Marketing Today With Alan Hart

Patrick Buchanan is from Lexington, Kentucky, and went to Western Kentucky University, where he studied journalism broadcasting with the dream of being a VJ. After graduation, Patrick moved to LA to pursue those dreams, but instead fell into marketing through a side hustle as an assistant at Creative Recreation. He found he had a knack for it, embraced his new path, and over the next 7 years, worked his way up to become Marketing Director at Creative Recreation before he moved on to Global Marketing Director at K-Swiss Global Brands, then Senior Director of Brand Marketing for Bravado at Universal Music Group. In 2021, Patrick became Vice President Marketing at GOOD AMERICAN, and today, he serves as Senior Vice President of Marketing at Lulu's, a women's fashion business with a mission to make women feel special and beautiful for all of their life's moments. On the show today, Alan and Patrick talk about what Lulus does, who they serve, and the kinds of altruistic disruptive campaigns they are implementi

Ryan Bonnici is Chief Marketing Officer, Wellhub, previously known as Gympass. Ryan brings over 15 years of experience at places like Salesforce, HubSpot, G2, and Microsoft and was named one of the 2020 World’s Most Influential CMOs by Forbes. Ryan now leads a team of over 300 professionals at Wellhub, where his main goal is to make wellbeing a priority for employees globally. Wellhub is the world's leading corporate wellness platform. They have over 15,000 clients globally who rely on Wellhub to provide their employees with access to the best wellness partners around the world across fitness, mindfulness, therapy, nutrition, and sleep. Their goal is to make every company a wellness company.On the show today, Alan and Ryan talk about the reason behind the rebrand from Gympass to Wellhub, the logistics of making such a significant change, and differences in their B2B, B2C, and B2P marketing strategies. They also discussed the benefits of entertainment marketing tactics, why Ryan and his team ultimately se

On the show today, Alan and Jen talk about how John Deere is staying relevant as a 187-year-old brand in today's market and what strategies they are using to help people, specifically the younger generation, more fully appreciate the pivotal role that farmers, construction workers, and maintenance crews play in our everyday lives. Jen also tells us about their recent hunt for a Chief Tractor Officer, how they ran the campaign on a budget by leveraging values-aligned celebrity relationships, and what qualifications made Rex perfect for the CTO job.Jen Hartmann has over 25 years of experience in public relations, communications, and marketing. However, after high school, she originally wanted to be a teacher, but discovered PR when she was in college and immediately knew she wanted to head public relations at John Deere. After a number of various marketing roles at companies like the Illinois Soybean Association, Advanced Technology Services, and United Way, she eventually landed at John Deere about 16 years ag

Simmy Kustanowitz has built a reputation as an idea generator and "creative fixer" by utilizing two easy steps—Simplify and Gamify—to solve any company's toughest challenges. As an Emmy-nominated TV producer, Simmy has held high-level positions across multiple genres, ranging from live events and high-budget scripted sitcoms to reality docu-series and studio game shows. He started his career as a writer in the MTV and VH1 worlds on shows like TRL and Silent Library. He eventually was promoted to the producer role before moving into showrunning, then became a development executive, where he found his love for marketing. Simmy worked on the network side at WarnerMedia for about 8 years before he left to become Chief Creative Officer for Bad Woods Entertainment, the production company founded by the stars of Impractical Jokers and took over as their showrunner as well. Simmy took the problem-solving skills he learned in the entertainment business into the wider business world, where he now works with CMOs to hel

Sun Lee is a seasoned marketing leader with over a decade of proven business success. She started her career on the agency side, working with small start-ups as a brand and digital designer in Silicon Valley during the e-commerce boom. She went on to get her Masters Degree, then reenter the workforce on the client side, heading up marketing and communications for big-name companies like Sisu Data, SurveyMonkey, and Pure Storage, before joining BigPanda as the CMO in April 2023. BigPanda brings AI to IT operations in order to proactively identify and resolve incidents before they become costly problems. They work with large brands like Autodesk and Zayo, as well as large banks and airlines, to ensure seamless technology operations. BigPanda is a start-up and challenger brand competing with giants in the industry, meaning Sun and her team are operating with a relatively small budget, allowing them to move faster and position themselves as an innovator in the sector.On the show today, Alan and Sun talk abou

April Moh immigrated from Singapore to the US for love in her 20s and restarted her life and career from scratch. The first third of her career in the US was spent in PR agencies, learning the importance of impactful storytelling. She started to develop a curiosity about how the different parts of a company work together to fuel growth and decided to take her career in-house at Microsoft, then SAP, where she eventually became chief of staff. She went on to become CMO at SUSE before moving into the CMO role at Kyriba in October 2023, the same year she was named as one of Campaign Magazine’s “Most Inspiring Women." Kyriba is a fully unified SAS performance platform with over 80,000 users. They serve treasury needs, risk, payment, connectivity, and working capital to help their clients gain real-time visibility into their cash balances and break out of the liquidity gridlock that many finance teams get stuck in. With Kyriba, finance teams get an aggregated, reliable, and comprehensive view of their cash and

Elyse Oleksak is the author of A Shark Ate My Bagel and co-founder of Bantam Bagels. Elyse has always been competitive and incorporated the concepts she learned as a D1 lacrosse player, such as time management, hustling, and perseverance, into her entrepreneurship. She began her career in advertising as an Account Associate at JWT. From there, she went to Morgan Stanley, where she learned how to navigate the politics of corporate America. After some soul-searching, a late-night idea came to her husband, and eventually Bantam Bagels was born. After googling “how to make a bagel," figuring out how to get the cream cheese inside, and developing a business plan, they came up with the recipe that they took to Shark Tank.On the show today, Alan and Elyse talk about her rocket ship ride into entrepreneurship as the cofounder of Bantam Bagels, when they knew they had something real, her experience with Shark Tank, and how it changed everything for them. We also talk about her recent book, what inspired her to wr

Nicole Vilalte was born and raised in Puerto Rico, went to college on the island, and started her career there as an account executive at DDB LATAM. She eventually moved to New York to work for JWT before becoming an account supervisor at The Vidal Partnership for Sprint Wireless. She relocated to Portland for a few years to take over the Target account at Wieden + Kennedy before heading back to New York to work on IBM Global at Ogilvy. In 2017, Nicole returned home to become the Business Director for Puerto Rico Tourism Company, and after another stint with Ogilvy, she was hired on as the Chief Marketing Officer at Invest Puerto Rico in 2021.Invest Puerto Rico is on a mission to promote the island and bring new capital investment and businesses to the region. It is a public-private partnership that helps companies get established on the island by assisting them in navigating incentives, connecting them with resources for real estate selection and access to talent, and facilitating introductions to key stakeh

Become a member today and listen ad-free, visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Sanderson started his executive search career as a summer intern at Russell Reynolds Associates in London, then transitioned it into a full-time position as a research consultant with them, which brought him to the States. After five years in that role, he left the world of executive search and went to business school. He then worked at a management consulting firm until 2010, when he rejoined Russell Reynolds Associates. He then moved over to Spencer Stuart in 2018, where he leads their Marketing, Sales, and Communications Officer Practice. For the past 22 years, Spencer Stuart has created an annual CMO Tenure Report to better understand the average tenure of marketing leaders with the goal of determining if there is truth in the perception that marketing leadership roles have high turnover rates, if so, why, and how CMO tenure compares to other leadership roles. On the show today, Alan and Richard talk about the methodology of the study, key takeaways, and what he predicts for the future o

In this episode, you'll learn:What is the role of the Chief Corporate Citizenship Officer?Key takeaways from the global survey Rethink Disruption: The Rise of the Fifth EstateWhat is the Fifth Estate, and how do we leverage it?Marian Salzman is a global trend spotter, the first person to do market research in cyberspace, and the author of the book “The New Megatrends: Seeing Clearly in the Age of Disruption.” In 2018, she joined Phillip Morris as Senior Vice President of Global Communications to act as the spokesperson for them as they transitioned away from their power brand, Marlboro, towards a smoke-free future. In January of this year, she returned to the States from Switzerland to take on the role of Chief Corporate Citizenship Office. Prior to joining PMI, she served as CEO of Havas PR North America and, prior to that, CMO at Porter Novelli. On the show today, Alan and Marian talk about her responsibilities as Chief Corporate Citizenship Officer and key takeaways from a global survey she oversaw ca

In this episode, you'll learn about:The role of Revenue OperationsCortland’s unique approach to branding, awareness, and rethinking marketing as an investment rather than an expenseThe importance of peer-to-peer recommendations and how Cortland manages their online brand reputationTim Hermeling is EVP of Revenue Operations at Cortland. He is a goal-oriented person, both professionally and personally, as seen in his love of competing in triathlons and marathons. Tim went to college to be a sports broadcaster, but pursued public relations in order to find work in the city. After working closely with C-level executives in that role, he found his love for strategy and goal-setting would make him perfect for the marketing world. Tim started his journey in relationship marketing, focusing on direct mail, before serving as VP of Marketing for Classic Residence by Hyatt and VP of Product Marketing at Northern Trust Company. In 2015, he started with Cortland to establish their marketing strategy and recently moved int

Jeff Biesman grew up in Texas with dreams of being an NFL GM. While those dreams didn't pan out, he learned a lot along the way and decided to heed the advice he received to separate his hobbies from his career and went on to grow his marketing skill set in a very purposeful way. His path started in CPG product marketing with Converse, LA Gear, and Disney, went on to learn digital and performance marketing at Sony, got deep into data with Bank of America, moved onto venture-backed startups ShoeDazzle and Little Black Bag, then pursued B2B at YP and Remoov. In 2021, he was offered a role that was a perfect fit for all the skills he’d gained throughout his career and aligned with his personal values, so he accepted and joined the NDR team as their new CMO. In this role, Jeff is responsible for all direct-to-consumer marketing activities for the company, including PR, partnership development, paid search, social media, and CRM.The state of consumer debt is grim as we are coming out of COVID and battling inflatio

Dave Raggio holds dual roles as Vice President of QuickBooks Acquisition Marketing and Intuit SMB MediaLabs. He began his studies in aerospace engineering at Auburn, but found his passion for marketing while running a triathlon team and helping athletes at this school secure scholarships. After graduation, he started off in the agency world, seeking a wide understanding of the marketing world. Eventually, he went client-side with Method and Northface before entering the B2B world when he joined the team at Intuit in 2020. Intuit SMB MediaLabs is essentially an audience layer that can be applied to advertising campaigns. It was born out of a personal frustration Dave had with 3rd party data quality and a knowing that there was a better way to execute. In contrast to traditional retail media networks, Intuit SMB MediaLabs doesn't own or operate any inventory, freeing them to solve for a wider variety of KPIs and increase the efficiency of campaigns for the small businesses they serve. On the show toda

Erika White is the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Affirm. While she has experienced great success in her career, as a child, she was a rambunctious and highly social student who was told she was wasting her potential. However, one special teacher believed in her, challenged her, and got her to see the potential in herself. That lesson stuck with Erika as she obtained both her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Southern California and began to build an impressive resume. Erika got her start in marketing at Hilton, where she says another person saw her potential and took a chance on her. From there, she moved on to Director of Global Corporate Relations and Corporate Marketing at Visa, then to Pandora as their Corporate Communications Director, then to Director of External Affairs at TPG, a large private equity firm, before landing at Affirm. In her role at Affirm, she oversees the core functions of building the brand, including brand and partner marketing, creative, paid

Elina Vilk has been the Chief Marketing Officer at Hootsuite since August 2023. She has more than two decades of experience in the industry, but her love of marketing started years before that, when she was a 12-year-old refugee immigrant who had to raise money to get to her 8th grade graduation by being the top candy salesman at her school. Elina says this taught her a lot about marketing and gave her the first insights into consumer-based selling and asking the right questions that have continuously developed throughout her career. Prior to joining Hootsuite, Elina led marketing at WooCommerce, Small Business Marketing at Meta, spent nearly a decade at PayPal/eBay, and ran consumer and digital advertising at Visa. On the show today, Alan and Elina talk about Hootsuite's new Social Media Consumer Report, key takeaways and insights markets should be thinking about in terms of making their brands more relevant and authentic, and the biggest mistakes brands make on social media. They also talk about the de

Christine Moorman is the T. Austin Finch Senior Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, where her research explores how consumers, managers, organizations, and financial markets learn about and use marketing knowledge. Christine tells us she didn't set out to become a professor, but through the encouragement of her mentors, she came to see it was the best path for her to pursue. After she received her Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Political Science from Northern Kentucky University, she immediately went on to the University of Pittsburgh, where she got her Ph.D. and MBA in Marketing.In 2008, Christine saw the need for something in her field that would provide benchmarks and elevate the voice of marketers. This led her to found The CMO Survey, which she manages to this day, which gathers and shares insights from marketing leaders to forecast market trends, measure marketing excellence, and enhance marketing's impact on organizations and society.On the sho

Liz Carter has been in marketing for over 20 years and has been a CMO for the past four years. First at ServiceMax and now at Reputation. Liz grew up in a small town in North Carolina, where her family runs a hosiery manufacturing company. Eager to venture out, she moved to Atlanta, where she began doing gig work to pay the bills. Eventually, in 2001, she began doing event marketing for Internet Security Systems, where she began to learn the ins and outs of the software business. From there, she escaped the South to California for a job with SuccessFactors, where she realized there was a real career path for her in the software industry.On the show today, Alan and Liz talk about her life as a kid growing up in North Carolina, her path to becoming CMO at Reputation, and how the CMO role is evolving. We also discuss why it's important for marketing to harness reputation data through a couple real-world examples and how understanding that data can drive M&A decisions as well as product and service changes. Reput

Mark Miller is a Wall Street Journal and international best-selling author with over one million books in print in more than twenty-five languages. He is a storyteller, photographer, lifelong learner, and the embodiment of a servant leader. For almost 45 years, he was the Vice President of High-Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A, and today, Mark serves as the Co-Founder of Lead Every Day, an extension of his life-inspired mission to encourage and equip leaders with the tools they need to be successful. On the show today, Alan and Mark talk about his path to becoming a leadership expert, which he describes as less of a ladder and more of a rock wall. Since the start of his career, Mark has prioritized serving others and adding value. His willingness to do anything to those ends carved his path from the Chick-fil-A warehouse to the Vice President's seat and drives his work today in leadership development. We also talked about his new book, Uncommon Greatness: Five Fundamentals to Transform Your Leadersh

Jeremy King is an ocean creature enthusiast as well as the founder and CEO of Attest, a highly successful consumer research SaaS company. Jeremy started his career as a scientist, focusing on genetics, ecology, and animal behavior. He worked for McKinsey & Company for nine years and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Attest has headquarters in New York and London, but they serve customers across the world and currently run research in 59 countries. Some of their customers include Unilever, Santander, Walgreens/Boots, Bloomberg, and Trustpilot. To date, Attest has raised close to $75 million in funding, with backing from global venture capital firms NEA and Schroeder’s. On the show today, Alan and Jeremy talk about the mimic octopus, zero-party data, and what he sees as the biggest threat facing marketers today. Up until recently, third-party cookies have been used to make digital advertising and tracking individuals online extremely easy. However, third-party cookies are going away, consumers are