What's the secret sauce to building a successful marketing team?

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It starts with hiring curious people, kind, and capable people, and putting them in an environment that values experimentation and collaboration.  Our teams have been most successful when we begin with a deep understanding of the brand, the needs of the audiences we serve, and how our product or service can uniquely add value to their lives. When you give talented people the inputs they need, it's amazing what they are capable of.  Marketing is not asking talented people to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

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How do you keep a creative team inspired?
 

The most important thing I can do is bring all team members closer to the brand, our audiences, and the products and services we are marketing.  When there is too much distance between those three things and the team, the work suffers. 

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What is your view on the importance of brand?

 

We live in a time when companies value short-term sales over longer-term brand building.  The magic is doing both at the same time. When you activate a well-articulated brand purpose in a way that inspires people to take action, doing both is possible. I don't believe in product vs. marketing vs. sales. The brand informs every experience and everyone needs to own the brand, not just marketing. 

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How do you involve the broader organization in the brand?

 

Everyone is busy so it's critical when I engage other departments outside of marketing, that they understand how the brand gives them permission to think differently about their job.  We are in the business of activating brands that put consumers, and their needs, front and center. When everyone in the organization from product leadership to customer service feels empowered to address those needs in creative ways, it will have a multiplying effect on the perception and preference for the brand. 

What informed your approach to building a brand?

 

I was fortunate early in my career to work with Disney, Hilton, and The Coca-Cola Company.  All three are great examples of purpose-driven brands that use it to inform everything from campaigns to partnerships to content. 

 

 

What are your thoughts on the rapidly changing activation landscape?

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It still starts with the target and their behaviors.  Understanding where they go for information and who they trust as they build confidence towards their purchase decision. There is an ever-expanding number of options for best connecting with them. This is why having a curious team with permission to experiment is important.  My teams build plans built on tried and true tactics but we always leave money to test new technologies and scale if they are successful.  Additionally, my teams optimize campaigns and content within hours of going live.  Long gone are the days of waiting weeks, or even worse, to the end of a campaign to look for learnings. Finally, technology allows us to test combinations of works and images very quickly at a low cost.. 

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What makes you different from the other marketing executives?

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I offer a unique combination of brand development, strategy, and activation experience from both the agency and brand perspectives which has taught me the critical factors in maximizing an in-house marketing team's business impact. My career started working for some of the most admired brands on the planet including Hilton, The Coca-Cola Company, and Disney where I learned the power a brand has to inspire all corners of an organization. Spending over 20 years at Upshot leading its most integrated teams taught me the importance of orchestrating every relevant touchpoint across paid, owned, and earned channels to deliver results. Working in-house only brought me closer to the business, products, and services we were serving and how essential it is to grow a healthy business by aligning and focusing teams on achieving business outcomes. Building high-performing teams and experiencing that feeling of moving the business forward is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Well, that and my kids...