← Uncensored CMO
Uncensored CMO
Coke CMO’s lessons on advertising, innovation and surviving corporate politics - Walter Susini
01:00:53
Loading summary
Transcript121 lines
- [00:00]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored cmo. Now we've got an amazing episode coming up for you now. I'm joined by former Coke CMO Walter Cesini. We're going to be talking about all the big lessons from running a global household brand name like Coke. And we'll be diving into his brand new book, all about how to survive corporate life and he knows more than anyone else how to do that. So this is a fantastic episode. So many lessons for you in it. You're going to love it. Here it is. Welcome Wilsa.
- [00:33]
B
Thank you. Thanks for having me here.
- [00:35]
A
It's great to have you here.
- [00:37]
B
That's fantastic. Especially because I'm here when I'm not a CMO anymore.
- [00:42]
A
I know. Which is even better by the way, because you can actually tell us what it's like.
- [00:47]
B
I can be the uncensored, you can
- [00:48]
A
be the uncensored cmo. This is great. I've been looking forward to this conversation so much, particularly having read your amazing book as well that's just come out. So congratulations on doing that. Maybe introduce yourself for everybody listening. What's been your career journey?
- [01:02]
B
Yeah, I think you can hear my accent. I'm originally Italians, but I believe all over the world. Almost 20 years in Latin America then you know, I've been in London now for seven years in us starting advertising as many of us that don't know what to do in life then moved to marketing Coke the first time. So the principle of insanity. I went to Coke twice expecting different results. Then I moved to Unilever Global VP of marketing and Design and then back to Coke after an experience of having my own consultancy company and be president of one of the Dentsu agencies in Latin America, the McGarry Bowen Agency. And so I came back to Coke eight years ago as CMO for Europe, Africa, Middle East. Then I've been aptly part of a big reorg. Every three years there is a big reorg in big corporations. So I took Europe as one of the second biggest regions and I've been there until two years and a half ago when I decided to move on and have a portfolio career and bring my daughters to school at 8 o' clock in the morning. So.
- [02:22]
A
Well, what a wonderful thing to do. We'll come on to the book of course, but I thought I'd start with where you and I first met. So I, I just left Brewdog.
- [02:29]
B
Yeah.
- [02:30]
A
And joined. Joined System One.
- [02:31]
B
Correct.
- [02:32]
A
And I came to meet you at Coke and I had a question on my mind because I, when I looked at the System one data, I noticed that Coke have run the same ad at Christmas back then for about 20 years, you ran this holidays are coming ad every single year. And I came to, I tracked you down to find out why you're running this ad. And you also ran a global ad at the same time. So what was the thinking behind sticking with the same ad for so long? Cause it's become iconic, hasn't it?
- [02:57]
B
No. And it's funny, I've been laughing the last probably two years. All this discussion of AI and the Coke ads and the Christmas truck. This ad has been iconic for the company for many, many years. And when I came back to Europe in 2017, basically we were preparing the global ad. So I was responsible as a region for the global ad. So we did a really good ad that I don't even know if you remember when basically the little girls give a letter to his dad.
- [03:30]
A
That was amazing.
- [03:31]
B
Exactly. And so the dad goes until the North Pole, but when he got there, Santa Claus is not there anymore. And then you see that the letter is come back. And when basically Wyden present me the ad, they didn't even present me the ad. They gave me the letters because I was traveling all the time. I started to cry because it was the letter that my daughter gave, gave to me for, you know, come back home for Christmas. But you know, it's a different story. But the, that year I said, look, we have this fantastic global ads, why we need to run this again and again. And, and, and so I look at the data, I saw all the things. And, and, and I said, look, this is basically the beginning of Christmas in UK. So December 1 or November 27, when you hear the jingle, that's when you hear when, when Christmas start here. And, and I said like, you know what, I don't care about this. These are all like legends and things. And so for the first year I was here, I didn't run the ad. I don't want to even tell you how many letters, emails, complaints I got from people out there because was not Christmas without that ad. So I learned on my skin how important is that ad. And I don't want to talk about compound creativity, the same ad and things, but this has been a relevant asset for the company forever. So what the AI one did last year, two years ago, was simply keeping building on the same idea, just with a different technique. Yeah, but this ad has been fantastic for so many.
- [05:31]
A
It's such a good lesson. I mean, I think people got confused with the AI Thing because they're talking about, oh, I scored a, you know, high score. Yeah, but what you had is 20 years of memory, of culture, of distinctive assets, of familiarity. And that's what it was. Just reproducing. It wasn't that I came up with the, with the idea.
- [05:51]
B
It was, you know, when the big professors around the world talk about, you know, also musical asset, how important is musical asset? And I said, look, I come from a company where musical asset has been important forever, you know, but, but even 30 years ago when I was in advertising, I work on, on Philadelphia on craft. Craft has been using the angels and the little jingle of the angels for 50 years. So. So now we are. I'm glad that we are going back to talk about, you know, music asset, you know, puppets or whatever. But this has been for the brands that has been doing this. We know it since the beginning of the history.
- [06:37]
A
I think we're just rediscovering it, aren't we? There's also a generation that are coming up in marketing that are now learning how power. Because jingles are out of fashion, characters are out of fashion, and yet they're highly effective.
- [06:48]
B
Correct.
- [06:48]
A
Even on social media. We did some research with TikTok last year and sonic devices and jingles were the most effective way to hold people's attention, even in TikTok. So you look at the, you know, from TV to TikTok and you've seen the same thing over and again.
- [07:02]
B
But Joe, what made intel inside, you know, there was a stupid chip in an invisible chip in a computer which what make that stuff was the jingle, you know, was, was the sound device. And this has been the cases that we all studied. I, I love the fact that we are going back now to basics, but for maybe gray beers like me, it's like, okay, what we are really saying that it's new.
- [07:35]
A
I mean, what we knew all along has been proven to be true or we should have, should have known, which we've forgotten. I agree. I came across this wild data point a couple of years ago from thinkbox and they had that they did a. They were filming people during the ad break. Now, the first bit won't surprise you that only 30% or so of people were actually watching the ads during the ad break. They were going, making a cup of tea. They were looking at their phone.
- [07:58]
B
Correct.
- [07:59]
A
But the kicker was 70% of people could remember what they heard during the ad break.
- [08:05]
B
Correct.
- [08:05]
A
And suddenly I thought, wow, like how, you know, branding the music and the soundtrack becomes. And this is amazing scene that they've captured where there's this couple on the sofa, right? And they're joking, going, nobody watches the ads anymore, do they? And he's kind of looking around to his partner and then Just Eat comes on and they sing. Did somebody say. And they go and order dinner on Just Eat. And they don't realize. They just said, no one listens. Crazy, you know.
- [08:32]
B
Of course.
- [08:32]
A
But it's such an important thing.
- [08:34]
B
Yeah.
- [08:35]
A
Now talking about advertising, right?
- [08:36]
B
Yeah.
- [08:36]
A
We must talk about Super Bowl. And I want to know, I want to know because everyone lost it over the Pepsi commercial, didn't they? Which obviously featured the Coke famous Coke polar bears. And there was a big debate online about why would anybody put their competitor distinctive assets into an ad. I'd love your take on that.
- [08:56]
B
Look, I wrote a post on LinkedIn kind of defending the fact that probably Pepsi was make a favor to themselves and to Coke. You know, I don't know the level and maybe you give me some data.
- [09:12]
A
Yeah, I've got that here.
- [09:13]
B
60, 40, 70, 30. So they both were making favor to each other. Now why I think Pepsi did a clever thing because Coca Cola has not been using the polar bears for reason I cannot discuss in a public podcast for many, many years, especially in U.S. i think I was the last one in Europe to use polar bears in a print ad in Germany in 2018 when I was putting different colors bears to say what unites us is better than what divide us was in a moment there was a lot of tensions and things and we used the polar bears. But US was now using polar bears for probably, I don't know, I don't have the data. But let's imagine 20 years and you say, so Coke did a big mistake not using the polar bears. Pepsi did a really good things in using the polar bears. So the real question for me is how many people knew that the polar bears were Coke in the new generation stuff. Now for us, that is a Coke asset and is a fantastic Coke asset that from the twenties as the contour bottle is a Coke asset, as the Christmas truck is a Coke asset, as the ribbon is a Coke asset. I can quote several assets. So Byron Sharp would be happy how Coca Cola used the assets. We've been using assets forever. Actually. One thing I always say is that we, especially at cook, we are gardener marketers, are all gardeners because when you have a garden, you don't just go in and prune everything and destroy what you find to put like plants that don't even exist in that environment. So if you are in England, you don't put palm in your garden. You put the right plant that can thrive and survive there. So that's how you use the asset. So I think the real answer to that is definitely this ad. Make a favor to both company. The level of favor depends also on the target. They were looking at maybe a 15 years old in US don't remember or don't even know that that asset is a Coke asset. So I think this is also wake up call to Coca Cola company to keep using the assets, all of them, all the time. Because if you don't use an asset, someone else will pick it up.
- [11:51]
A
I totally, totally agree. Well, I've got the data here, so I want to hear we go. So we tested it on system one and first of all, the Pepsi ad got a 4.2 star out of 5.9. So it scored well above the average. So it was entertaining, it's emotional, it's funny. Right. Interestingly, it was a very intense ad. So in terms of the strength of emotion, it's very, very high, which is good. Here's the interesting thing in terms of distinctive assets. Within the first two seconds, 75% of the audience knew it was a Pepsi ad. And by the end 91% did, which is way ahead of average. So that was really good. This is where we get into polar bears key associations. After having been exposed to the ad. 52% associated with polar bears, 71% associated with Pepsi. So you're right, both brands, both brands. So the answer is a bit of both isn't right. Both brands benefited from it. Humor. 37% of people had the primary emotion was humor, which is very high, Very, very high. I think one of the reasons it because again if you said to me, John, should you put your competitors distinctive assets in your ad? 99.9% of the time I would say no.
- [13:01]
B
Correct.
- [13:01]
A
But I think with Pepsi, their entire position as a challenger brand up against Coke has, has relied on the comparison, the taste test. You know, they've been doing that for I don't know, 30, 40 years now. I mean I remember it growing up, you know, the Pepsi challenge. And I think the thing they also did well, which is a bit sort of left brain versus right brain, is they made something very culturally relevant like the cultural references with the, you know, the Coldplay concert at the end. They had some really, really good things in there that probably that made it go viral in a way that. So if you look at the net result in terms of did they get a lot of earned Media, they got huge amounts of earned media kind of as a result of the ads. I think it's the one exception to the rule probably.
- [13:44]
B
No, it is. But we also have another discussions especially on the social medias around the fact that does the test, the comparison test works or not. This for me is a better discussion because apart from the 70s when they really. Because they launched the test in the 72 or 73 during the 70 it basically transformed the category. So it was a fantastic idea then they keep doing it, they keep doing it. But to be honest with you, I never seen results that still work like it worked in the 70s. So for me the discussion with Pepsi is more like. Because in the 80s and the 90s I remember a fantastic ad from Pepsi. Do you remember the Indiana Jones of the future that find this Coke bottle? And they said professor, what it is the archaeologist. And he said I have no idea. That is a really competitive ad. But it's not done using the test because I think at the end the test spot out something that in marketing doesn't exist. You buy, you drink brands, you don't drink products. So if blind test will be the solutions like we would be a lab science. As I wrote in a couple of posts, that's not conceptually I more critics on the test than on the positioning of Pepsi that I found. Thanks God. They went back after, you know, the candle infamous ad. They went back to really challenge Coke. That's their job, that's what they need to do.
- [15:42]
A
Absolutely. I love the fact you talked about marketing is not a lab science there because it brings us beautifully onto a new role you've got as professor of practice. Yeah, I love the fact that you're called professor of practice. Are there many professors of practice in the world? Because I think this is a great.
- [16:00]
B
They are, I mean and it's not something I invented. They are. In UK we are a little bit more traditionalist on how we work in the academia. So in uk, for example, with the London Business School, I will be assistant professor. I would be lecturer. There are many others terminology. In some other universities they have this role of professor of practice that is exactly bringing the real world in the academia planet. Because one of the criticism I have in many of the discussion we've seen in books, in LinkedIn, in podcasts and think is that many of the people that bring this theory to life, they never work one day in a corporate environment. And the theory is one thing and it's really good and it works and people should read it, study it and things but then you face the reality, you know, it's like it was the Mike Tyson when he said, you know, you prepare the match and then someone punch you in the face. You know, like that's exactly the difference between theory and practice. So professor of practice is when I go in class, I have. It's funny because with the MBA students now with the computer, with the phone, nobody pay attention really when the professor talk, when I say, look guys, I am the lucky guy that basically launched, you know, Coke Energy, one of the biggest failure of Coca Cola in the last 15 years. They put the phone down and they listen because I tell that's the reason why fail. That's the reason why it works. So you don't bring like, I don't want to call it generic case, but cases that happens and everybody read it, but you bring your actual experience in the job and that's quite valuable, especially for, you know, young, young students. I think.
- [18:11]
A
Can we, can we talk about Coke energy? Because one, one insight I got when I was working on Lucas Aid, which surprised me actually was that energy as a need state because is huge, because I thought it'd be tasty, refreshment, I mean, but actually particularly red Coke, the energy need state was number one. That was quite a surprise. How important it is as an energy. Pick me up.
- [18:33]
B
Look, I give you another element more. I think that Coke failed 50 years ago to build an energy drink because Coke was the first energy. And a cafe is there and there is an espresso there inside a can. We could have pushed that more many, many, many years ago. And that is a platform that we lost. So when we decided to go back to this and that was like really, really had the convictions that this could work. And we have data that basically people out there were saying, look, you know, Red Bull kinds of, it's an acquired taste. Okay, so it's an acquired taste. We can do a much better energy drink because it's going to be Coke then. You know, they love the brands, but they also love Coke, the brand. So we had all the elements absolutely studied. You know, the target was clear. As Mark Rizzo would say, everybody was clear. Now the point is that when you launch an energy drink that tastes exactly like Coke, people say, I don't believe you. Because the acquired taste of the energy drink today is to have this stingy like little something there and say, okay, that's easy, I'm going to add a little bit of vitamin B12 and something and it's going to get closer to this taste. And when you launch it, people say, this is not my Coke. This tastes. You know, I don't want to, I don't want that. So you never get it right. So the point is, Coca Cola is in the energy space. Is Coca Cola. Does Coca Cola have the right to do an energy drink? Is a completely different questions. Because if you are too close to the energy drink, you're not Coke anymore. If you are too close to Coke, oh, you are not effective as an energy drink. You know. So the issue there is not. Do people love this kind of things? Yeah, maybe they. There is a space there. Potentially there is a space. In reality, it's more difficult now. I think I heard you in few podcasts in the past talking about the fact that companies are not patient. And I'm so with you on that. After one year we were delisting and things. I still believe that now after probably three, four years, that could have five, eight, 10% of the market. Now the question is, is good for Coke have 10% of this market or should have more? That is a different business questions. But I think we could have had a little bit more patient on this.
- [21:29]
A
That's such an interesting point actually, because back in my Britney days, I did an analysis of innovation over 10 years and I looked at the top 20 innovations in year one versus top 20 innovations after 10 years. There's only one brand that appears in the first and the second list. It's Coke Zero. Coke Zero. Because Coke 0 got to 90% distribution in six weeks. No one had ever done that before. Interestingly though, even Coke Zero sales declined in year two. And in fact there was three or four relaunches or kind of packaging refreshes. I've never seen as much sampling on any products before in my life as Coke Zero. So even Coke Zero, which is a really obvious bit of innovation, it's Coke, but zero sugar even that took about 10 years.
- [22:14]
B
I was there. I was there in 2000, in 2005 when we launched Coke Zero. I was helping the global team on this. It's funny because Coke Zero was launched as the male Coke versions to Diet Coke and Coke Light. Because at that time we had Coke Light, Diet Coke and we launched it in Australia and the black can and all this, that was like a very specific target and very specific idea. Then it got like a little bit forgotten and things and us was with Diet Coke. And when in Latin America we decided that we would go full on Coke Zero, you know, and we replace Coke Light in less than two years. That was less. An incredible Coke light was 100 million unit cases in Latin America. We are talking about huge business and then Coke Zero start to pick up, pick up, pick up. But I think it's in the last four or five years they really coked zero business.
- [23:18]
A
Yeah, I see it everywhere I go in the world now. Everywhere. Absolutely, yeah. It's phenomenal.
- [23:23]
B
Absolutely. It's a phenomenal product because that sees like I'm going to give you the same taste with zero sugar.
- [23:32]
A
Yeah, it's super clear, isn't it? I mean, there's an innovation rule, actually we have at system one called the 8020 rule, which is a bit like the most advanced yet acceptable idea of innovation. The sweet spot for innovation is 80% of it's familiar and 20% of it's new.
- [23:48]
B
Correct.
- [23:48]
A
And what we've noticed is if you go too far to the new, a bit like with energy, it's like, oh, I can't, I can't process that. And if you make it too familiar, it's not interesting enough. And Coke Zero is a perfect example of just. It's Coke and the little twist is it's zero sugar. So in terms of kind of comprehending
- [24:05]
B
the proposition, Coke is one of the few brand that. Where sometimes I challenge when a unilever. We used to, we used to map brand with the la map.
- [24:15]
A
Yes.
- [24:15]
B
So extrinsic, intrinsic, me and we. No, very, very useful tool. Coke is one of the few brands that is basically everywhere. You know, it's not really me only, it's not really social only because you can have it. You know, when you are like in your mood and it's not really extrinsic, it's not really intrinsic. So when you have such a footprint of a brand, it's also difficult to do a positioning, it's difficult to do targeting, it's difficult to do everything. That's why it's more important to have the brand assets. It's more important to keep the colors, to keep the logo. Sometimes to my student, I show the Pepsi logo the last 100 years and the Coke logo of the last 100 years. Basically the Coke logo never changed. The Pepsi logo changed like six times. You know, it's a little thing, but again it's the gardener. You need to really prune and really be there. You sit in the shoulder of a giant at the end of the day, you know, that's.
- [25:19]
A
That's well said. Well said, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry to interrupt this episode of Uncensored cmo, but I'm doing it for a very good reason on the 21st of April we're going to be putting on the calling in London. This is your chance, chance to join some of my most prolific guests to learn about how people got to the top. I'm joined by some of the world's greatest founders, the very best CMOs and the very best career coaches. This will be a day you do not want to miss. But listen, tickets are going fast, so go and search uncensored the calling to find out how you can get hold of tickets and I really hope to see you there. Now you've been the cmo, as you say, very, very large for Europe anyway, for a very, very large iconic household brand, a big legacy. I wanted to ask you about the reality of being a CMO. I mean I did a study recently with TikTok which we called the real 4P's of a CMO because we were catching up and we were chatting about a CMO event they were running and I was saying we do know that most CMOs don't do much marketing, don't you? And then we were sort of giggling over it. I said, well their 4Ps are quite different. Like people planning, politics and persuasion. Right?
- [26:29]
B
That's exactly right.
- [26:30]
A
It isn't it? I just wonder from your point of view, people be surprised to learn about the reality of being a CMO maybe versus perception, what it's actually like.
- [26:40]
B
These four P's by the way are absolutely fantastic. And I wrote a little bit about in my book about this. First of all, I want to make a point that we always forget when you get into a marketing functions that marketing is a discipline, not a function. And I'm keeping teaching to my students that marketing is a discipline. So if it's a discipline and you are in charge of this discipline, the principle of a discipline, that you have to spread it, you have to teach others what it is. And I think we are like because we are arrogant. I mean marketing is one of the most arrogant functions in a corporation. We tend to say we know, you don't know. And actually it's like because we know we bring you on board. We bring you on board on a discipline that look, my old CEO at Coke, now it's old because it's also because he's also retiring at the end of the month. James Quincy put customers at the center of his business strategy. So if customer is at the center of business strategy, marketing is at the center of any organization. But the point is that you need to seduce other, convince others, influence other, bring others on board. Not only as other function, but as consumers. Because at the end of the day, we are all consumer at the end. And, and so that's why for me, the it's important these four P's you are putting out there because our job is not to tell others that we are right and that's what we should be done. It's bring others on, on the, on the marketing board. And you know, I hear many like we need to learn the finance language, we need to learn operations. So we need to learn everything. You know, at the end of the day, we are the only one that need to learn all the others. Others need to learn nothing from us. And I think that if you really change this dynamic, that it's not us, that we need to just learn the, the finance argument. By the way, we all have a business degree. Okay? I give a big news to those that don't do marketing. 99% has a business degree. So we know what a P and L is. We know where the ROI is. So it's not that we need to start in tomorrow to learn these things, but we need to bring this. I've been presenting the brands to the finance team many times at Coke, at Unilever, and if you find the right way to seduce them, you have an ally. But if you say I'm marketing, you are finance, I'm marketing, you are sales, then it becomes a really difficult, it becomes a really difficult job.
- [29:52]
A
I love your framing of discipline rather than function. That's so helpful. I was debating actually with Corey on a Renegades podcast about what is marketing. And she was sat in front of 50 people and she asked them all to kind of write down what they thought marketing was. No two answers were the same. And we concluded when we debated it, marketing is everything because everything can be marketed. And this is part of the problem that a lot of marketers have because they reduce it to a function without realizing that influences everything the company does now and in the future. And once you reframe that as a discipline, your influence has to be company wide. You can't just restrict it to the job I'm doing, which kind of links me to the CMO role because I think the biggest challenge I had in my career was making the switch up to CMO because I realized my peer group didn't know what I did correct. And suddenly all the topics and debates in the boardroom were about redundancies or financing or strategy or layoffs. You know what I mean? It's like a completely different conversation you find yourself in and one where really, you're a leader of the organization who just happens to be in charge of a marketing team. It's much more that way around, isn't it?
- [30:59]
B
But in the old time when I remember when I joined advertising, I was like, I joined the planning team, so strategic planners, that was my job. They were like, you are the consumer inside an agency. And I love this concept, you know, I said, oh, but that's cool, I want to do that. You know, I was coming from university, no idea was J. Walter Thompson in Milan. Beautiful brand, God bless. Thanks to Martin Sorel that have destroyed all these fantastic brands. And I was like, I'm a consumer inside an agency and you are the consumer inside the company. So what is your responsibility? To be the consumer inside the company. And that is a better way to frame the discipline than just saying, I'm the function that do advertising or they do this or they do that. Because every company is different. At Coke, you don't do many of the things of the four Ps of marketing because you are a system. Britvik was the same. You are in a system. And the success of the system is exactly because they are the butlers, because there is the company. That is what makes the system powerful. Now, in other company you have the P and L in other company you have innovations in other company, but it doesn't really matter because it's all at the service of creating needs or satisfy needs. That's what we do for a living. That's the way I explain to my daughter what I do. I say, look, if you want an iPad, because she wants an iPad for her birthday now, yes, there is someone that's, you know, create this desire for you. And that's called marketing. That's what we do for living. You know, university is the same. At school we create vertical. So you go to school, you teach marketing or you teach strategy, and you teach and you say like. And you teach sales and you say, but why? Strategy is different from marketing, that is different from sales. And then from a theoric standpoint, you create this barrier that I think the Amodeo is called the CEO of Anthropic. The other. I read an a podcast. I watched a podcast a few weeks ago. He said something really interesting that he said, you know what the real risk is that AI will make will connecting the dots in a world where everybody is working in verticals. Because AI doesn't really care if this information is marketing, if it's finance, if it's operations, they just give you what connect all these educations and business separate all these things. And actually is probably the moment to look it back.
- [33:56]
A
That makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense.
- [33:58]
B
I found it very, very interesting.
- [34:00]
A
And it's all down to we'll come on, sister as well. It's all down to, like, people protecting their empires.
- [34:05]
B
Correct.
- [34:06]
A
All the things that happen in organizations. Now, talking of that, of course, you decided to write a book after you left Coke, didn't you? So anyone. Anyone who's watching, here it is. I love the color, by the way. Big, big tick for me on the color.
- [34:18]
B
Color. I'll tell you a little story of the color. And it's really like, sometimes, like the shoemakers as the worst shoes. Because this is a really good friend of mine. She's a designer. She's a Brazilian designer that works here in London that she sent me this because we discuss on the phone. It says, look should be the badge there. And that's. She sent me this, and my first reaction was, jeez, it's yellow and black. It looks like a New York cat. Are you sure? Can you give me some other options? So she sent me, like, purples and things and white and black and things. And at some point, I was having dinner with my wife, and my wife said, but it's clearly the yellow, you know, because it needs to be fun. It needs to be that. So she did a very quick semantic semiotic study. And I said, how stupid I am to even questioning this. And so they were absolutely right. And I think, you know, yeah, males in general, not very good with color choice, I think.
- [35:29]
A
No, I'm with you. I'm with you. I mean, when I write my book, it's going to be yellow 100%. Because I just think. I think, you know, yellow just signals attention. Like it's, you know, and also to be compared to New York Cab is pretty good, right? Because it's a very familiar, distinctive asset. So.
- [35:45]
B
But I was a little bit, you know, kind of professor on that because I said yellow in Buddhism means this and thinks this, though, in some culture means money. No, no, no. Was a little bit overintellectualizing.
- [35:59]
A
Well, my research was simply when we launched the podcast, before we did it, I just flicked through the business charts on Apple podcasts. They're all blue, white and black. They're all unique. And if you look at logos in technology, blue, white, black, you know, they're all the same, right?
- [36:13]
B
Correct.
- [36:14]
A
And then yellow just stands out. So you just flip through and go, oh, I'll spot the yellow one.
- [36:17]
B
Yeah.
- [36:17]
A
So very good. So I wrote it. Well done.
- [36:20]
B
Actually I wrote two books. One. One is coming out for the university in a couple of months on. On my other passion there is marketing and sustainability and it's called Green Don't Sell.
- [36:31]
A
So. But that's true actually because actually I've done. In my seven years at System One, we've done lots of thought leadership on lots of topics and almost all of them have gone down really well. The one that didn't work at all was called the Green Print, which is all about how you deliver sustainable messages in communication.
- [36:49]
B
Oh, that would be perfect for my book. Let's see if we.
- [36:54]
A
I could show you the data on it in terms of downloads. I mean we get thousands of downloads per one and this has probably got 50 or 100. I'll need to check.
- [37:02]
B
Yeah, no, but this has been auto.
- [37:03]
A
The delta is. And we hardly ever been asked to present it to anybody despite it being really important and make a powerful case for it. So anyway, we should.
- [37:11]
B
We should, yeah. But this has been three years of interviews, also CMO and CEOs. But now this one was. This one was based on. On two things. I give you a very quick anecdote. I think one year and one year, one year ago, more or less, I wrote a post on LinkedIn on because a friend of mine, she called me and says I've been injustice. I was supposed to get this job, I didn't get this job and I don't know why I was the most prepared, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. All the content you were talking before your Rittvik experience? No. And you say, and so I wrote a post on LinkedIn just saying, look, she called me and I explained her that is the four P's and all this. And that post got berserk because I was not someone riding on LinkedIn quite a lot. Especially because when I was on the corporate side I was very respectful of the things I could say and I could not say. And when you work in corporate you need to watch out these things. So I sent this and they were like. But seriously, almost 400 thousands impressions.
- [38:28]
A
Wow.
- [38:29]
B
And I said, Jesus, what's going on? And at some point after this I start to receive email and message in private chat of people that says, look, help me, this happens to me, this happens to me. What can I do? So I got to 250 between 25 and 35 years old professionals that I was interacting and at some point I had to say guys, I'm not a coach, I can be a mentor, but I don't have time to talk to all of you on weekly basis. I have a lot of old complaints and actually I have a small book at home that collect all the funny things that happened to me in 30 years career. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna celebrate you with a book. I'm gonna use some of your quotes in the book and I'm gonna put my experience on this and I'm gonna put 30 experience that goes from advertising consultancy, serving brands, being on the brand side, being on the agency side. And it's funny because when I did the book using their quotes and of course I change names and things, I received call from old bosses, new bosses, half bosses, saying oh, why are you talking about me? I said look guys, if you think I talk about you, it's your problem, not my problem. I think it's your issues because I'm not talking about you anyway. And so this create. I really enjoy doing this. I'm thinking to the next one what it could be. So if you have any idea everything
- [40:14]
A
I have to say, I enjoyed it so much. I thought it was very related. I recognized myself and others in a lot of the book. It's very funny and there are so many amazing one liners in there as well. So it was incredibly well done. But let's touch on a few things. Let's start with the Corporate Zoo as you call it, which I have to say was very triggering. But like for example, your boss telling you they've got your back until they haven't. Or let's run this past the big boss, which I thought was. But what, what scenarios have you been in with managing your boss and how to sort of navigate all the politics of.
- [40:50]
B
Well look, the reason why I call it the Corporate Zoo is because in your career all of us met many different bosses and we've been one of them. So I think that we belong to the Corporate zoo as a victim and on the other side. Very true, you know, so we need also to realize that the book is also a catharsis for myself to say what I did wrong. Because also as, as a boss I've been, you know, the pushy one, I've been the flurry one, you know, they're called the peacock, you know, in some ways. So you've been all of these things, but I think that the sooner you identify who's your boss, the sooner you find not the antidote but you find how to manage this. And it's really important because everybody has own struggles in life, you know, and you need to realize that you have yours and your boss have hers and his. So I think that's what makes, I think, the difference. So my objective with the book and with the corporate zoo, it says, spot who's your boss and what he does, how she behaves. And then you, you find out to deal with, to connect. Because at some point your career, if you want to have a career in corporate, if you don't want to have a career in corporate, it's fine. If you want to have a career in corporate, you need to understand the actors.
- [42:27]
A
That, by the way, is my biggest takeout from the book. Because I think as we were chatting, I think before we started recording, the first time I got fired, my boss took me out and he said, you're the best marks I've ever worked with. But you didn't, you didn't navigate the organizational politics correct. And I realized I'd been playing the wrong game. I've been playing the game of delivering the performance. I thought, I remember in the, in the year before getting fired, every single KPI I was given, I had been given was green. So it wasn't about performance, it was about perception. It was about navigating the politics about, you know, being on the right or wrong side of decisions that happened. And that, I think is a wake up call to everybody. If you want to be successful in corporate life, there is a game. You need to realize the rules of the game and navigate it.
- [43:13]
B
There is a game in everything in life, even when you are not in corporate, but in corporate is a very specific game. So, you know, performance evaluations are 20% what you did and 80% how you behave. You know, that of course, HR call it the do and the how, you know, and they say, no, it's 50% the do and 50% the how actually is 90, 70% the how and 3% the do. I was fired too. And actually I was fired one time, one and a half time, you know, but when I was five, was, was my best year, was definitely my best year. But, but you know what? I know my, my, my boss at that time was a peacock that what it was interesting is to go to Cannes and be on the main stage with a green jacket, you know, and someone can. Connected to whoever I'm talking to, you know, and that was his own interest. So you need to serve the jacket. And I was not interested to serve the jacket, so I went out. But that year in terms of delivery, was the best year of almost my career. But it doesn't really matter. And you know what? He's right. Because he was saying, as Woody Allen would say, 90% is showing up. You know, and he's right. I was like, what a buffoon. And actually, he's right, you know, at least in the corporate environment.
- [44:55]
A
So true, isn't it? And I love the bit in the. In the next chapter about performance theater beats the actual theater.
- [45:01]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [45:02]
A
And I think people don't realize how much of it is. I remember the time I was talking to you about that in terms of my most successful year before being fired. I think my opposite number had almost the worst year and got promoted. And I just suddenly blew my mind. And I realized it was much more about perception of reality than the reality of reality.
- [45:22]
B
Correct. Also because people don't have the time to go deep in the content. You know, you also, if you start in marketing or if you are in marketing or if you are in finance, you need to realize that now things are going so fast that why. Why the NPS score is so famous in the world, not because it work. We scholar said millions of times that is a nonsense number. Now it only works because it's one number that a CEO can bring it to a board and says, we are improving our customer satisfactions from 72 to 76. Now that's what matters. So you can have all the scientific discussion if you want, but if you don't realize that you are on a stage and you need to perform and actually performance is an art, you need to use the right language, the right word, the right gestures, the right dress sometimes. And if you think that this is all like irrelevant things, you're gonna fail because the graveyard is full of content tombs, beautiful content tombs. And if you just want a content, go and do a research in university. There are plenty of spaces where they value sometimes, not always, because even there there is issues, but they value content. So I'm very emphatic on this because I think people need to really understand this for their own sake. They need to play different games when
- [47:15]
A
they work in a corporate. Another big insight actually was how decisions get made and the fact that decisions do not get made in meetings.
- [47:23]
B
No.
- [47:23]
A
Which was a big shock to me. And I discovered this way too late. And also meetings, when you get asked for your opinion, be very, very careful because I remember a former CEO would kind of go around the room and I, being keen and like to talk, would always put my hand up and go, so I've been thinking about this and did I give my answer? And then everyone else would be waiting to See where the CEO was leaning and they'd be like judging the wind. And then once they knew which way the wind was going, they'd suddenly out of nowhere, despite the fact we'd all agreed before the meeting that we, or my position, it's suddenly like, be on his side.
- [47:54]
B
But look, two of the most funny I can say bullshit just because it's the name of.
- [48:01]
A
You've written the book about it.
- [48:02]
B
The book words is vulnerability and psychological safety in, in the corporate world, vulnerability. Because nobody really want to say they're vulnerable things. So vulnerability becomes a game of, oh, I want to ski. I went to ski with my children after three years. Oh, that's nice. Or in a public all hands meeting, you talk about what you did last week, that you burn your toast in the kitchen. You know, that's not vulnerability. But you know, we, we pretend that this is the way the leaders need to get closer to people. And the other is there is no psychological safety. Because if in meeting you say the right thing in the wrong moment, or if you say the wrong thing in the wrong moment, that there is no psychological safety that is going to protect you. There isn't because we are all human being. People feel offended, people feel hurt, people feel attacked. So I think we should remove these two words from the HR language because they are all beautiful, wishful thinking words. They are not real. They are so, so not be too vulnerable and not think that you can say whatever you want to say because that's, that's not the case.
- [49:34]
A
Now talking about language as well. Big organizations love kind of trendy themes, don't they? So in your chapter on innovation, I loved all the buzzwords that you know, digital transformation, AI design thinking as well. So how do you navigate all of that in terms of innovation in large organizations?
- [49:52]
B
It's interesting because one of the things we did at Coke in the last few years that I think works quite well is in the gate, one of innovations. You discuss the financial implication right away, you know, and that kills 80% of the buzzword. Instead of having in gate four, so you have a great idea, everybody got excited and you call like Ideo, or you call the big agencies or you do things, you make the prototype and, and then you do the financials. And if you don't deliver the margin that your bottler is expecting, your customer, Tesco is expecting or whatever is expecting, you don't go anywhere. So you have an idea with the limit of what you can imagine. Do some financials and see if it's feasible. Not only if it's feasible from a financial standpoint, but if feasible for the number of the company. Because I mean we were discussing lately about Pepsi and Coke and all this company buy like $5 billion, poppy, $10 billion this. And then you say like after two or three years, most of this company that has been bought, they disappear in the big, you know, corporate swallow giant simply because, you know, they get to 2% of the market share and it's not sustainable from a P and L standpoint. So even in innovations you need to look at the things at the very beginning with a very pragmatic eye. I would say AI, you know, we know Goldman Sachs said it three weeks ago, 73% of the projects pilot on AI failed. So I'm tired to hear company coming to me in the last year to say do a project for us on AI and you say, but why are you doing what purpose? What's the problem you are trying to solve? You know, the normal questions, but if not, it becomes like, like a little mouse running around the wheel and, and there is no sense of all these
- [52:17]
A
things, you know, I love how you orientate it around profit as well. Because I remember when I was at Britvic for many years and we, when we had the Innovation Monthly review forum, I think there were like 20, 25 people in there for a whole day. And I remember this, this penny drop moment where we got to the end of the day and I realized not once had we asked is this a good idea?
- [52:39]
B
Correct.
- [52:39]
A
We were asking is it on time? Have they completed the internal process in the right way? Have the stakeholders been engaged, Are we all aligned? And it drove me wild, I think, but no one has asked will it make money? Is it going to work? And is the idea going to deliver our business for us? Because people were more worried about are we following the process and do we look good than is it good and is it going to deliver?
- [53:01]
B
Is it big enough to work in this machine? Yeah, because if not, let someone else do it and we'll make them rich in three years time we're going to buy it. That's fine. But does it work in this machine or not?
- [53:13]
A
Exactly that. Now there are so many topics I did want to get into which we haven't got time to get into. So I'll just do a plug for the book. So everybody listening and watching, get a copy of Walter's book here. You can't miss it. It's very, very good.
- [53:26]
B
Also because it's self published.
- [53:28]
A
It's self published. Exactly. So you know, you only Help me not, not anyone else. Yeah, not some big publishing guys exactly. But maybe to round off what would be. I loved your final chapter, your Survival guide. What would be your advice to people in terms of surviving the kind of whole corporate world? Because you have this lovely phrase about stop worrying and enjoy the absurdity of it, which I thought was quite.
- [53:50]
B
Yes, good advice. Look, the Survival Guide is quite a long chapter. There are many tips there. But for me, the most important things is realizing what we were saying before is a performance theater and also a Game of Thrones. I would say, you know, in certain ways. So if you realize that you enjoy the ride without feeling neglected, you don't feel that, you know, injustice, because there are the feelings I did in the last chapter, a kind of story between, like when, when you lose someone, you go to the grave, you know, the moments of, you know, grief and all this, you know, all these things. It's exactly the same thing. I think you need to go through a journey and I hope the book help you to go through the journey of saying at some point you say, look, if I want to, I can do other things. In parallel, I can enjoy doing other stuff. I need to carve my time. If I say no to certain things, it's easier. For example, in the Anglo Saxon world, it's easier than in the Latin world. We have a group in Brazil of all this, like people that work in marketing. They've been inviting me in a WhatsApp group lately that of course they are like very passionate about all these things and they fight and the things. And I, and I always the guy that says, guys, you know, look it as it is. This is not your family. Okay, first, first rule is not your family. I saw people being fired after 20 years from a company. They were completely destroyed. They had, they need to shrink for years because they thought that that was their family. It's not your family. You can make friends, of course you can make friends. 10% will be your friends forever. But the other people is not complete transaction relationship, but it's a very practical relationship. And for me, like three years out of the corporate world almost, people are keeping calling me to the project and stuff. Not because we are friends, but because we were very honest and, and I was helping them without expecting nothing in return. And people remember that. So your generosity and your empathy in a corporate world is helping people without expecting anything in return. Because if you start expecting something in return, sooner or later you get frustrated. And now I have projects, I have staff, I have people that call me not Because I can say we are friends, but definitely because we are people that at some point we help each other in a very, very transparent and very generous way. So I think that's for me, if you are in the game, play the game without being too transactional. Say, like, if I do this, you're going to do this and try to be a little bit more generous. But play the game and keep your sanity outside the door because don't forget one thing. And John, for me, this is one of the most important things and that's the reason I put the badge in the book. When you leave the corporate world, no matter how big is your title, you immediately become no. 1. You lose your business card. You are no. 1 in today's world. Unfortunately for many people, you are your business card. So that's why one of the reasons I thank you for having me here, because based on my business card, I'm no. 1 at the moment. So just don't be defined by your business card. Don't be defined by your business card because your business card sooner or later disappear. So if you start to be defined by other things, you can live in the corporate world. Very, very, very easy. And it's look, all the company I work for, I have a huge love for them. I love J. Walter Thompson if it doesn't exist anymore. I love McGarry Bowen, I love Unilever, I love Coca Cola more than anything else. I will be a Coca Cola red heart forever. But they are just company. They pay the school of my kids. They allow me to have a fantastic life. But that's it. And as soon you realize that the better is for you.
- [58:42]
A
Walter, that is amazing advice and thank you for sharing it. Thank you for writing the book and thank you for being so open and honest with all your experience. It's been a blast.
- [58:51]
B
Thanks for having me, Walter.
- [58:52]
A
Thank you.
- [58:53]
B
Thank you.
- [58:54]
A
So I hope you enjoy that episode of Uncensored CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now, by the way, I've got a new newsletter. So if you'd like to get my thoughts on the One Thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the One Thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast just launched, Uncensored Renegades with the fabulous Corey Marchisoto. She is one of the world's best CMOS. She's an absolute rock star. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fix it. So check out that it's in your feed. Uncensored Renegades and finally, I want to give a huge thank you to my sponsor, System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast, it would not happen without them. So big thanks and lots of love to system one. I'll see you next time.
- [59:42]
B
What is that?
- [59:43]
A
21 April at the alternate, which is incredible venue in Tonqual Rose.
- [59:49]
B
You know the thing there.
- [59:50]
A
Corey's coming over from San Francisco, got Nils Leonard from Uncommon. Yeah, we've got Rebecca Hurst from EY, got A.J. coyne from Monzo, is more like a
- [60:01]
B
conference or is more like.
- [60:03]
A
It's a conference slash concert, basically. So it's a conference in a concert venue, but it's designed to be one day turbocharge your career, hear from the people at the top about how they made it. So it's very much about lessons in how I got, how I got there effectively. So whether it's starting a business or
- [60:20]
B
how many people can you, can you have there?
- [60:22]
A
400.
- [60:22]
B
Oh, that's good.
- [60:23]
A
Yeah, we got, in fact, the special guest we've got is someone called Grace Beverly, as if you've noticed. She's, she's 28, she's in the top five or 10 business podcasts in the UK. She's got two brands. She's launched a sportswear brand and a sport tech brand as well. So she's kind of multi, multi millionaire already by the age of 28, hugely successful, big social media following, million followers on Instagram, for example. I mean, it's crazy. So, yeah, she's a sort of special guest, so I'll be interviewing her.