Marketing Vanguard

The best creative risks should make you a little nervous. But they should never make you ask why your brand is taking them.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Rankin Carroll, Chief Brand Officer of Mars Snacking, to unpack how brands like M&M’s, Snickers and Skittles stay culturally relevant without treating boldness as an excuse for chaos. Rankin takes us behind the scenes of the 2023 Snickers AI experiment that felt “potentially crazy” at the time, and gets candid about Mars’ creator learning curve and the responsibility marketers have to the next generation.

Rankin Carroll is Chief Brand Officer of Mars Snacking, where he works across some of the company’s most recognizable brands, including M&M’s, Snickers and Skittles. He has spent more than 20 years at Mars across marketing, advertising, general management and global and regional leadership roles. His career has taken him from Toronto to the UK and at one point, included running an ice cream business along the way.

Today, Rankin focuses on what he describes as the stewardship of distinctive, iconic brands: protect what makes them valuable, make them stronger than when you received them, and still create enough tension to keep them culturally relevant.

What You'll Learn:

• How Mars pressure-tests risky ideas before putting iconic brands on the line
• Why the 2023 Snickers AI experiment required legal, security and agency teams to take the risk together
• How “Why us? Why this brand?” separates bold creative from stunts
• Why brands have to earn the credibility to participate authentically in culture
• Why Rankin believes transformation now has no end state
• How Mars is learning to loosen control in creator-led marketing
• Why marketing leaders need to rethink how the next generation is trained for an AI-shaped industry
• Why CMOs need to own the AI agenda instead of leaving it to scattered pilots

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Attribution’s a tricky thing. It can help marketers make better decisions while simultaneously making their strategy worse.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Amanda Teder, CMO of Generac, to unpack what happens when marketing gets too focused on what is easiest to measure. Amanda breaks down the full-funnel operating model she has built at Generac, why demand generation is only the opening move in a high-consideration category and why some purchase journeys need nurturing for months or even years.

Amanda Teder is Chief Marketing Officer at Generac, an energy solutions company serving both residential and industrial customers.

Before joining Generac, Amanda spent roughly 20 years at Procter & Gamble, where she worked across brands including Oral-B and Febreze, before moving to Michelin.

Across those very different categories, one theme has stayed consistent: understand what actually drives the business, then build the systems that can turn customer insight into repeatable growth. And, at Generac, that has meant connecting demand generation, nurture, sales enablement and post-purchase support into a more complete customer journey.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Generac treats marketing as a connected operating system
• Why high-consideration categories cannot stop at demand generation
• Why email still matters when a purchase cycle can last months or years
• How Amanda applies lessons from P&G across very different categories
• Why B2B and B2C marketing share more strategic DNA than most people assume
• Why strategy should come before deciding what AI should automate
• How attribution can push teams too far down the funnel
• Why Amanda’s “builder” mindset shapes the roles and brands she chooses

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the age of AI, marketers still have to answer one big question: “Why should anyone choose you?”

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Ameetess Dira, CMO of Petzey, for a conversation about the decisions that become even more important as marketing gets easier to automate. Ameetess breaks down why purpose alignment is a non-negotiable in her career, why she deliberately pushes marketing into product, technology, and finance conversations and why some of her strongest brand partnerships looked strange on paper.

Ameetess Dira is Chief Marketing Officer at Petzey, an on-demand pet telehealth app with more than 1,000 pet professionals across the U.S.

Her path into marketing has crossed broadcasting, radio, print, agency leadership, technology, and international market expansion across Asia and the United States.

Her move into pet health was deeply personal. After losing her senior dog, Ameetess deliberately sought out work that could improve access to care for animals and the people who love them. That purpose now shapes how she thinks about everything from partnerships and crisis response to the role marketing should play inside the wider business.

What You'll Learn:

• Why purpose alignment is a non-negotiable for Ameetess when choosing where to work
• Why underserved problems can create stronger brand opportunities than obvious ones
• How unexpected partnerships can work when the underlying values make sense
• Why marketing should be embedded in product, technology and finance conversations
• Why AI may make storytelling more valuable, not less
• Why long-term brand trust can matter more than short-term revenue
• How CEO trust gives CMOs more room to take meaningful risks
• Why leadership has to change depending on the people and market involved

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’re wondering why your good ol’ marketing playbook no longer works, the answer probably lies in the funnel you’re targeting.

Turns out, the buyer changed the route.

Recorded live at Advertising Week New York, this episode of Marketing Vanguard features Jenny Rooney in conversation with Salesforce CMO Erin Oles to unpack what happens when customer behavior moves faster than the funnel marketers built around it. Erin gets into why traditional attribution assumptions are starting to crack, why marketers need to understand how their brand appears inside LLMs and why AI should be given real problems instead of vague “use cases.”

Erin Oles is Chief Marketing Officer at Salesforce.

Her path into marketing began in sales, an experience she credits with teaching her how quickly you can tell whether a message actually resonates with a real person.

Today, her approach to AI is similarly practical. Rather than treating new technology as something marketers need to master in theory, Erin argues for learning by doing, staying anchored to customer problems and handing repetitive work to AI when human judgment can be better spent elsewhere.

At Salesforce, that means rethinking everything from AI search visibility and customer discovery to conversational agents and real-time campaign optimization.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Erin thinks the idea of a fixed marketing “playbook” is becoming an oxymoron
• Why buyer behavior is making the traditional nurture funnel feel increasingly artificial
• Why yesterday’s attribution models may not explain tomorrow’s customer journey
• Why AEO is not simply SEO with a new acronym
• How owned content can quietly work against your brand inside LLM results
• Why AI works best when you start with a problem instead of a tool
• Why context becomes more valuable as access to intelligence becomes more universal
• How AI-driven discovery could push marketers beyond the traditional boundaries of marketing

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI gives every marketer access to similar tools. So, how’s that going to help your brand stand out?

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with MasterCard’s Executive Vice President of Global Brand Strategy and Innovation, Cheryl Guerin, to talk about how brands can differentiate themselves when technology becomes table stakes. Cheryl gets into how MasterCard uses AI to eliminate routine brand work and free its people for higher-order thinking, why Priceless has survived nearly three decades of cultural change, and why real agility sometimes looks like saying no.

Cheryl Guerin is Executive Vice President, Global Brand Strategy and Innovation at MasterCard.

She has spent nearly 26 years at the company across a wide range of roles, including regional marketing leadership, products and services, P&L responsibility and global credit before returning to the area she describes as her heart: marketing.

Over that time, Cheryl has helped evolve the Priceless platform through major shifts in culture, technology and the business itself, leading initiatives such as the True Name card and Touch Card. Her perspective is grounded in a simple challenge: keep the brand relevant as the world changes without losing the human truth that made it matter in the first place.

What You'll Learn:

• How MasterCard uses automation to free brand experts for higher-order creative work
• Why Priceless has remained relevant across nearly three decades of cultural change
• Why saying no is becoming a critical part of brand agility
• How “passions experts” help MasterCard identify cultural opportunities earlier
• Why emerging talent can create different economics and stronger relationships than obvious superstar bets
• Why purpose-driven work has to connect brand ethos, constituent needs and business impact

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketers love acquisition. But Doug Zarkin thinks that obsession is helping brands ignore the much more expensive problem sitting underneath it: retention (or the lack of it).

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with the CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone” to unpack why being liked is not the same as being loved, why retention deserves the same energy as acquisition and why some of the problems blamed on marketing actually belong to the entire business. Plus, a breakdown of his “Think Human” philosophy and the leadership lesson he has landed on after decades in the business: being effective matters a lot more than being the smartest person in the room.

Doug Zarkin is CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone”.

His career has taken him from the agency world into brand leadership across Avon, Victoria’s Secret and Pearle Vision, where he spent more than 11 years leading marketing. This decade-long role gave him the opportunity to take a big-picture view of brand transformation, customer loyalty and how positioning moves beyond advertising into operations and experience.

Across his work, Doug has developed a simple philosophy: brands win when they stop treating customers as transactions and start building the trust, relevance and experience that gives people a reason to choose them again.

What You'll Learn:

• Why brands often overestimate how strong their customer relationships really are
• Why retention deserves the same energy, budget, and attention as acquisition
• Why customer churn can signal an operations problem rather than a marketing problem
• How the “Think Human” philosophy changes the way brands approach customer experience
• Why AI works best as a mirror and an assistant rather than a substitute for judgment
• Why marketers should enter new environments with a notebook instead of a playbook

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fastest way to shrink marketing’s influence is to treat it like it’s just another department.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Jenny Rooney sits down with Kellyn Smith Kenny, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T, for a sharp conversation about what the CMO job actually demands.

Kellyn argues that marketing should operate as an engine for growth, gets into why leaders are responsible for raising the bar, why conviction without patience can backfire and a foundational mistake marketers risk making with AI.

Kellyn Smith Kenny is Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T. Here, she brings marketing and growth together - a combination reflected in how she thinks about the CMO role itself.

Her career has taken her across major brands and very different stages of company growth, including Capital One, Uber, Hilton and AT&T, giving her a broad view of what marketing leadership looks like inside both established organizations and businesses undergoing major change.

Her approach is simple: marketing cannot operate as an isolated function. It has to understand the economics of the company, build strong relationships across the organization and create the conditions for both the business and its people to perform at a higher level.

What You'll Learn:

• Why marketing leaders need to understand how the entire business makes money
• Why finance and operations should be allies, not neighboring departments
• What separates being a marketing manager from being a company leader
• Why great leaders create the conditions for people to do the best work of their careers
• Why raising the bar requires conviction and patience at the same time
• Why high-quality data has to come before meaningful AI adoption
• Why human insight still belongs at the center of strategy and creative work

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every industry, marketing included, is battling one affliction: sameness.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jason Pirock, Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, to discuss why differentiation may be one of marketing's most underhyped priorities right now. Jason also challenges the industry’s fixation on ROAS, reveals why CXO titles don’t matter as much as you’d think, and what creator partnerships should really look like.

Jason Pirock is the Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, with nearly 20 years of experience across retail, commercial real estate, and hospitality. His career has spanned work across Hyatt, Aparium Hotel Group, Springboard, and Outrigger.

Across those roles, Jason has consistently gravitated toward building and rebuilding, from rethinking an early business at Target to putting content creators into local markets before “creator” became standard marketing language. His perspective combines brand strategy, experiential marketing and a strong belief that differentiation matters even more as technology makes execution easier.

What You'll Learn:

• Why hospitality’s adoption of AI is accelerating after years of lagging behind other industries
• Why consumers are gravitating back toward real-world experiences and human interaction
• Why authentic creator fit matters more than reach or follower count
• Why senior marketing titles matter less than alignment with leadership
• Why ROAS should be treated as a directional indicator rather than the full definition of success
• How a builder mindset can shape a marketing leader’s career
• Why differentiation becomes even more important as AI makes generic execution easier

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The old sponsorship model was simple: buy the assets, activate around the big moment, and move on.

Jessica Goldstein thinks that model is already outdated.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica, the NWSL’s Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions, to unpack why modern sports partnerships need to behave more like platforms, built around athlete storytelling, fan behavior, consistent presence, and a role the audience can actually recognize.

Jessica Goldstein is Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions at the NWSL, where she leads partnership strategy and marketing solutions for the league. Her work here primarily focuses on combining both sides of that experience: helping partners build stronger roles inside the league while using athlete storytelling, cultural crossover, and long-term consistency to grow fandom around women’s soccer.

She has spent more than 20 years in sports, beginning at the NBA in production and entertainment before moving into brand marketing. spent more than 11 years agency-side, where much of her work focused on sponsorship strategy and building women’s sports platforms for major brands.

What You'll Learn:

• Why athlete storytelling can turn individual players into gateways to broader fandom
• Why traditional sponsorship asset lists no longer create enough value on their own
• How 360 partnership strategies can connect live moments, content, and fan behavior
• Why tentpoles need an always-on strategy around them to drive long-term value
• Why data should inform partnership strategy without pretending to make every decision for you
• How women’s sports can unlock categories and stories that traditional sports partnerships may not

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Audience targeting may have gotten easier, but getting people to truly care has not.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Dan Moriarty, CMO of Chicago Fire FC, to unpack why the marketing pendulum is swinging back toward creative, what makes live sports such a powerful attention engine and why brands should think harder about the emotion behind what they sell.

Plus, the inside scoop on why he left the Chicago Bulls for a growth-stage MLS club and the difficult people decisions that have helped reshape his marketing organization.

Dan Moriarty is Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Fire FC, where he leads marketing for Chicago’s Major League Soccer club.

Originally from England, Dan began his career agency-side before moving into brand roles at Hyatt. He later spent around eight years with the Chicago Bulls before joining Chicago Fire FC.

At the Fire, he has been part of a period of significant investment and change across the club, from its on-field ambitions and downtown presence to new facilities, fan experiences, and plans for a new stadium. His marketing perspective combines a digital-first background with an increasing conviction that, as targeting becomes easier, creative quality matters more than ever.

What You'll Learn:

• Why sports still commands attention in a world built around on-demand content
• Why Chicago Fire FC focuses on selling joy and passion rather than soccer itself
• How the club turned World Cup energy into an owned Chicago fan experience
• Why easier targeting makes stronger creative even more important
• Why buying reach is no longer a meaningful competitive advantage
• How Chicago Fire FC is restructuring its in-house creative operation
• Why avoiding underperformance can cost you your strongest people

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.