Don McGuire (Qualcomm) | How Qualcomm Turned Snapdragon Into a $180B Innovation Brand

Summary

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The CMO Podcast — Don McGuire (Qualcomm): How Qualcomm Turned Snapdragon Into a $180B Innovation Brand

Host: Jim Stengel
Guest: Don McGuire, CMO & CCO, Qualcomm
Date: January 7, 2026
Summary Prepared By: [Podcast Summarizer]

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Episode Overview

This episode features Don McGuire, Qualcomm’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, discussing how he and his team transformed Snapdragon from an internal tech product into a $180 billion innovation brand recognized globally. Recorded live at the ANA Masters of Marketing conference, the conversation covers turning brand value into business performance, building global brand equity, evolving organizational culture for the AI era, leveraging sports partnerships, and keeping the brand's ethos intact while scaling.

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Main Theme

How Snapdragon became a global innovation brand and the lessons Don McGuire’s leadership at Qualcomm offers for marketers aiming to bridge brand-building with business results—especially in a tech-driven, fast-evolving market.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Value of Brand in Business Results

(06:13–08:07)

• Convincing the C-suite: Don’s ANA presentation focused on “how brand value drives business value”—an ongoing challenge for marketers.
• Performance vs brand is a false dichotomy:

  "Your brand has to perform. So if we can help ourselves, I think that's another thing we can do." – Don McGuire (07:56)

• Interbrand 100 outperformed S&P and NASDAQ in business results over 20+ years, underpinning the power of strong brands.

2. Snapdragon’s Growth Story: From Tech Name to Consumer Icon

(12:21–16:44)

• Origins: Snapdragon launched in 2007 targeting Asian markets, leveraging cultural symbols (dragons, color red, etc.).
• Unrealized potential: Qualcomm originally “couldn’t spell the word brand”; Snapdragon operated with “very unstructured and not purposeful” marketing until recent years.
• Turning point: As Qualcomm shifted from engineering-centric to brand-centric, Don, with CEO support, brought marketing discipline and structure.

  "From a company who couldn't spell the word brand seven, eight years ago, it's a lot." – Don McGuire (16:45)

3. Architecting a Modern Global Brand

(19:13–21:59)

• Brand ethos & identity: Created a distinct “2.0” ethos—boldness, joyfulness, and a versatile Fireball icon.
• Cross-category resonance: The brand had to flex across phones, cars, PCs, glasses, and more, but maintain a central truth.
• Results: Snapdragon made its first appearance on both Interbrand (no. 39) and BrandZ (no. 38); translated to higher prices and margins.

4. Marketing Leadership Evolution

(25:06–27:57)

• Empathy & upskilling: Post-COVID and amidst the AI transition, “empathy is even more important.”
• Marketing’s seat at the table: Still a journey to convince tech companies that “marketing is a business driver.”
• Bold moves: Partnerships with Manchester United and others were once “5% probability” ideas that now signal progress.

5. Sports Partnerships as Brand Scale Engines

(28:29–34:37)

• Strategy: Attach to passions (sports, music, creativity) rather than specs.
• Major results: The Manchester United shirt partnership netted Snapdragon “9.5 billion impressions” – equivalent to “182 Super Bowl ads in one season” with an underperforming team. (31:35)
• Innovations: Swapping shirt logos for purpose-driven causes and pass-through rights for joint content with product partners.

6. Evolving for AI: Organization and Workflow

(38:35–45:06)

• AI at the center: Inspired by peers, Don is “putting AI at the center” of marketing ops—creating foundational AI systems architecture and building workflows/teams around it.
• Human-led, AI-powered: “AI powered and human led” is the team’s internal rallying cry.
• Practical rollout:
  • All Qualcomm employees must do AI safety/legal training.
  • Tool-specific training (e.g., with Writer) saves 2,400 hours monthly through “super users” and peer adoption.
• Biggest lesson for CMOs:

  "Make sure you know what your objective is... For me, it’s a scaling exercise... In some cases, it will be a tool to become more efficient... So just understanding your objective, I think is number one." – Don McGuire (43:50)

7. Creative Brief/Fast Facts

(46:04–47:25)

• Qualcomm’s 40th anniversary celebrated regionally and at Snapdragon Stadium, featuring retro-to-modern tech showcases.
• Don’s favorite brands: Vans for formative impact, Starbucks for daily ritual (“I don’t drink coffee, which is the weirdest thing. I’m an ice cream tea guy.” – Don, 47:47)
• Insights on leadership at Starbucks and importance of brands returning to authentic roots, citing P&G’s Pritchard and more.

8. Personal Touches and Advice for Marketers

(51:29–52:16)

• San Diego love: Favorite taco shop (El Pueblo), beach spots, and the simple joy of returning home.
• Closing advice:

  "Don’t panic and just take things one step at a time. It’s easy to panic... We're not curing cancer... just take things one step at a time. It’s going to be okay." – Don McGuire (52:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Brand Performance:

  “We need to stop talking performance versus brand. Your brand has to perform.” – Don McGuire (07:56)

• On Making Snapdragon a Cultural Icon:

  "I want Snapdragon to be a consumer brand and I want it to become a cultural icon." – Cristiano Amon, relayed by Don McGuire (16:44)

• On Results from Sports Partnerships:

  “After season one, 9.5 billion impressions for Snapdragon, which is the ave equivalent of 182 Super Bowl ads in one season.” – Don McGuire (31:35)

• On Brand Expansion Discipline:

  “It's easy to get distracted or pulled off course. The discipline is knowing who you are, evolving intentionally and saying no when directions don't fit the brand's character and product truth.” – Don McGuire (44:26, recapped by Jim Stengel)

• On AI Transition:

  "We call it AI powered, human led... it's a really new way of looking at this that I feel will yield not only a better incorporation and integration of AI into the marketing discipline, but will eliminate a lot of the fear." – Don McGuire (38:35)

• Advice to CMOs implementing AI:

  “Start with a really solid objective going into it, and then customize your process around that.” (45:00)

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Useful Timestamps

• The value of brand vs performance marketing (06:13–08:07)
• Snapdragon origin & Asian market focus (13:02–14:50)
• Building brand structure (“Snapdragon 2.0” & 3.0) (19:13–21:59)
• Sports strategy & Manchester United deal data (28:44–32:27)
• AI transformation of marketing workflows (38:35–45:06)
• Anniversary reflections & personal brand rituals (46:04–49:23)
• Don’s closing advice to marketers (52:16)

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The Episode’s Tone

Don is energetic, candid, and practical—a blend of humility (“I have some battle scars”) and boldness (“We made bold moves”) with a bias toward action but a strong emphasis on strategic thinking and authentic leadership. The conversation is both tactical (sharing data/metrics, org design) and inspirational (advice for marketers, importance of purpose).

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For Listeners Seeking Takeaways

• Invest in brand and tie it to business outcomes—stop separating “brand” from “performance.”
• Leverage organizational moments (e.g., new CMO, pivoting company) to create structure, color, and emotion in the brand.
• Partnerships—especially in sports and passions—offer outsized reach and brand resonance, especially with global teams like Manchester United.
• Lead AI adoption with clarity: know your goals, design around them, roll out intentionally, and quell fear via empathy and training.
• Protect your brand’s core ethos as you scale or expand. Know who you are—and help your organization know it, too.
• Rapid change (AI, market expansion, cultural trends) is best met with discipline, humility, and a willingness to connect, learn, and evolve.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Jim Stengel]

Before we dive into today's episode, we would very much appreciate a moment from you to make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, along with optioning to auto download the episodes. It really is the best way to never miss an episode, along with supporting.

[Interviewer/Host]

The show and the amazing team that.

[Jim Stengel]

Helps me bring it to you. And while you're there, leave us a rating or review. It only takes a minute and helps more people find the show and helps us learn. And of course share this episode with a friend or colleague who might enjoy it. We wouldn't be here six years later and still going so strong without you all our community. So thank you for being part of it. Now, onto the show. What if the smartest marketing play is not to move forward, but to zoom out? Deloitte believes the most powerful move a CMO can make is to look beyond the next step and see the broader perspective. That's what the Deloitte CMO program is for, a place to gain fresh perspective and connect with leaders who've stood where you stand together. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture. So your next move isn't just fast, but right. Learn more about the CMO [e-mail] hi everyone, it's Jim. I'm here with Matt Spiegel, EVP of True Audience Growth Strategy at TransUnion. Matt, you've spent your career helping marketers understand people through data, and that's harder.

[Interviewer/Host]

And more important now than ever.

[Matt Spiegel]

It really is, Jim. There's really just so much information out there and unfortunately it's often disconnected. Marketers typically see fragments, you know, maybe a purchase here or a click there, but what need is clarity? True full picture of who their customers are and ultimately how to reach them.

[Jim Stengel]

Well, tell me how your solution strategy.

[Interviewer/Host]

Comes in and helps CMOs and their teams bring clarity to chaos.

[Matt Spiegel]

Well, Jim, we ultimately do that with a 360 view of the customer. And so it's about ultimately combining data, truly trusted data, identity resolution, which is a deep analytical problem, and measurement that actually helps understand performance. So ultimately we work hard to help marketers move faster, to deepen their insights and and to ultimately make every dollar work harder. We believe strongly that when you truly understand your audience, you can build a real brand and real relationships with customers that last.

[Jim Stengel]

Well said, Matt. Learn [e-mail] clarity that's transunion.com clarity so it's Jim here and I have Matt Spiegel with Transunion They're a great partner of the CMO podcast.

[Interviewer/Host]

I want to know a bit more about your company. What's so special about it?

[Matt Spiegel]

Yeah, you know, our heritage in identity resolution, which really is a hardcore data analytics problem, is at the end of the day, what drives our differentiation? We provide the types of insights and underpinning of great marketing. If you want to be people based, you need the type of data and identity resolution that we have. We tie it to measurement, we try to audience insights. That's all pretty critical.

[Jim Stengel]

To be a great marketer, you have a great team.

[Interviewer/Host]

Tell me what you enjoy most about working with your team.

[Matt Spiegel]

Yeah, but it is a great team. You know what? A team of very passionate people that love helping great marketing happen. We have great data scientists, we have great product people, we have great client managers. It's a crew that really truly, day in, day out is working to figure out how to provide the knowledge that we have to to our clients.

[Jim Stengel]

Well said, Matt. Learn [e-mail] clarity that's transunion.com clarity last.

[Interviewer/Host]

Time we talked, you said the first brand that made an impact on you as a young boy was Vans.

[Don McGuire]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you stand by that?

[Don McGuire]

I stand by that. I'm a sneaker guy. So shoes have been always a part of my brand ethos.

[Interviewer/Host]

There another one.

[Don McGuire]

Maybe not just a young back in the day because it didn't exist back then, but a brand that is in my daily life that I literally could not exist without is Starbucks. And I don't drink coffee, which is even the weirdest thing. Right. I'm an ice cream tea guy. So every day I start out with a massive ice cream tea. There's one over there. And that's my ritual.

[Jim Stengel]

Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges along with how they try to build a full, healthy and happy life in.

[Interviewer/Host]

And out of the office.

[Jim Stengel]

And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders. So here we go. When you think about technology that connects our world. The phones in our hands, the cars we drive, the networks powering everything around us, there's a good chance Qualcomm is behind it. For nearly 40 years, Qualcomm has been the engine driving wireless innovation. From the early days of mobile to 5G AI, automotive and beyond. It's one of those rare companies whose breakthroughs quietly power modern life and they have been rewarded for this innovation. Annual revenue is about $40 billion and market cap is about 180 billion. My guest today is Don McGuire, the global chief Marketing Officer and Chief Communications Officer of Qualcomm. Don has been with the company since 2016, and since becoming CMO in 2021, he's helped turn Snapdragon into a global consumer brand and elevate a Qualcomm story from the tech behind the tech to one of the most respected names in innovation. Before Qualcomm, Don spent 25 years in and shaping the wireless ecosystem. From AT&T Wireless and intel to Kyocera, Leap Wireless and AMP Mobile. We recorded this conversation live at the ANA Masters of Marketing in Orlando powered by TransUnion, where Don had just come off another blockbuster Snapdragon summit in Hawaii. So here's my conversation with Don.

[Interviewer/Host]

Don. Hey, welcome to the CMO podcast again.

[Don McGuire]

Thank you for having me again.

[Interviewer/Host]

Hey, we're here at the A and A Masters. It's a big meeting, 2,500 people. Most of them come to the big presentations. You're doing one today in the afternoon, in a couple hours. So I want you to go there first with us. Are you nervous about it?

[Don McGuire]

You know, not really. Butterflies, you know, every time you get on stage there's a little bit of that. But a, when you know what you're talking about and you can tell a story and it's coming from your experiences and you've got passion for it. It all comes pretty naturally.

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, you're good in your feet. I've seen you many times. So it's. Yeah, it's just about being comfortable with what you're doing, right?

[Don McGuire]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer/Host]

So what's your topic today?

[Don McGuire]

I'm actually going to talk about how brand value drives business value. Oh, the age old sort of challenge that we have as marketers. And convincing oftentimes are the rest of the C suite or the organization in general. And then how, what is the recipe to actually prove that out as you go into sort of different marketing activities and initiatives. And then I'm going to use Snapdragon as the case study and so it'll be sort of a thread throughout. You know, I'm talking to a room full of marketers. So it's going to be more show, less tell. Yeah, but should Be. It should be pretty cool.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. You know, when the ANA opened up, I went to the A and A Growth Council, CMO Growth Council meeting and I sat in there and they talked about the challenges, the priorities they're tackling. The first one was proving the value of brand to financial value of the company and the results. So you're spot on what the Growth Council is working. And I still think with all the data we have and all the analytics, that's still an issue that some. So many companies are wrestling with. So the bottom line will be.

[Don McGuire]

The bottom line will be if you have the right. Which I'm not going to reveal here because I'm revealed on stage that, you know, ultimately what you're trying to do is drive resonance and resonance drives action. And then that action, you know, turns into results and then those results you can share back. Excuse me, share back with the organization. There's lots of tailwinds in our favor. I was just at the Interbrand 100 event last week in New York and the data that they shared with regards to the inner brand 100, you know, for example, over the last 20 plus years, the Interbrand 100 has outperformed the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 from A, from a business company, results perspectives. So I think that there's lots of tailwind data in our favor. I think we need to help ourselves. I think we need to stop talking performance versus brand. It's, you know, your brand has to perform. So if we can help ourselves, I think that's another thing we can do.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, yeah. Mark Pritchard said earlier in this meeting, is there any other kind of marketing other than performance marketing?

[Don McGuire]

Right. I mean, it's just like it's, it all has to have some sort of objective.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, that's right.

[Don McGuire]

So if we, I think we can help ourselves a little bit too.

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, you jumped up to what, the 39th most valuable brand and the inner brand.

[Don McGuire]

First time on the list in our 40 year history.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. So what's the that about? What do you think's behind that?

[Don McGuire]

Well, when I got the call, you know, a couple days before, I was, I was obviously pleasantly surprised and, and happy and validated from all the good work we've been doing. So inner brand tracks the company for three years before they're even eligible to be on the list. Once that sort of process is completed, then it's all about ranking and, and establishing those rankings. So the first question I asked to Gonzalo, who's the CEO of Interbrand I said, how did we get here? I mean, I kind of have an idea about BASIC on what we've been doing, but I like to hear, like, your methodology a little bit more. And it really came down to three things. You know, I'd say 60 to 70% of. Of it is what we've been doing with Snapdragon to build Snapdragon beyond a tech enthusiast brand to a household name. And that's. That was a major driver of it. Now, inner brand, if you make it on the list with Interbrand, it's. It's based on how financial reporting happens in your company. So Snapdragon as a brand would never show up at Interbrand 100 because we don't report financials on Snapdragon separately because it cuts across product categories and businesses. So Qualcomm obviously is the name on the, on the, on the list. So about 65 to 70% is the work we've been doing there. And then I think the other two things that he mentioned were our diversification strategy. The Interbrand 100 list this year is about companies who are entering new ecosystems, building new ecosystems and disrupting and driving transformation. And Qualcomm, we've been on this diversification journey for the past several years and it's working. And so it's proving out even in places like this. And then the third thing is our tremendous partnerships that we've announced over the last several years with Aramco and Meta and Microsoft, Microsoft, et cetera, and how we're partnering with some of the biggest companies in the world across different business sectors, things like that. All of that together kind of culminated in us popping on at number 39.

[Interviewer/Host]

Congratulations. It's great.

[Don McGuire]

Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

Hey, let's talk about this meeting before we jump into the interview. Do you come every year to the ana?

[Don McGuire]

It's my first time.

[Interviewer/Host]

Oh, really?

[Don McGuire]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Oh, wow.

[Don McGuire]

My first time.

[Interviewer/Host]

So tell me about that. Why'd you choose to come? You're invited to speak.

[Don McGuire]

Invited to speak. So I thought I've never been, you know, as a. As a CMO and as a marketer, there's a lot of things we can go to and participate in almost every weekend. You kind of have to just sort of prioritize. And, you know, I sit on the board of the AD Council, I'm on the Wall Street Journal, CMO Council as well, and some other things. So it was just a matter of up to this point, of just prioritization. And for me, timing is everything. Right. So I think we have a great story to tell. In this moment and that I think the audience will benefit from. And so I think this was a great year, you know, for me to show up as a speaker. As you said, you know, there's lots of challenges and uni opportunities that are facing marketers right now. And so I think participating in that conversation hopefully is helpful.

[Interviewer/Host]

Now when you think about you can go to a meeting every week in our industry.

[Jim Stengel]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Where do you feel like you learn the most? Like over the last year or two of meetings you go to?

[Jim Stengel]

Oh, wow.

[Don McGuire]

I mean, I learn a lot from my people, from my team, but as far as external sources, you know, there's been great forums. I have had the honor and privilege of being on the Forbes Top 50 CMO list for the past four years. And that event that Seth Matlins puts on is an amazing event. I learn a lot from my, from my colleagues there. And that is a big, big sponge moment for me over the course of the year through that network of CMOs that I've built. I don't hesitate to pick up the phone and call Emily Ketchum from Lenovo or call Craig Bromers from American Eagle and say, hey, like I saw you did this and this is, you know, it's really great work. You know, tell me about it. And I just sent Lorraine Tuhill from Google an email because I just love the new Pixel stuff that they've put out. And so that's another sort of constant exchange and dialogue and learning for me.

[Interviewer/Host]

I should pause on that. For our audience. That's a very powerful thing you just said. Not everyone thinks to do that. Right. And I think it is. We're not alone. So many people are wrestling with the same issues. You can learn so much from these people. They're happy to do it. Our industry is generally pretty generous.

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Interviewer/Host]

You know, so I just think when you're wrestling with something, think about someone else who may have the same kind.

[Jim Stengel]

Of issue or had the issue.

[Interviewer/Host]

Give them a call. It's just so good. It doesn't cost anything.

[Don McGuire]

It doesn't cost anything. It's great from a sort of a sounding board perspective and I value that tremendously.

[Interviewer/Host]

Let's talk about Snapdragon. I think that's what you're going to talk about on the big stage. But you know, it was launched in 2007, so it's an 18 year old brand or so. It's a huge brand. I know you don't report it separately, but everything I deduce and read about, it's a gigantic brand across your Various businesses. So could you talk a little bit about. Take us back to 2007. What was the insight or the catalyst to launch this new to the world brand, slash, brand name, sub brand, I guess, of Qualcomm. And take us a little bit through about how did you build it from nothing to a monster in a good way, a major driver of your growth?

[Don McGuire]

Well, it predates me actually. So I've only been at the company nine years total, same O for four. So the stewardship of the brand has been under my tutelage for four years prior to that. There is a lot of folklore about, you know, how did the brand just come to exist. And what I can tell you is that a long, long time ago, before my time, the company really transitioned from more of an IP technology licensing company to a product company. And with the advent of that, introduced its first kind of set of, of semiconductor chips. And they needed a name and the, the target market, the primary target market at that time was really Asia. And a lot of the customer base was there, whether it be China, Taiwan, Korea. And so they decided to use, I believe it was in a brand to do a name exploration to. And several things came to bear. One, dragons are very revered in folklore, especially in Asia. Snapdragon translates into Mandarin as xiaolong. It's like fast, you know, performance, fast dragon. The color red is very popular color. And our icon, our fireball is sort of the yin and the yang, the power performance thing. So it all kind of came together at that time. There was a little bit more focus on a dragon as a symbol of what Snapdragon is. We've kind of moved away from that except for in gaming. So it kind of, it got launched and I think whoever went through that process did a fantastic job and created a really cool looking, iconic piece of, you know, clay to mold Fast forward and in Snapdragon it sort of just kind of hummed along a little bit. And I think the company really, after creating it, really didn't know what to do with it because the company foundationally and fundamentally is an engineering and technology company and really didn't understand the value of brand or building the brand or what it meant to build the brand. They named it, they created a logo and they thought they were done for the most part.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah.

[Don McGuire]

So fast forward to I joined the company in 2016. Snapdragon was kind of experiencing very good sort of foundational awareness and affinity in Asia, but that was pretty much it. And that's the only place we did put it. We'd put any investment behind building it as a more consumer facing brand. And that was primarily with tech enthusiasts in Asia who tend to be more tech savvy anyway. But it was very unstructured and not purposeful. So it was kind of sitting there and I was really thinking, wow, this is powerful asset. There's more that we can do. And as we look to diversify and expand and grow where Snapdragon kind of lives, we're going to enter markets where we're not the leader, or it's not a greenfield opportunity where we're going to have competition. So the power of building this brand is really going to pay off for us. So before Cristiano became CEO and I became cmo, we had a conversation and I said, I really think that we need to focus on Snapdragon a lot more as we look towards what's the future of mobile, as we look towards other product categories, because I think it's going to be a really important component to our success. And he said, I agree, and I can't tell you how refreshing it is to have a CEO who is supportive of what you're trying to do. So sort of started formulating a plan to really bring Snapdragon to the light more. And that's where it all started. And then since then, it's been a tremendous journey of challenging, you know, the status quo with regards to investment portfolio and investment strategy, convincing the rest of my peers in the C suite as well as the company that it was worth spending the money and the time to do this and that there was going to be true results and building that credibility. And we've done that. We made another really, really important pivot about a year and a half, two years ago, when all this momentum and when Snapdragon started to be more well known around the world, where Cristiano came to me and said, I want Snapdragon to be a consumer brand and I want it to become a cultural icon.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's a good brief.

[Don McGuire]

And I was like, amazing. Do you really know what you just asked? Because that's a big thought. And I said, are you prepared to really do what it takes to get there? And I said, it's exciting. I mean, it's any cmos dream to have that be, you know, be asked of you. But, you know, it's, it's a lot. And from a company who couldn't spell the word brand seven, eight years ago, it's a lot, A lot. But he's been committed and excited and that really took us to the next level. And that's where you, what you see today over the past four years, all the work that we've put into. That's why Snapdragon Summit is what it is today. That's why we have like 50 million views of an event every year by just the general public, because they're interested in seeing what we're doing. And of course the number one challenge is you can't walk into a store and buy a Snapdragon. So how do I take that? You know, five and a half years of experience at intel, you know, with the Intel Inside playbook that I learned and knew very, very well, but put it in the context of something much bigger, which is our opportunity with Snapdragon, and kind of create a 2.2.0 version of that. And that's what we've been doing.

[Jim Stengel]

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[Interviewer/Host]

Well, it's a great name, as you said. It really is. And talk a bit about the brand character of Snapdragon.

[Don McGuire]

Sure.

[Interviewer/Host]

Every brand obviously has an attitude, a tone, a point of view, a voice. So talk about that because I think you have managed that pretty well.

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, One of the things that we needed to bring, as I mentioned, the brand was sort of unstructured and undisciplined. We had to bring some structure in, architecturally speaking, to how we were going to build success. So first we had started with the fundamentals brand ethos. You know, what is Snapdragon? What does it stand for? Who is it in service of? And then how do we show up in the world and tell our story? So we Start off with some great assets, right? Everyone loves a good icon, and we have a tremendous icon. The Fireball is a tremendous icon. And our ultimate goal is to have the Fireball stand on its own. And whenever you see that Fireball, you know it's Snapdragon. Because one of the challenges we have is Snapdragon's kind of a long name. So when you put the Fireball and Snapdragon together, spatially speaking, it could be challenging at times, but we really love it in general. But we had to build a brand ethos. So we started out with, what's our sort of manifesto? What does it stand for? Who's it in service of? And we built from the past with a nod to the future, our signature red color. And we evolved that. We introduced a new color palette for the brand to kind of inject boldness and joyfulness, which is part of the ethos, into it and how we visually show up everything from our photography style to how we talk about it in copy. All that was formalized for the first time, and I call that Snapdragon 2.0. And we've been on the 2.0 sort of train for now about three and a half years. And we actually are just about to roll out 3.0, which is a refreshed brand ethos based on what we've learned over the past three or four years. And the good news is that it's evolving in a really, really compelling way. We're seeing all the really thoughtfulness that we worked with with our agency partners as well as the internal team to put together kind of the meaning of this whole thing really pay off and where it shows up. And it's really cool because it lives in multiple product categories, right? So at a macro level, it has to stand for something that people can understand and people can rally behind. But then in its instances, it also has to be very, very the steward of product truth, whether it's in your car or in your phone or in your PC or in your glasses or in your watch. And so we have to bring that context as well. It's been challenging and fun, and we really like where we're headed. And, you know, we're seeing the fruits of our labor will pay off not only in business metrics, but also in recognition, like Brand Z. For the first time. Snapdragon showed up this year as well at number 38 on Brand Z, which is phenomenal. And then, of course, we talked about Interbrand, so that's been great. And then from a business perspective, you know, my finance team could not be happier that the pull that we've created with Snapdragon in product categories like smartphone has enabled Us to increase ASPs, to maintain healthy margins and to grow market share.

[Interviewer/Host]

That's what a brand does, right?

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, that's what a brand is.

[Interviewer/Host]

You know, as you're speaking, I'm thinking of Rocket and Jonathan Mildenhall's impact there. You know, he went there. I don't know, it's been two years, maybe year and a half. And I've watched online a lot of the videos of him internally as well as externally, kind of restaging, renewing the ethos and the attitude and the tone of voice of Rocket. And it's been very positive, very energetic, good for the business. But actually, I think there's a lot of parallels with what you're doing with Snapdragon and what he and they are doing with Rocket.

[Don McGuire]

You know, and when you, when you continually evolve like Rocket has as well, you have to look at, like, new, you know, pieces of the puzzle that you might be missing. And then you have to understand kind of where generationally people are going with their attitudes and figure out, are you being left behind? Are you, are you tracking? Are you getting too far ahead? And one of the things that, again, is part of Our Snapdragon or 2.5, 3.0 Evolution is, you know, we are taking a cue from Gen Z, Gen Alpha, when it comes to brands with purpose. When you talk about affinity and loyalty, you know, it's not just good enough to have a great product anymore, especially with this with these generations, they want to feel good about their purchases and the brands they associate themselves with, and they want to feel like those brands are also doing good. And Snapdragon, because of who we are and the technology that we, we do a lot of good because we enable people all over the world to have access, ability to a technology and what that can do for them in their daily lives. So that in itself is amazing. It's an amazing story. But we also had to lean in. And so we went down this sort of purposefulness path a little bit with the brand and built some associations and some partnerships that kind of put an accentuation of that goodness. And again, it's just another aspect, another dimension of the brand that we've introduced in the last year and a half.

[Interviewer/Host]

What did you learn at intel that's been most useful for you in this process with Snapdragon?

[Don McGuire]

First and foremost is that, and I think ingredient brand is a dirty word. So I don't like using it. Can you can bring relevance and resonance to something that is less tangible and you can tell a story around that. And intel did that masterfully. Intel Inside was a masterful, you know, masterclass.

[Jim Stengel]

Yeah.

[Don McGuire]

Classic case study in marketing. Something that you can't buy. So I took a lot of the pages out of the Intel Insight playbook. And then I also learned a lot from the limitations of that story. That Intel Inside story was limited by product category. Intel as a company sort of missed a couple really key inflection points in the technology sort of revolution. And so over time, that opportunity became smaller and smaller and smaller and more verticalized. And then when you saw, you know, after building it and establishing it, they took their foot off the gas and started focusing more on performance. And you've seen sort of the degradation that has had. So understanding that, learning from that and making sure that we don't make the same mistakes or head down the same path, but what they've done to take the brand and then couple it with every part of whether it's a linear funnel exercise or a non linear funnel exercise was a masterclass for sure.

[Interviewer/Host]

I had you on the show about four years ago. You were a new cmo. You're in your first year as cmo. We had a great chat. This one's even better, by the way.

[Jim Stengel]

And my three takeaways, though, I look back on that.

[Interviewer/Host]

You talk about the need for marketing to be accountable for business results. You talked about how companies need to own their narrative, and we're speaking a lot about that right now. And you talk about how leadership and leaders need to evolve to build stronger skills and empathy. Now we're here four years later, you're a more experienced, more confident CMO because you've been in the war. How do those takeaways sound? Is that Don today as cmo, or would you add a few things to that?

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, I think progress has been made, but there's still a lot to do. You know, we were four years ago, we were just coming out of COVID I mean, I became CEO in 2021, so we were kind of still in the mess. I think the empathy piece of it is still really important, but the context is a little bit different. Things have shifted so much, and with the advent of AI, there's a whole new complex algorithm that goes into that equation. And as we transform marketing, and as we're all talking about it here at A and A and just pretty much everywhere over the past year, how AI is going to transform marketing or the use of AI will transform marketing and the discipline. Empathy is going to be even more important because people are scared and there's lots of fear out there about what is it? Is AI going to take my job? Is it going to replace my skills? So empathy is going to be. As we go on this journey together and individually empathy is going to be continue to be really important. And it's not about like getting you out of your, your locked down house and into, back into society empathy. It's or because you are locked down in your house and you have no contact with anybody, to empathy about upskilling job retraining and showing the benefits and integrating the benefits of AI into your workflows so that it seems more natural and less daunting. So I think that empathy still applies, but in different contexts. Accountability is still something really, really important. I think we're still on that journey of convincing the rest of the C suite about the importance of the discipline as a business driver. But we've made a lot of progress and I think in some companies it's a lot easier because, you know, especially in like packaged goods and things like that, like the brand is the business, right. If Tide loses its brand cachet, you know, the business falls apart, for example, not that case in technology in some cases. So still on that journey, but a lot of progress has been made and I don't think we'd be able to do what we've been doing for the past three years if we hadn't built that credibility and if the company hadn't become believers in what we've done. We've made bold moves in the last three years, especially around partnerships. And our partnership with Manchester United was a bold move and I would have put a 5% probability on that whole partnership actually coming to fruition when I first engaged with them on the topic. And the fact that we pushed that boulder up the hill and got over the finish line is a testament to progress that we've made. So, you know, a lot of boldness has come into play since I started that. I, I didn't really know how it manifests itself at the beginning, but I knew we had to do something.

[Interviewer/Host]

I do want to talk with you primarily today, with the rest of our time about sports. Actually, you just took us there. And I also do want to talk about AI, because I heard you speak about AI at a meeting at Deloitte with CMOS a couple months ago and it was a fabulously useful talk. So I want to go there. But first on sports. I mean, I've heard you say that it's become a very powerful platform to scale Snapdragons awareness. And you said Manchester United, but you're a Formula One drive to survive the LIV Golf Tour. I mean, you're in a lot of places. So we didn't talk about that four years ago.

[Don McGuire]

That's true.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right.

[Don McGuire]

And you said it didn't really exist.

[Interviewer/Host]

Right, right. So I want you to go there. Why did you have that awakening? I mean, sports is a major part of your platform and your brand now. So how did you come to that? How do you feel about it? Is it working for you? What could others learn?

[Don McGuire]

It all starts with how and where do we want to show up with the brand and how do we attach ourselves to people, our audiences, in a compelling way that's relevant to them. So instead of just talking about technology for technology's sake, or speeds and feeds and specs and things like that and features and benefits, what Snapdragon really does is it enables people to explore their passions and experience their passions in very compelling ways. If we are inside your phone, you know, we make, you know, your pictures look better, we make your music sound better, we make your ability to watch your favorite team in 8K better. And so we really kind of create these experiences that people sort of are manifesting themselves in their passions. And people love art and love photography and they love music and they love sports, and that's where they find affinity in their lives and that's where their passions lie. So we decided to attach ourselves and the brand to people's passions, sports being one of them. I'm a big believer that people feel passionate about players and teams, not so much leagues. So that's where we've gone with our sports partnerships, mostly at the team level, in the case of Bryson at the player level, although he is a team too, with the Crushers. But that's where we started in sports. And then to your point, we wanted to align those sports activities with where we saw business opportunity to build more brand affinity for Snapdragon with different audiences across sport.

[Interviewer/Host]

And it's working. I mean, it's still in the early days. I mean, how do you measure if it's effective?

[Don McGuire]

Is it qualitative?

[Interviewer/Host]

Quantitative?

[Don McGuire]

I'm going to share some data today.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay.

[Don McGuire]

Our first year of being in the front of shirt partner with Manchester United. I mean, again, I mentioned earlier, we knew this was a big deal. You know, it's an. It's a large investment on an annual basis. And, you know, they, they presented me with the numbers, you know, and that was part of the business case to getting it there. But then the results that we've seen after the first year have just blown my mind. I knew this was one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in sport. I didn't know how valuable until we got the results after our first year. And this is with a team that isn't really doing very well on the pitch. But it almost doesn't matter because when you're partnered with a brand like Manchester United, their brand ethos is so big. They're a global sports brand. They're arguably the largest global sports brand in the world by so many different metrics. 1.1 billion fans around the world. It's not just about Manchester, it's not about the uk. It's about their brand affinity around the world and what that can do for Snapdragon globally. So it brings us massive scale and reach for the brand. It allows us a massive storytelling platform to do amazing things and create amazing content. And I mentioned on stage today that after season one, 9.5 billion impressions for Snapdragon, which is the ave equivalent of 182 Super bowl ads in one season.

[Interviewer/Host]

Wow.

[Don McGuire]

With a team that ended up 12th in the premier League. Pretty phenomenal. Upwards of almost a half a billion video views of the content that we've did with the club. Our launch video with Eric Cantona was the most watched piece of Manchester United content for a front of shirt launch in history of the club.

[Interviewer/Host]

So what's driving that's how you're doing it too, right?

[Don McGuire]

Well, yeah, I mean it's. It comes down to execution and it comes down to the recipe I talk about in my conversation today on stage is it's really about knowing your audience, providing context, making it relevant, driving that resonance to action. And so I've shared some stats on stage today as well. About, you know, 85% of, of of Manchester United fans are aware of Snapdragon. Think it, you know, think it's an amazing technology, provides premium performance and has genuine love for the brand. That's critical.

[Interviewer/Host]

That's only after a year or two.

[Don McGuire]

That's only after a year of being in front of. Sure, partner.

[Interviewer/Host]

You set a tough benchmark.

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing. So those KPIs and those stats and the results that we've seen have been phenomenal. And you know, we're not stopping there. Another thing that we've done is we've tried to drive innovation into our contracts. You know, there's these standardized store sponsorship kind of deals that people do and you know, you're basically exchanging money for assets. But we wanted to build some innovation into the contract and with, with the cooperation and collaboration of the folks at Manchester United, we were able to do things like once every season we can choose a cause of our choice and replace the Snapdragon logo with that causes and drive a whole storytelling platform around that. I talked about brand with purpose before. That's one avenue and asset now that we have to tell that part of the Snapdragon story. So that's phenomenal. And I share the Red case study on stage today and the partnership with Red that we had this season, which was a huge success. We also have pass through rights. You know, Snapdragon, it lives inside of so many amazing products from amazing brands and I have amazing brand partners and as part of the marketing mix, I market with them and alongside them. And so I wanted to be able to bring them into our world. So I have pass through rights in the product categories that I own. So I can bring a Samsung in on the smartphone side, I can bring a Dell in on the PC side and we can storytell together and I can help them get more value and attach them to themselves, to this brand ethos that we're building between Manchester United and Snapdragon. That's another piece of innovation that most sponsorship agreements do not include. That has been super, super productive for us and providing more value to our partners, which has been great. So those are some of the things that we've done. We've done that with our partnership with Mercedes in Formula One, which the advent of that was really about our growth in automotive and other things that we've done. So it is working. We're trying to drive innovation in it. We're trying to look at things differently and how we exploit these partnerships. And then we also are very committed to making sure our technology is helping our partner as well. So it's helping the Manchester United football club become a better Manchester United Football club through the use of technology. It's helping Mercedes, amg, Formula One become a better team through the use of our technology. And we think that's really important. It's a sort of two way partnership.

[Interviewer/Host]

That's a fabulous story. I mean, what is normally a transaction and a contract that is transactional into a creative, innovative partnership? Yeah.

[Don McGuire]

And we're always learning from others. I mean, I got to give credit where credit is due. I think what Meta has done with WhatsApp, and they're also a Mercedes partner alone, what they've done with their partnership with Mercedes is Incredible. And with the storytelling platforms of the Netflix documentary on Kimmy Antonelli and how he won the seat on driving the car down Fifth Avenue, New York with Lewis and that was really, really amazing innovation and how they structured their relationship with Maurice to be able to do that I was a little envious of, to be honest with you. And as we're looking at our continuation with the team, we're looking at building some of that into our contractual partnership as well.

[Interviewer/Host]

Everyone seems to be chasing the next.

[Jim Stengel]

Big thing, the fastest answer, the quickest win. But great. CMOs believe the real power isn't in the speed. It's in stepping back to see the bigger picture. That's why everything Deloitte does in their CMO program, from their industry leading capabilities to their connected network of CMOs, is designed to help you zoom out and gain fresh perspective. Deloitte will help you see the bigger picture together. Learn more about the CMO [e-mail].

[Interviewer/Host]

You talk about passions to align your brand with sports is a big one. You throw out some other ones. Is there a second area you think is really rich for you as a brand to be part of?

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, music is really rich for us. We've done a lot of things we've dabbled in. We had a partnership with Live Nation, done some things there. We have our Snapdragon Sound Studio series that we've done. We've done some things with Iheart in the past. We haven't really nailed something that think is long term. So we're continuing to learn in that area. But we've brought music into our other partnerships. We just did a collab with Manchester United and the artist Kaleo for the second season launch of the Furniture where we happened to connect the dots between Kaleo, who's an amazing band from Iceland, who's a huge Manchester United fan, the lead singer and he's always wanted to perform at Old Trafford and so we brought that together with the front of shirt launch. There is a song that United fans love. It is a rewording of Country Roads. So he did a cover of that, played it on the pitch in Old Traffic.

[Interviewer/Host]

Pretty good.

[Don McGuire]

Very, very good. And it was all shot on Snapdragon and then we released that as part of the second season. So we've kind of intermixed things together. We like to cross pollinate our partnership. So that was super compelling. So music definitely. And then with photography or videography or just the whole art of creation that again, devices that are powered by Snapdragon can bring a creator's ideation process to another level and the delivery to another level. We are actually launching Snapdragon Studios. So we're going to be producing original content in partnership with Live Nation, Sony Pictures, and we're going to give a go at a studio.

[Interviewer/Host]

Physical space.

[Don McGuire]

Virtual and physical.

[Interviewer/Host]

Virtual and physical. Yeah. Super. Now, I was with you, I think, in August, it was late August outside Dallas at Deloitte's University. The training center. It's an academy they do for next generation cmos. Great program. And I heard you speak about your thought about AI in your organization in terms of skills training, putting it at the center of where you're going. And it was a beautifully told story, massively helpful for the audience. So I'd like you to tell us a little bit about how you have thought about your organization with this unbelievable technology. And you talked about the empathy skills have shifted and I agree with that. But it was a, it was a really wonderful story you told. So if you could just go how you're thinking about your organization, setting it up, the right design work structure for the future.

[Jim Stengel]

Sure.

[Don McGuire]

Well, I mean, we've been going down this path that I think a lot of marketing organizations and CMOs have been going down, which is the introduction of AI tools. And so you have your existing organization and how it works and your existing workflows, and then you have these AI tools and they were kind of almost sitting side by side and then you were trying to connect the dots wherever possible. Oh, this tool is great for copy development. We're going to plug it in here. Oh, this tool's great for video editing. We're going to plug it in here. And we decided to like, take a pause on that for a second. And again, after consulting with some of my CMO friends, I was at a lunch with Jonathan Attishack from IBM. We were chatting and he was like, this is what I'm doing. I'm blowing up my organization. I'm putting AI at the center. I'm building a systems architecture and then I'm reorganizing my, my, my team around that. And I was like, wow, that's pretty cool. I think I'm gonna do that. So I came back from that conversation and we started down a marketing evolution exercise path where we are working with partners and our internal team and we are building a systems architecture where AI is not a set of tools that sit over here, but there's an AI systems architecture that is a foundational layer, then building workflows on top of that. And process on top of that and then people around that. And we call it AI powered, human led. And so that's the tagline we came up with for the internal team to market it to my marketing team. Really, it is AI powered and human led. And in the middle of the process right now, we hope to roll out kind of phase one in January. But it's a really new way of looking at this that we, I feel, will yield not only a better incorporation and integration of AI into the marketing discipline, but it will eliminate a lot of the fear because it will come with filling gaps, upskilling training, and making sure that AI is truly helpful in the process of marketing and not friction driven or friction creator. So that is how we're approaching it. And so far, so good. We are almost complete with the systems architecture piece. And that's also been a great exercise on its own because, you know, we've been trying tools, we've been experimenting with stuff, but we didn't have everything figured out. And we've been working with a company called Proficient and they've been helping us kind of fill in those, those gaps with maybe the tools that we have are, can be expanded upon or maybe there's a new tool that we need or whatever to kind of fill in that, that architecture. And that's been going well as in combination with the other pieces of the puzzle. But I have a great team who's working on it and I'm excited about what the results are going to be.

[Interviewer/Host]

I was very impressed when I heard you speak last time about the, the discipline and intentionality of the training and the inclusion of people and the phases of training. One is, you know, general training on AI and then on some of the tools that are an important part of your future.

[Don McGuire]

Right.

[Interviewer/Host]

Could you speak a bit about that? It's a real commitment to your people.

[Don McGuire]

It's a real commitment. And obviously being a company that's in the business of AI as well as trying to integrate AI, we had to get on things pretty quickly. And so we have an AI council at Qualcomm. I'm on that council. Any new tool or any new AI kind of thought is kind of brought through the council and vetted for safety and enterprise readiness and all sorts of criteria. And once it gets through, right, then we go into test and learn or eval and then scale. So it starts there. So every Qualcomm employee has to go through AI training and that's primarily driven by legal, which is sort of the do's and don'ts and don't be dropping IP and proprietary code into ChatGPT. That's a no, no. And so everyone has to start there. And then we have our individual tool training. A good example is with Rider. Rider is a tool that I've deployed broadly. It's even now being deployed outside of marketing because people are seeing how valuable it is across the organization. The Rider team has been phenomenal on helping us train our people, but also make the most out of their platform. We've created like 25 custom apps. We are now moving into agents in their agentic platform and rolling that out as sort of a first mover. And we're saving about 2,400 hours a month by just deployment and use of the tool. Kind of with our super users. On top of the AI training, we sort of do this super user FOMO type of thing where we pick some key people, we get them using the tools, they see how useful and helpful it is, they evangelize, and then people are like, oh, I want that too. And that's how we build scale adoption throughout the organization in a kind of natural way. And it's worked so far. And now we're going to again enter this bigger transformational phase of this. And that's where we'll increase the upskilling piece of the puzzle as well, because there'll be things like brand governance, which in the future, based on this architecture, 99% of it will be done by AI. And so if you've got multiple people doing brand governance, do you really need those people doing brand governance or do you need one person who spends a little bit of the time loading the rules into and updating those rules when they need to be updated, but then you can redeploy those other resources into other things. And so that's really where we're at today.

[Interviewer/Host]

Now, for the CMOs listening to this, what's the biggest lesson? If they want to do what you are doing and you were inspired by IBM, you're doing it. It seems to be going well. What's the biggest lesson you would share with them?

[Don McGuire]

Make sure you know what your objective is. So my objective and Jonathan's objective were different. I happen to be severely under resourced marketing organization from a human capital perspective. So I'm really using this exercise to scale my capabilities. I like to say the world moves at the speed of TikTok. It's really hard to keep up. I could add 500 people to my organization and still not be able to keep up. So for me, it's a scaling exercise. I have to keep up with the pace of the business, our diversification, new things, and I'm not going to be able to grow my labor force the same rate as needed. So AI is going to be a scale tool. In some cases it will be a tool to become more efficient. In some marketing organizations where size is a problem or size has created slowness or bureaucracy, your objectives might be different. So my objective and Jonathan's, although we're deploying the same philosophy, are different and that's okay. So just understanding your objective, I think is number one. How is this going to help you and your organization? And in my case it's really about scale go, which is less scary, I'll admit. And so I think the one takeaway is like start with a really solid objective going into it, and then customize, you know, your process around that.

[Andrea Sullivan]

Hi everybody. I'm Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive and we have produced the CMO podcast with Jim Stengel for many years. And I'm sitting in his seat right now. It's so exciting. I wanted to tell you a little bit about one of our programs. It's called Vive by Vayner. It's a 12 month program that's designed for C suiters and founders. And we want to help people to grow their businesses, but also to grow themselves. And so we bring in people from Shark Tank to talk to our founders, but we also focus on wellness. We want to make sure that people are leaning into becoming their best selves, their best and happiest selves. So if you are someone that wants to learn how to grow your business and grow yourself, check us out at Vive Co. That's V Y V E Co. We'd love to talk to you.

[Interviewer/Host]

I want to move to the creative brief. No time remaining. Your brand is 40 years old or your company is 40 years old this year. Are you having a birthday cake? You're doing anything?

[Don McGuire]

We did an appropriate, I think amount of celebration we had in New York in May. We had like a 40th anniversary celebration at Nasdaq and then we hosted some partners and some media at a cocktail reception in Manhattan where we rolled out 1985 when the company was founded. So I keep. I love that song, you know, by bowling for soup. 1985. So we basically showed technology from 85 and then technology today. So it was a fun interactive experience. You know, we had like video games in 1985 versus video games today. We had computers and things like that. So it was, it was interesting. Then we, for the Employee base. We've had regional celebrations all over the world throughout the summer. And then we had a big celebration in San Diego in September at Snapdragon Stadium where we invited the entire employee base to come and celebrate the 40 years of history. We rolled out some cool new technology. Like we had a, you know, humanoid robot walking around and we had a bunch of other stuff. And then Cristiano, we had our founder Erwin Jacob come and speak, who's 91 now. It was just a really fun time. Sense of pride for everybody and it's good to celebrate these things. We didn't go crazy, but it was the right amount of celebration.

[Interviewer/Host]

Last time we talked, you said the first brand that made an impact on you as a young boy was Vans.

[Don McGuire]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Host]

You stand by that?

[Don McGuire]

I stand by that. I'm a sneaker guy. So shoes have been always a part of my brand ethos.

[Interviewer/Host]

There another one.

[Don McGuire]

Maybe not just a young back in the day because it didn't exist back then, but a brand that is in my daily life that I literally could not exist without.

[Jim Stengel]

Starbucks.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, Starbucks. Same word.

[Don McGuire]

Well, every day, pretty much every day, no matter where I am in the world, my ritual is I. And I don't drink coffee, which is even the weirdest thing. Right. I'm an ice cream tea guy. I love their ice cream tea. So every day I start out with a massive ice cream tea. There's one over there and that's my ritual. And yeah, I could go to a Coffee Bean or a different place or Pete's, but it's not the same.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. So you're a real brand fan. They have a CEO who just had his one year anniversary, Brian Nichol, who came from Chipotle's friend X, P and G guy. How do you think he's doing?

[Don McGuire]

From what I can tell, I think he's making a lot of really, really good, positive decisions to move the brand and the company in the right direction. He's got different challenges, obviously. He's got a massive retail sales force or people force and all the challenges and opportunities that comes along with that. He's got stores he needs to complete, you know, continue to modernize and update and keep up with trends and consumer behavior and their and how people want to buy and consume things. I think pulling back the menu a little bit and kind of creating more purposefulness to it, I think is a good thing. Got a little wild, I think, and really confused the baristas and made it really complex and. And I think he's found the right balance there. If you look at the results, and you look at some of the recent press I've read and some of the interviews I've listened to of him, it sounds like he's applying a really good recipe for success. Yeah. A good playbook.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's interesting. I think their stories changed shortly after he became CEO. Absolutely. The content they put out was more about who they are.

[Don McGuire]

Yeah. They went back to their roots.

[Interviewer/Host]

They did. Yeah. It's almost a rallying cry internally, I think.

[Jim Stengel]

Yeah.

[Don McGuire]

And which I think doing that, like going back to your. You know, to the heart and soul of who you are. By the way, that's before you even start to deploy audience metrics and context and relevance, you have to know who you are as a brand. And when things start to go awry, when you start to deviate from that. And we've seen that recently in a couple examples.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, we sure have.

[Don McGuire]

That we all can probably articulate. Where things just go south really fast, by the way, it's never been more important to know who you are.

[Interviewer/Host]

Mark Pritchard, my successor, CMO at P&G's been there a long time. He was chairman of the ana. There was a switch that was announced yesterday. That was his talk yesterday. He went through several P and G brands. Back to its roots, back to its core. Showed some of the original ads.

[Don McGuire]

Wow.

[Interviewer/Host]

And how. Obviously, times have changed, but they stayed true to the spirit of the founder and founding of the brand.

[Don McGuire]

Yeah, for sure. And it's challenging, as you like. Even with us as Snapdragon peers in more product categories, how do you stay true to that brand ethos? But put it in the context of that product category and it's a challenge. I mean, it's not necessarily easy all the time, but it's also not unachievable if you're disciplined. And it's easy to be distracted. It really is. In this world, it's really easy to get distracted. Sure is. And sometimes people want to pull you in a direction and you have to say no. Right. And it's not as easy as it sounds.

[Interviewer/Host]

You live in San Diego. What's your favorite hack in San Diego or your favorite place to be?

[Don McGuire]

My favorite place to be is El Pueblo Taco Shop.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, good.

[Don McGuire]

My favorite Mexican food place in San Diego.

[Interviewer/Host]

Favorite activity outdoors.

[Don McGuire]

You know, I love going to the beach.

[Interviewer/Host]

What's your favorite beach?

[Don McGuire]

Usually go to 21st street in Del Mar. Yeah, that's just since I was a kid, because I grew up in Solana beach. So, you know, I'm a local. That's kind of my favorite. I just love touching down. I mean, I travel a lot for work, and I. But I always love touching down in San Diego and walking out of the terminal and just exhaling.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's a good feeling.

[Don McGuire]

It's a good feeling.

[Jim Stengel]

And Terminal 1's open now.

[Don McGuire]

That's right. Finally, the airport's less of a nightmare.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. So we're here at the A and A. Bob Liudi is the CEO. He always ends every onstage. You'll experience this today. When you're finished, he gets on stage, asks you a few questions. But his last question is, what's your advice to the audience to do when they return to work? So I want to kind of ask that of you here in this small setting. I mean, you're an amazing cmo.

[Don McGuire]

Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'm not just saying that. I think what this discussion has been rich. You're more confident than when I talked to you four years ago. You're having fun.

[Don McGuire]

I have some battle scars.

[Jim Stengel]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

But I mean, I think you're really thriving in this role.

[Don McGuire]

Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

So I think your answer to that question, I think, is an interesting one for our audience. So as you think about all of your experiences since you've been cmo, what we've talked about today, what's one thing you'd love the audience to think about? Ponder. Consider adapting from what we've just talked about.

[Don McGuire]

I would say if it's, hey, what are you going to do when you go back to work tomorrow? Whatever. Don't panic and just take things one step at a time. It's easy to panic, but, you know, we're not curing cancer. I wish we were. I mean, our technology can do a lot, but, you know, just take things one step at a time. It's going to be okay.

[Interviewer/Host]

I love it. Don. Thank you. And all the best on the big stage.

[Don McGuire]

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me again.

[Jim Stengel]

I try to be there.

[Don McGuire]

Yeah.

[Jim Stengel]

And cheer you on.

[Don McGuire]

I appreciate that.

[Jim Stengel]

So thanks.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's a real gift.

[Don McGuire]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Jim Stengel]

That was my conversation with Don McGuire. Three takeaways from that one. First, brand must perform. Kill the brand versus performance debate. Don stance is blunt. Stop separating brand and performance. Your brand has to perform. Tie every initiative to a clear objective, build resonance that drives action, and show the business results. Brand building is a growth lever, not a side quest. Takeaway number two, scale without losing the core. As Snapdragon shows up in more categories. The job is to protect the brand ethos while adapting to context. It's easy to get distracted or pulled off course. The discipline is knowing who you are, evolving intentionally and saying no when directions don't fit the brand's character and product truth. And third takeaway Build and use our generous CMO network. You're not alone. Don actively taps into peers at places like Google and American Eagle, picking up the phone to swap learnings, pressure test ideas, and borrow playbooks. Our industry is generous. When you're wrestling with an issue, call someone who can help you. Who's tackled it is going through a similar experience. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO Podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive Original production. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own.

[Interviewer/Host]

And do not reflect the opinions of.

[Jim Stengel]

Our sponsors or its personnel. Nor do our sponsors advocate or endorse.

[Interviewer/Host]

Any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.