Aron North, CMO of Mint Mobile: Marketers Have Lost Their Insight

Full transcript

When Aron North was hired to lead marketing and creative at Ultra Mobile — the fastest-growing private company in the world, in 2016 — he had no idea what would be waiting for him on day one: The outlines of a new prepaid cell phone plan aimed at consumers, then called Mint SIM, which would be sold online only.

Aron was blunt with the company's president: "Oh, this is incredibly interesting. Unfortunately, this is never going to work the way you've laid it out. There's no chance this succeeds."

At the time, the consumer proposition of what would eventually become Mint Mobile was confusing, and it wasn't clear how consumers would benefit from switching to Mint. Aron and his team worked until they arrived at a clear insight that would define the company's early years: "How can it be any good if it's this cheap?"

Today on Building Better CMOs, he talks with MMA Global CEO Greg Stuart about what happened next, why marketers' opinions of a product don't matter, and hiring fiercely competitive “killers." They also discuss the importance of failing often, and the benefits of playing "jump ball" with creative teams. Plus: Why AI is overrated.

Follow or subscribe to Building Better CMOs

Rate & review the podcast

Links:

• Aron's LinkedIn
• Greg's LinkedIn

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