The Modern Retail Podcast

Consultancies are turning into agencies as agencies grapple for a seat at the table. Alicia Hatch, CMO of Deloitte Digital, the $1 billion ad agency that sits within Deloitte, has insight into why consultancies are built for the modern CMO. On this week's episode of Making Marketing, Hatch discussed the pressures on today’s CMO, why Deloitte believes in having skin in the game, and why in-house do...

Born online direct-to-consumer brands are increasingly turning to traditional physical retail models to find new places for growth. Mike Grillo, CEO at Gravity Products, thinks DTC is just a launch model and not a sustainable business model for the longer term. Grillo discussed the impending DTC shakeout, why it’s important not to depend on Facebook and why TV remains important.

Thirty Madison, the parent company behind men’s hair loss treatment Keeps and migraine treatment company Cove, which just raised a little over $15 million in funding, is using the wellness and health momentum in the DTC industry as it looks to disrupt a giant, $17 billion industry. Steven Gutentag, co-founder of Thirty Madison discussed how the launch and growth model works at the company.

At a time when brands everywhere are turning to digital marketing to connect with customers, American Express is taking a much more human approach. For Rutledge, her motto has always been, 'Customer first,' so it felt natural to try and find a way to incorporate them into their marketing strategy. From customer referral programs to taxi top ads that change based on your neighborhood, she believes...

For Shiv Singh, most of the industry's current problems come down to trust. That's the focus of the former PepsiCo and Visa marketing executive's new book, co-written with psychologist Rohini Luthra. The book, called "Savvy: Navigating Fake Companies, Fake Leaders and Fake News in the Post-Trust Era," is a deep dive into the business of marketing with a decidedly psychological bent. It focuses on...

One year old men's healthcare DTC brand is attempting to disrupt healthcare. The company, which is centered around removing the friction from treating common health issues such as erectile disfunction and hair loss, uses a combination of affordable product lines and education in an attempt to get men talking more freely about their health. They're also trying to branch out beyond men: Hims has als...

Orange Theory, a fitness company founded in 2010, is now making $1 billion in revenue and is on track to open 2,500 studios by 2024. The brand is riding the wellness wave, which means more than just fitness. Kevin Keith, chief brand officer at Orange Theory, is focused on creating a strong brand message and differentiating. Keith revealed why being a lifestyle brand is not the goal, how wellness h...

Ro, a healthcare direct-to-consumer company that began with a product to treat erectile dysfunction, has a different set of marketing challenges to worry about compared to other DTC brands. Regulation in marketing pharmaceutical products differs from state to state. And because health remains a sensitive topic, establishing legitimacy remains a priority with prospective customers. Rob Schutz, CRO...

Late last year, Gap Inc. launched Hill City, an activewear line that is its version of Athleta, but for men. It's also the retail giant's new opportunity to keep growing in activewear. Eric Toda, head of marketing at Hill City, says the advantages of launching Hill City are to be seen for Gap but in the meantime, there’s a lot Hill City is learning from the retailer.

Born online, so-called DTC brands are growing up. Retailers that were once solely e-commerce are now turning to a more traditional playbook for growth. Rolling our physical retail stores is the first step in the way. Parachute, a digitally-born bed and bath brand, is on its way to launch 20 stores by 2020 and already has six stores in the U.S. On this episode, we chat with Parachute CMO Luke Droul...

The road to in-house certainly isn’t smooth. As the industry gets more and more excited about brands building their internal agencies, a bit of a rude awakening came in December last year when Intel announced it would be shuttering its internal agency, Agency Inside. Teresa Herd, who led Agency Inside and is now the vp and global creative director at Intel, talks about building an in-house agency,...

B-to-B marketing is not a bubble. The rise of influencers and direct-to-consumer businesses have presented marketers with new challenges with whom to market to and which tools and channels to use. Inside SAP, chief marketing officer Alicia Tillman is focused on extending the brand’s relevance from decision-maker to the everyday user.

Consolidation is the name of the game and one of the big players in the M&A space are consultancies. Karmarama CEO Ben Bilboul discusses the merits of being acquired by Accenture, why he is wary of holding companies and more.

On this episode of the Making Marketing by Digiday, we recap the big themes that emerged for marketers this year, from agency consolidation to marketing evolving as a driver of business.

For GoPro, it never considered itself as solely a camera maker. Rather, it was a media brand, according to  founder Nick Woodman. He discusses reshaping the brand over the years, how GoPro’s media team operates differently and more.

Big mergers resulting in new entities like Wunderman Thompson and VMLY&R have set the tone for 2019: It’s going to be the year of consolidation. Anne Bologna, chief strategy officer at Hearst-owned agency iCrossing, says there is too much continued pressure on agencies — a talent war with the duopoly and continuing competition has made agencies lose their confidence, and forget their craft. Bologn...

The big shift in this year has been in the marketers’ demands from an agency. It’s not just about the advertising anymore. Agencies are increasingly being called on to solve business problems -- and it's showing. Mike Sheldon, Chairman and CEO of Deutsch North America has witnessed exactly that in pitch meetings. Sheldon discusses learning new skills, the allure of consultancies and in-house agenc...

Blockchain and AI are IBM's big bets to take the company back on the top as a leader in innovation and technology. Michelle Peluso, chief marketing officer at IBM, discusses how the technologies will change the craft of marketing.

There's a lot of talk around "nimbleness" inside big companies. But the legacy internal red tape stands in the way of operations and the lessons of traditional marketing behavior are difficult to unlearn. That's been the responsibility of Pete Blackshaw, Nestlé’s Global Head of Digital Innovation Service & Service Models, who has spent the last few years working on changing up the company's intern...

Instagram has long been touted as a haven for direct-to-consumer brands. The case has been the same for Rothy’s, a women’s shoe brand that recently surged in popularity after actress and royal family member Meghan Markle, wore the label on the day of her pregnancy announcement. But as the DTC market gets more and more saturated and that starts to reflect on Instagram, there's also potentially a ti...

Cannabis has succeeded in going from being stigmatized by society to now capturing the imagination of retailers, investors and consumers. MedMen, a publicly traded company out of California, is at the forefront of the developing cannabis industry. Standing in the way of its retail strategy are big hurdles like hyperlocal compliance issues, inconsistent regulations that differ state by state and th...

The agency world is shrinking. Alex Leikikh, global CEO at MullenLowe Group, thinks there is an oversupply of agencies in the U.S. market. He believes that as more clients start to go in-house, there will be more mergers and more agencies will go out of business. MullenLowe Group is also a result of a merger that happened over three years ago. In our latest episode, Leikikh discusses management le...

Citi has doubled down on music as it tries to become a more emotional part of its customers' lives, Citi’s Global Consumer CMO Jennifer Breithaupt said in the latest episode of Making Marketing. Breithaupt discusses how experiential made Citi’s marketing more effective, doing market-mix modeling and more.

Independent agencies are having a moment in the competitive advertising agency landscape, but it's not all rosy. On this episode of Making Marketing, Neil Heymann, Droga5's new chief creative officer, discussed how tough it is to be an indie creative agency these days, with client demands that keep changing in a market where it feels like nobody cares about creativity anymore.

Last week, Midwest digital shop VML was merged with old-school legacy agency Y&R, one of the first moves under WPP's new CEO, Mark Read. It's part of a larger plan to create a slimmer, less siloed holding company that's better suited to face the challenges of the industry. The global CEO of now named VMLY&R, Jon Cook, says a consolidation in the industry was long overdue -- and this is just the be...