← Uncensored CMO
Uncensored CMO
CMO masterclass & how to grow billion dollar brands with PepsiCo CMO Jane Wakely and Neil Barrie
00:57:40
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- [00:00]
Jane Wakely
Foreign.
- [00:07]
John Evans
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the uncensored cmo. Now, what does it take to be a truly brilliant cmo? My next two guests have got the answer to that question. Jane Wakely is the global CMO for PepsiCo and has previous to that, worked at Mars for many years and has got huge amounts of experience. And I'm also joined by Neil Barry from 21st Century Brands, who's written a guide to how CMOs can thrive in their roles, having researched and interviewed lots and lots of CMOs and pulled out the consistent themes. So in this episode, we're bringing together Jane's practical experience and Neil's research on the topic to find out what makes a great CMO. So any aspiring CMOs out there or existing CMOs that want to get better, this is the one to listen to. Here we go. Jane and Neil, welcome to the show. Great to have you both.
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Jane Wakely
Thank you so much for having us.
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Neil Barry
Honored to be here.
- [00:54]
John Evans
Now, it's great that we can talk about Bing CMOs. Right, so, Jane, we've got you in the room. You know, you have an illustrious career at Mars, and you've been at PepsiCo, I think, almost four years now. That's gone really quickly because I remember when you joined.
- [01:07]
Jane Wakely
Yeah, I mean, it's been amazing. It's been an incredible adventure. I must admit, time flies.
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John Evans
It does, doesn't it? You know, and I'm happy to see you break the CMO tenure or whatever the average CMO tenure is these days. So you're safe.
- [01:22]
Jane Wakely
Thank you.
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John Evans
You made it. But talking about being a cmo, you've obviously had a big career in Mars and now at PepsiCo, what would you say are the main attributes of a successful CMO like yourself?
- [01:34]
Jane Wakely
Yeah, I've been thinking about that question and the way I like to think of the most inspirational and effective CMOs, they see themselves as architects of growth. And I know there's a lot of industry noise about what a CMO should be called. It's not about what you're called. It's what about what you do and how you impact. And I think, as an architect of growth, what does that mean? I think your accountability at the board is to bridge the consumer, the human growth opportunity together with the commercial growth opportunity, and to be the bridge that spans those two. And as an architect of growth, if you think of the role of architects, what do they do? They bring the science of architecture together with incredible art and creativity. I remember if you think of a bridge building, you know, bridge building hasn't. Hasn't changed in terms of the physics, the laws of physics that keep a bridge up that's been consistent over years. And yet the creativity, the ingenuity, the beauty, the insight that goes into incredible architecture, that is what lifts it and that's the creativity. So I like to think about it as the science and art of growth.
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John Evans
I like the framing there because I think so many marketers probably focus on painting the finished thing rather than actually deciding what they're going to build, aren't they? And often I think in marketing, we forget that actually we are there to build the plans and create the vision. And, you know, I think really of all the C suite roles, probably it's got the biggest impact on company growth of all of them, really.
- [03:06]
Jane Wakely
Well, I mean, I think, you know, any CMO needs to be obsessed about organic growth. That is the key, the key value that you bring. I think there's a lot about the how as a CMO as well. And again, if I use architects as an analogy, I think you've got to bring three S's, you've got to bring a spark, you've got to bring like a roadmap, a structure, and then you've got to create the right culture, which I think of as like safety net for people to thrive in. And my daughter, she's traveling in Barcelona at the moment. She just sent me a snap this morning from Barcelona and she's visiting Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, you know, and that is, he was an incredible architect that used the science to build an incredible cathedral. But oh, my goodness, when you see those winding spires, the sort of organic nature that he built into architecture like no one else has done, I think that's a beautiful illustration of the art and the science. And you know what struck me seeing that picture again, and I've used this analogy before, but it just happened that came into my feed this morning was, you know, he died more than about 100 years ago, I think. But his vision for that cathedral was so incredible that others have taken that vision on and have dedicated their lives to bringing that vision to life. He created a roadmap, you know, for the engineers, the builders on how to do it. And of course, you know, the culture that you create and the team that you build and the ability that you give people to learn and, you know, fail, learn, agilely, evolve. That's all the role of a CMO today. And you want to paint a vision so bright for growth, so human centered, that it's not your vision, it's the company vision. But it's you that needs to lead and inspire that together with your team. And I think that is essentially, you know, how the most inspirational and effective CMOs equip themselves.
- [05:13]
John Evans
I love the time horizon you're picking there as well, because I think it's very easy, isn't it, as a marketer to get sucked into the execution of that quarter. Right, yes. We've got our quarterly results to hit, we've got our targets. How do you balance the long term vision and building, the magnificent architecture versus the getting the first floor put in place?
- [05:33]
Jane Wakely
Yeah, well, that is walking the tightrope, isn't it? And it's always a balance. It's always a balance and quite often as you're walking any tightrope, you feel a bit off balance sometimes. So I think it's, you've got to have the two horizons in mind. And one of the points about creating a vision so aspirational that it's not just yours, it's the company wide one, is that you need to bring the outside in and the future back. As a cmo, from a human centric perspective, where is, where are people's lives going? What are the changes, the macro trends, the foresights that are going to change and shape the way people think about your category? How do you lead and shape your category? How do you be a market maker, not a market follower? And I think that is a deeply human centric approach to growth that is based in consumer behavior. I know we're going to talk about how do you make human centric decisions, but I think part of the magic of that is you've got to think in very human terms. What is organic growth at its core, it's about recruiting more people in more occasions. You then have the benefit of premiumization and pricing and other levers. But fundamentally, as marketeers, especially on big brands that have lasted multiple decades, sometimes hundreds of years, you know, we are mere guardians in a short period of time on these big brands and we stand on the shoulders of those that go before us. And ultimately I think our value should be measured. Have we driven human behavioral growth of those brands, not just benefited from the pricing value that our brands have through the decades of incredible marketing and brand building that others have built. And so I think, you know, that's how I think about it. You've got to leave brands better than you found them and you've got to use the science of growth, which means you've got to aspire to lead and shape category growth, not just drive Brand share. Both are important to a competitive position. But 70% of all growth comes from leading and shaping categories. So you've got to have your eye on the main task in hand.
- [07:43]
John Evans
That's very interesting perspective, isn't it, as you think about how you grow the pie overall, particularly when you have it, I guess in your situation as well, you have lots of distributors, bottlers, retailers, you know, you need to. Everyone needs to be successful. It's a growing the pie. Then everyone wins, don't they?
- [07:57]
Jane Wakely
Absolutely.
- [07:58]
John Evans
Well, Neil, I should bring you in as well because you've launched the CMO Thrive Guide. By the way, congratulations on the name. I love that because it would have been easy to do the CMO survival guide. Yeah, which would have been probably my default, you know, having been fired twice from the role.
- [08:11]
Jane Wakely
But.
- [08:15]
John Evans
I'll do the opposite of your book. Here's what not to do. That could be the companion to yours.
- [08:19]
Neil Barry
Well, that was very intentional because I think one of the things we wanted to do for the industry is just try and counter the narrative. There's so much talk around as you're saying that what's the role? Should we changing the role that the CMOs have never been vulnerable and our position is great CMOs, they've never been more valuable and we should stop talking about the vulnerability but take action to strengthen them. And so that was really the part of the impetus for the guide and immediately, I mean we started with Surthrival Guide which would have been terrible but we. So we ended up on Thrive guy, thank goodness. But for me I could never be a world class cmo but I think have become a very good CMO whisperer over the. I'd say in the last 10 years, 21st century brand, I've probably worked with 100 of the world's leading CMOs and tend to be at quite pivotal moments. And so I've had a. Whether it's a sort of rising stars like the Airbnbs or the Pinterest or the legacy leader brands that are constantly reinventing like the PepsiCo's, there are patterns and you start to recognize them about what works and what doesn't. And the two things epiphanies that I had from that was one, the role is probably other than CEO, the most varied, complex, almost sort of record scratch in terms of any day. You could be deep in the sort of Martech stack, deep in performance marketing machine, then talking about a serious corporate reputation, purpose, potential challenge or opportunity. And then you're also obviously talking about the details of growth or Judging creativity. So I think it's such a range. And so I think the architect piece works really well. So that was the first thing. And then the second thing was that the onboarding is the first six months are so critical and we help with a lot of onboarding. But to be honest, we were using things like the first 90 days, which was written 30 years ago, not for CMOs. And so the Thrive guide was like, the first year is critical. Let's create the playbook for ambitious CMOs to maximize their impact. And so we went out and really went to town on it. I think we got a panel of Jane and her peers, about 25 CMOs, CFOs, CEOs, all really asking the exam question of like, what do you need from CMOs in their first year to be successful?
- [10:34]
John Evans
What were the most surprising things you discovered in the process of doing that? Because, by the way, it resonates with me a lot in terms of the breadth of the role. Yeah, I think that's a really good observation. And what I've also found is that when things are going well, congratulations to the factory and the sales team and everyone else when things are going bad. Marketing. Jane, what we're going to do about this product recall, you know, because you've got a lot of responsibility and because brand can cover pretty much anything. Yeah, you've got a lot of responsibility.
- [11:02]
Neil Barry
To handle and you've got a lot of opinions to handle, unlike a lot of areas. And so I think one of the most surprising things was about growth, you know, because I think going into it, I think some of the people who weren't CMOs were really pushing, particularly on the media side. We need CMOs today to be absolute P and L experts and just sort of the granularity of the measurement systems and so on being a thing. But actually when we talk to the pretty serious CFOs, you know, CFOs, fanatics and so on, actually what they really wanted was just have a really clear link between the human growth and the commercial growth and making those intuitive links between what really drives people's behaviors and what really drives the business. That's what CEOs and CFOs really want from people. It wasn't about the complexity. That was almost a lot of CMOs we had the impression actually needed to simplify their approach to measuring growth and be clearer about it in the moments when it mattered in those killer conversations. So that was a really surprising. I think the second thing that really struck me was the amount of people that said that their role description was, was, was wrong. And in terms of like the first 12 months and actually despite all the expensive recruitment and so on that goes into it, just a lot of those things. One person described it as a suicide note, their role. And so the need for in that first year CMOs to really assert themselves on the role and sort of rewrite it in real time with people. So those are two surprises.
- [12:30]
John Evans
How you start is a really good point, isn't it? I mean I've been fascinated, actually fascinated now how you approach this Jane, because a lot of CMOs I speak to that, starting in terms of setting out what you're about, understanding how the business makes decisions, the role of brand. Does everyone understand what we're here to do? How did you approach kind of the first 90 days at Pepsi?
- [12:49]
Jane Wakely
Well, look, joining PepsiCo, it is one of the most incredible companies on the planet, right? So the first thing you do is, I think someone told me once, you have two eyes, two ears and one mouth for a reason. And you've got to use all your senses and you've got to listen way more than you talk because you've got a lot to learn in a new business. And so I think the first thing I did when I joined PepsiCo was I did a massive listening tour and actually as part of my agreement to take the job, I spent a lot of time with the head of HR and the CEO to contract my learning agenda because I was super conscious that to join a company in this seniority of position and that complex a company, you need space to really learn before you're running the operation and getting involved in the day to day because if you don't take that opportunity, you'll never be able to add the value. So I really protected that very much. The other thing was, you know, my original onboarding was very headquarters focused. And one of the things I quickly decided was that was not going to be a good move. And so actually I traveled to as many business units as I could, met our frontline associates, walked the stores, did consumer visits, really spent time with on the grounds teams to understand the power of our branch, the power of our portfolio, the culture of the organization. You know, I've worked for four great organizations in my time and you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And if you don't understand the how and the beating heart of a business, however smart you are, whatever value you can technically bring, you'll never be successful. So really listening, understanding the dynamics of the category you're in, learning from as broad a base as possible and getting a feel for the culture and from that, deciding where you can make the biggest difference and going back to your key stakeholders and whatever brief you've been given contracting, look, here's where I think we can add value. And testing that, I was super lucky. Ramon, our CEO, he's an incredible leader. He gave me time every week for me to test my hypothesis back on and he gave me that real opportunity to learn. And I think as a result it really helped me form the right relationships in the business and also test some ideas, some of which turned out to be very good hypothesis and some of which were early hypothesis that as I became more curious and dug more and understand more from the history, actually I could sunset and I still have my notebook from that first six months to a year of learning. And I have to look back at them because the other thing is as a new leader, you have incredible fresh perspective and that is incredibly valuable to the company. So actually I've got some new associates in my team at the moment and I say write it down because it's incredible how you will forget that fresh perspective and going back to it. Re looking at, okay, so have we pivoted that? Have we really made a difference? You know, keeps your fresh perspective fresh for longer as well.
- [16:14]
John Evans
But yeah, I love that insight because you get that intelligent naivety, don't you, where you see everything as it is, almost like you're the consumer and then you develop the institutional wisdom that comes later. But keeping those two things is the trick, isn't it? Yeah, that's really powerful. Something else actually, I was really pleased you had in the Thrive guide was relationship with the cfo because I think externally everyone thinks, oh, you must be judged on the last campaign. But. But obviously really you're there to drive business performance and results, aren't you? So how do you kind of shape the relationship between the cfo? What came through on that bit of.
- [16:46]
Neil Barry
Advice I always give CMOs in that first three months of relationship forming is I think your posture should be a servant leader. And so you're here to be assertive and proactive. But ultimately you are making it really clear. Marketing, brand building, it's here to service the growth agenda and the CFO agenda and also, you know, those key relationships, whether it's cfo, CTO in tech companies, CIO and so on. If you're showing up like how can we get in cahoots together to make your life easier and just personally as well as well, what do you personally need to achieve as well? So I think that that's. It's the same for CFO and any, any sort of peer C suite role is servant leader. Second thing, understanding their own journey outside of the company, what do they really need for the next 12 months? So it really feels like you two are sort of plotting together a bit more, I think can be really useful. And so, you know, sometimes you might end up rooming with them and those types of things. So just getting that informal human basis for a relationship, going absolutely critical for those things. And with the CFO in particular, the advice I've been given is they all know that there's going to be imperfections in your measurement system and don't pretend otherwise. Like, really be clear about what you're sure about and what you're not. Open the box a bit, don't black box it. They hate that so much. So be more honest and be able to draw it out on a napkin how you're approaching it. Be honest about what the gaps are and then plot with them how you can fill those gaps. And then they feel a lot more convicted and confident knowing that they're in there helping. Rather than that you are trying to sort of present your way through those difficult conversations, which again, that was surprising to me actually. Rather than them expecting it to be all pitch perfect and so on, they know that the CMO measurement system is probably never going to be that.
- [18:29]
John Evans
That is such good. I remember, I think it was Karen last year, Jen Chase, the CMO at sas, she, she had done this project with her cfo and what she did, I thought, this is a stroke of genius. She got the CFO to present the marketing plan and talk about the marketing plan. And honestly, you could see how nervous this guy Peter was. But he was really enthusiastic about, and he was talking all the marketing language. I'm just like, wow, you've done a number. That's really good.
- [18:55]
Jane Wakely
Well, actually, that's one of the really interesting things that I did in my learning tool. One of the things I did was what's the philosophy of growth at the company and how aligned is the function. But actually even more importantly, how aligned are we cross functionally on the drivers of growth, the drivers of that category. And what we found was that there's as many philosophies as there are individual leaders almost. And so it's one of the things I feel very passionately about both Pepsi and at Mars, aligning the philosophy of growth, actually aligning the science of growth and aligning what are the least amount, but the important key levers that make a big difference in your organic growth I think is critical. And as an architect of growth, that's the language you need to talk. And when you talk that language, that's what transcends the function. And I think in a way marketing has been way too siloed. You know yes, communications is of course an integral part of our job and I'm sure we're going to come onto it given your system one but you know, it's one part of your job and you need to understand the end to end commercial growth drivers. How do you generate demand? How do you operationalize your route to market your go to market against about if you don't really command the conversation at that level and look at growth from that level, you only ever show a slice of and I think that what I see is great CMOs help unite the company behind what's really important and then each function does it gives its unique value. But I think that's pretty key and.
- [20:37]
Neil Barry
That'S easier said than done. And one of the things we actually created, well stole from One of our CMOs was this thing called the KPI tree to take to all those early meetings where you're literally mapping out the core bits what drives the business and then how marketing can shift the levers of that and ultimately aligning on okay, we've got this whole tree. Here are the three things that are going to move the needle because I think that's what a lot of CEOs and CFOs are really craving from marketers just to tell me the two things that I really need to move. So the KPI tree for that exact same purpose. Because it's hard to do that.
- [21:11]
Jane Wakely
No. And that's why having consumer behavioral metrics on growth at the heart of the C suite makes a difference, right? Net revenue, profit. Those are the financial rewards that of course we're all measured on. That goes without saying. However, as marketeers you've got to drive what are the consumer metrics you're looking at that are the lead indicators of that long term growth? Because only if you're driving consumer behavior growth do you have a really long term trajectory to fantastic returns in terms of organic growth.
- [21:40]
John Evans
You touched on something there actually quotes in your report, which is silos are the enemy of execution. And I remember because I spent 13 years at the PepsiCo bottler in the UK Britvic. We love the word bottler by the way. Just.
- [21:52]
Jane Wakely
Oh, okay. I like to think of ironically strategic partners.
- [21:56]
John Evans
I know we were always having a joke at the annual Butler conference where we'd go and present it. We do a little bit more than just putting it in the bottle everywhere, of course. But I worked out that there were seven departments between the idea and the customer. Seven departments. You had to get seven departments to agree to do the thing before it actually happened. And therefore that alignment across the organization. And marketing's got the responsibility to align the organization around the goals and the vision, all that sort of thing. So that kind of communication and engaging everybody is so important, isn't it? Jay, I want to ask you one more question as well, just while we're on this topic before we move on. You of course used to be an ned, didn't you? As well, which is fascinating though. What's your perspective as somebody that sat on a board looking into an organization about the role of marketing? Because my experience of boards is there aren't many marketers on boards these days. Well, I don't know whether it ever used to be, but certainly my perception. So I guess I was interested to know what did you learn kind of being at NED and any advice for aspiring marketers who are kind of wanting to influence the boardroom.
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Jane Wakely
So look, as an ned, I think, you know, you've been hired to bring your, both your functional expertise, your leadership expertise and your perspective. And some of the lessons in marketing on the levers of growth, how to be a great architect of growth, apply to any business thinking about your audience, thinking about their needs, rather than the product you have to sell. Putting, you know, studying who you're trying to serve and putting that right at the heart of the opportunity. I mean, it is a marketing 101 if you like. But actually I think most businesses can really accelerate their growth if they put a deeply human centric lens onto growth.
- [23:36]
John Evans
I mean, that's huge. Keeping a board honest to that truth as well, because often the board's full of sort of operational people, finance people, legal people doing the due diligence on the company and the reports and that kind of thing. It's great to have that voice in the room.
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Jane Wakely
I think the other thing is you've got to bring the outside in and the future back. So I think that's part of our jobs and any business can really benefit from, from that horizon thinking because in any business you get sucked into managing the day to day. But actually if you really want to create performance that really is best in class, you have to create those horizons of growth and opportunity. So that's another thing that I think any CMO can bring fantastic perspective onto the Board they serve.
- [24:21]
John Evans
Love that phrase by the way. Future back outside in. That's great.
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Neil Barry
One thing I'd add from, from my experience, we tend to deal with the boards a lot when we're doing the foundational brand strategy for clients. It's just that the brand itself is a board level concern and that the board and I think most boards would agree with that. And so CMOs are often the custodian of the brand because whatever your sort of five year agenda is with the business, whether if it's an ipo, if it's a sale, if it's an M and A and so on, the brand is going to have a big influence on that. Like your category multiple, your brand really influences that total addressable market, your ability to attract the best talent. So brand is, is and it's just literally your narrative. I mean the, the S1, you know, if you're going to an IPO and say so many times my company's been involved in, in those narratives because ultimately you're telling the story of the company and so. And the CMO should step up and, and own that. Who better than them? So the brand is a real route as well as markets.
- [25:20]
John Evans
Yeah, right. Ironically, the I've, I've never talked about brand more than when I was in private equity, which I was kind of, I was surprised. I was expecting I'd be trading every day kind of thing. But they really know what they bought. The asset is the brand and that's what they're buying and that's what they're selling. And so there's so much obsession in the brand now. The budget didn't necessarily match the aspiration, which is. Makes you think. But I, but I love that kind of like real kind of value of the brand. I wanted to while recording this in the office of Poppy, of course I should first of all say congratulations on acquiring a pretty cool brand that's been going places. And I just one question to ask you really is how obviously we talk about a lot about startups, about scaling up and I know you've been getting your heads around what does it mean to stay up as well. Which I hadn't come across that kind of framing before, but with legacy brands like you have, I mean I can't remember the statistic, but how many billion dollar brands in the PepsiCo family?
- [26:13]
Jane Wakely
Well, yes, we, we have 20. Quite a few on there which are way above a billion. Yeah, yeah. And we serve a billion consumers a day. Just as a, I mean that, that's wild.
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John Evans
Isn't that we just process that in your head.
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Jane Wakely
It is so exciting, but it's also a deep responsibility, so. Absolutely. So you're managing a portfolio of brands and to manage growth, you know, our big brands, I mean, lay's is by far the biggest food brand in the world. For example, we've got four brands in the top 10 food and beverage brands in the world in terms of brand Cantor value. Those are brands that have been around for generations. And as you say, you need to manage a portfolio differently. You've got the startup phase, the incubate phase. I love the framing that you've put on it. You've got the scale up phase and obviously Poppy is incredibly exciting. It's creating a new category within what we call liquid refreshment beverages. And it's a new category that's bringing new users, new occasions, really fresh perspective. And then you've got your big legacy brands like lay's, Pepsi, Gatorade, Doritos, which require enormous scale to keep growing at the rate that they've been growing. I mean, when you're growing, you know, a brand of 10 billion plus, you know, you've got to grow at the size of many, many even scale up brands every year. And that takes enormous art and science. It takes enormous discipline on the science front, but it takes enormous creativity. And those skills are different. You need a fantastic portfolio management strategy, of course, but you also need to really understand the growth model that you're applying at the different stages of development of per capita and brand development.
- [27:54]
John Evans
Now I've seen this up close and personal because I launched Liptonized Tea, Mountain Dew and Gatorade in the uk, all of which are in those billion dollar category brands. Right? Not in the uk, of course. So I was at the shop, I remember on Mountain Dew, probably the most successful product launch I've been involved in, in terms of beating expectation, it was wildly successful. But I remember at the time the American strategy was consolidating down to the core green flavor, stripping out all the, all the variants. And I was just trying to build the brand. So I was like, hang on, I need more. I can't just do one, you know, I need the red one, the blue one or whatever else. So I remember that big debate having about kind of portfolio strategy and life cycle. How do you make those decisions? Because obviously you oversee an enormous portfolio. Brands in different stages. Culture will vary, of course, won't it, in terms of, you know, the legacy, you know, in one country compared to another. How do you kind of navigate all that complexity?
- [28:45]
Jane Wakely
Look, you Know, the answer is we develop a very compelling category vision based in the human future that the consumer needs and the consumer foresight into the future. And we, you know, we do have, you know, the main thing you need to break through on is focus. Because at PepsiCo you could grow any of our brands. Honestly, we have an incredible portfolio of brands. It's just you have limited resources so you have to focus the organization on the biggest bets and you have to balance that horizon planning of how are you servicing the needs of today, the channels of today, but also shifting resources and pivoting resources towards the future. And I've never met a CMO yet that said, oh, I shifted resource too fast. You know, normally it's very difficult to shift resources to the future, but you have to be, I think, very decisive and focused. And a good example at the moment is the brand Pepsi team across the world. You know, they've made a very, very decisive mood towards betting behind Pepsi, behind food deserves Pepsi food occasions and Pepsi with food is our biggest growth bet. And it's not just, you know, 10% of our investment. We're shifting significant investment to it and we're putting creativity at the service of that job to be done, end to end. So yes, in comms you'll see fantastic and creative comms that really cuts through and grabs your attention. But it's also about our away from home strategy. For example, how do we secure more distribution, particularly Pepsi Zero, which we're super proud of, it is winning the Pepsi Taste challenge all over the world. So how do we shift our resources to ensure that the consumer gets to try our crown jewels like Pepsi?
- [30:41]
John Evans
Zoe, I love that campaign by the way, because I'm old enough to remember the first one, like the first Pepsi Challenge. And even when I was at Britvic years, I started my career at Britvic in 97. We were doing taste challenges then. There's something kind of timeless about mechanic to get people to rethink their kind of preferences, isn't there?
- [31:00]
Jane Wakely
And this is it. Marketers sometimes think they're judged on can they come up with something new?
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John Evans
What's the best old thing that we've done?
- [31:07]
Jane Wakely
Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, Neil talks about this actually, but it's often, often the clues to your future are rooted in your archaeology and past. Your job is to make it feel fresh and culturally relevant now. But often those ideas are timeless. And actually, you know, one of the things that I think you need to really think about as a marketeer is you stand on the giants of the you know, the shoulders of the giants that went before you in terms of building brands. And to build it to the next level you have to draw from its past, but make it fresh and culturally relevant. And consistency of positioning, consistency of growth strategy is something that takes a lot of strategic management to stay on course with. It's really tough to achieve, but it's such a multiplier in terms of impact. And the Pepsi taste challenge is just like just that. You know, our marketeers today are just as excited about the fresh ways they're executing that challenge as I'm sure they were when it was first invented.
- [32:06]
John Evans
That's a great thing because I remember having those battles with some of my brand teams that were desperate to do the new thing. And then I'd say, why don't we do the old thing last year and just add more money to it? And they were like, John, but what will I put on my cv? We ran last year's campaign again. I said, you'll get promotion because for taking the right business decision, yes, you'll be rewarded for that. You know, we're here anyway. But yeah, I remember those conversations very well because also Neil, you wrote this article, didn't you, about how to stay up as well. What did that tell us?
- [32:34]
Neil Barry
This is a new obsession of mine and 21st century brands. We think we coined this phrase the stay ups because we all me included obsess about startups and scale ups and are always telling large companies they should be more like startups and so on. But actually when you really think about it, there's a very exclusive group of companies who've managed to successively win the hearts and minds of generations over centuries for some of them, one of which is obviously PepsiCo and we should be paying a lot more attention to them. So we, we wrote a paper and we turned into a fast company article as well. Really look at. Okay, what are the lessons from them? We've done a lot of work with the likes of the, the Pepsis and the leg, the BBC's, the Legos, Mars and so on. What are the lessons from those people? And is this three things I would say most useful for folks leading who are wanting to make sure they're a stay up and really turn legacy leaders into future icons. The first is Jane. You've touched on all three of these really, but is only the sharp really survive? And so the longer your legacy is, the more baggage you accrue and the sort of fuzzier your associations get in people's minds. So you need to be really Sharp. And we're really bad as that at that. Generally, people are much better at adding on to straight. We're going to add this bit on, but we'll keep the old thing as well. You can you get these quite tortured brand models, a company as well as a sort of model within a model within a model. So you really need to ask yourself, what am I getting rid of? What am I sun setting? So that. That's number one. The second thing is, I think a lot of the time people think it's about reinvention, but it's more about reappraisal. That's really what you want to do. You don't. You don't need to. Sometimes you do, but most of the time you don't need to fundamentally reinvent the core product truth or the core brand role. But you need to create the right environment and circumstances for people to reappraise it and see it in a current context. And then the third thing is, which you were saying, Jane, before, is that the gold is in. There's gold in the past. Whilst legacies can be challenging, they're a gift. And so really do your work in the archives. And the keys to the future are in the past quite often. But you've got to really know what you're doing there. And so I love the fact that, you know, Pepsi Challenge, 50 years old, and yet it's driving momentum right now across Pepsi. That's a great example of finding that magic.
- [34:52]
Jane Wakely
And I love what you're saying about reappraisal. You know, it's interesting, as we were preparing for the super bowl this year, US teams, we had several spots, but the one I want to talk about is Lays. Okay. So. And because we have to be obsessed about how do we help the consumers that we're ultimately serving reappraise our brands with fresh eyes and fresh perspective, helps them go, ah, got it, you know, and feel something as a result. Right. So the easy way to go into the super bowl is big celebrity, big stunt. Right? And we love those ads. But the human job to be done on Lays for the Lays team in the US was they realized that whilst increasingly there's this kind of dichotomy in culture, people are obsessed about understanding where food comes from, the authenticness and the provenance. And yet there's a distance from understanding food. And what the team realized was, on Lay's, 40% of US consumers actually didn't know weren't crystal clear what Lay's was made from. Now Lay's is made from the Ground with incredible potatoes, little bit of high quality oil and a little bit of salt. Basically that is a basic lay's chip. It's, you know, you can bake it yourself at home. And this was a product truth that kind of the brand had become distant from. So the lay's team decided to make the farmer the celebrity this time. And there was no highly paid celebrity. The farmer. It was a farmer inspired story from a fifth generation farm. The farm was called Jeremy Pawlowski and the story was inspired by a farm visit where the team saw his daughter growing her own potatoes to contribute to the lay's crop. And this incredible heartwarming story, you know, why was it important and why did it score within the top, I think 3% of all the ads that were tested and appeared on the Super Bowl. It was a real consumer favorite, was because it, it helped people see Lays, which is a ubiquitous brand, but just see it in a fresh new light. That actually made complete sense with the universal truth of the brand, the universal joy, the sunshine that brand brings into people's lives and yet linked it to, you know, the. Did you know that actually lasers made in 50 over 50 family farms across North America. That's a wonderful way to tell a fundamental product truth that is certainly not new. It's been true for decades, but somehow our own teams had forgotten that.
- [37:31]
John Evans
Beautiful. I really love your example. I really love it because actually that's one of the most emotional ads I've ever seen. And you think about if someone's pitching you that idea, we're going to go to a farm and we're going to show you the potatoes. You're like, oh man, that's like having a kind of trade ad, isn't it? Like, you know, look at our farms and stuff. But actually because of the daughter and the relationship as well there and the way it was told and beautifully directed as well, I mean, I think you had a pretty blockbuster director on it, didn't you?
- [38:00]
Jane Wakely
Yeah. And Chris Bellinger, who's our leader of our in house creative engine, I mean he did it and Denise Truelock, they did an incredible job. And to me, that little story, story, I mean, it moves you, you feel something and that's why it works. And you know, creativity is there to create emotion, to grab attention by creating emotion. And to me it's a beautiful illustration of where creativity is pointed at a product truth rather than just borrowed equity. It is a product and brand truth that helps you reappraise a brand that is in a third of households or all over the world. You know, this is one of the biggest food brands on the, on the planet.
- [38:39]
John Evans
It's such a good example. We did a, we did a bit of work recently with Effie. So we got the effie's database, over 1200 case studies going back 15 years, the US, UK and we've got system one database looking at emotion as well. Put them together and basically the summary of a long story really, really short is create emotion but be remembered for who you are and then repeat it. And it's basically that that was the formula, like emotion, we call it fluency, but being distinctive and that's what you did so well because you. It could only be lays. It was obvious, right? It could only be lays, but it was also emotional. And then, and then, then talking about the Pepsi Challenge, the third element was we just saw over the time period those that were consistent in the idea and the executions change, but the idea is consistent the way they execute it. We just saw those brands just took off. The ones that kept changing stayed the same. So that consistency, the legacy, this is why having a CMO for more than five minutes makes a ton of sense.
- [39:38]
Jane Wakely
Well, and this is why also really being clear about the emotion you need to evoke rather than the message you need to tell, that's the most important thing in combination with. I love the way you talk about, I'm passionate about this distinctiveness, you know, and there are elements of that execution which you're going to see more and more. But for example, on leis, the power of the sun, you know, again our own teams can forget but our logo is the sun and that symbolizes the joy, the warmth, the bringing together the humbleness of a potato grown in the earth with the power of the sun and water. It is just a simple human and product truth that comes so beautifully. And as marketeers, I'm super passionate that creativity needs to be pointed at the biggest growth opportunity, which is a human centric insight in combination with the business job to be done.
- [40:33]
Neil Barry
And I think at the heart of doing this right for the stay ups and driving that reappraisal is the balancing of two things really carefully, which is one is about consistency and one is about currency. So really clear on the timeless role of the brand and those pieces and how you're going to show up in a distinctive way but then really clear on how you're going to connect it to what's going on. And what's brave and beautiful about the lace body was, it was a very sort of zag move, wasn't it when everyone's digging in with good reason. Super bowl. And you nailed it because you had that. The right balance of consistency and currency. And I think that that's key to getting those reappraisals right.
- [41:09]
John Evans
I'll put both on spot just. Just for a bit of fun. So celebrities obviously very, very popular in the Super Bowl. 63% of all ads in the last five years use celebrity. If I take the system one approach, then 2.7 is the average star rating for supers, which surprises people. Not that much higher than the average ads in America. Which is the first surprise. What do you think the average star of an ad with a celebrity in is?
- [41:35]
Jane Wakely
I know the answer.
- [41:36]
John Evans
You might know the answer. Yeah. What do you think, Neil?
- [41:39]
Neil Barry
10% higher.
- [41:41]
John Evans
It's the same.
- [41:42]
Neil Barry
It's the same.
- [41:43]
John Evans
Yeah. Well, partly because there are so many celebrity ads.
- [41:45]
Jane Wakely
Right.
- [41:46]
John Evans
Because it represents the whole but literally the same. This is where your distinctive asset.
- [41:51]
Jane Wakely
You can use celebrities to great effect. But I always say, you know, when you're seeing a creative idea, the critical thing is, what is the idea? The idea can never be the celebrity. What is the creative idea which unlocks the stage story, the universal truth and distinctively and authentically links to your brand. If you have that all in combination, it can magnify your message. If, you know, if you're just borrowing equity, beware.
- [42:19]
John Evans
Exactly. And this ties back to your previous point. This is where it beautifully comes together. Because the average star rating for those that use their distinctive assets in the creative. Almost a star hire. So actually, your own celebrities should be the distinctive assets that you like the sun shining in. Right. Find the things that make celebrities of your distinctive assets is one of the biggest hacks, I think, for getting this right.
- [42:42]
Neil Barry
And I've been excited, but I think we're seeing a bit of a return to that really commercial creativity in that sense, where you're really applying all that imagination to the core product truth and so on. When I think about Doritos Silent, for example, that was a brilliant example of. It is very culturally driven. It's all about the gaming, getting the. The grammar right in terms of gaming culture. But, you know, you take away Doritos, there's no idea. There's no. I don't. I was also encouraged this year, just looking at the big winners in Cannes this year to go to GoDaddy goggles with wall and the Ziploc and the extension extensions and coupons. IPhone shot an iPhone. All really like pointing all that creativity and imagination and firepower at the products role. And I think for a while it felt a bit church and state, you know, in terms of, like, well, the creativity is over here and then the product's over there. And I think we're really.
- [43:35]
Jane Wakely
But, you know, that's just to illustrate that a little bit more for the Doritos idea. And it's Fernando and the team that did that out of the uk. He did an incredible job together with our creative partners. But that is a brilliant example of reappraisal because, you know, Doritos is bold in its flavor and its crunch. Right. And I think at times we've got sort of distracted by going in emotional boldness and forgetting the product truth at the heart. And Doritos Silent was just a brilliant way of very creatively bringing to life that we are super crunchy. And, you know, that insight that gamers, you know, they love to snack. Doritos is one of their favorite snacks. But if you've been a gamer and you hear someone eating a Dorito, that crunch gets you killed. You know, that is. It's brilliant, right? So Doritos Silent, what a brilliant, brilliant way to get you to get your attention and get it noticed that we're silencing the crunch of our product.
- [44:35]
John Evans
I also discovered when I launched Mountain Dew, I discovered gaming like Mountain Dew and gaming flip an heck, literally, there were all these gamers that didn't want to stop getting to the next level, and so they're drinking Mountain Dew to keep up. Let me tell you my favorite ad of recent Cannes then, which is the Cheetos one from a couple of years ago with. Because what a brilliant example of a human insight in terms of like, getting the. Getting the cheese on your fingers. But what I loved about that is a great example of creativity, but meets consumer appeal. Because I think the complaint we all have of can isn't. It is like, well, we celebrate what we want to make rather than what our customer wants to make. And I think we need to help businesses unlock power, creativity for commercial gain. And I thought the Cheetos case, and I don't know if you're behind this, but the giant Cheetos outside the ballet was just hilarious as well. So you couldn't miss it. Producer James has. We'll cut this into the video.
- [45:27]
Jane Wakely
Yeah, no, absolutely. That was that Canadian team. It was.
- [45:30]
John Evans
That went viral in Cheetah.
- [45:32]
Jane Wakely
It was actually. It was actually in a town called Cheetah in. In Canada. And it was a statue that celebrated.
- [45:40]
John Evans
This is real.
- [45:40]
Jane Wakely
Yeah.
- [45:41]
John Evans
This is a real thing.
- [45:42]
Jane Wakely
Absolutely. It was a real Thing I thought.
- [45:44]
John Evans
It was just like it was not the Thames, it was like it can stop.
- [45:47]
Jane Wakely
It was a real thing. But actually that's a great example, I mean of, I would say firstly widening the lens on who you're serving, the people you're serving. If you just look at Cheetos through a strictly category lens. How do I snack? How would you like to you get to one set of insights if you immerse yourself in how people experience the brand beyond your category. Actually, our teams came up with this insight. I think it was about eight years ago that the distinctive cheetal that we now brand it, Cheetal, that comes off on your hands is part of the enjoyment of the product. Most logic would say, oh, that's a dissatisfier, let's put a glaze on the product to get rid of it because it's messy. But actually the emotion that created and the distinctiveness that created the team have built one of our most successful and longest running campaigns around that. You know, it's a cheetah, it's a Cheetos thing. I love that, you know, and what's great when you get to a fantastic, distinctive insight that can only be you. What I love is some marketers or some, some agencies say, you know, almost see consistency as a dampener of creativity. I honestly see it as completely the reverse. I look at the creativity that is coming off that idea across the world year after year and it gets better and funnier and, you know, more crazy. It's incredible. It's a creative magnifier. So when you get, when you're onto a winner for a brand, the scale of something like Cheetos or lay's or Doritos or Pepsi Gatorade, you've got to absolutely nurture it, love it and stay true to it and you'll find that, you know, you can almost make the world your creative totally.
- [47:37]
John Evans
It's a bit like should have gone to spec sales, isn't it? The more people know your, the more people know your idea, the more you can play with it, you can take it on.
- [47:44]
Jane Wakely
And in a social world where, you know, the reality is more and more of our content is, is not made by the advertiser or the partners. It's, it's, it's made by our consumers.
- [47:54]
John Evans
Made by culture.
- [47:55]
Jane Wakely
Yeah, it's made by culture and creators.
- [47:57]
John Evans
Talking about culture, I just wanted, as we're three Brits in a room, just celebrate the lionesses win. Right?
- [48:02]
Jane Wakely
Oh my goodness.
- [48:02]
John Evans
Back to back euros. Right? How good was that. That was epic. It was absolutely epic. That was like seat of the pants and it had to be penalties.
- [48:11]
Jane Wakely
And you know what? I was actually watching the game in my basement in the US and the Internet went down just as the game was moving to penalties. And literally we had a party and we were sort of, you know, everyone was. Was hassling my poor husband who was trying to get the Internet back up and running. And so we actually listened to the penalties on radio.
- [48:34]
John Evans
Oh, it was.
- [48:35]
Jane Wakely
It added to the excitement. It was such an intense moment. And the way that played out, honestly, it was incredible. So I'm never going to forget that moment as a. As a. As a fan of.
- [48:47]
John Evans
I love the fact our goalkeeper had notes on which way the opposition. And apparently the opposition goalkeeper did, and she. But she knocked her bottle over, so she lost her notes because I read an interview with. Is it Leah? Yeah, yeah. So I read an interview with her and said that she had sort of like kicked a bottle over when they were swapping. Oh, there you go. It all comes down to the preparation, the details.
- [49:09]
Jane Wakely
But you know what's exciting about that? Women's. Women's sport is on fire across the world. And the reality is, you know, I. I'm super proud that PepsiCo has been. Been part of, you know, really putting women's sport at the heart of our growth agenda. I mean, we've been involved with the WNBA in the US for, I think it's 29 years now. First to renew with UEFA Champions League, the Euros, now with the FIFA World cup with ASNX business. And it's a very interesting topic because it's close to my heart and my personal passion as mother of a teenage girl who's benefited so much from the power of sport to, you know, teach life lessons. I mean, I mean, Emily has had an incredible sporting journey, so I've seen it live. But to be part of it from a commercial side and to be able to bring the excitement, the entertainment, the sheer professionalism of female athletes and bring that to life through our growth strategy and our brand plans. Yeah, it's a dream come true, honestly.
- [50:17]
John Evans
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. In fact, I was a very early sponsor. Lionesses on Lucas. Back in, I think it was about 2017, we were doing the deal. I cannot believe how it's moved on since then. I mean, back then, I don't think every player was professional. I think there was still a mix of amateur and professional. The stadium, like Wembley, we had about a 10%, you know, 10% sold out for matches on Average. It was like the difference, the speed at which. And this is where I think brands have got a great role to play by. I mean, James and I actually just did the women's Tour de France. Actually. The game was amazing because that has come on so much. But it's sponsors getting involved, paying, you know, paying the same in terms of salaries and prize money and that kind of thing, which just lifts the bar so much.
- [50:57]
Jane Wakely
It's also about bringing, I would say, excite. It's elevating and bringing not only reach, but bringing excitement and to the game. So, I mean, this year at the Champions League, I loved the Pepsi spot, you know, featuring. I don't know if you saw it, but it's called Reinventing the Game. And, you know, we featured some of the most exciting women athletes in football. Leah Williamson, Lauren James, et cetera. And you know, what I love about that spot is it illustrates their skills. I mean, the Trick Shot social campaign is my favorite. It's so brilliant. But it also, you know, puts it in the context and puts them firmly in the context of the Ronaldinhos, the Beckhams of this world. So it puts the female athletes, you know, where they should be, and they are incredible. But it also drives a lot of excitement and a lot of new growth. These, you know, games are attracting new audiences that are hard to reach. Those are some of our key, you know, how the biggest purchasing power for us and our brand. This is a growth play as well. And the other thing is, I think brands can do a lot to remove the barriers for young people in sports and things like that. So one of the things that our teams get a lot of motivation and energy from is, for example, platforms like Gatorade 5v5 and the work we're doing with Formula One Academy, that is bringing new people into the sport and giving them opportunity.
- [52:30]
Neil Barry
And that. That, to me, is a critical principle for brands approaching these things, which a lot don't get right, which is, it's great, you're going to where people are, but you've got to bring gifts to the party. You know what I mean? You've got to be adding. Adding value and bringing that. And I love what you're doing there.
- [52:44]
John Evans
Now, we talked a lot about change in the organization and the role of marketing, to lead that change and be leaders and so on, and to create the growth agenda. Right, but how do you actually achieve that transformation? Because obviously there's a lot in the execution of that, isn't there?
- [52:58]
Jane Wakely
Oh, yes. Well, actually, that's how Neil and I met, we worked together at Mars, but actually most recently at PepsiCo to help drive the change management of the transformation. So I think when you're driving a transformation, I talked about the spark, the structure and almost like the safety net. And I think you have to be very intentional about the how and it all depends on the culture of your organization, of course. But at PepsiCo is a very pull culture, it's a very towards culture. So the first thing was setting a very bold vision we called powering positive growth and painting the vision of, you know, what would it look and feel like when you get to that place, what's in it for the company, for the brands, but also for individuals, for teams and for me, if you're an associate or a partner. So the first thing is you've got to paint a very, very overt vision of what you're driving for. But you've also got to I think have a very tight narrative that you keep repeating on your assessment of your as is where do you start from? Because to navigate, you know, it's like sailing, you need to know where you're going, but you also need to know where you start from and align on that. And then it's driving a cultural movement through the organization that seeks to PepsiCo. The way we chose to do it is we created a change maker community, 120 change makers that were going to really, I call it, punch out the ceiling on the transformation, really take bold pivots and illustrate the benefit to the business, to the individuals and really become, you know, the potholes if you like, the best practice leaders, the black belts in terms of that change. And then you've got to raise the floor, you've got to democratize that to everyone and create knowledge, capability, talent, end to end systems and processes to support people, to support all your associates and all your partners in driving the change. And Neil, you know, 21st century helped us really think about that change management and how to create a movement, a cultural movement.
- [55:06]
Neil Barry
And what you're describing there really in our approach to this is you're really describing brand management, but it's an internal brand ultimately to drive these types of change programs. You talk about 4,000, 5,000 people, you've got to move their hearts and minds. You really need to create a brand as strong as any of your external brands and bring people along for that ride. So it becomes a train that everyone wants to get on. So that that whole journey approach, it's very similar but a lot of people neglect to do that. You know, you've Got to bring the people with you. It can't just be about the systems and the process. You've got to get that discretionary energy unlocked. It's a movement, not a mandate with these types of programs.
- [55:39]
Jane Wakely
I love that, Neil. It's a movement, not a mandate. And to create a movement, you've got to create artifacts of change. So, you know, if I think about some of the things we've done to reinforce the change, you know, changing how people are measured, for example, in their, in their personal development plans, changing how we report growth, the executive sort of the brain, the logic side of it, but the heart side of it is also we have this wonderful thing called the Bama Awards every year. The best achievements in marketing and you know, they're all around the pivots, the powering positive growth pivots that we said we wanted to perform on and showing our best in class work, celebrating it at a global level in a way only PepsiCo can, with a lot of entertainment value, a lot of partying. We all work hard, but we party hard too. And bringing that to life so that people really want to be on that stage and to hold that team trophy at the end of the year, those are really important artifacts that I think help you on the change journey. And it's never done. It's a continual journey, but I think that cultural creating a movement, not a mandate is a wonderful way to put it.
- [56:52]
Neil Barry
Staying up means never standing still.
- [56:55]
Jane Wakely
You are full of sounds.
- [56:56]
Neil Barry
It's got the sound bites down.
- [56:58]
John Evans
Love to keep talking. Unfortunately we can't. But thank you both so much for sharing your wisdom and experience as well with everybody and I know they're going to love hearing all about it. So thank you both. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do I'm over on Xensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.