{audio:0:00:01} Rebecca, what have you seen, from a marketing perspective, during this Covid phase, that has really impressed you from brands?

{audio:0:00:13} Brands serve the public and some have worked out, the time is now, for our brands to really step up. The brands that have done that are the ones that have really impressed me. The brands that have recognized that this isn’t, actually, a time to market, but it’s a time to help, have been those that, I think, have really stood out. What’s really stood out is those brands that have found ways to help that are squarely in their wheelhouse; and brands that have found ways to help, that may not even be in their wheelhouse.

{audio:0:00:50} I can give you a couple of examples. Crocs, they make shoes. They make shoes that hospital workers wear. This is a time when they have a product that can really help, but it’s not about profiting from their product. They really have invested in long-term love and equity, with hospital workers. They’re doing a tremendous job donating their shoes. I think that brands that have a capability to help, like Dyson. Dyson is known for innovation; it’s known for its technology and its design. But it’s not known for making ventilators. But they have the capability to make ventilators and they’ve leaned in, to do that.

{audio:0:01:32} Ford and some of the car companies have done that. LVMH, with turning perfume factories into hand sanitizer production plants. Your spirits companies who understand they have a strong ethanol base that can be used for something. These are not in their core products. But these are things that they know that they have the capability to help and they believe that that will work, long term; that you will choose them over their competitors. That you will have some more love and they just know that it’s the right thing to do.

{audio:0:02:01} The other thing that I would say is, there’s a number of companies where it’s impressive to see how they’re pivoting their business model. There is a small company, here in the United States, it’s called Jimmy John’s. It’s known for incredibly fast delivery and they make sandwiches. They also make the bread, to make those sandwiches and they have found that the bread is in more demand than the sandwiches. So they’ve pivoted their business model to make, what would be, if you or I were running that business, a pretty high margin product, and getting that to consumers pretty quickly.

{audio:0:02:33} There’s a number of companies that are pivoting their business model. SIXT is a car company, that you probably know pretty well, that rents cars. They’re doing a great job at going, listen, no one is really renting a car right now as they’re not doing a lot of driving. But coming out of this crisis, you are thinking about buying a car and you are uncertain about your financial situation, you’re probably going to think long and hard. So they’re doing long-term rentals, which is just such a nice way to bridge you through this gap; three-month rentals, for example. They can just get you through the financial instability and it will cost you $300, which you probably could afford, versus the investment of a new car.

{audio:0:03:09} So there is so much happening. The core to it all, though, is knowing who your brand is. The brands that are getting it wrong are when the actions don’t follow the words and when it’s just off-brand. I think you see this a lot. When the Coca-Cola company separates its Spencerian Script logo, first of all, that’s a really big deal for them to do, because they don’t mess with their logo, ever. But when they do that for a broader public service message, to really emphasize the idea of people standing apart, in my view, and I was an insider, in the sense that it was, firstly, an important message, but it’s company that’s always been about togetherness and bringing people together. So it had that double meaning of really emphasizing that this is actually a time for us to be apart, so that we can come back together, later.

{audio:0:04:02} That’s what I’m seeing that there’s some really good work out there, right now.

{audio:0:04:07} How do you know your brand? How do you get to know your brand, as a marketer?

{audio:0:04:13} I would say, this is a terrible time to have to figure it out quickly. I think that would be scary, right now. This is good example of playing catch up, on who your brand, with stake, to be quite honest. That’s your job. Your job is to really understand your brand’s DNA, the value system you stand on, what you stand for, what you stand up against. That’s fundamental work and it should start with your product truths.

{audio:0:04:39} What does your product do, literally do? Then you can ladder that to what that might, emotionally, mean and what that physically means, of course. What that might, culturally, mean. What that might mean, in terms of society. That’s really important, in core work. I think, right now, more than ever, there is genuinely this social consciousness emerging. If your brand didn’t have a higher purpose, you’re going to be looking for that higher purpose. If it did, great; your purpose is going to be put to the test and you’re going to have a great chance to show that, because that’s what we’re more interested in, right now. We’re seeing through everything superficial. We’re getting to what is really important. We’re getting to what’s public, what’s universal. This is about health and the stakes are high.

{audio:0:05:29} I think people are holding brands to that high level of accountability. But I would say, if you don’t have it figured out who your brand is, it’s very hard to do that in a hurry.

{audio:0:05:39} What were the key lessons you learned about brand building, at Coca-Cola?

{audio:0:05:46} I’m so grateful for those 22 years. I think it’s, probably, one of the greatest brand-building companies in the world, evidenced by the test of time, the products that it has and their sustainability. The role they’ve played over generations and, I think, the role they will continue to play.

{audio:0:06:06} I think I learned what we just talked about, above all. About really understanding the role that brands play in the world. No matter what you sell, whether it’s something as simple as a Coca-Cola, something as necessary as water, and everything in between. I think one of the greatest foundations was that understanding and putting consumers first and really being driven by insight. The Coca-Cola company has an incredible appetite for the consumers and the stakeholders it serves. We were always driven by insight, first and foremost.

{audio:0:06:47} What do you mean by insight?

{audio:0:06:50} Insight, in terms of physical needs. We know how many times a day you drink a beverage of some kind. In so doing, we know that there are physical needs. That is core to the company understanding it, better than anybody else in the world, what are physical needs are, for hydration, for replenishment, for refreshment, whatever it may be. I think the Coca-Cola company does that, second to none.

{audio:0:07:15} But there’s more than that in building brands and moving those products. It’s understanding the communities we serve. It’s understanding the emotional wants and needs of consumers, because that’s how we have to connect, to make our brand stand out. Someone else can serve the same physical need, but rarely, can someone match the emotional and cultural connection that you might make with people. That’s really where you will differentiate. That’s something you learn, very well, at the Coca-Cola company.

{audio:0:07:48} The other thing I think you learn there is, it’s like working at the United Nations. It does business in over 200 countries and there are some things that are universal and these universal truths build beautiful Coca-Cola brands. There are some things that are just truly local. I think the company does a very nice job of looking at that. The other thing I think all brands do – I’d like to make this a general comment about brand building – is that I think brands that are going to survive the test of time do two things well and they do them a bit simultaneously. Sometimes they turn one on and they might turn the other off. That’s that they have this incredible ability to be timely and timeless.

{audio:0:08:29} You can think of luxury goods companies that do this very well. Chanel. Chanel has stood the test of time and stood for a certain look. Yet, it has stayed incredibly relevant, by leveraging trends and pop culture but it has stayed true to those timeless qualities that have made the brand what it is. I think the Coca-Cola company has done that incredibly well, in ensuring that it plays in the timely conversations that are happening in the world, but it does so, based on that really timeless message that the brands have been built on.

{audio:0:09:03} How do you look at how Coca-Cola tap into that emotional or psychological side of, not just providing a beverage for your physical needs, but bringing people together, driving happiness, get that feeling from the brand? How do you see that they approach that, over the years?

{audio:0:09:23} There were so many. First of all, there were unbelievable amounts of great leaders at that company and the ability to attract great talent. We could have a whole other interview on attracting talent, because I think that’s the unlock of anything that we’re talking about. Coca-Cola has the ability to do that and so do many other great companies out there, right now. Coke understood what it did. Think about a simple Coke. It’s uplift, it’s caffeine, it’s bubbles and the inherent qualities in that. But then they give you more than a physical uplift. They give you an emotional uplift. Then this idea of sharing it with others, takes to an entirely different level. The fact that it can be the same for everyone; it’s so democratic and accessible. So this idea that they can bring the world together. Few things can do that. So few things can be so for all of us.

{audio:0:10:15} Coke had a way of doing that, generation after generation. It was people before us, my generation of marketers, that left a legacy and you felt an enormous responsibility to carry that on. Because that is so timeless, the need for uplift, the need for connection, those can stand up, but the way you do that, has to remain timely. I think Coke really has a way of getting that balance right.

{audio:0:10:46} One thing I’m always curious about with big brands, like Coca-Cola, is how do you really target consumers, when everyone is your consumer?

{audio:0:11:03} You’re even seeing this today, with Coke and outside of Coke. You see brands who understand who their consumer base is. Walmart. Walmart understands exactly who it’s talking to and I think that’s a good example. Coke is great example that knows its core consumer. It is for everyone, but we also realize that there’s formative years, in our teenage lives, where we’re going to start to make choices about our repertoires. This is very true in spirits, and we can talk about that in a minute, as well. But you collect a repertoire of brands. It’s based on the brands in your home and the brands in your life.

{audio:0:11:46} We know that your first baseball game, your first football game, all of those moments are great moments to collect these brands in your life. What brands come into your home is another way you’re going to form those relationships; I really think is how to think about it. Coke knows those critical formative years, but it also knows that you’re going to move on in your tastes and your palate and your needs. Therefore, you are going to consider moving from, potentially, a Coke as you know it, to a no-sugar Coke. You may move onto a Powerade when you’re playing sports. Those brands have occasions. Coke really understands how the brands and the consumers are matched to occasions. They do an incredible job with that. That’s the core. You will never be able to be for everyone, truly, in every way. But by being for your core set of consumers, you will do a beautiful job of attracting those that are, maybe, on outer circles. But you have to be for someone. Brands stand for and up for someone.

{audio:0:12:55} Going back to those formative years then, when you’re approaching those target customers. Is it about placing your brand, in those moments, to connect with that young consumer? In those happy moments, at sports games, with their families? How do you really make that a formative experience, in those years, for the customer?

{audio:0:13:16} Think about yourself and whatever age you’re at. You know you spend your time and we ensured we know how our consumers spend their time and what was meaningful to them. What were they passionate about? I think, at the end of the day, when brands build relationships, it’s like human relationships. We build relationships by having shared values and things that we care about that are in common. It’s about being there and being in those moments and being in those occasions and being in those places that represent our values. That’s another really important one, for any brand. Just because your consumer may be there, if it doesn’t match your value system, you have to be careful, as well, to not just be everywhere your consumer is. You also have to be, where your consumer may be, but where it also matches the values and what you stand for. That’s really a universal truth about brand building. Brand building is about relationship building.

{audio:0:14:14} Not only have you got to be in those places where your consumer is, you have to actually connect with them, with shared values, like you said?

{audio:0:14:24} You sure do. I think that’s the trick, sometimes. It’s not just about being there; there’s a reason you’re there. Because you are sharing some equity with them, too. Who I keep company with matters. As you raise children, that matters. That’s very true for brands. The company brands keep, matters and it says something about the brand. We’re all sharing equities; we’re sharing values, in that moment.

{audio:0:14:57} Have you got any examples from Coca-Cola, maybe from some of the smaller brands in the portfolio, where they really connected with consumers in a certain way that was unique or really able to connect with a certain group of potential customers?

{audio:0:15:13} When you think about some of the smaller brands that are maybe born, initially, functionally, it could be anything from a cold-pressed juice or a coconut water or whatever it may be. But often, they are a smaller cohort, initially. Probably an emerging trend, even. In those brands, you have to really recognize that you have got to be extremely meaningful and important to that small cohort, because they become your advocates. They’re influencers, typically, because they tend to be early adopters and they’ll bring others along with them. If you pick your trends right, those trends will grow. No one was drinking kombucha five years ago. I don’t know about you, but I drink one a day; I love kombucha. If you pick your trends right, you will end up having a core base of consumers that are influencers that advocate for you and that can bring others along.

{audio:0:16:16} Sometimes you can find influencers with big voices; celebrity voices, even. Or you can find influencers with a strong following. Now, more than ever, social media enables you to do these things that, 15 years ago, we weren’t able to do. This would have been a lot more manual. We would have to physically go to where the influencers are. We’d have to go to the studios and show off there, or whatever the occasion was. Now you can do that physically and digitally and it’s a lot easier to do. There, you are going to really get very tight on who you serve, where they are, how they spend their time. Who’s important in that community? Who’s the spokesperson for them? How can you connect with them in really meaningful ways?

{audio:0:16:59} They will hold you to the test, because they will hold to authenticity and accountability and they will look for transparency. It’s great, because they will ensure that your actions are, indeed, louder than your words.

{audio:0:17:16} How do you think about communication in those moments, when you have to connect to those customers, with your shared values? How do you think about messaging and communication?

{audio:0:17:28} It comes back to, what do you want to stand for. You’ve got to be really clear on that. Then your messaging is a function of that. Then the channels that you are going to choose to use are, obviously, a function of where the consumers are and how it matches the message that you want to have. That’s an unbelievable tapestry of things that need to come together, correctly. What will you see is, the brands that do that well are very, very clear in who they are, who they are talking to. Then the rest is, actually – this is a total overstatement – not easy, but so much more to work with, if that’s right. You’re giving your agencies a better chance of success. You’re giving your money a better chance of landing well, if you know, out of the gate, who you are, what you stand for, who you’re trying to attract, what behavior change you are trying to impact with this message.

{audio:0:18:25} Then, what’s the best format for that message? Not every message needs to be told in a film. Some need to be told in print. Some need to be told by others. Some can be told through PR. There are so many formats, today, and so many channels that we have access to. Choosing those well, it’s a gift that we have so many options. It’s no longer just, TV, radio, print at home. That’s not the world we live in, anymore. But not every message is right for every medium either. It all comes back to, is the message right for the brand? If that’s correct, then we can take it to, what’s the right medium for the message?

{audio:0:19:07} That’s also a pretty difficult decision, today, when you have so many different channels, so many different opportunities. Take coconut water, for example, at Coca-Cola. How did they really choose the channel and leverage that channel for their consumers?

{audio:0:19:23} Unlike years ago, when TV was only for the big brands, that’s not true anymore. There are so many forms of film now and how film can be shared. Anybody can tell a story they want to tell, in almost any form that they want. How much media support they can put behind it but, more importantly, to your question it’s, who are we really trying to talk to? Sometimes, consumers will do a lot of the talking for us, if they like what we have to say. They’ll even help you spread your message.

{audio:0:19:54} Sometimes, it’s something as simple as a simple action. A simple action could go viral. Great for the person who manages to do that. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s beautiful, because then you’ve got consumers telling your story for you. Sometimes it needs to be really close to the point of purchase, because consumers need to be reminded. Going into your grocery store, maybe something that’s really appropriate. Going near a highly dense area, if you’re a spirit’s company and you want to be near the restaurant neighborhood. That’s going to really come down to, where your brand’s occasions are, how it’s consumed. If you’re Uber, you’re everywhere, in our everyday life. In Uber, we used a lot of outdoor, because you’re in cars. Isn’t it great that you’re using the product and you see a reminder about us? It really varies greatly, on that. But the decision will come down to, again, a tapestry of budget, of timing, of what you’re trying to do. Is the story simple? Does the story need a lot of print? Does the story need story-telling? How do we want to connect? There are so many things in there that will come into play. A lot of it comes down to great judgement.

{audio:0:21:07} You talk about this tapestry, where there’s different variables that come into the decision making. Could you just elaborate on that and, maybe, put to bed this view that marketing is just about campaigns and spending money on campaigns?

{audio:0:21:26} Sometimes, your marketing spend, your campaigns, should be the last thing you are thinking about. All your energy should be in those things that I talked about. Where is growth coming from? Do I have a product that meets that growth? Is it the right product? Nothing can make up for a bad product. It is so important. If you’re a CPG company, what’s in your innovation pipeline? Understanding your user base and what’s important to them. All of those things are incredibly important.

{audio:0:22:00} If you’re a company that’s a strong performance-marketing company, can generate a lot of growth through acquisition marketing, that’s where all your energy is going to be. The other pieces have to sit on that strategy. Campaigns are just a means to achieving your growth objectives. They’re just a means of amplifying what your brand stands for and making sure people know about it. But what your brand stands for, can’t be made up for, but you don’t know that, by campaign. That’s why I think all our emphasis needs to be in that front end. We get a lot of attention, as marketers, for what we do on the back end. But what we do inside of the building is so important. How we connect with our colleagues. How we work with our digital teams. How we work with our marketing technology teams. How we work with HR, because, in a lot of ways, our brands set the employee proposition tone, for the company and why people want to work with us. How we manage a broad set of stakeholders. It depends on how your distribution is, but is it through bottlers or franchisees or distributors?

{audio:0:23:09} There’s just so much to it and, I think, marketers of today, who understand all of that, have a better chance of success. Yes, they’ll still do campaign work, but it’s going to be really hard to do that campaign work, if you don’t have some of these fundamental answers.

{audio:0:23:25} What would you suggest a young marketer should do, in that case? Clearly, the young brand managers don’t have to worry about HR and different stakeholders. If they’ve just got a brand, how would you really encourage them to get a hold of these different variables in the tapestry, if you will?

{audio:0:23:43} I really think that, sometimes, marketers are born innately curious, insightful, good intuition. But with more and more tools that have, in the last decade, enabled us to measure, marketers can also now, be incredible scientists. They might even be data scientists. They’re analysts and their analytics are unbelievable, today. You could be born in that regard, as well. But your ability to work with the more creative and intuitive types, will also be really important.

{audio:0:24:24} If you’re a young marketer, you’ve got to know where your energy goes and which type of marketer you want to be. If you want to be a CMO, you’re going to have to hone all of those skills and you’re probably going to be stronger at one than the other. But you’re going to have to know how to manage teams that have all of those skills. If I were a young marketer, up and coming today, I’d probably look at where my energy goes. Do I love the consumer insight side, the brand building, the intuition? Or do I really love understanding lifetime value and the analytics of a brand and the real time data that’s now available? We need all of that. There’s really space, for people to come into marketing, that maybe wouldn’t have before. There’s a chance for people, even as old as me, to learn all kinds of new skills that we didn’t have before.

{audio:0:25:12} I think, if you’re a young marketer, choose your adventure. But knowing who you are, at the core and those art or science answers are probably going to help you to know that’s where your natural energy is. But there is room for both. We need both. But I would encourage, whichever you are, that you know how to work well with the other one.

{audio:0:25:37} Could we move onto discuss Jim Beam? Or Beam Suntory but, specifically, the Jim Beam brand. You walked in, as CMO, to this huge brand, huge history, huge heritage. What was your thinking and how are you formulating a marketing strategy for that company?

{audio:0:26:00} Such a fun, great place to work and such good leadership there. The first thing I did was look for the archives department and I’m not joking. It came in a different form from Coke’s archives. Coke’s archives are unbelievable. It is like a museum and the people who work in it and run that are such a treasure trove for marketers. At Beam, we had living archives. We had family members on our team. I had an incredible amount of marketers on my team, who had been there decades. So those were my archives; I call them living archives.

{audio:0:26:38} When you have family members who are eight generations in, on a brand, that’s just unbelievable. Three generations in Maker’s Mark, eight generations in Jim Beam. One is, if you have a history, I think it’s important, as a CMO, to know it. To know it well and to tell it.

{audio:0:27:06} You go to the home place. The home place is in Kentucky and you go often. You don’t just go once. I’m really trying to be down there almost once a month. Again, that’s everything you’re working with. It’s such a differentiator. By the way, many spirits brands have strong, deep histories. You have to know what’s in yours that makes yours just a little bit different. Is it the way it’s made? Is it living family? What is it about it and what are those family values that have been passed on? How do they now need to be come and show up, as part of today’s fabric? That’s what you’ve got to get right. That’s where you’ve got to understand your consumer insight and what you’re pushing up against. You’ve got to understand how the palates are evolving and what consumers care about.

{audio:0:28:02} If you work in whisky, as an example, you know the consumers have a repertoire. You probably have one. You probably have an everyday drink, something you might mix, something you might sip. Maybe it depends on who you are with or where you are. You have to put all of these together, as part of your strategy. You’ve got to understand where your growth is coming from or where you might be losing growth. Who are you losing growth to? As you put all of that together, your story can help bring some of that to life. It may be even be that the story that you’ve been telling needs to evolve a little bit.

{audio:0:28:38} Sometimes we need to tell stories that are strong on the product and the product benefits. Sometimes, consumers aren’t that interested in that. In many vodkas, that’s really not the most important. Sometimes it’s more about the personality. You have to really know what you’re working with. But again, just like we talked about already, it’s got to match who you are. That’s where that DNA, those archives, are so important. That’s truth serum. You can’t change history; it is what it is. You can choose to not tell parts of it but, in today’s world, somebody might even be able to find it out. Work with what you have.

{audio:0:29:16} What did you find in those archives, at Beam?

{audio:0:29:21} In Beam, you find this incredible sense of family and family values, that have been passed on, generation after generation. Pioneers, resilience, was in that family and the way they came out of prohibition. Then if you look at Maker’s Mark, for example, there was such a huge role that the founders played, and a female founder, together with her husband. How they really pioneered and made that whisky and their unbelievable appetite for craftsmanship and quality and really keeping things handmade, to the best they could, in today’s world. They’ve held onto that, tightly.

{audio:0:30:11} You work with what you have, as different as they may be. Again, because there’s this repertoire, we know there’s room for both. You’ve also got this treasure trove of marketers, who have been on these brands for a very long time. They know the consumers very, very well and the trends and you just pay attention to it.

{audio:0:30:32} How did you look to bring the history (of Jim Bean) to life in a different, more modern way, at Beam?

{audio:0:30:38} That’s the key, the idea of timely and timeless; it really plays out in some of these brands. They have been something, forever. It’s not my job to tell the family that that’s not what they stand for. This is what they stand for. My job is to help them present themselves in a way that’s going to connect with today’s consumer. You do that, in meaningful ways, in knowing what your job is. If the job, at the time is, we need you to recruit a new generation of drinkers. You could have a job, which is, we need to drive the frequency with the drinkers that we have. It could be, we want to bring in a more diverse group of drinkers, be it female or whatever it may be. We want to appeal in a new country that we haven’t really been important in. All of that is going to form your strategy. We want to bring something new to market. We want to do something at a different price point. So many different things are going to play into that.

{audio:0:31:56} Then you are going to use your channels at hand. We did a few things and the team there is still doing it, and the new leadership will do an incredible job. Because our home place was so important, we made a case to invest in updating the distillery experience. We really wanted to emphasize home and place, which is so very important in spirits. They come from the land. We have those living people. That was a whole big piece of our strategy. There’s a whole movement of people wanting those experiences; it’s an experience economy. More and more people than ever were going to experience the Bourbon Trail.

{audio:0:32:39} Then you would do story-telling around that. We put out some big films that told the story of the families, through prohibition. In the case of Maker’s Mark, they also understand the consumer very well and they knew that the consumer loves horse racing and those important moments, in what we were able to do, around the Breeder’s Cup and other important moments like that. In tradition and things that have stood that brand up for so long. It all comes down to knowing who your consumer is, what they care about and how that matches your brand and what you care about and what you are trying to do.

{audio:0:33:15} What was your biggest challenge in connecting with those younger consumers, with a whisky brand, like Jim Beam?

{audio:0:33:25} I think, a few things. If you’re a new brand, you’ve got a clean slate. You can just decide, this is who I am and who I’m going to attract, out of the gate. If you are a legacy brand – this could be true for a Coke or so many brands in the world today – you could really be about, this was my father’s drink. Things like that, those are things that you want to shed. I’m lucky; I thought my parents were pretty cool. But not everybody thinks that and consumers also want to be empowered to make their own choices and don’t want to be dictated to do something like we used to be, or at least like my generation might have been. Sometimes you have to contend with things like that which are, it’s my father’s drink. That wasn’t really one of our biggest fears, at Beam, but it’s an example of a barrier that a brand could have that you have to work with. You can have some fun with that, too.

{audio:0:34:30} I think Oreo has done an amazing job, too. I think it was in China, where they are were trying to show an Oreo and they showed, generationally, it was the little kid teaching the grandfather, how to eat an Oreo and dunk it and everything. It’s a complete departure from when you are talking about spirits, but there’s a way to work with these things. That’s where insight matters. You’re not going to do much without insight. I think it will be pretty weak without it.

{audio:0:35:01} How do you think about story-telling, more conceptually, and the power of stories, with these brands?

{audio:0:35:07} Story-telling is an over-used or maybe appropriately-used word. That’s how we remember things. That’s how things get passed on. Probably one category where it’s hard to find one where stories are more important is in spirits. The story becomes the experience. You sit next to someone or you talk to a bartender and they recommend something. Often, they will tell you a quick story and it stays with you. I’m keeping that story tight, making sure it’s right. Again, it’s not always easy, but it should be based on a part truth. If your story is about how long you’ve been aged, your story is about how long you’ve been aged. If your story is about who touched it and how it’s been handled and crafted, great. If your story is purely emotional, which is, this was a whisky sourced from wherever. We didn’t grow it ourselves, but what we did do is, we got it to market. That’s a thing too. They’re all possibilities. Again, you have to know what you’re selling, who you’re selling to, what matters to them.

{audio:0:36:27} But people can repeat stories. Stories can differentiate use. Our stories can get passed down. Stories are really, really powerful mechanisms in brand building.

{audio:0:36:41} Is there anything else around Beam and how you really looked to use the heritage and story of Beam, to really bring it to life, in terms of the channels you used and the message you gave consumers?

{audio:0:36:58} Yes. The channels are really important. First of all, you are going to be channel-limited, in spirits. It will vary by country, but you are going to be somewhat channel limited. You have to be very careful about marketing to children and there’s some countries where you can’t advertise spirits on television, so that will vary greatly. But because of that, you also have to make content that can be used. Not all stories can be told in any format. If you can only tell your story in a film and it needs to told and broadcast on television, that’s probably not going to work, to get your story out there in spirits. You are limited on your broadcast, you are probably limited on your spend. You are going to spend a whole lot of money making something that is not going to get a lot of time and energy.

{audio:0:37:47} In certain countries, where there are less limitations, it could vary. You’ve got to really understand what you’re working with. In any brand that I’ve worked on – and this was true at Uber – heritage matters. It doesn’t matter if you are 10 years old, 200 years old. There are companies that want to relaunch as something that they weren’t born as. I didn’t happen to work in those companies. The last three that I’ve worked in, were born something and they were proud of that. Massive disruptors, family legacies, stood the test of time brands that can bring people together and be for everyone. Heritage, in all three, was extraordinarily important. It needs to be respected but it needs to remain relevant.

{audio:0:38:38} In Beam, that was what we did. It was, what about family today, matters? The fabric of family looks different today. They’re not traditional, the way they used to be. Friends are family, for many people. It’s not, necessarily, about representing two parents, two children, who look like this. That wasn’t it. It’s about understanding what family means. How you stand by each other. What family does; less who family is. I think that was how we made our messaging around family. They may move on from that, but it was certainly an important piece, when I was there.

{audio:0:39:17} How do you look at premiumizing a product? Changing the perception around a brand or a product, to move up the price ladder? How do you look to do that with a brand? You can use Beam or any other product, as an example.

{audio:0:39:41} There are some universal truths. This is not easy. The first thing, I think, if you have conditioned consumers to believe that they can find you on a discount, they’re going to wait to find you on a discount. That’s very common practice, across many categories. You have to be very careful on how you use discounts and promotions, over the years. Secondly, the only way to command a premium is through brand equity, unless there’s a supply and demand issue. Right now, toilet paper can command a premium. This is a unique moment in the world, right now. That said, in spirits, supply and demand matters, because there is a scarcity that can absolutely dictate the price that people are willing to pay.

{audio:0:40:40} We should recognize that as a real thing and that’s true in airline ticket availability and ride share availability. In many things, supply and demand will certainly dictate the marketplace, to a degree. But in answering your question more specifically, on brand building, the ability to command a premium and sustain that premium, over time, and to have people choose you when there is a less expensive alternative, will come down to how important your brand is to them. What it means to them, why they are choosing it. They believe you are better; they’ll advocate for you. That is one of the strongest positions you can be in, but it takes time, it takes consistency and it takes delivering on that brand promise, every single time. So they believe, when they buy you, when they pay a premium for you, that you are worth it.

{audio:0:41:27} You mentioned the word brand equity. I think it always gets banded around. What does brand equity actually mean to you?

{audio:0:41:35} Think about what equity means, in general. It’s value. Sometimes it’s unintentional value even. I think it’s the value of your brand in the hearts and minds of consumers. It’s what you stand for. Some of that can be measured and some of it is going to be a little more subjective. How important and how valuable your brand is, is what we would call brand equity. That equity is going to determine your ability to command a premium or not, to a large degree. Sustaining that equity, over time, is our job, I think, as marketers. And maybe to leave a brand even stronger than we found it.

{audio:0:42:27} I want to move on to discuss technology brands, versus traditional spirits, beverage, FMCG companies and brands. How did you find a difference in the way that these brands are approaching marketing, between the likes of Uber, versus Beam, and even Coca-Cola?

{audio:0:42:49} They’re born so differently. Most of your tech brands are going to be 21st century brands. They are born in a very different way from manufacturer brands were born, in a 20th century production economy or 19th century, even, in the case of some of the brands that you mentioned. They approach marketing with product first. It’s not brand first; it’s product first. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We talk about, in brand building, how you are nothing without a great product. Product is everything, in tech. Knowing that and coming into that reality, respectfully, is really important for any marketer, with a more traditional legacy company background.

{audio:0:43:36} As such, often, you’re not at the front end of that product development. It was born in a different way from the way brands and products were born in the other companies that we are contrasting them with. You have to work with what’s been given to you, until you are able to find yourself at the front end of some of that product development. What that means is, language is different. They weren’t born based on a brand. They were born based on product. A product that might have disrupted; a product that came onto the market in such a different way, with a very different competitive context and doing a very different thing.

{audio:0:44:20} What I found was the strength of the analytics and the performance marketing was, certainly, stronger than the fundamentals of the brand building that I would have found elsewhere. Maybe some of the best analytics and marketing technology that you would ever encounter, as a marketer, will be in these technology companies. The other thing that I think is very important, and you are seeing this more and more, is that the ability, in technology companies, to have access to data; more data than we can, actually, even use quick enough, to makes sense of, as marketers. There’s always a little bit of a lag time between how you are able to work with what you have – often you find marketing teams playing catch up – to what the rest of the organization is able to do, because of how fast that marketplace is moving, or whatever the product may be.

{audio:0:45:24} The other thing that I think is extremely different is where marketing sits, in the organization. How it has been positioned; how it was born. Very often, going back to how you and I started, marketing is really only about the campaign or the brand reputation. It’s not a part of a lot of those other strategic conversations that you and I were talking about, earlier on, about brand building. I think those two worlds are going to come together, over time, but it’s going to take a while. I that’s going to be interesting, as those two worlds do meet further, because I think that so many marketers have such a place in that conversation around consumer insight and consumer needs. I don’t think those two worlds have yet come together.

{audio:0:46:15} Demand creation is such a big and important topic in technology brands. We use it all the time, in any company, but what it means, in a tech brand, is often different. It’s demand generated through acquisition and marketing. In brand building companies, it’s demand generated through the pull of that brand, to do that. It’s the same term used, in very different ways.

{audio:0:46:42} The other thing I would say that I absolutely loved about working in a technology brand is that, for decades, marketers have struggled to be able to measure everything that they do. We still can’t measure everything that we do. But now, marketing could almost measure 75% to 80% of what it does. What’s left, that 20%, is going to be some of those brand-building tactics or strategies that are going to be more subjective in their measurement. It’s an interesting time to be a marketer, because what that can do, is it can almost make the bad guy, the spend that you can’t measure. In so doing, it pushes the brand further and further to the fringe, because the hero now, is that which we can measure. I think we have to watch that cautionary tale. It’s not about more money, but it’s about understanding how those two work. You have to work very, very hard with that 80% and keep that very consistent, which is hard to do, over time, if you aren’t also turning down that other engine, albeit more subjective, spend.

{audio:0:47:51} It’s almost like the technology brands, not just Uber, Google, Facebook, they also a policy and regulatory responsibility now, which is part of the marketing plan. This is not just trying to market to consumers; it’s also marketing to the government or regulators. It’s more than just demand, at this stage.

{audio:0:48:16} Absolutely. I think, because they’re disruptors and they are first in their category or they’re new categories, altogether, think about how powerful that is, but it’s a huge responsibility. Sometimes, naturally, it’s going to make, what would be deemed marketing – it depends on whether you spell it with a small m or a big M – more or less important. Even how we go about that policy work will define your reputation and your brand, eventually. It’s very hard to separate any of those actions.

{audio:0:48:47} So you think these worlds of marketing, especially in the tech brands, are going to come together and form a more holistic view, with the marketer, actually in the conversations about growth, strategy, innovation, potentially?

{audio:0:49:01} I sure hope so. I think so and I think our brands will be better off for it. Interestingly, do I think it’s going to happen quickly? No. If you go back to the Covid conversation, and you think about the social consciousness that’s emerging, that social consciousness is going to demand that put our values out there. You put your values out there, with your brand voice, typically. I think it might get expedited, versus two months ago, but yes, they are going to come closer together, over time.

{audio:0:49:38} What was difficult about the transition, for you, to the role of Chief Marketing Officer?

{audio:0:49:47} In both cases, I came from the outside. I grew up at Coke. I was there all my life, 22 years. Then I left and I went somewhere else and I came in in a C-suite position and, as such, you don’t have the benefit of growing up somewhere and all the equity that comes with that. I think, in any leadership role where we come in, we should recognize the context of what we’ve entered. I entered as a stranger; I left a place of equity. I had a job to do, and maybe there are even others who think they can do your job. You know the context of the situation you entered into. I think what’s difficult about any C-suite role, but maybe even harder in marketing is, unlike other functions, such as the CFO, where there is enormous responsibility, but a job description that may not be that different from company to company. The role of the marketer and the role of the lead marketer could vary greatly, from company to company.

{audio:0:50:55} You have to recognize, what’s the job to be done at the time and where do I need to put my energy? Is it on the brand? Is it on the organization? Is it on a new growth strategy? Whatever the job is, know that. But in all cases, you’ve got to get close to the people first. Especially, if you’ve come in from the outside, because it’s the spirit of the people that is going to help you to get anything done. I don’t think I did that fast enough, in my spirits role. I think I did it fast enough, in my Uber role. It made a huge difference in the impact I was able to have quicker at Uber, that I was at Beam.

{audio:0:51:32} The role is going to continue to evolve. It is a role that is timely and timeless, to some degree. Sometimes the timely even outweighs the timeless, because there are so many new channels and so many new expectations. Because, by definition, marketing is the innovative role, there are expectations that, in a funny way, the very group that you expect to bring in disruption, is being a little bit disruptive. I think our marketing industry has, to some degree, been disrupted. I think the roles are evolving to become sitting are the intersection of many stakeholders. An integrator role; it needs to be focused on growth. It needs to be insight-centric. It needs to leverage data, in ways it’s never been able to before, but I think it needs to keep empathy at the core, no matter what.

{audio:0:52:25} How are the marketing functions evolving, as the CMO role evolves?

{audio:0:52:32} Well, one follows the other, as long as you ask yourself which came first. They are evolving. There is not a standard answer on that one and so I think, again, it depends on industry. It depends on the appetite of your CEO, or whoever the leadership may be. But they’re evolving and, sometimes, they are evolving too fast. What do I mean by too fast? Sometimes we got so quickly into digital transformations or marketing technology stacks, that we still have stacks that we were never able to use. I think you have to be careful about that, as well and definitely know where you are going.

{audio:0:53:08} But they’re changing rapidly. There are some fundamentals that are staying the same. I can’t name a peer or a friend or a CMO or anyone who I know, right now, who is in a marketing organization that would say, it looks the same as it did five years ago and I think it will look the same, five years from now.

{audio:0:53:26} What do you see when you look at the landscape today? You’ve got so many different channels. Consumer behavior is changing rapidly. What are the biggest challenges for brands, like Coca-Cola and the CPG companies, to really stay on top of those different moving channels and behaviors? Is there a certain way that you would look to integrate your message and communication, across all channels, internally?

{audio:0:53:56} You want to integrate. You’re going to confuse consumers, if you do not. If your messages are not consistent, across channels, you will definitely confuse consumers. Your consumers, hopefully, are omni-channel, multi-channel consumers, who are playing across a range of channels. Remember that whole idea of consistency. As soon as you are inconsistent, as a brand, you start to lose meaning. It’s like relationships. As soon as my boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, becomes super erratic and inconsistent, I lose ability to understand who they are and that becomes a problem. The same is true in brands. Yes, you’re going to want to use many channels; you’re going to want to have messages that can integrate across those channels, but you don’t have to use every channel, every time.

{audio:0:54:45} And you have to change your messaging, across the channel?

{audio:0:54:50} You should. Listen, if the message needs to be told in long form and you have 10 seconds – we now know the power of six seconds in some of your mobile devices and things – you would definitely would want to adjust your message to be appropriate for that channel. But it should still be pointing back to the same story.

Brand Marketing: From Coca-Cola to Uber

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Brand Marketing: From Coca-Cola to Uber

Former Global Chief Marketing Officer at Uber and Beam Suntory

inpractise.com/articles/cmo-coke-to-uber

Why is this interview interesting?

Executive Bio

Rebecca Messina

Former Global Chief Marketing Officer at Uber and Beam Suntory

Interview Transcript

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Brand Marketing: From Coca-Cola to Uber(April 7, 2020)

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