We have two special treats in the RSS feed for loyal marketing listeners - a What if? So What? podcast drop with Alan as a guest and a Bonus episode with the hosts of What if? So What?, Kim Williams-Czopek and Jim Hertzfeld, asking Alan his own questions he asks all his guests.

For this bonus episode, Alan thought it would be fun to turn the tables. So today, Kim and Jim are going to pose questions to Alan.

Episode Highlights: 

• Kim asks Alan, you are a seasoned marketer now, but what experience of your past defines and makes up who you are today?
• Alan talks about his personal experience and family background. He and his dad had a great relationship; more importantly, it taught him empathy to better understand people as a marketer. And since then, what is going on in certain situations, he calls it his Spidey sense. The other thing that happened to Alan in his professional career was mentors or people along the way.
• Alan was a psych major in undergrad. Alan had two companies. He sold one, and the other one was struggling. He used to scan documents for coursepacks at the college. One of his colleagues Mandy Hurt, recognized his talent, and she played a very important role in shaping Alan's career.
• Jim asks Alan, what advice would you give to your younger self if you could go back in time and share it?
• It wasn't until grad school Alan learned about networking, and Alan hates that term because it sounds dirty.
• The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill the Business School there they brought in a speaker, Keith Ferrazzi, who wrote Never Eat alone, which is a book Alan recommended to a lot of people, and he spoke to our class and just knowing what the power of meeting people can do for you; learning from their experiences is also building your network.
• As per Jim, networking is about learning about others, going back to building empathy, understanding how to relate to different people, communicating in different ways.
• Today, Kim asks, what one topic, if not networking, do you believe marketers need to be learning more about?
• Most marketers are not engineers, but there are some, says Alan.
• According to Alan, anything related to system dynamics or systems thinking is the study of complex systems and how they drive specific outcomes.
• Marketing is a complex system, and we are trying to achieve an outcome that is not linear in many cases, and if we could learn from that type of thinking, we could build better marketing systems.
• Jim asks Alan, if you step back from your perspective, what brands, companies, or clothes do you follow or think others should notice?
• Alan praises the marketing approach of Lindt chocolate and how they have maintained consistency across the years.
• There are marketing teams that change things because they get bored with it versus trying to figure out whether the approach is working for their customers or not, says Kim.
• Alan interviewed Raja Rajamanar, the MasterCard CMO, and he calls it "new bride" syndrome, where a new CMO comes in and says, oh, I've got to change everything.
• Kim asks, what is the largest opportunity or threat to marketers today if not new bride syndrome?
• Some of the things that have impressed me the most are those highly successful team's organizations who always have some sort of consistent reflection that goes on to help them focus and figure out how to get to the next level or improve says, Alan.

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What if the key to digital success is getting back to basics? An Interview With Alan Hart.

This is a special feed drop from What if? So what? podcast.  Check them out!

In this episode, Kim talks with Alan Hart, creator, and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” about why he thinks marketing teams need to be blown up, re-organized, and get back to basics to succeed in today's environment.

Connect with Alan Hart, the creator, and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders.

Connect with our hosts Jim Hertzfeld, Principal and Chief Strategist for Perficient, and Kim Williams-Czopek, Director of Digital Strategy at Perficient.

Keywords: digital marketing, personalization, customization, ai

Publish date: Jan 25

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/marketingtoday

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Jennifer Frommer is the Senior Vice President of Creative Content and Brand Partnerships at Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music.

In this episode, Alan and Jennifer discuss how she broke into the music industry, the brand partnerships she's worked on, which includes products like Beats headphones and musicians like Lil Nas X, Beyonce, Adele, and many others. The brands she's helped partner with include Tiffany & Co., Jaguar, Taco Bell, Pepsi, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and many more. Needless to say, Jennifer believes the future of differentiating your brand comes with partnering with the musicians and artists your customers love.

Later in the show, they discuss brand partnerships and collaborations, how they work, what works best for brands, how to work with artists, and how those artists' collaborations come together. Listen to find out more about the world of marketing and music.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The creative, organic integration of brands and music
• The advantage of brands partnering with musicians
• The keys to success for a brand and an artist collaboration

Key Highlights [01:36] Working with Lil Nas X

• [04:12] Getting to be SVP of Creative Content Brand Partnerships
• [06:40] Miracle Whip and Lady Gaga
• [09:34] Lil Nas X and Taco Bell
• [10:32] The current state of branded partnerships
• [12:53] What success looks like
• [20:10] Which brands are executing partnerships well
• [23:49] The importance of mutual trust
• [24:44] An experience that defines Jennifer
• [25:37] Jennifer's advice for her younger self
• [26:40] What marketers should be learning more about
• [27:41] The brands and organizations Jennifer follows
• [28:31] The biggest threat and opportunity to marketing today

Resources Mentioned:

• Jennifer Frommer
• Columbia Records Artists
• Jennifer's LinkedIn Post on Putting Together Deals for Lil Nas X (Links to work included)
• Jimmy Iovine & Interscope Records
• SPIN Magazine
• Tyler the Creator Coca-Cola Commercial
• Lil Nas X is now Taco Bell's Chief Impact Officer
• Balenciaga & Simpsons Brand Video
• Balenciaga & Fortnite Collaboration
• AriZona Iced Tea stays current (Eater.com)
• Taco Bell's Feed the Beat

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Jennifer Davis is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Learfield, which has been around for over 50 years. Learfield works with intercollegiate athletics of the U.S. They offer licensing, multimedia sponsorship management, publishing, audio digital, and social media, data analytics, ticketing, tickets, sales, professional concessions, expertise, branding, and campus-wide business and sponsorship development, as well as venue technology systems for many of the college athletic programs in the United States and the greater ecosystem.

In this episode, Alan and Jennifer discuss college sports and the big business behind them. They also talk about Jennifer's role transition through the pandemic and how she wrote a book called Well-Made Decisions during that transition.

Listen to find out more about why marketers should spend more energy on the decisions they make and how sports marketing plays into the future.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Spend more energy on making decisions
• How marketers can partner with sports organizations
• The opportunity for growth within sports marketing

Key Highlights

• [02:20] About Jennifer's book
• [04:04] Where Jennifer got her start
• [05:45] What is Learfield?
• [08:33] The first 100 days of onboarding
• [11:44] Current trends in college sports
• [18:51] What are collegiate e-sports?
• [23:54] The growth of B2B brands in sports marketing
• [28:44] How athletes are able to market themselves
• [34:54] An experience that defines Jennifer, makes her who she is
• [39:14] Jennifer's advice to her younger self
• [41:43] What marketers should be learning more about
• [44:12] The brands and organizations Jennifer follows
• [45:48] The biggest threat and opportunity for marketers

Resources Mentioned:

• Jennifer Davis
• Learfield
• Well Made Decisions: Pro Tips for Finishing the Decisions You Start, by Jennifer Davis
• Intercollegiate Fan Report (press release)
• Intercollegiate Fan Report (report)
• LevelNext – The College Esports League
• Allstate's Sponsorship Program
• NCAA adopts iterim name, image and likeness policy
• CLC, a division of Learfield, and OneTeam partner to offer student athletes an opt-in program to participate in licensing programs

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Peter Shankman is a five-time, bestselling author and entrepreneur, and a corporate keynote speaker. He focuses a lot on customer service and the new and emerging customer economy.

In this episode, Alan and Peter discuss his way of thinking and his living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Later they transition to PR and then dive down the rabbit hole of Web 3.0, what it is, and what it means for the future of marketing.

Listen to hear more about the Web 3.0 revolution and the next evolution of web technology.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why you need to be useful and helpful
• Understanding where blockchain fits in our future
• The importance of creating with your audience in mind

Key Highlights

• [02:22] Describing what Peter does
• [03:40] ADHD as a superpower
• [06:29] Peter's advice for those suffering with ADHD
• [07:44] Thoughts on PR as the only consistent marketing tactic
• [10:58] What's changed in PR?
• [15:11] How blockchain applies to the future
• [20:02] Creating with your audience in mind
• [26:57] Listen to what people have to say
• [29:34] Learning from electric cars
• [31:04] "Hot or not" with Peter
• [36:08] Peter's advice for marketers
• [38:55] An experience that defines Peter, makes him who he is today
• [40:04] Peter's advice for his younger self
• [41:54] What marketers should learn more about
• [42:35] The organizations and brands Peter follows
• [43:15] The biggest threat and opportunity for marketers

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Claire Atkin and Nandini Jammi are the Co-founders of Check My Ads Institute, but you may have heard of them before. Claire writes the popular newsletter Branded, which breaks major stories about the advertising industry's ties to disinformation and hate groups, and Nandini previously Co-founded Sleeping Giants, the social media campaign that led advertisers to flee from Breitbart. Needless to say, both are passionate about combatting disinformation and marketing issues.

In this episode, Alan, Nandini, and Claire discuss the Check My Ads Institute, why it's so important, and the impact it has on marketers. Claire and Nandini are passionate about making marketers aware of the problem they face with ad fraud. It is in every one of our ecosystems, and marketers have to do the hard work to get out in front of it and stop supporting things like disinformation. Listen to learn much more about brand safety and how to become a member of their nonprofit.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Combating hate speech in ads
• Where disinformation stems from
• What is brand safety laundering

Key Highlights:

• [01:38] Where Nandini and Claire got their start
• [03:00] Nandini and the Breitbart scandal 
• [09:30] Claire's crisis of inaction
• [12:05] Why Claire and Nandini started Check My Ads
• [14:04] The struggle with ad tech
• [16:08] Facebook and disinformation 
• [19:47] How Check My Ads combats disinformation 
• [23:09] Partnering with Check My Ads 
• [26:40] Where should marketers start? 
• [27:37] Brand safety laundering
• [30:45] Future plans for Check My Ads
• [33:02] The experiences that define Nandini and Claire
• [35:28] Advice to their younger selves 
• [37:03] The biggest threat and opportunity for marketers

Resources Mentioned: 

• Check My Ads Institute
• Claire Atkin
• Nandini Jammi
• Sleeping Giants (Wikipedia)
• Breitbart was the trigger and resulting work drove 90% revenue loss (Washington Post)
• Check My Ads Institute - Checkmates Membership Program
• Branded Newsletter & Research
• News Deserts tracked at UNC

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Jonathan Yaffe is the CEO and Co-founder of AnyRoad, a data and analytics platform that powers experiential marketing efforts for many of the Fortune 2000 companies. 

In this episode, Alan and Jonathan discuss how his career started at RedBull and how it evolved into founding AnyRoad. Jonathan believes that experiential marketing is a pillar of any effective marketing strategy. He says, “experiential programs really change consumer behavior, which leads to revenue growth and increases of brand love.”

Listen to the full episode to learn more about why experiences matter so much in today's environment and why brands are looking at experiential programs as a way to actually build long-term brand loyalty and ultimately increase a customer's lifetime value.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The value of leaning into experience
• What makes personalization so powerful
• Focus on lifetime value instead of conversion rates

Key Highlights:

• [01:38] Working for RedBull
• [02:43] Transforming from product to experience
• [05:35] Examples of incorporating experience in brand
• [08:32] Changes in the experiential marketing space
• [12:54] What makes personalized experience so powerful
• [15:01] Getting better at capturing and using data 
• [17:40] How data is being collected today
• [19:35] What to do with data once you've got it 
• [23:35] An experience that defines Jonathan, makes him who he is today
• [26:56] Jonathan's advice to his younger self
• [28:55] What marketers should be learning more about
• [30:16] The brands and organization Jonathan follows
• [33:51] The biggest threat and opportunity for marketers 

Resources Mentioned: 

• AnyRoad
• Jonathan Yaffe, CEO and Co-founder
• Red Bull
• Marie Kondo
• REI Bike Riding Course
• Kentucky Bourbon Trail
• CHEEZ-IT online store and Chobani merch drops
• Red Bull Flutag Event – Red Bull in San Fran
• Warby Parker expanding to stores (NRF)
• Allbirds expanding to store experiences
• Lululemon and Nike with retail experiences but not about commerce

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This is a BONUS episode from Marc Binkley and the Anstice aCast podcast where Alan, Marc, and Stef Hamerlinck discuss the year in review of marketing and their respective podcasts. 

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In this year-in-review, Alan, Stef, and Marc share the biggest lessons they've learned from interviewing hundreds of the world's leading thinkers in strategy, marketing, and branding.

Alan Hart, Stef Hamerlinck, and Marc Binkley have interviewed hundreds of the world's leading thinkers on business strategy, marketing, and branding. During this entertaining conversation, the three of us share some of the biggest lessons we've learned from those conversations and share what we believe are amazing opportunities for our profession.

Bios

Alan Hart hosts the Marketing Today podcast since 2014. Alan is also a consultant for marketing leadership and board advisor.

Stef Hamerlinck is a brand strategy consultant and since 2017 has hosted the Let's talk branding podcast.

Marc Binkley is VP Strategy & Digital Marketing at Anstice and hosts the Anstice aCast podcast.

Here's the Marketingland image that we're referring to throughout the conversation.

TimeStamps 

0:00 – Alan linking business strategy with marketing and brand strategy

2:46 – Why Stef started his podcast on brand strategy

4:20 – Why Alan started his podcast 

5:40 – Why Marc started his podcast

7:23 – Our favorite interviews

10:10 – What topic marketers need to learn more about

16:05 – Alan's perception of why CMO's want to get away from marketing

17:40 – Stef's thoughts on how brand strategy fits within marketing and business

19:01 – Why marketing strategy IS business strategy

20:40 – The interplay between brand strategy, marketing strategy, and business strategy

24:20 – Some memorable lessons from our podcast interviews 

Stef: Faisal Siddiqui How to build a big brand on a small budget

Alan: Mark Ritson Diagnosis of a brand

Alan: Bob Hoffman Advertising for Skeptics

Alan: Branded Entertainment with GoDaddy's CMO Fara Howard  

Marc: Kaaren Whitney-Vernon on branded content  

30:36 – Why advertising is not strategy 

31:55 - Some memorable lessons from our podcast interviews

Marc: Chris Kneeland are marketers addicted to advertising

Marc: Eddie Obeng the difference between change and transformation  

Marc: Manoj Jasra why momentum is critical

Alan: Joe Jackman driving results through reinvention, change, and transformation

Stef: JP Castlin on strategy in complexity and emergence

Stef: Paul Feldwick on the origins of branding 

41:36 – The biggest opportunities and threats to marketing  

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George Corbin is a Board Director at Edgewell Personal Care and is the COO of Onriva, a next-generation, AI-powered, travel marketplace.

In this episode, Alan and George talk about his career path, which includes consulting through the boom and bust of the internet, becoming Chief Digital Officer at Marriott, leading their digital transformation, and making his way to a position on Edgewell's board.

Throughout their conversation they discuss lessons learned through leading digital transformation, what that means for the marketing function, and marketers should think about leading a digital transformation. George says, “The best marketers are transformation agents,” and sometimes that means getting really good at being insightful with your customers and looking at the data. 

Listen in to hear more about digital transformations and the hot topics board members are currently discussing.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Getting digital transformation right
• Making your company a growth engine 
• Opportunities for marketers on a board

Key Highlights:

• [02:00] George's wrestling match with an octopus 
• [04:10] George's start in marketing
• [10:34] Getting digital transformation right
• [18:57] Becoming a board director
• [21:48] Opportunities for marketers at the board level
• [26:11] Shifting to a mind of governance 
• [31:20] “Hot or not”—what boards are talking about
• [38:55] George's advice for CMOs
• [45:26] An experience that defines George, makes him who he is today 
• [48:33] George's advice to his younger self 
• [50:14] What marketers should be learning more about 
• [52:07] The brands and organizations George follows
• [55:42] The biggest threat or opportunity for marketers

Resources Mentioned: 

• George Corbin
• Edgewell Personal Care
• Onriva
• Marriott
• Mars
• Kim Whitler on Marketing Today discussing marketers on boards
• Kim's research: When and how Board Members with Marketing Experience Facilitate Firm Growth, by Kimberly A. Whitler, Ryan Krause, Donald R. Lehmann
• Stoicism (Wikipedia)
• Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holliday
• Brands George mentions: Alibaba, Shopify, Onriva

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Grant Johnson is the CMO at Emburse, a spend management company offering solutions that help organizations manage employee expenses, process invoices, and make payments.

In this episode, Alan and Grant discuss his journey to become CMO at Emburse and his philosophy of five Cs for a CMOs playbook—culture, coaching, campaigns, category, and courage. 

Grant says that “the only constant in the market is change, and your ability to adapt to it is key to ongoing success.” Listen to the full interview to hear Grant's advice for emerging marketing leaders and how being clear, compelling, and consistent play a major role. 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Category isn't restricted to your product
• The courage of conviction 
• Adapting to the change

Key Highlights:

• [01:22] Grant is a nationally ranked tennis player
• [03:00] Grant's career journey 
• [05:34] Coming up with the five C's
• [07:34] Talking about culture 
• [09:19] Where coaching is important
• [11:05] Coaching the coach vs. coaching the employee
• [12:15] How Grant thinks about campaigns 
• [14:55] Thinking about category
• [18:12] Having the courage of conviction
• [19:56] Advice for first-time CMOs
• [23:53] An experience that defines Grant, makes him who he is today
• [25:10] Grant's advice to his younger self 
• [26:48] What marketers should be learning more about
• [27:54] The brands and organizations Grant follows 
• [29:06] The biggest threat and opportunity for marketers 

Resources Mentioned: 

• Grant Johnson
• Emburse
• “emburse it” campaign
• Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore
• Escape Velocity, by Geoffrey A. Moore
• Dave Peterson
• Celonis
• Celonis raises $1B
• Play Bigger, book by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney
• CMO Manifesto, book by John Ellet

Follow the podcast:

• Listen in iTunes (link: http://apple.co/2dbdAhV)
• Listen in Google Podcasts (link: http://bit.ly/2Rc2kVa)
• Listen in Spotify (Link: http://spoti.fi/2mCUGnC )

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