower Matrix
  • [41:30] All marketing is storytelling.
  • [42:00] Causes to watch
  • [48:00] We’re on the precipice of a new era of human productivity with AI

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Post-Production Credits:


Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.

Adding Meaningful Insights And Activating Data With Vincent Washington, VP Of CXM Best Practices Group At Sprinklr

Vincent Washington is the Vice President of the Customer Experience Management Best Practices Group at Sprinklr. With four years of experience at the company, Vincent has a diverse professional background, having worked previously at Amazon, UPS, LinkedIn, and BlackBerry. With his extensive experience in various roles and seeing technology come and go, he has learned that only authentic relationships built on mutual respect and genuine interest stand the test of time. When it comes to CMX, Vincent advocates for the inclusion of relevant insights related to existing conversations rather than forcefully inserting messages that do not align with the context, resulting in the best long-term outcomes.

In this episode, Alan and Vincent discuss the evolution of Sprinklr, which has transformed from a digital listening and social media management platform to a comprehensive CXM solution. Through breaking down data silos and gaining a deeper understanding of customers, Sprinklr, in collaboration with Adobe, can provide a holistic view of the customer and enable businesses to create personalized marketing and advertisements that are more targeted and relevant. Vincent also shares his valuable insights on CXM best practices, including warnings against common mistakes that brands make while attempting to remain relevant and ways AI can be incorporated into CMX strategies.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How Sprinklr has evolved
  • CXM Best Practices
  • How AI can be used in CMX strategies

Key Highlights:

  • [01:10] Introductions
  • [01:55] Sprinklr and Adobe partnership
  • [02:40] The latest and greatest at Sprinklr
  • [04:00] CXM Best Practices
  • [07:10] A better way to view the world to boost CMX
  • [08:00] Milk’s favorite cookie
  • [08:40] Adobe’s powerful partnerships and nostalgia
  • [10:25] Technology is going to change, but relationships will remain.
  • [11:30] Smiles are universal, and empowerment is paramount.

Resources Mentioned:

 Follow the podcast:

 Connect with the Guest:

 Connect with Marketing Today and Alan Hart:

Post-Production Credits:


Alan B. Hart is the creator and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders. Alan advises leading executives and marketing teams on brand, customer experience, innovation, and growth opportunities. He has consulted with Fortune 100 companies but is an entrepreneur at his core, having founded or served as an executive for nine companies.