Matt Lattman is an avid traveler and serves as the Senior Vice President for Card Acquisition Marketing at Discover. Prior to Discover, Matt was Chief Marketing Officer at Zero Financial, a financial technology startup. He also spent six years at Capital One in various roles, most recently as Head of Acquisition Marketing for their Consumer Bank. He joined Discover in 2019 as VP of Marketing, Pricing, and Product Strategy in Personal Loans. With his start date being just 4 months before the pandemic, Matt quickly got to see firsthand how Discover helps its customers through hard times, meets their needs, and keeps empathy at the core of the brand and operations. Now, he is working to optimize the discovery of Discover through the journey of customers getting their cards, both through cross-selling and net new acquisitions, to ensure people find the products that are right for them.

In this episode, Alan and Matt discuss how he conceptualizes Acquisition Marketing at Discover, the critical aspects of getting Acquisition Marketing right, where creative excellence and storytelling fit into the picture, and the benefits and challenges of marketing a highly recognizable brand. Matt tells us Discover has "midwestern values" and places its customers first in business conversations. When it comes to getting Acquisition Marketing right, knowing what a bad outcome is is essential to narrowing down the target audience. Yes, it is important to understand your ideal customer, but understanding the consumers who don't want or can't have your product is the key to driving down acquisition costs. Matt's goal in marketing is to make the advertisement feel like a letter from the brand to the consumer, and the only way to accomplish that is to truly understand who the consumer is. Matt and Alan also talk about the future of AI in generating creative and the soul that is missing when using this kind of technology to create powerful messaging.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What Acquisition Marketing is and the critical aspects of doing it right
• Benefits and challenges of marketing a highly recognizable brand
• What AI-generated creative is missing

Key Highlights: 

• [01:40] Not an everyday traveler
• [03:40] Matt’s path to Discover 
• [07:00] How is his current role constructed, and what are his primary focus areas?
• [08:25] Optimizing the discovery of Discover
• [09:15] Simplifying messaging in marketing
• [10:55] What is critical to getting Acquisition Marketing right?
• [14:25] Creative excellence and the ability to tell a story
• [15:30] AI for crafting creative
• [18:30] Ryan Reynolds ChatGPT Ad
• [19:30] The importance of a brand's being recognizable
• [25:00] Finding truth in microfiche
• [29:00] Give everyone space and grace.
• [32:40] Marketing academics, lessons from the past, and understanding HOW it works
• [35:55] Trends and subcultures to watch
• [38:00] Machine learning for targeting ads 

Resources Mentioned: 

• Matt Lattman 
• Discover 
• Zero (now Avant), Capital One, Living Social, Boston Consulting Group 

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