The one with Accenture Song CEO David Droga about the difference between solving and selling

Summary

The CEO’s Guide to Marketing: Episode Featuring Accenture Song CEO David Droga

Release Date: December 3, 2024

In this insightful episode of The CEO’s Guide to Marketing, hosted by Seth Matlins of Forbes, David Droga, the esteemed CEO of Accenture Song, delves deep into the evolving landscape of marketing. The conversation bridges the gap between traditional marketing perceptions and the strategic, value-driven role that marketing should play in today’s business environment.

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1. Introduction: Bridging the Marketing Gap in the C-Suite

Seth Matlins opens the discussion by highlighting a critical statistic: only 10% of CEOs in the world's largest companies possess a marketing background, leaving the majority of top executives potentially misaligned with the strategic importance of marketing. This sets the stage for his conversation with David Droga, a luminary in the marketing and business realms.

Seth Matlins [00:00]: "Too often, today's CEOs and CFOs are suboptimal stewards of the resources given to CMOs in order to drive sustainable, profitable growth."

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2. The Misunderstood Role of Marketing: Beyond Advertising

A central theme of the episode is the common misconception that marketing equates solely to advertising. Seth and David explore how modern marketing encompasses much more, including brand strategy, consumer empathy, and business growth.

David Droga [06:17]: "No matter what you're selling, you're in the quality of life business to whomever you're selling it to. If you're not making their life better, you're not doing your job."

They argue that viewing marketing merely as a promotional tool diminishes its potential as a strategic engine for growth and competitive advantage.

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3. Solving vs. Selling: Creating Genuine Value

The discussion transitions to the distinction between solving for the customer versus simply selling products. Seth emphasizes that businesses thrive when they focus on solving customer problems, which naturally leads to sales, rather than aggressively pushing products without adding value.

Seth Matlins [05:25]: "If you solve for your customer, then you'll sell to them. Most people try to sell first."

David concurs, underscoring the necessity of making a positive impact on consumers' lives as the foundation of successful marketing.

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4. Creative Leadership and Empathy in Marketing

David Droga shares his philosophy on leadership, emphasizing creativity, empathy, and a deep understanding of both the product and the consumer. He contrasts this with traditional CEO mindsets focused on extraction and margins, advocating instead for an additive approach that fosters innovation and holistic business growth.

David Droga [16:30]: "Marketing is full stop a business strategy, and if it doesn't tie to business objectives, it is just wrapping paper."

This segment highlights the importance of creative CEOs who prioritize relationship-building and long-term value creation over short-term gains.

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5. Marketing Incrementality and Measurement Challenges

A significant portion of the conversation addresses the difficulty in measuring marketing's true impact. Seth introduces the concept of marketing incrementality, stressing the need to look beyond superficial metrics like spend or viewership to understand the long-term value generated by marketing initiatives.

Seth Matlins [09:46]: "Incrementality, by doing what, again, go beyond the numbers. Numbers tell you some very important factors, but understanding what the numbers represent."

David acknowledges the attribution problem in marketing, where it's challenging to directly correlate marketing efforts with business outcomes. They advocate for more holistic and relationship-based metrics to better capture marketing's true value.

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6. Internal Marketing and C-Suite Collaboration

The episode underscores the importance of internal marketing, where CMOs must educate and align the entire organization on marketing’s role and benefits. Seth suggests that CEOs should integrate CMOs more deeply into business strategies, allowing for better collaboration and resource allocation.

David Droga [33:58]: "Marketing needs much better Marketing. It needs internal marketing to explain to your colleagues what and why you're doing and what to expect."

This approach ensures that marketing initiatives are fully supported and understood across all levels of the organization, fostering a unified strategy.

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7. The Changing Landscape of Marketing with Technology

David Droga discusses how technology, particularly GenAI, has transformed marketing capabilities. Accenture Song’s integration with Accenture allows them to innovate rapidly and test solutions internally before deploying them to clients, ensuring effective and reliable marketing strategies.

Josh [36:02]: "We have the technology chops and capabilities to actually really build things. And now that things have changed, particularly with what's happening with GenAI and all that sort of stuff, we're not playing catch up."

This segment emphasizes the fusion of creativity and technology as essential for maintaining relevance and competitive advantage in the digital age.

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8. Building Relevance and Distinctiveness in Branding

Relevance emerges as a critical factor for sustained business success. Seth and David discuss how brands must remain evergreen and adaptable to changing consumer behaviors and market dynamics. They stress that distinctive branding fosters consumer trust and loyalty, which are indispensable for long-term growth.

Josh [44:13]: "Everyone is 100% make people care about what we make or do. Why should we care about it and how are we going to make them care about it?"

David adds that irrelevance should be everyone’s greatest fear, as staying relevant ensures that brands continue to resonate with their audiences.

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9. Conclusion and Future Outlook: The Integral Role of Marketing

In closing, Seth and David advocate for a paradigm shift in how marketing is perceived and integrated within organizations. They call for enhanced marketing literacy in the C-Suite, enabling CMOs to function as true drivers of business growth. David highlights the future of marketing as a blend of creativity, empathy, and technological prowess, essential for navigating the complexities of modern marketplaces.

Seth Matlins [44:47]: "Irrelevancy should be everybody's greatest fear."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Seth Matlins [00:00]: "Too often, today's CEOs and CFOs are suboptimal stewards of the resources given to CMOs in order to drive sustainable, profitable growth."

• David Droga [06:17]: "No matter what you're selling, you're in the quality of life business to whomever you're selling it to. If you're not making their life better, you're not doing your job."

• Seth Matlins [05:25]: "If you solve for your customer, then you'll sell to them. Most people try to sell first."

• David Droga [16:30]: "Marketing is full stop a business strategy, and if it doesn't tie to business objectives, it is just wrapping paper."

• Seth Matlins [09:46]: "Incrementality, by doing what, again, go beyond the numbers. Numbers tell you some very important factors, but understanding what the numbers represent."

• David Droga [33:58]: "Marketing needs much better Marketing. It needs internal marketing to explain to your colleagues what and why you're doing and what to expect."

• Josh [36:02]: "We have the technology chops and capabilities to actually really build things. And now that things have changed, particularly with what's happening with GenAI and all that sort of stuff, we're not playing catch up."

• Josh [44:13]: "Everyone is 100% make people care about what we make or do. Why should we care about it and how are we going to make them care about it?"

• Seth Matlins [44:47]: "Irrelevancy should be everybody's greatest fear."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of The CEO’s Guide to Marketing serves as a compelling masterclass on the strategic importance of marketing within the C-Suite. David Droga’s expertise and candid insights underscore the necessity for CEOs and other top executives to elevate their understanding of marketing beyond its traditional confines. By fostering creative leadership, empathy, and strategic integration, companies can harness marketing as a true engine of growth and value creation.

For those seeking to deepen their marketing acumen and drive sustainable business success, this conversation offers invaluable guidance and inspiration.

Transcript

[Seth Matlins]

Today's show has been brought to you by rokt. Today's customers are overwhelmed by choice, and when people are overwhelmed, they freeze and you miss out on the opportunity to drive more revenue. That's where Rokt R O K T steps in. Trusted by over 17,000 of the world's leading brands and advertisers, Rokt enables companies to unlock value by transforming the e commerce experience, helping drive incremental sales, and boosting profits up to 40%. ROKT makes each and every transaction relevant at the moment that matters most when customers are buying. Go to rokt.comforbes to learn more about Rokt where Relevance rules welcome to the CEO's Guide to Marketing. I'm Seth Matlins. I've spent my career in marketing both in and advising the C Suite, and I'm now the Managing Director of the Forbes CMO Network. So look, there's data showing that if I were taller, I'd have a much better shot at becoming CEO of a major company. Which makes me wonder how different things might be if my mom hadn't been 5:2. There's also data showing that if I were CEO of a major company, I'd be one of only 10% with any marketing background whatsoever. Fully 90% of the CEOs of the world's largest companies have none, which makes me wonder in turn how much more stakeholder value could be created and enterprise growth driven if more did. If more understood how marketing works, how it doesn't, what to expect, what not to, and on what timeline. But because they don't have that experience and often don't understand, despite sometimes thinking they do Too often, today's CEOs and too many of today's CFOs are suboptimal stewards of the resources given to CMOs in order to drive sustainable, profitable growth. Obviously this serves no one and no company, but it does create the opportunity and obligation to increase the C Suite's marketing literacy. Which brings me to this podcast. In service of creating more growth and stakeholder value through a series of candid and connected conversations, we're hoping to raise the C Suite's marketing IQ and ensure CMOs are therefore best positioned to do their jobs, which is to create and capture the demand that drives growth and value. With that, let's get into it. I've been thinking about how for a lot of the C Suite, despite everything that's changed and changing, they still think marketing just means advertising. And while advertising, which is to say promotion, storytelling and emotional connection remains essential, there's a need to open the aperture on what it and what marketing are today. So I wanted to talk to someone who not only gets it, but has influenced so much of it for decades. So today I'm talking with David Droga. For decades, a legend of the marketing and business worlds. Since September 2021, David's been the CEO of Accenture Song, the world's largest tech powered creative group and a part of Accenture. He's taken it from a 12 and a half billion dollar company to a 19 billion dollar creative giant in just three years. David founded the eponymous DROG 2006 which has been named agency of the year more than 25 times since. He's an ad world creative legend and amongst countless accolades, he's the most awarded creative at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity and was the youngest person ever inducted into the New York Art Directors.

[David Droga]

Club hall of Fame.

[Seth Matlins]

I wanted to talk with him to get the point of view of a CEO who both obviously understands marketing and one who talks to CEOs who don't. Let's get into it.

[David Droga]

All right, David, as you know, as part of every one of these episodes that we're doing, we ask everybody the same ten questions. We call it the very cleverly named ten questions in five minutes or less. We could use the first nine and.

[Josh]

Be long winded on the last.

[David Droga]

So it's fill in the blank. And here's number one.

[Josh]

Marketing is necessary, misunderstood and oxygen for a business. A brand is a promise or trust.

[David Droga]

The hardest part of being a chief.

[Josh]

Executive is seeing beyond the quarterly and annual results.

[David Droga]

What then is the hardest part of being a chief marketing officer?

[Josh]

Staying relevant.

[David Droga]

You got a magic wand. Congratulations. And you can immediately address one common misunderstanding about marketers and marketing. What would it be?

[Josh]

I think people see it as wrapping paper or just a line item, when actually it could become the biggest competitive advantage for a company or one of the biggest competitive advantages.

[David Droga]

And when you say see it as a line item, is that the expense versus investment.

[Josh]

It's a very discretionary thing that when times are tough, it's one of the first things that can get crossed out or compressed without thought into the ramifications of that.

[David Droga]

Yeah, that. That in fact, when times are tough, you might want to spend a bit more there.

[Josh]

Yeah. And again, I'm not advocating for bad marketing because, you know, bad marketing. Cross that out.

[David Droga]

Yes, yes, enough of the bad marketing.

[Josh]

But you know, when it's done well, it's spectacular and it makes a different big value add.

[David Droga]

We're going to talk a little bit about what it takes to do it. Well, in a minute, but let's keep going because I'm eating up your five minutes. Brands and businesses grow when.

[Josh]

Well, they grow when they. When they're relevant to their consumers and their customers. And they. At the end of the day, when they're solving, not selling, like if you solve for your customer, then you'll sell to them. And most people try and sell first.

[David Droga]

Yes, yes, I would agree with that completely. Brands and businesses die when they don't do that.

[Josh]

When they just try and sell and they put the solving, you know, on the back of it.

[David Droga]

When you say that they're trying to sell rather than solve, is that. Is that them talking about themselves rather than.

[Josh]

No, it's their thinking about, you know, what is this product? If you're not thinking about what this product does for somebody or the service does for something, and is it helping? Is it adding value? You know, what role does it play in people's lives? And if you design it around that and obviously bring that to bear for them, then that'll be appreciated by the community. There's more chance that they'll want to buy your product. But if you're just trying to ram it down their throat and pursue them and bombard them or discount it or something like that, you're not really solving for anything. And sometimes they can pretend they're solving for something and it's not, and then they wonder why the consumer base is failing.

[David Droga]

Yeah, yeah. I say to a lot of CMOs that it's important that we all realize no matter what you're selling, you're in the quality of life business to whomever you're selling it to, which is if you're not making their life better, you're not doing your job. And that I actually kind of think we should all be a little bit more like dogs, which is dogs. Dogs expect nothing from us and give everything to us.

[Josh]

Yeah, but, you know, unfortunately, consumers aren't as loyal as dogs are. You know what I mean? And I feel like if we went through the strategy of bad analogy, but, you know, going on a date, if you just bullshit your face off to try and convince someone that you're someone you're not, you're soon found out.

[David Droga]

I don't know. I went on one date. I've been with her 10 years. She has not figured me out yet.

[Josh]

So you're a master marketeer. All right, well, she's a forgiving consumer.

[David Droga]

Both. Well, more the latter than the former. I am not a master marketeer. You Touched on this a moment ago. Competitive advantage comes from, I think, from.

[Josh]

Creativity, empathy, a genuine understanding of the consumer. Like putting them, your decision at hierarchy puts them at the center of it. So it's just not being obsessed with growth at all costs. Like growth is, as I said, the key for any business. But you can also grow into a corner, you know, and you really have to sort of put the consumer around all your decisions in the product and the solving part of it.

[David Droga]

When, when you've grown into a corner. What's that mean? What happens?

[Josh]

Well, it means you could feel like you're building a business, but you're not. Your eyes aren't where technology is going or where the market behavior is going, and you can suddenly be wiped out by a competitor that you didn't see coming. Right? You know, think about when the iPhone came out and wiped out six different categories. You know, I'm sure the people who were selling the maps that you stuck on your, in your car, or the, you know, the people making video cameras and all that didn't see that coming. You know what I mean? Their objective was to make the camera smaller or funkier or that, you know, they weren't thinking about actually what's a way to debunk us, you know, and I feel like that's the thing. So you can, you've got to grow and obviously do the best you can, but at the same time have a paranoid mindset and an innovative mindset to think, what are the things that could take us down? And if you look at it from both perspectives, I think then you can grow a business that has more chance of being evergreen and less landmines in front of you.

[David Droga]

Actually, I want to talk about that too, in a little bit because of what you've done here and how the services and businesses that you've added to Accenture Song reflect a point of view on how the market is changing. But we will hold that for a second. You measure for true incrementality, marketing driven.

[Josh]

Incrementality, by doing what, again, go beyond the numbers. Numbers tell you some very important factors, but understanding what the numbers represent. You know, I feel like this is not a marketing thing, but I look at. So, you know, I look at Song, for instance, metrics that I look at to see how we're going is not just our growth, not just our revenue and sales or our profitability. I look at things like, what is our win rate in pitches? Do people understand what we are delivering and what we offer? I look at our retention rate or attrition rate. Do people want to work for us and do they understand? You know, like I try and look for other things beyond just we're growing our margin is this and that. They're crucial. But you've got to look for other things that give you other different tells to understand what's really going on in the essence of a business.

[David Droga]

So let me get to the last question, then I'm going to circle back to that one and ask you how you might advise the CEO of a client company to consider marketing incrementality and how to know when that's there. Because I think at the risk of getting ahead of myself, a lot of people, marketing's got an attribution problem. Right. Because we can measure the tip of the behavioral iceberg, but not what sits well.

[Josh]

Marketing is also, you know, maybe you've heard Nick Law talk about this or other people.

[David Droga]

I don't listen to anything. Nick Los.

[Josh]

Who does? Who does? I mean, he makes my Aussie accent sound timid. But, you know, we've sort of. We've built our. Not we have. But a lot of people have defined marketing two tiers. You know, there's this, the high end tell beautiful stories, which I've come from that world and I still feel proud of that and love that. But it's become expensive things seen by not many people. And then right at the bottom we have the closure and the convert part, which is we build these really cheap things that stalk people that no one wants to see. And really the essence is in that middle, that messy middle. Right. How do you build understanding and conversion in that? Marketing needs to, as I said, it needs to have more than these two bookends. And marketing is one of these weird things. When things go well, marketing is given any attribution. And when things go badly, well, it's marketing's problem.

[David Droga]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh]

So I just think we need to a be more, you know, people need to be more distinctive so you can see where your brand stands. Because if it's just about spend or viewership or those type of things, they don't tell you that.

[David Droga]

The vanity metric. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Josh]

I mean, and people are still held hostage by that. And I think that's going back to those things. Look for the tells and the data points that give you more profound information.

[David Droga]

Yeah, I like the framing of the tell. And for our listeners, I'm gonna post. Nick wrote that article about the messy middle.

[Josh]

Exactly.

[David Droga]

For Forbes. So I will post a link to that in the show notes. All right, last question. The relationship between product and, or service and brand is what it's crucial.

[Josh]

And I think it has to be. But the connecting point is the truth or an obtainable aspirational truth between what the product and service is and what marketing is saying it can do and does. Do you know what I mean? I think it can be the flex, but there has to be some tangibility between. It could still be aspiration. I mean, but if it's, if there's a disconnect between that and marketing is not really doing a disservice for the product or service or vice versa, then it's for naught.

[David Droga]

You know, I had this conversation with somebody the other day where I said I'd rather have a great brand and a parody product than a parody brand and a great product. And they disagreed with me.

[Josh]

I think, look, I think unfortunately most industries and markets are quite. They're very commodified. So one of the distinctive. I mean, look, some of the reasons you pay for a pair of sneakers and you pay three times what the other pair of sneakers are, I'd like to think it's always the stitching, quality and performance, but sometimes it's just the brand and the allure of that. I think having a strong brand gives you flex for forgiveness when things go wrong. And also faith when you want to bring people to new places, it just gives you a. It's not just a cushion or a safety net, but people give you opportunity. So when you do want to innovate, they'll go with you.

[David Droga]

Yeah, yeah, but I think you use such an important word, which is forgiveness, because there's data, it's a few years old, that John Gerzema, who's now CEO at the Harris Poll, gave me years ago that showed that quote, unquote, values driven brands, when they fuck up, their audience is something like 147% more likely to forgive them because they're aligned more broadly than they. Anyone.

[Josh]

It's a relationship.

[David Droga]

And what is a better metric of a relationship than forgiveness?

[Josh]

No, look, I agree. And as I said that forgiveness is. And I look at it for permission to advance faster because they'll go with you because they believe that if you're moving there. Or forgiveness when you misstep.

[David Droga]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And both of those, no matter who you are and what product you're in, that's gonna happen at some stage.

[David Droga]

Yeah, would that. It wouldn't.

[Josh]

Yes. And I think that. And people that play it right down the middle, no wonder they're stuck in the middle or they're invisible, you know, because the worst thing to being distinctive is being invisible. Yes. You can't, you can't build around that.

[David Droga]

No. Very, very hard. And even if you do, no one will notice.

[Josh]

That's what I'm saying.

[David Droga]

Right.

[Josh]

You have the best plan in the world. You can spend more money than some of the competitors. But if, you know, if the only people who understand what you're selling or why you're selling are the people in the boardroom or they're the only people motivated, that's a pretty short term business plan.

[David Droga]

Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's talk about the boardroom for a second. And obviously the conceit of our show, of this entire podcast is rooted not in a conceit, but in the data point that less than 10% of the CEOs, the world's biggest companies, have any marketing background whatsoever. You are the CEO of a enormous company and rumor has it you have a marketing background. You have some understanding of it. Why do you think so few CEOs? Why are not more coming from marketing when marketing should be a strategic and financial engine?

[Josh]

Because dovetailing to something I said before, I think a marketing was seen as something further down the line and seen as jazz hands, fireworks, wrapping paper type of function, a necessary evil. As such, sometimes it could be fun. And yes, I have a marketing. But I mean, actually the irony of this comment is, you know, I started as a writer and I'm a writer, I'm a creative. So if you'd asked me 10 years ago, you're a marketer, I would have been sort of like, what? I'm more than a marketer, I'm a creative. But you know, I'm Now I'm a CEO and I feel like, well, you've.

[David Droga]

Been a CEO for 20 something years.

[Josh]

Well, I think no, I sort of, funny enough, When I started Drogo 5, I didn't even want to be the CEO. And I was, I called myself creative Chairman because I deliberately didn't want to be the CEO and I wanted a position of authority. But to remind her that creative is at the top table. Right. It's a bit of it didn't really matter because my name was on the door. So, you know, but I did take this CEO role because I sort of very much believe, and it's not just about me, that creative people and with a marketing background, you also are more empathetic to the consumer and customer. I really do believe that because you're sort of more in touch with what's going on.

[David Droga]

That's your job.

[Josh]

And Also you're also more connected to the designers and creatives. And in essence you're a product person. If you're a marketer, I think say more about that. Well, I think you have to be more aware of what the product you're doing because if you're doing it from a creative perspective, then you're a product person. If you're marketing something, you at least have to understand the product. You know, you're much more than just nothing wrong with it being an engineer or being a CFO or being a lawyer or being, you know, these are noble professions. But I think there's something marketeers are at the intersection of the product and the consumer. And I think when you bring that to the top chair and the top table, I feel like that has a different dimension. I always say, you know, the privilege of being a creative CEO is I really believe, and this is not just about me, I believe creative CEOs or creative thinkers go into an equation thinking about addition, not extraction. I think the most CEOs and people who've been to all the fine schools and they're taught and they've read every book, they go into equation thinking, extraction. What can I get out of this situation? What's great for us? What's the margin I can squeeze? What's that? And I'm not saying it shouldn't be. I don't consider the business part of their business. But as a creative person, I feel like all creative people, I think they go into any conversation or any equation thinking about addition. What can I add to that? And I think that that's a different way to be a CEO. And I would say marketeers probably look at that as well. It's sort of more holistic and we're in a world now where we're moving at different pace. There is more forces, there's more consumer influence and consumers influence and technologies bridging the gap between the consumer and your products and your services. So we have to have a little bit more of a closer connection and react faster.

[David Droga]

You know, in your mentioning that, you know the relationship between creative and product marketing. Right. I talked in one of our other episodes with Lorraine 2 Hill, who's the CMO at Google about exactly one of my favorites. Just an all time great. There was a time I'm old enough to remember you're too young, when the marketer, the CMO had the four Ps right. Price, positioning, promotion, place and product in particular in a CPG world was an inex. You could not separate product from those Four today. And I think it was Lorraine who had a very interesting point of view that it was kind of like started with Microsoft, then Apple and then the platforms, the metas and the Googles, et cetera, the technology companies. And just how quickly they've grown and eaten the world kind of is where product, right product was made by scientists, by analysts, by coders, by programmers. And so divorced from marketing for a.

[Josh]

Long time until, until they got so big or there was headwinds for them or there was serious competitors or there was data about them not being relevant because in the beginning these titans didn't need marketing. They thought, because you know, they were offering services that were new and they were at value, in demand and in demand, brilliant. I mean, you know, and at that early stages, why would they need marketing as such? But eventually the brand, they have to stand for something. Going back to that forgiveness thing, going back to that opportunity going and they expand in different verticals and I think all of them, one by one, you watch them, they all suddenly turn to needing marketers and needing brand and needing advice and that's just the nature of stuff. And you know, Musk stands up and you know, people say Tesla doesn't need, you know, they will need marketing soon. You know, he was, he was their marketing. Things change, you know.

[David Droga]

Well, I mean first Lorraine just you know, to give credit where credit to do true pioneer in that.

[Josh]

Oh she's like why she's brilliant as well and you know, as I said, genuinely one of my favorite people and also CMOs is because she's very precise and she's exceptionally bright. So it's, you know, there's precision and strategy in what she does, but there's real humanity there. Right? Decisions aren't just black and white made on metrics and that's also hard to do as a marketeer in a very engineer led culture where everything has to be proven and linear and all that sort of stuff and she's managed to inject humanity in that and that is a big deal. And it's one of those things where the magic of that, because you know, look, Accenture is a massive technology company at its heart and you know, there's people that I sit in rooms with from other service groups where I'm blown away by their intelligence, their ability to build things and scale things and I've seen them react to some of the leaders in song to be able to reduce things to their simplest forms and make things compelling and connect things and all that like. And there's this admiration between the Two. And you can see that when they realize how they're complementary. And that's the beauty. That's the beauty. And you can't expect people to not understand until they're exposed to things. But I do believe, look, I really, really believe in the power of. And marketing is one of. I'm leaving the power of marketing. But it is, as I said in the first question you asked me, what is marketing? I said it's misunderstood. I still think it's seen in a two dimensional way.

[David Droga]

Yeah. I want to actually dive into that and connect that. I want to try and weave a couple threads together. You tell me if I did. All right. By the way, Lorraine, welcome to this Is yous Life. We are celebrating you. But in talking about what you know, makes her great, what makes I think great marketing great is that sense of the human right, is that sense of humanity. I want to go back to the CEO and the CFO and the C suite. People who may not think that marketing is worth shit. Because one of the things that fascinates me is as human beings, they are in fact denying their own lived experience. Right? The shoes they're wearing, the suits they're wearing, the cars they drive, the neighborhood.

[Josh]

It's so true. It makes me, winds me up when people say, oh, marketing. I'm like, every single person that has an Instagram account is a cmo.

[David Droga]

That's right.

[Josh]

Everything you post is a brand. Like you are trying to perpetuate or define or mask or something. Right? Like these people. So divorcing those two or separating those two, you know, it's crazy.

[David Droga]

It's maddening. And I have posted about this previously. I loved my Tesla. I grew to detest him. I got rid of my Tesla. I couldn't be happier that I don't have it. I'm paying 3x for a product I don't think is as good. And I'm so much happier. And that's the cost of a bad reputation. And you know, I think you, I don't remember if you used the word reputation. I think you did when you talked about what a brand is. And if Elon doesn't understand, and if people don't look at Elon and understand that the CEO is ultimately the ultimate brand manager, they're missing a point.

[Josh]

No, no. As I said, it's trust and it's relationship and all those things in between and you know, you don't want to live off the fumes of that because if things go pear shaped and it's, you know, the ultimate is to find the connection between your product and your service and not exploiting that relationship. But that's why that solving thing comes in. Find the magic between the two and play a role in their lives. But don't overstep the mark either. You know what I mean? Don't take it for granted. I'm so passionate about it and I'm such a believer in it, but I'm also such a critic of most marketing.

[David Droga]

It's because most of it's not very good.

[Josh]

Isn't that interesting? Because everyone's talking about, oh, AI is going to eat up everything and it's going to sort of, we can redo, you know, is it going to take all the jobs and is it going to replace all the need for agencies and it's going to replace the need for all the crappy ones? Because most marketing is actually more robotic than anything AI would do because they're paying paint by numbers. And that's why it has a bad reputation because it went down this easiest lane. Familiar. What is something what's gone before me not be too distinctive. Like people didn't want to be distinctive and it was just about be of the category, be familiar, be familiar, don't be too distinctive. Da da da. Which was fine when things were just glorious and gravy, but there's so many options now and consumers can go behind the veil of something and find out if you say something and whether you are that. So marketing is. There's more depth to it and that's exposed those that have meaning and those that do it well and those that don't.

[David Droga]

So agreeing with you completely. I also think, and again, it's part of the hypothesis of this show that the CEO and CFO who don't understand marketing, who don't give their CMO the resources, whether human capital or time to deliver great marketing, to deliver great work. However one defines great and however one defines work. Have a lot of culpability in this. And one of the things I find so far irreconcilable is let's have empathy for the chief executive. Has to deliver predictability to the street, right? Looks for predictability from the organization. But the fact of the matter is back to humanity, emotion, the way we buy things, the way they're denying their lived experience. When you're marketing anything to somebody as unpredictable and idiosyncratic as a human being, data can only take you so far. Why do you think CEOs don't get it? And is it still the fluffy wrapping paper part of it?

[Josh]

Well, you sort of hit the nail on the head there where again, most CEOs are held accountable. Well, they all are held accountable for results and certainty, the predictability. Right. You've got to make the street believe that things are going in a direction and there can be no diversion from that. Now sometimes that's a very straight line, but sometimes, as you said, the markets change so much. Consumer behavior has changed, technology has changed, marketplace has changed. And so it's suddenly erratic and you could just be guaranteed certainty with if you spent a certain amount or if you did certain things. That doesn't exist anymore, which is why everything's in flux. I mean, my thing that I'd be saying to this is going to sound like a weird thing because I'm not advocating for spending less. But the most liberating thing a CEO can do to a CMO is to bring them closer into more of the business. More so than just the awareness or you know, like actually expose them to that and make it a two way street and give them the remit to actually be distinctive with what they do and how they do it. You know what I mean? And you can have more bang for your buck if you do that than how much you spend. Do you know what I mean?

[David Droga]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Which is actually bizarrely I'd be saying, you know, do it well. And the thing about it, it doesn't cost more to do things really well and do it and be original and know yourself and know the consumer.

[David Droga]

And it's very expensive to not do things well.

[Josh]

Yeah, but most people don't. I mean, you know, people ask me what is my job here at song? And yes, I'm trying to bring creativity to it. And yes, I'm trying. I'm about growth and I'm trying to simplify and all that sort of stuff. I'm in the pursuit of excellence, do you know what I mean? Excellence on behalf of our clients. That's how we're going to grow.

[David Droga]

Excellence is the input.

[Josh]

Yes. And excellence leads to us. If we can make our clients relevant to their employees, their consumers, to the marketplace to keep up with technology, keep up with employees needs, keep up with consumers behaviors, all that sort of stuff, we'll help them grow.

[David Droga]

The following segment features paid content from Rokt.

[Seth Matlins]

Doug, From Rokt's perspective, what does the C Suite need to better understand about exercising restraint today?

[D]

They need to understand that just because you can does not mean you should.

[Seth Matlins]

I literally just said that to my kids this weekend.

[D]

Yeah, restraint is one of the greatest weapons marketers have right now, unfortunately, it's not being leveraged. And what it means is that we as consumers are bombarded with choice and having to make all these decisions. The challenge with this is that when consumers feel overwhelmed, they're less likely to act. This we call the paradox of choice, where less is more. And in fact, research has shown that consumers are 10 times more likely to act when there is less choice. And this is where rock comes in, because we help unlock the moments that matter most when customers are buying.

[Seth Matlins]

To learn more about unlocking the moments that matter Most, go to ROKT. That's R O K T ROKT R-O-K T.com Forbes now back to our program.

[David Droga]

You sit with, I would imagine, the CMOS CEOs, the C Suites, the boards of the biggest enterprises in the world in your position. And this is a little bit of a build on one of the ten questions in five minutes thing. But if a conversation with them starts with, hey, you need to understand marketing isn't just about the fluffy wrapping paper. What in this moment do you want a CEO to actually understand about how to be a better ally to their marketing group so that their marketing group can in fact be the engine of growth they're supposed to?

[Josh]

Well, marketeers are. Now, as I said, their responsibility is more than just building the brand. They've got to build the business.

[David Droga]

Yes.

[Josh]

So then you can't hold them that accountable unless you give them more access to the business, give them different levers to pull. And again, if they don't live up to that, then they're the wrong person as well. But look for different shaped CMOs, you know, and you can't ask traditionally, some CMOs can evolve. Of course they can. Everyone can. I mean, I'm evolving. But some CEOs are comfortable in the familiar as well. So they don't want to be sort of pulled into the mobs. They still want to get into the super bowl commercials and the wrapping paper stuff. But there's so much more than that. As I said, it's about relationships, about loyalty, it's about innovation.

[David Droga]

Well, you actually, I think, point to something that is under discussed, which is the role of search firms in this conundrum. Because the CEO who doesn't have a marketing background doesn't necessarily know there are different types of CMOs to the point you just made, and therefore think square peg, square hole, when in fact they may need a round hole in a triangular cmo, just to butcher the metaphor. But let's take a step back because we were talking about the Fact that a lot of CMOs don't in fact understand they're in the business of driving the business, that marketing is full stop a business strategy and if it doesn't tie to business objectives, it is just wrapping paper.

[Josh]

And they also don't under. Yeah, they're not invited in, but some of them actually don't even understand the business. But then also it falls on the other, the shoes on the other foot as well in the sense that a lot of agencies and people who are providing services for marketers don't understand the nature of the business that they're actually working, how their actual business works. And that's a revelation as well.

[David Droga]

I think so. But I mean, of course you're right, but I think that's the CMO's responsibility or whoever's managing it.

[Josh]

Of course. I'm saying your job is also to educate the people who you are, you know, you're asking across the table to be your partners.

[David Droga]

You know, if we think about the. Because the CMO is culpable too, right? This, this disconnect is everybody's culpable. Where else do you think the CMO has responsibility for where these disconnects kind of are being birthed?

[Josh]

Well, I think there is as impactful to this maybe to internal morale and the mechanics of how a business operates. You know, I mean, very much from just how do you get everybody in a big corporation on the same team? You know, internal marketing is actually sometimes even more important or as important as external marketing. I think a lot of people, a lot of CMOs are almost just external CMOs. Like what am I going to do to be that way? And I'm thinking like, fix your own house first so that everyone around the table and everyone who's not in this room believes and understands what you're doing as well. And then you should start looking outwards.

[David Droga]

I will also drop into the show notes the speech I gave at last year's CMO summit that was titled Marketing needs much better Marketing. And the point and premise was it needs internal marketing to explain to your colleagues what and why you're doing and what to expect and what not to and better external marketing with what we're putting into the world. We talked a little bit about this before we started recording, which is this conversation that I'm hearing more and more of, which is that marketing has an attribution problem, which is that you cannot always correlate in either the long term, short term or necessarily the long. $1 spent today equals $1.10 return tomorrow. Do you think there's a way around it, given the pressures that the chief executive is facing?

[Josh]

Well, again, I'm contradicting myself. Look, of course, we sort of need to have more precision and clarity and transparency actually on where money's spent. And again, so the funny. A lot of people are very good at creating metrics to justify any spend.

[David Droga]

Yeah.

[Josh]

I mean, most media companies, world champions in making you feel like you've got the best for this buck. Right. That's their job. So I think there is a sort of, from a company's understanding what that's led to the conversion rate. But we were talking about earlier was there's also the long tail of this all or the lifetime value of a purchase or a relationship, you know, and that's why some of these categories who don't really think about the relationship, they think about the shoveling coal into the engine just to keep the engine going. And they spend more money on churn and all that sort of stuff. And if they spent as much time thinking about the solving the lifetime value of their clients and the lifetime value of consumers, it wouldn't just be judged in dollar spent here. That worked or it didn't work. It's like, okay, I got that person and what's the lifetime value of that person and what that led to? Does that make sense?

[David Droga]

Yes, it does.

[Josh]

I just really think everyone is. It's so. It's the contradiction. It's so transactional. And I'm all for. As I said, I get it. I'm running a very large business now. And, you know, I'm sort of.

[David Droga]

What's the business now? 18, 19 billion.

[Josh]

Well, it's, you know, we've almost doubled in three years, which is a good thing.

[David Droga]

That is a good thing. Doubling in three years.

[Josh]

We declare our earnings at the end of this month, actually, so I can't tell you.

[David Droga]

So you're in a quiet period.

[Josh]

But we're in a good. Yeah, we're in a quiet period. We're in a good place. And, you know, Last earnings were 18 billion.

[David Droga]

Okay. All right. Well, this will not come out before your earnings announcement, but let me. As we get to the end of this, let me ask you a few more questions. You know, I mentioned this earlier. How long have you been CEO here?

[Josh]

Three years. In three years, literally to this week.

[David Droga]

Happy anniversary.

[Josh]

Oh, my God. Who knew? Who knew I'd make it?

[David Droga]

We were all betting against.

[Josh]

I know, I know. So was I.

[David Droga]

The evolution of the business and what the evolution says about your vision and your colleague's vision for where marketing, where business is going, where, what's your perspective on where it's going and what are you building towards?

[Josh]

Look, the advantage that I have, which is a why I sold my business to Accenture and I wasn't even thinking that I'd end up being asked to run this whole thing, was I really believe in the sort of the integration and the interlock between creativity and strategy and technology. And it's not technology appreciation, it's really being able to stand up things, understand things and sort of and make that work. But injecting the ability to sort of connect from a strategic level, an empathy level, a humanity level, an emotional level and then have a sort of a data underbelly of that one. And so all I've tried to do is build a very simple. You know, when I walked in, there was nine functions and capabilities, all with merits and everything like that. But it was designed much more for an internal audience to make sense to internally as opposed to outwardly facing. So I've just simplified our entire business model. So our operating model has changed to four practices. Marketing is one of them. Commerce, obvious service contact centers and stuff like that, and design and digital products. Every single part where the consumer is how we show up and we look at them equally as opposed to just disproportionate to the oh, this is the entertainment or this is the awareness part. Because as you said, like relationship, you could do everything so well and you could lose them in any one of those parts. So I just try and show up in a way that is evergreen. It's not necessarily filled with jargon or anything like that. And we have the technology chops and capabilities to actually really build things. And now that things have changed, particularly with what's happening with Genai and all that sort of stuff, we're not playing catch up. I mean that is purely the advantage of being part of this vast organization. You know, we're doing billions of dollars in gen revenue already. Yeah, you know what I mean? And it's more than you know, because we've got people with charming accents or non charming accents. It's because we can actually implement them. But it's not just about being able to build it. We also know how to stand up things and we test things on ourselves. One of the privileges of being Accenture, the broad Accenture has 740,000 people. So even when we revamp or we sell market, we test it on ourselves first. When we build technology and pilots and Gen AI hubs for our clients, we've tested on. So we don't sell anything to our clients that we don't build for ourselves that's got. You know what I mean? So it's. Everything's road tested, everything we've sort of put through the lens to make sure that it's not just looks good in a deck or we're making empty promises. But I've just tried to look, as I said, the pursuit of excellence. I've simplified the model. All I. The best thing we can do for clients is diffuse the complexity. Yeah, I think that is the number one thing because everybody from every industry is. The world is spinning in a different. The axis has changed, the pace has changed. I think I might have said it to you before, we all grew up in the marketing world where you had that classic triangle between, what was it? Quality, speed and cost. Pick two. Pick two. You can only pick two.

[David Droga]

Like home renovation.

[Josh]

Yeah, exactly. Right now you can do. Everyone expects three and you can act and the technology allows you to do three. You know, you can do things at pace now and they don't have to be bad, you know what I mean? And they can cost, you know, appropriate amount.

[David Droga]

Do you think that you're making a business case for creativity at a time?

[Josh]

I 100% hope so. I mean, even if you thought that I was full of shit, the, the growth of this place and what we're doing for our clients and the diversity of briefs we're getting. We were asked to do real transformation. You know, we're asked to not just build the marketing side of things. You know, we're really getting in to reinvent and re engineer what's going on there. I'm not going to overstate anything, but I feel like if we're going to solve, I want to be able to solve with more than one tool for color.

[David Droga]

Yeah. What's that saying? If all you have is a hammer, everything's a nail.

[Josh]

I mean, honestly, that's the thing. But the great thing about a creative perspective on it, and creative isn't just about entertainment or fun or design or anything. Creativity is about, as we talk about these words, empathy, ambition, you know, innovation.

[David Droga]

The same data and turn it into something.

[Josh]

How do you think of things laterally? Because we live in a society now where if you don't pivot and you aren't lateral, you can't keep up going. Doesn't make any sense. Going straight isn't the fastest way to get to a point anymore. You have to pivot and change tact and do all that. And being Creative allows you to do that and bring people with you. And also, you know, it's also a privilege because people forgive you when you're a creative person, because you go off in tangents and you ramble. And I've got, you know, I mean, but there's, you know, we also, you know, we're able to reduce things down to their core. We try to and make things compelling, and there's some simple truths in what we're selling. And then we have the sort of the. The capabilities and functions behind it to deliver on that. So it's not just decks. We actually build stuff. But I hope ours is a business case for it because we're, you know, that's why we're growing. Like, we're growing. And more important than our growth is I look at the things we're making for our clients, the challenges we're being asked for our clients, the absolute diversity of challenges coming. Like, that's what, you know, I loved what I was able to do at Droga5, and I feel like, you know, I had more opportunity in the advertising world than anyone. I'm so privileged to have that.

[David Droga]

You had great permission.

[Josh]

Yeah, great permission. But there was a ceiling to what we could get involved in and what we could push against, and there was things that we could not.

[David Droga]

There were only so many problems you could solve in that model.

[Josh]

Now, the fact that sort of. That the doors have been open and we're getting much more inside, we have vast different ways to solve things now. It doesn't mean. I still don't care about that. The sort of. The more sparkly side of things as well. But it's less disposable. You know, my job and our job is to sort of deliver for our clients. Lighthouses and fireworks. Sometimes fireworks are appropriate. Bright, shiny, emotional, fantastic, disposable. Other times, we've got to be things that are permanent, consistent, helpful, reliable. You know, I mean, stand the test of time and everything in between. And that's. That's the, that's the privilege I have and the people I've got here.

[David Droga]

I heard Brian Chesky, CEO at Airbnb, who's a pretty marketing savvy CEO, describe kind of the brand performance, the false binary, similar to the way you just did, which is, he said, brand is the chandelier, performance is the flashlight.

[Seth Matlins]

They're both light.

[David Droga]

You got to figure out what you.

[Josh]

Need 100% and you don't have to sell one all the time. You show up and deliver. Again, I just go back to that word. Solving, solving really means actually coming with, not selling what's in the cupboard, but having permission to really think about what's the right thing to answer the bell here. And it doesn't have to be wacky or outrageous and all that, if that's not appropriate, but if it's necessary to be comprehensive and transformational, then we also have that ability. And if it's to be entertaining and flimsy and, you know, disposal, then we'll present that as well. But we're not, you know, our business model isn't built around selling traditional media. You know, that's our business.

[David Droga]

That's good.

[Josh]

No, I wouldn't want to make business today. Obviously digital media is a massive part of what we do. But I'm selling solutions, you know what I mean? I'm not selling media.

[David Droga]

You get to tell a CEO what they should ask for and expect from hold accountable their CMO accountable too. What do you think it is?

[Josh]

Why should people care about what we make or do? Why should we care about it and how are we going to make them care about it? But it has to start with the first one which is the why should they care? Because that holds everybody accountable.

[David Droga]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh]

And everybody is 100% make people care about what we do. Then it puts the onus just on the CMO to be like, oh shit, I've got to tell this story or do this thing in a way. But if it's, why should they care first? Then that sort of opens up everything to be like, let's be honest about what we do and the role we play in people's lives and our future. And then you get to the how do we do that and how do we do that in perpetuity? Yeah, I mean, you know, that's where the relevance thing is important because relevance keeps you on your toes. You know, it's an evergreen challenge and it does make you need to pivot again like that and you know, so you need to be nimble.

[David Droga]

Irrelevancy should be everybody's greatest fear.

[Josh]

I think it actually, to be honest, I think it is like if you talk, if you ask me personally, you know, I want to be, I don't just want to be relevant in the boardroom, I want to be relevant. Talking to my 11 year old as much as my 17 year old or my 19 year old, my 24 year old, my wife or my friend, you know, I want to be relevant. And that's just doesn't mean I have to be the smartest person in the room or the funniest, but I just.

[David Droga]

Relevant. Yeah. David Droga, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

[Josh]

Thanks, Josh. Sorry for rambling.

[David Droga]

Nah, it was beautiful.

[Josh]

Thanks, man.

[Seth Matlins]

Thanks for listening. Today's show has been brought to you by. Rocked. And you can find the CEOs guide to marketing wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to juice that algorithm, smash that subscribe button, and leave us a review so others can find us, too. Thanks, and we'll see you next time.