Marketing Today with Alan Hart

On the show today, Alan and Michelle talk about her career journey, the ETS rebrand, the uniqueness of her current role, and why more organizations should be thinking of a similar structure at the leadership level. ETS's focus on people and mission of driving human progress forward is what drew Michelle to the company. As Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer, she is responsible for internal and external communications, customer insights and analytics, branding and marketing, e-commerce, philanthropic impact, global demand generation, and product innovation and development. Michelle Froah is currently the Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer at ETS, but when she was younger, she had aspirations to become an astronaut. While that dream never came to fruition, it did lead her to study mechanical engineering, which unexpectedly shaped her into the perfect person for the complex role she has now. Michelle started her career at Procter & Gamble, where she learned problem-solving under pressure and the value of a well-managed team. She then moved to Singapore and became the Asia Pacific Regional CMO for Kimberly Clark, where she developed a global perspective and understanding of local execution. She then founded Brandable before moving on to Samsung and serving as SVP of Global Brand and Marketing at MetLife before joining ETS in 2023, where she is focusing on transforming it into an organization that empowers human progress. As ETS enters a new category of future readiness, the CMO role itself is changing as well. While it is still about marketing, it is also about sorting through insights, perspectives, and growth strategies to apply them most effectively, which is where the innovation title comes in. Michelle's combination role allows her to work with all of their partners to serve customers in new ways and communicate that ETS is delivering real-time insights and solutions to help people enhance their skills. Michelle wraps up by talking about how her time as an engineer unexpectedly shaped her as a leader, team member, and well-rounded marketer, how shared goals empower marketers to tackle increased complexity and help the consumer win, how data can improve personalization, and the ways consumers benefit by melding marketing and innovation leadership roles. In this episode, you'll learn about: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Alan and Jessica talk about Bubble Goods, who it serves, and how they are helping emerging food brands and unique consumers alike. Jessica Young is a fan of Fufu and the founder and CEO of Bubble Goods. With 10+ years in the food and wellness industry, Jessica saw a gap in the market: food brands were innovating (specifically in the health foods sector), but they didn’t have the digital know-how or right platform to launch and scale on. It was becoming harder and harder for these brands to get onto Whole Foods, launch and scale within Amazon, and drive customers into their singular e-commerce channels. Jessica saw an opportunity to launch something similar to what Etsy has done in the handmade goods space by creating and curating a marketplace for innovative, truly strict-label, independent food brands. When she was starting her career, she didn't intend to enter the food industry, but her passion for cooking triggered an evolution that led her to it, and she never looked back. After going to culinary school, she worked as a chef in NYC in Michelin-starred restaurants for a while before she became burned out and began exploring the online food space. She transitioned to the food startup scene in 2013 and eventually became the first employee and Head of Product and Operations for Daily Harvest in 2015 before launching Bubble Goods in 2019. Bubble Goods is a drop-ship marketplace that curates brands for their users and gives small independent food and beverage brands the ability to market nationally. Jessica tells us they have a strict vetting process to make sure they are only delivering the best to their customers, but there is no order minimum so they can remain start-up friendly and keep their finger on the pulse of emerging trends. Bubble Goods has two main groups of customers: one is interested in discovering innovative foods, and the other is searching for foods that adhere to lifestyle and dietary restrictions. Bubble Goods prides itself on being low-lift and high-impact for the brands it partners with, and for many of its brands, Bubble Goods is their first retailer. To help brands succeed, Jessica and her team work hard to be good partners by putting brands in front of the right customers and giving them resources when they onboard for everything from legal resources to marketing partners. In this episode, you'll learn about: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Alan and Jessica talk about the evolution of Calendly from serving solopreneurs to enterprise organizations, the success factors that have made that shift possible, how she thinks about the RIO and effectiveness of marketing spend, and balancing the need to drive results and be creative through “creative destruction.”. Jessica Gilmartin is an amateur baker, an ex-yogurt mogul, and the new Chief Revenue Officer at the scheduling automation platform Calendly. She took her first marketing job at Dell, which prompted a move to the Bay Area, where she also started and sold a chain of yogurt stores. Before joining Calendly in 2023, Jessica was Head of Revenue Marketing at Asana and had also served as CMO of three high-growth, venture-backed startups, building their global enterprise marketing engines during rapid growth periods. Calendly started with a basic scheduling link for individuals, but business users needed more team features, and enterprise users needed more admin and security features, so the product grew to meet those needs. Jessica tells us they are building for scale but are sure to never lose sight of the individual user's success. Her team is focused on how to tell a complete story with comprehensive features while maintaining simplicity in the product and the messaging. To do that, Jessica and her team have to experiment. Marketing changes all the time, and what worked then will not work now, so marketers have to be creative to drive results. She refers to this as “creative destruction” and encourages her team to make 70–80% of what they are doing every quarter new. However, to make this work, her team must trust that failing is not career-ending as long as they learn from it. Jessica also outlines how her approach to segmenting and communicating expectations around marketing spend facilitates experimentation. AI is a place where many companies are experimenting. However, within their product, the Calendly team sees a huge amount of opportunities they are pursuing, but they are taking a measured approach to keep their users' interests top of mind. Alan and Jessica wrap up by talking about accepting and embracing hard feedback, the importance of listening to her gut feelings, why markets have to learn sales, and the shifts coming from the consumerization of B2B tech. In this episode, you'll learn about: Key Highlights: is Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jacqueline Woods is the Chief Marketing Officer for Teradata, the cloud analytics and data platform for AI, headquartered in San Diego, California. Jacqueline joined Teradata from NielsenIQ, where she was a member of the executive leadership team and Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. She also spent nearly 10 years as CMO of the IBM Global Partner Ecosystem Division, where she focused on building cloud, data, AI, and SaaS strategies. Before that, she was Global Head of Customer Segmentation & Customer Experience at General Electric and also held roles of increasing responsibility at Oracle for 10 years, as well as leadership roles at Ameritech and GTE, now Verizon. Thankfully, Jacqueline has always loved math, because, as she points out, marketing today is based mostly on data. However, she also emphasizes the importance of empathy and notes that it is essential in creating a space where people can be authentic and drive innovation, productivity, and product design. In this episode, Alan and Jacqueline talk about where trust fits into the AI conversation, what leaders need to know before launching an AI initiative, and how AI can boost efficiency and productivity. Jacqueline also tells us why underrepresented people, like black female business leaders, need to be involved in AI as it evolves. While AI has been around for a while, it became all the rage at the end of 2022 with public access to tools like ChatGPT. AI is based on patterns, some factual and some non-factual. So that poses the question: how do we trust AI? That's where Teradata comes in. By having responsible people create the models, take responsibility, and think critically about the training, governance, and outcomes, Teradata is focused on building the trust required to use artificial intelligence, generative artificial intelligence, and large language models for their “global 10,000” clientele, like American Airlines and United Healthcare. These companies rely on Teradata for their cloud data and analytics workloads. Teradata has been stewards of trusted information and data since they were founded about 40 years ago, and they believe people thrive when empowered with better and entrusted information. In this episode, you'll learn about: Our Sponsor: Download Emailtooltester’s free comparison spreadsheet to find the best email marketing service for your business. Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Alan and Robin discuss his path from Wall Street to citizenM, their focus on affordable luxury, the innovations they are bringing to the hospitality industry, and who they are working to serve. Robin also tells us about their unique citizensOf campaign and how it is helping them integrate into communities, as well as their partnership with World Bicycle Relief and how they encourage their guests to participate in impactful ESG initiatives. Robin Chadha is the Amsterdam-based Chief Marketing Officer of citizenM, where he leads the Brand & Communications team. Robin is half Indian, half Dutch, and was educated in American schools his entire life, giving him a deep understanding and appreciation for different cultures from a young age. He spent his first year after graduation on the floor of the NYSE and did another year in the offices, but knew it wasn't the place for him. He made the move into fashion by joining Tommy Hilfiger in New York, where he fell in love with the industry. He then moved back to the Netherlands to join his father's fashion company, Mexx, but left shortly after it was sold to Liz Claiborne. In 2005, Robin entered hospitality by launching Rain, a unique design-led food and drink experience venue in Amsterdam. Robin has always had a passion for travel, so he sold Rain in 2008 to join the budding citizenM team, where he has since been responsible for growing citizenM into the worldwide, distinctly recognizable hotel and lifestyle brand it is today. citizenM was founded by Robin's father, Rattan Chadha, and opened its first hotel at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in 2008. When Rattan ran Mexx, he saw his designers traveling the world unable to find affordable luxury hotels to stay in, so they became the pioneers in affordable luxury with a focus on emotional connections, efficiencies, and experiences. Today, citizenM owns and operates 30 hotels in most major cities across the world. They focus on Bleisure travelers that are blending business and leisure, leverage their citizenOf campaign to overcome issues when integrating into new cities, and maintain impressive ESG and charity initiatives to encourage their guests to improve the world citizenM is helping them experience. In this episode, you'll learn about: Our Sponsor: Download Emailtooltester’s free comparison spreadsheet to find the best email marketing service for your business. Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Alan and Andy discuss his path to creating Circle, how to build community, best practices and takeaways for community builders, how to build a great member experience, how to find the right members for your community, and much more! Andy Guttormsen is the co-founder and chief revenue officer of Circle, an all-in-one community platform for professional creators and brands. He started his career on Wall Street, but quickly found that it wasn't the place for him. He attempted to start a couple of ultimately unsuccessful companies before he made his way to Teachable, where he had the idea for Circle and met his co-founder. Circle has community building down to a science, and they are kind enough to compile and share that science with us in their Community Benchmark Report. To generate this report, Circle sent out a survey to their 10,000 customers, gathered their internal product data, and put together a report on premium “Platinum Communities” to identify how they differ from other communities. The full report is available online, but Andy outlines some of the key takeaways and best practices from those platinum communities that we can use to build our own strong communities, from encouraging member interaction to designing valuable signature gatherings. However, none of these community engagement strategies work without high-quality members in the community. Thankfully, Andy also shares tips and tricks from great community builders he has seen succeed in growing their membership base. No matter the membership numbers, each community has value, but for businesses, that value will look different based on their goals. Andy gives us several examples of what can make a community valuable to a business and how to identify and increase that unique value. In this episode, you'll learn: Our Sponsor: Download Emailtooltester’s free comparison spreadsheet to find the best email marketing service for your business. Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for links to resources mentioned in this episode and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lee Thompson is the co-founder and CMO of Flash Pack, a travel brand dedicated to small group adventures rooted in friendship that he founded with his now wife and CEO, Radha Vyas. Lee’s career merged with his passion for adventure as a self-employed photojournalist. He met Radha on a chance first date between gigs, and they immediately started planning what became Flash Pack. By 2016, they were married, had both quit their jobs, and were starting their new adventure as business owners. Initially, they successfully bootstrapped their business, but COVID and closed borders had other ideas. The pandemic was in full swing, they had a one-year-old baby, all of their investors wanted refunds, and by November 2020, they had filed for bankruptcy and lost everything. Thanks to teamwork, creative problem-solving, and dedication, Lee and Radha were able to relaunch in November 2021 and are in a better place today than ever before. Now, he is using the storytelling skills he learned through photojournalism to tell the story of Flash Pack, a story of friendship. In this episode, Alan and Lee discuss who Flash Pack is for, the unique experiences they offer their customers, and why they are all in on marketing friendship. Flash Pack is a London-based start-up, but with a large American user base, they are beginning the transition to become a US-based company with several existing US-based employees and an upcoming family move to the States. They have over 75 employees in 12 different countries, and revenue is higher than it ever was pre-pandemic. Lee says business is booming due to an increase in loneliness and awareness of the damage it can do. That is why all Flash Pack marketing is centered around friendship forged through adventure. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kelly Cook does it all! She is a mother of five who plays the drums AND serves as President of Marketing, IT, and Finance at David’s Bridal. Her love of learning and trying new things can be seen in her impressive and varied work history. From Continental Airlines, to Waste Management, Inc. to DSW, Pier One, Sears, Kmart, and now David’s Bridal, Kelly tells us she learned a lot about herself and her craft by challenging herself in new industries and encourages other marketers to try the same. In this episode, Alan and Kelly discuss her unique role combining brand, tech, and finance and what those three aspects may mean for the future of brand experiences at retailers. Kelly also tells us how David’s Bridal views their role in the wedding planning process, as well as how their unique omnichannel approach and crowdfunded loyalty programs help them connect with brides on a deeper level. David’s Bridal sells 1 out of every 4 bridal gowns in the US, so they know brides, and they know brides are stressed out. That is why David’s Bridal is on a mission to make every step of the process as easy as possible, expand its scope to fill gaps in the market, add more value for its brides, and help them keep costs down. It was the creativity of the brides they serve and the dedication of their employees through COVID that inspired David’s Bridal's new “The Things We Do for Love” campaign. Even with the rise of AI, automation, and neuromarketing, Kelly and her team at David’s Bridal know the in-store human connection is a part of their business that will never be replaced. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Regina Lawless is an inspiration. She is a recent empty nester, founder of Bossy & Blissful, a community for black women executives and business owners, and author of Do You: A Journey of Success, Loss and Learning to Live a More MeaningFULL Life. After graduating with her BA in communications from California State University-Sacramento, Regina got her first job in human resources at Target. After about 8 years in retail HR, she did a stint in banking, then moved to the airline industry, and in 2016 she pivoted to tech. This led her to Meta, where in 2020 she became the head of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at Instagram. About 6 months into that role, her husband of 21 years, Al, passed away unexpectedly. This life-changing loss set her on a journey of healing and rediscovery inspired by her late husband’s last text message to her: “Do you, babe. Don’t worry about anything else.” Through that journey, she realized that she had learned some lessons the hard way that could really help others. So, in 2023, she left corporate America, launched the community she was looking for, Bossy & Blissful, and wrote her first book that outlines a five-part framework she has developed to help you live a “MeaningFULL Life". In this episode, Alan and Regina discuss why she wrote the book, what she hopes people get out of it, the state of DEI today, and what life is like on the other side of corporate America. Regina also talks about how her childhood impacts the work she is doing today, the double-edged knife of constant connectivity without real community, the way Gen Z is rolling back the clock, and what the loneliness epidemic could mean for employers. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Stonick is a punk. Like, an “opened for Red Hot Chili Peppers before they were cool” kind of punk. He started in web design in the mid-90s, then pivoted to UX in 2012. With 18 years in e-commerce, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and automotive, as well as 15 years in executive design leadership roles, he has over two decades of “tra-digital” experience in brand creative, visual, and UX design. Now, in the third act of his career as Vice President of SCADpro at Savannah College of Art and Design, Paul tells us it's the opportunity to develop the next generation of design leaders as they work to integrate design innovation and overcome old-school obstructionism that inspires him. Savannah College of Art and Design is not an art school. They are a creative university, preparing students for their creative professions. SCAD was founded in 1978, and today they have over 17,500 students, over 100 different majors and minors, and a 99% rate of employment after graduation. SCADpro, Paul's department, is the university's collaborative innovation studio. He tells us they sit at the intersection of art design and business by generating business solutions for the world's most influential brands, like Google, Amazon, Apple, NASA, Delta, BMW, Volvo, Uber, Mayo Clinic, The Home Depot, P&G, and Chick-fil-A. In this episode, Alan and Paul discuss the new book he contributed to, his early brushes with punk royalty, and what makes Savannah College of Art and Design more than just an “art school." They talk about what SCADpro is doing, some of the partnerships they have developed, and what type of work they have done to date. Paul also tells us why design has to be integrated into the top ranks of businesses, what he is teaching students about navigating corporate obstruction and finding like-minded people, and how the punks are taking over corporate America. “Some of my greatest work will never appear in my portfolio.” In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for links to resources mentioned in this episode and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Llibert Argerich is a hardworking triathlete from Andorra, one of the smallest countries in the world. At 11, Llibert lost his father and learned his work ethic firsthand as he watched his mother raise three children on her own as a waitress. His desire to expand his worldview beyond the valley has led him to live in five different countries on two continents over the last 20 years. After completing his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Toulouse in France, Llibert started doing market research for a small start-up, but it didn't take long for him to fall in love with marketing. After moving to London to learn English, he got his “lucky break” by faking it until he was making it and got hired on at Expedia. From there, he went to work for eBay, where he was able to achieve his 16-year-long goal of moving to the US. Most recently, Llibert served as Senior Vice President of Marketing at Udemy before he was hired as Chief Marketing Officer at Thumbtack in August 2023. In this episode, Alan and Llibert discuss how he approached his first 100 days at Thumbtack, his view on integrating brand and performance, what is and is not working in marketing today, and how to become your CFO’s best friend. Llibert also outlines the guiding principles and operating philosophy that Thumbtack implements based on data and testing to determine how they spend marketing dollars. Thumbtack is a platform that connects homeowners to professionals in the home service area, making it a dual-sided marketplace. As CMO, Llibert oversees the entirety of the marketing and communications platform, and he is also the DIR (Directly Responsible Individual) for the consumers and all company metrics that link to the homeowners (the demand-side consumer). Llibert tells us he and his team have found a more functional synergy by leveraging the Directly Responsible Individual structure rather than breaking the team into supply and demand sides. Marketers are often unfairly categorized as either performance experts or brand experts when in reality, they should be fluent in both languages. Llibert believes that true success will come from a 360-degree approach that leverages various channels to meet consumers where they are and can measure impact and performance across the whole spectrum. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adam Vasallo is not only a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, but he is also their Chief Marketing Officer. Since joining the organization in 2018, he has been leading his team in generating awareness for the mission, inspiring volunteerism, and bringing the organization’s brand and commitment to youth equity and empowerment to life on national stages. Prior to joining Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Adam spent 11 years at HSN, where he held several senior-level development and marketing roles, including Director of New Business Development and Entertainment Marketing. During his time at HSN, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America came to their offices to recruit mentors, and Adam, being a young professional who knew he wanted to give back, signed up to become a "big" that very same day. Adam is now a two-time Big Brother and is currently matched with his Little Brother, Giovanni. In this episode, Alan and Adam discuss his experience as a Big, what Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is trying to accomplish through their new national campaign, and the innovative ways they are showing up in the culture. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America was founded in 1904 in NYC as an innovative alternative to the juvenile justice system. Over the past 120 years, it has grown from a small start-up to more than 230 agencies serving more than 5000 communities operating in all 50 states. Currently, 1 in 6 American kids says they are growing up without a caring mentor. This statistic inspired Big Brothers Big Sisters of America's new campaign, “It takes little to be big." Created as a marketing platform without an ending, "It takes little to be big” is intended to be versatile, attract volunteers, and resonate with donors. Through market research, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America identified the main barriers people felt in regards to becoming mentors, then designed the campaign to intentionally change the narrative and encourage involvement. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is targeting specific pop culture spaces where mentorship is already happening, like sports, fashion, and music, to partner with existing brands and individuals who help advance their message in innovative ways. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alyson Griffin is back! She is a musician, mother, and marketing leader born and raised in Silicon Valley with over 25 years of experience leading marketing, branding, and thought leadership teams. Alyson originally planned on being a pharmacist, but she eventually realized it wasn't the right fit for her. As soon as she walked into her first advertising class, the rest was history. She eventually got her degree in communications and started at a PR agency right after graduation. She went client side with HP in 2000, where she worked her way up to VP of Marketing, then served as VP of Global Marketing at Intel Corporation until 2019. She left to do consulting when the pandemic hit, but it wasn't long before Alyson got a perfectly timed call from State Farm. Alyson joined the team as Head of Marketing in 2021, where she has been tasked with revolutionizing the 100-year-old brand. In this episode, Alan and Alyson discuss her non-traditional path from pharmacy school to technology to insurance, and of course, we talk about Jake! State Farm has seven iconic brand assets, the most famous and well-cultivated being Jake from State Farm. Alyson tells us the story behind the iconic Jake character, the strategy behind it now, and how he is helping the brand resonate with Gen Z. After realizing that they had the older audience well secured, State Farm began to focus on expanding to the younger generation and investing in future demand generation. They have several diverse partnerships and spokespeople, from Disney to NBA 2K to Jimmy Fallon, that help the brand connect with the public and, specifically, young people. Like most insurance companies, State Farm leverages humor in these marketing efforts, but what sets them apart is maintaining contextual relevance and strategically utilizing their assets, like Patrick Mahomes, to reach the audience he is most relevant with, people watching Monday Night Football. Alyson also tells us why sports play such a large role in the marketing strategy and how her team is working with large media partners to cobrand and integrate naturally into entertainment content. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Swift Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Viden is a wine lover with an English degree who never expected to end up in healthcare but always had an interest in marketing and advertising. After graduating from college, working client-side, managing a small marketing team, and moving to San Francisco, Mark had the opportunity to join Dignity Health, part of CommonSpirit Health, where he stayed for 18 years. In 2019, he was hired as Senior Vice President of Brand for CommonSpirit Health, where he now drives brand development, advertising, and digital strategies that promote growth, awareness, and consumer preference across the organization. CommonSpirit Health is a healthcare company you probably have never heard of, but with a house of brands serving over 20 million patients in 23 states, they are the 7th largest healthcare organization in the country. CommonSpirit Health was created in 2019 when two legacy healthcare systems merged. Since then, they have acquired other organizations and developed partnerships with renowned research institutions. Mark tells us his job is to connect all of these consumer-facing brands through a single brand promise, “Hello Humankindness," which communicates the organization’s approach to care through kindness and connection. He is currently leading the platform’s national expansion by showcasing touching moments and ensuring patients, physicians, and employees are intrinsically aware of an unyielding commitment to humanity. In this episode, Alan and Mark discuss the “Hello humankindness” brand platform, how it came about, and how it comes to life across people, practices, and communications. Mark reminds us that people enter healthcare because they have a calling, a passion, and a purpose. No one wants to think about healthcare until they need it, so CommonSpirit Health's strategy is to stay present in the subconscious, so when you do need them, they come to mind first. By focusing on the emotional connections, Mark and his team are sowing the seeds of values alignment, awareness, and trust to create category differentiation. After patents are in the door, their experience is top of mind. They have to feel like the promise that they have been served up is coming to life through the interactions and the visual cues they see. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for links to resources mentioned in this episode and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Margot started her career as an analyst at Barclays Investment Bank. She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to do at that time, but she did know having a good financial base would help her no matter what path she chose. She has always had a passion for retail, and in 2014, she joined the family business as a merchandising analyst at Movado Group. Eventually, she moved into sales, then business development, and most recently, she spent 4.5 years as the Vice President of E-Commerce, Digital Marketing and Marketplaces. All of these roles helped develop her understanding of the category and company and prepared her for her current role as president of the Movado brand and senior vice president of e-commerce. Today, she is responsible for the day-to-day management of the brand as well as the development and execution of long- and short-term growth strategies. In addition to managing Movado marketing and merchandising, Margot maintains responsibility for e-commerce sales for Movado, MCS, Olivia Burton, and Amazon North America. Movado Group is a watch and jewelry company made up of brands they own and also brands they license. Movado, their namesake brand, was founded in 1881 in Switzerland by a 19-year-old entrepreneur. Movado Group was founded by Margot's grandfather, Gedalio Grinberg, and is currently run by her father, Efraim Grinberg, the chairman and CEO. Margot tells us her family connection gives her the passion and inspiration she channels back into the company. In this episode, Alan and Margot discuss her professional path, her passion for pasta, and the legacy of Movado Group. They talk about her transition from investment banking into the “family business," the market for accessories, and where e-commerce is going. Margot tells us the retail environment is a challenge, and not just for accessories but across the board. To overcome these challenges, Margot and her team have taken a step back to think about how they can build on their longstanding good reputation and credibility in the industry to bring their brand promise to the next generation of consumers and build long-term relationships with them. One way they are doing that is with campaigns like “connecting the dots,” where they looked at everything that has defined Movado over the years, how they have evolved, and how they show up today to figure out how to communicate their brand promise most effectively. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kari Saitowitz is a baseball fanatic, the founder of Fhitting Room, and currently serves as the Chief Marketing and Creative Officer for the New York Sports Club. She graduated from the Wharton School with a strategic management and marketing focus and got her first job at American Express. From there, she leaned into her passion for marketing and decided to pursue her MBA. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Kari worked at Pepsi until she had her son. After his birth, she started meeting with a personal trainer who also happened to be in business school, and their conversations led her to become an “accidental entrepreneur” as she launched Fhitting Room in 2012. Business was booming until COVID changed everything. In 2022, NYSC acquired Fhitting Room and brought Kari on as their Chief Marketing and Creative Officer. In this episode, Alan and Kari discuss her path to creating Fhitting Room, how she ended up at NYSC, the complexity of their organizational overhaul and rebrand, and all the twists and turns that have happened along the way. NYSC is a long-standing brand, having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. At the peak, there were over 200 clubs, but after closing many during the pandemic, there are now just under 50. Over the past few years, the NYSC has suffered from growing pains as it rebounded from the pandemic, shifted from a public to a private company, and brought in a new CEO. Now, in the rebuild phase, the focus is on repairing their damaged reputation and renewing trust. Kari is currently leading NYSC in a brand comeback by bringing all NYSC brands together under one roof in both name and operation. To execute the rebrand, Kari's main infrastructure goals have been consolidating the backend tech, implementing automation, and bolstering the NYSC brand. These efforts have unified their brand identity, increased efficiency and productivity, and improved the member experience. Now their biggest marketing objectives are increasing brand awareness, showing they are open and investing, growing membership, and deepening relationships to improve retention. They are also developing partnerships and creating activations with Garmin, Under Armor, and Hyperice to enhance the member experience, community unification, overall wellness, and build upon the NYSC mission of changing lives through fitness. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kari Saitowitz is a baseball fanatic, the founder of Fhitting Room, and currently serves as the Chief Marketing and Creative Officer for the New York Sports Club. She graduated from the Wharton School with a strategic management and marketing focus and got her first job at American Express. From there, she leaned into her passion for marketing and decided to pursue her MBA. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Kari worked at Pepsi until she had her son. After his birth, she started meeting with a personal trainer who also happened to be in business school, and their conversations led her to become an “accidental entrepreneur” as she launched Fhitting Room in 2012. Business was booming until COVID changed everything. In 2022, NYSC acquired Fhitting Room and brought Kari on as their Chief Marketing and Creative Officer. In this episode, Alan and Kari discuss her path to creating Fhitting Room, how she ended up at NYSC, the complexity of their organizational overhaul and rebrand, and all the twists and turns that have happened along the way. NYSC is a long-standing brand, having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. At the peak, there were over 200 clubs, but after closing many during the pandemic, there are now just under 50. Over the past few years, the NYSC has suffered from growing pains as it rebounded from the pandemic, shifted from a public to a private company, and brought in a new CEO. Now, in the rebuild phase, the focus is on repairing their damaged reputation and renewing trust. Kari is currently leading NYSC in a brand comeback by bringing all NYSC brands together under one roof in both name and operation. To execute the rebrand, Kari's main infrastructure goals have been consolidating the backend tech, implementing automation, and bolstering the NYSC brand. These efforts have unified their brand identity, increased efficiency and productivity, and improved the member experience. Now their biggest marketing objectives are increasing brand awareness, showing they are open and investing, growing membership, and deepening relationships to improve retention. They are also developing partnerships and creating activations with Garmin, Under Armor, and Hyperice to enhance the member experience, community unification, overall wellness, and build upon the NYSC mission of changing lives through fitness. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Alan and Matt discuss having a brush with Shark Tank, the benefits of developing a strong work ethic at a young age, and how Matt is working on being a fast decision-maker without being a prisoner to the moment. They also talk about the different categories within the restaurant category, the unique concept First Watch is creating with experiences, and the culture that makes it all work. Matt wraps up the episode by touching on why the new nature of marketing requires an unstructured team of specialists, the impact of Gen Z entering their earning years, and why leaders need to combat the high burnout rates in marketing. Matt Eisenacher got his first job in the financial sector with PricewaterhouseCoopers, but soon realized he wanted to figure out where a company is going, not measure when it has been. This led him to pursue his MBA and begin his marketing career in CPG. Matt worked for Nestle and then Abbott Nutrition before he shifted into the restaurant industry with Piada Italian Street Food. In 2019, he joined First Watch as the Senior Vice President of Brand Strategy and Innovation before taking on the role of Chief Brand Officer in 2023. Matt tells us his role as Chief Brand Officer is less about marketing to consumers and more about infusing consistent brand promise into everything First Watch does. Whether it is restaurant design or menu design, Matt is putting the team and experience first and bringing the brand to all parts of the organization. First Watch has been around for 40 years and specializes in daytime dining with an on-trend menu for breakfast, brunch, and lunch. They do whatever they can to be the “anti-chain” restaurant. First Watch is not trying to appeal to everyone. In fact, it's their specialization that makes them so special. Brand awareness may be low, but they leverage their business model constraints to drive demand in a quite organic way with highly targeted digital messaging, top-quality food, exceptional experiences, and word-of-mouth. Doing things differently starts at the top for First Watch. While many C-suite leaders are becoming more disconnected from their front-line workers, First Watch leadership commits a huge amount of time to listening to restaurant employees directly and being as responsive as possible to the feedback they get. This “you first” culture starts with happy employees and results in happy customers. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for links to resources mentioned in this episode and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mayur Gupta grew up in India, got his degree in computer science, and started his career as an engineer in 2000 at HCL Technologies. Since then, Mayur has had quite a diverse and impressive career path. He has held key marketing leadership roles at SapientNitro, Kimberly Clark, Healthgrades, Spotify, Freshly, and most recently, Gannett, part of the USA Today Network. Throughout the years, Mayur has also developed a role as an investor and board director for various organizations. Today, his role as a marketer and his role as an investor play into each other and make him better at both. Mayur started getting into crypto in 2016, and in 2022, he was brought on as the Chief Marketing Officer at Kraken. In this episode, Alan and Mayur discuss his career path, his investor activity, his board directorship, and the throughlines he has seen having worked across different verticals and scales. They also talk about what marketing crypto looks like, what he is trying to achieve, and how he measures effectiveness. Alan asks how the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried and the downfall of FTX have impacted the crypto market and the role Mayur’s marketing team plays in educating the next wave of adopters with a focus on substance and real-world use cases. Kraken is a crypto exchange that has been in business for over 12 years, making it one of the longest-standing and largest exchanges in the world. In the first few years, they focused on their first consumer segment, professional traders. About 4 years ago, they diversified into their second and third consumer segments: retail consumers and institutional clients. Recently, their focus has been on continually diversifying with new ventures like NFTs while staying focused on the broader mission: driving and accelerating the adoption of crypto to bring financial inclusion and freedom to the world. The first 10 years of Kraken's growth were based on word of mouth, signaling a great market fit. Mayur tells us Kraken’s next phase is going to be driven by branding and performance, with 2024 being all about scale and getting on the Formula 1 race track. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for links to the resources mentioned in this episode and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lauren Sallata is using her 20+ years of experience as a marketing professional and executive leader... to moonlight as a roadie, manager, and webmaster for her son's band, Sunrise Cries? Well, yes, but she is also applying them to her role as Chief Marketing Officer for Ricoh North America and as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Consumer Technology Association. Lauren joined Ricoh in June 2021 after leaving her position as CMO at Panasonic Corporation. Before that, she spent several years at Xerox and Verizon Business. She saw the move to Ricoh as a great way to leverage her experience and was excited by the challenge of bringing Ricoh into its next chapter as a digital services company. In this episode, Alan and Lauren discuss the transformations she’s overseeing at Ricoh, how she's driving change through people and culture, and why she thinks CMO should stand for Change Management Officer. She also talks about the use cases for AI at Ricoh, the future of mass customization of workstyles, tips for leading a multigenerational workforce, and the importance of evolving to stay competitive in marketing. Ricoh itself is evolving from its location-dependent heritage portfolio to a future of work that is about accessing information and communicating from anywhere. Over the past two and a half years, Lauren and her team have been focused on growing their customer-centric business strategy, transforming the organization, and revamping their portfolio with technologies that empower businesses of all sizes to enable a remote workforce. Lauren is driving this change by leading with the customer in mind and maintaining a digital-first mindset. She tells us this process has to start internally since people and culture are always at the center of change. Ricoh has found that things like quarterly guest speakers, management training, and full buy-in from the entire executive team resulted in a year-on-year increase of 16% in employee confidence. With Ricoh, there cannot be too much information, and the TMI campaign is marrying their heritage with the aspirational future and breaking through with millennial buyers, influencers, and Gen Z talent. The Ricoh marketing team has won several awards for the strategy and execution of this campaign and has seen a 35-point increase in overall awareness. In addition to the boost in customers, the TMI brand awareness campaign has also positively impacted employment statistics, engagement scores, and teamwork and growth metrics. In this episode, you'll learn: Key Highlights: Looking for more? Visit our website for the full show notes, links to resources mentioned in this episode, and ways to connect with the guest! Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.