Carol Jensen, CMO at Wawa Shares Insights at Philadelphia CMO CLUB Dinner "Aligning with Operations Key to Marketing Success"

12 CMOs met in Philadelphia last week to share ideas and listen to Carol Jensen, CMO at Wawa discuss her role with the company and how she is driving success for their 500+ convenience stores. Here is a short video of Carol discussing a few key points from her discussion.


My take aways from the discussion include:
1) Alignment and Integration of Operations and Marketing the key to Success at Wawa – Carol and her Operations counterpart literally, create and share a short video with all Wawa employees every two weeks, to emphasis new products, new programs, reinforce success stories for customer engagement at store level. etc.

2) Every CxO works at least one day per month at a store at checkout or behind the sandwich counter, etc. – This keeps them closely linked to what’s happening at store level and reinforces the importance of store employees to the success of Wawa.

3) Operations team grades marketing’s performance throughout the year. Operations are closest to the customer so have largest impact or marketing performance. By having them grade marketing helps ensure marketing is driving engagement at store level.

4) If your marketing department stops learning, they can’t continue to add value to the company. A great perspective on continuing education and learning for everyone in her marketing department.

5) Where Carol Spends her time – 25% - Operations/store level support, 25% - Marketing Team Leadership, 25% - C Level Alignment/Planning, 25% - Marketing Campaign Development/management.

The most interesting thing that Carol shared, in my opinion, was the fact she was head of HR prior to being asked to be CMO at Wawa with limited marketing experience prior. Her CEO moved her and 3 other C-Level execs to new C-Level positions 4 years ago. Her expertise in leading and motivating the entire organization plus the fact she had a strong marketing team and agency relationship, provided the support for the other components needed while she gained experience. Interesting and obviously brilliant move by her CEO, given her success as CMO. A great brand, with great customer experience

Kim Feil, CMO at Walgreens Shares Insights at Chicago CMO CLUB Dinner - The New Positioning of a 108 Year Old Brand

14 CMOs met in Chicago last night to share ideas and listen to Kim Feil, CMO at Walgreens discuss the role of innovation in her first year at Walgreens. Here is a short video of Kim discussing a few key points from her discussion on the new positioning of a 108 year old brand.


My take aways from the discussion include:
1) Know what business you are in – We all focus day to day on program execution, designing the next great campaign, etc. Kim spend significant time thinking through this important question and equally important, facilitating with other execs in the company the answer to this important question.
2) Consumer are no longer defined by demographics – We had a great discussion on the fact the ways many of us have approached customers, that have worked for us for years, no longer work. Also the importance of understanding your net promoters has never been more important.
3) Define a position that people get. If everyone in your company, your stores, your franchises, etc. can’t clearly see your position and why you are different, better, or the place to go, rethink your position.
4) Pick something that will show, not tell them, about your positioning. If you are rolling out new positioning, make sure you demonstrate your new positioning in actions, training, reward programs, etc.
5) Invite everyone to participate in building your brand. Company wide excitement and pride matters. Think of ways to include everyone in your positioning and how you plan to win in your industry.
6) If you come into a new CMO role, don’t assume prior poor performers will continue as poor performers under your leadership. Many people get stuck reacting to direction, and are under utilized. Kim noted a number of stars in her organization were not stars in the prior invironment.

Kim launched their new positioning September 8th to good early results and excitement within Walgreens they haven’t seen in years.

CMO CLUB Roundtable Call with Patty Azzarello, "Building Credibility and Relevance with your Stakeholders"

Patty Azzarello, CMO Coach within The CMO CLUB led a active CMO roundtable call with 8 other CMOs on the topic of "Building Credibility and Relevance with your C-Level Stakeholders". A number of great topics covered include:

Delete “Brand” from Brand Strategy, it’s Business Strategy

Branding is not a Marketing Job, it’s everyone’s job

Translate vs. Educate (If you are always educating your peers on marketing then you are not relevant)

Your strategy is where you put your resources

What is your personal brand? Decide then reinforce with everything you do

Not only understand your CEOs key priorities, but use the words he/she uses to describe the priorities

You need to think through a function by function blueprint for branding across every department in the company.


Click hear to listen to Roundtable - MP3 File

Leading A Brand across 200 Countries - CMO CLUB Roundtable Discussion at Denver Dinner on Sept. 14 - Gail Galuppo, CMO Western Union

16 CMOs met in Denver last night with Gail Galuppo, CMO at Western Union leading the CMO Roundtable Discussion on "Leading your Brand Beyond Marketing". Gail shared her approach to literally turning around the brand image of Western Union. A number of topics/ideas discussed:

1) Don't think brand strategy as CMO, think business strategy first.
2) As a new CMO, give the existing team a chance. You don't need to always bring in a new team. Leadership plays a significant role in organization performance.
3) Think in terms of three key areas when building your brand, a) emotional connection, b) trust, c) reliability.
4) Moving and promoting regional marketing leaders to global positions will help you with global commitment to new marketing programs. Focus on key influencers of regional business executives, within your global marketing organization, when assigning new global marketing responsibilities.
5) Don't get caught up into regional ROI discussions at all costs. At some point you must balance measurable ROI vs. your expertise as a marketer on what works for building your brand.

We had a number of new CMOs to the club and a great conversation. Thanks to Gail for sharing her insights.

Relaunching a Classic Character - CMO Roundtable Discussion at NYC CMO CLUB Dinner on Sept 10th - Pam Kaufman, CMO Nickelodeon

A record turnout of 29 CMOs meet in NYC on Sept 10th to share ideas and hear from CMO Pam Kaufman as she shared her plans for the relaunch of Sponge Bob.

Amy Quigley, CMO Continuum - Boston CMO CLUB Dinner, Sept 2009, "Design Thinking for Marketing Innovation"

20 CMOs meet in Boston Last night and shared insights around new approached to innovation in their marketing organizations and companies. Amy Quigley from Continuum led the discussion and shared a number of great insights on the framework of design thinkings, examples of how the process has been used successfully at Reebok, P&G, Cisco, plus how CMOs should approach creating the right environment and communications programs for rollout within their companies. Here is a great short video of Amy sharing a few highlights from the CMO roundtable conversation.

CMO CLUB Weekly Member Poll Results - Who do you have the Closest Relationship with in Your Company?

CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Results in BusinessWeek

Two-thirds said the CEO. But the poll also showed an opportunity. Only 4% said their closest relationship was with the CFO. One of the reasons CMO is so short is that C-suite execs don’t see the return-on-investment of the CMO’s activities. Stands to reason that if CMOs were better at creating allies with the CFO and finance staff, tenures might be longer.


106 CMOs responded:

67% CEO/President
23% Head of Sales
6% COO
4% CFO
0% CIO


A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:

“Absolutely my CEO. He is the only one who truly understands my mission and expertise”

“My first reaction was CEO, but then I started wondering if he would agree with my perspective”

“My CEO brought me in and knows what I can do.”

“I’m closest with my VP sales. She and I drive the company growth and are looked to by CEO for just that.”

“I’m spending more time with my CFO these days but we come at it from such a different perspective in some ways we are further apart in our relationship than when he started.”

“CEO, no question. He drives the ship and my rapport with him is critical for the success of our customer engagement

The Most Valuable Source for Vendor Recommendations? The CMO CLUB Announces new Vendor Ratings Program for Members

I am pleased to announce based on strong interest from CMOs in the club, the formal rollout of our new “Members Only” Vendor Rating Program. We are now set up to share recommendations on vendors, firms, and marketing consultants across 18 vendor categories for easy search by members.

We have the unique opportunity to create "the industry standard" for insight on real recommendations by CMOs, for CMOs, not tainted by vendor influence, etc.

The rules are simple. To create a review of a vendor, you simply must have been under a contract with them within the last 18 months and include your name to support your endorsement. Reviews include a quick overview of the service/products delivered, an overall rating and 3-4 other ratings based on Quality, on-time delivery, value for money, customer service, etc. It should take less than 5 minutes to share a review. All reviews will be reviewed and approved within 24 hours.

CMOs can then search by any of the vendor categories, geography, vendor rating categories, etc. to see which vendors are being rated highly by CMOs in the club. Reviews are stored on our site for members only.

Finally, thanks to Alex Romanovich and Social2B for helping with the design/implementation of the vendor ratings application.


Members Only Link To Vendor Ratings Program