Marketing Vanguard

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.Cheryl Guerin is Executive Vice President, Global Brand Strategy and Innovation at MasterCard.She has spent nearly 26 years at the company across a wide range of roles, including regional marketing leadership, products and services, P&L responsibility and global credit before returning to the area she describes as her heart: marketing.Over that time, Cheryl has helped evolve the Priceless platform through major shifts in culture, technology and the business itself, leading initiatives such as the True Name card and Touch Card. Her perspective is grounded in a simple challenge: keep the brand relevant as the world changes without losing the human truth that made it matter in the first place.What You'll Learn:How MasterCard uses automation to free brand experts for higher-order creative workWhy Priceless has remained relevant across nearly three decades of cultural changeWhy saying no is becoming a critical part of brand agilityHow “passions experts” help MasterCard identify cultural opportunities earlierWhy emerging talent can create different economics and stronger relationships than obvious superstar betsWhy purpose-driven work has to connect brand ethos, constituent needs and business impactThis episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

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 leadership lesson he has landed on after decades in the business: being effective matters a lot more than being the smartest person in the room. Doug Zarkin is CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone”.His career has taken him from the agency world into brand leadership across Avon, Victoria’s Secret and Pearle Vision, where he spent more than 11 years leading marketing. This decade-long role gave him the opportunity to take a big-picture view of brand transformation, customer loyalty and how positioning moves beyond advertising into operations and experience.Across his work, Doug has developed a simple philosophy: brands win when they stop treating customers as transactions and start building the trust, relevance and experience that gives people a reason to choose them again.What You'll Learn:Why brands often overestimate how strong their customer relationships really areWhy retention deserves the same energy, budget, and attention as acquisitionWhy customer churn can signal an operations problem rather than a marketing problemHow the “Think Human” philosophy changes the way brands approach customer experienceWhy AI works best as a mirror and an assistant rather than a substitute for judgmentWhy marketers should enter new environments with a notebook instead of a playbookThis episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

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 Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T. Here, she brings marketing and growth together - a combination reflected in how she thinks about the CMO role itself.Her career has taken her across major brands and very different stages of company growth, including Capital One, Uber, Hilton and AT&T, giving her a broad view of what marketing leadership looks like inside both established organizations and businesses undergoing major change.Her approach is simple: marketing cannot operate as an isolated function. It has to understand the economics of the company, build strong relationships across the organization and create the conditions for both the business and its people to perform at a higher level.What You'll Learn:Why marketing leaders need to understand how the entire business makes moneyWhy finance and operations should be allies, not neighboring departmentsWhat separates being a marketing manager from being a company leaderWhy great leaders create the conditions for people to do the best work of their careersWhy raising the bar requires conviction and patience at the same timeWhy high-quality data has to come before meaningful AI adoptionWhy human insight still belongs at the center of strategy and creative work

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 Resorts and Hotels, with nearly 20 years of experience across retail, commercial real estate, and hospitality. His career has spanned work across Hyatt, Aparium Hotel Group, Springboard, and Outrigger.Across those roles, Jason has consistently gravitated toward building and rebuilding, from rethinking an early business at Target to putting content creators into local markets before “creator” became standard marketing language. His perspective combines brand strategy, experiential marketing and a strong belief that differentiation matters even more as technology makes execution easier.What You'll Learn:Why hospitality’s adoption of AI is accelerating after years of lagging behind other industriesWhy consumers are gravitating back toward real-world experiences and human interactionWhy authentic creator fit matters more than reach or follower countWhy senior marketing titles matter less than alignment with leadershipWhy ROAS should be treated as a directional indicator rather than the full definition of successHow a builder mindset can shape a marketing leader’s careerWhy differentiation becomes even more important as AI makes generic execution easierThis episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

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, where she leads partnership strategy and marketing solutions for the league. Her work here primarily focuses on combining both sides of that experience: helping partners build stronger roles inside the league while using athlete storytelling, cultural crossover, and long-term consistency to grow fandom around women’s soccer.She has spent more than 20 years in sports, beginning at the NBA in production and entertainment before moving into brand marketing. spent more than 11 years agency-side, where much of her work focused on sponsorship strategy and building women’s sports platforms for major brands.What You'll Learn:Why athlete storytelling can turn individual players into gateways to broader fandomWhy traditional sponsorship asset lists no longer create enough value on their ownHow 360 partnership strategies can connect live moments, content, and fan behaviorWhy tentpoles need an always-on strategy around them to drive long-term valueWhy data should inform partnership strategy without pretending to make every decision for youHow women’s sports can unlock categories and stories that traditional sports partnerships may notThis episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

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 marketing organization.Dan Moriarty is Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Fire FC, where he leads marketing for Chicago’s Major League Soccer club.Originally from England, Dan began his career agency-side before moving into brand roles at Hyatt. He later spent around eight years with the Chicago Bulls before joining Chicago Fire FC.At the Fire, he has been part of a period of significant investment and change across the club, from its on-field ambitions and downtown presence to new facilities, fan experiences, and plans for a new stadium. His marketing perspective combines a digital-first background with an increasing conviction that, as targeting becomes easier, creative quality matters more than ever.What You'll Learn:Why sports still commands attention in a world built around on-demand contentWhy Chicago Fire FC focuses on selling joy and passion rather than soccer itselfHow the club turned World Cup energy into an owned Chicago fan experienceWhy easier targeting makes stronger creative even more importantWhy buying reach is no longer a meaningful competitive advantageHow Chicago Fire FC is restructuring its in-house creative operationWhy avoiding underperformance can cost you your strongest peopleThis episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

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 perhaps be a part of every channel. Nick Fairbairn is Senior Vice President of Growth at Chime, where he leads a broad growth organization spanning paid media, organic growth, go-to-market, lifecycle, product, engineering and onboarding.His career started in media buying, including television and radio, before he moved into agency entrepreneurship and then brand-side marketing. Along the way, he’s worked at ProFlowers, helped build acquisition at Dollar Shave Club during the DTC era, led startup growth and later joined Chime to build its product marketing capabilities before moving into his current growth role.What You'll Learn:Why AI adoption needs active leadership instead of waiting for teams to figure it out themselvesWhy buying another AI tool rarely changes how a marketing organization actually worksHow Nick measures TV with the rigor of a performance channelWhy brand lift and direct-response accountability should sit in the same conversationHow data can turn a defensive budget discussion into a stronger case for brand investmentWhy lower-production testimonial creative can still move brand equity and considerationWhy Nick thinks creators should eventually become part of every marketing channelThis episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

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, where she leads marketing across Snapchat and the company’s broader brand portfolio.Her career began almost by accident after she stepped away from graduate school and joined BBDO as an executive assistant on the Apple account. From there, she built a career across agency and brand roles spanning PlayStation, Yahoo, Pandora, Instagram, Spotify, and Snap.Across those chapters, Grace has consistently gravitated toward brands with strong identities, youth audiences, and clear points of view. At Snap, she is focused on keeping the brand rooted in friendship, creativity, and real connection while exploring new ways for brands, creators, and communities to participate on the platform.What You'll Learn:Why brand clarity becomes more valuable as businesses stretch across categoriesHow relationships and people can shape a career more than a perfect planWhy challenger brands and youth culture have more pull How Snapchat is moving beyond passive consumption toward active participationWhy brand marketing has to match the creative standard of the communityHow chat, Maps, and IRL experiences can create new roles for brandsWhy unexpected partnerships can make audiences see a brand differently

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 at L’Oréal. Her approach is grounded in one principle: strategy only matters if it survives execution. Whether she is advising clients or leading BCG’s own marketing agenda, Jessica focuses on measurable impact, stronger capabilities, and making sure marketing earns its place as a growth driver.What You'll Learn:Why granular execution is what turns strategy into actual impactHow to think about marketing through orchestration, art, and scienceWhy BCG increasingly sees itself as a force multiplier, not just a consultancyHow the impact, asset, and muscle model creates measurable client valueWhy CFO and CIO relationships can determine whether a CMO succeedsWhat makes the CMO role uniquely vulnerable in the C-suiteWhy AI should be positioned as a growth lever, not just an efficiency play