Podcast
Ad Age Marketer's Brief
Hosted by E.J. Schultz & Adrianne Pasquarelli · EN
Marketer's Brief helps marketers stay ahead of what's changing—and decide how to respond.
Each episode focuses on the ideas, shifts and strategic tensions shaping marketing right now, from how leaders are thinking about growth, platforms and culture to how they're making trade-offs in real time. Conversations led by Ad Age editors and reporters surface patterns worth paying attention to and ways of thinking that can influence decisions at work.
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71episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Inside Gatorade's high-stakes brand reinvention
Feb 1100:19:08Tap to summarizeGatorade has been a top sports drink for more than six decades, with a spot in Super Bowl history as people bet on the color poured on the winning head coach. Gatorade's Chief Marketing Officer Anuj Bhasin talks about how to maintain authority in the space as new brands crowd the category. Bhasin discusses Gatorade's post-Covid reset, relaunching the classic "Is It In You" advertising campaign, and how being "moment-centric" is bringing Gatorade closer to the sports culture space where the brand typically thrives.
Transcribe →How American brands can win European audiences on TikTok
Feb 400:16:01Tap to summarizeMatt Hocken, head of creative at London-based agency mongoose, discusses the subtle difference between American and British consumers and what the sports and entertainment agency is doing for U.K.-based fans on Super Bowl Sunday. He also shares more general, TikTok marketing advice and gives tips on how American brands can curry favor with U.K. audiences.
Transcribe →Reinventing heritage products to appeal to Gen Z with New Balance CMO
Jan 2800:27:31Tap to summarizeNew Balance Global Brand President and CMO Chris Davis talks about how fashion partnerships with Sezane and Miu Miu and sports partnerships with the Australian Open and Josh Allen have helped New Balance resonate with everyone from "supermodels in London to dads in Ohio." He also discusses why the brand keeps returning to its 'We' Got Now' brand platform with VML. And he talks about how the sneaker brand's 120-year-history helps New Balance operate like a challenger brand focused on the future.
Transcribe →Why retail media's next era is about relevance, not reach
Jan 2600:17:15Tap to summarizeRetail media is moving beyond scale, and Roundel wants marketers to rethink what performance really means. In this sponsored episode of Marketer's Brief, Ad Age's contributing editor, Natalie Zfat, sits down with Matt Drzewicki, senior vice president and general manager of Roundel, Target's retail media network, to discuss how guest-centric strategies, responsible AI and deeper partnerships are reshaping the retail media landscape. Drawing insights from CES and early results from Roundel's new Precision Plus offering, Drzewicki explains why relevance is outperforming repetition, how first-party data and closed-loop measurement are helping brands prove incrementality, and why discovery increasingly happens offsite through creators, video and social platforms. Tune in to hear how AI-powered optimization is improving efficiency across the funnel, the role of storytelling in an always-on shopper journey, and what marketers should prioritize as signal loss and fragmentation accelerate.
Transcribe →How CMOs can maintain relevance, with Chime's Vineet Mehra
Jan 2100:22:00Tap to summarizeIn December, Vineet Mehra formally added growth officer to his chief marketer remit. He's spent much time thinking about how CMOs can maintain relevance by adding a broader business focus to their role. He joins the Marketer's Brief podcast to discuss these thoughts and offer marketers advice, as the rest of the industry wonders if the CMO role will even still matter by 2030. He also discusses opportunities for brands to meet growing financial anxiety among consumers, and new agentic media opportunities.
Transcribe →How Outlaw is using marketing and price to disrupt legacy beer brands
Jan 1400:23:28Tap to summarizeClear consumer targeting and aggressive pricing are helping Outlaw carve out space in a troubled category
Transcribe →Life360 CMO on building brand trust through bold creative
Jan 700:19:04Tap to summarizeMike Zeman talks about how marketing is fueling the brand's evolution into a "family super app"
Transcribe →Horror marketing 101 with Blumhouse CMO Karen Barragan
Oct 2900:26:00Tap to summarizeBlumhouse CMO Karen Barragan gives tips and tricks for Halloween marketing as well as the value of seasonal fans for expanding Blumhouses reach. She discusses the increasing mainstream attention on horror, beginning with Warner Bros. 2017 "It" campaign, and how brands can lean in. Plus, behind the scenes of the creation of the "Black Phone 2" and "Five Nights at Freddy's 2" marketing campaigns, and lessons from "Megan 2.0's" box office flop.
Transcribe →How brands can become emotionally resonant while adapting to new Gen Z behaviors, with Early Warning Services CMO Andrea Gilman
Oct 2200:20:59Tap to summarizeZelle has tweaked its marketing strategy as it has looked to embrace being an emotionally resonant brand. Last month, it worked with its creative and strategic agency of record Pereira O'Dell to launch "When It Counts," a new brand platform that positions everyday payments as acts of care. It also marks a new level of maturity for the brand, which in 2014 saw Americans send more than $1 trillion across 3.6 billion transactions. Andrea Gilman, chief marketing officer at Zelle and Paze network operator Early Warning Services, discusses this change, Gen Z behavioral changes she's observed this year and Early Warning's AI approach, including how it used the tech in Zelle's latest campaign.
Transcribe →iRobot CMO on turnaround, 'Shark Tank' secrets, AI and that old Will Smith movie
Oct 1500:24:22Tap to summarizeAthena Kasvikis is managing iRobot amid a turnaround more than 18 months after regulators nixed its acquisition by Amazon. But she's also been an entrepreneur who led Behave Bras to success on "Shark Tank." She brings classical Procter & Gamble marketer training to bear on Roomba, arguably the most iconic brand in robots, as interest in robotics and AI soars, in part thanks to Elon Musk. Here she talks on those things plus her outlook on CTV, data-based targeting, agency relations and how that "I, Robot" movie wasn't named after the company, or vice versa.
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