← The CEO’s Guide to Marketing
The CEO’s Guide to Marketing
The one with TIAA Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Micky Onvural about the lessons learned in going from CMO to CEO and CEO to CMO.
00:51:57
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign, you've been a cmo, a CEO, and now you're a CMO again. What I'm wondering is kind of the double edged sword of that. How does one position influence the next, which is, say when you became a CEO, what did you draw on from being a cmo? And now that you're a cmo, how did your CEO experience influence that?
- [00:26]
B
How I do that? It is a brilliant question. I've never been asked it.
- [00:29]
A
Well, say that again.
- [00:31]
B
That is a brilliant question, said Madeline. Here's what I think. When I went from being the CMO of Bonobos to being the CEO of Bonobos, I think what I brought with me was this sort of innate understanding of our customer, our value proposition, and also, you know, what it would make and what it would take to continue to build that over time through the culture and through every single thing that we did. So I brought this sort of broad brand thinking, if you like, to the CEO role. And I remember when I took the job and I stood up in front of the company, my commitment to them would was that I would be a champion of the customer, I would be a champion of the experience end to end, and I would be a champion of the culture within the organization. Because what I'd learned up to that point from being a CMO and in all the marketing roles before that, that it felt like those were the three key components to building an enduring business and an enduring brand. So that was definitely kind of the take I took into the CEO role with me. What I will say was really interesting about taking the CEO role, and I've said this before, is no one gives you a job description.
- [01:47]
A
Yeah.
- [01:48]
B
No one says, here's the roadmap for being a CEO. So I think that was my way of trying to articulate what I felt was the role of the CEO at that organization at that point in time that we were at, I think through the experience of being a CEO. To answer the second part of your question, I think that what I learned is all of that was true. And this idea that you really need to root every single thing that you do in very concrete business outcomes. So knowing that, you know, deep understanding of the customer is critical, but what do you do with that from a business strategy perspective? Knowing that, you know, that championing the experience and connecting the dots throughout the experience, your customer is critical. What is the business outcome of that? And the same with the culture too, which I will say that I think the culture is very much an underplayed part of the CMO role. And also of the CEO role. I don't think that's a conversation that happens very often. But fast forward, I'm sorry, just.
- [02:55]
A
Just unpack that a little bit. What's the conversation that you don't think is happening often?
- [02:59]
B
I don't think that people put culture as the center.
- [03:02]
A
Internal culture.
- [03:03]
B
Internal culture at the center of strategy and business outcomes often enough. So fast forward now to being a CMO again at tiaa. And I think, you know, what I learned from that experience of rooting everything in business outcomes definitely has informed the way that I operate as a cmo. You know, I have the enterprise under my purview, but I think about the three lines of business every single day and how am I going to drive our retirement business, our wealth business, our asset management business, and every narrative around the work that we're doing in marketing, every narrative around, you know, the business outcomes that we're trying to drive is rooted in that. And I think it's just that experience of being a CEO really brought that rigor to my thinking. And then I was just going to say on culture, I think what I have brought forward now is this understanding that because culture is so pivotal to business outcomes, that is the work that actually I'm driving at the enterprise level very much now for our organization is really how do we continue to build a culture for growth of our organization over time and doing that in partnership with the chro.
- [04:18]
A
Talk to us about how culture is important, why it's important, because I think it's understood implicitly and perhaps arguably superficially, though maybe that's just me. And Mickey's known me long enough to know that I'm absolutely superficial. But also, where is culture? What's the Venn diagram of culture and org design?
- [04:43]
B
Oh, that's a great question too, by.
- [04:45]
A
The way, audience, that's two for two.
- [04:47]
B
For two for two. Here's what I was going to say. I think that culture is one of those really amorphous terms and we throw it around sort of left, right and center. And I, over the last couple of years, as I kind of walked into TIAA and realized that to transform the brand and to transform the business, we were going to have to transform culture. I came a little bit of a culture nerd and I started reading all sorts of books and papers and, you know, you name it, I've probably read it at this point in time. And the way I've sort of codified it for myself is that culture is really is, you know, the way we do things around here. So it has to be. Culture has to be embedded in everything from the language that you use. You know, language matters. The rituals that you have in an organization and the cadences you have in an organization.
- [05:42]
A
What's an example? I'm sorry to interrupt, but what's an example of a ritual that you guys might have?
- [05:46]
B
So we have, I'll give you an example that is sort of the intersection of language and ritual. We do something every quarter, which is essentially a business unit review, but we don't call it that. We call it learn and adjust. The whole thesis is we're looking back at the prior quarter to say what did we learn? Not what was brilliant and, and what did we fail at, what did we learn and how are we going to iterate as a result. And what that's done is created a culture that is open to talking about failure, open to talking about success, don't get me wrong. But also in this kind of iterative agile mindset that we need to continue to respond to the needs of the business that frankly change quarter over quarter even in a business like ours.
- [06:29]
A
I mean, I love that. And you were one of our entrepreneurial CMO50 last year, was it? Yeah. And we started that for exactly that reason, which is to give enterprise and cmos the permission for things not to go according to plan because inevitably they don't go according to plan for reasons good, bad and otherwise. And I'm wondering what it makes me think of as I hear, as I listen to you, is, is kind of the, the. A cultural approach to both risk, strategic risk to failure, the. And creating the permission to fail, if you will. Right. Because I will not take a risk if I'm going to get shot, get my legs cut off. Because I did. And I'm also wondering if, if there's a codification of how the business goes about creating value.
- [07:17]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [07:18]
A
Well, is there a, a thesis that says we will create value for our customers, for our constituencies by X, which is to say some have a finance driven approach. Right. And it's all efficiency is a strategy, which of course efficiency is not a strategy for others. There is the accretive value of marketing. Right. Which it could be, you know, product led or brand led, but value that the enterprise delivers to audience. Our thesis is while the tools and the ways may change, our thesis is we're going to approach it this way. Right? This is, this is how we do business here, to create and keep a.
- [07:59]
B
Customer through an innovative sort of agile iterative process. Or are you asking how do we think about that.
- [08:05]
A
Yeah. How do you think about value creation?
- [08:07]
B
Value, yeah. So I think when we think about value creation, I said this up front. You know, I think about the three lines of business and the, the outcomes that we need to drive. But then I also think about within that, what can marketing uniquely do? So there are many, many tools for any business leader to be able to leverage. There is, you know, the product, there's the digital client experience, there's the sales team, maybe there are many, many tools at any given business leader's disposal. What is the role that marketing can uniquely serve within that given business at that moment in time? So I'll give you an example in our current business. So, tia, wealth management, what is the role that we can uniquely do there? The role we can uniquely do there is when a participant, one of our existing customers, is looking to choose a wealth management provider, they're not just looking at us, their retirement plan provider, they're looking at everybody in the marketplace. The role that marketing can uniquely do is what you would often call kind of brand work, which is how do we create distinction and differentiation such that they choose us? So that is the unique role that marketing can play for that line of business at that moment of time. And then we have to be able to, you know, choose our KPI that will match that. And we have to be relentless in, in measuring that. And when we do that, now as an organization within marketing communications, we're looking at that KPI, you know, every month as relevant or every quarter, depending on the frequency with which we measure it. And my team is resolute on this idea of go to green. So that is our. Is our language, is we think about embrace the red. So let's learn. And what do we learn from the red?
- [09:55]
A
The red is the metaphor. Stop, danger.
- [09:58]
B
It's off track.
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A
It's okay.
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B
And what is go to green meaning? What is our plan to get something to go to green? And I think that that agility, that rigor, that focus on value creation for that business in that moment of, with something that marketing can uniquely deliver, what it has done for us over the three and a half years that I've been in this role is really build some track record and credibility and trust with the lines of business that when we say, hey, we think that this is what's going to drive value, we've got a seat at the table and we have can, you know, engage in that conversation in very kind of fruitful and productive ways.
- [10:39]
A
I want to ask you a question, but before that ties I think two things together. But before I do, I also want to say I really love go to green. Because with that, to me, what I hear in that is a mindset that says the moment that we're at red, that is a circumstance, not a perpetual condition. Right. It doesn't mean abandon all hope. It going back to the language you use. It's, it's learning what you said. Learn and adjust. Okay, so here's the question, because I want to tie two things together within the context of the example you just gave. Right. It's so retirement funds, brand distinction and differentiation tie that for us. What should a CEO expect in terms of business outcome from brand distinction and differentiation? How do you make that business outcome case in something that's oftentimes while we can measure distinction and differentiation, it's harder and we can track changes in it. It can be harder, I think. But tell me if I'm wrong to tie to directly to business outcomes, how do you do it?
- [11:46]
B
I think that the answer to that, the one word answer is growth. In terms of what a CEO can expect, that is what they should expect. That growth has many different KPIs associated with it. We'll use, you know, to use any example that I can think of, whether it's, you know, my time at Bonobos or many of the businesses I've worked in. When you think about growth, you're thinking usually about acquisition of a new segment, acquisition of a customer to a new category that you're entering, etc. Etc. But it really is growth at the end of the day. And the way that we tie growth to the investment, which is your question, is we say this audience that we are trying to grow within has, you know, little awareness, consideration or familiarity with our business. In order for them to even become a customer of our business, we need to make headway on what we call frmu. Ready for this one?
- [12:48]
A
I am at the edge of my seat.
- [12:50]
B
You have no idea what. We can't, quite frankly pronounce this internally. We like firmoo vermouth. But what is firm?
- [12:58]
A
It sounds like a Liberty Mutual ad.
- [13:01]
B
It does, doesn't it? Or, or some sort of painful complaint. Yeah, but it stands for familiarity, regard, meaning and uniqueness. And so when we look at what drives consideration and purchase intent.
- [13:16]
A
So it's a, it's a take on the funnel.
- [13:17]
B
It's a take on the funnel, but we've done it as a brand index. So what is the job of brand trying to do? It is trying to build familiarity, regard, meaning and uniqueness because that is what we see to be drivers of consideration and purchase intent. So I need to be familiar with you, of course. Just aware. Yeah, yeah. Familiar with. I need to hold you in high regard, which often looks like trust.
- [13:39]
A
Yeah.
- [13:40]
B
Meaning I have to know what it is that you are going to do for me, what have you done for me lately? And uniqueness. I have to know why you're different and why I should pick you over the others.
- [13:50]
A
So. So two questions from that, which is lots of conversation over the last few years, only accelerating in our machine and LLM word world about the collapse of the funnel. So how. How does firmoo. I did pretty good.
- [14:07]
B
Pretty good.
- [14:07]
A
Yeah. Pretty good. How does that hold up? And how do you. How do you kind of align that with the collapse of the funnel? And second question, which you could choose to answer first, is do you evaluate work and ideas and the allocation of resources to the individual firmoo segments? Right.
- [14:29]
B
Wow, this is a lot of questions in one.
- [14:31]
A
Well, it's just two.
- [14:31]
B
And by the way, you have to use a funny face when you say firmoo.
- [14:35]
A
You have to go, I have to squinch.
- [14:36]
B
I'm not doing that. Not even for me.
- [14:39]
A
No.
- [14:40]
B
All right, so collapse of the funnel. Look, I think we all know that customer journeys are not linear. This is my way of talking about collapse of the funnel and that it's frankly, you know, a squiggly.
- [14:55]
A
It looks like tangled earbud wires.
- [14:57]
B
Yeah. Like it's. Yeah. In particular, they're my earbuds, let me tell you. But, you know, it's definitely not linear. But throughout all of the steps of a process, forwards, backwards, up, down, sideways, in and out of that tangle, at the end of the day, you are competing for somebody's attention at any point in the decision process. They could decide to pull the trigger at any point. And so at any point, you have to make sure that you're top of mind from an awareness perspective. And that's when we come back to firmware with the squinty face. Is it's not just about top of mind awareness. At whatever point somebody decides to pull the trigger, they've got to know why, that they are going to purchase you at that moment in time. So I don't think that. I think actually that the collapse of the funnel in some ways for marketers puts even more onus on this idea of is your brand held in high regard with high distinction on a perpetual basis. It actually puts more onus on not being in and out of the market from an investment perspective. In and out from a messaging, changing up your positioning, changing up your messaging over time. Because that consistency is key because at any point in time your target audience could decide to, you know, take the leap and engage, purchase whatever your business might be. So that's how I think about it. Correlated to the tangly. The tangly web of, of the funnel. I've now forgotten what the second part of your question was.
- [16:29]
A
Do you think about capital allocation, whether it's human, time or economic, in the context of the job to be done within firmoo's squinty face.
- [16:39]
B
We'Re going to actually now trademark firm squinty face. Yes. Brilliant. When I think about resource allocation, and I know this isn't the same for all businesses, but this is how I think about it. I think about the fact that all money is green. So whether it's a person's time or whether it's a media dollar, by the.
- [16:57]
A
Way, that's a very US centric point of view. And for our international, that is very.
- [17:01]
B
Fair from the bridge.
- [17:03]
A
Apologize. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:04]
B
Because actually your money is all sorts of colors.
- [17:06]
A
It's what you say.
- [17:07]
B
I'm sorry. Yeah, that is very. Metaphorically speaking. Metaphorically speaking, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar.
- [17:15]
A
Yes.
- [17:15]
B
Is that better?
- [17:16]
A
Okay, except when it's a pound, but go on.
- [17:21]
B
Now I'm completely thrown off and I've got a different squinty face on. All right, So a dollar is a dollar is a dollar is a pound is a shekel, whatever it is. Okay. And so someone's time, media money spent, et cetera, et cetera is all. It's all the same to me. So when we think about resource allocation, it actually comes simply back to this idea of what is the business outcome that you need to drive today and tomorrow. And I think about it from a sequencing perspective, like what is the first job to be done, the second, the third, the fourth, from a business priority perspective. So I'm not saying, oh, I've got to have X dollars pounds in headcount, I've got to have X in martech, I've got to have Y in media spend, really saying, what are the business outcomes? What is the order priority of those business outcomes? And then how do I get into them, back into them one by one. And so we as a team, when we're looking at budget, and much like many other people are deep in the budget process right now, we have a system that we call the Lego blocks, which is, you know, we think about sort of units of spend in these Lego blocks and Lego Blocks of infrastructure, Lego blocks of media investment, LEGO blocks of activation, etc. Etc. And those LEGO blocks constitute both human capital as well as any kind of activation in market dollars that we might need to. But it's those LEGO blocks against the business objectives is how we construct the budget.
- [18:58]
A
Do you find yourself back to learning and adapting?
- [19:02]
B
Adjusting.
- [19:02]
A
Adjusting. My bad. I knew it started with a. Ever deconstructing the Lego blocks, like in the middle of a period, in the.
- [19:10]
B
Middle of a cycle.
- [19:11]
A
Yeah.
- [19:13]
B
Yes. Because we have to stay agile. I don't think we will necessarily split apart a LEGO block, but what we will do is say, you know, that is not the most important LEGO block. No more red blocks needed in the wall right now. Or we'll say we need to stack, you know, a yellow block on top of this green block to really hit the. The business outcomes that we do. So I would say it's the, the jigsaw puzzle of, you know, how we prioritize that changes over time as opposed to deconstructing any one of those component pieces.
- [19:45]
A
Yeah, that makes sense to me.
- [19:46]
B
And that's the agility with the business outcomes that you have to drive.
- [19:50]
A
A question I've started asking our guests, which I'm going to ask you, but I'm going to ask you, I'm going to tell it to you first and then I'm going to ask you second. So the question that I've been asking is, you know, if, if a huge company CEO came to you and said, I don't know much about marketing, but I'd like to, I want to know, you know, what two or three things might you tell her that you think she should most know. But where I want to start with you is the other side of that coin, which again, kind of, I think is informed by your experience. Cmo, CEO, cmo. Not to mention just the breadth of your career and working with different CEOs. And I should mention for our audience that Mickey and I first met 20.
- [20:35]
B
Yes, that is correct.
- [20:36]
A
2003. So when you first got to 4, 4, 21 years ago, when Mickey went to ebay and was. Was one of the marketing leaders there and I was at CA and eBay was a client and actually, you know, I'm gonna brag on us right now, okay, we. We put the first video posting on ebay in history.
- [20:57]
B
Let them post.
- [20:58]
A
Let them post. That's right.
- [20:59]
B
That was so funny, Seth. I was telling a story about let them post to someone the other day in the spirit of. And they had read about it really, In a case study, really, this idea that stories sell. And we created these stories of items for sale on ebay, put it in a video format. That was super engaging, and guess what? An item sells for more because people are engaged with the story.
- [21:26]
A
We knew video was. Was powerful because we're very insightful. And if I remember correctly, the first video, well, we had a whole campaign planned. I. It was Meg Whitman, the CEO of the company at the time, who, with khakis, pulled very high up, was the first video. And she posted. She must have sold something because it had to be.
- [21:50]
B
You know, I don't remember that. The story that really sticks out to me is the Martin Guitar.
- [21:54]
A
Yes.
- [21:55]
B
That sold for north of 10x of what we expected, because this brilliant creator, which wasn't a word back then. Brilliant creator.
- [22:05]
A
Neither was video, because let's remember, this is pre YouTube.
- [22:08]
B
This is pre YouTube. Now you're making me feel old.
- [22:11]
A
We are old, Mick.
- [22:12]
B
Okay, great.
- [22:12]
A
Thanks for that. All right. I don't remember. Oh, sidebar. Sorry. Sorry, everyone. What. What do CEOs typically just get wrong about marketing? Speaking broadly and obviously, you're with us.
- [22:25]
B
Speaking broadly. I think that the challenge, and a million of your guests have commented on this, is the challenge for marketers, is that everybody thinks they're a marketer. And so one of the challenges for marketers is actually to keep a CEO focused on what they need marketing to do for their business at this moment in time. Because it's very, very easy to think that marketing can do all things for all people. But marketing at its best, does not do all things for all people all of the time, even if you have enormous budgets.
- [23:01]
A
Yeah.
- [23:02]
B
And so I think the most common mistake is assuming it can do everything as opposed to having this really great dialogue and rich dialogue between the CEO and the cmo of what do we need it to do for us today? Not just today, but over the course of the next 1, 2, 3 years, so that we can be relentlessly focused, create the right set of KPIs and measures of success, and keep kind of pushing against those over time, knowing that they may evolve because, you know, categories evolve and businesses evolve. But I do think it's that relentless focus is where things often go away or actually, frankly, go awry because there was a lack of.
- [23:44]
A
I was about to correct me.
- [23:47]
B
Yes. Thank you.
- [23:48]
A
So I think you actually answered, in part, what was the second question asked first, which is what does a CEO most need to understand? And amongst those things is that marketing can solve many problems in many moments. It can't solve all problems in every moment.
- [24:07]
B
That's exactly right. Beautifully articulated.
- [24:10]
A
What I am kind of what it brings to mind to me is that back to your point and back to the point many of our guests have made that, you know, everybody thinks they're a marketer. One of the biggest challenges today's CMO has is not being left the alone to go do what they're experts at doing. Right. My 12 year old daughter didn't like the ad creative, I don't like the ad creative. Nobody knows that they're putting. I don't mean to make marketing and advertising synonymous in today's world, but putting themselves into the role of cmo, into the mind of an audience that they don't understand. How, what, what advice As a former CEO, would you have to the CMOs in our audience about how to continue to earn the permission to be left alone and do what they do best?
- [24:57]
B
I think there are two parts to that. I touched on one of them earlier, which is this relentless process.
- [25:01]
A
I wasn't listening.
- [25:03]
B
At least you're honest about it. Relentlessly focus on the KPIs building trust over time by under promise and under promising and over delivering. But I actually think, and this is a trick I have learned in this last tenure of how do you kind of negotiate success is the power of co creation. So one of the things that I think has been really successful for me in this last stint as a CMO with my CEO is actually how do I invite her into the conversation around the strategies and even the tactics. So now I.
- [25:39]
A
Even the tactics.
- [25:40]
B
Even the tactics.
- [25:41]
A
And why, why is that a good idea? Right. Because if, which is to say, I would think again, speaking broadly and obviously, Tashunda understands things that many see, even if just implicitly that many others don't. But like, does she really need to be in those weeds?
- [25:58]
B
Well, you know what, it's done. So I basically just to tell you how it works is every month together with my team, my direct reports, we, we pick an area of our business and of our work that we are going to jam on her with and.
- [26:14]
A
We jam with her on.
- [26:15]
B
Jam with her on. You're right.
- [26:17]
A
Yeah. I mean I'm here for you.
- [26:19]
B
You know that apparently my English. English is.
- [26:22]
A
You're American. I don't know what language I'm speaking.
- [26:25]
B
Back to my shekels earlier. But my point is, is that we pick a topic.
- [26:29]
A
Yeah.
- [26:29]
B
And we say at the beginning of the meeting, here's our, here's what we're doing on this Topic area. Here's the KPIs we're driving to, here's our progress to date, here's our upcoming plans and what we do is we create three areas in every, every one of these sessions where we want her input and those generally are brainstorming sessions both strategic and tactical. What that has done for us is create a space where she can feel involved in the plans and where we can co create together such that what I have found over time is there is more space for us to just get on with things because she's not asking herself the question of what's going on over here and oh, I haven't seen, you know, ABC or is I saw this def. From the competition, what are we doing that's like that or not like that etc. Etc. So it has created a space for co creation that has built a relationship that has over time sort of fostered and continue to foster this trust, this credibility and frankly this space for the team to do what they're really good at.
- [27:40]
A
Now would you advise.
- [27:41]
B
I know it's counterintuitive.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah, I mean I'm.
- [27:43]
B
But it's.
- [27:44]
A
How can I danger Will Robbins flashing.
- [27:47]
B
It has worked beyond effectively. It was not my idea. This was not my idea. And my reaction when I first heard it was much like yours, like you're going to. I'm going to do what? And I decided I'd try it because no harm, no foul. And it was really powerful. Not just in my relationship with Trishunda, but actually it had another sort of unintended consequence which was my team. My, whether it's my direct reports or one level down are in those conversations. And all of a sudden they are not only having, you know, exposure to Toshunda and to that dialogue, they're seeing my relationship with Toshunda and and she is seeing our relationship as a team. So again, over time I think this is just a really engendered this feeling of trust and credibility and engagement and knowing where we play together because I talk about it often as playing together where we play together and she has a space to play. So now there's less of a need to but so get involved in other things.
- [28:54]
A
Part of my danger Will Robinson flashing neon light is is the like everything makes sense until the CEO, not your CEO, the CEO says hey, but I came up with the idea to, you know, paint it pink. We didn't paint it pink. What's up? Like that sense of when I, and maybe this is just me but when I, when we give opinion, we Sometimes, like, well, what happened with that thought? Like, why didn't you, why didn't you do what I suggested? Does it create an authorship expectation that. Because the CEO, again, not to Shunda, might not be expert in it might not be a very good idea, and yet they expect it to be writ large?
- [29:37]
B
I think if you are good at what you do. So let's make the assumption that you are a strong CMO that has strong insights, strong data, and a strong point of view. And a point of view backed up by those prior things. Usually the painted pink can go away pretty quickly because that is a subjective perspective as an audience of one rather than objective perspective based on the research and insights across many.
- [30:09]
A
What I think is really, I mean, by the way, you've completely changed my mind in this moment, because actually I've.
- [30:15]
B
Been trying to do that for 22 years.
- [30:17]
A
Yeah, it had to happen one day. But what, what I'm realizing you're doing is you're in fact teaching about marketing, but through the, through the process together. And, and, and that's, that's really interesting. Okay, so now let's go from CEO to cfo, cio, the rest of the C Suite, again, not speaking about where you are now, but speaking broadly or maybe about where you are now. How do you, how do you vest your C Suite colleagues and understanding what, again, that same thing, what marketing can and cannot do in this particular moment against this particular business challenge or opportunity.
- [30:54]
B
You know, I think that one of the things that marketers don't do particularly well, which is sort of ironic, is tell the story of their work very well. Marketers are terrible marketers of themselves, of marketing of their work. Yeah, and I would say there's two issues with that. One is, if you don't tell an effective story of your work, why should cfo, cio, whomever believe you? And I would say the, the other part of it is that. And so as a result, how. How do they know how to make, you know, a decision for you? And I think the other part of telling an effective story to your C Suite colleagues, that this was an unintended consequence, by the way, is I think that by showcasing the power of storytelling of your work to the organization, not only do you build your credibility and get a lot of much more permission and freedom, you also get invited to the broader company strategy conversation because ultimately a strategy for a business is a story. It's a story of what you're going to do for your customer and why that is going to matter. And so by what I've learned in this stint as a CMO of a very large organization versus prior CMO experiences of smaller organizations is the way to get my seat at the company table is tell the story of my work but also start to articulate for my partners across the business the stories of their work and the stories of their strategies and the stories of the business strategy. So by helping them with a board presentation, an investor day presentation, a town hall presentation around their strategy, all of a sudden what's happening, and I didn't realize realize it was happening until it sort of snuck on up on me was they're coming to me, they're actually saying help me refine my strategy. And that has changed the dialogue with them as well in terms of my seat at the table, my seat at their tables, but also their trust and credibility in the work that we're delivering from within marketing and communications.
- [33:10]
A
What you've just spoken to is something that, that I think about constantly. And there's a HBR paper from 1991 titled Marketing is Everything and everything is Marketing. And I'm, I'm space. I'll drop it in the show notes. I'm spacing the name of the author, the IR person. That's marketing. Right. HR marketing. It. Everything is in marketing because everything isn't. Is in service of some form of customer driven growth. Putting efficiency aside for the moment. How. Let me ask a different question rather than starting with how. Why do you think across our global ecosystem of enterprises it's not understood that it's all one story or two or three that we're telling to our customers and prospective customers. And everything is connected. And so the question is, I'm sorry, everything connects. So the question is, is it connected? You're telling a story internally, a very connected organization, a very connected narrative. That's very unusual. Why is it so unusual? Like it seems common sense to me.
- [34:21]
B
I think that marketers have done this partly to themselves. There's a little bit of self inflicted damage here. Back to the point about we haven't told the story very well of our and or tied.
- [34:34]
A
Going back to the very first thing you said tied that story to business outcomes.
- [34:37]
B
Yes. And I think that we are so quick to get into some of the tactics that sometimes we miss the first part of the macro story to my point, tied to the business outcome. And so what happens is we end up in a swirl around what I call little M Marketing. We end up in a swirl around, you know, channel choices or audience choices or creative choices and we miss the story of what I call Big M marketing, which is what you're talking about, which is marketing for me. Big M marketing, true marketing is everything that you just said. It's about the deep understanding of the audience. It's about understanding what is the unique value that you are going to create for them. And that proposition, it is about how you then go drive adoption of that solution in market from that target audience. But we really so often miss the big M marketing. And I tell you what worries me as I look forward within the world of marketing and not because you asked me this question, but as I look forward in the world of marketing and I think about the conversations that happen around, you know, channel proliferation and the conversations that happen around technology and AI and collapse of the funnel and all of these things that we talk about. And you add to that a generation of marketers that didn't grow up as I grew up. Meaning I grew up. I started my career in packaged goods thinking very horizontally. The marketers that are coming into my organization even today are learning about a specific channel. They're learning about automation, they're learning about. Exactly social. Then they're not learning about my org, they are because God damn it, they're going to learn it in my org. But they're not necessarily learning a horizontal view. And so play this forward 10, 15 years and you think about someone in my seat 15 years from now if I don't still have the seat 15 years from now. And you think actually that damage is only gonna perpetuate and that lack of understanding about Big M marketing is only going to disintegrate further if we don't frankly think about how we are going to educate leaders writ large. This is not just about CEOs or CFOs, it's even about marketers, frankly leaders writ large about this idea of how do you connect the dots and how do you craft a single story?
- [37:14]
A
It's, it's. I think it's the single most. I don't want to say it is certainly amongst the most important things orgs and org designs and marketing. Org design has to figure out because I've used. I think I've talked about it on the show before but I use this by metaphor. Modern medicine, right, which is which like modern marketing has become so specialized so, so tech oftentimes at the. As a consequence of better and. And more incisive bad pun I suppose technology, right. It's become so specialized that that people see the circumstance and the condition and nobody sees the patient. They see what they're Doing not the person. And, and I think a lot of marketing can be accused of that too. And a lot of enterprise, which again, everything connects, but not everything is connected. When it's not connected, not everything works. And if I am rewarded for my functional expertise and not my contribution horizontally to the whole, well then I might even be at odds with the horizon needs of the business.
- [38:23]
B
You know what's interesting about this though, pulling on your medical metaphor here. Yes please. Is I was, I was listening to somebody within our higher education ecosystem talking about AI not so long ago and one of the things that really hit home to me was when he talked about actually how medicine is going to completely change over the course of frankly the very quite a few years but you know, relatively speaking near future. And that actually AI is going to be the best diagnostic.
- [38:56]
A
Diagnostician.
- [38:57]
B
Yeah, that exists.
- [38:58]
A
I've heard that.
- [38:59]
B
And so because of course it can pull on more data, recall more data than any single individual ever could. So the role of the medic go forward will be much more about eq, not iq. It will be about how do you treat the whole patient, the patient's family. When you think about care and standards of care and all of things we call like bedside manner, I guess historically that is what is going to become important. So lay that back into the world of marketing and how AI is going to change the world of marketing. A lot of the functional skills around, you know, creating, you know, CRM functional skills around, CRM functional skills around analyzing data that is going to be replaced by agents. The value of the marketer though is going to be in the story that comes out of that data and the insights that come out of that data and it's going to become from the creativity and ingenuity that they use across channels to connect the dots and really create value for the business. So I get excited because I sort of think that AI is going to take us back to almost what I would consider first principles of marketing, which is deep customer insight, incredible ingenuity and creativity, stellar storytelling such that that storytelling drives business growth, it influences culture, it inspires audiences, etc, etc. That I think is what's kind of interesting about will this just take us full circle?
- [40:38]
A
I hope you're right. I see the potential. I don't think that it's going to play out that way. And that's one of my real, that's.
- [40:45]
B
Why I'm cup half full and you're a cup half empty kind of a guy.
- [40:48]
A
Like I'm not even half empty. I'm, I'm like running on empty. All right, I got, I wanna, I wanna ask you another, this same question again just so you can finish it because I think I interrupted and we went off on a tangent and then, then I have a last, a last question for you for, for the CMOs in particular in our audience and even, and not just the CMOs but, but younger marketers even. What else would you tell a CEO who says, hey, I don't know much about marketing. Where should I start?
- [41:17]
B
Give me another one or another one or two things. I think it depends whether you want to educate them or whether actually you think that by educating them that is putting them more in your sandbox, which.
- [41:31]
A
Is what we were talking about before. Yeah, it's a great point.
- [41:34]
B
You want to educate them because you believe that they truly want to be a better partner to you, which that is often.
- [41:42]
A
And let's start from there.
- [41:44]
B
I think about, you know, frankly, some of the books that I still.
- [41:49]
A
Yeah. You got any references which, what you.
- [41:51]
B
Got Eating the Big Fish, which is how you and I first met through that process. I think that it remains a seminal book and I think related to that.
- [42:01]
A
Although actually it's interesting, I had an interesting conversation with Zoe Skeman who's a strategist in, in the UK about the Challenger model and, and where whether that codification written 25 years ago is still relevant in today's world. Let's take a look at it offline. And she had, she had some interesting points about whether.
- [42:22]
B
Well, that's really interesting because I mean we've. That book has obviously been updated and I think Adam and Adam and Mark have done a good job of keeping it current, but there's probably a whole.
- [42:33]
A
Adam's off on holiday writing his new book, by the way.
- [42:35]
B
Oh, there you go. Probably keeping it current. So I think about sort of seminal works for like that, that talk actually not just about the tactics and they don't even talk about Little M Marketing. That book really is about a framework, big end marketing and a framework for that. So I think about educating them if they truly want to be, you know, a partner to you. And I think the other thing that you can do just super tactically now is how do you bring in your team and even sort of agency partners, the SMEs in different places to do what we call teach ins against different elements of marketing, that is on the hypothesis that they truly want to understand it and, and believe that they don't understand and believe they don't understand it and be a better partner to you. So that's how I'd start with that.
- [43:27]
A
I'm really struck by how much you and yours are in the teaching business, which is, I mean, as you know, we started this show to bridge the divide and at no point, because I'm an idiot, did I ever really think about the fact that, yeah, it's just about teaching. Now, of course, it's about managing expectations and tying to business objectives and outcomes and not confusing objectives and strategies. But. But the act of teaching does of course require a willing student.
- [43:59]
B
Yes.
- [44:00]
A
But I'm. I'm really impressed by the time you all give to that. And I think it's a, you know, a good lesson for a lot of people in our audience to at least consider whether they're an enterprise and organization and working with a C suite that, that has a tolerance for that, which again is rooted in understanding that they may not know what the.
- [44:18]
B
And I think what I would say to that is the teaching isn't a side gig.
- [44:22]
A
Yeah.
- [44:23]
B
So I wouldn't want anyone to take away from this. They're like, oh my goodness, I've got to do all of this and I've got to teach them. I think it's about teaching through the work.
- [44:32]
A
Love that.
- [44:32]
B
And teaching through the rituals and cadences and teaching through the language. I mean, you think about any kind of culture, it is built through language, rituals and cadences, any culture. And so if you want to create a culture that is about agility, it is about partnership, it is about creativity and ingenuity, things like learn and adjust, things like we have our monthly meetings called monthly connect. We talk about jam sessions or co creation sessions, we talk about about playing in marketing. Your language really matters and creates that culture and that space for that collaboration within the team, but also broadly across the organization.
- [45:14]
A
I really love that. And it's. It's so simple on the one hand and so very difficult on the other. And yes, it is, it is a continual practice.
- [45:24]
B
Takes a high degree of intentionality.
- [45:27]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Well said. All right, here's the. Here's the last thing. And it's. It's really about you and advice you. You might have. So I mentioned in the very first question you went from CMO to CEO to cmo Y. I'm going to tie two things to it. I saw a quote from Tashunda that reads, and I'm assuming it's an accurate quote, and she said, job titles come and go, but they're rented. You don't own them, they'll always fall away. And what I know Today as a leader is that I rent my title, but I own. Own my character.
- [46:02]
B
Yep.
- [46:03]
A
Love that. It's so beautiful. So stick a pin in that. Last year at our CMO summit in Aspen, we had a conversation towards the end of the summit broad with the group about fractional CMOs and what that means and what they do and you. And. And somebody posited that the fractional cmo, which isn't a cmo because you really can't fracture, at least in my opinion. Don't everybody get mad at me if you got that on your LinkedIn. But. But fractional CMO was at least in part, an homage to where they'd been. Even if they're not the title they rented before, even if they're not in that position now. And you stood up and made a point about having been a CEO and now being a CEO, which cmo. Sorry, which for a lot of people would be a title change. They're like, my career is falling back. I've taken a step back. Putting aside that you were the CEO of a company that is much smaller than the company you're now the CMO of. And I'm wondering kind of what you can talk about, what you can share in terms of like any conversations you had with yourself.
- [47:09]
B
Yeah.
- [47:10]
A
About what that was like from a. From an ego cons. And I don't mean ego pejoratively.
- [47:16]
B
No.
- [47:17]
A
Your emotional psychological makeup, like, oh, how do I go from being a CEO to the CMO and what. What that was like for you and more as relevantly, you know, what advice you have for others in a world where there are a lot of people looking for work and a lot of people will be. Look. More people will be looking for work in this new era.
- [47:37]
B
Yep.
- [47:38]
A
What advice you can offer about that?
- [47:40]
B
So I think a lot about what brings me joy and center around.
- [47:46]
A
Where do I fall in that list?
- [47:48]
B
I mean, you're pretty high. And I have to say, coming back to being a CMO and being in your orbit, number one on my checklist, reconnect with Seth. But bringing what brings you joy is my first thing. We often think about, you know, status and title and scope, but if we're really honest with ourselves, the question is, is, does that broader scope, that bigger title, does it truly bring you joy in the day to day? So I think about that first. And when I was thinking about what I was going to do coming out of being the CEO Bonobos, that was what I was really focused on. On. I was also really focused on values, which is A little bit imbued in what Tashunda says too, which is, what are the. What do I hold dear as a leader and what are the values and the culture not only I want to be a part of, but the culture that I want to create? And can I create a culture that is consistent with my values wherever I go? So those are probably two. The first two. And then I think about value creation coming full circle back to the conversation. One of the things that I did early in my time at TIAA together with a partner, her name is Alicia, is I really thought about what was my legacy impact that I wanted to create at tiaa and what was my unique form of magic that said that I would be able to deliver that impact at TIAA in this moment of time. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted that legacy impact to be and how that would create value for the business and how was I uniquely positioned to do that versus any other CMO vs any other member of the C suite. So when I think about where I'm at and when I think about, you know, giving advice to other people, I think about those three things. What brings you joy, what are your real values? And can you find a place where you can live those and where you can actually breathe life into them for yourself within whatever part of the organization you're in? And I think about what is the value that you can uniquely create at that business, and is it something that that business wants and needs at that moment in time?
- [49:57]
A
Yeah. So did you share. I was. I was going to ask that. Did you share that with Toshunda to make sure you guys were aligned?
- [50:04]
B
Yes. So I went even further. Yeah, I created my leadership story. I shared it with Ashundra. I shared it with my colleagues, my peers. I shared it with my direct. And then we created a shared leadership story, my direct and I. What was the shared impact that we wanted to create at TIA at this moment in history? What was going to motivate and inspire us as individuals? And what did we think was going to motivate and inspire our team that was deeply and intimately connected with the transformation and the impact that we needed to make for the business. And that has formed that shared leadership story, has actually formed what we call our leadership plan that we have broken down into a three year plan, into quarters, and we. That's how what we live and die by.
- [50:47]
A
I love that.
- [50:48]
B
That's the intentionality.
- [50:51]
A
Absent intentionality, you have nothing. Right. Like, yeah, there's a great quote. That vision without action is nothing but a hallucination. And if we substitute, you know, intentionality fits in there somewhere.
- [51:04]
B
It does.
- [51:05]
A
Mickey, thank you so much for being here. It was great. It was great. 21 years later, you're still a gem, even if your English is not up to sketch all the time.
- [51:15]
B
I think I'm just confused after 21 years here.
- [51:18]
A
Wait, did you come over?
- [51:19]
B
Yes. For that job. For you, Seth.
- [51:21]
A
No. A shout out to all the people, by the way, that were part of that way back in the day. You know who you are. And to our audience, thank you two for being here. Wherever you're watching or listening, you know what I'm gonna say, say it with me. Smash that subscribe button. Give us five stars if you think we earned it, and if you feel like we did, maybe leave a review, because it helps other people find the show, and it certainly helps my fragile ego. So thank you. Thank you, and we'll see everybody next time.