Scratch: CMO Interviews

In the latest episode of Scratch, Philip Edsel , VP of Brand & Creative at Ladder, breaks down why most marketing misses the mark and what separates brands that feel cultural from those that feel tone-deaf. As fitness platforms multiply and algorithms fragment audiences, Ladder's strategy isn't to chase trends. It's to listen obsessively to what members actually want—and let that drive every creat...

Rory O'Neill, CMO of Checkout.com, doesn't just solve for payments- he's solving for brand preference in a crowded payments space. And he's doing it by competing on what's different, not what others do better. That insight changes everything, from how you position payments to how you build a team that can sustain growth as a challenger. In the latest episode of Scratch, Rory breaks down the playbo...

In the latest episode of Scratch, Tracey-Lee gets into what it really takes to build trust in a controversial space, how she sells brand investment to a CFO who only speaks performance, and the Black Friday campaign where Payflex faked a data breach and somehow lived to tell the tale. The key takeaway:  1. Radical honesty is not a risk, it's a requirement In a controversial category, you have to b...

In this episode of Scratch, Viren sits down with Misbah Uraizee from Nectar Social to dismantle one of marketing's most persistent myths. The truth? Organic and paid media are complementary engines, and brands that still silo them are leaving serious growth on the table. Misbah breaks down the post-iOS 14 reality and reveals the exact playbooks modern challenger brands are using to scale today. In...

Pranav breaks down why the way we've always tested products and campaigns is fundamentally broken, how 90% of all decision-making happens in the subconscious, and why asking people what they think is almost completely useless. Neuro Insight's brain-mapping technology cuts through the noise, accessing the hidden drivers of human behaviour that people can't even articulate themselves. They also get...

Miguel gets into the brand discipline behind the growth. Why Bootlegger turned down trends their own customers were asking for. How a year of navigating aviation regulations put their coffee at 30,000 feet. What drove the decision to strip the brand back to a gold dot. And why consistency, not innovation, is the framework that keeps them relevant while competitors slip. For CMOs navigating saturat...

Gyve shares how SURI found its edge by listening closely to real customer frustrations and rethinking the product from the ground up, from design and performance to sustainability. Instead of treating sustainability as the headline, SURI builds products people genuinely want to use first, then makes them better for the planet. It also dives into how SURI is translating that momentum into retail, c...

The conversation explores why Navy Federal focuses on being " precious to few, but relevant to many ". By prioritizing active duty military and their families, they build a foundation of trust that naturally scales to the broader veteran community. In a landscape where brands often prioritize efficiency, Navy Federal focuses on authenticity.  This philosophy shines through in their " brandformance...

Instead of following trends, Satisfy chooses to build a brand that’s different. Daniel said it best: “The easiest way to do something quite different is to not look at anything at all.” In a landscape where brands benchmark competitors and chase fleeting trends, Satisfy focuses on culture. They hire for it before skill, treat customers as guests, and think in decades rather than moments. This phil...

In this episode of Scratch, Eric sits down with Chris Willingham, Chief Marketing Officer at Brompton Bicycle, to discuss the brand strategy behind Brompton’s global expansion. Chris shares how Brompton has grown from a distinctly 'British brand' into a global challenger across markets like China, Japan, the US, and Europe, and why international growth requires a clear point of view on what the br...

In this episode of Scratch , Eric sits down with Adrian Rosenkranz, Chief Revenue Officer at Webflow, to explore how AI is fundamentally changing the way brands grow, compete and get discovered. As large language models reshape how people find and evaluate products, Adrian argues that marketing is shifting from a game of clicks and traffic to a game of relevance and answers, where your website, co...

In this episode of Scratch, Viren sits down with Alex Ames, Marketing Director at Manors Golf, the challenger brand bringing new energy, creativity, and cultural relevance to a sport long seen as elitist and inaccessible. Manors believes golf is a game to be explored, not mastered, and they are reshaping the category one cinematic campaign at a time. Alex unpacks how Manors went from a small rebra...

In this episode, Bill Neff, Head of Marketing at YETI, breaks down how the legendary cooler company became a culture-defining outdoor brand without relying on massive media budgets. From his Under Armour “locker room” days to leading one of the world’s most beloved challenger brands, Bill shares the operating system behind YETI’s rise, which is one built on community intimacy, real relationships,...

In this episode of Scratch, Eric chats with Bronwen Foster-Butler, CMO of Finisterre, the cold-water surf brand from Cornwall proving that purpose and performance can coexist. Bronwen shares how community became Finisterre’s real growth engine, from “creating through community, not for it,” to rethinking top-of-funnel marketing and focusing on relationships over reach. She shows how listening to y...

In this episode of Scratch, Ariel Kelman, President & CMO of Salesforce, shows how a category leader can still think like a challenger through the power of education, not persuasion. Education beats persuasion when you make community the flywheel: by pairing product truth with peer proof through events like Dreamforce, Trailhead, and forums, so customers learn how to win with your product (not jus...

In this episode of Scratch, Eric chats with Will Pearson, Co-Founder of Ocean Bottle, the brand turning reusable bottles into vehicles for global impact. One of the biggest takeaways from Will’s story is how Ocean Bottle has made impact completely non-negotiable in its business model; every purchase is tied directly to measurable change. Rather than chasing the traditional direct-to-consumer route...

In this episode of Scratch, Eric chats with Lili, the Chief Marketing & Experience Officer of Barclays US Consumer Bank, about how she brought a challenger mindset from the hospitality and entertainment industry into one of the biggest banking players in the world. Lili shares how her experience at MGM shaped her approach to customer experience, and how she’s transformed Barclays to be more custom...

Watch our documentary on the Future of the CMO from this link 📺:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBKelmQomM In this episode, Daniel Blumer, CMO of Restaurant Brands International (EMEA), breaks down how Burger King’s parent company keeps four iconic brands fresh in a noisy quick-service world. From ditching 1,000-slide reports to tapping local culture first, Daniel shares the practical framewor...

This week, it's a Scratch special. Fresh off The Croissette at Cannes 2025, Baby Eric and Baby Jenna join us to share their key takeaways from the most talked-about event in all of marketing and advertising. As yes, we said Baby Eric and Baby Jenna. All courtesy of AI of course. But do expect serious, insightful, sometimes rogue insight and opinions as usual from the Rival team all about what CMOs...

Watch our documentary on the Future of the CMO from this link 📺:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBKelmQomM In this live-recorded episode, Phoebe Corcoran, Brand & Communications Lead at Peanut, tells us how a two-person marketing team fuels the world’s fastest-growing social network for women across fertility, pregnancy, motherhood, and menopause. We discuss how they used real-time user insigh...

Watch our documentary on the Future of the CMO from this link 📺:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBKelmQomM In this episode of Scratch, Eric sits down with Molly Landman, the first Chief Marketing Officer of PetSafe, the 30-year-old pet-tech pioneer behind invisible fences, automatic litter boxes, GPS collars, and more. Molly explains how she inherited “the biggest pet brand no one knows,” why...

Watch our documentary on the Future of the CMO from this link 📺:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBKelmQomM This week, we sit down with Nicole Parlapiano, CMO of Tubi, the leading free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) with the largest content library on the planet - 275 K+ movies and TV episodes. Nicole unpacks how she’s rewriting the rules of entertainment marketing: brand-first posit...

Watch our documentary on the Future of the CMO from this link 📺:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBKelmQomM On this week’s episode of Scratch, Jake Karls, the energetic co-founder and Chief Rainmaker of Midday Squares, joins Eric to unpack the reality-show marketing strategy that’s rocketing their functional chocolate bars onto shelves across North America. From filming therapy sessions to smas...

Watch our documentary on the Future of the CMO from this link 📺:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXBKelmQomM In this episode, Eric sits down with Åsa Borg, the Chief Marketing & Commercial Operations Officer at Polestar, the Swedish electric performance car brand that's challenging the automotive industry. Since launching in 2017, Polestar has rapidly expanded to 27 markets globally with their l...

In this episode, we sit down with Khalid El Khatib, the Chief Marketing Officer of Consumer Reports, one of America’s most trusted and oldest consumer advocacy organizations. Khalid unpacks how he’s transitioning Conaumer Reports from a “publisher” mindset to a platform strategy that emphasizes product-led growth, user-centric advocacy, and yes, the iconic lab testing (including a cat-hair-laden r...