Podcast Transcript - Building Better CMOs
New York Life Insurance CMO Amy Hu
Amy and Greg discuss embracing measurement to prove marketing's real value, how to turn difficult jobs into growth and wisdom, and why CMOs need to be more adaptable to business needs.
AMY: Let the audit come. If you have a good foundation of curiosity, of making sure that your programs are truly adding value, it's just an opportunity for other people with outside perspective that can help you see holes. That is the mentality you have to have. You have to embrace the measurement culture. You can't hide from it, you can't be mad at it, you can't try to argue it. Any other way is going to enhance the doubt. And you are trying to say, Yeah, that's great. What can we do to satisfy what you need? And maybe there is a better way.
GREG: Amy Hu, welcome to Building Better CMOs today.
AMY: Thank you so much for having me.
GREG: So listen, you are the CMO, SVP — I think CMO is actually technical title — over at New York Life, correct?
AMY: Correct. New York Life Insurance.
The Mission of New York Life
GREG: On the rare chance that we have young people here on the phone that have no idea what New York Life is, can you just give a little background to people so they know?
AMY: New York Life is one of the largest mutual insurance companies. We are 181 years old.
GREG: That's crazy, that's crazy.
AMY: Isn't it crazy? We have been around before many companies have ever even been birthed. And it really is a financial services company that really helps institutions, advisers, and individual consumers with their finances.
GREG: I actually did take the time to look at the history quiz. 1845, if I have that right.
AMY: 1845, yes.
GREG: And at the time, there was no real life insurance. If your primary partner died — and there was a lot of risk in the mid 1800s — if your partner, spouse, mate, whatever, died, you were screwed. There was no backup plan. There was nothing. And that was really the product that they created was life insurance to protect people.
AMY: That's right. I mean, New York Life has been innovating since 1845, and we continue to innovate, especially around the financial services and the product market. And it's also one of the best things about the company: It's a company that really serves. We're owned by our policyholders. So we're not owned by Wall Street. So we are very mission-driven. Our jobs are to be there when you financially need us. So we have a fortress balance sheet, but we also have a mission to do good for the people who invest with us.
GREG: What's a fortress balance sheet? I don't know if I know. What is that?
AMY: I think a fortress balance sheet is really a simple way to say that we could withstand a lot of what happens in the market. They always say that we don't predict, but we prepare. And so if there's any kind of economic unstability, that fortress balance sheet allows us to ride out the waves of any kind of unintentional economic downfall. So if when you need us, when you give us your money and this insurance needs to pay out, it's going to be there. We don't take undue risk.
GREG: Yeah, no, it feels like a very common ... Insurance feels like a very complicated business because you definitely want to try to keep your rates low to get customers. At the same time, you don't want to put the whole thing at risk because you sort of went whatever. Yeah.
AMY: Yeah. It's really about you have to protect, but you also have to grow. So that's one of the benefits of New York Life that we actually are starting this new kind of verbiage about what we do. And we're calling it "protection-powered growth" because you get to protect your assets, but it's also you get to grow your assets. You have risk moderation along with growth opportunity.
GREG: Oh, very good.
AMY: Yeah.
AMY: New York Life is one of the largest mutual insurance companies. We are 181 years old.
GREG: That's crazy, that's crazy.
AMY: Isn't it crazy? We have been around before many companies have ever even been birthed. And it really is a financial services company that really helps institutions, advisers, and individual consumers with their finances.
GREG: I actually did take the time to look at the history quiz. 1845, if I have that right.
AMY: 1845, yes.
GREG: And at the time, there was no real life insurance. If your primary partner died — and there was a lot of risk in the mid 1800s — if your partner, spouse, mate, whatever, died, you were screwed. There was no backup plan. There was nothing. And that was really the product that they created was life insurance to protect people.
AMY: That's right. I mean, New York Life has been innovating since 1845, and we continue to innovate, especially around the financial services and the product market. And it's also one of the best things about the company: It's a company that really serves. We're owned by our policyholders. So we're not owned by Wall Street. So we are very mission-driven. Our jobs are to be there when you financially need us. So we have a fortress balance sheet, but we also have a mission to do good for the people who invest with us.
GREG: What's a fortress balance sheet? I don't know if I know. What is that?
AMY: I think a fortress balance sheet is really a simple way to say that we could withstand a lot of what happens in the market. They always say that we don't predict, but we prepare. And so if there's any kind of economic unstability, that fortress balance sheet allows us to ride out the waves of any kind of unintentional economic downfall. So if when you need us, when you give us your money and this insurance needs to pay out, it's going to be there. We don't take undue risk.
GREG: Yeah, no, it feels like a very common ... Insurance feels like a very complicated business because you definitely want to try to keep your rates low to get customers. At the same time, you don't want to put the whole thing at risk because you sort of went whatever. Yeah.
AMY: Yeah. It's really about you have to protect, but you also have to grow. So that's one of the benefits of New York Life that we actually are starting this new kind of verbiage about what we do. And we're calling it "protection-powered growth" because you get to protect your assets, but it's also you get to grow your assets. You have risk moderation along with growth opportunity.
GREG: Oh, very good.
AMY: Yeah.
"More Powerful, Together"
GREG: I happen to look and see that the company has a new tagline. I think you did it, which is this "More Powerful Together." In fact, it's "More Powerful, comma, Together," which I'm sure you spent a billion hours talking about if the comma was there or not, just having been in agencies, whatever, that's a separate point. But what's the take on ...? What's the brand trying to communicate through that?
AMY: Thank you for asking. I did do that. That's a recent one because we are trying to shift from just being known as a life insurance company to a financial services company because that's actually what we do. And so "More Powerful, Together" really operates on two things. The first is we believe that if you use New York Life and if you use a financial adviser, you can achieve more with them than you can ever do before. So you're more powerful, together. That is the comma. And we also believe in the power of a coach, the power of a team. And that's why you see a lot of our advertising and our brand strategy in sports, MLB and soccer. Because it's sort of the metaphor of when you work with a team and you have a team on your side, you can achieve great things. And we believe that the best financial advisers educate, cheer you on as a lifelong partner, like a lifelong coach. And so that's our metaphor. So we're more powerful together.
GREG: I saw something that said that you had actually moved — I hadn't planned to talk about that, that's interesting though — you had moved some of the strategy from sort of dots and spots — like running ads — to more sponsorship support. And is the sponsorship support, did you just say it's largely around team-based sports? Is that what you said?
AMY: It is team-based sports because that is our metaphor, because when you work with New York Life Financial Adviser, you become a team with us. And then if you also have a real estate or estate attorney, all of that thing, we become part of your team. And so we really believe in the metaphor of mutuality. That is part of the shift. And then from spots to dots to more of these testimonial-like metaphors, it's because, one, I think that traditional advertising is dead. I think the funnel is breaking and I think the funnel's changing, so that's one. And two, we don't just want to say, we could say a campaign, and spots and dots are saying a campaign, but we want to do. We want to actually demonstrate, and we do that through activations, we're doing that through a sports scholarship and grants, and we try to take the metaphor to a place where people could understand both emotionally but also intellectually.
GREG: What was the positioning before you arrived? Do you remember even?
AMY: Yeah, it was —
GREG: And was there a CMO in place too, just to check?
AMY: There was a CMO and the positioning was "Love Takes Action." And when you think about traditional life insurance, you often use very emotional messages to be evocative of, like, you have to take action, because life insurance can get into a place where you have to think about mortality and morbidity. And so you have to remind people why they need to take action. So that was the original positioning.
GREG: But I'm kind of thinking too, if you're actually doing it in financial advising and so on, which is the role that obviously this plays and New York Life would play, I mean, I'm trying to think, what would be more important in my life than my financial adviser?
AMY: We are at the intersection of health and wealth. Health/wealth equals happiness. So your doctors and your financial advisers, your health and your wealth, is what allows you to have happiness. So it's very important who you pick. And what we're also trying to explain in that "More Powerful, Together" is the ethos of who we are. We really are mission-driven. I mean, if you come into the halls, you can feel it. We are mission-driven. We are not publicly traded. We try to do right for our policyholders. So that's a lot of what "More Powerful, Together" is just the best brand —
GREG: Yeah, it captures that.
AMY: It captures that, right? It's the ethos of actually who we are. And we also think "More Powerful, Together" is also when you combine insurance with investments, then you get to protect your assets and you need to grow. So we are also talking about "More Powerful, Together" equals protection-power-growth. And then when you get the right person who's advocating for you, that's a winning combination and that's a team.
AMY: Thank you for asking. I did do that. That's a recent one because we are trying to shift from just being known as a life insurance company to a financial services company because that's actually what we do. And so "More Powerful, Together" really operates on two things. The first is we believe that if you use New York Life and if you use a financial adviser, you can achieve more with them than you can ever do before. So you're more powerful, together. That is the comma. And we also believe in the power of a coach, the power of a team. And that's why you see a lot of our advertising and our brand strategy in sports, MLB and soccer. Because it's sort of the metaphor of when you work with a team and you have a team on your side, you can achieve great things. And we believe that the best financial advisers educate, cheer you on as a lifelong partner, like a lifelong coach. And so that's our metaphor. So we're more powerful together.
GREG: I saw something that said that you had actually moved — I hadn't planned to talk about that, that's interesting though — you had moved some of the strategy from sort of dots and spots — like running ads — to more sponsorship support. And is the sponsorship support, did you just say it's largely around team-based sports? Is that what you said?
AMY: It is team-based sports because that is our metaphor, because when you work with New York Life Financial Adviser, you become a team with us. And then if you also have a real estate or estate attorney, all of that thing, we become part of your team. And so we really believe in the metaphor of mutuality. That is part of the shift. And then from spots to dots to more of these testimonial-like metaphors, it's because, one, I think that traditional advertising is dead. I think the funnel is breaking and I think the funnel's changing, so that's one. And two, we don't just want to say, we could say a campaign, and spots and dots are saying a campaign, but we want to do. We want to actually demonstrate, and we do that through activations, we're doing that through a sports scholarship and grants, and we try to take the metaphor to a place where people could understand both emotionally but also intellectually.
GREG: What was the positioning before you arrived? Do you remember even?
AMY: Yeah, it was —
GREG: And was there a CMO in place too, just to check?
AMY: There was a CMO and the positioning was "Love Takes Action." And when you think about traditional life insurance, you often use very emotional messages to be evocative of, like, you have to take action, because life insurance can get into a place where you have to think about mortality and morbidity. And so you have to remind people why they need to take action. So that was the original positioning.
GREG: But I'm kind of thinking too, if you're actually doing it in financial advising and so on, which is the role that obviously this plays and New York Life would play, I mean, I'm trying to think, what would be more important in my life than my financial adviser?
AMY: We are at the intersection of health and wealth. Health/wealth equals happiness. So your doctors and your financial advisers, your health and your wealth, is what allows you to have happiness. So it's very important who you pick. And what we're also trying to explain in that "More Powerful, Together" is the ethos of who we are. We really are mission-driven. I mean, if you come into the halls, you can feel it. We are mission-driven. We are not publicly traded. We try to do right for our policyholders. So that's a lot of what "More Powerful, Together" is just the best brand —
GREG: Yeah, it captures that.
AMY: It captures that, right? It's the ethos of actually who we are. And we also think "More Powerful, Together" is also when you combine insurance with investments, then you get to protect your assets and you need to grow. So we are also talking about "More Powerful, Together" equals protection-power-growth. And then when you get the right person who's advocating for you, that's a winning combination and that's a team.
From Philosophy Major to Critical Thinker
GREG: I totally ... When I saw — and I watched some of the video ads before you and I talked here — and I thought, I get it. I understand it. And that's why I sort of come up with like, it's a really important relationship. It might be one of my most important relationships in my life. Here's what's funny about your background, Amy. At least I think it's funny. Maybe you're going to tell me I'm completely wrong, but you have a bachelor's in philosophy, in history of mathematics and science.
AMY: Yes.
GREG: That's a first. That's a first. So what ... Yeah, go ahead.
AMY: Yes. No, no, no, no. It's an odd ... Trust me, I have an immigrant mother who was like, "If you're not going to go to law school and you're not going to go to medical school, then you have to be an accountant."
GREG: (laugh) Great. Okay. Okay, good. So you went a different direction. Why'd you pick that? And maybe more importantly, what has it done for you as you've gone through your life and your career?
AMY: It was untraditional. I was just interested in the topic and I think I was always sort of more intellectually curious and probably ... If you do my Myers-Briggs, I have always been an ENTJ. That's the N, the art of possibility and what is this and how do we make it and these more existential questions has always probably been my ethos. But what it's done is it really allows you to do critical thinking and it allows you to break down, understand a complex problem, break down what you're trying to do, think about both sides of the argument, and what is your positioning and how do you synthesize it.
GREG: Wow, okay.
AMY: And so it did not serve me well when I first graduated and they're like, "Do you have a business degree? Do you know how to do accounting? Do you know how to ... " I was like, "No. No. No."
I could think. I could think. No one wants [that]. But it served me well later. But in the early years, certainly when I graduated, it was really like, you have to have a business degree to get into business.
GREG: I see here American Century Investments. Was that your first role somewhere?
AMY: That was probably my first big role. And I think that I —
GREG: How'd you convince them to take you on then, given that?
AMY: I don't even remember at this point. I think I was doing relationship management, what is relationship management. But then it really began the conversation is like, what is e-comm? Because this is the time where e-comm is starting, and email, and what is Google, and what's this Google thing and how are we going to do it? And I've just been really good at answering ... I don't know if I'm good. I think I'm very interested and I'm curious about what the trends and transformation are and how it applies to business. So I'm just interested in it. And so then I get to do these projects and that's what led me to the role that I have.
GREG: Oh, that's so great. I love that. I love that. And listen, marketing is a collection of a lot of people with very diverse different backgrounds.
AMY: That's right. Most diverse, most diverse. I've never met a CFO who doesn't have a finance background, but I have met marketers with a mechanical engineering background.
GREG: Totally, totally, totally. I had a board chair who was CMO of Campbell's and she had a chemical engineering degree.
AMY: Absolutely.
AMY: Yes.
GREG: That's a first. That's a first. So what ... Yeah, go ahead.
AMY: Yes. No, no, no, no. It's an odd ... Trust me, I have an immigrant mother who was like, "If you're not going to go to law school and you're not going to go to medical school, then you have to be an accountant."
GREG: (laugh) Great. Okay. Okay, good. So you went a different direction. Why'd you pick that? And maybe more importantly, what has it done for you as you've gone through your life and your career?
AMY: It was untraditional. I was just interested in the topic and I think I was always sort of more intellectually curious and probably ... If you do my Myers-Briggs, I have always been an ENTJ. That's the N, the art of possibility and what is this and how do we make it and these more existential questions has always probably been my ethos. But what it's done is it really allows you to do critical thinking and it allows you to break down, understand a complex problem, break down what you're trying to do, think about both sides of the argument, and what is your positioning and how do you synthesize it.
GREG: Wow, okay.
AMY: And so it did not serve me well when I first graduated and they're like, "Do you have a business degree? Do you know how to do accounting? Do you know how to ... " I was like, "No. No. No."
I could think. I could think. No one wants [that]. But it served me well later. But in the early years, certainly when I graduated, it was really like, you have to have a business degree to get into business.
GREG: I see here American Century Investments. Was that your first role somewhere?
AMY: That was probably my first big role. And I think that I —
GREG: How'd you convince them to take you on then, given that?
AMY: I don't even remember at this point. I think I was doing relationship management, what is relationship management. But then it really began the conversation is like, what is e-comm? Because this is the time where e-comm is starting, and email, and what is Google, and what's this Google thing and how are we going to do it? And I've just been really good at answering ... I don't know if I'm good. I think I'm very interested and I'm curious about what the trends and transformation are and how it applies to business. So I'm just interested in it. And so then I get to do these projects and that's what led me to the role that I have.
GREG: Oh, that's so great. I love that. I love that. And listen, marketing is a collection of a lot of people with very diverse different backgrounds.
AMY: That's right. Most diverse, most diverse. I've never met a CFO who doesn't have a finance background, but I have met marketers with a mechanical engineering background.
GREG: Totally, totally, totally. I had a board chair who was CMO of Campbell's and she had a chemical engineering degree.
AMY: Absolutely.
Developing Financial Fluency
GREG: Very different. And she looked at the world differently, it was very interesting. Okay. So Amy, let's jump into our first topic here within Building Better CMOs. So I always like to ask people, because I think there's something both in which you've appreciated, which guided you, and then also too, that people took the time to tell you something for a reason. So as you look back in your career, what's the best advice that you think you've been given? Can you remember either particularly ... You can give me a source, you can just give the sort of point of view, but what's the best advice you've been given through your career?
AMY: Early on in my career when I was at H&R Block, I had the opportunity to work for who would eventually become the future CFO of H&R Block, which is a Fortune 500. I did not really enjoy my time doing it. I really, at the time, was terrified of the meetings and being in the room with your peers who do have finance degrees and they are talking about business metrics and things of that nature. And I started on that team.
GREG: Was it a finance person in marketing? Was it actual, you reported into finance?
AMY: He was the general manager of the digital tax, right? And so basically the whole entire organization was much more around business and technology. And one of the things that I was supposed to do is I was just like, one of my first assignments was to write promotions. What were the promotions that I need to write? And I'm like, oh, okay, I could write a promotion. And I remember coming into the meeting and then they're like, "But what's the contra revenue?" I was like, "What? What's contra revenue?" The advice that I would give all marketers coming up is understand the business side and understand how the business speaks about the business, which is always the framework of how are we making money? How are you spending my money?
GREG: Yes, yes.
AMY: How are you adding value? Do you know how your company makes money? Do you know how they spend the money? Do you know how to talk about ... We talked about ROI and ROAS. We were talking about this. So we're talking about ROI and ROAS, and then they're like, "But how does that contribute to the bottom line earnings?" And so what percent are you of the expense base and what part can you prove in the incrementality of your contribution margin? And this is ... I didn't have any framework for that, but I learned a lot with him. He retired recently and I sent him a note and I was like, "Those were some good times."
GREG: What did the note say? What'd your email say? I'm just curious.
AMY: I think I sent him a LinkedIn post, which I don't think he acknowledged me at all. So maybe ... It's one of those things, he has probably a much bigger impact on me than I ever had on him, which is fine. He's a big deal. He's a big deal. But it said if every marketer had the opportunity to learn from you, it was going to make them better marketers. And I really do believe that that experience I had in my early 30s is what allows me to sit in the chair that I have now [and] in all the chairs that I've had afterwards.
GREG: Well, and it's funny too, because given your degree in philosophy broadly, but also you've then worked for financial companies, financially oriented companies. And I imagine New York Life probably, I would hope they would feel like, "Oh, she understands us. She speaks our language." Right?
AMY: Well, I'm still learning. I mean, I work with one of the smartest people ever, and then this is actuarial math, which is just on a completely different level, but they're all strong in their analytical sense. But I think that most marketers don't have a basis of financial fluency, business fluency. And so it serves me well because I can at least hang into the conversation. One of the best relationships that I think that you have to have when you're a CMO is finance and technology.
GREG: It's funny. So I would even put it in life, by the way, and now I'm going to get very broad here for a moment, Amy, but it's like, I've actually done everything I can to try to teach my kids the basic understanding of financials and how to invest and how the world works because you're right, I didn't get any of that growing up. Nobody told me. And in fact, I was a part of a dot-com business. This thing went public at $17 a share in '99. In the very end of that year then, we sold the thing for $177 a share. It was valued at $30 million of revenue at $5 billion. That's the most insane thing in the world. And now at the time, I was just getting rich because that's how we all looked at it in San Francisco during the dot-com period.
I was completely clueless about what was really going on. Now I understand PE relations, I get a much stronger ... But I wish I'd had that earlier. I totally agree. It's so important to understand, even just personally.
AMY: Financial literacy is so important, so important. It's so important. It's important to everyone, and there's so much to learn. You'll never stop learning financial literacy.
GREG: Yeah. No, I think if I can almost see myself if I someday decide to retire, which is never anytime soon, that I can just totally see myself like, maybe I just devote myself to learning finance because I wish I did understand the complexity of it a little bit better. I'm pretty good, but I like numbers, but yeah.
AMY: I would dedicate my time to learning the different types of French butters.
GREG: (laugh)
AMY: I would definitely not go into finance.
GREG: Okay, okay.
AMY: French wine and French butter.
AMY: Early on in my career when I was at H&R Block, I had the opportunity to work for who would eventually become the future CFO of H&R Block, which is a Fortune 500. I did not really enjoy my time doing it. I really, at the time, was terrified of the meetings and being in the room with your peers who do have finance degrees and they are talking about business metrics and things of that nature. And I started on that team.
GREG: Was it a finance person in marketing? Was it actual, you reported into finance?
AMY: He was the general manager of the digital tax, right? And so basically the whole entire organization was much more around business and technology. And one of the things that I was supposed to do is I was just like, one of my first assignments was to write promotions. What were the promotions that I need to write? And I'm like, oh, okay, I could write a promotion. And I remember coming into the meeting and then they're like, "But what's the contra revenue?" I was like, "What? What's contra revenue?" The advice that I would give all marketers coming up is understand the business side and understand how the business speaks about the business, which is always the framework of how are we making money? How are you spending my money?
GREG: Yes, yes.
AMY: How are you adding value? Do you know how your company makes money? Do you know how they spend the money? Do you know how to talk about ... We talked about ROI and ROAS. We were talking about this. So we're talking about ROI and ROAS, and then they're like, "But how does that contribute to the bottom line earnings?" And so what percent are you of the expense base and what part can you prove in the incrementality of your contribution margin? And this is ... I didn't have any framework for that, but I learned a lot with him. He retired recently and I sent him a note and I was like, "Those were some good times."
GREG: What did the note say? What'd your email say? I'm just curious.
AMY: I think I sent him a LinkedIn post, which I don't think he acknowledged me at all. So maybe ... It's one of those things, he has probably a much bigger impact on me than I ever had on him, which is fine. He's a big deal. He's a big deal. But it said if every marketer had the opportunity to learn from you, it was going to make them better marketers. And I really do believe that that experience I had in my early 30s is what allows me to sit in the chair that I have now [and] in all the chairs that I've had afterwards.
GREG: Well, and it's funny too, because given your degree in philosophy broadly, but also you've then worked for financial companies, financially oriented companies. And I imagine New York Life probably, I would hope they would feel like, "Oh, she understands us. She speaks our language." Right?
AMY: Well, I'm still learning. I mean, I work with one of the smartest people ever, and then this is actuarial math, which is just on a completely different level, but they're all strong in their analytical sense. But I think that most marketers don't have a basis of financial fluency, business fluency. And so it serves me well because I can at least hang into the conversation. One of the best relationships that I think that you have to have when you're a CMO is finance and technology.
GREG: It's funny. So I would even put it in life, by the way, and now I'm going to get very broad here for a moment, Amy, but it's like, I've actually done everything I can to try to teach my kids the basic understanding of financials and how to invest and how the world works because you're right, I didn't get any of that growing up. Nobody told me. And in fact, I was a part of a dot-com business. This thing went public at $17 a share in '99. In the very end of that year then, we sold the thing for $177 a share. It was valued at $30 million of revenue at $5 billion. That's the most insane thing in the world. And now at the time, I was just getting rich because that's how we all looked at it in San Francisco during the dot-com period.
I was completely clueless about what was really going on. Now I understand PE relations, I get a much stronger ... But I wish I'd had that earlier. I totally agree. It's so important to understand, even just personally.
AMY: Financial literacy is so important, so important. It's so important. It's important to everyone, and there's so much to learn. You'll never stop learning financial literacy.
GREG: Yeah. No, I think if I can almost see myself if I someday decide to retire, which is never anytime soon, that I can just totally see myself like, maybe I just devote myself to learning finance because I wish I did understand the complexity of it a little bit better. I'm pretty good, but I like numbers, but yeah.
AMY: I would dedicate my time to learning the different types of French butters.
GREG: (laugh)
AMY: I would definitely not go into finance.
GREG: Okay, okay.
AMY: French wine and French butter.
Proving Marketing Value to Skeptical CFOs
GREG: There we go. Fair enough. Fair enough. What other good advice did you get? So that was really kind of the experience that transformed your thinking and understanding of marketing and speaking how to connect marketing to finance, which I mean, listen, the board — I mentioned this to you — my board here had asked me about three years ago, they says, "We need to figure how to talk to the CFO." And I remember being very surprised by the question, I was kind of like, geez, you're big C-suite executives, what do you mean you don't know how to talk to the CFO? I didn't understand it. And really, we have not as an individual translated marketing into business, into the terms that a CFO is going to appreciate. Now, I think the MMA has figured it out, that's a longer story, but it's like, I think it's a big issue for us and diminishes our capabilities and gravitas within the organization, I think.
AMY: One of the things in my experience that I had with working for the CFO, by and large, they're skeptical people. And for the most part, marketing is always a expense. It's on the expense metric, right?
GREG: Yep, usually. Yep.
AMY: So how do you prove that you're not an expense and that you're driving growth? And when you try to make that bridge into that argument, you know that they're just going to be very skeptical. And so my whole adoption and what I've done is — and I tell this advice to my team and anybody who asks me — my job is only to get them to doubt their doubt. It's storytelling and it's going to take a long time, especially something like brand measurement, which cannot ... It's not market, it's not performance. It needs to be built up over time. And so we have a framework here and we use it and we use it all the time, which I call it triangulated and trended. So we need to have three metrics, three metrics triangulated, and it has to be trended. And because you bring in one metric, they're like, "Oh, that's nice.That's nice, Amy. You did some nice conversion rates."
And then you bring in two and they're like, "That's a coincidence." But if you bring in three and then you trend it over time, they're like, "Okay, well, maybe you are adding value." So I often go in and say, what we are doing is what we're doing is we're trying to create a constellation of indicators, indicators that we can optimize on, but also longer-term impact into these trends to say how do we show causation and correlation? I always think that the ones that most marketers bring in — I think it's less so because I think there's a new generation of marketers — brand metrics, like awareness, consideration. What I would call brand metrics, what a CFO would call soft metrics, vanity metrics, they call them soft and vanity. They're like, that's just vanity metrics. Those are important and you have to bring them in, but then you get into behavior.
So did you go to the site? Did it increase site website visits? Did I see a surge of my brand terms increasing because those cost less, those cost less than long term. So then you start to say, okay, now we're seeing positive brand metrics. I'm making this up by the way, but I think this is actually something we did in our past. The brand metrics of awareness and consideration is also going up. We're also seeing an increase in branded search terms. Now, when we get to do branded search terms, it costs 10 cents versus $2 or $5 in the long tail. So as we replace that, this is how we're starting to see the decrease in costs. So then if you can do an A/B test or you could do a test and control, then you've got causation, then you could say, okay, now I've got a behavioral metric, I've got a brand metric, I've got an incrementality metric, then they're like, "Oh, okay, I can see what you're doing.
We could see what you're doing." So I call it triangulate and trended, get them to doubt the doubt because they're going to be skeptical. Their jobs are to be skeptical. Their jobs are not to ... I thought at first, because I was like 30, he was just torturing me, but the job is to be skeptical. It is to be analytical and to be like, are you bringing value? That's their job.
GREG: Hey, Amy, I used to assessment test employees that I hired and I generally hired people in the marketing industry for the bulk of my career. This assessment test I use would evaluate something called poised. And poised was a variation like, did you believe what you heard or did you critique what you heard?
AMY: Oh yeah.
GREG: But did you believe ... Where was your trend on that, right? The assessment had been used against tens of hundreds of thousands of people. So big triangulation, many different industries. Marketers consistently came back with they believed what they heard at a very high percentage. It was kind of nuts to me. And of course, given I worked with marketers, I never saw the other cynical side of the world. So I just took what they were doing. But I think you're right. I think we as marketers far too much believe what we hear rather than have the tool, sometimes the tools or the knowledge, to be able to critique that or evaluate it. Yeah, I think it's a real issue.
AMY: I do think it's an issue because I think we've been in the business of storytelling and we want to tell the story and convince them, but I don't think that's the job of the modern marketer anymore. I think that's why we're starting in the mid 2010s to see that transition of CMOs into something that is much more focused on the business. Brand to performance marketing is probably ... It was the rise of performance marketing.
AMY: One of the things in my experience that I had with working for the CFO, by and large, they're skeptical people. And for the most part, marketing is always a expense. It's on the expense metric, right?
GREG: Yep, usually. Yep.
AMY: So how do you prove that you're not an expense and that you're driving growth? And when you try to make that bridge into that argument, you know that they're just going to be very skeptical. And so my whole adoption and what I've done is — and I tell this advice to my team and anybody who asks me — my job is only to get them to doubt their doubt. It's storytelling and it's going to take a long time, especially something like brand measurement, which cannot ... It's not market, it's not performance. It needs to be built up over time. And so we have a framework here and we use it and we use it all the time, which I call it triangulated and trended. So we need to have three metrics, three metrics triangulated, and it has to be trended. And because you bring in one metric, they're like, "Oh, that's nice.That's nice, Amy. You did some nice conversion rates."
And then you bring in two and they're like, "That's a coincidence." But if you bring in three and then you trend it over time, they're like, "Okay, well, maybe you are adding value." So I often go in and say, what we are doing is what we're doing is we're trying to create a constellation of indicators, indicators that we can optimize on, but also longer-term impact into these trends to say how do we show causation and correlation? I always think that the ones that most marketers bring in — I think it's less so because I think there's a new generation of marketers — brand metrics, like awareness, consideration. What I would call brand metrics, what a CFO would call soft metrics, vanity metrics, they call them soft and vanity. They're like, that's just vanity metrics. Those are important and you have to bring them in, but then you get into behavior.
So did you go to the site? Did it increase site website visits? Did I see a surge of my brand terms increasing because those cost less, those cost less than long term. So then you start to say, okay, now we're seeing positive brand metrics. I'm making this up by the way, but I think this is actually something we did in our past. The brand metrics of awareness and consideration is also going up. We're also seeing an increase in branded search terms. Now, when we get to do branded search terms, it costs 10 cents versus $2 or $5 in the long tail. So as we replace that, this is how we're starting to see the decrease in costs. So then if you can do an A/B test or you could do a test and control, then you've got causation, then you could say, okay, now I've got a behavioral metric, I've got a brand metric, I've got an incrementality metric, then they're like, "Oh, okay, I can see what you're doing.
We could see what you're doing." So I call it triangulate and trended, get them to doubt the doubt because they're going to be skeptical. Their jobs are to be skeptical. Their jobs are not to ... I thought at first, because I was like 30, he was just torturing me, but the job is to be skeptical. It is to be analytical and to be like, are you bringing value? That's their job.
GREG: Hey, Amy, I used to assessment test employees that I hired and I generally hired people in the marketing industry for the bulk of my career. This assessment test I use would evaluate something called poised. And poised was a variation like, did you believe what you heard or did you critique what you heard?
AMY: Oh yeah.
GREG: But did you believe ... Where was your trend on that, right? The assessment had been used against tens of hundreds of thousands of people. So big triangulation, many different industries. Marketers consistently came back with they believed what they heard at a very high percentage. It was kind of nuts to me. And of course, given I worked with marketers, I never saw the other cynical side of the world. So I just took what they were doing. But I think you're right. I think we as marketers far too much believe what we hear rather than have the tool, sometimes the tools or the knowledge, to be able to critique that or evaluate it. Yeah, I think it's a real issue.
AMY: I do think it's an issue because I think we've been in the business of storytelling and we want to tell the story and convince them, but I don't think that's the job of the modern marketer anymore. I think that's why we're starting in the mid 2010s to see that transition of CMOs into something that is much more focused on the business. Brand to performance marketing is probably ... It was the rise of performance marketing.
The Relationship Between Brand and Performance
GREG: So MMA's job as a nonprofit without commercial interest is to go and try to solve some of these challenges. So I've talked to ... There was a period of time when we were launching a project, it was called brand as performance. I'll just go with that. It's called brand as performance, not versus performance, but brand as performance. And I talked to probably 200 CMOs in the process of launching that research. It was a massive effort on our parts. Inevitably, 100% of those brand CMOs told me that one of the top three questions in their department was the relationship between long and short, brand versus performance.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: And what was interesting about that is nobody had an answer for the question.
AMY: Ohh.
GREG: And by the way, the MMA does now. We went ... Because, see, this is typical of us. We heard the challenge — I've heard you here — there is a way to measure that. And that's what we did. We said it's a math problem. It's not a cold fusion problem. We don't need new science, we just need to do the right math. And the data collection is incredibly complicated and extraordinarily high risk and you have to do it a long time. So what's required now, we've done four of these studies, it's required that you have to be able to be prepared to run research over a two-year period.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: And the studies can cost you a million bucks. Who's betting their career, their life, to devote theirselves [and] the time to do that kind of research? As big as the question is, I just don't think we have ... But there is an ability to measure the value of brand long term now.
AMY: I think that the measurement of brand has to be done, considering the ratio study.
GREG: I think so too.
AMY: And I think the bigger your media spin is, that is a drop in the bucket of it. I think there are cheaper ways to do research now, especially with AI. So maybe that'll help the million dollars.
GREG: Maybe there's a solution and we haven't found it yet, but yeah, maybe, yeah.
AMY: Maybe. That's all kind of emerging. I still, for a while there, with pixel-based attribution models like last click, I've gone back old school. I still believe in the MMM. I still believe in a classic MMM. And then on top of that, it's kind of what I was saying earlier, I correlate the brand metric in the MMM. So what we're trying to say is —
GREG: Not everybody takes the time to do that. Yeah.
AMY: It is an investment. And we did it in-house with our data sciences department here because I could tell you, if you could predict death, you could predict media sales.
GREG: (laugh)
AMY: I was like, if you guys can predict longevity, you're going to be able to figure this out. I don't need to hire a vendor. We have some of the best data scientists here. They do a different kind of data science, give them a different question. And so now we're able to correlate a metric which we can more easily drive. And for us, it's actually buzz. If we could create positive buzz, then we can say every point of positive buzz actually correlates to incremental sales of blah, blah, blah. So you can do it, but it requires a different type of thinking and a different type of marketer.
GREG: But I agree with you, we have to get there. Hey, when you say doubt the doubt, so is that to doubt somebody else's doubt of marketing or do you say you're doubting your own personal doubt? What does doubt the doubt mean? Can you go one more time?
AMY: I have very little self-doubt for myself and my team.
GREG: (laugh)
AMY: I think they're amazing. I think they are the best team in the world. Every team I have ever had the pleasure to work with are amazing and smart people. I think that in nature, people doubt the efficacy of marketing and that, in particular, a CFO's job is to assess and be skeptical. They're trying to see if you're adding value and if you're adding bottom-dollar value, so they have doubt. We have to have really good measurement plans. And in fact, we have to have really sound hypothesis, we have to have great learning agendas, and we don't doubt ourselves. And by not doubting ourselves, we bring that forward and we are just like ... And to show all the trends, the correlation, the conversion rates. If you have a question, let's ask.
GREG: The point is that you need to be prepared with the facts to support them in understanding where their doubt isn't maybe accurate. I'm not sure that's exactly what you said, but it's some variation of that where you think maybe they have a misunderstanding, but you're putting the burden back on the marketer to say, "We have to be prepared. They're going to have doubt. We have to be prepared to handle it."
AMY: You have to be prepared for that.
GREG: Good.
AMY: And then also don't get defensive about it. You have to understand that that is their job and that transparency and auditing is not a bad thing. These audits that every marketer or every CMO has where they hire a very expensive company, usually consultancy — rhymes with "Rain" or "Dickinsey" or something like that — and they come and they audit you, let them audit you. There are things that they will find that will make you better. And there are things that you can say that will be like, okay, you'll learn, let the audit come. If you have a good foundation of curiosity, of making sure that your programs are truly adding value, it's just an opportunity for other people with outside perspective that can help you see holes. That is the mentality that you have to have. You have to embrace the measurement culture.
You can't hide from it, you can't be mad at it, you can't try to argue it. Any other way is going to enhance the doubt, and you are trying to say, Yeah, that's great. What can we do to satisfy what you need? And maybe there is a better way.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: And what was interesting about that is nobody had an answer for the question.
AMY: Ohh.
GREG: And by the way, the MMA does now. We went ... Because, see, this is typical of us. We heard the challenge — I've heard you here — there is a way to measure that. And that's what we did. We said it's a math problem. It's not a cold fusion problem. We don't need new science, we just need to do the right math. And the data collection is incredibly complicated and extraordinarily high risk and you have to do it a long time. So what's required now, we've done four of these studies, it's required that you have to be able to be prepared to run research over a two-year period.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: And the studies can cost you a million bucks. Who's betting their career, their life, to devote theirselves [and] the time to do that kind of research? As big as the question is, I just don't think we have ... But there is an ability to measure the value of brand long term now.
AMY: I think that the measurement of brand has to be done, considering the ratio study.
GREG: I think so too.
AMY: And I think the bigger your media spin is, that is a drop in the bucket of it. I think there are cheaper ways to do research now, especially with AI. So maybe that'll help the million dollars.
GREG: Maybe there's a solution and we haven't found it yet, but yeah, maybe, yeah.
AMY: Maybe. That's all kind of emerging. I still, for a while there, with pixel-based attribution models like last click, I've gone back old school. I still believe in the MMM. I still believe in a classic MMM. And then on top of that, it's kind of what I was saying earlier, I correlate the brand metric in the MMM. So what we're trying to say is —
GREG: Not everybody takes the time to do that. Yeah.
AMY: It is an investment. And we did it in-house with our data sciences department here because I could tell you, if you could predict death, you could predict media sales.
GREG: (laugh)
AMY: I was like, if you guys can predict longevity, you're going to be able to figure this out. I don't need to hire a vendor. We have some of the best data scientists here. They do a different kind of data science, give them a different question. And so now we're able to correlate a metric which we can more easily drive. And for us, it's actually buzz. If we could create positive buzz, then we can say every point of positive buzz actually correlates to incremental sales of blah, blah, blah. So you can do it, but it requires a different type of thinking and a different type of marketer.
GREG: But I agree with you, we have to get there. Hey, when you say doubt the doubt, so is that to doubt somebody else's doubt of marketing or do you say you're doubting your own personal doubt? What does doubt the doubt mean? Can you go one more time?
AMY: I have very little self-doubt for myself and my team.
GREG: (laugh)
AMY: I think they're amazing. I think they are the best team in the world. Every team I have ever had the pleasure to work with are amazing and smart people. I think that in nature, people doubt the efficacy of marketing and that, in particular, a CFO's job is to assess and be skeptical. They're trying to see if you're adding value and if you're adding bottom-dollar value, so they have doubt. We have to have really good measurement plans. And in fact, we have to have really sound hypothesis, we have to have great learning agendas, and we don't doubt ourselves. And by not doubting ourselves, we bring that forward and we are just like ... And to show all the trends, the correlation, the conversion rates. If you have a question, let's ask.
GREG: The point is that you need to be prepared with the facts to support them in understanding where their doubt isn't maybe accurate. I'm not sure that's exactly what you said, but it's some variation of that where you think maybe they have a misunderstanding, but you're putting the burden back on the marketer to say, "We have to be prepared. They're going to have doubt. We have to be prepared to handle it."
AMY: You have to be prepared for that.
GREG: Good.
AMY: And then also don't get defensive about it. You have to understand that that is their job and that transparency and auditing is not a bad thing. These audits that every marketer or every CMO has where they hire a very expensive company, usually consultancy — rhymes with "Rain" or "Dickinsey" or something like that — and they come and they audit you, let them audit you. There are things that they will find that will make you better. And there are things that you can say that will be like, okay, you'll learn, let the audit come. If you have a good foundation of curiosity, of making sure that your programs are truly adding value, it's just an opportunity for other people with outside perspective that can help you see holes. That is the mentality that you have to have. You have to embrace the measurement culture.
You can't hide from it, you can't be mad at it, you can't try to argue it. Any other way is going to enhance the doubt, and you are trying to say, Yeah, that's great. What can we do to satisfy what you need? And maybe there is a better way.
Embracing an Audit and Measurement Culture
GREG: Amy, that's a real openness to a diversity of opinions or diversity of viewpoint — maybe not just opinion, but diversity of viewpoints.
AMY: Yeah. It's painful and you're going to have the defensiveness of like, "Well, this is why I did that, blah, blah, blah." I find that that never is a helpful stance. If you want to have that, have that to yourself. Don't have that to the team and don't have that certainly with the people doing it. See it as a partnership and partner with the CFO's office. And when you do it that way, it's less painful. And saying, well, you want to help me find inefficiencies, isn't that the job? That's my job too. My job is to find the inefficiencies. And I find that if you say and see and you embrace it, you make better programs and you're going to have better partnerships.
GREG: And by the way, we think maybe we have solved the magic financial formula to connect marketing to finance. We think we have. I'll let you know. We're doing our first evaluation of that with a brand that I'm going to talk about it, next week's possible. I don't know when this is getting recorded, but possible, so the following week, at a possible event. We're going to be sharing some of that, and we've got a number of other brands who've stepped up to try to validate this to CFOs, but we think we can really say, here's how marketing directly connects to finance and will really give both sides a complete understanding about how to invest, where to invest, where to go forward and what it's doing. It's a very big deal. If we're right, it's a big deal, but it's hard to know we're right. Yeah.
AMY: Pass it over. (laugh) Pass it over.
GREG: Well, I'll tell you what's interesting to me, though. So we've talked to probably a dozen or so brands about trying to help execute against this to sort of line up the data. We've not found a single brand that's got their data ready to do it yet.
AMY: I'm not surprised by that. I think that the conversation about data is even moreso lately because of AI, and having really solid data foundation is critical, but it's also one of the hardest things to do.
AMY: Yeah. It's painful and you're going to have the defensiveness of like, "Well, this is why I did that, blah, blah, blah." I find that that never is a helpful stance. If you want to have that, have that to yourself. Don't have that to the team and don't have that certainly with the people doing it. See it as a partnership and partner with the CFO's office. And when you do it that way, it's less painful. And saying, well, you want to help me find inefficiencies, isn't that the job? That's my job too. My job is to find the inefficiencies. And I find that if you say and see and you embrace it, you make better programs and you're going to have better partnerships.
GREG: And by the way, we think maybe we have solved the magic financial formula to connect marketing to finance. We think we have. I'll let you know. We're doing our first evaluation of that with a brand that I'm going to talk about it, next week's possible. I don't know when this is getting recorded, but possible, so the following week, at a possible event. We're going to be sharing some of that, and we've got a number of other brands who've stepped up to try to validate this to CFOs, but we think we can really say, here's how marketing directly connects to finance and will really give both sides a complete understanding about how to invest, where to invest, where to go forward and what it's doing. It's a very big deal. If we're right, it's a big deal, but it's hard to know we're right. Yeah.
AMY: Pass it over. (laugh) Pass it over.
GREG: Well, I'll tell you what's interesting to me, though. So we've talked to probably a dozen or so brands about trying to help execute against this to sort of line up the data. We've not found a single brand that's got their data ready to do it yet.
AMY: I'm not surprised by that. I think that the conversation about data is even moreso lately because of AI, and having really solid data foundation is critical, but it's also one of the hardest things to do.
The Challenges of the Dynamic CMO Role
GREG: The whole thesis of Building Better CMOs is for me to hear, as the head of the association, trying to solve some of these problems, what are the big challenges that are out there? What are the things that you think you see that either in your own experience within your companies or you see amongst your peer CMOs? You can go at it from any way you want. Is it what we kind of don't think we get right, that we sort of get wrong, that we misunderstand? Or is it a belief that we have that isn't the right thing? Is there missing knowledge that we have? What do you think would create a better CMO?
AMY: I think one of the biggest challenges is that the CMO's job is not static. Speaking ... We've talked a lot about CFOs. That job is singular. There's a training to it. We talked about degrees in the beginning of it.
GREG: Yep, yep, yep.
AMY: But I think that the CMO's job is so varied based on what the company needs and what is happening in the industry and the trends. So even, [as] I was telling you earlier today that I'm doing a lot on AEO and GEO right now.
GREG: Yes.
AMY: So the AEO and GEO is really ... When you really think about it, now it's about content, content and context. What is the intent of the user in AEO? So it's a content strategy. It's a brand strategy, but then it does have traditional marketing SEO stuff. So now all of a sudden you need to know technology. You need a content strategy.
You need to understand SEO. And now you need to learn the role of the LLMs and overall AI, machine to machine, API creation, entity models, context models, knowledge graphs. It's not just like, what do I want to say and position myself? But how do I understand the psychology, the technology, the technical infrastructure to deliver that? So we have these very dynamic roles. You need to know marketing, positioning, creative, you need to understand performance marketing, technology, all of it. And because we have to understand the trends, the dynamics, I think that is the challenge of a CMO. It's you have to almost be like a renaissance marketer and also adapt to what your company needs. The job is not static. So if you're just a performance marketer, when it becomes a brand problem, you're going to struggle. If you're a brand marketer and you don't understand performance — and it's always going to be eventually performance — you're going to struggle.
And now in the age of AI, do you understand data? Do you understand technology architecture? Do you understand hyperscalers? Do you understand how you make a intent cluster? These are all new and it changes and you have to keep up.
GREG: I've often believed ... I did a talk last year to open up Possible and I basically said, I don't think we appreciate or respect in some regards. I go — maybe just appreciate — the complexity that's required of the soft sciences and the hard sciences. So we need to know everything from actually brain science, which is not as soft, versus psychology, which really is. And you have a degree in philosophy, I think that enters into some of what we do. You look at culture, even then you look at the complex ... I mean, you and I have gone back and forth and also done things. I mean, who knows all that?
AMY: No one. Absolutely no one. But I do call it at the constellation of ... My strategy is always about the constellation of arts and sciences, right? Because it is the soft side. It is understanding a little bit of user intent and psychology. So then you get great researchers, you get great brand strategists, and now I'm starting to think about creative technologists because how do they tell the story? And no one person is going to know it, which is why I always say that the teams that you surround yourself with have to make a complete person. And so your extended marketing team is so critical. And I really do believe in my brand strategy, "More Powerful, Together." I believe that for us internally as well.
AMY: I think one of the biggest challenges is that the CMO's job is not static. Speaking ... We've talked a lot about CFOs. That job is singular. There's a training to it. We talked about degrees in the beginning of it.
GREG: Yep, yep, yep.
AMY: But I think that the CMO's job is so varied based on what the company needs and what is happening in the industry and the trends. So even, [as] I was telling you earlier today that I'm doing a lot on AEO and GEO right now.
GREG: Yes.
AMY: So the AEO and GEO is really ... When you really think about it, now it's about content, content and context. What is the intent of the user in AEO? So it's a content strategy. It's a brand strategy, but then it does have traditional marketing SEO stuff. So now all of a sudden you need to know technology. You need a content strategy.
You need to understand SEO. And now you need to learn the role of the LLMs and overall AI, machine to machine, API creation, entity models, context models, knowledge graphs. It's not just like, what do I want to say and position myself? But how do I understand the psychology, the technology, the technical infrastructure to deliver that? So we have these very dynamic roles. You need to know marketing, positioning, creative, you need to understand performance marketing, technology, all of it. And because we have to understand the trends, the dynamics, I think that is the challenge of a CMO. It's you have to almost be like a renaissance marketer and also adapt to what your company needs. The job is not static. So if you're just a performance marketer, when it becomes a brand problem, you're going to struggle. If you're a brand marketer and you don't understand performance — and it's always going to be eventually performance — you're going to struggle.
And now in the age of AI, do you understand data? Do you understand technology architecture? Do you understand hyperscalers? Do you understand how you make a intent cluster? These are all new and it changes and you have to keep up.
GREG: I've often believed ... I did a talk last year to open up Possible and I basically said, I don't think we appreciate or respect in some regards. I go — maybe just appreciate — the complexity that's required of the soft sciences and the hard sciences. So we need to know everything from actually brain science, which is not as soft, versus psychology, which really is. And you have a degree in philosophy, I think that enters into some of what we do. You look at culture, even then you look at the complex ... I mean, you and I have gone back and forth and also done things. I mean, who knows all that?
AMY: No one. Absolutely no one. But I do call it at the constellation of ... My strategy is always about the constellation of arts and sciences, right? Because it is the soft side. It is understanding a little bit of user intent and psychology. So then you get great researchers, you get great brand strategists, and now I'm starting to think about creative technologists because how do they tell the story? And no one person is going to know it, which is why I always say that the teams that you surround yourself with have to make a complete person. And so your extended marketing team is so critical. And I really do believe in my brand strategy, "More Powerful, Together." I believe that for us internally as well.
Hiring for Completeness and Competency Gaps
GREG: What about some of the hiring that you do? How do you maybe look at that? Do you have a hiring philosophy given the complexity of the knowledge that the marketing department, if not the CMO, needs to have?
AMY: I have this foolish inclination. I think we all do in our 30s if we can only find — 30s and 40s — if you could just find replicas of ourselves. If I could just find a miniature version of me —
GREG: Hiring managers tend to hire what they're like. Is that what you mean?
AMY: Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, I just want someone who can be like me. And I've thrown away that notion a long time ago because you have to hire for completeness. You have to hire for probably your gaps and you need to hire people with individual strengths because there's no person that's going to be a one unicorn. But I do think that you do, in this world, need business acumen. I think you need to have data fluency and analytical ability, and then you need to be technical, and you also need to understand core marketing. So you're not going to probably have that. My brand strategist needs to really understand positioning, marketing, creative, but then after that, it's really business acumen. I don't really expect them to do a lot of analytical thinking, and I don't expect them to be technologists, but they have to have a primary and secondary.
But then we're hiring and we just filled a role for AI innovation on our team, and she's amazing. She has great analytical ability, great technical ability, and great business acumen. You have to change what the role is. And together we form this fulsome person, but separate, we are a little weaker, we're better as a herd. And I think that's the way to do it because it's too complex.
GREG: Some of the board members, some of the marketers I work with, point out to me that they think sometimes the CMO role is sort of a catchall for other things going on. If they don't know where to put it, if it doesn't belong in finance, if it doesn't belong in tech, if it doesn't belong in, sometimes, supply chain, wherever, then they give it to the CMO. And I think the point that was kind of given to me by somebody was that they are like, "Well, it's one of the reasons we fail. We take on stuff, we don't really have expertise, but we're trying to be helpful." I don't know. What do you think about that in what you've seen?
AMY: I see that in the industry because I think it's to the point of the role is so dynamic. That's less for New York Life. I'm lucky in that way. But for the industry, I think it's like we have a brand problem. So then you go to the creative side, but then all of a sudden you're like, well, now we need to understand how to do AI. What's consumer trends with AI? And I do think that the marketer role is dynamic. So I can see how the industry becomes a catchall. And that's the part of the challenge is that you have to always be growing and learning and sort of anticipating what your company needs and the change of this industry and all this transformation. This is why having a good sense of the business is incredibly necessary for you to be an effective CMO because then you could get ahead of it. Before you become the catchall, you could be like, "Is this a trend that we need to be looking at? Do you want me to look at that?" That's better.
GREG: Do you think there's a place that CMOs maybe overestimate their strengths sometimes? That's a funny sort of question for you. Or maybe where we underestimate our strength?
AMY: This is a controversial take. I think we overestimate the impact that we make sometimes. I really do. And all the years of doing the measurement and everything, attribution is a big part of it and you start to see how sales, how pricing and products also make a big part of it. So I think that that is trying to get your attribution correct is a really good part of understanding the contributions you make. I think so often we go in, we're like, "Oh, we drove X amount of sales," but we don't account for the distribution that got it into the store or the salesperson or the actual product. So I think we overestimate our value and that's actually what, controversially, makes people doubt the efficacy of marketing.
GREG: Yeah. Interesting.
AMY: You have to take partial credit.
GREG: We've actually said a lot of the marketing work that you're often managing a coalition, you're not managing a function anymore in marketing.
AMY: That's right. That's right. And it really is. And that's why measurement and incrementality like A/B testing is a good way to try to get to that. And then when you do enough of that, you're going to be like, "Oh. Yeah. That is correlation, not causation." So then you report it as correlation. I think I contributed. I don't think I'm the end-up cause and effect, but I think we always say causation when we really mean correlation.
AMY: I have this foolish inclination. I think we all do in our 30s if we can only find — 30s and 40s — if you could just find replicas of ourselves. If I could just find a miniature version of me —
GREG: Hiring managers tend to hire what they're like. Is that what you mean?
AMY: Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, I just want someone who can be like me. And I've thrown away that notion a long time ago because you have to hire for completeness. You have to hire for probably your gaps and you need to hire people with individual strengths because there's no person that's going to be a one unicorn. But I do think that you do, in this world, need business acumen. I think you need to have data fluency and analytical ability, and then you need to be technical, and you also need to understand core marketing. So you're not going to probably have that. My brand strategist needs to really understand positioning, marketing, creative, but then after that, it's really business acumen. I don't really expect them to do a lot of analytical thinking, and I don't expect them to be technologists, but they have to have a primary and secondary.
But then we're hiring and we just filled a role for AI innovation on our team, and she's amazing. She has great analytical ability, great technical ability, and great business acumen. You have to change what the role is. And together we form this fulsome person, but separate, we are a little weaker, we're better as a herd. And I think that's the way to do it because it's too complex.
GREG: Some of the board members, some of the marketers I work with, point out to me that they think sometimes the CMO role is sort of a catchall for other things going on. If they don't know where to put it, if it doesn't belong in finance, if it doesn't belong in tech, if it doesn't belong in, sometimes, supply chain, wherever, then they give it to the CMO. And I think the point that was kind of given to me by somebody was that they are like, "Well, it's one of the reasons we fail. We take on stuff, we don't really have expertise, but we're trying to be helpful." I don't know. What do you think about that in what you've seen?
AMY: I see that in the industry because I think it's to the point of the role is so dynamic. That's less for New York Life. I'm lucky in that way. But for the industry, I think it's like we have a brand problem. So then you go to the creative side, but then all of a sudden you're like, well, now we need to understand how to do AI. What's consumer trends with AI? And I do think that the marketer role is dynamic. So I can see how the industry becomes a catchall. And that's the part of the challenge is that you have to always be growing and learning and sort of anticipating what your company needs and the change of this industry and all this transformation. This is why having a good sense of the business is incredibly necessary for you to be an effective CMO because then you could get ahead of it. Before you become the catchall, you could be like, "Is this a trend that we need to be looking at? Do you want me to look at that?" That's better.
GREG: Do you think there's a place that CMOs maybe overestimate their strengths sometimes? That's a funny sort of question for you. Or maybe where we underestimate our strength?
AMY: This is a controversial take. I think we overestimate the impact that we make sometimes. I really do. And all the years of doing the measurement and everything, attribution is a big part of it and you start to see how sales, how pricing and products also make a big part of it. So I think that that is trying to get your attribution correct is a really good part of understanding the contributions you make. I think so often we go in, we're like, "Oh, we drove X amount of sales," but we don't account for the distribution that got it into the store or the salesperson or the actual product. So I think we overestimate our value and that's actually what, controversially, makes people doubt the efficacy of marketing.
GREG: Yeah. Interesting.
AMY: You have to take partial credit.
GREG: We've actually said a lot of the marketing work that you're often managing a coalition, you're not managing a function anymore in marketing.
AMY: That's right. That's right. And it really is. And that's why measurement and incrementality like A/B testing is a good way to try to get to that. And then when you do enough of that, you're going to be like, "Oh. Yeah. That is correlation, not causation." So then you report it as correlation. I think I contributed. I don't think I'm the end-up cause and effect, but I think we always say causation when we really mean correlation.
The Different Types of Marketing Leaders
GREG: There's another thing that came up too. So I've been running the MMA now for slightly over a decade, and we had an early meeting with, it was a closed-door room with a bunch of CMOs. In fact, I can say it because none of these people I think are in their current job, but it was a CMO, I remember, T-Mobile, Allstate, Duncan was there, Chobani, the list goes on, GM. They were like big, big marketers, big, big CMOs. And we asked them a question, it was just meant to be a quick 10-minute warmup question, which was what is the role of CMO?
One hour later, we realized nobody in the room agreed.
AMY: Yeah.
GREG: Nobody. So I sometimes wonder ... And a lot of the work the MMA has done is try to codify, crystallize, clarify, because to your point, not all marketers are the same, not all CMOs are the same, but I don't know that the CEOs sometimes who are non-marketers, especially, or the CFOs, boards, sometimes fully understand the type of marketer they need. And in fact, I'll tell you what we got to just to see your reaction to it. We said there's really three different types of marketers or marketing strategies. One is brand, one is transactional, like direct-to-consumer kind of stuff, and the other one's customer experience. But those require very different capabilities, very different teams, very different orientations to the world. And you can choose a different strategy for the same exact product. The best one is Harry's Razors and Gillette, right? One is brand based, the other one is DTC.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: But you can't just say they're in marketing, go make that team run that strategy if they don't ... So what do you think about that? It struck me at the time.
AMY: I think that's right. I actually think that's incredibly astute because you're right. And I think that I have an interesting background because I came from performance marketing, cut my teeth in performance marketing. I really only did brand when I got promoted to the CMO role here. Because of performance marketing and my background at Block, I also had product marketing. And because I own dot-coms, I've owned a dot-com for decades, so it gives you CX. So in my role now, I'm probably shifting more from brand for the enterprise, but for my little division, it's more about CX. That's actually really astute. But here's what I would say. I would say that you have to have all three because you never know when you're going to need what. Because I was hired at New York Life to do the transactional. I built their lead program and their dot-com.
Then I became CMO to redo the brand strategy. And then so I did the brand strategy and recently took on experience because experience in the world of AI and making it more connected is very important. So you need the [consolidation] of all three and all the underlying skills that go underneath that. But the good news is you don't have to do it alone. You have to also build fabulous teams. So the other big thing that we should talk more about CMOs is how to build better teams. I feel like most of my job as a leader is to build teams to build capabilities, to serve the business.
GREG: Wait, what does that mean, to build teams to build capabilities? Go one more step on that.
AMY: I think it's maybe because of New York Life, the technology stack needs reinvention and transformation. It's a wonderful company, but it's to build a set of capabilities that allows us to have flexibility and whatever the business needs. One time someone said, "What is a CMO?" to me and I said, "It's C, fill in the blank, O, whatever you need me to do. " And so —
GREG: (laugh) Yeah, that's a variation on what I said earlier, right? They're a catchall for what they don't know what to do, what the CEO doesn't know what to do with.
AMY: Yours is much more articulate than mine. I was like, in the moment, but you have to build teams and capabilities to be able to say, "Oh, okay, if you need this, I have this." And I think what we've been doing, what I've been doing over the last three years, is building a set of core capabilities that allow us to flex and have amazing team members, colleagues that do that work and they are amazing and they're passionate. And so that's really ... The secret sauce is being able to build incredible teams that can then drive business outcomes.
One hour later, we realized nobody in the room agreed.
AMY: Yeah.
GREG: Nobody. So I sometimes wonder ... And a lot of the work the MMA has done is try to codify, crystallize, clarify, because to your point, not all marketers are the same, not all CMOs are the same, but I don't know that the CEOs sometimes who are non-marketers, especially, or the CFOs, boards, sometimes fully understand the type of marketer they need. And in fact, I'll tell you what we got to just to see your reaction to it. We said there's really three different types of marketers or marketing strategies. One is brand, one is transactional, like direct-to-consumer kind of stuff, and the other one's customer experience. But those require very different capabilities, very different teams, very different orientations to the world. And you can choose a different strategy for the same exact product. The best one is Harry's Razors and Gillette, right? One is brand based, the other one is DTC.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: But you can't just say they're in marketing, go make that team run that strategy if they don't ... So what do you think about that? It struck me at the time.
AMY: I think that's right. I actually think that's incredibly astute because you're right. And I think that I have an interesting background because I came from performance marketing, cut my teeth in performance marketing. I really only did brand when I got promoted to the CMO role here. Because of performance marketing and my background at Block, I also had product marketing. And because I own dot-coms, I've owned a dot-com for decades, so it gives you CX. So in my role now, I'm probably shifting more from brand for the enterprise, but for my little division, it's more about CX. That's actually really astute. But here's what I would say. I would say that you have to have all three because you never know when you're going to need what. Because I was hired at New York Life to do the transactional. I built their lead program and their dot-com.
Then I became CMO to redo the brand strategy. And then so I did the brand strategy and recently took on experience because experience in the world of AI and making it more connected is very important. So you need the [consolidation] of all three and all the underlying skills that go underneath that. But the good news is you don't have to do it alone. You have to also build fabulous teams. So the other big thing that we should talk more about CMOs is how to build better teams. I feel like most of my job as a leader is to build teams to build capabilities, to serve the business.
GREG: Wait, what does that mean, to build teams to build capabilities? Go one more step on that.
AMY: I think it's maybe because of New York Life, the technology stack needs reinvention and transformation. It's a wonderful company, but it's to build a set of capabilities that allows us to have flexibility and whatever the business needs. One time someone said, "What is a CMO?" to me and I said, "It's C, fill in the blank, O, whatever you need me to do. " And so —
GREG: (laugh) Yeah, that's a variation on what I said earlier, right? They're a catchall for what they don't know what to do, what the CEO doesn't know what to do with.
AMY: Yours is much more articulate than mine. I was like, in the moment, but you have to build teams and capabilities to be able to say, "Oh, okay, if you need this, I have this." And I think what we've been doing, what I've been doing over the last three years, is building a set of core capabilities that allow us to flex and have amazing team members, colleagues that do that work and they are amazing and they're passionate. And so that's really ... The secret sauce is being able to build incredible teams that can then drive business outcomes.
Aligning Marketing Strategy with Firm Goals
GREG: There's another thing that came up too. So I've been running the MMA now for slightly over a decade, and we had an early meeting with, it was a closed-door room with a bunch of CMOs. In fact, I can say it because none of these people I think are in their current job, but it was a CMO, I remember, T-Mobile, Allstate, Duncan was there, Chobani, the list goes on, GM. They were like big, big marketers, big, big CMOs. And we asked them a question, it was just meant to be a quick 10-minute warmup question, which was what is the role of CMO?
One hour later, we realized nobody in the room agreed.
AMY: Yeah.
GREG: Nobody. So I sometimes wonder ... And a lot of the work the MMA has done is try to codify, crystallize, clarify, because to your point, not all marketers are the same, not all CMOs are the same, but I don't know that the CEOs sometimes who are non-marketers, especially, or the CFOs, boards, sometimes fully understand the type of marketer they need. And in fact, I'll tell you what we got to just to see your reaction to it. We said there's really three different types of marketers or marketing strategies. One is brand, one is transactional, like direct-to-consumer kind of stuff, and the other one's customer experience. But those require very different capabilities, very different teams, very different orientations to the world. And you can choose a different strategy for the same exact product. The best one is Harry's Razors and Gillette, right? One is brand based, the other one is DTC.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: But you can't just say they're in marketing, go make that team run that strategy if they don't ... So what do you think about that? It struck me at the time.
AMY: I think that's right. I actually think that's incredibly astute because you're right. And I think that I have an interesting background because I came from performance marketing, cut my teeth in performance marketing. I really only did brand when I got promoted to the CMO role here. Because of performance marketing and my background at Block, I also had product marketing. And because I own dot-coms, I've owned a dot-com for decades, so it gives you CX. So in my role now, I'm probably shifting more from brand for the enterprise, but for my little division, it's more about CX. That's actually really astute. But here's what I would say. I would say that you have to have all three because you never know when you're going to need what. Because I was hired at New York Life to do the transactional. I built their lead program and their dot-com.
Then I became CMO to redo the brand strategy. And then so I did the brand strategy and recently took on experience because experience in the world of AI and making it more connected is very important. So you need the [consolidation] of all three and all the underlying skills that go underneath that. But the good news is you don't have to do it alone. You have to also build fabulous teams. So the other big thing that we should talk more about CMOs is how to build better teams. I feel like most of my job as a leader is to build teams to build capabilities, to serve the business.
GREG: Wait, what does that mean, to build teams to build capabilities? Go one more step on that.
AMY: I think it's maybe because of New York Life, the technology stack needs reinvention and transformation. It's a wonderful company, but it's to build a set of capabilities that allows us to have flexibility and whatever the business needs. One time someone said, "What is a CMO?" to me and I said, "It's C, fill in the blank, O, whatever you need me to do. " And so —
GREG: (laugh) Yeah, that's a variation on what I said earlier, right? They're a catchall for what they don't know what to do, what the CEO doesn't know what to do with.
AMY: Yours is much more articulate than mine. I was like, in the moment, but you have to build teams and capabilities to be able to say, "Oh, okay, if you need this, I have this." And I think what we've been doing, what I've been doing over the last three years, is building a set of core capabilities that allow us to flex and have amazing team members, colleagues that do that work and they are amazing and they're passionate. And so that's really ... The secret sauce is being able to build incredible teams that can then drive business outcomes.
One hour later, we realized nobody in the room agreed.
AMY: Yeah.
GREG: Nobody. So I sometimes wonder ... And a lot of the work the MMA has done is try to codify, crystallize, clarify, because to your point, not all marketers are the same, not all CMOs are the same, but I don't know that the CEOs sometimes who are non-marketers, especially, or the CFOs, boards, sometimes fully understand the type of marketer they need. And in fact, I'll tell you what we got to just to see your reaction to it. We said there's really three different types of marketers or marketing strategies. One is brand, one is transactional, like direct-to-consumer kind of stuff, and the other one's customer experience. But those require very different capabilities, very different teams, very different orientations to the world. And you can choose a different strategy for the same exact product. The best one is Harry's Razors and Gillette, right? One is brand based, the other one is DTC.
AMY: That's right.
GREG: But you can't just say they're in marketing, go make that team run that strategy if they don't ... So what do you think about that? It struck me at the time.
AMY: I think that's right. I actually think that's incredibly astute because you're right. And I think that I have an interesting background because I came from performance marketing, cut my teeth in performance marketing. I really only did brand when I got promoted to the CMO role here. Because of performance marketing and my background at Block, I also had product marketing. And because I own dot-coms, I've owned a dot-com for decades, so it gives you CX. So in my role now, I'm probably shifting more from brand for the enterprise, but for my little division, it's more about CX. That's actually really astute. But here's what I would say. I would say that you have to have all three because you never know when you're going to need what. Because I was hired at New York Life to do the transactional. I built their lead program and their dot-com.
Then I became CMO to redo the brand strategy. And then so I did the brand strategy and recently took on experience because experience in the world of AI and making it more connected is very important. So you need the [consolidation] of all three and all the underlying skills that go underneath that. But the good news is you don't have to do it alone. You have to also build fabulous teams. So the other big thing that we should talk more about CMOs is how to build better teams. I feel like most of my job as a leader is to build teams to build capabilities, to serve the business.
GREG: Wait, what does that mean, to build teams to build capabilities? Go one more step on that.
AMY: I think it's maybe because of New York Life, the technology stack needs reinvention and transformation. It's a wonderful company, but it's to build a set of capabilities that allows us to have flexibility and whatever the business needs. One time someone said, "What is a CMO?" to me and I said, "It's C, fill in the blank, O, whatever you need me to do. " And so —
GREG: (laugh) Yeah, that's a variation on what I said earlier, right? They're a catchall for what they don't know what to do, what the CEO doesn't know what to do with.
AMY: Yours is much more articulate than mine. I was like, in the moment, but you have to build teams and capabilities to be able to say, "Oh, okay, if you need this, I have this." And I think what we've been doing, what I've been doing over the last three years, is building a set of core capabilities that allow us to flex and have amazing team members, colleagues that do that work and they are amazing and they're passionate. And so that's really ... The secret sauce is being able to build incredible teams that can then drive business outcomes.
Building Peer Alignment and Better Teams
GREG: So listen, that raised a good question. If you were to step into a new CMO job at some point, what would be the first couple of things you'd do? What's the first thing you'd do as a new CMO? Looking back, I'm actually kind of ... Look back on your experience — and every situation's a little different and the dynamics are different and so on — but I don't know, do you feel like in your mind you have a playbook now?
AMY: No, I don't think I have a playbook, but I think that my first thing is I would learn the business and I would learn my team. That's the first thing I would do. I would learn the business, I would learn what the problem statements are, I would learn who my peers are, I would learn what their problems are, I would learn what they like, what they don't like, and then I would learn who my team is. Who are they? What do they do? What do they like to do? What are they good at doing? How do we work together? How do we amplify that? And so that, I think, is the basis of starting anything and not having the hubris to say that I have a playbook, because my playbook is based on adding value to the company and learning to be part of that company.
GREG: Okay. I have a different way of asking the same question though, you ready?
AMY: Yeah.
GREG: So you have a friend of yours who becomes a first-time CMO. What would you advise them to do? Like, "Hey, here's three steps I would make," or I don't know, however you want to do it.
AMY: Build relationships with your peers. Peer alignment is critical. If you are supporting a sales team, head of sales is one of your first destinations, then the CFO, and then the CFO. I would say go straight to the CFO too. Go straight to whoever's measuring you, but get that alignment first and build your marketing plans around the commercial effectiveness of whatever you're selling. If it's a DTC, then it's a DTC. If it's brand ... Whatever it is, do that. That would always be my advice. I think my observation in the recent CMO, but I've worked for a lot of CMOs just because all of us of this age have worked for a lot of CMOs. And one thing that I see and have seen is that it's misalignment with the peer group that makes a huge difference.You may have a mandate by the CEO, but if you don't translate that to your peer group, then it's isolated.
If they don't understand and they're like, "I don't know why you're doing that when I really need help over here," that's misalignment, because you're a contributing function. That's what I would always say is my first advice is learn your peer relationships.
GREG: Yeah. It doesn't matter sometimes how smart you are if you've not brought everybody along. The Chinese have a proverb. They said, if the head of the dragon gets too far ahead of the body, it will get cut off.
AMY: I could see that, yes.
GREG: Very much so. Yeah. If you're not bringing people along on the journey and helping them, then yes, that can spell — I mean, some people can avoid that — but it can spell trouble. Yeah.
AMY: And it's always a learning curve. I literally just had a conversation with my own boss about that and him cautioning me to bring people along. It's always something that needs to be done and it's so important.
GREG: That might be the advice ... There's a guy on my team, I keep giving that advice to him. I says, "Ask questions, see where they're at, and then move forward."
AMY: That's right.
AMY: No, I don't think I have a playbook, but I think that my first thing is I would learn the business and I would learn my team. That's the first thing I would do. I would learn the business, I would learn what the problem statements are, I would learn who my peers are, I would learn what their problems are, I would learn what they like, what they don't like, and then I would learn who my team is. Who are they? What do they do? What do they like to do? What are they good at doing? How do we work together? How do we amplify that? And so that, I think, is the basis of starting anything and not having the hubris to say that I have a playbook, because my playbook is based on adding value to the company and learning to be part of that company.
GREG: Okay. I have a different way of asking the same question though, you ready?
AMY: Yeah.
GREG: So you have a friend of yours who becomes a first-time CMO. What would you advise them to do? Like, "Hey, here's three steps I would make," or I don't know, however you want to do it.
AMY: Build relationships with your peers. Peer alignment is critical. If you are supporting a sales team, head of sales is one of your first destinations, then the CFO, and then the CFO. I would say go straight to the CFO too. Go straight to whoever's measuring you, but get that alignment first and build your marketing plans around the commercial effectiveness of whatever you're selling. If it's a DTC, then it's a DTC. If it's brand ... Whatever it is, do that. That would always be my advice. I think my observation in the recent CMO, but I've worked for a lot of CMOs just because all of us of this age have worked for a lot of CMOs. And one thing that I see and have seen is that it's misalignment with the peer group that makes a huge difference.You may have a mandate by the CEO, but if you don't translate that to your peer group, then it's isolated.
If they don't understand and they're like, "I don't know why you're doing that when I really need help over here," that's misalignment, because you're a contributing function. That's what I would always say is my first advice is learn your peer relationships.
GREG: Yeah. It doesn't matter sometimes how smart you are if you've not brought everybody along. The Chinese have a proverb. They said, if the head of the dragon gets too far ahead of the body, it will get cut off.
AMY: I could see that, yes.
GREG: Very much so. Yeah. If you're not bringing people along on the journey and helping them, then yes, that can spell — I mean, some people can avoid that — but it can spell trouble. Yeah.
AMY: And it's always a learning curve. I literally just had a conversation with my own boss about that and him cautioning me to bring people along. It's always something that needs to be done and it's so important.
GREG: That might be the advice ... There's a guy on my team, I keep giving that advice to him. I says, "Ask questions, see where they're at, and then move forward."
AMY: That's right.
The Nuance and Art of Senior Marketing Leadership
GREG: Ask questions, see where they're at, then move, and answer the question if you need to if there's something there, then move forward. Always make sure you know where people are and where they're going and how to move things along. So Amy, this has been really interesting. I was super excited to talk to you, especially just in part to your degree. I know the complexity of the kind of role that you have within those types of companies. I have other board members who work in sort of broadly the business. And it's a very hard thing, especially when I think you're sitting up against a bunch of CFO types, finance types, they tend to look at the business cut and dried, and brand's not a cut and dry business. So if you're having to launch a brand or to revitalize a brand within that, I mean, that's really hard, heavy lifting work, isn't it?
AMY: It is. It is. And I'm not going to lie, sometimes I feel misunderstood and I wish people would understand what I was doing more. And I also think the challenge is that everyone experiences experiences and everyone experiences marketing and everyone experiences brand. So there's never going to be a shortage of people who think that they have the ability to do your job, but to be in the job, to understand the nuance that it takes, the subtlety of even writing a tagline, there's an art to that, but it is a part of the education process that is probably ongoing for marketers and will always be, because the question is always, are you adding value?
GREG: There you go. We've given advice back. Amy, thank you. I can't thank you enough for being on Building Better CMOs. Thank you.
AMY: Thank you for having me.
GREG: Thanks again to Amy Hu from New York Life Insurance for coming on Building Better CMOs. Now check the description of this episode for links to connect with Amy. If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Michelle Barbeau, the chief revenue officer and former CMO of eHealth Insurance. We talked about what makes online insurance marketplaces different, the excitement of leading a turnaround, and what it's like to go from CMO to CRO. Now you can find that episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're hearing me now. At the Marketing Media Alliance, we are working to make marketing matter more through conferences, research, and education. If you'd like to know more, visit mmaglobal.com. You can also email me directly, greg@mmaglobal.com. Now don't forget, Building Better CMOs is on YouTube. Just go to bettercmos.com/YouTube to start watching. Our producer and podcast consultant is Eric Johnson from lightningpod.fm.
Artwork is by Jason Chase and a special thanks to Angela Gray and Dan Whiting. This is Greg Stuart. I'll see you in two weeks.
AMY: It is. It is. And I'm not going to lie, sometimes I feel misunderstood and I wish people would understand what I was doing more. And I also think the challenge is that everyone experiences experiences and everyone experiences marketing and everyone experiences brand. So there's never going to be a shortage of people who think that they have the ability to do your job, but to be in the job, to understand the nuance that it takes, the subtlety of even writing a tagline, there's an art to that, but it is a part of the education process that is probably ongoing for marketers and will always be, because the question is always, are you adding value?
GREG: There you go. We've given advice back. Amy, thank you. I can't thank you enough for being on Building Better CMOs. Thank you.
AMY: Thank you for having me.
GREG: Thanks again to Amy Hu from New York Life Insurance for coming on Building Better CMOs. Now check the description of this episode for links to connect with Amy. If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Michelle Barbeau, the chief revenue officer and former CMO of eHealth Insurance. We talked about what makes online insurance marketplaces different, the excitement of leading a turnaround, and what it's like to go from CMO to CRO. Now you can find that episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're hearing me now. At the Marketing Media Alliance, we are working to make marketing matter more through conferences, research, and education. If you'd like to know more, visit mmaglobal.com. You can also email me directly, greg@mmaglobal.com. Now don't forget, Building Better CMOs is on YouTube. Just go to bettercmos.com/YouTube to start watching. Our producer and podcast consultant is Eric Johnson from lightningpod.fm.
Artwork is by Jason Chase and a special thanks to Angela Gray and Dan Whiting. This is Greg Stuart. I'll see you in two weeks.