← Insights Unlocked
Insights Unlocked
Redefining a beloved brand: What Zoom’s transformation teaches modern business leaders
00:39:34
Zoom CMO Kim Storin discusses brand evolution, collaboration ROI, AI-driven productivity, and how leaders reduce friction and build authentic customer connection.
Loading summary
Transcript49 lines
- [00:02]
A
Welcome back to Insights Unlocked. In this episode, we sit down with Zoom's CMO Kim Storen for a candid conversation about leading transformation, reshaping a beloved brand, and navigating the changing world of collaboration and AI. Kim shares sharp insights on connecting with customers, reducing friction at work, and building community in a hybrid world. Enjoy the show.
- [00:29]
B
Welcome to Insights Unlocked, original podcast from User Testing, where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, doers and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concepts to execution.
- [00:48]
A
Welcome to the Insights Unlocked podcast. I'm Nathan Isaacs, principal Content Marketing Manager at User Testing, and joining us today as host is User Testing CMO Johan Reed. Welcome, Johan.
- [01:01]
C
Thanks, Nathan. Hi, everybody.
- [01:04]
A
And our guest today is Kim Storen. Kim is a CMO at Zoom, where she leads global marketing and communications. Prior to Zoom, Kim held marketing leadership roles at various tech companies, from SaaS startups to Fortune 50 companies, and was an M and a consultant at Deloitte earlier in her career. Welcome to the show, Kim.
- [01:25]
D
Thanks for having me, Kim.
- [01:27]
C
That's a pretty impressive introduction. It sounds like you've kind of done everything M and A consulting and transformation, startups, big companies. It's quite the career you've had.
- [01:38]
D
Well, I'm a little bit of a transformation junkie, so I love the adrenaline and I love to be constantly learning and kind of embrace my curiosity. So I always like to be challenged.
- [01:53]
C
I love that. I think curiosity is the most powerful thing that we have at our disposal. I'm curious, in all that transformation, is there a constant, Is there something you see consistently?
- [02:09]
D
I think the biggest thing that we see consistently is that change is hard. And whether that's the change that our customers are going through, our partners are going through, our communities are going through, or our people are going through that, you know, bringing them along on the journey, whatever that might look like, is the biggest challenge. So you can have the greatest strategy in the world, but the. The culture, and, you know, whether that's the culture that you, you know, have internally or the culture that you portray externally as a brand can make or break that strategy. And so I always think about, you know, that importance of the balance when it comes to how we think about the problem is, yes, we've got to ask the right questions. We have to have the right insights, we have to build a great strategy, but it can all be broken with not having the right culture.
- [03:12]
C
Do you think we're overly optimistic about our ability as human beings to absorb change? Because I feel like, oh, everybody's like, I have a change mindset. And then when you start a change project to your point, it's like people.
- [03:28]
D
Say, I have a growth mindset. I'm like, we all want to grow, of course. Well, I do think optimism is important, just like curiosity. I think optimism is a superpower, especially the world that we live today and that, you know, great transformation or, you know, marketing strategists really leverage that curiosity and that optimism. We believe that the world is going to be a better place in the future and that's what drives us and it's what, you know, we want to bring our customers along on that journey. But I do think that there is a while we want to be optimistic about the future ahead. We also have to be pragmatists around what it's going to take to get us to the future that we desire. And, and whether that means that we need to be thoughtful about technology and how we are ensuring that we're creating the technology that's not going to be harmful or whether we're thinking about that change curve. Right. And being pragmatists around what it's really going to take to bring people along with us as we go on, on that, that transformation. So I think it's, you know, we've got to balance the. Just like we have to balance strategy and culture, we have to balance optimism and pragmatism as well.
- [04:51]
C
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think you have to balance curiosity with restraint. So it, like, what I have in my head is sort of like four, like two axes where you've got optimism and pragmatism and curiosity and restraint, and then finding the sweet spot, spot in the middle as you drive that transformation is probably where success lies. And you're doing that at Zoom. So can you talk a little bit about what you're doing there and what Zoom itself is going through? Because I understand there's quite a change in the way Zoom thinks about its business.
- [05:28]
D
Yeah, absolutely. So our brand is a little bit of a double edged sword. We obviously have 100% brand awareness and we are in a position that not many companies have 100% brand awareness. And, and that was really a result of the pandemic. And for better or for worse, Zoom came synonymous with the pandemic. We became a verb. Yeah. And what people don't really realize, you know, our transformation journey is not, you know, a typical transformation journey. We are, we are expanding our portfolio of solutions and people don't really know all of the capabilities of zoom. They don't know that we have a world class webinar and events platform. They don't know that we have a Gartner MQ residing. Not what the right word is, they're residing customer support platform, a CX platform. They don't realize that we have a revenue acceleration platform for sales or an employee engagement platform for internal comms and the chief people officer. And so our challenge as a brand is to take that love that the world has for our core product, which is our meetings product, and translate that into awareness and ultimately love and advocacy for the rest of our portfolio which is growing and is really starting to see traction in the market. But compared to, you know, the zoom that everybody knows and loves. Right. We have, we have a, we really have to show the world that we're more than meetings.
- [07:12]
C
Yeah, it's that. I think your point is well made about the double edged sword of 100% brand awareness. Right. The problem is when everybody knows you a certain way, it's almost, it's an actor being typecast and they always wind up as the bad guy and they're like, well, I have more depth than that. Or comedians who, who, who also have depth to play, play dramatic roles but never get the opportunity because they're a comic and that's how we know them. And I feel like, I think there are a lot of brands that are go, you know, that go through this as they, as they try to start crossing categories and expand on the success they've had in their core market. How so how are you thinking about the storytelling around this?
- [07:56]
D
So I mean ultimately it comes down to being able to really land that core competency. And that is what our meetings platform is. And so when you think about the overall workflow, we're able to tap into that best in class video and meetings and communication collaboration platform that we're known for and bring that into adjacent areas where we can tap into that core competency. So imagine, you know, as an events professional, you're putting on, you know, a huge hybrid event where you've got people in person and people that are virtual that are dialing into your event, being able to, to leverage a platform that is ubiquitous, that everyone knows and loves and that they're able to, to take that and, and create a world class experiential event for both the in person and the virtual environments. And so when we think about that product connection, tapping into that core competency is really important and so is context. So you think about our AI product. For example, AI companion is you know, an absolute brilliant federated AI model that takes the context of your meetings, how much of your day is spent in a Zoom meeting. And we're able to take the context from those meetings and make sure that your AI that's sitting next to you day in and day out understands the context of those meetings and able to help you go from meeting to milestone or conversation to completion. And so really taking that agentic AI and, and leveraging the core competency of the product so that, that's kind of step one. That is, you know, if I put on like my product marketing hat, that's kind of my number one priority when it comes to, to the product and solution and really connecting the dots between the products that we are known for and the products that, that we're still building that awareness. Now, when you think about the brand overall, ultimately, you know, demand generation stems from having great product marketing. Right. Having that connection to the core competency and great brand marketing. And so the challenge that we have that we're facing from a marketing standpoint is how do we start to be in the right places? Those other products are not speaking to the typical IT cohort that the, that the Zoom meetings traditionally have spoken to. And so by expanding that cohort, what becomes really important is that it's less about the breadth. Right. If you're a CMO or you're a chief sales officer, you're ahead of people. You don't care about all of the products in the Zoom portfolio. You care about the one that makes your life better, the one that makes your team have stronger outcomes. And so the challenge as a marketing team that we have with the, you know, with our work from a brand perspective is to not talk about the breadth as much. Now we do when we talk to analysts and we talk to investors, et cetera.
- [11:19]
C
Sure.
- [11:20]
D
But when I'm going right in there and trying to have a conversation with a customer, I want to be in all of the venues and all the vehicles where that CMO resides every day. I want to talk about their pain points and how Zoom solves them. And so it really becomes this cohort based approach that's connecting brand at the highest level all the way through to demand and product marketing. Because if we don't have that connected tissue and we're just out talking about the brand overall, then we're never actually going to drive the revenue that we need to fuel the continued transformation of the business from a meetings primary business to a meetings plus. Right. A more than meetings company. And so it really is thinking about that, that I know we don't live in a funnel anymore. I get it. But work with me. The end to end funnel. Right. That brand to demand strategy.
- [12:23]
C
Yeah.
- [12:23]
D
Is the thing that is really going to change how people think about us. And that requires cohort function, focused brand to demand strategies. We can't be, we can't try to be everything to everyone. We have to be everything to you. Right. As a, as a potential buyer or influencer.
- [12:42]
C
Yeah.
- [12:42]
D
And so that's the marketing evolution that we're going on right now.
- [12:45]
C
So it's, it's really, if I, if I reflect that back to you, it's about deeply understanding your customer and understanding their journey in a cohorted way. So that you're thinking about what is the chro journey, what is a CMO journey, what is a CPO journey, and then joining them on that journey at every stage from brand awareness moments. And to be honest, you live on my desktop. I'm in zoom every single day. You occupy so much of my mental and digital real estate, it's not even funny. But how do you join me on that journey and how do you then show up in other places in my day and in my thinking. Right. As a cmo?
- [13:27]
D
And then the fun part is, is connecting all those dots. Right. So first we, we focus on expanding those cohorts and then ultimately those cohort, cohorts start talking to each other and, and they start understanding that full breath. But if we can't speak to the pain points at the individual stakeholder level and that buying group. Right. Then you can't, you can't get to true account based marketing unless the various cohorts within that account truly understand the value that you bring and the, the challenges that you solve for them.
- [14:05]
C
Right.
- [14:06]
D
So it's a multi step process. But, but ultim. Our ultimate goal is to have all of the right stakeholders within that account understand the value of zoom and how it all works together. But it, it takes time to be able to understand and communicate with, build community with those stakeholders that haven't been our traditional points of contact.
- [14:32]
C
I love that you said build community because I think that's one thing as marketers that I think is so important now in this generative AI world where content is a couple mouse clicks away from really mediocre content, but lots and lots of it.
- [14:52]
D
AI snap, you can call it what it is.
- [14:54]
C
Yeah, but, but you know, I think, I think getting closer with your customer, with your audience if they're not a customer. Right. Like just creating community, bringing People of a like mind together to talk about the challenges within the business. I find that's the, the maybe some of the highest calling that marketers have today. And you know, I think there's this, this notion of co innovation or co creation. We want, as customers, we want to build things with our suppliers, with our vendors so that it's, it's, it's not just you saying, hey, I have this new invention for you, but rather I've heard you, I hear where your pain points are, I hear what you need. And then the engineering part of the business product and engineering goes off and builds the thing. And then marketers get to talk about it and reflect back and say, hey, look, you told us you were struggling with events and you love our, our platform. So here we have, we've extended our, our platform capabilities to now create great hybrid experiences for large events. Right. And so I, I feel like there's this, this urgency that we have to better understand our audiences and connect with them in a, in a real and authentic way.
- [16:09]
D
I think you're right. And you know, the more AI slop that you engage with, the more that you are dying for authenticity. And so how a brand remains authentic and true to their core tenant is really important. But then also how are the ways in which you're showing up feel authentic? And I don't necessarily think that that has to equate to, in person. Right. Because that's not the world that we live in anymore. I mean there we love great experiential events. They're back with a vengeance. Like, you know, it's, we're back to, to really like the emphasis on some of that face to face. But there's so much opportunity continue to build community in a virtual world. And, and I think we're, we're still learning how to take advantage. And when I say we, I mean collectively, you know, how to take advantage and, and not have to sell something. People don't want to be sold to. They want to do 80% of their research before they talk to a seller. So how do you, how do you stay top of mind, create that fame, if you will, as a brand that like really holds that mental availability in someone's brain in an authentic way that allows for them to tell you when they're ready. And I think that's what community enables, right? It gives us those touch points where we can form a real connection. Because at the end of the day, our customers are people, right? They might be, might be cohorts of people. They might be buying committees there might be 12 of them that make a decision, but they are people.
- [17:57]
C
Yeah.
- [17:57]
D
And so, you know, I always laugh when people say, well, B2B marketing is not as emotional as B2C. And I'm like, oh, really? Opposite, right? At the end of the day, if I buy the wrong pair of shoes, what? There's. There's not much on the line for me except that, like, you know, one of the neighborhood kids might make fun of me if I spend a million dollars on a, you know, software product that doesn't work for my company. My job's on the line. Like, what's more emotional than that? And so I think, you know, B2B marketers, there's a lot that we can learn from B2C because it is such an emotional purchase.
- [18:47]
C
I couldn't agree more. I feel like we've used this term consumerization of B2B marketing, but I've thought about it more as the humanizing of B2B, because we're not selling these products to steel and glass buildings. We're selling them to people who work there, who. Ultimately. The old adage about IBM, back in the day, nobody got fired for buying IBM because, no, nobody wanted to stick their neck out and risk their career on the. On the bet. So this isn't, you know, it's not a new concept, but sadly, it's taken a little while for. For that to catch up. But I think you started. You started at the top with talking about how Zoom became sort of a household name during the pandemic. And during the pandemic, we also saw this huge behavioral shift because people were suddenly home when their kids came home from school or, you know, we're homeschooling. But even when they. When they, you know, when kids started to go back to school, parents were still working from home and they experienced an integration of work and life. And I think what's so interesting is this notion of how do you create community when it's not just big in person events or local meetups where you have large global organizations, people are often working on the same team despite being many time zones between them? How do you create authentic community and bring people together in a way that, as a. As a solution provider, feels like you're on the same side of the table as them? And I feel like that's the magic in the marketing is getting. Getting past that sort of vendor, customer, adversarial buying relationship that feels like, to use the used car buying metaphor, right? Like the buy buyer's worried that the seller is trying to sell them something that's not real, doesn't exist, won't meet up lots of risk and change that narrative to be more cooperative, to say you've done your research, you know what you're looking for, let's get together, partner through what the solution actually looks like.
- [20:58]
D
Right? Yeah. I think there's a fine line between tailored solutions and expensive, bespoke customized solutions. But the, you know, the tailored aspect comes from being able to talk through those pain points and solution market solutions sell and, and help help those customers or prospects understand that you are sitting, you're not sitting across the table, you're sitting next to them and, and trying to help them elevate in their position and elevate within their organization. And I think that is something that Zoom has done really well and it's something that I've always really respected from a Zoom product standpoint. This, this ability to, to really listen to what the customer needs and be able to move at the speed of Zoom. And, and we do such a great, a great job around agility, which again is a very important, you know, curiosity is also important. Being able to look out and predict what's next. But agility is so important of being able to look back, see what needs to evolve, what needs to continue to iterate and work with your customers and your partners to serve a common goal. And so that's something that we really take a lot of pride in. And I think it's demonstrated by the love for Zoom that you feel from our users. Right. Zoom is really for the people, it's for the users. And yes, we sell to it in a lot of enterprises, but in a lot of SMBs and below, we're selling to the users. And even within those enterprises, the users are our biggest champions within the organization. And so you really can kind of see the importance of where community and the true sense of community really comes. Like, people will come up to me and say, I am a Zoom user. Right. I, I take pride in, in being a dedicated Zoom user. If I get a link for the competitors platform, I don't want to go to that meeting. Right. You see this on Reddit. Right? You see this on, on X. But it's, it's one of those things where we have such an opportunity to capitalize on the community around Zoom that already exists, which is, is definitely rare. Right. Not a lot of brands can say that, that, you know, people freak out when they see a competitor's link in the, the meeting invite.
- [23:45]
C
Yeah, I honestly, honestly, the only other big tech companies that I can think of are like companies like Apple where you have people who like, you know, you'll never get me out of a Mac. Like I'm, I'm, I'm a Mac die. And there really are very few examples of that in technology. I think in B2B tech it's generally more about the ROI, which I want to get to and ask you about. Because you know, you talked a few times about selling. You know, the passion comes from the user community, but the buyer, your core buyer, is it. And they're, you know, this is where B2B and B2C change a little because when you buy that pair of shoes that might get you questionable looks from the neighborhood kids, you're not thinking about roi. Why, but when, when it is evaluating their communications platform, they are. So you recently did some research with Deloitte and I'm curious, what, what, what is the ROI of collaboration?
- [24:46]
D
So I think it's misunderstood, right? We have a little bit of a collaboration paradox. And even though you're seeing record investment in collaboration tools, ultimately like the real productivity gains still are not really measurable, they kind of remain elusive. And in so many ways we see that the one platform consolidation, that trend really creates more friction than efficiency. And ultimately the real ROI comes from adoption. And so we've started to see how, through this research, how leaders can close the gap between collaboration platform investment and the actual value. So there's so many features, next generation features, and we've measured success by activity, meetings, held licenses, uptime, et cetera. But we haven't really tracked the adoption of those next generation platform features and what that means for faster decisions and meaningful work. So for example, we found that meeting friction is everywhere. And employees ultimately spend about 25 hours per week preparing for, participating in or following up on meetings. So that's three days a week that is spent on coordination versus actual creation.
- [26:19]
C
That is a significant tax.
- [26:22]
D
It is such a right friction everywhere. So we also found that next gen features are actually what delivers measurable roi, like I said. And so for the organizations that are actively leveraging the AI powered capabilities, it might be automated meeting summaries or intelligent recaps, could be integrated workflows, but they're saving three hours per week on average. And that's time that they can invest in higher value, more strategic work. And so ultimately the question becomes for these IT leaders, how do we stop just thinking about the uptime and some of those traditional measurement and start thinking about adoption? Are people adopting the tools that's actually going to Save them time and actually going to enable them to get out of the meetings. Like we at Zoom would love people to have less meetings, which seems counterintuitive, but we want you to be more productive. We want you to be able to focus on the strategic work versus just spending time in the meetings. Which is why we've created all of these great features and next generation capabilities that allow you to be more productive before, during and after the meetings. But I think, you know, the third piece that has was such a good interesting finding is how much inefficiency comes when you demand that all of your employees use the same platform. And so when they do, like people start to like, you know, they're trying to standardize. And ultimately like we see flexibility and productivity suffering. So giving employees that choice, they start to self select based on intent and who's participating. So for example, a consulting business might use Zoom for external client meetings because it is the most ubiquitous, easy to use platform. But they might use a competitor for internal meetings because it is integrated into other communication platforms or documents. And when you force everyone onto the same platform, even more friction begins. So we're starting to see that there's some ultimate truths that are shaping the next era of enterprise collaboration. But until the IT decision makers really understand how to value collaboration in a different way, it's hard for them to be able to reduce that friction.
- [29:12]
C
It's really interesting as you're talking about friction. I was thinking about, I had an off site for my leadership team a few weeks ago. We did a planning off site and at the end of the time together we were all remarking at how efficient and how effective we were were. And I reflected back to them that I thought, yes, being in person it's irreplaceable because we got to laugh over cocktails and we had dinner together. And it creates relationship in a way that you cannot do virtually under any circumstance. You also discover people have legs which you don't notice on Zoom. But what I also realized was a lot of the value in those working sessions is laptop lids are closed, people are focused on one topic, we're devoting hours of our time. There's no switching penalty. There's not, oh, I've got an hour here and an hour there and a half an hour here and right. And we were able to really be focused because we weren't on other, you know, on Slack and getting pinged in our inboxes and all the other stuff that's happening. And I feel like we've fallen into the trap of using the tools the way we've sort of how we use them when they first showed up, instead of thinking hard about where is that friction, what are those distractions that cost us time and the switching cost of going in 30 minute meetings, should we just have an hour long workshop or a three hour workshop and put aside the distractions? Will that get us to an 80% outcome versus having an in person as opposed to feeling like we're never making progress on key topics? Right. So it really resonates with me this idea of friction and having to relook at your enterprise tool set and how you use it well.
- [31:13]
D
And it's such a shift, right? It's a shift from thinking about cost savings and consolidation to thinking about outcomes, adoption and human connection. And, and that's a big shift, right? We're so conditioned to think about how many tools do we have and that's the measurement of success instead of how much value do our people get from the tools that we use. And, and it, if you're, if you're embedding AI into workflows where that meeting context or it's supporting the meeting workflow, you'll see so much more value than when you're bolting on AI. And, and I think that that's something that we, you know, we sometimes forget is that thinking about like AI doesn't care about your function, right? It cares about your workflow. And we have to start shifting our mentality to be thinking about how do we get the most out of this workflow and how do we leverage next generation AI capabilities within the workflow so that we can free up our time, reduce that friction, simplify the workflow and ultimately give time back to teams. That strategy work, that big thinking has to happen at some point and it can't be happening if you're constantly, you know, on meetings, 30 minute Zoom calls.
- [32:49]
C
But I think this brings us back to what we talked about earlier, which is the importance of getting closer to your customer. And for you, you've got that bifurcation, right? Oftentimes the customer in quotes, the one signing the purchase order is in it. And they are the ones who are saying, okay, what's your uptime? What's your reliability, what's your connectivity? Can I get all the people in all the countries to a good quality experience as they work, whereas the end user, the actual customer of the service, they're the ones going, please help me get out of this purgatory of prepping for the meeting, trying to manage the meeting, trying to follow up from the meeting and this endless task list that I have, how do you reconcile that? How do you get closer to those. Those users that you're intermediated from by it?
- [33:49]
D
Well, I mean, ultimately, you know, we are. We are working hard as a marketing function to. To be really connecting to the people that are using the platform. And it's not that we can, you know, get around it, because that's just as an important, you know, piece of the puzzle. But as we think about this idea of Zoom for the people. Right. It was our theme from Zoomtopia this year. It's. It's really how we're approaching the world right now that, you know, our tools and our technology and our marketing has to speak to the benefit that we are providing. But at the same time, we have to arm it with this information. They have to understand that collaboration paradox. They have to understand what does TCO really mean in this world. And you'll talk to some customers, and they kind of got it figured out. One of my favorite stories is I was talking to a very large Zoom customer who said there was a point where we were debating if we should consolidate on one platform or not. And I was talking to the cfo, and neither one of us wanted to be the one to have to go tell the organization. And that's the paradox right there is when you realize your tools are truly empowering the people that are using them. It's removing friction. They're happier, they have more satisfaction, they're more productive at work. And so how do you connect those dots for those IT decision makers who, they do have a very important metric that they have to be thinking about when it comes to managing costs for the organization, but they also have to switch from just being a cost driver to being an outcome driver to being a productivity driver. And so I think we can do both. But our marketing has to be able to speak to both of those core tenets of zoom for the people. And then also, how do we help IT be more successful in their transformation from cost driver to productivity or revenue driver?
- [36:07]
C
Yeah. And it sounds like some of the work you're doing is collecting customer insights and giving them back to it to say, by the way, this is what's happening in the life of the folks that you're supporting, and here's how we can help them on that journey. I think that's excellent, excellent work. So, Kim, this has been fantastic. I could probably talk to you for another three hours about this stuff. I really appreciate you making the time to join us here today and I'd love to end with one last question, which is if there's anything that you can share from your career of transformation with marketers or anyone else who's listening to this podcast, what would it be?
- [36:52]
D
I think I would say I think there's three things that make a successful leader. But marketing leader in particular, when you are looking at leading through transformation. I didn't say it through, through growth, hyper growth, but it's three things. It is curiosity. Right. We talked about it at the beginning. It's the ability to look forward and, and be optimistic about where the world is heading and be curious about what's next. It's about agility, the ability to look back and see what's working, what's not and either scale it or kill it fast. And, and then it's calculated risk taking and being able to, you know, marketing is an art and a science and, and we as marketers have to feel good about taking calculated risk and, and doing it in a way where going back to the agility that we can scale or kill it fast. But if we don't take those risks and we're not curious about where we're heading or agile and where we've come from from, we're not going to be able to to move at the the speed of the market and things change. Marketing 3 months ago does not look like marketing today. And that speed of change within even the marketing function, the marketing discipline requires us to be thinking that way. And then when you put the lens of our own industries and our own markets and our own customers on on it, those three things become even more critical. So curiosity, agility and calculated risk taking are what I think is the formula for success right now for marketers.
- [38:40]
C
I absolutely love it. And the last point, the risk point, is spot on. If anybody's going to take a risk in the enterprise, it's got to be marketing. So I love that.
- [38:50]
D
And be best friends with your CFO while you do it.
- [38:53]
C
Well, yeah, that's the kind of risk you don't want to take on. Kim, this has been really fabulous. Thank you so much for joining me today.
- [39:02]
D
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [39:05]
B
Want to keep the conversation going? You can find the show notes@usertesting.com podcast if you haven't already, don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or Google Play so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Until next time. This is Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing.