Sheila Shekar Pollak is the Chief Brand Experience Officer at Orvis, a leading outdoor retailer.  

Shekar Pollak brings over 20 years of experience growing and strengthening global, mission-driven brands. Previously, Pollak was with the Gap Inc. family of brands, including the CMO at Athleta where she drove double-digit revenue and earnings growth and launched the iconic ‘Power of She’ brand platform. 

Scott: What are the primary concerns keeping you up at night as a leading marketer? 

Sheila: Team burnout is my foremost concern. The relentless challenges our team faces, combined with the uncertain future, have led to exhaustion and stress. I worry about retaining our talented staff and keeping them motivated amidst these difficulties. We oversee all the marketing, creative and sales channels for our wholesale, retail, e-commerce and adventure business. It’s a lot and we have to find ways to celebrate small wins in this challenging environment. I try to be very intentional and focused on what I’m asking of my team. I am constantly thinking about how to motivate and keep people fired up. How do we stay focused and what can we let go of? For the past few years, it sometimes feels like we’re sprinting an Ironman, and it can be emotionally taxing. So, I’m really focused on the health and well-being of my team.  

Separately, I think a lot about connecting with customers in a meaningful way amid economic uncertainties. For us, a specific challenge is the saturation of products in the market and how to tell a creative and compelling story that resonates with our customers.   

Scott: How have your marketing priorities shifted in response to the current economic environment? 

Sheila: Our focus has narrowed significantly. Coming out of Covid, we had the best years in our 167-year history. The outdoor boom led to unprecedented growth, but as we shifted back to a more typical business cycle, we had to rethink new ways to grow our business – both with current and new customers. We are relentlessly focused on emphasizing product excellence and refining our offerings to stand out in a competitive market.  

Not only do we need to create great products, but we need to tell great stories. To do this, we’re really leaning into creativity and innovation. We’re putting a renewed focus on telling stories that speak to experiences that not only align with our purpose and values but also the nuts and bolts of the product. Our goal is to simplify everything down to making and selling truly great products. 

We’ve always been customer-obsessed, and that continues to be a focal point for us. We’re very dialed into our customers and are constantly monitoring our retention and acquisition opportunities. We have strong customer loyalty but continue to look for new ways to drive customer acquisition. The top of the funnel hasn’t always been a core area of focus for us, and we’re reevaluating our strategy to find new ways to drive acquisition. I do think the current market conditions play a significant role as it’s harder to convince people to try new brands and to spend right now.   

Scott: That’s an interesting point about not focusing as much on the top of the funnel, can you elaborate on why it wasn’t a focus in the past and how you’re shifting your strategy to emphasize the top of the funnel more?  

Sheila: As I mentioned earlier, we saw incredible growth in 2020-2021, and I’d argue that was likely due in part to the natural tailwinds of the macro environment. To continue to drive growth, we’re taking a deep look at our business to make sure we have the foundational pieces in place to continue our forward momentum. We’d like to be the masters of our destiny, so to speak, instead of relying on the economic conditions. So that’s part of our focus on putting a renewed focus on product excellence. Marketing is partnering closely with our product team to create high-quality products that the market truly desires. We recently released a new dog bed that hit a nerve with customers, and we leaned into our storytelling and influencers to tell a story that people connected with. We’re looking for more moments like that to break through by using powerful creativity and storytelling.   

Scott: Can you elaborate on your approach to balancing brand and demand in your marketing strategies? 

Sheila: We’ve been heavily focused on demand, given the pressure to meet revenue goals. However, we also recognize the importance of brand awareness and storytelling. While demand strategies are necessary, creativity and innovation are crucial. I’m a big believer in the brand. We’ve started working with a PR firm and media influencers to share more stories about the conservation work we’re involved with. So, we’re exploring unconventional methods to capture attention and create genuine connections with our audience. It’s about finding the balance between driving sales and building a lasting brand image. Performance marketing alone can’t drive value. While demand will likely still play an outsized role in the near future, to drive real value, brand is a critical component of our marketing investment.  

Scott: What role does AI play in your marketing efforts, and how do you envision its future in your strategies? 

Sheila: We’re in the exploration phase with AI. While it offers real potential in customer targeting and optimizing experiences, I don’t think it’s a replacement for creativity and the human touch. Our brand is about creating experiences that connect people with nature and create lasting and memorable life experiences. I see a real opportunity with AI to enhance our strategies, especially in customer optimization and experience enhancement. However, I’m cautious about losing the genuine essence of our brand. That being said, we do recognize as a leadership team that AI is something we need to wrap our arms around pretty quickly. 

Scott: And finally, how do you manage to break down internal silos within the organization to foster better collaboration across functions? 

Sheila: It starts at the top. Getting leadership on board with the idea of cross-functional collaboration is crucial. Establishing a “first team” mentality, where everyone collaborates for collective success, has been transformative. Building strong relationships between functional leaders, based on transparency, empathy, and mutual benefit, has been instrumental in breaking down silos and achieving better outcomes. I’m lucky because our president is fully bought into this idea. And, with that support, I have been able to build an incredible relationship with our head of product. We’re constantly checking in with each other. It’s the best partnership I’ve ever had – and by adopting the “first team” approach, we’ve been able to accomplish much more, quickly, and with better outcomes. It’s an absolute game-changer when done right.  

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Diego Norris is the Chief Marketing Officer at Gimme Seaweed, leading the overall marketing strategy for the number one-selling organic seaweed-based snack.

Norris has over 20 years of experience in various marketing and innovation roles for leading CPG companies, including General Mills, Nestle Nutrition, Red Bull, Pinkberry and Campbell Soup. He has also spent several years in consulting, first at Deloitte, where he started his career, and later at Prophet, where he helped technology and healthcare companies build relentlessly relevant brand strategies. 

Mat Zucker: Given the disruption of the last few years, marketers are often asked to take on greater accountability to demonstrate immediate impact and ROI of marketing investment while creating tighter alignment with the business outcomes. Has that been your experience? If so, how have you shifted your strategy to show impact? 

Diego Norris: The push for Marketing to demonstrate immediate impact has increased significantly in recent years. However, this shift isn’t merely a response to increased demands from leadership, board members or shareholders. Developing high-performance programs that are tightly aligned with business objectives is also necessary. 

In this context, the role of marketing data and analytics has become essential. It helps us identify the most valuable programs, assess the impact of A/B tests, and optimize our way to high performance. 

At Gimme Seaweed, we’ve embraced this change with open arms. About a year and a half ago, we started capturing and manually aggregating marketing metrics by business objectives. Earlier this year, we were able to automate this process, which allowed us to get real-time marketing performance data. We are currently integrating AI to enable campaign management automation, the pièce de resistance in our plan for seaweed world domination. 

MZ: How have conversations with your C-suite and board changed as you take on new accountability in driving and proving business value? 

DN: The conversation with the C-suite and board has definitely changed in response to these new demands. A significant portion of our focus now goes into creating a shared understanding of what drives marketing performance in 2023 compared to years past. This helps lay the foundation for focusing on the right business objectives and KPIs. 

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of noise surrounding Marketing today, including no longer effective legacy practices that continue to have broad adoption, well-intentioned but often misguided business partners, false prophets, lack of alignment on KPIs, and inconsistent metric definitions across channels, to name a few. This noise can sometimes make building a shared understanding between key stakeholders difficult. 

In the midst of all this chaos, having solid data at our fingertips has proven to be extremely helpful. It’s like having a reliable compass that helps us navigate through the fog, bringing a dose of clarity and objectivity to discussions.  

MZ: Within your organization, how do you partner with other internal business units and teams to unlock new opportunities for driving growth? Has this evolved in recent years? 

DN: I am definitely seeing increasing levels of cross-pollination between functions, especially between marketing and sales. Several developments in the CPG industry in recent years are fueling this trend and helping blur the lines between these two functions. Most notably, the push for marketing to demonstrate its impact on sales, the emergence of retail media as a primary marketing channel, and retailers’ increasing focus on eCommerce, which relies heavily on digital marketing support. 

For these reasons, many CPG companies, including Gimme Seaweed, now house eCommerce in marketing. This shift has facilitated the dismantling of silos, enabling a more fluid allocation of marketing funds to where performance is strongest. Moreover, it has fostered a tighter knit between marketing and sales, creating a symbiotic relationship geared toward unlocking new avenues for growth. 

MZ: Last year, we published a report, “Brand and Demand Marketing: A Love Story” which speaks to the tensions between brand and demand marketing and why working in silos harms performance. We believe both are critical functions that need to work together to enable success. How do you balance brand and demand within your marketing organization? 

DN: To me, the ongoing debate between brand and performance marketing seems a bit silly, almost like a misunderstanding of the fundamental aspects of a well-rounded marketing plan. It’s essential to recognize that these aren’t optional components you can choose from but integral elements of a successful marketing ecosystem. 

To put it in simpler terms, let’s liken this scenario to farming. Think of brand marketing as the act of planting seeds, nurturing the ground for the next season’s crop, and setting the stage for future bounty, in other words, future demand generation. On the flip side, performance marketing is akin to harvesting the crops we painstakingly nurtured in the previous season, reaping the rewards of our efforts by capturing conversion-ready demand. 

However, the catch here, and what most people overlook, is that in this metaphorical world, farms don’t have fences guarding them. This lack of barriers means anyone, including our competitors, can swoop in and harvest the crops we’ve nurtured with so much care. It’s a wild, open field out there, and a robust performance marketing strategy acts as our safeguard, ensuring we reap the benefits of our hard work without leaving room for competitors to cash in on our efforts. 

But it’s a delicate balance. Performance marketing cannot be ramped up beyond the existing level of demand without facing diminishing returns. It’s about finding the sweet spot where we’re not leaving money on the table, yet not overspending to the point of undermining our performance. 

I must admit, I am very appreciative when competitors neglect performance marketing. It essentially gives us the green light to bring our combine into their fields to harvest their crops. I like harvesting. 

MZ: In the report, we found there are four common principles that most effective markers follow for success: 

• Anchoring Marketing Investment in Business Objectives
• Experimenting to Win 
• Building a Modern Marketing Organization 
• Putting the Customer at the Center 

Do you agree with these principles? Are there any examples you can share where you’ve been able to implement them? 

DN: We practically live by those principles at Gimme Seaweed! Each of our marketing programs nests under one of three business objectives. And it’s the business objective that defines the KPIs that will be used to measure performance, not the program. Aligning marketing programs and metrics to business objectives keeps the focus where it should be, and this, in turn, accelerates growth. 

An additional element that has proven incredibly helpful has been allowing working dollars of programs that nest under the same objective to flow freely where KPI performance is strongest. This makes these programs compete for funding and creates the conditions needed for continuous improvement. It’s a bit of a Darwinian approach that fosters the survival of the fittest strategies and maximizes value creation. 

MZ: What are some top challenges you anticipate in the next 6-18 months? What are you doing to help your organization plan and overcome those challenges? 

DN: Let’s tackle the giant, looming question that’s on everyone’s mind: the rise of AI and its profound impact on the marketing world. At the risk of oversimplification, CPG marketers have two big jobs to do. First, there’s the creative side of things, where we dive deep into brand strategy, target consumer selection, brand positioning, visual identity and the overall tone of our communications. Then, there’s the logistical side, where we focus on efficiently delivering these crafted messages to our target audience, navigating the intricate maze of marketing mix, platform selection, campaign management, data analytics, and marketing spend allocation. 

Even though we’re still in the early stages of AI’s integration into marketing, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the logistical side of marketing is about to see a seismic shift. The intricacies of managing campaigns, analyzing data, and optimizing performance are about to skyrocket in complexity. Soon, it may become nearly impossible for marketers to handle these tasks without the aid of AI. The landscape is evolving so that those who embrace AI and its capabilities will have a significant edge over those who don’t. The divide is going to be stark, almost binary in nature. 

At Gimme Seaweed, we’re not just watching from the sidelines but actively gearing up to stay ahead in this race. I envision three pivotal elements that will anchor our marketing endeavors in the coming months: access to real-time marketing performance data, harnessing the power of AI for data processing and analytics with well-defined decision parameters and leveraging AI for seamless campaign automation. With these in place, we aim to be agile, identifying and capitalizing on real-time performance opportunities. This approach will allow our marketing investments to flow toward areas of peak performance within each of our meta-objectives. 

The current wave of innovation and the potential it holds is genuinely exhilarating. Every day feels like a new learning opportunity. I’m wholeheartedly diving in, eager to absorb as much as possible to help steer Gimme Seaweed towards the best possible future. 

About Mat Zucker

Mat is a senior partner and co-lead of Prophet’s Marketing and Sales practice. He helps clients transform digitally, finding new areas of growth in marketing, content and communications. Previously, Mat was the Global Executive Creative Director at Razorfish, served as Chief Creative Officer at OgilvyOne New York and held leadership roles at R/GA and Agency.com. In addition to helping clients creatively connect and engage with their customers, he hosts two podcasts, Cidiot and Rising. 

Are you interested in talking with Mat? You can contact him, here. 

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Kelly Jo Golson is the Chief Brand, Communications and Consumer Experience Officer at Advocate Health where she oversees marketing and consumer experience for a leading healthcare system.

Golson brings nearly 30 years of industry experience spanning consumerism, brand, marketing, digital strategy, public affairs and internal communications. A leader with Advocate since 2007, she previously held roles with Methodist Healthcare System, St. Luke’s Episcopal Healthcare and Memorial Hermann Healthcare.

Scott Davis: With all the shifts that have gone on through COVID and now an economic downturn, what matters the most to you right now as a chief marketing officer leading one of the biggest U.S. health systems?

Kelly Jo Golson: You know, there’s a long list of things that matter, right? But one of the things that keeps coming back to me is credibility. Patients and consumers are bombarded with noise and misinformation. Being the voice of trust and reliability, and the place consumers and patients turn to for accurate information and a trustworthy experience is our top priority.

SD: Do you think healthcare has been fairly or unfairly punished over the last three to five years in terms of breaking consumer trust, or is it just the general environment of everything being highly scrutinized?

KJ: Prior to COVID, it was challenging. Patients often came to appointments with self-diagnoses and information they found online. However, I believe the last three years with COVID have helped healthcare systems regain trust. Our experts provided accurate, impartial information at an uncertain time, repositioning the patient and physician relationship and reestablishing doctors as reliable sources amid the chaos of constantly changing information. That trust and the continuous, end-to-end relationship with patients have become crucial factors in our industry and are something we will continue to lean into to ensure we stay relevant with our patients.

SD: It goes way beyond the physician-patient relationship; it’s the entire 360-degree experience. What challenges do you see in delivering this holistic experience, and how are you addressing them? From a marketing perspective, how are you thinking about these challenges and where do you see opportunity?

KJ: Absolutely. Building strong relationships with patients on both the front end and back end of care is challenging but essential. We’ve made strides, especially with high-acuity patients. However, there’s still a long way to go in terms of price transparency, accessibility, personalized self-service, and meeting consumer expectations.

For me, shifting consumer expectations has redefined my role. I’ve gone from being a Chief Marketing Officer to a Chief Brand Officer and, now more importantly, a Chief Consumer Experience Officer. Understanding and meeting consumer needs and expectations have become paramount. Research shows that an exceptional experience has a higher impact on loyalty and action than the care itself. For example, you may have a world-class cardiovascular program, but as soon as someone realizes they’re at risk for heart disease, they are thinking about how easy it is to get in to see a cardiologist. What’s the wait time? How easy is it for them to receive the next level of care and receive relevant communications? These experiences have become increasingly important as people consider their care options. So, our focus has shifted toward ensuring a seamless experience from awareness to care delivery.

SD: You’ve made a significant shift from patient to consumer. Why was it essential to broaden the frame of reference of who’s walking in those doors or on that telehealth call every day?

KJ: Patient experience is still paramount, but we’ve realized that our patients’ changing expectations, driven by their experiences in other industries, require us to become consumer-first. For years, healthcare has been able to put this on the back burner, but with new entrants entering the space, it’s a critical moment for healthcare systems to rethink how we build loyalty. It’s about creating a meaningful relationship with consumers even before they need care, emphasizing wellness over sickness care. Their expectations have evolved, and we need to adapt accordingly.

SD: I know you’ve worked side-by-side with your CEO; how has the evolution of marketing impacted the growth strategy? How do marketing and long-term strategy work together?

KJ: Our growth strategy is deeply intertwined with everything we do in marketing. I’d say we take a three-pronged approach. We recognize that losing even one patient due to poor experience requires acquiring three new ones to compensate for the lost revenue. Additionally, as we transition into accountable care organizations (ACOs), the continuity of care becomes vital. We aim to keep patients within our system for the entire care journey. Lastly, with cost pressures coming into play across the industry, finding efficiencies that allow us to reinvest in places that our patients are asking for is critical. Marketing plays a pivotal role in facilitating this continuity and efficiency.

SD: In today’s environment, we’re seeing budgets being scrutinized and the need to prove ROI for marketing investments. This leads to a conversation we’ve been having with many CMOs about brand and demand marketing. How do you navigate this constant tension between building reputation and driving demand, especially in times of economic change?

KJ: It’s essential to be agile and adapt to the context. We don’t go all-in on either brand or demand; we continually evaluate the situation. We must understand the economic climate, competitive landscape, and our capacity to deliver on our promises. There is no quicker way to damage your brand if you can’t deliver on your promises. Agility is key to striking the right balance and ensuring we’re meeting patient expectations and delivering value. Something that has enabled this agility is having the right mix of talent on our internal teams to support these moves. Within the digital ecosystem, we must be ready and willing to turn the dial up or down depending on our ability to deliver while also meeting the needs of the business.

SD: Building a modern marketing organization is a challenge for many. How have you approached this, especially in the context of rapidly evolving technologies and consumer expectations?

KJ: We’ve been intentional about modernizing our marketing organization. This includes differentiating and creating a standalone consumer insights department, separating brand and marketing, bringing media buying in-house, and developing in-house creative services. We continuously evaluate our structure and its effectiveness in facilitating collaboration and delivering value to consumers.

SD: Lastly, how are you approaching the use of AI in healthcare marketing? What opportunities and challenges do you foresee in integrating AI into your strategies?

KJ: AI holds immense potential in healthcare marketing, particularly in personalizing content, optimizing search, and enhancing the consumer experience. However, we’re cautious about maintaining trust and credibility. We want to ensure that AI augments our efforts without compromising patient trust. Experimentation and learning from industry best practices will guide our AI integration journey.

About Scott Davis  

Scott is a senior partner and the Chief Growth Officer at Prophet. He brings over 20 years of brand, marketing strategy and new product development experience. Scott speaks at and chairs branding conferences such as The Conference Board and the American Marketing Association and is frequently cited in publications like The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Forbes. In addition to helping clients unlock uncommon growth, he is an Adjunct Professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a guest lecturer at other top graduate schools, including NYU, Harvard, Notre Dame, Medill and Columbia. 

Are you interested in talking with Scott? You can contact him here.

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Generative AI has taken center stage in virtually every business article, LinkedIn post and cocktail party conversation. And for good reason – ChatGPT drove one million users in its first five days, turning the technology into a household name and transforming how businesses think about productivity and efficiency. For marketers getting their heads around it and starting to experiment, the potential can be either daunting or inspiring.  

Marketers have always been at the forefront of technology. AI and machine learning have been critical in shaping programmatic buying, lifecycle marketing and digital experiences. And for many marketers, this isn’t the first shift they’ve experienced within their role. 

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A Framework for Supercharging Your Marketing Efforts With AI  

It’s helpful to think of AI as a tool to help enhance what you do as a marketer, especially when it comes to thinking about customers and their needs. Here are four ways marketers can use AI to show up for their customers in more connected and cohesive ways:  

Unlocking Understanding 

Many AI-driven models excel at analyzing unstructured data, text, images, videos and other content that does not fit neatly into traditional databases. Typically, this type of analysis is time-consuming and expensive, requiring its own algorithms. 

Marketers can use AI to help analyze large volumes of data, recognize complex patterns, explore and visualize data, perform predictive analytics and provide real-time insights to drive more personalized and optimized marketing strategies and tactics.  

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Meta and Alphabet are far ahead of the curve. But so are non-tech players, such as Johnson & Johnson’s Neutrogena and JP Morgan Chase. All using AI to analyze data and use it in ways that directly benefit customer experience.  

Unlocking Value 

AI automates repetitive and time-consuming processes, reducing the number of daily tasks, and freeing up hours so that marketers can focus on higher-order priorities that require more strategic, human thinking. Smart marketers are learning ways to turn those found hours into new initiatives, liberating marketing teams to find new avenues of growth. 

Adore Me, the e-commerce lingerie company recently acquired by Victoria’s Secret now uses AI to churn out hundreds of product descriptions. While copywriters still need to read, tweak and occasionally edit the blurbs, it estimates it saves up to 40 hours a month per copywriter, with zero impact on sales. Even better? Copywriters hated writing those tedious descriptions. By delegating that work to AI, they can focus on higher-order campaigns that drive additional revenue. 

Unlocking Creativity  

With more marketers being asked to do more with less resources, AI can be an essential tool. It can help reduce the time it takes to generate creative concepts, create visually appealing and engaging content, facilitate brainstorming processes, and draw insights from past campaigns that can help marketers take personalization to the next level for future campaigns.  

Lexus, for instance, used AI to transform its Auto Show experience this year, inviting attendees to enter prompts that quickly personalized their new cars on a 98-inch screen. And political attack ads using AI-created voices of opponents are already reshaping the upcoming election cycle. 

Unlocking Differentiation 

With its speed of processing data, sifting through customer insights and analyzing competitors, AI can suggest gaps in the market to help companies create personalized, innovative and differentiated experiences that cater to specific customer needs. 

For example, Unilever uses AI to explore the human gut, home to trillions of bacteria. Using big-data biology, the company is isolating the microbes with the most calming potential and experimenting with biotech partners to pinpoint food and beverage ingredients that will have the most positive impact on mental well-being. Its Knorr soup division, recently used AI to analyze millions of flavor combinations in days rather than months, using digital modeling to create a zero-salt (but still delicious) soup cube.  

To maximize success with AI it’s important to remember that AI is more useful when it is centered on human needs.  

Creating an AI-Readiness Checklist  

Marketing organizations must also have the necessary data capabilities to implement and operationalize AI effectively. Those include thoughtful attention to:  

Data Foundation: Quality Over Quantity  

Companies must have high-quality, first-party data stored in secure infrastructures with clear, consistent taxonomy that can be processed at a high volume.  

Best Practice: Focusing on securing quality information rather than rushing to get the biggest datasets fast will prevent future inefficiencies and accuracy problems. And despite the focus on large-language models, it’s important to note that many tech companies are experimenting with smaller versions, which may be more accurate and efficient.   

Data Value Exchange: Upping the Ante  

Companies must offer additive products and services for customers in exchange for their data and provide transparency for how data will be used.   

Best Practice: In a world where AI tools are accessible to all, companies can offer trust and respect for privacy as a differentiated yet still personalized experience to customers.   

Data Culture & Fluency: The Heart of AI Transformation   

Companies must pursue broad AI fluency across the whole enterprise as well as invest in specific data and AI expertise to continuously innovate.  

Best Practice: Without the people to understand and strategically use AI at all levels of the organization, companies will not be able to unlock uncommon growth.  

Fully implementing AI will require proper evaluation and tracking against an adoption timeline. As soon as possible, begin incorporating AI into workflows, explore opportunities for sustainable optimization and continue to scale it.   

Coming soon: New AI research from Prophet will help you understand and serve the AI-powered consumer. Subscribe to our mailing list to be among the first to get their hands on these insights!

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Brad Kreiger is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Cushman & Wakefield and is responsible for the organization’s global marketing, communications and research functions. Within his role, he focuses on building the brand, demand generation, marketing technology and digital platforms, regional and service line marketing and business development activities, and research and thought leadership.  

Before joining Cushman & Wakefield, Kreiger co-founded Hard Hat Hub, a technology startup that created a digital talent marketplace in construction and facilities management. Prior, he spent a decade as SVP of Marketing at JLL, where he oversaw various corporate communications, marketing and business development functions.  

Scott Davis: Given the disruption and uncertainty we have faced over the last few years, how do you approach both executing your marketing strategy and organizing your marketing team?   

Brad Kreiger: COVID started as a big challenge no one knew how to solve. But at Cushman & Wakefield, we had the expertise and a powerful POV within our industry on how companies should operate relative to the pandemic. Some of that came through our experience during the SARS pandemic because we have a significant presence in China. By the time the pandemic had reached the United States, we were three months ahead of many of our competitors, which allowed us to position Cushman & Wakefield as an industry thought leader. That shift in our positioning positively impacted all of our brand metrics, especially PR.   

We have a senior team of economists and market researchers focusing on creating best-in-class thought leadership. I also have a smart, lean and scrappy corporate marketing team that manages PR and content marketing and also sits alongside the team of market researchers and economists.   

And in this uncertain environment, we are constantly evolving our go-to-market playbook. For example, we recently launched a new campaign called “Behind the Numbers,” which features 90-second Tik-Tok style videos from the perspective of a senior economist who just stepped out of a meeting with a client. We see phenomenal reach with these videos, much more than expected for a B2B organization.  

In addition to experimenting with our go-to-market playbook, we’re also doing a lot to mobilize our content by experimenting, taking risks and modernizing our channel mix. We’re also launching crisp positioning and messaging and trying to implement a  marketing strategy that is more B2C in terms of our message delivery, which has worked well and helped us increase our speed-to-market. My team is concentrating on launching quality and relevant content that helps our corporate and investor clients decide their next move.   

SD: It’s incredible how Cushman & Wakefield has taken major disruptions like the pandemic or the return-to-office debate and has risen as an industry thought leader shaping and directing the narrative around these significant events.  

BK: We’re not afraid to stand up and speak the truth as a brand. We saw a great reaction from our clients and the marketplace, so we continued to double down and go harder, which has become our signature go-to-market strategy. We lead with a strong POV and thought leadership. It’s fantastic when that aligns with us driving more revenue, but it can be even better if it doesn’t because it demonstrates the risk we are willing to take as a brand. That type of risk-taking has helped increase our credibility because we are saying things before our competitors and, therefore, have been early on many industry trends.   

SD: How has the relationship between marketing and sales within your organization shifted due to where you are as an organization? Does that relationship feel different than it did pre-pandemic?   

BK: We have a “we’re in it together mentality” because we’ve had some downturns within the market, which has enabled marketing to take the lead on driving demand. The results of marketing’s demand generation wins in the last few years have proven to our salesforce the importance of our relationship and have helped them see that marketing can do things they cannot do on their own. Additionally, our senior management sees the important link between sales and marketing, which is very different from other B2B organizations.  

SD: What is marketing’s role in shaping the overall corporate strategy for your firm, and how has that changed over the years?  

BK: Our organization is in the process of refreshing our strategic goals and business strategy, and marketing has a seat at the table regarding the overall corporate strategy. I also have a position on our firm’s global management team.  

SD: It’s fascinating to see you play a pivotal role in reimaging what Cushman & Wakefield can become and shift the frame of reference for what this business has been for the last 100 years.   

BK: Over the last eight years, the firm has transformed into a multi-billion-dollar global organization. It’s been an incredible transformation. When I think back on the first campaign I launched here, it was the “Welcome to the new Cushman & Wakefield” campaign. Since then, we’ve launched our environmental, social and governance (ESG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. We’ve expanded into growing sectors like multi-family. We’ve matured our operations and reimagined our global infrastructure. As a member of our senior management team, I always ask myself, “Did the brand keep up with the pace of change?” “Does it reflect who we are and what we want to be in a decade?” We continually ask those questions to ensure our brand strategy meets the demands of our clients and market.  

SD: What is your brand and demand mix today, and what will it look like in the future?    

BK: As a B2B sales organization, and in a very competitive industry, demand and sales enablement will always be our heaviest weight in the mix. Call it 70% of what we do. That might tilt a little heavier to brand during down market conditions as we try to leverage our thought leadership across common client challenges. As the industry continues to evolve and consolidate, I think brand will continue to grow in the mix. The trick is ensuring the brand messages speak to the very disparate corners across the industry with consistency and relevance. 

SD: Given the disruption of the last few years, marketers are often asked to take on greater accountability to demonstrate immediate impact and ROI of marketing investment while creating tighter alignment with the business outcomes. Has that been your experience? If so, how have you shifted your strategy to show impact?  

BK: Currently, my team is working on fully automating our digital funnel to get to the point of measuring the critical metrics within each funnel stage. Our team has people sitting across the marketing funnel and within each stage, we identify the critical metrics to determine what conversion means at that stage in the customer journey.   

SD: Many marketing leaders are experimenting with AI within their organizations. Are you incorporating AI into your marketing practices, and if so, what does that look like?   
 

BK: We are running a lot of AI pilots and projects. We aim to use AI to either accelerate our marketing efforts or scale them, depending on our needs. We’re also experimenting with creative development, such as copywriting or graphic design. For example, with the video campaign series “Behind the Numbers,” we are using AI software to help accelerate our video editing capabilities. It’s exciting and we have an incredibly nimble team across the organization on AI right now. 

SD:  It’s evident that AI is enabling your team to be more efficient, but have you experienced any challenges when implementing AI to drive efficiency and if so how did you overcome them?  

BK:  I feel lucky that our firm has had an AI-backed transformation team now for several years. That’s helped my leadership overcome some of the early challenges around understanding what automation can do. It’s taken some of the fear out of the process. Now that we’re introducing generative AI into our marketing content processes, the challenges are really about training and scaling the process. Which means having strong change management partners. We measure the success based on typical efficiency metrics around shortening processes, but also on quality. Both are critical. I think AI is a means to an end, but you shouldn’t lose focus on the big-picture success metrics of the marketing program. 

SD: How will AI transform marketing in the next few years?   

BK: Big question. It will likely change the entire way the web works and ‘digital marketing’ around it. It might allow us to leapfrog clunky tech development and focus more on connecting data sets. And it should allow us to be more creative. That might sound counterintuitive, but if you think about the energy it takes to generate one creative idea today, we may be able to come up with 50 concepts in the same amount of time. Add that to reducing all the administrative tasks,  what’s left are creative, passionate marketers who know their customers and can use their experience to evaluate the best ways to get messages to market. It’s going to be exciting. 

SD: What advice do you have for marketing leaders and CMOs navigating the uncertainty of the next few years?  

BK: Leading the marketing function is not for the faint of heart. You have to be ready to react to what’s happening and make decisions fast. The world has gotten very complicated, yet organizations are facing pressure to grow at the same pace as when the world was less volatile. All of this is making it even more complicated than ever to get your message out, which is why great marketing leaders listen more than they talk and are aware of their audience and how they make decisions. If you are an old-school leader who thinks that pretty and shiny ads will beat people down with your message, you will not succeed. In this market, you need to meet people where they are and understand how your product and brand need to evolve.  

About Scott Davis  

Scott is a senior partner and the Chief Growth Officer at Prophet. He brings over 20 years of brand, marketing strategy and new product development experience. Scott speaks at and chairs branding conferences such as The Conference Board and the American Marketing Association and is frequently cited in publications like The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Forbes. In addition to helping clients unlock uncommon growth, he is an Adjunct Professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a guest lecturer at other top graduate schools, including NYU, Harvard, Notre Dame, Medill and Columbia. 

Are you interested in talking with Scott? You can contact him here.

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