Bacardi Regional CMO Alex Tomlin

ALEX TOMLIN: In a world where digital content is limitless, it's flawless, and it's hard to verify what's real or distinguish which images are real or not real anymore, I think there's going to be a premium value applied to real-life experiences. And I think there's a premium value that's going to be applied to real content that is tangible, lived, authentic, and maybe even a bit imperfect.

GREG STUART: Alex Tomlin, welcome to Building Better CMOs today.

ALEX: Thanks for having me.

GREG: That's quite an environment you got there. I guess you never miss an opportunity for merchandising if you're in the Bacardi business, is that right?

ALEX: We always have the bar front and center of our thinking. So no, look, really great to be here and I thought this would immerse you in my world and where we are every day when we're thinking about consumers and our retailers.

GREG: Alex is the regional CMO of Bacardi North America. And you've been there for a little while now, five, six years at least?

ALEX: Over six years now. Been in the industry for 30 years.

GREG: You got a long history too of Diageo. So this is your industry.

ALEX: Yeah, I've been in the industry for 30 years: Europe, Australia, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the last 17 years in North America. Bacardi's a wonderful company. We're the largest privately held family-owned spirits company in the world. We have a range of amazing brands — some of which you can see behind me — that span across all types of consumer occasions and across categories. So we have Patron tequila, we have Grey Goose vodka, obviously the Bacardi rums family. We have Casadoros tequila. We have D'Usse cognac, Angels Envy in the bourbon category, Dewar's Scotch, Bombay, Sapphire Gin. We have St. Germain and Martini in the aperativo/vermuth category. We have sparkling wines, and ... I could go on. We've got over 170 brands in the portfolio.

GREG: We're talking some of the most prestigious brands out there.

ALEX: I'm really proud. We're either the number one or number two in most of the categories that we participate in.

GREG: And it's crazy that it's a family-owned business for that long. There's a lot to be said [for that]. I mean, most businesses don't make it that long.

ALEX: Oldest privately held family-owned business — spirits business — in the world. We were founded in 1862 in Havana, Cuba. And actually there's a really great story. I mean, marketing's at the heart of this organization, which is why the business has thrived for so long. But I'd love to tell a story about ... I think Bacardi is one of the world's largest spirit brands recognizable around the world, and I think everybody recognizes it for the bat symbol. And there's a really beautiful story behind the bat. When Don Facundo Massó created a new style of rum in Havana, the problem was that there were lots of other inferior rums, and how do you communicate that your rum is trustworthy and a better quality to everyday people? And his wife had seen and noticed bats in the rafters of the distillery. And in Cuban Latin American culture at the time, bats were a symbol of good fortune and family unity and prosperity.

So she said to Don Facundo, "Why don't you put the bat symbol on the bottle?" And the rest is history. The brand grew, people recognized it as a symbol of trust. I think there's a brilliant lesson in there for all brand builders. I mean, this was the time before marketing as a discipline was ever established, but the Bacardi family understood something about consumers, and Don Facundo's wife, interestingly, saw something that other people could not see. For me, there's a beautiful story in that, and it's really a way that I operate as a marketer as well.

GREG: And listen, I think what's embedded in that too, Alex, is that I do get a sense that marketers get tugged sometimes to, "Oh, we got to do something different. Let's get rid of the bat." I can't imagine how many times maybe that conversation has existed or like that in any company. I don't know.

Do you have any advice to how you stay true and not let that go? Do you back that up with data? Is it because somebody owns the business and this is what it's going to be? I don't know. What do you think happens? Because I do think we get tugged around too much.

ALEX: Right. Yeah. Look, I think it's always a balance in marketing and that would be my overall answer, but consistency is really important in marketing.

GREG: Super important, especially for brand.

ALEX: Right. And understanding which elements need to remain the same and need to build those kind of mental memory structures over time — the bat would be one of those — and which of the elements need to change? Where do you need to apply freshness, boldness, innovation, and how do you do both of those things at the same time?

GREG: How do you make that decision though, Alex? I mean, over the course of your career, have you seen where maybe, "Oh geez, I wish we hadn't changed that"? Or have you seen, and I'm not just talking Bacardi, or have you seen where, "Wow, really sticking with it was the right thing"? Or I don't know. I mean, those are really hard decisions to make.

ALEX: Two or three weeks ago, I was lucky to be in New York around the U.S. Tennis Open. Now that is a partnership that Grey Goose vodka has had with the USTA for 20 years.

GREG: Is that right? Oh, wow.

ALEX: So a longstanding partnership, one of the longest-standing partnerships in the alcohol industry. But what we have done there, which is really, really interesting, is we in partnership with the USTA created a signature drink. It's called Grey Goose —

GREG: Honey Deuce.

ALEX: Which is just getting bigger and bigger every year.

GREG: Everybody knows now, right, Alex? Don't you think?

ALEX: I think so. Did you really go to the Open if you didn't get a selfie of yourself with the Honey Deuce?

GREG: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Were you there if you didn't have that?

ALEX: Exactly. And to answer your question, that would be an example of a 19-year overnight success story. It's something that suddenly pops up in consumers' feeds and they're like, "Wow, look at that amazing event. I wish I were there." Wearing wonderful clothes, watching brilliant tennis, being in this incredible city, sipping on this beautiful signature serve, which is the Grey Goose Honey Deuce, which through paid and earned media, we find different ways to drive more reach and impact every year. But that would be an example of sticking with something. If you think about the changes within the alcohol industry over the last 20 years, we've stuck with one signature drink. Now, how we bring the relevance every year is really important. We do different things to activate that, to bring it to new audience, to keep it fresh, different partnerships. Grey Goose Honey Deuce as a signature drink curated in its beautiful commemorative cup, garnished with those three kind of iconic honeydew lemon balls, remains consistent.

GREG: Did you guys create that for the event or did that just happen? Do you know?

ALEX: There's a beautiful story behind it. One of the brand ambassadors at the time, a gentleman called Nick Mautone, created the product himself at home, inspired by farmer's markets and fresh ingredients and put it together and the rest is history.

GREG: I've been going to the U.S. Open 20-plus years — as long as Grey Goose has been there — but I don't remember it being a big deal 10 years ago. Am I remembering right?

ALEX: You're absolutely right. It started 19 years ago, so we've stuck with it as the signature serve of that partnership for 19 years. It's the only place you can get the Honey Deuce. We only market it during the weeks of the U.S. Open, which are three weeks a year, including fan week. But it really exploded in the last five years, I would say, which is probably why, Greg, you're saying, "Hey, I've begun to notice it more and more." And what's really interesting there in the brief is when you think about how does marketing really accelerate growth within a business, our brand team on Grey Goose, super talented. They have an interagency team. So you get all of our agency partners together and you talk about the brief and what we want to deliver every year. Now for many years, the big idea was Grey Goose was the official vodka and official signature cocktail at the U.S. Open.

And then the brief changed four or five years ago to you can't go to the U.S. Open without enjoying a Grey Goose Honey Deuce. If you think the power of a brief and what that means downstream in terms of all of your interagency teams thinking and acting differently, that's resulted in what this year has been a bumper year for Grey Goose Honey Deuce at the U.S. Open. We sold over 873,000 cocktails —

GREG: Are you kidding?

ALEX: Over the course of the tournament.

GREG: Wait, over the two weeks of the U.S. Open, there's 800,000? Is that what you just said?

ALEX: Over the three weeks.

GREG: Three weeks.

ALEX: Before the competition starts, it's fan week, so that's when we start activating, but it's quite extraordinary.

GREG: I saw somebody even ... There was a shot that the camera ... I think it's become now a part of the fabric of the U.S. Open somehow. That's what I'm noticing, which is what you're commenting on. You hear the announcers talk about it now. I mean, it really is woven into the fabric of the U.S. Open.

ALEX: Yeah, no, it's absolutely the fabric. I mean, there's tons of user-generated content. Would the U.S. Open even be the same without the signature cocktail? It's become such a part of the overall experience. I think it's a really important point for us, and it's a key part of how we do marketing and think about experiential and events because the U.S. Open at the end of the summer in New York is such a big part of the culture of the late summer in New York. It's not about slapping a brand name on a tournament billboard or being a sponsor. We're part of the experience. We've enhanced that occasion and that experience and that moment for consumers. So we become a real part of that cultural moment when people are there enjoying the tournament, posting photos and videos to their friends. But Gray Goose Honey Deuce is an integral part of that, and it's taken a long time to build that.

GREG: How might another marketer or other marketers think about that, that they can replicate? You and I both know that's not easy.

ALEX: No, it's not. It's an enduring challenge for any marketer. I think as you referenced, one of the wonderful things about Bacardi is that it is a family-owned business and therefore the connection to the brands and legacy is real. We have Bacardi family members who work within the company.

GREG: So the family is actually ... It's not just owned by the family, but it's the members of the family and they're running parts of the business. Is that right?

ALEX: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And they care and we care. And part of the values of the company really revere family values, the enduring legacy of the brands, but also innovation. So the two things aren't mutually exclusive. You can create long-term growth, balancing consistency with innovation and boldness. I think it's important that those two things exist. You need to keep brands fresh and you need to make brands relevant. And I think how you make brands relevant is changing today. But what we're really good at as a business at Bacardi is consistency. Particularly in our industry where things have gone up and down in extreme ways during and post-pandemic, Bacardi has remained very consistent with messaging on core brands. Obviously the name above the door, Bacardi, has had a consistent campaign with Do What Moves You for almost a decade through that crazy period of extreme demand and then probably a falling away of industry growth.

We've remained consistent, and I think that's really important in terms of building these long-term memory structures with consumers. Now the way you do that, you need to innovate, you need to create new activations, new ways into an idea, but we always express on Bacardi this notion of music, movement, dancing with great cocktails in a hand. The ideal scenario would be music, dance floor, with a beautiful Bacardi cocktail in the hand, and you'll see that through everything that we do.

GREG: Where does innovation then exist? What do you try new and different? And God knows the media landscape has changed pretty dramatically for you all, but yeah.

ALEX: Innovation is at the core of what a marketer's role is. Innovation in terms of thinking, innovation in terms of even the technology that we would use to unlock insights about consumers or retailers or bartenders is front and center. Innovation in terms of the way we do things. Clearly we have incredible product innovation that we're super proud of, and I could talk more about that, but innovation is a core value of the business.

GREG: I can remember, well, Absolut was one who really perfected that at one point, was using print magazines, and they really took advantage of the beauty of that form and in the right environments. That channel doesn't exist anymore. And now you're ending up over in ... We all can understand, unless ... I'm a digital guy, there's parts of digital that I don't think any of us really think are great environments. What does that mean for you when you don't have that orientation or latitude that you had within the beautiful world of print to now go to digital? I don't know. Digital would feel to me to be disappointing to a Bacardi brand. I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly negative on my own business. Do you know what I mean though?

ALEX: I think what's a really interesting area for me is how we blend what is a fast-moving digital landscape with in-real-life experiences. And again, as a spirits company, human connection is at the heart of everything we do. So we tend to ground ourselves in that, which means that my marketers need to be thinking about — all of the time — how to market to humans and to the bots and to the AI algorithms. I think what's really interesting, Greg, is how important human connection and experiences are becoming in an increasingly digital world. So when you look at Bacardi as a brand, for example, I talked about Do What Moves You as a platform. We lean in heavily to moments of human connection. We've got a longstanding partnership with Live Nation around festivals and live music. So what we do there is we bring to life these connections and we use it as ... We have a two-story immersive experience and we create a brand world which is evocative of Casa Bacardi in Puerto Rico.

We create an environment which is upbeat, lively. We have guest DJs, we have golden hour samplings. We have guests shoulder to shoulder packed on the dance floor enjoying cocktails and sharing their content with their friends and family beyond the event itself. Now what you have is this idea that human connection is at the core of what we're doing, but we are living in a digital world, so you have to leverage those digital tools in order to drive the amplification of that message. But the memory, which is critical in terms of our brand world, the memory that is created is through human experience, and that's really important for anybody in the alcohol beverage industry marketing landscape.

GREG: Hey Alex, I heard you slip in there, which is a big topic right now in the industry around or having to market to bots, and you seemed to even suggest that Bacardi is open to marketing to bots, whatever that might mean. You want to talk a little bit more about that and how you look at that?

ALEX: One of the things that's really interesting in where consumers are currently is how search has changed. Just a few years ago it was all about SEO and keywords, and now it's really important in terms of consumer behavior that we really focus on brand visibility within search, but more importantly, the way consumers find products today, which is through conversations with AI, with whichever platform they're using, which is giving consumers answers to the questions. So the problem for marketers that we need to solve is how to show up better within the algorithms that the bots use to provide answers and recommendations to consumers. And that's a big change in terms of thinking about the entire ecosystem of marketing. It isn't just something that can sit in a specialist function within your marketing infrastructure. It needs to be core to the way a marketer thinks about how to build brands, how to build credibility, how to build trust in a way that you're coming up more often in those search recommendations.

GREG: But what is the question that gets asked that alcohol or an alcohol product becomes the answer? I mean, I understand what I'm doing when I'm trying to buy a car. I understand what I'm buying what feel like more complex products. Give me some background to that.

ALEX: You really need to start with the consumer, and really it's about understanding what are the problems that your consumers are trying to solve. In my category, it would really be "How do I make?" How do I make a Bacardi mojito? How do I make a margarita for the barbecue that I'm going to at the weekend? Which is the best American whiskey that I can buy my father for Father's Day? For example. These tend to be the low-hanging-fruit problems that people are asking, and they're now asking bots. Real people in real life or the bartender or the guy in the liquor store, they're using machines to find these questions as well. And what's really important is that marketers understand the changing landscape, but also think about the total ecosystem in terms of how to answer those questions.

GREG: Are there other parts of AI that you think can really be leveraged for the kind of work that Bacardi does? Have you seen success in places in, I don't know, either pilots or full-on production?

ALEX: Sure. The technology is increasing at an exponentially rapid pace. AI, if you want to call it that, will be a core part of any marketer's toolkit in the future. The amount of information, the speed of information, the depth of information that my team now have at their fingertips surpasses everything that was there five, 10 years ago. But it also deepens the importance of some of the core capabilities that we need to maintain as marketers. And these tend to be human qualities. So judgment, how do I keep my team really on top of their game, asking the right questions? How do you sharpen your questions up front?

GREG: Yeah. And I've spent a lot of time looking at this. If you go into any one of the LLMs and you say, "What is marketing expertise?" it gives you a bad answer, by the way, because it's based on opinions and the marketing industry is all driven by opinions and opinions are where we're failing because we don't understand the science. It's a whole nother point of view. But I guess, though, are there any places ... We're doing a lot of work around evaluating creative with AI. We're finding that to be pretty effective in boosting performance. We're finding personalization of ads to be a super big deal and getting a different motivation because you're right, sometimes people are throwing a party or maybe they're having an intimate relationship or there's a variety of different things that people could ... Maybe they're more social, to your point.

So there's a lot of different uses of the product that AI can personalize. I don't know. We've done a lot of work. We are looking at how do you really manage to have answers come up in AEO/GEO? We're running a whole series on that. So again, but I don't know. I'm just curious if there's anything that you've seen with the team where you go, "Wow, we really didn't see that coming. That's really powerful." What other advice might you have for marketers?

ALEX: My advice would be to be curious. There's so many incredible tools out there now across market research, understanding in particular in terms of content production.

GREG: Where are you and the team doubling down around that then? Do you think ... Listen, there's a big push for us around production right now. I've seen a lot of that efficiency kind of move.

ALEX: We have a number of use cases going in around the whole ecosystem to understand how to better use these tools and to prove or disprove a hypothesis. I think the area that you're getting into in terms of content production is an interesting one that creates a big question given the pace and the speed of change. I began talking on this podcast about the bat symbol as a symbol of trust, authenticity, and credibility. And one of the things that I can see happening that as marketers we need to be really mindful of is that in a world where digital content is limitless, it's flawless, and it's hard to verify what's real or distinguish which images are real or not real anymore, I think there's going to be a premium value applied to real-life experiences. And I think there's a premium value that's going to be applied to real content that is tangible, lived, authentic, and maybe even a bit imperfect.

You've been around marketing a long time, so have I, that with every trend comes a countertrend, and I think it's up to the marketer of the future to be able to harness these tools but really understand where the consumer and where trends might be going.

GREG: One of the board members, she called me and says, "Greg, has the MMA done any research around authentic ads?" And I go, "What do you mean?" She goes, "Well, using influencers and that kind of thing." I said, "No, we haven't." I said, "But we think it's an interesting topic. I do have a methodology I do." I was asking, "What do you want to evaluate?" She goes, "Well, I want to understand what authentic ads look like." And I remember she goes, "Versus ..." She paused, she goes, "Well, like the unauthentic ads that I do now." And I thought, wow, that's a big question, right? I mean, listen, I'm not here to argue one way or another. I don't know that the MMA is going to care. We're going to care about what's right. How do you create value within that environment? How do you better connect with consumers, to your point?

But that's a very funny question that I don't think we've even really thought about yet in this new age of marketing.

ALEX: Definitely in Bacardi, authenticity and using real people, real talent in ads, is something we will not buckle on. It's something that remains —

GREG: And some of the brands have said that, right? They will only use humans. They won't use AI-driven...

ALEX: I think people are smart enough to draw a connection between the authenticity and the connection that they're making with advertising and stimulus and the product itself. For example, Petron tequila, we recently made a perfect-pour advertising spot with Guillermo del Toro, multi-Academy Award-winning director. Did he bring technology into the ad? Absolutely, but it was his thought. He actually appears in the ad. He is the director. He brought his own production team in, and he was meticulous about crafting a piece of work that delivered against his vision. And again, there you've got creativity and authenticity at the core of how we do marketing.

GREG: So Alex, I always like to ask here on Building Better CMOs, what is some of the best advice you've been given? And listen, it could be singular advice. I even had one person get into what their father had told them. I though that was really valuable and interesting. But as you look back over the course of your career and you've gotten to the roles that you have, what is some of the best advice you've been given?

ALEX: I've had the benefit of working for amazing leaders over the years in lots of different countries. The heart of the way that I lead is really a thought around "together we can do anything." The advice that comes to mind when I think about this really stems from the fact that there's bodies of work, there's lectures, there's experts talking about how to build great teams. I think teams are everything, and at the heart of a team is really, you have to ask yourself, do I have a great relationship with my boss? Do I have a great relationship with the people I work with? And at the end of the week, is what I'm doing worthwhile? Is it adding value? Is it driving growth? And if you can answer those three things positively, they are usually the ingredients of what we would call a high-performing team.

I value that a lot and I think about that and try and instill that type of culture within the teams that I lead.

GREG: What do you think is involved in a good relationship? How do you develop that relationship? How do you protect that relationship?

ALEX: People and teams are the heart of everything. My philosophy is that, again, teams working together can create extraordinary results way beyond what an individual can deliver. And in a marketing function, you're at the hub of the business, particularly in a CPG business or a big alcohol company, you're at the hub of multiple functions. So it's extremely important that you understand what the mission is, what the plan on the page is that usually comes down the way. So you need to be aligned with your boss. You need to build trust clearly as a foundational part in terms of delivery, but trust in terms of openness. And you need to have an excellent working relationship with the people around you to make sure that you're aligning them all of the time, that everybody's headed in the same direction, and that you're reducing the friction from an organization where people in different functions who sometimes have different objectives are working together to create a common goal.

So it's really important that you understand the relationship with your colleagues and your team members so you can deliver that result. At the end of the week, when you reflect on the week, do you think what you're doing is worthwhile? Is it delivering to what you want to be and is it delivering growth for the business? When you find those things working, you get to the heart of what I've experienced in my career over many geographies and continents and businesses: high performance.

GREG: One of the challenges that marketing has, Alex, is that it's very hard to measure the impact that we have. I hear a lot of marketers struggle with that. In fact, my global board said ... My global board got in a whole conversation about two and a half years ago. They said, "Greg, we need to understand how to talk to the CFO." It's a board of CMOs, and my inside voice was kind of like, "What the heck do you mean we don't know how to talk to the CFO?" I thought that would be a big part of the job. I was really challenged by that. What they did come around to, they said there needs to be a standard how we do this. So they were looking at an industry level, which I appreciate. But I still think that's very challenged for us to communicate growth. Don't you think for marketing to communicate its own contribution to growth, don't you think?

ALEX: Well, I think that is the purpose of marketing, is to help create/shape growth for the future and the enterprise.

GREG: Agreed. But measuring it, and you did make it ... The way you said it was on a weekly basis, which is very short term, so I want to be careful about just hinging off of that. But most of the time, advertising doesn't contribute more than 17% of the sales, right? I mean, that's, I think, 15-20%. It's not that high. We don't really have that much influence typically on businesses, at least as we currently measure.

ALEX: From a Bacardi perspective, when you think about the incredible story of the brand and where that comes from, 164 years is a testament to demand creation and growth. And really that only comes from great thinkers and brand marketers working with expert sales professionals supported by all of these other functions working together against a common goal. So the proof is in the pudding. We got a long history of building brands over time, and the job of the marketer is to help educate and instill the possibility in the business around where growth is, to be able to help the business see around corners in terms of standing in the future and seeing things that other people cannot see about the future, and then unlocking with an entrepreneurial spirit those opportunities, bringing them to life. And then the final part is the collaboration, bringing teams together to deliver those possibilities. Cross-functional working is absolutely critical.

I sit in the office right next to the CFO, right next to my chief sales officer, and a few short steps away from the CEO. We do not underestimate the power of us cross-functional leaders working together, aligning, communicating often. I'm in and out of their offices maybe five or six times a day. It is not a siloed function. Marketing isn't something that you do in a silo, creating PowerPoints, and then turning up to a meeting once a month, telling people what you think should have happened. Our role is to put the consumer in the conversations where decisions are made, but to have a fundamental understanding of where the business is going, how it operates, and how to grow. And really the value of marketing is, are we making more money? Would the business have grown so much if marketing wasn't in the room when that decision has been made?

And because marketing and building brands is a core part of how Bacardi works, it's an incredible opportunity to unlock the power of the brands that we're entrusted with building. The benefit of a lot of the technology age that we're working in now is that we've got a plethora of tools to better understand the impact of brand building, whether it be over the long term, which is really important, and the short term. Essentially, brand building is about demand creation and then working collaboratively with our commercial functions to convert that desire into sales and demand. So we've got a plethora of metrics, both short term and long term to understand the impact on short-term sales as well as marketing. Clearly the old cliche is, particularly in tough times, should we focus more on the short term than the long term? We evaluate all of our metrics, our KPIs against all of the sophisticated measurement that we have now over the long term and the short term.

And we make business decisions around where to place the investment, but it isn't an isolated decision within the marketing function. And this is where collaboration and integrated planning comes into play. So we use a lot of stimulus and quite a lot of sophisticated tools in order to come up with an answer, but we're not in the stage where we're flying blind on the one hand, and we're not at the stage either where we've completely thrown the keys over to a machine to make all of the decisions because we do believe that we need to get the balance right. And we're still at a stage where we need judgment — human judgment — to filter some of those messages and data points that we've got to get to the right solution.

GREG: A lot of the research we've done with CMOs is that they're no longer leading a function called marketing, they're leading a coalition, should be leading a coalition, which is just what you've said. Agreed, agreed, agreed. The advice section that you had there, I assume that's the advice you give to your team, right? Do you ask them? Do you challenge them to say, "What impact did you create this week?" That's sometimes a funny question to people. I don't know. I don't know. Sorry, I don't mean to put you on the spot. I'm going to cause trouble with the team, by the way. Maybe they're going to start to see the question coming. If you haven't been asking that, then I'd like to take the question off the table because I don't want them to think that suddenly if you start asking it and I caused that. [laugh]

ALEX: I think accountability is super important for marketers.

GREG: For all of business success, right? I mean, that was your answer to your manager, that my manager can be ... I'm accountable to them or your boss and they trust me, you said.

ALEX: Being clear and consistent around what you expect from people and them feeling accountable and participating in the growth of a company [is] hugely motivating. And it's really important for the marketers to feel that they are leading, shaping, driving, collaborating in growth as opposed to being a function that simply creates advertising or content.

GREG: As a nonprofit association, my job is to go find things that we haven't yet mastered, that we haven't totally cracked the code on, that could use a higher level of data. I talked about the brand work that we've done, even some of the marketing work I think is revolutionary. That's what we're looking for. As much as we'd like to feature our solutions and be positive, and I respect that, I'm kind of looking for the negative. What's the things that you don't think that the industry gets right or that you think that maybe marketers don't fully appreciate? Kind of go at that a little bit. If you were to give a directive to the universe to say, "Hey, go help us understand that better." Or, "Hey, if I was to give advice to a bunch of CMOs, this is the thing I think you should focus on more just from your perspective," what do you think that is?

ALEX: Well, a big part of what we do at Bacardi is experiential and cultural marketing. And I think what's really important is that the strongest brands aren't built by chasing culture. The strongest brands are built by earning a place within culture. And this comes down to authenticity and it comes down to relevance that is built over time. And we've got a number of examples. We've spoken about a couple of those, but we have more. Another one for Bacardi, for example, would be one of the biggest cultural events in the country in the U.S. is clearly the Super Bowl. And last year was a huge year for the Super Bowl with an extraordinary halftime show, which created deep meaning for the community in Puerto Rico. Now, Puerto Rico is also the home of the largest rum distillery in the world, which is Casa Bacardi. We had a right to be part of that conversation and be able to put that community on a stage at a time of extreme pride.

So we activated this idea around "Puerto Rico wins" because win or lose in the game, Puerto Rico was the winner. It put a spotlight on the culture, on the people, even the food and beverages of Puerto Rico, which Bacardi has always been a big part of. So we activated on the island through social media, through street carnivals, and had a wonderful time. But it was an authentic place for Bacardi as a brand to be, an authentic added-value experience that we could share with the people of the island.

GREG: The MMA is very enamored by this dynamic of customer experience. And it's a very big, broad question. So I find it almost too big sometimes to talk about effectively. I mean, your product is going to run the gamut — and forgive my not being an expert — but it's everything from the experience at a social establishment that may be communicated by a bartender, for example. There's a retail experience that exists there. I don't know, that's probably gotten a little complicated to live up to the brand of Bacardi at some level. I don't know that the environment's always ... Then you're around the experiences you create, which is the essence of what the product is out to accomplish, I think, an added advantage or how you'd communicate that experience. How do you break down and look at all those different pieces? And I want to put this into context that actually the MMA believes that experience might be the new future of marketing, that we've spent so much time in advertising that might not be our future or maybe shouldn't be our future.

That's a complicated statement, but just, I don't know. Talk to me a little bit more about your ... I want the listener to take away your experience and experiences. That's what I'm trying to get to.

ALEX: And I think this is the way the world is moving and the best experiences don't actually feel like marketing. So different to paid media, a real experience feels like something a consumer is grateful to have been part of. We know that, again, in a increasingly digital world, people are looking for more meaning in their lives and they can find these connections in real life. So this IRL component is becoming increasingly important in terms of how we think about marketing. And it doesn't mean that paid reach isn't important anymore, but it really means that we need to dial up those moments when we can bring people together to have real-life, full-sensory experiences and create memories. Because at the end of the day, that's what marketing is all about. It's about creating those memory structures, which means that when you're at the shelf, you are more likely to pick up our brand, a Bacardi or a Patron or a Grey Goose.

GREG: Okay. So I had a great evening out with Grey Goose. I had a party at my home or friend's home [that] involved Grey Goose. So the thesis is that that becomes ... You used a better word there, I forgot, a locked-in memory that I have.

ALEX: The memory structures and the experience and the recommendation. When you think about brands and consumer need states, a lot of the super-premium alcohol brands that we operate in are all about outer-directed motivations. It's about showing other people that you're doing better in life, that you're going places, you're standing out from the crowd. And the way that they look to make those choices are sometimes in more stylish hotel bars or restaurants or other locations in the on-premise. So if you think about that, we spend a lot of time trying to find the people who influence. In the context of the on-premise, which is a real experience where brands are built, we spend a lot of time training and educating bartenders. If you think about it, the on-premise hotels and restaurants and bars are all about the guest experience. That is what you remember.

We help them recommend our brands, consumers discover their brands in that channel, which is really different for the alcohol industry, and the consumers remember that experience, and then they take that experience to inform their choices when they're buying for their friends and family at home.

GREG: This is very interesting, too, and I think unlike a lot of other ... I mean, it's really as unique ... I think it's extraordinarily powerful in your products. And there's another trend that's going on in the world that's getting a lot of attention right now. You hear Scott Galloway and others talk about this, but the loneliness epidemic that people aren't feeling connected, and certainly the country is at some division. So again, keeping all political statements out of it, I'm just trying to look at what appears to be facts in the world. I'm not judging that. And so that's a very unique place for your brands to play in this is a challenge to the overall human experience.

ALEX: Right. Yeah. No, and it's critical to the future of alcohol and it's a huge part that alcohol can play in a positive way of bringing people together. Alcohol is a social lubricant. It's something that, when consumed responsibly, brings people together, creates some of the best memories, whether it be on a weekday or the most important occasions in your life, from weddings to birthdays. If you think back through your own life, the role that alcohol brands play is special and highly memorable. But what we know is that people remember the experience and that's why within the marketing of Bacardi, we try and make sure that our brands show up authentically in those experiences. But it's really important — and again, in a digital world — that we harness and unlock all of the digital tools we have available, but IRL becomes more important in terms of making those memories, making those authentic occasions that people remember through their lives.

So how your brands show up in those real-life experiences becomes incredibly important.

GREG: I'd love to understand, and this has really been the whole of your career is in brands similar to Bacardi. I'm wondering the degree to which some of that translates to other marketers in other categories. I mean, I don't know that Unilever's doing that per se with Dove soap. I guess they've tried to do that around the tack they've taken in some parts of their business. I think there's some of that that they're creating.

ALEX: Yeah, you're right. One of the key strengths of the alcohol industry is this channel, which is hotels, restaurants, bars. It's a trial channel. It's a lifestyle channel. It's where people go out to be seen. There's relatively low cost of trial. It's much cheaper than buying a full bottle of spirits that you've never seen before in a liquor store, for example. But it's an occasion. It's a moment that people want to participate in. You're creating experience and moments all of the time at the bar, in the nightclub, in a restaurant, and these are moments that are shared. So it's built in as an advantage to the way that we build brands in spirits.

GREG: If you were to give advice to other marketers, and maybe we don't have to focus on all the different sectors or categories there might be, but how does Bacardi think about experiences that might be valuable to others? How do we take that vast understanding you have — the 164-maybe some-odd years of that experience — and help bring that to other categories that could really benefit from that? Because I do hear and agree with your thesis about this idea of creating really powerful memories long term.

ALEX: Standing in the future and thinking about the way that all of these digital tools are going to have a positive impact in terms of your marketing capability, but also the impact that they will have standing in the future from a communication standpoint. And I think this piece around authenticity and this counter-trend around in real life is going to be an important trend for all marketers to look at. Now, how you go after that may be different depending on which vertical you're in, but I think that trust, authenticity, and real-life connection are the things that will differentiate premium-product marketing in the future from ones that simply rely on convenience and digital formats and tools.

GREG: Yeah. I mean, I think most of us in marketing believe that consumers don't necessarily buy for rational reasons.

ALEX: Right. Yeah. We're an emotional products category.

GREG: Yeah. As you look back over the things, and like I had mentioned earlier, you've been at Bacardi now for ... I mean, listen, of all marketers who've got real stick-tivity, you do. [laugh]

ALEX: Thank you.

GREG: You're rare amongst marketers. I don't really want to know if I want to point that out to the industry, but we'll let that go. But listen, though, you've been at Bacardi now for at least six years, and I think that I see here 20, what was Diageo, almost 23 years? I mean, that's crazy. As you look back upon that, what's some of the best things you've seen, you've done, that you go, "Oh my God, I'd love to re-create that. I'd love to be able to do that again."

ALEX: Right. Yeah. Look, I think going back through my career, I think one of the most important things is about helping people see things differently. One of the hallmarks of marketing at Bacardi is the lens that we have on building brands and culture, entertainment, the importance of real-life experiences. One of the other longstanding partnerships that we have is with the Video Music Awards. So this weekend coming up, we have MTV Video Music Awards. This year it's on CBS.

GREG: Oh, it's the fall. You're right. It is time for that, right.

ALEX: Yeah. So this locks into a longstanding partnership that we've had with the VMAs. And what's really interesting, we talked earlier about Do What Moves You being the Bacardi platform. Well, the Best Dance Award disappeared from the VMAs about four or five years ago, and we're bringing it back this year. And what's really great about this example is the way that this is a full IAT. It's an integrated team across agencies that come together every year to think about how to create a new experience for consumers around this central platform. Last year, for example, was more about Music Liberates Music, which is a cool platform that Bacardi has around spotlighting and giving emerging talent in music a stage. So we gave some of our paid media spots an awareness to emerging artists to give them a stage using and leveraging our marketing muscle and our media muscle to support the community.

And again, what that's an example of is not only having the platform idea at the center, but the consistency that we talked about earlier, for doing good and expanding the ecosystem. At our music festivals nationwide, we have our Casa Bacardi that I also talked about earlier, but we'll give the stage to emerging Latino DJs, for example. So in Sueños, which is a really big Latino music festival, we gave the DJ booth to an up-and-coming DJ called DJ Bolo who created fame, created a great environment there, but was spotted and at the next festival was playing on the main stage. There's this lovely ecosystem that we're building around the community and the vertical around music that we've been in for a long time.

GREG: Alex, listen, I can't thank you enough for being on Building Better CMOs. I knew ... Like I said, MMA has a big point of view around customer experience. It's probably the future, and I want to respect, I'm a brand agency guy, you're a brand guy, so obviously I respect that part of our profession and everything, but I think that there's something else going on here with marketing that is even going to be more successful as we continue to evolve the business. So I get a sense that Bacardi, a company like Bacardi, is probably really one of the ones who's sort of leading the way in helping marketers to understand what the new future looks like. So thank you very much.

ALEX: Thanks. It's been great chatting to you. Good to be here.