Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Ethan Braden, Chief Marketing Officer at Texas A&M University, about building one of America’s most consequential higher-education brands.

Ethan shares how his journey from Eli Lilly to Purdue University to Texas A&M shaped his approach to leadership, storytelling, and reputation management in complex institutions. He discusses how to balance tradition and innovation, why universities must think like modern brands, and how collaborations, from NASCAR to Dude Perfect, can open new doors for engagement and national relevance. This conversation is a masterclass in brand building that applies far beyond academia.

What You'll Learn:

• How to transition corporate marketing expertise into higher education.
• The strategic difference between driving student demand and building national reputation.
• How to craft a brand narrative rooted in mission, culture, and community.
• Why understanding your “product” and your audience defines long-term success.
• How collaborations and partnerships expand reach and relevance.
• How AI and technology are reshaping marketing team structures.
• The leadership mindset needed to turn institutions into admired brands.

Unlocking the Creator Economy with Awin

Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate?

Awin helps brands harness this potential with tailored influencer management solutions that drive measurable results. Whether you're looking to grow your creator roster, foster long-term relationships, or track full-funnel performance, Awin’s expertise and platform integrations make it easy to scale campaigns and optimize impact.

With partnerships across CreatorIQ, LTK, ShopMy, and more, brands gain access to powerful discovery tools and seamless tracking capabilities, ensuring transparency and efficiency at every stage.

Here’s how brands can maximize their influencer marketing:

• Find the right creators – Access a diverse network of influencers, even in niche markets.
• Track performance with full transparency – Measure impact from awareness to conversions in real time.
• Incentivize influencers effectively – Commission-based rewards through affiliate links and coupon codes keep creators engaged.
• Blend influencer & affiliate marketing seamlessly – Awin’s integrations create a streamlined, results-driven approach

Unlock the full potential of influencer marketing. Visit awin.link/adweek to start building high-impact partnerships today!

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Doug Zarkin, CMO of Take 5 Oil Change and author of "Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone." In this compelling conversation, Doug shares how he's transforming a commodity category into an emotional brand experience through people-first leadership.

Doug's career spans from the agency world at Saatchi & Saatchi and Grey to client-side roles at Avon Products and Victoria's Secret PINK. Most notably, he spent eleven years as CMO at Pearle Vision, an unusually long tenure, where he led a complete brand transformation that resulted in the company topping Entrepreneur's Franchise 500. Now, as the first-ever CMO for Take Five Oil Change, Doug is applying his proven "people, process, progress, profitability" framework to elevate a challenger brand in the oil change category.

What You'll Learn:

• The secret to achieving an 11-year CMO tenure in an era of short tenures
• The "people, process, progress, profitability" framework for success
• The brand value equation: Experience divided by price
• Challenger brand strategy for competing from fourth place
• Why "thinking human" transforms customer relationships

Unlocking the Creator Economy with Awin

Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate?

Awin helps brands harness this potential with tailored influencer management solutions that drive measurable results. Whether you're looking to grow your creator roster, foster long-term relationships, or track full-funnel performance, Awin’s expertise and platform integrations make it easy to scale campaigns and optimize impact.

With partnerships across CreatorIQ, LTK, ShopMy, and more, brands gain access to powerful discovery tools and seamless tracking capabilities, ensuring transparency and efficiency at every stage.

Here’s how brands can maximize their influencer marketing:

• Find the right creators – Access a diverse network of influencers, even in niche markets.
• Track performance with full transparency – Measure impact from awareness to conversions in real time.
• Incentivize influencers effectively – Commission-based rewards through affiliate links and coupon codes keep creators engaged.
• Blend influencer & affiliate marketing seamlessly – Awin’s integrations create a streamlined, results-driven approach

Unlock the full potential of influencer marketing. Visit awin.link/adweek to start building high-impact partnerships today!

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

Alon Rivel, CMO of Feast & Fettle, discusses the Northeast meal delivery company's contrarian approach to growth with Marketing Vanguard’s host Jenny Rooney. With his unconventional background spanning TV media buying, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and B2C tech startups, he brings a unique perspective to building authentic brands.

The conversation explores how Feast & Fettle differentiates by focusing on time as currency rather than trendy diets or speed. Their approach combines locally-sourced ingredients with hospitality-first service and community building.

What You'll Learn:

• How to build authentic brand positioning that goes beyond product features
• Why intentional regional growth can be more profitable than national expansion
• Strategies for creating community through food and shared experiences
• How to balance profitability with purpose-driven initiatives
• Why cutting a marketing team in half can improve performance
• The importance of reading the room and understanding customer psychology
• How to maintain quality and authenticity while scaling operations

Alon Rivel serves as the first CMO at Feast & Fettle, where he's spent just over a year transforming their marketing approach. Previously, he worked across TV media buying, digital marketing for B2C apps, and various tech startups. He brings experience from The New York Times, Bloomberg, and multiple venture-backed companies in the dating and on-demand service sectors.

Unlocking the Creator Economy with Awin

Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate?

Awin helps brands harness this potential with tailored influencer management solutions that drive measurable results. Whether you're looking to grow your creator roster, foster long-term relationships, or track full-funnel performance, Awin’s expertise and platform integrations make it easy to scale campaigns and optimize impact.

With partnerships across CreatorIQ, LTK, ShopMy, and more, brands gain access to powerful discovery tools and seamless tracking capabilities, ensuring transparency and efficiency at every stage.

Here’s how brands can maximize their influencer marketing:

• Find the right creators – Access a diverse network of influencers, even in niche markets.
• Track performance with full transparency – Measure impact from awareness to conversions in real time.
• Incentivize influencers effectively – Commission-based rewards through affiliate links and coupon codes keep creators engaged.

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Marisa Thalberg, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Catalyst Brands, in a candid conversation about leadership, risk-taking, and brand transformation in retail marketing.

Marisa discusses her career journey across diverse industries - from Estée Lauder and Taco Bell to Lowe's, SeaWorld, and now JCPenney. She opens up about learning from failures, dealing with short tenures, and why marketers must take calculated risks. The conversation explores her current role transforming JCPenney and the broader Catalyst Brands portfolio, which includes Brooks Brothers, Aeropostale, Lucky Brand, Nautica, and Eddie Bauer.

What You'll Learn:

• How to navigate career missteps and build resilience as a marketing leader
• The dynamic nature of the CMO role necessitates a particular mindset and strategy.
• Strategies for transforming legacy retail brands while honoring their heritage
• The importance of talking up to consumers rather than down to them
• How to balance innovation with brand conventions that actually matter
• Why customer-centric titles and thinking can transform marketing's role
• Lessons from managing a diverse portfolio of heritage retail brands
• The power of creative constraints in driving better marketing outcomes

Unlocking the Creator Economy with Awin

Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate?

Awin helps brands harness this potential with tailored influencer management solutions that drive measurable results. Whether you're looking to grow your creator roster, foster long-term relationships, or track full-funnel performance, Awin’s expertise and platform integrations make it easy to scale campaigns and optimize impact.

With partnerships across CreatorIQ, LTK, ShopMy, and more, brands gain access to powerful discovery tools and seamless tracking capabilities, ensuring transparency and efficiency at every stage.

Here’s how brands can maximize their influencer marketing:

• Find the right creators – Access a diverse network of influencers, even in niche markets.
• Track performance with full transparency – Measure impact from awareness to conversions in real time.
• Incentivize influencers effectively – Commission-based rewards through affiliate links and coupon codes keep creators engaged.
• Blend influencer & affiliate marketing seamlessly – Awin’s integrations create a streamlined, results-driven approach

Unlock the full potential of influencer marketing. Visit awin.link/adweek to start building high-impact partnerships today!

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Alex Schultz, Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Analytics at Meta, about his newly released book "Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing and Advertising

As Jenny's repeat guest, Alex brings battle-tested insights from his 18-year tenure at Meta, where he's witnessed digital marketing's complete transformation. He reveals his motivation  for writing "Click Here" - the definitive guide to online marketing that fills a critical gap left by classic texts like Claude Hopkins' "Scientific Advertising." Alex argues that while technology evolves at breakneck speed, the core principles that drive marketing success remain surprisingly constant across decades.

What You'll Learn:

• Alex's 18-year journey at Meta and his unique dual role in marketing and analytics
• The writing process and inspiration behind "Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing and Advertising"
• Why incrementality measurement is the key to marketing success
• The importance of North Star goals versus metrics
• How AI will enhance rather than replace marketing roles
• The timeless principles that have guided successful marketing for decades
• Team structures that work across different marketing eras

Unlocking the Creator Economy with Awin

Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate?

Awin helps brands harness this potential with tailored influencer management solutions that drive measurable results. Whether you're looking to grow your creator roster, foster long-term relationships, or track full-funnel performance, Awin’s expertise and platform integrations make it easy to scale campaigns and optimize impact.

With partnerships across CreatorIQ, LTK, ShopMy, and more, brands gain access to powerful discovery tools and seamless tracking capabilities, ensuring transparency and efficiency at every stage.

Here’s how brands can maximize their influencer marketing:

• Find the right creators – Access a diverse network of influencers, even in niche markets.
• Track performance with full transparency – Measure impact from awareness to conversions in real time.
• Incentivize influencers effectively – Commission-based rewards through affiliate links and coupon codes keep creators engaged.
• Blend influencer & affiliate marketing seamlessly – Awin’s integrations create a streamlined, results-driven approach

Unlock the full potential of influencer marketing. Visit awin.link/adweek to start building high-impact partnerships today!

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Elizabeth Teran, Chief Parent Officer at Owlet. In this compelling conversation, Elizabeth shares how she's transforming marketing at the baby tech company that revolutionized infant monitoring with medical-grade pulse oximetry technology.

Elizabeth brings extensive experience from her 10-year tenure at Skullcandy in product marketing, followed by over 5 years at Owlet where she led the company through significant challenges and growth. She discusses the unique positioning of marketing medical-grade technology to parents, the company's journey from FDA warning letter to full medical clearance, and her philosophy of authentic, education-based marketing.

What You'll Learn:

• Navigating FDA regulatory challenges while maintaining brand trust
• Building product-first marketing strategies in healthcare technology
• The power of authentic community over paid influencer partnerships
• Transforming crisis into opportunity through strategic pivots
• Balancing medical credibility with accessible parent communication
• Using AI as a tool to enhance rather than replace human creativity
• Building global medical clearances across multiple markets

Unlocking the Creator Economy with Awin

Did you know influencer marketing drives twice as many sales as display advertising, with a 37% higher retention rate?

Awin helps brands harness this potential with tailored influencer management solutions that drive measurable results. Whether you're looking to grow your creator roster, foster long-term relationships, or track full-funnel performance, Awin’s expertise and platform integrations make it easy to scale campaigns and optimize impact.

With partnerships across CreatorIQ, LTK, ShopMy, and more, brands gain access to powerful discovery tools and seamless tracking capabilities, ensuring transparency and efficiency at every stage.

Here’s how brands can maximize their influencer marketing:

• Find the right creators – Access a diverse network of influencers, even in niche markets.
• Track performance with full transparency – Measure impact from awareness to conversions in real time.
• Incentivize influencers effectively – Commission-based rewards through affiliate links and coupon codes keep creators engaged.
• Blend influencer & affiliate marketing seamlessly – Awin’s integrations create a streamlined, results-driven approach

Unlock the full potential of influencer marketing. Visit awin.link/adweek to start building high-impact partnerships today!

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Francis Perrin, Chief Brand and Sustainability Officer at Rehlko, about brand transformation and B2B marketing innovation.

Francis discusses his career from P&G and L'Oréal to leading the transformation of Kohler Energy into the independent company Rehlko. He shares the strategic thinking behind the rebrand, including how they created the name Rehlko as an anagram of Kohler to maintain heritage while establishing independence. The conversation explores the opportunity in residential power generation, competing as a challenger brand against industry giants, and why Francis believes B2B marketing offers more opportunities than consumer marketing.

Best Buy CMO, Jennie Weber also joins Jenny in a mid-episode sidebar discussion on the latest innovations for the Best Buy Ads retail media network and their latest campaign "We Got Next." Sponsored by Best Buy Ads.

What You'll Learn:

• How to successfully rebrand and spin off from a heritage parent company
• Strategies for competing as a challenger brand in established B2B markets
• Why embedding sustainability directly into brand leadership creates business impact
• The untapped potential in residential power generation and data center markets
• How to build marketing organizations from scratch with enterprise-level thinking
• Why B2B marketing offers unique creative opportunities for CPG-trained marketers
• Methods for maintaining brand heritage while driving innovation and growth
• The importance of focus and purpose-driven messaging in industrial marketing

Learn more about miniMBA courses HERE

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

Welcome to this special episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with the founding members of Marketing Vanguard membership at ADWEEK: Soyoung Kang, President of eos Products, and Vineet Mehra, CMO of Chime. They discuss their unique career journeys, the evolving CMO role, and why they joined forces to help rewrite the narrative around marketing leadership. From efficient capital allocation to building trust in the C-suite, these leaders share candid insights about what it really takes to succeed as a modern CMO.

These marketing leaders delve into their distinct career paths, the evolving responsibilities of a CMO, and their collaborative effort to reshape the perception of marketing leadership. They offer frank perspectives on the true requirements for success as a contemporary CMO, covering topics from effective capital allocation to fostering C-suite trust.

What you'll learn:

• How non-linear career paths can lead to CMO success
• Why "efficient growth" should be every CMO's unifying mandate
• Strategies for building trust and credibility in the C-suite
• How to understand different "love languages" of PE, VC, and public companies
• Why experience trumps traditional education in marketing leadership
• How to navigate the constant platform shifts that make marketing uniquely challenging
• What makes Marketing Vanguard's approach to CMO community building different

Learn more about miniMBA courses HERE

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Sangeeta Prasad, Chief Marketing Officer at Slalom, about her unique journey from classic consumer products marketing to B2B transformation leadership. Sangeeta shares her experiences transitioning from well-established brands like P&G, American Express, and JPMorgan Chase to becoming the first CMO at professional services firms.

She explains why she calls herself a "marketing evangelist" rather than just a marketer, emphasizing her role in converting organizational skeptics into believers. The conversation explores the unique dynamics of B2B marketing versus B2C, particularly in professional services where trust, credibility, and relationships are paramount.

What You'll Learn:

• How to transition from consumer marketing to B2B leadership roles
• Strategies for overcoming marketing skepticism in sales-driven organizations
• Ways to position marketing as a revenue generator rather than a cost center
• Methods for building emotional connections with B2B customers through "customer love" metrics
• How to navigate the rapid pace of AI transformation in marketing teams
• Key differences between B2B and B2C marketing approaches and when each applies
• Techniques for aligning sales and marketing organizations for better results
• Future plans for sales and marketing alignment and personalization at scale

Learn more about miniMBA courses HERE

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

Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast live from Cannes. Today, Jenny Rooney speaks with Mark Ritson, world-renowned marketing professor and founder of MiniMBA, about his controversial views on brand purpose, the importance of running great ads for years, and why American marketing has lost its edge. Discover Mark's partnership with ADWEEK, his strategy of saying "no" to America for a decade, and why he believes killing brands is more productive than creating them.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Mark Ritson avoided the American market for 10 years and his strategic partnership with ADWEEK
• The uncomfortable truth about brand purpose and why the data doesn't support the hype
• Why running great creative for 2-3 years drives better results than constant campaign changes
• The "pornography of change" and why AI won't transform marketing as quickly as predicted
• Why killing brands is more productive than creating them (Mark's killed 200+ in his career)

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