Marketing Today With Alan Hart

Ricky Engelberg is the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Vista.Vista is a marketing partner to millions of small businesses around the world. As CMO, he oversees important functions such as customer experience and digital product.In this episode Alan and Ricky discuss his early career in the entertainment industry in Athens, Georgia, and how that has shaped his career and how he sees the world today. Tune in to hear more about how the experience made him realize the importance of finding your audience and investing in relationships to make them successful.In this episode, you'll learn:The art of finding your audienceCreating a customer relationship across all product offeringsWhat makes a successful partnershipKey Highlights[01:41] Ricky's early entertainment career[04:37] Learning how to find the right audience[09:23] Vista's mission and vision[13:26] Building customer relationships[15:54] The shift to partnerships in creating brand awareness[19:12] Vista's partnership with Humberto Leo

Lindsay McCormick is the Founder and CEO of Bite, which stands for “Because it's the earth.” They are makers of plastic-free and cruelty-free products on a mission to become the world's most sustainable personal care company.Lindsay has built Bite into a multi-million dollar company, aiming to remove plastic from our everyday routines. Her first product, toothpaste tablets went viral in 2018, and since then they've added several other products to the Bite brand umbrella.In this episode Alan and Lindsay discuss her path to founding the company, as well as the moment she turned down a six-figure deal from both Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary on Shark Tank.Listen to the full episode to learn more about filling a market gap and always having an innovative mindset.In this episode, you'll learn:Leaning into “filling the gap”Sticking to what's importantHaving a “we can always be better” mindsetKey Highlights[01:44] Lindsay's favorite outdoor activities[02:42] The path to founding Bit

Did you know that 60% of counties in the US do not have an orthodontist within the county? So, what do those people do when they find themselves needing orthodontic care?This is the question that John Sheldon set out to answer. John is the Chief Marketing Officer at SmileDirectClub where they are leading the charge with accessibility, increased convenience, and at a lower cost than competitors of orthodontic care.In this episode, Alan and John discuss how the company started out as a disruptor and is moving towards becoming a challenger against their primary competitor. Listen to the full episode to learn more about the benefits of challenging the market and how the customer experience plays a key role.In this episode, you'll learn:The benefits of challenging the marketWhy you should center innovation around the customer experienceWhere data plays a role in your brandKey Highlights[01:18] How John is responsible for many marriages and divorces[02:15] John's path to CMO at SmileDirectClub[05:01] Who is SmileDi

Smita Wadhawan is the CMO at Simple Practice, a company that provides technology to private practice therapists and other practitioners. They've been around for 10 years and serve over 100 thousand practitioners.In this episode, Alan and Smita discuss her journey from India to the US and her career path from companies like PayPal and GoDaddy to Simple Practice. During her early years, Smita shares how she learned to embrace a growth mindset and find her own voice—both traits that have served her well as CMO.Later in the conversation, Smita also shares her view about moving from product marketing to a go-to-market strategy, how to plan that launch, and how good leadership plays a key role. Listen to the full episode to learn more.In this episode, you'll learn:Why you should embrace a growth mindset and find your voiceHow to see product marketing as the foundation for strong marketingWhen to move from product marketing to a go-to-market strategyKey Highlights [01:24] Growing up in India[02:58] Smita's car

Fabio Baracho, VP of Marketing, and Alejandro Gershberg, Marketing Director at Grupo Modelo, part of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest brewery in Mexico.In this episode, Alan, Fabio, and Alex discuss Grupo Modelo's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico. A huge part of this response was envisioning “The Match of the Ages” which occurred when the world felt most isolated and cultural gatherings came to a halt.Soccer is a Mexican cultural icon. Despite any division the country faces, soccer is the great unifier. But during the pandemic, all games were canceled for more than 60 days. As a way to reunite the country and give back to the people, Grupo Modelo created a brand new 90-minute soccer game from scratch with the country's two biggest rivals using 70 years' worth of historical footage.The game, which aired at zero cost on all major networks, became the highest earned media in the history of the brand. The initiative, El Classico de la Historia, became the first Mexican brand to win a Titan

Jennifer Veenstra is the Executive Leader of the Deloitte Global CMO program.In this episode, Alan and Jennifer discuss the Global CMO program, what it includes, as well as the other types of programs Deloitte offers to up-and-coming CMOs. As a part of her role, Jennifer helped conduct Deloitte's 2022 Global Marketing Trends Report where they discovered seven key trends marketers should pay attention to going into the new year. During the conversation, Jennifer helps describe their findings and how each of the seven trends can impact marketers' strategies today.Later in the episode, Alan and Jennifer dig deep into three of them: building the intelligent creative engine, designing a human-first data experience, and elevating the hybrid experience. Listen to the full episode to learn why they are so important.In this episode, you'll learn:What global marketing trends you should pay attention toBalancing human-first with data miningCreating a cohesive customer experienceKey Highlights[01:40] Jennifer was a profe

Aaron Wollner is the CMO at Quontic Bank where he is helping lead the charge of becoming the first digital bank in the metaverse.On the show today, Alan and Aaron discuss his path to becoming CMO, where he got his start, and how multi-variate testing and other analytical approaches led to his belief around how to be data-led in a responsible way. Later, they discuss how Quantic Bank is an adaptive digital bank and how they are pursuing banking in the metaverse.In this episode, you'll learn:How to innovate when you're already digital-firstThe importance of investing in people, not technologyWhat's worth measuring and what's notKey Highlights[01:30] Aaron's take on being data-driven[04:00] Aaron's path to becoming CMO[06:47] What it means to be an adaptive digital bank[08:02] How Quontic was born[10:03] How to innovate a digital bank[11:37] Scaling and growing the market[14:01] Building brand guidelines[15:40] Investing in people versus technology[17:44] Balancing what's worth measuring with what's not[21:42] A

Ed Dandridge is the Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at the Boeing Company. In this role, he serves on the executive council and oversees all aspects of Boeing's communications.In this episode, Alan and Ed discuss the many executive roles he has had in the past. They also discuss what attracts him to challenging the assignments like AIG after the financial crisis, or Boeing after the CEO transitions, as well as the max airplane challenges that the company has gone through.Listen to the full conversation to learn more about how Ed tackles complex business problems and how empathy is a key characteristic of diplomacy.In this episode, you'll learn:Where diplomacy and business intersectHow to tackle complex business problemsWhy empathy is a key characteristic of diplomacyKey Highlights[02:50] Ed's favorite memories living abroad[05:25] How Ed got into Tufts[09:13] Hired on at ABC[11:30] The intersection of diplomacy and business in Ed's career[17:09] How Ed finds his next challenge[19:29] Wh

Jeremy King is the CEO and founder of Attest. It's a fast scaling SaaS technology business focused on the market research industry, based in London and New York. Prior to Attest, Jeremy spent nine years with McKinsey & Company. Undoubtedly, research is in his blood.In this episode, Alan and Jeremy discuss his love of Marine life and how it spurred him to found Attest. Later on, they also talk about some research they jointly executed about purpose. Jeremy observes that “Purpose is the Tesla of marketing”, meaning everyone wants to talk about it, but is it really where marketers should focus?Listen to the full interview as Alan and Jeremy “get under the hood” on how consumers actually perceive purpose and how marketers should be thinking about it in their strategies.In this episode, you'll learn:How “purpose is the Tesla of marketing”Why having different brand differentiators is keyHow to use research to understand your focusKey Highlights[01:58] Why Jeremy loves the Pea

Mark Kilens is the VP of Content and Community at Drift where he oversees content, creative projects, events, teams, and much more. He also oversees the Drift community and Drift Insider–which has about 45,000 members today–as well as their two biggest events, Rev Growth and Hyper Growth.In this episode, Alan and Mark break down Drift's 2021 State of Conversational Marketing report. They also talk about what conversational marketing is, how Drift approaches it, and how marketers need to think about conversation as they build their marketing and sales enablement functions.Later in the interview, Alan and Mark discuss how Drift is a unique brand and also how Mark sees content service and education actually helping to drive their marketing efforts. Listen to the full conversation to hear more about how to implement a holistic conversational strategy for marketing and sales. What's part of the secret sauce? The buyer should be at the center of everything you do.In this episode, you'll learn:The state

Biljana Cvetanovski is a partner at McKinsey & Company and leads their marketing and sales practice in the UK, Ireland, and Israel.In this episode, Alan and Biljana discuss a recent report that McKinsey shared called “The Growth Triple Play—Creativity, Analytics, and Purpose.” During their conversation, they break down the report and discuss how, when combined, those three core elements create extensive results for companies.Biljana says she has an “impatience for impact and growth” and shares how others can pave the path for growth in their organization.In this episode, you'll learn:The types of investments and capabilities needed to deliver on growthWhy companies should focus on the growth triple playHow purpose is defining a lot of what marketers implementKey Highlights[01:20] Getting her start in trades[03:50] A “random walk” through academia[08:56] McKinsey's research on growth, creativity, analytics, and purpose[13:15] Combining all aspects for marketing suc

We have two special treats in the RSS feed for loyal marketing listeners - a What if? So What? podcast drop with Alan as a guest and a Bonus episode with the hosts of What if? So What?, Kim Williams-Czopek and Jim Hertzfeld, asking Alan his own questions he asks all his guests.For this bonus episode, Alan thought it would be fun to turn the tables. So today, Kim and Jim are going to pose questions to Alan. Episode Highlights:  Kim asks Alan, you are a seasoned marketer now, but what experience of your past defines and makes up who you are today?Alan talks about his personal experience and family background. He and his dad had a great relationship; more importantly, it taught him empathy to better understand people as a marketer. And since then, what is going on in certain situations, he calls it his Spidey sense. The other thing that happened to Alan in his professional career was mentors or people along the way.Alan was a psych major in undergrad. Alan had two companies. He sold one, and the other

What if the key to digital success is getting back to basics? An Interview With Alan Hart.This is a special feed drop from What if? So what? podcast.  Check them out!In this episode, Kim talks with Alan Hart, creator, and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” about why he thinks marketing teams need to be blown up, re-organized, and get back to basics to succeed in today's environment.Connect with Alan Hart, the creator, and host of “Marketing Today with Alan Hart,” a weekly podcast where he interviews leading global marketing professionals and business leaders.Connect with our hosts Jim Hertzfeld, Principal and Chief Strategist for Perficient, and Kim Williams-Czopek, Director of Digital Strategy at Perficient.Keywords: digital marketing, personalization, customization, aiPublish date: Jan 25Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/marketingtodaySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Become a member today and visit https://plus.acast.com/s/marketingtoday. Hos

Jennifer Frommer is the Senior Vice President of Creative Content and Brand Partnerships at Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music.In this episode, Alan and Jennifer discuss how she broke into the music industry, the brand partnerships she's worked on, which includes products like Beats headphones and musicians like Lil Nas X, Beyonce, Adele, and many others. The brands she's helped partner with include Tiffany & Co., Jaguar, Taco Bell, Pepsi, Samsung, Microsoft, Google, and many more. Needless to say, Jennifer believes the future of differentiating your brand comes with partnering with the musicians and artists your customers love.Later in the show, they discuss brand partnerships and collaborations, how they work, what works best for brands, how to work with artists, and how those artists' collaborations come together. Listen to find out more about the world of marketing and music.In this episode, you'll learn:The creative, organic integration of brands and musicThe advantage of brands partnering wi

Jennifer Davis is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Learfield, which has been around for over 50 years. Learfield works with intercollegiate athletics of the U.S. They offer licensing, multimedia sponsorship management, publishing, audio digital, and social media, data analytics, ticketing, tickets, sales, professional concessions, expertise, branding, and campus-wide business and sponsorship development, as well as venue technology systems for many of the college athletic programs in the United States and the greater ecosystem.In this episode, Alan and Jennifer discuss college sports and the big business behind them. They also talk about Jennifer's role transition through the pandemic and how she wrote a book called Well-Made Decisions during that transition.Listen to find out more about why marketers should spend more energy on the decisions they make and how sports marketing plays into the future.In this episode, you'll learn:Spend more energy on making decisionsHow marketers can partner wi

Peter Shankman is a five-time, bestselling author and entrepreneur, and a corporate keynote speaker. He focuses a lot on customer service and the new and emerging customer economy.In this episode, Alan and Peter discuss his way of thinking and his living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Later they transition to PR and then dive down the rabbit hole of Web 3.0, what it is, and what it means for the future of marketing.Listen to hear more about the Web 3.0 revolution and the next evolution of web technology. In this episode, you'll learn:Why you need to be useful and helpfulUnderstanding where blockchain fits in our futureThe importance of creating with your audience in mindKey Highlights[02:22] Describing what Peter does[03:40] ADHD as a superpower[06:29] Peter's advice for those suffering with ADHD[07:44] Thoughts on PR as the only consistent marketing tactic[10:58] What's changed in PR?[15:11] How blockchain applies to the future[20:02] Creating with your audience in mind[26:57] Listen t

Claire Atkin and Nandini Jammi are the Co-founders of Check My Ads Institute, but you may have heard of them before. Claire writes the popular newsletter Branded, which breaks major stories about the advertising industry's ties to disinformation and hate groups, and Nandini previously Co-founded Sleeping Giants, the social media campaign that led advertisers to flee from Breitbart. Needless to say, both are passionate about combatting disinformation and marketing issues.In this episode, Alan, Nandini, and Claire discuss the Check My Ads Institute, why it's so important, and the impact it has on marketers. Claire and Nandini are passionate about making marketers aware of the problem they face with ad fraud. It is in every one of our ecosystems, and marketers have to do the hard work to get out in front of it and stop supporting things like disinformation. Listen to learn much more about brand safety and how to become a member of their nonprofit.In this episode, you'll learn:Combating hate speech in adsWhere di

Jonathan Yaffe is the CEO and Co-founder of AnyRoad, a data and analytics platform that powers experiential marketing efforts for many of the Fortune 2000 companies. In this episode, Alan and Jonathan discuss how his career started at RedBull and how it evolved into founding AnyRoad. Jonathan believes that experiential marketing is a pillar of any effective marketing strategy. He says, “experiential programs really change consumer behavior, which leads to revenue growth and increases of brand love.”Listen to the full episode to learn more about why experiences matter so much in today's environment and why brands are looking at experiential programs as a way to actually build long-term brand loyalty and ultimately increase a customer's lifetime value.In this episode, you'll learn:The value of leaning into experienceWhat makes personalization so powerfulFocus on lifetime value instead of conversion ratesKey Highlights:[01:38] Working for RedBull[02:43] Transforming from product to experience[05

This is a BONUS episode from Marc Binkley and the Anstice aCast podcast where Alan, Marc, and Stef Hamerlinck discuss the year in review of marketing and their respective podcasts. ----In this year-in-review, Alan, Stef, and Marc share the biggest lessons they've learned from interviewing hundreds of the world's leading thinkers in strategy, marketing, and branding.Alan Hart, Stef Hamerlinck, and Marc Binkley have interviewed hundreds of the world's leading thinkers on business strategy, marketing, and branding.  During this entertaining conversation, the three of us share some of the biggest lessons we've learned from those conversations and share what we believe are amazing opportunities for our profession.BiosAlan Hart hosts the Marketing Today podcast since 2014.  Alan is also a consultant for marketing leadership and board advisor.Stef Hamerlinck is a brand strategy consultant and since 2017 has hosted the Let's talk branding podcast.Marc Binkley is VP Strategy & Digital Marketing at A

George Corbin is a Board Director at Edgewell Personal Care and is the COO of Onriva, a next-generation, AI-powered, travel marketplace.In this episode, Alan and George talk about his career path, which includes consulting through the boom and bust of the internet, becoming Chief Digital Officer at Marriott, leading their digital transformation, and making his way to a position on Edgewell's board.Throughout their conversation they discuss lessons learned through leading digital transformation, what that means for the marketing function, and marketers should think about leading a digital transformation. George says, “The best marketers are transformation agents,” and sometimes that means getting really good at being insightful with your customers and looking at the data. Listen in to hear more about digital transformations and the hot topics board members are currently discussing.In this episode, you'll learn:Getting digital transformation rightMaking your company a growth engine Opportu