
CMO Confidential
Wonder what it's like to control millions of dollars of marketing budget? Manage hundreds of people? Make the decisions on which ideas get to market?The CMO Confidential podcast shares how it feels to be in that chair of the shortest-tenured position on the C-suite.We detail the long, hard road most ideas take to get to market & how challenging it is to get the best ones through.Hosted by Mike Linton -- the former P&G Brand Manager who went on to be the Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy, eBay, and Farmers Insurance, as well as the Chief Revenue Officer of Ancestry.com and the head marketer at Remington -- this show serves as an ongoing lesson plan for how to get, do, keep, and handle the pressures of the CMO job.
Latest episodes

Jul 5, 2023 • 36min
Brian Vos: An Operations Trained CEO Dishes on How He Views Marketing
Episode 25 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Brian Vos, the former CEO of The Wine Group (TWG) who learned the business while leading the supply chain at E&J Gallo and TWG, two of the largest wine businesses in the world. Brian shares perspective on working in a business with over 10,000 competitors and over 100,000 skus where distribution and point of sale are critical and marketing may or may not matter. We discuss the challenge of measuring impact, tips for marketers managing in a complex operating environment where failures happen a lot, how marketing should take point on innovating, and how Cupcake, "accidentally" became a 1 million case brand. Listen to how he believed it was not a very bright idea to name a wine after a "hard to eat piece of cake," why marketing can "spin" up a lot of unnecessary downstream work, and why I was his favorite board member.
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Jun 27, 2023 • 31min
Tyler Bluth: A Primer on the Marketing Chief Financial Officer Position & Why You Might Consider it for Your Organization
Episode 24 - "A Primer on the Marketing Chief Financial Officer Position & Why You Might Consider it for Your Organization"
A CMO Confidential interview with Tyler Bluth, VP of Finance at Ancestry, former brand manager and Marketing CFO. Tyler outlines how the position can reduce friction between marketing and finance and the key elements required for success. Key topics include constructing a marketing scorecard, eliminating the "asymmetry of information," his belief that teams should "adjust the spending, not the measures," and why this position should be internally sourced. Listeners will also hear about what he learned from being a facial care brand manager and how he not so triumphantly introduced packaging that was viewed as "filled with urine."
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Jun 20, 2023 • 33min
Kim Whitler: A Top B-School Professor Shares Research on Brands Taking a Stand on Social and Political Issues
Episode 23 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Kim Whittler, business professor at the Virginia School of Business and former GM and CMO. Kim joins us for a second time on the red-hot issue of sociopolitical stands and describes why descriptive corporate research ignores consequences and trade-offs and is often wrong versus longer-term broader academic studies. Key topics include understanding the difference between "self interest" and "company interest," simultaneously managing consumer, employee and investor constituencies, preventing dangerous groupthink, fiduciary responsibility, the complexity of truly knowing "the right" thing, the asymmetric risks of picking a side, and CMO's that forget to represent their customers and investors. She shares many examples including Disney, Coke, Nike and Budweiser.
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Jun 13, 2023 • 33min
Dave Reibstein: A B-School Professor Talks About Marketing - Brand Value, Measures and the Metaverse
Episode 22 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Dave Reibstein, the Wharton Business School Professor and former Chairman of the American Marketing Association. Dave takes us through the evolution of marketing, measurement and what's next. Key topics include why brands should be included on the balance sheet, how measures follow money, why the inability to quantify brands negatively impacts marketers and companies, his belief that business is ahead of academia in understanding new tools and technologies, and why e-games succeeded - but the Metaverse may not be the next big thing. Also, listen in to learn about a completely original way of sleeping during a lecture.
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Jun 6, 2023 • 30min
Gary Stibel: A Consumer Products Consultant Talks About Marketing - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Episode 21 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Gary Stibel, the former Wharton econometric modeler, Pringles brand manager, and founder of The New England Consulting Group. Gary outlines his belief that innovation and "the big marketing idea" are in serious decline and what to do about it. Key topics include why short-term thinking is crowding out long-term innovation, his belief that many companies will suffer sales and stock price declines because of this, how he thinks about brands taking socio political stands, the continued rise of private label, and the financial reengineering going on in the marketplace. He also discusses why CMO turnover is good for his business but bad for companies, and why "stage gating" kills innovation and should be replaced by rapid prototyping. The Cheetos repositioning story which includes Cheesy Rider, the creation of Chester the Cheetah and the brand rising from near oblivion is not to be missed!
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May 31, 2023 • 32min
Margaret Molloy: The Case for Simplicity in a Complex World, How to Decomplexify Your Marketing
Episode 20 - How to Decomplexify Your Marketing
A CMO Confidential interview with Margaret Molloy, the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Siegel+Gale, the branding firm, and the “How CMOs Commit” podcast host. We discuss how marketing can become overly complex versus the power of a consistent focus on the customer. Key topics include translating business strategies, managing diverse stakeholders, B2B branding, asking the right questions in the CMO interview, and the importance of customer experience. Margaret provides useful frameworks and powerful examples of brand simplification. She even claims that one of my discussion points reminds her of an Albert Einstein quote. Listen to hear which point!
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May 29, 2023 • 33min
Kim Whitler: A Comprehensive Look at Fixing the CMO Position
Episode 19 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Kim Whitler, a business professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Kim started at P&G and went on to be a GM at Aurora Foods and the CMO at David's Bridal before shifting to academia - one of her fortes is deep quantitative research on marketing. We discuss careers, why CPG training can be foundational, and the many factors causing CMO turnover. Highlights include why candidates should "throw out" the job spec since over 50% of them are incorrect, boards and CEOs who don't believe in marketing, firms who think marketers are all interchangeable, and candidates who take positions doomed for failure. She provides tips to avoid these situations and also calls out search firms for a "cut and paste" approach while challenging them to do better in prepping candidates and companies.
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May 29, 2023 • 30min
Paul Roetzer: A View from the Front Lines of Artificial Intelligence
Episode 18 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Paul Roetzer, the founder of The Marketing AI Institute and author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence who has been working on and with AI for12 years. We discuss the difference between machine learning and generative AI, the recent Google I/O Conference, how governments have been working on AI since the '50's, AI uses for efficiency and revenue acceleration, and what marketers and advertisers should be thinking about right now. Some key takeaways include practicing with AI, focusing on the application layer versus the theory, investing in outcomes, and avoiding the trap of spending a boatload of money on the concept before you know what you really want AI to do for you. P.S. This descriptor was not generated by ChatGP.
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May 23, 2023 • 32min
Carilu Dietrich: Top 5 Reasons B2B CMO's Get Fired
Episode 17 - A CMO Confidential Interview with Carilu Deitrich the former CMO and Hypergrowth Advisor who helped take Atlassian public. In part 2 of "Why The Short Shelf Life for CMO's Carilu outlines the top 5 reasons B2B marketers fail and shares tips on how to avoid the major pitfalls of the job. She also provides some thoughts on why 2023 might be a tough year for marketers, the perils of hypergrowth, and the importance of connecting with the rest of the C-Suite, especially Sales and the CEO. We also discuss learning from failure.
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May 2, 2023 • 34min
Ron Guerrier: Why Marketing and IT Should be BFF's
Episode 16 - Ron has been a CIO numerous times including Express Scripts, the State of Illinois (Go Bears), Toyota Financial Services, HP and Farmers Insurance. Marketing has always been an analytical function. And the function has gotten more analytical and significantly more measurable since then. In this week's episode Mike and Ron discuss how the two functions can not only coexist, but thrive together.
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