Scratch: CMO Interviews

In this week’s episode of Scratch, Eric talks to GE CMO, Linda Boff, and Global Head of Brand Marketing, Zara Mirza, about GE’s Purpose Campaign and how discovering and amplifying its brand purpose keeps a global company like GE in touch with its many employees, teams, partners, investors, and customers. Eric’s favorite video to come out of the Purpose Campaign is the brilliantly produced Employee Takeover by Chief Test Pilot, Jon Ohman, which you can watch here. Not only is it fun and informative, but it beautifully showcases the brand purpose - “We rise to the challenge of building a world that works” - through the lens of one employee in a way that recasts the immense scope of the company’s mission to a very human, very compelling scale. 

As promised, here are some links to keep the conversation going: 

• Here’s Linda’s truly delightful interview with The Future of Storytelling, in which she outlines her 8 Mantras of Branding.
• Zara mentioned GE’s just-launched campaign, Next Engineers, which is committed to increasing diversity in young engineers.

In this week’s chat with an organization doing good in the industry, Eric speaks to Co-Founder and CEO, Molly Johnson-Jones of Flexa, a start up seeking to bring total transparency to those looking for flexible roles and allows businesses to verify their ability to offer flexible working to their employees. Flexible working is the new frontier, one that Rival practices and preaches. Check out how Flexa makes a difference at https://flexa.careers . 

Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.

In today’s episode, Eric talks to the brains behind one of the world’s biggest brands, Shell. Jane Keate, Shell’s Global Brand Standards and Assurance Manager, and Dean Aragón, CEO & Vice Chairman of Shell Brands International, explain how a brand as massive and well-known as Shell connects to its employees, customers and external stakeholders through its all-in approach to sonic branding, and how building a distinctive yet flexible sound helps deepen and humanize the brand’s identity while also fulfilling marketing’s ROI goals. We talk about the way Shell’s sonic branding adapts for use, geography, and mission so that it is never out of place or time and why this is so key for Shell’s messaging. Listen to the Shell's sonic branding for yourself:  

• Epic, power (Shell V-Power)
• Calm, reflective (Shell Strategy Day)
• Positive, uplifting (Nature-based Solutions)
• Power, drama (Shell Advance Power)

Watch the Sound of Shell show reel here, and watch the Making of the Shell Sonic Brand here.

To end today's episode, Eric talks to Paul Skinner of Marketing Kind, a community of marketers and change-makers who believe marketing and narrative-building can be an important part of the solution to the many societal and environmental problems we face.  Working with Ian Goldin, former VP of the World Bank,  Marketing Kind asks, Can we rescue humanity? Follow Paul on LinkedIn  to receive invites to Marketing Kind's gatherings. In this month's Coffee with a Cause, on Friday, 26th November, Eric will host a gathering with Matthew Powell of Breaking Barriers, to help refugees gain the skills they need to secure longer term employment.

Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Today's episode was produced by Leanne Kilroy and hosted by Eric Fulwiler. 

Find Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn, Twitter. 

Find Eric on LinkedIn and tweet him @efulwiler.

Say hi at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you. 

Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.

Gary Vaynerchuk is truly an epic interview with so much insight and foresight into the world of business and branding. Eric and Gary go back over a decade, as Eric was one of Gary’s first hires for VaynerMedia back in 2010, and would go on to launch VaynerMedia in EMEA in 2016. In today’s catch up, Gary and Eric talk about NFTs, and how harnessing their power can turn your marketing function into a profit generator. Gary sheds some fascinating light on what some still see as a subject irrelevant to marketing, and the whole interview is really worth a listen (or two) to make sure you and your business aren’t falling behind.

GaryVee, chairman of VaynerX, reveals the thinking behind his NFT venture, VeeFriends, and how he used NFTs to market his latest book,  Twelve and a Half, so successfully that he may not be able to fulfil pre-orders. We’re so glad this book - which speaks to the emotional skills necessary in life and business - is coming out, because in a world that seems to value profits over people, Gary truly stands out as proof that empathy and human connection are essential to lasting success. To know Gary is to know he truly practices what he preaches and insists upon kindness and empathy in everything he does. To the nicest guy in the business, thanks again for the chat and always inspiring us to be better. 

As promised, here are the takeaways Eric and Gary want you to know about how to use NFTs to market your business: 

• Search #NFT on Twitter and follow 50 to 100 people.
• Join 5 to 7 discords of NFT projects: go to cryptoslam.io or OpenSea, look at the top 100 projects on both those platforms. Choose 5 -7 in the top 100 that you like and join their discords.
• Most importantly, spend time education yourself about NTFs. Gary recommends at least 3 hours, but ideally 5 - 10 hours a week, until you get to about 25 - 50 hours of education about NFTs, and now you’re in the game.

At the end of this week's episode, we wanted to highlight an organisation we at Rival are proud to sponsor. Eric talks to Jake Dubbins from The Conscious Advertising Network,  a voluntary coalition of over 70 organisations set up to ensure that the ethics of the advertising industry catch up and align with the technology of modern advertising. Read about their six manifestos: diversity, informed consent, anti ad-fraud, hate speech, children’s wellbeing and mis/disinformation, and how you can join them to make the world of advertising a better place.

Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Today's episode was produced by Leanne Kilroy and hosted by Eric Fulwiler. 

Find Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn, Twitter. 

Find Eric on LinkedIn and tweet him @efulwiler.

Say hi at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you. 

Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.