Episode Overview

Podcast: Uncensored CMO
Episode: What is Marketing? With Kory Marchisotto [Uncensored Renegades]
Host: Jon Evans
Guest: Kory Marchisotto
Date: February 9, 2026

Main Theme:
This episode launches the “Uncensored Renegades” format: two marketing leaders, a single topic, 20 minutes, no-nonsense. Jon Evans and Kory Marchisotto dig deeply—sometimes humorously—into the essential question: What is marketing? Drawing on personal anecdotes, corporate experiences, and a crowd-sourced survey, they explore why marketing is so difficult to pin down, how it touches every aspect of business, and highlight the intangible yet vital qualities that define the discipline.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Marketing’s Elastic Definition

• No consensus, even among marketers:
  Kory describes a pivotal moment asking 25 marketers to define marketing—"I got 25 answers." Scaling up to 150 responses only broadened the span.

  “If these 25 people who are actually in the discipline can't agree on a word, what happens if I take this to a broader audience?... It’s purely elastic.”
  (Kory, 01:11–02:14)

• Comparison with other functions:
  Functions like finance, supply chain, or legal have stable definitions; marketing does not.

Perceptions & Stereotypes About Marketers

• Family & public misunderstanding:
  Jon jokes about his daughter thinking he "does the cutting, the sticking and the coloring in," while Kory’s mother reduces her career to “you still sell lipstick for a living, right?”

  “So to my mom, I sell lipstick for a living. And I'm like, you know what, sure, let's go with that.”
  (Kory, 03:19)

Brand Is Everyone’s Job

• The universal role of brand:
  Kory argues brand stewardship is not just for “brand people.”

  “Every function is responsible for brand... So if you are in finance, you are responsible for brand the same way as somebody who's in supply chain, the same way somebody is in legal.”
  (Kory, 04:09)

• Quantifying brand value:
  Jon notes that 60–70% of a company’s value is intangible assets—basically brand and goodwill.
  (05:15–05:32)

• Small company clarity vs. big company silos:
  As companies grow, they fragment marketing into “constituent parts”—reducing marketing to mere “promotion” instead of the broader Four Ps (or more!).

Brand Ethos & Organizational Culture

• Brand as an ethos:
  For Kory, “brand” is about spirit—who you hire, office environment, and personal interactions all reflect on the brand 24/7.

  “The brand has to radiate from every chair. Which is why I actually think about brand as an ethos. It’s really about the spirit of the thing that you’re up to, and that is how it comes across.”
  (Kory, 07:52)

• Consistency in hiring:
  Kory shares that interview candidates consistently observe “remarkable consistency” from employees, reflecting a strongly codified ethos.

  “That means the ethos is super strong because I never spoke to the five people they interviewed before.”
  (Kory, 10:00–11:00)

The Words That Define Marketing

• Survey highlights:
  Kory throws out top answers from her 150-word survey:

  • Most cited: Connection—if marketing doesn't connect, it fails.
  • Most intriguing: Alchemy—turning “disparate pieces and parts” into gold.
  • Other notable words: Magic, strategy, storytelling, advertising, vision, creativity, engagement, community, trust, belonging.

  “If your marketing energy... does not make a connection to someone, then it did not succeed.”
  (Kory, 11:19)

  "We are taking things... that look like nothing and then somehow have to transform it into this piece of gold."
  (Kory, 12:19)

• Magic vs. Accountability:
  Both Jon and Kory defend “magic” as a word, emphasizing marketing’s ability to create value from nothing, though it’s often only obvious in hindsight.

  “We're creating something in the future and most people can't see it yet. And so therefore what... looking back, it's like, oh, that's amazing.”
  (Jon, 12:46)

Strategy at the Heart of Marketing

• Strategy as a marketer’s core duty:
  Marketers should own brand strategy, not just tactics. Jon notes marketers have the “hotline” to consumers, and the job is lost if distracted by only short-term results.

  “...as marketers, we own the relationship with our customers... we should therefore be in the best position possible to be writing the strategy for the future of the brand.”
  (Jon, 15:24–16:07)

• Kory’s constellation metaphor:
  Finding and connecting the “brightest stars” (ideas, insights) to shape effective strategy.

  “So you have to bind the brightest stars that shine and create a constellation. And then when you have that constellation, now, that's your strategy.”
  (Kory, 16:50–17:17)

• The crucial questions:
  Kory poses two central questions for any marketer:

  1. What problem are we trying to solve?
  2. Why can only my brand do this? (17:50–18:06)

Storytelling & “Storyliving”

• Storytelling as fundamental:
  Both see storytelling—internally and externally—as central to defining and transmitting the brand.

  “...if we think about what a brand is, it's basically how you feel about it, what you understand about the brand and that comes through stories.”
  (Jon, 19:18)

• The emergence of "storyliving":
  Kory introduces “storyliving”—not just telling the brand story, but enacting it, making the brand’s story evident through real actions.

  “When I think about story living, it's actually a brand living its own story rather than just telling you what that story is. So I actually really like that reframing...”
  (Kory, 20:51)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On marketing's elasticity:

  “Marketing is not one thing. Marketing is everything.”
  (Kory, 01:45)

• On personal branding:

  “Every single signal you give to the world says something about who your brand is.”
  (Kory, 04:09)

• On brand ethos in hiring:

  “If that ethos is codified and it's on the walls... they need to find themselves in those words, otherwise they're gonna have an energy conflict with themselves.”
  (Kory, 09:43)

• On the lived experience of creativity:

  “It is bibbidi bobbidi boo. It is not something that you could ever put in a formula and a framework. It is the chemistry that happens between the ingredients that each of the people are putting on the table.”
  (Kory, 13:35)

• On why strategy matters:

  "Every campaign has to have a strategy. Who are you trying to speak to? Based on what insight is that the strongest signal...I call constellation building."
  (Kory, 16:07)

• On storyliving:

  “I think about a lot of the work that we do at ELF, it's actually beacons of inspiration because we are living the brand ethos in real time.”
  (Kory, 20:51)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:10–02:25] – Defining “what is marketing” and the diversity of perspectives
• [04:09–05:15] – Brand as organization-wide responsibility
• [07:00–08:00] – Small vs. big company marketing, “the Four Ps”
• [09:15–11:00] – Codifying brand ethos and hiring
• [11:19–12:46] – Words that define marketing: connection, alchemy, magic
• [13:35–15:24] – Magic & the difficulties of explaining creative processes
• [15:24–17:17] – The centrality of strategy
• [19:18–20:51] – Storytelling and the new concept of “storyliving”

Conclusion

The episode underscores the complexity and ambiguity at the heart of modern marketing. Jon and Kory peel back the layers: marketing is not just promotion, or communications, or even creativity—it's connection, it’s brand integrity, it’s strategy, it’s culture, and most powerfully, it’s the story you live as much as the story you tell.

Final thought:

“What's your story, everybody?”
(Jon, 21:21)

[End of summary]