Nancie McDonnell Ruder | CEO, Noetic Consulting | You're Brought In to Fix the Brand - Now What?

Summary

CMO Confidential: Episode Summary

Title: Nancie McDonnell Ruder | CEO, Noetic Consulting | You're Brought In to Fix the Brand - Now What?

Release Date: June 24, 2025

Host: Mike Linton

Guest: Nancie McDonnell Reuter, CEO of Noetic Consulting

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of CMO Confidential, hosted by Mike Linton, former CMO of major corporations like Best Buy and eBay, the spotlight is on Nancie McDonnell Reuter, CEO of Noetic Consulting. Nancie brings extensive expertise in strengthening brands from within, making her the perfect guest to discuss the intricacies of being brought in to fix a brand.

Defining the Brand Fixing Challenge

The conversation kicks off with clarifying what it means to "fix a brand," a term often used interchangeably with "building," "relaunching," or "repositioning" a brand.

Mike Linton explains the spectrum of brand challenges:

"At times there's a brand crisis and truly they need a transformation. Transformation. At times it's refinement and oftentimes it's somewhere in between." (02:47)

Nancie emphasizes the importance of understanding the specific context and needs of the organization before determining the appropriate strategy.

Case Study: Georgetown University

Mike shares a case study of Georgetown University to illustrate a real-world example of brand refinement. The university faced decentralized marketing efforts across various departments, leading to a scattered brand presence and a decline in yield—a crucial metric in higher education measuring the number of accepted students who choose to enroll.

"They had never defined the brand at that master or global level. And they were seeing a little bit of softness in what they call yield." (04:02)

Nancie adds context by highlighting the importance of cohesive brand management in large organizations.

Other Brand Challenges and Examples

Mike identifies different flavors of brand issues beyond refinement:

1. Unestablished Brand: Companies that have never formally defined their brand, such as the Mayo Clinic prior to the pandemic.

   "We just haven't done that work yet." (06:05)

2. Brand Crisis: Organizations experiencing negative perceptions, often stemming from misinformation, requiring brand transformation.

Nancie observes that while these challenges are prominent in nonprofits, many for-profit organizations also struggle with similar issues due to a lack of dedicated brand management.

Diagnosing the Real Issue vs. Perceived Issue

A critical part of brand fixing involves distinguishing between surface-level problems and underlying issues.

Mike Linton discusses the importance of data-driven analysis:

"The answer's found in the data... you really gotta be looking at what are people responding to." (11:33)

He emphasizes conducting primary research to uncover the root causes rather than making assumptions based on financial metrics alone.

Best Practices in Fixing a Brand

Nancie and Mike outline several best practices for effectively revamping a brand:

1. Educate the Organization About Brand (Teach Me Tonight)

   "It's not well understood sometimes in the marketing function, but certainly outside of the marketing function." (20:44)

2. Ensure Internal Alignment (In Harmony)

   "You need to involve the stakeholders in co-creating the brand elements." (24:32)

3. Engage Key Stakeholders (Voices Unite)

   "Get people involved early to prevent resistance and foster ownership." (24:32)

4. Measure the Moment (Measuring the Moment)

   "Having the right KPIs to track brand health is crucial." (19:45)

Worst Practices to Avoid

The discussion also highlights common pitfalls:

1. Neglecting Customer Insights

   "The worst things you can do is not do your homework with your customers." (16:32)

2. Black Boxing the Strategy

   "Avoid keeping the brand strategy hidden and reveal it with a big ta-da." (25:07)

3. Focusing Solely on External Communications

   "Don't neglect internal activation; everyone in the organization should embody the brand." (26:42)

Marketplace Examples: Successes and Struggles

Mike provides contemporary examples of brands navigating their brand health:

• Sephora: Struggling with a fickle customer base amidst intense competition.
• Apple: Facing subtle brand erosion due to pricing pressures and incremental updates.
• Domino's: A success story showcasing effective brand reboot by addressing core issues like product quality and delivery efficiency.

"Domino's have really come out with better recipes and have maintained reasonable pricing while enhancing their app experience." (30:25)

Practical Advice for Leaders

When brought in to fix a brand, leaders should:

• Conduct Thorough Market Research: Utilize both existing data and creative, low-cost methods like social listening or in-store observations.
• Foster Internal Collaboration: Engage diverse departments and potential skeptics early in the branding process.
• Maintain Transparency: Avoid secretive strategies; involve teams to ensure alignment and commitment.
• Focus on Holistic Brand Health: Continually monitor and nurture the brand beyond immediate campaigns.

Funniest Story: The CPR Incident

To lighten the discussion, Mike shares a humorous yet insightful story from a live facilitation session with Samsung in Chicago. During a panel, a senior leader named Jim suffers a heart attack, and his colleague Martin rushes to perform CPR. Upon recovery, Jim's humorous remark highlights the unpredictable nature of live events and the importance of team dynamics.

"Jim comes to, looks up at Martin and says, why are you making out with me?" (32:06)

This anecdote underscores the value of preparedness and the human element in high-stakes environments.

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a reflection on the importance of authentic brand engagement both internally and externally. Mike encourages listeners to implement the discussed best practices and avoid the highlighted pitfalls to ensure effective brand management.

"This is Mike Linton signing off for CMO Confidential." (34:25)

Listeners are also teased with upcoming episodes covering topics like the top mistakes CEOs make when hiring CMOs and lessons from recent major events affecting the marketing landscape.

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Key Takeaways:

• Understand the Spectrum: Brand challenges can range from minor refinements to complete transformations.
• Data-Driven Diagnosis: Use comprehensive data and primary research to identify root causes.
• Internal Alignment is Crucial: Ensure every member of the organization embodies and understands the brand.
• Avoid Common Pitfalls: Steer clear of neglecting customer insights, hiding strategies, and focusing solely on external messaging.
• Learn from Examples: Analyze both struggling and successful brands to inform your strategies.

Quotes:

• "What do you have going on? So, for example, a few years back, we were working with Georgetown University..." – Mike Linton (02:47)

• "Brand and mission are not exactly the same thing." – Nancie McDonnell Reuter (10:33)

• "Don't skip it. There are times I have seen organizations, they just kind of think they know." – Mike Linton (16:32)

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Resources Mentioned:

• Noetic Consulting: Noetic Consulting Website
• Georgetown University: Case study on brand refinement.
• Mayo Clinic: Example of a brand that needed to stand up its brand fundamentals.
• Domino's: Success story in brand rebooting.

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Stay Connected:

For more insights on brand management and marketing strategies, subscribe to CMO Confidential on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and other major podcast platforms.

Transcript

[Mike Linton]

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.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

And monetization solutions that transform your words into profit.

[Mike Linton]

Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com welcome to CMO Confidential, the podcast that takes you inside the drama, the decisions and choices that go with being the head of marketing. Hosted by 5 time CMO Mike Linton.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Marketers have been working on personalization since the dawn of the Internet and actually even earlier than that. Now, with AI, you can deliver ads made for each of your customers. Publicist Sapient is committed to faster, better personalization and is proud to introduce SlingShot and Bodhi AI. Now these AI platforms are designed to customize every key touch point and reduce creative timelines from weeks to days. With Publicist Sapient, marketing isn't just fast, it's personal. Smarter marketing, happier teams. Wow. Worthy customer moments. Upgrade your [e-mail] foreign welcome marketers, advertisers and those who love them to 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, Nancy McDonnell Reuter. Today's topic, you're brought in to Fix the brand. Now what Now Nancy is the founder of Noetic, a consulting firm that focuses on strengthening brands from the inside out. We'll talk about what that actually means in a bit. She started her career at Leo Burnett where she was a vice president before leaving to form Noetic. Welcome Nancy.

[Mike Linton]

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I am a huge listener. Mike.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Thank you. Thank you. So Nancy, let's start by by clarifying exactly what we are talking about when we say this problem. There's so many ways of saying it. Fix the brand, stand up the brand, build the brand, relaunch the brand, reposition the brand. Tell us what you mean when you, when you are looking at a brand problem here.

[Mike Linton]

Yes, there is. There is a whole range and people do use a lot of different words to describe it and truly they can be anywhere on that range. So at times there's a brand crisis and truly they need a transformation. Transformation. At times it's refinement and oftentimes it's. It's Somewhere in between. So what we always recommend is look at what your audience is that you serve, what they really think about you. Where are you right now? And so we say, like, lead with your who in order to know your what and what is it about your what? Like, is it healthy? And what do you have going on? So, for example, a few years back, we were working with Georgetown University in D.C. my undergrad Alma mater, and they really just needed refinement. They were, they still are highly regarded both by, you know, the students who seek to go there, their parents, the current students, alumni, faculty, internal staff. But their challenge was that their, their marketing is so decentralized and it remains a challenge for them. But at the time, it had really gotten very scattered.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

But let's back up and, like, tell us this problem, because that means, my guess, every college at Georgetown was doing their own marketing.

[Mike Linton]

Yes.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

And there wasn't any overarching, hey, this is what Georgetown is about. It was. This is the business school, this is the law school. This is, you know, that's exactly right.

[Mike Linton]

And that's exactly right.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Actually figured out they had a problem because probably all those.

[Mike Linton]

It was at the highest level. I was at the highest level. So. So our main client was the right hand of the president, but it was really driven by. He was their head of overall strategy across all the campuses. And you're exactly right. They had marketing folks in each and every one of those organizations. The only place they had shared marketing was across grad programs, but medical school, different law school, different grad program, undergrad, all. All different from each other. And so they had never defined the brand at that master or global level. And they were seeing a little bit of softness in what they call yield. So yield is a very big metric in higher ed. It's like the number of people you let in versus the number you want.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

A whole lot to apply. And then you only want to let in like four. So you can. Your acceptance rate is right.

[Mike Linton]

Exactly. So you want a low number when it comes to, like, you know, how many you're letting in, but you want your yield to be high. So the people that really want you want to come, so they were seeing a little bit of softness there. But, I mean, all you really had to do was Google their, you know, Georgetown logos and you. You could see the mess that, that they had. And so it was really not like a problem that was going to become a bigger problem if they let it fester. So, you know, we call that refinement.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

So that's refinement. Let's talk about, you know, crisis. Give us just two or three other examples and then we'll go into the what's the real issue versus the perceived issue.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, great. So I would say most often there's two other flavors besides refinement. One flavor is we've actually never stood up the brand. We just haven't done that work yet. And you'd be surprised sometimes just the size and scope of companies who haven't ever stood up the brand before. And one such company is Mayo Clinic. We started working with them back pre pandemic. And they just one thing.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

When you say stand up the brand, that means the brand has never been purposely managed. Is that what you mean?

[Mike Linton]

That's just about right. So I'm sure you've seen like in certain organizations, marketing is actually more so just communications. Yeah, right. There's. There's not really like a marketing function really within the organization. In some industries, it happens more than others. Some industries are just not as advanced, you know, in that area. And healthcare has been one. Higher ed is another. Those are two sectors we do a lot of work in. And so in the case of Mayo, while they had not done the work to define the brand, they did have metrics and they could see how they were doing versus their competitors. So, you know, we're talking like, like Cleveland Clinic or Anderson kind of thing. And they were starting to see a lot of encroachment. Yeah, they were always like, you know, Mayo is Mayo. Right. Like, we don't have to. We don't have to.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

We don't have to do anything because they're so amazing.

[Mike Linton]

Right. And, and you know, lo and behold, like their competition was starting to do a lot of market defining their own brands. And so they really needed to do that work. So. So that's definitely a flavor is like we got to stand at the brand because we, we've not done that work yet. And then I would say the brand crisis. So we are working with a big health care system right now. I'm not going to share their name. They are in brand crisis. So this is a situation where their audiences for them, primarily their community. So the community within communities within which they reside are not, are not happy with them, have a negative perception. It's mostly frankly an uninformed perception. And so situations like that, where you're really on decline, that's significant. That's really brand transformation work. So it really can exist on a spectrum. I do want to say every one to three years, you gotta really be looking hard at your brand. But you should always be caring for the health of your brand. It should be not a. Ever a set it in, forget it.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Agreed. Now, one of the things I have to point out is the three companies, the two you named and the one you didn't name, they all feel like nonprofits to me, which feel like nonprofits are, in my mind, very late to the party to think about their brand. Is this, when you look at these problems, are they pretty much like, lodged into a lot of nonprofits?

[Mike Linton]

There's a fair amount of for profits who also have not, you know, stood up their brand. And I. And you know, you don't see organizations lead with brand and their marketing, you know, and I wouldn't even recommend, like at the startup level, you know, companies.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

You don't need a brand. You need.

[Mike Linton]

You don't need it yet. You don't have a story to tell yet. Um, but it can often get neglected where it's like high time. And I have seen that happen in a fair number of for profits. I do agree with you, though, that in nonprofit there's a lag. I think there's, there's definitely a tendency to lag. And, and one of my theories as to why is that they're very mission driven. And oftentimes people can think, well, if we have our mission and we're clear on our mission, then, you know, we're good, we have our focus. But mission and brand are not exactly the same thing. At publicisapient, we're not just talking about AI. We're delivering real results. Today with sapient AI, we speed up software development and save clients thousands of hours. We revolutionize how travelers discover their perfect getaway and even turn a simple fridge scan into a personalized meal plan. Making AI work for you, it's what we do.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

I would agree with that. So let's. Now we've kind of laid out the problems. Let's say now you're talking to a leader here and you say, all right, the company thinks they have an issue, whether they're profit or nonprofit. That may be the issue, but there also might be another real issue. It might not be the brand. It might be this crises of this company who. The company who shall not be named. You know, it may be. It may be a brand problem, maybe marketing problem. A lot of times it could be a totally different problem. How does. But, but they just say, look, we just want to market or PR this whole thing away. How does the leader actually wrap their mind, arms around the real issue, figure out, is that real or not and then get the company to align, especially if it's different than the company thinks. That's a long question.

[Mike Linton]

So it's a multi part question. It's a great question though, particularly as it would relate to like do we have a product problem of some kind versus do we actually have a, a marketing problem? You know, and the answer's found in the data. Like what data do you have? What data is looking troubling and really pulling that together into a hypothesis that you then have to test out. So you really gotta be looking at, you know, what are people responding to. And if you have only the signals to the problems in the data that you have, then you gotta go do some primary research to figure out the root cause.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

So let's go back to the Mayo Clinic and look at their data. What? Because a lot of nonprofits, they have data by stack, like they have data by school and then someone combines it all, but there's nobody looking at the whole thing.

[Mike Linton]

And they actually were looking at brand data so they could see things like awareness, affinity and propensity to travel, which is, which is a key component for them. Like travel for.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yeah, I'll travel. Because you have the best people.

[Mike Linton]

Exactly, exactly. And while they might be in your backyard, like good chance a lot of their patients are not, they really did have those diagnostic metrics at the brand level. But you're right, like a lot of organizations don't, what they're instead seeing is maybe they're seeing a softness in sales, right. Maybe they're seeing their competitors, you know, starting to do better than them or you know, really outpace them. So oftentimes it's just in the financial data. Not just, it's in the financial data. And so when you are looking at the problem, but you don't have the hypotheses on why, rather than jumping straight to brand, you really gotta do some digging and look across to see what kind of a story you need to pull together. So quick example of that. Samsung, some years ago, they had super high awareness. Everybody knew them. Yeah, Very low affinity. So people knew them and they didn't really care to purchase them. You know, they just didn't have loyalty. And as they were really working their way into the mobile market, mobile phone market, they, and rightly so, felt that they really needed to stand up their brand at a different, at a different level. You know, it couldn't be about kind of, you know, features and just staying in that, in that product world. So.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

And they were getting at the time, I'm guessing This was a number of years back where Sony was kind of it and then Samsung was coming in and then. But you also had Toshiba. I was at Best Buy. I think when was starting to rise. There was a bunch of people out there LG everybody making noise. Sony had the best position and Samsung had actually probably a lot of good stuff, but no one actually knew it.

[Mike Linton]

That's exactly right. And do you remember when they had the Galaxy? When they, when they did like, I mean from an objective stance on the technology, the Galaxy was superior and it had, you know, it had the best. As mobile phones were really coming into mainstream, they had the best cameras, they had the most features. So they knew that they had, or rather they knew they didn't have a product profile. Right. But they did have a brand problem, they had an affinity problem. So being really careful about like why is the data looking the way it's looking? And you know, I'll say it for our part, like we do ask a lot of questions upfront when, you know, organizations come to us because we don't want to take on work that's not, you know, brand related. Like if it really is, you know, a product that is subpar to what the competition is offering, you know, people are just going to go elsewhere.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Okay, so I'm sitting in here as the leader and I figured out, okay, I've got, this is a marketing problem or a brand problem, how do I go about then moving forward? Like I, or I'm just parachuted in. Let's talk about the best practices and the worst practices. The worst thing you can do if you're given this kind of issue.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, so I've, I've seen a lot of things over the years. Um, I do like to talk about the glass half full. So I'm going to talk a lot about like best practices. But I, but I will mention in terms of worst, I think of the worst things you can do is not do your homework with your customers. So like we often say to people, like, even if you have a very modest budget, really make sure you understand how your audiences feel about your brand. Like, don't skip it. There are times I have seen organizations, they just kind of think they know.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

You know, well, they believe they have a belief that they've had for a long time and that belief itself, but it, but if I don't have any money and I just, I have this belief, how do I actually, especially if I have no money or no time, how do I actually go do this? Like, I agree you have to have some real marketplace data, not the collective judgment of a team that is convinced, you know, people should pay a 15% price premium for your product, even though it's the same. How do you go get the data if you don't have money and. Or time?

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, well, so I think you need to have, um, you have to have at least time. And if you don't have time, you need to figure out who you can get, who will have time. And there's lots of scrappy, creative ways you can do it. You know, with social, you can get access to your customers at any time and any place. If you have something in store based or online based, you know, you can do social listening, you can do walkthroughs in stores. Like, there are a lot of really low or no cost ways that you can get a sense for how people are interacting with your product. So really getting creative about it. It will cost you time. Whether it's your time, might be somebody else's time. Hire an intern, get somebody junior to do it with a lot of guidance, like how can you get access to that data? Or can you afford to do something very thoughtful and qualitative, you know, small sample so you can check your hypotheses. Because I just think to skip it is perilous.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Well, that's one. I bet there's a best practice. I want to go over the best practices and then the worst things you can do that make sure you're not going to actually solve. Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, so. So we'll go to the class half full. The. The best practices. So four best practices. I actually have five. So if we have time, we can talk about all of them.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Why don't you just tick them off really fast and then.

[Mike Linton]

Okay, okay. So I have actually labeled these my as though they are Taylor Swift songs.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

All right, let's go with it.

[Mike Linton]

And if they're not Taylor Swift songs.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

You want to sing them? We're okay.

[Mike Linton]

I might. I might sing a little. I might get you to sing a little. Right.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

But she's a limit to what the host can do on the show.

[Mike Linton]

If I could get you to sing. Yeah, I think people would.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Well, let's hear them. Let's hear them.

[Mike Linton]

Give the people what you want. What they want. Okay, so number one, teach me tonight. This is about education, about brand. Number two, in harmony. This is about internal alignment.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

There's the Georgetown problem. Yeah. Okay.

[Mike Linton]

Number three, voices unite. This is about getting your key stakeholders to create the brand strategy with you. So spark within. I mean, that's Definitely a song she would write. Right. That's about truly activating the brand internally. And then the last one, and we were just talking about is measuring the moment. Little bit of alliteration there. And that's about having the right KPIs.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Wow. All right, well, you know, I'm not going to even attempt harmony because I would ruin it. So let's just pick one of those. Which is the most common you see in the world.

[Mike Linton]

The most common that people trip up on.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Oh, yeah. Well, this is a glass half full. So the most common where you go it and then we're going to reverse it and talk about the empty part of the glass.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, very good. Okay. So I would say that the thing that most commonly is it's like this invisible thing, thing that gets in the way is the first one if you want to get everybody. So teach me tonight is about educating about brand. I'm not talking about your particular brand. I'm talking about like, what is brand? And it's just not well understood sometimes in the marketing function, but certainly outside of the marketing function.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Well, so yeah, at college, and I'm teaching at a college, I'm teaching at Case Western and they have a cmo. They have a system wide CMO to work on stuff like this. But this would be the college or the brand is bigger than any component of the brand. And why. And that's what you have to teach at Georgetown. And so you're going to hum a few bars of your song now, right?

[Mike Linton]

Yes, that's exactly right. So to teach me to know, what you have to do is you have to get people within the organization to really understand that holistic view of what brand really means. If you don't do that, a couple things typically happen. People just think in terms of a brand campaign. They see this as a project, you know, something that is kind of costly. And then, you know, months down the line they're questioning like, hey, what did we ever get for that? And worst of all, they don't embody it themselves. The truth is in organizations where brand is really alive and well and everybody's quote, unquote, living the brand, everybody understands that they are the brand. Everything the brand does is a touch point. I'm going to go back to Mayo for a quick sec because I think they do this so well.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Okay.

[Mike Linton]

When people walk into a Mayo Clinic, these are people who are so stressed out and the way they get treated by the staff is like they're coming in to a home where they're going to put their arms around them, and they're going to do their damnedest to get them a true diagnosis. These are people with complex illnesses, sometimes multiple illnesses. They may have been down a path for a year or longer. Trying to find out. Now, a lot of brands don't have that life or death right situation. But the reason why it's so powerful when you walk inside Mayo and you feel that isn't just because people are in these dire straits. It's because the people inside Mayo live the brand. They understand that they are the brand. And that is the part that gets missed in teaching people what brand is.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

We're going to go the negative. You just said Dire Straits. So I want to make another music joke, but I won't.

[Mike Linton]

That would be very good.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

That would be money.

[Mike Linton]

That's like lower tone. So you'd have to sing that.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yeah, I would. Mark Knopfler. So let's go. Let's go. You already talked about one of the worst practices, which is you think the brand is a ad or an effort done by the marketers versus it's an entity that interacts with the marketplace. Let's talk about some other hall of Fame mistakes leaders make when they're standing up or fixing the brand.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah. So I would say mistakes is like keeping that brand effort really narrow in terms of who you're involving within the organization. So this is my in harmony and where we should be singing together. So right up front, we highly recommend to clients do an active listening tour and socialize what you're doing. If you keep it really tight, like, you know, we're just going to have this working team of marketers and, you know, then we'll launch it later. It the antibodies get it. And when you're involving those people up front, most importantly, you need to involve those people that you worry might be skeptics.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yeah, you got to get the negatives right in there.

[Mike Linton]

And I will get right on in there.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Funny Story Agency when I've started because a new CMO job because then I'm signaling to the company that I'm going to solve all the problems regardless of what I actually know when I come in with advertising. And usually it's not the advertising that's hurting the company.

[Mike Linton]

Right. So.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

So that's problem one. Get everybody on board. What's worse, you know, do not. Do not hog this to your little self and then come out like you're Albert Einstein with a piece of genius. What's. What's the other problem? People or hall of Fame worst practices? People make yeah.

[Mike Linton]

So another one would be to, to black box what the brand strategy is going to be and do a big ta da with a reveal. A reveal, Right. Because when you do reveal, inevitably anybody you're revealing to then, then is sitting there thinking about the wifm. Right?

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

How is this going to affect me in my world? And inevitably it's changed. I mean, we don't use the term change management because it freaks people out, but it is, that is what it is. And so if you do like a big reveal, you're gonna, you're gonna buy yourself a world of hurt. We actually do a process, Mike, where we involve the stakeholders in co creating the brand elements. And it's, you know, some people may think like, well isn't that like Tom Sawyer? Like you're getting everybody else to paint the fence. Like weren't you hired to help with create that brand strategy? But it only gets you to drafted elements. But it gets people rolling up their sleeves and doing it with you. And then they can't sit back and cross their arms and be the naysayers. So avoid the black box.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yes. Look, I always let them contribute. I don't let them vote, which is, you know, I'm going to listen a lot and a lot of times you're going to be right. But this is not a democracy. This is a collection of information. Is there any last, worst practice you want to throw down on before we, we move on to a look at the marketplace?

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, I'll, I'll go to the, the spark within, which is about activating internally. So, so the thing that people get, can get overly focused on, like yes, you're, if you're, if you're standing up your brand, refining your brand, you're definitely going to do something out in the marketplace to communicate that. But no, don't neglect or, or a short shrift on what you're doing internal to the organization. So if you've done that brand education up front and then you do some really thoughtful things within the organization to help everybody know their role, people can get excited and be a part of it, which is what you really need to fully live the brand. If instead you're really just focused on the external, it's just going to be a brand campaign. Six months down the path you're going to have folks saying to you, you know, hey, like that project's done. You know.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

A lot of folks are watching the Jaguar or Jaguar campaign, you know where they are. You know, they came up with this just flashy, completely over the top video and you know, we'll see if there's anything behind it or if that was just one of the mistakes you reference. Which brings me to my next question. If you can look at the marketplace now and not necessarily your brands, you know, brands on the way to needing help, or one of our. A brand that has successfully rebooted itself that aren't yours.

[Mike Linton]

So I think two brands come to mind that I think are a little wobbly. One is Sephora and the other one's Apple. So the deal with Sephora, like, have you ever gone into a Sephora store?

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Just once.

[Mike Linton]

Did you run out of there?

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

I just run out of there. I looked at it because I thought it was interesting retail, but obviously fascinating retail.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah, it's fascinating, right? Like a million skus. It's just an amazing feast for your eyes and full of teens and tweens and my mom who loves it there and she's 86, which is a whole other story, but she just loves cosmetics and retail or whatever and thinks it's fascinating. The thing about Sephora, though, is that that's a really fickle customer base and there are so many interesting innovations happening in cosmetics and skincare and fragrances that you can get not from Sephora. And so they have this store experience, but they're really getting infringed upon by a lot of competition. Like with Apple, though. Like Apple, you know, they're under a lot of pressure right now and particularly out of Asia. You know, there's an awful lot of discounting of perfectly good technology. So. And I think at least I'm a big Apple user, but I think we all have a little bit of a low key, like, brand erosion going on, you know, with the prices and always I need a new plugin and the updates that don't give me anything better. Like there's just kind of a low key erosion look.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

It's hard to stay great for really long.

[Mike Linton]

It is. I mean, it's so big. Right. And so we like to, we like to really, you know, criticize the behemoths. Yeah. It's hard to stay great. I would say on, on the flip side, like a brand that, you know, we don't work with. But I really admire what they've done. Is Domino's.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yeah.

[Mike Linton]

I just think they've done, you know, a beautiful job. I think most people know, like, they, they kind of owned their problems a number of years ago and, you know, they've, they've really come out with better recipes. Like their pizzas better. Like, I don't Know if you've had it recently but like it's still very reasonably priced. It tastes a whole lot better. They have a great app, you know, they.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

And their problem was their pizzas tasted badly, their delivery was bad, everything about the brand was bad and they have systemically rebooted everything.

[Mike Linton]

When I was in college, we got a late night pizza from Domino's one night. This is before they fix their problems. It had no sauce on it. We were like, what is this? Like it's a calzone. I don't know what to do with this thing.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Okay, look, this is perfect. To move in to our traditional last question, the sauceless pizza, which you know, we should trademark this and maybe that's a new Taylor Swift song too.

[Mike Linton]

Could be.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Could be. So our traditional last question is two parter. You have to take one or both. Practical advice we haven't talked about yet for our listeners and or funniest story you can share on the air. You have to take at least one part of this, but you can take both.

[Mike Linton]

All right, I'm going to take door number two. I'm going to go funniest story. I have noticed in your episodes that a lot of people take the advice so I'm going to go the other way. So I'm going to start out by saying that nobody was long term harmed in this story.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

All right, so he's a good story.

[Mike Linton]

So that's why it's funny. We do a lot of live facilitations and we were doing one for Samsung in Chicago. It was a multi day training. They had flown people in from all over and there was a senior leader there. I'm going to call him Jim and Jim is just fine. Now again I want to emphasize. So we start the session and in the first hour of the first day we are running a panel discussion of leaders at the front of the room and Jim has a heart attack in the front of the room and falls like a brick off of his like high chair. They were on like, like barstool type chairs. Literally falls face down like a brick. Ambulance, the whole nine yards. What was funny is that Jim had this colleague, they were peers and we'll call this guy Martin. Martin and Jim did not get along. Oil and water. Okay, so Jim keels over and Martin is like really good at like fire and rescue safety, all that. He bolts to the front of the room. He's giving a mouth to mouth cpr. Jim comes to, looks up at Martin and says, why are you making out with me?

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

I feel like this is an office thing. And I only wish that Martin had kissed Jim on the forehead that I'd hear about.

[Mike Linton]

Yeah. Or just held his hand and said, you know, I'll see you in a little while or something. Yes. So literally, you know, they're like, what do we learn from such things? I mean, I went and got CPR trained. Like, no lie. I felt so useless in that room. And I went and got CPR trained after that because I just, I never wanted to feel that way again. But. But Jim is alive and well and we gave everybody like a two hour break and said, like, walk it off. And then, you know, we got on with the.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

You know. All right, I have. I have another question just before we end the show. Did you guys eat the pizza without the sauce? Mike, you did?

[Mike Linton]

Because we're in college, had a couple beers, so.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

Yes. You did eat.

[Mike Linton]

Yes, a hundred percent. We ate the whole thing.

[Nancy McDonnell Reuter]

All right, very good. Well, I think that's a great way to end the show. Thank you, Nancy. And thanks to everyone for listening to CMO Confidential. Look for all of our shows on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and anywhere you listen to podcasts. These shows include the top five mistakes CEOs and boards make when hiring CMOs. A rapid evolution in the marketplace, the Spencer Stewart 2025 CMO study, lessons learned from the 2024 presidential election, parts one and two, and the Omnicom IPG merger. What it means, and what's next. Hey, all you marketers, stay safe out there. This is Mike Linton signing off for CMO Confidential. Marketers have been working on personalization since the dawn of the Internet and actually even earlier than that. Now, with AI, you can deliver ads made for each of your customers. Publicist Sapient is committed to faster, better personalization and is proud to introduce SlingShot and Bodhi AI. Now, these AI platforms are designed to customize every key touch point and reduce creative timelines from weeks to days. With publicist Sapient, marketing isn't just fast, it's personal. Smarter marketing, happier teams. Wow. Worthy customer moments. Upgrade your marketing. @Publicissapient.com Marketers have been working on personalization since the dawn of the Internet and actually even earlier than that. Now, with AI, you can deliver ads made for each of your customers. Publicist Sapient is committed to faster, better personalization and is proud to introduce SlingShot and Bodhi AI. Now, these AI platforms are designed to customize every key touch point and reduce creative timelines from weeks to days. With publicist Sapient, marketing isn't just fast, it's personal Smarter marketing, happier teams. Wow. Worthy customer moments. Upgrade your [e-mail].