Kim Whitler | Why Are Executives Engaging in Activism That Creates Business Risk?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: CMO Confidential

Episode: Kim Whitler | Why Are Executives Engaging in Activism That Creates Business Risk?
Host: Mike Linton
Guest: Dr. Kim Whitler, Professor at UVA Darden School of Business
Date: May 19, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Mike Linton welcomes back Dr. Kim Whitler to unpack her latest research on why executives are increasingly engaging in activism that introduces business risk. Drawing from her recent Harvard Business Review piece and ongoing academic work, Kim explores the complex web of pressures facing leaders, delves into the phenomenon of "executive flip-flops," and offers practical advice for marketers navigating a politically charged environment. Together, Mike and Kim dissect the often-misunderstood forces shaping executive decision-making on social and political stances, with real-world cases and actionable insights for the CMO role.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Genesis of Executive Activism Research

(03:03 – 06:18)

• The study was inspired by highly publicized brand activism cases like Nike's Colin Kaepernick campaign.
• Kim’s motivation: "At the time I thought this is a math problem. You know, when you are a mass brand and then you reposition yourself to be either liberal or conservative, that can be challenging." – Kim Whitler (03:22)
• The research aimed to understand why well-run companies, with vast resources, increasingly face backlash for activism statements—and why executive "flip-flops" (moving positions after public pressure) are so common.
• Collaboration with Thomas Barda, surveying executives across North America, Europe, and APAC, identified 14 unique pressure sources at different organizational levels.

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2. Mapping the Sources of Pressure

(06:18 – 09:17)

• Three major pressure groups:

  1. Internal: Personal beliefs of the executive, leadership hierarchy, and internal advocacy groups (e.g., CSR, DEI).
  2. External Stakeholders: Investors, agency partners, consultants, and business collaborators.
  3. Outside Influencers: Media, social media, activists, celebrity influencers, friends, and family.

• "You have all of these different individuals or groups that could be saying things to decision makers that affect how they see whether or not they should get involved in activism." – Kim Whitler (08:53)

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3. The “Pressure Meter”: Where Does Pressure Come From?

(11:44 – 15:07)

• Mike’s “pressure meter” analogy: Pressure varies significantly by organizational level.

  • C-suite/top executives: Biggest pressure is internal—personal beliefs and individual moral codes.
    • “At the top of the firm, the single biggest pressure is themselves.” – Kim Whitler (12:42)
  • Senior management (VP/SVP): Highest combined pressure, caught between demands from above, peers, and reports.
  • Junior management: Most pressure from external sources, especially media and consumers.

• "Half of these pressures are self-imposed. They're not real pressures... A lot of that is a pressure you don't actually have to care about." – Mike Linton (14:44)

Memorable Quote

“There was this mean, this underlying narrative that you have to get engaged, that consumers want you to get engaged. By the way, all that research was deeply problematic... But regardless, there are a couple of key research elements.”
— Kim Whitler (16:48)

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4. Flawed Research & The “Silence is Complicity” Narrative

(15:07 – 20:33)

• Research often cited to push activism is heavily influenced by how questions are framed.
• "If you change the question frame and you change the options, either of them or both of them, I can get you a result that you want." – Kim Whitler (17:46)
• Many companies were led to believe, via flawed studies, that widespread consumer demand existed for brands to take sociopolitical stands, leading to misallocation of top management resources.
• Pushback on the narrative that “brands must always take a stand”—practically, consumers would often prefer improvements to products or services.

Notable Example

• “Would I rather have Coke focusing on creating better, more healthful drinks... or do I want them to take a stand on the Georgia voting reform bill?” – Kim Whitler (20:36)

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5. When (and When Not) to Engage in Activism

(22:08 – 26:50)

• It’s not always bad business: Some activism aligns with company values and audience.
  • Low-risk activism: Tightly aligned with brand purpose, universally supported (e.g., Dove “Real Beauty,” PetSmart Charities).
    • "Who's against saving the lives of dogs and cats? ... it deeply aligns with their core business model." – Kim Whitler (24:42)
  • High-risk activism: Tied to divisive topics (e.g., Nike’s Kaepernick campaign, abortion, gun control); can alienate parts of the customer base.
  • Key: Unless you want your brand to be seen as actively liberal/conservative, avoid taking sides on polarizing issues.
    • "If they own one position, it reflects the whole positioning of the brand." – Kim Whitler (25:55)

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6. Marketers: Picking the Right Company

(27:10 – 31:28)

• Job seekers often value prestige and money over personal and cultural fit.
• “If you find the place where it aligns with your capabilities and you love the work, you love the people and the culture, it will unleash your potential.” – Kim Whitler (28:12)
• Significant misalignment exists between CMOs’ skills/experiences and their roles—over half of CMO jobs do not fit the person hired, setting up both the executive and the company for failure.

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7. AI and Political Bias

(31:28 – 36:56)

• Kim has tested across five major AI platforms for political bias: all exhibited some degree of leftward skew except for Grok, which at least acknowledged opposing views.
  • Example: On the Gaza crisis, even when prompted for balanced sources, "they all came back with a liberal skew" (33:02).
  • "I asked you for a nonpartisan view, yet you're using only sources that are liberal... I was programmed that way." — Kim Whitler (34:59)
• Practical approach: Actively create AI prompts that request both liberal and conservative perspectives, and compare biases for a more well-rounded view of news and trends.

Quote

"It's so eye-opening to me how bad the bias is. And the question that you have to ask yourself is, do you want that bias?"
— Kim Whitler (36:33)

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8. Practical Advice for Marketers and Executives

(38:35 – 43:47)

• Biggest risk: “In-group bias” at the top. Teams surrounded only by like-minded thinkers (liberal or conservative) risk blind spots and poor decision-making.
  • “If you are unable when you're making these decisions to fully understand the beliefs and views of liberals and beliefs and views of conservatives, then you must force the team to engage in understanding it. And... bring in outside experts.” – Kim Whitler (39:54)
• Employees, especially young professionals, are increasingly motivated to put their values ahead of customer perspectives, leading to organizational friction.
  • “The services to do what's in the best interest of the company... We don't serve one side or the other. We serve, you know, people.” – Kim Whitler (42:42)
• Actionable tip: If your team is an echo chamber, actively create mechanisms for challenging perspectives—consider outside experts or structured debate.

Memorable Story

• A CEO was confronted by marketers upset about advertising on Fox News. He assigned them to research the customer base, revealing balanced consumption among consumers (liberal, conservative, independent)—a reality check for brand decisions.

• “It could potentially be more damaging to have a group of all liberal or all conservative views on a team than even lack of demographic diversity.” – Kim Whitler (43:34)

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Standout Quotes & Timestamps

• “At the top of the firm, the single biggest pressure is themselves.” – Kim Whitler (12:42)
• “If you change the question frame... I can get you a result that you want.” – Kim Whitler (17:46)
• “If they own one position, it reflects the whole positioning of the brand.” – Kim Whitler (25:55)
• “If your team is only hearing one side, find a mechanism to make sure they are appreciating, with empathy, both sides.” – Kim Whitler (42:50)
• “It could potentially be more damaging to have a group of all liberal or all conservative views on a team than even lack of demographic diversity.” – Kim Whitler (43:34)

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Key Takeaways

• Activism traps are real: Beware of echo chambers and demand for stances on divisive issues unless it aligns clearly to your customer and brand.
• Pressure is multidimensional and often self-imposed: Most pressure to act comes from internal beliefs—not purely external sources.
• Flawed research leads to flawed decisions: Carefully scrutinize studies and motivation behind questions about activism.
• Brand activism should be authentic and aligned: Stay close to purpose—and avoid political issues unless your brand’s position is deliberate.
• AI and information bias are substantial: Marketers need to double-check their own and their team’s news and intelligence consumption.
• Assembling diverse perspectives is a business imperative: Avoid groupthink by fostering real dialogue and empathy for different worldviews.

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Useful Timestamps for Reference

• 03:03 – Kim introduces her activism research
• 06:18 – The three major sources of pressure are defined
• 12:42 – “At the top of the firm…the biggest pressure is themselves”
• 17:46 – Flawed research and leading questions
• 22:08 – How and when activism is low vs. high risk
• 27:35 – Choosing the right company for aspiring marketers
• 31:28 – Political bias in AI platforms
• 39:54 – Practical advice: combatting in-group bias
• 43:34 – Final thoughts on team composition and brand risk

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Tone Recap:
Conversational, evidence-driven, candid, with a blend of strategic insight and practical wisdom. Both host and guest challenge assumptions and stress the importance of critical thinking for today’s CMOs and marketers.

Transcript

[A]

The CMO Confidential Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com welcome to CMO Confidential,

[B]

the podcast that takes you inside the drama, decisions and choices that go with being the Head of marketing. Hosted by five time CMO Mike Linton

[C]

Typeface has completely changed the process of large campaign executions. Everyone knows AI can help with images and headlines, but the real impact is making the leap from a creative brief to a live, multichannel large campaign at speed. Typeface just announced its marketing orchestration engine, the first platform built to automate campaign workflows. You can roll out campaigns that used to take months in just a few hours. TypeFace uses Agentic AI to orchestrate the entire process, taking one campaign and instantly orchestrating it into thousands of personalized experiences across ads, email and video. Major brands like Asics and Post holdings are already transforming their marketing with Typeface. See how to move from brief to personalized campaigns in hours, not months at Typeface AI slash cmo. Welcome marketers, advertisers and those who love them. The Chief Marketing Officer Confidential CMO Confidential is a program that takes you inside the drama, the decisions and the politics that go with being the head of marketing at any company in what is one of the most scrutinized jobs in the executive suite. I'm Mike Linton, the former Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy, eBay, Farmers Insurance and Ancestry.com here today with my guest, Dr. Kim Whitler. Today's topic why are executives engaging in activism that creates business risk? Kim started her career at P and G and went on to be a General Manager of Aurora Foods and the CMO of David's Bridal. She then shifted to the academic world and is now a professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and she serves on the American Marketing Association Board. She is a tireless researcher of the CMO position and just published new work on activism, Picking the Right company and CMO versus CFO pay. Kim is a CMO Confidential OG and debuted as our first academic guest back in 2023. Welcome back Kim.

[D]

Thanks Mike. It's so great to be here. I am so excited about all the success. I really am. You have, you have worked hard and this is I think the top marketing podcast. So it's an honor for me to be here and to see how far it's come.

[C]

Well, thanks we love having you on the show. So. So let's jump right in and talk about your recently published work on corporate activism, risk. And you called it Executive flip flops. Tell us about this study in general and your motivation for even fielding it in the first place.

[D]

Yeah, you know, this all started actually for me way back with Nike and Colin Kaepernick, because at the time I thought this is a math problem. You know, when you are a mass brand and then you reposition yourself to be either liberal or conservative, that can be challenging. And so that prompted my original interest. More recently, I've been doing some work with Thomas Barda, who's over in Europe. He's a former McKinsey partner. And we wrote a paper in Journal of Retailing where we looked at. We published a paper where we looked at the enterprise risk model. As part of that. One of the things that fascinated me was trying to understand why companies, the best run companies in the world, largest, the most respected, the most resourced, were the ones getting into more and more hot water on activism statements. And the flip flops are things like Coca Cola CEO or Disney CEO who start in the middle. They move to one side, they get hit by that other side, they then try to move back to the middle. And so you see this, you see in real time CEOs not even understanding exactly what their core position is because they're reacting. And so that prompted us to understand where is the pressure coming from? Because my perception outside in is that a lot of pressure is coming from the media or consumers. Social media. Right. And that that's causing companies to CEOs to react. So what we did in this study is we both do a lot of work with executives. He travels all around the world. I travel predominantly in North America, working with C level groups. We do workshops. I do a lot of cases like on sociopolitical activism and workshops on it. What we.

[C]

Yeah, we broke the Budweiser case that you wrote on the show when it was published. And you did the first case on that topic.

[D]

Yeah, well, what I then do is I write the case, but then I have conversations with executives. If you're the CEO, what would you do? Why? What's the risk? How do you navigate this most effectively so that they can feel the heat that comes from making these decisions in real time? So what we did is we ended up creating, through our experience, we identified 14 different pressure sources. Then what we ended up doing is conducting a survey across North America, Europe and APAC at three different organizational levels, where we looked at where the pressure is coming from in the C suite, senior management and junior management. Which by the way is interesting because it's different.

[C]

It's not the same pressure.

[D]

It's not the same pressure. What we wanted to understand is what are the sources of pressure that's causing people to feel like they need to react. And, and so that's generally what the research was. It was just published in hbr, I don't know, three months ago or so. And so there's an article about it in hbr.

[C]

Hey, I want to flip down to the pressures. You guys clustered the pressures into three groups. Employees, external stakeholders like consumers and investors, and then other external stakeholders like media and influence groups. And you put these pressures together. Can we talk about the pressures and what you concluded from there?

[D]

Yeah, we started with let's talk about the individual. There is pressure internally. And by the way, I do a lot of work with C level groups. And when you talk about, well, what's the right decision? The pressure for them to act is really an internal pressure regarding what they personally believe is right and wrong. And this is where sociopolitical beliefs conflate with kind of corporate management. Right. So it's one of the key sources is the person's own belief system. Right, Right. So you have a lot of young people who say, well, this is right and wrong. I'm pro choice, I'm pro life.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And then that belief system affects how they think about managing the brand and business. They don't divorce them. So you have your own belief system which can be a source of pressure. Then inside the company, you can have as a C level leader, you can have members of your department below you. You can have leaders above you like the CEO or board. You can have internal CSR DEI departments. Okay, that's a pressure source. These other sustainability CSR DEI groups that are trying to do the right thing that may be exerting some sort of pressure on you. All of those people above, to the side and below can exert internal pressure. So that's a second group or that that's the kind of the internal group. Then outside you have key stakeholders. Stakeholders are going to be investors and owners, collaborators, agencies. So if you're in marketing, your ad agency could exert pressure on you. Or if you're an ad agency, your client could exert pressure on you. It could be consultants. So it's people that have vested interest in the company but are external to the firm. Then you have a third group who are just external influencers or pressure sources that could be consumers that could be the press, that could be activists, that could be influencers. It could be celebrity influencers, expert influencers, social media influencers, et cetera. And then you have family, friends, family and friends and so forth who could also be exerting pressure. Okay, that's in your, that's in your ecosystem. So we have all of these different individuals or groups that could be saying things to decision makers that affect how they see whether or not they should get involved in activism.

[C]

And one of the keys is those outside third parties, not the investors, not the shareholders, because they're probably more driven by financials, but maybe not always. But when you throw in the media and the social and the influencers and everything else, they really want you to make a statement. They don't, they don't really care about anything but you. They want to get you onto the field. Right?

[D]

Yeah, I mean the external people. Again, as I always say, there's one question I can ask that 100% of consumers will respond the same way. Regardless of what the political ideology do. You want your favorite brand on a topic that you care a lot about. Picking the other side. Liberals will say, no, never pick the conservative side. Conservatives will say, no, never pick the liberal side. Everybody agrees. Yeah, that's the only source of agreement. Otherwise, what they want is to get you to align with them, to adopt their view. So the pressure outside is from interest groups or bots. As we saw in the American Eagle. A lot of the pressure and the make believe social media stuff was fake. And so a lot of that, they have no interest in the company per se. They just want the company to do what they want the company to do. We are taking a short break from this show for a word from our sponsor, Typeface.

[B]

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[C]

So when you conclude you got all these pressures. You know, I think when I was reading the research, I concluded it's like a giant pressure meter. Like how do I manage these pressures?

[D]

Well, so first of all, I have to give you tremendous credit. So I'm stealing your pressure meter idea because you came up with it. And I said, this is genius because what we do is we have ratings, but essentially you are right. It's like a thermometer, a pressure meter, from highest pressure to lowest pressure. And before I dive into managing it, you want to hear a couple of the very cool things that.

[C]

Oh, I do. We do. We absolutely want to hear that, Kim.

[D]

Okay, so. And this is what I love about research, when I am so wrong. Like we're. If Kim's little, you know, hypothesis was wrong, okay. At the very top of the firm, the single biggest pressure is themselves.

[C]

Really?

[D]

Yes. So at the top of the firm, it's. The pressure is what I, I need to do what I believe is right. And so if it's a. If it's a. If it's. Let me pick something that's very heated. Abortion. Okay. Whether you're pro choice or pro life, people are. There's not many people in the middle. A lot of people are really strongly one side or another. And so if you're thinking about how to deal with that, you know, you have a personal kind of point of view, and that, that pressure to do what you think is right is, is. Is tremendous. At the top of the firm, the other pressure levers are much less important, although the executives or the people inside the firm are far more important than the external people. Now, at the senior level, okay. What's fascinating to me is they have the highest level of pressure across almost all sources. So the people who are getting caught are kind of the senior level managers because they have a lot of pressure from above. They have a lot of pressure from beside them, from below them.

[C]

Hey, Kim, is that the C suite or one below the C suite?

[D]

That's going to be more right below the C suite.

[C]

Like the VP SVP layer.

[D]

Right. So they're getting caught in the organization, the vp, the SVP layer, the junior manager. Their pressure is coming from outside. It's coming from the press, it's coming from consumers. So. So more of their pressure tends to be outside. So the junior folks are getting. They're feeling pressure from outside. The more mid to senior level folks are feeling it from everything, but a lot from inside.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And then at the top, it's coming a lot from themselves. So. So in general, what, what we find, what I think is interesting is that all of these different groups, these pressure sources matter because they have different effects depending on where you are in the firm and so forth. And now we could get even more granular.

[C]

But wait, I wanted to say a lot of these pressures, though they're almost half of them at least, are self imposed pressures. They're not real pressures. And if you also conclude, like a lot of pro athletes will conclude, I don't care what the media says, I'm just playing my game. You could also make a case that a lot of that is a, a pressure you don't actually have to care about. Am I right about this, this thought?

[D]

Yes. And I think if you go back again, I've done some, I'm doing some newer research, I'm very fascinated by this. If you go back to around 2017, 18, 19, there was a steady drumbeat of companies must take a stand. Silence is complicity. Silence is complicity. Silence is complicity. If you don't take a stand, then you are complicit with the worst possible actions. Look, I work with a lot of young people and I was talking to an undergrad who came to me and said that she was feeling at that time that she had to publicly make a statement on a hot button issue.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And I said, what now? I lived in post communist Eastern Europe. I spent a lot of time in the 90s going back and forth to China. When I hear that you have no agency, that you must do something. Yeah, you know, I get the tingles because I'm like, no, actually you do have a choice. And she said, kim, I don't because I'm told that if I don't take a stand, then that my silence means that I'm on the wrong side. And I said, bring the student here who's giving you pressure. And here's what I'm going to ask them. Do you believe in child abuse, female abuse or animal abuse? And they're going to say, no. I'm going to say, well, where have you taken a stand? If you don't take a stand publicly, then I must presume you are for it. That's the logical argument. The reality is there are millions of issues and you cannot actually take a stand on everything. Now granted, there are some that people will argue are so important.

[C]

You must take a stand, right?

[D]

No, actually you do have agency and you do not have to. And so what I encourage executives to do is to at least step back and say, does this make sense? What are the potential ramifications and consequences and so forth. So I think a lot of this, there was this mean, this underlying narrative that you have to get engaged, that consumers want you to get engaged by the Way, all that research was deeply problematic. Yeah, problematic and flawed. But regardless, there are a couple of key research elements.

[C]

Well, go back, because what you. I think what you said is the research is flawed because it asks a single question, basically, like, do you think your brand should care about whatever you pick your topic and every one said, sure. But if you make them make a choice like, should your brand care about a social topic or invent the next flavor for you or lower your pricing, they would say, oh my God, I want the brand to make a better brand for me. Isn't. Isn't that right?

[D]

It's even simpler than that. It's. It's. If you change the question frame and you change the options, either of them or both of them, I can get you a result that you want. So, for example, if I just simply ask the question, do you want. Do you think companies should take a stand on sociopolitical issues? And if I give you binary, yes, no, two thirds of people will say yes. If I give you four options, always, sometimes, rarely, never, 51%, a majority of people say rarely or never. Those are two same question frame, two different options, binary, yes, no, four item options. And all of a sudden the conclusion changes. Now I can go ask all sorts of other questions. We have constrained resources. Here are choices of how you could invest in. You could invest in those resources. You, as a consumer, how would you like your favorite brand to invest? The resources at the very bottom is on sociopolitical activism. So the problem with the question is that the people oftentimes who did that at that time wanted an answer of companies need to do more. That's what they wanted.

[C]

And so well on the media definitely wants it because it sells news.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is managerial research, but the companies sponsoring it were companies that played in the area of activism. So there's an inherent alignment with the conclusion and the nature of the company that actually did the research, which always, for me, it's kind of like I won't mention the company's name. But way back in the day, 20 years ago, there was a company that was a big consulting company on helping marketers measure marketing. And they kept doing research that said that marketers can't measure marketing. Okay, well, that conclusion leads you to go need to buy their services. That is an inherent conflict of interest. Right. It's like my dentist who keeps telling me that I need to go get more dental work. So you get my point. So I think there can be an inherent potential issue if the company sponsoring the research has a dog in the hunt in terms of the conclusion. And so at that time, there is all this, this research that I think was flawed in design, either intentionally or unintentionally, I don't know. But that could mislead people. And what it did is it messed. It misled a lot of companies to believe that everybody wanted them to go spend their resources doing things that were generally not aligned with their company.

[C]

I agree. Well, I mean, it's like, do I really want my mayonnaise to take a stand or do I want to pick the mayonnaise that comes in the right packaging for me or that's healthy.

[D]

Mike?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Would I rather have Coke focusing on creating better, more healthful drinks that help address childhood obesity and diabetes, or do I want them to take a stand on the Georgia voting reform bill? The reality is, is getting engaged in a reform bill like that requires time at the very top of the firm. You just don't. I mean, that could involve the board, the C suite to evaluate to.

[C]

I wasn't there, but I'm certain it did.

[D]

Right. And then you have the aftermath and you have the blowback that lasted for over a year. You know, how much time did that take? And resources at the very top of the firm and that could have been deployed into other areas.

[C]

So this, this begs the question, if I take the pressure meter and I take the fact that a ton of these pressures are, are self inflicted or self interested pressures like from the media or the activists, there's a huge list that says, danger Will Robinson, it's dangerous to do this. You know, Nike, Gillette, but like Coke, tons of people taking us a stand. You know, Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Flip Flop this year. Why do folks still take a stand? And are there any companies that truly benefit from taking a stand? Because it sounds like if you take a stand, it hurts the business and it hurts your brand and it may actually hurt you as the person that does it.

[D]

Yeah, no, I'm glad that you asked that question because I don't want that to be the takeaway, which is, you know, coming from the practicing world into the academic world. The answer to almost every question is it depends. And the reason we do that is because there are conditions where things are good and bad. There are things. It's not all one. It's not binary. Activism is bad. That's not the case. In fact, there are a number of examples where sociopolitical activism is really good. And the paper that I referenced earlier, the Journal of Retail, in fact, Mike, I can give you links to some of these, there's a great model, I've got a great model in that paper that the practitioners use that helps you think about risk. Where on the model do you fit? Does the opportunity to engage in that sociopolitical activism effort put you? Is it high risk, low risk? Does it risk your market share? Does it risk your business model? So it's a model that helps you think through this. There are many companies that engage in lower risk activism. What I mean by that is it's not divisive. It aligns well with their consumers beliefs.

[C]

Give me a good example of that.

[D]

Okay, so most brands are mass brands. So when I work with CEOs, I always say if you, how many of you manage liberal or conservative brands and almost nobody does. Okay, then you are targeting the masses. That means liberals, independents, communists, socialists, maga, conservatives, the whole spectrum. That means ideally you want to keep them and you want to grow them. Now if you're a liberal brand, then be liberal. If you're a conservative brand, be conservative. But for the vast majority of brands, they want everybody. So risk increases when you move to a side or another side because once you stand up on one issue, you own the party and it shifts the positioning of the brand. So some good examples have lower risk. Are brands like Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. Okay, what are they standing up for? The self esteem for young girls. Who is against that? If you're liberal, if you're independent, if you're conservative, everybody generally is for improving the self esteem of young people, young women, et cetera. So it's not divisive like abortion or gun control or you know, any other issue that's so very clearly tied to politics. Another example would be PetSmart Charities. Now by the way, it also doesn't risk their business model because they're focused on the beauty of young women which is connected to their core positioning.

[C]

And all the products they sell are, you know, Dove Beauty bar. Yeah, a lot of stuff.

[D]

So petsmart Charities, what is petsmart about? Helping improve the lives and well being of animals. So what is their sociopolitical activism? They were born with a Petsmart Charities arm from the very beginning. They donate roughly 6% of their earnings to helping drive adoptions of dogs and cats. They are the largest adoption organization in the country. And so again, who's against saving the lives of dogs and cats? Okay, that's a popular, universal, non divisive issue. And oh by the way, it deeply aligns with their core business model. And by the way, they do it in their stores. So you acquire the pet in the stores, they give you a whole new pet program. I used to be the head of marketing strategy there. We created a whole program around how to move you from adoption to becoming, you know, to getting everything you need at the store to get a lifelong customer. So there's a connection between the two. Nehemiah Manufacturing Firehouse Subs I could go on and on. There are many companies that do this

[C]

really well, but they're all taking stands that are close to the brand. They're not running around, you know, talking about something that isn't in their wheelhouse, so to speak.

[D]

It's close to the brand, and it's not a liberal or conservative issue. At the heart of this is unless you want to reposition your brand to be liberal or conservative, do not stand up on a liberal or conservative issue. Because if I came out and told you I was pro choice or I told you I was pro life, you would immediately peg me as liberal or conservative. Yeah, I told you. One position. And brands are the same way. If they own one position, it reflects the whole positioning of the brand. And so it becomes them problematic because it shifts their position from being Nike was for everybody. But when Nike decided to kneel for the American flag to conservatives, they said, we are anti American. We're not patriotic. Liberal Sarah is very patriotic and very American.

[C]

Right.

[D]

But the problem is, is not everybody saw it the same way.

[C]

Right.

[D]

And so then you potentially alienate, you know, a consumer group. Now, again, if Nike wanted to reposition itself as liberal, it's a good move. But my guess is that they didn't want to do that because they never changed their purpose. Their purpose was to motivate and inspire all people. Not liberals, all people.

[C]

So let's, if you send it to us, we will post the. The kind of evaluation criteria. I want to flip over to an article you wrote called Marketers need to pick the Right Company. Tell me what you mean by that and how marketers should think about picking the right company.

[D]

So I'm good for a second because this is so personal to your audience, it's hard for them to see it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you an example using young people.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

So I constantly work with, you know, I'm at Darden, I work with MBA students. And how do they make decisions on companies? Oftentimes? External prestige.

[C]

Yeah, right.

[D]

Oh, is this a good brand name based on what my peers are saying or some other factor? Money. Money. And my advice to them constantly And I'll come back to the research is if you find the place where it aligns with your capabilities and you love the work, you love the people and the culture, it will unleash your potential. You will be more successful, you will move up faster, and the money is not at the bottom. So when you are focused on picking a job or a company based on the prestige and not its ability to unleash, to tap into your potential, to unleash your capability, you are at risk. And I see this when students then will or former alumni, you know, sometimes call and say, gosh, I'm leaving this company after a year or two. It wasn't a good fit.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So what we did is we stepped back and this is a 14 year project. I started this in my. And when I started my converted, you

[C]

do some of the most lengthy deep research of anybody I've ever seen. So.

[D]

Well, it's because it's impossible to get some of this stuff published because it's not. You know, the easy stuff to get published is oftentimes minor and incremental. Add a variable and what I'm doing is starting from scratch, having to use grounded theory, having to go see what practitioners actually do. Then we do empirical stuff. In this case, we had three different data sets, job specs. I did over 500 interviews and then we did two rounds of surveys over time. So it was just a very extensive project to figure it out. But basically what we did is we extracted what is the role of a cmo. So I have a model in this paper of what the pieces and parts of a job are. And then what we did is we evaluated alignment. So if you think about there are P and L roles and there are staff marketing roles, those are not the same.

[C]

Not even close. Yeah.

[D]

And then there are CMOs who have been trained in different ways. Some CMOs have never had a marketing class. Other CMOs have marketing degrees. Some CMOs grew up in CPG, some CMOs grew up in nonprofit. And that because there isn't like a, a general test that everybody has to take with a common body of knowledge for marketing in particular, where you learn marketing tells you what it is and what it can do. If you grow up in a, in an area where marketing drives the company, you think differently. If you grow up in an area where marketing is deeply marginalized and nobody cares about it, and you're. I'll make it.

[C]

There's your sales. You, you are sales support function, let's say.

[D]

Yeah, well, that or I'm thinking of a Very prestigious bank brand where the cmo all she did was work on like letterhead and logo design. Right. Very marginalized. No way. Really not connected to core business performance. What happens is you have variance in the person, variance in the role in the position and the attributes of the position. What we're trying to do is figure out what fits together what we found and just looking at a very basic preliminary analysis or not look at the whole model, just picking a few of the variables is that over half of the jobs are not aligned. The position attributes are not aligned with the person attributes. Which what that does then is it sets the CMO up for failure and it sets the company up to not fully leverage the potential of marketing.

[C]

Got it. So you should think that through. Hey, I have to ask one other question before we get to our practical vice question which is I know you've also been looking at AI and political bias in AI because part of your research is how is everything playing out over time and what's the depth of it? Any thoughts on that? As people are using AI and the political bias in that?

[D]

I am fascinated by this. For the last year and a half I work with five different platforms. I work with Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, Claude and Copilot. Thank you. So I play with all of them and things are changing. So what I learned six months ago is different today. But in general I think all of them have a fairly non trivial to significant degree of bias embedded. And I've done a number of tests where I'll go and say give me an objective view on this topic. Give me a non political, a nonpartisan view on this topic and inherently they generally come back with, with bias. Grok has been the best. I'm using Claude now. I mean it's interesting, I was using Perplexity more. Now I'm using Clot a little bit more and they cannot help it.

[C]

And even you give me an example of the bias.

[D]

Well, let me give you. Yeah, I mean a simple example that I ran is when in the heat of, of Israel Gaza I said who is causing the start starvation of Gazans? Right? And the left would say, and I said be nonpartisan. I want, I want you to use both high quality liberal and conservative media sources. Do not only use liberal sources or only conservative sources. And so I gave it the prompt and what happened was that generally they all came back with a liberal skew. The difference is that Grok would say here is the general accepted belief but here's the conservative view.

[C]

Yeah, okay.

[D]

So it would at least Say there's

[C]

more than one point of view here.

[D]

Right. But most of them were like, no, here's what all of the great minds think, and the problem is Israel. And when I would then prompt it and say, okay, what sources did you use? And they'd say, here are the top 10 sources we use. And I said, of those sources, how many skew liberal in the middle, Neutral, conservative? And like nine were liberal, one was neutral. And I said, I asked you for a nonpartisan view, yet you're using only sources that are liberal. Don't you think then that that would give you a liberal bias in your response? And I would. And it would say, I apologize, I'll do very next time. I said, no, help me understand why you did this. And the answer was, I was programmed that way. It kept coming back to kind of, you know, my programmers made me do it. That's how I'm programmed. What's really going on is that they have, as I best I can tell, a hierarchy of sources that they respect.

[C]

Right.

[D]

And so rather than seeing the New York Times as a liberal site and Fox News is conservative, they see New York Times as respected and Fox News is not respected.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And where that comes from is a lot of the established written stuff. And so what happens is, is when they're citing or looking for answers, they've elevated my senses that they've elevated the liberal sources as being more credible than conservative sources. So what does that mean for you as a consumer? Like I lived in post communist Eastern Europe, I like to think for myself. It's very important to me. I was trained that way. And so I now have a prompt that I run every morning, that I've written, I've perfected that basically says I want you to give me the top news. And I do news in three different buckets. Give me the top news for global news, for business, US Business news, and then for marketing, US Business, US Marketing. And I say I want it nonpartisan. So I worked with it to identify the top five and the top five liberal and conservative sources. So pull from these sources, I want you to extract any bias in the summation. And then at the bottom when you tell, after you tell me the summation, I want you to explain to me what the liberal skew is on this issue and what the conservative skew is on this issue. And I'm telling you, Mike, since I've done that, I feel like it's so obvious to me how news is all junk food. It is like eating a non stop diet of chicken or I'm sorry. Of chocolate all day long.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

And now I'm eating covered in that.

[C]

Yes. Yeah.

[D]

It's so eye opening to me how bad the bias is. And the question that you have to ask yourself is, do you want that bias? Right. I think some of us really are very comfortable in our bubble. I really like to make my mind up. I like to be informed on all sides. My students come from all sides. I like to understand where they're coming from. And so this, for me, helps get me out of my own thinking and seeing the way I think.

[C]

This is an important thing for marketers, which is don't assume you're getting the zeitgeist right from the sources you are using, because the zeitgeist could be really skewed, no matter how unbiased you think it is. And I hear you saying you have to work as a marketer to find where the unbiased consumer may really be. That it's not. It's not very clear. Is that fair?

[D]

Yeah. But I think part of this starts with us challenging ourselves. I mean, I've had very experienced, successful people say proudly that they have no conservative friends, you know, in the New York area and so forth. And I'm like, why do you help me understand why you believe that that's a virtue? Because they say it as if this makes them virtuous. And I proudly say, I have friends. My two closest friends are as far left as you can get. And my family is split and my friends are split. And I'm more conservative than my liberal friends, and I'm more liberal than my conservative friends. I don't agree with anybody. And so I find it. That is, if you care about tolerance for diversity, then that's the type of community that you build and that's the type of news and information you seek out.

[C]

And I think that is a good call out to marketers to try and hear all sides all the time. Which brings us, Kim, to our traditional last question, which, you know. Well, practical advice we haven't discussed yet. And. Or the funniest story you can share on the air. Pick one or both. It's up to you.

[D]

Okay, I'm going to do practical advice and I'm going to riff off of what we've been talking about.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

Okay. And I think. I think now, having worked with over 1500 executives on these different workshops, there is a very significant danger at the top of in group bias. And what I mean is that if you have. And I worked at a company that was all conservative And I was fortunate in that the CEO would allow me to consistently represent liberal views to help them understand that they did not represent the consumer base. There is a risk at the top when you have only vocal advocacy for one side, that you're making very biased decisions. And so in the spirit of true tolerance for diversity, one of the things that I advocate is that if you are unable when you're making these decisions to fully understand the beliefs and views of liberals and beliefs and views of conservatives, then you must force the team to engage in understanding it. And one of the ways that you can do that is to bring in outside experts.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So you could bring in political experts or you could bring in consultants, whatever to say. Help me understand how conservatives view these issues. Help me understand how liberals view these issues. And the more you see that they literally are on opposite sides, the more you're like, okay, well, why would we. Do we want both sets of consumers? We do. How do we navigate this in a way that is the least damaging to the brand and reputation? So one of the examples. I want to share a story. I work with this CEO, and he was telling me a story of. They worked on. He was CEO of a very large company, retail company, across the country, that was apolitical. They had conservatives levels, everything. And his. His marketers were the problem. His marketers came to him and said, we're very upset that you are advertising on Fox News now. He's like, well, you know, I don't make the advertising calls on the CEO, but I'm happy to have this conversation. And he asked why? And the employee said, well, Fox News is the enemy. We hate Fox News. And he, of course, is looking at them like children, because why does your view matter at all? We're not marketing to you. We're marketing to the universe. But they do represent part of the community. And he said. He asked if they should stop advertising at the New York Times, and they said no. And he said, I want you to go study our consumers, and I want you to come back and tell me how many are liberal, how many are conservative, how many are independent, and I want you to tell me what news sources they consume. He then had a conversation, because what he said is, well, conservatives consume Fox, liberals consume New York Times. If you're saying that we are going to be apolitical, then we get rid of any political.

[C]

We don't do any news. You can't do any news.

[D]

You can't do any news because there's almost nothing that's neutral anymore. And so he Said we're. And so he used it as an educational moment. But the aha he had is, holy cow. These are people making decisions every single day. And so the advice I give to executives is that young people today, more so than ever, believe that it's okay for their political belief, their ideology to drive their decision making. Because we've told them to find a company that they're comfortable with, find a company that shares their same values. And so when the company is behaving in a way that doesn't share their values, there's a motivation to try to change the company. And I think what's happening is it's an orthogonal decision. You're being hired to provide a service and the services to do what's in the best interest of the company. And the company has millions of stakeholders. And so this is very complicated. We don't serve one side or the other. We serve, you know, people.

[C]

We serve our customers. And they happen to be very different than it from each other and maybe really different from you.

[D]

So the practical advice is if you're only hearing one side from your team, then you have to find a mechanism to make sure that they are fully understanding, appreciating with empathy. Like I use the abortion issue, I can explain why people on both sides have very legitimate reasons for what they believe. And you know, and they, each side feels that they are more virtuous than the other and that they are right. And part of our role as marketers is established and to love all of them that we don't have to agree with them, but we have to love them and we have to help them and we have to help serve them, create value for them. And so I think a challenge is when you have a group that only thinks alike that has tremendous in group bias. It's no better to have a group of all white men running a team than it is to have a group of all liberal or all conservative views on a team. In fact, it could potentially be more damaging.

[C]

I think that is a brilliant conclusion to the show, which is try and think of your customers first and that your customer is not a prototype. It's probably a pretty big mix of a lot of opinions. So I think that's a great way to end the show. Thank you again, Kim, for six times on the show and thanks to everyone for listening to CMO Confidential. If you're enjoying the show, hit the like button and subscribe. New shows drop on Tuesdays and you can find all of our more than 160 shows on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, which include marketing the Battle Between Believers and Non Believers, Parts one, two and three, a perspective on Business Schools, the Race to Keep up with the Market, and Kim's previous shows, which include a Budweiser Case, the Budweiser Case, a comprehensive look at fixing the CMO position, and my favorite title ever, Colonel Mustard in the study with the Job Spec How Poor Design Shortens CMO Lifespans hey, this is Mike Linton signing off for CMO Confidential. All you marketers stay safe out there. Typeface is changing the way to think about brand marketing at scale. Their marketing orchestration engine is the first of its kind and built specifically for for the enterprise. The orchestration engine uses shared brand intelligence designed to turn brand guidelines into personalized voice, visuals and messaging delivered in a way that fits the context of your audience. It's how brands like Asics and Post holdings scale what works without sacrificing quality. Start orchestrating your brand at Typeface AI CMO.