Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for an episode of AMA Marketing And. I’m your host, AMA CEO Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations of individuals that flourish at this intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We ‘ll 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 we have a special Tandem episode, and we have a duo of guests. My guests today are Kate Price and Adam Trimbley, both partners at Profit, a growth and transformation consulting firm that   helps leaders unlock uncommon growth. Kate and Adam help clients create and deliver solutions that address the challenging problems that many companies face today.

With 15 global offices and over 600 strategists, data analysts, marketers, digital experts, creatives and more, Profit has worked with the world’s most successful companies, including household names like CVS, Health, Home Depot, Marriott, Netflix, Electrolux and UBS, partnering with them from strategy to inform in-market execution. Their teams have been committed to partnering with clients to develop solutions that drive lasting impact and help move society forward. Kate and Adam, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to have you here. So I know you’ve worked together for a long time. So I really love for you to kind of bring us into that dynamic. Kate, talk about a bit of your background and what it’s been like to work as a partner with Adam over these years.

Kate Price

Hi, really happy to be here.

Adam Tremblay 

Thanks very much for having me. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Kate 

Sure, yeah, no, I actually started my career as a client-spied marketer in the UK, in a little Northeastern town of Hull, famous for whaling, I suppose, at a company called, was it Reckham and Coleman at the time? I went through kind of a classical CPG marketing training and I did that for about 17, 18 years inside the UK, moved over to the US.

Bennie 

Okay.

Kate 

And then I went to Diageo where I actually led the North American part of the Smirnoff brands and Tanqueray. So I had a lot of fun. I have to say it was like, you know, moving from Lysol, which is one way of selling alcohol, to Smirnoff, which is a different way of selling.

Bennie 

Huh. Same use case, right? No, no, okay.

Kate

Pretty much. No, I’m not allowed to, that’s really no. No, no, no. No, no one to know. Along the way I had three children. So, you know, that like trying to balance all of those things. And then I decided to become a consultant. So that was about 15 years ago. So since then I’ve been doing consulting and I met Adam kind of halfway through that journey and we worked together now at two different organizations. And we just really enjoy each other. He keeps me on the straight and narrow and I don’t follow rules very well. And yeah.

Bennie 

Right. We all need a partner like that, right? We need the space to be rule makers and rule breakers. They have to work in tandem. I think about a lot with improvisation in music and jazz or comedy, you have to have the structure and the chaos working together.

We started off talking about teams and partnerships and you and Kate have worked together for over 10 years. You know, think about the evolution of your partnership. What do you all enjoy working together and working with clients? You know, you have a partnership yourself that then goes into other partnerships.

Adam 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a great question. yeah, I’d like to say that the easy answer is I just listen to whatever Kate says. You know, she’s endlessly full of wisdom and probably many of the phrases I use, I’ve adopted from her. you know, I think what makes working with her so refreshing is like, we’re probably opposite sides of the coin. You know, she knows the depth of marketing expertise and, know, previous experience as a practitioner leading some world renowned brands. you know, my background and my orientation is, is much more, you know, was formed in financial services. And so I think about corporate strategy and how brand helps deliver against that. And so the fact that, you know, I have someone I’ve worked with for years now who’s always challenging me and someone I feel like I can challenge and we may land in the same place through very different paths, keeps things fresh and energizing. And then I think also, the same is true for my relationship with her and some of the best relationships we have with clients is, and I think the responsibility we have as advisors is we would never tell someone what they want to hear. We really tell them the truth and it…

It’s never personal. It’s always in the best interest or whatever our objectives are. And I think when you have that level of trust and that level of authenticity, it makes everything else that much more worthwhile.

Bennie 

Well, let’s talk a bit about that, right? So let’s talk about that science and the art and the magic that goes through. What’s really interesting at Prophet is you have really dynamic teams through intention and by design. So you’re dealing with strategists and data analysts and creatives and digital, and they’re all kind of approaching the problems in different ways. How is it to envision and manage teams like this?

Kate 

I love working in teams like this. So for me personally, so I’ll talk about myself first of all, in the, like, as I just mentioned, right, like I, at my soul, like to be both art and science. Like that is just sort of who I am. And if I were just doing creative stuff or if I was just doing very kind of logical stuff, I’d feel a little bit lost.

So for me, I deliberately try to build teams, that have three kinds of people in them, actually. people who are, kind of specialists in their fields. So, who are able, who are kind of more kind of logic driven, or, and people who are more.

Bennie 

Okay.

Kate

And design people, then generalists, people who love to go back and forth between the two. so, task project by project, that needs to change. It’s kind of the balance between those things. But I think bringing those three kinds of people together, to me, is really where the magic starts to

Bennie

So you’re in a world and you bring those three together. What are some of the unexpected things that you’ve seen come from that? Next, what surprised you and your teams?

Kate 

Well, my favorite thing is the moment when you move from it being hard to it being fabulous.

Bennie 

Okay, wow.

Kate 

And from when you’ve got people who are coming at problems from different angles, and that moment when, from people when they can’t really understand the language that either of other is talking, to the moment where they’re like, let’s just create something together. Let’s come at this from different angles.

Um, and I think in the world of, of managing both strategy and kind of creative activation, um, bringing those very strategic quant people together on like, what are the right things to do? And then those very creative people to unlock things that happen in between the data. That’s one of my favorite things. It’s like when people start to see in between the data and then they can.

Bennie

Right, right. Mm-hmm. Right. It’s kind of everything slows down and becomes clearer, right? Yeah.

Kate 

Magic things out.

Or it goes faster, actually. I mean, I actually find that’s the moment where it feels like you were in a place yesterday that you weren’t where you were. And then all of a sudden, you’re like 20 steps down the road and you’re like, whoa, how did that happen? Like the machine just… Yeah. So I like the way that you put that. It helped me really clarify. Yeah. No, for me, it all goes faster then.

Adam 

Yeah, what a question. know, immediate reactions are sort of where to begin. You know, with a marketing team, I think there’s the top down perspective, which we think a lot about leaders sending a signal to how their team should feel, how they should behave, how they should engage, and all the subtleties beyond the org structure and the op model.

And then you have the bottoms up, which is what is the lived reality of the marketers within a team that’s going through transformation? You know, in our business, we deal a lot with change management and transformation is essentially accelerated and often amplified change management. So when you apply that across the team, you know, we always think about the personal stake that everyone has in it and then the collective impact that has for the market of prioritization. So why should I show up differently, behave differently, invest in this change journey? And also accepting that like some people get excited by that. Some people wait and see. Some people don’t have the antibodies for change. So in transformation, I think we have to think about the intersection of all those different forces and ultimately work backwards from what an ideal future state looks like.

Bennie 

We think about human space and the notion of change through evolution. You know, one of the things we’ve seen is over the last 10, 20 years, the dramatic change in portfolio and scope of our executive marketers, right? Whether we have a CMO title, a DDP title, a chief brand, a chief transformation, chief strategy officer, that executive role in there.

It’s interesting how the portfolio of teams and skills have expanded. And I’ve always thought, you know, so much of our role as chief marketing officers now, not only do we have the core marketing principles that we manage, we may have a sales extension, we definitely have customer obsession and focus, but we often move into the product development space, the technology space, and the creative brand space. What are your thoughts if you’re a chief marketing officer and you have just those last three that I mentioned. I think about a team of technologists being led by a chief marketing officer, working with a team of product leaders being led by a chief marketing officer, working with a set of creatives, working with said same chief marketing officer. What have you seen and how’s that done well?

Adam 

Yeah, quite a, yeah, quite a tall order for the modern CMO. You know, taking a half step back, I think evolution is really the right word for it. You know, I feel like if you are in and around the marketing industry, you have to have a sense of humor by now about the cycle of every, what is it, every five years or so we hear about the death of the CMO and then fast on the heels of that we hear about the rebirth of the next evolution of the CMO as the connector, the integrator, the transformation agent. And now increasingly, like you were saying, a bit of the Swiss army knife in terms of being a growth catalyst for a company. in this study that we did, the brand and demand study, when we looked at the characteristics of high performing CMOs and also in the relationships that we’ve curated with many high performing marketing leaders, there’s a couple things that routinely arise to the top. One is really that growth mindset. And do you internalize that for yourself and understand that you as a leader, needs to constantly grow. Do you project that across your organization? That growth mindset is pervasive. It’s always on. And I think it manifests in terms of like how you see your responsibility to the business. You know, the other thing, and I think as marketers, we all know this, but sometimes have to remind ourselves of it is like there’s no such thing as a status quo. And I think really engaged. Really switched on marketing leaders, leaders understand that not only is no day unlike any other, no week is unlike any other, but even in the long term, marketing is about continuous improvement. So you may go through some of the same rhythms as a leader. The business may go through some of the same rhythms in terms of planning and budgeting and execution, but the business that you’re part of and the customers that you serve and the markets that you compete in.

Bennie

Right.

Adam 

Are constantly changing and in many cases continuously improving. And so the role and the function of a marketing leader needs to evolve alongside if not ahead of that. Yeah.

Kate

I see I’m a little bit of a funny one on this one. I started my career as a CPG classical marketer. And you know, the first thing that somebody said to me as I came as I walked into the door and number of years ago, you’re responsible for growth. That’s your job. And to make sure that you are and we didn’t talk about it in those terms at that point, but you know, to make sure that you’re driving both the PNL and brand equity. I think that along the way there has been become incredible specialization because of technology, because people have to kind of be really, there has to be people in the organization that really understand the craft of doing things right.

Bennie

Mm-hmm. Right.

Kate 

You know, being able to be great at SEO is like a, it’s a very particular skill. So you ended up like with this sort of fragmentation of the different skills. But I believe that the remit, the outcome of what a CMO is responsible for hasn’t really changed that much. It’s just how that work gets done has changed very considerably. And I think that we’re now getting to that, we’re realizing that we fragmented a lot of those skills over the course of the last 10 years because of the specializations that were needed. And now we’re coming back a little bit full circle and it’s like, okay, but that’s, yes, we do need all those skills. Actually, they all need to be pointed towards business outcomes and brand and demand cannot be separated out. And that…

Bennie 

Right.

Kate

But we also need to have like a lot of experts underneath us in order to make sure that we’re doing it right. that’s my like it. Yes, there’s been a lot of change, but actually it’s a little bit back to like the fundamentals of a chief marketing officer. It’s about driving market driven growth.

Bennie 

Very much so. So you mentioned a bit about the kind of segments and hyper focus, but I’m going to pull it up a bit to the middle level. So now marketing CMOs get marketing leaders that they have to manage, but they also get technologists. And they also have other forces of kind of media and product that go into. Cause now chief marketing officers are typically looked through by leadership and their boards to have that extended answer for what growth is. Right.

Kate 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bennie

It’s growth, the numbers, the new offering, the new acquisition. And so now the spotlight’s on you. How do you think today’s marketers can, executive marketers can serve themselves better, you know, knowing the things we talked about. So now the focus is back on you as growth, but it’s growth plus.

Kate 

It’s making sure all of those pluses are in service of the growth. And I have a, know, like if you’ve got a very clear view that all of those individuals who are reporting into a marketing team or outside of a marketing team, having a common goal is like the number one most important part of it, right? We’re all pointing out our efforts towards delivering our common goal, and that is probably growth. And we are all serving the same overall need, which is the customer need. So making sure that everybody is really kind of pointing all of their resources in that same direction is kind of where it all has to start, right? And it’s, know, everyone has to ladder up to the things that they can agree on. So if you can all agree on the growth goal, and the customer need, then and the customer and how we’re gonna kind of make sure that we are delivering against customer goals as well, then those resources start to work together in a way that is more effective as opposed to, know, my goal is to be better at technology. My goal is not to be better at technology. My goal is to deliver.

Adam 

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s a tricky one. You know, I think there’s probably a couple aspects to it. Like one is a persistence. You know, we talk a lot about the marketing of marketing, but you know, certainly a lot of organizations we work with where, you know, the the role of marketing is misunderstood at best. It’s disenfranchised at worst, and you have a lot of confident marketing leaders who really trying to elevate marketing as a true growth driver and really owning the impact. So I think, you know, when you talk about the, you know, what allows a marketing leader to be successful, sticking to and consistently driving a message about the role of marketing while knowing that the way you do marketing is constantly changing. I think there’s a fearlessness and a restlessness that characterizes really great marketing leaders.

Bennie 

Right. Right.

Adam

You know, in a lot of the studies we’ve done, like experimentation is one of those critical characteristics of high performing marketing organizations and one of the kind of arrows in the quiver of empowered marketing leaders. Trying things and seeing what works rather than thinking that you’ll eventually find the right combination of kind of always on tactics or programs for marketing.

The other thing is, and it’s tough when you look at the tenure of some CMOs, self-awareness goes a long way, right? Because self-awareness helps as a marketing leader diagnose where you’re really strong and where you need to surround yourself with people that kind of round out a holistic set of capabilities. And then I also think it plays a really important role when you’re thinking about influence across functions.

Bennie

Right.

Adam 

So how does a marketing leader connect with a product lead, with a technology lead, with an operations lead, with a sales lead, with a finance lead? It’s by meeting them where they are and I think bringing marketing to the needs and priorities of those functions. And in that way, it becomes an influence model as much as anything. So curating those networks and I think bringing that level of self-awareness helps marketers make connections that enable the business to run rather than thinking about the specific priorities that they may be advocating on behalf of.

Bennie 

So you’re a growth and transformation consultancy. When is described for me that inflection point where in-house leaders realize that they could benefit from having you in as a partner. What’s that kind of moment like for for you? If you can imagine, I’m asking you to put your in-house hat on, but what’s that that most optimal moment or the moment where you’re like, you know, I’m going to need a bigger boat at this point.

Kate 

I think there were a number of different moments and they’re kind of from upstream to downstream, right? I think that the pressures on marketers to deliver for today and for the next quarter is so high. I think the pressure to be really, really, as I was saying before, to have, you know, the teams in place that have very specific executional skills is very, it’s critical. And sometimes as a result of that, some of the more strategic thinking gets lost. And there’s no, it’s, you know, it’s important, but not urgent. And so I think there are the moments in time when, when people need to have that step back and really understand what is that growth opportunity is exactly what I was just talking about, right? Like if you, if you don’t know where you’re going or where you’re playing, then it’s really, really hard to win. actually, so kind of an organization like Profit can help to understand what are those customer places that can be or customer consumer places to win and really kind of tighten up the direction of travel. I think that it’s hard for organizations to see from the inside sometimes where the opportunities are for their brand and making sure that their brands are delivering against real kind of big outside-end needs.

Adam

Yeah, that’s a good question. Yeah. And you’d think the two are at odds with each other, right? You know, the idea of constant change, the idea of continuous improvement, the idea of experimentation. At the same time, marketing has a job to do. The effectiveness and the success of that job of marketing is measured in dollars and cents. There’s a lot of intermediary measures, right? Marketers love measurement and we love data and we love analytics, many of us. But at the end of the day, I think the one true consistent point of focus is the actual impact that’s felt on the top line and the bottom line. know, true marketing ROI and marketing impact.

And attribution can be elusive. But I think the intersection, like you were saying, of self-awareness and understanding your role is, are you able to confidently make real contributions to the growth of the business? And it’s interesting, and Kate may echo this, in an advisory role like we play, we have to…

Bennie

Mm-hmm. Right.

Adam 

Remember that we don’t have attachments to the work we do because it’s always in service of our clients and their success and their organizations. And I think really influential and great leaders embody a lot of that same spirit, especially with the way they lead marketing, you know, no attachments to, like you said, the brand, the marketing programs. It’s all in service of value to customers and in the end value to the business. And I think that, you know, that becomes a great equalizer when you’re thinking about that always on sustained commercial momentum that comes from great marketing with the dynamism that is the reality of day-to-day marketing.

Bennie 

Right, amazing outcomes. What are some of the things, you specialize in this phrase of this uncommon growth and unlocking this uncommon growth, right? So allowing brands to realize things that are inherent to them, but they didn’t know. What are some of your favorite kind of stories of the last few years of when you’ve come in and taking a partner from someplace that they never would have imagined to that accelerated future?

Kate 

It comes in a lot of different forms, I think, right? I think there are times when organizations forget to really frame their growth in terms of human beings. They think I’m selling a product. How can I sell more product as opposed to how can I make people sit down together more often at the table, which then becomes selling more product. Or how can I create more moments of joy in people’s lives? Or how can I help people do more DIY projects?

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Kate 

Right? It’s not, so it’s like, it’s kind of that kind of really framing, taking, taking, and it sounds obvious, but a lot of the time organizations don’t do that. Like, it’s like, it’s coming from the outside in and really thinking about how do we really help people with their lives is kind of one part of it. I think that there are other parts of it though, also, and I’ve kind of had the, the, the joy of being inside organizations that when they really all galvanize around a common purpose in a way that is incredibly emotional.

Adam 

I think there are a couple of different catalyst points or points where clients recognize that there’s something bigger at play. A lot of times when we look very closely at the role of the brand is when a business itself is going through consequential moment of change. And so it could be related to M&A making a big acquisition or a big divestiture. It could be in the face of category disruptors that really kind of upset the motions of a legacy brand. And it could also be, you know, I think for more of the forward looking business leaders and not just marketing leaders when things just feel like they’re a little stale.

Right. And so for a lot of the bigger clients we work with, they have a responsibility to not just growing their own business, but to keeping energy and activity in the categories as a whole. And so I think when you start to see that stagnation or even declines in growth or growth rates, you know, we’d like to think that the brand is the vehicle for engaging consumers or customers like that can be the first place to look. So I think, you know, we are a firm very much oriented around this idea of uncommon growth, growth that’s purpose led, growth that’s good for people and growth that’s good for society. And so brand is an important part of that. Marketing is an important part of that, but really it comes back to a business rethinking the role they play for consumers or for customers.

And often that’s when we get involved and think through what is the right path to growth for those businesses.

Bennie

It’s been a great conversation and to talk about the work that you’re doing with Prophet and being a strategic advisor, but really pushing us in our conversation to where marketing needs to go in this space of always evolving, always seeking new challenges and finding our way in uncomfortable spaces to build a better industry and better world

That’s a wonderful way to conclude our conversation, my friend. There is joy in the hard stuff and a wonderful way to make it happen. Thank you for this really inspired conversation about growth and transformation and both immediate and sustained ways in which we built partnership over time. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Adam. And thank you to the team at Prophet for being a part of this episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. Once again, I’m your host, Bennie F. Johnson.

And we encourage you to check out our podcasts anywhere, check out the work of Prophet and the brands that they expand. And we’re hopeful to be your partners in helping to create a new world with human and societal impact driven by unexpected, uncommon growth. Thank you.