Episode 23 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Kim Whittler, business professor at the Virginia School of Business and former GM and CMO. Kim joins us for a second time on the red-hot issue of sociopolitical stands and describes why descriptive corporate research ignores consequences and trade-offs and is often wrong versus longer-term broader academic studies. Key topics include understanding the difference between "self interest" and "company interest," simultaneously managing consumer, employee and investor constituencies, preventing dangerous groupthink, fiduciary responsibility, the complexity of truly knowing "the right" thing, the asymmetric risks of picking a side, and CMO's that forget to represent their customers and investors. She shares many examples including Disney, Coke, Nike and Budweiser.

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Episode 22 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Dave Reibstein, the Wharton Business School Professor and former Chairman of the American Marketing Association. Dave takes us through the evolution of marketing, measurement and what's next. Key topics include why brands should be included on the balance sheet, how measures follow money, why the inability to quantify brands negatively impacts marketers and companies, his belief that business is ahead of academia in understanding new tools and technologies, and why e-games succeeded - but the Metaverse may not be the next big thing. Also, listen in to learn about a completely original way of sleeping during a lecture. 

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Episode 21  - A CMO Confidential Interview with Gary Stibel, the former Wharton econometric modeler, Pringles brand manager, and founder of The New England Consulting Group. Gary outlines his belief that innovation and "the big marketing idea" are in serious decline and what to do about it. Key topics include why short-term thinking is crowding out long-term innovation, his belief that many companies will suffer sales and stock price declines because of this, how he thinks about brands taking socio political stands, the continued rise of private label, and the financial reengineering going on in the marketplace. He also discusses why CMO turnover is good for his business but bad for companies, and why "stage gating" kills innovation and should be replaced by rapid prototyping. The Cheetos repositioning story which includes Cheesy Rider, the creation of Chester the Cheetah and the brand rising from near oblivion is not to be missed!

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Episode 20 - How to Decomplexify Your Marketing

A CMO Confidential interview with Margaret Molloy, the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Siegel+Gale, the branding firm, and the “How CMOs Commit” podcast host. We discuss how marketing can become overly complex versus the power of a consistent focus on the customer. Key topics include translating business strategies, managing diverse stakeholders, B2B branding, asking the right questions in the CMO interview, and the importance of customer experience. Margaret provides useful frameworks and powerful examples of brand simplification. She even claims that one of my discussion points reminds her of an Albert Einstein quote. Listen to hear which point!

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Episode 19 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Kim Whitler, a business professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Kim started at P&G and went on to be a GM at Aurora Foods and the CMO at David's Bridal before shifting to academia - one of her fortes is deep quantitative research on marketing. We discuss careers, why CPG training can be foundational, and the many factors causing CMO turnover. Highlights include why candidates should "throw out" the job spec since over 50% of them are incorrect, boards and CEOs who don't believe in marketing, firms who think marketers are all interchangeable, and candidates who take positions doomed for failure. She provides tips to avoid these situations and also calls out search firms for a "cut and paste" approach while challenging them to do better in prepping candidates and companies.

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Episode 18 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Paul Roetzer, the founder of The Marketing AI Institute and author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence who has been working on and with AI for12 years. We discuss the difference between machine learning and generative AI, the recent Google I/O Conference, how governments have been working on AI since the '50's, AI uses for efficiency and revenue acceleration, and what marketers and advertisers should be thinking about right now. Some key takeaways include practicing with AI, focusing on the application layer versus the theory, investing in outcomes, and avoiding the trap of spending a boatload of money on the concept before you know what you really want AI to do for you. P.S. This descriptor was not generated by ChatGP.

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Episode 17 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Carilu Deitrich the former CMO and Hypergrowth Advisor who helped take Atlassian public. In part 2 of "Why The Short Shelf Life for CMO's Carilu outlines the top 5 reasons B2B marketers fail and shares tips on how to avoid the major pitfalls of the job. She also provides some thoughts on why 2023 might be a tough year for marketers, the perils of hypergrowth, and the importance of connecting with the rest of the C-Suite, especially Sales and the CEO. We also discuss learning from failure.

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Episode 16 - Ron has been a CIO numerous times including Express Scripts, the State of Illinois (Go Bears), Toyota Financial Services, HP and Farmers Insurance. Marketing has always been an analytical function. And the function has gotten more analytical and significantly more measurable since then. In this week's episode Mike and Ron discuss how the two functions can not only coexist, but thrive together.

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Episode 15 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Kip Knight. The founder of CMO Coaches, former CMO of Taco Bell, and President of H&R Block’s US business, joins the show for a second time as we switch formats and have him lead a 2-way dialogue following up on our "Why the Short Shelf Life of CMO's" session. We discuss marketing as “the offense” of the company, how to be “an optimist with objectivity,” the obligation of marketers to translate their budgets into sales and profit, the Marketing CFO position, and “the difference between a promise and a trend.”

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Episode 14 - A CMO Confidential interview with Clive Sirkin, the host of the podcast Unstuck who previously served as the Chief Growth Officer of Kellogg, the CMO of Kimberly-Clark, and the Group Managing Director of Leo Burnett. We discuss the difference between creativity and crafting, reducing the fear of getting out on the "creative ice," how to be a marketer versus an artist, avoiding the "marketing contagion of the moment" and how to make consumer believers versus taking hostages.

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