Forbes - Pinterest's Andrèa Mallard On The Marketing Value Of Marketers Undervaluing Their Work
Andrea Mard, the Global Chief Marketing Communications Officer at Pinterest, highlights the broad responsibilities of modern CMOs, which include overseeing marketing, communications, and product functions. She emphasizes the need for CMOs to be conversant in various areas, from data analysis to creative storytelling, to effectively lead their teams. Mard discusses the importance of making decisions with incomplete information and the emotional vulnerability that comes with the CMO role, as public scrutiny can be intense.
Mard also addresses the tension between CMOs and other C-suite executives, often stemming from misunderstandings about the role of marketing. She argues that marketing should not be seen as an end-of-process activity but as a strategic driver from the beginning. She stresses the importance of aligning marketing efforts with business goals and being accountable for both top-line and bottom-line results. Mard shares insights into how Pinterest uses data to predict trends and improve user experience, advocating for a balance between brand and performance marketing to foster long-term growth.
Key Points:
- CMOs must be literate in diverse areas, balancing data analysis with creative storytelling.
- Marketing should be a strategic driver from the start, not just an end-of-process activity.
- Align marketing efforts with business goals, focusing on both top-line and bottom-line results.
- Use data to predict trends and improve user experience, balancing brand and performance marketing.
- Build credibility with cross-functional partners to integrate marketing, product, and communication functions.
Details:
1. 🎙️ Meet Andrea Mard: Marketing Visionary
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Andrea Mard's Role
1.3. Responsibilities
1.4. Past Experience
1.5. Recognition and Accolades
1.6. Personal Connection and Anecdote
2. 💼 The Multifaceted Role of a CMO
- The CMO must be literate in a wide range of functional areas, requiring high-level knowledge across different domains, from scientific analysis to creative tasks.
- CMOs often transition between tasks such as using regression analysis to determine incrementality and editing marketing content, showcasing the need for both analytical and creative skills.
- The role involves managing a vast array of variables, making it challenging to be an expert in all, but necessitating proficiency in most areas to effectively oversee marketing functions.
- The CMO is akin to the 'CEO of the function,' highlighting the strategic and comprehensive oversight required, including leading diverse teams and aligning marketing strategies with business objectives.
3. 🤝 Leadership Dynamics and Decision-Making
3.1. Challenges Faced by CEOs
3.2. Challenges Faced by CMOs
4. 🔍 Navigating Expectations in Marketing
- CMOs often face tension with C-suite colleagues due to misunderstandings about the role and timing of marketing initiatives.
- Clear articulation of marketing objectives, strategies, and success metrics is crucial for CMO alignment with the C-suite.
- There is a common misconception that marketing acts solely as a final step instead of a strategic driver from the beginning of business planning.
- Marketing success depends on insights into consumer behavior and market trends, which should guide overall business strategy.
- CMOs can improve communication by providing specific examples and data-driven insights to demonstrate marketing's strategic value.
5. 🔗 Marketing's Strategic Role in Business
- Initially, marketing was considered a post-product development activity, focusing on storytelling and brand creation after the product's design phase.
- With the advent of design thinking in business practices, customer insights became pivotal, positioning the CMO as a strategic leader.
- The rise of performance marketing emphasized metrics and measurable outcomes, which risked sidelining the intangible aspects of marketing.
- This transition has led to a more narrowed view, prioritizing quantifiable metrics over the traditional balance of art and science in marketing.
- The strategic integration of marketing now requires balancing both measurable and non-measurable elements to maintain its holistic value.
- Successful companies use marketing insights early in product development, enhancing alignment with consumer needs and driving innovation.
6. 📊 Evaluating Marketing Success
- Marketers have developed comprehensive metrics throughout the marketing funnel to enhance growth understanding and rebuild trust.
- Despite the industry's fast pace, maintaining effective marketing strategies remains challenging.
- There is a misconception about the simplicity of creating impactful ads, emphasizing the complexity of strategic creative work.
- Understanding the distinction between brand and performance marketing is crucial, particularly focusing on channel effectiveness in performance marketing.
- Measuring everything does not equate to measuring the right things; marketers must assess the relevance and impact of specific metrics.
- Effective incrementality measurement is a key challenge to accurately gauge marketing impact.
7. 🎯 Strategic Allocation of Marketing Resources
7.1. Hiring for Performance Marketing
7.2. Strategic Growth
7.3. Measuring Bottom of Funnel
7.4. Top of Funnel Measurement
7.5. Integration of Marketing Channels
7.6. Budget Allocation
8. 🤝 Building Cross-Functional Relationships
- A CMO should act as a steward of the business, prioritizing what the business needs over defending only the marketing team's interests. This approach ensures that marketing aligns with broader organizational goals, enhancing growth and profitability.
- Marketing thrives when it aligns with business needs, becoming a better driver of growth and profitability. This alignment requires CMOs to engage with other business functions to integrate marketing strategies with overall business objectives.
- CMOs should not confuse objectives with strategies and tactics; brand building should serve the purpose of growth. A clear distinction between what the organization aims to achieve and how it plans to get there is critical for effective strategy implementation.
- Understanding that brand is a strategy that either differentiates and compels purchase or it doesn't is crucial. The brand must be positioned to address specific market needs and consumer pain points, thus driving business growth.
- A CMO must recognize the importance of aligning marketing efforts with product performance; if users churn quickly or don't engage, marketing spending should be reassessed. This requires ongoing collaboration with product development teams to ensure alignment between product offerings and market strategies.
9. 🧭 Integrated Marketing and Product Insights
- The primary goal should transcend brand focus, as branding alone does not solve all challenges. Strategic marketing requires aligning every role and action within the company towards business growth.
- In building organizational credibility, the executive team should be prioritized as the primary team, with the functional team as secondary, to facilitate holistic business thinking.
- An example from Avon illustrates that every role, even minor tasks like hanging banners, should contribute to business growth. The CEO emphasized that all actions must aim to move the business forward, highlighting the need for strategic alignment.
- All company actions should either facilitate purchase decisions and growth or avoid hindering them, demonstrating the interconnectedness of strategic marketing and business activities.
10. 🔗 Enhancing User Experience Through Design
- CMOs should establish credibility with cross-functional partners like the Chief Product Officer and Chief Financial Officer to foster a unified organizational approach.
- Pinterest transitioned from decentralized marketing to integrated functions, improving user representation and voice.
- Controlling functional areas such as research insights is crucial for understanding user problems and enhancing collaboration with product teams.
- Building strong relationships with product and finance teams is pivotal before focusing on the CEO relationship, aligning mission and accountability across departments.
11. 🌐 Emotional Well-being in Social Media
- Product changes should be pragmatically evaluated to avoid unnecessary resource expenditure.
- Adding new features requires engineers' significant efforts, emphasizing the need for careful risk assessment.
- Effective product management must oversee the end-to-end user experience, ensuring interaction is seamless and beneficial.
- Transitioning to a functional business model enhances collaboration, breaking down silos, and focusing on overall company goals.
- Customers prioritize cohesive experiences over internal team divisions, highlighting the importance of unified user experience.
12. 📈 Focusing on Long-Term Growth
- Businesses often rely on inertia, with 90% of decisions not being user-centric. Revisiting outdated logic is essential to maintain user commitment and ensure seamless service handoffs.
- Understanding customer emotions plays a significant role in marketing, as decisions are largely emotion-driven. Tools like the 'How We Feel' app, which prompts users to self-reflect on emotions, highlight this unawareness.
- Marketing involves understanding 'why' consumers make decisions, while branding focuses on 'what' and 'how.' Team alignment is crucial to ensure these aspects are effectively addressed in strategy.
13. 🔍 Consumer Behavior and Market Trends
13.1. Introduction to User Experience on Pinterest
13.2. User Insights and Platform Positioning
13.3. Strategic Design Decisions
13.4. Emotional Well-being and Differentiation
14. 💡 The Impact of Inspired Decision-Making
- The company focuses on long-term growth by paying attention to cultural signals and recognizing a shift in social media tolerance, leading to meaningful differentiation.
- It has identified the negative impact of excessive social media use, particularly on young people, and adjusted its marketing strategy to focus on Gen Z.
- Unlike typical social media platforms, this company is growing younger, with each new user cohort being larger than the previous, reversing the usual trend where platforms age up with their initial cohort.
- This strategy involves consciously building the platform to appeal to younger users by addressing their emotional well-being and desire for personal space, rather than just social validation.
- The platform's growth is consistent, even during economic downturns, and users view it as a positive, uplifting space, contributing to their personal development and future planning.
- The company has tapped into a fundamental human need for personal space and planning for the future, which is linked to psychological health, leading to sustained momentum and long-term growth.