Marketing Vanguard

If you’re wondering why your good ol’ marketing playbook no longer works, the answer probably lies in the funnel you’re targeting.

Turns out, the buyer changed the route.

Recorded live at Advertising Week New York, this episode of Marketing Vanguard features Jenny Rooney in conversation with Salesforce CMO Erin Oles to unpack what happens when customer behavior moves faster than the funnel marketers built around it. Erin gets into why traditional attribution assumptions are starting to crack, why marketers need to understand how their brand appears inside LLMs and why AI should...

AI gives every marketer access to similar tools. So, how’s that going to help your brand stand out?

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with MasterCard’s Executive Vice President of Global Brand Strategy and Innovation, Cheryl Guerin, to talk about how brands can differentiate themselves when technology becomes table stakes. Cheryl gets into how MasterCard uses AI to eliminate routine brand work and free its people for higher-order thinking, why Priceless has survived nearly three decades of cultural change, and why real agility sometimes looks like saying no.

Marketers love acquisition. But Doug Zarkin thinks that obsession is helping brands ignore the much more expensive problem sitting underneath it: retention (or the lack of it).

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with the CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone” to unpack why being liked is not the same as being loved, why retention deserves the same energy as acquisition and why some of the problems blamed on marketing actually belong to the entire business. Plus, a breakdown of his “Think Human” philosophy and the...

The fastest way to shrink marketing’s influence is to treat it like it’s just another department.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Jenny Rooney sits down with Kellyn Smith Kenny, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T, for a sharp conversation about what the CMO job actually demands.

Kellyn argues that marketing should operate as an engine for growth, gets into why leaders are responsible for raising the bar, why conviction without patience can backfire and a foundational mistake marketers risk making with AI.

Kellyn Smith Kenny is C...

Every industry, marketing included, is battling one affliction: sameness.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jason Pirock, Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, to discuss why differentiation may be one of marketing's most underhyped priorities right now. Jason also challenges the industry’s fixation on ROAS, reveals why CXO titles don’t matter as much as you’d think, and what creator partnerships should really look like.

Jason Pirock is the Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resort...

The old sponsorship model was simple: buy the assets, activate around the big moment, and move on.

Jessica Goldstein thinks that model is already outdated.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica, the NWSL’s Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions, to unpack why modern sports partnerships need to behave more like platforms, built around athlete storytelling, fan behavior, consistent presence, and a role the audience can actually recognize.

Jessica Goldstein is Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions at the NWSL, wh...

Audience targeting may have gotten easier, but getting people to truly care has not.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Dan Moriarty, CMO of Chicago Fire FC, to unpack why the marketing pendulum is swinging back toward creative, what makes live sports such a powerful attention engine and why brands should think harder about the emotion behind what they sell.

Plus, the inside scoop on why he left the Chicago Bulls for a growth-stage MLS club and the difficult people decisions that have helped reshape his...

Brand or performance? That’s the wrong question for marketers to ask, according to Nick Fairbairn.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Chime’s SVP of Growth to unpack why brand lift and direct-response accountability belong in the same system, why buying an AI tool does not amount to AI transformation and why scrappy creative may do more brand-building work than marketers want to admit.

Nick also gets into TV’s messy shift from linear to streaming, executive conversations around brand investment and why creators should perhap...

When every company starts looking like a tech company, a media company and an entertainment company at the same time, brand clarity becomes mission critical.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Grace Kao, CMO of Snap, to talk about what it takes to build a brand people actually understand and want to spend time with. Plus: a breakdown of Snap’s push toward chat, real-world connection and why marketers should be asking the question, “How do we actually add something?”

Grace Kao is Chief Marketing Officer of Snap...

CMOs are being asked to do something increasingly absurd: deliver more growth, with less budget, while marketing gets more complex and more expensive.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica Apotheker, CMO of Boston Consulting Group, to unpack what it actually takes to survive and matter in the modern C-suite.

Jessica Apotheker is Chief Marketing Officer of Boston Consulting Group, where she leads the BCG brand while continuing to work directly with clients on marketing, digital transformation, and growth. Before joining BCG, Jessica worked in product marketing...

Mary Yee, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sony Interactive Entertainment, started her career in accounting, not marketing. And, yet here she is.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mary to unpack how a career that moved from finance to Clorox to PlayStation to the CEO seat at Tatcha (and back to PlayStation) shaped her view of what great brand building actually requires.

Mary Yee is Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, where she oversees the PlayStation brand globally across hardware, peripherals, network services, subscriptions...

What happens when consumers love the idea of your product but freeze when it is time to choose?

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Andy Lopez, CMO of Behr Paint, to unpack how Behr is turning consumer friction into brand opportunity. Andy shares why “color paralysis” is one of the biggest pain points in the paint journey, how Behr uses insight to build confidence at the point of decision and why the strongest marketing ideas start by solving something real.

Sparks President and Chief Client Officer Melissa Levy...

What do agency leaders need right now? According to Ross Martin, maybe “a sanity check and a lobotomy.” Funny, yes. Also not entirely wrong.

In this special episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney spotlights the launch of Adweek’s Agencies Vanguard program with three founding members: Jessica Henrichs, CEO of DonerColle Partners; Ross Martin, President of Known; and Chioma Aduba, President of Droga5. Together, they unpack why agency leadership has become one of the most complex jobs in business, why competitors need spaces for radical honesty, and why the future of agencies cannot be solved in iso...

Some of the biggest opportunities for marketing leaders exist in industries where marketing has historically had the least influence. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Danielle Wuschke Paige, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Nixon Peabody, to explore what it takes to modernize marketing in a complex, relationship-driven industry. Danielle shares how her B2B and agency background prepared her for legal marketing, why trust and content matter more than flashy creative, and how she is evolving the function through stronger business strategy, thought leadership, and AI adoption.

Danielle Wuschke...

What’s it going to take to build relevance in a brutal attention economy? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jennifer Rooney sits down with Jennifer Storms, Chief Marketing Officer of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, to break it down. 

Jennifer traces her path from Olympic dreams to sports marketing to PepsiCo to NBCUniversal, sharing how NBCUniversal thinks about brand salience across NBC, Peacock, Bravo and NBC Sports, why the Olympics needed to be rebuilt as a year-round franchise and how Legendary February turned three separate live events into one unified cultural moment.

Jen...

The best journeys have the most unexpected turns. That’s Sam Allen’s story, and he’s sharing it in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. Tune in as host Jenny Rooney welcomes Sam, CEO of Iterable, to explore how AI is reshaping marketing technology, the future of the CMO role, and why strategic focus beats market-wide expansion for high-growth companies navigating unprecedented transformation.

Sam Allen is the Chief Executive Officer of Iterable, a leading customer engagement platform transforming how enterprises leverage AI-driven personalization at scale. With nearly three decades of experience in technology, including prominent roles at Sal...

Marketing Vanguard continues live from Cannes as Jenny Rooney hosts a special Adweek House conversation with Mainardo de Nardis, Global President and COO of Edelman and Rani Al Hajji, Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Personal Care at Unilever.

This conversation cuts straight into one of marketing’s biggest modern problems: everyone has infinite opportunities, infinite channels and infinite reasons to do more. But the best marketers are not winning by doing more. They are winning by making sharper bets and doing less for more. 

Mainardo de Nardis is Global President and Chief Operating Off...

Are marketers making a fatal mistake by treating AI as just a cost-cutting tool? 

The Marketing Vanguard Cannes series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jonathan Adashek, SVP, Marketing and Communications at IBM, to unpack how marketers should be treating AI, today. He breaks down how at IBM, it is becoming a way to rethink processes and drive measurable growth, their “client zero” approach, $4.5 billion in savings over three years and why the company now does half the number of events it did two years ago.

Jonathan Adashek is SV...

Marketing Vanguard continues live from Cannes. Host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mark Kirkham, Chief Marketing Officer at PepsiCo Beverages US, to break down why Cannes only works when CMOs show up with clear intention. Mark explains how AI has moved from tech hype to operational reality, why disruption cycles collapsed from five years to five months, and why honest peer debate is the only way marketing leaders stay ahead.

Mark Kirkham is Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo Beverages US, where he leads brand, category, and marketing programs across Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Starry, Bubly, and Mug...

The Marketing Vanguard Cannes series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Lara Balazs, Chief Marketing Officer and EVP of Global Marketing at Adobe. In this episode, Lara breaks down why enterprise AI adoption is shifting toward tangible workflow wins. She highlights how heavyweights like the NFL, Disney and L’Oréal deploy Adobe Firefly to automate manual asset scaling while protecting proprietary IP. Learn why human empathy, brand trust and strategic judgment remain irreplaceable in the age of generative AI.

Lara Balazs is Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, Global Marketing at Adobe, whe...

Marketing Vanguard continues its Cannes 2026 series as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Todd Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer of North America at Kraft Heinz. In this conversation, Todd makes a sharp case for something the industry has almost talked itself out of - marketing is supposed to be fun. He shares why the best work often comes when teams are loose, curious and plugged into culture, not buried under PowerPoints and over-serious process.

Todd Kaplan is Chief Marketing Officer, North America at The Kraft Heinz Company, where he leads marketing across a $25B...

The Cannes 2026 series of Marketing Vanguard continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Uzma Rawn Dowler, CMO & SVP, Global Corporate Partnerships at Major League Baseball. In this conversation, Uzma shares why fandom is not a behavior. It is identity. And why, for MLB, that changes the entire marketing equation. She gets into how baseball’s eight-month season creates a daily storytelling engine, why partner integration needs to feel organic to the fan experience and how MLB thinks about brand building through commercialization, culture and community. 

Uzma Rawn Dowler is the CMO & SVP, Glo...

Marketing Vanguard continues its Cannes 2026 series as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Doug Sweeny, CMO of ŌURA. In this conversation, Doug shares how ŌURA has evolved from a sleep-focused wearable into a broader health and readiness platform, helping people understand what is happening inside their bodies before it shows up in their day. He gets into how ŌURA’s mission-led positioning, hardware innovation, and partnership ecosystem are helping the brand define what the next phase of wearable health looks like.

Doug Sweeny is the Chief Marketing Officer at ŌURA, a leading smart ring and wearable health...

If you think the story behind AI is a productivity-led one, you’re wrong. Our series from Cannes 2026 continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Rafa Flores, Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI. In this one, Rafa cuts through the noise around AI adoption and AI-selling and gets into the real issue CMOs are facing: teams are not just unsure about AI; they are scared of what it could mean for their roles. He reveals how forcing AI adoption from the top can backfire, royally and why real AI success should be measured through revenue and co...

Marketing Vanguard continues its Cannes 2026 series as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jill Kramer, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard. In this conversation, Jill reveals the false binaries marketing keeps boxing itself into: AI vs. creativity, brand vs. performance, strategy vs. execution, “what’s in” vs. what’s "dead." Her point is clear: the strongest marketing does not live at the extremes. It lives in the gray area where accountability, emotion, creativity, and business outcomes all have to work together.

Jill Kramer is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard, bringing deep experience across b...

The “Marketing Vanguard at Cannes” series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Julia Goldin, Chief Marketing and Product Officer at LEGO. In this conversation, Julia shares how LEGO has grown from a children’s toy company into a global experience brand loved by kids, teens and adults, without losing the creative system that made it iconic in the first place. She offers insights into the discipline behind that growth: knowing what to say no to, protecting authenticity, taking calculated risks and treating mistakes as part of the work. 

Julia Goldin is the Chief Marketing and Pro...

This episode of Marketing Vanguard comes straight from Cannes 2026 as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Nathan Rosenberg, Chief Marketing and Brand Experiences Officer at Virgin Voyages. They discuss why the best and most real marketing happens when a customer is telling their friends the story of what they experienced, how Virgin Voyages turns crew culture into customer loyalty, and why repeat rate should sit much closer to the center of marketing strategy.

Nathan Rosenberg is the Chief Marketing and Brand Experiences Officer at Virgin Voyages, where he has spent 14 years building one of the most...

Consumer electronics marketing has a bad habit: it talks too much about the product and not enough about the person buying it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Sarah Larsen, CMO at Hisense USA, joins Jenny Rooney to unpack why she’s throwing tech-speak out the window and rebuilding marketing around sell-out, consumer behavior, and real-life relevance. As Hisense’s first overarching CMO, Sarah shares how she’s reinforcing one sharp mandate: marketing needs to move product.

Sarah Larsen is the Chief Marketing Officer at Hisense USA, where she is the first leader to hold the compan...

This episode of Marketing Vanguard comes straight from Cannes 2026. Join us as host Jenny Rooney catches up with Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer at Autodesk. Together, they explore why this AI era is also the “golden era” for creatives, why human ingenuity still runs the game while AI raises the floor and why trust is the one thing that isn’t up for debate. She raises a valid point: knowing what not to do with AI is just as important as knowing what to do with it.

Dara Treseder is Chief Marketing and Commercial Office...

While everyone’s chasing data and AI-driven targeted marketing, Natasha Madan’s keeping humanity at the centre of it all. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, the Head of Marketing at Intuit Credit Karma shares why blending art and science is essential to modern marketing. She dives into the how of building human connections that trump personalization algorithms and repositioning legacy brands for new generations while taking us behind the scenes of her groundbreaking work launching Prime Day at Amazon. 

Natasha Madan is Head of Marketing at Intuit Credit Karma, known for her expertise in brand strat...

Marketing leaders are often told to be more strategic, but how does that really play out in the day-to-day? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Michael Lacorazza, Executive Vice President and CMO of U.S. Bank, unpacks the biggest leadership lessons behind his career across Lexus, Toyota, and Wells Fargo, to name a few. He shares why customer-centricity is still the foundation of great marketing, how CMOs can build stronger alignment with business partners, and why understanding the P&L is no longer optional for marketing leaders who want a bigger seat at the table.

Michael...

CMOs are being dubbed the new "unicorns," but is the journey as magical as it sounds? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Tim Rosa, CEO of Somnee, to explore the rare and valuable career trajectory from Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Executive Officer, and why brand-driven leaders are uniquely positioned to scale transformative companies in the health and wellness space. He shares valuable insights from Somnee’s journey of disrupting a $585B industry. 

Tim Rosa is the CEO of Somnee, a clinical-grade sleep technology and neuroscience company, bringing expertise in bra...

There’s no marketing tool more potent than personal experience, and this episode of Marketing Vanguard explores how that transformed Nutrafol’s brand journey. CMO Deena Bahri joins the conversation to share how she went from a customer of the brand to its CMO, how they’re redefining the hair health conversation, why scientific credibility is your most defensible competitive advantage, and how to balance startup agility with enterprise-scale growth. As she reminds us, the marketing playing field is level. The only real differentiator is your brand expression. 

Deena Bahri is Chief Marketing Officer at Nutrafol, bringin...

How do you make a brand that’s perceived as “uncool” a cultural moment? Terence Reilly, Chief Brand Officer of Crocs, reveals his playbook in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. He reveals how he transformed a meme product into a global phenomenon, why embracing risk and "failing fast" is essential to breaking culture, and the strategies behind building authentic brand narratives in an age of AI and collaboration fatigue.

Terence Reilly is Chief Brand Officer at Crocs, renowned for his expertise in brand transformation, cultural relevance and innovative marketing strategy. With a background spanning financial services, retail...

The power of word-of-mouth and referral-based marketing takes on a whole new meaning in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. Tune in as Amica Insurance EVP and CMO, Tory Pachis, reveals how their Rhode Island–based challenger brand competes against massive incumbents by doubling down on empathy, service, and human-led experiences while building relevance with younger consumers.

Tory is Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President at Amica Insurance, the nation's oldest mutual automobile insurance company with 119 years of heritage. With 27 years of experience in the insurance industry and previous leadership roles at Travelers Insurance and Hanover In...

What if AI could bring more humanity to marketing, instead of taking away from it? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Lauren Weinberg, CMO of Supergoop! and veteran CMO at Square, Intuit and Peloton, reveals why brand authenticity matters more than ever in an AI-driven world, how CMOs should lead their teams through rapid technological transformation and the key strategies to balance budget discipline with bold creative thinking.

Lauren is an accomplished Chief Marketing Officer with extensive experience leading marketing transformations at industry-leading companies including Square, Intuit and Peloton. Currently serving as the CMO of Supergoop...

EVP, GM, or CMO - why pick one when you can be all 3? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Keisha Taylor Starr, EVP, CMO, and General Manager of Scripps Networks, proves that intersectionality and a diverse skill set can take your marketing game to the next level. Tune in for their discussion on how strategic repositioning can drive record-breaking audience engagement, why marketers must balance creative risk with financial rigor and the leadership moves required to shape an industry built for diverse voices. 

Keisha Taylor Starr is Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, and General Manager o...

A new age of Super Bowl marketing has dawned upon us, and it’s time to embrace it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, marketing leaders from Meta, Instacart, and Chime reveal how their brands are redefining Super Bowl marketing by prioritizing social-first strategies, earned media, and authentic creator partnerships over traditional metrics. Tune in to learn why the biggest marketing opportunities now live in subcultures and algorithmic feeds and how to tap into conversations happening off-screen.

What You'll Learn:

Surely a legacy brand like Crayola has done all it could to grow, right? Wrong. In this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast, recorded live at Brandweek in Atlanta in November 2025, Victoria Lozano, former CMO of Crayola, proves that the growth work of even the most iconic brands can and should never stop. From how nostalgia can be leveraged to the advantage of expanding into unexpected categories, this conversation covers it all. 

Victoria Lozano, former Chief Marketing Officer of Crayola, is renowned for her expertise in brand strategy, category expansion and omnichannel marketing across iconic consumer b...

How can you sell water in a can successfully, without making it a gimmick? In this live episode of Marketing Vanguard from Brandweek Atlanta, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Benoit Vatere, Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death, to explore how he, as a non-traditional entrepreneur with an engineering background, is scaling a cult beverage brand through unconventional media strategy, retail partnerships and aggressive upper-funnel investment while protecting the brand's core mystique.

Benoit Vatere is Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death, where he drives growth strategy and media planning for one of the most distinctive brands...