Podcast Summary: The CEO’s Guide to Marketing – Nicole Parlapiano (Tubi CMO) on Problem-Solving, Creativity, and the Realities of Modern Marketing

Podcast: The CEO’s Guide to Marketing
Host: Seth Matlins, Forbes
Guest: Nicole Parlapiano, CMO of Tubi
Date: October 2, 2025
Episode Highlights:
Nicole Parlapiano shares candid reflections on cross-functional problem solving, embracing creativity (and risk), time to traction, and the mandate for marketers—and CEOs—to "eff around and find out." The episode demystifies key C-suite misunderstandings about marketing and argues for a holistic, integrated, and data-driven approach that puts long-term thinking, consumer obsession, and creativity at the center.

Episode Overview

This episode features an insightful conversation between Forbes' Seth Matlins and Nicole Parlapiano, CMO of Tubi, exploring the disconnect between marketing and the rest of the C-suite. The discussion ranges from the dangers of "celebrity CMO" culture, the importance of aligning teams around customer data, problem-solving through creativity, how to allocate resources for maximum impact, and the foundational elements of building a resilient, growth-focused brand.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What the C-Suite Misunderstands About Marketing

• Disconnect with Reality: Many CEOs, CFOs and other executives believe that seeing and having opinions about ads makes them marketing experts. Nicole argues that understanding marketing is about aligning on real business problems and data—not just creative output.

  "They think because they see commercials and have an opinion…that they know what is good and what isn’t." – Nicole (00:42)

• Communication & Alignment: It’s essential for marketing to communicate not just what they’re doing, but why—grounded in business objectives and consumer data.
• Cross-functional Insight Reviews: Nicole highlights the value of having C-suite stakeholders (including finance) in consumer insight reviews:

  "Often we will sit in consumer insight reviews with the CFO and the CEO. I don't think that that happens at all levels." – Nicole (00:54)

• Types of CMOs: Nicole colorfully skewers the “headline-seeking” CMO who serves their own brand more than the business—and the organizational dangers when marketing becomes about "earned media" for the boss's ego.

  "There are CMOs that are just in it for the glory…some for the headlines…and sometimes that might be disconnected from actually what's going to drive the business." – Nicole (01:23)

2. The Real Mandate of Marketing

• Problem Identification: Marketing's duty is to clarify what problems need solving and to focus efforts where marketing can move the needle.

  "It’s the CMO’s job to understand…what the problems are that marketing can solve and how marketing’s going to solve them." – Host (05:30)

• CEO’s Responsibility: According to Nicole, the best CEOs are "consumer-obsessed," making time to analyze customer insights deeply and ensuring all execs share that grounding:

  "My advice to CEOs is to make the time...every CEO that is a good one has a very strict consumer obsession." – Nicole (06:01)

3. Silo Busting: Product, Marketing, and True Integration

• Silos Hinder Impact: Nicole notes that most significant business problems don’t sit neatly within one department. True success comes from cross-functional alignment.

  "Very few problems are solved at companies by just one department." – Nicole (07:10)

• Marketing & Product: An Evolving Relationship:
  • In tech, product often dominates, with marketing sometimes undervalued.
  • In CPG, marketing may lead product strategy.
  • Integration is essential for clarity in communication and customer experience.
• Brian Chesky’s 'Founders Mode'—Integration Over Function: Direct reporting and focus on business outcomes, not just functional OKRs, enables better alignment and amplifies impact.

  "If every function is so vertical...that's the absence of the integration that's essential for promoting and facilitating growth." – Host (11:13)

4. Creativity as an Organizational Imperative

• Everyone Is Creative: Creativity shouldn’t—and can’t—be siloed. Every team member should bring creative thinking to their work, not just the brand or creative teams.

  "I think people don’t believe that they are creative...there’s creativity in everyone." – Nicole (13:55)

• Ideas Must Solve Problems: When evaluating ideas, Nicole asks a powerful filtering question:

  "That's a great idea. What problem are you trying to solve here?" – Nicole (17:12)

5. The Art of the Brief & Super Bowl Fame

• The Super Bowl Brief: Nicole recounts her legendary brief to agency Mischief for Tubi’s standout Super Bowl ad:

  "I wanted to create work that would get people to ask what the fuck is Tubi?" – Nicole (20:34)

• Embracing Intrigue: The goal wasn’t to explain, but to intrigue enough to prompt action.

  "Sometimes surprise and intrigue are very compelling, often more compelling." – Nicole (24:43)

• Balancing Creativity & KPIs: Creativity must serve strategy. If a campaign is self-indulgent, it’s not effective. Nicole stresses strict alignment with the brief and KPIs.

6. Brand, Value, and Sustainable Growth

• Brand as Business Engine: Nicole disputes the notion of divorcing “brand investment” from business/commercial growth:

  "Brand is the greatest engine of growth, of course." – Host (34:39)

• What is a Brand?

  "It’s a set of beliefs, behaviors and a point of difference in the market...It’s the North Star and anchor for the entire business—why do you exist?" – Nicole (34:52)

• Value Creation vs. Value Extraction: Nicole warns that focusing only on efficiency and cost cuts is a race to the bottom. Real value comes from delivering and communicating what makes a brand worth paying more for.
• Price Communicates Value: The psychology of pricing is an underappreciated part of marketing—price can signal quality and aspiration as much as cost.

7. Demand Creation and "Effing Around and Finding Out"

• Marketing = Demand Creation:

  “Marketing’s job ultimately is to create demand for your products and services. Full stop.” – Nicole (42:11)

• Testing & Strategic Experimentation: Nicole embraces testing, iteration and learning:

  “You can test your way into anything…if people don’t know who you are and they don’t know why they should buy you, then they’re not going to buy you.” – Nicole (42:42)

• On Shutting Off Brand Efforts: Sometimes skepticism about brand marketing is only resolved by "shutting it off and seeing what happens":

  "If you don’t want to do it, fuck around and find out. I’m a FAFO marketer." – Nicole (44:04)

8. Resource Allocation, Time to Traction, and Measuring Impact

• Marketing is a Long Game: Nicole discusses the need for patience and the dangers of measuring long-term investments on short-term results.

  "Marketing is a long-term, long-play game…you can’t make, you know, [decisions] too fast." – Nicole (47:46)

• Ambitious Goals & Comfort with Risk: Teams should be encouraged to tackle ambitious targets—even miss sometimes—in service of meaningful progress:

  "If everything is in the green, it means we’re being too conservative and too safe at the planning stage." – Nicole (51:30)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Wasteful Spectacle:

  "You can do this party with John Legend but…you could take this money and burn it in the palm of your hand." – Nicole (03:13)

• On Celebrity CMOs:

  "Do the kind of celebrity one cycle out rather quick? They do." – Nicole (04:58)

• On Creativity in Business:

  "Creativity ultimately solves communication problems. Creativity solves business problems. …Our brains need it…and even engineers need it." – Nicole (15:10)

• On the Risks of Over-Reviewing Creative:

  "Some organizations, there is an exorbitant amount of reviewers and eyes on creative and it's death by a thousand cuts." – Nicole (28:20)

• On Price and Value:

  "If things are too cheap, I’m like, it must not be good…The price is communicating a higher value." – Nicole (39:24)

• On Building Demand:

  "There’s very few situations that if you build it, they will come. Very few." – Nicole (42:42)

• On Marketing as Problem Solving:

  "Marketing isn’t just for the sake of creativity. We’re here to solve business problems." – Nicole (17:18)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:42 – What the C-suite misses about marketing
• 03:13 – Wasting money on spectacle
• 06:01 – CEO as "consumer-obsessed"
• 11:13 – Integrating product and marketing (Brian Chesky's model)
• 13:55 – Fostering creativity across the org
• 20:34 – Writing the brief for Tubi's first Super Bowl ad
• 24:43 – The power of intrigue (vs. over-explaining)
• 28:20 – "Death by a thousand cuts" in creative review
• 34:52 – Defining "brand"
• 42:11 – Marketing’s ultimate job: demand creation
• 44:04 – "Fuck around and find out" as a marketing principle
• 47:46 – Measuring impact and the long-term view

Tone and Language

The episode is candid, irreverent, and action-oriented—marked by directness, frequent humor, and unflinching honesty. Nicole pulls no punches, and the conversation frequently eschews jargon in favor of clarity—often with a dose of colorful language.

Takeaways for CEOs & CMOs

• Marketing must be a strategic growth partner, not just a cost center or a creative function.
• Alignment, transparency, and joint ownership of objectives across the C-suite are essential for success.
• Creativity, data, and empathy for both consumers and colleagues will always lead progressive organizations forward—especially in dynamic, competitive landscapes.
• Be bold, test, question assumptions, and don’t be afraid to "eff around and find out"—just be sure to measure what matters.

For those considering the episode: this is possibly the best CMO master-class you’ll hear this year—clear-eyed, practical, and brimming with lessons for the real world.