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The Speed of Culture Podcast
Flight plan: How Richard Nunn and Maggie Schmerin are turning United Airlines into a loyalty and media powerhouse
00:32:35
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- [00:00]
Darina
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- [00:54]
Matt Britton
How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount Safe driver discount New vehicle discount Storage discount How many discounts.
- [01:04]
Maggie Schmaren
Will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts.
- [01:08]
Matt Britton
Restrictions apply.
- [01:13]
Richard Nunn
We know brand growth equals business growth, but do your stakeholders Tracksuit is an affordable, always on brand tracking dashboard that helps marketers and agencies prove the impact of their work on brand metrics over time. Benchmarked against competitors. Built from best in class methodology, the Tracksuit dashboard is accessible and easy to understand for everyone from CSOs and CMOs to CFOs and founders. Research shows that brand investment in good economic times and bad is essential to driving sustainable growth. The bottom line? Turning off the brand tap will cost you in the long run. Tracksuit gives marketers and agencies a common language to measure and communicate brands impact. Without the $100,000 price tag, their in house research experts will have your survey live and your full marketing funnel and brand perceptions visible in just 30 days. Check tracksuit out@gotracksuit.com.
- [02:13]
Maggie Schmaren
We'Ve totally rewritten a playbook on airline marketing and the number one goal is differentiation. So I think we take that inspiration from what we're doing with the customer experience and bring that down to both loyal and how we market. To say if another airline, if another travel brand could easily come in and swap out our logo for theirs on here, then we're not on the right path. And that I think has really been a guiding North Star mantra for us.
- [02:40]
Matt Britton
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 two people at the top of their game at United Airlines. We have Richard Nunn, CEO of United Airlines Mileage plus, and Maggie Schmaren, Chief Advertising Officer. Richard and Maggie are leading the charge in transforming how United engages with travelers through innovative advertising, data driven insights and cultural relevance. From launching Connective Media, the first of its kind travel ad network, to redefining customer experience both in the air and on the ground, they're pushing the boundaries of what's possible in airline marketing. Richard, Maggie, so great to see both of you.
- [03:32]
Richard Nunn
Good to be here.
- [03:33]
Maggie Schmaren
Thanks Matt. Great to be here.
- [03:35]
Matt Britton
Absolutely. Richard, let's start with you and let's start with the big picture. Obviously loyalty is so important. I'm a big traveler and I know how important loyalty can be in all aspects of travel. How has the concept of loyalty evolved over the years and more specifically, how have consumer expectations evolved in that realm?
- [03:54]
Richard Nunn
Well, thanks for inviting us. So I've been in the role a couple of years. We're looking at what next generation loyalty looks like because if you think about sort of loyalty programs, whether you're a retailer or an airline, they haven't actually kind of evolved. They've pretty much been the same for the last 30 years, but ultimately at its core driven by data and a better understanding of the individual. So we've now created a United ID graph which is important. So that's one aspect. Secondly, technology, whether that's kind of core ad tech technology or new emerging AI based technology and then that will enable a world where we can move into hyper personalization across all our digital channels by better understanding who that individual is and be more probabilistic in terms of at the start of the year, I may want to go skiing in March and a backpack holiday in the summer and flop on a beach in October and the fall. How can we join the dots of inspiration through content that we create through the amazing stuff that Maggie's team talks about from destination, all the social content that gets created to our digital hemispheres, new content, about three perfect days, the destinations and then start tapping into their mileage plus account. How many miles have they got and how can we put curate packages together so that that friction point of I've got a bunch of miles and I Want to go on a specific date and time, Damn it, I can't, because the flight's busy. That becomes a friction. So we're looking at how we better join the dots internally and then better understand the consumer and our customer and then start packaging things up with a bow for what they want to do and all the experiences they want to do in the future. So that's kind of where we're going and we're on that journey. We're not there yet, just to be clear, but that's how we're redefining what loyalty looks like for our customers.
- [05:42]
Matt Britton
Yeah, I mean, I think you touched on a lot of points there, one of which is hyper personalization. And I think I do believe AI is unlocking that because in the past they said data was the new oil, but. But you really couldn't use it that easily. You have reams of data that are in databases that you couldn't easily access. But now with AI, you could essentially take a lot of information that you've pulled together and enrich on a user, whether what their favorite sports team is, when their birthday is, if they have children, where they work. And all of a sudden you can really start to customize your offering to them both in terms of the in flight experience. But of course, relative to loyalty, that we think could be really powerful over time.
- [06:16]
Richard Nunn
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I obviously we're in a fortunate position. We work for an airline and we can go off wherever we wish around the. And now, even if it's a weekend away or a week's holiday, I'm going to South Africa and Cape Town in the fall and I literally went to ChatGPT. I said, I'm going for seven nights. This is what I want to do. I want to do tabletop mountain, some culture, some restaurants, a beach, this, that and the other. It gave me a full itinerary of like a full day for seven days. Which hotels, which restaurants to go to. Now that's great for inspiration. Now how do you then execute that in a frictionless way rather than having to go to all these different websites to execute? That's the world that we want to kind of move into. So we own because the first point in the travel is booking the flight. So how can we create the curation of content and execute around that? So it's pretty exciting. But there are technologies out there that are starting to unify that.
- [07:09]
Matt Britton
I mean, we're taping this in mid May and just yesterday Perplexity, which is a leading large language model, announced and they launched basically an AI powered travel agent. So I think increasingly for anybody in hospitality, it's really going to be about. Because obviously sometimes they're going to come to United, but a lot of times they might just go to chatgpt or Perplexity. And when they do, I think brands need to figure out how to show up there. I don't know. Maggie, if you have any thoughts on that in terms of what the new consumer journey is going to look like over time in a world of AI relative to travel.
- [07:40]
Maggie Schmaren
Well, I think you're exactly right. It's been interesting. We've figured out a lot over the last couple of years. What type of travel inspiration and information can we best provide our customers? But then what are moments where you. United is maybe not the first place that they're coming. So one really small example, if you go follow us on Instagram, you don't see a lot of destination photography. We fly to all of these incredible places, but we're really focused on airplane photography on Instagram. And it's funny, every time I interview a new candidate to join the team at United, they always say to me, you know, I was looking at your Instagram and I had a thought, I had an idea on what you might be able to do, you know, more destination photography. That's not right for us on that channel. Who's following us on that channel are what we call avgeeks, aviation geeks, aviation enthusiasts. They love photos and videos of airplanes. So we find other ways to make sure we're serving you the destination content. Richard mentioned Three Perfect Days, which is a great digital offering that we have. Our website has an amazing search by and booking tool where you can say, I have this number of days to go on a short, you know, long weekend trip or I have two weeks off, I'm interested in a beach or a cold weather destination. And so really meeting people where they are in the moment, I think, as opposed to just, hey, we're a travel brand so we should just cram kind of all this destination content down people's throats. I think we've been much more mindful about how to do that in the last couple of years.
- [09:08]
Matt Britton
First of all, I totally get and I think destination photography isn't necessarily ownable by United. So that's another reason why you want to reinforce what's distinct about the brand. So you're going to see that stuff everywhere. Yeah, you're so right in that regard. I mean, I think we can all agree that what differentiates airlines and this kind of Goes to your point a little bit. Maggie has changed because it used to just be on price and routes, but now it's really more about, like, the brand experience and the actual product experience, if you will. How do you think United showing up differently in terms of customer experience? And what are some of the areas that you guys are leaning into?
- [09:45]
Maggie Schmaren
Yeah, that's the number one thing we talk about. If you hear our CEO on the earnings call or really any press that he does, we're really talking about being a brand that people choose to come back to over time. And so how does that show up in truly every element of the customer experience? We like to talk a lot about our app, for example. It's industry leading. It's the most downloaded airline app out there. It has a ton of bells and whistles that are just not intuitive to competitor apps. We're rolling out starlink, so we will have the fastest wifi in the phone. We're about to break the WI FI barriers. Richard and I like to say yesterday was actually our very first commercial flight for that. And so those things that are truly differentiating for the customer experience, because when we know when we have those people will come back to us and they will choose us because it's not necessarily always on price. And then to take it down to what Richard and I and our various teams do, how do we differentiate? That's been the journey we've been on with our advertising and our marketing the past five or six years. I don't think it's a secret to say that the airline category was largely a sea of sameness. I like to talk about the fact that I have this great slide sometimes I present that has the Pantone color chips. Most of the world's major airlines, which, oh, by the way, all have blue in their color palette. United is no different. The Department of Homeland Security uses blue. TSA uses blue. Up until a couple of years ago, we used the same. We all read the same research that blue is a calming color and something that customers want to see, I guess. But up until a few years ago, we used the same family affant as the Department of Homeland Security. I mean, imagine subliminal finally going through an airport and what that experience must have been. So we've totally rewritten a playbook on airline marketing, and the number one goal is differentiation. So I think we take that inspiration from what we're doing with the customer experience and bring that down to both loyalty and how we market, to say if another airline, if another travel brand could easily come in and swap out our logo for theirs on here, then we're not on the right path. And that I think has really been a guiding North Star mantra for us.
- [11:51]
Matt Britton
Yeah, I mean the Starlink partnership I think is a huge deal. I mean despite whether or not we're entitled to or not, people do complain in a tin can at 30,000ft that their WI fi is down. As a business traveler, I understand why if I have five hours in the sky uninterrupted, that's critical time to move my business forward. And if I can't get connected or have choppy connection and there are some airlines that I fly more often than not that have gotten worse over time for whatever reason with their WI FI connection. It makes me rethink frankly when a about to book do I want to fly this airline or not? And with Starlink and this technology, I can only imagine it really stands to set the bar at so much of a higher level. Richard, I love know your thoughts on Starlink and what it can do to the customer experience.
- [12:36]
Richard Nunn
Yeah, well I was fortunate enough. I drove a lot of the thinking around that and I was in the inaugural media flight last week and Maggie said yesterday was the first commercial flight and I'd done lots of lab testing with all the technical teams and it's pretty awesome. But to see in the sky and we had lots of media and influences and it was a unique flight. It wasn't a commercial flight so you could talk because we're not allowed to do that. We were having live calls, people were playing high fidelity games. I'm not a gamer but we had people from various amazing game companies, hardware configurability, we were people having watching live sports and shopping and talking to their mum and it was just mind blowing. So there's a massive behavior change and I think the important thing is it's interesting and we've seen this through our NPS studies that where we have great seat back screens with great content, the food tastes better, the service is better and even if the flight is delayed, maybe the flight isn't delayed because that whole experience kind of just changes people's perceptions. And I think we're going to see and as we announced with Starlink and it, it takes WI FI connectivity to a different level, which is what we're talking about, it breaks the WI FI barrier. But it's not just about that, it's about what that will enable us to do to provide an even awesome experience for our customers. So yes, we're going to allow people to have multiple streaming platforms. So scenario is you could be halfway through watching a movie at home on said streaming platform if there's account linked via your Mileage plus account. Because Starlink is free to Mileage plus members, you can resume halfway through that exactly where you stopped off from your home. You'll be able to game, you'll be able to shop. So it's interesting and we have this notion about how we create the living room in Sky. When I came here sort of two years ago, it is a bizarre mindset that all the stuff we do 24. 7 on earth with our devices and we can do anything and then you go up in the sky and you go to a different world. So yes, it has to be about awesome connectivity, which Starlink is the best player in town. It's like five or six years ahead of anyone out there due to its tech. But it's just what that's now going to enable us to do, which is going to take the customer experience in flight to a different level. And the feedback, the quality of feedback we've had literally. Maggie, I was seeing some stuff this morning on some tweets that people have putting out on the first commercial flight. I mean, you can see it now. So I'm really excited that this is rolling out at speed. We're doing about 40 planes a month. So the end of the year we'll have all our regional jets enabled. So it's exciting.
- [15:10]
Matt Britton
Are you guys planning on tagging that in your messaging? So if I'm searching for a floating United, I'll know if it's Starlink enabled or not.
- [15:17]
Richard Nunn
Yeah, we've got a comms program that it's great when you do a certain fleet type because you know, but clearly if something's gone wrong and you have to change the tail number out. But yeah, from a pre comms perspective to say you're, hey, get ready to going to be checking in tomorrow. That flight's going to be Starlink enabled. So we are doing that in the comms side.
- [15:37]
Maggie Schmaren
The coolest story I heard from that media flight that Richard was on, it happened to be the day that the new Pope was announced and it happened to be right as the plane was taking off. And you're not going to lose that time anymore. Now you have to wait until you're above 10,000ft. You will be able to connect gate to gate. And you think about business travelers, oftentimes they're people that have loyalty at a level where they get to board first. So they are seated on that plane sometimes for 45 minutes. And if you're in a Dreamliner, if you're in a composite aircraft type, sometimes your tech start going through when you're on the ground, so you're losing all of that time as well. And so to be able to work gate to gate, not kind of have that 30 minutes when you're taxiing. And the new Pope was announced literally as the plane was flying above the skies of Chicago, which turns out where he's from. So that was just some awesome feedback that I heard from people to really show just how reliable it is. Obviously fast, but I think the reliability once people really experience the gate to gate aspect is going to be amazing.
- [16:38]
Matt Britton
Yeah. So I flew an airline that wasn't United in first to CES in Las Vegas and you have a bunch of WI fi data, hungry travelers and it just didn't work. It broke the system. So often the routes where WI fi is most needed right now is where it works the least. Just because of bandwidth issues.
- [16:58]
Richard Nunn
It's bandwidth issues and now getting super technical. But Starlink technology is called LEO's Low Earth Orbit Satellites versus GEOs, which are a damn site higher. So even across the states that's exactly the issue that people face. It goes from satellite down and up, whereas LEO is obviously lower and they go from satellite to satellite. So you're not going to get that uninterrupted service even over the US alone when you go to the Pacific and places like that. Because Starlink is global. But yeah, no, it's exciting.
- [17:28]
Matt Britton
We'll be right back with the speed of culture after a few words from our sponsors.
- [17:34]
Richard Nunn
We know brand growth equals business growth, but do your stakeholders. Tracksuit is an affordable, always on brand new tracking dashboard that helps marketers and agencies prove the impact of their work on brand metrics over time. Benchmarked against competitors. Built from best in class methodology, the Tracksuit dashboard is accessible and easy to understand for everyone from CSOs and CMOs to CFOs and founders. Research shows that brand investment in good economic times and bad is essential to driving sustainable growth. The bottom line, turning off the brand tap will cost you in the long run. Tracksuit gives marketers and agencies a common language to measure and communicate brands impact. Without the $100,000 price tag, their in house research experts will have your survey live and your full marketing funnel and brand perceptions visible in just 30 days. Check tracksuit out@gotracksuit.com.
- [18:35]
Darina
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- [19:35]
Matt Britton
USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day. Like superheroes and Sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply. So United has a global media network called Connective Media, which I imagine is built to help partners reach your passengers in the right place at the right time. Talk to me about that network and how it's evolved over time and what the vision is for it moving forward.
- [20:08]
Richard Nunn
Yeah, thanks. Well, with can coming out next month, we're almost at our one year anniversary, which I can't quite believe. But yeah, just taking a half a step back, this was predicated on back to what I sort of mentioned earlier, that we have a huge customer base. It's the sort of the best airline in the world. We've now created our own unique identity graph. So if we flew 174 million people in 2024, we've got about 111 million unique IDs. That's an audience of scale. And then we talk about getting to a more personalized world of messaging from United, messaging from our partners, and then now messaging from brands and advertisers who want to get in front of our audiences. So what we've done, we've enabled all of that. We've enabled it across all our digital channels and it's great. And I think the response we've had back and when we launched last June and you've all heard about retail media, that's massive. Now emerging into kind of commerce media and all the various verticals that are now playing in this game predicated by high fidelity quality first party data, which we have it was important for us. Yes, we're an airline, so yes, the default would be we'd be pretty awesome at all things travel. But it was important when we launched that because of the digital channels we have, from our.com to our app, to someone sitting in our club, to gate information displays, to the awesome experience in the sky and beyond and at home, that we can enable multiple verticals, not just in the travel vertical. So luxury brands, auto finance, and that's a very different play to retail. Retail plays very well in the CPG vertical. It's very hard for them to break out into multiple verticals. You know, a Kroger or a retailer doesn't sell cars, it may sell financial products, but what sort of depth and breadth. So that was important that we expanded across verticals. And then the last point was that we can play both in the brand game, brand based advertising, well as performance and that differentiates again to retail. So it's gone great. We're sort of fully enabled with all the team. It's been a fantastic first year, great case studies, great reception from the market and we've got a pretty exciting kind of roadmap in year two. And then clearly as we ended on the last point, Starlink is going to enable a very different world of real time ad decisioning in the sky with its low latency. So we know exactly who's sitting in that seat. And unlike just having a generic ad across 250 people in one plane, it's seat to seat enabled by Starlink. So fully programmatic in the sky, which is pretty cool.
- [22:45]
Matt Britton
It's crazy just because the advertising landscape is shifting so dramatically. You have the retail media networks like you have Target and Walmart offering CPGs, the ability to reach the Walmart shopper anywhere. Chase just announced they powered I think $10 billion of purchasing in the last year through their media network. Then you have PayPal that's also rolling it out. So it's interesting, just like the companies that used to be just primarily advertisers are now advertisees if you will. But a company like United has such powerful first party data which earlier can be mined and really unlocked for anyone that wants to reach that high value traveler 100%.
- [23:23]
Richard Nunn
That's exactly right. And I think there's an ecosystem that's emerging across all these commerce, broader commerce players where we can all play together. So unlike publishers in that sort of the ad network game where everyone is fighting for eyeballs. The difference here is each of those players that you mentioned, we all have an awesome customer base. But guess what? I fly United, but I might shop at Walmart or I might use a banking product. I use Chase obviously, because that's our partner. But I might use PayPal too. But the point is you can start sharing data in a privacy safe way to the value of the brand advertisers. So there is that sort of emerging ecosystem now across all commerce media players that starting to play together rather than fight, which is pretty cool.
- [24:07]
Matt Britton
Very interesting. So moving on and talking a little bit about the consumer, Maggie, like we've seen a huge shift through many different reports that the consumer is now decidedly focusing on experiences over stuff. And obviously during COVID experiences, as you guys probably well know, weren't really an option. And people bought a TV for every room in their house, including the bathrooms. And then you had this revenge travel phase which doesn't seem to have let up just by my own anecdotal evidence of being on airplanes and checking into hotels. What is the shift you're seeing from the consumer and how are they prioritizing not just travel, but different types of travel? And what are you seeing in terms of demand within your routes that support that?
- [24:50]
Maggie Schmaren
Yeah, you're exactly right. I like to say we definitely don't have an awareness problem. We don't have to sell people on what we do. Those trends, I mean it's been so interesting watching them take shape throughout the last five years and people ask me all the time, I'm in dinner parties, are Tuesday still the best day to buy airline tickets. And all of those trends have completely been jumbled and changed up. And so we do see that people are able to combine working with leisure. They're able to go longer. They have a wedding in Florida, they're able to get there on a Wednesday or a Thursday instead of a Friday, work remotely. And so we've had to be really responsive to that with our marketing efforts and I think really force ourselves out of travel endemic media. If you talk to us fiber years ago, that's a lot of the places that we showed up, the various travel sites, just the things that were more expected. Even if you think about a big broadcast partner and what we were focused on with a morning show, let's say for example, we were probably talking to them about, well, let's send your anchors somewhere now because it is so crowded and I think there's such a tension on this. We again in that clay for differentiation have really pulled the brand out of that and I think want to be much more responsive to overall culture in general, whether that's sports, music, pop culture. And then what is the travel lens that we can layer on top of that?
- [26:12]
Matt Britton
Absolutely. I'd also love to ask your opinion, Maggie, just in terms of AI and how you see it impacting your role and your team's everyday lives in the advertising and marketing space. And where are you putting it to work currently?
- [26:26]
Maggie Schmaren
Yeah, I would say it's definitely an art and science. I don't think we're getting too ahead of ourselves with the volume of ads that we create here at United. Those are so human that are making those ads. AI is helping empower our insights. I think what's really interesting, more and more focus group testing with segments that we build throughout AI. It obviously takes a lot of effort to stand up a focus group, but how can we build some stuff there? We do way more testing than we've ever done. That's been a trend of ours at United the last couple of years when we have the seedling of an idea, when we have a final line of copy. And so that's been really cool to be able to build those Personas and those audiences and use AI there and then I think carry that through again. That in combination with the first party data to get much more specific about who we target. Five, six, seven years ago, it was just kind of the general mass traveler with one kind of size fits all audience. And we know that is not the case at all. Today we have a traveler who might be more in tune to a basic economy fair all the way through our Polaris business experience that we just announced kind of a second version of that earlier this week. And so I definitely think more on the targeting side and kind of the gut checking and less at United with actually making the creative of them.
- [27:43]
Matt Britton
Yeah, totally makes sense. So with the time we have left, I'd love to just shift gears and just talk about each of your own roles and just professional development and where you focus your time. Let's start with you, Richard. When you look at your role, obviously United Airlines Mileage plus is obviously a huge business in its own right. And obviously from our discussion today, there's several tentacles to the business and to the initiative based upon that. Where do you find yourself spending your time today and what are some of the areas you're really focused on to really drive the business forward here in 2025 and in the years ahead?
- [28:16]
Richard Nunn
We've talked about data. I'm a sort of data media technology guy at heart. I don't come from the airline industry, so it's been kind of A very interesting challenge to kind of look at how we better join the dots. So we talk about this sort of flywheel or a turbine wheel, if you think about the airline. And. And it's doing great. And that's growing so exponentially. That growth sort of feeds the growth of the loyalty program, which then gives us opportunities to sell our Chase credit card with the partnerships that we're now enabling. Yes, in the travel sector, but outside of that. And there's some really exciting new partners that will be launching this year and then obviously predicated that with the media network. So this sort of flywheel of interconnection, the customers like dead center. So a lot of my time is how we really make that flywheel spin. And there's some great examples where in fact, one of the launch partners last year about all three of these sort of all three or four of these elements was Televisa Univision, one of the biggest sort of media companies in the world, Spanish speaking. So we launched Vix, their streaming platform on our SeekBank screens in the plane. It was supported by media targeting Spanish speaking people. Then you can sign up up to get that subscription and get miles on the back of that sign up, or you can then redeem your miles against that subscription or use your credit card to pay for that subscription. So that touches all parts of the airline. So what we're finding is a lot of these emerging, whether it's a media relationship, a partner relationship, our banking relationship, and the core airline. How can we enhance that overall customer experience for our customer? In many, many ways, yes. Driven by data technology, great new technology such as Starlink. So that's where we're trying to sort of drive that, the big flywheel effect. So that's where I've spent a lot of my time. So touching a lot of those businesses in different ways.
- [30:09]
Matt Britton
Absolutely. And Maggie, from your perspective, obviously the notion of advertising has changed so much over the years. I know you have background in PR and working on the agency side, et cetera. How is brand building and marketing generally changed over time? And what do you think the skill sets are needed for the modern CMO to be able to remain relevant today?
- [30:31]
Maggie Schmaren
Yeah, great question. It's something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I get a little bit allergic and I start to itch a little bit when people talk about the glory days of Madison Avenue and they kind of evangelize Don Draper and that era. There's definitely some lessons that are still tried and true in terms of how do you resonate with people. But obviously so much has changed down to the channels that we reach people. There are more ways than ever to tune out out advertising. You pay more so that you don't have to watch a commercial. You have ad blockers on your web browser. And so how do we show up in a way that you can't ignore? Oftentimes that's inserting yourselves in the actual content itself, like getting out of what feels like a traditional ad. I think the best example that we might have of that at United is our sponsorship of Rexam, which people know as Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny's team. We are the front of jersey sponsor. Season four, just launched actually yesterday of the Hulu Show. Welcome to Wrexham. You cannot ignore us. We are running around all episode. It's great. Emmy award winning. And that's a good example. That's a club that's in Wales. We don't fly to Wales, even though we're the largest airline in the world. And so that was an opportunity again to really tap into culture and what Ryan and Rob are doing, the massive footprints that they have on social. So I will say a lot of what Richard was saying. I think what his team does and what my team does really is relationship building. So we can move really quickly when there is this moment to say we can take advantage of something with a partner that he might be talking to from a connective media side, or there's something happening in sports or culture that we can be response to. You can really only move fast because there's that baseline relationship that exists. So that's where I spend a lot of my time ensuring that we are ready to go and we have the right connections and we really have our flag planted out there as a brand that wants to do cool stuff and wants to move fast and isn't afraid to take some opportunities. Opportunistic risks.
- [32:27]
Richard Nunn
Absolutely.
- [32:28]
Matt Britton
So I guess to wrap up here just to each of you, we had a lot of young listeners here on the Speed of Culture podcast. Just curious, we could start with you first, Richard, for somebody at the beginning stages of their career, just based upon your experience, what are some of the key skill sets you think need to be developed at early stages to end up in the C suite one day, as both of you have managed to accomplish?
- [32:51]
Richard Nunn
Yeah, that's a good question. I think you can only answer that in hindsight. I started, I was a trained accountant originally, and look where I've ended. I think my mantra that I learned relatively eight to 10 years into my career was, and I started off in Meet accountancy to media. And I echo exactly what Maggie said. Things never change the same. So stay curious, take risks and keep learning. Is actually my mantra that I tell my kids, because things are only accelerating, so you've got to push yourself. We're now in this world of AI and I think I was around when the first, first, well, Internet actually was launched, then mobile phones. AI is like 10, 100x. A generational change to what we thought. That was a pretty monstrous change. And in fact, I even remember as a kid having the first calculator. And my parents are saying, that's outrageous, you're never going to learn. And how to understand maths. So that's four iterations that I've seen in my lifetime, which is showing my age. But stay curious, take risks, keep learning. Is the mantra for no and Maggie from your end.
- [33:53]
Maggie Schmaren
Yeah, very similar. The learning doesn't stop when you graduate university. You have to be a student. You have to read if there's work out there that you like. You see a Super bowl commercial, find out the agency that did it, find out the CMO who did it, start to develop that point of view in terms of, you know, this is work that I gravitate to, or this was a really interesting piece of tech or how they went to market with a media buy and, you know, start to zone in and keep studying that. The other thing I always remind people, watch 60 Minutes every week. That was advice I got in my very first job. I think it's still relevant. If you watch 60 Minutes, regardless of your age, your level, your light years ahead of your peer set, it just makes you interesting. They cover good stuff on there. So I think you have to read and be a student of your own industry, but you have to be interesting beyond that and know how to hold your own. And a conversation at a work function, at a social function, and so always be learning, always be reading.
- [34:50]
Matt Britton
I love that. So the wrap up here. We always ask our guests if there's a saying or mantra that helps define their professional during the day. And Maggie will stick with you. What comes to mind.
- [34:59]
Maggie Schmaren
Yeah, my favorite quote is by Billie Jean King. Pressure is a privilege. And I oftentimes say that I'm backstage about to give a speech, and you can't help but feel, you know, a little bit of nerves. It's a privilege to be in that situation. And you've gotten there because you have a good story to tell on behalf of a great brand that Richard and I have the privilege to work for. So pressure is a privilege Richard.
- [35:21]
Matt Britton
Yeah, I love that Richard from your end.
- [35:24]
Richard Nunn
This is a real one, but it certainly helped my life and I've taught it my fat yeah, keep driving. I think that's the context because I know you can be taught drive, but I think it's important that you have drive because I think that makes you curious, adventurous, interested, interesting about the world. And I think that's so important now because the world is a lot more connected, but it's also a lot more confusing. But keep driving.
- [35:45]
Matt Britton
I love that and I'm really thankful for both of you guys to allow our audience to keep driving by sharing all your support, your wisdom and insights today. And obviously we're at the dawn of what will I'm sure be a huge travel season for United. And wishing both of you the best of luck with all your new launches and everything that's to come. So thanks so much for joining today.
- [36:02]
Richard Nunn
Thanks Matt.
- [36:03]
Maggie Schmaren
Thank you. This was great.
- [36:04]
Matt Britton
Absolutely. On behalf of Susan AGWA team, thanks again to Richard Nunn, CEO of Mileage plus at United Airlines and Maggie Schmaren, Chief Advertising Officer at United Airlines for joining us today. Fly United this summer and check out starlink if you can be sure to subscribe Rate review to Speed of Culture Podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Till next time time. See you soon. Take care. The Speed of Culture is brought to you by Suzy as part of the Adweek Podcast Network and a guest creator Network. You can listen subscribe to all Adweek's podcasts by visiting Adweek.com podcast. To find out more about Suzy, 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.
- [37:09]
Richard Nunn
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Maggie Schmaren
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