Starbucks Global Chief Brand Officer Tressie Lieberman

TRESSIE LIEBERMAN: When I go to talk to college students, I tell them that. I'm like, here's a warning. If you are here and choosing marketing or communications or advertising as your career journey and you don't like change, find a new major. Because look, it's not just turnaround mode that brands are going through disruption. Every brand, no matter what business you're in, you are going through major disruption right now, and we always will be, but it is very intense right now with the acceleration of AI and social media and technology. And so you have to embrace that.

GREG: Tressie Lieberman, welcome to Building Better CMOs.

TRESSIE: Hi. Thank you for having me.

GREG: So listen, I am so excited to do this conversation with you, partly because I love marketing, partly because I know you do too. Partly because I love Starbucks. Fair enough?

TRESSIE: Me too.

GREG: I'm actually born and raised in Seattle, so —

TRESSIE: Awesome.

GREG: I feel like I wasn't there to start the company in a way, but I saw it in its early incarnation, so funny enough. So I feel a certain ... Coffee started in Seattle, so I've got an affinity of that. But more interesting, I had an experience the other day that really caught my attention.

GREG: There's a Starbucks that I go to for a regular meeting that I have in Midtown and I hadn't noticed before, but to be fair, you guys have been very public — Brian, you — everybody's been very public about change. There's time for transformation at Starbucks. Okay. I didn't realize how droll and awful that Starbucks had become. It was sad to be in, it felt like a Port Authority train station. I didn't notice it, I just got my coffee, I walked out. Until I went there last week, and they had completely transformed it into a holiday living room. And I was like, oh my God, that is so smart. That is what I wanted to experience here, and the change that I noticed it had in me, just emotionally to the brand, who I already am committed to, and bravo. So what are you guys doing? (laugh)

TRESSIE: That's great to hear.

GREG: Yeah.

TRESSIE: Well, it starts with our partners. And so I think you're seeing this what we call Green Apron Service and the hospitality that we provide in our coffeehouses. I mean, that's everything, right? And that's why Starbucks is what it is. It's because that connection that you have when you walk into the coffeehouse and that partner knows you by name and they've got your drink being made, they're pulling the espresso shot, and they hand it to you and say, Hey, good to see you, Greg. I think that connection is so unique. When I started at Starbucks, it was about a year ago at holiday, and I was in a coffeehouse — just walked in as a customer, I wasn't there for work — and I saw a customer bringing a gift to the partner to wish them a merry Christmas, and I thought, oh my gosh, what a brand.

GREG: Wow.

TRESSIE: That doesn't happen. And can you think of another brand where that happens, right? That real personal connection. So it starts with that. If that's not right, everything falls apart. But then it's orchestrating this beautiful experience. And Howard Schultz created this, right? It was a very merchant-led experience where the merchandise felt right, the music was perfect, the design of the packaging was amazing. And little touches like the garland that we brought in to the coffeehouses this year. That's one of my favorite things that we did because it brought in the vibes you're talking about where you felt the holiday, you felt the warmth. And it is the little things. It's those touches that make this brand special. And I think when it all works together, it is true magic. And that's what we're hearing from customers right now because they can tell the difference. And we're getting back to Starbucks. That's been our strategy. And what that means is we're back to the core, we're back to the things that made us special in the first place. And yeah, it feels really good. I'm glad you had that experience.

GREG: I really can't believe how well you nailed it. And there just was an excitement, enthusiasm, the staff ... And you're right, a young woman came by with a little, she had a little digital iPad on her shoulder or hip almost, and chatted with me a little bit and engaged and made sure everything was right, and I could see her talk to others there. I mean, she was making that —

TRESSIE: I love it.

GREG: Not just a living room. I mean, the feeling of people sitting around, they were reading their books, they were looking at their computer, they were doing all the things that they do. I don't know, I was really ... I was kind of blown away by it, honestly.

TRESSIE: That's cool. Hey, you're not the first person who's told me this about being in New York and how much transformation that market has gone through. It's a huge testament to the leaders there. I love to see it. And I've felt it myself. I was just there last week.

GREG: Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Okay, now lemme go back to the listener here, just to be sure that everybody, if you didn't read the liner notes, just to make sure you're aware. So this is Tressie Lieberman, she's the global chief brand officer at Starbucks, a year and a half now almost?

TRESSIE: Oh, just a year.

GREG: Oh wow.

TRESSIE: Feels like a year and a half because we've done so much, but just a year.

GREG: And by the way, you and Brian have worked before too. We should kind of call that out. So a CEO who's asked to do a major transformation said, who's the team I need that I've worked with to go make this happen? You were on the short list.

TRESSIE: A multi-decade journey together. So I started my career when I moved to the client side out of advertising at Pizza Hut, and I've since worked with him at Taco Bell as well as Chipotle and now here. So yeah, he's a great leader.

GREG: Congratulations. I think that's the big deal.

TRESSIE: Thank you.

GREG: I was going to give my kids advice as they just start their careers now, I say, find the best people and go work with them. Yes.

TRESSIE: Yeah. That's what makes it fun. It doesn't feel like work. It feels like you're just on a winning team and enjoying the journey. So I agree with that completely.

GREG: And now he's the coach of a new team, I guess, than where the team he was before. Exactly. There you go.

TRESSIE: Sure, yeah.

GREG: So listen, talk a little bit about the brand transformation you're under. So was it clear in the research? Was it just Brian stepped in and said, this is what we're going to do? How did you guys actually get to such a massive transformation? Because this is going to be expensive to change all that, and I kind of remember there was issues with ... Howard was talking about how they were cutting down stores. I mean, there was a bunch of changes going on I watched in the last few years. So how'd you commit to go big like this?

TRESSIE: Well, I think when Brian joined and he started talking to partners and spending a lot of time in coffeehouses and realized what needed to be done, and it was getting back to Starbucks, making the brand more visible, getting back to our coffeehouse roots and becoming so focused on hospitality and really being a leader in the service industry. For me coming in, it was clear that there were these amazing parts of the brand. I mean, truly the most special brand. When you thought about what makes Starbucks Starbucks, it is our coffee. And even just coming in, learning about the coffee, I was totally blown away about the care and what goes into it, the craft that we really have, the 10 shakes no more, no less, in our ice-shaken espresso and getting everything in precision, making it just right. And then that connection I was talking about with our partners, these were just towering strengths that we hadn't been talking about. And Starbucks had really relied on our coffeehouses for marketing, which is great. That is where it all starts because you have so many points of distribution with nearly 18,000 coffeehouses. But also we needed to be visible and relevant, and we are a brand that had led culture and had kind of pulled back from that. We hadn't been in front of customers as much, and so we started with reintroducing Starbucks to the world with our anthem campaign called "Hello again." Hopefully you've seen it. Maybe we could link to it in the notes. It's one of my favorite campaigns. I've got the script memorized. I just think it perfectly captured the essence of the coffee, the craft, and the connection.

GREG: Give the audio version of "Hello again." Go ahead and express it to people if you can here.

TRESSIE: Here. Oh, absolutely not. I don't want to ruin it because I feel like our VO was spot on and I love the spot so much. But it was this moment that not only made our customers want to root for us, it made our partners so proud. And I can't tell you how many times I've been out on store tours where people are just like, I felt seen in that work. I've had partners in tears about what it meant to be back, for Starbucks to feel back to what it was and to be able to take that forward. And so we've just been on that mission. It started with the reintroduction, we have innovated on our menu pipeline, we've been really focused on listening to customers, evolving our experience, removing points of friction, and it feels really good. Our brand affinity is back where it used to be. We are at an all-time, a five-year high of a place that you want to visit next. When we ask our customers, which brand are you going to next? They say Starbucks. So the brand is coming now from a place of strength. We've had a foundational reset year and now we can really lean into the acceleration around that. I think our holiday work is a great example of where it's all starting to gel and come together.

GREG: So what went wrong? Why do brands end up derailed? Because you are right. I can look back and the experience, I'm sure some of them, they were like, well, everybody's going through mobile, so let's diminish the impact on making the store nice. So the store becomes a little less nice, or the coffeehouse itself. I can see kind of them getting there. But in your mind ... Listen, you've been at a bunch of places that have been cultural icons. So we have Pizza Hut, we have Taco Bell, we have Chipotle in particular, and you've seen them through good times and difficult times. So as you look back though on what happened when you started, what do you think goes on in a company that they ... Can you give warning signs to anybody that they don't end up in the place that maybe Starbucks sort of one step down. What happened? How do you avoid that?

TRESSIE: I look at every brand through three areas. What is your company all about? So what makes you you. What are those towering strengths that you've got to lean into? What's happening in culture? You got to stay super close to where culture is changing. And what's going on with consumer? How are you staying completely connected to their needs and their wants? And then the competition, right? You want to look at the competition too. I think sometimes people start looking too much at the competition, trying to be someone that they're not, and losing sight of what made them special in the first place.

GREG: What about Starbucks though? Because Starbucks, I mean, I think they really had assumed ... One, okay, so maybe it was just a Covid decline. They lost that center. But I think the word as I've read it, you're much closer, was that it was no longer the third living room or third room, whatever term.

TRESSIE: The third place.

GREG: Third place, yeah, third place. It didn't feel that way anymore becaus we did it in mobile, we ran in, got it, got out. So I can kind of see that they were reading the insights well, but somehow kind of —

TRESSIE: I think you have to stay true to who you are though, right? Because if you were just looking at the consumer and you said, well, they want convenience, so let's become more and more convenient and just lean into that, you might lose, though, that coffeehouse is the core of who we are. So how do those things live together? And I think that what's amazing about Starbucks is we have the fastest, most friendly drive-through, we have the most convenient experience when you come in through the mobile app, but we also have the coffeehouse. All these things working together actually are what makes us us. It's not just about the coffeehouse, it's all of these different modes, but we can bring connection and we can bring joy and brand thoughtfulness through each of those aspects. And so I think you can't lose sight of what makes you special, that's ultimately what it comes down to, and try to chase too many trends. Stay true to who you are but move with the customer too. And I think Starbucks has done a really good job of that. We're just tightening it up right now.

GREG: I dunno. Boy, it feels very tricky. I just wonder what was going on, what were the internal conversations and how would I know that I had missed it? Because you still really rely on judgment. So I mean, listen, the answer at some point is "hire Tressie." (laugh) That could be the answer, but I don't know if there's any signals you watch for, or how do you stay true ... But you also got to shift and adjust. I guess that's really what makes it so damn hard.

TRESSIE: When I was at Taco Bell, I learned one of the most important things I ever took in in my marketing career, which was the idea of brand over time and sales overnight. A lot of brands try to get sales overnight, and you can get there by discounting the brand, which is one of the things that Starbucks was doing, kind of putting the brand on sale. You can do it with a lot of shortcuts, but if you just build sales overnight and you forget about brand over time while you're doing it, I think you can get lost. So it's always important that you're thinking about is what I'm doing today putting a deposit in the brand bank or taking away from it? And I think about that all the time. How do we drive sales in a way that makes you love the brand and have that deep passion and unleash that connection and get you talking about it to your friends and social media? That's how you get the flywheel going. Sales and discounts, that's not a good end game, right? No, not in our world. Not when you're a premium brand.

GREG: Right. And Tressie, you know — this is for the listener, Tressie has been on the board here at the MMA for some time, not currently, although we have invited her back. We'd still love to have you back.

TRESSIE: (laugh) I've got a lot going on right now. Turnaround mode.

GREG: You're going to use the turnaround excuse again. No, but listen, you know from the research we did around the value of brand, we were able to model over two years — and this is a pretty serious way of doing this, the brands performance research that we did — is that if you model over two years, if you do short-term versus brand, brand will outperform over a two-year period plus 40%.

TRESSIE: Yeah, I believe it.

GREG: But most CFOs, most boards, sometimes CEOs ... I mean, I think that's the value you have here is that you have a CEO who believes — and believes in you, obviously. That's a pretty big deal. I think that's really what you need, the commitment to run cover so that the board or activist investors or others aren't being able to get in there and derail those plans.

TRESSIE: Well, at the same time, I'm talking about brand over time, sales overnight. If all I was doing was focused on the brand without thinking about how we're driving transactions, that's not a recipe for success either.

GREG: Somebody's going to object, right.

TRESSIE: Yeah. That's what I try to do when I come into any job is I think about how do we get wins on the board right now? How do we start accelerating the turnaround and get the traffic in the door, but are we doing it in a way that's really healthy and working towards the long term? So as much as I was out doing brand-building work this year, we also did so much around driving product innovation and listening to our customers, accelerating our pipeline of ideas and being much more buttoned up in social media, resetting our content strategy, thinking about how we win today. How do you win today? If you don't have that air cover, then you're not going to be able to do the great brand work. So it all works hand in hand.

GREG: Correct. Yeah, yeah. No, listen, I'm a big believer in governance. I think having a good board — and I have a great board here, it's the reason why I get to do what I do in order to create, I think, the most impact. I totally agree.

GREG: Tell the, listen, what is all in the remit of chief brand officer, global chief brand officer, for Starbucks? What is that? Yeah, what do you got under there? Because it's more than just the Super Bowl ads, obviously.

TRESSIE: Yeah. I actually think I'm really set up for success in this role because of the way we've set it up, which is all of our menu innovation — so everything from beverage to food to packaging to what you see in the lobby with the merchandise, the gift cards — that's all on the team as well as the whole digital experience. So thinking about our app, our website, how we think about delivery, that all comes together under digital and then marketing as well. And then I recently took on channel business, which is our ready-to-drink beverages because we believe we have one brand. The consumer doesn't see an ad for a bottled Frappuccino and think, oh, that's a different Starbucks than the one that just showed me the ad for my holiday beverage. It's one brand. And so there's no finger-pointing in this role to say, well, we could have succeeded if we would've had a better innovation pipeline, or if I could have gotten eCommerce to think about this differently, then we would've won, right? There's none of that. It's just one team, one dream, how are we going to listen to our customers and our partners and create a brand they want to be a part of?

GREG: What happened to the cherry drink? What happened to the cherry cold foam? Is that what was on top of the drink that I —

TRESSIE: Oh, the cherry chai. Did you like the cherry cold foam?

GREG: Yeah, what happened to that? It's gone.

TRESSIE: So the way I think about the flywheel for Starbucks —

GREG: (laugh) I'm just testing to see if you listen to a customer here, I'll see if it shows up.

TRESSIE: No, no, I'm listening, I'm listening, but lemme explain this. You have experiences, which are the things like you, people love, they want to talk about. It's that new innovation, the new hot thing. Then you have the ritual, gets you coming back every day. It could be the rewards program, it might be your core drink, maybe it's the ice-shaken espresso. And then you have connection, which is that relationship you have with the partner, the stories that we tell about connection. But part of Starbucks is taking things on the menu and pulling them off because we are seasonally relevant, we're on trend, and that can make customers sad. So we always try and trade them into the next thing. So if you love the cherry, I would recommend strawberry cold foam, which I think is even better, in my opinion.

GREG: Is that an option?

TRESSIE: It's made with a strawberry puree. Yes.

GREG: Oh, I'm such an idiot. I didn't know that.

TRESSIE: Try it on a matcha.

GREG: Okay.

TRESSIE: Try it on ... What's your go-to drink?

GREG: I'm a pretty straight-up grande latte breve.

TRESSIE: Nothing wrong with that.

GREG: No, it's —

TRESSIE: I love that myself.

GREG: You know what, Starbucks delivers every time so I don't need to do too much different than that. Right.

TRESSIE: That's great.

GREG: But I did like the cherry, I thought that was good. Okay.

TRESSIE: Oh, it's so good.

GREG: Hey Tressie, by the way, you moved to Seattle for this, right? You and your family?

TRESSIE: I did. In the middle of winter, January 1st.

GREG: Yeah, sorry about that. So born and raised from Seattle. I know what you're up against. In fact, I was just there over the weekend to see my 92-year-old mother, believe it or not, and it was typical Seattle: It was cloudy, gray, and rainy.

TRESSIE: Yes. That reputation seems to be accurate.

GREG: (laugh) They didn't lie in the tourist brochure, that yes, it's going to be cold and rainy.

TRESSIE: Well, I did move from Orange County, so that was quite an adjustment.

GREG: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

TRESSIE: The 72 and sunny. But you know what? I love Seattle. I truly love it because I've never lived in a place with seasons like this, and the fall is unreal. The crisp red and the yellows of the leaves, I walk around like I'm in a movie, it just feels fake. It's so cool.

GREG: It's really beautiful right now. And I totally agree with you. Even in spite of the rain, it felt like that. I actually think that the Pacific Northwest —and I travel a lot — I think it's the most beautiful spot in our country. And I think there's a series of reasons. You've got the rainforest out on the Olympic Peninsula. You've got desert on the other side, you've got the mountains right there. It's evergreen all the time so even in the dead of winter it doesn't feel dead, which is, I dunno, I'm in New York now, it feels like that sometimes. You can really tell when ... Yeah, no, it's a great city and it made it even better, you've got so much innovation and so many smart people there now, right?

TRESSIE: It's incredible. I think there's an amazing network of people in marketing and technology and just a drive and energy to create what's next. It feels good. I really like being here.

GREG: How'd you make the decision to actually move there? How'd your family ... I'm just curious, I don't need to pry in all the personal, but I ask that in the context, I was listening to a podcast with some search guy the other day, a headhunter of some kind, I don't know. And they said the two questions they get is how much does the salary and can I do the job remotely? And that seems to be all that people are focused on now, which I find unusual. I don't know, it feels funny for where I grew up and how I looked at work, but how'd you make that decision?

TRESSIE: It's interesting. I mean, I've moved many times for my career and each time I learn that it brings out the best of me. It feels scary, it feels hard. It feels like I don't know how this is going to work. I love my friends. I've got everything in place. But it pulls out so much in you that you wouldn't have unlocked without the move, without the adventure. So I found putting myself in uncomfortable situations can actually be quite rewarding. I have friends from all over the country now because I've moved so many times and it opens my mind to new things. I hadn't spent much time in the Pacific Northwest and now I'm getting to experience a whole new life. This one was different for me because I have a son who's 9, and we had moved when he was smaller, but this is the first time that we had moved when he was in his groove and he's very routine kid, and I actually brought him into the experience with me. It's actually a sweet story, I asked him, Hey, I think we might move to Seattle, but it's for my dream job. And he looked at me, deadpan, he was 8, and he said, Mom, if it's your dream, I'm all-in.

And I then started crying.

GREG: As you should. (laugh)

TRESSIE: But it felt like we were in it together. And of course, I dunno what I would've done if he'd have said absolutely not. I actually primed him in advance a little bit, and he wasn't into a move at all before that moment, but it's really great because now he loves it here and he's thriving. I tell him all the time, we're here because we made this decision together and you were brave enough to take the leap. It took a lot to leave your comfort zone and move to a new city and make new friends and get into new experiences. And now he's cross-country running and things that he never would've done. And I think he now sees how much opportunity there is to take a risk. And so it's been very cool. It doesn't always work out that way, but I always think ... My old boss used to say things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out. I do believe it's all mindset and it's taking that leap. It's pretty cool. I love it.

GREG: Well, clearly you gave him the orientation. When I went to my kids, they were 15 and 10 at the time, and I said, Hey, by the way — in fact, I'll tell you the story. I said, Hey guys, we have a good plan. Your mother and I, we like to take on new adventures, we like new challenges in life. We made a decision that we're moving. We were living out on Long Island at the time. We're moving into New York City, moving back for — my wife and I — back into New York City. And my daughter at 15 at time says, I am not moving to New York City and dug in her heels. Now she wasn't happy about the move all the way up until doing it, and in fact, the day she arrived in New York City, she went and got a tattoo. Now, I don't know if you know this, but if you're under 18 in New York City, you can't go get a tattoo. So somehow she convinced somebody to give her a tattoo, so whatever. That was her little moment of rebellion that I'll live with. Right. That's fine. Here's what's funny about that whole thing, Tressie, that most people don't see coming, because I agree with you totally, I think that you open up to the experience and then see what happens. Two years later, I heard that she had told her guidance counselor at school, she said, I will never tell my father, but moving to New York City was the best thing we ever did.

TRESSIE: Aww, love that.

GREG: By the way, I did not see that coming. So I want to be clear. It's not like I had so much foresight over it, but somehow she found something within that experience that was positive. And I think that's what you ... I think that's the more important thing to teach a kid than, Hey, stay here just with your friends.

TRESSIE: Well, it really connects you. You get super close as a family. Even when I first started was right in the middle of doing this Back to Starbucks campaign with a brand anthem and so I was getting ads to look at at eight o'clock at night, quick turn, looking at rough cuts, giving feedback, and I was in a rental house, so I didn't have an office. And instead of going into an office, I said, Hey, Ezra — that's my son — why don't you help me look at these ads? I'd love to get your feedback. And he became part of the process.

GREG: Oh, wow.

TRESSIE: To the point where at one point I had a team offsite and I said, I'm going to be gone for the night. I'm going out with my team. And he said, what do you mean? Why am I not coming then?

GREG: (laugh)

TRESSIE: Because he considered himself on the team and I thought, how cool is this? And now he's looking at the stock ticker, he wants to know what's going on with Starbucks. He's in it. He is bought in on the brand. I should say, he's a very unique child.

GREG: It sounds like it.

TRESSIE: But it's been so fun. I'm like, I grew up in a household where we didn't ever talk about business or anything like that.

GREG: Yeah, same. Same.

TRESSIE: I didn't know what the stock market was till I was in my 20s. And so it's pretty cool to think about him getting this education and he's interested and having fun with it, which I never would've thought of before. I was actually forced into that because I didn't have an office. It wasn't some greatly thought out, I'm going to make this big mom moment. So there's been some unexpected things that have happened by making the move that have been a real delight.

GREG: It's just as you do, Tressie, it's one of the things I really like about marketing is that you're playing on a very public stage.

TRESSIE: There is no more stage more public than Starbucks. People really like to talk about Starbucks.

GREG: No kidding. And I hear that from a lot of the board members: When they get something wrong, they hear about it very quickly and so what they do...

GREG: Hey, I'm kind of curious just in that and some of the counsel advice and sort of input and insight to your family, what's the best advice you've been given? I don't know about you, but all of us, there's these pivotal moments in our lives where somebody will say something to us that transforms everything. Do you have some of those in your life, either business or personal, wherever you want to go with it?

TRESSIE: Yeah, my parents have actually been pretty amazing champions of me as a human. And they've taught me more about marketing than I could have imagined just by impressing on me that I should be myself, constantly being cheerleaders, saying, Hey, dream big. Anything is possible. Just be yourself. And I think from a lot of my career, I tried to be like other people that I looked up to and tried to study their style and emulate their style or constantly worry about getting better at things that I wasn't good at and thinking, I love social media, but people are telling me that's not the future, I should focus on other things and take on different roles.

GREG: (laugh)

TRESSIE: And it wasn't until —

GREG: I want to find those people and find out who said that to you. But keep going.

TRESSIE: Everyone. Everyone, right?

GREG: Oh really? Don't do social media because it's not going to be ... Really?

TRESSIE: Yeah, they were like, if you want to be CMO someday, you can't focus on that. You need to be great at other things. I'm like, yeah, but if I'm a great leader, I can hire people who are going to be the best at doing all these different things. I need to learn how to tell a great story and connect to a consumer, which early on in my career, social helped me with that quite a bit.

GREG: Right. And looking to the future too. You need to see around corners.

TRESSIE: And stay connected.

GREG: You better look around the corners.

TRESSIE: Yeah. You know what's going on in culture, you know what's happening, you know where the world's going, not through a report but by living it when you're in that world. My parents were always like, Hey, be yourself. And I realized two things in that. One is when I actually was playing to my strengths that I had a lot more fun, but I also started applying it to marketing and just saying, well, how do I get a brand to play to its strengths?

GREG: Authentic.

TRESSIE: How do you focus on what you're really good at and just act like a human? Just be human. I mean, I'm a pretty transparent person. I like to have fun. I'm encouraging. I've had people throughout my career say, oh, don't be friends with people at work. Or, you might want to tone that down, be a little bit more serious. And I think it's just like, Hey, I'm going to just be myself, and being myself, people are going to like it or they won't. But I think when you live in your own strength and you're more confident, people want to be around that. Same thing with the brand. When you're playing to your strengths, people want to be a part of that. So that's been a good life journey to figure out.

And of course, every day, I'm a perfectionist, so I'm always like, how do I get better at X, Y, Z? But really if I come at things through the lens of curiosity and intrigue, then I can turn things even that aren't strengths into something that's really fun for me too to go figure out. I love solving problems. I love to take something that's really meaty and sticky and figure out how to break it down. And so I'm having so much fun now. I think that's the cool part of that advice. It took me many years to figure out, and it's still a daily practice, it's just to be true to myself and the joy can come from that.

GREG: Hey, as I listened to you on that and listen, I find that incredibly compelling. Great advice. I mean, I think we all wish we had parents who'd be in a position to share that kind of insight to you and put it into, [practice], but I think if I'm hearing you right, correct me if I'm wrong, but I hear a sense of leadership around that. And leadership to me ... I had somebody say to me that followership is the new leadership, and I go, I don't know. That's being liked. I'm not so sure that's always the right thing in leadership. I think leadership is being willing to make a tough decision in an otherwise unclear environment.

TRESSIE: My job is making tough decisions, right?

GREG: No shit. All the time.

TRESSIE: As you get into the CMO or the chief brand officer role, you are making hard decisions all the time. You're never passive in a meeting. You are in the meeting because you're there to help guide and make a decision, and that can be hard. I think for me, I come at everything through the lens of humanity and not necessarily to treat others the way they want to be treated or the way you want to be treated, but to treat others the way they would want to be treated and to try and have as much empathy as possible and meet people where they are. And that's helped me manage conflict and manage being direct with people because I'm coming at it from a place of caring. It's just innately who I am versus trying to follow a script and do things the way somebody else would do it.

GREG: Right, as articulated by the HR manual or whatever might've been that.

TRESSIE: Totally.

GREG: That's really interesting. Any other good advice you've been given over the years, or what's the advice you offer here? Either, what else have people said to you or what advice do you offer your ... What do you find yourself offering your teams? I don't know about you. I find that I'm always in these, I'm in a theme for maybe somewhere between six, nine, maybe 18 months that I'm focused on something that's really important to me at that moment in life that I pass along or share. I don't know. Where would you go with that?

TRESSIE: I would say the number one thing I hire for and that I really encourage with my team and the culture is to be curious. I think that is going to carry you really far. And curiosity is also a thing that's personal. Like for me, I love TikTok. I love to get out into a market and walk around the streets and get inspiration. I was just on a college campus a few weeks ago doing a guest lecture and I'm looking at what everybody's wearing and what drinks they're holding, just being a student of culture. And I think with the teams, however you get that energy of curiosity — it could be reading, it could be magazines, it might be podcasts —

GREG: I think sometimes its ADHD.

TRESSIE: Whatever that thing is.

GREG: ADHD, by the way, I think is some of it. (laugh)

TRESSIE: Yeah, I mean, I'm doing all of those things. I am overly curious and annoy everybody endlessly. I'm like, have you seen this? Have you looked at that? But that actually brings me a lot of energy too. So I think when we come from a place of curiosity, it also pushes you to have an open mind and to have that growth mindset because it's really easy to shut things down, especially if you've been at a company for a long time and you've lived through all the reasons something can't work. You do have data to back up a lot of ideas and things and you're like, Hm, not sure about that. But I try to lean towards how might we experiment or explore this a little bit more? I love to shake things up and take a chance. I mean, you can do it in small ways. You don't have to bet everything on ideas, but I'm definitely an idea person and it does come from being connected to the consumer and to culture.

GREG: Yeah. It's funny you say that too. I think if I was to ask, there's a couple of things I'd ask about the company if I was to ask people the culture here or the orientation, but one of it is that you would never hear here, That's not how we do things here. Everybody here knows not to, and it's not driven by me. I just think it's the, or obviously it's someone, I set that tone, but it's not like I'm the one who's always saying it. But I think that's what everybody here would be like, no, no, no. Maybe there's an improvement in process. Maybe there's an improvement in something. And by the way, the answer is almost always process, but it is like, what are we doing? Oh, okay. Huh, there's a better way. You have a bigger idea? You have a better idea? Okay, yeah. How does that work? Okay, can we do that? Is it a good idea, then can we do it.

TRESSIE: Yeah. It comes from a place of curiosity but creativity. I think we hear "creative" and we think that's a job, that's a creative team's job, and I am a big believer in every part of the team and the brand can be creative. It's all about solving problems and doing it in interesting ways and trying to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer to figure that out.

GREG: What would you have done if you weren't doing this, by the way? Not in marketing. If you weren't doing marketing, what would you have done, Tressie? Do you know?

TRESSIE: I love to be around students. I think that gives me a lot of energy, so maybe being a professor. Maybe I would learn French and live in Paris and just eat croissants, I don't know. I love food. (laugh)

GREG: I think you like the challenge too much and the problem-solving to go to just focus on croissants.

TRESSIE: I have what I would consider an athletic mindset, that competitive spirit that you would see in —

GREG: Of course. I would think so, right?

TRESSIE: In sports, that's what makes it fun, and I get to do that every day through the lens of what I care about in brand, which is that customer obsession and being connected to what's going on in the world. It really keeps you young. I'm constantly looking at the next generation and how their lives are changing and how technology is evolving their everyday, and it keeps things interesting.

GREG: I'll tell you what's interesting about this. I listen to you — and then we'll move on to the other topic — is that you have the tone of an entrepreneur. I'm not so sure that's what you should do. I'm not advocating for that, but you have the tone of that because I know I get that because I run a business and I have a lot of domain over that business and success or not is largely dependent on my ability to be successful in that business. And so that drives me for the challenge. You sound very much like that, which is sometimes hard to find people like that in big companies.

TRESSIE: I will say, I study founders obsessively.

GREG: Oh, okay. Okay, okay. You have an orientation there.

TRESSIE: Yeah, I mean, one of the neatest things about this job is that I get to talk to Howard Schultz and he is a founder.

GREG: One of the greatest of all time.

TRESSIE: Of all time. And I get to spend time with him and hear his vision for the brand. And so I do think of my job as igniting the soul of Starbucks and carrying on the legacy of his vision. And what a unique thing to be able to be here while he is still down the street in Seattle. I call it the entrepreneurial mindset is really what I've been doing my whole career because it's been about looking at businesses and thinking about disruption, whether it was at Pizza Hut, oh, pizza's moving to being online. People are going to order a pizzahut.com, what will that be like?

GREG: How crazy is that?

TRESSIE: That's insane. Will anyone ever do that? Would people do that? And then the iPhone came out and you're like, oh, how do we use the App Store? And then Facebook became a thing, and when I was at Taco Bell delivery expanded with the DoorDashes of the world. So I've always been looking around the corner and thinking about we are going to be disrupted, so how do we disrupt before we're disrupted? And how do you meet customers where they are? And that has forced me to have this entrepreneurial mindset because I'm always selling. My very first job was actually being a salesperson for the Daily Texan at the University of Texas. I had to cold call people, but I learned that sales skill because that's all I've been doing is trying to get people to take a leap on things that felt a little bit out of the comfort zone.

A lot of we're not sure about TikTok or we're not sure what's going to happen with AI, or we're not sure what's going to happen with UGC, all of these things. And so it does force me to have more of that entrepreneurial mindset and that actually gives me a lot of energy. Then you learn, okay, if you have ideas that are making people uncomfortable, how do you bring people along? Because you're not going to do that on your own. Learning to be highly collaborative and be in partnership to help people get there together versus doing it on your own. There's probably a lot of similarities in how a founder thinks so maybe that's why I study it so much.

GREG: And you've got a background originally, too, as an agency person. That's what I got out of agencies. I loved that. We had to bring creative solutions. We had to understand a client's problem really quick, and then we had to be curious enough to dig in, to really know what was happening, and then try to make the most intelligent, creative solutions we could to what they were trying to accomplish.

TRESSIE: That's why I went to the client side, actually, because I loved advertising. I still do, and I started at Ogilvy and I would find we're taking ideas in to the client, but they're not getting approved. And I'm like, I wonder what they do every day? What is the life of a client like? What are their problems? How can I get in their mindset to figure that out? And that's why I moved over and I stayed in the path, but it was kind of like I consider myself a method actor. When I was at Taco Bell, I was studying startups so much because I was working on delivery and running an incubator there to figure out how other technology would disrupt us, and I'm like, I want to go figure out how a startup works. So that's why I went to Snap Kitchen to really immerse myself in that experience.

GREG: Yeah, it's funny, we had the CMO of Pizza Hut — I'm pretty sure it was Pizza Hut, I think I got that right — who spoke at one of the early MMA events. It was during the dawn of, obviously, the iPhone, and his whole talk was basically when he explained to the franchisees that he goes, we are a technology company that happens to make pizzas. We are not a pizza company with some tech. And he said it was a rebellion, almost, against that notation, which is so clearly what the business was all ... He was so right about that.

TRESSIE: Totally. What an interesting time. I mean, that was definitely a big growth era, and I think we're going through that right now with AI. There's just —

GREG: Oh, it's going to change.

TRESSIE: So much change all the time, and we don't even recognize it. Back then, when change came, it was like, whoa, what are we doing about this thing? When eCommerce started scaling and now it's just a fabric of the everyday and you just kind of accept it and roll with it. I got in my car the other day — I have a Tesla — and I hadn't used the self-driving feature. I'm like, yeah, I want to try that. I bet it's gotten better in the last couple of years. How do I do that? I opened up my app, I pushed a button, paid $99, and all of a sudden my car drives itself.

GREG: (laugh)

TRESSIE: I didn't even have to update the software. And I'm like, wait, how is nobody talking about this? It's not even a big deal. You're just casually talking about robots or self-driving cars.

GREG: Why isn't everyone aware of this?

TRESSIE: Yeah. I'm like, does anyone know?

GREG: They do. They do. They've been told.

TRESSIE: It's just become part of the day to day. And I think as a marketer, you're just trying to keep up with all this, and the consumer ability to change and accept change is wildly different than it was five years ago or a decade ago.

GREG: Tressie, if I was thinking of advice that people would be try to stay on the front edge of what's happening. So to that point, my Tesla was number 13,000. I don't know if they started at 10,000 and I had 3,000 or if they started at one and went to 13,000...

TRESSIE: Early adopter.

GREG: Yeah, but it was early. Yeah, it took nine months to get the car. I remember it was that early. I thought bitcoin was a good idea and TikTok is playing —

TRESSIE: Good for you.

GREG: And TikTok in 2017, 2013, my number one app, I've looked at my time spent, my number one app is TikTok.

TRESSIE: No doubt mine is.

GREG: Number one screen time. Yeah. So easy. It's like, yeah, exactly. And what's interesting is that a lot of people saw, they originally positioned that as fun and it's still got some element of that, but it's really about, I get so much great business and inspirational content that it's really extraordinary. It's really amazing how well they've done that.

TRESSIE: It's unreal. When you think about back in the day when we wanted to know what's going on with our customer, you've set up a focus group and you're going to ask people questions, and you're sitting behind the glass and you're eating your M&Ms and you're like, okay, yeah, tell me. But they're all kind of copying each other, right? Because one person says this and you're influenced by them.

GREG: It's the problem of those environments. Yes. Yeah.

TRESSIE: Look, I think there's still a great place for focus groups, but for me, the reason I'm so obsessed with TikTok in particular is because I go on and I get a real-time focus group over and over and over again — looking at the competitors, looking at Starbucks, looking at general trends and how people are changing, what interests them, and then looking into my friend's algorithm if they'll share. A lot of times I'm like, is this a big deal? I'll check my husband's TikTok. I'm like, what's going on on your feed versus mine? But we just had this glass bearista, which was a merch drop as part of holiday, that took over like no other ... I've never seen a trend break through like that that didn't come from a celebrity. I think Starbucks, we're a celebrity style in our own right, where we had over 100 brands jump on the trend of creating their own bear and tying it to their brand. I had all my friends texting me going, this is my entire feed.

GREG: (laugh)

TRESSIE: And so when you can be a part of culture like that, things can blow up. And so I'm watching all that stuff all the time.

GREG: Did you tell them, that's just targeting. I knew you'd be interested in it.

TRESSIE: Well, it was interesting because, going back to TikTok, I saw the glass bearista blowing up because our partners, our partners are on social too.

GREG: Of course, yeah.

TRESSIE: We have hundreds of thousands of partners, and they started getting the glass bear in their coffeehouses and they were doing unboxing videos. They're like, oh my gosh, you've got to see this.

GREG: Is that what got it going is that ...

TRESSIE: That was what really got the flywheel moving. Everybody was so excited about it. They couldn't wait to show it off. And I thought, oh, this is going to blow up.

GREG: You could tell right away.

TRESSIE: Well, not right away, but it's like this was a month of building momentum, right? Little drips. And then you start to see it happen more and more. And so yes, it was super interesting to watch that play out through the lens of social.

GREG: So Tressie, this has been so interesting. We have to, though, get to the big topic. So I don't know, maybe we don't go quite as long on this one. We've done such a good job here with everything else. This is totally, completely interesting to me how you look at the world. And by the way, I do think being of older years, I get the opportunity to look back, I think you're totally dead on. But here's the big question, and you know where I'm going to go because this is really what the MMA is all about. So what do you think, in your experience, maybe you've kind of touched on it here a lot, but your experience that either marketers, either maybe don't know at all, don't fully appreciate, could benefit from appreciating or understanding more, like it's a bit of your giving advice to the industry. Of course, I'm looking for stuff at the MMA to go fix. That's what the nonprofit MMA is supposed to do. How do we aggregate the industry to make all marketers better? But what do you think we in marketing don't fully appreciate?

TRESSIE: I don't think people yet appreciate the power of the customer, even though this has been bubbling up.

GREG: Wait, wait, wait. Aren't we supposed to be the voice of the customer though? That's heresy to say in some regard, but go ahead.

TRESSIE: Yeah. Well, I think we obsess the customer, but then we equally obsess our own plans and try to go our own way. So we do things in service to the brand sometimes more than the customer. And with the rise of TikTok in particular, where I think the narrative is being democratized, you have to think about whether it's for us, our partners, our employees, and customers as part of the campaign. They're not on the side hoping that they buy into what you're selling. It can be a powerful tool or a detractor, if not done right, to helping something succeed.

We've all perfected these perfect marketing calendars and we've got everything dialed in to a T. And I think there's got to be more empathy mapping in that — this is something I've been preaching for a while — meeting the customer where they are, figuring out how you hit culture just right. You can't have your plans perfectly locked and then just let them keep rolling, right? You've kind of got to touch base with, okay, right before launch, where's the customer right now? Where is culture right now? Does this feel right? Are there some edits we want to make? Being flexible, being able to pivot, but also measuring — to your point with MMA — what is the impact of all of this UGC? So many things blow up and we're crediting the brands, but a lot of times it's actually coming from the customer. But if the brand can harness that right, it can also be amazing. Then you have to lap it. As marketers, you always think about, how do I beat year-ago? How do you do that when things are consumer-led? Because you can't have that lightning in a bottle every time.

GREG: You don't know what tomorrow holds so how do you get ready and plan for that to then capitalize? Yeah. So how do you do that, Tressie? I mean, this is really phenomenal. You and I talked a little bit about this before. It's phenomenally interesting to me that you can turn that ... I don't know if you turn that into a science or what you do, but yeah, how do you do that?

TRESSIE: Well, it's a daily hustle. There's no longer just these big 12-week seasons and drops and you go on with your day. I think we can appreciate how much simpler marketing used to be, but now it's like, how are you showing up every day? What are the signals that you're getting? And it is a bit of an art and science, probably a little bit more art to finding the things that you think you can lean into and use as an opportunity for amplifying the brand. You've got to be really tuned in, and I think you've got to be a little bit more hands-on in your role. You can't just —

GREG: As a CMO or chief brand officer, you need to really be attuned to what's happening.

TRESSIE: You need to know what's going on, and you need to surround yourself with the right talent and the team who's going to have that spirit and energy to go take things on. I mean, it is building that culture of curiosity, as I mentioned, to say —

GREG: Into the team. It's got to be prepared to say, Hey guys, we're going to shift going this and that way now, right?

TRESSIE: Yeah. It can't be me just saying, oh, hey, I saw this thing on TikTok, what are we doing about it? You've got to have the team plugged in and looking for opportunities and thinking about how you then can scale those across the organization, especially when you are this big. I'll give you an example. At Starbucks, we have incredible UGC and deep customization of our menu. So everybody turns ... Their drink is their drink, but they also are trying a lot of different things. And we launched the cherry cold foam, as you mentioned, and then they're like, oh, what else can I put that in? And things can then become viral hits, right? So Dubai Chocolate Matcha, when that happened, we had pistachio out and people started making that on their own. Now, I call that a customer gift. You can either ignore it and hope it goes away and oh, we're not prepared for this.

We don't know how to make this. It wasn't in our training materials, this isn't on the calendar.

GREG: (laugh)

TRESSIE: Or you can say, oh, this is an exciting opportunity. How do we actually scale this quickly? So we launched a secret menu this summer where we made it super easy for any type of thing that pops off on social that we would have in our system an ability to have those ingredients print out on a label — so we don't have to go through all of the retraining — and make it super easy for a partner to be able to make that drink. So if someone comes in and they say, I want the gummy shark matcha that the partner doesn't have to be trained on the gummy shark, they actually can just look at the ingredient list and now make it as a customization.

GREG: Wait but how —

TRESSIE: So trying to remove that friction.

GREG: But that means you had to know what might be coming. So were you reading that and putting it in or you did it all ...? I'm sorry. How'd you do that?

TRESSIE: So the insight was that people like to make their own creations at Starbucks, and we have a highly customized menu. So our partners are already highly aware of someone coming in and saying, I would like to get the matcha latte with half decaf and oat milk, and add a chocolate cold foam.

GREG: How many different versions are there, by the way. How many, what is it?

TRESSIE: Oh my gosh.

GREG: 10,000 total by combinations? More?

TRESSIE: Millions.

GREG: Millions. (laugh)

TRESSIE: I'd have to fact-check that, but —

GREG: Okay, okay, fair enough.

TRESSIE: We have such an in-depth menu and people love to customize. So in the past, if something blew up on social — so a customer starts making the pink drink with a sugar cookie cold foam — we wouldn't have a way to train on that. And let's say the customer named it the Sugar Cookie Pie. I'm making this up.

GREG: Whatever.

TRESSIE: Then people start walking in, I want the Sugar Cookie Pie. And partners are like, I don't know what that is! But because we added a secret menu, we can then do a one tap from our app where that now prints out on the sticker and the partner knows what the customization is, so you don't have to order it by name in the store and you can have a one-tap in the app.

GREG: The screen that I don't see that they're punching has options or alternatives on there that they could punch in that they would then send over to the barista to know how to make it.

TRESSIE: That's right. Yeah. So it just becomes a customization instead of something that you need to train on. But that's, again, an area you could ignore and say, oh no, these things are happening on social and let's hope it goes away, or let's lean into it and drive sales of this item that people are already excited about that they made. It came from a customer, it didn't come from us. And I think there's just so much opportunity in that that we don't always take advantage of, and there's not a terrific way to measure it either. That is a gap right now.

GREG: Yeah. There's no A-B test split on this kind of thing.

TRESSIE: And you can't predict it, right? You can't go, oh, I'm going to test this this year and then next year let's see how it does. You got to hit culture where it is.

GREG: There's so much operationally that has to happen around that thing and not just sort of operations like you communicated about getting it ultimately into the partners, but you've got to have systems about how you're choosing to follow and what not to follow. And maybe that's just somebody's judgment, your judgment. You have an issue with then do we commit the time and energy to do that? Then were we prepared in advance to have that into the system, which is another problem you're solving, otherwise to get things to corporate ... Corporations can take forever to get everybody to align. So you really have to teach ... It's really a matter of ... It's really building an organization to be ready for that.

TRESSIE: That's right.

GREG: And that's not always easy.

TRESSIE: No, but it's imperative. It's the first thing I do when I come into a job is how do we set up to be able to jump on these opportunities, because I know the power of them when harnessed. And one of the beliefs we use that I learned from Brian was, if you never do, you never know. That is the mindset. Let's try it.

GREG: The close to that is, so go do.

TRESSIE: We have a team at Starbucks, not just in marketing but legal and working with our operations partners to be able to figure out how we go do these things and turn them into opportunities, and then you learn from it and you get better for the next one. It is all about that culture of learning and it's not perfection, but we try and do everything in a way that we believe will be a great experience. Because at the end of the day, if we weren't setting this up right and customers and partners have a bad experience, that won't work either.

GREG: So I'm going to assume you and I have some similarities. Just listening to you, like TikTok and some of the other stuff I've heard you say —leaned into mobile early on, you got social very quickly — it all feels very familiar. And I think in my now long history of life, looking back, I go, okay, I like change. I love change. I'm always willing to change. But where I sit on that bell-shaped curve means there's somebody on the other side of that bell-shaped curve. What I've had to think about — and I don't know the answer — is how do I manage to help those who don't like change? Because it is imperative that we do get there. Do you have any secrets? Have you thought about that? What do you do? Corporations have a tendency to have a natural resistance anyway. There's just a friction in them, so that's true of small companies, big companies. But I don't know, boy, some people really just don't like change.

TRESSIE: If you don't like change, marketing is not a good career path. (laugh) That's what I would tell people. Point blank. When I go to talk to college students, I tell them that. I'm like, here's a warning. If you are here and choosing marketing or communications or advertising as your career journey and you don't like change, find a new major. Because look, it's not just turnaround mode that brands are going through disruption. Every brand, no matter what business you're in, you are going through major disruption right now, and we always will be, but it is very intense right now with the acceleration of AI and social media and technology. And so you have to embrace that. And if you don't like that, truly, I don't think that it's going to be an enjoyable experience, but there's different levels of how much people love change. A big part of my job is setting the vision, creating the culture, being that enthusiastic, passionate cheerleader that's like, we can do this. Let's go and I'll show you, I'll show you the wins. And I think once people start to see the outcomes of taking some of these bets and taking some risks, they love it too. And they're like, oh, let's do the next one. And then it starts to move through the organization. Then it's not me saying, Hey, let's go do this. And everybody's begrudgingly following along. It's other people then go, I want to do this. I get it now. So I'm a teacher as much as I am a marketer.

GREG: Do you have an approach, a plan, or whatever, when you run into resistance? Listen, people still disagree. I'm the CEO of a company. I have a title that allows me to get away with far more implications or implementations of change than most get a chance to do. And yet I constantly find myself having to go, okay, how do I get them from A to B? Do you have any secrets how you do that?

TRESSIE: Well, I love it when people are pushing. So I do try to create a culture of debate in a good way, a healthy debate. And I would like to say, I think part of my journey and success has been surrounding myself with truth tellers. Like the 23-year-old that's out of school, I want him or her to be able to challenge me and be like, I don't know if that's a good idea. Because you've got to create that real healthy debate.

But I always try to get to the "and." It's kind of like the Second City training where it's "and," it's not a "no," oh, this isn't going to work because of X, Y, Z. Okay, well then show me something better. If that's not going to work, how could we approach it? How might we do this? I think "how might we" is one of the best words to lean into because there are so many possibilities and I want people to be open-minded. I want to have the growth mindset and I don't want people in the team that have the closed mindset. We're never going to get where we need to go if you can't see the possibilities.

GREG: I want to ask you how much resistance there was at Starbucks to creating change given now how far you've come.

TRESSIE: Starbucks is the biggest organization I've ever worked in and it's also quite complex because we have a global brand, we have our ready-to-drink beverages, we have licensed locations as well as corporate, and there's a lot of passion for it. I always say you want to work for a brand that people love or hate, but don't have any feeling towards. People love Starbucks. People also love to hate Starbucks. So it was a complex system to come into, especially when you're trying to move at the speed of culture, bring in curiosity, and drive change. I think for me it was a lot to learn too. It's a business where it's really in the details. You think about even just the customization, it's in the details. We have a lot of different launches as well. The way that I did it was, one, I think we had a really clear strategy from Brian across the executive team, and a very united team on that.

GREG: He very quickly came out with his public vision of it. I saw that. I thought ... I was impressed with that.

TRESSIE: And it was clear and it was simple and everybody knows it and plays it back. When you go into our coffeehouses, people are talking about getting back to Starbucks, and so there was a commitment in that, but trying to show the big vision of what's possible and believing in it and then giving people the opportunity to go for it, and you really just do try to start getting wins on the board. That's where the brand over time, sales overnight, you make some big changes. One of the first things we did was we stopped charging for alt milk, as an example. That was a big change, and it signaled, okay, we're going to go for it, we're going to shake it up. And then we brought in —

GREG: Wait, I don't pay extra for my breve latte anymore?

TRESSIE: You don't. Well, no. No, you're getting half and half so alt milk, oat milk, and almond milk, soy milk, there's no upcharge.

GREG: The example that I use —

TRESSIE: Protein milk is the milk to get now.

GREG: Oh, okay.

TRESSIE: That was another big thing we did was bring in protein.

GREG: Oh, okay, okay. I go to conferences, I see the seven milks on, I go, yeah, we are too rich a country, that sort of thing else. All the choices we have, it's good for business.

TRESSIE: Yeah. But I think just starting to experiment and getting people along for that journey. We did this "starting five" approach where we started to pull things into our coffeehouses with just five locations to get real-time feedback and move faster. It's just really getting speed inserted into the organization that we don't have two years to launch something. Let's listen now and respond to what customer's needs are. So it's just been a daily series of putting in the reps, showing up, and then taking people with you on that journey as well. It's one team, one dream.

GREG: So harder than pizza, harder than Mexican food, whatever. Harder than Chipotle, harder than all of them. Feels like it. And very public.

TRESSIE: Yeah. I don't know if it's harder. It's the most energizing and it's so much fun. The big difference is the frequency of how often people come to Starbucks and so you get a lot of feedback.

GREG: True, true.

TRESSIE: You get a lot of feedback. I actually ... I'm a big believer that feedback is a gift and it's helping us get sharper and get better. I think I have the best job in the world. It's really fun.

GREG: You know what? I think Starbucks is equally should be excited to have you there, Tressie, it's sort of obviously so. It's pretty incredible. I get the whole orientation, what you're doing, it's amazing. And I think risky too, because you're right, it'd be pretty easy in that kind of orientation to ... There'll be little missteps here and there. And like you said, between the partners and the customers who are very vocal, they believe Starbucks is a part of their ... It's their third place in life.

TRESSIE: Yeah, well, we make a huge impact. When I was about to take the job, I was listening to a podcast from a Harvard business study about happiness and they were talking about a little interaction with a barista at Starbucks — they mentioned Starbucks — can have a meaningful impact on your happiness levels. It's that daily connection. And I do think that we have a really important place to play in the world with being able to see that barista every day, know you by name, get you around people in community, hanging out, having a meetup at Starbucks, and even just the little joy you get by going and getting the holiday experience, being a part of the fall launch, being able to talk about your favorite order. There's just a lot of joy in this brand and I think we really need it right now. So I think we have a bigger place to play in the world too.

GREG: Well, there we go. I think we just said Tressie for president, I think is maybe where we just went. [laughter] Too far?

TRESSIE: Can you be my hype guy?

GREG: Too much. Too much too soon. Okay, let me work on that a little bit there. I think we'll take that into committee and see if we can turn it around. Tressie, I can't thank you enough for doing this. Super interesting. I mean, it's courage even for you just to come on so that I understand the implications of business, your scale and the thing you're doing, but it is impressive what you guys have done. So congratulations.

TRESSIE: Thank you.

GREG: Well done.

TRESSIE: Just getting started.

GREG: It's just get started. Great. And more cherry, that's all I have to say. Just more cherry.

TRESSIE: You never know what we have coming, Greg.

GREG: Okay.

TRESSIE: You'll be the first to know.

GREG: There we go.

TRESSIE: I take your feedback seriously.

GREG: (laugh) Okay, well there's others you should listen to too, but thank you.

TRESSIE: Awesome. Good to see you.

GREG: Thanks again to Tressie Lieberman from Starbucks for coming on Building Better CMOs. Check the description of this episode for links to connect with Tressie.

If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy my conversation with Regan O’Kon, SVP of Commercial Marketing at Moët Hennessy. We talked about the art of bringing brand strategy to life, creating luxury through small acts of human connection, and the story of how Aperol Spritz became a global sensation.

You can find that episode on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re hearing us now.

At the Marketing + Media Alliance, we are working to make marketing matter more through conferences, research and education. If you want to know more, please visit mmaglobal.com. You can also email me directly, greg@mmaglobal.com.

Now don't forget, Building Better CMOs is also 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.