TwentyFirstCenturyBrand

Coming into a CMO role, one of the first challenges is knowing how to navigate the culture – unless you first take time to understand it. And even if you’re a seasoned marketer, we have found repeatedly that what worked there won’t necessarily work here. Research consistently underscores that a CMO’s effectiveness is tied to their ability to comprehend the cultural environment. It is vital to create impact fast. Your task is to ‘dock’ into the existing culture to uncover the influential stories and folklore - not only the aspects that are clear to see, but also what lies below the surface and leverage it for your success. In our Organizational Culture Model we look for the artifacts, beliefs, values, attitudes, and basic assumptions that make up your organization. Step 1: Get nosey during your onboarding. It’s not about knowing all the answers. It’s about asking the smart questions. What are the taboo topics? Who are the company villains, heroes, and 10x employees? Step 2: Obsess on the ‘how’ and ‘who’ of how decisions are made. Senior stakeholders must be mapped and minutely understood. You need to decode the agendas, styles, and priorities of the individuals you’ll need to influence most frequently. Step 3: Strengthen marketing’s influence on the rest of the business. We see our CMO clients inheriting two classic scenarios: In scale-up companies, marketing is still trying to earn a seat at the table, or, often, in legacy companies, marketing has been beaten down by outdated ways of working. Ask yourself what narrative the business currently has about marketing, and what story do you want the rest of the business to tell? We explore more methods and tools in the CMO Thrive Guide. Check out the 🔗 in the comments. #culture #marketing #CMOThriveGuide #CMO #leadership

"This won’t be for every marketer. In many ways, it’s a niche play." Anthony Freedman states, “We’re here to create a new and different option for CMOs who have already come to the conclusion that cultural relevance is a competitive advantage.” Read more about how Common Interest is building something different, bringing together OTHERWAY CultureLab and TwentyFirstCenturyBrand to run counter to marketing’s obsession with quantification. https://lnkd.in/gVWPaUvE

One of the best things about my job is getting to be a “CMO whisperer” for some of the world’s most creative and commercial marketing leaders for the best part of two decades. To that end, this Cannes saw us release the #CMOThriveGuide, "The definitive ‘year 1’ playbook for the world’s most influential, brand-ambitious CMOs”, a roadmap for A-List Brand leaders of all tenures to thrive in their first 12 months at a new company. Here’s the inside story 👇🏼 At TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, we’ve had a front-row seat in seeing what works and what doesn’t and, critically, the difference between CMOs that fail, those that survive, and the elite group that really thrive. The impetus for this guide is rooted in 21CB’s mission of creating the most influential brands of our time, so leaders can leave a positive cultural and commercial legacy. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past six years of working with brands like Pinterest, Netflix, Airbnb, PepsiCo, LinkedIn, Mars, Chime, Monzo Bank, Depop, and Flo Health Inc. it’s that that can only happen if CMOs and Brand Leaders are empowered to lead the growth agenda and carve out the time and space to thrive. To develop the Thrive Guide, we convened our Thrive Guide expert panel, bringing together a roundtable of the world’s most respected CMOs, CFOs and CEOs. This group of 21 leaders provided essential input to cut through generic advice and create truly actionable lessons with insider insights, hacks, and tools to make the most of your precious, pivotal first 12 months. Each chapter is focused on a key imperative and designed to guide and inspire. You’ll find chapters focused on how you can build your key alliances, rally your teams, build high performance cultures and show up at your best, as well as the critical areas of growth, data/martech and integrating performance and purpose. Read them all at once, or dip in and out of specific chapters, it's up to you. The guide is specifically designed to help leaders  navigate the most pivotal challenges and set yourself up for success while also looking after yourself. What are your priorities in your first 12 months? What resources do you rely on to guide your critical marketing decisions? How will you design your most critical alliances? For those seeking to leave a lasting commercial and cultural legacy, the CMO Thrive Guide is your essential companion. Special thanks to our Thrive Guide expert panel: Andréa Mallard, Lara Hood Balazs, Laura Jones, Bob Sherwin, Jane Wakely, Remi Kent, Patrick Stal, Michelle Taite, Christine Kalvenes, Fernando Machado, Julia Goldin, Michelle Lamberti-Ceaux, Margaret Jobling Pete Markey Sigal Bareket, Jonathan Mildenhall, Ash Schofield, Scott Wagner, Laurence A. Tosi, Glenn H. S. Stephan Gans, Sam Tomlinson and Ian Whittaker

Brand Innovators debuted an exclusive CMO experience at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year. Neil Barrie and Jonathan Mildenhall sat down with David Teicher to discuss the future of the CMO role. We went deep into the story behind our just-released CMO Thrive Guide. Here are a few of our favorite takeaways: ✨ It’s critical you define YOUR brand - your values and signature moves to communicate and live them. That’s where the conviction comes from, and that’s a critical, overlooked difference between the CMOs that thrive and those that diminish over time. ✨ Think about the four Cs. Build Confidence that the variable budget you have will be well spent. Identify Courageous ways to spend it. Communicate that plan with Conviction throughout the company. If you do that, you will create a Contagion around the belief that marketing is not a cost center but an investment center that will benefit all stakeholders. ✨ How do you help CMOs withstand the pressure to move from brand to performance? Firstly, conduct deep consumer segmentation to identify measurable pools of demand on which you will focus the brand and then track progress over time. Second, prove that strong brand marketing will improve performance of performance marketing. It’s been shown numerous times. The opposite is not true. Learn more about how to THRIVE instead of surviving in the CMO role. 🔗 Link to download in the comments. #CMOthriveguide

We spent time with The Creative Ladder and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Young Lions, deep-diving into The Art of Collaboration. Our very own Sara Tate had an in-depth discussion with a stellar group of panelists, sharing experience and wisdom on how to collaborate for inclusive outcomes. Some of our favorite insights: Judy Lee: “Inspiration begins with inclusion. If you don’t see yourself represented the journey stops there”. But Judy also stressed that inclusion also means being included in tough feedback, saying, “If you’re a person of color, you can go through a career without getting tough feedback because people are worried about other issues. That’s not helping, that’s holding people back.” Thas Naseemuddeen, CEO of Omelet, gave us all something to take away: “How do you want to spend your privilege?” It brings home how everyone needs to be actively involved in elevating diverse voices. Also, a shout out to fellow panelists Dionna Dorsey, Marinda Yelverton and Pinterest for hosting us at the Pinterest Beach Manifestival. 

Serving in the role of CMO is truly my dream come true but there was no playbook, no guide for new CMOs, when my dream was first realized, when I became Airbnb’s first-ever CMO. From this experience, the idea for the CMO Thrive Guide was born. It’s filled with the tools for CMOs to succeed in their first 12 months. I truly believe this Guide will help create the greatest CMOs of our time. Please take a moment to read this excellent piece Dr. Marcus Collins wrote in Forbes featuring thoughts from TwentyFirstCenturyBrand CEO Neil Barrie and I on what led to the guide and how CMOs can use it.

CMOs have never been more valuable and never been more vulnerable and that needs to change. So I’m very proud to be launching a body of work designed to do exactly that - The CMO Thrive Guide. At TwentyFirstCenturyBrand we’ve worked with 150 of the best and brightest CMOs helping them develop iconic brands - from tech disruptors to legacy corporates - creating category-leading narratives across travel, fintech, entertainment, wellness, marketplaces and more. We’ve had a front-row seat in seeing what works and what doesn’t and the difference between CMOs that survive, and the elite group that really thrive. The modern CMO is an incredibly sophisticated role, requiring a unique mix of creative, commercial, tech and cultural expertise. Renaissance badasses! I’ve also personally seen that the role can be a lonely journey. I’ve informally mentored many throughout their onboarding and it’s repeatedly struck me that there’s no proper resource to guide that critical first 12 months where the seeds of success or failure are sown. So we decided to fill the gap and pooled the wisdom of a panel of some of the world’s leading CMOs, CFOs, and CEOs to create the CMO Thrive Guide. An intimate inspiration manual full of wisdom, proven tools, and  realtalk cases of success and struggle across the critical people and practice aspects of the role. Like having a mentor made up of the world’s best CMOs on your side during the critical first 12 months. Our hope is that it maximizes the impact of CMOs of all tenures as they seek to build iconic category-defining brands. Jonathan Mildenhall and I are honored to be interviewed by Dr. Marcus Collins for Forbes, shedding more light on our process and ambitions for the future of brand leaders. You can read more about it in the article below and find a link to the CMO Thrive Guide in the comments. Special thanks to Sara Tate for being a huge contributor and thought leader in bringing this vision to life. Love and respect, – Neil Barrie, Co-Founder and CEO TwentyFirstCenturyBrand https://lnkd.in/gEKc9ikK

I’m thrilled to announce that I was invited to join The Fast Company #ImpactCouncil, an invitation-only leadership group formed in 2019 to bring together purpose-driven leaders from different industries and disciplines. This week we started off strong first Fast Company Impact Council Meeting in NYC where we explored how AI will reshape our world and businesses in the "next wave of transformation. These are the key takeaways that stood out to me: 1. Everything is still in flux. There's much to figure out at every level. From macro issues like regulation and risk (who should take responsibility for AI responsibility?) to micro issues like AI email etiquette. Anyone claiming to have all the answers is not being truthful. 2. This is a "tension-filled reinvention," as Brendan Vaughan put it.  Talent is excited, fearful, and everything in between. Leaders must carefully address resistance while fostering conversations about how AI can solve challenges and drive growth. Without considering your people, any gains from AI will be negated if talent resists and disengages. 3. Think of AI as specific, not systemic, to pinpoint how it can help your brand today.  AI will fundamentally change how we live and work, but we don't yet know how. Instead of trying to predict these systemic changes, start to get very specific about what AI could do for your brand or business. Start with specific issues you're facing (poor workflow planning, slow customer service) and work back to see how AI. It probably can! 4. AI + people is the magic formula (for now)  For example, Jodie AI provides talent with a DEI officer at their fingertips through a chatbot, but people can still reach out to a person. AI helps creative businesses ideate faster, but creative minds are still needed for disruptive, visionary ideas. 5. Being distinctive will be more important than ever for brands and businesses.  AI is not a strategy once all your competitors have it too. It will be vital to be clear on your brand, its values, and the value you add to consumers. Huge thank you to the Fast Company team Damian Slattery, Debbie Abrams Kaplan  for this transformative experience. #transformation #AI Laura Brounstein

We are looking for an ambitious and talented Account & Growth Director who’d like to join Stephanie Nicolaides and the team in London as the ultimate accountable lead for pillar client relationships with the world's most influential brands, the likes of Monzo, Lego and PepsiCo! Are you who we’re looking for? Find out and apply here: https://lnkd.in/ebsVq4K9 #gigalert #openrole #jobalert

Last year, Monzo Bank approached us with an exciting challenge: how do we hold onto the brand’s (hot coral) threads, while growing and expanding to new products, new people, and new geographies? We first went on a 12-month journey with a [cross-functional] leadership group to define their new Brand strategy framework (called the Brand Blueprint), which codifies the Monzo magic today, defines who they’ll be in the future and will serve as the foundational reference for everyone who interacts with the brand – both internally and externally. Bringing a strategy to life is the next step and usually a difficult task, but not when Uncommon Creative Studio is up for the challenge. We shared insights along the way, as they developed the unmissable ‘money never felt like Monzo’ brand platform. Finally we all agreed that the brand has to come to life first through the heart of any business: their people. We brought the new Monzo brand to life with a first-of-its-kind “Brand Week” in partnership with our sister agency OTHERWAY: a full week of various activities - from virtual sessions for 2K+ people, live keynotes watched by 1.5K+, as well as dozens of interactive workshops - intended to inspire and equip Monzonauts across the business and the world to implement brand-led change in their roles. We’re so grateful to the brilliant Monzo team for this collaboration, particularly: AJ Coyne, Sujata Bhatia, Vuokko Aro, Emily Suter, Erin Harrington, Natalie Malevsky, Chris Norell, Harriet Taylor, Lizze Brockman. We can’t wait to watch you paint the UK Hot Coral! (Images: curtesy of Will Chamberlin)