Episodes

  • Ravi Kandikonda, SVP of Marketing at Zillow: Customer Experience First

    Ravi Kandikonda, SVP of Marketing at Zillow: Customer Experience First
    Feb 5 2025
    Watch this interview on YouTube Full transcript — "Our grand purpose is to make home a reality for more and more people," says Ravi Kandikonda, SVP of Marketing at Zillow. Today on Building Better CMOs, he and Greg Stuart discuss the significance of empathy in brand messaging, and the importance of integrating product knowledge, customer experience, and business outcomes to effectively connect with audiences. Ravi emphasizes that marketers should actively shape solutions, not just identify pain points, and explains how Zillow views AI as a tool for more effective marketing. — Follow Building Better CMOs in your podcast app Rate & review the podcast Links: Ravi's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    54 mins
  • Michelle Barbeau, CRO of eHealth Insurance: Comfortable with Discomfort

    Michelle Barbeau, CRO of eHealth Insurance: Comfortable with Discomfort
    Dec 4 2024
    Full transcript Getting the right health insurance is serious business; it's the number one reason for bankruptcy in America, says eHealth Insurance CRO Michelle Barbeau. But when she joined eHealth — which helps consumers compare and select providers — she realized that scaring people into action was not a winning strategy. "What we found was, it's all about transparency," says Michelle, who initially served as eHealth's CMO, and is now a CRO who also oversees marketing. "We had just never told the story. And so that's where our campaign was born. Our strategy was 'Your remarkably transparent advisor.'" Today on Building Better CMOs, Michelle and MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart talk about her transition from CMO to CRO, the importance of stepping out of one's comfort zone, and the role of marketers as change agents. They also discuss brand-building from scratch, consumer research, and how unifying marketing efforts can lead to significant growth. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Michelle's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Carolyn Pollock, CMO of Tailored Brands: Don't Believe Your Hype

    Carolyn Pollock, CMO of Tailored Brands: Don't Believe Your Hype
    Nov 13 2024
    Full transcript Marketing measurement is a complex puzzle—especially when it comes to balancing long-term brand-building efforts with short-term performance metrics that will please stakeholders. Tailored Brands CMO Carolyn Pollock acknowledges that CFOs may be skeptical of matched market testing and other tools for measuring brand-building impact, but that long-term may have an edge. "The consistency and the continuity of showing up with a message over time, you think back to almost every brand example," Carolyn says. "The ones that are really strong and bring long-term brand value, they've delivered something very consistently for a reasonably extended period of time. And I think what happens nowadays is people don't have that same level of patience or tolerance, and our attention spans are shorter, and we feel the need to be constantly changing things up." Today on Building Better CMOs, Carolyn and MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart talk about the complexities of building a modern marketing technology stack, the exciting potential of AI, and operating effectively inside of a private equity company. Carolyn also talks about why even subject matter experts need to gain a holistic understanding of their whole organization. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Carolyn's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Ariel Kelman, CMO of Salesforce: AI Agents in Action

    Ariel Kelman, CMO of Salesforce: AI Agents in Action
    Oct 30 2024
    Full transcript It's easy to say you want your decisions to be data-driven. But as Salesforce CMO Ariel Kelman has learned, hard data doesn't tell the full story. Often, you also need to consider the qualitative. "Let's say you go and do some executive event series, where you have 30 people come to each event," he says. "It's not like if we want to go draw conclusions from, let's say, Dreamforce, we had 45,000 people. You've got a lot of data to work with there." Ariel previously led worldwide marketing for Amazon's cloud services business, AWS; his boss at the time, Andy Jassy, recommended that he call up a sampling of the participants in a niche program to determine its value to the company. "Of the 300 people in this program over the year, we went and called up 20 of them and we got pretty consistent information: This part of what you're doing is super impactful to getting us to do more. This part [is] irrelevant, waste of time. This part, I don't care ... When there's areas of your business that you can't measure precisely, if you come up with three different imprecise, imperfect measurement techniques that are very different, then you can see it can actually end up being useful. If they're all aligning, your chances of them being statistically flawed in exactly the same way are pretty low." Today on Building Better CMOs, Ariel talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the transformative role of AI in modern marketing and Salesforce's innovative Agentforce platform. They also discuss prioritizing customer experience, the challenges of adopting deep learning models, and misconceptions in marketing measurement. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Ariel's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    45 mins
  • Allyson Witherspoon, Global CMO of Nissan: Creativity is Queen

    Allyson Witherspoon, Global CMO of Nissan: Creativity is Queen
    Oct 16 2024
    Full transcript Automotive marketing is fiercely competitive, and even though she's excited about the potential of AI, Nissan's Global CMO Allyson Witherspoon says an over-reliance on technology could be dangerous. She believes the safer bet is to continue to embrace creativity and a strong brand identity, even in an era dominated by AI and data-driven tools. "If everyone is using AI and the data set is the same for everyone, then what's going to be differentiated?" she asks. Today on Building Better CMOs, Allyson talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about how she adapted her leadership style for a Japanese team, the art of impactful messaging, and the importance of flexibility in the workplace. They also explore how marketers can better communicate their value within organizations and why listening is a crucial and sometimes difficult skill to develop. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Allyson's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 mins
  • Manolo Arroyo, Global CMO of Coca-Cola: What Kind of Leader Are You?

    Manolo Arroyo, Global CMO of Coca-Cola: What Kind of Leader Are You?
    Oct 2 2024
    Full transcript Manolo Arroyo, EVP and global CMO of the Coca-Cola Company, believes there are three types of leaders: One type lacks confidence in themselves and frequently changes the strategy; another buys time for themselves by changing the team around them; and the third decides to commit to the strategy and the team and get the work done. "[They] roll up their sleeves, having the confidence that the strategy is the right one," he says. "The team fundamentally is the same. It might not be perfect, but they're willing to roll up their sleeves and build the capabilities together and go through whatever it takes to learn every day and continue to encourage and inspire the teams to go faster." Today on Building Better CMOs, Manolo talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about leveraging AI for brand innovation and the importance of personal well-being for peak performance. He shares insights on the evolving landscape of marketing measurement, and highlights Coca-Cola's enduring Olympic partnership, aligning with the brand's values and global reach. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Manolo's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Andy Rebhun, Chief Experience Officer of Cava: Bring the Weather

    Andy Rebhun, Chief Experience Officer of Cava: Bring the Weather
    Jun 12 2024
    Full transcript Today on Building Better CMOs: Andy Rebhun, the chief experience officer at the fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava, talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about the importance of consistent authenticity, how to thrive in the C-Suite, and "bringing the weather" for everyone — including Uber Eats drivers. "We welcome everyone to our table," he says. "It should never be that DoorDash or Uber Eats driver is anything different from one of our other customers. Because again, if we do a good job with a handoff, they're likely going to do a good job with the handoff to the customer." Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Andy's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr
  • Linda Boff, Global CMO at GE: Servant of Purpose

    Linda Boff, Global CMO at GE: Servant of Purpose
    May 15 2024
    Full transcript GE has changed a whole lot since Global CMO Linda Boff started working there, more than 20 years ago. It was once a sprawling portfolio company that made everything from microwaves to television shows; recently, it spun off its healthcare, energy, and aerospace divisions into three distinct public companies, and executives like Linda take these core areas of focus very seriously. "We are a company, I like to say a capital-P Purpose company," she says. "A third of the world has power because of GE. Planes with our engines take off every two seconds. So as you and I are talking, there are probably, give or take 900,000 people in the sky right now with our engines under wing. And our health care equipment, MRIs and CTs and so much more, touches 2 billion patients a year." Today on Building Better CMOs, Linda and MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart discuss how to punch above your weight with a smaller marketing team, why B2B businesses don't have to be boring, the importance of communicating to the rest of the C-Suite in their language, and more. Plus: Why you need to separate stories from facts. Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs Rate & review the podcast Links: Linda's LinkedIn Greg's LinkedIn This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    54 mins