How to build brand elasticity to reshape perception

Nataly Kelly [00:00:00]: Welcome to Inside Insights, where marketing strategy meets consumer truth with your host, Nataly Kelly.

Nataly Kelly [00:00:03]: 62% of CMOs say their brand story has become less relevant over the past two years. That's not a messaging problem. It's a meaning problem. Most brands don't lose relevance overnight. They lose it slowly. One price-led campaign at a time. One diluted promise, one missed consumer signal. So the real question isn't how do you grow faster, it's this: when your brand starts drifting, how do you bring it back? And how do you evolve without losing what made it matter in the first place?

Nataly Kelly [00:00:36]: I'm Nataly Kelly and today I'm joined by Carolyn Pollock, former CMO of Tailored Brands and now a trusted advisor to CMOs and CEOs. Carolyn has led iconic brands like Men's Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank through periods of massive disruption, not by chasing trends or slashing prices, but by reconnecting with what consumers actually value. Today, we'll talk about how to build brand elasticity, why the brand versus performance debate is broken, and what marketers need to unlearn to stay relevant in an AI-driven world. Carolyn, welcome to the show.

Carolyn Pollock [00:01:10]: Thanks, thanks.

Nataly Kelly [00:01:12]: Really good to be here, Carolyn. Great. I would love if you could start by talking a little bit about your experience with when brands drift into price and promotion messaging. How have you diagnosed that loss of relevance with the brands that you've worked with? And what did consumer feedback reveal about what people actually valued?

Carolyn Pollock [00:01:32]: Yeah, I mean, so much in there. I think, you know, one of the things that gets challenging, especially in the world of retail, is it's a very easy slippery slope to get on where you start with a discount. You see the uplift that that gives you in sales. You want to repeat that May the next year, and so you do another one. Maybe it's even month over month or even week over week. You're suddenly now you're competing against this additional volume that the sale and the price brings you. And if you don't do a really good job of managing that and using it really judiciously, it's very easy for that to start to overtake your messaging with the customer. And you know, when I first started at Tailored Brands, we saw that happening kind of across the banners where they had sort of fallen into a trap that almost all retailers do at some point. Particularly in a world when you're competing with low price competitors like an Amazon or a Walmart or a Target, where price becomes the primary motivator for closing the transaction with the customer.

Carolyn Pollock [00:02:31]: The challenge is that if you are in specialty retail like they were, you kind of have to stand for something more than just price because otherwise you're also fighting against convenience and speed to delivery and, you know, access to the product, whether it's online or in, you know, a large store down the street. And, and you've got to be worth it for the customer to kind of go seek you out because you stand for something more than, you know, just a really good deal, because if you, it's just such a slippery slope. So what we saw, you know, when I came into Men's Wearhouse was that like literally that trap had happened where it was like every ad, every communication with the customer was really focused on, you know, this sale or this discount or this offer. And there wasn't enough time in a 30 second ad or a 15 second ad or even at that time, like some social media to get across a message that went beyond price. And so it wasn't possible to show them that we also made really good quality clothing and that you felt really great when you put it on. And all these other things that were very intrinsic to the brand got lost in that messaging opportunity.

Carolyn Pollock [00:03:36]: So in order to—and we saw that having an impact on customer loyalty, on the relationship that the customer had with us, where we were training the customer to kind of treat even something as expensive and kind of meaningful as a suit, potentially even for their wedding day, as a commodity. And it was really just like, where can I get the lowest price? And so we felt like in order to really stand out and have that competitive positioning, we kind of, we had to reframe the narrative with the customer. So then it's like, okay, what do you talk about? So—and this is where I think, like a theme that is true throughout my career, and it's one I believe very passionately in, is that you need to understand your customer and know what motivates them. Take the insights that come from that.

Carolyn Pollock [00:04:27]: And even if that insight or the sort of action that, you know, the customer's indicating to you you need to take is counter to what you wanted to do, you've got to build momentum around that and you've got to find a way to turn that into an asset for you. So for Men's Wearhouse, it was really that we had this incredible asset in a very, very vocal, strong founder who had a very memorable message that they spent millions and millions and millions of dollars on TV very consistently over like a decade, delivering a message of, "You're going to like the way you look, I guarantee it." And you know, we would do research with customers who were in their early 20s who, you know, were, you know, potential wedding customers or whatever. They weren't even really alive and conscious of the TV advertising that was happening at that time with that message. But they knew that message.

Carolyn Pollock [00:05:18]: It was just so ingrained in popular culture. So it was a recognition that maybe that's actually an asset for us. Instead of that being baggage and instead of that being something that is holding us back from being more modern and relevant to today's consumer, maybe there's a way to turn that into an asset. And I think with that we decided that taking that "You're going to like the way you look," that really it was about. Well, no, actually if you look at "Love the way you look," like, think of like how great you feel when you love what you're—how you're looking and you look in the mirror and you're like, yeah, like that. That is great. And it gives you this confidence.

Carolyn Pollock [00:05:55]: And all these attributes that we were trying to convey about the brand, about it giving you confidence really were encapsulated in just a slight tweak to that word. And then we had the added kind of like cultural moment of the fact that we were doing all of this just as we were starting to emerge from COVID. And you know, the majority of our customers that we serve are wedding customers, people going back to the office, you know, people who like had—it was a high stakes moment and we needed to find a way to connect with them and, and especially with weddings, obviously all about love, people were reconnecting.

Carolyn Pollock [00:06:30]: So this idea of turning "You're going to like the way you look" into "Love the way you look" and making it a strong, confident statement that tied to love was just such a powerful message to come across that it allowed us to start to rebuild an emotional rooted message and connection to our customer than one that is just based on a function of price.

Nataly Kelly [00:06:52]: Wow, I love that story and I love the fact that you tapped into the essence of what made the brand special. And you know, so many brands and so many marketers when they come in and are stewarding a new brand, are thinking about like a rebrand, you know, and you use the word rebuild and I thought it's so much easier to rebuild than to rebrand. You know, it's actually more effective in the example that you gave. That's really a wonderful, wonderful story.

Nataly Kelly [00:07:17]: You know, it was occurring to me as you were talking, Carolyn, that we have a lot of listeners of our podcast all over the globe who might not know this set of brands. I was wondering if you could give a little bit of, you know, summary of, you know, where you see these. Like, I know because I grew up in the United States, an iconic brand that everyone knows or set of brands. I'd love it. Maybe give a little background for the listeners so they, you know, if they're not from the U.S. they know.

Carolyn Pollock [00:07:42]: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So Joseph A. Bank is a real heritage brand. I mean, it's a over 120-year-old brand that started in Baltimore and really was built around the idea of like that tailor who is an expert in kind of helping men dress for sort of any occasion. And certainly in those days, you know, suits were worn as sort of the uniform for men and all the way through into kind of the mid 19th or 20th century. And so they very rooted in kind of like quality. It has a real heritage of sort of classic, you know, little kind of in the Ralph Lauren style, if you will, kind of New England attributes to it. And very much still has a lot of kind of loyalty amongst consumers in that, you know, like I went there with my grandfather and with my father and now I'm taking my son and you know, it's a. It's kind of a really sort of heritage rooted, family type of brand.

Carolyn Pollock [00:08:33]: Men's Wearhouse started a little over 50 years ago and was founded in California, but rapidly expanded across the country. Had a very iconic founder who starred himself in the television ads. And you typically see him standing in front of a wall of suits and, and he was really the one that brought like... Whereas Joseph A. Bank is a little bit more elevated, he really brought more of like, you know, suiting good quality, suiting to the masses. So like he found ways to manufacture suits that were still good quality but at a much more affordable price than if you were to go to a custom tailor or even just a higher end menswear retailer. And so, you know, has a footprint of, you know, 650 stores or so across the country and very much rooted in kind of special occasion for customers.

Carolyn Pollock [00:09:16]: So moments where maybe a customer who doesn't always wear suits needs to dress up in particular for a wedding or sort of important work events or that kind of thing. And then within the brand is also Moore's in Canada, which is very similar to Men's Wearhouse in terms of like sort of a broad, very accessible price points and accessible quality type of suiting for men.

Nataly Kelly [00:09:38]: Wow. Thank you for sharing the backstory and the background of the brands that were part of that portfolio. Sticking with Men's Wearhouse, though, once you uncovered that emotional core—I know you talked a little bit about it already, Carolyn—but how did you rebuild the brand story without abandoning that existing equity? I would love to hear you talk a little more about that.

Carolyn Pollock [00:09:57]: Yeah, I mean, I think it... It was rooted in that insight that, you know, there was such powerful equity, and for us to completely walk away from that, quite practically, was going to be extraordinarily expensive, right? If someone, if you've got a set of customers who you want to still appeal to and they really think about you in one particular way, shifting that mindset, changing that is expensive. You need to be out in front of them with different messaging very frequently. And it's just—it becomes something that is a lot more challenging. It's certainly doable, but it just becomes a lot more challenging.

Carolyn Pollock [00:10:36]: It takes a little longer and certainly more money to do that. So what we were trying to do was figure out, well, how do we take that energy, almost like a jiu jitsu move of how do we take that energy that's not necessarily working in our favor and turn that into momentum for us and for the business? And so we tapped into that idea of, okay, it's rooted in people know us for, "You're going to like the way you look." Well, how about if we turn that into this feeling of love, right? And then, I think importantly, and goes back to what I was saying earlier about getting away from the price point story was really focusing on the... The usage occasions and the moments that we played a role in the customer's life. So really amplifying the support and expertise that we bring customers when they're outfitting for one of the most important moments of their life in their wedding.

Carolyn Pollock [00:11:29]: So, you know, for a lot of men and menswear customers who are dressing for their wedding, you know, they've never had a moment in their lives where more eyes are on them, more photographs of them are being taken. And it's important for this special occasion to, you know, really look and feel your best. And so we really rooted that messaging in, you know, how we helped that customer feel great and instill that confidence. And that confidence, again, was a very common thread all the way through. Like, the original founder had a very confident delivery style, and he was all about really kind of empowering the customer. And he was so confident in what he had to offer that he would say, "I guarantee it." And so that, like that... That tone of, and that emotion of Confidence was something that was really true to the brand as well, and we just needed to find a more appropriate and modern way to convey it. So that rooted in, in the occasions and the moments that really mattered to the customer was a great way to handle that.

Nataly Kelly [00:12:32]: It's so interesting because that message of confidence matters so much in those moments when, as you said, there's all eyes on them, but people are afraid they're going to, like, trip up their vows. They're nervous, they don't usually speak in public, and, you know, the average person doesn't do that. So it's interesting that just the message and the delivery kind of even conveys, like, the value that the customer hopes to achieve.

Carolyn Pollock [00:12:54]: I think that's so true. I think that, you know, and I've said this a lot to my teams over the years, is like, you know, there's what you say, but it's also like, where you show up and how you say it that are as important, you know. And that's true in any kind of communication. Right. There's the words coming out of the mouth, but, like, if your body language and your eye contact and, you know, your tone all also impact the way the person you're talking to takes in that message. And I think that's very true with brands is that, you know, you can. If you're trying to get people to think differently about you and show up differently, well, then show up differently. It's not just about, you know, the message that, like so much of the media is that message still as well. And I think that's even more true today.

Nataly Kelly [00:13:40]: Yeah. And it's every touch point when I think about people walking into the store and trying on something, it's ... it's that associate who's helping them as well, you know, and the words they're using and how they're conveying it. And, you know, like, I'm curious about the internal aspects and if you have any advice for folks who might be navigating that kind of change. Because I know with a lot of companies, you know, I work for PE Back tech company. It's very kind. I know you advise a lot of CEOs, you know, new management comes in and they see opportunities to change things and they're brought in to do things differently and make transformation happen. But I think what's lost, especially for people who don't have a marketing background many times, is keeping true to the things that really matter and not changing them too rapidly and being surgically precise with what you change. So I'd love to hear you talk more about that because there's also sometimes internal convincing and, you know, changing minds that has to happen in order for marketers to lead that change externally.

Carolyn Pollock [00:14:33]: Yeah, and, you know, and different profiles of people on the team. Like, some people really love embracing change, and other people are super happy with the way things are. And, you know, the different times in a company's evolution, different mindsets are more critical than others, you know, or more needed. And so I think it's also really understanding who has that appetite for change. And then how do you balance that with some grounding in, you know, here's the history and the background on that and that you need some of that to still be a touchstone so that you don't lose sight. And there's enough stories, especially in retail, of, you know, leaders who came in and wanted to just wholesale change everything and ignore the past completely and leading to kind of really disastrous results. So you have to, you know, be respectful of where you've come from and also what you're asking of your customer, you know, because your customer has been conditioned for a long time to think of you a certain way. And, you know, even with Men's Wearhouse, we had really conditioned the customer to think of us on price.

Carolyn Pollock [00:15:32]: And we had to think very carefully about, okay, what's the impact if we're not going towards price with them? Like, how else do we demonstrate value? Because value is more than just price. It's like all the other components of that sort of value, exchange and quality. And so we had to find other ways to show the customer that they were getting, you know, that real value so that we could bring them along with the change, too. But I think it's about just, you know, constantly having a balanced approach as you can and not be sort of full blinders on without understanding how the impact is on the change. And then being willing to take some risk, though, too, like, knowing that, like, yeah, it's not all going to turn out great the minute you execute. And you've got to make sure that you're rooted in ability to measure and evaluate the data and have that inform your actions to some extent and, you know, have some patience as you drive through the change.

Nataly Kelly [00:16:24]: Well, let's talk about that, because I have a couple of questions for you in that regard. You know, you often talk about controlling the controllables. I would love to hear your take on what that looks like for marketers that are navigating a tough financial period, you know, even outside of bankruptcy. Like, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Carolyn Pollock [00:16:41]: Yeah, and I mean, I think that was one thing, though. So we did go through a Chapter 11 process during COVID and, you know, came out of it, I think, like, operationally so much stronger as an entire company, but particularly within the marketing organization where there was just a lack of discipline around, okay, if we spend this dollar here, that means it's not going, you know, to the customer. And. And how do we make sure that everywhere that we spend is as efficient and effective as possible with an appetite for still some, you know, experimentation and investment and that kind of thing. But. But yeah, I mean, we literally. And again, this is, like, largely forced through bankruptcy, but I think it's now a discipline that I will take with me everywhere, and I know the rest of my team will as well. Of, like, every single line item, whether it was, like, how we were bringing casting into our studio or how we were managing creative production or how we were managing, you know, getting, you know, our media spend and the way we were evaluating and measuring it, like, every single place where we were spending money, we were looking at, like, is there a way to do this more efficiently? Is there a way to kind of maintain or improve the effectiveness while reducing the cost? Because what that did was it freed up, like, significant dollars that we could fuel back into a more efficient media plan that allowed us to get more of our message out in front of our customers.

Carolyn Pollock [00:18:05]: And it just sort of, like, got the flywheel going. I think, you know, things I've seen marketing teams do or they ... They produce amazing content, but then they haven't built out the media plan to go with that and ensure that, like, that content's getting sufficient visibility. And, you know, marketers always think, well, that, you know, we're bored of this message because we've seen it 50 times. Your customer's probably seen it once, and your customer needs to see it, like, three to seven times before it really lands with them. And so do you have the media plan that is going to support the volume of content that you're putting out there? I think is also something to think about, although, you know, with AI tools and that now, I think it's also getting a lot cheaper to create great content, and it's giving marketers sort of a different. A different lens on that. But I think that rigor of thinking around every single area, like, how can I do this more efficiently without losing effectiveness? And ideally, improving the effectiveness is just a great mantra because it allows you to free up dollars to go do the stuff that you want to experiment with and try out for something new.

Nataly Kelly [00:19:12]: Wow. You know, it's so interesting hearing you speak about that. I'm thinking, so often in businesses, people fall in love with the product and they're so excited about the product. But marketing leaders often face this challenge of, well, if nobody knows about the product, it doesn't matter how good it is. And it's kind of similar within a marketing team when you're producing content. You know, we're in love with our content and that is the end product, but we're not thinking about getting it out there and distribute.

Carolyn Pollock [00:19:40]: Exactly. Same, same challenge, just in a different framing.

Nataly Kelly [00:19:44]: Yeah, it's very true. You work so hard to create this amazing content, like, better make sure that people are really seeing it and that it's like getting the exposure that it deserves, you know?

Carolyn Pollock [00:19:55]: Yeah, yeah. And investing a fraction in content production and then making sure that you have proper distribution.

Nataly Kelly [00:20:02]: Yes. It's kind of similar to, you know, producing physical products and getting them out in the world.

Carolyn Pollock [00:20:06]: Right, exactly, exactly.

Nataly Kelly [00:20:09]: Wow. Yeah. So interesting. Well, I also wanted to ask you about maintaining confidence in marketing, especially during these times when finance wants immediate ROI. How did you think about your relationship with finance and turning your finance leaders into partners instead of skeptics?

Carolyn Pollock [00:20:27]: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the key word is like treating them as partners from the outset. You know, obviously finance has, they have to be ... are extraordinarily data driven and they need to, in order for them to advocate on your behalf as well, you've got to feed them the data that's going to make that possible. And I think, I think a lot of marketers have really learned this over the last while and certainly it was a constant narrative for a few years of like, you know, the CMO and the CFO have to be besties and, you know, it's just the most effective way to operate. And I think if you, if you achieve that, you got an incredible voice on your side to, to help demonstrate to the company why what you're doing not only matters, but is actually turning marketing from a cost center into a profit center.

Carolyn Pollock [00:21:14]: And I think if you can kind of speak the language that the CFO and your finance partners are speaking and show that you understand that and show that you're working towards helping them with their goals and the company goals as opposed to kind of operating in your own silo, and I think that's so critical. So things like as we were building out models to demonstrate, understand and demonstrate the efficiency of the media spend that we were putting in place, you know, getting our finance partners involved from the beginning was really important because then they were helping own the assumptions that inevitably get built into models. So they weren't, you know, also questioning those things later. If you have to go and present the data that's coming from a model and everybody in the room is questioning the assumptions, like, you lose the sight of what the data is trying to tell you, and instead everyone starts not believing in the data and not having that confidence. But if you've got a relatively kind of objective third party and your finance partner who's able to say, well, yeah, we thought about this and these are the assumptions and this is why we did it this way, and you know, we understand that there's this concern, but we've also got these three data points that back up why this assumption is the right one.

Carolyn Pollock [00:22:24]: You know, suddenly people are like, okay, get that. All right, now I believe this number and I can pay more attention to what that number's trying to tell me. So it's just having someone who can be that partner with you to sort of back up up the work that you're doing and help translate that for the rest of the organization is I think, just something that worked very well for us and I think is something that's really important as you're trying to build that confidence in the data that marketing's sharing.

Nataly Kelly [00:22:52]: Yeah, I think that's such a great point and I think about the importance of documenting the assumptions going in as well. Sure, everyone has that clear, especially for the risk events. Because sometimes you'll go in and you're like, well, the conversion rate is X and these are the numbers we're using to kind of that feed into the model. But then something happens and those numbers change dramatically overnight. And now everybody's like, well, why was your model so off? And you have to go back and remind them. And you know, that's, that's always a tricky thing.

Nataly Kelly [00:23:22]: It's something I've learned with my team is like, we've not only got to get them aligned, but document the changes because people move on from jobs very quickly and the people who you might be working with the next day are not even the same people who helped.

Carolyn Pollock [00:23:37]: So yeah, and you know, the world changes. I mean, like, you know, we all felt this over the last five years, but like, you know, as, you know, your year over year comparisons were not easy to make anymore. And so, you know, typically that was such a cornerstone of evaluating effectiveness, especially in retail. And so understanding like that context and making sure that that's documented. Because to your point, as people move on, you're like, well, what were we doing three years ago? Because we're still comparing to three years ago. So we've got to think about what was happening back then, you know, and making sure that you've got that document so it doesn't become this like selective memory of what was going on is really important.

Nataly Kelly [00:24:18]: Yeah. Especially when you're dealing with like what you were dealing with with COVID completely disrupting everything. Like that year is not going to compare to any other year on record. Or frankly the two years after that even, because it was like whipsawing of results. So. Yeah, so I love what you said about everything changing now again with AI.

Nataly Kelly [00:24:38]: Carolyn, you've said before that the future belongs to AI augmented generalists. I would love to hear what you think, what that means for marketing careers and where the insights teams fit in all of this.

Carolyn Pollock [00:24:51]: Yeah, I think, you know, and I like have very little expertise in the area at this point, like all of us basically. But, you know, my observations and kind of what I've seen firsthand and how AI is at least today being effectively deployed is, it's very, it's good at directing to, you know, specific tasks and special areas, specialized areas, and can be, you know, developed in such a way that it can get very good at, you know, whether it's creating marketing content and copy or whether it's, you know, helping build a email contact strategy or whatever that like there's, there's some very kind of detailed things that it's capable of doing. And as such, I think, you know, people building deep specialties within those areas is probably less needed over time because AI will be able to take on a lot of those tasks and even the strategy development around that.

Carolyn Pollock [00:25:44]: But what I think is needed still is the people who are able to kind of set the context of how that email contact strategy fits into the broader marketing strategy or how that content and copy needs to like convey a message that works across multiple channels or, you know, and so you need people who are going to be able to understand how all of that knits together and provide that context and provide that guidance and structure and guidelines for all that. So I think people earlier in their marketing career, now I think it's really important to learn lots of aspects of marketing such that you understand how those pieces work so that you could instruct an AI or think of it as your junior employee or whatever to do some of that work for you and then you're helping relate it to the other aspects of the mix and that you get how those pieces fit together. So that's kind of why I believe that that generalist type of approach is going to be even more important, that the human is going to be the one kind of quarterbacking all of it and making sure that these different AI tools are all working together in concert to deliver outputs that work best for that customer experience.

Nataly Kelly [00:26:52]: Yeah, I think that's such a great point. And a lot of the characteristics that you mentioned, like providing context, training, you know, all of those, it's interesting because I feel like many of us are not good at that in terms of training. It's like onboarding a new employee, you know, documenting things, clearly, checking in, refining, you know, coaching. And I do feel a lot of the use cases that I'm familiar with myself with how we're using AI on marketing, you know, it's, it's all about that. It's like, I feel like the, the, the leaders and the marketers who are best at like onboarding new employees and even agencies. When you think about how we train agencies, clarity and context and they can't do their job well unless they have that. But that's kind of a gap in business in general. So.

Carolyn Pollock [00:27:39]: Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's like we all, we all have in our head sort of why we're asking, what we're asking for or why something needs to be done or whatever. But you know, we forget that, like what's in your head doesn't get out there all the time. And I think that I've learned so much over the years in helping drive change in organizations that helping the people understand why something is why you're directing something to happen a certain way, or why you're asking a particular question or why you want X deliverable and how you're planning to use makes the work so much more effective. It gets people bought in, it gets people kind of understanding that. And I've seen that even as I use AI agents and that is like if I say, well, no, this doesn't like what you just said doesn't work, but here's why, obviously it gets it right away and then the next output is just so much better. And it is that kind of iterative process. And so if you don't have that generalist context and kind of the reasoning across sort of how it all comes together and why an email campaign needs to be a certain way, because you're also thinking about what that means when you reach that customer on social media or whatever, that you won't be able to utilize the best of what AI can do either. So I think that, like we just said, I think the context is just critical to share. Totally.

Nataly Kelly [00:28:58]: It's like coaching and training up an employee to get the best performance out of them.

Carolyn Pollock [00:29:02]: Exactly.

Nataly Kelly [00:29:03]: Yeah, yeah, that's such great insight. I really appreciate that. So speaking of AI, Google's AI overviews are disrupting traffic overnight. What do you think that that teaches brands about elasticity, the topic that we started with, and how they should adapt?

Carolyn Pollock [00:29:20]: Yeah, yeah, I think it just shows that you have to stand for something and you have to mean something because the way people are searching is really changing. They're no longer just typing in two or three keywords, they're putting in big long sentences and questions and they're giving context in their search query, if you will. And so you gotta be able to have ways to resonate with that. And the engines, the AI engines that are kind of pulling those results and surfacing, you know, three results instead of a full page of links, they're pulling that information and that again, that context of how the brand is presenting itself and sharing that, you know, based on the query. So I think having something that isn't just, you know, here we are, here's our price point, you know, you need to round it out with a lot more information and all that so that you get the attraction of the agents that are out there trying to source the right answer for the person who's asking the question.

Nataly Kelly [00:30:15]: Yeah, definitely. Well, I would love to move on to our lightning rounds where I'm going to ask you a few quick hitting customer insights related questions. Are you ready?

Carolyn Pollock [00:30:25]: Sure.

Nataly Kelly [00:30:27]: Okay. So Carolyn, what's the worst marketing advice you ever received early in your career?

Carolyn Pollock [00:30:33]: Yeah, I think, and this is something, it took me a long time to learn this but like, I think I, you know, there were a few folks early in the days that were like, well, you know, we just need to tell the customer what to do. Like if we go out there and tell the customer like 10 times that this is what they need to do, they'll just do it. And it's like actually I'm not totally sure that's true. And I think nowadays even more so that I think the customer is very self directed and very like brands that do well are learning to actually move with the momentum of the customer as opposed to against it. And that I think, you know, being able to, to understand what people's inclinations are and learn how to amplify that or harness it is is a far more successful strategy.

Nataly Kelly [00:31:17]: Couldn't agree more. Wow. So if you could give your younger self one piece of advice before you became a CMO, what would it be?

Carolyn Pollock [00:31:27]: I think kind of what we were just saying, and I think it's so much more true now is that like, that continue to make sure that you're very smart and informed on how all aspects of the marketing mix work together and, and make sure that, you know, you do all that still very rooted in, you know, what the customer is telling you as well. So just, you know, don't worry too much about like having to go super deep in, you know, one particular aspect of marketing, but really try to, to, to learn how it all works together.

Nataly Kelly [00:31:56]: What's one marketing metric everyone obsesses over but you think is overrated?

Carolyn Pollock [00:32:00]: Yeah, I mean, this is like, and it's so true in retail and, you know, E commerce and all that. And we were just talking about it. Excuse me, is that the metric of traffic? People are really obsessed. Oh, are we getting enough eyeballs to the site and are we getting enough people walking through the door of our store? And it's like, great, like, I can send you a ton of traffic. You know, I can go and buy a whole bunch of traffic and send it to you. If it's not good quality traffic, it doesn't really matter. So I think, you know, traffic is super important. You can't, you know, if you have a conversion rate of 50, but you're only getting two people in the door, like it's not really going to help you that much with growing your business. So you still need lots of traffic. But you've got to also make sure that you're focusing on the quality over just your quantity.

Nataly Kelly [00:32:41]: Oh yeah. And there's so many things that happen downstream from that that can ... If you invest too much in the top and you forget what's happening at the bottom.

Carolyn Pollock [00:32:50]: Yeah, you just, you're overpaying for the top.

Nataly Kelly [00:32:54]: Exactly, exactly. That's great. Good advice. So what's the most counterintuitive thing you've learned about driving customer loyalty?

Carolyn Pollock [00:33:02]: I think it used to be that, like, if you were constantly in front of the customer and you were always showing up for them, like with that really high frequency type of approach that, that was the thing that like, kept you top of mind and kept people loyal to your brand, and I think that's changed a lot. Like, I think, you know, like one singular, meaningful experience that a customer has with your brand, like far outweighs the 50 emails that you tried to send them. So I think it's about really focusing on kind of how you more meaningfully connect and deliver something that's, that's a true kind of experience for the customer over frequency.

Nataly Kelly [00:33:33]: That's great advice. What's one thing marketers need to unlearn in the age of AI driven consumer behavior?

Carolyn Pollock [00:33:40]: Yeah, and you know, so I grew up in the world of packaged goods. It was very brand forward and you know, we were really, really rigid around our brand guidelines and tolerance of space around our logo and you know, the size of the fonts and the like, everything was very, very precise because it was all about really cultivating a truly consistent brand image, but with like the utmost of precision around all the detail. In the world of AI now I think marketers are having to learn to let go a little on that. And I think it's AI, but it's also social that is really driving this. We've talked about this for a while around influencers and having to be comfortable with the fact that the influencer is not going to read off a script because if they do, that doesn't sound authentic and no one's going to pay attention to them anyways. And so they're going to take what your brand stands for and what it means to them and translate that to the customer. And that's frankly what you're paying them for. That's what you want them to do. Because like, that message will have so much more meaning for your customer because it's authentically coming from someone that they have an affinity to. So I think it's about learning how to let go and not feel as though you need to and have to control every single aspect of your brand.

Carolyn Pollock [00:34:55]: You need to be rooted very, very firmly in what your brand stands for and the message that you're wanting to convey. But how that message gets out there and like we talked about earlier, how and where it shows up is equally important. And you've got to be able to let go a little bit on that.

Nataly Kelly [00:35:09]: You know, it's so interesting.

Carolyn Pollock [00:35:11]: Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that. I think a lot of traditional marketers in more traditional, like legacy brands and older companies have a challenge here because it's so much part of their culture.

Nataly Kelly [00:35:21]: Right. And you know, coming from the world of tech where like I was at HubSpot for eight years, you know, we didn't think that way because things were moving too fast. Like we, we couldn't be so rigid or we wouldn't be able to execute fast enough. So I remember one time I saw our orange sprocket logo and someone, an employee had like done like a, a gray version of it and like put it out on social media. And I was thinking, oh my God, this is a nightmare from a brand tourist perspective. But most people were like, eh, it's not going to be seen that much. Like, you know, it's only there for a little bit and it'll fade out of the feed and you know, it's all rel. It's all relative to how it's going to be used. And so I think it's really interesting that that dynamic where legacy brands and maybe older approaches are kind of needing more flexibility these days.

Carolyn Pollock [00:35:59]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's like, you know, having AI create content now at a volume and scale that is sure just impossible for a brand manager to be able to review. Every single execution, you know, requires a leap of faith that, that is, you know, a little unnerving. And there have been examples of where GenAI has created content that is totally off brand for a brand. And you know, and so like, there's, there's learning that has to happen there. But you know, if, if you, if you have that foundation of what your brand stands for and for whom, and you set that as sort of the parameters, you know, you do the same with influencers as you would do with a Gen creative engine is like set those guidelines and then ensure it sits within that and, you know, be willing to kind of have some flexibility within those guidelines lines.

Nataly Kelly [00:36:43]: It's all about finding the flex.

Carolyn Pollock [00:36:44]: Yeah, exactly. Adapt as we go.

Nataly Kelly [00:36:46]: That's great advice, Carolyn. Well, that wraps up this episode of the Inside Insights podcast. I'd like to thank you again, Carolyn Pollock. I think that I could listen to you for hours and hours and learn so much from you, so thank you. Your voice as a, as a thought leader and as a veteran CMO and advisor to CEOs is just so valuable. Thank you for sharing all your wisdom with us.

Nataly Kelly [00:37:08]: If you'd like to contact Carolyn, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or at insideinsightspod.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and you want a regular stream of research and insights knowledge in your podcast feed, hit that subscribe button in your podcast app or follow us on YouTube. Okay, that's all for today, but until next time, remember your customers always have the answers.