The one with Visa CMO Frank Cooper about predicting and interpreting outcomes.

Summary

The CEO’s Guide to Marketing: Episode with Visa CMO Frank Cooper

Release Date: February 5, 2025
Host: Seth Matlins, Managing Director of the Forbes CMO Network
Guest: Frank Cooper, Chief Marketing Officer of Visa Inc.

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of The CEO’s Guide to Marketing, hosted by Seth Matlins, Frank Cooper, the Chief Marketing Officer of Visa Inc., joins the conversation to delve into the intricacies of marketing, its impact on business outcomes, and the evolving role of CMOs in today’s dynamic corporate landscape. With a career spanning over two decades across diverse industries such as BlackRock, PepsiCo, and BuzzFeed, Frank brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective on blending commerce with culture to drive sustainable growth.

Defining Marketing

Frank Cooper opens the discussion by articulating a comprehensive definition of marketing:

Frank Cooper [02:18]: "Marketing is a set of strategies and tactics designed to shift people's perceptions, emotions, and behaviors to drive sustainable, profitable growth."

He emphasizes that marketing encompasses not just external aspects like impressions and affinity but also the internal dimensions of perceptions and emotions, which are often challenging to communicate within the traditional business language.

Challenges in Measuring Marketing Impact

Seth and Frank explore the perennial challenge of measuring the intangible aspects of marketing:

Seth Matlins [04:16]: "How do you measure emotion? How do you measure values? How do you measure beliefs, concerns, fears, needs?"

Frank responds by critiquing the narrow scope of traditional scientific approaches in business, advocating for the application of the scientific method to both measurable and experiential aspects of marketing:

Frank Cooper [04:51]: "I believe you can apply the scientific method to both. We just don't do it because people aren't used to it."

Marketing Attribution and C-Suite Understanding

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the attribution problem in marketing—how to demonstrate the direct impact of marketing activities on business outcomes to skeptical executives.

Frank Cooper [07:05]: "What doesn't help is saying, oh, they just don't get it. Go in there, tell them what you do in marketing, in marketing terms, and let it go."

Frank highlights the necessity of translating marketing jargon into terms that resonate with CEOs and CFOs, focusing on profitable consumer behaviors rather than abstract metrics like impressions.

The Importance of Brand in Business

Frank articulates the critical role of branding in establishing trust and ubiquity, particularly in the financial services sector:

Frank Cooper [12:35]: "What you can get in cash that I can't get with this credit card? And the whole battle all along the way was to make sure that everything that you can find in cash that is accepted anywhere you go, I can go to a street vendor in Bhutan and break out my card and don't need cash." [46:03]

He underscores that brand trust, built over decades, is pivotal for Visa’s success, allowing consumers to prefer their services over competitors and even alternative payment methods like cash.

Marketing as a Commercial Engine

Addressing a common misconception, Frank advocates for recognizing marketing as a commercial function essential for business growth:

Frank Cooper [30:35]: "If we can dispel the misconception that marketing is not commercial, that would be the one. That would be the thing I would wave and wish and hope." [30:35]

He critiques the view that marketing is merely about shifting perceptions without direct commercial value, reinforcing that effective marketing drives measurable business outcomes.

Embedding in Culture: Authentic vs. Trend-Jacking

Frank discusses the importance of brands authentically embedding themselves within cultural spaces rather than superficially tapping into trends:

Frank Cooper [40:39]: "I think only sustainable advantages by leveraging cultural branding is to become an active member within a cultural space." [40:39]

He warns against brands that merely parachute into cultural moments without adding genuine value, noting that today’s consumers are adept at recognizing and rejecting inauthentic engagements.

Marketing Strategy and Long-Term Outcomes

The conversation delves into strategic marketing planning, emphasizing the need for CMOs to create shared visions with the C-suite and set realistic timelines for observing marketing impacts.

Frank Cooper [17:11]: "The hardest part of being a CMO today is getting a shared view of which set of marketing strategies and tactics actually drive the business outcomes that matter to the firm." [17:11]

Frank illustrates how leading indicators in marketing, such as awareness and salience, serve as milestones that build confidence in the marketing strategy’s effectiveness over time.

Competing with Cash: Visa’s Approach

In the final segment, Frank explains Visa’s strategic efforts to compete with traditional cash by enhancing the security, convenience, and ubiquity of digital payments:

Frank Cooper [46:28]: "The shift that's been happening when it competing against cash is like, well, if I thought of it as money, what do I get in cash that I can't get with this credit card?" [46:28]

He elaborates on Visa’s initiatives to integrate payment credentials into digital devices, reinforcing the brand’s position as the preferred choice over cash through features like fraud protection and seamless global acceptance.

Concluding Insights

Frank Cooper wraps up by reiterating the essence of effective marketing:

Frank Cooper [43:30]: "Ultimately, you're trying to get someone to prefer your product or service over competitors in a consistent way. If you do it really well, that preference turns into some kind of loyalty or advocacy." [43:30]

He emphasizes that the ultimate goal of marketing is to cultivate a preference that drives sustainable business growth, underscoring the interplay between strategic marketing efforts and tangible business outcomes.

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a profound exploration of the strategic role of marketing in driving business success. Frank Cooper’s insights into defining marketing, overcoming measurement challenges, building authentic brand culture, and demonstrating commercial value provide valuable guidance for CMOs and business leaders striving to elevate their marketing efforts and align them with overarching business goals.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Frank Cooper [02:18]: "Marketing is a set of strategies and tactics designed to shift people's perceptions, emotions, and behaviors to drive sustainable, profitable growth."

• Frank Cooper [04:51]: "I believe you can apply the scientific method to both. We just don't do it because people aren't used to it."

• Frank Cooper [07:05]: "What doesn't help is saying, oh, they just don't get it. Go in there, tell them what you do in marketing, in marketing terms, and let it go."

• Frank Cooper [12:35]: "What you can get in cash that I can't get with this credit card?" [46:03]

• Frank Cooper [30:35]: "If we can dispel the misconception that marketing is not commercial, that would be the one."

• Frank Cooper [40:39]: "I think only sustainable advantages by leveraging cultural branding is to become an active member within a cultural space."

• Frank Cooper [17:11]: "The hardest part of being a CMO today is getting a shared view of which set of marketing strategies and tactics actually drive the business outcomes that matter to the firm."

• Frank Cooper [43:30]: "Ultimately, you're trying to get someone to prefer your product or service over competitors in a consistent way."

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the conversation between Seth Matlins and Frank Cooper, providing valuable insights into the strategic underpinnings of effective marketing in today’s business environment.

Transcript

[Frank Cooper]

Foreign.

[Seth Matlins]

I'm Seth Matlins. Welcome to Forbes, the CEO's guide to marketing. And today I'm sitting with a guy who I have known. I don't know, what is it, like 15 years? Right. Maybe a little longer. Frank Cooper, who is the CMO of Visa currently. And Frank, I'm going to do that awkward thing where I'm going to read a bit of your bio and then we're going to get into the conversation. But thank you so much for being here.

[Frank Cooper]

Great to be here, Seth. And you know, I love having our conversations. We have conversations, you know, off camera.

[Seth Matlins]

Yes, we do.

[Frank Cooper]

That I equally enjoy.

[Seth Matlins]

Yes, we do. I appreciate that. But, you know, you say that because I put out lists and put a microphone in front of your face.

[Frank Cooper]

Right.

[Seth Matlins]

All right, so here's the bio part of it. You know, quite a career you. You've had and are having. Frank Cooper III currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer for Visa Inc. His role spans across marketing Visa's products, services and solutions in over 200 markets and covers consumer B2B, product marketing and marketing services sectors. We're going to get into the BRE of that remit because it is. It is quite unusual for. For many a CMO to have something that broad. Frank's widely recognized for his unique blending of commerce and culture. His approach to driving growth, business optimization, and his leveraging of creativity for impactful business results has made him a transforming figure across multiple industries, including entertainment technology, consumer goods and financial services. Prior to joining Visa, what year was it? I meant to.

[Frank Cooper]

20. 22.

[Seth Matlins]

22, right, right. I remember actually are having conversations the holiday of 21, right before you started. Yeah, exactly. Right before Visa, Frank served as CMO BlackRock and PepsiCo. He was the CMO and chief creative officer at Buzzfeed. And among many, many other industry and other accolades, Frank's been named to both the Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50 list and the Forbes World's Most Influential CMOS list. Thanks for being here, man.

[Frank Cooper]

Great to be here, man.

[Seth Matlins]

All right, you know where we start, which is we just jump in with these, you know, questions and, you know, the. The premise is quick answers. But as you said to me right before we got on camera, they could all go longer. So we'll see what happens. Okay, let's start with the first one. Marketing is.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, so marketing. See, these are philosophical questions, you know, but we're gonna. We're gonna figure it out. So. So marketing. I'll try to say it as concisely as I can. Marketing is a set of Strategies and tactics designed to shift people's perceptions, emotions and behaviors to drive sustainable, profitable growth. And I think it's all those things together. It's a little bit of a mouthful. It's partly why it's often difficult to communicate it, but I think it's all those things.

[Seth Matlins]

I mean, I think it's. Excuse me, I think it's on point. And the conversation you and I have had previously about that been. It's not just the shifting of perception, but the creation of perception which arguably could fall under shifting because if there's no perception you're shifting to.

[Frank Cooper]

Totally, I totally, totally agree with that. Yeah. And I'm sure we're going to get into, and that's to me part of the challenge that we are facing is that if you're shifting behaviors, the exterior thing, everyone gets that. You can talk to the C suite about that. Yeah, it's science. You know, exterior sensory experience, we measure. But often what we are doing, we're, we're, we're tapping into the interior dimension of people perceptions and behaviors. And that's, I mean perceptions and emotions and, and it's not the language that business is comfortable with.

[Seth Matlins]

I couldn't possibly agree with you more. In fact, a lot of what I've talked about since getting to Forbes and probably before that, people just listen to me more that I'm now that I'm at Forbes and not on the agency side is it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right. And, and I, I've shared, and I'll put this in the notes. I think I shared it at the end of last year kind of the, the, it's, I believe it's called the iceberg of behaviors. Right. Which is it starts with the things you cannot measure. Most of the things that influence what we can measure sit below the surface.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

And at best we measure them qualitatively. But how do you measure emotion? How do you measure values? How do you measure beliefs, concerns, fears, needs, all of which self perception, identity, all of which go into driving purchase behavior.

[Frank Cooper]

No doubt about it. But you know, to me it's part of this long term, multi century long process of scientific imperialism which is, and by the way, I think science is great. I believe in it. So I'm not one of the non believers in science.

[Seth Matlins]

You might want to take off the tinfoil hat.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly, exactly. I practice it. But the imperialism is really a narrow view of science which gives credence to only things that you can measure through sensory experience. And so what I believe is that you can apply the scientific method to both. We just don't do it because people aren't used to it. So the scientific method of what's the practice or the injunction of the formula, then you have a direct experiential evidence from that. And then you have a community of people who confirm or reject that.

[Seth Matlins]

Can you give us an example of it?

[Frank Cooper]

I'll use something outside of business meditation. People say, okay, that's an interior dimension. You'll never be able to tell whether meditation is effective or not. Well, actually there's a practice around that. And they'll say, here's the things that you can do in meditation. You will have a direct experiential evidence from that. What did you experience through that? You will communicate that. And then there's a community of people who confirm. Like, yes, that's actually how it's articulated. That's the experience that you should have. I think you can apply that same logic to some of these other things that we have in the interior dimension. Right. And so the link though that we're missing is that even if you said in marketing the goal is to get people to prefer things and if you said, hey, in marketing, I'm going to actually make this person feel great about my brand, I'm going to make the brand feel cool and they're going to internalize that. And in internalizing that, so there's a practice for doing that, then you say, okay, now they actually feel that the question is, what impact does it have on the business?

[Seth Matlins]

Right.

[Frank Cooper]

And that's where it becomes a little bit challenging for us.

[Seth Matlins]

And so how do you go about explaining that? Or you know, I don't want to make it about where you are, but how do you recommend CMOs who work for CEOs and CFOs who don't know jack about marketing, which is of course the thesis and premise for why we created the show. How do you go about helping them understand that there is no such thing as perfect measurement? And some of the most important things, again, that drive to purchase to that preference and behavior.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah. I wish I had. I wish I had the perfect answer. I don't. Because if I did, I would, I would be sell my budget would be triple. Yes. But I'll tell you, there's. There's a few things I've learned. Yeah. You know, along the way. Number, number one, what doesn't help is saying, oh, they just don't get it. And I've heard that a lot actually. People like, they just don't get it. Go in there, tell them what you do in marketing, in marketing terms, and let it go. And that's the premise of this whole thing that you're talking about right now.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah, but I want to tie it back to something you said earlier. While it may be true that they just don't get it, that comes from an absence of experience. Certainly not in many, many, if not most cases, an absence of intellect. Right. So that they don't just don't get it as true. It's the marketer' job to shift perception back to what you were saying.

[Frank Cooper]

That's. That's exactly right. Yeah. And. And in doing that, it's. It's. It's. You can focus on their lack of experience in marketing or start from where they are.

[Seth Matlins]

That's right.

[Frank Cooper]

Which is they've had. Most of them have had an experience outside of marketing. It could be financial, it could be sales, it could be operations. And I think our job in marketing is to translate what we're doing back into language and the frameworks that they can understand.

[Seth Matlins]

That's right. I mean, first rule of comedy, Know your audience.

[Frank Cooper]

Know your audience and frame everything for that. What I've tried to do, Seth, is, is try to frame it in terms of. To get us out of this marketing jargon in terms of profitable consumer behavior. So, like, what are the behaviors that. If we shift these behaviors that everyone would agree that. Yeah, if you did that, you know, actually, I believe that will contribute to incremental revenue or profit, then that's the thing we try to move. And so it gets you out of the marketing jargon of impressions and affinity. It's like, you know, what if I can get someone to put their credential into a digital wallet first? Does that become the default credential for everyday usage? So then the thing we're going to measure is how many people can we get to put the Visa credential into that digital wallet? Profitable consumer behavior.

[Seth Matlins]

Right, right. You know, I'm. I'm kind of stuck on. On your reference of impressions, which I remember literally from, you know, first months of my career where my job was to hang Avon banners and place coolers on tennis courts. Yeah. You know, I'd get. I'd get a. A media equivalency report from our agency, and they'd say, you know, that cooler generated, you know, $400,000 in media equivalency. Even a long time ago. I was like, that is such nonsense.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

But what did I do? I took it and sent it to the CEO. I was like that cooler.

[Frank Cooper]

That's right.

[Seth Matlins]

And, and I think that that speaks, despite how dated it was and you know, at the danger of it being n. Of one that, you know, we're so off topic. But do you think it speaks to the challenge that has been implicit in what we've been talking about at the beginning of the show here, which is, does marketing have an attribution problem? And is marketing's attribution problem not in fact an attribution problem, but an attribution truth? Which is to say, going back to what you said, in Maslow's hierarchy, you can't always attribute everything directly. There is no such thing as a perfect measurement.

[Frank Cooper]

There is no such thing as a perfect measurement. But that's true in everything. It's funny, people talk about the process of marketing and those who are skeptical of it, they will say, well, you know, does that really add value, that step or does that really contribute to a sell? And you put, you superimpose that same logic on the sales process. You could say that all along the way until the actual sale happens. Right. You can say, well, you know, you got a list of people, you know, potential people. Okay, great. Does that really contribute to it? Yeah. Now, now you've kind of narrowed that list down to real prospects. Is that really going to contribute to it? Let's see. But there's a muscle memory and a experience around that process that gives them confidence that if you do these things, scientific process, again, if you do these things, this outcome will occur. You will get a certain amount of sales. In marketing, there's less confidence in that. Because what we've done, and this is why I think we do have an attribution problem, is that when you land on the, if you do these things, this is the outcome that will happen. People go like, well, but I don't understand how to interpret that outcome in terms of what's meaningful to me.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah. But yes, yes and yes. And you know, with apologies to our listeners who have heard me talk about this before, because it does seem to come up within the context of all of these shows, which is, it's fascinating to me. It continues to be fascinating to me that the CEO, the cfo, the CTO, who may be skeptical of marketing, is somehow not skeptical of the fact that they choose to wear, you know, brand X over brand Y, that their pantry is filled with branded goods that they drive.

[Frank Cooper]

Oh, yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

If you, if you every One of those BMW, Mercedes driving CEOs just to pick two marks.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

You know, if you said, hey, Exact same car, 50 less per month. Honda on it. Would they take it? Fuck no.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly.

[Seth Matlins]

Right. But brand doesn't matter.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly.

[Seth Matlins]

Except when it does.

[Frank Cooper]

Now, now, I got to say, and this is one of the beautiful things for me at Visa, is that there is, there's, there's unanimity around the fact that brand matters for us.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah.

[Frank Cooper]

And in that payments category really matters. You know, you need buyers who have trust in the brand. You know, you need merchants who believe that it's. It's reliable, you know, that the underlying products is reliable. You need ubiquity. You. So people know they can take it anywhere.

[Seth Matlins]

Those have been the fundamentals of the Visa business for decades.

[Frank Cooper]

100%. And that's why the brand matters so much, because it takes decades to build that kind of trust. Even if you look at some of the fintech companies that are doing really, really well, if there's a gap, the gap will be around trust, because it takes a long time for people to believe, you know what, Something goes wrong, I know I can rely on that brand. So brand really matters in the category. And that's one good starting point that.

[Seth Matlins]

We have within Visa. You know, I'm, I'm thinking about all the crypto advertising that we saw in the 2022 Super Bowl. So as right as you started and three or four different crypto companies and brands ran spots, all of them were about getting rich, not missing kind of the opportunity. Zero of them were about trust.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

And people didn't understand the category. I'm not sure people still do. Yeah. And. And I just thought it was a huge strategic miss. But I want to. You know, we've kind of been talking to this second question, but I want to see if I can get a functional. Not a functional, but a tight definition from you. With all of our conversations so far about the importance of brand, how do you define what a brand is?

[Frank Cooper]

Another philosophical question, Seth, which I know you. You know this. Okay, here's my, here's my working definition of. It is, is that a brand is shorthand in people's minds and in culture that lead them to prefer a company's products or services.

[Seth Matlins]

So if that. I like that a lot. Is that. Let me ask you to parse that.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

Is that what a brand is or what a good brand is or what a good brand does?

[Frank Cooper]

I think if you don't meet that threshold that it's a shorthand, first of all. So, like, you know, quick reference. I think of something very specific about this when I think of the brand and that is meaningful in someone's mind, but also I think, meaningful in culture. Like, where does it sit? You can pull the culture piece out and still have a brand. But I think even the most basic functional brands have a place in culture. Tide detergent seems very basic and functional, but there's a reason people keep coming back and buying the big brand detergents, even if all the ingredients look the same.

[Seth Matlins]

But is it, Is it tides, place and culture? And I'm sure Mark Pritchard will have a point of view on this, and we should ask, is it tides, place in culture, or is it what you were saying about Visa, which is decades of earning trust in product efficacy, price value?

[Frank Cooper]

I think it's a combination of it. I mean, you know, there's a culture around cleaning. You know, you go look at TikTok videos and see what's happening.

[Seth Matlins]

I have OCD, my house is immaculate. I. I live in the culture of cleaning.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

I love my Swiffer, by the way.

[Frank Cooper]

I've gotten it through Nina, my wife. So, so I'm firmly in that, in that culture. But I think it's both for, for. For the strongest brands. Yeah. But I think the most important part is that it's. It's the shorthand that leads you to prefer. Yeah. The product or services. That's. That's the most important part.

[Seth Matlins]

Not speaking about your job, but kind of, you know, your job as you have it now, but you've held. I think this is your third, fourth CMO job. Yeah. What's the hardest part of being a CMO today?

[Frank Cooper]

It's kind of what we're discussing here, I think. I mean, the hardest job being a CMO today to me, is getting a shared view of which set of marketing strategy strategies and tactics actually drive the business outcomes that matter to the, to the firm. And so no matter where you go, where I've been at least, is that, you know, convincing someone that doing X, whether it's a sponsorship, whether it's a social posting, whether it's a experiential event, that that actually drives an outcome that matters. That's the hardest part of this job.

[Seth Matlins]

So. So one of the things that, as I've thought about the episodes we've released so far, that I don't think I've done a good job in covering with our guests is, Is kind of that the time period over which one should expect to see an outcome.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

Right. And I'm wondering how, how, you know, in, in the lessons that marketers need to provide the understanding lesson Sounds pejorative and unfair in the understanding that marketers need to provide to those who do not understand marketing, but whose decision, CEO and CFO influence the CMO's ability to market successfully is not just what to expect, but what to. And what not to, but on what timeline.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

And so, yeah, again, Visa. Let's just stick with Visa for a second. But I know you've done this throughout your career. Visa has a long equity with some of the most blue chip sponsorship properties in the world. Decades. Again, today, if you were to get into an. So I imagine there's some institutional knowledge and understanding that even if, if we don't know how it works, we know.

[Frank Cooper]

That it works 100% right.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah, but how would you recommend to a CMO who is talking to a CEO without that understanding that they kind of frame the expectation and the timeline on which to see what kind of returns from that kind of activity. Recognizing so much depends on activation and other.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, I mean, Seth, you're hitting on such a great point, which is that, that these things unfold over time. And, and again, you know, referencing sales, the sales cycles for some of the things that we do, they're long sales cycles. Yes. And, and there is a, there's patience around that and this confidence that you're moving along the way. But within the sales, again, they have markers along the way that give people confidence that we're heading in the right direction.

[Seth Matlins]

Can you, can you give our listeners, you know, an example of a long sales cycle and a marker or two?

[Frank Cooper]

Well, so you have the initial conversation with an existing client or a new client, you find out what their challenges are. You narrow those challenges down, you come back, and the first real moment of truth is the feedback that you get on how you're framing up the challenges and whether or not your product is a solution.

[Seth Matlins]

Did you listen? Did you hear? Did you understand? Exactly.

[Frank Cooper]

Now, if you're getting positive feedback, we think that product can be a solution for us. That's step one. And people are like, okay, we're getting momentum. We'll put a percentage of probability of success based on that in marketing, I think we can do the same thing. It's what I was calling profitable consumer behaviors. But what are the leading indicators along the way that get you there?

[Seth Matlins]

So I think what you're talking about is the funnel. Right. And you know, back in the day, when you and I started our careers, the funnel was, was very linear. And today it looks like tangled computer wires, headphone wires. Right. But you know, the, the broadly, you're not going to sell a product somebody's not aware of. You're not going to sell our service. You're not going to sell a product or service that somebody doesn't understand. Not going to sell one that they're not interested. Right. So broadly, while it's no longer linear, those milestone markers.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

Are still fundamentally true. Right.

[Frank Cooper]

100%. I just think we, to the, to the kind of tangled web that you're describing, I think we have to get more precise on what happens in that funnel or through that cycle. So, yeah, awareness. If no one knows your product, it makes no difference. Salience, you know, or fame or familiarity. You have to decide which one of these things really matter. And then the way I look at it, there's a flywheel that happens around relevance, usage and trust. And those, you know, you can hit any of those things and they start feeding on each other. That matters a lot. And then you lead to preference. And then there's levels of preference that lead to loyalty and advocacy. And so if you can get alignment on something like that, then you can pick one thing out early on, hey, this is a new product. No one knows what it is. If I can increase awareness by this amount and salience by this amount, do we all agree that's a big step forward? Everyone probably would say yes.

[Seth Matlins]

So one of the things I'm, I'm wondering is, it's great. And the language you use was, you know, when I asked, come back.

[Frank Cooper]

What.

[Seth Matlins]

What's the hardest part of being a cmo? It's creating that shared view of the lev. My words now, the levers to pull the resources to allocate the path forward. I'm kind of wondering, well, that's great. That takes a long time. Like, isn't it simpler just to say you hired. I'm not saying this is easy. You hired me to do a job because who I am, what I've done and how I look at the world, just let me do it and trust in my expertise. Like, why is there that absence of trust in a CMO's expertise?

[Frank Cooper]

Wow. You know, I don't think it's necessarily an app. At least I don't interpret it as an absence of trust in the CMO's expertise. I see it as in order to. To work through the complex problems that are facing most businesses to capture the opportunities. You need multiple parts of the organization to come together with marketing to make it work. I got to work closely with the head of product, of course, to make make sure that those products, features and benefits Actually deliver on some of the promises that we're going to make through the brand. You know, you got to work with someone who's in cross border travel to make sure that we understand what are the key travel corridors. Yeah. You can't do it alone and it doesn't. And that I'm just giving you the payments category. But you pick any complex organization unless you're selling like a singular kind of SaaS product. Any complex organization that has a complex set of products and a matrix organization. You need others to come along with you.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah. I mean you're speaking to something that I think a lot about which is everything is marketing and anyone inside an organization and, or external to it. And today's everybody's connected to everyone world can influence the trajectory of a brand or business in an instant, 100%. And, and while we cannot control for what happens externally, we can influence, we can't control. I, I cannot help but think and I just get firmer in my conviction that if CEOs and CFOs had a better understanding of those interdependencies, those that interconnectedness. Right. The fact that everything connects to whether that purchase preference and preference are driven.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

They might organize organizations differently. Yeah. What do you think the hardest part of being a CEO is? We always like to have a moment of empathy.

[Frank Cooper]

Just one moment. Exactly. Look, I mean, I mean that's an incredibly hard gig. I mean because you were managing multiple stakeholders, you know, from employees to the board to the community to in our business, regulators and policymakers. And so it's an incredibly complex job. But to me, the most difficult part of that and the most important part is how do you attract, retain and motivate talent so that they're working as a team to produce optimal outcomes. And I think that's the most important thing. And how do you do it, I think is you have to establish this culture where people feel like they are working for something bigger than themselves and a culture of curiosity where they're constantly wanting to get better and they want the company to get better. It's an incredibly difficult job. But to me that's the most important. Get the right people in the right place, motivate them to work as a team and great things tend to happen from that.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah, I saw a definition and apologies to the source, whom I can't recall of being. It might have been from a CEO that, you know, a CEO is like, you know, being an investment banker. It's all about resource allocation, human capital and time right to drive optimal outcomes. And, and there was something in that that I quite loved. While of course it is so simple that it runs the risk of being simplistic and ignores so many of the things that you just brought up, I do think about it in the context of this show and the problem we're trying to solve for with it in terms of that resource allocation. There's data that shows that, you know, most CMOs don't even think they get the resources requisite to delivering on agreed upon strategies.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

In, in your careers experience, you know, you have like a, off the top of your head, a gut on like what percentage of CEO CFO C suites on marketing as an expense rather than an investment in growth.

[Frank Cooper]

Wow. That's a hard.

[Seth Matlins]

Give or take. I don't, you know, I know you got to go back through a lot of CEOs and CFOs.

[Frank Cooper]

I'll say, I'll say beyond my direct experience and from what I've seen and, and, and various marketers I've Talked to and CMOs I've talked to and, and CEOs particular across different industries, I'd say 85% feel like they don't have a, a grasp of or confidence in marketing driving specific enough outcomes so that they would invest even more money to accelerate those outcomes. And then I see other companies that 15% that do it tend to do well. But the attribution to why they're doing well oftentimes doesn't go to marketing. If I look at Nvidia, great product, right place, AI chips, that's the right place it's gonna take off. But the marketing that Jensen's done around that has been extraordinary. There's storytelling around the product, the set of products that they're building that actually elevated it to a point where it captured people's imagination and people started spreading the word for them and it gave it topspin. And everyone uses Steve Jobs as that. But you can see that among a small set of CEOs.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah. I think for, for good and ill.

[Frank Cooper]

Right.

[Seth Matlins]

So if Nvidia is an example of, of the success of that, and I agree it kind of, you know, there are examples where, where Bob Chapek at Disney during his short tenure where he said one thing and, or didn't say one thing as it turned out as it related to the Florida don't say gay law. And everything changed, including its stock performance. Which brings us back to what we were talking about earlier, which is marketing is everything. And, and I think it's kind of marketing is, I'm sorry Marketing is everything and everything is marketing. And yet only so much is within the CMOS control. Even if they have a greater accountability than they do control.

[Frank Cooper]

If. But, you know, that's why it's a, It's a true statement and a dangerous statement at the same time that, that marketing is everything and everything is marketing. It is absolutely true. The danger of it is that it makes it even more difficult for those who are not in marketing in the C suite to identify where to invest. If everything's marketing and marketing is everything, where do I put the money? And so there's gotta be a set of strategies and tactics that you land on. Even though you can't control everything. Control what you can control and you can control what you control. Set it forth. Say, if I do these things, this is what I can change in terms of people's perceptions, emotions or behaviors. And if I change, make those changes, do we agree that that in some way leads to greater revenue?

[Seth Matlins]

I love you're bringing up kind of the dangerous part of it because you're, of course, absolutely right. But I wonder then, and I'm making this up as I say it, if. If we use marketing as proxy for enterprise growth, sustainable, profitable enterprise growth, then, you know, going back to what Peter Drucker said so many years ago. Right. The, you know, the modern organization. I'm bastardizing this a little bit. The modern organization has two functions, innovation and marketing, both of which are there to serve growth.

[Frank Cooper]

Yes. Right.

[Seth Matlins]

And so, you know, those interdependencies, you know, product doesn't exist, finance doesn't exist, tech doesn't exist in isolation. It is there to service the needs of the enterprise.

[Frank Cooper]

Yes.

[Seth Matlins]

As it seeks to grow.

[Frank Cooper]

Yes.

[Seth Matlins]

Profitably and sustainably. I'm just mindful of time. And there are a few things I want to get to. I want to ask you one more question from, from the seven We've touched on. We've touched on this a little bit. But if you could wave the proverbial magic wand and address one macro misconception amongst the world's largest companies about what marketing is and what marketers do, what might it be?

[Frank Cooper]

Magic wand.

[Seth Matlins]

I have one in my bag.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly. Give me two. Look, if we can dispel the misconception that marketing is not commercial, that would be the one. That would be the thing I would wave and wish and hope. And it's kind of at the set, the foundation of everything we're talking about, you know, oh, yeah, marketing is interesting. Marketing is cool. Marketing is necessary. Marketing moves intangible things. But it's not commercial. And I think that's the greatest fallacy, the most dangerous misconception facing marketing.

[Seth Matlins]

I love that. I love that. Let me ask you about your time in private equity. And not only, you know, were you the CMO of one of the world's largest. The world's largest. Second largest.

[Frank Cooper]

Largest. So. So Black BlackRock currently has about $11 trillion of assets under management, primarily asset manager, but it goes across asset management, private equity, private credit, of course, a huge indexing business in ETFs.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah. So not a category that's. Or a group of very few players that's historically been known to be market.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

What lessons. What do you think they understood about the role and efficacy of marketing that a CEO who might be skeptical about marketing as a commercial engine because who's more commercially oriented than PE might benefit from?

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, you know, it's a great question. And I'll tell you, it was a strange move when people said, well, Frank, you know, you were in music and, you know, Pepsi and Buzzfeed. Now BlackRock. And it was one of the best things I ever could have done for me, in part because it gave me a deeper insight into what B2B marketing really is. And so part of it was the B2B marketing side of it. And what they understood was that, yeah, there's a sales team that is the main point of contact with a client, but the complexity of the buying process requires a different kind of discipline. So how are you going to kind of make sure we are perceived as. Continue to be perceived as thought leaders? How are you going to create some kind of emotional connection between the client and our firm, even though we say they're making decisions based on kind of rational grounds only? How do you.

[Seth Matlins]

Wait, I'm sorry. Did the folks understand that people's decisions are often irrationally driven but rationally rationalized?

[Frank Cooper]

Yes.

[Seth Matlins]

Oh, that. Well, that puts them miles ahead of Saund.

[Frank Cooper]

100%. 100%, you gotta say. So the. One of the greatest stories ever to me is how BlackRock was formed. So Larry was a rock star banker on his way to the very, very top at First Boston and in one day lost $100 million. One day.

[Seth Matlins]

It's happened to all of us.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly, exactly. And when he realized he did not get fired, he's still there, but his trajectory changed. But what he realized is that he said, you know what I don't understand really, the risk I took in when I made $100 million or the risk I took when I lost $100 million, self awareness.

[Seth Matlins]

It's quite a thing, 100%.

[Frank Cooper]

And so he said, well, can I take that and become much more disciplined around understanding risk? And that's really how BlackRock was formed. It came out of that kind of that, that, that deep understanding of, of a gap in the marketplace that he could fill, but through a personal experience.

[Seth Matlins]

And so as, as most entrepreneurial ventures begin. Right. 100, they don't always begin with that level of self awareness. They may, they may begin with identifying a void in the marketplace, but for that void to start with that level of, with really that strategic insight as much as, well, that's unfair to bazillion startups who are founded on strategic insights. But you know, to, to, to approach it from a risk perspective.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, right.

[Seth Matlins]

Because I think it goes back to the question we were talking about just a moment ago, is, is marketing an investment or an expense? I find it again curious that, you know, the CFO who has her own portfolio of stocks, I'm sure expects no. Expects no certainty from those investments, expects a certain volume of risk within those investments, looks at brands within those categories, and yet doesn't understand marketing within our own company this way.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, but, and this is, and this kind of ties back to BlackRock a bit. But I think every CFO is willing to say there's some percentage that I won't understand and there's some variability that will happen in your actions, but can you give me something that allows me to predict what the outcomes are going to be? And I'll say what BlackRock got right and what we tried to build in the marketing function is understanding that on a B2B basis, on a client basis, different from the B2C side, which we can get to. But on the B2B basis, if we got these touch points with clients, if we increase nps, if we kind of outline the entire buyer decision making matrix and we got a certain percentage and it reached a tipping point, it starts to feel, while it's not completely scientific in the sense that we know with 100% certainty that there's a causal relationship between all these activities and the outcome, the correlation starts to become clear and you start to see it in a more consistent way. And in my experience, I think that's all the CFO in particular is asking for. Some of them want complete causal relationships, but if you can give more predictability to it, I think that's a big step forward.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I. And by the way, that is the job of, of everyone within an enterprise who's asking for resource allocation. And, and I think you're right. And sometimes I may, I may be a little harsh on our C suite colleagues, but I, I, I, I can't help but think sometimes predictability has become, to use the phrase I did earlier, proxy for certainty.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[Seth Matlins]

There ain't no such thing as a sure thing.

[Frank Cooper]

I know. And you're 100, right? It does, it slips into that all the time. Time. All the time. You know, and yeah, it's bizarre. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and again, I think, you know, if you can build the relationship with the CFO where you get that confidence, great. The CEO needs to weigh in on it though too.

[Seth Matlins]

Of course. They have ultimate accountability.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly.

[Seth Matlins]

So let me ask you a question about culture. You've spent your, you, you were in the world of being part of culture and marketing through and with culture before the rest of the world was even talking about culture. You and I grew up in it. Yeah. Every, many a brand today is talking about moving at the speed of culture. Never want to hear that phrase because while it's true, it's no longer differentiated, it's a necessity, it's not a differentiator. What, what's your perspective on how brands need to kind of have, you know, the give, a give and take with culture and in particular a give. Right. So much of the conversation is about jumping on a trend, like being very demure to pick a random example. And that's taking, that's piggybacking.

[Frank Cooper]

Yes.

[Seth Matlins]

It's not bad necessarily, but it's not, it's not bringing anything to culture. And I know you have a very focused opinion on the responsibility of business to positively affect culture. Talk a little bit about that.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, yeah, I love this question. And look, I mean, I, it's really interesting because even at blackrock and certainly at Visa, you know, one of the things I pushed hard on was that financial services for the longest believe that it was separate from culture, that, you know, you had a set of clients.

[Seth Matlins]

Set of money at the heart of culture.

[Frank Cooper]

Money is at the heart of this is one of the most cultural things that you can imagine. Right. And we can go into the whole thing of the fiction of money, which Dee Hawk, the founder of Visa, really talks a lot about. But you know, there was a long period where people felt like financial services was divorced culture, but money's at the center of it. But all aspects of financial well being is at the center of it, like how you earn your money. People started realizing, well, how I earn my money is really kind of a deeply cultural thing because it says something about me and who I am and what I aspire to become and in my sense of purpose in life. You know, how you spend it talks.

[Seth Matlins]

About options, constraints, you know, implicit in opportunity in the absence of equity. Equity of opportunity.

[Frank Cooper]

100.

[Seth Matlins]

Quality of it.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah, 100%. So my main point though is that, that my experience is that virtually everything that I've seen in every industry is in some way embedded in culture. And you got to find the cultural spaces for a brand. Where I see the brands go wrong is when they actually want to withdraw things from the culture or latch onto or get some kind of benefit from being adjacent to culture. And I think people, consumers are way too smart for that right now. And so the only way I see really having sustainable advantages by leveraging cultural branding is to become an active member within a cultural space.

[Seth Matlins]

Is that a community?

[Frank Cooper]

It could be a community. From a campfire community to a large community, it can be a, and usually it's a community, but it can be in spaces like music, video gaming, you know, creator culture. But always it's going to be a collective. It's going to be a group of people who have some kind of shared view of the world, shared aspirations, shared history. And if you parachute in and you want to extract from that, people are much more protective of that today and they're like, well, you know, we'll take that money from you, but we give you no credit for it. Right. I think you only get credit if you add value to the community and add value to the culture. And so if I'm going into a sport, my ultimate goal is to add value to the fan experience or to the athlete experience.

[Seth Matlins]

So, so this, this actually brings us back to what we're talking about with how you might sell in a sponsorship to somebody. But let's. So I just want to acknowledge that thread, but I don't want to repeat it, which, but, but obviously, you know, business isn't philanthropic. And so, excuse me, you know, means and ends. Adding value to being a legitimate, authentic, contributing part of culture is, is a strategy that is intended to drive purchase and preference on the back end.

[Frank Cooper]

100. Yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

How, how does one think about balancing that input, knowing that you are in it appropriately, by the way, you know, I've long said the purpose of purpose is profit.

[Frank Cooper]

Exactly right.

[Seth Matlins]

And, and, but that you're in it for commercial returns.

[Frank Cooper]

Yeah. And for me it takes you back to the whole measurement framework that we were talking about before the funnel. And so like if you Went across that and you said relevance is really important. Well, for me, the way I think about relevance, I split it into two categories. There's category relevance, it's important to my payment experience or something. But then there's cultural relevance. It's important in my life. And the brands that really matter, the ones that are sustained, the ones that can transcend direct competition, do both.

[Seth Matlins]

And there's science around the efficacy of that. Right. I can't help but think of its mental availability from Byron Sharp's book 100%.

[Frank Cooper]

Right and Equal to that. At least our research shows that if you can increase relevance, it increases usage, increases trust, all of which. And individually, by the way, all of which drives preference.

[Seth Matlins]

Right.

[Frank Cooper]

And if you drive preference, which I think is the ultimate goal of the brand, then you drive payment volume and transactions.

[Seth Matlins]

Yeah, because preference is the ultimate competitive advantage.

[Frank Cooper]

100%. Right.

[Seth Matlins]

Right.

[Frank Cooper]

Otherwise, why are we doing it? Why are we doing it? Because if you do it all and people say like, you know what, that brand's cool, but I still prefer that brand, then your marketing was completely ineffective. Ultimately, you're trying to get someone to prefer your product or service. It's over competitors and do it in a consistent way. And then if you do it really, really well, that preference turns into some kind of loyalty or advocacy.

[Seth Matlins]

I saw somebody post on LinkedIn. It was the, the, it was in December, some version of, you know, when all is said and done, marketing comes down to why you. And I sent them a note. It might have been Chris, but I can't remember. Forgive me, I sent a.

[Frank Cooper]

That.

[Seth Matlins]

I think this is right. But at the, at the risk of adding more words, it's why you and not them.

[Frank Cooper]

Yes.

[Seth Matlins]

Right. Because it can be why you and them.

[Frank Cooper]

That's right. Right.

[Seth Matlins]

Which is the consideration set.

[Frank Cooper]

That's exactly right. That's exactly. I, I totally agree with that. And, and, and to me, you boil. Everything that we've been talking about comes down to that. You know, and if you can't show that or show the leading indicators, the indicators that will lead to that, then it's going to be a hard conversation.

[Seth Matlins]

In the C Suite. I want to ask you a last question. And, and it too has threads to our previous conversation. But at, at Visa, you compete not just with others in the fin services category, you compete with cash. And there aren't a lot of businesses who compete with money, or, I mean, money has many currencies, but in competing with CA, and not as, perhaps as much today in 2025. Right. Where, you know, cash Has a very different, I suspect, from. And I may be ignoring economic realities. I am, because the unbanked cash is still. Is still principle. But how do you compete with cash?

[Frank Cooper]

Well, I'll tell you historically how we. We've done it. And I'll tell you, you know, what's happening today. So. So surely in some countries where you have the unbanked cash is still king, or if you have instability in the currency or instability in the government, cash is still king. And then you have some outliers, like Germany, where very developed country, but still cash is often. That's right, yeah.

[Seth Matlins]

Why is that?

[Frank Cooper]

What's the attitudinal, historical feeling that what you can trust the most is this cash in your hand? And I think, though, what's happened and crypto has actually helped to accelerate this, and it's one of the first things that Dee Hawk, who was the founder of Visa, said is that we're moving towards digital alphanumeric data as money. That's where we're going.

[Seth Matlins]

He knew that in the 50s.

[Frank Cooper]

Yes. And so he said it in 1958. And our first campaign in Visa, one of the first campaigns in Visa was basically a plastic credit card card with a money clip on it and the tagline underneath it was, think of it as money. Right. And so the shift that's been happening when it competing against cash is like, well, if I thought of it as money, what do I get in cash that I can't get with this credit card? And the whole battle all along the way was to make sure that everything that you can find in cash that is accepted anywhere you go, I can go to a street vendor in Bhutan and break out my card and don't need cash. The ubiquity of it became really important. And so that's one way to compete. But then the most effective, once you get that, the most effective way is that the credential can do more than cash. You protect against fraud, you're protected against theft. And so if you walk down the street with $10,000 of cash in your pocket, you're at risk. You walk down the street with a credit card that has $10,000 limit on it, you're much less at risk, particularly given zero liability. So it's the ubiquity and the security and the convenience, when you compare that to cash, it all moves you toward these credentials. Now, what's fascinating to me now, though, is that the credit card, the physical card, is also becoming less and less important. Important. It's now the phone, right. It's on the phone. And so that's your device again. It's much more convenient. And you can't put cash in the phone unless you find some slot in there that we're going to suddenly put in and it kind of dissipates into the ether. It's not going to happen. And so if the phone becomes the center of gravity for people's lives and it's going to be digital information, the odds are going to be really good. And digital information on that phone, it's really our credential, the tokens that we have to protect your privacy. That's what actually makes it, I think, more efficient, effective and safer than cash. And that's been the argument.

[Seth Matlins]

Frank Cooper, appreciate you. Thank you for being with us.

[Frank Cooper]

Always. Good seeing you, Seth.

[Seth Matlins]

All right, man.

[Frank Cooper]

All right, man.