Is your CMO-CFO relationship building growth or breaking it? Host Alison Simpson is joined by Deloitte Digital's Jeff Sutton and Amanda McCusker to unpack insights from a landmark Canadian study co-authored with the Canadian Marketing Association and Financial Executives International Canada. They reveal why trust is a business outcome you can engineer rather than a personality trait, how healthy tension introduced early accelerates decisions and which of the four collaboration principles separating high-growth organizations from the rest most marketers are getting wrong.

00:00:00.920 — 00:00:19.680 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, newly retired CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:24.600 — 00:03:27.040 · Alison The CMO and CFO relationship can be a challenging one. Marketing drives growth and takes a long term perspective. Finance protects costs and focuses more on quarterly performance. And when those two forces collide without the right process in place, tension shows up late as gatekeeping, rechecks and slower decisions.

But here's what new research revealed. The best CMO and CFO partnerships don't avoid tension. They're actually designed for it. They surface challenge early when it sharpens assumptions and accelerates decision, rather than letting it fester until it stalls execution. This matters more than ever because the structural condition shaping these relationships have fundamentally shifted.

CFOs now playing a leading role in enterprise strategy for 57% of organizations. 79% of CEOs say the CFO is the executive they listen to most. Meanwhile, 61% of marketing budgets are still set top down or based on prior spend, limiting flexibility even as expectations for proof intensify. Cost is immediate and visible.

Yet value can be delayed and challenging to quantify. And in that gap, collaboration either compounds trust or creates avoidable drag. For today's episode, I'm excited to welcome the Deloitte Canada team who led important research on this critical relationship. It's work conducted in partnership with the Canadian Marketing Association and Financial Executives International Canada.

The learning we're sharing today is Canadian focused with a global lens. So what we discussed will help our listeners understand what makes the relationship different in Canada. Jeff Sutton is Deloitte Digital's national leader for brand and growth strategy. He advises senior executives on how to unlock growth by aligning market differentiation, customer strategy and marketing execution, with a particular focus on marketing transformation and operating model effectiveness.

This work brings a global perspective on how CMOs and CFOs can better align growth ambition, investment decisions, and measurable business outcomes. Amanda McCusker is a Manager in Customer Strategy at Deloitte Digital. She comes from a strategic design background and works with senior leaders across organizations to make sense of complex, cross-functional challenges.

Amanda was the Research Lead on Deloitte's CMO and CFO collaboration and study with the CMA and FBI. She shaped the insights through a qualitative, design-led lens to surface how marketing and finance leaders align, where friction emerges, and what enables stronger partnerships in practice. Together, Jeff and Amanda led in-depth interviews in quantitative research with Canadian CMOs and CFOs to really understand not just where collaboration breaks down, but how leading actually build it into their operating rhythms.

They found that trust isn't a personality trait, it's an operating outcome. So welcome Jeff and Amanda. I am really excited to have you here today. This is such an important topic, and I'm looking forward to diving into the insights about how we can make the CMO and CFO partnership stronger.

00:03:27.240 — 00:03:37.040 · Jeff Well, thank you so much, Allison. We're thrilled to be here. We love the podcast. And of course, thank you for the relationship and the partnership leading up to this. So we're thrilled to share.

Amanda: So glad to be here today.

00:03:37.080 — 00:03:44.840 · Alison Thanks, Amanda. Thanks, Jeff. So, Jeff, let's start with why you wanted to do this research in the first place and why now was the time to do it in Canada.

00:03:45.080 — 00:05:24.430 · Jeff Yeah. So there are many. First of all, in today's economy, it is more difficult for Canadian businesses to grow than it ever has. And so growth is a top CEO agenda for many of our clients. And then as we think about marketing, marketing should be a growth engine within the business. It should lead and be the key function in which the business looks to enable growth.

However, over a number of years, that hasn't necessarily been the case. Often the perception internally is that marketing is more of a cost centre than it is a growth engine. And in parallel, we're seeing the role of the CFO grow within the business. There now, as you mentioned, off the top, Alison, in your intro, one of the more strategic partners with the CEO and typically the right hand when it comes to business strategy.

And so as we think of the importance of Canadian businesses needing to grow now more than ever, and we know the value of marketing and what marketing can do, it's critical that marketing and finance come together to figure out how they can collaborate better together to enable growth. Another reason why we thought this was so important is often the CFO-CMO relationship is misunderstood.

We see and hear a lot of, well, we speak different language. We don't often collaborate. Well, we knew that that wasn't really the case, and we wanted to understand from organizations who are kind of leading and growing in Canadian marketplace, what are they doing differently from a CFO-CMO relationship that's enabling that growth?

And so we were thrilled to partner, of course, with the CMA and FBI Canada to talk to leading marketers and leading CFOs to better understand where this collaboration was happening, what's the mindset behind it, and what are the tactical and practical actions that other marketers and finance leaders can take to enable growth in their organization?

00:05:24.470 — 00:05:44.310 · Alison Now, one of your core findings is that trust is a business capability, not a trait. And that really reframes trust as something that you build through operating discipline rather than interpersonal chemistry. So what did you hear in the interviews that led you to that conclusion? And what does it look like in practice when an organization treats trust as infrastructure?

00:05:44.510 — 00:06:48.620 · Jeff Yeah, this was so key, because when you hear the word trust, naturally you think it's based on a relationship, it's based on personalities, and that's really not what it is. It's not the case. What trust is and what we found through our research is trust actually equals reliability. Trust is earned or created through the ability of these two leaders to come together and make decisions and move quickly.

And that happens over time and that happens through collaboration. It's not a you speak numbers and I speak emotion. That's not what it is. It's really about, you know, how do you create early, healthy tension when solving business problems versus showing up and collaborating late in the process, and to be turning into rechecks and slowdowns and challenging numbers versus collaborating around opportunities and challenges.

And so for us, it was definitely not personalities that lead to trust and collaboration. It's the reliability of decision-making and reliability that leads to faster, more efficient decision-making.

00:06:48.660 — 00:06:58.900 · Alison Now, did you also find that that relationship side of it still has a role to play, especially when it's not about talking numbers or talking emotion when both groups are talking about the business?

00:06:59.100 — 00:07:31.540 · Jeff Yes, we certainly did find there was that, but it was less about personalities. We didn't hear much, aside from when we start to collaborate early and come together around some of the research findings we have around shared language, shared metrics, shared understanding, shared education, that led to deeper trust within the functions because they are solving things together and collaborating, versus using the functions as mechanisms to check against performance, which is a very, very different way of of looking at the two relationships.

00:07:31.580 — 00:07:45.260 · Alison Now Amanda, you quote a CFO in the research saying we hold pen on allocations, but we as an enterprise should all agree on the methodology that makes sense. Can you unpack what changes when marketing and finance agree on methodology upfront?

00:07:45.350 — 00:08:42.310 · Amanda Whether we call it methodology or strategy or just simply a plan of action, it is really critical that leaders across functions come together to align on understanding why is the organization doing what they're doing, and how are they going to do it when it comes to solving for problems or achieving business priorities?

The outcome that we heard from doing this up front and aligning to whatever strategy you're taking, is really that you get a faster speed towards decision making, you get less rework in the end of the day. Finance doesn't need to know every single detail around execution of something like, for example, a campaign.

But they need to know why that campaign is helping to solve a business priority, and they need to have some understanding of how their investments are going to help drive shared outcomes. So aligning to that up front can really save a lot of rework at the end of the day.

00:08:42.830 — 00:09:16.640 · Alison Now let's dig into the key insight that healthy tension between CMOs and CFOs actually leads to the best partnerships and the strongest business results. And I'd love to share how to know when the partnership is working, when it's not, and ways to improve it. So that's a big topic. So we're going to start with measurement.

Amanda, you made a distinction that I think will resonate with a lot of marketers. Dashboards provide visibility. Scorecards create shared judgement. Can you explain the difference on why visibility alone doesn't produce collaboration?

00:09:16.680 — 00:10:24.540 · Amanda So this comes down to the question of not just, do we know what happened, but rather can we evaluate the outcomes? Data always refers to something that happened in the past. That could be five minutes ago, it could be one year ago. But what we heard is that it's not only important to have accurate data that can be shared, it's also very important for effective collaboration to understand, how are you translating that into what was achieved, what results came from those metrics, and a plan of action to move forward with that can evolve what it is that you're working on. These scorecards as a tool, for example, what we heard is that they're not just quantitative purely, they're also qualitative. So bringing different groups to the table in order to align on what that evaluation is up front, really helps to take all the great information that you can achieve from different activity and start to bring it forward to a more future state or target state to see, how do we allocate our budget and going forward, how do we ensure that we are getting the results that we're looking for and speak to the business about what is actually being achieved overall?

00:10:24.580 — 00:10:35.060 · Alison So building on that, what advice would you give to a CMO who's being asked to report on more and more metrics, but still finds that finance is questioning the value of the marketing investment?

00:10:35.140 — 00:12:00.250 · Jeff We heard quite consistently, it's not quantity, it's quality. And the advice we give would be to ensure that the metrics that you are defining together are aligned to the business outcomes and are not aligned necessarily to marketing outcomes. And so it's important that marketing pushes back in a way that is coming from a place of understanding how the business makes money.

It's understanding how the business creates value, and that the metrics that are ultimately being defined are aligned to those. And we heard a really fascinating story from one of our CMOs who, when they started with the organization ten years ago, it was very much that the function was seen as an execution function, not a strategy function.

It took this individual many years, this doesn't happen overnight, to start to show up to the leadership team in those discussions, talking about the business versus talking about marketing. And so the reason I bring up that story is that it's not only metrics that will help change the perception or help the business understand that marketing is driving value.

It's also in how you show up as a leader and demonstrate that you're fully aware of how the business needs to create value, and that you're not talking metrics and marketing metrics, you're talking business and value outcomes. So it's not more metrics that are ever going to solve this challenge, multiple things that CMOs can do, but first and foremost, make sure the metrics are only talking about business outcomes, not marketing outcomes.

00:12:00.250 — 00:12:48.380 · Alison That's great advice for anyone that's in a position where you are trying to transform the marketing function from very tactical to that strategic business driver that it is and always should be. So to find the early wins, and to really focus on speaking the language of the business and showing how you're able to advance the business goals and grow the business mission.

Now, Amanda, there's a pattern in your research that made me smile because I certainly saw it at times when I was a CMO. The whole concept of shadow finance, where marketing teams build their own models and analysis because there's no shared, trusted way to really evaluate value. One CFO told you, I see it in marketing a little bit more here.

Marketing especially seems to have a bigger group than most. So what's driving this? And when does shadow finance become a problem versus a workaround?

00:12:48.420 — 00:14:13.910 · Amanda So shadow finance, or marketing math as it's sometimes called, is often very well-intentioned but can lead to questions such as where did these numbers come from? Which ultimately erodes trust down the line. So between marketing and finance this can actually create a lot of instability, although seems to feel like something that is going to achieve shared outcomes, it doesn't always work that way.

It happens for a lot of different reasons that we heard. But the key one is really the perception of bottlenecks or a lack of access to shared information. And so this is a way that marketers feel that they can achieve results quickly, try to answer the mail on things that they need to get done as quickly as possible. The idea of it being a problem versus a workaround is highly subjective. But the most sophisticated organizations that we talk to don't allow any numbers to actually be present in materials going out internally or externally that aren't fully certified by their finance team.

We also heard from a couple of folks that built cross-functional roles to take over from a shadow finance function into something that is in the light, a actual role that interprets between the language of finance, business and marketing as a way of taking sort of the nuggets of what is a good idea and has well-intended behaviours behind it, and making it into something that actually provides better outcomes for the business as a whole.

00:14:14.030 — 00:14:24.670 · Alison Now, that idea of having almost like a translator between finance and marketing, when you heard CMOs and CFOs talk about it, did it tend to sit in the finance team or in the marketing team?

00:14:24.710 — 00:14:41.690 · Amanda We often heard that they may sit under marketing, but have a dotted line to finance, so that they would be able to have insight into what meetings are taking place, what goals are coming to light, how quickly things are moving, and be able to translate the most recent information for both sides when needed.

00:14:41.850 — 00:14:50.970 · Alison That's a great solution. Amanda, you suggest that shadow finance can become unnecessary when organizations design a fast certification pathway. So what does that look like?

00:14:50.970 — 00:15:45.740 · Amanda So that certification pathway can look different depending on the business. But at its core are some of the pillars that we get to in the report. So things like shared truth and having shared learning. The piece around education is very important for having finance understand what is marketing trying to achieve and vice versa.

So being able to speak the language between both teams becomes paramount to actually getting that certification early enough and getting, frankly, the approvals required for budget allocations moving ahead with certain decision making. It really varies organization to organization. And so that is why the way that we structured our research is really meant to be a groundwork that is flexible to the nuances of each organization as well.

What that ends up looking like at the end of the day is going to have its own flavour, depending on the industry, depending on the dynamics between the team and where collaboration is taking place.

00:15:45.780 — 00:15:52.260 · Alison I would like to take a moment out of this episode to thank the Earnscliffe team for helping bring CMA connect to our listeners.

00:15:55.260 — 00:16:20.660 · Alison Earnscliffe is one of Canada's leading independent communications firms, with teams across Canada and expertise spanning public relations, public affairs, digital marketing, data and design. Earnscliffe brings together national reach, regional insight and coordinated expertise to help clients make sense of complex issues to build trust and deliver results.

To learn more about Earnscliffe Team and Integrated services, visit earnscliffe.ca.

00:16:25.420 — 00:16:49.680 · Alison Jeff, one of the insights that really stood out to me is early finance involvement changes the role that finance plays. To bring this to life, you shared a quote a CMO had said, "Make me your partner or I'll be your judge." I know for many CMOs who are listening, that will certainly resonate. It's a powerful framing.

So what are the practical barriers that keep CMOs from bringing finance in early, and how do the best partnerships overcome them?

00:16:50.040 — 00:18:33.580 · Jeff Yeah, it's fundamental in various ways. And it's a great quote. What we did notice, and this was a few of the interviews we had, it wasn't so much in their experience now, but as general marketing experience through how they came up in the in the industry and what they see from others is marketers, and this is not just for marketers, other leaders do this too, but they tend to go to finance with wanting to have everything solved. Like, the decision's been made on what the product is, they've got the business defined. Amanda talked about shadow finance. You know, they don't have the data and they want to show up and say, here's the solution.

What do you think? What's the investment? Versus where we see leading organizations really start to get this right, is they bring finance in early and they start to talk about hypothesis. They start to talk to finance about, here's what we think we can do. Here's what we're trying to solve. Here's the outcomes we ultimately want to get to, here are the challenges in our way.

And they ask finance for input at that point. And then finance is now not coming in late and challenging outcomes. They're starting early and they're collaborating together and shaping it with you. And this is exactly what the quote is alluding to. It stops finance from being a judge, and it starts to allow them to become a partner shaping decisions.

It also really cuts through the important point around education. So now you're not just showing finance a solution, you're educating finance in a unique way by asking them to be a collaborator, to help them understand, you know, whether it's a campaign or whether it's a martech investment, how this is going to ultimately solve a business decision and drive an outcome, versus just getting them to validate or sense-check an investment. And that that creates shared learning, which is critically important in the CFO-CMO collaboration as well.

00:18:33.620 — 00:19:04.940 · Alison It's such a powerful way to also create shared ownership. So when questions come up at the executive suite, it's not just the CMO defending it in that dynamic. It should also be the CFO feeling equal obligation to support and defend. Now in your research scenarios, you describe moments like the martech investment that can sound like overhead or the multi-year brand commitment.

I know our listeners would benefit from learning more about how they can position important investments like these successfully. So can you walk us through one of these scenarios and show what early involvement actually looks like?

00:19:04.980 — 00:20:45.010 · Jeff Yeah. Instead of showing up and saying, here's a tool that we need to invest in to drive X outcome, what the finance leader hears is this is overhead versus what happens when leading organizations get this right, and CFO-CMO collaborate on a solution early for martech as an example. It's more about the conversation is, what will this solution, or a technology solution, not naming it at the time, but how will that help us make decisions faster? And what are the outcomes that ultimately the business will achieve? And so finance is not looking at a tool and a number associated with the tools and investment, you're talking to them about business problems and business solutions.

And this is the early involvement that's so critical, especially when we think of, the CFO needs to bring this investment ultimately to the CEO to make a decision. So when the CFO is involved early and understanding what the problems of the business we're solving. and what we're going to enable around faster decision-making and more valuable outcomes, they're more confident in presenting that solution to the CEO, not on a sticker price for a tool investment.

But here's how marketing is going to enable us to be a more efficient, more effective business and a tool that we believe is going to be the right investment for us to achieve that outcome. And now you're enabling the CFO to defend marketing, if you will, or show up as a collaborator for marketing to the ultimate decision maker who needs to say yes or no to to this investment. So that changes the relationship completely and changes the outcome for marketing ultimately, on what they're trying to get to, which is a tool that's going to allow them to help the organization grow, and it's going to allow them to make decisions faster and be more an effective, efficient function within the organization.

00:20:45.050 — 00:20:54.770 · Alison Now, Jeff, the research found that long term marketing value is widely believed by both CMOs and CFOs. And for all the marketers listening, that is great news that they do see the blue for sure. The challenge is it's structurally difficult to govern. And one CFO told you, not all business cases will have a financial return. And marketing often has been a very strategic component. So how do leading organizations govern that long horizon invest without defaulting to short term metrics?

00:21:14.210 — 00:22:52.560 · Jeff The CFOs we talked to do understand and see tremendous value in brand. So that was really a validating insight that we heard through our conversations. And exactly to your question, the challenge is not so much value, but how do we measure that? Because the brand KPIs don't traditionally fall within KPIs the business typically can understand and quantify. Bottom of the funnel performance marketing certainly does.

It's a dollar in. It's a dollar out. It's pretty easy to quantify and measure the outcomes. Top of the funnel, brand investment, sponsorships, etc., it's more difficult for sure. So what we have heard and what we've seen is it's not about tracking performance in a single moment. It's about collaborating with your CFO to define ways to track it and manage it over a longer term investment.

And so what we've seen is they come together and they collaborate around not necessarily maybe a defined KPI, but they look at what are some of the signals we can identify that can show proof of performance over time. And then how do we establish a governance system where we are coming together and tracking this and monitoring this together over a set amount of time to look at our performance?

And then what are the signals to show us if it's not working? How can we identify what might need to change, what might not need to change. But it's not a single moment KPI performance-led. It's a long term business outcome. And these are not necessarily KPIs are defining their signals within the business that we can attach brand to a business outcome that can show that there's performance increase or decrease that's ultimately going to change our strategy moving forward.

00:22:52.600 — 00:23:18.770 · Alison From a marketing perspective, I think we've done a bit of a disservice to our profession by ever coining the phrase performance marketing, because the reality is every marketing we do, including brand marketing, is all about growing the business and driving business performance. So I would love to be able to retire the term performance marketing.

Let's go on with marketing because it is all in the best interests in the service of building the business, delivering on the mission for the organization.

00:23:18.810 — 00:23:38.850 · Jeff Yeah, I echo that, Alison. I do think the analogy of top of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, it's all one funnel, right? We're all helping the organization move their customer from, you know, awareness through to purchase intent. And that's through the funnel. And if we can just look at it that way and not allocate performance marketing to it, I think that's a much easier way to understand it.

00:23:38.890 — 00:23:53.010 · Alison There's so much great Canadian and global research that absolutely demonstrates this. So Amanda, what did you hear from CMOs about the asymmetry between the speed of cost relief and the slow compounding cost of lost demand and rebuilding brand equity?

00:23:53.050 — 00:24:48.870 · Amanda So I don't think this should come as too much of a surprise in what we heard from CMOs. And it is just that if you do not invest in your brand today, it may be 3 to 5 years from now that you start to really feel that impact. And that's a hard item to try and sell internally without having that shared language and shared understanding of exactly why this matters.

I think even more interestingly, the CFOs that we talk to who speak a bit of marketing language had a lot of engaging perspectives on why brand matters for their business and that they were coming to the table with the ability to understand why the investment needs to be made consistently over time, rather than being on the chopping block or up for grabs when times get really tough.

And so we heard from both CMOs and CFOs that investing in this over time leads to better results for the business overall.

00:24:48.910 — 00:25:38.760 · Jeff If I could add, Alison, I think another thing we heard that was critical was institutional memory. So what happens is, the business sometimes forgets the trade offs it made in the past. And to Amanda's point, the 3 to 5 year time horizon to make up that investment. And then economics change, market activity changes and they go back to, it's easy to as we mentioned, cut costs and they forget what they just went through, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten years ago or whatever the time was. So the organizations that that do get it right and the ones we talked to, they mentioned institutional memory as a really critical function for them to be able to learn from their mistakes in the past and, and then manage a process to, of course, help with the trade off that need to happen. But they reduce the impact of those so they're not being impacted by it on the back end.

00:25:39.120 — 00:26:01.080 · Alison Now, I have no doubt we have got a lot of listeners who are really interested in strengthening their partnership with the CFO and the finance team, so let's make this super-practical. If the CMO is listening to this conversation and thinking, I want to build healthier tension with my CFO, what's one thing that they can do next week to start shifting the dynamic?

Jeff, why don't you kick us off?

00:26:01.440 — 00:26:47.730 · Jeff Yeah, this this comes back to a bit of the theme we've been talking about. This is early involvement. And I think, you know, critical. It's sitting down together. And before the next investment in defining, you know, what are the business outcomes, what's the value we can define now that's going to make this investment worthwhile for our business.

And these are simple conversations. They're not complex. It's questions like, you know why will this matter? You know, CFO how will you measure this? What does good look like? Very simple conversations that we would all ask ourselves for various reasons. Ask that together. Have that conversation together. That will quickly move from the CFO or the CMO having to defend this decision at the end to collaborating around a decision early.

It will lead to better outcomes.

00:26:47.770 — 00:26:49.010 · Alison And Amanda, what would you add?

00:26:49.050 — 00:27:47.670 · Amanda I would add the simplest thing to do is to be very curious and be curious about what your counterpart and their team is trying to achieve, and don't make any assumptions that they understand what it is that you do fundamentally. Because these functional roles come with a lot of depth of expertise. They come with different backgrounds, different education pathways often, and we really have to reinforce collaboration through being open, curious and not making these assumptions.

And so coming to the table with kind of sort of cheat sheets in terms of understanding, here's what we're actually trying to do. When we say this, this is what we mean. And making sure that that kind of playbook is happening early and upfront, that you're getting the shared language built early on so that as it comes time to make these very important decisions that are sometimes really speedy, you're not running into those negative friction points that you can encounter.

00:27:48.030 — 00:28:02.870 · Alison The research outlines four different collaboration principles, including shared truth, shared language, shared learning and shared ownership. So which one do you think marketers are under investing in most, and what's the cost of that gap?

00:28:02.950 — 00:28:45.200 · Jeff Shared language is so important Often CFOs and CMOs use the same words, but they mean different things. Terms like ROI, value, payback. Even something like investment, it might mean something different to a CMO in his or her context than a CFO. If you can start early and just align on the definition of shared language, that's going to save so much time debating, it's going to allow you to just move quickly to decision-making.

So if I could pick one, it's very easy. It sounds simple, but no one invests in, what do you really mean by ROI in this context? Have those conversations, define those early. You'll move so much faster on collaboration and decision making.

00:28:45.240 — 00:28:49.960 · Alison And the clarity that that ensures is mission critical. Now, Amanda, how would you answer the question?

00:28:50.000 — 00:29:42.730 · Amanda I won't double down on shared language, although I really do believe in its value as well. I think shared learning is how you can really start to achieve a lot more for your own role and for your team. And we heard from one CMO that they do sort of Marketing 101 sessions. So very basic shared learning that they carry with them.

Nothing super in-depth, just very brief. How do we get people up to speed on what we're trying to do here? And I think that kind of investment really does go a long way. And in totality, all four pillars really act together to build that better system. And again, it's not about doing it perfectly right, but really getting started and starting to build that infrastructure for your team in the way that that works for the business that you're in.

00:29:42.730 — 00:29:52.210 · Alison So given everything that you've both learned through the research, if you could give Canadian marketers one principle to govern their relationship with finance, what would it be?

00:29:52.250 — 00:30:28.110 · Jeff One? That's a tricky question. How do you pick just one Alison? There's so much rich insight in that report, so hopefully everyone gets a chance to read it. There's plenty of good advice in there. It's going to go back to the theme. I think it's aligning on value upfront so you can make decisions together and not have to defend them later.

I think that's pretty critical. Don't wait till the end of the process, similar to the martech example we talked about. Don't show up and ask for an investment in a tool. Align on value upfront, collaborate on outcomes and challenges, and that will ultimately create a different relationship and different set of shared outcomes.

00:30:28.150 — 00:30:29.190 · Alison Great advice. Amanda, what's yours?

00:30:29.190 — 00:30:43.790 · Amanda So I'm going to echo a lot of what Jeff said and reinforce that being empathetic to your colleagues at the end of the day does more to support the infrastructure for what you're trying to achieve together than almost anything else.

00:30:43.870 — 00:30:59.390 · Alison Thank you both. Now, I'm very lucky to have amazing guests like you on each of the CMA connect podcast episodes, so I always end by asking our guests to share one piece of career advice for our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps. So, Amanda, why don't you kick us off?

00:30:59.390 — 00:31:31.520 · Amanda So my best piece of career advice is, it is never too late to learn something new. And I think especially in the very disruptive age that we're living in, because there's a lot of changes in process and tools and technology, it is important to keep in mind that you are never too old or too late-stage in your own career to learn something new, to pivot into something that interests you, and to keep that openness for yourself alive and well.

00:31:31.880 — 00:31:33.680 · Alison And Jeff, what's your career advice?

00:31:33.720 — 00:31:59.980 · Speaker 3 Find great partners. Amanda's been a great one. Alison, CMA, you guys have been great ones. So find great partners. You'll get much further together than on your own. And then maybe it's two Alison, you asked for one. The other one, I'd say is tied to this research piece. As a marketer, it's critically important to understand how the business creates value and makes money.

So you stop showing up as a marketer and you start showing up as a business leader. I think that's critically important.

00:32:00.020 — 00:32:25.500 · Alison So great advice from both of you. And I really want to thank you for your partnership on the research and for really helping give marketers a practical roadmap to turn tension into trust. And for all of our listeners, the full research paper is available on the CMA website, and I really encourage you to read the collaboration scenarios.

They're so helpful and really recognizing key moments where partnership can either accelerate or stall. So Amanda, Jeff, many, many thanks for a great conversation.

00:32:25.500 — 00:32:26.500 · Amanda Thank you Alison.

00:32:26.500 — 00:32:27.540 · Jeff Thank you Alison.

00:32:30.140 — 00:32:43.020 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA.ca and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.

How do you win gold in Canada's top marketing competition in 24 hours? Host Alison Simpson gets the story behind the win from Joanne Chen and Lydia Yoon, Google product marketing managers and Canada's 2026 Young Lions Marketing gold winners. Their winning idea – Google Maps Earth Mode – turns everyday walks into donations for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada and now it's taking them to the Cannes Lions world stage.

00:00:00.920 — 00:00:19.680 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, newly retired CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:24.040 — 00:03:43.430 · Alison The best ideas in marketing don't always come from the most experienced people in the room. Sometimes they come from two sharp, curious young marketers with 24 hours, a blank page and the creative conviction to trust a truly elegant idea. Before I introduce today's guests, I want to take a moment to talk about the competition that brought them to this microphone, because it's one that I am genuinely proud the CMA is part of.

The Young Lions competition is run by The Globe and Mail as the Canadian chapter of the global Cannes Lions program, which is the most prestigious creative competition in the world. The Canadian competition runs across seven categories including marketing, media, PR, digital, design, print and film.

Teams are given just 24 to 48 hours to develop a full campaign concept for a real charity client. There's no safety net, there's no extended timelines, just raw creative thinking under real and incredible pressure. The CMA is really proud to be a sponsor of the Young Lions Canada, because this program does something that we care deeply about.

It creates a meaningful, high stakes stage for the next generation of Canadian marketing talent to prove what they're capable of. The Globe and Mail has built something genuinely special here, and we are really happy to support it. This year's Marketers Category Challenge asked teams to build a campaign that would drive awareness and action for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada and specifically support their new Hike for Hope, which is a national fundraising initiative.

The jury, which was co-chaired by CMA Board Directors Susan Irving of Kruger Products and Eva Salem of the Canadian Tire Corporation, included leaders from Sleep Country Canada, Scotiabank, Ipsos Canada, and Air Canada, all CMA member organizations. And the team that took the gold, well, they're today's guests.

Joanne Chen and Lydia Yoon are product marketing managers at Google, and in just 24 hours, they created Google Maps Earth Mode. It's a concept that reimagined one of the world's most used products to become a bridge between the digital and physical worlds, and to do so in service of the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada's Hike for Hope initiative.

Their idea was rooted in a really powerful human insight, which is often referred to as the connection paradox. While Gen Z is the most connected generation in history, they've never been more disconnected from the physical world that they care so deeply about protecting. So Earth Mode proposed a new Google Maps layer that reveals local biodiversity and nature-first routes that are hidden in plain sight, where every step taken can earn Hope Kilometres with Google Maps, then donating to the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada for every milestone reached. It's the kind of idea that makes a judging panel stop, listen, and be inspired. And that's exactly what it did.

Joanne and Lydia walked away with a Canadian gold, and now they're heading to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to represent Canada on the world stage. I am genuinely thrilled to have both of them here with us today. This conversation is for every marketer, wherever you are in your career, who really wants to understand what creative excellence looks like when the clock is ticking.

So a huge welcome to Joanne and Lydia.

Lydia - Thank you. We're excited to be here.

Alison - Now before we get into the campaign itself, I want to start at the beginning. Your decision to enter. So, Lydia, why did you and Joanne sign up for Young Lions? I'd love to hear what drew you to it.

00:03:43.430 — 00:04:51.280 · Lydia So I actually did a lot of case competitions back in undergrad, and when I started working, I missed doing them. At the same time, I also learned about the Cannes Festival of Creativity and wanted to figure out a way that I could go. And that's how I discovered the Young Lions competition. So while I was researching, I heard about this competition.

I thought it was the perfect opportunity to not only get back into case comps, but also hopefully win a trip to the festival. So I looked into it, and then what I realized was that you actually submit in pairs, and that's a unique part of the competition, it's not a solo activity. And they call it Young Lions, because you have to be under the age of 30 in order to compete.

So one day I was in the office and I bumped into Joanne and I asked if she was under 30.

Joanne - And I was!

Lydia - So yeah, we decided to give it a shot together. We were drawn to it, mainly because it was a way for us to challenge ourselves outside of work and push ourselves beyond our comfort zone, really test our creativity, our teamwork, our critical thinking.

And I think what finally convinced her to join was that we also agreed to run our first half marathon together. So shortly after the competition, we did that too.

00:04:51.960 — 00:05:06.610 · Alison So, Lydia, you're clearly very persuasive and joining a great opportunity and really identifying a great opportunity when one's presented to you. Now, were the two of you working together at Google, or did you know each other beforehand or was it a random spontaneous meeting?

00:05:06.650 — 00:05:25.170 · Joanne We don't work directly together, but we had seen each other in the hallway and at the water coolers. I think this opportunity really brought us closer, not only as co-workers but also as friends. It was cool to work on a Google project outside of work, and I think that, yeah, just really pushed our creative boundaries and and tested us there.

00:05:25.250 — 00:05:34.850 · Alison Well it's amazing. So now that you've lived through the whole experience, there is a pressure of the submission, getting up and presenting, the win. Would you recommend it to other young marketers and why?

00:05:34.890 — 00:06:12.500 · Lydia I would say 100%. My only caveat is that the more work and effort you're willing to put into this competition, the more that you'll get out of it. And that's something Joanna and I witnessed firsthand. It's an incredible opportunity where you get to meet great people, make industry connections. It's a good practice of working under pressure and ultimately really broadens your marketing skill set.

I actually competed two years ago with a different partner. We didn't place gold, but even throughout that process still learned a lot. And that motivated me to want to try again this year. And yeah, for us this year, the cherry on top was being able to now represent Canada in Cannes, so I would definitely recommend it to everyone.

00:06:12.620 — 00:06:51.420 · Alison That is a very big cherry on top. Your lesson that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it is certainly true of the Young Lions competition, but it's a great work and life lesson to learn at this stage in your life. The more you put into, whether it's training for a half marathon or the career that you're investing in, the effort will definitely be returned in spades.

So kudos to you both for recognizing that. So let's talk about the competition format itself because it really is intense. You've got 24 hours, a charity brief, a complete campaign to develop. So Joanne, take us back to the start. What did that first hour actually look like and what did the two of you do first?

00:06:51.660 — 00:07:17.030 · Joanne We were really ntentional about not rushing into an idea that first came to us. What we did was we read the brief and we parted ways for a bit. We wanted to form our own unfiltered thoughts so we didn't groupthink into the first idea that came to us. We did our own research and try to look at the problems from all different angles.

And by the time that we finally sat down together to align on what the key ask was and what the problem was, the first hour, it was over.

00:07:17.030 — 00:07:23.590 · Alison So when you came back together, did your ideas build off of each other? Had you come up with similar ideas? I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

00:07:23.630 — 00:07:50.910 · Joanne We came back with different ideas on what products we should use, but I think we understood the key ask pretty similarly. We built on each other on a few topics. I think we saw problems from different angles in which I think for like some of the main insights that we had, there are parts that we had missed from each other, and I think we were able to build on top of each other's ideas.

And together we kind of filtered out our thoughts for what made sense versus not and pressure tested.

00:07:51.080 — 00:08:07.600 · Alison Now, the insight that's at the heart of Earth Mode is the tension between Gen Z being hyper hyper connected digitally while becoming increasingly disconnected from the natural world. That is really the emotional engine of the whole campaign. So, Joanne, where did that come from?

00:08:07.600 — 00:08:35.560 · Joanne So we are both guilty of being too connected to the digital world ourselves. Personally, my average screen time per day is about eight hours, which I'm not super proud of. Um, but since we are the target audience, we just reflected and asked what's stopped us from doing more. We spent time thinking about what was a personal truth for the both of us, and realized it was actually a shared truth for a lot of the people in our generation.

Once we found that emotional tension, it became the anchor for everything we built.

00:08:35.680 — 00:08:42.120 · Alison And Lydia, once you had the insight pinned down, how quickly did Google Maps emerge as the right canvas?

00:08:42.120 — 00:09:31.850 · Lydia I would say a bit quicker than we expected, honestly. Um, as Joanne mentioned, we came back with a few different product ideas, but once we were aligned on the ask and the insight together, we realized that there were two key factors that we should look at when thinking of a product connection. So firstly, something that would drive awareness.

A product that has ubiquitous reach and daily usage, as well as a product that would drive action. So something that would actually connect with Gen Z and the environment in the mission of JGIC. And then from there we thought Google Maps fit the build. We thought it felt the most natural. We were both really excited about it.

And I think ultimately it was hard to know if it's the one, especially in those 24 hours. It's really easy to second guess, but especially since we only had 24 hours, the time constraint really allowed us to stick with our gut and just run with Google Maps.

00:09:31.850 — 00:09:40.610 · Alison Now, sometimes the simplest ideas are often the hardest to find, and you were doing that under such compressed timelines. So how did you know that this was the one?

00:09:40.610 — 00:10:05.500 · Lydia I think, representing a global and larger company like Google that has several brands, you are faced with the paradox of choice. But I think when the both of us, like, thought of Google Maps started ideating a bit, we both just felt like it was right in our gut. And again, due to the limited time, we just kind of went with it and believed in ourselves and all the prep that we had done to date.

00:10:05.620 — 00:10:29.540 · Alison Now I want to dig into the creative decision-making for a moment, because Earth Mode is really brilliantly restrained. You didn't try to build something entirely new. You took a product that is already in hundreds of millions of pockets and then changed the lens. So, Lydia, how did you resist the temptation to overcomplicate it in a 24 hour competition where you're trying to impress a jury, there must have been a pull towards doing even more.

00:10:30.180 — 00:11:18.630 · Lydia For sure. It was actually super-complicated. During our ideation we had so many ideas for different features, different naming conventions, how to gamify it, etc. but when we zoomed out and we tried to summarize our idea in one sentence, it was harder than we thought and we realized we couldn't. So that's when we knew we had to make it simpler. And something we often hear leaders at work say is that it takes longer to write a shorter email.

It takes longer to make something more concise and simple and clear. So we kind of approached the case with a similar mindset. And then in the end, once we got to that realization, eventually we landed on a simple enough one-liner summary, which was our idea being that "Earth Mode is a new Google Maps feature to help Gen Z discover the world beyond their screen", and we were happy with that.

00:11:18.670 — 00:12:02.840 · Alison It is such a great and smart discipline to take the time to say, can we summarize this in one sentence that makes sense? And to your point and to your manager's point, it is a really hard discipline to do, so it's such a good quality check of how good the idea is and whether you need to continue refining, refining, refining.

So kudos to you for being smart enough to take that into a pressure cooker of an assignment. Now, the campaign hinges on a partnership between Google Maps and the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada. Two very different organizations with very different audiences. So getting that kind of pairing to feel authentic rather than opportunistic is one of the hardest things to pull off in marketing.

Joanne, how did you think about that connection?

00:12:02.880 — 00:12:33.360 · Joanne We focused on a very simple synergy between the two brands. Google Maps help people navigate the world, and the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada helps them protect it. It felt real to us because it wasn't all about making just an ad. We were adding a layer of purpose to a tool that we use every single day. We decided to use the screen that everyone uses every day as a bridge to nature, rather than a barrier.

So by meeting people where they are, we could realistically guide them to where they need to be.

00:12:33.480 — 00:12:36.840 · Alison And what made you confident that this would feel genuine to consumers?

00:12:36.880 — 00:12:58.730 · Joanne We had to be realistic and we kept having to check ourselves. We asked ourselves if this was something that we would do on a Saturday morning, because if we didn't believe in it ourselves, then we knew our peers wouldn't either, given that we knew we were the target audience. So we focused on the small and tangible actions and focused on building habit rather than just a one and done big campaign.

00:12:58.810 — 00:13:16.810 · Alison So let's fast forward and talk about the moment that you actually had to stand up and present. You've got ten senior industry leaders in front of you, including co-chairs from the CMA Board and jurors from some of Canada's most respected organizations. So, Joanne, take us into that room. What did it feel like in the seconds before you started?

00:13:16.850 — 00:13:49.940 · Joanne We'd be lying if we said we weren't nervous. We were really, really nervous. We were even practising in the bathroom and trying to keep it down. But the second we stepped into the room, all that nervousness turned into excitement. I remember the big smiles on the jury's faces, and it made us feel comfortable right away.

And as crazy as it sounds, since we prepped so hard, it really became just muscle memory once we started. I just tried to keep reminding myself to have fun with it, soak in the moment and really enjoy every second of it.

00:13:49.980 — 00:13:55.980 · Alison Such great advice. So looking back, what do you think was the single thing that truly connected you with that panel?

00:13:56.180 — 00:14:20.140 · Joanne We think that it worked because even though the insight was specific to Gen Z, it was a truth that everyone is living with right now. We're all feeling the same pressure of being glued to our screens regardless of our age. It didn't feel like a niche problem. It was something that everyone in the room could see themselves in.

We just leaned into a reality that almost everyone is experiencing this in the digital world.

00:14:20.180 — 00:14:38.140 · Alison Now, one of the things that I find most fascinating about this competition is what it can reveal about a marketer's instincts after you've stripped away all the usual safety nets - the long briefings, the approval processes, the opportunity for rounds of revisions. So, Lydia, what did 24 hours teach you about yourself as a marketer?

00:14:38.180 — 00:15:34.510 · Lydia I would say two things. Firstly, even with time constraints, just the importance of taking breaks and resting. So for us, in those 24 hours, we tried to go for walks. We tried to step away from the screen. We even spent time to actually eat meals and also sleep a solid eight hours at night to review it again in the morning with fresh minds before we did our final submission.

And I think the limit for pushing yourself creatively doesn't exist if you can take those proper breaks. And that was one main thing we learned. And then secondly, I think it also just taught us that we can do hard things. Um, Joanne and I were actually both travelling when we heard we made the top five, so we worked on our deck in the middle of the night on our trip, and then also on the plane back, and I think that was something that we really put our mind to because we cared and wanted to prove to ourselves that we could do it.

And in the end, it paid off. And yeah, we're proud of ourselves for proving to ourselves that we could do that.

00:15:34.990 — 00:15:43.720 · Alison That's going to be such relevant experience for when you're in Cannes. Throw in a 12 hour time zone that and ended up with gold in Canada, so that bodes well.

00:15:44.560 — 00:15:45.640 · Lydia Even with jet lag.

00:15:45.680 — 00:15:46.960 · Joanne Always on the go.

00:15:47.200 — 00:15:52.280 · Alison So, Joanne, did anything surprise you about how you work or what you're capable under that kind of pressure?

00:15:52.480 — 00:16:31.120 · Joanne Yeah. So to be honest, I was terrified about the presentation part. It was one of the main reasons why I almost didn't want to sign up for Young Lions. I have never considered myself a natural public speaker, so I had a lot of imposter syndrome going into the competition. I was really worried that I would freeze up or lose my train of thought in front of the jury, but I surprised myself because the second we started, the adrenaline just took over.

It gave me a chance to really practice that set of skills in a high stakes environment, and I walked away feeling really proud of how we handled all the pressure and work, and very happy with how we've ended it.

00:16:31.120 — 00:16:47.210 · Alison So now you're heading to Cannes, which is a genuinely remarkable opportunity. You're representing Canada on the international stage at the world's most prestigious creative festival. So, Joanne, what does that actually mean to you personally? And honestly, is it more exciting or more terrifying right now?

00:16:47.250 — 00:17:17.970 · Joanne First of all, it's a massive honour to represent Canada on that stage. But personally, I think the best part is I get to do it with my best friend. Oh, since we're still so early on in our career, we're just ready to absorb everything. We want to see the best work in the world and meet as many creative minds as we can.

The goal is to get inspired to do bigger and better things when we come back. And to answer your question, it's definitely more exciting than terrifying and I would recommend everyone to give it a shot.

00:17:18.010 — 00:17:20.850 · Alison And Lydia, how are you feeling going into it?

00:17:20.890 — 00:17:33.970 · Lydia Oh, I echo all those sentiments. Very excited. We extended our trip in Europe, so we're excited for that too. Hopefully after the competition's over, we can relax on a beach with some rosé and and reminisce on everything.

00:17:34.770 — 00:17:39.540 · Alison I'm so glad that you're extending your time. Are you going to stay in the south of France or where are you going to head to?

00:17:39.580 — 00:17:46.500 · Lydia Mainly explore the south of France. We'll pop around some other European cities as well, before we come back to Toronto.

00:17:46.500 — 00:17:58.420 · Alison That's great. So I also want to use this moment to address something directly, because I think it really matters to the senior marketers that are listening today. Lydia, what's one myth about Gen Z talent that you'd love to bust for the leaders in our industry?

00:17:58.460 — 00:18:44.390 · Lydia So as to Gen Z, I think a myth is that Gen Z uses AI and tech as a shortcut for creativity, leading to a loss of original thought. And I want to debunk this because I think being a digitally native generation actually is our creative advantage. We're exposed to all this emerging media and subcultures that allow us to bring fresh perspectives that other generations may miss.

And I wouldn't say that we're replacing creativity with AI, but instead we're using the AI to buy back the time needed for tasks that require that human touch, like empathy and cultural storytelling. And I would say we aren't actually letting AI be creative for us, but instead using it to get more time so that we can be creative ourselves.

00:18:44.830 — 00:19:07.830 · Alison As a terrific myth to bust. So thank you. Now, selfishly, I want to ask this one because at the CMA, it is something that we think about constantly. We are super proud to sponsor the Young Lions Canada program alongside The Globe and Mail, and we really care deeply about how the industry is developing the next wave of marketing leaders.

So having just lived through this experience yourselves, Joanne, what was the most valuable part of it for you?

00:19:07.870 — 00:19:29.510 · Joanne For me, it was definitely the people. It was a cool opportunity to meet marketers and marketing leaders from all around the country, and now we get to do it globally. The competition pushes you to think outside the box without the usual limits we might have in our day jobs. It's also an incredible way to push our brains and see what we can do under that pressure.

00:19:29.510 — 00:19:40.520 · Alison So as you look ahead, what can organizations like the CMA, The Globe and Mail, or companies like Google do even more of to genuinely support emerging marketing talent? Lydia, why don't you take the lead on this?

00:19:40.520 — 00:20:16.320 · Lydia I would say we definitely felt supported throughout the entire experience. So kudos to you and thank you to the CMA and all the other organizations for that. A few other ideas, I think in general, creating more opportunities, like the Young Lions competition for us to build connections and relationships with the marketing community is always super valuable.

Whether that be through events or conferences, competitions, mentorship programs specifically targeted to emerging talent. In general, for us, just being able to learn from other marketers in the industry and also those who have more years of wisdom than us, is what we find most supportive and helpful.

00:20:16.320 — 00:20:51.770 · Alison So I end every episode by asking my guests to share one piece of career advice for the listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps. So you're both relatively early in on what I can already tell are going to be absolutely outstanding careers. You've also just done something that most marketers don't get the chance to do.

You've built something bold, under pressure, and had it recognized as the best in Canada. So for the marketers listening right now, maybe they're sitting in a meeting, a bit hesitant to share their crazy idea, or wondering if they're ready to put themselves out there the way that you both did. What's the one thing you'd say to them?

Lydia, let's start with you.

00:20:52.930 — 00:21:14.730 · Lydia I would say, ask yourself two things. Firstly, what is the worst that could happen? It's probably not as bad as you think. And then secondly, ask yourself, what's the best that could happen? Maybe they'll end up running with your idea, or you'll get some helpful feedback that you didn't think of. Or in our case, like in Young Lions, you could win a free trip to Cannes and represent the whole country globally.

00:21:14.770 — 00:21:18.890 · Alison I love those questions. Joanne, I'd love to hear your take too.

00:21:18.890 — 00:21:34.860 · Joanne I would say do it and have fun with it. I've spoken to some young marketers and they were thinking about it but just always hesitated. But there's literally nothing that you can lose and you will be surprised by yourself and all the great ideas that will come to you when you're under that type of pressure.

00:21:35.020 — 00:21:59.420 · Alison Lydia and Joanne, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you and learning from you in this podcast. I am thrilled to have you both on a plane to Cannes representing Canada, and I wish you the very best of luck. Have a great time. It's going to be intense, but it's going to be absolutely remarkable. And just the friendships and the experience that you're about to enjoy is going to be one for the memory books for sure.

So a huge thank you.

00:21:59.620 — 00:22:01.700 · Joanne Oh, thank you for taking the time.

00:22:02.100 — 00:22:04.020 · Lydia Thank you so much, Alison. This was fun.

00:22:06.620 — 00:22:19.500 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit theCMA.ca and sign up for your free My CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.

How do you build a career that spans CPG giants, Crown corporations, fashion retail and one of Canada's largest grocery empires? In this episode, host and former CMA President and CEO Alison Simpson sits down with Sandra Sanderson, CMO of Empire Company Limited and 2025 CMA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Sandra unpacks the career pivots, leadership lessons and the principle she calls confident humility that have defined one of Canadian marketing's most remarkable careers.

00:00:00.920 — 00:00:19.680 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, newly-retired CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:24.200 — 00:02:58.890 · Alison A successful career in marketing requires embracing change, agility and reinvention. However, the most successful marketers go beyond this and really recognize emerging patterns, often before others even see them coming. My guest today is a terrific example. Sandra Sanderson has built her career on a deep understanding of consumers, very strong business acumen, strategic thinking and perhaps most importantly, the courage to act quickly and take measured risks. As the very deserving 2025 recipient of the Canadian Marketing Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, Sandra's career really demonstrates how marketing can transform organizations, and how measured risks can really open up amazing new career opportunities. Early in her career, Sandra recognized the power that was shifting from CPG to retail and made quite an unconventional pivot to Canada Post, using it as a strategic investment to learn retail fundamentals through their retail network of 6000 post offices and B2B partnerships with major retailers.

This is just one great example of many that led to tremendous success for the brands that Sandra has led. From starting her career with Procter and Gamble to transformational leadership roles at Shoppers Drug Mart, Walmart Canada, White House Black Market, which is a leading U.S. fashion retailer, and now the Empire Company Limited, Sandra has consistently led marketing that creates competitive advantage and delivers significant business results. Sandra joined Empire in November of 2018 as their Senior Vice President of marketing, and was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer in July of 2023. Empire is the second largest grocery retailer in Canada, with brands like Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Thrifty Foods, Foodland and Fresh Co.

In her time with Empire, Sandra has orchestrated complex transformations, including relaunching their long-standing approach to loyalty. She received the CMA's Marketer of the Year award in 2020. She has been recognized as Strategy's Marketer of the year twice, and most recently, Sandra was honoured with the Retail Council of Canada's Grand Prix Lifetime Achievement Award this year.

Sandra has also been great about giving back to our profession. She served on the CMA Board for four years, including as Vice Chair, and Sandra currently serves as a Board Director for Special Olympics Canada and Scene Plus. Perhaps most remarkably, despite an enviable career track record of success, Sandra really does embody confident humility, leading change and reinvention across diverse industries while nurturing and building many future CMOs and a well-deserved legion of fans. Welcome, Sandra, I am really looking forward to our conversation today.

00:02:58.970 — 00:03:03.690 · Sandra Thank you so much, Alison. It's great to be here with you on CMA connect.

00:03:03.930 — 00:03:28.210 · Alison Sandra, congratulations again on your CMA Lifetime Achievement Award. And you knew very early in life that marketing was a career for you. In fact, you wrote about the ambition in your high school yearbook. That's pretty rare in our profession. So to say that you achieved your goal is definitely an understatement, as your many amazing contributions and awards really demonstrate.

But what was it that attracted you at such a young age to marketing?

00:03:28.250 — 00:04:24.140 · Sandra Well, thinking back to high school, it's a bit surreal to think that early ambition has turned into a decades-long career journey. What drew me to marketing was a unique intersection of art and science. I was intrigued by the idea of using data to decode human behaviour and using creativity to build emotional connections, and that curiosity led me to business school.

Once I started taking marketing courses at Ivey, there was no turning back. I knew that's what I wanted to pursue, and after graduating, I was fortunate enough to land a role at Procter and Gamble. I started out as at brand assistant on Ivory, along with 26 other new graduates. P&G was a very big on-campus recruiter that year, and it was great to be able to work on such an iconic brand right out of the gate.

Looking back, that high school ambition really did set the stage for everything that followed.

00:04:24.220 — 00:04:34.660 · Alison Now, you have recently announced your retirement for the summer, so you've definitely been in marketing for a few decades. What has kept you so engaged in our profession throughout your career?

00:04:34.900 — 00:06:12.740 · Sandra I think what has kept me engaged for so many years is that marketing as a profession keeps evolving. It's in a constant state of reinvention, which has given me a never ending stream of challenges and opportunities to learn and grow. I've always been drawn to business transformations, but the most significant one by far has been my journey with Empire.

My role today has fundamentally changed from what it was when I first joined the company, which was in 2018. I was actually working in the U.S. when I got a call about Empire, and at the time the company was in deep crisis. The Safeway acquisition had not gone as planned. The company had lost $4 billion in market cap, and investor confidence was at an all time low.

Michael Medline had been hired the previous year as President and CEO, coming from Canadian Tire to lead this massive transformation of the business. And so I was intrigued. I flew to Toronto to have lunch with Michael, and at that lunch he was very transparent. He shared with me all the challenges on the business and the changes that would be required in marketing to achieve his vision, and he didn't sugarcoat a thing.

And so at the end of the meal, I remember he looked at me and he said, you're either going to be very energized by a challenge this big, or you're going to walk away and we won't see each other again. Well, Alison, I didn't walk away. I was all in because it was clear that marketing would have an instrumental role to play in the transformation, and I was genuinely excited.

00:06:13.300 — 00:06:34.300 · Alison I love Michael's candour with you in the interview process. He clearly understood how important it was for the CMO, choosing to step into the role to really understand the unvarnished reality. His partner needed to be energized by the rare career opportunity to help lead a massive transformation. And you clearly were.

So I'd love you to share some highlights of the transformation and what's kept you engaged.

00:06:34.620 — 00:09:04.230 · Sandra Looking back, what has kept me so deeply engaged is the sheer scale of the marketing transformation within a broader business transformation. We moved from having separate Quebec and English Canada marketing teams started to a unified national organization. That gave us the scale we needed to stand up a Centre of excellence in marketing, technology and digital, which modernized our entire marketing engine. A big turning point was the transformation of our loyalty program. For over 20 years we had been part of a coalition program, so the stakes were really high when we decided to pivot, and I had the privilege of serving as the executive lead on the loyalty transformation.

We made a bold decision to become the co-owners of Scene Plus, together with two other iconic Canadian companies, Scotiabank and Cineplex. And today, we scale that program from 10 million to over 15 million members. And the level of personalization we can offer today is just light years ahead of where we were.

And, you know, the Scene First party data also became the bedrock for another venture, which was Empire Media Plus, our new retail media business. It's an example of how transforming one part of the business creates the fuel for the next. And it was super exciting to have the opportunity to launch a new media start-up within a $32 billion grocery retailer.

It's a completely different business model, and honestly, I have learned so much over the past year, which has been energizing. We also launched an in-house agency called Atelier, and having that creative engine embedded directly in our business and our culture allows us to move at the speed of the market.

In retail today, as you know, there's simply no room to stand still. And lastly, within all of these changes, there's one that's particularly rewarding for me personally, and that's the reinvention of our community investment strategy. We shifted from having over 200 fragmented partnerships where our impact was diffused to one focused national strategy, where we could truly make an impact.

And since making that pivot, we've been able to raise and donate more than $130 million for our communities. It's a powerful reminder that at the end of the day, we're not just selling groceries. We're serving a greater purpose. And because of all of these opportunities to learn and grow, it's not at all difficult to remain engaged, and energized every single day.

00:09:04.350 — 00:10:00.080 · Alison That is a very impressive transformation. And you've accomplished an incredible amount in seven and a half years. I also love that Michael was completely transparent in that lunch conversation, because he was absolutely right that this was going to be a role that the right candidate saw as a once in a lifetime opportunity to come in, make big bets, have marketing at the centre of leading much needed change, or it was going to scare the bejesus out of them and they were going to be like politely thanking for the lunch and going on their merry way.

So kudos to him for recognizing that. And kudos for you for raising your hand for a challenge and most importantly, clearly delivering on it too. In talking about how much transformation you've led, it also highlights just how much the role of marketing is evolving, certainly from when we were both in high school and thinking you were thinking about it as a career.

So if you were in high school today, do you think marketing would still be your dream career?

00:10:00.360 — 00:10:34.200 · Sandra It's an interesting question. I'd say yes, absolutely. In fact, I think I'd be even more excited today because back then, marketing was largely about brand-building. And today our profession has become so much more complex and multidimensional. The dream hasn't changed for me, but the job would be so much bigger and more impactful than I had anticipated.

So if I was writing in my yearbook today, I'd still say marketing, but I'd do it knowing I was signing up for a career of constant change and transformation. And it's exactly why I would choose it all over again.

00:10:34.240 — 00:10:44.320 · Alison So building on that, what are the two or three skills that have made you so successful and would make that high school student today who is aspiring to follow in your footsteps successful as well?

00:10:44.440 — 00:11:37.060 · Sandra I've been fortunate to join several iconic organizations and brands with deep legacies at exactly the moment they hit a critical crossroads. So being in those pivot moments has really forced me to sharpen two specific skills. The first one is taking on the role of a change agent, and the second is having a growth mindset.

Throughout my career, I've been asked to lead initiatives where I had zero previous experience, whether that was launching a B2B loyalty program at Canada Post or launching a marketing technology team at Shoppers Drug Mart, or even recently, you know, building a national sports sponsorship portfolio at Empire.

These opportunities forced me to embrace the idea that my abilities are not fixed. There are muscles that can get stronger if I make the effort to learn, and that has served me well in a profession where there is so much change.

00:11:37.380 — 00:11:58.000 · Alison So building on how quickly our profession is changing and if anything, it's only getting faster, that means embracing change and being open to a less traditional career path can be very important to success and longevity, and you very much embody this. So what is the most unconventional career pivot you've made so far, and what did it teach you?

00:11:58.200 — 00:15:10.400 · Sandra Well, I had spent the first 12 years of my career in consumer packaged goods, starting at P&G, then Kraft, and eventually becoming Vice President of Marketing for Minute Maid at Coca-Cola. And I knew how incredibly fortunate I was to hold a senior leadership role at such an iconic global brand. But I craved a new challenge.

I wanted to be in retail, but pivoting to retail was not easy. It turns out retail companies weren't exactly lining up to hire a Vice President of Marketing with zero retail experience. And Alison, I spent months trying to land a job with no success. And at the time it was incredibly discouraging. But I kept at it.

And eventually a recruiter called and he said, Sandra, I have an amazing retail opportunity for you. It's a Canadian company with thousands of retail outlets. And I was like, I can't figure out which retailer has thousands of stores across Canada. Well, the mystery retailer turned out to be Canada Post, and they did, in fact, have the largest retail network in Canada at the time with over 6000 post offices.

And it was not quite the retail opportunity I had in mind. But I didn't have other options and I was intrigued. The role was for General Manager of Marketing, and it would report to an executive from Pepsi and I thought, hey, we'll speak the same language. The role included areas of marketing I knew very well, but it also threw me into entirely new territory.

Leading a retail marketing team, running their e-commerce site, and driving B2B marketing. And I decided to take the leap. And I can tell you plenty of people, including my colleagues, my friends, thought I had lost my mind. They said, you're giving up a VP role at a global powerhouse like Coca-Cola to go to work for a Crown corporation. To the outside world it didn't make any sense, but I trusted my gut, and that decision turned out to be transformative. It felt like I was getting a masterclass in retail, and I had the opportunity to co-lead the creation of an award winning flagship post office. I collaborated with retailers like Amazon and Indigo and others, and I learned how to lead an e-commerce team.

I launched a small business loyalty program, and so taking that seemingly off course detour turned out to be exactly the springboard I needed. It gave me the foundational experience to eventually land a job as Chief Marketing Officer at Danier, where I learned all about speciality retail. I was then hired as Senior Vice President of Marketing at Shoppers Drug Mart, then Chief Marketing Officer at Walmart, and ultimately led me to my role today.

My advice to others is this - don't assume your career has to be a straight ladder. The most rewarding paths rarely are. Don't be afraid of making a detour, sometimes taking a step sideways, or maybe making a move that other people think is crazy. It may be exactly the experience that you need to grow.

00:15:10.960 — 00:15:19.040 · Alison That's such a great example. Also, kudos to the recruiter who knew his prospect well enough to know how to pitch it and pitch it in a very compelling way.

00:15:19.080 — 00:15:19.840 · Sandra He certainly did.

00:15:19.840 — 00:15:43.380 · Alison It takes a lot of courage to, like, go against what people that you respect, whether your friends, people you're working with, people in your professional network, if they're all saying, what are you thinking? And to be true to yourself and really trust that gut. That takes courage. Now with any change brings challenges.

So when you did make the move to retail, What challenges did you experience working in such a new industry?

00:15:43.500 — 00:17:22.839 · Sandra Alison. Moving from CPG to retail was a huge culture shock. I quickly realized why companies hesitate to hire senior marketers without retail experience. It was a completely different beast. If CPG is a marathon, retail's a series of high stakes sprints that's happening simultaneously and sometimes the track is on fire.

A big lesson for me was agility over perfection. In the CPG world, we were strategic, deliberate, meticulous. In retail, perfection is often the enemy of progress. If you wait for the perfect data set, the season is over and you're sitting on millions of dollars in unsold inventory. I had to learn very quickly to make decisions with incomplete information.

I remember a Monday morning meeting where weekend sales had slumped. Our CEO looked across the table and said to me, we need an incremental promotion live by Friday. Well, coming from CPG or we plan for months and years, I was like a deer in headlights. I had no idea how to move that fast. Fortunately, my team was great.

They knew the ropes and eventually I did learn to be more nimble. And it was great for me that I started my retail chapter at Danier Leather, which was a smaller business with a tight knit executive team. It allowed me to see the full picture from supply chain to the storefront, and it gave me a holistic view that's often hard to get at in a very large business enterprise.

And so that was great. Eventually I figured it out and I found out that I love the fast pace and the complexity of retail.

00:17:23.160 — 00:17:47.250 · Alison Now, there is such an adrenaline piece to it and just the momentum behind it. I love it as well. So your career definitely demonstrates quite a remarkable ability to recognize patterns that others often miss. And seeing how the Canadian CPG industry was evolving when you were at Coke is one great example of many.

What signals were you seeing that made you realize the power was shifting and inspired your move?

00:17:47.450 — 00:18:44.590 · Sandra Back when I was VP of Minute Maid at Coke, manufacturers told the stories. We built the brands, the retailers provided the shelf space. But I started to notice some shifts that were reported. I saw retailers becoming so much more sophisticated. Brands in their own right. Their private label wasn't just generic.

They were becoming genuine competitors with real customer equity. And I realized that while we in CPG knew who bought our brand, the retailers knew what else was in that basket. They had that direct relationship with a human being behind the transaction. I could see that whoever owned the data and the last mile was eventually going to hold the cards, and we saw consumers becoming more demanding and retailers were in the best position to react to that in real time.

And I wanted to beware. The actual moment of truth happened between the customer and the shelf.

00:18:44.710 — 00:18:54.470 · Alison So what advice do you have to help our listeners recognize shifting market dynamics so that they also know when to pivot, both for their businesses but also for their careers?

00:18:54.550 — 00:19:57.480 · Sandra Well, it's incredibly easy to become insular in your own industry, but the biggest shifts usually start as whispers and not shouts. And to hear them, it's helpful to look outside your industry. For a number of years, as you know, I was on the CMA Board and something that I found so helpful was working with leaders across diverse sectors that provided insights that brought me important perspectives that I would never have found on my own.

And so that was great. I would also say watch the friction. Power almost always shifts to whoever is removing friction for the consumer. Think about Ubers versus taxis or Airbnbs versus hotels. If you see another player solving a problem more elegantly, then your company is, that's something to look into.

And perhaps even more importantly, don't wait for 100% certainty. Don't wait for the perfect data to prove the market is shifting, because by then you're already behind. There needs to be a willingness to start moving even without full data.

00:19:57.840 — 00:20:11.400 · Alison Getting to market is such an important and increasingly competitive advantage as well. So great advice. Now looking ahead, what trends are you tracking now that are shaping your strategic thinking about the future of marketing? Just a simple little question for you to answer.

00:20:11.960 — 00:21:41.440 · Sandra Well, I'll try to keep it simple. And when I look at the horizon, I see the marketers' role shifting from being creators of content to being orchestrators of intelligence. And there's a few key shifts that are shaping my thinking. We're moving towards a world where marketing isn't just hyper-personalized, it's anticipatory.

It's the ability to use data to anticipate a customer's need before they even articulate it. Allowing for every digital touchpoint to be uniquely generated in real time, to be relevant to that specific person. I think the real challenge for marketers now is mastering that high tech efficiency without losing the soul of the brand, and there's such a fascinating tension right now between the explosion of AI and a growing hunger for the human dimension.

We're entering into an era where technology can definitely handle the scale, but humans have to provide the heart. And if a brand loses its authenticity in pursuit of automation, that's a big risk. And at Empire, we're predominantly a full service retailer, right? At like Sobeys and Safeway and Foodland, we have service counters and it's one of our strengths.

And at those counters, we offer the expertise of a master butcher or a baker who knows your name. And that local expertise provides a level of trust that no algorithm can replicate. The shift here is using digital innovation to protect it, enhance those human moments and not to automate them away.

00:21:41.480 — 00:22:01.360 · Alison It's very wise counsel, and it's also a great way that you're continue to be part of your communities across Canada with every store that you're in. Now, I've personally learned some of the most impactful lessons the hard way. Definitely through mistakes, failure. So before we talk about some of your many successes, I would love you to share a mistake and a lesson that you learned the hard way.

Wow!

00:22:01.360 — 00:25:09.770 · Sandra I made a rather big mistake when I was promoted from manager to director, and it almost cost me my job. I had spent almost six years at P&G, and then I took a role at Kraft as Senior Product Manager on salad dressings. After just a year in the role, I was surprised to be offered a promotion to Marketing Director for the enhanced risk category, and I knew I had performed well as a Senior Product Manager, but I wasn't sure if I was ready for the next big leap, because with that promotion, I had to go from managing just one category to leading a portfolio of five categories, and I was responsible for a much larger team.

It was pretty daunting. At the time, I was the youngest Marketing Director in the company, and I felt a lot of pressure to prove myself. But instead of stepping up to the challenge and seizing the opportunity to grow, I made the mistake of falling back on my strengths as a Product Manager, sticking to what had made me successful in the past.

I just kept operating like I was still a senior product manager, except on five categories, and I was micromanaging my team to the ground. My VP at the time saw this train wreck coming and he tried to help me, but I was stubborn and frankly, uncoachable. I think I was just scared to leave what had made me successful.

And I'll never forget the turning point. We were actually at a marketing offsite, I think it was at Hockley Valley, and I remember my VP asked me to step out to have a chat with him in the lobby lounge and he was very direct, he said. Sandra, I promoted you because I believe in you, but you can't be a director if you don't learn how to step back and delegate.

You're drowning in the details. And then he said, I'm going to take a gamble. I'm working on a restructuring of the marketing team, and I plan to expand your portfolio from 5 to 10 brands. He said, I'm going to try to make it impossible for you to keep managing the way that you have been. So you're either going to rise to the challenge and become a leader, or you're going to fail.

It's up to you. So it was sink or swim. And when the restructuring announcement came out, I actually had colleagues come up to me and say, that's crazy. You're not going to be able to manage ten brands. Well, their doubt turned into my fuel and I was determined to prove them wrong. And I realized I had to either delegate or I was going to drown.

So overnight I had to transform my leadership style. And I was forced to trust and empower my team. And I had to let go. And the moment I did, everything did change. I focused on becoming a coach versus a doer. I stepped back, I let them shine. And you know, it took some time, but I ultimately discovered a new sense of fulfilment in watching my team succeed.

And I realized that true leadership isn't about doing everything. It's about creating an environment where people can thrive and grow. I was fortunate that my VP saw my potential, but more importantly, he pushed me off the dock so I could finally learn to swim.

00:25:09.930 — 00:25:39.860 · Alison That's a great example. And you're absolutely right. You're fortunate to have the right VP who took a bet on you and continued to take a bet on you and put you in a situation where you had to let go of your old way of working. But there's also the fact that you were scared of taking on five new brands, very reasonably, and then that doubled. And how did your team, because sometimes when people are micromanaged, you teach them to work a certain way too. And now suddenly they're not being micromanaged. So how did your team around you perform?

00:25:39.900 — 00:25:47.620 · Sandra They flourished. They thrived. I don't think I was going to have the success if I had not changed.

00:25:47.700 — 00:25:58.580 · Alison It would have been hard to learn at a director level. But thank God you learned that because that absolutely gave you the foundation you needed to step into bigger roles and to have the success that you've enjoyed since.

00:25:59.100 — 00:26:00.180 · Sandra That was the turning point.

00:26:00.220 — 00:26:10.540 · Alison Now, we often talk about the standard path to success involving a mentor who opens doors, and your VP, in some ways was certainly an example of that. What's your experience been like with mentorship?

00:26:10.660 — 00:28:03.530 · Sandra Well, when we hear the word mentorship, we usually picture that traditional model like the one I was just describing, right? A senior executive pulling a junior person under their wing. And I was so fortunate to have had several of them. But there was also a different type of mentorship that has profoundly shaped my career, and that's a peer mentorship.

Years ago, I was nominated to participate in a women's leadership program at the Rotman School of Management. It's called the Judy Project. You might have heard of it. It's an intensive one week immersion for women in senior roles, and at the end of that week, they place us into what they call personal advisory groups - small circles, 8 to 10 women.

And the core idea was to give us a personal board of directors. It was designed to be highly confidential, completely safe space made up of smart women from entirely different industries. And the goal was to have a sounding board where we could bring our most difficult leadership challenges and get objective, unfiltered advice from people who have no political stake in the outcome.

That was over 20 years ago, and seven of the original nine women my group are still together and we're still meeting, although less regularly now than the monthly meetings we had in the past. And over the last two decades we have been through thick and thin. We've navigated career setbacks, relocations, promotions, health challenges and all the beautiful, messy realities of raising families while building demanding careers.

They know my blind spots. They challenge my thinking, and they're not afraid of hurting my feelings to save my career. So when people ask me about finding a mentor, my biggest piece of advice is this - don't only look up the corporate ladder, also look across the table, find your peers, build your own advisory council and surround yourself with a circle of trusted peers who understand your ambition and have your back.

00:28:03.730 — 00:28:09.770 · Alison That is such a spectacular example. I'm also a Judy Project graduate.

00:28:09.810 — 00:28:10.530 · Sandra I thought so! Wasn't it great?

00:28:10.570 — 00:28:31.350 · Alison It was a phenomenal week, but they hadn't put the advisory board into place yet, so I wish I'd been a later year. But the fact that you have stayed in touch and they continue to advise you, and you're advising and supporting their careers three decades later. I can only imagine the friendships and how each of you have flourished as a result of having that advisory council and resource to leverage.

00:28:31.390 — 00:28:32.910 · Sandra It's been very rewarding.

00:28:33.190 — 00:28:42.950 · Alison Now you have an incredible amount to be proud of. So this next question might actually be the hardest one to ask. Of all of your successes, which one are you most proud of and why?

00:28:43.310 — 00:31:00.140 · Sandra I feel the most proud when I achieve something that requires a lot of dedication, something that really challenges me and scares me. And this is true both in my personal life and my professional life. So can I share one for each?

Alison: I would love that.

Sandra: The personal one is something that I know you can relate to, Alison. For years I was a runner. I ran five km every morning. Predictable, easy. And honestly, it was in my comfort zone. And if you'd asked me back then, could I run a marathon? I would have said like, absolutely not. But that changed when a friend of mine, someone who wasn't even a runner, decided to train for a marathon.

So watching her resolve inspired me to sign up for a marathon as well. And I started small. I went from 5 to 7 km, then nine and 11. I spent months training - hot, humid days, cold rainy days, and I just kept pushing those physical limits. And as I did so, I realized I was actually building mental confidence. And when race day came, my mantra was pain is temporary, pride is forever.

And I felt such a sense of pride when I crossed that finish line. And it wasn't just about the 42.2km, it was proof to myself that I could do something that I had thought impossible in the past. Now, I don't know if I'm going to go and do 65 marathons like you have, Alison, but that for me was a proud moment. And then on the professional front, the toughest challenge and one that I'm most proud of, is the transformation of our loyalty program.

As I mentioned before, we had been part of a coalition program for over 20 years, and there was a lot of different opinions at the time on what our course of action should be. We had many options, which we evaluated, but in the end we decided to become the co-owner of Scene Plus along with Scotia and Cineplex, and to launch it across our 1200 stores from coast to coast.

Scene Plus was at the time the biggest, most complex and most cross-functional high stakes project at the company. And one of the most rewarding parts of the experience was a collaboration across my entire marketing team, and across all different functions in the company. I feel such a sense of pride about what we've been able to accomplish together.

00:31:00.180 — 00:32:09.120 · Alison Those are both big bets, and I love the fact that, thank you for sharing personal and professional, because there's such an interconnection between how we spend our personal time, what personal goals we set for ourselves, and the mental connection and the way that that can really empower our professional lives as well.

That's certainly been my experience, and with running, you take on a big, hairy, audacious goal that you didn't think you could do. You achieve it. And it opens up possibilities not just in your personal life, but in what you think you can accomplish in your professional life. And then to have the equivalent of that professionally being taking what was an incredibly massive debt and taking an ownership stake in Scene Plus and fundamentally evolving that program, as well as Empire and Sobeys approach to loyalty is such a great example.

So thank you. Now at Empire Sobeys you have led massive transformation, certainly like the new approach to loyalty that you shared. And this obviously requires a significant amount of change management as well as really strong internal support from across the organization. It's so much broader than marketing.

So what advice do you have for listeners who are leading a transformation and navigating that sort of complex challenge?

00:32:09.560 — 00:34:25.929 · Sandra Transformation is rarely just a technical challenge. It's almost always also a people challenge. And one of the biggest challenges we had was the confidentiality around this project. Because it included several publicly traded companies we could not risk a media leak. We had to keep everything under wraps and share information on a need to know basis.

At its height, we had over 2000 people under NDA, so ifsomeone worked on the project for a day, they had to be NDAed. And it worked for security, but it backfired for engagement. Our leaders felt like they were holding a single puzzle piece without ever seeing the picture on the box. And the reality is people don't buy into what they can't see.

And we had reached a tipping point. I realized that the risk of a leak was smaller than the risk of an uninspired team. So we brought our Vice Presidents together and we showed them everything. We spent a day, you know, showing them the consumer research, the financial rationale, the why behind the transformation.

We let them weigh in on critical decisions, like whether to go big bang launch or regional rollout. And the moment they started shaping the plan, they stopped being observers and they started being advocates. But a transformation of the scale at a grocery retailer is not won in the boardroom, it's won in the aisles.

You can have perfect technology, great value proposition. But if the person at the checkout is not excited, the customer won't be either. So to engage our frontline employees, we launched in-store program where we traded boring manuals for these challenge kits that we shipped to every store. We had teams dressing up like movie characters competing to build the best displays.

We leveraged gamification to engage digitally with all of the teams, and what we did, really, is we turned a corporate mandate into a shared celebration. And the launch of Scene Plus was highly successful, not only from a commercial perspective, but also the engagement of our team. My advice to anyone leading a complex change is this. Your most valuable asset isn't your data or your technology. It's the collective energy of your people. Show your team the whole picture. Tell them why it's important. Give them the trust they deserve to make it happen.

00:34:26.010 — 00:34:44.290 · Alison That is so well said and your line about the risk of a leak was smaller than the risk of an unengaged team, and then how you involve the people who needed to involve, how you gave them a voice, and how they helped refine and improve and make the new program even better is a masterclass. So, thank you.

00:34:44.330 — 00:34:51.970 · Sandra And you know, we never had a media leak. It did not happen. So we trusted them. And, uh, it worked.

00:34:52.010 — 00:35:07.530 · Alison They rewarded your trust. That's another great and important lesson for sure. Now Sandra, in our earlier conversations you talked about confident humility. And that really resonated with me. So I would love you to share more about the concept and how it has really shaped your approach in leadership.

00:35:07.530 — 00:35:44.070 · Sandra There's a common misconception that leadership authority is built on having all the answers, but in reality, true authority comes from confident humility, which is the ability to be secure enough to be unsure. You can have total faith in your capacity to solve a problem, but the humility to admit you don't have the solution yet.

And when a leader makes that shift, they stop worrying about being right and they start obsessing over getting it right with the help of others. This is something that I had to learn over time, but I think it's a powerful concept.

00:35:44.310 — 00:36:12.470 · Alison It's a very powerful concept, and especially for some younger listeners or for people that are in a leadership role for the first time. You can feel so much pressure to have all the answers. And when you step back from that statement and think about, it's like there's no one alive that has all of the answers.

Yet we put this ridiculous pressure on ourselves, which sets us up for failure. So the whole concept is such an important one for, I think, leaders at every level, but especially people that are new to a leadership role.

00:36:12.840 — 00:36:14.000 · Sandra Absolutely.

00:36:14.040 — 00:36:26.520 · Alison Sandra, I'm really lucky to host senior leaders like you on this podcast. So I always end each episode by asking my guest to share one piece of career advice that they have for listeners who want to follow in your very illustrious footsteps.

00:36:26.800 — 00:37:55.700 · Sandra At the start of our conversation, we talked about my early ambition to be in marketing. And while it's true that I knew my northstar early on, I think it's important to distinguish between having a compass and having a map. A map implies a fixed, predictable path, but in an industry that's changing as fast as ours, a career map isn't necessarily realistic.

My own path went from CPG to Crown Corporation to entertainment, a fashion retailer to pharmacy, mass merchandiser to grocery. I didn't foresee that. And if I had stuck strictly to a map, I would have missed the very opportunities that have defined my career. My advice would be this follow your compass, your North Star would be open to taking an unconventional route.

Maybe it's a different industry for a few years or another function to open up your aperture and build a broader business perspective. Whenever I'm at a crossroads and I need to make an important career decision, I always ask myself, what would I do if I wasn't afraid? And usually that question cuts right through the noise, and it can help you to confront your fears, whether it's fear of the unknown or fear of failure.

And it can point you towards the path that you actually want to take. So don't wait for that perfect map to appear. Adopt a growth mindset. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable and choose that path that requires courage.

00:37:55.860 — 00:38:17.870 · Alison Thank you so much, Sandra. I knew going into this conversation it was going to be insight rich, highly informative and a lot of fun. And you have absolutely delivered in spades. So a huge thank you. A wonderful congratulations on your outstanding career. Thank you throughout for your support of the CMA, and I wish you every success as you embark on retirement.

00:38:18.110 — 00:38:33.750 · Sandra Thank you, Alison, for inviting me to be a part of CMA connect. It's been fun and I want to also take the opportunity to thank you for your leadership of the CMA and everything you have done to future proof and to elevate our marketing profession in Canada.

00:38:33.790 — 00:38:40.150 · Alison Oh, thank you. It was definitely a team effort, and with members like you, it's helped make us a lot more scalable and a lot more successful.

00:38:40.190 — 00:38:41.030 · Sandra Thank you.

00:38:43.590 — 00:38:56.510 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA.ca and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.

Marketing isn't a cost centre – it's your greatest growth engine. Drawing on three decades at brands including P&G, Mars, TD Bank, Hudson's Bay and Loblaw, CMA Board Chair and President and Owner of Pattern and Path Consulting, Meghan Nameth joins CMA President and CEO Alison Simpson to make the case. Discover how to tie marketing directly to business outcomes, why most teams have the 80/20 planning rule backwards and the mindset shift Canadian marketers need to compete on a global stage.

CMAConnect-Ep69-MeghanNameth_FINAL.txt English (UK)

00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:23.640 — 00:03:03.100 · Alison In a world where marketing can be wrongly treated as a cost centre instead of a growth engine, transforming that perception requires more than great marketing. It absolutely demands strong business acumen, strategic vision, a deep understanding of consumers and the evolving market realities, and really knowing how to speak the language of business.

For today's episode, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Meghan Nameth, the newly appointed Chair of the Canadian Marketing Association's Board of Directors and President and Owner of Pattern and Path Consulting. Over three decades, Meghan has built a diverse and very impressive marketing career, working in both Canada and the U.S.

She started at Procter and Gamble, where she learned brand building fundamentals that have served her well throughout her career. After spending almost 11 years with P&G in progressively senior roles in Canada and at their U.S. head office, Meghan moved to Mars. She then expanded beyond CPG with roles in financial services as VP Marketing at TD Bank and Managing Director at PWC Canada.

She was also CMO at Hudson's Bay and the SVP of Marketing at Loblaw. This diverse industry experience further strengthened her marketing and business acumen. Meghan's work has been very well recognized at the Cannes Lion Cassie's, of course, the CMA awards, Cleos, Effies and the Media Innovation Awards. In May 2025, she was appointed Vice Chair of the CMA board, where she led the search for a new President and CEO following my announcement of my retirement, a responsibility that speaks to the trust and respect she commands in the marketing community. Meghan has now stepped into Board Chair role, and I'm really excited to see how she builds on the CMA's strong momentum during her two year term. What makes Meghan's perspective particularly valuable is her conviction that Canadian marketers have untapped potential.

We both share a belief that marketers must think bigger, drive more innovation, and really position themselves not as service providers seeking approval, but as strategic partners co-creating growth. Throughout her career, the CMA has been an anchor, providing the network's learning resources and advocacy platform that have really enabled her to elevate marketing's role in every organization she served.

Welcome, Meghan, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on CMA connect, and I'm really looking forward to your conversation today and celebrating your appointment as Board Chair.

02:41 - Meghan Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm happy to talk about marketing anytime actually.

Alison So our third annual CMA Marketing Week wrapped a bit earlier this month. And I know that you, along with thousands of marketers across the country, took full advantage and really engaged with a number of our events, thought leadership sessions as well as the training sessions. So I'd love to start by having you share your three big takeaways from this year's CMA Marketing Week.

00:03:03.100 — 00:05:59.800 · Meghan It was an amazing week. I feel that these events are in some ways a bit of a reunion. I get to see so many people that I haven't connected with in so long and catch up and learn. And so it's really an amazing opportunity for networking and reconnection. And I think that's probably one of my biggest takeaways is that when I attend these events, I really feel the full value of what the CMA brings in connecting people across industries.

I see people from financial services, from when I worked in retail, CPGs, that I haven't connected with in a long time. So it really is that power of connection and learning what people are doing. So I think that's the biggest takeaway I have, because you can get really heads down in your own day to day job and forget to sort of look up and look around.

And that was kind of one of the biggest values that it brings. Secondly, though, there was a keynote speaker, Tucker Bryant, who talks a lot about how creativity and actually the creative process of poetry can bring value into innovation cycles. And from that, his message was do different things differently.

That really resonated for me because, you know, we talk a lot about AI, and AI was very present throughout the week of how we leverage AI, what AI can do for us. But there is a risk that we go so fast with AI that we forget to really interrogate the ideas, to really think about what's creative, what's different, what's really driving growth for an organization.

And I think his message was really about, you know, we can't all be the same. We should be different. We should be thinking about things differently. And so really thinking about a process to sort of do that inside your organization, I thought was really valuable. And then I think the third takeaway is the impact of marketing.

So there was a study that the CMA did with Signal 49 that really demonstrated or proved, I guess, the value of marketing to the Canadian economy. And so there was some sort of shocking statistics that, you know, $130 billion in GDP, really, 1 in 25 jobs are marketing jobs. This, for me, underscored, I think, what I've known for a long time, which is marketing, has tremendous value to drive growth for organizations, and that's really critical.

It also is the unlock for our productivity challenge in Canada that we can really demonstrate that these companies that we work in, we can help them to grow beyond our borders. And lastly, with the number of people in Canada involved in marketing, how critical the CMA is and our role to sort of really upskill and future proof that sort of function and people involved in the discipline.

So I think that was my takeaway, is the power of connection, doing different things differently and then the impact that marketing can have on productivity.

00:05:59.920 — 00:06:45.120 · Alison Those are such great takeaways and the impact that marketing have now that we've been able to quantify it and really demonstrate that it is foundational, regardless of what sector or industry you're in, marketing is a driver of our economy. To your point, it's a key way that Canada can overcome our productivity issue.

And building on the keynote from Tucker, we are the best served around the executive table to really drive innovation and doing different things differently. Now Meghan, before we dive into your vision for the role as our new Board Chair, can you share a bit about your story? I know you started your career in supply chain at Procter and Gamble, which isn't the typical path into marketing.

So what drew you to this profession and how has that background really influenced your approach to marketing?

00:06:45.240 — 00:08:39.610 · Meghan It definitely is not the typical path forward, but I'm so grateful, actually, that I got a chance to start in supply chain. And and after that, I actually did a really very brief moment in sales as well before moving into brand at P&G. But supply chain really helped me understand the mechanics of an organization.

Like, how does the product actually move from R&D into production and then onto customer shelves and all the challenges that can exist within that system? You know, especially in packaged goods, you can generate demand, but if there's no product on the shelves, it's really it's really sort of like, does a tree fall in the forest?

Will anyone know because they can't buy the product? And so I think really understanding that a strategy or a demand generation plan is only as good as what you can operationalize has sort of really continued on through my whole career. And now as I sit in a more service provider role, what we're working with clients on is not just how do you generate insight, but it's how do you actually take that to a business strategy?

How do you take that into your execution? And so I think that actually has been foundational for me. And how I approach marketing is more as a system. So it's marketing is part of an organization's system for growth. And it's not the only part of the system. And so we have to work across all these different functions to pull them together, to really realize that demand generation and benefit that we create.

I feel really lucky that that's where I started, because I think that was a huge benefit. And I think the other thing was that very early in my career, because of how supply chain organizations are structured, I had very early people management experience and that, you know, has really benefited me in leading teams and helping to like, learn how to unlock the power of the talent on your team.

And I think that was a really great benefit as well.

00:08:40.169 — 00:09:09.060 · Alison That sounds like a great starting point when you think of it. The best marketers have a very deep understanding of all aspects of the business and from a credibility perspective as well, the fact that you know and have worked in the operational side of the business, the fact that you've worked in the sales side of the business, those are such key partners to delivering on the marketing strategy and the marketing initiative.

So I would think that it also helped elevate your credibility across the organization as well. When you did move into a marketing role.

00:09:09.100 — 00:09:39.140 · Meghan Maybe, I mean, I moved to different organizations, so sometimes that doesn't always translate across. But I would say what it gave me is tremendous empathy for those roles. So a lot of times when you sit in one function, you really haven't walked in the shoes of another function. And I think it helped me to say, you know, we're not giving them enough information or we're not collaborating strongly enough or learning what they are up against to be able to influence different outcomes.

And so I think it gave me a lot of empathy for the challenges that exist in other parts of the organization beyond marketing.

00:09:39.180 — 00:09:58.750 · Alison Now, we've talked a bit about your career spanning CPG, financial services and retail, including moving from very marketing-focused organizations to PNG to industries where marketing traditionally has had a bit less emphasis. So what motivated you to make these industry pivots, and what did you learn about leveraging your skills across very different sectors?

00:09:58.830 — 00:12:28.120 · Meghan So many things, we could do an hour just on this, I think. Yeah, I did start my career in CPG and I would say the biggest difference was that they were multinationals. So in most of my time I was in Canada supporting organizations like Mars and P&G that were headquartered out of the U.S. And so Canada, you had to, first of all, you had really big roles.

Like maybe the size of the market wasn't as large, but the breadth of your role was quite large. And so you had to touch a lot of things, even if you couldn't go very deep, you were kind of moving across different elements of the business. And so that was a huge benefit to being in those multinationals. But you're always sort of, you know, working with your North American partners to sort of prove the value of investing in Canada, and you're sometimes adapting more work than you are creating work from scratch or even strategies from scratch.

And so it builds a different muscle in those multinational roles. Moving into financial services, in part, I did it because I wanted to work for a Canadian headquartered company where there was room for career growth, so that was a big part of that move. I wasn't actually sure that my skills would translate into financial services, but I think what I've learned is that the fundamentals of marketing, you know, who are you trying to attract?

Why are you marketing like, are you trying to convert new business, you know, deepen relationships? Those things move across all different industries. From what I've really experienced, the benefit of moving into financial services is how digital those businesses are. That really built out a different muscle for me around digital marketing and the amount of data.

And so I think one of the best things about moving into financial services was I really fell in love with analytics and insight because of how rich the data sets are in financial services, and also the talent that exists in those organizations to really look at new insights from all of that data. And it's kind of the same in retail.

You know, I had the great benefit of working for Loblaws and their PC Optimum portfolio has a tremendous amount of insight because of the breadth of that program. And so I think a lot of what motivated me was the opportunity to have an impact and opportunity to learn something new and experience something.

But I think the skills from each role sort of built on top of each other to help me make an impact in those roles.

00:12:28.160 — 00:12:44.970 · Alison That's a great perspective for everyone in our audience to understand. I worked across very diverse sectors as well. And initially you think, oh, is this going to work or not? But to your point, the fundamentals are absolutely there, and I have a bit of a bias that makes us even stronger marketers when you have to translate them to very different industries.

00:12:45.010 — 00:13:21.450 · Meghan When I think about what gets in the way of a great plan, often it has really nothing to do with understanding the industry, but a lot to do on aligning the pieces of an organization to make choices and move something forward. And that's kind of true across all different industries. If you can get everyone sort of aligned on a direction, making those clear choices a clear point of view and, and execute with excellence, that really works.

But often what disconnects is not understanding the industry. It's often getting the internal alignment.

00:13:21.610 — 00:13:28.650 · Speaker 2 Our ability to influence, for sure. Now you embraced a much more entrepreneurial career path. So what led you to take that plunge?

00:13:28.690 — 00:14:40.940 · Meghan Well, so many things. I would say that the number one thing is, and I talked about it a bit as I talked about TD and the opportunity to work with the insights and analytics team. I really have always loved finding that unique insight that is going to move a business forward. That's been the favourite part of every job I've ever had.

It's, you know, really looking for that unlock from the consumer, from the market, from the business and trying to figure out what is it that's going to move something forward. And so when I thought about what did I want to do next? After my last role, I wasn't sure that I wanted to work in a larger CMO role because I wanted to work on multiple businesses and brands.

I've had, to your point, a lot of different experiences. And I also really wanted to focus on helping organizations find those unlocks. And that's really what we do is we are looking for deep insights that help move an organization forward, and we're really focussed not just on what is the insight, but how does a company take that forward, how do they get aligned, how does their, what are the next steps coming out of that insight? And that part is the part that I love the most. So I'm very happy to be doing this.

00:14:40.940 — 00:14:49.380 · Alison And what was the biggest surprise, moving from the corporate brand side into more, much more entrepreneurial and service side part of the profession?

00:14:49.420 — 00:16:31.550 · Meghan Well, there's a couple of things, and I think one is that it's hard to be a small business. Go from a large corporate organization where you have all these resources and support to, you know, a small business where you have a small team and you're trying to make an impact. So for smaller agencies and organizations, it is tricky.

There's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of things that you need to do that you don't have as many resources to get it done. So that part's challenging. But also, you know, you just build a different muscle. I think the second thing that is maybe surprising is in some cases, we see clients being very disconnected from their customer.

And so I think it's an opportunity for everyone to remember that you need to see and talk to the people that are using your product or service on a somewhat regular basis to stay connected, and I am seeing a lot of people using AI, which is good to be efficient and using data to make decisions. So these are all good things.

But what's missing is that we've, in some cases, lost the human connection, and we're not spending enough time seeing people in real life using the product, observing people in stores and how they're shopping or observing how they're shopping online. I think we're relying a lot on digital tools, which have a limit to what you can really see in terms of human behaviour.

So I think what's an opportunity for everyone is to remind ourselves we can't understand our customer from our desk and to really get out there and see people in real life.

00:16:31.590 — 00:16:50.510 · Alison Great advice. Now, you've also spoken about the importance of marketers connecting their work to the business growth and really helping the C-suite understand the mission critical impact that marketing has on the business. So from your experience leading marketing, where do marketers need to improve in order to get more credibility with the executive team?

00:16:50.550 — 00:17:56.200 · Meghan Yeah, I think there's really nothing worse than a marketer that comes in to a leadership team and says how great the marketing is doing when the business is not doing well. So I think the first thing is, is that all marketers need to operate like leaders of the business and that marketing is a component of success.

And so that's the first thing, is to really recognize the context in which you're operating. So if the business isn't doing well, the marketing campaign might be performing, but something else is not, and everyone needs to be a part of that solution. The second is we have to speak the language of the business, not the language of marketing.

So I very much believe in building brands, but building a brand isn't a business outcome. And so I think we have to sort of start to translate our language into language that the CFO and the CEO are really interested in, creating shareholder value, generating income sources, new revenue streams, and really thinking about it from their lens, not from our own lens.

00:17:56.280 — 00:18:09.800 · Alison So the language is such an important piece of how to do this effectively. So can you share an example of how you've translated marketing strategy into business outcomes that really resonated with the CEO or the board?

00:18:09.840 — 00:19:37.820 · Meghan Yeah, definitely. So we talk a lot about whether marketing is a cost centre or not. I firmly believe that marketing should be really tied to revenue growth, because why would you be marketing if you're not trying to grow? That's really what marketing is designed to do. So one of the things that I did in a previous role is we were able to use and work with some great partners to build a model that helped to show when we market, are we generating profitable sales?

So what is the Ebit contribution to each marketing dollar? And what we agreed with our CFO is that we would spend until that got to a certain threshold, so that we were able to, on an ongoing basis, measure contribution of the marketing and whether or not it was incremental. And then we would stop marketing when it stopped being incremental to the business.

I mean, this was on a somewhat of a small scale. We were testing it before we rolled out, but it proved out to be very successful. And not everyone has access to that kind of data or that kind of performance. But I think what it demonstrates is that marketing should be very tightly tied to contribution. And that's where I think the you get more credibility is when you're willing to stop marketing, when it's not incremental, and you're also able to show how high is up and how big something can be if you continue to to invest in marketing that works.

00:19:37.820 — 00:19:54.980 · Alison That's a really great example. Now your consulting work and being on the service side of our profession gives you quite a unique vantage point. You're now advising organizations instead of operating within them. So what patterns are you seeing across different companies when it comes to how marketing as both positioned and leverage?

00:19:55.180 — 00:21:30.470 · Meghan Yeah, I think one of the things that is I think a myth is that that people don't value marketing. I think every CEO or leadership team that I have spoken to highly values great marketing. They may not think that the current marketing function is operating at its best, or they may not understand the constraints that the marketing team is up against.

But I have not spoken to a CEO or a leadership team that doesn't think marketing's important. So I think that's one thing that marketers should take to heart, is that it's not necessarily that you have to earn a seat at the table. People want you there. They want to know how marketing can make a difference.

And it's really up to us to demonstrate how we can do that for the business in a way that they can understand. So we come back to that, that language. And, you know, I had I was facilitating a session with a marketing organization and people were saying, oh, you know, we're not sure if if people really value us and the conversation we end up having is if a company wants to grow, how would they do it without marketing?

I'm not sure. I mean, they may be able to grow just on a sales team, which is possible, but the sales team will also want marketing support. So I think there's really if companies want to grow, they're going to need marketing support. And so I think we just need to step into that chair, need to step into that role and demonstrate what we can do to support the business in a really meaningful and efficient way.

And so I think we need to take less of a defensive posture and more of a proactive posture.

00:21:30.510 — 00:21:36.270 · Alison Are you seeing any common blind spots that organizations don't realize are really holding back their marketing function?

00:21:36.310 — 00:23:35.960 · Meghan Yeah, definitely. I think in some cases we've done a disservice by silencing different parts of marketing. Like we may push the marketing tech stack over to a technology team that may not have marketing experience. We may have siloed digital e-commerce into one role and then marketing into sort of more of a comms function.

I think marketing is at its best when they can see across a number of different capabilities so that they can more seamlessly connect communication to execution with technology. So I think that that's one area that organizations need to deeply look at is their connectivity across these different silos, and whether or not that's working effectively for them.

I think the second blind spot is, you know, with AI coming in in particular. Everyone thinks it can move really, really quickly. So what's true is that great creativity takes a little bit of time. You know, people really need to deeply find an insight and an unlock and understand the business challenge.

And so when I was in product supply, we had a rule that you should spend 80% of your time planning and 20% of your time executing, because if you have a great plan, your execution is pretty seamless. But I see today most people are spending 20% of their time planning, if that, and 80% of their time trying to execute so many different things that I think were off balance.

So I wish leadership teams would take a minute, do the offsite, spend some time planning what they want, what they need, what each function needs to contribute, how they want their customer experience to deliver. You know, all the different great strategic planning that we know makes a difference, because that would enable the whole organization to actually go faster in that execution.

And we would remove maybe that layer of suboptimal execution that we see, get out the door and or tactical things that people are spending a lot of time on, but might not be making a big difference.

00:23:35.960 — 00:23:44.800 · Alison It's such a great point, because when you're under stress for driving results, when you're short on time, it is hard to resist the urge to move to tactics.

00:23:44.800 — 00:23:45.640 · Meghan Just do do do.

00:23:45.680 — 00:24:14.600 · Alison Yeah, yeah. But to your point, you end up spinning wheels and wasting a lot more time on the tactics and getting them right than you could have saved if you spent a little bit more time up front getting the alignment, making sure the strategic focus was solid, and committed to you by the organization before you moved into tactics, for sure.

Now I'm going to switch gears a little bit. You have been an active member for the CMA for many years, so a huge thank you for that, and I'd love to hear what led to your active involvement and how have you benefited?

00:24:14.600 — 00:26:32.620 · Meghan I think the first time I went to a CMA event actually, was when I came back to Canada from the U.S. and I had gone to the CMA Awards, and I, I very much remember feeling this huge sense of community that I didn't really know existed because I had been connected to my organization at the time. I was at Mars, and I felt really good about my network there, but I realized there was this whole other world of people facing some of the same challenges I was facing and understanding the world I lived in, and that that was really meaningful.

And so that's when I started to get involved and really enjoyed the events. And every time I would take the time to come to a CMA event, I would realize again and again what that connectivity brings in meeting new people, hearing what they're working on, hearing the challenges, getting access to new insights or, you know, some of the policy work that the CMA does.

Those things are very, very helpful. And I think they're a bit of an untapped resource for many people. So that's really what inspired my involvement. You know, I've been lucky enough to be a member of a Council. I have been on different committees and now sitting on the Board, and I think that continues the connectivity across the vendors, across a different agencies.

It's the breadth of experiences people have. If I have a question about sponsorship, there are, you know, easily 4 or 5 people I can call to get insight if I'm, you know, concerned about how do we implement an AI policy. There is one ready for me to look at as a starting point. And so I think that's really been the benefit of the CMA for me is that connections, the connectivity, the resources, and for my teams.

You know, when I was at a couple different organizations where we didn't have built in marketing training, the benefit of being able to leverage the CMA course catalogue to help augment people's personal development was really helpful, and then my organization didn't have to build our own marketing training.

We were able to really just tap into what already existed and that that was meaningful. Certainly for the people that worked in my teams.

00:26:32.660 — 00:26:51.460 · Alison And in some of our earlier conversations, you also mentioned that the CMA served as a bridge to connect you with leaders across other industries. So can you share a bit about how the association supported you as you've navigated your career across from CPG to retail to financial services, and now to the entrepreneurial path that you're on?

00:26:51.500 — 00:27:58.110 · Meghan Yeah, again, I think it's always about the people that you're connected to. And in some cases when you work in one organization, you only are talking to the people that you work with. So people inside your organization, vendors or agencies that you work with and so you don't get the opportunity to meet those that are outside your circle unless you really go out and look for it.

So it's been a really great opportunity for me to hear from other client partners. So when I was sitting in a CMO chair, you know, speaking to other CMOs, what are they working on? What are they finding successful in different challenges? And then I think, secondly, now as an entrepreneur, it's really wonderful to have the different councils and some of the white papers and the thought leadership that they produce allows us to stay on top of what's happening in the industry, what's happening across different elements of the industry.

And so I think that's been very meaningful for me my career.

00:27:58.110 — 00:28:24.360 · Alison And you're sure we are incredibly fortunate to have an incredible calibre of leaders, certainly on the CMA Board and also across our CMA committees and councils and the thought leadership that they helped generate is a really powerful resource for everyone that's a member and part of our marketing community.

So what has working alongside these industry leaders taught you, and what industry insights or trends have most resonated with you from those conversations?

00:28:24.400 — 00:29:48.160 · Meghan Yeah, one of the things would be public affairs. The Public Affairs Committee is, first of all, a very well-run committee. They're the ones that helped to spearhead the marketing impact report, and they have skill sets that I haven't had as much exposure to working with government, talking about policy and self-regulation.

And those things are areas that I haven't had as much experience with. So I get a lot of value out of hearing from that group and hearing their perspective on different issues like privacy and AI, that I wouldn't have considered from this seat that I have been in. And so that's always meaningful to me, is hearing a perspective that's completely different from my own.

It really helps to sort of elevate my thinking. I would also say the leadership on the Board is incredible. So these are some of the strongest leaders in Canada, and they're across different industries. So it can be financial services, it's agency world, it's CPG, it's analytics. There's so many differences that are represented.

And the challenges that they're facing are sometimes similar and sometimes really different. And so it always gives me a person that I can call if there is something that I would like a different perspective on. And yeah, it just brings a lot of diversity of thought to the table. So we're very lucky now.

00:29:48.160 — 00:30:31.690 · Alison It's also a really exciting time for the CMA. Our talented new President and CEO, Esther, officially joined us in March. And thank you so much for leading the recruitment process for that. I know we had a wonderful outpouring of very senior leaders from across the country raised their hand for the role, and it was wonderful to see Esther emerge as the unanimous choice.

And she is certainly off to a brilliant start. Now you're stepping into the Board Chair role. So we've got such a wonderful opportunity with two talented new voices to really lead us into the future. So I know our listeners are very curious to hear a bit about your vision for the CMA, and what do you really hope to champion and prioritize during your tenure?

00:30:31.850 — 00:31:43.420 · Meghan Yes, so I think Esther is a wonderful choice. And actually I think I need to say thank you to you, Alison, because what you have done in the last few years at the CMA is what what made it so easy to lead a search for the CMA. So I think you've really elevated what the CMA can do for the marketing profession. And that made it an attractive role for so many.

So I actually think it's due to you that we are in this very fortunate position. And in terms of the vision for the CMA, for the future, I would say Esther and I are very aligned that marketing has a huge potential to support the growth of the Canadian economy. And so our focus is going to be on how do we need to support the industry to really accelerate that impact, and whether that is going to be learning and how we do that, or whether that's going to be advocacy or more community focused initiatives, we are very aligned that the CMA is here to help future-proof the industry and to help really accelerate the impact on the Canadian economy and help marketers be equipped to do that in the best way possible.

00:31:43.420 — 00:32:03.060 · Alison And part of that is really helping Canadian marketers to think bigger, to drive innovation, to be really proud of the mission critical role that we have to really recognize that there's a lot of untapped potential in our industry. So where do you see some of the biggest opportunities for Canadian marketing and marketers to raise our game?

00:32:03.340 — 00:33:11.350 · Meghan We need to be bold. So I would say that that is one of the biggest things we need to start to be bold and think really big. I was very inspired by a conversation I had with the team at Bell Media around how they've made Heated Rivalry such a global success, and that was a risk. And it was a risk in two ways. I think one thing it could have been a risk that that kind of show doesn't see the light of day, that someone doesn't greenlight that project, that someone doesn't distribute it effectively, that it doesn't get the platform that it could have deserved.

And so I think kudos to them for not just making the show, but making it a huge success by thinking boldly about how can this be a global phenomenon? And that's what I think Canadian marketers need to do, is instead of thinking about, how do I make this a little bit better than last year, it's how do I make this a global phenomenon?

That is, you know, second to none. There's no reason that we can't have our companies and our brands sit on a global stage. And I think we can we can be bold. We have that opportunity.

00:33:11.470 — 00:33:27.950 · Alison You're absolutely right. It is long overdue time to retire the humble Canadian thing that we are so proud of and absolutely come out to be proud of the boldness and the seats that we all deserve, both nationally but on a global stage as well. I love your Heated Rivalry example of that.

00:33:27.990 — 00:33:32.750 · Meghan Well, thanks to Bell for that, because that certainly has nothing to do with me, but very impressive. Very impressive.

00:33:33.510 — 00:34:00.720 · Alison Oh, it's definitely an inspiring example of what we can do when we approach opportunities like that with the boldness that we should do. So I have the pleasure of hosting very senior people as guests on the podcast, so I always end each episode by asking you to share one piece of career advice for our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps.

Now, given you've got quite a unique journey across industries into board leadership, I'm very excited to hear the piece of wisdom that you're going to share.

00:34:00.760 — 00:34:32.480 · Meghan I wish I could say more than one, but I think the biggest thing that I would say is to say yes. So I think one of the things that has helped me in my career is being willing to say yes to opportunity, to say yes to the job, say yes to the next project, to the challenge. And I think saying yes was part of what has enabled me to move across.

So I think a lot of people might have said no to moving from, you know, chocolate marketing to insurance. Or they might have said no to, you know, moving to the U.S. or trying to move into insights and analytics. And all of these moves have been so helpful and have built on new skills. And so I would say for those that are starting out in their career, say yes to that next opportunity. Really look to build a portfolio of experiences that are going to help to drive you forward, because that's that's what I think has helped me the most is the breadth of experiences and the, um, you know, the different experiences.

So my advice would be to say yes to this.

00:35:05.120 — 00:35:27.800 · Alison Well, that is great advice. And on behalf of the CMA and our marketing community, thank you so much for saying yes to coming to your first CMA event years ago, saying yes to your first Council, to joining the Board, and now saying yes to becoming our Board Chair. I'm really excited for how bright the future is for the CMA under your leadership.

So a huge thank you and thanks for a great conversation.

00:35:27.800 — 00:35:32.160 · Meghan Thank you. I'm very honoured to be part of the team. So thanks.

00:35:34.560 — 00:35:47.520 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit theCMA.ca and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.

When you can't outspend the competition, you have to out-think them. In one of her final episodes as CMA President and CEO, Alison Simpson sits down with Rachel McAdam, Vice President of Marketing at Skip, to explore what it takes to build a Canadian challenger brand against global giants. The conversation covers the "Skip to the good part" rebrand, a partnership ecosystem built on Canadian passion points and a three-sided marketplace strategy. The standout? The cultural agility that turned a rap beef into a campaign so effective it shut down competitor apps.

CMAConnect-Ep68-Rachel MacAdam v2.txt English (UK)

00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:23.040 — 00:02:26.210 · Alison In a market dominated by global giants, how does a Canadian founded challenger brand like Skip not just survive, but thrive? The answer lies in doubling down on authenticity, building strategic partnerships and really recognizing that marketing is about much more than reaching consumers. It's also about driving growth across every stakeholder in your ecosystem.

For today's episode, I'm pleased to welcome Rachel McAdam, Vice President of Marketing at Skip. Rachel is leading a Canadian founded and built business and one of our country's most recognized food delivery brands through a significant transformation, from Skip the Dishes to simply Skip expanding their delivery service beyond restaurants to retail, and also navigating intense competition in a market where deep-pocketed competitors can easily outspend smaller players.

Rachel brings deep expertise and loyalty marketing to this challenge. Having spent significant time at Loyalty One, she played a key role in building Air Miles into one of Canada's largest brands. She really understands how to create emotional engagement and build lasting customer relationships.

This expertise has proven invaluable at Skip as she navigates the loyalty wars in food delivery. Under Rachel's leadership, Skip has distinguished itself through a uniquely Canadian approach to partnerships. They're going beyond sponsorship deals to becoming strategic pillars that can really help reinforce Skip's Canadian roots, while also expanding reach in ways that transcend traditional marketing spend. From priority concert access through Live Nation, wide-ranging partnerships with the Toronto Blue Jays, Disney Plus, CIBC, and WestJet,

Rachel has built what she calls an ecosystem approach to loyalty, tapping into Canadian passion points rather than competing purely on price. What makes marketing at Skip compelling is how the team understands and approaches managing the needs across a three-sided marketplace. Rachel has some great examples to share in how her team is delivering on this.

Rachel is part of a leadership team, transforming Skip from a functional utility into something broader and much more meaningful. Rachel, welcome to CMA connect. It's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast today, and I'm looking forward to a great conversation.

00:02:26.210 — 00:02:27.450 · Rachel Thanks. Looking forward to it.

00:02:27.530 — 00:02:42.250 · Alison Now, Rachel, as I mentioned, you spent a lot of time at Loyalty One and really helped build Air Miles into one of Canada's largest loyalty brands. So coming off of that experience, what was it that attracted you to the Vice President of Marketing role at Skip, and what were some of your early priorities?

00:02:42.490 — 00:03:25.270 · Speaker 3 Yeah, you know, what was great about Skip is that it had a lot of the similarities of Air Miles from its early days. So, you know, it's a great Canadian brand. Um, it was rooted in really a three way marketplace, which was very similar to Air Miles. You know, Air Miles is about connecting consumers to retailers through the loyalty program, and Skip really is about connecting Canadians to their favourite restaurant or retailers through the delivery ecosystem.

And so I really loved that about it. And I love a good challenging opportunity. And so to your point, the delivery category is, um, it's it's very fast paced, it's very competitive. And I really felt like there was a huge opportunity for marketing to play a key role in the transformation of the business.

00:03:25.470 — 00:03:44.870 · Alison We're like-minded when it comes to being attracted to big, hairy, challenging goals, and you're doing an amazing job with Skip. So one of the big things you did was evolve the brand from Skip the Dishes to simply Skip. And clearly there's a lot of strategic thinking behind dropping the dishes, so I'd love to hear more about that.

And also, how does it reflect where you're taking the business?

00:03:45.110 — 00:05:34.640 · Rachel Yeah. So when we were looking at the transformation of the business, you know, what's interesting is Skip was a scrappy start-up. Covid hit, you know, exponential growth in delivery. But it really created a new expectation for consumers that it wasn't now just about delivering my favourite pizza on a Friday night, but now I'm looking for convenience and delivery much broader than that,

And we really felt that our brand positioning of Skip the Dishes wasn't really reflecting this broader services that we were offering to Canadians, and it was really keeping us limited in the minds of Canadians. We also felt that we weren't tapping into a key point of differentiation, that we were the Canadian brand, you know, created in the prairie provinces.

We run on Canadian technology, but we weren't really leveraging that. And we did research. And, you know what Canadians said was, that if all things were created equal, you need to be price competitive. You need to have my favourite restaurant, but I will choose a Canadian brand. And this was sort of before the the upswell of Canadiana came in.

Even before that, that really was very much part of what Canadians were looking to support Canadian brands. And so between those two things, we really said we are missing an opportunity to set ourselves apart from these big global organizations or brands in the market. And so we took that research. We worked with Courage as our agency to understand what's the consumer insight?

What's happening culturally? And where's that white space opportunity for Skip to really own and differentiate? And that's where dropping the dishes, bringing the maple leaf into the logo so that when you quickly look at your phone, you probably have multiple delivery apps on your phone. Let's make sure that we're reminding you that you do have a Canadian option, an opportunity there.

And then we dropped the dishes really as we were launching into retail. So that really was the first signal to the Canadian consumer that I can actually get much more than just food delivered by Skip.

00:05:34.960 — 00:05:52.680 · Alison Now you're doing a great job of reinforcing Skip's Canadian roots. Also through your new spokesperson, the new campaign, and partnerships with really iconic Canadian brands. So why is this Canadian positioning such a crucial differentiator, and how do the partnerships in particular work together as an ecosystem?

00:05:52.720 — 00:08:45.630 · Rachel Yeah, I think we are in a very competitive category with two very large brands in particular that come with deep pockets. And if you're not going to outspend on media or in vouchering, how do you make sure that you set yourselves apart? And we really felt that the Canadian element of our brand, of our technology, the fact that we are feet on the streets in Canada was a key part of differentiating, but we couldn't do it alone.

And that's really where partnerships came in. So we we introduced the new brand positioning. We leveraged actually a previous spokesperson with Jon Hamm because he came with actually great affinity to the Skip brand. There was very positive association. And the original campaign had sort of positioned Jon as wanting to be Canadian.

So it was, well, he's not Canadian, it was actually reinforcing that he wanted to be Canadian aspect of it. And so we used that sort of as a nod to our past. But also we then had Jon tell the new story that it was Skip at the grocery store and at the pet store and sort of all the ways that you could Skip. And then partnerships launched shortly after.

So we introduced the new brand in October, and then we quickly launched Skip Plus subscription. And so we felt that the brand promise of "Skip to the good part." We help you skip the hassles of every day. That was always foundational to what Skip was a part of. But now it wasn't just helping you skip dinner, but it was helping you skip the trip to the pharmacy, skip the trip to the liquor store.

But we wanted to make sure there was a proof point, that it wasn't just a tagline, that it actually was a brand promise of helping you Skip to the good part, which is where partnerships came in. And so we launched subscription about six weeks following the brand relaunch, and that really became the proof point that said, we talked about helping you skip to the good part. Here's another proof point to say we can help you skip to the things that matter most to you, which really tapped into passion points. You know, we were we were third to market on subscription. You know, you could look at that as a disadvantage that we were last to market.

We actually looked at it as an advantage that we had the opportunity to see what's in market, what are we competing against, and then how do we create that ownable, authentic aspect to Skip. And that really became our partnerships, that we are going to help you skip to the good part, not just on delivery, but that Canadians are passionate about music and they're passionate about travel.

And so how do we bring that to life? That was through partners, that we're going to help you skip to the good part to get to the concert that you love most. We're going to help you skip to the good part and get to the travel that you love. And so that's really where partnerships came in. And we launched with CIBC, with WestJet, with Live Nation, really to help prove out that brand promise of helping you to skip to the good part, which was an addition to the core value proposition that was required.

So we need to be competitive on price. We need to be competitive on supply. But opening up that emotional engagement, those additional exclusive experiences, really, we felt were the point of differentiation we can make in the Canadian market.

00:08:45.870 — 00:09:09.370 · Alison And skip to the good part, is such a compelling promise to consumers, and I love the way that you're delivering on it. You're also somewhat unique in that you're marketing to three very distinct stakeholders: consumers, couriers, partners. There are other brands that certainly have multiple stakeholders as well, but it can also be fairly unique for a number of our listeners who aren't in that current environment.

So why is this multi-stakeholder approach critical to your success?

00:09:09.410 — 00:11:09.460 · Rachel Do you know what's interesting? Often, you know, as marketers, we talk about what we're doing and we talk about the consumer. But equally, if we think about our role as marketing, it's really about ensuring the flywheel works. And so really as this three way marketplace, we need to have all three stakeholders getting benefit out of this relationship in order to make it work.

So, you know, if marketing puts a great campaign in market and we drive you to the app, but your favourite restaurant isn't there, you're not going to order. Or if we put a great campaign in the market and we drive you to the app, but the delivery time is really long because we don't have enough couriers driving, you're not going to order again.

And so that's why the three way to marketplace and making sure that we are delivering on that brand promise to all three stakeholders is so important. And I would say, you know, I think one of the things that has been so impactful for us, as we sort of are on this transformation journey is that the brand promise of skip to the good part is fully embraced by our CEO, Paul Burns.

He really views that brand promise not as the responsibility for marketing to deliver, but everybody across the organization has the responsibility of delivering the good part to their stakeholder. And so as much as we focus on delivering the good part to the consumer, we are equally supporting our partnership team on how do we make sure that we're delivering marketing campaigns and marketing tools and capabilities so that our partners like McDonald's and Loblaws, that we just announced can actually grow their business off our platform.

And with the couriers, how do we make sure that we're helping our couriers with their businesses, grow their business on the Skip platform? And we do that through activations with McDonald's, where we set up pop-ups, where couriers can come in, we give them new bags, they have fresh, you know, Skip delivery bags, but they also get free coffee from McDonald's.

In the fall, we ran free oil changes, so like helping them grow their business. And so I would say that's really been a key part of that ecosystem. That flywheel working is making sure that skip to the good part is a brand promise for all three of the stakeholders.

00:11:09.500 — 00:11:36.900 · Alison Those are great examples, especially when you think about how much of your brand is in other people's hands, and courier being the best representation of someone's going to either be really pleased with the experience or if something goes wrong, not just blame the courier, but it reflects badly on your brand as well.

So I love that you're taking them into consideration and helping set them up for success, whether it's your oil change or recognizing that it can be a tough job and often fuelled by coffee too.

00:11:36.940 — 00:11:42.820 · Rachel Yeah, I mean, they literally deliver the last five feet of our brand promise, is the Courier experience.

00:11:42.820 — 00:11:50.820 · Alison And in your time at Skip, has the approach evolved at all or was that something that the brand has long recognized the importance of?

00:11:50.820 — 00:12:06.160 · Rachel I think the brand always felt that couriers were a key part of the experience. I think because of the relaunch of the brand and rallying the organization around this brand promise, I think has brought new ideas and new ways in which we're engaging couriers that we haven't been doing in the past.

00:12:06.200 — 00:12:26.400 · Alison Now, leveraging pop culture moments can also be a very effective brand strategy. And when we were talking earlier, you shared a great example of that when Kendrick Lamar mentioned a Toronto restaurant during the Drake rap beef. Your team moved super quickly to capitalize on the moment, so I'd love you to share what happened there and how you were able to be as agile as you were.

00:12:26.440 — 00:14:37.410 · Rachel You know, I think it's a great example of a close partnership with our agency, so I give great credit to Courage. They very much embody our brand as much as we do. They really are an extension of our team. And so they're always looking for cultural moments where Skip can authentically play a role and be part of the narrative.

And so the Kendrick and Drake beef was a great example. I think the rap dropped on a Wednesday. We had a call Thursday and they were like, you know, it mentions the restaurant that's on the network, we should do something about it. And by Friday morning we had a digital truck driving around downtown Toronto, leveraging some of the phrases from the rap with a 50% off at that restaurant.

And what was great is it created some, you know, obviously we had influencers, there's some organic conversation around it. And we exceeded what we would normally put through that restaurant in a three week period, we delivered in one night. And one of the best signals to say, like, did we really make an impact is they actually turned off the competitor apps because they couldn't handle the volume we were driving through Skip.

So that's one example of if you know what your brand stands for, you've got a finger on the pulse of what's happening, you can really tie it together. I'll give you another example. When the tariffs first came out and we wanted to reinforce the fact that we're the Canadian alternative, we introduced what was what was called spell codes.

And every day for a ten day period, we would put out a clue in social where if you spelt the word the right way, the Canadian way, we would unlock a voucher and we tailored the vouchers based on what the conversation was around tariffs. So it was a 15% voucher. And then oh no, no, it's a 25% voucher and now it's a 50% voucher.

And and it was great because we had people talking in social, about like what's the clue going to be today and what do we think the keyword was. And so again, it was another way of like reinforcing where the Canadian option without saying we're the Canadian option, but it was a point in time that only Skip could authentically be a part of that conversation.

We weren't going to have an American competitor start talking about, you know, being Canadian during the tariff situation. And again, it was another one where we know what we stand for, we know who we are as a brand. And when that cultural moment came, we were able to quickly turn it on and really create something of value to the consumer.

And that really put us in, you know that conversation.

00:14:37.650 — 00:14:47.050 · Alison I love those examples. And the ultimate proof of success is when the restaurant shuts down your competitors because you've driven so much demand to their location, so...

00:14:47.050 — 00:14:48.610 · Rachel It was a great day.

00:14:49.290 — 00:15:03.110 · Alison Now, you mentioned earlier that you were last to market with your subscription offering, but instead of seeing that as a disadvantage, you very much positioned it as an advantage. So how are you differentiating from the very functional offerings of your competitors?

00:15:03.150 — 00:17:05.510 · Rachel Yeah, I think that was one of the things that we saw when we were taking a look at, you know, what is in the market today. And what we saw is even though there is well-established subscription programs in market, there was still a high degree of app switching. So consumers clearly weren't seeing enough value in what was in market to have loyalty to those.

And we really felt what was missing is that while there was functional benefits, there really wasn't anything in there that was exclusive or, you know, recognition-driven. And we really thought Skip had an opportunity to own that. And it very much lined up with our brand promise. And so from a subscription perspective, launching with Live Nation, launching with WestJet, really taking some of those gamification kind of aspects and delivering it in a way that drove exclusive experiences would be a point of differentiation.

And and we're really seeing that take root. And, you know, I'll give you an example. We sponsored Oseaga last year, which is a music festival in Montreal. About 50% of the people in, uh, in the festival actually come from Ontario and other parts of Canada. So it really does represent, you know, a Canadian target audience.

And Skip sponsored it. But we had an exclusive experience just for Skip Plus. And so to get into this exclusive, sort of premium experience, you got to be a Skip Plus member. And then you get access to, you know, a makeup touch-up area. And we had soft seating under coverage from the hot sun. And most importantly, we had an exclusive bathroom and bar area.

And if you've ever been to a music festival, there's nothing better than exclusive bathroom and bar. And, you know, it was a weekend that we had some of our our highest signups for Skip Plus because consumers saw that there was added value, added experience, exclusive experience of being a Skip Plus member.

And so those are the kind of opportunities that, yes, we need to deliver on the functional benefits of free delivery, reduced service fee, bonus points. But there's an opportunity to create that higher degree of engagement and loyalty by offering something above and beyond. And so that's been a big part of the Skip Plus, uh, value proposition since we launched.

00:17:05.870 — 00:17:16.069 · Alison That's another great example. Now with free bathrooms out of music festival, you did set a very high bar. You drove a lot of interest in sign-ups. Were you able to keep them all as well?

00:17:16.430 — 00:17:35.470 · Rachel Yeah. So converting them over is a great question. That's where we then followed up quickly with a life cycle program to say welcome to Skip Plus. And then we started giving the functional offers the value proposition to get them to use Skip. And so the quantity and quality of customers coming through that activation have been very positive for Skip Plus.

00:17:35.550 — 00:18:12.060 · Alison Now I do want to drill down a little bit more on customer service because as we talked about earlier, you're not in control of the final five feet or often five miles. So given the interdependencies that you have on fulfilment delivery partners, when we talked earlier, you shared that part of the inspiration for everyone at Skip and led by your CEO, Paul, is around unreasonable hospitality, which is very much a philosophy that comes from 11 Madison Park. So I'm intrigued to learn more about how that served as an inspiration to you and the leadership team, and how it's really helping evolve Skip's approach to customer experience.

00:18:12.340 — 00:19:51.960 · Rachel Yeah, I would suggest if you haven't read the book, it's a it's a quick read, but it's a really interesting read on on creating exceptional service across every touchpoint. And so I think rooted in the fact that Paul really believes that the brand promise of skip to the good part is not a marketing responsibility, but it's an entire organization has been a key part of that.

And so then we've all gone back and said, how am I contributing to helping my stakeholders skip to the good part? Get over the hassles, get over friction in the experience working with us or delivering for us or ordering through us to make that happen. We did an end-to-end research study around the customer experience journey from start to finish, to understand where are we excelling, and how do we lean into those moments of delight that Skip gives?

Where are we meeting the competition and where are we behind, so that we can then prioritize. You know, there's always more opportunities than there are resources to solve them. So then it helped us prioritize, where do we need to address first. And then we took the lens of, we're a Canadian brand and there's a way that Canadians help others that can be a point of differentiation.

And so our customer care team in particular is taking a look at our policies, our engagement strategies, and we're testing different things to say, how can we deliver a better experience? First, we want to make sure you don't have a problem to begin with, which is our logistics and our app.

But if you do have a problem, how do we make sure that we are making that as delightful a solution, a Canadian way to solve your problem as possible? And so there's a series of tests and measurement that's going in through a CARED group in particular, to address that and find ways that we can elevate the customer experience beyond what's happening in our category.

00:19:52.400 — 00:20:24.420 · Alison Now, you've shared a couple of times that you are very fortunate to have a CEO who not only understands and supports marketing and sees it as mission critical to driving the business forward, but also understands that bringing the brand proposition to life can never only be the marketing team's responsibility.

So not all of our listeners will have the benefit of that. So I'd love you to share any advice you would have for marketers that are working with senior leaders that don't necessarily truly appreciate the powerful impact that marketing drives from a business perspective?

00:20:24.580 — 00:22:20.150 · Rachel Yeah, you're right. As a marketing leader, I'm very fortunate to work not only for Paul, but for an organization, you know, the Skip leadership team believes in the role of brand and believes in their role in contributing to the customer experience. I would say a big part of it was bringing teams along.

It was sharing the voice of the customer, not just with the marketing, but across the different functional areas within Skip. You know, we did a kick-off across the organization. We did a brand video that talked about what this opportunity was for us to have this come to life. What did that mean across the organization, you know, and the best example like I think when we knew we had shifted it from a marketing initiative to an organization initiative is when we saw some of the other teams that were doing off-sites and they were producing merchandise that said, skip to the good part.

It's like, okay, this is no longer within marketing hands. It's in, it's in the organization. And that's really just been fed over the last year and a half, two years that the brand's been in market.

And so I would say that the big piece is, is bring people along. The voice of the customer is always more powerful. Storytelling is really effective at getting a message across. Yes, our finance team likes to see the numbers, but they're also consumers. And so when you talk about solving consumer problems and how the brand can own a unique way of delivering that versus the competition, you bring people along.

People want to be a part of it. I think there's a lot of pride in the Skip organization when they see the brand in market, when they see social commentary around things like spell codes and skip the diss with, you know, with Kendrick Lamar. People are proud to work for an organization that is culturally relevant that, you know, has a voice that is, you know, delivering great experiences for customers.

And the more you can share that and have everyone feel a part of it, the more effective it will be, and sort of transcending the marketing function into being, you know, across the organization.

00:22:20.470 — 00:22:36.310 · Alison It sounds like you're doing an amazing job in creating really powerful ownership across the organization. And then there's such a wonderful momentum to that when you see the team come together, you celebrate your shared successes. It's just going to drive it even further in the future. So kudos to you for accomplishing that.

00:22:36.630 — 00:22:50.710 · Rachel There's some great momentum, and I give great credit to Paul and the way in which he has led across the leadership team. It's not really a marketing function as much as it's really an organization-wide success story, for sure.

00:22:50.870 — 00:23:14.770 · Alison Now, you mentioned CFOs are always interested in numbers. So if your CFO is listening, we'll make this next question for him. I know from our earlier conversations that the marketing you're doing is delivering measurable business growth for Skip, which is absolutely the goal for every marketer. And I'd love you to share what marketing business results you're the most proud of, and how you're demonstrating marketing's business impact to not just your CFO, but everyone in the organization.

00:23:15.010 — 00:25:15.340 · Rachel Yeah, Skip is very much a data-driven organization. You know, as a marketing team, we get daily metrics on our order volume. We have weekly reviews of all of our business metrics. And so we very much are looking at how the work we are doing is driving the KPIs for the organization. And so, you know, marketing we take a look at what is the business trying to solve.

And then we build our plan in support of those OKRs of those key metrics. And so we're looking at how is our upper funnel awareness driving sessions? How is our venturing and offers driving conversion? How are we driving greater customer engagement through our life cycle journeys? You know, upward migration of customers, retaining our best customers, those kind of things.

I would say that the metrics I'm probably most proud of is related to Skip Plus. We were third to market. So, you know, it's not easy to break through a market that had well-established, two existing subscription programs and then delivering, you know, sustained engagement. And I would say, you know, what was great with that program is, you know, we came out of the gate with CIBC.

They've been a great partner for us, not only, you know, delivering value to their customers, where you can get Skip Plus for free, but, you know, tapping into an audience that we otherwise wouldn't necessarily get access to. And so, you know, we achieved a significant amount of new customer growth through our CIBC partnership.

And we're seeing not just the quantity of customers coming through there, but the quality of customers being very positive. And so Skip Plus is driving lift and frequency. And we are seeing lift and retention of those customers that sign up for Skip Plus versus a comparable control group that are not signing up for Skip Plus.

So I think, you know, the team has done a great job of building the first phase of Skip Plus. I would say, you know, like anything, you can't launch and leave it. It requires constant feeding and nurturing and so more evolution and enhancements to come to Skip Plus in the coming months ahead. But we're really proud of the launch out of the gate and more to come.

00:25:15.540 — 00:25:30.500 · Alison Terrific. Now, Rachel, I know you're super busy. I appreciate you giving us the time that you've been able to give us today. Before I let you go on with your busy day, though, I would love you to share one piece of career advice that you have for our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps.

00:25:30.620 — 00:27:06.750 · Rachel You know, I will share advice that was given to me once, which is, think about your career as a spider web and not a ladder. And if I was to look back at my career, you know, I spend the vast majority of my time at Air Miles, and I benefited from growing my career at the time that the organization was growing. So there was the benefit of always new opportunities within the same organization.

Take the opportunities, even if you don't directly see the upward trajectory of that opportunity, but the ability to learn how to learn and to put yourself into roles that you might not have the specific experience, but you're going to build transferable skills over time. You know, I didn't know delivery at the time that I joined Skip, but I had transferable experiences coming from Air Miles I could apply to it, because the reality is that the jobs in marketing today didn't really exist ten, 15 years ago, right?

And so I would expect that the jobs in five years from now probably don't exist today. And what's going to take you there is going to be your transferable experience, your ability to learn on the fly, to take new opportunities and embrace sort of the ambiguity that comes with new opportunities. But getting that, you know, lateral opportunities, lateral roles, try different areas will just create a benchmark of experiences that you'll be able to take into any new opportunity.

So I think it's served me well over my career. And so I would just encourage, you know, try not to say no, take opportunities that come. And I think marketing just as a career is a career of constant curiosity, and that'll set you up well for any role in the future.

00:27:06.790 — 00:27:28.790 · Alison I couldn't agree more. Especially now. And when you think about it, every time you take a lateral position or stretch yourself with a new role, the business and the marketing, new skills that you're building give you this powerful toolkit, and you're also ensuring that your brain is always agile and embracing the change that is inevitable for everyone that's decided to have a wonderful career in marketing.

So thank you, Rachel.

00:27:29.150 — 00:27:29.870 · Rachel Absolutely.

00:27:29.910 — 00:27:33.910 · Alison I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I'm wishing you a great rest of your day.

00:27:33.950 — 00:27:35.430 · Rachel Thank you. This was fun.

00:27:38.030 — 00:27:40.229 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the cam.ca and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.

The CMO role isn't dying – it's evolving. Based on anonymous interviews with marketing leaders worldwide, Confessions of a CMO reveals five distinct archetypes built to thrive under today's pressures. Join outgoing CMA President and CEO Alison Simpson, SVP, Partner and Head of Strategy at FUSE Create Jon Crowley, and Associate Creative Director, Verbal at Monigle, Krisi Packer, as they unpack the research, apply a distinctly Canadian lens and help you discover which archetype you are.

00:00:00:12 - 00:00:14:18 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect Live. Confessions of a CMO. With your host Alison Simpson and special guests Jon Crowley and Krisi Packer.

00:00:14:20 - 00:00:43:04 Alison I'm Alison Simpson, and welcome to our third ever live CMA connect podcast. We've had the pleasure of kicking off CMA marketing week since it was created, and it's wonderful to be back here again to do the same thing. Love sharing the energy in this room with all of you. And also a huge thank you to the hundreds of marketers who have joined us from across the country, especially our friends on the West Coast who are getting up extra early to be part of our CMA marketing week kick off.

00:00:43:06 - 00:01:11:11 Alison For years, we've been hearing that the CMO role is dying. We're seeing shorter tenures. We're seeing shifting titles. We're seeing shrinking budgets, fractured influence. The headlines right themselves. The death of the CMO has become far too common rallying cry on conference stages and in LinkedIn, thought pieces. But as Mark Twain very famously said, the reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.

00:01:11:13 - 00:01:45:05 Alison And that's exactly what our data shows. When CMO's lead customer centric growth company's see 1.4 times higher performance. When that leadership is fully integrated across the organization, growth doubles again. And here in Canada, our own Kantar research tells the same story. Top Canadian brands grew 10% last year, which is significantly outperforming Canada's GDP growth over the same period of 1.3%.

00:01:45:07 - 00:02:14:19 Alison So marketing leadership absolutely is not dying. It is evolving. The species survives because we adapt, and that's what we're here to explore today. Today's conversation is based on exclusive research that asks CMOs to confess what really happens behind closed doors. It's not the polished LinkedIn version of leadership. It's the unfiltered truth, the failure of forced adaptation, and the strategies that really helped ensure survival.

00:02:14:21 - 00:02:39:09 Alison What emerges from those candid conversations is a new taxonomy of marketing leadership. We have seven distinct species picking up on the evolutionary theme that dazzle shared with us, and each of the species has evolved to thrive under very different corporate pressures. Joining me today are two people uniquely positioned to unpack these insights. Krisi Packer is the co author of confessions of a CMO.

00:02:39:11 - 00:03:08:04 Alison She's also associate creative director of Verbal at Monocle. Monocle conducted dozens of anonymous interviews with CMOs around the world, from CPG to tech, from Europe to Asia Pacific, and of course, Canada. And they really captured the honest moments when leaders could finally speak freely about what it really takes to survive in the C-suite today. Jon Crowley is a partner, senior vice president and head of strategy at Fuze Create.

00:03:08:06 - 00:03:31:07 Alison Jon works directly with Canadian CMO and marketing leaders every day, and really helps them navigate the exact pressures that this research helped unveil. He's bringing the Canadian perspective to a global conversation. Well, Krisi and Jon are going to share what they discovered, including which CMO space that they identify with. And here's what makes the research really, really powerful.

00:03:31:09 - 00:03:53:22 Alison It isn't prescriptive. It doesn't tell you which species you should become. Instead, it helps us hold up a mirror and says, here's what's working. Here's how leaders like you are thriving and adapting today. So Krisi and Jon, please join me on stage. I'm looking forward to an insightful and very fun conversation. So, Krisi, let's start by giving our audience a quick field guide.

00:03:54:00 - 00:04:03:05 Alison Can you walk us through the five dominant species and their defining traits? And we'll treat this as a bit of a nature documentary. How do we spot each species out in the wild?

00:04:03:07 - 00:04:13:20 Krisi Fun fact that this field guide does have very nature documentary style intros for all these. Just great. I'm going to spare you my David Attenborough oppression though. Jon, I think you have him right? Yes.

00:04:13:22 - 00:04:14:15 Krisi So let's first

00:04:14:15 - 00:04:33:06 Krisi start with, our chief beauty officer. So I'm going to go through these really quickly. The report is incredibly in-depth. So just know that I'm going to just hit the high notes here. So that way we can you know what your appetite. So the chief Mutiny officer this is our strategic war breaker or our disruptive mutation of the chief marketing officer.

00:04:33:07 - 00:04:53:17 Krisi And really, their job is to kind of enter a place of organizations and release, you know, controlled doses of rebellion. That can look like a lot of different things. But one of the things I love to, give an example for is they will, do anything and, take action even before alignment exists. Right? And they'll use results as proof that they were right, that they should have watched it.

00:04:53:19 - 00:05:12:06 Krisi I know a lot of you might be thinking, hell, yeah, like mutiny. Burn it down. That sounds amazing. That is so reckless. But the truth is, mutiny officers are not reckless. They are highly calculated and precise about when and where to break the rules. And I think what I love about them the most is they, don't wait for that change.

00:05:12:06 - 00:05:16:00 Krisi They provoke it. And, Alison, I know your type is Mutiny Officer.

00:05:16:02 - 00:05:35:16 Alison Yeah. So thank you for describing us as not reckless. When I did the quiz, which everyone will have an opportunity to do as well, I did identify as a Chief Mutiny Officer. And what was interesting was when we've reached out to other Canadians to get a sense for the different profiles that are emerging. Chief Mutiny Officer was one of the lowest to emerge in Canada.

00:05:35:16 - 00:05:46:21 Alison So I know a little bit later Jon will talk about why that is. Is that just us polite, humble Canadians is a political pressure. But we will dig into a little bit more of how we don't have more Chief Mutiny Officers.

00:05:46:23 - 00:06:12:11 Krisi Absolutely. All right, so next we have our Chief Missing Officer. This is our invisible operator or a master of camouflage. And I think this one has the most misleading name. When you hear missing, you probably think I'm absent. Like, do they come to meetings like, what's actually going on? But they are far from absent. They're actually just stealth. I think if the apex, Chief Marketing Officer, if you will, was sort of a show boater. They're a credit share, right?

00:06:12:13 - 00:06:34:11 Krisi They are aligning leaders before a big meeting. They are embedding marketing priorities and other business functions. And, you know, they might not be in the meeting, but their fingerprints are on every single decision. And this is something that, I typed as, as well. Next, we have our Mood Officer. This is our stabilizer. They are the people that are always thinking about the tone in the room.

00:06:34:13 - 00:07:02:11 Krisi It's very vibes coded. It's very, you know, understanding that the decisions that are made are just as important as the environment that it's in. You might spot them in the wild when they're, you know, cutting well-timed jokes to cut the tension or, you know, they're absorbing all that negativity that's in the room just to move the idea forward. So very, very vibes coded. And, honestly, one of the people that really sets the tone for, the environment for ideas to be made in.

00:07:02:15 - 00:07:31:00 Krisi Next we have our Chief Meeting Officer. This is our translator. And I think this is most, closely aligned to a marketer's traditional skill set. They are really connecting the organization through narratives, right? They're bringing together, you know, finance, customer experience, all these different things and really understanding how to talk to them about marketing. And a lot of times in really convoluted situations, too, they're just stating the obvious, which I think is a very important tactic. And something beautiful about the narratives that they create.

00:07:31:00 - 00:07:37:15 Krisi They really bring people back to the human part of the organization and the mission. And, Jon, I know you tie Disney off the right?

00:07:37:17 - 00:07:54:13 Jon Which is maybe the most stereotypical thing for an advertising strategist to type out as sort of the list of options. It's, the concept of, you know, Narrator's Translation, this idea of bringing everyone along on the story. It's kind of like when you read a horoscope and you're like, oh, yeah, I do do that a lot. Maybe I am stubborn as a Taurus.

00:07:54:15 - 00:08:14:18 Krisi All right. And finally we have our momentum officer. So this is our propeller. That's always driving progress. They were born, into the depths of red tape, and they've evolved to know how to cut through it, which I think is really interesting. They move too quickly to fall into those bureaucratic traps, and they really trade theory for action, right?

00:08:14:20 - 00:08:35:09 Krisi You won't catch them, you know, debating something. They're going to be, you know, launching not one campaign, but ten campaigns. They are, moving faster than the speed of debate, which I think is very interesting. And it's not just about speed, but it's about intention as well. So if you all are interested, scan the QR code. You can do, the typing tool right now, probably takes 30s.

00:08:35:11 - 00:08:38:06 Krisi It is not a personality quiz, but it's just as fun.

00:08:38:08 - 00:08:50:14 Alison So we're going to dig into some of the global patterns. And then also the Canadian, what emerge from a Canadian perspective. So Christy, since you've released the report and you've continue these confessionals with number of CMOs, what are you seeing?

00:08:50:16 - 00:09:12:15 Krisi I think what we're seeing is that CMOs are categorizing themselves situationally and deploying the tactics strategically. Just as Jon said, you know, we can't have our horoscope saying, you know, you're gonna have a bad day to day or you don't like bad smells or something, you know? I think what's interesting about this is they are looking at the report and saying, who am I?

00:09:12:15 - 00:09:34:09 Krisi Which traits can I use a different text situation? So we had a CMO who we interviewed. She was, great. She's like, I read the whole report, I did the typing tool. But I have to tell you, when I was reading through everything, I saw myself in every single species. Right. I'm a momentum officer with my team. I'm a meaning officer of my board. And I'm a munity officer with my peers, which I think is interesting.

00:09:34:09 - 00:09:51:01 Krisi So the idea here is to, again, hold a mirror up to what we're all doing right now and really understand what our, you know, strengths are, but also where can we stretch into other species that we might not be as comfortable with? If you're a momentum officer, you're constantly in motion. Always think about the next thing. Maybe a mood officer.

00:09:51:01 - 00:09:58:02 Krisi We have to slow down and really think about the tone. That could also be something that you could be stretching into there. That's not second nature.

00:09:58:04 - 00:10:16:07 Alison Well, it's also encouraging that we as marketers are able to adapt with the environment, adapt with different business pressures as well. Now, Jon, how does the Canadian landscape differ from what Christy found globally? We talked a bit about Chief Munity Officers. Are a bit missing in action in Canada, but what other differences did you see?

00:10:16:09 - 00:10:32:05 Jon Well, a couple of things jumped out that we thought were absolutely fascinating, and we had a bit of an off the record conversation with a group of Canadian marketing leaders. One of the first ones just to call out that that lack of Chief Munity, the officers in the room, was possibly the most Canadian outcome I could have ever imagined.

00:10:32:07 - 00:10:52:23 Jon Like in in our day to day work, we work with a lot of business leaders, both within and outside Canada. And the thing that comes up consistently is people work in the Canadian marketplace are a little more conciliatory in their approach. Other markets, even ones that may be nearby, maybe a little bit more kind of aggressive and confrontational in how discussions are brought together and how things are looked at.

00:10:52:23 - 00:11:13:09 Jon But something that came through in conversations with Canadians in the overarching Canadian approach is that there is a real tendency to kind of be the right person for the room in the moment that you're in. Similar to what Krisi talked about, about that, that need for adaptability. That was very highlighted to the point where, you know, in a room of nine, Canadian CMO was talking about their role as marketing leaders and what motivated them.

00:11:13:11 - 00:11:29:22 Jon The most common point was, I can't distill my day or my work down into just one of these. I need to be all of them every day to manage the relationships internally, to manage the relationships with my customers and our partners, and to ensure that we're getting to the best outcome on a consistent basis.

00:11:30:00 - 00:11:37:11 Alison So I love the adaptability I love the Canadian politeness. What I don't love about that is does it imply risk aversion?

00:11:37:13 - 00:12:01:15 Jon So I think that's a fantastic question. I think I think the interpretation of risk aversion is one that comes up a lot in reference to Canadian marketers and really to Canadian business in general. I've heard the same criticism about Canadian manufacturing and Canadian financial institutions and so on and so forth. I don't think care about building strong relationships and keeping them steady actually implies risk aversion.

00:12:01:17 - 00:12:10:08 Jon I think it is entirely possible to have a high risk tolerance while still having a very collectivist mindset. And I think there's a tendency to confuse the two.

00:12:10:10 - 00:12:30:09 Alison Absolutely agree. And it's all about not risk for risk side. But measured risks will help our businesses go for it. So the research also reveals three really interesting paradoxes that really contribute to whether you're a successful CMO today or not. The first is adaptation beats dominant. So, Krisi, what does this mean in practical terms?

00:12:30:11 - 00:12:53:18 Krisi Annotation beats dominance means, I think, the demise of the, you know, old school command or control, you know, CMO the old days, right? It's usually about big budgets, big campaigns, owning the narrative, owning the functions, splashy things. And it's like, okay, well, that just isn't a thing anymore, right? The organizations were in a world, frankly, it's unpredictable. It's chaotic.

00:12:53:18 - 00:13:14:13 Krisi It's, you know, something you can't control. And so I think now it moves from, you know, instead of marketing owning their function, it's navigating the system in which marketing exists. Right? We had a CMO talking about, his company, and he was saying that each business unit had their own marketing department. It was part of a legacy thing with the company.

00:13:14:13 - 00:13:35:12 Krisi And as you can imagine, that is a hairy situation to be in. But what he said next really struck me, which was, this isn't a marketing problem. This is actually a change management problem. And I think that right there just incredibly stuck with me because that is the role now, right? It's not just about marketing, it's about navigating the entire system you're in.

00:13:35:14 - 00:13:40:12 Krisi And I think having that adaptability, which marketers naturally do, is a really good head start.

00:13:40:14 - 00:13:50:06 Alison Now, Jon, how are you seeing this come to life in Canada? And if I don't know if you have a specific Canadian example, you can share where that adaptability versus dominance really helped contribute to success.

00:13:50:08 - 00:14:15:18 Jon So I think this is actually a really interesting thing to look at, because I think this is actually closely tied to the be like friendly, collaborative nature that gets called out when Canadians go work in other markets. One of the discussions that actually came up in our, in our off the record room of CMOs was the success the Canadian marketing leaders have had by going elsewhere and being able to bring that collaborative collective slightly less confrontational approach to bear.

00:14:15:20 - 00:14:37:08 Jon The thing that jumped out more than anything else when, when looking at these stories about adaptability, is how many times I've seen people need to pivot from operating in an organization that's very traditionally based to one that suddenly becomes 100% digital, and something I got to see working with a lot of marketing leaders in this country over the course of Covid was just like, oh, my entire business changed last night.

00:14:37:10 - 00:15:04:15 Jon How do we continue functioning? How do we adapt to a digital first mindset to instantaneous economic instability, which really does seem like it's kind of been a watchword in Canadian marketing for the last seven years at this point. But watching people need to pick their moment to completely pivot absolutely everything they're doing while still maintaining a sense of comfort and continuity in that we're all the same in all of this together, has been something that I've seen a lot of Canadian marketers excel at over the last several years.

00:15:04:17 - 00:15:30:14 Alison Great insight. Thank you. Now the second paradox is soft about soft power builds really hard results. And everyone in this room is in marketing to advance business and to drive growth. So the report says that as the C-suite is fragmenting with more specialized roles, the person who connects it really can gain power. So, Christie, in some ways that feels a little bit counterintuitive. Shouldn't fragmentation actually dilute marketing's impact?

00:15:30:16 - 00:15:59:08 Krisi Yes, on paper it does to my fragmentation should dilute marketing's impact. But in reality it kind of creates a vacuum. Right? So today's C-suite is incredibly specialized and thus kind of fragmented, right? You have, you know, chief data officers, analytics revenues, sales growth. It's like alphabet soup up there, right? And I think it's important to understand that with each of those specialties become the silos, because they all touch a piece of the customer journey.

00:15:59:08 - 00:16:14:18 Krisi Right. But it's very fragmented. That's very splintered. So I think where marketing's power can grow is the CMO who is able to connect. That entire system is the one that gains the more power, which I think is very, very important.

00:16:14:20 - 00:16:22:20 Alison And Jon, to your earlier point, there is something uniquely Canadian about our ability to do that. So that does set off up for great success in Canada, but also globally, which is

00:16:22:20 - 00:16:23:14 Krisi great to hear.

00:16:23:16 - 00:16:44:21 Jon One of the things that we've had played back to us by multiple Canadian CMOs, because this is, you know, a smaller market from a global perspective. There are lots of hats that everyone needs to wear. And so very often that that singular marketing leader, that singular, that singular brand manager might need to be a person that is managing eight different, very distinct relationships with different partners and vendors.

00:16:44:21 - 00:17:16:00 Jon And they need to be able to shift from speaking performance marketing to speaking experiential marketing to speaking digital path to purchase and figure out how they're going to handle sales optimization, both online and in store, to having a presentation with their boss to justify what the why. The last quarter numbers played out the specific way they play. It's a lot more natural to need to speak 5 or 6 different languages in a marketing role than it is in many others, and that could often fall off the radar because It can be easy for people outside of the world of marketing to sometimes think we're the colouring things in department, rather than being the one who needs

00:17:16:00 - 00:17:22:15 Jon to figure out how everything that the brand thinks it needs to be kind of goes out into the world and connects with human beings.

00:17:22:17 - 00:17:53:00 Alison So the third paradox might actually be my favourite. Absurd friction feels traction. Now, this is the idea that when other functions don't understand marketing, when they hand us conflicting, compressed, contradictory demands that can actually lead to significantly better marketing outcomes. And I and been in a number of CMO seats myself, I absolutely had colleagues and C-suite executives that didn't understand marketing, and it can make for some painful weeks, without a doubt.

00:17:53:06 - 00:17:57:13 Alison But I love the fact that that can actually lead to better marketing. So Kristie, please elaborate.

00:17:57:15 - 00:18:20:12 Krisi Yeah, I think, you know, what's interesting about this is I'll go back to this quote that I hear from, I heard from one of the CMO, which is it's the only C-suite role where your job is kind of fielding absurdity. Right. And I think you're holding so many different contradictions. You're doing a bunch of different things. And I think, Jon, I know you want to elaborate on this a bit, too, but just the idea that sometimes our jobs are a little bit absurd and like, that's okay.

00:18:20:16 - 00:18:37:06 Krisi But kind of leaning into that actually helps you build traction instead of saying like, oh, this is this is too much, how can I then say, all right, well, I'm going to lean into this and understand that again, there's contradictions. There's all the things, but it's part of the job and I'm going to lead with it 100%.

00:18:37:06 - 00:18:59:11 Jon I think a moment that most senior marketers have ever worked with, can relate to, is needing to be the person who says the very uncomfortable thing in the room, that the average person does not care this much about brands, and therefore we need to. We need to remember that, like maybe they haven't remembered the five core pillars of our brand story when they're walking into a retail location.

00:18:59:11 - 00:19:20:11 Jon Maybe they don't have this deep understanding of the history that we're discussing. So passionately in this boardroom. Sometimes that's the most powerful moment of absurdity, the reminder that as much as our customers centric in everything we do, and we are so passionate about the work we do, lots of leaders need to be the one to remind the team around them that in the consumers lives, we are 1% of 1%.

00:19:20:11 - 00:19:36:15 Jon I mean, there was conversation earlier about the importance of going out and buying a car and the level to which we are not thinking about car brands unless we're buying a new car or unless our car is broken, can't be overstated. And that's not a statement about something being wrong with car brands. It's about any kind of deep specialization.

00:19:36:15 - 00:19:46:12 Jon There's an absurdity in loving a business and loving creating results in a space that is not top of mind for people every day. But we can't all be Beyonce, and I'm okay with that.

00:19:46:14 - 00:20:04:12 Alison So another theme that emerged from the research is positioning. Marketing really is a nervous system for an organization, which I love. So it describes us as being the nervous system. So Christie, how do we know and had a CMO what signals that marketing really is like a nervous system for the organization?

00:20:04:14 - 00:20:28:20 Krisi I think CMOs are uniquely positioned to really, you know, detect and balance, you know, pressure and change before really anybody else, especially on the C-suite. That's like an external pressure is we're always looking for understanding consumer behaviour, emerging consumer patterns, cultural shifts, and also internally, right. We can understand when an organization's risk for appetite is pretty low or a message isn't landing.

00:20:29:02 - 00:20:41:08 Krisi There's a lot of things that we're always doing, but we're not just forecasting. I think, again, we're metabolizing all of this to help the organization move forward. And I think that's why it's the nervous system of the C-suite.

00:20:41:10 - 00:20:58:20 Alison Now, Jon, you work with CMO and senior marketing leaders every day. So for the ones that you're seeing, really picking up on those signals and really acting as a nervous system for their organizations, how are they translating that to business speak and to drive engagement from their CEOs, their CFOs and their close?

00:20:58:22 - 00:21:18:07 Jon So I think this is a fascinating and important question, because even over the last five years, there's been a significant shift in what reporting structures look like in different organizations. I mean, you can no longer take it for granted that a CMO is going to be reporting directly to a CEO, and marketing is going to be treated as not a cost center, but as something that helps build the business overall.

00:21:18:10 - 00:21:35:22 Jon You're in situations where lead marketers might be reporting to a CFO that is looking at it strictly from a perspective of what are the dollars and cents going in and coming out? How do we find that? Not that attribution is the only approach, clearly, but how do we find the attribution model that justifies the expenditures we're making here?

00:21:36:00 - 00:22:01:23 Jon And so this actually led to a lot of conversation from Canadian CFOs about that need for adaptability, about that willingness to kind of change the language and the approach they're using. Because for some, it will come down to being able to show them existing research and math. Driving home the idea that x percent increase in positive brand perception should have this increase in acquisition of new customers, or in sales to existing customers or retention.

00:22:02:05 - 00:22:24:08 Jon Other people won't find those metrics meaningful unless they come specifically from your organization. And sometimes the necessity is to go into that deep modelling work to be able to show them that as much as the work that marketing does best sometimes may not be as immediately measurable as performance marketing work, it is here to grow the bottom line to generate future demand and help the business succeed.

00:22:24:09 - 00:22:54:01 Jon Unfortunately, there's no there's no magic bullet for this. Every audience is going to be slightly different in every business because they have a slightly different preexisting belief system. As to the role of marketing, the value of marketing, and how it kind of flows down the pipeline. But the one thing I've consistently never heard in any of the conversations about this is that leaning hard into the dogfight for attribution is something that's going to pay off, in that when you look across the entirety of a business, there's a lot of people claiming attribution for the same sales.

00:22:54:03 - 00:23:14:00 Jon They may not all be in the same meeting together, but I promise you that a sale being claimed based on a really fantastic performance, better ad campaign is also being claimed based on optimizations to the retail environment is also being claim based on optimizations to the user. Flow of the website is also being claimed by massive shifts in product design.

00:23:14:00 - 00:23:31:23 Jon That happened four years ago and are just now hitting market, and so leaning into those kind of a one dimensional attribution conversations does kind of make it hard to define value. Being at. You need to find a way to clearly define to leadership. The value marketing is bringing to the table that is unambiguously a benefit of marketing.

00:23:32:01 - 00:23:48:20 Alison So, Krisi, we talked a lot about and every conference you go to, you hear about how much marketing is changing, how much the role of the CMO is changing and evolving. So this might be one of the harder questions I ask you. How would you define the role of the CMO in one sentence today?

00:23:48:22 - 00:24:13:16 Krisi One sentence, might two.. can be a run on sentence. Run on sentance. I think that's helpful. CMO is our environment architects. I think despite all of the fragmentation, the chaos, the splintering, all the different things we're dealing with, they still are the people that are intentionally setting the tone for brand and marketing and ideas and teams to really thrive.

00:24:13:18 - 00:24:26:03 Alison Now, we also have there's so many misperceptions around the CMO role around marketing. So, Jon, if you could on stage today retire one misconception about a CMO role forever,

00:24:26:06 - 00:24:27:08 Krisi what would it be?

00:24:27:10 - 00:24:56:16 Jon I would have to lean into the artificial barrier between brand marketing and performance marketing, and we can use different words. AD James Herman, who works with the, the World Advertising Research Council, actually has this really great breakdown of, capturing existing demand versus creating future demand. There is a tendency to completely discount the entire value of marketing in the work of a CMO, frankly, in helping build future demand and create future customers for business.

00:24:56:18 - 00:25:16:04 Jon At times that can be completely ignored, as though it's hypothetical and not essential to future success and growth. And so I think I would basically say, like if I was going to change anything about the perception of the role, any myth and make it go away would be the idea that you are somehow choosing between brand building and moneymaking, as though there is any reason to build a brand that is not about making money.

00:25:16:06 - 00:25:41:15 Alison Let's officially retire that one, because I couldn't agree more. So, Krisi, you had the pleasure of having anonymous conversations with CMO around the world where they could be very forthcoming about the challenges, and I'm sure there were some very disarming, surprising insights that were shared. So without giving away your source, obviously, what is the most unexpectedly human confession you heard in all of your interviews?

00:25:41:17 - 00:26:02:16 Krisi Well, I think I'll just start by saying that the entire report is incredibly human and disarmingly human. Because, you know, when we set out to create this report, we could have easily made a report that said, okay, what are your 2026 priorities? What's keeping you up at night? I, you know, like all these different things, but instead we were we wanted to do this under the cloak of anonymity.

00:26:02:16 - 00:26:25:07 Krisi Right. Because we find the best conversations happen before the mic turns on an interview. And that's when you hear the coolest things and really what people are actually going through. So the way we set this up was really important in the idea of having these human answers and really empowering, close and great ways. And if I had to pick one, I would say I really resonated with this CMO who talked about the role of subjectivity.

00:26:25:07 - 00:26:41:21 Krisi Right. Subjectivity is woven into our roles, unfortunately. And so that naturally opens the door for everyone, and I mean everyone to weigh in on what we do. But instead of saying like, oh God, this sucks, how do we change this? She really just said, listen, this is not a flaw of the role. This is part of the role.

00:26:41:21 - 00:26:57:15 Krisi And this is something that CMOs have to learn how to navigate no matter what I think, especially as a person on the creative marketing side, I really loved hearing that empowerment because it's important to understand how to do this. It's not a woe is me. Why is this happening? Why is everyone wasn't the CFO, not me kind of thing.

00:26:57:20 - 00:27:02:20 Krisi It's more like this is part of the role and we have to learn how to navigate it. And this is what we do every day.

00:27:02:22 - 00:27:10:10 Alison Now, Jon, you've also had a lot of off mike conversations. So what's one insight that was shared with you that doesn't typically show up in a marketing report?

00:27:10:12 - 00:27:25:08 Jon I think maybe my favourite single thing I've heard while talking to people about this report and this research, was when someone played back to us that this is really interesting. They're not 100% sure they want to make it this explicit, how they get their boss to do what they want.

00:27:25:10 - 00:27:47:16 Alison So before we open it up for audience Q&A, there is a fascinating opportunity that comes out of this research that I wanted to share. While we've sort of typecast CMAs with this study as one species, the reality is we none of us are just one species. We are very adaptable, based on who were meeting with what we're doing, the stage of the business, the company we work with.

00:27:47:18 - 00:28:10:08 Alison So the fact that we can shift and based on market size, organizational maturity, that actually makes CMO incredibly well positioned, I would argue, the best positioned in the C-suite to help organizations manage through change. It's something we've been doing throughout our career. So how can we turn this adaptability into our superpower? And Christy, why don't you kick us off?

00:28:10:10 - 00:28:32:14 Krisi I said this before, but I think, you know, we are inherently adaptable, right? It's just really taking it to another level. It's not just being adaptable in marketing, being adaptable across the entire organization. Again, I talked about this before too, but just the idea of absorbing contradiction. There's a lot of it in the role and really being able to move through that in different ways, I think is really important piece of this.

00:28:32:16 - 00:28:33:21 Alison And Jon, what about you?

00:28:33:23 - 00:28:56:13 Jon I mean, I think the most exciting thing about adaptability and adaptability framed as a superpower is, and I'm not sure if anyone's noticed, but there's a small amount of chaos going on in the world these days. And so to me, it's really affirming that in times of uncertainty, in times of a lot of change, we've kind of seen this framing of the power of adaptability in the way it feeds into your ability to thrive in changing circumstances.

00:28:56:13 - 00:29:10:13 Jon And so I think the fact that that's so baked into the role, and from what we've heard from Canadian marketing leaders so baked into their understanding of the role, it's very interesting to talk to a large group of people and come away with the feeling that they're just really well built for chaos.

00:29:10:15 - 00:29:31:01 Alison Well built for chaos is officially our superpower. So we're now going to open it up for an audience Q&A. We have members of the CMA with mics that are with us in the room today. So raise your hand if you have a question. And for the hundreds of marketers joining us virtually across the country, please post your question in the chat and we will share it here.

00:29:31:03 - 00:29:44:14 Alison So it's always the first brave soul to raise their hand and ask a question. Now we have a very brave soul at the back. Thank you Dean. So I'm curious about, this the species. Could your species be based on your organization? Could you change as a

00:29:44:14 - 00:30:06:07 Krisi CMO depending on where you land? So I think, the species and the traits within it, really depend on where you're at your organization, who you are, who you're talking to. You know, who your team is. Again, we're not typecasting, as, you know, one species or, you know, like, Jon's a Taurus, right? It's like, what are your sun, moon and rising right.

00:30:06:09 - 00:30:07:15 Krisi Bring it back to astrology.

00:30:07:17 - 00:30:24:04 Jon I love it. I will say that was actually one of the things that came up from a lot of people that we spoke to in the Canadian market specifically that, well, you know what? My last job, I really operated more in this way, but in my current role, the environment and the tone of where I'm working really leans me more in this direction.

00:30:24:04 - 00:30:34:05 Jon So I do think that's yet another example of that adaptability we were talking about. But definitely much like evolution, the constraints of your environment will determine what specific attributes help the next generation thrive.

00:30:34:07 - 00:30:37:09 Alison Thanks for kicking off for Q&A. I'll open it up for the next question.

00:30:37:13 - 00:30:47:03 Krisi I'm also curious, while we're waiting, if you did the typing tool, who did they type as a mutiny officer? Oh love it. Missing meaning.

00:30:47:05 - 00:30:48:08 Alison Mood.

00:30:48:10 - 00:30:53:00 Krisi Ooh, I like the vibes. All right. Momentum.

00:30:53:02 - 00:30:53:18 Alison Interesting.

00:30:53:21 - 00:30:56:18 Jon Were not telling us because their direct manager is.

00:30:56:18 - 00:31:01:09 Krisi Yeah. No no no no no no. Well we'll talk afterwards.

00:31:01:11 - 00:31:05:13 Alison Now, Krisi, how typical was that compared to when you do the same thing globally?

00:31:05:18 - 00:31:27:12 Krisi Yeah, I mean, we we see a lot of meaning officers right now, which is again, like the traditional skill set. And it really is taking it to a new level. And I will say, you know, you mentioned in Canada there's not a lot of muting officers. And we're not we're not seeing a ton either in general. But I think the more and more people dig into the report and the more they think about the different situations they're in and they're like, oh yeah, this is where I mutiny.

00:31:27:12 - 00:31:28:15 Krisi You know?

00:31:28:17 - 00:31:40:10 Alison Now we have our first question from online. So, Krisi, you're sharing this research in a rapidly changing market. How are you seeing the findings evolve as the role and landscape continue to shift?

00:31:40:12 - 00:31:55:01 Krisi Yeah, it was the hope of the report. This is not just an artifact. In time, we're going to be we're in a second phase of interviews and trying to you know, open up the research a bit more. And I'm honestly curious. We we didn't cover this, but there's two emerging species that are in this as well. And one of them is the mosaic officer

00:31:55:01 - 00:32:19:10 Krisi And this one's all about if the meaning officer is about, connecting organizations through narratives, this one is actually connecting them, you know, physically. Right. Especially with emerging technology like AI, different martech stacks, all these different things. It can cause a lot of tech silos, actually, in, organizations. So the mosaic officer, is the red thread for that.

00:32:19:10 - 00:32:32:11 Krisi And it's really great in a post-merger environment, too. So now that we're seeing a lot more of, you know, people, typing themselves and also saying, okay, this is something I'm interested in, and this is also something that's emerging, I think in the market, I'm curious to see how those emerging species, evolve over the year.

00:32:32:15 - 00:32:49:07 Alison And the other questions from our in-person audience. Okay, so we have a braver virtual audience. So they've come back with another question. And this one is for both of you. If a marketer listening today wants to consciously develop traits from a species that they don't naturally embody, where should they start?

00:32:49:09 - 00:33:08:16 Jon Well, I obviously would start by reading the report in extreme detail and trying to internalize all the different learnings, because we do think it's frankly a valuable and really kind of fascinating look at the role. But I would say that, from what I've seen, from what I've experienced personally, this is an industry that has really thrived on a lot of direct mentorship.

00:33:08:18 - 00:33:30:12 Jon And broadening your influences can be a deeply valuable thing. Similar to broadening, I mean, this is this is a little bit more game advice, but broadening where you've actually worked in that direct experience, the environments you connect with, the people you work with will shape the toolkit you have, inevitably. And so there's a certain level of actively trying to learn new skills and import them into different situations.

00:33:30:12 - 00:33:40:19 Jon That's plausible, but I do find that people who most naturally shift between different approaches and patterns of behavior do have hands on experience operating in environments where those are the norms.

00:33:40:21 - 00:33:42:10 Alison And Kristy, I'd love your thoughts on that too.

00:33:42:16 - 00:34:03:03 Krisi Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it's also just, you know, understanding that, like Jon said, this is a very detailed report. You don't have to use every single tactic. But perhaps, you know, you're looking again to be, you know, say a momentum officer. See like think about the situations that that could be useful and. Right? And then also think about the people you're working with and you know, try out a couple tactics every now and then.

00:34:03:03 - 00:34:21:07 Krisi You know, you never know when it can work or land, and you never know when you can be like, that's just not me. I'm not doing that, you know? And that's okay. Right? It's important to understand, again, this is sort of a collective report to kind of showcase all the different types of behaviors that CMAs are exhibiting right now to really thrive in the C-suite.

00:34:21:09 - 00:34:23:19 Krisi So I think, you know, just try it out.

00:34:23:21 - 00:34:39:00 Jon It's going to make a ton of sense that the the report kind of calls out signature moves for each group. There's two great exercises, which is the one would be a great time for the signature move. And then the second one, be one would be a time I should never, for career limiting reasons, consider using this signature move.

00:34:39:02 - 00:35:03:16 Alison So open it up one last time for our in-person audience to see if there's any question. So we will wrap with one more question from our virtual audience. So, Christy, the report talks about how the pressures that once hunted only CMO and now stalk the entire C-suite. So which of these adaptive traits, translation timing, emotional acuity do you think other C-suite executives need in order to develop?

00:35:03:18 - 00:35:17:13 Krisi I would say translating, for sure. I think CMOs are naturally good at this. We are constantly doing it all the time across the C-suite and across the organization. And, you know, soon, I think the rest of the C-suite is going to have to catch up and do that as well. Jon, what do you think?

00:35:17:15 - 00:35:43:07 Jon I'm actually 100% aligned on translation being really essential. One of the things that I think is kind of fascinating is we've, from a professionalization standpoint, gone from businesses being primarily led by experts in those specific businesses to being primarily led by experts in business. And so suddenly translation is actually a core part of understanding what it is your business does to make money beyond operational efficiency and smart financial management.

00:35:43:09 - 00:35:49:12 Jon And so the more that skill set becomes universal, I think the better businesses are going to be in everything they do, not just marketing.

00:35:49:14 - 00:36:05:19 Alison Thank you both. Now, before I let you go, I and I may connect podcast by asking my very talented guests to share one piece of advice that you would share for our audience, joining us today who aspire to follow in your footsteps. And, Jon, why don't you kick us off?

00:36:05:21 - 00:36:27:10 Jon Ooh. If I had to offer a single piece of advice, it would be working very hard on finding the correct balance between arrogance and insecurity. Very often, people lean too far in one direction and start thinking, I can't do this, and this is impossible for me, and that's terrible for you. Or they lean too far in the other direction, and they think I am naturally brilliant and more capable than anyone else.

00:36:27:12 - 00:36:43:15 Jon And why would I not just go do whatever I want to do? And both of those paths lead to disaster. But if you can find the right point of, I may not know how to do this, but, you know, there's no reason anyone is naturally better than me being able to figure it out. You can get there pretty much anything.

00:36:43:17 - 00:36:55:22 Alison I couldn't agree more, especially in today's reality. If we are not constantly learning, not just as marketers, but as business people, we are going to be left behind at remarkable speed. So, Christy, what advice for you sharing today?

00:36:56:00 - 00:37:15:07 Krisi I think for me and also just, the CMO that we talked to in the report, I mean, the way everyone gets to marketing is not linear whatsoever. It's just important to think about what fuels you. Right? Like I started my career in journalism and public radio. Then I moved into communications, PR, digital marketing and now branding.

00:37:15:07 - 00:37:21:10 Krisi And so the red thread for that for me is storytelling. So I think it's just really important to think about what makes you, you know, tick and what fuels you.

00:37:21:12 - 00:37:37:18 Alison Great advice to you both. And thank you very much for being here in person today. Thoroughly enjoyed with the conversation, and I want to thank everyone for joining us in our audience today. And hundreds of marketers from across the country who are joining us in making our third ever CMA Connect Live podcast a success. With that, I will turn it back to Esther.

00:37:37:19 - 00:37:42:21 Alison Thank you

00:37:42:23 - 00:37:55:13 Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CM Makkah and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing, thought leadership, news and industry trends.

In this episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, outgoing President and CEO of the CMA, sits down with Esther Benzie, the newly appointed President and CEO of the CMA, to discuss the leadership transition and the future of Canada's marketing profession. Esther shares insights from her 30-year career at P&G, CIBC and the Association of Canadian Advertisers and reveals why the opportunity to help marketing "regain its swagger" made accepting this role a resounding yes. The discussion covers groundbreaking data from the CMA Marketing Impact Study, which proves marketing's $130.9 billion economic contribution, and previews the third annual CMA Marketing Week, expanding nationally from Toronto and Vancouver to Montreal.

00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:23.640 — 00:02:43.890 · Alison Leadership transitions are really rare moments that can reveal what an organization truly values. Today's episode is one of those amazing moments. So after announcing my retirement plans last September, the CMA Board of Directors launched a very thoughtful search to find the leader who could really build on our association's strong momentum.

That search, I'm happy to say, led them to Esther Benzie, and I absolutely could not be more excited about what that means for Canadian marketers. Over the past few years, the CMA team has accomplished a lot together. We've got a lot to be proud of. Our membership has grown to over 460 organizations, we have welcomed more than 100 new members since 2023, and the number of chartered marketers has more than doubled.

We also launched the CMA Marketing Week, which has become a national gathering drawing thousands of marketers and earned best in class satisfaction ratings last year, and through the Digital Marketing Skills Canada program, we have upscaled more than 2100 marketers from underrepresented groups across the country and supported 700 SMEs with top marketing talent.

Those are just a few examples. So clearly the foundation is very strong and now it's about building on that great momentum. That's why Esther was the right choice. She brings over 30 years of marketing leadership, starting with Procter and Gamble, where she built her expertise in brand building and consumer insights.

She then went on to lead transformational work as Vice President of Brand and Advertising at CIBC, leading the relaunch of their CIBC brand and the Ambitions Made Real platform. Esther also brings association experience from her time as Acting President and CEO of the Association of Canadian Advertisers, which gives her a really practical understanding of what it takes to serve a membership organization.

Esther officially started on March 9th and has absolutely hit the ground running. In her first few weeks, she unveiled her groundbreaking research that quantifies, for the first time ever, the massive economic impact marketing has on Canada. The numbers are staggering and give every marketer in this country the data they need to really further prove our strategic value.

I'm supporting Esther through the end of May to ensure a seamless transition, so this conversation feels particularly special. We'll talk about why she wanted the role, what she's learned in her first 60 days, the powerful findings from the CMA Marketing Impact study, and what's ahead as we head into the third annual CMA Marketing Week next week.

Esther, welcome to CMA Connect. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

00:02:44.050 — 00:02:55.610 · Esther Thank you so much, Alison. Transitioning alongside you these past weeks has been amazing, and it's great to see the incredible position that you're leaving the CMA in.

00:02:55.730 — 00:03:21.070 · Alison Well thank you. It's absolutely been a team effort with everyone at the CMA and our absolutely incredible Membership and Board. Esther, in my intro, I shared a bit about the incredible career that you've had, leading marketing for some of the world's most recognized brands and also working on the service provider side of our profession.

So I know our listeners will want to learn what attracted you to the CMA and why does leading Canada's largest marketing association feel like the right next chapter for you?

00:03:21.110 — 00:06:13.220 · Esther When I first saw this opportunity, everything just clicked. As I said in one of my interviews on the announcement, it just felt like a really easy "yes" for me. This job brought together my 30 years of building brands, of understanding consumers, of leading teams through transformation. At my P&G experience, I did learn the discipline of brand building.

There, it was all about getting to know the consumer and understanding them, the power of strategy, making really good choices and understanding what you were trying to communicate, as well as the importance of execution and really being thoughtful on what you were executing in the market. And we described it as "the who, the what and the how" in some ways.

But it was an important legacy for me. And I took that experience to CIBC. As you mentioned in the intro, a big project I had there was modernizing the brand through the restage that touched all 55,000 employees and 8 million clients globally. So I believe that the experiences I've had in those big brands, as well as through my consulting, brought together my love of all aspects of marketing and delivering on consumer needs, driving business growth.

So when I heard about this job, there were actually a couple of signs that made this the right next chapter, which I don't even know if I've told you all of them. Alison. The first was last summer. I was speaking to a colleague and I was telling her that my daughter had a summer job in advertising at an ad agency, and she was a VP of Marketing herself, and she said, "Wow, do you really want her to get into marketing?"

Like, and she said it like it was something that we shouldn't be encouraging our, our young people to get into. And it made me realize that our profession had an opportunity to regain its swagger. And, you know, at the same time, I was hearing consulting clients and reading about marketing and hearing about all the challenges that they were facing and how they wanted to have a greater impact in the C-suite, and how to think about AI and how to do more with less.

And, you know, you wrap that with all the news that was coming about the tariffs and political uncertainty and the need for Canada to be more productive and more innovative, and all that led me to say, wow, you know, we need to get that credibility back, that pride back. And it felt like our profession had been in a bit of a fight for its seat at the table.

And so when I saw the CMA opportunity, that this was so much of the belief of the CMA, it just really felt like the right place to be to be able to have an impact on all those areas.

00:06:13.260 — 00:07:07.640 · Alison You hadn't shared the story about your daughter's experience before. It's great that she was excited about advertising. It's disappointing that your friend in the profession wasn't advocating on our behalf. And you're so right that getting our swagger back, being more proud and not being the typical humble Canadians.

Being much more proud about what we as a profession deliver to our country's ability to innovate, to businesses and brands' ability to grow. We make tangible, mission critical changes and impacts to our country's GDP, to business growth, brand growth, and certainly to social enterprises as well. And a little bit later in the episode, we'll get into the marketing impact study, but that provides some really important fuel for everyone in our profession to walk a little taller and to really be able to advocate on how mission critical marketing is in Canada.

00:07:07.720 — 00:07:26.680 · Esther Yeah, to be honest, I think my friend's comment was as much a reflection of just a bit of jadedness that people are feeling because a lot of marketers are being asked to do so much more than they were before. And so I think it was a little bit of that. And the fun fact is, her daughter is now going to work in an ad agency this summer too.

So maybe I convinced her.

00:07:27.200 — 00:07:27.960 · Alison Well done.

00:07:27.960 — 00:07:47.760 · Esther But, you know, it was just a bit surprising at first. We think of ourselves as being such big advocates. You and I have both had long careers in marketing and have really loved it. And, you know, I wish that for the future generation as well, to have that kind of passion for what we do. Because in my mind, it's such an interesting career.

00:07:48.000 — 00:08:27.790 · Alison I couldn't agree more and I am going to encourage you and our listeners for the interactions I have with younger marketers in our profession. We have an Aim Advisory board that brings together 15 junior marketers across our profession and our member network, and they are so talented. They are so committed.

They are absolutely passionate about their role in the importance of marketing. So I do think the future is bright, and maybe some of us older will become a little bit more jaded. Thankfully, the younger generations have not.

00:08:19 - Esther That's great, I agree.

Alison We've shared a bit about this, but how else has your experience shaped your thinking about what the CMA should be doing for its members?

00:08:27.830 — 00:11:17.450 · Esther Well, my experience in previous roles was in companies that really reflect our member base. So I had client side experience at a multinational and a Canadian-based company. As you mentioned, I worked at an association and I've been a vendor as well. And so I think those experiences have really shaped how I think about member value and what members are looking for when they join the association.

So when I was the member, I valued community, I valued thought leadership, and I always felt like the CMA was a bit of a signal through the noise. There was so much information coming at me constantly, and I found the CMA so helpful in providing resources and that community of marketers that I could speak to about all my issues.

So that was my experience as a member. I think with the association, what I saw was a bit of those inner workings of the association and that it's such a tough balance, and I commend you for doing it for the last few years, of being able to serve such diverse member needs while staying relevant, and the importance of the advocacy work that happens behind the scenes.

And I think what both those experiences taught me is as an association, the CMA needs to operate at multiple altitudes simultaneously for different audiences, you know. But by that, I mean we're day to day with practical resources, right? Whether it's our AI playbooks or some of our certificate courses or some of our how to guides.

But we also need to be 3000ft and thinking in the future when we think of influencing policy and, you know, some of the research that has been identified and all that we have to do to to maintain the ethical standards of marketing. So I think all those experiences help me realize that while we have three great pillars of community influence and standards of excellence, different people from our member organizations need different levels of support.

00:10:42 - Esther And whether that's, you know, somebody who's a junior marketer or a CMO, they need different levels of support at different points in their career, and I think the CMA does an amazing job of delivering against that. I just want us to be that indispensable partner that makes every Canadian marketer more effective, more confident and offer more value to their organization, because that's what's going to keep us as an association, thriving, as well as keeping marketing as a profession thriving.

00:11:17.850 — 00:11:31.410 · Alison I couldn't agree more on being almost four years in the role. One thing I can vouch for is it's an incredibly exciting role. Time flies by and you will never, ever be bored. Coming up on 60 days, you're already sensing that.

00:11:31.410 — 00:11:53.200 · Esther I'm already sensing that. And it's so fun to get out. And yes, we spent a lot of time talking and listening to our members and what their needs are. And there's just so much energy out there for the profession and a desire to have an impact. And it's been just really, really exciting to hear it all.

00:11:53.240 — 00:12:13.320 · Alison And those conversations really fuel where we can identify areas that we can improve upon, where we see gaps that we can help fill from a profession's perspective as well. So building on that, you're almost at your first 60 days with the CMA. What have been some of your biggest observations or surprises that you've gotten about the Association and our Members so far?

00:12:13.440 — 00:14:11.200 · Esther Well, these first few weeks have been and they've been so exciting in the best possible way. I would say my biggest observation is just how much of a genuine connection people have for the CMA, and how invested they all are in its success and in marketing success. And it's true of our staff, our Members, our Chartered Marketers, and even our Board.

You know, as you know, I since I arrived, I met with every employee and they they speak so highly of the culture that has been created And a lot of that is a tribute to you, Alison, and the and the leadership team. When I got appointed, I received so many unsolicited notes from members, and all the comments just made me realize how important the CMA has been to them.

And I know I shared some of them with you, but just some really beautiful remarks about how important the CMA is and how passionate they are, how when they have to make choices on their time, this is where they want to spend it. And I think that's been a real surprise. And it's true. I was at an event today, and I got comments about how much our members value the community and connections.

So, you know, I think it's throughout those different groups, we hear it and and even when we talk to our Board, who are some of Canada's top senior marketing leaders, they're choosing to give up their precious volunteer time to work with us because they believe in the mission and the need to future-proof the profession so strongly.

So I think that's been the biggest surprise. It's just that collective pride and passion that I see throughout the different stakeholders. And it's really not something you can manufacture. It's the result of years of the CMA showing up consistently.

00:14:11.760 — 00:14:31.680 · Alison So incredibly gratifying to hear. The team has worked and continues to work incredibly hard. And our goal is to achieve exactly what you have described. So to hear that you are getting that unprompted feedback across the membership is very, very much appreciated. So thank you and thank you to the members for reaching out.

00:14:31.720 — 00:14:59.390 · Esther And I hope that they continue to reach out. I know that for me, that's such a great learning. We talked to some of our Chartered Marketers yesterday and the feedback from them was incredible. I loved hearing things like, I'm in more rooms now. I'm a part of more conversations because I'm a Chartered Marketer, or I've now had the ability to get a promotion or a raise because I had my Charter Marketer.

I mean, those that level of pride is pretty amazing.

00:14:59.550 — 00:15:14.470 · Alison And the doors and opportunities that's opening as Canada's only professional marketing designation is resonating, which is great to hear. So I know it's still early days, but as you look ahead, what's a new opportunity or priority that you've identified that you think we should be tackling?

00:15:14.470 — 00:17:44.900 · Esther So I've been thinking about this a lot from my listening and learning tour, and as I'm still listening, this will continue to evolve. But the opportunity I see right now is reaching more marketers across Canada. Uh, you know, the study that S ignal 49 conducted showing the marketing impact in Canada, it revealed that more than 861,000 jobs in this country are marketing jobs.

So that's 1 in 25. And the CMA is the largest marketing association. And yet our members only represent about 40,000 marketers. That's just 5% of the entire community. And as much as we advocate and have impact on the broader community, even if they're not a member, uh, I still think there's a huge upside to be that catalyst to help marketers thrive today and in the future by increasing our presence across the country and having an impact on more marketers so that they can benefit from all the amazing work that the CMA is doing.

Just to give you a couple of examples, within the recent Ipsos survey that suggested only about a third of marketers have any formal training, we have the Chartered Marketer program, digital certificates, a robust learning plan. Those are all things that all marketers should take advantage of, and I want more members to be able to see that there's a new privacy bill this summer, and we need to represent business and consumer in the ethical use of data and AI.

That's another place where we can have such a huge impact. And finally, marketers tell us how much they want to connect with each other. And we have events, councils and committees where that sharing can happen. So there's a huge opportunity for us to reach more marketers across Canada. Have every CMO walk into their boardroom with data that proves marketing is an economic growth engine, and that we have every young marketer seeing that they have a clear path to professional growth, and that we have every business seeing that great marketing is a core growth driver.

00:17:45.300 — 00:18:03.140 · Alison You've identified such an important area with every new member organization that joins, it means we can do even more to advance and represent the marketing profession. And it also means that even more marketers are going to be benefiting from everything that we're already doing. So I love that as a one of your early priorities.

00:18:03.260 — 00:18:29.780 · Esther Yeah. And, you know, as the study showed, like there's so many marketers outside of Ontario and in other communities. And, you know, I was amazed by the stat that we have Chartered Marketers in every province and territory. And so we know that the great work that the CMA is doing can touch the Canadian economy across the board.

And I think that's a that's an exciting opportunity.

00:18:30.060 — 00:19:25.200 · Alison Absolutely. Now you've mentioned a bit about the marketing impact study, and I'd love to dig into that even more deeply. I know our listeners are definitely going to be interested. So we announced the study shortly after you joined in March, and it was a partnership between the CMA and the Conference Board of Canada, which is now known as Signal 49, and this was the first comprehensive look at marketing's economic contribution to Canada.

And as I mentioned in the opening, the findings are so incredibly important and compelling. So marketing activity generated 130.9 billion in GDP in 2024, which means marketing is rivalling sectors like retail trade, oil and gas. And that's often not the understanding. So to now have the data to back that up is really important.

So as the voice of this research to the media and our members, why do you think the study matters so much for our profession?

00:19:25.240 — 00:21:06.530 · Esther Well, Alison, you mentioned some of the key stats, but I think the first piece of the report is, it's so validating for all of our marketers, right? Because it demonstrates not only do we have that economic impact, that we represent 4.6% of our of our national GDP. Um, you know, I mentioned the 1 in 25 jobs. Those are those are stats that can help us work with policymakers and the government to demonstrate the value that we are having as a profession.

But I think the other pieces that are important in this are some of the predictive, performance oriented parts of the conversation. You know, for decades, marketers feel like we've been on the defensive, right? You know, we're a cost. We need to defend that. We're actually growing the business. What this does is it flips the script.

It shows that we are a mission critical part of the Canadian economy, and that we are a growth engine for businesses. And I loved all the stats in that report that showed that if you have stronger brand strategies, you're going to deliver higher sales, or if you have better marketing, you're going to get better profit.

I mean, there's just a lot in there that really showed that great marketing delivers great business results, and I think it gives us the right to be at the table and have the discussions on how we're going to innovate and grow the business so that Canada benefits.

00:21:06.970 — 00:21:42.670 · Alison You're so right. And you and I share a passion of how important marketing is as a powerful driver of business performance across the country. We know the organizations that invest in strong brand and marketing consistently outperform their peers. You talked about delivering higher sales, stronger operating income, and certainly greater resilience during periods of economic uncertainty.

We will certainly include a link to the full report in the podcast notes, but I know our listeners would love it if you could share a couple of the data points that really bring to life what a powerful driver of business performance marketing is in Canada.

00:21:42.710 — 00:22:36.350 · Esther Certainly within that study, some of the performance evidence was those companies that had award winning marketing saw 48% more in operating income. They saw 37% more in sales growth. I mean, that's some really great results. There was also information around the impact of personalization as well as the impact of loyalty programs.

So all of those are within the study. Companies that were the top brands in Canada grew by 10%, whereas GDP growth was 1.3%. So top brands outperformed GDP growth. So there were some really amazing statistics within the study that just demonstrated the performance evidence that we need to be able to have those discussions at the C-suite.

00:22:36.390 — 00:23:06.290 · Alison That's great, Esther, thank you very much for sharing. I know that our listeners will be even more intrigued to take the time to read through more of the details that they can find in the full study. Now we're just days away from our third annual CMA Marketing Week, which kicks off on May 4th and runs through the eighth.

And this was one of the initiatives that I launched when I was leading the CMA, and I'm super excited to see how it's evolved. This year's theme is Marketing Through the Lens of Tomorrow, and I'd love you to share. What are some of the highlights that you're most looking forward to?

00:23:06.370 — 00:25:12.940 · Esther Well, the energy for Marketing Week is certainly high. And what I love about what the team has done this year is the fact that we've really leaned in to make it truly national. So we'll be in Montreal for the first time on May 5th. The flagship CMA Future Proof is in Toronto on May 6th, and we're going into Vancouver on May 7th.

So each city is getting programming that reflects their unique marketing community. Yet it's all tied together under the theme of Marketing Through the Lens of Tomorrow. So there's going to be some great speakers. There's going to be some amazing panels. Just to give you a little bit of a flavour. In Montreal, there's going to be The Creative Autopsy: Learning What Didn't Land, which I think will be really interesting because we don't talk about failures as much.

In Toronto, I'm really looking forward to hearing Tucker Bryant. He's a professional poet and innovation strategist, and he's worked with Stanford, he's worked with Google. And his keynote is called Using the Poets Perspective to Help Leaders Rethink Innovation. And if you think about where we're at now, where we've got so much data and AI and process and everything else, I think having someone who can remind us about the power of language and human insight is going to be really refreshing.

And then in Vancouver, we have Jill Schnarr from Telus, and I was actually speaking to a Telus member at an event today, and they were telling me about Jill and her experience and she's just going to be fantastic. So all those speakers will be amazing as well as the different breakouts. I think what also makes our events really special is just the conversations that happen throughout the day.

And you know, I know when I was a member coming to the events, that's what I really enjoyed as well, is just the chance to catch up with peers, to talk about my challenges, to have other people share what they were experiencing. There's real magic in that.

00:25:12.980 — 00:25:30.380 · Alison Absolutely. So now I'm going to switch gears a little bit, and I have a few questions around your leadership philosophy and vision. So throughout your career, you've led some major initiatives and stepped into certainly new leadership roles. So what's your approach to building on existing momentum while you're still pushing an organization forward?

00:25:30.420 — 00:27:45.930 · Esther You know, it's a it's a great question and it's an interesting view because it's it's actually how I went in to interviewing for this job was to think about what were we doing really, really well as an association. And when the Board asked me about where we should go in the future, I started with where we were and how well we had done in certain areas.

And I think that that the key is honouring what's working while staying curious about what could be better. And I believe that you don't want to tear down a really strong foundation. You build on it strategically. So, you know, I spent a lot of my first weeks really listening and talking to people and asking what they loved and what they were happy with and why were they happy with different elements.

And I think that's giving me a good sense of what are the things that you absolutely can't change and don't want to change. And what I discovered were things like the practical training, the advocacy that we do, the community building, all of these pillars were worth protecting. You know, as we've talked on building on momentum, as I've mentioned, I want to scale the impact.

And I think there's that opportunity both with the 1 in 25 marketers around the country as well as within our member organizations. I think we have an opportunity to make sure that everyone within an organization knows about the CMA and knows what they can do. Um, so I think that's an important piece.

So all those are are areas to to build on existing momentum. We got to listen. And we've got to keep the things that people love while also looking for those places where there's opportunity to, to do even more. The final comment I'd make on change is that it's going to be really important to bring everyone else along on the journey, and change can happen when the teams feel ownership and excitement.

So that's going to be really important with any changes and builds that we make at the CMA, is making sure that all of our stakeholders feel like they're a part of it too. So I'm definitely excited to invite input to explain what I'm thinking, to get builds, to change, to evolve as we go along.

00:27:45.970 — 00:27:58.970 · Alison That's great. I love the highly collaborative approach. It will definitely pay off in spades. Now, you also have been deeply committed to leadership development throughout your career. So how does that commitment show up in your vision for the CMA and in supporting Canadian marketers?

00:27:59.010 — 00:29:55.490 · Esther So from a leadership development standpoint, leadership has been really central to my career. I think at P&G, it was a core part of how we were evaluated as leaders, how we developed others. At CIBC, I also spent a lot of time mentoring emerging leaders, and was struck by how much people wanted to have honest conversations about what leadership looked like there.

We used to talk about leadership, as you know, the importance of envisioning, of inspiring, of driving, of all those skills and post CIBC, leadership development has been so important to me. I actually trained as an executive coach, which was really helpful in identifying how people can build their own leadership by asking those right questions and helping them explore the systems that they're operating in and the systems that influence us as a coach.

You know, but I think the CMA is uniquely positioned in terms of marketing leadership. We can create learning experiences that build capability. And we have programs where marketers are working through real challenges together, right, through things like the Chartered Marketer program, where you've got more of that approach of, you know, a lot of people were talking about their capstone projects.

We have leadership capability through our mentorship and matching. And I think that's a really important piece of marketing leadership as well. You know, I want the CMA to deliver great marketing leadership, thinking and training. But I also want us to model great leadership. And I think you've done that really well in building the team.

You know, we've got to be a great place to work. We've got to invest in our team's development and we've got to be, you know, the best possible leaders that we can be.

00:29:55.650 — 00:30:15.330 · Alison Well said. Now before becoming our new President and CEO, you were absolutely an engaged CMA member. So what would you recommend for the marketing professionals who are listening, who really want to make the most of what the CMA has to offer and to really stay ahead in our never-sleeping, always rapidly-evolving profession.

00:30:15.370 — 00:31:16.400 · Esther You know, there's so many people have said this, but the more you put into the CMA, the more you get out of the CMA. So I want every marketer to feel that we're here for them and that no matter where they are in the country, no matter where they are in their career journey and no matter what industry they're in.

But the people who get the most out of it are those who get involved beyond just consuming content. So we have amazing content and absolutely we want people to use that. But we also want people to come to events like Marketing Week, to join a CMA Council and Committee so that they can talk to their peers and get that benefit.

And I think the value compounds when you actively engage. So for me, I was a Chartered Marketer, I was a judge on marketing awards. I joined a council, I came to lots of events, and each of those brought different pieces of the CMA value to me. And I think that that's what's really important for people.

00:31:16.880 — 00:31:28.320 · Alison I absolutely agree. So before I let you get on with what I know is a very busy day, I would love you to share one piece of career advice for our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps.

00:31:28.680 — 00:31:29.119 · Esther Ha ha ha

00:31:30.240 — 00:32:38.920 · Esther When I think of my career, I think of three things that have stayed true for me throughout that career, and that is to stay curious, to really remain a strong critical thinker, and the last is to build a community. I was never somebody who was motivated by level or prestige, but rather the choices I made in career were all about learning and where I could go to keep learning.

And probably the moments of greatest growth were when I took on something new and unexpected and a little bit different. So that would be my advice for anyone else is just stay curious and recognize that you have to think more and more critically in our AI-driven world, but also you need people on your side.

You need a community around you to keep you grounded, to keep you connected, to be your champions, your Board of Directors. And so those are the things that I've lived by in my career.

00:32:39.280 — 00:32:58.520 · Alison That is absolutely great advice. Esther, I have really enjoyed our conversation, and I'm super excited to see how the CMA is going to build on our strong momentum under your leadership. And I'm also really looking forward to celebrating your and the team's many successes in the months and years ahead.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining me on CMA Connect.

00:32:58.560 — 00:33:30.270 · Esther Well, thank you, Alison. This has been more fun than I expected. And I wanted to just say publicly what I've said to you privately. You're leaving the CMA in an incredible position, and I feel really honoured to be building on your legacy. And thank you for all of your support as we have been going through this transition.

I know that the CMA is going to continue to flourish based on the foundation that you have built. So thank you.

00:33:30.310 — 00:33:53.550 · Alison It has absolutely been a highlight of my career. And it's never one person. This is very much been a team effort with our talented CMA team, with our very engaged Boards and with our membership, who really make us more scalable and able to accomplish so much more for the marketing profession and marketers across the country.

So I look forward to seeing where you take the CMA next.

00:33:53.590 — 00:34:04.510 · Esther Great. And to everyone listening, come out and say hi at CMA Marketing Week and send me feedback. I really want to hear what we can do to make Canadian marketing even stronger.

00:34:07.270 — 00:34:20.270 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit theCMA.ca and sign up for your free myCMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.

What have you learned that has allowed you to adapt and evolve in your marketing career? In today's episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, sits down virtually with Lindsay Chase, Senior Strategist at Elemental, to explore her nine year journey at Elemental. They dive into her progression from Account Executive to Senior Strategist, her loyalty to her craft, her adaptability, and her pursuit of what truly matters.

00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:23.520 — 00:02:20.140 · Alison For today's episode, I am thrilled to welcome Lindsay Chase, Senior Strategist at Elemental and our 2025 CMA AIM Award winner. The AIM Award celebrates achievement of marketing by a rising star in our profession, who is absolutely destined for great leadership roles. Lindsay's speech at the CMA Awards show was equal parts inspiring, entertaining and compelling, and I know that our conversation will be that as well.

Lindsay's journey into marketing began with a background in English literature. She was drawn by what she describes as the fascinating blend of creativity meeting science that defines modern marketing. She's passionate about delivering strong business results through compelling storytelling, creating human narratives that really resonate in meaningful ways.

Lindsay describes her nine year tenure at Elemental as making her a bit of a unicorn in today's agency world, and I absolutely agree for a much longer tenure in one agency than is typically the case, since most people switch about every two years instead of taking that approach. Lindsay has built her career elemental, progressing from account executive to senior strategist.

Her insights into how her generation is learning and developing skills offers a really fascinating window into the future of marketing careers. Like all of us, Lindsay is experiencing firsthand how AI has begun reshaping marketing practices, making them more uniform, scalable, and streamlined, while also raising critical questions about skill development and strategic thinking.

Her perspective on the importance of mentorship in a rapidly changing landscape, as well as how to maintain strategic thinking in an increasingly automated world, makes this conversation as essential listening for anyone interested in marketing's future. And I can also share with our listeners that when you listen to Lindsay, by the end of this conversation, like me, you will feel very, very positive and optimistic about how bright our future marketing is with talented marketers like Lindsay rising through the ranks.

So welcome, Lindsay. It is absolutely wonderful to have you join us on CMA Connect.

00:02:20.180 — 00:02:25.140 · Lindsay Thank you Alison, it's wonderful to be here. And I'm looking very forward to our conversation today.

00:02:25.260 — 00:02:36.020 · Alison Let's start with your story. I'd love to hear what drew you to marketing, and how did you see this as an opportunity to really transform your English literature degree and love of stories into a career?

00:02:36.180 — 00:03:22.820 · Lindsay Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I tend to start with saying I didn't choose marketing because I loved ads. I feel very few people maybe do make that choice for that reason. I actually chose it because I've always loved stories. And marketing is where stories can really change outcomes in English Lit.

I learned how to read between the lines subtext. Motivation. Character tension. the gap between what people say and what they mean. So that to me was basically consumer insight in a lot of ways. And marketing gave me a way to take that skill and kind of apply it to real people, real decisions and real businesses.

It's effectively storytelling with consequences. So all of that to say, what definitely drew me in is a mix of that empathy and structure, and you can really feel something and prove it in marketing.

00:03:22.860 — 00:03:48.260 · Alison I absolutely love your definition of storytelling with consequences and beyond consequences, it's storytelling with an ability to have such a significant and important impact on brands and businesses, our economy, and ultimately our communities. So I love that definition. Thank you. I'm also curious, when you were graduating, was marketing and agency roles in particular a career that many of your fellow graduates were thinking of pursuing?

00:03:48.380 — 00:04:35.790 · Lindsay Another great question. Certainly a few, but admittedly, many of my peers went into, you know, the worlds of tech, finance, law adjacent paths and so on. I found that in discussions with them, agency life wasn't necessarily the obvious route. Marketing can definitely feel like a less defined path, and that ambiguity can be intimidating when you're graduating and everyone's asking, what are you going to do?

And you want to have that very kind of clear answer ideally. I also think a lot of people don't realize that marketing is a training ground. You get exposure to categories, audiences, channels, leadership styles and real business problems very quickly. So it's certainly an area that, you know, though sometimes maybe discounted is one very much worth its salt.

And I hope that more, more folks explore when they are looking at that graduation period in their life.

00:04:35.830 — 00:04:40.990 · Alison Now, I'd also love to hear what it meant to you to be recognized with the CMA AIM Award.

00:04:41.030 — 00:05:44.880 · Lindsay Yeah, that was a great honour and even better evening and congrats to the CMA for making it such a fun and impactful evening. But to me, I'd say the CMA Award was never just an individual recognition in reference to the speech I gave. If no one's sick of hearing it at this point, you know, I referenced the idea that if I've seen further, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of giants and that's genuinely how I view it.

Any progress I've made has been shaped by the people around me, and that goes multifold. For the mentors who pushed my thinking, the teammates who challenged my ideas and the clients that trusted the process. And that's really what the industry is at its best, is that collective effort to make something better than any one person could on their own.

So in reflection of the award, it certainly felt like that, you know, not just the work, but the environment that makes the work possible. And the CMA, to me represents that spirit of creativity, collaboration and a shared standard of excellence. So it was a great honour and great excitement for myself and all those that I got to celebrate with.

00:05:45.120 — 00:06:24.840 · Alison It was definitely a good celebration and certainly a well deserved celebration. Now, Lindsay, you mentioned that marketing wasn't the most popular choice among your peers, in large part because it really can be pretty overwhelming for students to understand what marketing roles are, given the breadth and certainly complexity of our profession.

Obviously, from a CMA perspective, from a professional perspective, we do want to be a desired destination for students in the months and years ahead. So what do you think we can do to help the next generation better understand and navigate this complexity and make more competitive and desirable on par with tech and finance when it comes to talent?

00:06:25.120 — 00:07:29.450 · Lindsay I think we have to stop explaining marketing like it's a list of job titles. You know, it's more of a system overall. And the best way to maybe demystify it is to teach some of those fundamentals - human behaviour, business strategy, creative problem solving, and the measurement of all those things.

Once you can get a grasp on those four pillars, every specialization becomes less overwhelming, especially to those who maybe don't have the full visibility or insight. And when it comes to tech and finance, you know, specifically, I find that they can sell certainty, you know. Clear ladders, clear compensation narratives, prestige signals.

You know, all the things that go into that. And I think where marketing can expand is by selling its impact. You know, you get to shape culture and build brands that people live with and drive real business outcomes, just like tech and finance can. So if we want that talent and future marketers to walk through our doors, I think we need to show that marketing is certainly anything but fluff and a great opportunity to build a career and life around.

00:07:29.530 — 00:07:56.770 · Alison That was so well said, and it's also incredibly timely. We have recently launched the CMA Marketing Impact Study that does exactly that. It quantifies the mission critical role that marketing plays in building Canadian businesses, increasing our country's ability to innovate, and dramatically contributing to our economy and GDP.

So that will give us some very valuable tools to really entice the next generation of talent to.

00:07:56.810 — 00:08:20.940 · Lindsay Yeah, it's a great effort, and I think the other piece is being willing and ready to have some fun with it. You know, I think of all the ads and jingles and brands that stick in my head as some of my favourites, and it's not just a moment in time. It really does stay with us as we move through our lives, and it's something that everyone hopefully will get more and more clarity around and be interested in.

00:08:21.260 — 00:08:36.780 · Alison Absolutely. Now, you've been at Elemental for nine years and you started as an account exec, moved to Senior Strategy and calling yourself a bit of a unicorn for how long you've been with one agency. So what's kept you engaged for nine years, and why have you chosen this less traditional approach?

00:08:36.820 — 00:09:44.350 · Lindsay I stayed with Elemental through many different roles and seasons of it, because I ultimately kept getting new problems to solve and people that I worked with, I really wanted to solve those problems with. You know, the work changes, the clients change, the ambitions change. And that's one of the most appealing things about marketing on a whole is no one day looks the same, so I never felt like I was repeating a year.

It also certainly helped that Elemental is the kind of place where you can be multidimensional. I didn't have to pick one identity early, and I think why that really worked for me is I didn't chase a title as much as I chased the skill stack. I wanted to understand the whole machine, not just one part of it.

And that's kind of what made the less traditional or unicorn path, for lack of a better phrase, something that made sense for me. I could connect the dots across, you know, account leadership to creative and strategy and just work with wonderful humans all along the way, so that that was something that was important to me in my personal growth, was understanding that it's not just that title, it really is about that personal development and professional development as you move through day to day and week to week.

00:09:44.390 — 00:10:25.280 · Alison It's such a smart approach to build your marketing toolkit, but more importantly, to build your ability to evolve and be curious and learn new skills. That's always been so important to a successful career in marketing. And when we look at the dramatic change AI and elsewhere is bringing to not just marketing but the world at large, the ability to pivot and be comfortable with ambiguity and be open to change will serve you very well in the years ahead too.

Now, you chose marketing for the blend of creativity meets science and the important role it has in building business. So let me hear a bit about the work that you're proudest of and the impact that it's had.

00:10:25.520 — 00:11:59.170 · CHECK THIS SECTION Yeah, I'll start higher level in that, you know, overall, I'm most proud of work that connects emotionally and drives the outcomes that we've all set out to achieve together. One without the other, to me, means we didn't really hit the nail on the head. So overarching certainly the work that kind of connects those two paths.

And then as far as specific work, you know, I was reflecting the other day on some work we did for Meridian and we launched a campaign called World of Numbers, which was very exciting because it really did reframe a traditional kind of transactional category of FI into something human and relatable, helping us kind of differentiate the brand and strengthen engagement.

A similar answer goes for some of the work we do with Canada Life. Um, Life Doesn't Move in a Straight Line, really just capturing that human insight and truth that no matter who you are, the differences and similarities can be there. But you know, it does look different for every Canadian. So making a brand feel a little bit more empathetic and relevant, especially in these, uh, wild and fast times, is certainly some of the work I'm very proud of and in both cases didn't just resonate creatively, it helped shift perception and build a stronger connection with their audiences.

We saw amazing brand lift, not to distill it all down to one KPI, but, um, I'm excited to continue kind of measuring that growth and working through unique challenges like that for clients that are trying to understand how do we show that we understand the Canadian consumer in a time where everything can feel quite overwhelming.

00:11:59.250 — 00:12:10.610 · Alison Now, some of my most powerful learning has come from the mistakes I've made along the way. So do you have a lesson that you've learned the hard way, that you'd be open to sharing? And hopefully by sharing, spare someone else from making the same mistake?

00:12:10.770 — 00:13:06.380 · Lindsay Where to start? There have been many lessons along the way. I think I would prioritize probably two for the next generation of marketers, because it's something that you certainly learn the hard way, I would say in every instance. But I'll start with I learned that a smart strategy can still fail if it's too complex to activate.

So while you may have this, you know, wonderful and compelling idea, if you cannot translate that to execution, it doesn't really matter how wonderful that strategy appeals. So that would be number one. And then I'd say number two, learning to kill ideas that I loved if they weren't true to the audience, you know. In marketing and advertising, we love all of our children.

But it often comes down to what is going to resonate with our target audience, and bearing them in mind and not carrying any personal biases through the process is always a good reminder to those starting out their careers.

00:13:06.420 — 00:13:20.380 · Alison Those are such great lessons learned, Lindsay, thank you very much for sharing. Now, I know from our conversations that mentorship is hugely important to you and crucial to helping build future marketing leaders as well. So how have you been fitted for mentorship so far in your career?

00:13:20.580 — 00:14:17.110 · Lindsay Mentorship, I would say, is one of the most important facets of marketing, certainly, but really any industry that somebody could be entering. It really helped me build confidence faster than I ever could have alone. I've said, you know, internally to some of my mentors themselves, you know, that I'm very thankful for the fact that they gave me language for what I was sensing but couldn't necessarily articulate yet.

And the right mentor doesn't just give answers. They teach you how to think, how to frame a problem, and how to hold your own in rooms you haven't necessarily earned on paper yet. Um, so I've benefited from working with some fantastic people along the way. You know, Dustin Brown, Debbie Bolton and so on.

So I just feel incredibly blessed to have had that opportunity. And I think mentorship is certainly a cornerstone of marketing, and that more and more folks should look for opportunities to mentor and be a mentee.

00:14:17.350 — 00:14:40.870 · Alison Now, I've had great mentors, and I've also really enjoyed being a mentor, and I joked with many of my mentees that I actually probably learned more from them than they learned from me. With our industry evolving so rapidly, that's even more true. Senior marketers are learning alongside junior colleagues to a greater degree than ever before.

So how do you think that might change the mentor and mentee relationship?

00:14:40.950 — 00:15:37.030 · Lindsay Yeah, it's a great question. I think, you know, the traditional perspective of mentorship and mentee relationships is that there's certainly more of a hierarchy there. Maybe, you know, a mentee is there more to listen, versus the mentor is there more to instruct? And to your point, Alison, I think where we are today, mentorship is much more collaborative.

You know, juniors might be faster at certain tools, whereas seniors might be stronger at judgment and taste. And I find that the best new mentor relationships are less top down and more, for lack of a better phrase, copilots. You know, you trade strengths and seniors help with some of those decision making frameworks, while juniors can help with new workflows and platform fluency.

I swear every other day a new platform emerges. But it really helps keep everybody humble and there are information gaps for all of us. And I think having the self-awareness to address that does really lead to pushing everybody forward and all boats rising.

00:15:37.470 — 00:15:50.430 · Alison I love your concept of copilots versus mentor/mentee. We launched our CMA Mentorship Program at the end of last year, and we've got hundreds of people, members engaged and loving it. Maybe we'll think of a rebrand for next year.

00:15:50.470 — 00:15:52.590 · Lindsay There you go. Free of charge.

00:15:54.840 — 00:15:58.160 · Alison CMA CAO Barry is cringing right now as he listens to this.

00:16:00.600 — 00:16:04.480 · Lindsay Hopefully not too badly, but yeah. Copilots, you can have it.

00:16:04.520 — 00:16:05.640 · Alison I love it.

00:16:07.000 — 00:16:16.160 · Alison So it's no surprise that AI is transforming many professions and certainly ours. So how is your role and daily work evolving as a result of AI?

00:16:16.560 — 00:17:07.650 · Lindsay Yeah, AI is, you know, well, it's changing everything to put it plainly. But what I found most is it's changing how quickly we can move from sort of a blank page to first draft in some of our marketing efforts. It's kind of compressing that messy middle, so to speak. You know, when I look at what it's changed for us as an agency and myself in my day to day, it's certainly on some of the pieces, like production, but it's definitely not replacing what matters.

CHECK THIS SECTION And I tend to say that's sort of the beginning of the journey. The insight, the taste, the strategy and the ability to choose the right direction. You know, AI can offer, here is many different paths that you can take or here are multiple different creative executions. But ultimately it's the marketers and the experts and humans that really keep that ability to choose the right path forward.

00:17:07.689 — 00:17:26.650 · Alison So, Lindsay, eons ago when I started my career, I learned so much through doing, hands on experience, trial and error, those important teachable moments. With AI starting to take on some of that initial "doing" work, how do you think your generation will learn and develop those fundamental marketing instincts?

00:17:26.890 — 00:18:35.370 · Lindsay Yeah, I think it's such a great question, you know, instincts come from consequence a lot of the time. And I think if AI removes some of that grunt work, so to speak, we need to replace it with real reps in judgment. You know, the critiquing, iterating, presenting, defending and learning what holds up in market.

I think ultimately juniors should spend less time formatting and more time thinking, and ideally, even failing sometimes to learn those hard lessons. I remember once, you know, sending out one of my first client emails, stressing over all of the words and still having a typo in it. And those are the things that you certainly carry with you.

So I think it's still about giving that permission to have those opportunities in those moments, even though we have all these tools at our disposal to help streamline things like that. And I think that comes down to more of the in-person meetings. And, you know, the face to face of it all and making sure that we uphold that with the most important regard and allow juniors to shadow and again, fail on their own two feet sometimes, but ultimately, yeah, giving the opportunity and the space for all of that, with AI kind of taking over some of the initial things that you learn through.

00:18:35.490 — 00:19:01.580 · Alison When you think back to the powerful lessons you shared, that you'd learn the hard way by making mistakes. No one gets through any career, certainly a marketing career, without making our share of mistakes. And it is such powerful learning that we need to certainly make it safe for juniors to continue learning that way as well.

So as someone who's actively adapting to AI's role in marketing, what are the new competencies that you're finding most essential to develop?

00:19:01.620 — 00:19:55.430 · Lindsay I would say that some of the new competencies are certainly, you know, stay learnable and stay curious and be adaptable to some of those fundamentals. You know, the tools are always going to change. I think, you know, there's a lot of discussion in AI of things are changing so rapidly. And, you know, how do we navigate this?

And I think it honestly comes down to that's kind of always been the way, you know, is it obviously much more topical and moving at a quicker pace? Yes. But you know, you have to stay adaptable to those things and stay hungry about learning new things, the ability to understand people and build value, you know, work on your process and your prompting and stay curious for sure as that landscape changes.

But there's so many opportunities for continued learning, the CMA being a great example of that. Um, so making sure that you're prioritizing that within your career with everything you also have going on?

00:19:55.470 — 00:19:57.510 · Alison Well, thank you for the CMA shout out too.

00:19:57.710 — 00:20:00.310 · Lindsay Hey, you're welcome. I truly believe it.

00:20:00.950 — 00:20:16.750 · Alison Now, one of the ways we all need to prepare for the future is preparing for the reality that there are roles in the future that don't even exist today, that we can't even dream about today, and a lot of roles that we're doing today will no longer exist. So how can we prepare for that?

00:20:17.110 — 00:21:11.280 · Lindsay A great question. I think one way we can prepare for roles that maybe don't exist today is, again, just doing a bit of a postmortem on ourselves, the industry and the work itself. You know, I think we as dreamers and believers tend to look forward all the time, but it's really important to look backward as well and understand what points of the process could benefit from that optimization, and you know where AI can help streamline some of those pieces demise. What could those potential roles look like? How do we prepare our team for integrating with them is going to be a really important part of the process, and it's kind of that internal reflection I think that will help get everyone there.

I know we've been doing a lot on our end as far as you know, what does an AI security and privacy person look like on our team? So it's really just identifying or trying to identify those moments and preparing and bracing for impact for the future.

00:21:11.560 — 00:21:30.360 · Alison So, Lindsay, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Before I let you get on with your busy day, I have one final question for you. I think you know, I end each episode by asking my guest to share a piece of career advice. So as someone absolutely destined to be a future marketing leader, what's one piece of advice that you have for our listeners who aspire to become the same?

00:21:30.440 — 00:22:03.170 · Lindsay This is certainly one of my favourite questions and one of the most difficult to answer, because you want to give multiple different iterations of it. But to simplify it, you know, I would say that probably the advice that I would have is fall in love with the question before you fall in love with the answer.

Great work comes from getting the problem right, more so than anything else, and making sure that you're taking the time to have that curiosity, that passion and interest in people, really, to find out what that question is for you and fall in love with it before you feel like you know the answer already.

00:22:03.650 — 00:22:22.410 · Alison That was a great answer. And because that was such a great answer, I'm going to throw a random question to you. Sometimes senior marketers, senior leaders, have trouble connecting with and coaching and managing younger generations. So as the younger generation, what advice would you give to people like me in managing you and your peers?

00:22:22.810 — 00:23:04.610 · Lindsay A great question. I would say probably the way to best relate to the younger generation of marketers is to try and meet them where they are in all of this. You know, it's a human industry, but I think sometimes with how fast everything is moving, we can forget that. So really understanding the overwhelming nature of where they're coming from with all the change and how to navigate AI and all the different pieces that go into it, and speaking to them as a bit of that copilot, um, that we talked about earlier is going to be a great way to help build those relationships long term and kind of minimize how transactional it feels and more personal. Because those, in my experience, have been the best and longest lasting relationships.

00:23:04.730 — 00:23:19.970 · Alison That is super helpful. I really appreciate it. So Lindsay, this has been an absolute joy. Great insights, great conversation, and absolutely, we have a very, very bright future as a marketing profession in Canada with upcoming leaders like you. So thank you.

00:23:20.010 — 00:23:27.930 · Lindsay Thank you Alison. I always enjoy a chance to connect and chat all things marketing. So this was a wonderful time to spend with you.

00:23:30.050 — 00:23:43.010 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA and sign up for your free myCMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.

In this episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, sits down with Josephine Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner for the Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate at the Competition Bureau of Canada, to decode Canadian origin claims and emerging fraud threats. Josephine explains the critical distinctions between "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada," how tariffs impact threshold calculations, and practical guidance for avoiding maple washing. The conversation expands to the Bureau's Fraud Prevention Month focus, including the alarming rise of AI-generated scams using deep fakes to impersonate government officials.

00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson.

00:00:22.880 — 00:02:16.740 · Alison In an era of renewed Canadian patriotism and heightened awareness of global supply chains, consumers are absolutely paying closer attention than ever to where their products are coming from. With ongoing tariff discussions, a growing desire to support domestic industries, Made in Canada and Product of Canada claims have become more than just marketing messages.

They are promises that Canadians absolutely expect businesses to keep. For this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Josephine Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner for the Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate at the Competition Bureau of Canada. In her pivotal role, Josephine leads efforts to detect, investigate, and deter false or misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices across Canada.

With over 25 years of experience at the Department of Justice and Competition Bureau, including significant work as Deputy Executive Director and Senior Litigation Counsel. Josephine has been at the forefront of major enforcement actions involving companies like Amazon, Ticketmaster and Volkswagen.

Josephine expertise extends globally. She served as president of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network in 2020, representing Canada among over 65 protection agencies worldwide. Her directorate's mandate includes enforcement under the Competition Act, Consumer Packaging and Labeling Act, the Precious Metals Marketing Act, and Textile Labeling Act, which gives her comprehensive oversight of marketing claims that matter the most to Canadian consumers.

So as we navigate an increasingly complex marketplace where maple washing and misleading origin claims can absolutely undermine consumer trust. Josephine's insights into what constitutes truthful advertising, along with the real world consequences of getting it wrong, have never been more relevant for Canadian marketers, so I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Josephine.

It is a pleasure to host you on CMA Connect, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

00:02:16.780 — 00:02:20.780 · Josephine I'm so glad to be here, Alison. I'm looking forward to our talk.

00:02:20.940 — 00:02:44.220 · Alison We're going to cover a lot of hot topics that are crucial and important to marketers in Canada and also Canadians, so I know we will have a rapt audience. So, Josephine, let's start with why Made in Canada and Product of Canada claims matter so much to both consumers and businesses. Obviously, with renewed Canadian patriotism at the forefront of everyone's mind, how does today's environment compare to what you've seen historically?

00:02:44.260 — 00:03:53.790 · Josephine Well, let me start by saying that in the past, country of origin claims may not have been top of mind for most consumers, but today, Alison, Canadians are far more focused on transparency, on authenticity and knowing where their products truly come from. There are many factors driving this trend today, and I can list some of them, including national pride and that desire to support Canadian made goods.

The commitment to support the Canadian job market and local industry's concerns about the economy and environmental impacts of purchasing decisions, and the belief that Canadian made products are held to higher standards of quality for businesses. I would say honesty and clearly representing product origin builds consumer trust and helps them steer clear of legal complications, which is always a good thing.

On the other hand, misleading claims risk harming consumers, their fair competitors and the wider market and could result in enforcement under the Competition Act and the other relevant legislation when representations are false or misleading.

00:03:53.830 — 00:04:31.240 · Alison That's very helpful, and it's really rewarding in many ways to hear that Canadians, and we've seen this in other research too, Canadians through the tariffs, through the challenging political and economic times, are really embracing Made in Canada and wanting to give back to the local businesses and brands and support our local economy as well.

So there's lots of encouraging reasons for the renewed patriotism that's hopefully having a positive impact on Canada's GDP as well.

Josephine: Absolutely.

Alison: Now, many people don't realize that there's quite a significant distinction between a Made in Canada claim and a Product of Canada claim. Can you explain the difference and what businesses need to know?

00:04:31.280 — 00:06:27.660 · Josephine Sure. I would say that the distinctions are significant, and they're clearly laid out in the Competition Bureau's guidelines that have been updated in March of 2025, so last year. So let me start. And it's a little technical. So Product of Canada is what I refer to as the gold standard. It means virtually all, at least 98% of the direct production costs, including input or materials and labor, are from Canada.

This threshold exists to protect consumers from being misled by claims that imply total Canadian origin. On the other side, we have Made in Canada, which indicates that the majority or 51% or more of the direct costs were Canadian, and this type of claim should be accompanied by a qualifying statement, such as Made in Canada from domestic and imported parts to accurately inform consumers.

I should say that both Product of Canada and Made in Canada representations, the product's last substantial transformation occurs in Canada, and that is the product comes into being in Canada. It isn't merely assembled or labeled or packaged here, it is made into something meaningfully new.

And here, Alison, let me just say, for businesses, it's essential to review the cost breakdowns regularly to ensure compliance with these thresholds, especially if sourcing changes are occurring. We at the Competition Bureau, we evaluate these claims based not only on the literal meaning of marketing materials, but also on how consumers might interpret such claims.

So we would be looking at everything like the words, mix of words, images, illustrations, or even the overall layout. And this is what we call the general impression. So again, it's very important. Clarity and honesty are paramount.

00:06:28.220 — 00:06:39.900 · Alison One of the newer claims I've seen emerging with renewed Canadian patriotism over the last year and a bit is Packaged in Canada. So when might those claims be considered misleading to consumers?

00:06:39.900 — 00:08:17.840 · Josephine So Packaged in Canada for us means like a product arrived mostly finished from another country and only its packaging was added locally. This claim, we would say, could be misleading to consumers if not clearly explained. So the Bureau again encourages the use of qualified claims where the information provided is accurate, relevant and useful.

Let me say that the Bureau again, it looks at not only the words, but the whole concept, the general impression created. Sometimes businesses don't realize or understand this and think that as long as they are truthful, that should be good enough and that is not always the case. Again, the general impression has to be taken into consideration.

For example, one case that we litigated, well, we didn't litigate, but we settled this case, and that was in 2016. So the Bureau investigated Moose Knuckles for concerns relating to advertising and labeling of some of its parkas as Made in Canada. And here, Alison, the Bureau found some Moose Knuckle parkas were marketed as Canadian- made, despite being mostly manufactured elsewhere, only with the finishing touches to the jackets being made here in Canada, like adding the trim or the zipper and the snaps, those were done in Canada.

And with the Competition Bureau, we resolve the matter with the company, who agreed to donate 750,000 over a five year period to Canadian charities, including those providing winter coats to children in need. The company also committed to clearly labeling and advertising, making it explicit when products are made with both Canadian and imported parts.

00:08:17.920 — 00:08:52.770 · Alison That's a great example that speaks to the importance of being fair and truthful to Canadians and how we're marketing, but also the important consequences that businesses will and should pay when they don't follow the letter of the law. Now, for our listeners, we also have an article that we've written around all of the different Made in Canada, Product of Canada claims that elaborates on some of what Josephine has shared.

So we will add it into our listener notes for anyone that's listening and wants to read more. We'll have the link in our notes. So, Josephine, what are some of the common mistakes you've seen businesses make when they've made origin claims?

00:08:52.770 — 00:09:46.010 · Josephine So businesses often make mistakes by failing to provide, for example, appropriate qualifying statements using ambiguous language or misunderstanding the threshold requirements that I discussed earlier. A common issue is overstating the Canadian aspect by relying solely on packaging, a minor modifications or last minute assembly that does not meet the threshold for substantial transformation, which I also mentioned earlier.

Here's an example I can give you to illustrate this point. So consider a situation where the t-shirt is imported into Canada, and then the business prints an image on it. So this last edition of the image is not a substantial transformation. It was a t-shirt before and it is still a t-shirt after the image was added.

Therefore, Printed in Canada or Designed in Canada would be more appropriate in that circumstance.

00:09:46.130 — 00:09:58.300 · Alison That's a very helpful example. Can you walk us through how the current tariff situation impacts the threshold calculation requirements for these claims, and how you take into account both production and manufacturing costs?

00:09:58.540 — 00:11:07.030 · Josephine Yes, that's a really important question, Alison. First, we need to understand that tariffs on imported materials should be included in the cost of non-Canadian content used in the production or manufacturing of products in Canada. Next, we need to know that tariffs can have a direct impact on the costs associated with imported materials, which in turn, of course, may affect the calculation of that Canadian content that we discussed earlier.

When tariffs rise, the cost of those imported goods goes up as well, potentially lowering the overall percentage of Canadian direct costs in the finished product. So here I would say businesses should track and recalculate the production costs whenever tariff rates change. Otherwise, a product that previously met the threshold for the Made in Canada or Product of Canada might fall below that line, rendering the claim potentially false or misleading.

So we as a law enforcement agency, expect businesses to proactively monitor these changes and adjust their origin claims and that any accompanying qualifying statements so that they do not inadvertently mislead consumers.

00:11:07.070 — 00:11:22.350 · Alison Now, we've talked a lot about the business side of the claim, so I'd like to switch gears a little bit and ask you what advice do you have for Canadians to protect themselves from false or misleading origin claims? And what should they do if they suspect a case of maple washing?

00:11:22.430 — 00:12:33.120 · Josephine Well, here, let me say that consumers play a key role in holding the marketplace accountable. So in order to be able to identify that something is wrong, one needs to know what is right. And we therefore encourage consumers, just like businesses and advertisers, to obtain an understanding of the meaning of the relevant terms like Product of Canada and Made in Canada.

I would encourage consumers to look at the Bureau's web page on this topic. Information there is written in plain language with accessibility considerations taken into account. I would say scrutinize claims that Made in Canada or maple marketing, especially if details seem vague, or too good to be true.

I would also say ask questions about the origin of the product, and seek out companies willing to provide honest and clear answers about sourcing. Consumers can also review product labeling for qualifying statements. If you suspect that there's a deceptive practice, consumers can, of course, file a complaint with the Bureau. Reporting suspicious claims, helps others, and supports a fair, competitive marketplace.

So it's really, really important to to report to the Bureau and where appropriate, we will take the necessary enforcement action.

00:12:33.160 — 00:12:52.050 · Alison Now, given the renewed Canadian patriotism, we focused a lot of our conversations so far around Product of Canada and origin claims, but you have a much broader lens, so I'd love you to share what other consumer complaints are top of mind from a marketing perspective, because that's such a valuable and important learning for all of our listeners to understand.

00:12:52.090 — 00:13:52.060 · Josephine Happy to share some additional areas of interest and focus for the Bureau. Alongside the Made in Canada claims, Canadians we know are becoming increasingly concerned about misleading pricing tactics such as drip pricing and incorrect disclosures of ordinary selling price. The Bureau's information centre also frequently receives complaints related to deceptive or misleading environmental claims or greenwashing.

Fake online reviews is another area of focus for us. It's important for companies to recognize that consumers expect transparency at every stage, including advertising, sales, warranties and support strategies. I would say that relying on ambiguity or the omission of key details, can undermine consumer trust and may result in legal consequences, so should be avoided.

Again, to maintain credibility, businesses should thoroughly review and clearly substantiate their claims while keeping their marketing materials up to date with evolving regulations and consumer expectations.

00:13:52.060 — 00:14:57.790 · Alison And beyond it being the right and legal thing to do. We also know from some CMA research how savvy consumers and Canadians are, and they are absolutely holding brands and businesses accountable to be truthful. And when they feel they can't trust a brand in business, they will desert them. 87% of Canadians, if they have one reason to not feel a business or brand is trustworthy anymore, they will stop being a customer and they will talk about it.

So if our listeners need any other motivation and I know they don't, it's in every marketer's best interest to be truthful and authentic in their approach. And all the good marketers that we work with are held by the CMA Code of Ethics, and absolutely don't just do this because it's smart business, but because it's the right thing to do as well.

So as a long standing member of the Fraud Prevention Forum, the CMA is actively engaged in this year's campaign and excited that we're now in Fraud Prevention Month and beyond Fraud Prevention Month, we're looking to stay very actively engaged. So what should Canadians and businesses expect from the Competition Bureau, both now in Fraud Prevention Month but also in the months ahead?

00:14:57.830 — 00:17:18.970 · Josephine So as you mentioned, March is Fraud Prevention Month and the Bureau as Co-Chair, alongside the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, joins forces with more than 80 partners from the public and private sector across Canada. The aim is to educate and help Canadians and businesses spot and avoid fraud.

This year marks the 22nd year of the campaign where people can expect online resources about scams and criminal deceptive marketing. Let me say here that fraud is one of the fastest growing crimes in Canada, but it often goes unnoticed. It's hidden behind convincing technology or in everyday online interactions, and many cases go unreported even though they cause serious harm.

And the Bureau, along with its many partners, including the CMA, will be encouraging Canadians to recognize, reject and report fraud. It's important also to say here, Alison, that anyone can be a victim of fraud, individuals, businesses and organizations. And the harm isn't just financial. It can also be emotional and psychological.

And that's why fraud awareness must happen year round and Fraud Prevention Month remains vital. It becomes, for us, a national moment of focus that brings attention, partners and momentum all together. So for businesses again, the Bureau will also be sharing best practices, compliance guides and reminders to uphold honest marketing and fair competition.

I can say here, and I should add, scams are growing in scale, crossing borders and becoming more convincing through AI such as impersonation, fake investment scams to fake employment scams. And earlier this month, we published a public alert about the growing threat of AI generated government impersonators, including the highest government officials, to our Prime Minister.

The piece really explains how scammers are now using deep fakes, clone voices and fake governmental style websites to trick people into giving up their money and their personal information. And the alert basically walks Canadians through the red flags to watch for like unnatural video movements, odd sounding audio or suspicious website URLs and reminds everybody to verify messages through official channels.

It's an important update, and I encourage everybody to visit the Bureau's site for full information.

00:17:19.050 — 00:17:32.970 · Alison Josephine, you're so right that the frauds are becoming so much more sophisticated, and absolutely any one of us can be susceptible and taken in by a fraud. What do you think holds Canadians back from reporting it when it happens to them?

00:17:33.170 — 00:18:21.660 · Josephine That's a good question. And, you know, we know from the statistics that only 5 to 10% of frauds get reported to law enforcement, whether it's the Bureau, Police Agencies or the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Having practiced in this area for a while and being part of the campaign, I can tell you it's a number of things.

It's sometimes it comes to embarrassment, so the victims don't want to come forward and say that they fell for this scam. Other times, it's about the amount of money they may have lost and it wasn't so huge. So it's not worth taking the effort of reporting to law enforcement. And this is what is absolutely wrong.

Because if you don't report to law enforcement, we can't get ahead of it and we can't stop it. So again, the message is to report, report to the Bureau, report to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre or to your local police.

00:18:21.780 — 00:18:30.700 · Alison And if it's helpful to our listeners, we can include a link to the alert that you spoke about in the notes to the podcast, so that it's easy for people to access on your site.

00:18:30.740 — 00:18:32.260 · Josephine That'd be great. Thank you.

00:18:32.300 — 00:18:48.310 · Alison Now I end each episode by asking our guest to share one piece of career advice. So with over 25 years in competition law and consumer protection, what wisdom would you share with our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps and hold a senior leadership role?

00:18:48.470 — 00:20:31.680 · Josephine Well, thank you very much for asking me that question. If I can offer one humble piece of advice, I would first say build your career on curiosity, not certainty. Marketing and compliance change every five minutes and certainty gets old fast, in my opinion. But curiosity, that keeps you adaptable, relevant, and honestly is a lot more fun.

Instead of thinking I should already know this, try, "Oh that's interesting. Tell me more." Be the person who asks why a consumer reacts the way they do, or why a rule is shifting, or why the business wants to try something bold. You don't need to have all the answers. You just need to keep learning and keep that curiosity switched on.

Now, professionally, I began my government career clerking with the judges of the Tax Court of Canada. Then I moved to working with the judges of the Federal Court of Appeal to moving to the Department of Justice as a senior litigator, to moving to the Competition Bureau Legal Services Unit as senior executive, and negotiating many deals for the Bureau to where I am today as Deputy Commissioner.

It takes curiosity to try new things, face new challenges, and develop new ideas in different settings. It's also important to rely on solid role models whom you can trust and who support you. And let me say that my mother is the source of everything I am. She taught me resilience, compassion, and the importance of serving others, values that underpin any healthy, respectful and inclusive society.

It has been an honour and privilege to serve Canadians as a member of the Public Service through the Competition Bureau.

00:20:31.760 — 00:21:10.930 · Alison Thanks so much, Josephine. You're absolutely right, that curiosity over certainty is has always been important, but it is mission critical today when not just the marketing world, but the business world is changing at a pace that we have never seen before. So for any of us to think we have all the answers is just a fool's game.

I also love the shout out to your mom. My parents were pivotal in shaping who I am, both professionally and personally, so I can absolutely relate to how important it is to, and how lucky we both are to have had parents to shape us that way. Now, I said that was my last question, but your answer prompted me for another one. Of all the careers you could have pursued I'd love to hear why you pursued a career in public service.

00:21:10.970 — 00:22:36.500 · Josephine For me, it's important to serve the public. And it's, it's a higher calling. And from a side of lucrative, it's not as much lucrative. But there's other things that brought me to the public service. And for me, it's that public calling, that ability to help Canadians, to serve Canadians, to make meaningful changes in different contexts.

And, you know, as a young lawyer in the Department of Justice, I was given early opportunities to be part of the Court systems, which maybe in private sector, doesn't happen as quickly. And in the current role that I'm in, I just find it so rewarding to be able to make a difference in society, make a change, help consumers, and in particular, yes, in the world of business, where there's on one side, the business wants to advance in its money investments.

On the other side, there's the consumer that's going to depend on the business to be truthful, to be honest. And for me, it's it's been such a rewarding experience to be able to hopefully impart some information to Canadians to help them be more wary of of what is out there. Ask questions. Be smart. I always say knowledge is is your best form of power.

So yes, I'm I'm quite pleased with the decisions I've made and I encourage, I encourage anyone who's interested in a career in the public service to really take time to reflect, because it is quite rewarding and quite satisfying in so many ways.

00:22:36.820 — 00:22:47.710 · Alison Josephine, thank you very much. On behalf of our listeners and the Canadian Marketing Association, I'm very pleased that you chose a career in the public service. And thank you for making a very important impact on our country.

00:22:47.750 — 00:23:11.070 · Josephine Well, thank you, Alison, for all the great work that you've been doing at this in the CMA during a remarkable period of growth and forward-looking initiatives. And I know this is maybe one of your last podcasts. So on behalf of the Competition Bureau, myself, my colleagues, I just want to wish you the very best as you head towards this next chapter in the months ahead.

So congratulations to you.

00:23:11.350 — 00:23:14.870 · Alison Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And thanks for a great conversation as always.

00:23:14.870 — 00:23:15.990 · Josephine Thanks, Alison.

00:23:18.270 — 00:23:31.270 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit theCMA.ca and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.

Are you prepared to future-proof your brand with AI? Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, sits down with IBM's AI experts Alexis Zamkow, Global Offering Leader for Intelligent Marketing at IBM Consulting, and Miglena Nikolova, Senior Portfolio Advisory Marketing Lead at IBM Canada, to explore how marketers can move from AI experimentation to real business impact. With 70% of creative work being busy work, IBM has used AI to slash legal approval cycles from 6 weeks to 6 days. As ChatGPT challenges Google's search dominance, marketers need to learn how to 'market to machines' that are making decisions for consumers.

00:00:01:18 - 00:00:25:15 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson.

00:00:25:17 - 00:00:51:01 Alison In today's episode, we explore a topic that is top of mind for all marketers - how to future-proof ourselves, our teams and our businesses, especially when it comes to Gen AI. Our CMA research found that future-proofing is a top priority for 97% of Canadian marketers. This includes understanding how technologies like AI are impacting marketing, as well as changing consumer behaviours and best practices.

00:00:51:03 - 00:01:24:14 Alison The good news is that 74% of CMA members are using Gen AI tools for work at least weekly. This actually exceeds the average of 62% among Canadian knowledge workers that include academics, physicians, engineers, and scientists. So we're certainly off to a good start, but there is absolutely a lot more to do since AI is playing an increased role in brands and a more important part in day to day life in Canada. Today, I'm happy to be joined by two marketing leaders from IBM who are living this transformation from both the creative and the technical sides.

00:01:24:15 - 00:01:48:08 Alison Today's conversation is not about the latest AI tool or the newest capability. It's about the practical, sometimes messy work of incorporating and leveraging AI and marketing in business and helping future-proof your brand. Alexis Zamkow is the Global Offering Leader for Intelligent Marketing within IBM Consulting, where she's at the forefront of helping CMOs navigate the generative AI transformation.

00:01:48:10 - 00:02:23:00 Alison Alexis specializes in translating complex AI capabilities into practical marketing solutions, helping organizations move from proof of concept to skilled implementation while addressing the critical challenges of cost management, change management, and governance. Miglena Nikolova brings over 20 years of marketing and communications expertise. She currently serves as Senior Portfolio Advisory Marketing Lead for IBM Canada. At IBM, she's exploring how Gen AI is reshaping creativity and authenticity in their marketing and also leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity and innovation.

00:02:23:02 - 00:02:26:01 Alison Welcome, Alexis and Miglena. It's great to have you with me today.

00:02:26:03 - 00:02:28:07 Alexis It's great to be here. Thanks for having us.

00:02:28:09 - 00:02:48:22 Miglena Thank you, Alison, for this warm welcome and introduction. And I would also like to add that Alexis and I are very active in the Canadian marketing community. I sit on the CMA Creativity Council and Alexis is part of the Artificial Intelligence Committee. So in this podcast, we would also be representing the work that we do as part of these rewarding assignments.

00:02:49:00 - 00:03:07:16 Alison Well thank you for being among our highly engaged CMA members who are helping provide a lot of great thought leadership and a lot of great discussion and debate around hot topics that are important to everyone in our profession. I would love to start with your personal AI journeys. So how are you each using AI both personally and professionally?

00:03:07:21 - 00:03:09:12 Alison Miglena, do you want to kick things off?

00:03:09:14 - 00:03:38:14 Miglena Absolutely. Alison, thank you for this question. Because, you know, scaling AI is very much about how we, on a personal level are adopting the new ways of working. And personally, I use it for research, note-taking, often for fun things and projects I'm exploring outside of work. One of the questions I'm pondering on the personal side is what it will mean to write a book in the future, because there are just so many challenges and opportunities in this space.

00:03:38:18 - 00:04:05:23 Miglena And on the professional side, for marketing, I use predominantly our Consulting Advantage app, which has so many features and applications that literally the sky is the limit in what we can accomplish. We have access to assistants, agents that can help make tasks much faster and more comprehensive than perhaps we ever thought possible, so we can leverage our agents to help us with image recognition, notes and files analysis,

00:04:05:23 - 00:04:35:23 Miglena PowerPoint generators, summarization. I can give you an example. At a recent marketing event, we hosted over ten separate round tables, each one with notes for the discussion. And then we loaded all the notes in our Executive Summarizer and asked, what were the common themes, what were the unique points, etc. and in minutes, literally, we were able to to generate and share a much more comprehensive and enriching summary of the learnings.

00:04:36:00 - 00:04:48:09 Miglena So I also routinely leverage AI for writing marketing emails, blogs, graphs, social posts from the perspective of our subject matter experts. And really, that saves a lot of time.

00:04:48:11 - 00:05:10:11 Alexis So similar to Miglena, our organization is absolutely committed to ensuring that we use generative AI in all aspects of our business. Now I'm in the offering space, so I help to build new offerings for our customers. And so research is important for us. Synthetic research using different personas, different industry groups. We can run ideas for our offerings

00:05:10:11 - 00:05:37:02 Alexis and value proposition is against those synthetic personas and get some early ideas around, you know, how do we reposition some of our messaging? How do we change some of our offerings to address some of the, the big concerns, that maybe some of our customers have so we are really focusing in on how to solve for those concerns. And how to make sure that our brand is true to the essence of how we're positioning ourselves.

00:05:37:04 - 00:05:58:04 Alexis So on an offering perspective, you know, there's a lot of great ways that generative AI can support a marketer. Idea generation, we're trying to apply the gen AI to come up with, you know, what's the next great ideas that our clients are really going to take a hold of. So ideation is definitely an area of interest.

00:05:58:04 - 00:06:17:07 Alexis And then a lot of the pragmatic things that Miglena mentioned. So when we're writing copy, if I want to get it really personal to an industry or to a specific influencer, we leverage personas to be able to make sure that our messages are bang on as to what that individual's needs are and, to make it really highly personalized.

00:06:17:09 - 00:06:41:20 Alexis So it is embedded within the entire offering area. But at the same time, I work with clients on how they're embedding it in their own operations, so across the entire end-to-end marketing content, supply chain and campaign development, we're coming up with great ways that agents can work simultaneously with humans to improve productivity, also to drive revenue.

00:06:41:22 - 00:07:05:06 Alexis We're moving very rapidly from a situation of testing, trialing, piloting to scaling. Scaling does require different capabilities to be addressed, and we're working with our clients to help them to do that. IBM, as you guys know, is committed to AI for a very long time. We go back to Jeopardy and Watson. We are steeped in the AI space.

00:07:05:08 - 00:07:50:19 Alexis And so as things have evolved over the last, you know, probably five years as ten AI has really come to the forefront, our organization has also moved into that space. And our own marketing teams have embraced gen AI really from the beginning. To be able to create a process and a workflow that has agents supporting the entire content supply chain from insights development, being able to scan our product information and make recommendations on how to best position products, the content creator, which then allows you to take, pre-configured templates and be able to assign - here's the target market, here's the product that I'm interested in, here's the key messages and gives you different options

00:07:50:19 - 00:08:20:12 Alexis around how can you position this. And it isn't about completing it. It's about the start, the starting of the process to allow the creativity to accelerate. And then once that that creative has gone through the process of initial approvals, validation was always a big challenge for us. And we knew that that cycle had to be shortened. So we built agents to be able to take our legals, our brand standards and be able to apply that to the content that we were creating

00:08:20:14 - 00:08:43:00 Alexis to be able to really shorten up that cycle. Didn't eliminate it. And for most of our clients, you know, elimination isn't the game right now, but to be able to reduce the number of iterations required to go through the legal process was able to allow us to move from something that would normally take six weeks to be able to create, say, a campaign for a social media engagement, six weeks to six days.

00:08:43:02 - 00:09:01:01 Alexis And I didn't say six minutes, but eventually we might get to six minutes. But right now it is about those iterative improvements that you start automating tasks that you feel do not require that human element, and you supervise where you need to.

00:09:01:01 - 00:09:27:17 Alison Great examples, and that really is powerful to see how gen AI can help all of us scale, certainly, regardless of whether you're in a big business, a startup, or somewhere in between, the scalability of the technology is, certainly a major benefit. Now, I know IBM's recent research found that 67% of CMOs are planning to implement gen AI within the next year, and 80% within the next 24 months.

00:09:27:19 - 00:09:40:06 Alison So for marketers who are wanting to move beyond experimentation to implementation, where should they start? And in particular, what sorts of resources, training and support systems are necessary to help them succeed?

00:09:40:08 - 00:10:07:12 Alexis I look at one of the biggest challenges and working with clients to be able to scale AI is when you're in a proof of concept it's a very controlled environment. You bring in a certain number of data elements. You have a very restricted output requirement and you have a lot of supervision. What I've seen is as clients move from these very controlled environments where you're really testing to make sure the models are operating without hallucinations and to the level of quality you need,

00:10:07:12 - 00:10:41:23 Alexis the data that is used by these agents is really critical to be clean, tagged and accurate. And what we're finding is that first step is as you move from a pilot, when you can really control all those pieces, to now dipping into your CDP, your customer data platforms, and if that data and your data asset repositories, if that data isn't well structured and set up for success, no matter what and how intelligent your models are, you're not going to get an output that is of the quality you need.

00:10:41:23 - 00:11:01:13 Alexis So going back to basics and ensuring that the data that you are feeding into your large language models, your multimodal models, making sure you have that in a structure, in a format that's really going to give you a high quality output is is job one. The next step is really finding the right use cases to scale.

00:11:01:14 - 00:11:32:06 Alexis You can try lots of things. But if you are going to pick a use case that is very narrow in impact, the business case will be really challenged. So we we recommend our clients sit back and look at the opportunity platforms, look at the opportunities out there, and really make informed choices around risk and reward. Which use cases provide an appropriate level of risk, but with enough reward to really justify the business case.

00:11:32:06 - 00:11:52:22 Alexis Because investments are required as you scale, and you have to get these wins along the way. You can't wait a year or a year and a half to get the wins. So we suggest, you know, you really have to build out a roadmap of appropriate use cases that you feel comfortable to implement, but to also ensure you have a return on investment.

00:11:53:02 - 00:12:28:02 Alexis And then finally, the governance and the supervision. Can't separate that from this exercise as you scale. Because here is where the rubber hits the road and full automation could cause concerns about what is being put into the market. So ensuring you have governance of your systems, governance of your process, and also ensuring that your people are skilled and have the right metrics and the right management to be able to execute to the desired outcome. And change management is absolutely critical at every step of this process, and even more so as we're scaling.

00:12:28:04 - 00:12:45:06 Alexis So, Alison, you mentioned that a lot of our CMOs are moving to this to this next level. And we ask the question, so what is your biggest challenge as you're moving to this next level? And it was really interesting because what came out - two things. One was the cost and the cost isn't the technology. The cost is I have to retrain my people.

00:12:45:06 - 00:13:20:02 Alexis I have to fix my processes. I have to clean my data. There are so many tangential elements that are required to make these machines work the way you want them to. So there's this whole cost factor that am I really set up for success? But then the next most important aspect was change management. I am surprised, but I hear this often, is that there are a lot of people who just are a bit resistant to change, and how do you make sure that these brilliant, creative people in marketing do not feel minimized by using a tool to maybe begin the first draft of some concepts, or to begin some first illustrations.

00:13:20:03 - 00:13:42:15 Alexis Overcoming human resistance and skills gaps is the second and absolutely most, you know, critical element to long term success. And that is where CMA is doing some really great things around helping companies to really embrace and learn how to do change management around tools like gen AI.

00:13:42:17 - 00:14:16:12 Miglena Absolutely. And you know, those were great points really. And you know, for me, being on the internal side and not really working directly with clients, I think as marketers, the onus is on us to take responsibility for our own learnings so we're not left behind in this world of the future and this, future of work. And we should be thinking about the jobs that we do today and how that job, each of the tasks we do can be disrupted by AI and then disrupt ourselves and learn and build from there.

00:14:16:12 - 00:14:53:20 Miglena Right? Just understand how we can enhance what we do with AI, how we can really leverage that new technology. And what I find is also that, a lot of marketers work for organizations that are not yet at that critical stage where the employees are empowered and, have access to tools and even are encouraged experimenting. And so depending on the type of organization that you work for, I think it's important to think about what kind of exposure and adoption that your organization currently has and how you can learn.

00:14:53:20 - 00:15:04:22 Miglena How are you experimenting, what tools are you using today, and how you can supplement that externally in order to continue to learn and grow to really future- proof yourself.

00:15:05:00 - 00:15:36:12 Alexis So, Alison, just one other, point to build off of what Miglena just mentioned in adoption. When we first adopted it at IBM, this was a corporate wide commitment. And it wasn't a small group of really excited people in IT or in a small group in a contact centre. It was from the top down. And where I see success globally is where the C-suite makes a commitment that this will become embedded in the DNA of the company.

00:15:36:12 - 00:16:02:10 Alexis And it is not a sideline project that you just stand it up and hopefully it works. And it's not something that just because the shareholders are expecting it in, you know, the roadmap. It truly needs to be embedded as a way of working and at all levels, not just at the hands-on level, but strategically we have to be thinking about this needs to be embedded in the front of the shop, in the back of the shop.

00:16:02:10 - 00:16:30:00 Alexis The customer experience when you're looking at generative tools needs to be completely knitted between sales, service, marketing, commerce. Once you start bringing a generative capability to the forefront, building it in isolation will not deliver the rewards needed. So even more so important that marketing, sales, service, these platforms need to work together. The executives need to work together.

00:16:30:02 - 00:16:43:16 Alexis It will not deliver what's needed in isolation. So these big commitments really take a bit of time. And if you don't have senior leadership support, it really is hard to scale beyond some exciting pilots.

00:16:43:18 - 00:17:05:15 Alison It's such a great point Alexis. And when I've talked to a number of different organizations, including a number of our members, you're absolutely right. It's not just the C-suite. It has to actually come from the CEO. Those are such important parts to get beyond the challenge of change management that regardless of whether it's gen AI, new office, any time there's change, the change management element tends to be the most challenging part of that.

00:17:05:15 - 00:17:14:23 Alison So those are really helpful suggestions in how to help incentivize and help teams see the potential in this instead of the intimidation.

00:17:15:01 - 00:17:45:05 Alexis But also how you hire people. So Alison, this is another bit of learning that we have internally that, there's certain skill sets that really are coming to the forefront. And it's not always coding, it's about creativity. It's the ability to have good judgment. It's the ability to think more in an agile fashion. And those skills are actually really, really critical to be able to embrace these new technologies and get the most out of them.

00:17:45:05 - 00:18:09:04 Alexis So some of the hard skills are not as nearly as important as the soft skills of understanding how to work with new data sources, new inputs, new ways of working, collaboration. That is an HR challenge now, when you're hiring people, you have to hire for someone who will embrace these capabilities to make your workforce work for you.

00:18:09:06 - 00:18:29:14 Miglena And as you can imagine, especially from the perspective of my work on the CMA Creativity Council, we spend a lot of time thinking about that and discussing how AI will really impact even the meaning of creativity. All the new opportunities, the expanded creative horizons, all the new dimensions that are available to marketers.

00:18:29:16 - 00:18:51:07 Alexis And CMO leadership. We see that in the decisions that are being made now. And gen AI, I usually work with the CMO in concert with that CIO. It's the CMO telling the CIO, these are the things that I need and I need your help to deliver those. CMOs are becoming much more technology savvy and need to be because their employees are too.

00:18:51:09 - 00:18:56:13 Alexis So so that's this is just hastening that discipline change and that outlook change that we see.

00:18:56:15 - 00:19:07:07 Alison So your experience working with clients globally gives you a really unique lens. So I'm curious to hear how AI usage by brands in Canada compares to other countries that you're working with.

00:19:07:08 - 00:19:30:14 Alexis Well, it all depends on the industry, Alison. Because I actually think, you know, certain industries versus certain geographies are embracing gen AI faster. I see retail being on the forefront, and they usually are on the forefront of new technologies because of the demands that consumers are putting on retailers, that they expect things to be in real time, in any channel, in any place, at any time.

00:19:30:14 - 00:19:54:09 Alexis And they expect it to be very conversational. So I believe that and I see our own retailers in Canada really stepping up. So the retail space is right there, and services. And services have always been very customer-centric. Any company that really has to be customer-centric when it comes to marketing and gen AI is on the forefront. You think about, you know, the Hyatts, and the Marriotts of the world where there's a lot of consumer interaction.

00:19:54:09 - 00:20:13:17 Alexis CPG companies are embracing it, but for different reasons. For a lot of the efficiencies they're getting out of the assets they need to build, to be able to be as more personalized. Where I'm seeing companies that are not embracing as quickly is the financial services and insurance. A little bit more conservative, a little bit more concerned about data.

00:20:13:17 - 00:20:44:06 Alexis But these organizations are beginning to recognize the benefits, maybe not in direct consumer dialogs, but in customer service, back office. There is a movement afoot, even in those areas, to be a little bit more nimble when it comes to generative tools. So the Canadian market, I think I see it almost at par with what I'm seeing in Europe, but it's the industries themselves that are moving at different paces and the way of adoption specifically for marketing.

00:20:44:08 - 00:21:07:11 Alison Building on the finance piece, obviously there's a whole regulatory piece of that as well, where they, to a point, don't have any choice but to be a little bit slow in adoption. I also have some notable exceptions. From what I've heard, the CEO of RBC is absolutely, this is top of mind for him, and he seems to be more on the forefront of this than maybe some of the other financial institutions in Canada.

00:21:07:13 - 00:21:36:04 Alexis That is their business. I mean, RBC is always been on the forefront of AI. So that is a transition that is an easier transition for folks who really appreciate and accept the need to have intelligence in process. They can move faster. And so yes, I do see the banks once they get through some of those legal hurdles and some of the PII concerns and whatnot, they will be equally robust in their customer experience streams as other organizations.

00:21:36:08 - 00:21:46:06 Alison So Miglena and I'd love you to share what future trends you see emerging. Now, given the speed that AI is moving at, let's timestamp this question about and focus on the next 24 months.

00:21:46:08 - 00:22:05:10 Miglena Yes, Alison, I think the biggest question is about adoption. And we talked about the host of all new skills that like creative thinking, collaboration, that really organizations really need to be given the runway to build that up. And the real value will come when teams pair the technology

00:22:05:17 - 00:22:35:10 Miglena With good data and solid processes and clear governance with human creativity. And so it's not just about how AI can help us build better creative, it's also about how we can improve the creative process with better data, better process and productivity. 70% of creative people's work is busywork that's not creative. And by leveraging the power of AI, we can free up that time and really make careers a lot more interesting.

00:22:35:10 - 00:22:42:11 Miglena So the next year, I think it's really about moving into this new way of working for a lot of organizations.

00:22:42:16 - 00:23:20:11 Alexis An area that I'm spending quite a bit of time on is area of AEO and GEO. Search is so important for marketers and Search drives awareness, interest, engagement and purchase. And we're seeing now that the dominance that Google has had in Search is starting to be challenged with the new LLM search engines, the ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude. As you and I start using these tools on a day to day basis, they are replacing our traditional methods of going and searching for things, and they're making the decisions for you.

00:23:20:11 - 00:23:47:03 Alexis And when you look at AI overviews, when you start looking at the summaries that are coming in ChatGPT, these engines are going to sites, they're finding out the information, and then they're making decisions and they're setting priorities. What is the best luxury car in the market? What are the best deals for telecommunications? And as these tools start dominating the outcomes of searches, marketers need to start thinking about how do they market to machines.

00:23:47:03 - 00:24:14:21 Alexis Because the machines are making the decisions of how your brand is being presented to millions of consumers. So is your site being crawled properly? Are your citations being pulled out properly? Are you being even shown when those summaries are coming up? I am seeing this being a real groundswell of concern, because so many marketers depend on that initial search activity. And the buying activity,

00:24:14:21 - 00:24:33:05 Alexis GPT just came out with an ability to go right through from their recommendation into a purchase on Etsy. And they're going to add other merchants. So so these engines are really replacing a lot of the traditional methods around which consumers interact with brands.

00:24:33:07 - 00:24:47:18 Alison Now Miglena, back to you for a rapid fire question. How do you maintain authenticity and protect brand integrity when using AI, and in particular, what governance framework should marketers be putting in place to avoid brand missteps?

00:24:47:19 - 00:25:10:12 Miglena Yes, Alison, this is such an important point. How can gen AI enable marketers to deliver, brand compliant content? And, well, the technical answer is going to take you through foundation models and customized user interface, in practice what that means is that any off the shelf solution cannot be trusted to do the job that you need it to do as an organization.

00:25:10:12 - 00:25:35:08 Miglena It's really important, especially at the large enterprise level, that we use tools and resources that are, if not proprietary, at least customized, trained on our branding guidelines. So tone of voice, trained on reference, our reference images, right? In that way, we can trust that the output is brand-compliant and that the images are going to be free of copyright infringement issues.

00:25:35:08 - 00:25:52:20 Miglena There's such a big impact on creativity, but also there are these challenges that we have to keep in mind. In order to trust the output, you really need to be able to trust the inputs and to have a human in the loop, which we talked about. Do the fact checks, the gut checks, the refinements before hitting the live button.

00:25:52:22 - 00:26:13:10 Alison Now, I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, and it's clear that this is a very rich and robust area, and we could be talking for hours. Before we go, I would like to broaden the conversation and end by asking each of you to share one piece of career advice. You both have great careers, and I know a number of our listeners would love to hear how they could achieve a career like you have had.

00:26:13:10 - 00:26:15:05 Alison And Miglena, why don't you kick us off?

00:26:15:07 - 00:26:39:15 Miglena My piece of advice I always say to marketers is to be curious. Curiosity can drive exploration in different areas, and sometimes in our day to day jobs, we're really operating in a box. We don't have the breadth of experiences and opportunities to test and learn and to hear different perspectives. And for that reason, I challenge marketers to be curious and step outside of their box.

00:26:39:17 - 00:27:12:18 Miglena Talk to leaders outside of your organization, find out how they're solving for similar challenges, how they're leveraging the AI opportunity, and go to external events. Talk to leaders from competitors, from other industries in order to get that breadth of expertise and perspectives. And as with any change, keep in mind that when you learn a new skill, and that is new for for all of us, like we are learning as we go, there will be a ramp-up, but doing is really the important part.

00:27:12:20 - 00:27:45:14 Alexis So Miglena, you chuck the number one suggestion right out of my mouth, curiosity. So I'll build on that. Obviously, curiosity is so key, but I'll take it maybe a step further and say curiosity with an open mind that things are going to change rapidly. Having an open mind to being willing to try new things, to take risks, granted, measured risks, but the risks that you take will drive a lot of rewards.

00:27:45:14 - 00:28:14:15 Alexis And if you're in the right organization with the right boss, that will allow you to fail, but to learn from your failures and then accelerate that learning into something really spectacular, that's an absolutely brilliant way to grow your career. So be open-minded. Be willing to take measured risks. Be willing to work with partners. You can't do it alone.

00:28:14:17 - 00:28:32:06 Alexis No one can keep up with this technology and no one can keep up with the ideas. So be open to others ideas and embrace those ideas because we win as a team. You win with partners. This is not a solo game. This is a community activity.

00:28:32:08 - 00:28:52:03 Miglena I would encourage also our listeners to explore the rich resources of the CMA. I know that there has been incredible work that Alison's committee has done as well in launching resources. So make sure that you are leveraging those as well.

00:28:52:05 - 00:29:19:00 Alison Thank you very much for the plug. You're right, we've got a lot of great AI resources and the AI committee that Alexis is part of have created a weekly AI playbook series. We're now produced over 25. And each week it's a new topic. It's very digestible, and it's a really good way to have an ongoing learning opportunity. And then the CMA, we've got a lot of articles, we've got other podcasts around the topic, and we also have a number of AI training programs as well.

00:29:19:00 - 00:29:36:23 Alison So Miglena, I really appreciate that of the plug, and there are absolutely a lot of complimentary AI resources and then some professional development opportunities as well, available through the CMA. I really want to thank you both. It's been an insight-rich conversation, and I'm excited to see, where it goes from here.

Miglena Thank you.

00:29:37:01 - 00:29:44:07 Alexis Thank you Alison. Take care.

00:29:44:09 - 00:29:56:21 Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA.ca and sign up for your free myCMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.