Full transcript

The "brand versus performance" marketing debate happens in all industries, but no one appreciate the value of brand as performance better than Zena Arnold, the CMO of Sephora US. Her job requires her to balance the demands of both online and in-store operations ("I get emails every hour during our great sales," she notes), so performance means more than just clicks.

"One of our key roles of marketing and retail is driving traffic, whether that's into a store or whether it's to our site or our app," Arnold says. "And it's pretty awesome when you turn things on to see that having a direct effect almost immediately ... One of the things that's been growing for us a lot is buying online, picking up in-store. So people are thinking about it, they want something maybe right away, they know the store's on the way home, but let me just order it, have it waiting for me, I can run in quickly, grab it and go. So that blurring of the channels has been really good for our customer client experience."

Today on Building Better CMOs, she talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about her background in computer science, her past roles at firms like P&G and Google, and why you need to learn and adapt constantly to thrive in senior executive roles. Plus: What is the future of AI in marketing? And how do you turn customers into brand ambassadors?

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Links:

• Zena's LinkedIn
• Greg's LinkedIn

This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm.