Renegade Marketers Unite

Keeping a brand fresh means evolving with trends, but Alma Derricks, former VP of Sales & Marketing of the Retail Sales Division at Cirque du Soleil, knows that not every trend is right for every industry. As someone who runs towards moments of inflection, that's exactly what Derricks walked into when she joined Cirque during an ownership change in 2015. Believe it or not, Cirque had relied on organic growth for over 30 years but finally found itself in need of an organized and inventive marketing strategy. With a diverse background in media and entertainment, Alma Derricks helped differentiate Cirque's many shows and make them top-of-mind for show goers. She also launched SPARK, a brand extension of Cirque that serves as a learning laboratory for corporate teams. The new business took off and not only created a new way to access the brand, but also a strong statement about who they are. In this podcast, we'll take a special peek behind the curtain of one of the world's top-earning theatrical companies and the marketing that helped revive its brand. You'll learn about identifying which trends are suitable for your business, making sure your company cuts through the noise, differentiating your product or service offerings, and more. While Derricks has since moved to another role, you'll find that the insights she shares are timeless.

This episode will help you understand the state-of-the-art for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and how forward-thinking businesses are capitalizing on CRM to improve customer experiences and drive revenue.

In this podcast, you'll learn about where to start your brand transformation, why your brand should be a "sage" instead of a "hero," the importance of creating a tangible customer experience and the strategy behind CA's new ad campaign, "The Modern Software Factory." Over the last four years, CMO Lauren Flaherty repositioned CA Technologies' global brand, helped it adapt to the fast-paced blur of digital disruptions and masterfully co-created an app with CNN to cover the 2016 presidential election. This app enabled CNN to experience higher-than-ever levels of engagement and reach while demonstrating the power of CA's technology. Flaherty has since initiated a similar co-creation venture with Eurosport, helping to make the brand more tangible. Think of this episode as a master class in transformation B2B marketing.

As Chief Revenue Officer, Meredith Kopit Levien is a driving force behind The New York Times's digital transformation and their stunningly timely "The Truth is Hard" campaign. When the news became the news during the 2016 presidential election cycle, Kopit Levien's challenge was not only to remind people why real journalism matters, but also to reach a new base of paid subscribers hungry for high-quality journalism, effectively changing the news category. What you'll take away from this podcast, among other things, is why the story you tell is more important than how often you tell it, and why it's important to adapt to the times—no pun intended—without losing sight of your brand's core mission. In addition to sharing why and how the new campaign came to fruition, Kopit Levien provides an inside look at building T-brand, their highly successful content creation studio. Although she admits that The Times was late to the content creation game, they entered it with gusto hiring top talent and holding the bar extremely high – so high that they will and have told the client "no" when they don't think an idea will in their publication. Noting that there are only 10 million people that pay for their news online, Kopit Levien says that the real work, is only beginning as The New York Times continues its transformation from print to all other current and future news channels. For example, The Daily, The Times' first podcast has dramatically exceeded expectations and is now a coveted slot for their reporters. She also discusses a new channel on Snapchat Discover, yet another indication that her brand ain't your grandmother's New York Times!

When Tom Libretto joined Pegasystems as Chief Marketing Officer, he recognized that his new company was on the cusp of huge changes. Applying his experience at major companies like IBM, Nokia and Chase, Libretto dove headfirst into his role, first by assessing star performers, past successes and failures and opportunities for growth. The good news was that one of the company's star performers was its own platform, PEGA. What you'll learn in this podcast, among other things, is the importance of being able to "drink your own champagne," as Libretto and his team have found it to be an invaluable source of authentic marketing, not to mention troubleshooting. Today, Pegasystems is considered a top vendor of software for customer engagement and operational excellence. As a leader in martech (marketing technology), Pegasystems provides a window into the future of automation and artificial intelligence, which Libretto breaks down over the course of the conversation. Without giving too much away, check out the podcast to hear about how Libretto helped the company achieve this amazing transformation.

Described as both a bulldog and a warrior, Intuit's VP of Marketing Patti Newcomer-Simmons built her reputation by seeking out the difficult challenges most mortals try to avoid. One such challenge was to dramatically improve departmental performance at a company that was already filled with "happy campers." To do this, she first focused on the getting the metrics right. Rather than dwell on how satisfied employees were they with their jobs, she focused on employee engagement, a metric that corresponds with answers to questions like, "Would you stay with the company even if you received a higher offer from somewhere else?" Ultimately, through a series of actions, including adding new hires, moving team members around and aligning around core goals, Newcomer-Simmons helped drive a 30-point increase in employee engagement. In case you were wondering, that is a very big jump, especially when you consider that Intuit already enjoyed a very high employee retention rate. So, if you're wondering how you can get your marketing team operating at a higher level, this is definitely the right episode for you.

Dara Royer sat alone at her desk pondering the seemingly impossible--how do you rebrand a global organization with only a $50,000 budget? She knew in her heart of hearts that rebranding was not just a nice next step for Mercy Corps, but it was a critical requirement for the organization to realize its global ambitions. She also knew there is little glory in being right, what really mattered was getting the rest of Mercy Corps to join her on the journey and embrace the forthcoming change. Royer's journey as Chief Development and Marketing Officer is chronicled in detail in this epidsoe and it is profoundly instructive for all businesses especially those with modest budgets and massive expectations. And just in case you were wondering if we're hyperbolizing, the outcome of Mercy Corps rebranding was an increase in awareness, revenue via donations and recognition by the Harris Poll as the 2017 EquiTrend "Brand of the Year" and "Most Loved Brand" in the category of International Aid Nonprofits. Those are results that would delight any marketer and leads to the question, how the heck did Royer and her team accomplish so much with so little? Well, without telling the whole story, let's just say that necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Digital rock star and Spotify's Global Vice President for Growth & Marketing, Mayur Gupta, joins us in this week's podcast to talk predictive marketing, lack of separation in online and offline worlds, and why quality beats quantity when it comes to consumer acquisition. With over 15 years of experience in leading the digital transformation, Gupta shares insights on how brands and marketers can ease into predictive marketing, and explains how Spotify is using this method to unify online and offline worlds, delivering relevant, contextual experiences for their users that inspires them to keep coming back for their musical needs. While most of us are driving into the future of marketing with limited visibility, Spotify's Mayur Gupta not just sees what's ahead, but also shares his vision with helpful precision. In this episode, Gupta talks about how he views marketing and innovation from the eyes of an engineer, and the importance of putting human's needs at the top of the marketing ecosystem, which consists of technology, data, and storytelling. As the Global Vice President for Growth & Marketing at Spotify, Gupta emphasizes that you cannot effectively market only using technology, or data, or storytelling – the three are completely intertwined, and wholly dependent on the marketer's understanding of unmet human needs. To see what's ahead, just listen!

There are three salient features of creativity, regardless of the form it takes: It's new, it's everywhere, and everyone can do it. This week we switch it up on RTU to talk to the expert on creativity, Larry Robertson. Robertson's latest book, The Language of Man, tackles the biggest myth about creativity, and that's this notion that only a few rare people are capable of creative genius. In the podcast, Robertson talks about the two sides to each individual: one side (the left brain) is dedicated to order, pragmatics, survival; the other side (right brain) is dedicated to exploring, creativity, and thinking towards the future. Most often we prioritize the side of our brain that is dedicated to order, but Robertson says it's important to give our creative brains a chance to play and discover as well. Ultimately, there has to be a balance between the two, but everyone is capable and equipped for creative genius.

At one point in our inspiring conversation, Chandar Pattabhiram says "I've always believed that people buy candles not because they need candles, but because they need light." As CMO of Marketo, Chandar brings a floodlight to the world of marketing, leading to an episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite you won't want to miss. Among his many illuminating ideas, Chandar espouses "engagement marketing" as the only way to overcome the radical shift in power from buyer to seller and proposes that we've entered the "engagement economy." Expecting a conversation about the science of marketing, marketing automation and perhaps the latest applications of artificial intelligence, his focus on engagement, the art of storytelling and advocacy provides a show that is as surprising as it is informative. Listen carefully and you'll discover some of the secrets to not just building customer loyalty but also the kind of brand advocacy that gets your customers shouting your story from the rooftops!