← Marketing Vanguard
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- [00:00]
LinkedIn Ads Narrator
Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. A network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority, skills, and. Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started@LinkedIn.com Campaign terms and conditions apply.
- [00:31]
Alex Gonzalez
We have 77.0percent of Fortune 500 companies have a presence here. I think it's pretty powerful when you could be in UX or marketing and work in Delta one day, work Chick Fil a the other, work at a startup the next day. Never even leave where you live. Right. I mean, so that, I think, is the secret sauce of Atlanta.
- [00:50]
Jenny Rooney
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard Podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with adweek, and I'm thrilled today to be joined by Alex Gonzalez. He's the chief Innovation and Marketing Officer at Metro Atlanta Chamber. Alex, welcome.
- [01:02]
Alex Gonzalez
Thank you. Welcome to Atlanta.
- [01:04]
Jenny Rooney
Thank you so much. And yes, I should add that we are doing this live from Brand Week in Atlanta. It's a special series of the Marketing Vanguard Podcast. And we're super excited to be here because, listen, Brand Week is our single biggest event of the year as Ad Week. And it's really where we have our largest event. And we bring together marketers, agency and media leaders from all over the globe, really, to come together for almost a week of programming, conversation, dialogue, learning, education, workshops, all of the above. And when we went through the exercise of looking for the city that we wanted to have host Brand Week, Atlanta seemed like such an incredibly perfect fit because of the critical mass of iconic brand marketers.
- [01:53]
Alex Gonzalez
Absolutely.
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Jenny Rooney
So, Alex, we're going to unpack that a little bit. But before we get into talking about the. The magic of brand Atlanta, if you will, why don't you share with everybody a little bit about you and your background and what got you to this place?
- [02:07]
Alex Gonzalez
Yeah. So, first of all, my current role. And again, welcome to Atlanta. And you're right, we have an incredible density of brand markers here. Cause I'd love to talk more about that. So I'm the chief Innovation and Marketing Officer for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and first, maybe to lay that out, Metro Atlanta Chamber. People hear the term Chamber, they kind of think of how it's about exchanging business cards and meetings and small business and all that. We're actually kind of. Not that we're more like a CEO counsel, very similar to what exists in New York and Houston. And we're actually a private organization that's supported by. And we are in support of our business community here in metro Atlanta. And when I say that the people who we take direction from are the CEOs of the biggest companies, the ones you were just mentioning at Bastion, at Delta, Carol Temei at UPS and all the Inspire brands, Mercedes Benz, all these companies based here. And we work on their behalf to make sure we keep growing this economy. And so it's a pretty unique position. So I lead two aspects of it. It's marketing Atlanta for a place to work and live, as well as a great place to do business. And also I work on the innovation side in terms of helping grow our innovation economy. There's a whole bunch of other stuff we do, but my background actually is not in this economic development area. I actually grew up in kind of the corporate side and actually was not marketing. I was a. I had a finance degree. I started with a company called Chubb Insurance, doing business development and underwriting and all that stuff. And then at some point in my career, I intersected with GE at the time that those that are in my wonderful Gen X generation will probably know the name Beth Comstock. And going to Six Sigma somehow led me into marketing because it was during the whole customer experience revolution when the term net promoter score and all that started becoming real. And it was, to me, the convergence of, like, brand and brand experience became real. And so it's such an incredible time to be a GE when they were just at the time just exploring that, like, how do we win on that? How do we transform marketing for big B2B organizations, as in the financial services side. So I grew up on that over at GE and then eventually came over to Atlanta. What brought me here was to work for Equifax, one of our big data and technology companies here in Atlanta, to really build their marketing and strategy and innovation organization there. And so I spent some time there and eventually found an opportunity to work with all of our companies here and all of our technologists and creators here. And that's what I do.
- [04:21]
Jenny Rooney
That's awesome. So go through the litany of companies that are based here or have major headquarters here.
- [04:26]
Alex Gonzalez
So there's kind of two stats. We have companies based here that people know of, like Coca Cola and UPS and Delta. About 16, 17 Fortune 500 companies here, private organizations like Cox Enterprises and Chick Fil A. You have Inspire Brands that are based here. So if you think about Supervolt commercials and think a lot of them were actually probably thought of or greenlit here in Atlanta, but we'd like to say we have 77,0% of Fortune 500 companies have a presence here. Wow. And so it's a headquarters, of course, but it's also major, you know, operations or things like blackrock having a major customer experience center here, which is more than just service, like people really doing stuff, or Morgan Stanley and others. But then on top of top of that, we have actually thousands of startups. We have like over almost 200, 250 of the Inc. 5000 companies are based here in Atlanta. So it's an incredibly diverse economy and incredibly diverse industries, which we're really excited about and place to our strength and
- [05:24]
Jenny Rooney
talk about economically why this is favorable for a lot of the businesses.
- [05:30]
Alex Gonzalez
Well, if I kind of think about my innovation hat and I do think the convergence of different industries, different backgrounds, different people just drives incredible innovation and incredible thinking. And again, if I think about entrepreneurship and you talk about companies kind of starting here, being born here, just in general, the south, there's so much migration to the south, just overall, just the Southeast in particular. And of course, Atlanta is really kind of the center and the capital of that. So if you think of your brand, whether it's a major brand or you're starting a company, and you kind of see the cross section of consumers here in Atlanta.
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Jenny Rooney
Yeah, for sure.
- [06:03]
Alex Gonzalez
And so that's a powerful part of it. And likewise, you have talent here from all over the world, all over the country. And different backgrounds, different universities, different everything here in Atlanta as well, too. I think that's a secret sauce. That's the X factor. Then you can talk about the diversity of industries. I think it's pretty powerful when you could be in UX or marketing and work in Delta one day, work chick fil a the other, work at a startup the next day. Never even leave where you live. Right. I mean, so that I think is the secret sauce of Atlanta. And I think that's for companies where they could really thrive here as well.
- [06:36]
Jenny Rooney
There's also a lot of universities in Atlanta or not too far from Atlanta. How are you tapping into sort of that collective.
- [06:42]
Alex Gonzalez
So there is a significant number of universities. I always get the number wrong. I mean, there's a universities like the three Big Research or the actually four. When you count UGA universities, you have also Georgia State, Emory, Georgia Tech. Then you have like Kennesaw State universities. And then there's a great technical college system, but there's 300,000 students in the metro Atlanta area. And that is again, if you think about what drives a business and what drives great thinking and innovative thinking, that's the fuel. And so we embrace that. They are why if you look at a near Georgia Tech's campus, there's a lot of buildings there overlooking with their brands literally casting a shadow on top of their campus, including Google and Microsoft and others. And very intentional because it's about that talent. And so we embrace that.
- [07:29]
Jenny Rooney
I also want you to mention the contingent of B2B marketers who are here because I think that sometimes gets lost and we all get star eyed on all the B2C marketers that are based here, which are. They're incredible. And you named so many of them.
- [07:43]
Alex Gonzalez
Yeah.
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Jenny Rooney
Talk about the bastion of B2B market.
- [07:45]
Alex Gonzalez
Oh yeah. It's an incredible community. That's also the other magical part from a marketing standpoint. And I get to work a lot with all our chief marketing officers around here, around Atlanta to help brand Atlanta and to help build the brand of Atlanta and go back to my alma mater. From a company standpoint, Equifax and there's other companies, particularly around Fintech and financial services, you know, Deluxe and so many others. That's really an important part of it. And then you have companies, we have some big brands like UPS. I mean UPS is actually thinking itself both hey there as much B2B now as they are absolutely technology company technology. And they're really focused on small business. And so that's a really big part of it. And it's not just the enterprise sales side of it. It's also like that small business. I mean I always like to remind people that mailchimp, which is now part of Intuit is based here, was born here. Yeah. To me the ultimate marketer to small businesses. Both empowering them but how they did it. And I got to spend time with their founders. So that great B2B legacy also leads a little bit to what we see even on the tech side in Atlanta, kind of the pragmatic side of marketing and how do you market and how you build businesses. So again, it's a little special part of that mix here we have in Atlanta.
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Jenny Rooney
So you mentioned this. You actually tap into. You actually have an advisory council, if you will, of CMOs who are based in Atlanta and representing all these companies and you're smartly tapping into their expertise to help you brand Atlanta. So talk a little bit about that.
- [09:10]
Alex Gonzalez
Yeah. And then we brand Atlanta, too, I should mention for us, it's about our region. So it's a 29 county region. When you think about this, over 6 million people that live here in metro Atlanta, it's very diverse. Also, in terms of the geography, we have over 115 communities, you know, neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, whatever within Atlanta. And when you think about the footprint of where our companies is at, like companies like UPS and Inspire brands are in the Sandy Springs, Dunwoody corridor just north of Buckhead. You have like the Home Depot and racetrack and many others based over in Cobb county, where the Atlanta Braves are at. Then of course, you have what everybody thinks about Midtown. There's a lot of companies. So the diversity of Atlanta, which is amazing, is also one of the hardest things to brand about Atlanta. And so we were a few years ago, our board asked us, particularly during we were kind of at the peak of that war and talent to what's the Atlanta's brand? How does the world think about us? And how do we kind of go about having a clear brand value proposition to the world, particularly about talent, which leads to then the economic development. It just made total sense to bring together our CMOs. When you have Alicia Tillman at Delta and, you know, Matt over at UPS and Jen over at Papa John's and Equifax, all these companies together, it'd be crazy not to take advantage of them. And these are companies that also support us in terms of growing the community is what's so special about Atlanta. I mean, the business community really arrives here to help grow Atlanta and help support and help it evolve. So when we went on that journey, we brought them together and they just are so invested. And both in terms of here's advice, here are resources. Like, when we do market research, we get some of the best market researchers in the world saying, here's kind of a framework we should use. Here's what we're learning. And it's really kind of an X factor. And I'm convinced, I don't think there's many other. There's a lot of, like, tourism marketing happening around the country. I mean, you have a lot of these, like we do here. We have an incredible organization in our Atlantic Convention and Visitors Bureau that markets Atlanta for tourism and conventions. But to me, I think we're kind of breaking ground. How do we market to get people to want to live here forever? Yeah, how do we market to get people to want to build their business here or expand their business? So getting the best brains in the world together on a regular basis and we're very purposeful in how we use them is just incredible. And they are all in. I mean, they just are huge supporters of what we do.
- [11:28]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah, no, I think it's an interesting model and I think we talked about. I'd love to do more with them and you to talk about that and share with other CMOs in other cities. Quite frankly, you think about cities like Minneapolis, Detroit. I know. And mine and your brains go immediately to the big companies that are based there. You know, like Chicago, like, they all have kind of those foundational brands that sort of are the anchor of their cities. And it'd just be interesting to have you share the model that you've built here with them, because I think there's probably some incredible learnings that have come from that. So the other question I had for you was I know that there's the startup world, the tech innovation world. There is quite a rich resource in Atlanta that's being built out from the tech startup community standpoint.
- [12:16]
Alex Gonzalez
Tell us a little bit. Yeah, and I spend. So if half my day is marketing Atlanta and building a new brand building, the other half is on that ecosystem. And. And we have a very vibrant ecosystem. As I mentioned before, we always rank up there pretty highly in the Inc. 5000 in terms of fastest growing companies. We get rated a lot of the best place to start a business and grow a business. But what's really tangible, particularly the startup and tech world, is we have so many startup incubators around here. On one side, there's one in particular called Atlanta Tech Village, just a little north of here in Buckhead. The Buckhead community, fourth largest tech and entrepreneurship center in the country. And people just don't realize that. And the founder of Atlanta Tech Village, who himself is an entrepreneur, is really active on our board and we work with him closely about growing entrepreneurship in Atlanta Tech Village. And he have been kind of a key part of kind of being early in terms of springboarding some big unicorns that have come out of Atlanta, like Calendly and Sales Loft. They've all kind of been through that building. But in addition to that, like here, not far from where we're at right now in downtown, you have the Russell Innovation center for Entrepreneurs, which is the largest center for black entrepreneurs in the country. My friend Jay Bailey, the world, but I'll let him say that that's a pretty big claim. But also the same gentleman I mentioned before, David Cummings, again, just literally a walking distance from here, is just bought like 10 city blocks of south downtown and has been developing it for the last year. So it's part of actually this revitalization of downtown that we're really doing here in Atlanta. But ultimately that's going to be the largest startup tech center in the world. And it's kind of if people are familiar with Station F in Paris, it's a little bit inspired by that. So we're just at a special time. Right. I actually have another we've had with the CMO advisory board, actually have a forum called Atlanta Growth Collective where we gather CEOs and founders of companies that are like between 10 and $100 million in real revenue growing rapidly double digit and create a protected forum for them so they can learn from each other, get mentored for people who've been through it. They connected into the region in general because their success, I want them to be the next UPS or Chick Fil A or sales loft, whatever the case might be. And the more we invest in them, the more they're going to keep investing.
- [14:26]
Jenny Rooney
Back in Atlanta, I love agencies, and we just finished a conversation about Agency Vanguard and how we at Adweek are thinking about really engaging more deeply with the agency community. How are you thinking about the agency community in Atlanta?
- [14:41]
Alex Gonzalez
Yeah, what's interesting in Atlanta, it's such a tight community, particularly the marketing, and I'm sure you've seen it here and everybody knows each other and that includes on the agency side. But we have a great agency community. I'd say a lot of great boutique agencies as well, including some larger ones. We're very fortunate too, in some of the work we've done, like this Atlanta where you belong brand that we built with the CMOs. You know, we had a local agency and I'll, you know that and I'll mention them because they really gifted so much Dagger, who really was key in helping build the brand. But some other agencies have taken part. So I love it because it's kind of this really familiar. And yeah, they compete, but they kind of don't and there's a big market and they help complement each other. But obviously you want to see with all the brands here, it makes sense. There's a thriving community here and so we're looking forward to continue seeing that grow.
- [15:26]
Jenny Rooney
Great. Two last quick questions. Define brand Atlanta. Like as you think, and you said it's very hard to define, but like where are you right now in that journey? What do you want to leave people listening with? And if there's one thing they want to take away from thinking about doing business in Atlanta, moving to Atlanta and Maybe even finding new market opportunity for their brands and businesses in Atlanta. What do you want them to do?
- [15:49]
Alex Gonzalez
Yeah. So I'd say there's two sides I'll start from as a place to live and work. Our brand is really Atlanta, where you belong. This is the place where you belong. And there's Atlanta for everyone, which is a tall order, but really comes back to three things. We believe this is the best place to build a career because of the diversity of companies we have, the volume of companies we have both ranging from the Fortune 500s to the startups, as we mentioned. And you can literally build your career in every phase of it here. Second part is there's a community for everyone here. There's 115 unique communities. And whether you want more urban environment like our Midtown where you are taking MARTA train to work, or want to walk and have that urban lifestyle, walk to Piedmont park. That, by the way, gets used a lot in movies to simulate Central Park. Or you could literally live on a horse farm in Milton, Georgia, and maybe 15, 20 minutes away from working at a Fortune 500 company like Home Depot or working in kind of the tech corridor up in Alpharetta, and then everywhere in between. So that's a huge part of the value, and that's honestly something a lot of people don't understand about Atlanta. And the third part is the culture. And it's a culture that still continues to be shaped. I mean, as people from all over the world come here, from music to incredible sports culture, not just because we have World cup and all that coming here, but just college and pro sports. Food scene is booming. And so those are the kind of the three kind of anchors for living and working here. And you could find your own place there. That's why the term belonging is so important, because you belong here and you define what belong means. You could do that here in Atlanta. And then on the business side, we say Atlanta is built for business. And it starts because of what I just mentioned. It starts with talent, have access to talent, understanding consumers. We've been the best place to do business from an economic development perspective in Georgia for the 12th year in a row. It's a very pro business environment, and it's very affordable to build a business here, too. And also, depending what businesses you have, you have access to a lot of customers here, too, both business or consumer. So those are kind of the two aspects of the brand. From a kind of consumer standpoint, this is a place where you belong, and from a business standpoint, it is built for business. But I will tell you that the people side of it, that talent side of it, is really the center of gravity for it all.
- [18:00]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah. And listen, I mean, last night, even we went to the Marketing Vanguard Inspiration excursion to Assembly Studios. There's a whole not emerging, but pretty established entertainment production culture here as well. So an alternative to Hollywood. Like, there's different ways of thinking about how Atlanta affords people options, right?
- [18:21]
Alex Gonzalez
Absolutely. And alternatives and a huge entertainment. And actually, it's funny, as we think about with the perception of Atlanta and all that, there's so much associated with the film industry and entertainment industry. And it also goes to show you talk about the diversity of the different communities and the lifestyles. Filmmakers love filming here because they could simulate almost any part of the country, any part of the world within Atlanta. But it is part of what makes it rich. That creative community is also part of the fabric, whether it's film or music, for sure.
- [18:45]
Jenny Rooney
Last quick question. Who's next? Who's somebody? And I ask this on the podcast all the time, but who's somebody I should have on the podcast because they're a brilliant marketer, they're doing some extraordinary things, and you can know this person well, or you can not know them, but admire them from this.
- [19:00]
Alex Gonzalez
I'm gonna get in so much trouble.
- [19:02]
Jenny Rooney
You are gonna get in. But that's okay.
- [19:03]
Alex Gonzalez
You know, I'm gonna go for Blame it on Me that no one's because. And she's new to Atlanta, but just doing an incredible job at, of course, one of our very established brands, Belisha, which she probably has been on the podcast.
- [19:14]
Jenny Rooney
She has been on a special podcast I did with her at ces, but I need to circle back with her and have yet another one. But she's incredible.
- [19:21]
Alex Gonzalez
And Delta and I have a book called Disruptor, which is. Talks about kind of being disruptive in big companies around innovation. And so that's awesome. And this is before Alicia was there. It's really the kind of fabric of Delta. But I talked about. I opened up the book talking about Ed Bastian being at stage on ces, talking about Delta as a tech company. So to want to be bold like that in terms of how you change the perception of it. And as Alicia's come in and this role at Delta to see what she's doing, to really lean into it and make all this come to life, not just from a tech perspective, but the experiential perspective. And so it's impressed. But to all my companies here in Atlanta, I love you all, and y' all should be. You should have. We'll have everybody on a.
- [19:59]
Jenny Rooney
We'll have everybody on panel. We'll do that sometime soon. But Alex, thank you so much for being here. This has been a pleasure. Thanks again for welcoming us into your fine city. We are thrilled, as I said, to have Brand Week here this year. And hey, you might see us here next year, too.
- [20:15]
Alex Gonzalez
So welcome to Atlanta. This is your home now. You belong here.
- [20:18]
Jenny Rooney
Thank you.
- [20:19]
Alex Gonzalez
Thank you.
- [20:20]
Marketing Vanguard Podcast Host/Outro
Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Ad Week Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting Adweek.com podcast stay updated on all things Ad Week Podcast Network by following us on Twitter DWeek podcast. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email@podcastdweek.com thanks for listening.
- [20:46]
LinkedIn Ads Narrator
Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. A network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority, skills and did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions applied.