CMA Connect

Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, and Cathy Collier, CEO of OMD, delve into everything from the dynamic changes in consumer behaviour to the explosive surge of connected TV and the challenges local and mass media will face now and in the years ahead.

00:00:02:10 - 00:00:23:09

Announcer

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, CMS CEO Allison Simpson.

00:00:23:09 - 00:00:49:13

Alison Simpson

The marketing profession has experienced an absolute tsunami of change, and media will be a prime example of that, especially when it comes to mass media with connected TV reaching scale with Canada leading the world in livestream, signal availability and attention metrics becoming more important, a massive evolution is absolutely underway. Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by Cathy Collier, the CEO of OMD and a leader in Canada's media and agency community.

00:00:50:04 - 00:02:29:00

Alison Simpson

Cathy's expertise and deep knowledge on media in Canada make her a terrific guide through the media tsunami. She'll share her insights on how mass media is changing, and it absolutely promises to be a thought provoking discussion. Thanks so much for joining us on CMA Connect today. Cathy, We're going to kick things off by having you answer what trends you're seeing that are most important for marketers for 2024.

00:02:29:00 - 00:03:10:02

Cathy Collier

So connected TV has to reach scale as well and in a lot of markets, but also in Canada, 74% of Canadian households have a smart TV. So connected TV is starting to close the gap in screen time spent between mobile and really the hardware that is now in living rooms. So thanks to many factors like Samsung plus really an avalanche of services, including our latest acronym, FAST, which stands for free ad supported streaming TV.

00:03:10:07 - 00:03:52:02

Cathy Collier

And a good example of that is Corus's Pluto. But both hardware and the services are really changing that ten foot living room experiences and the economies of mass media forever. And then moving on to what would be the third trend that we're paying attention to, that everyone is paying attention to? Is A.I. within the loop of creativity. So really, the first impact I think everyone is seeing is inclusive of ideation, of audience testing, dynamic, creative, as well as content and writing within SEO.

00:03:52:22 - 00:04:23:18

Cathy Collier

But as we all know, A.I. is really, really tricky on ethics. The biases that are built in intellectual property and privacy. You only have to look at the writers strike to know how much impact it is having. And I heard a great analogy about A.I., and that is, you know, they build F1 cars to go really, really fast, but they also design them with state of the art brakes.

00:04:24:04 - 00:04:28:16

Cathy Collier

So to avoid crashing and I don't think that we have the brakes yet.

00:04:29:05 - 00:04:31:01

Alison Simpson

That is such a fitting analogy. I love it.

00:04:31:09 - 00:05:16:05

Cathy Collier

So and fourth of four things that we're paying attention to and really have been building data around is attention planning and optimization around it. It really sheds light on how important scripted programing news and audio formats are. So OMD has been investing in attention for a number of years. Attention is a key indicator for effectiveness. Studies by amplified intelligence uses advanced eye tracking, and they've shown a strong correlation between the amount of attention paid to ad formats and their impact on both short term sales and long term salience.

00:05:16:05 - 00:05:51:24

Cathy Collier

So all of these trends, all four trends are showing how quickly things are changing pretty significantly. And it does highlight the opportunities. But it brings to mind really the conversation that continues to be underlying, which is all about impact measurement and the business value of a brand, the importance of unified measurement and how we're working with marketers to define frameworks that help them demonstrate the value marketing brings to the business.

00:05:52:05 - 00:06:05:19

Cathy Collier

Even in the face of all this change and fragmentation. And it's hard, right? The math is hard, the politics are harder and but they're doable and we're doing it now.

00:06:06:02 - 00:06:27:15

Alison Simpson

That's such a great overview and thanks for sharing those four crucial trends. For every marketer that's listening today. And also to acknowledge you're obviously right, it is so incredibly hard. And I'm getting to my second question. When you take what's happening in the marketplace and overlay consumer behaviors, it just adds to the complexity. It still is doable, but it certainly won't be easy.

00:06:28:05 - 00:06:37:09

Alison Simpson

So on that note, how is changing consumer behavior affecting the media landscape, and what are the specific implications, ones that you see for the traditional mass media formats?

00:06:38:05 - 00:07:05:21

Cathy Collier

Good question, though. I think at a very high level, just looking at it, we know that consumers have been equally enabled through technology, but also through an abundance of content and they're spending a little bit of time at a whole bunch of places. Another word for fragmentation, of content, of platform of time, and they now have infinite choice and it's resulted in a couple other sub trends.

00:07:06:02 - 00:07:42:03

Cathy Collier

One that we've seen is a craving for nostalgia, and you can see it manifesting itself in the resurgence of programs like The Office. And if you look around, you can see nine of these type kind of topography being used in different campaigns. So they're also longing for that cultural connection. But at this point, taking all of those trends, we know that both consumers and media are trying to find the next set of viable models.

00:07:42:15 - 00:08:17:16

Cathy Collier

We can see that there's fractures right across the business models, and it's not really a debate whether the big prod casters and editorial publications will be still around or will change. They will have to be changing and they are changing. And this decade long trend of consumers migrating to new forms of content has led to new business models and economic realities that right so owners and content marketers have to get ahead of.

00:08:18:00 - 00:09:00:21

Cathy Collier

We can see that broadcast delivery units are not able to fund and share revenue and fuel an entire mass ecosystem the way they could in the past. And it's not coming back and looking specifically at local media and news. We can see that there's growing awareness among marketers and agencies on the impact to local media, and it's crucial to connect this awareness with the challenges facing local news outlets in the current climate and what's often overlooked is that this industry issue isn't solely a matter of economic concern.

00:09:01:08 - 00:09:41:07

Cathy Collier

It is a pressing social concern. Access to trusted Canadian news outlets for reliable information has become vital, particularly in an era where misinformation is on the rise. So finally, what our role is and all of this change as marketers and agents is I think that there's an opportunity for local media and brands to come together as businesses, not clients, not sales people, marketers and business owners, and innovate for the sake of shared growth in a very tough market.

00:09:42:14 - 00:09:58:01

Cathy Collier

By more ads doesn't help anyone in the long term. The role of the agency, we believe, is to very clearly orchestrate the conversation on both sides and keep it focused on what big picture matters.

00:09:58:20 - 00:10:24:24

Alison Simpson

Thanks, Cathy. And when you bring it back to Canadian consumer as and that, obviously we all want to be abreast of what's happening on the global stage. We also equally, if not more, want to be well on what's happening in our country and our neighborhoods. So can you share any data are learning you have on Canadian consumers desire around local media and what they're really looking for local media to deliver on?

00:10:24:24 - 00:10:32:13

Alison Simpson

Because that also opens the doors for opportunities for our Canadian media, media companies, marketers and agencies as well.

00:10:33:04 - 00:10:49:23

Cathy Collier

So I think consumers aren't aware of the changes going on, right. So and they need to be aware we need to make a bigger deal of the absence of local information and facts being made to them.

00:10:50:07 - 00:11:04:23

Alison Simpson

So when you what do you see as marketers and media agencies role in the transformation and in helping legacy media companies find a path for it? We know it's not going to be easy, but it's mission critical. So how can we work together to create the path for it?

00:11:05:23 - 00:11:32:08

Cathy Collier

So I think that there is a lot of examples of how the media companies are already evolving. And I'll just I'll mention a couple. I think we need to create more opportunities. So a couple of the great examples of how the media companies are evolving is chorus, right? Chorus launching Stack TV, a Canadian subscription video streaming package through Amazon's Prime channels.

00:11:32:18 - 00:12:01:02

Cathy Collier

That was a great example of them. Rogers Launching their Frequency podcast is another example. Rogers becoming the rep for Disney Plus in Canada. Again, more evolution. And then I think we can look in terms of publishing to how the Globe and Mail has really transformed. And I think it's over 60% of their revenue now comes from paying subscribers.

00:12:01:02 - 00:12:33:07

Cathy Collier

They have had so much success using the paywall automation technology called Sofi that runs on AI and was recently acquired and had that much value. We look to the US and New York Times. They've been buying things like Myrdal and the serial podcaster. So I think there's a lot of experimentation that marketers can take heart of heart from and really dig in to those conversations with the with the media owners.

00:12:33:15 - 00:12:57:21

Alison Simpson

And the examples of Canadian companies partnering with global companies and really coming together to deliver a better product and experience for consumers, as well as benefiting both of their businesses, is absolutely the path for that we'd all love to see. Yes. Now, can you envision a future without mass broadcasts? And if so, get out your crystal ball and when would you predict it to end?

00:12:57:21 - 00:13:00:06

Alison Simpson

And what measures can be taken to preserve it?

00:13:00:09 - 00:13:32:14

Cathy Collier

So I think the question is more will we notice when broadcast evolves to broadband and the current broadcasters: Bell... Rogers... There are also Internet providers combined with the strength of connected TV and with all the channels available through the apps, we may not notice. So what will happen? We think that, as we've said, connectivity, TV and advanced TV is maturing.

00:13:33:03 - 00:14:24:01

Cathy Collier

There's a technology footprint, a user base, a set of modern marketing tools that can and will keep the ten foot living room experience viable. Within this, we have a type of TV kind of reemerging as this free thing off the cable box, and the consequences are always really quite far reaching. We've talked about fast, that free ad supported streaming TV and this delivery distribution type is basically an unencumbered cable box that anyone can package up a few hundred hours of free TV around a thing theme and distribute it on one of the distributors like Pluto or Amazon or Samsung TV.

00:14:24:21 - 00:14:57:03

Cathy Collier

It is super interesting and we'll have the opportunity, although it's longer form content nearly entirely video based, but it can behave much like pre social internet. So many of the producers and media companies will enter The space will be what you call smaller businesses that will be in the same pool as the well-established media brands. So you've got hundreds of free ad supported channels on fast.

00:14:57:18 - 00:15:16:08

Cathy Collier

They're now distributed and all of these people, all these people forms, those will need to really consolidate everything together. So what's even more interesting, have major cultural events moving off of TV are certainly being challenged by other media.

00:15:17:06 - 00:15:45:12

Alison Simpson

There's so many examples of where a legacy business across many different industries gets upset by a startup who doesn't have the history, doesn't have the infrastructure, and can approach the industry from an entirely new way. So it's a great call out for our established media companies to have the need for them to continue to innovate and things like a start up while they're continuing to maintain and build a business they have today.

00:15:46:01 - 00:15:48:03

Alison Simpson

Not an easy balance, but certainly an important one.

00:15:48:14 - 00:15:49:08

Cathy Collier

Now for sure.

00:15:49:23 - 00:16:06:08

Alison Simpson

So great. Thanks so much for your insights today. I am not going to let you off the hook quite yet, though. I'd love you to leave our listeners with what advice you would give for first legacy media companies, then media agencies and then marketers. All right.

00:16:06:19 - 00:16:43:03

Cathy Collier

So in terms of legacy media companies, I think continue what you're doing, continue to think about and develop distribution across multiple platforms to echo where consumers are to look internationally for opportunities like Pluto and three are a start to engage with, with our help in conversations with marketers of products that we can develop together. In terms of media agencies, we need to continue.

00:16:43:04 - 00:17:15:11

Cathy Collier

We have done a really good job of getting the pipes in order of sourcing the data, using the data, and we need to really focus on our comms planning and specific weekly creativity focus because there is something called the born rest off a fact. And what that is, is that when you see a sea of sameness, if there is something a bit different, your eye will immediately go to that.

00:17:15:20 - 00:18:03:06

Cathy Collier

And so we need to be factoring in creative but also media creativity to to partner and make it even stronger too, for media agencies using all of the data we have within attention to refocus on places that consumers are paying attention like scripted video, scripted audio, and so make a concerted effort to be going where consumers are and then finally make sure that we continue or start using learning agendas and measurement frameworks so that we can be proving the impact marketing is having to sales.

00:18:03:23 - 00:18:37:24

Cathy Collier

And then finally, for marketers, we need to continue using and developing MMS, right? They are a great modeling tool to be able to tie your marketing efforts to the sales. And again, they're not easy, they're not fast, they're not free, and they do need to be done with an expert partner. B And for again, for marketers to be open for the creativity and innovation, embrace creators.

00:18:38:02 - 00:19:02:06

Cathy Collier

As a media channel, we've experimented with influencers but really consider creators as a potential media channel. And then finally, always focus on what is culturally important to attract people who have unlimited choice. We need to be creating tribes and focusing on what resonate to these people.

00:19:02:18 - 00:19:32:01

Alison Simpson

I think that's great advice and it all resonates to that. Really jumped out for me was the way to break out of that sea of sameness. You shared it as a great advice for media agencies, but it's very applicable to media legacy media companies and marketers as well. And then when I think about MMM, and I've been in the profession long enough to remember the days where it was seen to be nirvana, where you could actually prove directly link the marketing dollars through to the business results it was driving.

00:19:32:06 - 00:19:53:06

Alison Simpson

So I know it's not easy. I know it takes investment, but it is such a crucial way for us to demonstrate the business value that the marketing profession brings to all of the businesses. And Brand three represents and ultimately to our country's GDP. So absolutely outstanding advice on all fronts. And with that, I want to thank you so much for joining us today.

00:19:53:06 - 00:20:06:07

Alison Simpson

I know you're very busy, but you're also someone who has been such a passionate advocate for the media industry in the marketing profession. And I really appreciate you taking time today to share your insights with our listeners.

00:20:06:19 - 00:20:14:23

Cathy Collier

Thank you for the invitation. I've enjoyed our conversation.

00:20:14:23 - 00:20:29:06

Announcer

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.

Join the CEO of CMA, Alison Simpson, as she welcomes Jeremy Tucker, the EVP, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Spin Master Ltd. to rediscover the power of play, and the magic that dwells within us all.

00:00:02:11 - 00:00:21:08 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.

00:00:22:13 - 00:00:45:11 Alison: Today on CMA Connect, we're going to probe into the fascinating world of toys and children's entertainment. We're also going to hear how Spin Master, a Canadian company, has built a thriving global business and brand from a Canadian head office. Our guest today is Jeremy Tucker. Jeremy is Spin Masters EVP and Global Chief Marketing Officer. He joined the company after working on leading global brands, including Disney, Pepsi and Nissan, to name a few.

00:00:46:08 - 00:00:52:12 Alison: Jeremy just celebrated his first anniversary with Spin Master, so, Jeremy, happy anniversary and it's great to have you joining us today. 00:00:52:19 - 00:00:56:14 Jeremy: Thank you, Alison. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk today.

00:00:56:15 - 00:01:17:15 Alison: Now, I'm going to start by talking a bit about the global brand that Spin Master has built. A number of Canadian brands have tried to expand beyond our borders and struggled. Your brand has been incredibly successful and now significantly more of your business is from outside Canada than inside. This is a success that our listeners are absolutely keen to learn from.

00:01:18:01 - 00:01:21:06 Alison: So what do you attribute Spin Master's global growth and success to?

00:01:22:08 - 00:01:41:11 Jeremy: Yeah, it's a great legacy, right? And if you think about our humble beginnings, starting with the Earth Buddy, with our founders, it was just a relentless passion of really understanding the magic of play and making these incredible experiences and finding an audience for them. And the great thing that unites the world, of course, is our children, but also how we play.

00:01:41:21 - 00:02:08:11 Jeremy: And that might take different forms and different preferences around the world, but really, really understanding it and getting really close to the consumer, and what makes a kid, or a parent with the kid, excited to play. What that has enabled us to do is to create a footprint all around the world, first with our products, then as we evolved as a company with the brands that we're building, and now the power of all three of what we call our creative centres to bring it to life.

00:02:08:11 - 00:02:33:14 Jeremy: So now we've got products with toys, we've got digital games, and those experiences, which is another form of play. And of course, what ignites imaginations in the experience is our entertainment division. And it was a very systematic build and we followed the consumer and that's enabled us to really deliver this promise of delivering incredible play experiences that reimagine play, which is universal.

00:02:33:20 - 00:02:48:18 Alison: Thanks Jeremy,that's a great, great place to start. Now, I know you have a personal history working in franchise marketing, and it's certainly been key to Spin Master's success and growth. Can you share some of the ways that Spin Master is leveraging franchising so successfully and with such staying power?

00:02:50:08 - 00:03:12:00 Jeremy: Sure. Well, maybe we should start by talking about our crown jewel, Paw Patrol, right? Paw Patrol is an incredible franchise and I've had the ability to work on many children's franchises from some of the biggest that you've mentioned in my background. But I will tell you that I've never seen anything like Paw Patrol and the reason I would say that is the longevity of this franchise.

00:03:12:07 - 00:03:35:16 Jeremy: It's the leading preschool franchise in the world and it's been that way, we celebrated ten years, our ten year anniversary, so ten years strong. And the amazing thing about that is, again, thinking about how Paw Patrol works and operates and what we do to build it and strengthen it with our fans all around the world. Of course, you would say as a toy company it starts with the toys.

00:03:36:00 - 00:04:00:13 Jeremy: That's true. But it really starts with the consumers and it starts with the kids that are our fans, our core 4 to 6 year olds and of course, the parents that buy the product for them and really bringing to life a singular purpose. It's the adventure that all kids see, puppies which they love, but the underlying current is really empowering little kids to do big things.

00:04:01:06 - 00:04:26:17 Jeremy: And then, of course, the secret sauce to what we do in building a franchise is when you've got a strategy like that or you've got a story arc like that, a brand like that, our superpower is bringing story to shelf. Because if you can imagine it and you can play in your mind with what the world of Adventure City is and how Chase and Marshall and Skye all work together to save the day,

00:04:27:07 - 00:04:54:00 Jeremy: how do you now bring the products forward that actually deliver on that and capture the imagination of kids and parents so that they can play and live out those experiences? And that is really the thing that we challenge ourselves on from a franchise perspective, continually looking to where the kids are going around the world, looking at the themes that make them excited, that deliver that empowerment message and create the excitement and action, and have fun because this is about light.

00:04:54:13 - 00:05:13:04 Jeremy: And at the end of the day, that's what keeps us as a company up at night. It's just the relentless fanaticism of really understanding kids and moms all around the world. And as a marketer today, especially in the dynamic world of kids, which changes very quickly, you've got to stay on it. You got to stay close to the consumer.

00:05:13:13 - 00:05:23:18 Jeremy: Completely be fascinated with them and you guide your entire gamut of marketing, all the tools at your disposal, to really make sure you're delivering your message in multiple ways.

00:05:24:07 - 00:05:51:01 Alison: So Jeremy, building on what you shared, so kids can absolutely be fickle. And what's hot today won't be hot next week. Yet you're celebrating your 10th anniversary. So kudos, what a truly remarkable accomplishment. You also have a very unique global perspective on how kids are the same universally, but also if there are any differences. So I'd be curious to hear from your learning on Canadian kids and Canadian parents if you've noticed any differences.

00:05:51:16 - 00:06:15:08 Jeremy: Sure. Well, there's definitely some things that I would say resonate very powerfully with our Canadian audience. So if you look at our first Paw Patrol movie, for example, not the one that's currently in theatres, but the one previous, which really set the bar for what we want to do as an entertainment company. The first opening scene, if you would notice there are the pups saving a truck driver who is carrying maple syrup.

00:06:15:21 - 00:06:43:20 Jeremy: And it was a little nod to our fans because we actually produce all this content, this wonderful, beautiful content here in Canada, out of our Spin Master entertainment studios, led by Jen Dodge. It's a very important part of pride for the company with an incredibly talented studio model that we have. It really bring these stories to life. When we actually market the products, we empower our regional marketing teams to deliver their marketing plans, bespoke whatever market they're at.

00:06:44:15 - 00:07:13:10 Jeremy: It's a very, very important thing. But when you think about a global franchise. So yes, as a franchise leader, we'll set the strategy, We'll talk about the big themes. What are the big bets, working with our toy team, our entertainment team. But when it comes down to execution, we want to empower our local marketers. We have a Canadian market leader, US market leader, all around the globe market leaders, to build their budgets, choose their media mix and update, localize their messaging to be right for their audience.

00:07:14:02 - 00:07:34:06 Jeremy: And that's a very important thing for a global marketing organization. You have to have a global vision - where are we going to the franchise and how are we going to continue to make it grow and be healthy. But you have to open up and be open-handed to allow your experts to really shine in the markets that they live and operate in.

00:07:34:22 - 00:08:00:15 Jeremy: And I think that that's what makes Paw Patrol uniquely feel, you know, it's relevant in our Canadian stores that we have. So, yes, we have big box retailers, the same as the United States, but we also have some retailers here that are very important, they're very unique to Canada. And between our sales force and our local marketing team, we want to make sure that that experience of Paw Patrol really fits that commercial space when the consumer comes in.

00:08:01:06 - 00:08:15:02 Alison: I love that you chose maple syrup as the kiss and thank you to Canadians - very appropriate. Jeremy, when you and I met previously, you mentioned launching a new franchise. So what lessons are you going to take from the phenomenal success of Paw Patrol as you launch Unicorn Academy?

00:08:16:14 - 00:08:36:16 Jeremy: Alison That's a great question. So to answer that, I have to answer in two ways. There's what will we take, the tenets, and what do we have to do differently because the world is so different now than it was ten years ago. So for Unicorn Academy, we're launching us on Netflix and we're investing in it from a company perspective to bring to life new stories

00:08:36:22 - 00:09:06:17 Jeremy: Off of a beloved book series. But we're reimagining it for modern day girls. So core to this, number one, all the way back to when I originally started with, is really understanding the consumer - girls. But what we found as we explored that was there are themes for girls that matter for this generation of girls. Friendship, bonding, having a place, the school dynamics and experience.

00:09:06:17 - 00:09:29:05 Jeremy: All of these things are very, very much top of mind and are played out in the content they consume and what they do and what they talk about. And so you say, okay, how can we bring those insights into the world of storytelling? And then you have to let the storytellers do their job. And what we learned was you've got to create attachment to the characters.

00:09:29:09 - 00:09:58:05 Jeremy: You've got to not only attach to the characters in this particular series, but each character bonds with a unicorn. But girls identify with these different archetypes, and they like that social dynamic in the challenges, and you needed to dial up the stakes a little bit more because we've learned with Paw Patrol, if you look at ten years ago to today, it's gotten a little bit more on the adventure space, making sure that we, you know, kids today want a little bit more oomph.

00:09:58:18 - 00:10:22:04 Jeremy: They get the impact of superhero movies. Think about the impact of media. So it's still very, very much targeted for preschoolers and safe. But the action is dialed up a little bit and the humour is dialed up a little bit to reflect the culture. We applied the same principles to Unicorn Academy. We upped the game on the animation. We upped the game on the music and the visual storytelling and the arcs that go with it.

00:10:22:15 - 00:10:39:23 Jeremy: And we sequenced it in a way that you've got a launch of a movie, and then the series will actually continue to play out. It's a modern approach to engaging the consumer, but again, you've got to stay on it. I think if there's one message with kids, it's whatever we're doing right now may be different from what we're doing six months from now. There'll be a core thread, a play, but we've got to continue to push ourselves to think and act and behave like children, which requires us to play ourselves. Alison: That doesn't sound like a bad job description actually. Jeremy: And yeah, you know, we have a lot of fun around here, so it's great.

00:10:57:17 - 00:11:26:00 Alison: Now you called out some very important themes, and as you were talking about how very different young girls are, those different ages. I know every parent of a young daughter that's listening was smiling and certainly relating. Having gone through the challenge we as a society did over the last three years, did you see any of those themes either soften or become even more important coming out of the isolation of the pandemic?

00:11:26:00 - 00:11:26:11 Jeremy: You know what, the

00:11:26:11 - 00:12:00:14 Jeremy: pandemic actually taught us a few things. If you look at the industry and you look at the styles of the industry, when everybody was hunkered down for COVID, the toy industry started to really have a rebirth. Certain segments really flourished, like boardgames. But toys overall really started to resonate because we're all home together. And I think what it did for parents in particular, and I will even say maybe one step further for dads, we brought us back in,

00:12:00:14 - 00:12:21:17 Jeremy: it brought us back into the world of play. It taught us as adults, the power of play again and how to play. And you know, what's interesting is that co-play, while still not as big as kids playing on their own, right, let's be let's be really honest. Kids playing on their own, they're going to play. But the co-play still had some stick-to-it-iveness.

00:12:22:14 - 00:12:49:12 Jeremy: Parents started to change and modify their behaviour and realize the joy it brought them to interact and play alongside their kids. Parents are worried about social emotional learning. They're worried about their kids interacting with other kids, how they catch back up on their education, how they play and have resilience and grit to get through and kind of move forward and leave, you know, the challenges of COVID

00:12:49:12 - 00:13:13:08 Jeremy: And the post-COVID world behind. They won't articulate that. And it's not maybe expressing itself all the way down in sales right now, but it's a theme that's bubbling, and they're looking for solutions and they're looking for opportunities even when they don't directly express it to help with that. And the great thing about that is, overall, the balm for that is play.

00:13:13:08 - 00:13:42:02 Jeremy: And so it sets us up again in this really unique space to say, let's talk about our role in society, let's talk about what Spin Master brings to the table, and then we will let the consumer opt into our entire portfolio and I think parents are starting to link the power of play with imagination, with problem solving, with grit, you know, with different things, with just hope and optimism, which is one of the things that parents want most for their kids right now.

00:13:42:02 - 00:14:04:12 Jeremy: So it gives me a lot of excitement, a lot of pride about what Spin Master is doing and our impact on the world here from Canada out. Yes, we are a business. Yes, we sell toys and you know, we're for profit. But the reality is we're doing good by really captivating imaginations and bringing people back to play. And we're going to keep doing that.

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:16:19 Jeremy: And we've got more things coming. You've seen some some announcements this week. We got Unicorn Academy, the Paw movie. I mean, the deck is stacked and the team is on it and we're just really, really, really excited about the road ahead.

00:14:17:02 - 00:14:44:11 Alison: That's great. Thank you, Jeremy. Now, any marketer and certainly this would be true of you, are really focused on understanding how the marketing we're doing is going to succeed, tracking and determining what will ultimately be successful and learning along the way. So you've got wonderful examples of great success with your different franchises. Can you share a bit about how you do track and determine what you hope will be successful?

00:14:44:11 - 00:15:02:22 Jeremy: I think, you know, again, I'll give you a frame of reference for this. If you think about my career in the different places I have been, I'm a nontraditional brand marketer that I've gone through many different verticals, whether it's entertainment, CPG, automotive, fitness, and here back to toy, which is the love of my life. For those marketers that are listening,

00:15:02:23 - 00:15:30:10 Jeremy: when you think about traditional consumer packaged goods, CPG, toy is a little different from that. CPG, we are trained on how to manage a business, soup to nuts. Look at the PNL, understand your distribution, your velocity, the key buy, windows, a season out. Fill the blank. You can hear me go down it. You know and you manage a portfolio and a product line and you might have ten SKUs of one set, five SKUs of another flavour, whatever that may be.

00:15:30:17 - 00:15:57:10 Jeremy: But overall, you're managing that on a multi-annual basis with some news and innovation spiking the water. Within Spin Master, especially with our DNA as innovators, we are always bringing news to market and our lines reset every year, every season, so it creates a different dynamic that brings us closer to fashion in a way, retail in a way, than it does in a consumer packaged goods type of way.

00:15:57:10 - 00:16:17:05 Jeremy: So yes, we're applying brand management and franchise management principles to what we're doing, but we've got to stay nimble at that. So, big set up for your very simple question. What that means is that we have to actually be very, very much on the pulse of where the consumer is going, and we do that through the insights that I talked about.

00:16:17:15 - 00:16:35:11 Jeremy: We do that through the expertise of the talented men and women who lead the company, veterans of the toy industry, veterans of the entertainment industry and the digital gains industry. They know this space. They love it, and they have been experts at it for a long time. But they challenge, we challenge ourselves to use current data to get ahead of it.

00:16:36:00 - 00:16:56:17 Jeremy: Then we hunker down. And what I mean by that is - best laid plans. You called it out a little bit earlier in the podcast. We can do the best we can do and have all the data. But when it comes to kids, you just don't now. So you've got to be ready to move as fast as they and Q4 is all about the holidays.

00:16:57:02 - 00:17:20:16 Jeremy: This is it. This is our Super Bowl, this game time, right? And so what we do is we create a warrior across company and we look at every week all of our sales our retail performance, consumer sentiment, marketing performance, the lift that we're getting, how we're driving pull through, what's hot, what's not. And we have to make decisions on how we actually play the portfolio.

00:17:20:16 - 00:17:39:07 Jeremy: And again, being a global company, it's not a one size fits all because there are things that in Europe are working very well right now and things that are here are not working as well. And you have to really localize that going back to the empowerment of our teams, to make the right business decisions in the markets in which we operate.

00:17:39:07 - 00:17:51:04 Jeremy: So very, very complicated high seasonality, you have to be very agile and you have to not be precious because we have to take all those signals into account to make the right decisions.

00:17:51:17 - 00:18:11:11 Alison: So I love that you tell marketers not to be precious and get so caught up in what we thought was going to work. And agility is mission critical, especially as you're in the quarter that will define success in many ways for the year for you. You're also a global organization and with some pretty significant interdependencies with your retail partners and others.

00:18:11:19 - 00:18:16:01 Alison: So I'd love to hear how you're able to be as agile as you're able to be.

00:18:16:08 - 00:18:57:05 Jeremy: The agility for us is Spin Master number one is part of our DNA. I think we are an entrepreneurial company. We have been an entrepreneurial company since founders were here, including the DNA that we have with our CEO and the executive team that's here with me. Number one, that's a mindset. So that helps us be agile. I think number two, it's continuing to challenge ourselves as we continue to grow and expand as a public and global organization on how to play that role, because this is the scale we're at right now, but maintain the agility and the empowerment that we need in the local markets to deliver the business results and driving the accountability there too.

00:18:57:22 - 00:19:19:09 Alison: That's outstanding advice and the clarity of understanding, everyone understanding the mission and the mandate and then being able to delegate that autonomy and accountability to the different teams is such a powerful combination. Now, Jeremy, as you're developing new products, to what degree are you developing a product specifically for a girl or a boy?

00:19:19:19 - 00:19:40:22 Jeremy: So first and foremost, we look for the play experience and we look for the properties or brands that would actually bring that to life. In the past, historically in the industry, it has been very gender split and traditionally it will land on gender lines. But we challenge ourselves to think about play capital P play. That's the first thing that leads us out.

00:19:41:13 - 00:19:53:17 Jeremy: And when we do it that way, it really allows us to focus on the experience and what's best. And does that take on something that skews gender One way or another? The consumer will lead us there and we will follow.

00:19:55:01 - 00:20:15:19 Alison: Now, you mentioned earlier we're in the crucial Q4 holiday sales period. That's certainly crucial for many retailers and absolutely mission critical for the toy industry. We're also facing certainly a more challenging economy. So can you share some of the trends that you're seeing and how spin Masters adopting this year's Q4 approach to make the most of the holiday buying season?

00:20:15:19 - 00:20:48:06 Jeremy: So I think, you know, number one, as I spoke about previously, we are really focused on being together and being super aligned real time on the performance in the market through our processes, in our war rooms and what we do so that we can enable ourselves to work discussions and make quick decision. But when we look at the consumer and how we planned the back half of this year versus previous years coming out of COVID, there was from an industry perspective, a demand that kind of pushed the whole industry out.

00:20:48:23 - 00:21:21:23 Jeremy: There is also not just for toy, but across the world. I've heard about you remember the inventory supply issues and how that kind of all played out. We don't have those factors anymore, right. But also during COVID because of what was happening in the different shutdowns around the world, there wasn't a lot of news across the industry. And the toy category mature is like fashion news drives, sales and what we're very excited about coming into this year and what we planned for is we've got some great innovation that we're bringing to market across all of our line.

00:21:22:19 - 00:21:40:06 Jeremy: We are looking at how we actually refresh the line and bring this news and excitement to the category, right? So we've got that going for us. We've looked at the price point. We want to make sure that we've got good price thinking that we're in line with where the consumer's going as the economy kind of rattles and as consumer confidence around the kind of shakes.

00:21:41:05 - 00:22:07:09 Jeremy: But the other thing that I would say is very interesting to dynamics across categories, with the exception maybe of one beauty, all categories or maybe disposable income in retail right now are a little challenged. That doesn't mean Christmas isn't going to count parents and shoppers or shopping behavior perspective or timing it a little closer to the holidays. We've seen this happen historically in recessions.

00:22:07:09 - 00:22:30:03 Jeremy: We've seen this happen historically over previous years. So what that means for us is we with our retailers, have to create confidence around those key shopping moments. So it creates a very interesting dynamic that's that's unsettling for sure. But something that we can plan for and try to manage as best we can. The last thing I would say, yes, I told you, there are a couple things are all different.

00:22:30:16 - 00:22:56:20 Jeremy: Yes, parents pocketbooks are challenged and they're going to think more carefully and more considered about what their children want. But there's also a secret weapon of the holidays. I've said it. I'll say it again. Grandparents will say Christmas because their relationship grew. COVID coming out of this, and especially this generation of parents, they're closer to their parents and the role of grandparents is taking an interesting turn.

00:22:56:21 - 00:23:41:12 Jeremy: And these consumers, the grandparents, are not impacted from a discretionary income and spend perspective the same as grandparents, and they are more likely to spend on their kids and their grandkids than previous generations and spend more. So if you think about that, it created an interesting opportunity for us that we've never done before at scale, and we have market by market candidate included U.S. all around the world, targeted campaigns not only to parents but also to grandparents around the holidays to make sure that they understand the incredible toys that we offer and encourage them to put one of those or two of those into their basket as they choose their list for the holidays.

00:23:41:12 - 00:23:48:19 Alison: Thanks, Jeremy. That brings a whole new sentiment to Senior Power. And I'll definitely be hugging grandparents, as I'm sure many retailers will this quarter.

00:23:49:12 - 00:23:52:14 Jeremy: Grandparents will say Christmas. It's going to be phenomenal.

00:23:54:03 - 00:24:12:12 Alison: The journey. I had absolutely no doubt that toy marketing was going to be a fascinating conversation. And you shared great advice that's relevant to marketers across many different sectors. So I thank you very much for that. I would love to end by having you share a parting thought or advice that you have for our listeners.

00:24:12:12 - 00:24:34:19 Jeremy: Yeah, I think that some of the best advice I ever received was get yourself as close to the consumer as you possibly and as you continue to grow in your career as a marketer and as an executive, It's very easy to get isolated and get out of touch with the very men and women that you want to create.

00:24:34:19 - 00:25:04:21 Jeremy: Incredible experiences, foreign trips, man lit the brand and get out there and do it. When I was at PepsiCo, although as a cook drinker before I drink Pepsi and I went and understood the retail environment and what was going on there. And yes, I went to the Paw Patrol mirror, not the big corporate premier. I took it, sat in a theater in the back row with me and my chief people officer, and we just watched and listened and laughed and saw what kids laughed at and slapped out and just stayed curious.

00:25:05:10 - 00:25:27:00 Jeremy: So to stay alive as a marketer today, how to get as close to the consumer as Yeah, you got to be passionate about that. And the last thing within that, the undercurrent curiosity, you got to build that yourself. You got to be curious about the why and the 2 to 3 level down wise about why people do what they do.

00:25:27:10 - 00:25:51:23 Jeremy: You know, these types of questions help you understand how to really understand it and really drive the domain. And in the preference of your product is that's what it is, right? You want to build brand. We want to build what we want to build protection from the competition. We want to build demand. We want to drive growth. And if you don't understand the consumer and you're not close to them, just reading the data, what's on the page is not going to get you there.

00:25:52:01 - 00:25:53:00 Jeremy: You got to go with it.

00:25:53:17 - 00:26:19:02 Alison: Absolutely outstanding advice on that. My greatest insights when I've been in marketing and CMO roles was what I learned unexpectedly by walking a store floor, calling in, patching into a call center and at firsthand customer learning and experience is absolutely invaluable. So tremendous words of wisdom With that Jeremy, I want to thank you again. I know, especially in your busiest quarter, I really appreciate you taking the time for this conversation.

00:26:19:02 - 00:26:22:17 Alison: And I know our listeners join me in thanking you for the great advice you share.

00:26:24:08 - 00:26:33:20 Jeremy: Thank you, Alison. I really appreciate the time and enjoyed our conversation and wishing it right out there as it comes. Have a happy holiday and stay safe.

00:26:34:05 - 00:26:36:18 Alison: Thanks, Jeremy.

00:26:39:01 - 00:26:53:13 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.

Join the CEO of CMA, Alison Simpson, as she teams up with Scott Pinkney, the SVP and Executive Creative Director at Publicis Hawkeye Canada, for an exhilarating dive into generative AI's impact on the creative process.

0000:02:16 - 00:00:21:00

Speaker 1

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.

00:00:22:20 - 00:00:42:27

Alison:

Today on CMA Connect, we're talking about AI from a creative angle. Every week brings many new AI tools, including many that are really focused on creative on production. So it's not all that surprising that marketers are increasingly looking to their agency partners and creative teams to understand both the benefits and some of the challenges and most importantly, how best to leverage AI.

00:00:43:28 - 00:01:03:10

Alison:

So today I'm joined by Scott Pinkney, a leading creative strategist, brand ambassador and relationship marketer. Scott's held senior creative roles in New York, the UK and Toronto. He's the SVP and executive creative director at Publicis Hawkeye Canada, which is a customer engagement agency. Thanks so much for joining us on CMA Connect today, Scott.

00:01:04:21 - 00:01:18:00

Scott:

Thank you, Alison. Excited to be here. It's an incredible topic, it's an exciting topic. It's one that's having a lot of discussions both in the boardrooms and, as you can imagine, in the creative departments of a lot of agencies.

00:01:18:17 - 00:01:35:22

Alison:

Absolutely. Well, you're definitely known as a creative powerhouse in the marketing profession. And you're also a very much an early adopter of new approaches and technological tools. So can you share with us a bit about when and how your team began using AI tools and how your use of them may have evolved or expanded?

00:01:36:29 - 00:01:57:11

Scott:

Yeah, definitely. Well, first of all, I think it's important to know that I'm not a technical guy. I do consider myself an early adopter because when new technology comes, I can usually see it pretty clearly. I can see the opportunities and I get really excited. The beautiful thing is I have all those technical minds back at the agency and those data gurus who just really know how to make it happen.

00:01:57:11 - 00:02:16:13

Scott:

So I get excited. I'm like, Oh, we can do this, we can do that. I'm like, Well, how do we do it? So definitely excited about what's happening in the world of AI. I think we all know that it's here. It's going to change the way we do everything. It is impacting every aspect of our lives, both at home and also from a business standpoint.

00:02:16:25 - 00:02:29:29

Scott:

But interesting enough, what really excites me as a creative person is what I call and I think we all call the game changer, which is really kind of generative AI And really how it's being integrated into the creative process, which is pretty thrilling.

00:02:30:18 - 00:02:45:20

Alison:

That's such a great point, generative AI, as we're hearing so much about that now and it's fairly new, but itself has been around for a very long time. So why don't we take a quick pause and have you share the different types of AI? Because I know you've been an early adopter, long before generative AI as well.

00:02:46:18 - 00:03:06:01

Scott:

Well, thank you very much. And I think it is really important if you think about, you know, AI and machine learning has really been part of our lives for years, right? When you're shopping online, using Google Maps, searching the Internet on your phone, even ordering food, right. Like AI is always working behind the scenes. And it's been around for generations. You know, as I mentioned then, you know, enter generative AI, right?

00:03:06:01 - 00:03:25:22

Scott:

And wow, that's what's really, really amazing. And interesting enough, I did a presentation when they came back from Cannes, judging the creative data category, and I thought it was really important to kind of level set with my team. So I'll kind of do a really kind of really quick, quick recap. Funny. Nope. I thought, you know, I'm going to ask ChatGPT to give me the definition and the first definition.

00:03:25:22 - 00:03:49:23

Scott:

I had no idea what it was talking about. So I said, You know what? Give me the definition. But as if you're talking to a grade school student and now this is what I got back, and I thought it was really, really important and clarified the differences. So let's talk first about artificial intelligence. And basically what it said is AI is like giving superpowers to a robot so that it can think, learn and solve problems almost like humans do.

00:03:50:07 - 00:04:11:18

Scott:

This robot can talk like you, understand pictures and even make decisions. That's why it's been around for a long time. Then you move into machine learning. This was a definition for machine learning. So machine learning is a special skill we teach to the robot. Instead of telling exactly what to do, we show lots of examples and let it figure things out on its own.

00:04:12:07 - 00:04:31:02

Scott:

It's like teaching a dog new tricks by showing it how to do that. So think about machine learning, especially in my space of 1 to 1 relationship marketing, trigger based marketing. If the consumer, you know, if then else, if the consumer does this, serve up this, that's what machine learning is. You know again as you mentioned, thank you very much, we are a center of excellence for CRM.

00:04:31:09 - 00:04:55:21

Scott:

So that's been kind of part of our lives for a long time, kind of doing the hard work behind the scenes. So when you think about platforms like Salesforce and Braze, those learnings have already been built in. But now the big difference is, is generative AI and that's really where it kind of gets exciting because we're now seeing that come not only into play in the platforms that we're using to communicate with consumers, but even the creative process itself.

00:04:55:21 - 00:05:13:25

Scott:

So from a general AI sampling, and if we just pivot there for a minute, it's here. And, you know, it's a bit scary for creatives, you know, you know, whether you like it or not, it's going to impact how we work, how we communicate. So, you know, finding the right balance between humans and robots is going to be our challenge.

00:05:13:25 - 00:05:39:06

Scott:

And we are already bringing it into our lives, you know, ChatGPT, Dolly, Midjourney. These are all early out the gate and communicators and creators are already using it and the stuff they are creating is absolutely amazing. You know, I heard a speaker at Cannes and he said that science fiction is now reality. So, you know, you think about those old science fiction movies and you're like, how's that ever going to happen?

00:05:39:15 - 00:06:05:11

Scott:

Well, generative AI is now allowing whatever we can think of, can now be created. So we're bringing it in to the agency. We're using it in different areas. I mean, and there is also this this wonderful thought around creative interplay, right? The magic of the interplay between AI and human creativity. And again, you know, for a lot of creatives, this is challenging.

00:06:05:11 - 00:06:34:10

Scott:

And it's there's this feeling that I'm losing my ability to be creative. It's writing copy, it's generating imagery. And that is kind of a daunting thought. But the reality is, if we can find the way to really marry true creativity with what technology can do, great ideas are being invented and coming off of Cannes. We'll talk about that a bit later I hope, is wow, the work being done is like you can think it, you can now create it.

00:06:34:10 - 00:06:49:28

Alison:

And you're so right in calling out that it is daunting for creatives, for marketers, for business people overall. So how have you gotten comfortable with that and helped your team get comfortable with seeing that opportunity and getting over some of the intimidation and daunting nature of it?

00:06:51:15 - 00:07:17:09

Scott:

It's still ongoing. You know, different conversations with different individuals. There's actually a really interesting quote, i just wanted to share it because I loved it when I heard it. And the one thing I have been doing. As I mentioned, I'm not a technology guy, but I am reading every article I can around AI and different perspectives, so that I can really inspire my team. You know, as a creative lead, my job is to inspire, is to inspire my teams to do better thinking, to work with the strategy teams.

00:07:17:22 - 00:07:33:06

Scott:

And even when new tools like this come in is how do we best use it and implement it? So this quote was great because I heard it and it's something that I'm trying to instill with my creatives, which is, it was by, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing his name right but it was James Magda. And he was talking about how AI and creativity kind of come together.

00:07:33:06 - 00:07:53:08

Scott:

And he said creative people thrive in times of change. They're often the first to try new things, reinvent the rules, push the boundaries and expand possibilities for everyone. Well, that's kind of the positive side. But then he went on to say to anyone who is curious but cautious, which I think a lot of people are, you've just got to get started.

00:07:53:13 - 00:08:17:21

Scott:

And that's what I keep telling everybody, you have to play with the tools, get in there, play around with Midjourney, get into ChatGPT, in fact just start using it in your daily life. How to put together a meal for a family, like start using it in ways where you don't think it oversteps into true creativity that we put in front of clients, but that it aids us in creative development.

00:08:18:13 - 00:08:32:08

Alison:

That's great advice, Scott. Thank you. Now, AI can certainly help marketing teams leverage data in real time and improve efficiencies and the results of marketing operations. Are you using it to analyze your own data or customer interactions that then feed the AI engine?

00:08:33:15 - 00:08:52:24

Scott:

Yeah, I mean, the personal answer is absolutely. I mean, if you think about CRM, it's always about creating, you know, meaningful relationships with consumers, right time, right message to kind of, you know, drive the desired action. We've always relied on data. Data is our secret weapon. It's in our DNA. But to be successful, it's always about crunching data.

00:08:53:14 - 00:09:17:18

Scott:

It's always about analyzing data. It's always about getting the right data to the right place at the right time. So AI is helping us do that in a much faster away. You know, as we talked about a bit earlier, machine learning and traditional AI was already built in some of the platforms we're using. But the speed in which we're able to get insights, the speed in which we're able to analyze data and put it into action, that's what's really exciting.

00:09:17:28 - 00:09:37:10

Scott:

And I'm sure you've all heard the new phrase generative CRM, right? It's that new, you know, it's promising to revolutionize how we interact and engage with consumers. Right. Its ability to generate content in real time. Right. A consumer does a particular thing. They say a particular thing about a particular product. And then we're used to ads being served up when we look it up.

00:09:37:10 - 00:09:56:12

Scott:

And now it's going a bit further than that. It's talking to you about their product, it's responding to queries you made. Chatbot, right, they're going to get more sophisticated. So we're starting to leverage all of these different tools and across different clients where as you can imagine, different clients are at different stages of their kind of data maturity.

00:09:56:12 - 00:10:16:01

Scott:

So the ones that are really advanced, we're really activating it right away. For some of the newer clients who are investigating because again, this happened so fast, like the difference between when I was in Cannes in May, where every, every conversation started with, oh my goodness, are we going to lose our jobs? Here we now are in October and we are moving, we are adopting it.

00:10:16:01 - 00:10:34:22

Scott:

We are bringing it into play. And as they mentioned, it's it's part of discovery. It's part of research. It's part of targeting, it's part of measuring, it's part of media buying, it's coming in to the creative product, you know, how do we, how do we be more efficient with our writing pool? When does it make sense to lean on ChatGPT?

00:10:35:12 - 00:10:56:26

Scott:

When does it make sense to lean 100% on a human? So we're solving those things right now. We have a lot of use cases going on and we've been seeing a lot of success. But, you know, it's always you know, it's it's not flawless. Like we know, you know, there's there's a lot of brands that have made bad mistakes using generative AI that has backfired.

00:10:56:26 - 00:11:14:11

Scott:

So we need to be very cautious and we need to continue to be cautious and we need to test, learn and optimize. So I feel like we're still in the early days and we know that technology is only going to get more advanced. So, you know, we got to jump on that train because it's left the station and we're going to see where it takes us.

00:11:15:04 - 00:11:36:27

Alison:

And a willingness to experiment and know that some mistakes are going to happen. Life is not flawless, so it makes sense that something that's moving as quickly as generative AI the mistakes can happen at that faster speed as well. So just making sure that you're being, taking measured rest wherever possible and then learning as we go, that's we're all figuring out together in many ways.

00:11:37:12 - 00:11:51:10

Alison:

Now, you mentioned Cannes, you had a great time judging there and I'm sure you were exposed to AI infused work. Are there examples that we should all be looking to coming out of the judging at Cannes that really resonated for you?

00:11:52:08 - 00:12:11:29

Scott:

You know, that was such an amazing experience. That's my second time judging, actually, my second time at Cannes. And the first time was actually was the first year they did the Direct category, which was interesting. You know, fast forward now to 2023, I'm in the creative data category and the awarding jury and it was amazing. I think it was certainly eye opening.

00:12:11:29 - 00:12:31:17

Scott:

Like I knew that I was going to go in there and see, you know, incredible cases from the round the world using data. What I didn't expect is over 50% of the cases had machine learning and AI. Well, there's two cases that I definitely want to share with you, and I love the fact that you used the word infused.

00:12:31:20 - 00:13:01:22

Scott:

And that was certainly no exaggeration. It was literally infused in and brought to life. A lot of the work that was awarded that we fell in love with, that used machine learning, it amplified the idea. It allowed the brand to bring the idea to life. It wasn't the idea. Ideas are still formed by human thinking and ingenuity and understanding of the brand, and understanding of humans.

00:13:01:22 - 00:13:19:06

Scott:

But it supercharged the creative team and the agency to be able to deliver it. And the first one was the Stella Artois probability that actually was the Grand Prix for creative data. That was an easy one. It was a no brainer. It was created by Gut Buenos Aires and the campaign was absolutely amazing. And I'll talk a bit about kind of what the idea was and then kind of how they used the data and were able to pull it all together.

00:13:19:23 - 00:13:50:04

Scott:

So, you know, one of the things is, Stella Artois, long long history. Based on their history and understanding of the brand, they concluded that there's a probability that the beer portrayed in historical art pieces throughout Europe like Manet, Van Gogh could have been a Stella Artois. Love that idea. So brilliant. So what they did was they superimposed on top of these beautiful fine art paintings, a percentage indicating the probability that the people in the picture were actually drinking Stella Artois.

00:13:50:19 - 00:14:14:02

Scott:

So how do they use it? How did they use AI and machine learning? The data points they used to create this campaign was amazing. And it was all based on an algorithm that analyzed the year the artwork was painted, its geographical location, the shape of the glass, which was just incredible that was being used. Even the color of the liquid inside the glass and then the distance between the artists and the original brewery.

00:14:14:09 - 00:14:34:16

Scott:

This was an integrated campaign. They pulled it together in such a beautiful way. The percentages of probability were from like 22% to 70. They were never 100. They didn't claim it, but it was always, Hey, it's a probability. Doesn't matter. They owned it. But what a great example of that idea wasn't generated by AI. It was powered by AI. It made it possible.

00:14:35:00 - 00:15:01:23

Scott:

Could they have pulled this off on their own? Probably, but it would have taken crazy amounts of time and resources to do what AI was able to do. So that was the first campaign that we fell in love with. I'm going to show you another Grand Prix, share with you another Grand Prix, which was in the creative effects, this was also using generative AI and you know in such a unique and special way with Shah Rukh Khan.

00:15:02:01 - 00:15:23:04

Scott:

The ad was done by Cadbury by Ogilvy. And I love the problem and they did have a real problem, right, coming off the pandemic. It was really crippling to the economy. But who was really feeling it was small businesses. So in this case, big brands, you know, obviously way deeper pockets. They were equipped to fight back. But the local businesses, small stores, they didn't have the luxury.

00:15:23:21 - 00:15:51:22

Scott:

So they use Shah Rukh Khan, who is the biggest Bollywood star. And he actually became the brand ambassador for thousands of small local neighborhood stores. Well how did they do it? Enter generative AI. They actually created a hyper personalized digital avatar, of Shah Rukh Khan, by regenerating his face, which is data, his voice which is data and would replace the store names in every single ad. Hyper data driven personalization.

00:15:51:22 - 00:16:12:15

Scott:

So you can imagine you're now a small store owner and Shah Rukh Khan is selling it. He becomes the ambassador for your ad and they even took it further. They actually knew they couldn't do it for every store. So they created a platform that allowed small business owners to go in and change and put their names in there and have Shah Rukh Khan basically promote their store.

00:16:12:15 - 00:16:30:24

Scott:

We thought it was obviously brilliant, but AI, the generative AI, oh my goodness, it was flawless. It was beautiful. It was fun, it was engaging. And again, another great example of an amazing idea powered by AI, generative AI, but not created by generative AI.

00:16:31:24 - 00:16:49:06

Alison:

Those are both such powerful examples and to your point, they come out of an amazing idea generated by a human and then they're scaled and brought to life with a speed and a beauty that would be hard to replicate without the technology. So thank you for sharing. Those are both terrific examples.

00:16:49:23 - 00:17:08:09

Scott:

You know, I came back and I did a show and tell and I showed about eight or nine different campaigns because you need to see the possibilities, because the possibilities are very different and very unique. And until you really look at the work and understand it and actually ask yourself, how do they make that? That's a great exercise we're doing.

00:17:09:00 - 00:17:23:15

Scott:

Look at these campaigns and ask yourself, if we were doing that, how would we as an agency create that? Because you never see totally behind the curtain. Once you do that, it starts to unearth other opportunities that you can bring to your different brands.

00:17:24:10 - 00:17:48:10

Alison:

Great point. When you think about earlier conversation around it can be quite daunting, but when you look at generative AI as an enabler, if a creative team comes up with a spectacular idea that we simply cannot afford, now generative I might make it feasible and affordable, so it can absolutely can go from being daunting to quite inspiring when it's viewed as a tool in those ways.

00:17:49:09 - 00:18:11:22

Scott:

And Alison, that is such a great word, enabler, and that's one of the things I've been doing. I'm trying to find like enabler. You know, I heard the phrase co-pilot, right? Your partner, you know, your partner to help you get unstuck. You see it that way, then you start focusing on, wow, what can I do? Yeah, that's when it gets exciting for creatives.

00:18:12:12 - 00:18:14:01

Scott:

Not what am I not doing?

00:18:15:11 - 00:18:23:19

Alison:

So building on that, I'd love to hear from your vantage point, what excites you the most about the continued development of AI?

00:18:23:19 - 00:18:39:08

Scott:

You know, listen, there's no question that AI is going to have a huge impact on our lives. I mentioned this earlier. It's not only at home but at work. And because we're trying to bring those two worlds together, we need to really think about how it's going to impact us everywhere and it's only going to increase.

00:18:39:13 - 00:19:02:19

Scott:

Like we know the technology there's, you know, there's issues, right?

We know there's massive bias with AI. We know that it's only trained on the data that's out there. We know that, unfortunately, there's a lot of bad data out there. There's a lot of back thinking and viewpoints. So we have to be very cautious, but you need to be excited about it, because, you know, it was funny,

00:19:02:19 - 00:19:22:10

Scott:

I was, you know, Googling around, you know, what other innovation had the same impact as AI and there's not really anything. The computer was the closest, and listen, without giving you how long,I mean, I've been in the business for 35 years, but I was here before there were computers. I remember when that box came on my desk and I was like, What do I do with this?

00:19:22:10 - 00:19:39:03

Scott:

Because I love being hands on. I love to open up a Pantone book and lay out the chips, and arriving at the press, and you had no idea what it was going to look like until you got there. So you had to really use your brain and your creativity to be able to visualize something. Then the computer came and now I could play with colors.

00:19:39:03 - 00:19:58:02

Scott:

I can see it in print going to the printers, like, well, it's just like, you know, the proof I have. So I think with this new technology, you have to really try to look forward and go, I can create anything I want now. Like, I can bring any idea I have to life. Again, you need the right people.

00:19:58:02 - 00:20:12:20

Scott:

That's a big one having you know, you have the right technology. You have to have the right people. You have to have the right operations. You have to figure out how to get into your workflow. So, you know, we're still sorting all that stuff. But as we've seen, as we also look at the work from Cannes, it's happening, right?

00:20:13:08 - 00:20:37:14

Scott:

But again, the ideas are always at the core of true creativity and nobody excels better at that than humans. So, you know, we need these tools. They can definitely supercharge everything that we're doing. And, you know, we need to be willing to experiment, you know, new approaches of every part of the workflow. We just have to keep educating and we have to keep talking about it and we need to keep sharing the work.

00:20:37:24 - 00:20:42:12

Scott:

But more importantly, we just need to get in that sandbox and start playing around.

00:20:43:05 - 00:20:56:18

Alison:

You're so right. And we talked earlier about the risks. So any new change comes with inherent risks as well and concerns. So I'd love to hear what concerns you the most about the continued development of AI.

00:20:58:13 - 00:21:32:10

Scott:

You know, it's interesting, one of the things, you know, we always talked about this phrase data wins arguments. The problem now is data only wins arguments if it's the right data and that's the piece that is probably, is the most concerning. You know, you hear everyone talking about AI is going to end... there's a lot of negative conversations, and unfortunately, the bad side of humanity of what AI can do if in the wrong hands.

00:21:32:22 - 00:22:21:21

Scott:

So as brands, as marketers, our job is to make sure that we're always putting truth in front of our consumers, to use data in the right way. So why we have privacy, you know, why we have regulations, so we're going to have to just make sure that we always do our homework. I think there was you know, AI gone wrong examples right now, brands that, ooh, they just got something wrong so we just have to make sure that we are truly recognizing that it's still just a robot, and it has flaws.So we as humans, as creators, as strategists, have to really, really do our due diligence to make sure that the data is accurate and truthful and honest.

00:22:23:09 - 00:22:35:03

Alison:

And the technology also has a bias because it's the data it's drawing from. So that's another area that we as marketers really need to pay attention and be sensitive to as well.

00:22:35:22 - 00:22:56:07

Scott:

Yeah, for sure. There's a couple of case studies at Cannes where they were trying to change the internet where it was blatantly wrong, right? And so there's a lot of retraining going on where we're trying to upload all the correct information to try to change the Internet. But as much as we're trying to change the Internet, there's always bad stuff going in.

00:22:56:19 - 00:23:14:13

Scott:

So again, that goes back to checks and balances, like everything we do right. We still make mistakes as marketers with stuff. And yeah, we got work to do, work to do. But it's exciting. It's, it's, it's a really interesting time to be in, you know, advertising and marketing right now. It's only going to get more exciting, and more confusing.

00:23:15:09 - 00:23:23:20

Alison:

I completely agree with you. Now, Scott, thank you so much for all your insights. Before I let you go today, though, I'd love you to leave our listeners with one final thought.

00:23:24:17 - 00:23:38:22

Scott:

So going back to this notion of, just get in the sandbox, start playing with the tools they are available, many are free. I'm sure your organization is already implementing into your work stream. Just start playing.

00:23:39:06 - 00:23:48:03

Alison:

Very, very wise words, Scott. Thank you so much. It's been a great discussion. I know our listeners have learned a lot from your experience and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

00:23:48:18 - 00:23:50:04

Scott:

You, too, Alison. Always a pleasure.

00:23:51:15 - 00:24:17:07

Alison:

We're just really starting to understand the potential and some of the challenges with generative AI and I'm absolutely excited for how the marketing profession will learn and progress together. And I know you share that enthusiasm. On that note, the CMA has some really terrific generative AI resources that marketers can benefit from that compliment this podcast. We offer a number of thought leadership articles on a wide range of AI topics on our Web site, and we've also launched a new series from our Industry AI Working Group.

00:24:18:01 - 00:24:39:00

Alison:

Plus, we've introduced a number of new AI training courses that are designed for marketers at all different career stages, and they're really helpful ways to understand how AI can make you a better and stronger marketer. So I'm certainly looking forward to all the ways that the CMA will help and to partner with our profession on the generative AI journey.

00:24:39:00 - 00:24:53:13

Speaker 1

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.

Alison Simpson, CEO of CMA, welcomes Luxy Thuraisingam, Vice President, Global SMB & Partner Marketing at Cisco, to discuss the CMO's growing influence and gaining credibility in the C-Suite.

00:00:02:10 - 00:00:42:24

Welcome to CME 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.

Alison:

The role of the CMO has evolved vastly, dramatically and continues to both expand and at times contract. So while some CMO's have a mandate covering everything from product development, customer experience, data analytics and insights to marketing communications and PNL responsibilities, others are more singularly focused on marketing communications.

00:00:43:21 - 00:01:11:16

Alison:

Marketing professionals worked really hard to earn a seat at the C-suite table to take accountability for driving business results and for ownership of the four Ps and an end to end consumer experience. Today's aspiring marketers and future CMO's really want to learn how to gain credibility with the right stakeholders. They want to learn that from marketing pros for excelling at it, which is why I'm absolutely thrilled to be joined today by Luxy Thuraisingam, who's vice president, Global SMB and partner marketing for Cisco.

00:01:12:02 - 00:01:31:04

Alison:

Luxy, thanks so much for joining us on CMA Connect today.

Luxy:

Oh, Alison, it's such a privilege to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Alison:

Now, it's not really that long ago where the scope of the CMO in many organizations was quite narrow. So building on my opening remarks, I'd really love to hear your observations on how the roles expanded and where the CMO now has influence.

00:01:31:19 - 00:01:59:19

Luxy:

Firstly, this is such a meaty topic and I can't wait for us to unpack it. And you're right, it wasn't that long ago, right, that CMO's were mostly actually brought in to drive and execute on brand and communication strategy. And today, in an, actually an interesting study that was published by Boathouse, what I love is CEOs, CEOs actually believe that the main role of the CMO is to grow the business.

00:02:00:06 - 00:02:25:02

Luxy:

But in fact, 86% of CEOs believe that that CMO can influence the C-suite. So to your point, the scope has increased. But here's why. Right? Because and you know this, CMO's need to be fierce advocates of the voice of the customer. We and their influencing strategic and long term decisions, everything from product design to go to market to innovation, across the organization, by the way.

00:02:25:15 - 00:02:53:15

Luxy:

Oh, and by the way, they also need to be able to connect marketing performance with organizational performance, including profit and loss. They have to drive diversity in thinking across the organization and so that the mission and everything the organization does is representative of the global population. And that's just the tip of the iceberg because in addition to all of this, so many CMO's are also accountable to co-owning revenue with the profiliation of eCommerce routes, especially in B.C. at companies.

00:02:53:16 - 00:03:15:18

Luxy:

So yeah, you're right, it's increased a little bit, the scope.

Alison:

Just a little bit. So the evolution of marketing organizations is another really rich territory for discussion and clearly has an impact on CMOs marketing teams and the talent that we need today. So based on your own journey, I'd love you to share how you feel about how marketing organizations are different today than they were say, even five years ago.

00:03:15:19 - 00:03:39:03

Alison:

And what new skills are you looking for?

Luxy:

I always bring the marketing profession back to the customer and the reality is our customer's habits are completely different from ten, five, I mean, even two years ago, right? Our customer habits have changed and evolved. And so when you think about marketing being in the forefront of meeting the customer where they are, then absolutely.

00:03:39:03 - 00:03:58:22

Luxy:

You know, absolutely. What was great today is not going to be great tomorrow. And that actually means that marketers and the makeup of a marketing organization has to evolve. And a study by LinkedIn said 50% of the marketing jobs that are being posted are in the digital and media space. Now, to be honest, that's probably not that surprising.

00:03:59:00 - 00:04:25:14

Luxy:

But in addition to that, and to the point on my own experience, my own teams, marketing teams now also include analysts, data scientists, martech gurus, working hand-in-hand with creative directors and copywriters. And so really, again, if we bring it back to the customer in order to forge these new paths to the customer and deliver the business impacts, our organizations are looking for us to do,

00:04:26:04 - 00:04:56:12

Luxy:

Marketing teams, in my opinion, are made up of scientists and storytellers.

Alison:

It's a great way to say it. And in many ways, when I think about the super power of CMO of marketers, it really is being the voice of customers and understanding them in ways that their colleagues across the business truly can't. And using that information and knowledge to inform and help our colleagues across all areas of the business, build new products, redesign their approach in a way that really will the customer first and foremost.

00:04:56:23 - 00:05:15:18

Luxy:

Well said. Absolutely.

Alison:

Now, one of the topics you talked about and touched on was the importance of data. And it's also often the fuel for everything that we do. But how we need to be using data has really changed. So I'd love to hear some examples of how you're using data to demonstrate how marketing is driving results for Cisco.

00:05:16:02 - 00:05:39:04

Luxy:

The utilization of data is also not new, right? You and I have been in this industry, this practice for a very long time. But what it's to your point on, how has the utilization of data changed? And to me, it's no longer about just using data to drive strategy or build a dashboard or even optimizing our marketing and activations and spend.

00:05:39:22 - 00:06:04:13

Luxy:

That's just a given. Every organization should be doing that. To me, and what I'm seeing is it's about using data and insights that drive tangible and demonstrable business results. It's about using data to show the power of marketing when done right. And so I'll give you a case study that we actually showcased on Main page at a recent Global Cisco sales rally.

00:06:05:07 - 00:06:33:12

Luxy:

We celebrated that Cisco sales teams closed a multi, multimillion dollar deal with a significant global brand. And what I loved is in that moment of celebration, the marketing organization was celebrated with sales. And the reason we were celebrated is we were able to demonstrate that as our amazing sales leaders are doing what they're incredibly good at behind the scenes,

00:06:34:06 - 00:07:09:22

Luxy:

marketing actually had 24,000, 24,000 touchpoints with this organization, this brand. We had almost over a hundred employees of varying personas from C-suite to I.T, engaging with marketing content, web pages, data sheet downloads, design guides, coming to events, coming to webinars. So behind the scenes, marketing was the wing person to sales in closing this deal. It was no longer about marketing, getting a lead and then passing the lead to sales and then hoping it'll close.

00:07:09:22 - 00:07:34:21

Luxy:

Right? That's the old way of doing it. It was about us hand in hand with sales, 24,000 touch points while sales was doing their job. We were in it with them. And what I love is we have loads of key studies like this.

Alison:

That's such a terrific example. And in many ways sales and marketing have always needed to work so closely together and should absolutely see each other as as partners and colleagues.

00:07:34:21 - 00:07:53:05

Alison:

But there is more often than not a healthy tension instead of collaboration. So it sounds like you and your team are making good progress on that. When you shared that at the sales conference, I'd love to hear how the sales team reacted.

Luxy:

Well, they applauded. I mean, this is why it was so incredible. It was marketing was celebrated. Marketing was celebrated in that moment.

00:07:53:13 - 00:08:22:04

Luxy:

And like I said, that was just a proof point. And of course, we're doing this regionally, country wise, looking at all of our big accounts and saying, how can we be the wing person in helping close that deal? That to me is the testament. That's the win, right?

Alison:

So I touched on this a bit earlier. But when I think about the potential superpower for a marketer is and what can really differentiate us from our colleagues and provide tremendous value across every aspect of a business, for me, it really comes down to the critically important role that we have as the voice of customers.

00:08:22:21 - 00:08:39:17

Alison:

In my experiences, what I've known the customer better than my colleagues, that really built credibility and enabled me to help them succeed in their roles by really deepening their understanding of who we wanted to reach and how we could do it. Now, Luxy, I definitely know you have a lot of heart for this topic too, and the many ways to approach it.

00:08:39:23 - 00:09:04:01

Luxy:

So I'd welcome your perspective. Thanks, Alison. And yes, we have talked about this in the past as well. There's this article that I read. This is one particular sentence that just really, really stuck with me. And the sentence was - at the heart of marketing is the consumer. The most complex entity that exists on planet Earth? The most complex, Right.

00:09:04:01 - 00:09:37:02

Luxy:

And so it's part of I mean, to be honest, it's one of the reasons I love my job, because it's hard and it's always changing. And to your point on the voice of the customer, absolutely right. Our job is ultimately to bring that voice of the customer into our organization so that we, the organization, is investing in the right product, the right service, the right offer, the right value prop, and even the right way to deliver the delivery of the product to our customer.

00:09:38:01 - 00:09:58:15

Luxy:

And by the way, we have to do all that and outcompete the competition. Right? And so I think that's also one of the reasons and again, we've we've also, even at the board level, asked and talked about the ever changing title of the CMO. And I know one of the titles that's either given or taken is the Chief Customer Officer right?

00:09:58:15 - 00:10:28:14

Luxy:

Because again, it is so incredibly important that we're bringing that voice. It is also why, if done right, which I fundamentally believe organizations are bringing the CMO and the marketing function to help lead organization transformation, because again, at the organization level, the heart of everything, a company, if they're doing it right, should be the customer. Again, let's remind ourselves, the customer, which also happens to be the most complex entity that's ever existed on planet Earth.

00:10:29:07 - 00:10:56:13

Alison:

That is absolutely part of the magic and frustration of the amazing jobs that we get to do now. Given the complexity, it's challenging to stay on top of and to understand the different segmentations and where your customer is evolving to and how you from a business marketing perspective, need to evolve to keep pace. Can you share some examples from either Cisco or your career of how you've successfully done that?

00:10:56:17 - 00:11:26:06

Luxy:

I think from a case, I'll talk about a couple of things. One, I am so very privileged to work for an amazing leader and my boss, Carrie Palin, who's also the CMO of Cisco, is constantly raising the bar for us. And Carrie has also instilled a culture that is focused on driving credibility with our business counterparts. And that credibility is based on data and performance and insights.

00:11:26:06 - 00:11:51:18

Luxy:

And so in order to keep up and keep pace and deliver, that actually means at every level of my organization globally, I need to make sure my teams are equipped. They're equipped not only to have access to data, but more importantly, because actually there's actually a lot of data out there. Right. But what they need to do is take the data and marry it and tell the right story and have the right impact conversation.

00:11:51:19 - 00:12:13:19

Luxy:

So in fact, recently we invested a significant amount of of our what we call development funds and we trained my entire global team on and took them to a course that was called took them virtually to a course called Data Storytelling. And it was an incredibly powerful, I think it was almost two days, and it was all about how do you take data?

00:12:14:03 - 00:12:32:18

Luxy:

But more importantly, how do you take the data and show impact and demonstrate impact? And that's an example how we're trying to keep pace, how we're trying to keep up with the raised bars right? And so I would say that's you know, that's one of the big areas is investing, investing in ourselves, investing our talent so that we can all raise the bar together.

00:12:33:11 - 00:13:04:24

Alison:

Luxy, you've actually got an enviable career, and you're just getting started in many ways. So I'd love to hear. What advice do you have for aspiring CMO's who want to follow in your footsteps?

Luxy:

Be passionate about learning. I mean, everything we just talked about, right Alison? It's all about evolving and growth mindset and just learning. And so I would just say, regardless of what ever level you're aspiring to become, be a passionate learner because it is an ever, ever changing practice.

00:13:05:13 - 00:13:27:05

Alison:

Now, I absolutely knew our time together was going to fly by, and it certainly lived up to that. Can I ask you to leave our listeners with one final thought?

Luxy:

I'm going to give you two. Number one, marketing drives business impact, and it's onto us to demonstrate that in everything we do. And number two, it is an incredibly exciting time to be a marketer.

00:13:27:09 - 00:13:45:08

Luxy:

I literally I do think I have one of the best jobs in the world.

Alison:

Well, we'll have to debate each other because I think I have one of the best jobs in the world, too, so.

Luxy:

Well, you get to work with marketers, right?

Alison:

Absolutely. Absolutely. We're both very fortunate. So Luxy, thanks so much for a really great conversation.

00:13:45:09 - 00:13:56:13

Alison:

I thoroughly enjoyed it. And I absolutely know that our listeners have learned a great deal from your experiences and your perspectives and your candour. So thank you.

Luxy:

Thank you, as always, for having me.

00:14:00:05 - 00:14:14:13

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.

Alison Simpson, CEO of CMA, continues the discussion with Tyjondah Kerr, Director of Program Development and Delivery at OLG and Patrick Bhang, Director of Retail Merchandising, RBC, in part II of affecting change and combatting racism and discrimination in the marketing profession.

Patrick Bhang's thoughts, opinions and insights are done so as a marketing professional and not as a representative of RBC.

00:02

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,

00:14

while also delivering on today's business needs. Ensuring that the marketing profession is as diverse and inclusive as the Canadians that we market to is a top priority for the CMA and for our membership.

00:32

Alison: So in keeping with that theme, it's a pleasure to welcome back two members from our CMA DEI committee. We had a great episode, hopefully you've had a chance to listen to it, and there was so much great conversation that we wanted to follow it up with a second episode.

00:47

So coming back to join me today, we have Tyjondah Kerr, the director of social responsibility at OLG. She's also a self -described chief disruption officer, which definitely comes in handy when you're focused on driving positive change.

00:59

Patrick Bang is the director of retail merchandising for RBC. He's also my highly valued Co -Chair for CMA's DEI committee. It's trippy to have you both back with us today, and I look forward to continuing our conversation.

01:11

So one of the positive outcomes from the third year of our DEI marketer survey was that a lot fewer marketers today are saying that they have observed disengagement among marginalized groups.

01:22

So we are making progress there. They're witnessing fewer discriminatory behaviors in their organizations, and those are very, very encouraging signs. But the change has been slow,

01:34

certainly slower than we would have hoped. So how do you feel about the amount of progress that we're seeing within organizational cultures, and what do you think we can do to help accelerate it? Tyjondah why don't you kick this off?

01:46

Tyjondah: 100%. Thank you, Alison. I think honestly, we've just got to get people comfortable in the conversation and be clear on what it is we're trying to do. So for example, when I took on this work during the pandemic,

01:59

it was about having conversations and telling my story about my journey and being, because I've been a part of OLG, it's going on 24 years in November. And so there were a lot of people that knew me and I knew them.

02:12

And so there was a level of comfort already there to ask questions and to sort of invoke inspiration. And I think that what we need to do more of is to have more conversations,

02:23

more storytelling, so that we can, because emotion is what's going to get us the impact change, right? And move forward. And I think storytelling is the way to go. Like, those statistics are talking about engaged employees.

02:35

Engaged employees are happy employees. And they're engaged when they have a sense of belonging. So if you start telling stories about how you are planning, based on your experiences, planning to help create a culture that is inclusive for all so that folks feel that they can be themselves during a certain situation,

02:53

then you've got the gold star and the north star right there. And people can move towards it. And so I think progress is slow, yes, but we can't stop. And we've seen a lot of folks fall off after George Floyd's murder and not do it.

03:08

Budget constraints are different, you know, inflation, people are laying folks off and it might just fall on the wayside. And it's like people like the three of us who are very passionate about this because we know that this change will make for positive,

03:23

a more positive future. I think we need to continue that conversation through storytelling, through connection. I really think that people just look kind of inward really and do some homework,

03:34

see how far you can go and then just help another person out. At the end of the day, it's being service to others. And I think I might have strayed away from your question, but do you think that we just have to story tell and continue the work and make sure the conversation's there on a consistent basis?

03:49

People should put it as a standing agenda for their meetings. Let's talk about EDI and just pick a topic. Keep the top of mind. Alison: I love that idea, because then to your point, it becomes part of the regular conversation. And people get more comfortable and are less concerned about,

04:03

will I have a misstep? I'm not going to have a misstep because I'm open to having a conversation. So people are going to be understanding and help me learn and improve as I go as well. So I think that's such great counsel.

04:14

Patrick, what would you add to this? Patrick: I would say that the research shuts some light into the benefits of having diversity at all levels and especially diversity at the top,

04:26

so I think you have more employee engagement when they look at leadership above them and feel like, yes, that is achievable for me,

04:36

I can get there because they're seeing it. There is more empathy at the top as well, so it's important for leaders to understand the circumstances that the employees from marginalized groups are going through as well,

04:50

so whether it's listening or being part of the community, I think a lot of that does come out in the results of the research, so you see fewer disengaged employees,

05:02

you see fewer incidents of microaggression when there is diverse leadership at the top, where no diverse leadership are not aspiring to have diverse leadership.

05:13

The other thing I'll say is there is an intimidation factor as well, so the element of microaggression, if you're not from marginalized communities,

05:25

you haven't experienced in some of that, so your experience is very different, but there is intimidation in the sense that there is un clarity of what that is.

05:38

I have few leaders coming to me and said, I'm not sure, one time I was upset, I may have been taking my frustration out on somebody, it's that microaggression,

05:48

so to Tyjondah's point, there is a lack of awareness around what some of the terms are, and as the advocates and community leaders,

06:01

I think we just have to make sure that we are out there adding clarity to some of the things that we're talking about, and you know making sure that there is safe spaces,

06:12

if somebody doesn't fully understand what that is, is having a safe space for them to speak up and for us to have that conversation. Alison: That's such a great example Patrick of how you personally have created a safe place because for that leader to come and ask you that question there's a sense of vulnerability and more importantly there's a desire to get better and to really understand.

06:34

It'd be hard to have that safe place especially for some more senior leaders so I love the example and kudos to you for helping being part of the solution when it comes to that. We've talked a lot about what we can do to positively impact internally at our organization but as marketers we also have this absolutely amazing opportunity to leverage the marketing profession and the marketing communications that we do to also

07:01

bring to life diversity and the power of a more infinity and approach to marketing. So there's absolutely no doubt that developing marketing strategies that truly resonate with our increasingly diverse customer base in Canada is a fundamental driver and builder of business and sales and I'd love each of you to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you see in this areas some of the opportunities you see and

07:26

what steps you've taken or a contemplating taking to help address the opportunity and why don't Patrick why don't you continue the conversation you shared some great examples earlier.

07:37

Patrick: Thank you Alison. So if I think about the challenges that we face in some of the work that we do at RBC as well we are the three things that really come to mind for me one is the authentic representation in images and soft photography so you know the struggle is real I've been part of campaigns and we're trying to get images but it's not in the right context it doesn't have the authentic tone to it so that you

08:09

know we are trying to get around that we do our own photo shoots but it's hard to do a photo shoot for every campaign right right? Especially in an environment like today where there's a lot of,

08:20

you know, efficiency measures that are being put in place, right? So I would say that, I think we need the support of stock houses, of our agencies to ensure that we are building the pool of images that reflects the communities that we serve.

08:38

The second thing I would say is we need more diversity at all levels, not just on the client side, but also on the agency side, right? You know, if somebody's writing a brief that is by reaching cultural audiences as well,

08:53

because if you just think of the stats we went through, right? So that's mass, that's your mass audience now. What's the context? Do you have the context? Do you have, you know,

09:04

a sense of what their needs are to put your product in that perspective in terms of adding value to the audience, right? So I would say, you know, if you don't have that perspective,

09:15

then it's hard. But if we have diversity within your teams, you can challenge each other, you can bring different perspectives in, and you can open up your pool of understanding,

09:25

right? So and it's something that we do within our teams as well. So our team in retail, marketing, merchandising, we are quite diverse. And every week we get together,

09:36

we look at creative with a critical eye from our own experience with this LGBTQ + whether it's from a cultural lens, whether it's from an age lens. You know, we look at it critically and be very vocal about sharing how we feel when we see that creative,

09:51

because we put our consumers head on and we say, okay, does it feel like it's not connecting with us? Does it feel like it maybe I may go as far as maybe it may be a little offensive,

10:03

right? Because it's missing that aspect that I care about. or it's talking to me in a different way. So I think those things are important. So having diversity at all levels, a client as well,

10:13

supply side, I think is important. And then removing bias from the hiring process, right? So how do you ensure that, you know, because somebody's a newcomer, you're not discounting the experience,

10:25

you're not discounting their education. So an interesting story. I was having a conversation with a hiring manager, and the hiring manager had, he was sharing his recent experience on hiring and he had great intent.

10:40

He had the intent of, I'm going to ensure that, you know, I have a diverse pool of candidates and I'm going to put them through a panel of stakeholders and my partners.

10:54

So he did that. He came through with two candidates, one from the South Asian background and who was a newcomer three to three years in,

11:04

I believe. And the other was Canadian white male, the other South Asian newcomer male. So really, you know, good experiences. And the candidates went through the panel and they have selected the white male,

11:20

you know, both had similar backgrounds in education. So the hiring manager felt good because he went through the process and as he looked back, he looked at the panel of folks that were interviewing the candidate.

11:34

And so there was an aha moment to it. They all white males who were in the panel and I didn't see that and white male as well. So it was, you know,

11:45

he caught most of the things right, just that right. The last part, he missed. So, you know, the point here is we have to look at it.

11:55

We have to share best practices, having a diverse panel, folks interviewing the candidate. I think it's important, right? And, you know, I think he had the right intent. So kudos to him. And,

12:06

you know, it's a learning that he'll take away. So it's great to see that moment. I would say those three things, authentic representation of images and soft photography, more diversity at all levels. and lastly,

12:17

how do you remove the unconscious bias, in this case, in the hiring processes? Alison: Those are such great examples in that last one, in particular, just so resonates, that you go to all of this effort,

12:28

and then with the best of intentions, miss the importance of diversity on hiring panel as well. So thank you for sharing that experience, because it will make us all better as we go through a similar process.

12:39

Now, Tyjondah, I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this as well. - So I can't say that any better than Patrick did, it was amazing. The only other thing I would say is cultural humility. I think if you take folks through,

12:51

and it used to be called cultural competence, I just know the word competence, it makes you seem like you're incompetent. So I like the cultural humility, which is understanding from the grassroots level, different cultures,

13:03

be educated on different cultures, because different cultures interact differently in the day to day. And Patrick's point is we're hiring for more diversity, and we're becoming a more diverse workforce.

13:13

We have to understand that our culture plays a huge role in how we communicate, how we interact. For the longest while, I would not talk in meetings, because I was taught not to speak until I was spoken to.

13:24

I'm from the Caribbean, and there was a big deal, and we're a very colonized island as well. So the white man was always right. It was a thing for me. I had a lot of internal things I had to work on.

13:37

So building on everything Patrick said, the only thing I would add is that those leaders, those folks making the decisions, do some cultural humility work, so that you understand different cultures and how we interact with one another. Alison: Thank you so much.

13:48

I really appreciate you both being open to sharing your personal experiences as well, because they're incredibly illuminating for us. Now, helping enable and equip the marketing profession to be part of bringing more diversity,

14:00

equity, and inclusion to the world, and the profession that we're part of, is obviously an important part of the DEI committee, and certainly an important part of the CMA mandate as well. So we've introduced some new tools,

14:13

like our DEI resource hub on the website, the committee that you're both very actively involved in and contributing to, regularly publishes leadership on the topic, and also recently worked with us to develop and release a discussion guide that really helps share some tangible actions that marketers can and should take.

14:33

So since you were very involved in helping pull these resources together, where would you direct marketers seeking to better understand how best to make a difference? Tyjondah, I'll let you kick this off and then Patrick would love to have you build on her feedback.

14:45

You said it right there. Go on the CMA resource guide. There's a lot in there. We worked really hard to get that stuff in there. There's an article for me in there too, so I like it. Honestly, I've helped people all the time.

14:55

Alison, my very first thing is you've got to do the self -work. Not everyone are going to address bias. Not everyone is going to say, are going to be brave enough even to look inward and say,

15:08

you know, that was a racist comment. I had a lot of stereotypes in there and I need to pull myself back. People don't say that openly. A lot of people don't like to know that they were wrong in any kind of situation. And so I always like to take a step back.

15:20

If you can to reflect personally, I think you have to do a lot more self -work before you even start to go and look at resources and do this work because it's hard and it's uncomfortable. And so not everybody likes to feel uncomfortable.

15:32

I know I don't. I know I'm going to get to a level of comfort. I'll go through it. And so as much as there's so many resources out there, Alison, like you just Google diversity and 500 million things that come up.

15:44

And so there's, if you want to learn in this space, there's a lot out there. There's a lot for you to do. But I would say before you do that, just what are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to be a better human?

15:55

Do you want to just work better with your employees who are across different cultures? Or is it that I just want to jump in and help my community and my community is growing and it's very multicultural and it's very diverse from people from that has more accessibility or to 2SLGPTQ+ plus communities.

16:13

Ask yourself why you want to do it. Do some self -work and then take a Google and go in the direction you want to go in. But I do say start. If you're willing to start, I applaud you.

16:23

Alison: First and foremost, start, you're absolutely right, and then looking internally at ourselves is absolutely the right place to start as well. Do you have any favorite resources for us starting our own work?

16:34

Tyjondah: So I fell in love with this work following a woman by the name of Mary Frances Winters. She has her own consultancy that helps folks in this EDI work,

16:45

and she approaches it in a very similar way than how I approached EDI here at OLG. So it's the Winters group. Again, Google it, they're online. It's an American company, but you have a lot of listeners,

16:57

so it's good. But valuable content, regardless, on where to get started, and they really talk about the self -work that you have to do and the questions you have to ask, and how do I talk about race at work?

17:09

It really gets you into that comfortable setting so that you can impact change. So that is my favorite website. I use it now, even though I'm out of not doing EDI -specific work,

17:19

I'm more doing more social responsibility, but I still jump on that website, read their newsletter, and get tips of how to be a better leader and how to impact positive change in my workplace. Alison: Many thanks.

17:29

You're welcome. Patrick, I'd love to hear your advice as well. Patrick: As Tyjondah said, there's a lot of resources that you can tap into online. I'll give a shout out to our committee member,

17:41

Darian Kovach, who leads Marketing News Canada. He does a great job with his podcast, where he interviews marketers from diverse backgrounds on challenges of today and some of the key tools,

17:55

especially on the digital side, and also in terms of how to connect with diverse audiences. So I'd say Marketing News Canada is a great resource for marketers in general, but also to tap into different perspectives.

18:06

Darian is an Indigenous leader, so he brings that perspective into the conversations as well, which is great. I'm a true believer in learning by doing, so I would encourage,

18:18

if you are interested, is to participate in, you whether it's an ERG, within the organization, employee resource group, whether it's organizations like us in Canada,

18:29

that supports Pan-Asian leaders, whether it's COF-P, that supports urban financial professionals from black communities, how to participate in that? You don't have to be from the community,

18:39

but you can be part of that community. And from a cultural standpoint, you can participate, you can gain different perspectives, CMA as well, you know, you can be part,

18:51

you know, of some of the work we are doing as well. So, you know, CMA inclusion happens every year where we invite leaders from different organizations to be part of the conversation.

19:03

If you're interested, I think that's great to bring a perspective. So I think there's a lot of opportunities and, you know, to take, you know, do a short -term or long -term volunteer gig and learn from folks from,

19:15

from those communities. And I think there's a lot to learn that way. Alison: Such great advice. I really want to thank you both for your incredibly valuable insights today. I love the fact that it's been sharing perspective,

19:26

but also giving us some really actionable ways that we can start making a positive impact as soon as this afternoon or tomorrow. So I really appreciate that. And I want to close by giving each of you a chance to leave us with one final thought.

19:41

So Patrick, you can kick things off and then Tyjondah, you can officially wrap up our time together. Patrick: One final thought is more of a one final ask. Canada and newcomers coming to Canada,

19:52

they need mentors. There is no guide in terms of some of the cultural nuances, some of the language nuances, some of the culture nuances in Canada. I'd say be a mentor to a newcomer and,

20:05

you know, help them settle into a country faster. New Canada is a beautiful place. It's an amazing diverse community. Let's bring them in. Let's support them and let's make sure they're successful for our own success in the future.

20:18

So, you know, TRIAC is a great organization. They're looking for mentors. We are looking at a mentorship program for CMA. So if you're interested, reach out to us and we can connect you to the right resources.

20:32

Tyjondah: I love that, Patrick. And I'm putting up my hand now. And I would say, I think my closing thoughts, Alison, is that please be okay to lean into your discomfort.

20:44

I think that's what I'm going to tell folks. It's like lean into it. It's okay. There's a huge community on us who among everyone who want to impact change. So lead into the discomfort because it does lead to change.

20:59

And then at the end of the day, we're human beings and we're all on this earth to be of service to one another. And so part of that discomfort is being there for others. And as long as that's our priority,

21:11

we'll get this work done. And I'm going to just do a little mic drop there. We do it in service to one another. Alison: That was a very powerful mic drop. So, Tyjondah and Patrick, thanks again. I knew when we the three of us got together that the time was going to fly by and that certainly has proven to be the case.

21:25

And I just want to thank you once again for giving us very actionable and powerful ways to walk away from listening to the podcast and really start making an even bigger difference. Thanks for joining us.

21:43

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.

Alison Simpson, CEO of CMA, welcomes Tyjondah Kerr, Director of Program Development and Delivery at OLG and Patrick Bhang, Director of Retail Merchandising, RBC, to discuss affecting change and combatting racism and discrimination in the marketing profession.

Patrick Bhang's thoughts, opinions and insights are done so as a marketing professional and not as a representative of RBC.

00:02

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,

00:14

while also delivering on today's business needs. Alison: So helping ensure that the marketing profession in Canada is as diverse and inclusive as the Canadians that we're marketing to is absolutely a top priority for the CMA,

00:33

as well as for our membership. On that note, we have a dedicated DEI committee that's made up of very talented marketers and DEI experts from across our broad membership, and they play a key role in our efforts.

00:44

One of the ways the CMA is helping to advance DEI within marketing is through research that also helps lead to action. So our DEI in the marketing profession Progress and challenges survey earlier this year really explored what steps can be taken to have a meaningful impact on diversity in the workplace for the marketing profession.

01:04

The research was developed in collaboration with the CMA's DEI committee, and it's third study that we've completed since 2020. So it's an important part of our broader commitment to take steps to combat racism and discrimination in marketing.

01:18

So it is an absolute pleasure to welcome two members from our DEI committee today to discuss this really important call to action for the profession. So I'll start by introducing Tyjondah Kerr,

01:28

who is the Director of Social Responsibility at OLG. She's also a self -described Chief Disruption Officer, which definitely comes in handy when you're focused on driving positive change. And then joining Tyjondah and myself today is Patrick Bhang.

01:41

He's the Director of Retail Marketing for RBC, and Patrick's also my very highly valued co -chair for the CMA DEI committee. It's really great to have both of you here today, Tiana and Patrick.

01:52

Tyjondah: Thank you for having me. Patrick: Thank you for having me. Alison: So we're gonna get right into the topic. As marketers, we can absolutely all agree that our profession has a very unique opportunity to drive diversity,

02:06

equity, and inclusion from a number of angles. However, many marketers are still seeking guidance and best practices on how they can best do that and have a real impact.

02:16

So in some instances, it's really hard for them to know where to begin. And that's exactly what we're going to do, is we're going to begin by asking how to help marketers continue having these conversations.

02:30

So I'd love to ask each of you if you could start by sharing your views on marketing's impact and taking that first step. Tiana, why don't you kick things off? Tyjondah: Absolutely. Thank you, Alison. I think I like to start off by telling everybody you all have a sphere of influence when it comes to this work.

02:47

No matter what level you are at, whether you're a graphic designer, art director, owner of an agency, any particular person can influence their work,

02:58

their day -to -day through EDI. And you need to start with understanding that equity has to happen. And I think a lot of us start with diversity and we get scared and there's fear.

03:11

But our organization here at OLG puts equity first. It's equity, diversity, then inclusion. And the reason why we do that is because if you have the focus on equity by sort of balancing out the inequities that are causing the problems,

03:24

when you put that first at the forefront of the conversation, then diversity can come next as well as inclusion. I will actually say inclusion should come first because you want to always have a culture of inclusion where folks feel comfortable to be themselves and especially within the marketing industry to come feel safe to bring their ideas forward and to make change.

03:43

In a nutshell, I just say that we all have influence, no matter what our level and what we do, and to just jump in without fear. It's scary to screw up and make mistakes,

03:54

but it is what it is. We are human beings. We aim for progress, not perfection. And so in doing that, when we go into it on a daily basis and under our own capacity,

04:05

how we can affect change by what we do, just jump in with both feet. And if we make a mistake, we say we're sorry and we just grow from that and we get better. And I really think for all marketers, for any level of where you are at in the profession,

04:18

EDI is something that should be at the forefront just because of the work that involves both internally and externally and how we impact the world. And so honestly, Allison, to start us off,

04:28

that is what I would say. Like jump in without fear, consider equity first and how you want to go about doing that. Then focus on inclusivity and making sure people feel welcome and appreciated and valued. And we all have that sense of belonging.

04:40

And then the diversity will generally happen because of just what happens naturally organically. And I can leave it there. Alison: Very well said. And you're so right that in any new area that we're pursuing as individuals,

04:54

you just expect that there's going to be mistakes along the way. This topic can come with some intimidation. So to acknowledge that we're all going to make mistakes, no matter how well versed we are,

05:05

we, it's inevitable that we'll have some missteps along the way. And let's be understanding of ourselves and each other when that happens. And let's use it as a learning opportunity. So incredibly well said.

05:16

Patrick, I know this is a passion for yours as well. So how would you answer the question? Patrick: Yeah, so in terms of what market is going to do to take that first step, for me, it's it's around,

05:26

it's about understanding what's happening around you, right? So one of the aspects that was hardly enlightening for me is looking at a shift in demographics in Canada.

05:38

So if you look at the 2021 census data, it will be very clear to you that the groups formally, collectively known as minorities, are in fact becoming the majority in key cities.

05:50

Toronto, Vancouver, 56 % of the population in these countries are visible minorities. Even most staggering is you look at the hubs around these cities, like the Markhams,

06:01

the Bramptons, the Richmond BCs, 80 % of the population in those communities are visible minorities. So you may ask, okay, yeah, makes sense,

06:12

Vancouver, Toronto. What about the Western cities? So if you look at Calgary, you look at Minton, you look at Winnipeg, they're not actually that far behind Toronto and Vancouver.

06:24

They are 47%, like between 40 to 47%. So, you know, the demographics are changing throughout Canada, and that's going to be accelerated by the fact that we are welcoming 400,000 newcomers to Canada every year for the next few years.

06:41

So as marketers, I feel like, you know, the first step is around having awareness in terms of how your target audience is changing, who is going to be buying your product, either your products or your clients' products in the coming years,

06:54

and how do you connect with them in meaningful ways. So, you know, one of the aspects that, as I think about this, and I look at brands that are doing really well, when you look at IKEA,

07:05

you look at some of the powerhouse brands in Canada, like Canadian Tire. Canadian Tire rolls out the red carpet for newcomers in mass advertising and welcomes them into the community.

07:17

IKEA celebrates Ramadan in mass advertising to show that, hey, you know, we can play a part in your celebrations. We can add value.

07:28

And it's providing ideas to the cultural audience, right, to make sure that their products are relevant to them. So, given the stats that I just mentioned, given, you know, that you can creatively really engage this space by showing that you have a sense of where they're coming from.

07:45

You can connect with them. You can play a part in their lives in meaningful ways. I think that's where success will really come from, right? Even if you think about, you know, some of these showcases in Cannes,

07:56

this year, DEI played a huge part with Apple's, you know, campaign called The Greatest, that really recognizes showcases how accessibility is built into their products.

08:08

If you look at Vaseline and some of the work they're doing in terms of lack of diversity in images for physicians to diagnose something, something, I think those are all real challenges that brands are taking that courage step-to-step forward and say,

08:22

yes, I think year is a challenge and year is how we can solve it. So, you know, going back to your question, as in the first step, well, is understanding how things, how the community is changing around you,

08:33

who you target audience are and really figuring out how your brand and your client's brand can play a role in the lives of our Davos society and Davos community.

08:45

So that's where I'll leave it. Alison: Patrick, thanks so much for sharing your experience and your expertise. It really cements the fact that being more diverse and inclusive in our approach isn't just the right thing to do.

08:57

It's also such a smart driver of business and you can have dramatic positive business impacts at the same time that you're having dramatic positive societal impacts as well.

09:09

So it just speaks to the importance and in large part why the three of us are as passionate as we are about bringing more diversity, equity and inclusion to the marketing profession. So as I mentioned earlier,

09:19

we've now done our third survey, DEI survey to the Canadian marketing community. And one of the key metrics that has emerged every year in our research is that the diversity of senior leadership in an organization is fundamental to just about everything and it's fundamental in the positive impact it can have across all the important business metrics.

09:42

Despite all of the benefits, today only 25 % of respondents felt that they had well -diversified leadership teams and that had only increased a couple of points since we first did the survey in 2020.

09:56

So my question to both of you, given the importance of diversity, especially in senior leadership, why do you think change is taking so long and what are organizations doing to really help move the dial?

10:08

Patrick, do you want to respond first and then Tyjondah, you can build on the comments? Patrick: Thanks, Alison, that's a great question. If I think about, you know, where we were in 2020, it's important for us to understand that prior to the pandemic,

10:21

prior to Black Lives Matter, prior to anti -Asian hate, there was not a lot of attention that was actually being paid to whether a company's workforce was diverse or not, right? So if you think about it,

10:32

I was part of an organization in Canada and we were supporting Pan-Asian leadership. To, at that point, prior to the pandemic, there wasn't a lot of momentum towards,

10:44

hey, you know, who are our employees? What can we do to make our work think more inclusive? Some of the top leaders were thinking that way, but there was not a lot of action underway at that time.

10:55

So the pandemic happened, and what it did was it brought to light some of the inequities, some of the systemic bias and the everyday challenges that the marginalized groups and those in lower social economics classes faced,

11:10

right? It's hard to think about the pandemic now. I mean, you know, it almost feels like distant memory. But a few years in 2020, if you think about that, it's, you know,

11:21

we saw a spike in racism, like these brutality in Black communities with Floyd's death. You know, like the elderly Asians being pushed and punched on the roads and the streets of Canada.

11:33

Like, you know, you saw the impact of bias. You saw how the pandemic really hurt ethnic and minority groups in ways that brought to light all the systemic inequalities and injustices.

11:47

So, you know, when you think about that, and you think of what happened, as many brands advertised their support for Black Lives Matter. And we saw the, you know,

11:58

the backlash of advocates and society in general calling them out to say, hey, thanks for your support, but your workforce is not diverse. Your leadership is not diverse.

12:10

Like, you know, I'm not going to call out the brand's name, but we know who they are, right? I mean, so when you think about that, you start to then see top companies really start to address that,

12:23

really start to look into their own backyard to see, okay, are we diverse enough? Is and, you know, there is some strong momentum. Organizations are hiring and they've started positions like Chief Diversity Officer,

12:37

which is actually not a common title that people had prior to the pandemic, right? So but we see more of that. And, you know, it's great the organizations are doing that because they're saying we need somebody to bring us together to address our own systemic issues that prevents us from hiring,

12:57

you know, members from visible minority groups or marginalized groups. So what can we do differently? How do we bring people together? How do we start training sessions?

13:07

How do we create mentorship programs? So if I just think about, you know, just a few years ago, three years ago, to me, that was the trigger.

13:18

That was, you know, the issues how they came to life. That was what we needed to see to gain the momentum. So you know, to get to 25%, you know, three years out,

13:29

I see some optimistic in general. So I see a lot of momentum building up towards a brighter future where, you know, there will be diversity at all levels of leadership in Canada and the States,

13:44

in the not too long, you know, future. So, you know, I see what RBC is doing. I see what, you know, some of the key brands are doing. And I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing. So I look at from the standpoint is we have some great momentum,

13:56

and we just have to ensure that we keep building on it. Alison: It's such a great perspective. And thank you for level setting that because we want to make as much progress as quickly as possible,

14:06

we can sometimes underestimate the progress that we've already made. So I really appreciate you celebrating the fact that yes, we want to continue to improve, but we should also acknowledge that we are making advancements.

14:20

We are furthering the important mandate. Now, Tyjondah I know you've got some great thoughts on this as well so I'd love to turn it over to you. Tyjondah: I'm one of those people that like Patrick very positive and I do see movement in this space you know sometimes when you ask certain organizations if they feel like if you ask the employees especially black employees they'll say no it's not moving fast enough and I think

14:42

sometimes that that's just our you know it's our own personal sort of narrative on how we want to see change based on how we've been affected in corporate Canada but to the question on leadership though I think the reason why it's not moving as slowly to is it's like I mentioned earlier it's that fear and then I also think that a lot of leaders aren't being intentional so marketers especially are riding the wave like

15:05

we're trying to be more diverse in our advertising and it's about the people that were hiring and etc etc and that's all great but in the actual jobs your day-to-day it needs to be intentional leaders need to be intentional and say I am going to hire a person of color you know for this particular role or I am going to look for a woman to fill this role because it's been historically filled by male and you could

15:34

do this under especially here in Ontario you could do that under your Human Rights Act right um you know to have that specialized hiring so that you're not discriminating discriminating against other marginalized communities but I do think folks just are not being intentional a because they might be too scared I don't know what that looks like I don't know how to do it and I think the other thing and Patrick I'm just

15:55

going to pick on something you said just a little bit about the EDI the chief EDI officer that you know it's not just up to that role to do the work that role will bring you the education and get you the knowledge and everything else that you need but every leader needs to look inward and say how am I impacting this work and if this is something that our organization is it's pledging to do we are pledging to be

16:19

more equitable we are pledging to be more diverse and we're pledging to be more inclusive then each of those three things are a very big statement and every leader needs to say well what am I going to do what is my impact how am I going to hire for more diversity so that we can increase that pipeline so we'll see those numbers the next time we survey grow even more we need to have the pipeline to choose from and

16:42

if our marketing organizations aren't going out there to tap people about our industry to see all the different things that we're doing then we'll never have that pipeline and we'll never have people to promote so it kind of takes all of us in this work to sort of do our part to make this move along further it's not to the EDI person it is not up to the CEO it's up to all of us to play a part in player role to

17:04

be intentional to make sure that we move along a little further because it is kind of slow I get that it's a journey but I mean we just celebrated last Monday the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King's speech on his march on on Washington 60 years and that's too long we should be a little bit more we should be faster along truth and reconciliation even when you think about it I think there's something like only

17:26

four acts four of the actions that's been done that our prime minister had said here in Canada four out of all of the acts under truth and reconciliation come on folks we can move a little faster and that's been since I think 2013 or 2015 come on so sorry that came from a very passionate place Alison: Never apologize for your passion you're so right no matter how talented the chief diversity officer is the the CEO are one

17:51

person two people alone cannot accomplish what we need to accomplish and when you call out the fact that every individual in an organization has an important role to play building on that idea to what degree should diversity be part of our KPIs and performance objectives because ultimately what gets measured gets focused on and hopefully achieved where would you sit on that question?

18:15

Tyjondah: I love that question. I'm not a fan of quotas. Like I get a little scared about quotas, but you've got to measure. You have to have a target. What are you trying to do? And I think you have to ask the question, what is it that we're trying to resolve?

18:27

What is it that we're trying to impact as an organization? Each organization has to make that decision. And then when they decide, like I'll take OLG for example, for us in our offices in Sault Ste.

18:38

Marie, it's 82 % white that people identify. And we've got a very large population in Sault Ste. Marie that is of Indigenous population. So if we are an organization that wants to become more diverse,

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then we would set a target of say, let's increase Indigenous hires from 2 % that it is now to 3 % year over year, whatever that would be, to be intentional of trying to increase that work,

19:04

right? So if you use targets in that way, not to just have a quota, we need 50 % black people, no. That's like, don't just pull it out of your hat, be intentional and authentic in what it is that you're trying to do.

19:17

And then you put yourself, you put a target, you put that as part of your KPIs that you want to accomplish for the year, you talk about it. And that's part of the journey and part of it's speeding it up.

19:28

So we do have to put those targets in place so the work could speed up. And I kind of jumped in there because it was just top of line, but Patrick, I don't know if you have anything to say. But that's my two cents. Tyjondah: For five cents because we're in inflation.

19:41

Patrick: I 100 % agree. I think quotas are not the right thing to do. I feel like goals and aspirations are important,

19:52

right? So I'll kind of build on what you were saying about pipeline. To me, that is the focus, right? So it's not to kick the leaders out of their seat today.

20:05

It's to ensure that organizations are coming together, to ensure that, hey, are we supporting the you or the students with the right opportunities?

20:18

Students of all colors, students of all classes, are we making sure that we are taking our biases out and ensuring that everybody has opportunities to participate in internships based on their interests,

20:32

based on their education, right? So, do they have the opportunity? Do emerging leaders have the opportunity, the same opportunities to have the mentorship, to have the training,

20:44

to have the opportunities to be in front of key leaders and beyond significant projects? So, to me, I think that's the pipeline, that is going to be so important for us to ensure that all the leaders,

20:58

like 100 % agree, it's up to all leaders to ensure at all levels that we are all focused on making sure that there is a strong pipeline of future leaders.

21:10

So as changes are happening, we give leaders of all communities and visible communities those opportunities to succeed. So I do believe in that, you know,

21:20

the goals are where it plays to be because I think being measured to goals is going to be important, right? So it helps us stay focused, making sure we have stretch goals, making sure that we come up with innovative solutions to get to those goals.

21:35

Alison: Tyjondah and Patrick, we've had such a great discussion and I know we're just getting started. I really appreciate the terrific and very personal and hands-on learning that you've provided to our listeners and I want to continue the conversation with the follow -up podcast.

21:50

So please tune in to part two with Tyondah Kerr, the Director of Social Responsibility at OLG and Patrick Bhang, the Director of Retail Merchandising for RBC.

22:01

They're also both on our CMA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. We're going to come back for a follow-up episode to share more learning on how we, as a marketing profession,

22:12

can further advance DEI within our community. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA .ca and sign up for your free My CMA account.

22:26

It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news, and industry trends.

Alison Simpson, CEO of The CMA, welcomes Microsoft's Amol Shah, Americas Data & AI Lead, and Audrey Davidson, Head of Integrated Marketing Americas, to discuss generative AI and the future of the marketing profession.

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Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brand and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs.

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Alison: It's an absolute pleasure to have Audrey Davidson and Amol Shah from Microsoft joining us on CMA Connect today. Not surprisingly, generative AI is a very hot topic for the marketing profession right now. It's also evolving and expanding very quickly and represents certainly a lot of excitement, but also some daunting time for everyone involved. So we really see today as a great opportunity to discuss generative AI from two different and very well informed perspectives.

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Audrey is the head of Integrated Marketing for the Americas and Amol is the data and I lead for sales enablement and Operations for the Americas at Microsoft. Welcome, Audrey and Amol. Thanks, Alison. Great to be here. Thanks, Alison. Yeah. Great to be here. On the hopefully very rare chance that there's someone listening who doesn't know. I'm going to give a quick definition of generative A.I..

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Alison: Quite simply, it's a form of machine learning like m365, copilot and chat GPT that can produce text, video, images and other types of content. So with that simple definition behind us, let's get started. I'm going to kick things off with you, and I'd love to hear. How do you recommend companies approach and think about AI? Yeah, it's a great question.

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Amol: So I've been in tech for probably 20 plus years now, and although Microsoft has been an AI company for some time, the pace of innovation right now is by far the most transformative I've personally seen. And so, you know, A.I. breakthroughs are going to change and augment how we work, how we live. And so I would kind of think about that question in three ways, which is, number one, I think everyone's mindset needs to evolve with that, right?

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And especially from a traditional marketing perspective, we need to evolve into more of a learn it all mindset versus a know it all mindset. And so what I mean by that is we really need to spend the time understanding A.I. how it could support the business, the technology behind it, how it's used, the principles behind it, all of that stuff.

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We need to really, as marketing professionals, really need to spend the time understanding and also have the mindset to to want to want to understand it. The second thing I would say is like the the AI, you know, piece of it right now can be overwhelming. And so I would say we need to think about how we start small with low risk use cases, meaning we don't need to completely revamp a process or an engine overnight.

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Eventually, you need to get there, but start small and then building on on number one. It's a really cool time in the industry right now, and we have an opportunity to learn from peers, from influencers, from competitors. And so we need to embrace that. And so personally, I you know, I spent a lot of time with customers, with partners.

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I talk to peers in the industry, understanding their perspectives, understanding where they're at, understanding where the technology is taking them and how how they're leveraging it. And so those are be the kind of the three things that just, you know, learn from everyone around you start small, lower low risk use cases and evolve the mindset all up in terms of how to transform marketing as a whole.

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Alison: That's a great, great advice and a great starting point. Amol, thank you very much. Now, the two of you absolutely have a front seat for the AI revolution in many ways and I'd love to hear from both of you. What are the consistent themes that you're seeing companies and marketers ask about AI? Audrey Why don't you kick this one off?

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Audrey: Yeah, sure, I'd love to. The biggest theme that I'm really noticing right now is curiosity and excitement around the art of the possible. So from automation and streamlining of processes for efficiency to predictive analytics and personalization for those improved experiences, I think that again, I just kind of center on that theme of curiosity and excitement is because people are just really eager to kind of either figure it out or experiment.

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And then, you know, the marketers that I speak with, they're just really looking to embrace it and looking for the upsides and focusing on, you know, those time efficiencies that can really be granted so that we can all spend the time focusing on, you know, kind of the the strategic things that we want to focus on can be a really great enabler.

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Alison: You're absolutely right, Audrey. Amol I'd love to hear what you'd add to that. Amol:

Content generation is one areas around proposals, contracts, presentations, Yeah, themes I guess that I'm seeing right now as it relates to marketing is for area specifically designs, invoices, all of that stuff I get from different kind of industries and the idea of how do you leverage high into the flow of work and business process.

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Amol: And so that that's number one. Secondly, I would say there's a big portion of data and analytics that comes into play. One of the biggest barriers that we've always seen around adoption of AI tools is data. And so specifically how to how does marketing interact with data engineers, data scientists, business analysts and the struggle with the complexity of making data integration and data warehousing, machine learning, business intelligence all work together from a marketing perspective.

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And so that idea of data and analytics is coming up to the forefront in terms of AI as a whole customer service. And again, it's something we typically don't get very involved in from a marketing perspective, but customer experience, customer service is going to evolve with AI. And as marketers, we need to be a part of that.

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And so think about how chat bots are being leveraged right now. And then the last thing again, something not traditional, but the idea of app development code generation and how do we think about that from a go to market perspective in terms of how agile we are when it comes to launching or refining products? And so I would say those are kind of the four areas that I've seen pretty consistently across the board when it comes to how marketing and CMO's are thinking about leveraging AI.

00:06:05:13 - 00:06:27:00

Alison: Thanks Amol. Now Audrey I think you mentioned that one of the potential areas is to free us up as marketers to focus on higher level work. So I'd love you to build on that and share how you see it transforming the way that organizations and marketers are working. Audrey: Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think it really is making life ton easier for us.

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You know, I think it's an exciting time to be a marketer because of that. So, you know, digital tools and platforms, leveraging AI and machine learning, you know, they're providing unprecedented opportunities for us to reach and engage with audiences in creative and innovative ways. You know, I think about how AI to what Amol was always saying can assist with data analysis, content creation, leads, scoring, interactions with customers and then again allowing, you know, freeing up time for marketers to kind of go and focus on that creativity and strategy.

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There's also the productivity element. I think that the integration of AI and automation into our marketing processes really enables us as marketers to streamline our tasks, automate those routine activities, and then focus on, again, the more strategic aspects of our roles in terms of some some examples within our own commercial marketing function, our team of data geniuses are doing the intuitive things, so they're using AI, AI for content, summarization, categorization and transcription.

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We have a chat bot that summarizes our marketing literature, eliminating the cumbersome process of finding and digesting large volumes of information. They're also doing the not so intuitive things, so layering AI into existing and bespoke marketing apps. And this results in marketers spending less time navigating our tool and pulling out those insights and filling out forms by asking simple questions to the chat bot.

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And the chat bot does the work almost instantaneously. So the shortens that distance between discovery insight and action. And then I guess there's other things that they're working on for the sake of experimentation and learning. But I think there's just again, so many opportunities for us just to embrace and transform our, our organizations. Alison: And Audrey and Amol, even in a tech company, change can still be intimidating,

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So to what degree are you finding your teams excited and really embracing the opportunities? And to what degree is it? Can it be a little overwhelming or a little bit intimidating? Amol: Yeah, I mean, you know, just building on the on the last part what Audrey said, I think, you know, transforming the way we traditionally think about how we reach customers is difficult.

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Right? I brought up customer experience before as an example, and we have the data that says 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant recommendations and offers is an example. Right? And that's not a surprise. We all know that we all get bombarded with different echos, but from our perspective, it's changing the way we traditionally do things, everything from SEO to how we leverage websites.

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And Audrey talked about chat bots, but across our entire organization, whether it's, you know, Microsoft 365 teams, PowerPoint word through LinkedIn, you know, we can take you through cases of how we've had to change things. So like for example, personal productivity, speech, transcription captioning within teams, content design and production within PowerPoint, within Xbox, we've leveraged generative AI for those personal recommendations that I've talked about within LinkedIn.

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We've talked about image captioning and accessibility and leveraging AI. From that perspective. You know, outlook is a simple thing around contextual assistance as an example Bing as you've seen with chatbot and Bing chat, conversational intelligence. So there's all these different ways that we're leveraging it, but that does require a lot of people to change. So it's going to be, as I said, it's going to be an evolution, it's a mindset change as a whole.

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But we're slowly getting there. Alison: And those are great examples how A.I. is really impacting Microsoft's approach to product and marketing. What are you doing to ensure that you're staying competitive as AI continues to have all that incredible speed?

Audrey: I was chatting with an agency head the other day and you know, they were they were sharing how as enabling them to produce content and half the time at half to cost.

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So that's a win win for both agency and client. So I think that again, when we just look at the possibilities, it's not necessarily just within any given function within an organization, but also, you know, the the relationships and then also, you know, kind of time to market cost to market within the partnerships that we have. That's a very compelling example.

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Alison: Audrey, thank you so much. So Amol, when we first Folke, I described you as an AI guru and you very quickly told me that given how fast the field is moving, it's absolutely impossible for anyone to truly be a guru. So with how rapidly things are evolving and expanding, is it possible in your mind to be a true expert?

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Amol: Yeah, I mean, I think there's, you know, here's what I would kind of how I've responded to this. And we have a really good framework within Microsoft which talks about different rooms of the house is where we call it and you know, the conversation with a CIO is going to be very different than a conversation with the CMO.

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Right. And I think part of that is we're consistent, like we're constantly learning about the different use cases. I mean, every single week we get hundreds if not thousands of new AI use cases. And so, yes, we can be experts. There's a technical piece to this, but there's also a business side to this. And I think, you know, it's the it's the first time that I've seen in a long time that we're the bridging of the technical and the business side is coming together so rapidly.

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So in that sense, I would say, yes, we can we can be experts, but it is this idea of you have to constantly learn and evolve the conversation. And so we're at a point right now where, again, we're learning from customers, we're learning from partners, we're learning from consumers around how they use it, the types of use cases, the benefits, the cost advantages, the arc.

00:12:09:13 - 00:12:28:17

All of this is kind of, you know, we're working through our real time, right? And so, you know, I think there's a balance. Yes. Can you call yourself an expert, a guru? Absolutely. But there is always a little but to that. And I think having that mindset and learn it all culture that I talked about earlier is the but. Alison: Absolutely great, especially on the learn it all culture,

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That's such an important element for all of us when it comes to embracing and really benefiting from any new technology. And certainly it's true in this case as well. So there's also obviously going to be quite a demand for organizations finding top talent. So what recommendations do you have for companies that are looking to attract and find the right talent to pursue this new opportunity?

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Alison: And Amol I'd love you to take the lead on that question if you'd like. Amol: I would say from a talent perspective, you know, and I'll speak from strictly a marketing lens, right? I think some of those qualities that we talked about earlier in terms of how do you think about transformation in marketing as a whole is kind of one of those key differentiators that I think I'm going to be looking for and I'm hoping others are looking for, too, right?

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And so when you think about generative A.I. in the traditional marketing sense, whether it's from an agency perspective or from it's from a pure technology perspective, it's ensuring people obviously understand the technology, understand how they can understand the use cases, but again, apply the application of that into the day to day marketing is going to be extremely important.

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And so those qualities around just mindset I think is going to be important. Understanding how they can transform the marketing function. Using generative AI is going to be equally important. And then I think we just need to think broader about, you know, the traditional industries and ways we think about attracting talent. Right? And going back in my 17 years at Microsoft, we always had this kind of profile of what a marketer looked like and where they needed to come from.

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And I think that whole that that's going to evolve and that's going to change into different roles within different companies and how we bring them in. Audrey: And I think I think I'd just like to add to that too. I think it also gives us the opportunity to elevate the kind of the need for critical thinking because, you know, well, air is a tool, right?

00:14:20:23 - 00:14:45:21

And so, you know, well, it's got a lot of kind of great capabilities that it brings to the table. We still need to apply critical thinking skills. And I think that's the fun part of marketing. Amol:

Yeah, and that's a great idea. Just building off of that, like the stuff we discussed earlier around how, you know, marketers typically used to spend their time around content design, production, editorial assistants, personalized recommendations.

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They've spent a lot of time doing that, and that's going to change, right? And so how do you shift the role into more critical thinking and more strategic? And and so that thought needs to and that profile is going to change considerably. So, yeah, I completely agree with that point. Alison:

And building on that, Audrey, if you were mentoring a new marketer or speaking to an experienced marketer, what advice would you give them?

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Audrey: Yeah, I'll go back to what Amol had said earlier. Just embrace being a learn it all. You know, the field is rapidly evolving. Continuous learning is going to be key. I think that generative AI holds immense and just immense potential for marketers to again streamline processes, enhance creativity and deliver more personalized and engaging experiences. I think, like anything, it's important to approach its adoption thoughtfully and strategically, as we've been saying throughout, to achieve those desired outcomes that that were kind of setting out to achieve.

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I was reading not long ago a McKinsey study that it is from a few years ago, but it cites that of all of the companies functions, marketing perhaps has the most to gain from it. And I think that, you know, when we look at our core activities of understanding customer needs and matching them to products and services and then persuading people to buy, those are all capabilities that AI can dramatically enhance.

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But to the kind of previous point, we can't lose sight of the fact that it's a tool and we need to apply critical thinking skills, which is again, the fun part of what we do. So my advice is really get curious, be creative. Generative AI has so much potential to enhance all of that creativity and enable content generation and drive those efficiencies.

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Alison: You're so right. And for anyone that I've talked to that's worried about well, I face my role as a marketer. I've always said no. I want a marketer who understands and leverages AI could though. So Amol it's always fun to hear about company is that are doing A.I. well. So I'd love to hear your opinion on from a Canadian in a more global perspective.

00:16:44:10 - 00:17:05:21

Exactly that. Who do you think is doing A.I.? Well, currently? Amol: Yeah. Great question. I think there is, what's so exciting is this is not unique to one industry right now. What we're seeing across our entire customer base, not only in Canada but across the world, is different industries really embracing it and looking for ways to apply it in their core business.

00:17:05:21 - 00:17:31:14

Right? And so, you know, I think about areas within just, you know, CPG as an example. You know, you think Pepsi was one good example where they're taking, you know, machine learning and A.I. to identify consumer shopping trends and, you know, produce real time store level insights. And so when we talked about predictions as an example, that's a way to improve predictions and recommendations considerably leveraging the data that they already have.

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You know, one industry is airlines, which, you know, a lot of our frustration is around aircraft turnaround and whether they're on time. Well, you know, leveraging data insights will help that. And we've seen a lot of our global airline customers leveraging technology as it relates to AI to help with that. One great example was CarMax, which is one of our customers and how they use the Azure Open AI Service.

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And so think about, you know, they had over 100,000 customer reviews and think about how they need to sell cars. And so leveraging the air, they were able to take those 100,000 plus customer reviews and create short descriptions that surface key takeaways for each make model year of the vehicle, which for a customer is really, really good and helps them make a decision around purchase.

00:18:27:20 - 00:18:54:14

What was really cool, the stat they gave us was it would have taken an individual 11 years to do what AI did in a day, which is phenomenal. Right? And what they what the AI produced was 80% good, which meant they didn't have a lot of intervention. It was pretty much good to go right off the bat. So it helped that, you know, so all of that is to say it helped with the customer experience, it helped with revenue, it helped with increasing SEO.

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So all of those core functions that again, we would have spent tons of time executing on, they're able to do in a day. And that was a great example. And then I'll bring in, you know, one of a local company within Canada, which is Viral Nation. And you know, from a pure marketing services perspective, they're doing some really cool things around evolving how companies need to think about marketing.

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And so taking the traditional marketing model and underpinning it with more of a modern, AI driven approach around the tech to drive greater impact and innovation as it relates to social brand influencers, etc. They're really changing the game in terms of how we should think about that. And so across all these industries and you know, there's more across health care, across energy, everyone is leveraging this in different ways, which is, which is really cool to see.

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Alison: So I'd love to end by asking each of you, what do you see as a key takeaway that you'd like marketers to know about generative AI? Audrey, you want to kick us off? Audrey:

Absolutely. Again, get curious, just embrace it. I think. Try it and to partner up with people within your organization that, as I call our analytics team, are our data geniuses and explore, you know, kind of play in the sandbox.

00:20:01:07 - 00:20:19:02

Alison: Great advice. Amol, What would you add to that? Amol: Yeah, I would just say for everyone to just understand we're at an inflection point. You know, I mentioned it, the breakthroughs and I are going to change the way people work and live. It's really the defining technology of our time. And so really be optimistic about what AI can do.

00:20:19:02 - 00:20:39:08

It is meant to help people industry, society as a whole. Personally, Audrey and I see this every day where, you know, Microsoft's committed to making the promise of AI real and doing it responsibly. And so it's really having that optimistic, curious mindset I talked about earlier on the AI and what it can actually do to help people in the world as a whole.

00:20:39:08 - 00:20:56:17

So that would be my takeaway at a very high level. Alison: Audrey and Amol, you've given us lots to think about, some really great advice and some great actionable ways to embrace and benefit from generative AI. So a great big thank you to both of you for spending time with us today and sharing your expertise that really, really appreciate it.

00:20:56:17 - 00:21:25:05

And I know our listeners and our marketing community are benefiting from it as well. So we're really just starting to understand the potential and the challenges. And I'm certainly excited, as I know both of you are, about how the marketing profession can learn and progress together. So on that note, the CMA has got some terrific generative AI resources that marketers can benefit from that really can complement this conversation and our podcast as well as we've now got a number of thought leadership articles on a wide range of topics on our website.

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And we've launched some training as well. So we've got a new series, a new training course this fall that's going to be specific to CMO's and VP's and we're bringing back a training session from the spring that was very successful and that's how I can make you a better marketer. And then we've also got an AI working group and they've introduced a series as well.

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So obviously I'm representing the Canadian marketing profession. We're working closely with all of our members and making sure that we can help enable them throughout the journey and I train them all. You've been a big part of that today, having members and thought leaders and expertise like you as part of our broader membership is a really great way to share learning across the profession and enable us to all succeed together. So again, a great big thank you to both of you and I hope you have a good afternoon.

00:22:12:20 - 00:22:33:11

So thanks, Alison. Awesome. Thank you. You too. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA dot Com 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.

Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA and Susan Irving, CMO of Kruger Products L.P., discuss Susan's recent experience as a judge and her ongoing work as jury chair for the Cannes Young Lions competition in Canada at the 2023 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

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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.

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Alison: So it is an absolute pleasure to welcome Susan Irving, the Chief Marketing Officer from Kruger Products to the CMA Connect podcast today. And Susan, I want to start by welcoming you back from Cannes, and thank you very much for joining us on CMA Connect, while I'm sure you're still managing jet lag and I suspect a very full inbox.

Susan: I'm still on a high from Cannes, it's a pretty magical place, but it's just an incredible, inspirational place to come back and really think about how we can do things differently here in Canada. But not too differently given how well Canadian agencies and partners have done.

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Alison: Absolutely. I'm very excited to speak with you today because you really have had two roles at Cannes, which give you a truly unique perspective. So obviously, you were a judge for the Lions sports, but you also were the jury chair for the Cannes Young Lions competition for Canada. And you've been on the Board and a key part of that organization for a number of years.

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Alison:

So, very excited to get your perspective on both of those.

Susan: I'm excited to be here and share the learnings because we're very proud of how Canada has done this year.

Alison: So let's start with the judging on the jury for the Entertainment Alliance for Sports.

Susan: I'll tell you right now, I was very excited to be chosen as a member of the jury, and I'm just thrilled that I was able to be in the Entertainment for Sports jury.

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Susan: And I'm going to tell you right now, it's not for the faint at heart. They don't tell you that you've got to judge 300 cases before you even get to Cannes. You take bias training, which is just incredible to really understand kind of your biases as you're judging. And you actually also have to judge work from your country and work from your company just so that they can see what's going on on the back end.

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So I'm very impressed at how they really have this down to a science to ensure that everything is equitable and fair. So you go through, we had about 300 cases before getting to Cannes. I had a month to get through them. I'd say at least an hour a day. I'd say it probably took 15 minutes per case. And then the week before Cannes, I had to judge another 83 for the short list.

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So definitely not for the faint at heart. Arrived on a Friday and then was in the jury room all day Saturday and all day Sunday. We actually had a fire at our hotel on the Friday night. So I was feeling good and went to bed early, but then was on a beach until 3am. But it was a good opportunity to get to know our fellow jury chair and the rest of the jury.

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But literally on the Saturday, we had 83 on the short list. We needed to get that short list down to 60 and then even say, you know, are there other cases that you potentially scored a 7 to 9 that could be added back in? And then so once you land on your 60, which took us til about 11:00 at night, the following day, we were in the room from ten until 11, and that was from your short list, deciding how many bronze, how many silver and how many gold, and what happens is, as you decide that you're going to have 20 that come up to bronze, of that 20, 10 come up to silver,

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and then of that ten silver, four, well, three go up to gold and then one goes up to Grand Prix. So it's pretty phenomenal. And I think what I learned, you know I always talk about the importance of diversity on a board or diversity on a jury, but the importance of diversity of thought. And what was really impressive about our jury was just hearing the change of perspectives, right?

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A case that you may have fallen in love with, listening to a different perspective from someone who comes from a different background and really understanding and having the ability and courage to actually change your mind. And that happened a lot in the jury room, which was really impressive. It was a bucket list for me. I think I've now met friends.

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We're still texting and talking about the experience and really bonded and saw each other over the past couple of days, either it was at the press conference or at the awards, and then just bumping into each other and still talking and texting and emailing today on ideas. So I feel like I've got industry friends forever.

Alison: And what are some of the key trends that you saw in the top work that was recognized?

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Susan: If I look at the trends, Cannes Young Lions asked all of us to send in our trends that we saw from the work. And I think there's three predominant trends in terms of the work. If you look at Dreamcaster from Michelob, Shout from Overstar or Leah, which is from Kotex. You know, the three big trends, I'd say the first one was the power sport to drive purpose and to do good in the world.

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Gone are the days of sports being just about slapping your logo and saying that you sponsor something. Brands are really trying to do good in the world and making a difference to ensure that there's an elevated purpose and you're actually leveraging the power of sport as a platform to make the world a better place. And you really saw that as a focal point in the work.

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The second part was D&I woven beautifully into the campaign. So if you look at the Dreamcaster case, it's such a relevant example of someone who's blind, who became a broadcaster, and with the technology of AI and what they were able to do, he was blind and was able to telecast and broadcast the game. And he's still doing that today.

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So, you know, although there was actually a diversity and inclusion category, many of the cases just did a heroic job of weaving diversity and inclusion just fluidly throughout their cases. And then the last one, you know, I think we keep talking about AI, but the use of AI in technology, if you look at Dreamcaster as an example, if you look at what they did with Nike and Serena, showing her competing against herself when she was younger to older, there is just this amazing technology and being used for the good.

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There was also a Colgate case where they leveraged rugby helmet equipment for people that were deaf. So it was just an amazing way of leveraging sport and making it more inclusive, and leveraging the use of technology to advance the sport as well and an effective use of AI. I think we're all afraid of AI a little bit right now, but some really brilliant examples.

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There's another cricket case from Martel, of which it was a famous cricket match, and they were able to use and leverage pictures to retell the match that happened years ago. So just some really brilliant examples of the three trends.

Alison: They're spectacular trends and great examples. And it's when you step back from Cannes and talk about being on the jury that it's clearly very prestigious.

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It's a great goal list. So congratulations on accomplishing it. And it can also be the perception that, oh, think about how much fun that will be and it's certainly inspiring. But the intensity to which you describe the amount of work required before you even hop on the plane to go and then the amount of work that you're doing there.

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And I'm sure fascinating debates and discussions. But there is an intensity to that that I'm sure has you with some global friends and fellow jurists from around the world that you will be friends with for a very long time. And extended great outcome, too.

Susan: Yeah, it really was a bucket list and something that just over overdelivered on my expectations.

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Alison: And I do love, obviously we come from a very diverse country, so it's such an important theme for us and certainly for our Canadian marketing profession. And some of the examples you shared of how other countries and marketers are really embracing that for the betterment of society and their businesses and brands is incredibly motivating as well. So thank you for sharing.

Susan: No problem.

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Alison: Now I'd like to hear some of the new learning that you're bringing back from Cannes that you're most excited to put into action.

Susan: Yeah, I'd say, you know, oh my gosh, there's so many trends. If you went to all the speaking engagements that I, I think sums it up probably with five as I went from speaker to speaker.

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And, you know, going to the awards shows that I think the number one, a lot of people keep thinking that creativity is gone or brand is gone. But what really shines through in a conference was this continued importance of creativity for good. And, you know, I think what we realize is brands can move the needle when it comes to making the world a better place.

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Now you've got to figure out where in the spectrum you fit and the voice that you have and when you should crawl, walk or run. But what I really noticed in a lot of the work, and I think we've all seen it was Always "like a girl", Dove "real beauty". The Leah Kotex spot that was that just won a gold is, you know, brands can really help drive and solve problems not just for consumers but for communities and our planet, you know, community initiatives, inclusivity and sustainability to make the world a better place are really here for the long run.

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What was evident to is, I think in past years and because that with Sick Kids did such an incredible job to I'd say, start the trend here in Canada. You know on the longest time it was the not for profits that seem to be having that voice and taking the risk versus the brands that were sticking with functional.

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And I'm not saying you shouldn't do functional advertising, but it felt like we really seen a step change in terms of now it's not just the not for profits that brands are figuring out their voice and where they can actually do creative for good in the world and still drive sales because they're leveraging the benefit and the brand can really play in that space.

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The second one we talked about technology, and AI are here to say I gave a couple of examples of some winning cases that we saw at Cannes, but it was very evident that although we have not fully figured this out yet, it really is time to dabble and play with it. I went to a session with Google. A couple of sessions were positive, couple of sessions where we're scaring you with A.I. and making sure that you really understand security and making sure that it's safe for the consumer.

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But at the end of the day, I think it's time for us all to start dabbling and figuring out how we can leverage AI to make our campaigns even better. The third one is, I'd say post-pandemic. Everything that's been going on recession, inflation, COVID. I think there's been a lot of seriousness in the tone of our advertising. But what you started to see this year was humor again.

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You know, there was a great M&M's case about their spokes people and they were fired and then returned. But you really do see that consumers are ready for some humor again. So I think we're going to see a lot more of that moving forward. The fourth one is media tactics and influencers. I mean, it was evident at Cannes this year.

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There is obviously the speeches at the palace, but the beats, I mean, tick tock, Snapchat, Pinterest, sports beats, influencers. Tons of the campaigns that were really leveraging the power of the different media tactics as well as influencers. So again, that's here to stay and something that we need to be leveraging. I mean, we've talked about how digital is on the rise, but really an effective use of the different channels.

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And then the last one was just to balance of, of the winning work. You know, Kraft Heinz is a great example of everything that Rethinkdid, but just a lot of balance between there was pure functional work, emotional work and then purposeful work. And there was a nice balance of everything. It wasn't just all purpose or it wasn't just all emotional.

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It was nice to see just that the balance of the work in terms of functional, emotional and purposeful.

Alison: That's right. I love your call it around air. You're absolutely right that it's changing so quickly. It's expanding so quickly that the best thing we can all do as marketers and as business people is get in and start playing and learning because it will ultimately make us better at what we do from a creativity perspective.

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But it has some broader benefits from an overall business perspective as well. And then your Shoutout around brand, too, right? Like so the pendulum has swung very much towards growth marketing and now brands are realizing that purpose-driven and brand-focused work also can connect with consumers and ultimately drive really strong business results as well. So having a balance of both, that's not one or the other really is how do they work together and the best interests of the people that they want to attract and drive the business forward.

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Susan: Exactly. I don't think you know, I think that when the Internet came right, when the Internet closed, when people were saying, oh, it's not here to stay, or when Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram, I mean, I think people got a little afraid about that shift from television to digital. But we figured it out. And I think I was kind of in that same, same place.

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You know, obviously there's a little bit of angst or what are the job losses going to be? But, you know, at the end of the day, there has to be a human behind it. So if you can start playing with it, figuring it out, and then from that point, figuring out the role that your brand plays with that and the campaigns because there's so much winning work out there.

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Alison: When I think of I, it's around the concern around, am I going to lose my job? I know I don't think you're going to lose your job. You could lose your job to a marketer who understands A.I. if you don't embrace it and have the curiosity and the desire to learn and start playing and experimenting and also do remember, it's like it's so new that none of us know where it's going to go.

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There's no really such thing as an expert in A.I. So it's early enough that we can all get in and learn together. So if you if you choose to stand on the sidelines, that's going to be the bigger issue.

Susan: Yes. So go play.

Alison: Go play, go play. Absolutely. So once again, Canada performed incredibly well on short lesson with Lions.

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And we also had some pretty remarkable Canadian firsts at this year's time. So I'd love to hear what you think Canadian agency and some marketers are doing and why we're doing some of the best work globally.

Susan: Such a proud moment for Canada. And, you know, I remember sitting at the Globe and talking to Andrew Saunders and as they were going through the numbers, I think we were fifth or six last year overall countries.

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And if you look at the fact that we're 10% of the US population, we still have far less awards than we do. And we we just we really do. We punch above our weight when it comes to our awards at Cannes. And it gives me goose bumps to say that this is our best year ever. I think the last was in 2018 or 19 where we had 52 lions and 141 short lists.

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This year we had 56 lions, which is the highest we have ever had ever. Two of those include our Cannes Young Lions, winners of which we won a silver in film and a gold in marketing.

Alison: The first ever gold

Susan: first ever gold. And we'll talk about that a little later in the in the podcast. But a total of just a couple of stats.

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A total of 13 agencies won 56 lions and total of which we won one Grand Prix, which was FCB. We won 12 gold, 22 silver and 19 bronze. And I think what what did I say? I think it was 2002 short list, which is just incredible. 25 shots landed on short lists, of which there was 202.

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So just amazing. And the top agencies that led the way for Canada were FCB, Rethink and BBDO. So just an incredible work

Alison: and a great mix of agencies, too. Like it's good representation of our marketplace and certainly the independents as well as some of the Canadian offices of big multinationals.

Susan: Exactly. Just a really nice balance of indie's. And we think I think also one indie agency, I think they came in second behind that, which was just incredible.

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So, yeah, Rethink just a powerhouse as well as FCB. And then BBDO did really well in terms of winning the most awards for a top campaign.

Alison: It was there's no doubt that we're a global powerhouse in breaking into the top five is pretty remarkable.

Susan: Yes, it's incredible. And just, you know, the rest of the agencies, I mean, 13 agencies won awards.

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So pretty incredible. You know, the second part of your question is just in terms of Canada, and I really believe and saw it, Canada is a powerhouse and we should be really proud of our marketers and our agency partners because, you know, if you see the amount of talent that we export to the US and internationally, I mean, people have thriving careers here in Canada, but, you know, we have marketers in the US that are CMO right now and VP's and head of agencies and now men and predominantly a lot of women and you know you look at Stephen Erlich who's leading Havas, you look at Diana Frost who's leading Canada and

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US for Kraft, Sofia Colucci who is now the CMO of Molson Coors, it's just phenomenal. But Jeff Klein who's in charge of Popeye's. I mean, there's so many Canadian talent that are that are out there that are doing great things in the marketplace. I think the other thing is, is that sets us apart is I really feel that Canadians just have the bravery and confidence and boldness.

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It's kind of this innate nature. And, you know, I also think it's our innate nature to be inclusive because of the country that we come from and that really showcased in the work. And then on top of that, really our ability to flex from functional to emotional to purposeful. And as I said, that was something that you really saw in our cases and our Lions that were winning work.

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There is there was a lot of great kind of one offs, amazing stunts and something that really drove the functional benefit or the, you know, the icon of certain brands. And then you really saw some very powerful emotional and purposeful work. What else? I think I think the other thing when I when I look at the why is, you know, Canada, sometimes you're you're pushed to just lift and shipped from U.S. or global markets.

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And I think when we have the opportunity either to create our own, we really try to really put our best foot forward. And I think that sets us apart. I think we're great collaborators and I think agencies and and clients work really well together in Canada. They're not afraid to doing smart, intelligent and brave work. And as I said before, given our Canadian population openness to creating community and culture, we're not afraid at all of embracing D&I, which we saw really shone on the awards at award stage this year at Cannes.

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Alison: It's amazing. And you've got a great out around how closely and how much better and more collaboratively Canadian agencies and clients work together. What do you think are some of the reasons behind that?

Susan: I think it's really just the nature of of Canadians being kind and and wanting to get to the best work. And, you know, unless you collaborate and really listen to different points of view, you're not going to get to that to that next level of work.

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So I think it's just innate in our nature. And, you know, I think I tease how we force all of our agencies to collaborate together. I think over the years you see a lot of a great idea can come from anywhere and then you play a position. And fundamentally, I just think Canadian marketers want to do really great world work and what agency partner doesn't want to do that as well?

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Alison: Absolutely agree. So in addition to your very intense judging role for the Lion Sports at Cannes, you were also this year's jury chair for the Cannes Young Lions competition for Canada. And I know you've been involved with the organization for quite some time and should be very proud of how Canadians young talent has progressed through your leadership. It also gives you a really unique view on our country's emerging creative talent.

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And it was certainly a very exciting way to end the weekend for Canada in Cannes last week. So I'd love to hear a bit about what excites you the most about Canada's young creatives.

Susan: Yeah, well, first I you know, I want to thank Mark Childs, who is just an icon in the industry from a marketing perspective. The Globe and Mail and Mark brought me on over ten years ago as a judge on this competition, and it is by far my favorite competition.

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I do a lot of judging just to see other works and figuring out insights and how it can apply to my business to make me smarter. But this one is just it's so amazing because it's, you know, you've got to be under 30 in this competition and it's the future generation of Canadian marketers. And I've been fortunate enough to be on it for ten years.

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Jury Chair For the past three, we've got a core group that are really pushing and doing the training so that we can be on the podium and thankful for the Global and Mail for being sponsor and advocates for can not just putting the judges forward, but also for this competition. And paying for our competitors to go. If you win the Canadian competition, then the top teams go to Cannes to compete on the global stage.

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And what was phenomenal this year is we had a couple of bronzes and in marketing we have never won. And this year we did win, which was just phenomenal. So Ryan and Mike from MLSE won gold, our team and film won silver, and then we were shortlisted for media and digital. So just a phenomenal year for our our young marketers and Mary Diver runs the creative and Kathy Collier is the jury chair for Media Survey.

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They do a phenomenal program as well when it comes to the competition. So just thrilled that they just did so well. It's funny when when we were sitting at the awards, Aaron, from Crowdiate, and I was standing there, he's been on the judging on the jury for four years as well.

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And when we saw that they were shortlisted, we thought that that was a bad thing, not a good thing. And so we thought they didn't win. But in hindsight, it really meant that they had a chance. So when we saw bronze, we were let down and we saw the short list, but then we saw the bronze and then we saw the silver, and then all of a sudden they won.

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I felt like I was a crazy soccer parent. As Aaron and I were jumping over tables and running through the crowd so we could get up there and take a picture and just barged in front of everyone. So that taking center stage to take a picture of our teams. So just I would say that the highlight of my week because you know, these guys work their butts off in Canada, they've got their own job, they do this case, they get a case that they've got to work on for 24 hours and basically the same thing in Cannes, they get a case.

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There's a charity. They've got to match their brand to solve the charities problem and then have 5 minutes to present. So it's a lot of work, but obviously a lot of reward.

Alison: Such an outstanding accomplishment just both so well for the young talent we're growing in this country.

Susan: Yeah, it's just incredible. So, you know, and if you look at it from a media perspective, from film, from digital, you know, I think across the agency mix and marketing mix, we should be very proud of of the talents that's going to be the future leaders of Canada and who knows US, local firms…

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The sky's the limit for what I can see from this young talent.

Alison: Absolutely. Now, given your long tenure and experience with that organization, I'd love to hear how young creatives and young marketers are approaching the profession and creative differently than other generations.

Susan: I'd say, you know, not that it's old. It's something that we should all be going back to.

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You know, I look at a lot of marketers and I think over the years we've gotten into the situation of putting our brands first about what's the brand problem, what's a brand problem with the brand problem? How are we going to grow our brand just because we're so trained that way? What I find different with this generation is they really are putting the consumer first.

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They're thinking about, well, what is the consumer problem? And then how can my brand actually help solve the problem for the consumer? And, you know, at the end of the day, that's how we are actually trained as marketers and just watching them compete and the ideas that they're coming up with, it's just so evident in terms of this generation as thinking about others first and then how my brand can solve the problem, which is what's winning it at Cannes right now here, if you look at the work from a purpose perspective, it really is putting the consumer first and then how my brand plays a role within that consumer group.

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Alison: It's a great shout out and I will applaud you from Kruger for part of your unapologetically human campaign platform and brand platform. Absolutely does a brilliant job of that. So kudos for that.

Susan: Thank you very. We're very proud of the work and so far, the comments coming in from the industry. But more importantly, we have customers and consumers calling in on our CRC hotline and everything has just been so, so positive.

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And you know, it's funny, sometimes you worry about not having a lot of product in the spot, but it's amazing how people are so emotionally drawn to it because they can relate to it and then see how our products are just so well and truly woven, if you will, into the spot.

Alison: Brilliantly done. So what advice would you offer to someone early in their marketing career?

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You can have great global experience. You're doing an amazing job leading a Canadian brand. So I'd love to end the podcast with your advice to someone earlier in the marketing career.

Susan: Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is, is figuring out what you're passionate about. What is your your passion and really turn that into your career and you'll never work a day in your life.

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And whether or not you decide to you're a marketer really figure out kind of the type of marketing and the type of company and working for a company that has similar values to yourself. And then secondly, when we were younger, we're in such a rush. We're in such a rush to get promoted and just we're waiting to get to the top of the mountain versus enjoying the journey.

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And I know it's a cliché, but it's so true. Just enjoy every single day. And even if you're in a rotation in a role that you don't love, figure out what you're going to learn and what you're going to do differently and find the aspects of that role that you're know you can dig your teeth in and really love and make a difference because it will turn you into a better marketer.

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Alison: That's terrific advice. So one final question. Will you be back at Cannes next year?

Susan: I hope so.

Alison: I hope to see you there.

Susan: Yeah, I plan to be there. I think next year it'll be nice. You know, you don't typically judge two years back to back. I'll be excited to be there as jury chair for the Young Lions marketers and on the board advisory board for the Globe and Mail.

00:28:17:07 - 00:28:37:02

But it'll be nice not having so much judging coming up to the competition. But you bet. I hope I actually want to go back next week. It was so phenomenal.

Alison: And I know you were in incredibly consume judging, so you didn't get a chance to take in many of the speakers and presentations. But of the ones you did get do did you have a favorite speaker?

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Susan: I'd say probably. Scott Galloway I was he's he's got a love hate relationship with. He's so candid. But I saw him speak a couple of times. The head of marketing at McDonald's was phenomenal as well. Obviously, P&G shares similar great case studies as well. So yeah, those would probably be some of my my top picks.

Alison: That's a great list.

00:29:05:06 - 00:29:25:00

Well, Susan, thank you so much. I really appreciate you making time for us. And coming fresh off the plane from Cannes, I wish we could both go back next week, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and very much look forward to see you later this summer.

Susan: That sounds great. And let's plant those cans gathered here next year, Alison!

Alison: That's a brilliant plan.

00:29:25:15 - 00:29:43:08

Thanks, Susan. Thanks, Alison. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit the CMA dot com 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.

Our guest on CMA Connect this week is Matt McGowan, Director and General Manager of Snap Inc. Canada, and an active member on the CMA's 'Media Council'. Matt joins John Wiltshire to dig into the topic of augmented reality (AR) in today's media mix.

• Journey from the early days of YouTube at Google to today's vertical streaming, AR assisted landscape in Snap

What mobile video was to streaming 12 years ago is what, in 2022, augmented reality is as "the new thing in advertising". We've moved beyond 'helmets', to glasses, to interplay with augmented reality on smartphones. Matt talks about why Snapchat is a camera company: "when you open the app, you open a camera where we empower you to overlay augmented reality; to overlay computing on that world."

• Is AR mature enough for marketers to use in reaching their targeted clients? (4:38)

"Yes! You can use augmented reality to entertain yourself, grow some bunny-rabbit ears or dog ears, but you can also use augmented reality to make purchases. Smart cameras with LiDAR sensors can sense depth, size, and so forth. Our Snap camera has something we call 'Fit Tech', which can size you. We've seen AR take off with apparel companies and retailers."

• Where does AR fit in the marketing mix? (8:46)

"At Snap, we have a self-serve ads manager very much like our peers. You create an account, put in a credit card, and you're off to the races. You can upload your vertical video from other platforms, as well as your augmented reality. Outside of the ads manager, we also have software called 'Lens Studio' which is like a new version of Adobe Photoshop that is much easier to use for non-designers. If you drop a lens alongside your Snap ads, you're likely to see 40% incremental reach. There's a definite upside to using AR."

• 'In 2025, will AR be baked into everything we do as marketers?' (16:03)

"There's a lot of chat right now about augmented reality versus virtual reality. We truly believe that layering computing on the world in front of you, or 'augmenting reality' is the right approach. In 1998, cell phones had just started to hit the market. That phone has evolved so much over the decades. I firmly believe that evolution isn't going to stop all of a sudden."

Tune into this episode of 'CMA Connect' for the full conversation between Matt McGowan and John Wiltshire.

Our guests on CMA Connect this week are an accomplished marketing duo: Scott Megginson, President of Kantar, Canada and Peter Rodriguez, CMO and Founder of Brand Igniter. We chat about all things partnerships.

• The relationship with a relaxed conversation

The riveting story of how Scott and Peter met over throat lozenges and went on to form a partnership between insights and brand management. And how many great partnerships like this one start with three things: a true respect for the areas of expertise each partner brings, the ability to build on each other's strengths, and a good challenge that helps align the organization.

• How can marketers foster powerful partnerships that would benefit brands?

Scott Megginson talks about how excellent partnership templates exist in a number of sectors, particularly ones that really invest in consumer insights. This includes sectors like technology and financial services.

• The challenges of globalization and regionalization

"There is a big push to standardize things and centralize. Let's say, out of the US and then go from there, as opposed to finding success wherever in the world, and then testing that success outside of that market to expand it. The strategy that Scott and I put together grew a category that no one thought could grow anymore, because of the way it was measured. It had 70% market share; how are you going to grow that? Well, only if you break all of those patterns around it, and stop thinking in a way that is limiting" - Peter Rodriguez

• The paradox of cost-cutting measures

Why cost-cutting (like advertising cuts) may mean a brand is cashing in permanently on brand equity, which may have been built over many years. Scott talks about how this may be a reason we see "many commoditized brands in the market now, not brands who could really demand a huge premium, because we've really gone beyond the point of no return with the cutbacks that we've made."

Tune into this episode of 'CMA Connect' for the full conversation between Scott Megginson, Peter Rodriguez, and John Wiltshire.