Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for this special episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, Bennie F. Johnson, AMA CEO. In today’s episode, we’ll explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations of individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We hope to introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know. Through thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. 

Today, my very special guest is Carryl Pierre-Drews. Carryl is executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, better known as IAB, where she is responsible for providing executive leadership and management for IAB’s marketing and communications organizations. And it’s activities that forward IAB’s position as a digital marketing and media industry thought leader and agenda setter.

Carryl has stewardship over IAB’s brand, inclusive of its event portfolio, marketing, PR, programming, and digital, with the goal of elevating IAB’s profile with media, tech CEOs, CMOs, and the marketing and advertising industry at large. Carryl is phenomenal and has the title of CMO for IAB. She also holds the title of Chiefs New Era Leadership Award recipient in 2025.

Her experience has covered marketing and for the next generation social media marketing company where she built the agency’s brand, its PR and digital price. She’s worked in influencer engagements and global industry activations. She’s been instrumental in key strategic decisions that have driven business growth and elevated visibility, increased stakeholder positioning. She’s active in her community and serves as a former board member for she runs it. And as I mentioned earlier, founding member of CHIEF. Carryl, welcome to the podcast.

Carryl Pierre-Drews

Thanks so much, Bennie. I’m really excited that you invited me to be a part of this podcast.

Bennie

Well, it’s such an honor to have you here. And I think about the interesting intersection of the job you have now. Being able to be a marketer who now serves in the role of helping to lead an industry association of marketers. I feel like I know a little bit about that. So tell me what first attracted you to the role at IAB?

Carryl 

Yeah. Sure, so I mean, I guess I can go a little bit further back and talk about how my career began. So for me, in the early part of my career, I always sort of followed my passion. So I’ve always been a big music person, live events, and creativity. And so I built a lot of my early career around helping brands connect with people in moments that matter. And so I started my marketing career actually at Tickamaster when I was still in college. So I worked in live events. We do a lot of big live events here at IAB. And then I worked in radio at Clear Channel and that’s now I Heart, lots of consolidation there. And so I was always close to concerts, events, and I really liked sort of building my career around fandoms and understanding how brands can connect in those moments that matter, as I said, so when they show up really authentically. And then I took a bit of a detour into something unknown, which was sort of the very early days of dot com.

I started working for a company called Jumpcut and they were a live event webcasting company. So think streaming before there was even streaming. So before broadband was even a thing. And one of the big things we did there was we worked on the Blair Witch project, which was one of those early sort of indie movies. Yeah. And so, and of course it was, like I said, was streaming before broadband was dot com and of course, you know, that was a very bumpy kind of ride. And of course we ran out of money, ran out of funding. And so I said, okay, I need to go back into something really safe. And so I got my dream job in television at MTV. So I was super excited to be working at MTV. And then I spent some time there and then also spent some time after that at USA Network. At NBC Universal. You know, between those two, got to work on a lot of iconic big TV programs. So video music awards and shows like Suits and creating all those branded entertainment partnerships and things like that. And there, again, going back to, you know, consolidation. And I was always kind of looking for what’s next in my career. So kind of taking those moves from, you know, events to radio and then radio to the dot com thing. And then I was like, I don’t know if I like this. Let me go into television.

Bennie

Right.

Carryl 

And then television started going through its kind of thing too. And so I was kind of looking around to see what’s sort of the next thing. And for me, it was the way when we working in television, working with companies like Foursquare and Facebook and what was the Shazam? And so I realized that the eyeballs were going towards social media. And that made me start on my journey. I took about a full year to sort of meet with many different kind of companies that were growing in that space. And so I joined Fullscreen. And so they were a creator social marketing agency. And that was during a period of really rapid growth. I led brand marketing and communications there. But I was able to take everything I learned around creative and entertainment and match that up with creators and then the storytelling piece, but also like platform native storytelling and data driven performance. So that was a really cool job. And I think you mentioned that in the intro that you gave. So that all led me to where I am today at IAB. So I feel like it was sort of that career trajectory.

Bennie

Right. Right.

Carryl 

That sort of led me to bring my full career perspective to a company like IAB where it’s the whole industry. So when we talk about IAB, we talk about it as it’s the big tent, right? So it’s members from publishers, platforms, ad tech companies, brands and agencies. And so I love that I get to bring all of that full career perspective because I pretty much worked all of those different places except ad tech. But I helped to now help the industry move forward by helping them connect the dots that are often sometimes silent.

Bennie

Right. Mm, right. Which is really an interesting role that you get to be in. And when I think about kind of the evolution of this space, looking at the calendar, IAB is gonna celebrate its 30th anniversary this year. Yeah, to think about where it started and where we are today. So I know one of your aims in coming to IAB was to…

Carryl 

Yes, I know it’s incredible.

Bennie

Develop a more dynamic story or a story that is connected in Dream of Heart. Talk to me how that story has changed for IAB over the last 30 years. I think about so much change in terms of technology and what we consider interactive advertising today. What’s the story today?

Carryl 

I think the story today is really looking towards the future. At our annual leadership meeting, we did a panel where we had the former chairs of IAB over the last 30 years. And that was really incredible to hear their stories kind of going through the errors from the early days of the dial-up and then the mobile and then the 2.0 with the web. Now it’s sort of like interactive is everything. Everything’s interactive. So for me, coming to IAB too, was looking at it, like coming from all of those different experiences that I had, was sort of like, how can I get together with my team and figure out how to evolve IAB? I mean, it’s always been evolving, but even as a brand. So I looked at it from the brand perspective, you know, and it’s as simple as something like the colors of IAB, right? They’ve always been sort of this, you know, iconic red, black and white, right? And I was sort of like, can we play with that a little bit? Can we play with the color palette?

I had said to my CEO and he was like, absolutely, you know, and he was so open to it. And that’s what I loved is being able to come into this role where I have a leader who’s open to bringing in new people, new thinking. So we’ve evolved in terms of the work that we’ve been doing. We started out as publishers, we started bringing in the publishers in the ad tech, and then now we’ve brought in the agencies and the brands and then the platform. So it’s sort of having everyone around the table solving solutions together and looking towards the future. I think, you know, we saw gaming right out of the pandemic. I had joined IAB after the pandemic, but gaming was booming. It had become more mainstream. It wasn’t this thing about, it’s the guys in the basement who have no money. It was actually moms and dads and parents and kids and everyone was doing gaming, whether you’re mobile gaming or you’re… playing Wordle or you’re actually using the, what is it called? Like the Nintendo or Xbox or things like that. So gaming became really huge. And then just, think that was just when I joined IAB and I’d come from, like I said, the creator side, well, we’ve worked with a lot of gaming creators, right? And I saw that growing. And again, to be on the forefront of developing at that point, the Playfronts, which is our gaming marketplace, was kind of huge. So that was one area we’ve… dove into retail media. Obviously retail media is a booming space. Now we’re calling it commerce media. So we were able to create our commerce media event and create some guidelines and standards for what that looks like and interact with IAB Europe to put out standards at the same time around that. So just kind of always keeping a pulse of what’s happening in the industry and moving forward together, making sure that we’re paying attention to the latest signals that are happening and ensuring that we are meeting those opportunities with places to make the change that those brands and agencies are looking for.

Bennie

Yeah, you know, as marketers, we often pride ourselves on our skill as collaborators, as collaborators, right? And collaboration being an important part of it. I think as an industry association, one of the superpowers that you have is really bringing together industry collaboration. You know, what advice or what things have you learned about bringing together an industry on the forefront of these areas, whether it’s AI or gaming, you’re really at the start of the growth of the industry, but finding ways to bring companies, leaders, and individuals together to collaborate on what’s best for the industry.

Carryl 

When I think about that, I believe it really has to do with our centers of excellence. So at a very high level, IAB’s centers of excellence sort of turn complexity into clarity for marketers. So it helps them, you know, focus on the growth and not the guesswork. And what we do is we make sure that we’re organizing around topics that are really important to the industry. So like I said before, commerce, was media, measurement, the creator economy and gaming.

And then with AI, it kind of runs through it all because AI is rapidly evolving, as we know, like minute by minute, and it’s touching every part of the ecosystem. So I think the, you know, in answer to your question about bringing everyone together, these centers are informed by their boards, and then they have committees and councils and working groups. And so they meet on a regular basis. And again, those are made up of the entire ecosystem, which is incredible.

And then through that, they develop different work products and they have an extensive roadmap each year of whether they’re standards, best practices, guidelines, and they’re all informed by those folks. So I think it’s important that the industry is able to come together, roll up their sleeves, and work on a problem to find those solutions that they need.

Bennie

So are you ever surprised by the outcomes when you bring all of these leaders together? Are you ever surprised at the direction in which the industry is going?

Carryl 

Hmm. I don’t know if I’m surprised. I think if anything every once in a while I have heard that you know a center will get together and they’re sort of like we’re going in this direction and then all of a sudden something will pop up. I mean, I feel like AI is probably one of those things. It, just the adoption happened so quickly. People were sort of you know, like hey this thing is happening. What are we doing? And even at IAB and like I said AI runs throughout it.

Bennie

Right.

Carryl 

The way our centers work is that they become a full-fledged center when they have a board. So this year, we’re actually going to have a board that, or we announce the board, I should say. And when that board gets underway, they will figure out what the roadmap is for next year. But for 2026, there already is an AI roadmap. And even in 2025, we released something called the AI and Advertising Use Case Map.

And that was actually really born out of a committee of people that came together. It was around 300 people. It is like an AI committee that we created. And it was great because it was sort of, it developed a practical way for marketers to see where AI is already showing up in their workflows and where it can help. So not just like in theory, but in practice. So I think that might’ve been one of those surprising things sort of when our new AI expert came on board was sort of like, hey, this is something that the industry needs. There’s all this AI happening, but how do we know what to use? What’s working? What are the right tools? And by her creating this sort of interactive use case roadmap, it was actually a smart thing to do. The other thing that’s kind of funny about it too is we tend to create a lot of our work products and things like that as PDFs. And she was adamant, I don’t want this to be a PDF because then it’s a static, stale thing and it’s never evolving. So we use an interactive tool that we can continually update. And it’s amazing because you can just go on and she’s able to update the little sections as things are emerging and happening and changing.

Bennie

So yeah, it’s always interesting to build standards, but it’s really dynamic to build standards on the cutting edge, right? Because as soon as you’re understanding what happens, what’s next.

Carryl 

Exactly.

Bennie

You’ve written a lot. You’ve been a thought leader itself. I mean, IAB is a thought leader, but you’ve particularly been a thought leader on helping people navigate the challenge between marketing in a B2C context and a B2B context. know, so much of your work is working with industry leaders and organizations. What advice do you have for marketers in today’s complex space about understanding the nuances or lack thereof between B2C and B2B marketing?

Carryl

Yeah, so that was a fun article to write for The Drum. And I really wanted to do that to challenge the idea that B2C and B2B are fundamentally different. In both cases, I think we’re still marketing to people. And now increasingly, we’re marketing to machines as well. So yeah, and I’m trying to remember the second part of your question there.

Bennie

Just the nuance, the difference or the opportunities between that. We’ve had a lot of conversations where people would fall into camps. I’m a B2B marketer, I’m a B2C marketer. And for most successful marketers who have complex audiences, there really is no distinction, right? just, you’re being a good marketer, it’s being a good marketer.

Carryl

Yeah, and that’s what I would say. It’s just being a good marketer. And I think one of the things I had said in that article was that don’t be boring. Just because it’s B2B doesn’t mean that he needs to be boring. It’s still a person on the other side who’s listening to it and reading it and looking at the brand and understanding what it is. I don’t think it makes sense to just kind of stay in your lane and feel like I can’t be cool or funny or unique when you’re marketing to B2B.

Bennie

Right.

Carryl

And then the other thing I think I had said too is that you’re also at the same time marketing to machines nowadays. So I was recently speaking to a group of CMOs and one of the things that came up was about brand trust. And that’s really the paramount for any CMO of any brand and how it’s being re-scored by the large language models. Because you’ve built all this trust and this connection with people.

Bennie

Right. Mm-hmm. Right.

Carryl

And now all of a sudden that doesn’t translate to LLMs, right? Because LLMs are not remembering and understanding your brand the way people do. So they infer things like credibility from content signals and they ingest clarity and consistency and expertise. So marketers have to completely change the way they’re marketing to people and then marketing to humans. So it’s like two different camps.

Bennie

Right. Right. Right. So in that space, how are you defending credibility? Now, when you think about IAB as a standard setter, for 30 years, you’ve been setting the agenda and the frame. In today’s emerging marketing climate, what advice do you have for organizations to defend their credibility? And for IAB, said, it’s so much of the central part of the trust of understanding what’s happening in the trust of the industry keeps you moving forward.

Carryl

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it’s really to stay the course in terms of making sure that you are putting out information that’s clear, consistent, credible, because that’s the way those LLMs are ingesting that information, as I said before. And don’t veer off of your brand purpose and what you’ve always stood for. I think that’s the most important thing.

Bennie

So I’m going to ask this question. IAB is known for your dynamic brand events that bring marketing leaders together. And I know your career started off with creating these events that surprise and engage. What’s been the most fun you’ve had putting together an IAB event?

Carryl

Hmm, that’s a great question. I guess probably, well, the most fun I’ve had probably might have been the Playfronts. So that was just, like I said, being able to launch Playfronts and gaming and seeing that come to life was super cool. The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting is one that my team spends a lot of time thinking about, like how that’s going to come to life far from the environment where the event is. So we just had that in Palm Springs earlier this year. And luckily the weather, yeah, participated with us, because sometimes it doesn’t as it hadn’t in the year prior. But having those little touches, like you mentioned before, we’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary. And so one of the things that the team said is, OK, we want to bring that to life in our opening party.

And we had a brainstorming session, like, how can we think about this? We weren’t right back to the 90s. And that was so fun, right? What happened in the 90s? What was the music scene in the 90s? And luckily we had a really great sponsor, who was all the music audio companies who came on board to sponsor that. And then we had just like fun little moments, you know, at the 90s party, there was just fun food that was related back to the 90s, lots of fun chaat cheese related back to the 90s. There was a photo wall where you can…

Bennie

Nice.

Carryl

You know, take a boom box and a mic and, know, do the rapper thing, have a big chain, that kind of a thing. And we had all the fun 90s music playlist happening in it. That was actually a lot of fun. And then the other thing they did the other night, just again, because again, you want to surprise and delight and have fun. It’s not always just about the conference and the content and the networking and the deals and all that’s important, but it’s nice to also do something else. So the second night they did something called Desert Nights and the whole scene was set up like, you know, an Arabian kind of, you know, beautiful golds and jewel tones. And we had belly dancers and just fun, like fire eaters and things like that. So it was definitely a moment where people were like, wow, this is very different, very unique. It’s not something that you would think like from a, you know, a boring trade association. So it’s like, like I said before, don’t be boring, be fun, be exciting, do stuff that people can interact with and have fun. And I will say so many people did the photo shoots where you can get in front of all of the fun stuff for the 90s party. And then those showed up all over social media and on LinkedIn, and that was a lot of fun. But going forward, if I can mention this, one of the things I am excited about that’s coming up is the creator fronts. So have you heard about the creator fronts yet?

Bennie

Right. Okay. Not yet, so I’m smiling because I want to know more.

Carryl

Okay, All right, so we announced this earlier this year too. And like I said, I was involved in the creator space for, since I think when I joined Fullscreen, it was like 2015. So I think it’s now 10, 11 years later. And it’s so amazing to see how far we’ve come. The brand deals back then were like these sort of one-off, a mention, and integration or product integration kind of a thing. And now creators are really fueling this sort of full funnel performance across social and CTV and their own platforms and things like that. So, IB has been staying on top of this. have a board, a creator board, and we have a center that works on creator work products and things like that. So, we finally decided this year, and I’m so excited that we’re doing it. We’re launching the Ivy Creative Fronts and that’s gonna be the industry’s first only upfront-style marketplace and that’s gonna be dedicated to creators. And what’s super exciting about it too is it’s gonna be a global moment. So I don’t get to work on all the global stuff, but Ivy does have 45 chapters around the world. So not all of the chapters, but a huge, like maybe about 20 of them, are going to be launching the CreatorFronts at the same time. So it’s going to be a global event. So I’m super excited to see this sort of progress and be a part of a team helping to really formalize the place or the space.

Bennie

Really, really exciting work. And it’s amazing to see that space mature at such a period of time in which, if you think about it just seven years ago, these were the kind of specialty projects they’re working on. Now we see it as a core part of the future of marketing and our operational presence.

Carryl

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And even when I was at Fullscreen, you would get someone who’d want to do a one-off, but then we would try to encourage them to partner with that creator and create these longer, long-term relationships where they can build and grow together. Because at the end of the day, they know their audiences so well. And it is about them authentically using that product or service and letting them create. We used to say to the brands, need to let go and let the creator create because that’s what they do best and they’re gonna deliver your talking points and they’re gonna make sure it happens but they’re gonna do it in a way that feels most authentic not like they’re selling out because nobody wants to feel like that either. So we’re excited about it maturing and as you said maturing, now the center it’s funny. It’s called the experience center. It’s not called the creator center because the experience center focuses on creator, gaming and anything that’s emerging.

Bennie

Right.

Carryl

But they have some really important work on their roadmap this year and things that brands are talking about. As you said, it’s maturing, but it’s still a bit of a wild, wild west even now, the way creator deals happen. I mean, you could work directly with the creator. You could work with a PR agency. You could work with an agency like I was at the last place. We had a talent management group and all of that.

You can work through, there’s so many different ways to work with them. So there isn’t clarity on how the brand deal process works. So that’s one of the areas that we’re planning on developing is a creator brand deal process end to end, like how that actually works. And then a big one is measurement, right? So like you said, everyone’s doing stuff with creators, but how are you measuring it?

So we’re being asked, now, IAB, we’re the ones that created the standard ad package. You know, what does that standard ad package look like in the creator space? So we’re putting together, you know, standards for that. Yeah. And then, you know, not back to the AI, but, you know, synthetic creators. We used to call them, back in the day, was called the UGC creator. But it’s synthetic creators. So what’s the best practices for working with synthetic creators versus human creators too? So working on all of that as well.

Bennie

So I always love the edges. I love the tension points when there’s innovation and standards. And you’re figuring out. We’ve talked a bit about experience, gaming, and kind of stretching those ends. You mentioned a little bit, but I’d love to talk about how do you navigate standards and innovation in a global context?

Carryl

Yeah. Well, I’m not the best person to talk about that, but I will tell you when it came to the retail retail measurement standards, our team who handles the commerce group, they were the ones who worked on those retail measurement standards here in the U.S. And then at the same time, they were in conversations with IABUK and they were putting out standards for Europe as well. So they got together and then worked between both sort of groups to ensure that those standards were going to work both ways, both in the domestic US and then also in Europe. But I will tell you, IAB, our tech lab, which is a separate sister company, IAB Tech Lab, they are the global standard setting body. And that is the group that works on that primarily. So they are the foremost expert in global standards.

Bennie

Right. And then you get a nice mix, it goes back to our conversation about credibility.

Carryl

Exactly, exactly. And then what IAB does is we’ll take the global standards that IAB Tech Lab creates and then we’ll break it down. What does it mean for businesses? What does it mean for brands and all that kind of stuff? Because they’re very much into the technical piece of things.

Bennie

Right. So when you think about that, that translation and that education, what’s next for your work with IAB? How do you get in front of the emerging generation of marketing leaders to say, are the things, these are the best practices, these are the evolving standards, these are the opportunities to build marketing in the right way? How do you keep that top of mind for them?

Carryl

Yeah, it’s so funny you asked that question because I’m going to borrow a little bit from Shannon Reed, who you may know. She’s the global chief media officer at General Motors. She was our first brand chair of IAB. And so she just exited from her chair. She only gets to do that for two years, but it doesn’t mean she’s not still part of IAB. But one of the things that she did is she made this really great analogy at our recent annual leadership meeting. And she’s racing, right? Cause she works for General Motors. And what she said is that marketers can’t sit in the grandstand watching the ecosystem evolve around them. If we want solutions that reflect marketer priorities, we need the marketers in the pits. And so what she’s saying there is that the marketers need to be at the table. So when you ask like, how are we getting in front of them with like, here’s what’s happening. It’s more about how they integrate themselves into IAB? We want the marketers sitting at the table. She had also said, and I’m trying to remember exactly what she said. She said, when marketers are at the table, the solutions are not just a technical, but they’re beautifully scalable because the marketers have that connection. Cause the worst thing that they need happening is that somebody’s developing this stuff without them, right? They need to be in the room and at the table. So we do have a brand council that someone in IAB leads. I also lead a B2B marketing council as well for the B2B marketing peers. And it’s just about getting involved, right? And being a part of the conversation, not sitting on the sidelines letting someone else sort of figure that out for you, but being a part of that conversation because you want the solution is going to work best for your brand, right?

Bennie

Right. What do you wish that more marketing leaders knew? What do you wish that more executive marketers and CMOs knew about IAB and the work that you do?

Carryl

I just wish they knew. Honestly, so I think I think that’s a big piece of it is that I wish they knew sometimes when I when we do reach out to CMOs to Book them, you know as as panelists for I do a chief marketing Panel every year CMO panel every year and this year I was talking to one of the CMOs and she was sort of like, you know I didn’t when we first got the the invite I’m sort of like, what is this?

And then she’s like, wow. And then my dove in, she’s like, oh, this is really legit. And she’s like, this is a real company. And I was like, okay, yes, we are. We’ve been around for 30 years. So I think it’s, we probably need to do a better job of more outreach. So I just wish they knew that we are here to be that resource for them, to take those complex things and simplify it for them, to give them a seat at the table to be a part of it. And that we’re just, we’re here. We are that resource for them.

Bennie

And on the theme of advice, as we’re just at the start of the year, what advice would you have for executive market leaders for this year ahead? We’ve said AI several times, but what advice would you have?

Carryl

I would say, all right, so I think for me, I think there’s three things that marketers should really understand right now. First, I think marketing works best when it’s treated as a connected system. So the most effective marketers that I see are those who can connect areas of responsibility. So think brand, performance, legal, finance, right? A lot of times those are sort of like operating in silos and helping those teams all sort of row in the same direction instead of the silos.

Second, this also came up in my conversation with the CMO panel that I had, and they know this, but I think there’s a lot more rigor around measurement and proving value. So I think we all need to be really thoughtful about what we measure and aligning those metrics to business objectives and telling that clear story about impact. And then we talked about this a little bit earlier when we were talking about AI, but I think the third thing is that trust has become a true differentiator for brands. I think brands are thinking about privacy, transparency, accessibility, and using technology in a really responsible way. That signals to consumers that they understand their role and their responsibilities, right? But that’s what enables them to build that relationship of trust that lasts. So for me, alignment, accountability, trust, that really sums up for me best practices for modern marketing.

Bennie

So I’m gonna ask you this question to take you back to the beginning. Music and experience. What’s one concert experience that still inspires you today? Or that’s…

Carryl

My gosh, okay. I love that. Well, I am an odd bird in that I like everything. I listen to pretty much everything, all kinds of music, but I am also a person who’s really big into 80s and 90s music. And so I’m so sad because many of those bands are gone, right? Like you think Kurt Cobain from Nirvana, gone. So for me, it’s Depeche Mode. Depeche Mode, their shows were always super spectacular. The lighting was just off the chain and those guys are still performing to this day and they still sound great. So anytime a Depeche Mode concert pops up, I’m there.

Bennie

Okay. So now we know where to find you. This is awesome. But I love how you think about it. And the reason I ask the question is because these are great brands, adding the R in there from bands, but these are great brands that continue to deliver. Like it’s this space. This is a great metaphor for the work that we do with the brands that come up.

Carryl

Yes. Right. And it’s having that brand memory. And that’s the thing that’s going to be really tough, like I said, with the AI piece of it, because they just don’t remember. People like us, who are still people, and humans still need to be in the middle of everything as we know. But I think it’s having that connection with somebody that goes deeper than just this momentary thing. 

Bennie

It does make sense, my friend, because it goes beyond the brief. It goes beyond the bio. Because I will say that I feel special now and our listening audience feel special now because we have all of the bio on you, my friend, but we know Depeche Mode now. And the insights that I can deliver on you as a customer, on you as a friend, on you as a partner, are so much more invaluable having that one human touch point.

Carryl

Important. That’s true.

Bennie

Important, important. This is our Depeche Mode paradox. So if you were to pick an artist today, what newer artists would capture your attention?

Carryl

Yes. My goodness, let me think. Newer artist. And of course, everyone’s gonna say Bad Bunny, so I’m probably not gonna pick Bad Bunny. But I do like what he did at the Super Bowl, was incredible. I can I say bad bunny?

Bennie

You can say this, can always on my podcast, you can always talk about Benito on my podcast. You are, you are allowed and encouraged.

Carryl

Okay. Okay, so I’m gonna say Benny Benito.

Bennie

There you go.

Carryl

Someone’s got your name, I would say, I would say, I would say, I would say, yeah, Bad Bunny. I’m just impressed by him. I loved him on SNL and I loved his performance at the Super Bowl. And it took me back to also being a person who is from the islands. So we didn’t get into, you know, cultural heritage, but my father is Caribbean. So from Trinidad. So just the way he opened the show with all that creativity.

And you had like the ice guy and you had the sugar cane trees, all of that just brought so much beautiful connection and culture to life. And I love that artists are doing that today. They’re bringing more of their true selves. And especially I think when you’re an artist who is from another country, many times artists would come to this country and feel like they had to assimilate and immerse themselves in completely change. And I love that he’s not doing that.

But there were artists in the past who came from Latin countries and they completely changed their look. They straightened their hair, their hair became more blonde, and they just weren’t themselves being their true authentic selves. And I love that he had no misgivings, no excuses. He’s like, this is who I am. I’m gonna sing this. I’m gonna tell the story. I’m gonna paint the picture in a beautiful visual way and be myself and sing in my language. And now you need to move in my direction. You need to learn who I am. And I thought that was beautiful.

Bennie

I think it’s a great way that you described it. There’s a bit of brand gravity that comes in that brings you into the authentic nature of the brand. We’re all drawn into brands that kind of understand the assignment in their lane. And like, is who I am and I’m going to not just double down, I’m going to triple down and invite you in.

Carryl

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And that’s what he did. Because I’m sure that the chat GPTs and perplexities and Google, everyone was searching. What did he say? What did he mean by that? And what happened here and what happened there? I mean, I did it myself. I mean, don’t speak Spanish fluently. I studied it in high school, but I literally went on Facebook and someone had a really good description of exactly what everything meant. Like, why was he wearing that number on his shirt? Like all of those different things. And I was like, and why were they climbing the electric poles? Right? All of that stuff. And I thought that was incredible. Everything had a meaning. There was a purpose in everything, which was beautiful.

Bennie

Yes. What’s really powerful is that so much of the things we experience in life all has meaning and it’s often hidden in plain sight. You know, I think that, you know, this is a great example. If we’re open enough to explore then we find those connections. And I think brands have those same spaces as well. I was speaking with students last night and they were talking about what happens in a world in which everybody has AI. And we talked a bit about the fact that if everyone has the same tool and has the same usage, then there’s no advantage. It becomes common state. The advantage becomes those hidden moments. The advantage becomes the human creativity. The advantage becomes those unexpected ways in which now I know that if I got you a custom album that had Depeche Mode on one side and Bad Bunny on the other, it’d be perfect for you.

Carryl

Yep, exactly. Yeah. I think we’re all using AI. And at the end of the day, it’s really just about helping us perform tasks quicker. I mean, people are obviously on the media and agency side. They’re doing buying and planning and optimization, all that stuff. And on the marketer side, we’re doing content creation. And it can help spark ideas. But the human piece of what brings those ideas to life is so important.

You know, it’s nice. I like to call it my assistant. So I’ve got like a thought partner is the way I kind of refer to AI. I actually have a name for my mind is Chatty Kathy. And she’s my thought partner and she frees me up to do the things that, you know, we do best as humans.

Bennie

Right. Right. Well, leaning into what you do best as a human, I know you’re a master storyteller. So I’m going to close out with, what are the headlines for next season’s story? For IAB, for marketing, and for innovation. What do you think next season holds?

Carryl

This is killing me.

Bennie

See, that’s the best. We know it’s a good question when you pause. When I get the chief marketing officer of IAB to pause and reflect on it. So what’s next?

Carryl

I- for IAB?

Bennie

but for IAB, for marketing in general.

Carryl

Okay, let’s see. The headlines for what’s next.

Bennie

This is when we know we’re having fun. Everyone who listens knows that this is completely live.

Carryl

I mean, I don’t know. This may sound like kind of boring, but I think the headlines for what’s next is alignment. I think there’s too much of everyone kind of going off in their same direction and not kind of coming back together. And for IAB, that is the purpose is aligning the industry around a common good that is sort of our line is to move the industry forward.

Bennie

Right.

Carryl

So I think it’s just to recognize that, you know, leadership right now means collective action and people coming together to be thoughtful, be transparent, be creative, and work together because it’s just you can’t have these sort of like silos and everyone kind of going off and doing their own thing. We’re not going to get better together unless we align together.

Bennie

I couldn’t think of a better, more dynamic and positive note for us to end our conversation on, my friend. When I think about your career and your role, there’s this great through line that brings us together, whether it’s an event or a concert, it’s a standard or happening, you’re always finding ways to bring us together so that we can learn to become better.

So Carryl, thank you for joining me for this episode of Marketing / And. It’s been a complete delight. And thank you for the work that IAB is doing to strengthen our profession and to give us guidance as we move forward.

Carryl

Thank you for that. I appreciate it. I really enjoyed myself. This was fun.

Bennie

Well, and thank you all for listening to our fun on this episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. Once again, we encourage you to explore the offerings, the programming, the standards and history that have been set by the IAB. And we encourage you to follow up with the American Marketing Association as well. Together, we’re building a better, stronger future for marketers. Thank you.