← The CMO Podcast
The CMO Podcast
What Racing Wienermobiles Can Teach Every Marketer with Todd Kaplan (Kraft Heinz)
00:43:43
Loading summary
Transcript153 lines
- [00:00]
Jim Stengel
I spent years at Procter and Gamble trying to answer that question. We had the creative, we had the reach, we had campaigns that genuinely stop people. And then we watched that value quietly disappear somewhere between the moment of engagement and the proof of a business result. That gap between attention and action is where most media budgets go to die. And most digital media platforms have been content to live inside it, just a little upstream from accountability. Infilion is the company that decided to close it. They started as the original attention company, built on the idea that a consumer choosing to engage, engage with an ad is worth more than one who ignores it. But they did not stop there. They have built the infrastructure to connect the moment of attention to the proof of action across every screen, every format, every vertical. That is not a feature. That is a fundamentally different idea of what an ad platform should be. And it is the one brands have been waiting for. Learn more in the show Notes. If you are a chief Marketing officer in consumer products, I want you to think about something for a moment here. You have creative that works. You have campaigns that capture attention. But somewhere between that moment and the register, the signal gets lost. You cannot see what actually drove the sale. You are making optimization decisions on inference, not truth. Well, that changed in February. Infilion acquired Catalina. Four decades of deterministic purchase intelligence. 130 million US households, 70 retail banners, $600 billion in verified annual consumer spending. And here is what really matters. Over 90% of consumable purchases still happen in store. Infilion and Catalina together can close the loop from digital advertising to inlane purchase and incentivize the next one. This is not a measurement tool you consult after the campaign. This is a live signal that runs through your media while the campaign is in flight. You can now optimize from attention to action in real time against people whose actual purchase behavior you know. A consumer product's brand needs return on ad spending. It needs foot traffic. Infilion now delivers all of it. Not as separate vendors. You reconcile later as one connected platform. That is what closing the gap looks like.
- [02:09]
Todd Kaplan
I would look at a lot of marketing, look at classical music, and you look at jazz. A lot of it's jazz at the end of the day. And by that I mean classical music. There's the sheet music, what goes where, how you prepare, all of that. And of course you're going to have your brand strategy. You have to brief the agency. You got to do this right. But then the jazz, you're improvising a little in real time. And so as something happens in culture, you have 48 hours to react. You're not briefing an agency, waiting for a deck, going three rounds. You're picking up the phone, you're getting on, you're texting people. You're just working it out. And the secret sauce is really making sure it's all based on real consumer truths and insights.
- [02:43]
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 and out of the office. 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. Six Wienermobiles, one racetrack, thousands of fans, and one of the most memorable marketing ideas of the year. If that sounds a little crazy, you're going to really love today's conversation. My guest this week is Todd Kaplan, Chief marketing Officer of Kraft Heinz, a company whose brands are probably sitting right now in your pantry. As one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, Kraft Heinz has a portfolio that includes Heinz, of course, Oscar Mayer, Kraft Mac and Cheese, Philadelphia cream Cheese, Lunchables, Velveeta, Jell O, and dozens of other household brands. The company generates more than $26 billion in annual revenue, operates in more than 190 countries, and reaches millions of consumers every day through more than 70 brands across over 50 categories. Todd joined Kraft Heinz in August 2024 as Chief Marketing Officer for North America after spending nearly two decades at PepsiCo, where he helped shape brands including Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and Bubbly. Since arriving at Kraft Heinz, Todd's been leading one of the industry's most ambitious company transformations, building a culture that moves at the speed of creativity. Recorded live at Cannes Lions in the Infilion Cafe. Tune in for a conversation with a CMO who reminds us that the biggest ideas don't always start with the biggest budgets. They sometimes start with six wiener mobiles on a racetrack. Here's Todd.
- [04:41]
Steve
Well, welcome back to the CMO podcast. Now, you've been on the show before, but you have not been on since joining Kraft Heinz just to go. And you've been through a bit of a crazy road, right? You were going to split and you didn't. You Have a new CEO who seems to be amazing.
- [04:56]
Todd Kaplan
Yep.
- [04:56]
Steve
You've got a Public number of $600 million to invest in the business. Consumer trends are shifting. So what I want to talk to you about to start with is you are a team builder. You're a people person. That's been a red thread in your career. So what have you done in this volatility to keep your teams energized, confident, excited?
- [05:20]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah, I mean at the, at the end of the day it's, there's a lot that goes into that because it's. Every organization always goes through reorgs and changes and all sorts of dynamics, but the, the amount of the transformation that we need to go through and are currently starting to go through at Kraft Heinz is significant. That's actually one of the things that drew me here, frankly from PepsiCo was I'm a builder by trade and I liked the idea that all these brands, we have 70 brands in North America across more than 50 categories. Some of these brands are 100, 150 years old. And just the opportunity to get to rebuild, reimagine some of these with the team is just such a, a great and fun and inspiring challenge. And so trying to get all the associates, all the people at the company during all of the change that's going on. You have some people who've been here for 10, 15 years, seen the whole 3G area, some people who just coming in for the last two, three years, trying to kind of bring some fresh perspective and it's really trying to unite everybody behind one common vision of what we're really trying to do. And the great news is you mentioned, Steve, our new CEO is, you know, we want to become a brand led company. At the end of the day, this idea that is this great quote that a brand is a promise and a great brand is a, a promise realized.
- [06:32]
Steve
Right.
- [06:33]
Todd Kaplan
And so at the end of the day, it's trying to build these brands the right way, the foundations, getting the, getting them connected in culture, all the fun things we've been doing. And listen, it's been a journey, but we're having a blast doing it and putting out some good work. And you're starting to see the business, most importantly is starting to turn as well.
- [06:50]
Steve
Is there anything you've done? I mean, you're an experienced person, anything in the last year, year and a half with all this change, but you've amped up. I mean, are you communicating more?
- [06:59]
Jim Stengel
Do you have new rituals?
- [07:00]
Steve
Do you have new things you're doing, new leadership skills? You're stretching all the above.
- [07:05]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah, there's a lot. Part of it's on the capability building. We've been doing a lot there, just especially given kind of where, you know, the company was, I'd say, a number of years ago. We're bringing in new functional. We just brought in a chief design officer and design as a function. We brought in sports and entertainment. We just signed a deal with the NFL across 20 brands. You know, we're trying new things, portfolio marketing, bringing our portfolio together and doing things together. But it's not just about the skills, it's a lot about how we do it. You know, I have a lot of philosophies that I brought over. I hadn't formalized when I was over at PepsiCo, but I brought over to Kraft Heinz this idea, I call it a collaborativity. And it's really this idea of where you kind of break bread with your agency partners and cross functional people together, rolling up your sleeves in a room to kind of co create and build. And what it's enabled us to do is be much more agile, move at the speed of culture on a lot of things and develop a lot of really great work. That was candidly unbriefed. Right. It's not this very formal process. A lot of the times the agency client relationship is this very buying, selling, pitching, formal kind of thing. And so it's really flattens the level and playing field for everybody and is a lot of fun. And so we've been trying some things like that.
- [08:13]
Steve
Yeah, I've seen, watched a lot of posts that you've done over the last two years. I looked at a couple of videos. I feel, I mean, I've known you for a while.
- [08:22]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah. Yeah.
- [08:22]
Steve
I feel you seem more energized in this job than I think I've seen you. So is that fair? I mean, you love Pepsi. I know.
- [08:30]
Todd Kaplan
No, and listen, I'm always. Anyone who knows me, I'm like the.
- [08:33]
Steve
You're always energized.
- [08:34]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah, I'm like, they're like, yo, chill. Like, you know, I know I just had like three cups of coffee here before this interview too.
- [08:39]
Steve
So you're just right.
- [08:40]
Todd Kaplan
I'm just like, just wind me up and let's go. But I would say that the things that energize me, I'm energized by challenges. Right. And I like something that feels fresh and different and that you're building, like I said, from the ground up. And so what's really energizing to me is I Just I look across this portfolio of brands and there's 70amazing brands. Like I said that just this one needs a fresh coat of paint. This one needs new positioning, this one needs new product innovation. You know, we're doing the fundamentals, but also just bringing a creative lens to a lot of it. That's, that's a lot of fun.
- [09:14]
Steve
You were a long time Pepsi, what, 18, 19 years?
- [09:16]
Todd Kaplan
About 18 years, yeah.
- [09:17]
Steve
18 years. Our only two at Kraft Heinz. But I want to ask you, you know both cultures pretty well by now. What do you think is something that Pepsi could teach Kraft Heinz and vice versa?
- [09:28]
Todd Kaplan
I think what's interesting is that a lot of people like to bucket CPG. It's all CPG. And you know, from PNG, it's not all CPG.
- [09:35]
Steve
No, it's not. No, it's not.
- [09:36]
Todd Kaplan
There's some CPGs that manage to the bottom line and just play the cost game and do that. There's CPGs that go deep on brand, you know, and don't do enough of the other. And there's a lot in the middle. And I'd say the good news is both of these are in the middle, I would say. And that where they probably should be, what pepsi had, that PepsiCo had developed much more, was much more of this. There's such a heritage of these brands and culture in the way that they'd kind of connected with sports or entertainment and music. And you think of like Michael Jackson and the super bowl and these big iconic ads and so bringing that, you know, energy into this. And I'm a big, you know, culture junkie, as you know. And so bringing some of that energy into Kraft Heinz and some of our brands and finding ways to connect these brands that have 90% awareness and 96% household penetration like into people's just popping them into people's minds and salience is like it's just a very fun brief, you know. And on the flip side, I think what Kraft Heinz has done tremendously well is this idea of end to end management because there's full panels. They don't have the complexity of a bottling system like Pepsi has the distributors, which is a great thing. You know, a lot of people are really looking at both ends of the balance sheet right now and what's the bottom line, Top line, how we connect through, through E commerce and really pull the thread across. And so it's been a really great learning for me, but also stretching the team into new places and combining a lot of these things together, which I think we're we're just starting to hit our stride.
- [10:56]
Steve
How's the role different from what you had at Pepsi? The specific role?
- [11:00]
Todd Kaplan
This is a much bigger portfolio.
- [11:02]
Steve
Right.
- [11:02]
Todd Kaplan
And so you look at. And the complexity of this portfolio and that's. Go back to your earlier question on should we split? Should we. Not all those kind of.
- [11:09]
Steve
Yeah, it's a lot of categories. Yeah.
- [11:10]
Todd Kaplan
We have 70 brands across more than 50 categories. PepsiCo has two categories. Snacks, beverages, more than 50 categories. So the complexity, when you think of supply chain competitive, it resembles more of a PNG, honestly. PNG, I think it was probably like what, 12 or 13. Like.
- [11:24]
Steve
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [11:25]
Todd Kaplan
And so it's, it's highly complex. And then when you look at the, the resources to do it all, both financial resources and headcount, you, you were very lean still. And so we're, we're just back to the investing back in our business, trying get on our front foot and do it the right way.
- [11:39]
Steve
Yeah. You talked about the new CEO and I read a lot about him. He was pretty well covered when he got the job. He just seems like a wonderful person when I put it that. So I'd like you to talk about. You already said that. But what has his impact been on the company? What's his impact been on you? What kinds of things do you talk to him about? Because I just, I made a note of that when I read a big story about him. I said, next time I talk to Todd, I want to talk about this relationship with the CEO because he seems so right for your company right now.
- [12:08]
Todd Kaplan
He's been wonderful and I think he's done a great job since joining and it's been great just seeing, coming from where he's come from just for. He came from Kellogg's and did the split at Kellogg's and Kelanova and then they sold both companies. And so there was a lot. And coming in as the split guy, right. And then having the courage to say, you know what, where it's actually not the right thing to do. And I think I have a lot of respect for that kind of, you know, courageous decision making. But also it is not the wrong. You know, it is the right thing to do when you actually look at it. You know, he likes to talk about it. He says, listen, we're not. This isn't rocket science. We're building brands and there's a way to do it. You need people, you need resources, you need to invest. Like I shared you with that, that quote earlier about you need to feed these brands and keep them alive. And the issues that we've been having on some of our business, they're all, they're fixable with the right level. And so he's brought in some great talents, this guy Nico Amaya, who's the president of North America, who I work for and just he's brought also a lot of real great rigor to all of North America and how we're really starting to sharpen it. So like I said, I think our best days are still ahead of us. So it's really exciting.
- [13:24]
Jim Stengel
One of the things I have learned from years of talking to the best CMOs in the world is this. The question is never just whether your creative is working. The question is whether your infrastructure can
- [13:34]
Steve
keep up with it.
- [13:35]
Jim Stengel
Because a brilliant campaign still has to travel through an ad stack, through data, through decisioning, through supply, through measurement. And every hop in that journey is a place where value leaks out. Most platforms solve one piece of that. A data company, a dsp, a measurement vendor, you stitch them together and pay a fragmentation tax in performance, in speed and in accountability. Infilion built something very different. Demand supply, data measurement and creative connect it in a single composable platform. The highest performing opt in attention formats via Infilion's proprietary tech in the industry, Agnostic identity resolution solutions and now Catalina. 130 million US households of verified purchase truth running as live signal through every campaign they execute. No black boxes, no hops, no fragmented vendor relationships to manage. The only company I know of that can take you from the first moment of attention to the final proof of action for any vertical on any screen without leaving the platform open. Composable agentic that is Infilian.
- [14:43]
Steve
You talk about how you know part of your leadership style is to ensure that your brands are moving at the speed of culture, that are in touch with culture, that are being part of big moments and all it's all about saliency and relevancy. How do you do that? I mean, how do you. I mean that's a. It's, it's not, not the easiest capability to define and instill the key again
- [15:06]
Todd Kaplan
and I don't know how to even best articulate it because a lot of it, it's almost like I would look at a lot of marketing. You look at classical music and you look at jazz, a lot of it's jazz at the end of the day. And by that I mean classical music. There's the sheet music, what goes where, how you prepare, all of that. And of course you're going to have your brand Strategy, you have to brief the agency. You got to do this right? But then the jazz, you're improvising a little in real time. And so as something happens in culture, you have 48 hours to react. You're not briefing an agency, waiting for a deck, going three rounds. You're picking up the phone, you're getting on, you're texting people. You're just working it out. And the secret sauce is really making sure it's all based on real consumer truths and insights. I'm also a bit of a consumer insights geek on some of that stuff where everything that we do comes back to these three truths. A consumer truth, a cultural truth, and a brand truth. And where those three things intersect. And ideally there's a little bit of tension. That's where the space for the idea is. And then you kind of understand, you get these really quick things through this collaborativity process I talked about, where we really start talking about one line ideas, quick boom, boom, boom, boom. And where there's heat. Then you say, okay, now let's talk about the execution. Cause one of the big mistakes I think a lot of people make in marketing is they conflate the idea and the execution for the same thing. So an agency comes responding to a brief with scripts and all this stuff. It's great. But then somebody that falls in love with something because there's an actor in the brief that they love, but there's no idea behind it, or they throw at a brilliant idea cause there was something bugging the crap out of them and the execution. And so being able to separate those things, move quickly, flatten the organization and just work with the people who want to get it done is sometimes what you got to do. We've been doing a lot of that. Even just reactively with the World cup going on and all this stuff going on, just. It's a lot of fun and, you
- [16:52]
Steve
know, advice for other CMOs or senior leaders who want to do that.
- [16:55]
Jim Stengel
Do you reserve budgets for that?
- [16:57]
Steve
Do you just make it a philosophy of the department? What.
- [17:00]
Todd Kaplan
How do you.
- [17:01]
Steve
How do you operationalize it?
- [17:02]
Todd Kaplan
It's a lot of a philosophy. A lot of these things are not.
- [17:05]
Steve
Not expensive, right? It's a mindset.
- [17:07]
Todd Kaplan
It's a. It's more of a mindset. And it's also a bit of willing to figure it out because big organizations will tell you nope, nope, no. I also have this philosophy, and we've talked about this before, this idea of take no as a request for more information and kind of be a Little bit of a pain in the ass just to the right amount. But to understand the stakeholders and so whether you're running into a buzz saw with legal or with finance or supply chain, there's of course you can't commercialize a full product end to end and sell it at Walmart in 48 hours. You have legal and science and regulatory and all this stuff. You gotta check that out. But if the goal is to get the product out in the world, there's many other ways to do that. Knowing that you can still work on that long lead to deliver that as well. So finding out those solves, getting to yes quickly and finding those kind of co conspirators in the company and your creative partners that'll help you is, is a lot of the it as well.
- [17:59]
Steve
Now we're at Cannes lions.
- [18:00]
Jim Stengel
We're in day one.
- [18:01]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah.
- [18:01]
Steve
How many Cannes Lions have you been to? Oof. Is it in double digits?
- [18:05]
Todd Kaplan
I don't think it's even in double digits yet. But it's, it's, it's a lot. But it's probably nearing double digits. But it's not a double digits yet. Yeah.
- [18:12]
Steve
And you're staying for most of the week?
- [18:14]
Todd Kaplan
I'll be here for the full week.
- [18:14]
Steve
You have a full agenda. So that full agenda, what's one thing you are super looking forward to?
- [18:20]
Todd Kaplan
There's a couple of things I'd say. One is I just love reconnecting with people. It's great. You walk up and down the serendipity of it people. You're sitting next to someone and you're sitting here and you're like, why, why am I on this boat? What am I doing? Like, it's kind of crazy. It's, it's like, it's fun. But aside from all of that, like more creatively, like I love actually these quiet moments. We just go into the basement of the Palais and just walk the work. And sometimes I just kind of geek out, you know, and just watching these case studies and seeing all the different things and, and even honestly seeing even like at the gutter bar some of the creative energy, you know, just for some of the junior people, this is their first time and seeing how like it's.
- [18:58]
Steve
The gutter bar, by the way, is a bar on the main drag here that's open pretty much 247 the lake. And it's pretty crowded at 3am Correct.
- [19:06]
Todd Kaplan
But, but it's crowded with all the creative agencies and it's more like that's the kind of gathering in the street and so it's just seeing all that energy, I think is just. It makes you realize like, you know, you go. We went into marketing for, you know, a lot of these reasons. The creativity, the making things, the connecting, understanding people and can brings the best of all that together.
- [19:27]
Steve
Yeah.
- [19:28]
Todd Kaplan
Albeit in 90 degree heat.
- [19:29]
Andrea Sullivan
Right.
- [19:31]
Steve
We're very comfortable now though, right.
- [19:33]
Todd Kaplan
As I'm sweating right now. Correct.
- [19:35]
Steve
Now you have some work competing for awards this year, right?
- [19:39]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah, we have talk about that a bit this year. Yeah, we have a lot of great stuff on Heinz. We did this really fun thing called Looks Familiar where we uncovered the fact the french fry box, the shape of the french fry box is actually the shape of the Heinz logo. And globally, no matter where you go. And so we're talking about this truth, how Heinz is an irreplaceable, you know, condiment for french fries. We made this thing called the dipper, which is actually a new innovation where you can actually pour your ketchup into the french fry case. But we also, even beyond Heinz, have a lot of great work on Oscar Mayer. We created this thing called the Weenie 500 where we raced six Wiener mobiles around the Indy 500 track. This year it was televised live on Fox. It was. I mean, it's had 80,000 fans there. It's amazing. There's this thing called the Jelometer, which is a place in sports arenas where you can actually put a piece of Jello and measure the sound of a fan by how the jello jiggles, like on the fan, you know, like. And so it's as you take it to different stadiums and it's. It's the coolest thing that we've made. And so there's a lot of like, fun things just across the whole portfolio, which is really exciting just seeing all the great work, all the great people coming together for it. It's, you know, the teams have done such a wonderful job on it.
- [20:49]
Steve
So do you have a few colleagues here from Kraft Heinz? We do.
- [20:51]
Todd Kaplan
We have a handful of folks here from all around the world as well, you know, from different regions, which is also a great opportunity to connect with everybody and, you know, share notes and celebrate the work and all that. It's great.
- [21:02]
Steve
What do you do when you leave here? How do you capture all that happens here and scale it a bit with your.
- [21:07]
Todd Kaplan
It's a good question. Because it's hard to kind capture, even explain to people.
- [21:10]
Steve
It is. Yeah, I know.
- [21:11]
Todd Kaplan
Are you going to can, like, what are you doing there? And it's so part of it is we have people at home right now with access to all the videos of all the speakers where you can also watch and participate. But I also find like, just like I said, the case studies themselves, a lot of creativity, especially for junior people, it's getting like a little bit of a workout. It's like using the muscle, getting reps in. And so sometimes we'll take, you know, over the course of the year, what I'm going to want to do with some of these case studies is get a group of people together, junior folks, look at two case studies and talk about them. Hey, what do you think the brief was? How do you think they started this? Why did this work? Could we do this in our organization? And it starts to just provoke the questions of like, you know, oh, maybe we could do this too. And so it's very inspiring when you, when you get some good work to talk about too.
- [21:53]
Steve
You talk about all the things that are happening, you know, the things that you have entered for awards. But as I was looking at what's going on at your company, there is just a flood of creativity and I just want to get you to go there. You're team seems to be really, really, really energized and they seem to be pumping out strategic work that's unexpected from the company, that's creative. So what's going on? I mean, no, really what is going on inside the company?
- [22:22]
Todd Kaplan
It's been a journey because I think like I said, coming in a lot of the basics and some of the fundamentals needed some, like I said, some work. And so for the first year was a lot of what we call like crushing the fundamentals. So brand growth strategy, figuring out, you know, how we're going to grow the brands, right? Insights, brand positioning, visual identity, product packaging, like just the basics that a lot of companies, a lot of brands own, they have that already. But a lot of ours, we had to up this change that do that. So really focusing on a lot of that while we also.
- [22:55]
Jim Stengel
Was that hard.
- [22:56]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah, oh yeah. And just systemically do it. I call it this thing, we call it brand tune ups. And it's almost like we institutionalized, almost like a car wash where you guys, you go to the first booth, you know, and so is to have the right trusted partners that we're gonna do the brand wheel. As we're working on that stuff, as we're, like I said, brought in a new design officer. There's a lot of visual identity work and packaging work happening as we speak. So all that is happening in parallel while we're trying to kind of punch above our weight with a lot of these brands, like I said, that have this great awareness, this great penetration, this great kind of iconic history, but just haven't really been talked about. So I called this thing marketing that happens, which is basically the idea of marketing that exists beyond the walls of paid media. Things you talk about earn media buzz. And so through some of these things, like I talked about this collaborative process and working across the different brand teams and coaching the teams, working with our agencies, we've been able to develop a good, a good heartbeat on some of these brands while we're still doing really strategic, hardworking work. We just won from the. Effy's the number one most effective marketer in the United States. From the, we're very proud of as well. So hitting it on both sides, you know, really want to hit that cultural relevance with things like the mustard and all the fun stuff that we'll do all the way to really, really hardworking that's really ultimately going to drive the business.
- [24:12]
Steve
Did you have to, did you have to bring more work internally to do that? Did you what, what changed in your organization?
- [24:18]
Todd Kaplan
There's a few things I'd say. I think it's less about, like I said, the, the briefing process, what you fill out in the brief, how you work at the agencies, like that's going to be pretty similar at a lot of companies you go to. But the magic is really in how you give feedback, how you talk about it, how you develop those relationships and evolve that. And listen, there's a range of brands we have. Some are humming more than others, some are agencies more than like, it's always going to be that kind of dynamic, but it's really just about understanding what great looks like, setting a bar and showing this is the type of work we can do. And look how easy that was. Look how cheap that was. It took three weeks and we, we hustled and we made it happen. And that was a thing and it wasn't the brief that you had five weeks ago. And you know, so trying to figure out all that stuff while we also do the hardworking stuff, we figure out how to connect the dots, think end to end. And what's great is all our marketeers really are looking end to end across the business. And so I think it's just driving that, that comfort that it's okay to throw something out there, build that ideas. And I want to create that kind of environment where, you know, we have this thing called Creative Council where, you know, it started off As a big scary thing where people would come and I would review work and we talk about it and I'm like, this isn't a scary. This is like people trying to build, trying to make your ideas better, push, poke, sharpening. And now people are willingly coming to kind of talk about it, discuss, debate, which is how it's supposed to be. Like good work does not just poof and appearance. It's iterative, you know.
- [25:51]
Steve
So tell me more about the Creative Council. Is it all internal? You have agencies involved?
- [25:55]
Todd Kaplan
It's internal. And so we have a cross functional group of, you know, from, you know, your media team, your PR team, your insights team, your legal team. Just also so everyone can talk at the same time. And when it works well, we have a very elevated discussion sometimes about a brief, sometimes about a piece of creative, sometimes about, you know, I call a culture bomb or a fun like idea we can do. And so it really just depends. But just having a regular forum I think is important so that it's not just like, hey, you're on your own. And it sends a signal that this stuff's important. We want to elevate the work. You know, at the end of the day, like I want to make sure all the work coming out is at a certain benchmark at a certain bar, that it's, it's hitting where it needs to do so. And so we're starting to get much, much better hit rate, which is great.
- [26:38]
Steve
Before we started recording, we talked about, we were talking about your agencies.
- [26:41]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah.
- [26:41]
Steve
And you have a diverse mix of agencies. Actually it's a lot of the hot agencies. Right. Of this group of agencies you're working with. I'm sure you're going to see a lot of them this week. Which one would you highlight as. As leading, kind of leading edge in how you work?
- [26:56]
Todd Kaplan
I mean we have a lot of great agency partners and of course we love all our agency partners and you know, we've done some great work with JL on the Weenie 500 on Philadelphia and making this new platform called the Philly Boy. We've done great work with gut on the Gelometer, all that stuff. Wynon and Kennedy has done some amazing stuff on Heinz, I think Rethink, when you think about it as we've done some great work together and you know, I was just talking with Mike Dubrick over at Rethink before coming out here, like the. They embody that same kind of collaborative spirit. You know, we were even just talking the other day with Looks familiar, which is the French fry Box thing. It was my third week on the job and I was just doing like dinners with different agency partners, whatever. And it was like literally the first time I had met Mike and the Rethink team and you know, and I was talking about, hey, here's how I like to work. How do you like to work? And we were kind of vibing out and he, he's like, hey, I want to show you something on my phone. We don't know what to do with it. And it was just like this little nugget. He's like, he's like, don't you think that kind of looks like the Heinz logo? I'm like, oh my God, that kind of does look like the Heinz logo. And then we start just kind of. But this was like a year before the thing even launched. And then I was trying to take it down a different path. Like, so there's, there's a lot of different ways. Like I said, a creative idea needs to be. Be harvested and born a certain way. And the great news is, over time, you know, we work with our global team. How does this translate to other markets? We're like, everybody hopping in on that one and really made that the success that it was. And so just, it's, it's fun when you have partners who, who kind of geek out over it the same way you do.
- [28:32]
Andrea Sullivan
Hey, everybody, this is Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive and we produce the CMO podcast and are so excited to have partnered with Jim Stengel for so many years. Wanted to tell you a little bit about something that could be right for you. Vive is a program for entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to get more out of their life and become their best and happiest selves, both personally and professionally. We have a 12 month program that allows people to meet up with some of the best business leaders out there and additionally experts in the wellness sector so that you can learn how to nurture yourself. So we teach things around sleep, optimization, meditation, all those good things as well. Please reach out to us at Podcastsy Co to get more information. That's P O D C A S T S at V Y V E Co. Thanks for listening to the CMO podcast and hope to talk to you more about Vibe.
- [29:31]
Steve
Rethink has been awarded, I think, Agency of the Year the last two years. I looked them up. I got curious about them. I've never worked with them. What is it about them? What is kind of the hot agency in Cannes the last couple of years? I mean, Wyden wins a Bunch awards got does of course. But what is it about rethink?
- [29:48]
Todd Kaplan
They do, they do a lot like, like I said, the way that I think about these collaborativity things with these, these three truths that I talk about. The, the cultural truth, brand truth and consumer truth. They have this thing called shallow holes which is basically saying they like me, like to do a lot of insights, led marketing. So it's just hey, this is the truth and you didn't know it was there the whole time. And we're showing it to you in a creatively interesting way. It's kind of like if I go back to when I was at Pepsi, the better with Pepsi work or something like there's these things that you're just like, you want those ideas. Everyone's like oh my God, like we should have done it. What I will also say from a creative standpoint though is that what we've really unlocked back to the culture in the last couple years. It's been a huge multiplier, huge difference maker for us. So our internal agency, the Kitchen, they have done a phenomenal job as we've grown and expanded that and a lot of these things because they're in house have been even more agile, more quick to respond, moving very much at the speed managing all the socials for our brands all the way to elevating up to TV spots and more. They've done a phenomenal job and also have a lot of work that's being awarded in all.
- [30:49]
Steve
Fantastic. How do you keep them, you know, the argument for going, you know, out of house is how do you keep an internal team simulated, invested in creative. Do you think that's a false paradigm?
- [31:02]
Todd Kaplan
I think people have the brief for an in house agency wrong because I think, well, I don't know how what it is at other companies but you know, if the value proposition is we're cheaper, that's a horrible value proposition. That might be true in some instances of course, but the real value proposition they have is they have an@crafthein'.com email address. They are employees, they can sit on your team, be in your business reviews, make deep relationships. Cause they sit at the desk across from the person, they don't need the brief. They're briefed through osmosis every day. So that when they say boom. When they see a trend and they say yeah, couldn't we do this? They already have that. They're not working on a couple businesses, they're not waiting for a brief and misinterpret. So it's that's the superpower of a creative internal agency when it's working well. And I think Tom Evans and Simon Ahn, the team have done a wonderful job pulling that together.
- [31:53]
Steve
Did Pepsi have the similar design?
- [31:54]
Todd Kaplan
We did, yeah. Lou Arbiter and the team over there do a wonderful job too at Pepsi. And again, everyone's structured differently and how it is. I think a lot of companies are doing that now and we talked about
- [32:04]
Steve
capability building and all that's happened at Kraft Heinz over the last couple years. I'd like you to riff a little bit on as you think about because you have an interesting seat on this as you think about a future oriented brand building organization that's going to thrive in the world of creators and AI and everything that's around us and can. What do you think are the most important capabilities that CMOs ought to be thinking about building into their, their teams?
- [32:28]
Todd Kaplan
I mean there's a certain fundamentals of brand building and understanding how and why people buy brands and all that. But I think AI starts to do more of the, the doing of the stuff. I don't think the thinking is going to go away. And AI can do a lot of thinking too, to be clear. But it really. I think two of the biggest traits are gonna be empathy, like consumer empathy and really understanding what is a real consumer insight. A lot of people still get it wrong and they cite a fact which is very different from an insight, you know. Right. And you want that insight that just jumps off the page and you're just like, oh my God, that's like so smart, so true. The idea of understanding how ideas are formed around tension and really figuring out where they intersect with the brand, like I said. And then the last thing is gonna be this idea of agility. I think gone are the days of the client flying up here and just, you know, filling out the brief and the, the ivory tower and just waiting for the stuff to come back. I mean, I think the, the job is gonna be, you know, platforms are changing, consumer habits are changing, especially in CPG and our categories. It's like you gotta evolve or die, right?
- [33:32]
Steve
Yeah, yeah.
- [33:32]
Todd Kaplan
And so there's a lot even we're doing right now on the innovation side of marketing, which we haven't talked a lot about where I'm at building new capabilities and how we fix stage gate and how we do all those things that are so critical too to get the right insights as we look. We also want to evolve our portfolio. So it's a lot to do.
- [33:48]
Steve
What are you most proud of in the last two years, just most proud
- [33:52]
Todd Kaplan
of the team and the resilience they've shown. Honestly, I know you started with a little bit of like, holy crap, there's a lot going on over there, huh? And yeah, there is. You know, it's one of those things, there's good days, there's bad days, there's, you know, all sorts of change going on. But I think people who keep their head down and focus on the prize and you know, when you look at the prize at Kraft, Heinz and where we are today with where these brands can be, if you really unlock this the right way, it's like exponential, you know. Another great quote that Steve talks about is cost cutting. And if you cut, you eventually are going to hit bone. But growth is infinite, right? And so it's this idea that where we can go and take these things. I'm very proud that the team has shown such great resilience. They've shown really great agility in terms of being able to adapt and learn. I know me coming in and there was cmos before me and before them and before them and before that. And like, it's gotta be exhausting at some point of just, oh my gosh, is this the new CEO? This is the new thing. But at the end of the day, people are in these jobs because they love these brands and these are wonderful brands. And marketing. Marketing is a self selected industry. Right. It's not as much of like, oh, I went into banking because of, cause of all the money I can make. Oh, I went into consulting because I like, like usually people who go into marketing, they have some innate interest in either the, the category, the, the process, some, some part of it. And so trying to remind people, like, that's why you're here. Like, and if you don't, then you don't need to be here. But at the end of the day, get back to the fun. Like, this is a fun job, it should be a fun job. Even in a tough business environment, it should be a fun job.
- [35:28]
Steve
If you're not having fun, how do we expect consumers to deliver?
- [35:31]
Todd Kaplan
You know, yeah, it was a big adjustment.
- [35:34]
Steve
You went from a company that you knew extremely well, you had built a significant part of your life at that company.
- [35:38]
Todd Kaplan
Totally.
- [35:39]
Steve
What was the biggest adjustment?
- [35:40]
Todd Kaplan
I think that was a, that in itself was a big adjustment because I literally, I came to PepsiCo straight out of business school as an MBA intern all the way, kind of, you know, did the musical shows, lots of roles. And that was one of the things that's so great. About the way they do talent development at PepsiCo is they do it P and G the same way. And a lot of big companies and that's one of the things I'm also very proud trying to build at Kraft Heinz is we have the breadth and the brands to do it, but we don't have the right processes yet to continue to have someone take an 18 year career that's perfectly manicured and curated to stretch and try and grow. But PepsiCo, it was great over there and they were great to me. I learned a lot and I think that was probably one of the trickiest things is as you're growing up at a place you, your identity, it's like you spent a png. It's the same, same thing where it's a part of you. I still live not far from there. You know, I see a lot of people from there but. And I still, to be clear, haven't drank in a Coke since leaving but
- [36:33]
Steve
I wouldn't expect you to.
- [36:34]
Todd Kaplan
And that was, that's not by, that's not by anybody else. That's just in my DNA. I'm, I'm. I got that challenger ethos still in me, you know, and it's, it doesn't even matter, but it's, it's one of those things that just, it's a party. It was a great chapter and I'm excited for the one we're building right now with, with KRA and it's been a lot of fun.
- [37:02]
Steve
Let's move to the creative brief and we're going to make this especially creative today. You worked on so many campaigns and initiatives in your life. Right. And we've talked about some of those before on this show. I'd like you to talk about one in your history that you have found especially meaningful to you.
- [37:16]
Todd Kaplan
I'll try to think about one where some of them are just like lightning in a bottle kind of things too. I think when I was at. I'm going to give a couple.
- [37:24]
Steve
Okay, sure.
- [37:25]
Todd Kaplan
Answer your question that way if that's okay. I think if, if there's one at PepsiCo was probably the, the better with Pepsi just because again so it was so strategic at the time but also just iteratively how we got there and very fun how the logos would reveal themselves and we ran into all these legal barriers that we couldn't do. We couldn't do a lot of things. We ended up finding an origami artist to fold the fold the wrappers because we had a legal solve and actually made the idea much Cooler. So, you know, working with the guys at Alma and the team over there to, to really do that was I think a lot of fun again. And, and it became a campaign that is still like endured and very specific about Pepsi with food. And they've now even evolved it since I've been gone into some other stuff. I think at Kraft Heinz there's, I mean, like I said, there's so much that I'm really proud of. I think the first, the first big beat that we had since coming over was really what we did a couple Super Bowls ago with Mustard, with DJ Mustard and Kendrick Lamar. Just because it was like this serendipitous moment and I could kind of see the. All right, well, the super bowl halftime show. Kendrick Lamar is performing and the Grammys, he's going to win all these Grammys the week before and he just shouted the word Mustard like, maybe we should do something with Mustard. And we started reaching out and talking like. And so it's, it really was a serendipitous. One of those quick sprints that in four weeks we signed Mustard built. The idea came out with this amazing lto. This really fun. Our in house agency, the Kitchen, built this spot. Boom. And we went and again.
- [38:51]
Steve
And it's the sort of proof point of your philosophy.
- [38:54]
Todd Kaplan
There's just a proof point that early on I think the people at Kraft Heinz were like, wait, we didn't buy a Super bowl spot but we got all this talk value and we did like, like, wait, what? We can do that. So it's like, yeah, like let's go. You know, so that's that. I think those are some fun ones. But like I said, there's so many. I have just a lot of fun in a lot of these little challenger things. I'm, I'm real pain in the ass on these things too. It's fun.
- [39:18]
Steve
Who's been a creative mentor of yours over the years or you don't have to pick one. But who have you looked up to? Who's helped you?
- [39:25]
Todd Kaplan
It's interesting. I talked to a bunch of folks throughout the industry and whatnot. One of my first bosses at PepsiCo, this guy John Galloway, I don't know if you met him. He, he was the guy who hired me at PepsiCo when I was a. I was his intern and came back full time and he thought very similar to me and liked to go big and take a lot of big swings, which was really great. I think since then there's always a lot of stuff, you know, I geek out at A lot of the work in the industry and you know, and I know we've talked with folks like, you know, whether it's fur and the stuff that he was doing at Burger King. And now I know he's Chipotle will
- [39:58]
Steve
be interesting to watch.
- [39:59]
Todd Kaplan
He's gonna have a lot of fun. And I catch up with him every often. A lot of other CMOs that we're just stay connected. There's a lot of these now group chats through like Nadine Deets and, you know, a lot of the other organizations out there that just, it's great to just stay connected and have such a tight community. Even a place here like Cannes where you get to talk shop and celebrate the wins and everyone's very supportive of each other, which, which is great.
- [40:22]
Steve
How do you ensure creativity is truly valued in the culture? I mean, you've talked about that. You live it right? And you, I think you're very visible in how you value creativity, but you want that to, for everyone to understand that, to believe it, to internalize it.
- [40:36]
Todd Kaplan
So in the marketing community, what's interesting is I've seen in the last five, ten years this massive shift as data, data, data, data comes everywhere, all around us, which is great that we have all the data now, we have all the AI and the media. People are like, I can sell you this, I can get you this, I can get you. I'm like, it doesn't matter if you have a shitty idea that you're putting into the media, right? At the end of the day, it's the good creative that speaks to you is the multiplier. And at the end of the day, it's one of those multipliers on roi. It's one of those things that gets you to pay attention. And I have this philosophy that you need to start to operate outside the walls of paid media. Because I know whenever a TV commercial comes on, I pick up my phone. I know when pre roll comes on, I hit skip. And so I think what people lose is the sight that there's this creative element of marketing, that in a world where CFOs are getting more like tighter lipped on, hey, what are, what's your, what's the numbers? Where's the bottom line? As you do more lower funnel opportunities in a lot of industries, the creative is still the guts that behind it. You know, I spoke at the A's earlier this year and I don't know if you, you saw my talk, but it was really about this idea that brand building is like this idea of Pointillism. So you think of painting like little dots over time. And the reality is, is every time you interact with a TV commercial, you see the product in store, you're. Someone talks about it at a kid's soccer game, whatever it is, you're getting a dot placed in your brain about that brand. And those dots need to all look and tell a cohesive picture. If they don't have the right visual identity, positioning, the right tension, the right tone, and over time, the brands like a brand like Heinz that does that very well, where knows who it is, it has a very strong viz, it has a very consistent point of view. That's where you get to tell that multiplier of the brand value. Coca Cola, some of these other brands that do that over time rather than campaign to campaign to campaign. And so that value is really important that people understand that it's not just some fluffy creative thing. That actually when you get brand right, that's what gives you pricing power, that's what gives you more loyalty. Repeat.
- [42:39]
Steve
Like that's easy to hire people. Everything, all of it. Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. And the pointillism thing, metaphor, I mean, it's for the company.
- [42:47]
Todd Kaplan
Yeah.
- [42:47]
Steve
Because everybody in the company needs to understand that because everybody carries the brand.
- [42:52]
Todd Kaplan
I've talked about it internally because it's one of those things where, like this idea of consistency. So at retail, on E commerce, you know, on packaging, these are touch points that your brain, as you're seeing these things again, brands are objects that it's shorthand for your brain to make decisions because you're not going to turn the label around and evaluate every pro and con of everything. So it's, it's, it's important to get that right.
- [43:15]
Steve
Todd, who's been the most inspiring person in your life?
- [43:17]
Todd Kaplan
Inspiring person in my life. Oof. Just go right there. Um, I'd say my dad probably on some level. So my dad is a pediatrician. He actually just retired, by the way. You know, I think he, he carries a, a joy with him about his profession. Like he's one of those pediatricians that like everyone knows. Everyone in my school went to Dr. Bob and they knew. And it's like one of those things. And it was one of those things where just to be a pediatrician, you know, working with kids, working with the parents more than the kids. I mean, like, I would hear him on call talking, you know, like such an easygoingness and loving to see like three generations of patients and just seeing that, that joy and just kind of in that, and that's kind of what I'd say on some level, subconsciously, now that I'm talking it out with you, inspire me to probably go into a profession that it's not a job, it's something I want to do and I enjoy doing. And that's very important to me. That's why I went into marketing. That's why I went into sports marketing initially. That's why, you know, the type of marketing I want to do is things I really enjoy versus, like, you know, just punching numbers in a spreadsheet all day and, or doing a, you know, I do build a lot of decks, to be clear, but I actually, I get some weird level of enjoyment in that too, to be great. But yeah, I think I, I'd probably say him on some level for that.
- [44:32]
Steve
It's a beautiful story. Yeah. You're a sneaker head. Right? I'll make it later. How am I doing today with my sneakers? What do you think?
- [44:38]
Todd Kaplan
They're okay.
- [44:39]
Steve
They're okay. Okay. Yeah.
- [44:40]
Todd Kaplan
How about yours for me? Mine are, mine are cool.
- [44:42]
Steve
They're, they're a little, they're Nike.
- [44:43]
Todd Kaplan
They're like, yeah, I'm very, so we talk about brands. I'm a very Nike loyal and very much at a young age. I must have probably like Jordan and all the kind of stuff growing up. But I have, you know, I probably have like a hundred pairs of shoes or something. I mean, it's, it's, it's a problem. It's a problem. My, my wife calls me, you know, like, I, I'm running out of places to put them.
- [45:03]
Steve
Time for a new house.
- [45:04]
Todd Kaplan
I, I, that's what I say. I say I'm running out of places to put them. Why? We need a bigger, I need a bigger closet. She's like, you need to stop buying shoes. That's what you need to do.
- [45:12]
Steve
Left brain, right brain going on here.
- [45:14]
Todd Kaplan
That's, that's fair. That's fair.
- [45:15]
Steve
So my son's a sneaker head too, and he recommended these, by the way.
- [45:18]
Todd Kaplan
They're tigers, those tigers.
- [45:19]
Steve
And they kind of draw on the 80s tennis.
- [45:22]
Todd Kaplan
I was gonna say they, they look like Y. Dan Smith, the low cut kind of things. Those are cool.
- [45:26]
Steve
Yeah.
- [45:27]
Todd Kaplan
Anyway, I like that. And they, they get a good can vibe too. They kind of.
- [45:30]
Steve
Thank you, Todd. You're warming up to them.
- [45:32]
Todd Kaplan
I'm warming up to them. I was just, I'm sorry, I've had a very negative reaction. I'm. What you see is what you get kind of guy. It's okay. It's all good. It's all good.
- [45:41]
Steve
This was so good. Did you have fun with this, this interview? Anything we not talk about that we should have?
- [45:45]
Todd Kaplan
No, I mean, I covered it all. I'm happy to anytime, Jim, whatever you want to chat, I'm always happy to and I just, I love the work you're doing and just embarrass you a little bit. And just congratulations on your, your hall of Fame induction and a big milestone this year. And I know CMO podcast, this is, you know, it's been a long time running, man. You've just done such a wonderful job for the community, for marketers. You're even doing the thing here at Cannes lion later in the week with all the junior marketeers. I back to, you know, on some level, just the, the level that you give back to this community is just, it's wonderful. So I just wanted to say thanks for that.
- [46:18]
Steve
Thank you, Todd. We're both team builders.
- [46:19]
Todd Kaplan
We're Both people person, 100%.
- [46:22]
Steve
Well, thank you, man. It was really good.
- [46:23]
Todd Kaplan
Thank you.
- [46:23]
Steve
Appreciate it.
- [46:25]
Jim Stengel
That was my conversation with Todd Kaplan. Three takeaways from this one for your business, your brand and your life. First one. Creativity is built on strong fundamentals. Todd reminded us that before you chase the next cultural moment, you have to earn the right to participate. Great brand positioning, meaningful consumer insights, thoughtful design, and consistent execution are what makes creativity effective. The best marketing does skip the fundamentals. It builds on them. Second takeaway. I love this one. Marketing is like jazz. That was one of my favorite moments of our conversation. Todd compared great marketing to jazz. You have a strategy and a framework, but you also have to be ready to improvise. When culture presents an opportunity, you can't wait for three rounds of approvals and the perfect brief. Sometimes the biggest ideas come from trusting your instincts, collaborating in the moment, and being willing to to move quickly. That's exactly how ideas like the Oscar
- [47:16]
Steve
Mayer Wiener 500 came to life.
- [47:18]
Jim Stengel
And third takeaway. Great leaders create the conditions for creativity to thrive. Todd isn't just building brands, he's building a culture. Whether it's his philosophy of collaborativity, bringing cross functional teams together, or reminding marketers why they fell in love with this profession in the first place. He's focused on creating an environment where people can do their best work. Because when people are energized, they support it and having fun. That's when great brands and great ideas are born. 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.