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The Speed of Culture Podcast
Creative License: How Adobe helps brands stay creative in the age of AI
00:26:40
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- [00:00]
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- [01:51]
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flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.
- [02:01]
Host - Ike Keane
I remember telling my boss it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it it wasn't Cut The Bull
- [02:09]
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- [02:23]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
What we're really seeing is customers are hungry for being able to develop and to deploy amazing customer experiences. And I think all of that anchor is on how do you really achieve personalization at scale and having been in marketing for a lot of years, everyone but I actually think with AI it makes it possible.
- [02:42]
Host - Ike Keane
To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move in an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of susee. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now, and how you can keep up. Welcome to the Speed of Culture. Up Today on the Speed of Culture podcast, we are thrilled to welcome Rachel Thornton, the CMO at Adobe Enterprise. Rachel is a seasoned marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience leading global brands. And today she sits at the intersection of AI, creativity and marketing, helping enterprises reimagine how they engage customers in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. And it's certainly that. Rachel, so great to see you here at CES in Las Vegas.
- [03:27]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
It's great to be here.
- [03:27]
Host - Ike Keane
Thank you. It's such a fun time of year. You know, the year starts, we all want to get right into the office, but then there's ces and it brings everybody together. Why is CES important to you and Adobe as a place to invest your time, new resources, kicking off the year?
- [03:42]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, I think it's exactly right. It's kicking off the year. It's a chance for everyone to come together after the holidays and really kind of get caught up on what's happening, what's new, what are we doing, you know, whether it's us or any of the companies that are here, really talking about what's new and what's next. And obviously especially this year with AI also increasingly robotics.
- [03:59]
Host - Ike Keane
But yeah, yeah, robotics is something where I think most people don't realize that just the product development life cycle of hardware is just by nature longer than software. So we're seeing this incredible innovation rate of improvement in AI, and we haven't seen it manifest into robotics yet. But I think it's only a matter of time, once the hardware cycle catches up, that the brain of AI is going to be in the body of robots and we're going to be looking out the window and seeing a completely different world than what we see today.
- [04:27]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, I think you're right.
- [04:28]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah. So Adobe, obviously is such a great brand and it's really done, I think, an excellent job at continually pivoting. I remember the pivot Adobe made to subscription and cloud, which was a huge unlock.
- [04:40]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, Cloud, mobile, and then I think, with AI as well. So I think at every, you know, if you look at Adobe's history, and especially as we think about customers and putting it at the center of every innovation we do, it really is being able to make sure that as customers Their needs evolve, we're evolving with them, we're innovating on their behalf. And I think the work we do in AI is just a great example of that.
- [05:01]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah. So you are CMO of Adobe Enterprise, which means you're ultimately focused on deploying enterprise solutions.
- [05:07]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
That's. Yeah, that's.
- [05:08]
Host - Ike Keane
And Adobe is great tools for businesses of all sizes. What is Adobe's strategy in 2026? What are some of the core products and features that you're leaning into?
- [05:18]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, so it's like I said, if we thinking about our customers and putting them at the center of everything we do, what we're really seeing is customers are hungry for being able to develop and to deploy amazing customer experiences. And I think all of that anchors on how do you really achieve personalization at scale. Having been in marketing for a lot of years, everyone talks about that, but I actually think with AI it makes it possible.
- [05:41]
Host - Ike Keane
Couldn't agree more.
- [05:42]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Different levels. Right. So you want as a customer to make sure that the brands you're interacting with know you. So that requires them understanding data, that being able then to take that data and create a profile around you and then being able to take that profile make sure that they have the journey and the content that relates exactly to you. And I think this is what, from Adobe's perspective, what we are helping marketers do every single day, like how do we help you build your data stack, how do we help you build your customer profile, how do we help you build the experience and the journey for that customer and then create the content that's needed? And I think beauty of AI is that you can be much more agile, you can be much faster as you create things like content, things like experiences. You really can now do this at scale, but at scale so that you know you're not one in a million, you're one of one.
- [06:29]
Host - Ike Keane
Right, Exactly. And I think over time, consumers especially you look at Gen Alpha, who's growing up in the age of AI, they're never going to know exactly. They're going to expect hyper personalization. It's not going to be a plus up, they're not going to want a one to many email, they're going to want a brand to talk to you as an audience, as an individual.
- [06:46]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Right.
- [06:46]
Host - Ike Keane
One thing you had mentioned that I hadn't realized is that you are indeed involved in the data stack, which I didn't know.
- [06:54]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah. If you think about. So if you think about something like Adobe experience platform. So we look at that as our platform for how we help you understand what are the data you have on customers? And then how do we help you build that customer data profile? That's critical. Yeah, having your data in line, like I think a lot of people talk about, hey, deploying AI solutions or AI products. It's only as good as the data you have and your ability to build those customer profiles. Take advantage of that customer data because once you have that nailed, then you can start to figure out how do I build that experience, how do I build that journey and data and AI like you have to have the data in order to make those AI investments pay off.
- [07:30]
Host - Ike Keane
Totally. I mean everyone has access to large language models. The core differentiator is data, Right?
- [07:35]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Right, exactly.
- [07:35]
Host - Ike Keane
It's interesting. As I prepare for this interview, it just dawned on me that the evolution of Adobe, Adobe's products over time are very much connected to what it means to be creative. Meaning like when Adobe first came out with Photoshop, you needed specialized skill sets to use it. You need to really understand the knobs and dials. And slowly over time, Adobe rolled out Adobe Express and made it easier for the non technical designer to use it. And now of course we're in a world of Adobe Firefly where you just have to know what you want to create and you guys put everything else beneath the hood more or less. And I think that's really a good analogy almost for any category in any industry in that it's going to be far more about understanding the problem you want to solve versus having a specialized skill set of how to solve the problem. Which means what it means to be creative actually is now being redefined. I'm just curious what your thoughts are.
- [08:27]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Well, I think everyone is a creator. Whether you are talking about I've created this image or I've created this campaign or I've created this ad to I have created this business, I've created this product, I've created this experience like everybody creates, right? I mean in Adobe we think about it is like everyone is made to create. So how do we bring that to life for you? So your point about you can be in an agency or part of a creative team or a creative professional yourself and you're using whether it's Creative Cloud, whether it's Photoshop, whether it's Illustrator or you can be, hey, I'm like for example, I have a BDR team, so I have a team internally that helps reach out sales.
- [09:02]
Host - Ike Keane
We have the same thing at Suzy.
- [09:03]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
But it's so great because now like using Express and using tool Adobe tools, they can reach out to customers they can have customized.
- [09:11]
Host - Ike Keane
They don't need to rely on a whole team to deliver for that.
- [09:13]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
They have, you know, within our Adobe brand guidelines, using Express, they now can make some great, reach out, some great content. When they reach out to customers, they
- [09:20]
Host - Ike Keane
went on to move faster, be more efficient, drive better results.
- [09:23]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly.
- [09:23]
Host - Ike Keane
Which is fascinating. I love your take on just broadening the definition of creator. And I think if more people are going to be creators, then less people are going to be doing what they used to be doing, which I think is just, I'll put in the term of like order taking. Like, I think that if you wait to be told what to do every day when you walk in the work, your job is by definition deterministic and it puts it at risk for automation. And I think conversely, if you are a creator, whether you're creating a business, a brand, messaging, you name it, you then can actually be on the right side and future proof yourself right in this new era. And I think Adobe is the type of company that really unlocks that.
- [10:00]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah.
- [10:01]
Host - Ike Keane
With that, like, what are some of the skill sets you think it takes to be able to succeed in this new world, especially in the realm of using the Adobe suite of tools?
- [10:11]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Well, I think when you talk about whether it's, you know, our creative tools we're doing, whether it's Express, whether it's experience cloud or whether it's our. We have a new product brand concierge, that helps customers build out conversational interface.
- [10:25]
Host - Ike Keane
Oh, wow.
- [10:25]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
With their customers on their website, that's so cool. But as you look at all of that, I think for marketing teams, for creative teams, to your point, helping them move faster, be more agile, be more creative, no matter what they're doing, that's what we take pride in. And I think that's what we deliver for customers. I agree that if you're just sort of sitting back and waiting, but I think if you were just doing that, your job is going to change irrespective of the technology produced. Right. I think with AI now, and this is what's so exciting for me as a marketer, is there are a lot of things over the years that I've been in marketing that just have taken so much time. And now when you can move faster, when you can say, hey, I know that there's an opportunity here with this audience or with this timeframe or with this offer, let me put a campaign together instead of having to go 10 weeks, 12 weeks, if you could do this in a week or two, just think about how many things you can unlock how many opportunities you can unlock. I also think it gives marketers a chance to experiment more. Like, on my team, we really focus on what are the experiments we can do, what are the learnings we can find. We may start with, this was an idea for a campaign. This was the concept. But as we do a bunch of experiments, experimentation with different, like, components of that or flavors of that campaign, if you will, there could be something that resonates with a customer that we didn't even imagine. But because we were able to do this with AI and scale with AI with Adobe tools, we can now do this much faster.
- [11:47]
Host - Ike Keane
Right.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
We can deliver to customers the things that are most engaging and this really great customer experience that not only, like, engages them, but keeps them and excites them.
- [11:57]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah. It's almost like this continuous loop of testing, optimizing, getting data and until you refine things. And that's why data plays such an important role. But that was far less possible in the past when it just took so long to make things.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, Exactly.
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Host - Ike Keane
Couldn't create 20 assets because it would just be too expensive to take much time.
- [12:15]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
All right, take you to. Or because it took you so long, because it was so maybe costly or intensive, you think, well, it's okay, maybe I don't. I'm not super in love with it. But it took me so long to get there that I'm going to run with it because I kind of have to. Right. And now it's like, no, you can really decide, I love this or the customers love this. So, like, double down.
- [12:33]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah. So in the world of AI and solve, really anyone's talking about here at ces, it's interesting because so many conversations do lead back to what Adobe does, which is about data driven creativity and customer experience, et cetera. But we've kind of been on this trajectory and a spectrum of AI evolution, if you will, where it started with AI as a tool, you know, write me a blog post and they'll just write it for you. Right. And then we entered the age of AI workflow and automation, and now we're entering the world, and we've already kind of started in 25 and certainly in 26, you know, agenda workflows and AI agents. I know that's an area that Adobe is very much focused on, especially with your enterprise product. Would love to hear how Adobe looks at AI agents and what role they play in your product mix.
- [13:15]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
It's like I said a few minutes ago, I think is when we look at our marketers that we work with our customers. And we think about the roles they have to do and kind of the jobs they have to do every day.
- [13:24]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah.
- [13:25]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
When you begin to look at, hey, there's components of this that we could easily have an agent do that we could have an agent recommend. So a good example is audience. So we have an audience agent, and my team uses it. It was like, all right, help us build an audience based on what, you know about how this campaign performed or how this.
- [13:40]
Host - Ike Keane
A B2B audience. Yes, yes.
- [13:42]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Or it could be B2C. And the type is it's not necessarily as material as what do you want to do with that audience and how do you want to take in the information to continue to build and refine your audiences. Now, previously, you know, if you were doing this, it was a. It took time to sort of understand, well, how did this campaign or this event or this program, how did it perform? What were the audiences that it really attracted? What ones didn't it attract? Okay, now I can have my agent recommend to me, look, based on the results there, you should think about an audience that is interested in this. Right. You ran a campaign on camping equipment. Let's say, great, it turns out that these people responded, but this group over here didn't. However, we recommend, based on knowledge of this group, that you tweak the campaign in this way. So that's huge. I think we have insights agents that we use to help surface insights. So rather than. And I think this is true in a lot of big companies, rather than maybe saying, I'm going to file a ticket and then maybe another team and another part of the company is going to send me some info, it's like, hey, help me uncover the insights for this campaign so I can now move faster, build better, Build better messaging, maybe build better creative. But I think, like, the insights agents that we have also have been really an unlock for marketers, helping them be more agile, helping them be more creative, and helping them move faster.
- [14:57]
Host - Ike Keane
It's interesting because it changes, I think, how we define as workflow, because to your point earlier, you used to have to go to another department to get things where now you can be sitting there and as part of like one flow of work, you can tap into different agents.
- [15:12]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly.
- [15:13]
Host - Ike Keane
And get from start to finish without really meeting much. So that is a different way of working. For sure.
- [15:19]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly. And I think, like I said, it helps marketers be more agile and really unlock a lot of. There's that word again. Creativity. Like, maybe you had an idea for a campaign campaign, but you weren't sure one would it be a big enough audience? Turns out, yes, the audience agent recommended this audience. You're like, I like it. Now you can unlock the assets like Adobe Gen Studio. If we think about that entire life cycle now you're working with Gen Studio, you could create the content, you could create the creative. You can scale it.
- [15:45]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
So you can really target that audience across multiple channels. I think the beauty is also for global companies as they look at the work of translating, localizing. All right, we can help you absolutely scale that and do that across channels globally much more quickly than we could in the past.
- [16:03]
Host - Ike Keane
We'll be right back with the Speed of Culture after a few words from our sponsors.
- [16:06]
LinkedIn Ads Announcer
Blowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.
- [16:16]
Host - Ike Keane
I remember telling my boss, it'll be
- [16:18]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
good for the brand.
- [16:20]
Host - Ike Keane
When leads were slow. Yeah, it wasn't.
- [16:24]
LinkedIn Ads Announcer
Cut the bull. Spend LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and More. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply.
- [16:39]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings by $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.
- [17:15]
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- [17:33]
Host - Ike Keane
So, as a B2B marketer, obviously it's all about adding value. It's about use cases and understanding your customer. And in that regard, it's a highly competitive landscape in the world of AI and AI creative tools out there. Because the barrier to entry. As somebody who's a CEO of a software company, I just see so many new competitors popping up because you don't need capital or talent the way that you used to to create software. So how do you make sure that you're positioning the brand from a B2P perspective in the right way to maintain some level? Obviously you have the heritage of the brand, Adobe and the trust behind it, but that alone won't get you there. What else are you leaning into?
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
I actually wouldn't underestimate the power of trust and the importance of trust.
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Host - Ike Keane
Yeah, totally.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
World. Right.
- [18:16]
Host - Ike Keane
But you can't just rest on that alone.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Totally agree.
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Host - Ike Keane
Yeah.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
But I definitely think that if you think about trust, if you think about innovation, so the innovation that Adobe has just been developing, releasing as part of our product portfolio, it's amazing for decades. But more importantly, we think about how do you make sure what you're doing? How can you trust what the outputs are? How can you trust what the artifacts are, what the outputs are for the campaign? How can you make sure that the data you're using you own, that it's, you know, no one else's. It's data that you own that you
- [18:46]
Host - Ike Keane
understand the permanence of that's not hallucinated or wrong.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly. How can you make sure that the content you have is authentic? So Adobe takes this very seriously. And I think when I look at just the evolving landscape, if your brand, you have so much to lose if you get those campaigns or those creatives or those assets raw for sure. Right. I think a good example of how we partner with companies and how, you know, sure, there's a lot of opportunities, but still companies come back to how do I make sure that I have brand integrity and that brand integrity carries across every single thing I do. We work with Coca Cola on project vision. Vision with an F. With an F like this.
- [19:27]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
But it was really great because they thought about all of their creatives worldwide. How do we make sure that team using Adobe tools, we develop these AI brand guidelines for them. So no matter who's creating an asset, no matter where they are in the world, that asset is on brand. It's within the brand requirements. So that when they put it together, they know with 100% confidence that it's meeting those brand guidelines. And there's no issue with brand. Brand integrity. And I think that's powerful.
- [19:54]
Host - Ike Keane
For sure.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Really the only ones that can do that.
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Host - Ike Keane
Absolutely. I know that you've also been doing work in like passion point areas, especially sports.
- [20:01]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yes.
- [20:02]
Host - Ike Keane
Over time. And I think that's a great way for you to showcase the efficacy and power of your tools because you're combining it with something that people love. Right. And sports are obviously more important to culture than ever before. And I know that Dobie's working with leagues like the NFL and MLB and Premier League to really help fans express fandom, engage more deeply through this AI powered creativity. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about those efforts.
- [20:23]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, it was actually great. I spent some time with the NFL team here. We've done a couple panels talking about just the power of sports and the culture of sports. And I absolutely think that what is really fascinating about the evolution that sports are on right now is not just the evolution in fan engagement. So across multiple modalities, whether you're in person, whether you're watching, whether you're on social media, whether you have your fantasy league, how do fans engage with all those things? Like my son, I have a 17 year old, huge football fan. He's got his favorite team, we're in Seattle, so it's the Seahawks.
- [20:56]
Host - Ike Keane
Good year. I know by the time this comes out, we'll know if it's a great year or a disappointment. Right.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
But you know, like he'll watch a game, but then he may follow other games on his phone, he may be watching with his friends on his phone. He's also tracking on his fantasy team,
- [21:12]
Host - Ike Keane
following his favorite players on Twitter, etc.
- [21:13]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly. Following his favorite players on social media and now also working with the NFL. We can help them, they have content creators that they have at games that they have with players to create content with those players that's on social media, that can be posted on social, but then also that customer or fans, I should say, can pick up and share as well.
- [21:31]
Host - Ike Keane
Right. Make their own.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
So yeah, it's how not only do you engage with the fans, but how do you co create with those fans? And I think that is an amazing thing and it's amazing evolution of sports. So whether it's the NFL or Premier League or Real Madrid or mlb, it's like every single one of them is thinking, how do we engage fans? How do we keep them passionate about the game? But not only the game, the league, the team, the player, all of those different things. A fan now can have so many different things they love and we want to make sure that we can engage them, but also help them share and co create and be creative with their favorite leagues.
- [22:05]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah, we had Tim Ellis, the CMO of the NFL on the podcast. He was talking about some of these efforts and, and fan engagement isn't necessarily a new thing, but I think the difference now is with the tools like Adobe has, the fan can really express themselves and they can do so in a brand safe way. And I would put that make more broadly just user generated content in general. I think for a long time brands knew that they needed to let their consumer take control of the brand. The problem is they still have a brand. They have look, tone and feel and there's guardrails and there's all these things that they want to make sure are embedded in any sort of open source of the brand. But now with these tools you actually can get the best of both worlds. You can kind of give up some control but at the same time feel good that something's not going to come out that's going to completely denigrate what you built.
- [22:52]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
That's right. I can share my love of the Seahawks in a way that reflected of my passion for the Seahawks, but is still within what the NFL or the Seahawks want to make sure is conveyed about their brand.
- [23:01]
Host - Ike Keane
Right. So you're obviously talking to many different brands across many different categories. What are you finding brands are most interested or attracted to in terms of your overall offering or just like what are their priorities in general that you see shaping cross category here in 2026?
- [23:18]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
I think it's absolutely about not just we talked about fan engagement, but you could substitute the word customers. It's customer engagement. More importantly, building robust customer experiences that keep people connected to your brands. But I think more and more with agentic and with agents, you have to think about what are the experiences I'm building for my customers, My people, customers, my customers. But also how do I want to make sure that as agents engage with me, what is the story, what is the content, what is the experience I'm building for those agents? It's very much humans agents. Both have to be, both are true and both have to be thought about as audiences that you want to build experiences and content for.
- [23:58]
Host - Ike Keane
Totally.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Right. Because if you want to make sure you're showing up like we have a lot of data on the shift from SEO to what we call it Geo aeo, but just people using things like Perplexity chatgpt to research but soon to shop. Exactly.
- [24:13]
Host - Ike Keane
They're going to go down the whole funnel there.
- [24:14]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
But if you're a brand, you absolutely need to know how are you showing up? How are you showing up on ChatGPT?
- [24:20]
Host - Ike Keane
And it's all about content, isn't it?
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly.
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Host - Ike Keane
Right.
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Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
How do you make sure you show up? Well and you're like, I'm happy with that. And it's going to make sure it reflects my brand in the best light. So this is what I mean about not only are you thinking about your customers all the time, but now you're thinking about how we show it for the agents. And earlier this year we released Adobe LLM Optimizer, which was exactly.
- [24:38]
Host - Ike Keane
Oh, really? I didn't know about that. I got to check that out.
- [24:40]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
You do?
- [24:40]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah.
- [24:41]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
LLM Optimizer. But it is exactly designed to help customers figure out how do I make sure that when people are searching in ChatGPT, perplexity, whatever, we're showing up as a brand, we're showing up well, it is how we want to be depicted there.
- [24:54]
Host - Ike Keane
It's interesting because what you just described is what I think we're seeing in this software category overall is that lines are being blurred.
- [25:02]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Right.
- [25:02]
Host - Ike Keane
Like you guys are now getting into the AI optimization, where you see SEO optimization game, which would have traditionally been an area that other companies would have done. Maybe not, but it's just a natural extension given that you have the data, you have, the creative content's being created on your platform. That's what drives AI optimization. That's what CMOs care about. So it makes sense. And I think the more that you can move fast and obviously bolt on these features, the more that you're going to be able to really drive that customer growth.
- [25:29]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Well, it's true, actually. We made an acquisition just recently of Semrush was in that area and that was a lot of the reason. It's like, how do we really help customers navigate this change? They shift from very traditional SEO to more Geo and it's going to be a journey, but absolutely. How do we make sure that we have the right tools and the right products to help customers on the.
- [25:47]
Host - Ike Keane
Absolutely. So, shifting gears, we wrap up here. Rachel. It's been, as I knew it would, a great talk, lively talk, and we covered so many different topics. Looking back on your career, because you've worked at many great tech companies from Salesforce and AWS and Cisco, et cetera, and you look back, back on your career journey in the world of tech, what were some of the decisions that you think you made right along the way, areas that you focused on to put yourself in the CMO role Today,
- [26:12]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
I think my sort of mantra as I think about it is like, how am I always being curious? How can I always learn more? How can I understand what customers want, Kind of dive deep on kind of the information and what a customer's telling me? I think that's always critical. No matter what job you have. And then I think, be open to experimentation, trying something that you would think, I don't know if I'm, well, super well suited for that, but I'm going to kind of push on that and try because you never know what you pick up and you never know how it becomes applicable later. Right, right.
- [26:41]
Host - Ike Keane
So when I think, it always makes sense in a rearview mirror.
- [26:43]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Right?
- [26:43]
Host - Ike Keane
Exactly.
- [26:43]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
When I think about roles I've taken, I'm like, I often. I don't oftentimes say no, because I'm like, I could learn something with this. That in the moment you're like, eh. But later I'm like, I'm so glad I had that job because it has set me up for this one. Yeah, they have. So I'm all about like, how can you walk into things with an open mind, with like a beginner mindset, as they say, and try things, learn from them, and then take those learnings into the next role.
- [27:05]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah. And say, as a leader, of course, greatness is an agency of others, and you need to build a team, surround yourself by great people. What are you looking for in talent, especially for people maybe in the earlier stages of their career? We have a lot of listeners that are in your earlier stages of career here on the podcast. Like, what are you looking for as a leader and as a manager of people that you want to bring on board your team that you think could be future leaders themselves?
- [27:27]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah, I mentioned. I think curiosity is key. An appetite for experimentation is key.
- [27:32]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah, it's huge.
- [27:33]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
I also think now, though, this concept of critical thinking, and we've been. I've been having this conversation a lot over the last couple days. Like, not only are you getting maybe the information quickly, but are you able to look at it and really kind of ask questions about the veracity of the info? What does it make sense? How could I apply it? I think that's important too.
- [27:50]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah, for sure. And I think some of those skill sets traditionally weren't ones that were necessarily the most important. Like, we were xing, in my opinion, the age of the knowledge economy.
- [27:58]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Exactly.
- [27:59]
Host - Ike Keane
What matters most is what you. You knew, not how you acted. No softer skills. Yeah, but now the softer skills are definitely 100%.
- [28:06]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Like, how do you work with people? How do you get the best out of people?
- [28:09]
Host - Ike Keane
I think that's how resilient are you. You have perseverance. Like, you know, I spent a lot of time building an AI, and it's like, you'll hit roadblocks along the way, and it's easy to say. I guess it can't work. But if you just don't give up and you go after, you'll get past that step.
- [28:22]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
You look at it from a bunch of different angles like, okay, this didn't work. What other ways could I try this? Yeah.
- [28:26]
Host - Ike Keane
And then what happens is that once you achieve that step.
- [28:28]
LinkedIn Ads Announcer
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- [28:28]
Host - Ike Keane
You'll say, oh, well, I can actually use that step for this thing I'm doing. And then you kind of just. That's how the pieces kind of all fall together. At least you know, I've experienced that.
- [28:37]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Totally agree.
- [28:38]
Host - Ike Keane
So there's been an awesome discussion to wrap up here. This has been really. Yeah. We always ask our guests if there's a saying or mantra that helps sort of encapsulate the professional journey. Just want to know what comes to mind for you.
- [28:48]
LinkedIn Ads Announcer
Yeah.
- [28:49]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
On the same theme, it's like, just be curious, be open.
- [28:51]
Host - Ike Keane
Yeah.
- [28:52]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Like, be interested in things. Asking questions. Asking questions about customers, the world around you. I'm a huge fan of that.
- [28:58]
Host - Ike Keane
Never stop learning, Right?
- [28:59]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Never stop learning.
- [28:59]
Host - Ike Keane
Especially in this day and age where we look outside the window here in the Las Vegas Strip and there are so many innovations right in front of our eyes. And I don't think we've ever seen a time in technology like this where there's so many possibilities and the rate of change is sort of mind blowing.
- [29:15]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Yeah.
- [29:15]
Host - Ike Keane
In terms of what's possible. Awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much for taking the time here during a busy CES week to share your thoughts and insights with us. I'm a huge fan of the brand Adobe, and so many people on your team wish you nothing but success in the Euro ahead.
- [29:28]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
- [29:30]
Host - Ike Keane
Absolutely. On behalf of Susie and I Keane, thank you again, the Rachel Thornton, the CMO of Adobe Enterprise, for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the Speed of Culture podcast on your favorite podcast platform from CES in Las Vegas. We'll see you soon, everyone. Take care. Bye.
- [29:42]
Guest - Rachel Thornton, CMO Adobe Enterprise
Bye.
- [29:47]
Host - Ike Keane
The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Suzy as part of the Adweek Podcast Network and AAF Creator Network. You can listen subscribe to all Adweek's podcasts by visiting adweek.com to find out more about Susie, head to Suzy.com and make sure to search for the Speed of Culture in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Click follow so you don't miss out on any future episodes. On behalf of the team here at Suzy, thanks for listening.
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Host - Ike Keane
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