Uncensored CMO

Today I'm joined by Susan O'Brien, who is the VP Brand at Just Eat Takeaway. Just Eat are famous for their ads with celebs such as Snoop Dogg and Katy Perry, but are even more well known for their catchy jingle "Did somebody say...?". In this episode we break down Susan's career and how to make such an effective campaign.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Start
• 01:16 - How Susan got into marketing
• 03:43 - Freelancing
• 07:30 - The secret to longevity as a marketer
• 09:44 - The realities of being a CMO
• 14:25 - The CMO’s view on Cannes
• 16:44 - The “Did Somebody Say” campaign
• 20:54 - The impact of audio branding
• 24:11 - Operating in a fiercely competitive market
• 26:01 - Choosing to invest in celebrity talent / Snoop Dogg
• 29:06 - From Snoog Dogg to Katy Perry
• 31:31 - Secret to an effective client agency relationship
• 32:44 - Coming up with new ideas
• 35:47 - Using your gut vs using the data
• 39:35 - Advice to marketers in scale ups

Anselmo Ramos is the co-founder and Creative Chairman of GUT, a global independent creative agency with offices worldwide. He, along with his co-founder Gaston Bigio, opened GUT in 2018 with the goal of being the go-to agency for the world’s biggest brands, including Popeyes, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Tim Hortons, among others, who are looking to do brave work and long-term bold brand building. Prior to co-founding GUT, Anselmo was the co-founder of award-winning global creative agency DAVID, and he was also previously the Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Brazil.

Timestamps

00:00:00 - Start
00:01:04 - Why Anselmo is an ad nerd
00:03:12 - Favourite Ogilvy quotes
00:07:38 - Most proud of from time at Ogilvy
00:17:20 - Founding the DAVID agency
00:18:43 - Founding the GUT agency
00:20:55 - Being an independent agency
00:25:35 - Winning business in the early days
00:30:30 - What makes a great CMO?
00:33:00 - How to find good clients
00:37:30 - Agency of the year
00:40:59 - Stand out Grand Prix winners
00:45:29 - The one line brief
00:47:05 - Who else is doing great work?
00:48:46 - Scaling while staying true to your values
01:02:06 - Expansion

Vicki Maguire is the Chief Creative Officer at Havas London, responsible for some of the best ads of all time. Notably Asda's Elf ad in 2022 which is the happiest ad we've ever seen at System1, and the British Heart Foundation campaign with Vinnie Jones that literally saved lives.

Timestamps

00:00 - Start
02:41 - Vicki’s background
07:32 - How Vicki got into advertising
11:53 - British Heart Foundation and Vinnie Jones
20:30 - The Asda Elf Ad with Will Ferrell
35:39 - Taika Waititi and Michael Buble campaign
46:13 - Cannes Lions judging

Nancy King is the VP of Marketing at Airbnb. She leads Airbnb's global brand marketing team, performance marketing, marcom and social media teams. Prior to Airbnb, Nancy 20 years working across a mix of agencies, start-ups and as a founder of a strategy consultancy.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:48 - Nancy’s background as a creative
• 05:16 - What can people learn from both agency and client side experience
• 07:08 - Origins of Airbnb
• 08:42 - The phases of Airbnb
• 09:54 - Losing 80% of the business overnight
• 17:47 - Deciding to re-invest in advertising
• 21:23 - The challenges of not owning your product
• 25:03 - The best Airbnb ads
• 26:52 - Making creative in-house rather than using agencies
• 30:00 - The impact culture has on the work at Airbnb
• 31:51 - Working in a founder-led business
• 35:12 - How Nancy’s role has changed
• 40:12 - Power of industry events
• 42:00 - The most expensive Airbnb

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, writer, and former Oxford literary scholar. McGilchrist came to prominence after the publication of his book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. His work formed the basis of Orlando Wood's books on advertising, Lemon and Look Out.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
01:09 - Iain McGilchrist background
06:05 - Hasn’t the myth of the right and left brain been debunked
12:48 - The changes in society based on right brained dominance
16:36 - Are we seeing a left to left brained shift in society today?
22:10 - How are the big discoveries made?
24:39 - How understanding attention could change the world
26:34 - How the left and right brains do things differently
29:19 - Is attention crested by us or the world around us?
31:18 - Can we train ourselves to be more right-brained?
35:13 - AI asks Iain a question
37:13 - How did Orlando Wood connect with Iain McGilchrist
45:02 - Orlando’s most profound piece of Iain’s work

In this episode I'm joined by Tass Tsitsopoulos, Strategy Director, and Brandon Pracht, Managing Director for the McDonald's global advertising team at Wieden+Kennedy. I catch up with them to find out how they brought McDonald's swagger back with some of their most memorable and effective work in recent years, including the "Famous Orders" and "As Featured In" campaigns.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:56 - The difference between UK and US agencies
03:15 - How did Brandon get into advertising
04:52 - What makes the culture special
08:07 - How W+K won the McDonald’s account
11:34 - Importance of connecting with real people
12:52 - What happens after winning the pitch
15:15 - What was the best McDonald's ad?
19:19 - The "Famous Orders" campaign
23:46 - The impact of the campaign
27:00 - The financial results
27:49 - Investing in long term having short term effects
29:05 - The “As Featured In” campaign
31:09 - Building fame
36:03 - How to thrive with a client like McDonald's
39:02 - What happens when things don’t do well
41:44 - Advice for clients wanting to make great work

Josh Feldman serves as Global Chief Marketing Officer, NBCUniversal Advertising and Partnerships. Feldman is responsible for driving how the NBCUniversal’s Advertising and Partnerships division shows up in the marketplace, leading creative executions that span Upfronts and industry-first events. 

He oversees the entire Marketing and Content Partnerships group, comprising the division’s Commerce, Content and Talent Partnerships, Creative, Marketing, Strategic Initiatives, and Trade Marketing teams. This group operates the division’s full scale creative agency; leads NBCU’s development of an innovative suite of commerce solutions, such as One Platform Commerce; and furthers the company’s commercial innovation commitments.

Previously, Feldman served as the division’s Executive Vice President, Head of Marketing and Advertising Creative. Prior to joining NBCUniversal, Feldman started his career at Turner Broadcasting, where he took on various roles including Senior Vice President & National Sales Manager, Vice President & New York Sales Manager as well as Account Executive, where he oversaw client relationships for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, truTV, TBS and TNT.
  

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:35 - Josh’s Career Story
02:50 - How does being creative help with sales
04:17 - B2B strategies that make NBCU successful
07:58 - Why Cannes is important to NBCU
09:41 - NBCU’s iconic programming
11:05 - The secret to building strong client relationships
14:21 - Funnel marketing and the importance of end of funnel
16:34 - The popularity of Bravo
17:46 - BravoCon
21:00 - The best brand activations at BravoCon
22:51 - How brands can work with talent
24:49 - Being a media partner for the Olympics
27:59 - Josh’s advice on creativity and landing your message
31:39 - Helping smaller brands

One thing we don't talk enough about on the Uncensored CMO is B2B. Specifically, B2B companies that are investing in their brand. One such company is Salesforce, who are a true force in the B2B tech world. I caught up with their EVP of Brand Marketing, Colin Fleming, a former Red Bull Racing driver, who gave us an insight into why their brand marketing has been so effective. From Super Bowl ads and partnering with Matthew McConaughey, to building recognisable brand characters and even creating their own huge event, Dreamforce.

Links:

• Follow Colin
• Follow Jon 
• Salesforce 
• Example ad with Matthew McConaughey

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro
01:44 - Colin’s life as a racing driver
04:07 - From motorsport to marketing, what did Colin learn?
06:01 - The Salesforce journey
10:20 - The 95/5 rule in B2B
14:30 - The payback of investing in brand
15:27 - Investing in brand assets
19:31 - Why is a B2B company doing a Super Bowl ad?
21:26 - How Matthew McConaughey is involved in Salesforce
23:37 - Thoughts on AI
25:57 - Why Dreamforce is so big
32:28 - Why do people go to conferences
35:36 - Brand partnerships with Formula One
41:53 - Colin’s advice for marketers

Tash Courtenay Smith is a serial entrepreneur, renowned digital marketing expert, and best-selling author. Starting out as a journalist for the Daily Mail, Tash went on to found Talk to The Press, the Notting Hill Shopping Bag Company, Luminositie and now runs Bolt Digital. Tash also runs D2C Live, an event bringing together the best minds in Direct-To-Consumer. This conversation with a true entrepreneur covers topics such as the state of D2C, building a personal brand and inspiring the next wave of entrepreneurial talent with Biz Kids.

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro
00:45 - Starting out in journalism
01:30 - What can marketers learn from journalism?
05:03 - Why become a founder
06:49 - The unforgiving life of a journalist
10:37 - Challenges building and selling a business
16:08 - Advice to new entreprenuers
20:58 - What makes a good business to invest in?
26:03 - The best approaches for scale ups
30:11 - The turbulent D2C market
34:24 - Cutting through the D2C noise
36:00 - Which brands are nailing D2C?
37:00 - Creating a D2C live
40:13 - Writing and finding your own voice
41:17 - Building a personal brand
45:32 - The secret to a successful personal brand
51:17 - Going viral
53:44 - Biz Kids
59:41 - Parting advice

The Gary Vee of Australia is back in the Uncensored CMO hot seat. That is, of course, everyone's favourite marketing professor, Mark Ritson. In this episode we talk about the best campaigns of the year, Mark's most popular articles and why he thinks the US is lagging behind the rest of the world.

• Watch Cadbury Garage

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro
00:31 - What’s going on in marketing in 2023?
02:19 - Why US marketers are off the pace
05:10 - Ehrenberg Bass and academic literature
06:53 - Mark’s contradicting viewpoints
07:23 - The Gary Vee of Australia
08:42 - Jon made a top 100 list
10:38 - Ritson’s biggest stories of the year
12:33 - Guiness
17:29 - The long and the short of it
20:38 - Cadbury
29:02 - Wear in vs wear out
36:43 - Running the same ad vs running a variation of a campaign
39:16 - Difference vs distinctiveness
45:51 - Is authenticity overrated?
48:12 - Do marketers use a brand’s history enough?
57:43 - Quick fire round