Episode 10
Billboards Bets and a bit of Booze
Lindsey Scheftic, founder of The CMO Sidekick and former CMO of Amazon’s Ring, enters the Billboard, Bets, and Booze podcast to share her insights on the buy side. In this episode, host Jonathan Gudai explores Scheftic’s strategic bets to stay ahead in the ever-evolving marketplace while navigating the intersection of creativity and strategy.
Transcript
Jonathan Gudai
The authenticity that that kind of is baked into that approach. How do you see that also playing out in public?
Lindsey Scheftic
I mean, I was featured on a billboard in Times Square this year and it was like I was like, I’ve made it. I don’t know why I felt that way. It just felt really big.
Jonathan Gudai
All right. We are here with Lindsey Scheftic on the latest episode of Billboard, Bets, and a Bit of Booze. Welcome. Welcome.
Lindsey Scheftic
Thanks for having me. Very excited to be here.
Jonathan Gudai
This is very exciting because this is the first guest that has actually been on the marketing side, on the buy side. Everyone up until now has been on the platform side, technology side, industry side. So it’s very special. And I’m honored to have you kick it off as the first CMO on the podcast.
Lindsey Scheftic
Thank you. That’s – I don’t know if that’s scary or special or exciting or what.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, exactly. We are blazing a trail so you are-
Lindsey Scheftic
Blazing!
Jonathan Gudai
You’re pioneering for all future CMO’s on BBB.
Lindsey Scheftic
Perfect. Love it. CMOs, watch out. You got big shoes to fill.
Jonathan Gudai
I know. Let’s. Let’s see how high the bar can be raised. Let’s go. So on our podcast, we’re here in Las Vegas and we have a fun little routine of opening it up with a little game of roulette.
Lindsey Scheftic
Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
So I don’t know if you’re a red or black gal, but you’re going to have an opportunity to bet 100 bucks.
Lindsey Scheftic
All right.
Jonathan Gudai
And depending upon the outcome, it will determine what we’re going to drink.
Lindsey Scheftic
All right, let’s go for red.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay, So red 25. Three more bets.
Lindsey Scheftic
All right, let’s go. For even.
Jonathan Gudai
Even. I like it.
Lindsey Scheftic
And then, let’s see. Third, 12.
Jonathan Gudai
Third, 12. This is the first, I think you could see. Right, guys? How the bets are different than any other guest has ever made. It’s very unique. Okay. And the grand finale.
Lindsey Scheftic
let’s put 25 more on even.
Jonathan Gudai
All right, let’s do it. All right.
Lindsey Scheftic
You can tell how much I gamble.
Jonathan Gudai
You’re feeling the even.
Lindsey Scheftic
Feeling that even.
Jonathan Gudai
Feeling the even and the red. Here we go. And even.
Lindsey Scheftic
All right.
Jonathan Gudai
Winner, winner, winner. Look at that. So, a red, even. Wow! You crushed that bet. Dinner’s on you.
Lindsey Scheftic
Perfect.
Jonathan Gudai
Dinner’s on Lindsay. What do we have here? If you wanna.
Lindsey Scheftic
Oh, wow. A bourbon! A bourbon.
Jonathan Gudai
Okay, so it looks like we have here a Stellum Bourbon. This is 116.22 proof.
Lindsey Scheftic
Okay.
Jonathan Gudai
And it’s cask strength. And see what that means. It means that this came straight from the cask to the bottle to our mouth.
Lindsey Scheftic
Wow.
Jonathan Gudai
No additives, no water, nothing else. Let’s give it a little taste.
Lindsey Scheftic
All right.
Jonathan Gudai
It smells good.
Lindsey Scheftic
I gotta smell it. Woo.
Jonathan Gudai
Woo, cheers.
Lindsey Scheftic
Cheers.
Jonathan Gudai
Salud. Ah, comet rising. What do you say?
Lindsey Scheftic
Good
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
Her eyes are. Her eyes are wide. So there’s like. There’s a comet is is blazing through your body at the moment.
Lindsey Scheftic
It really is blazing.
Jonathan Gudai
So we met in Cannes.
Lindsey Scheftic
Very fancy. We only like to meet in fancy places.
Jonathan Gudai
And I’m telling you Cannes, to New York, to Las Vegas. We know how to do it. And it was at the Cannes Lions Festival, and I believe it was you were speaking to our industry, the CEOs of our industry. And so before we get into some of the bets that in the future casting of how you see the industry sort of evolving just for our guests to learn a little bit about your background and where you came from and kind of what brought you to the studio today.
Lindsey Scheftic
Sure. So, you know, I grew up in Saint Louis. I got to give a shout out to my hometown. I know we have a connection there as well.
Jonathan Gudai
Absolutely.
Lindsey Scheftic
And, you know, I started my career out on the agency side and, you know, I like to say I’ve placed a lot of bets on my career. I’ve always tried to kind of like read the tea leaves and see what was that next big thing in the industry and then get a lot of experience around that area.So I’ve kind of bounced from agency side to client side back to agency side, back to client side. Every time I go back to the industry, like why did I go back to the agency and back to the client side? But I think digital has definitely been, you know, something that has been woven throughout my career and really trying to stay on the cutting edge of content and you know, when social started developing algorithm, that’s something I really wanted to know a lot about and went back to agency to get some, like, really in-depth experience there. And so, yeah, my latest engagement, I was the head of marketing CMO for Ring.
Jonathan Gudai
Mmhmm.
Lindsey Scheftic
For Amazon. And I left in August to start my own consulting company called the CMO Sidekick. And really what I started seeing was that there was, you know, a need for senior level advisement for CMO’s that just CMOs couldn’t, you know, hire internally and or have like that right support. And so I’ve become this right hand to CMO is working across a variety of clients and just really helping figuring out anything from positioning to brand strategy to helping with, you know, content strategy, creative strategy, creative RFPs, media RFPs, and just kind of giving that senior level consulting and advisement. So it’s been pretty fun so far.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, the variety of different things that you’ve done. So Ring and I know you mentioned earlier to me before the show, you know, the Red Bull background. That was probably really interesting brands to be working with.
Lindsey Scheftic
Yeah. I was the head of consumer marketing for Vans for two and a half years, so worked on the footwear apparel side. Yeah. Worked at Red Bull for five years, have automotive experience, worked on Volkswagen and Toyota. Did a couple of your stint on Apple, just, you know, that little hardware brand?
Jonathan Gudai
I’ve heard of them before. And has it been mostly B2C across that whole journey? So I’ve really focused on the consumer.
Lindsey Scheftic
Mostly BTC. Early in my career, I worked at an AT&T, which was B2B. And then most recently at RING did some B2B work for Ring developing their B2B IP and how they are going to come to market for that.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, very cool. So I would argue that CMO’s might be one of the hardest jobs in corporate America. And I think that there’s, you know, a pressure situation there. But there’s also this very fluid dynamic market. Forget even a pandemic in the post-pandemic world that we’re in, but just generally speaking, so let’s start with just like how you see CMOs today, like figuring out where they should be investing, what they should be doing, what they should not be doing, how they’re using measurement systems. Because to me, I feel like there’s a lot of noise out there. I love your perspective on that.
Lindsey Scheftic
It is, I would say the role has changed quite a bit over the last, you know, 3 to 5 years. And for me, figuring out how to invest our dollars and where to invest our dollars, it’s a little bit of an art and a science. And, you know, for me, it’s being current. And what’s you know, happening in marketplace, it’s balancing performance, but also brand. You know, I see a lot of brands that are just doing performance marketing, and 3 to 5 years down the road, they’re just going to be dead. They’re just spending so much money for people who are in demand for products. They’re not really building the brand over time. So you know, they’re still continuing to pay. They’re going to continue to pay that high rate to acquire new customers. So I think for me, it’s just kind of a balance of like gut and experience, but also looking at the data and looking at the measurement that you can do in an outside of platform and, you know, try to try to piece it together to get the best kind of picture of the the larger story.
Jonathan Gudai
Just the sheer number of ways that, you know, your dollar can be chopped up. How do you, how do you manage all that?
Lindsey Scheftic
I think for me, I like to keep my strategy simple. I think when you go and you slice your dollars too thin and you slice your audiences too thin, that’s really where you run into trouble. I’ve seen more startups or mid-sized companies and they are across, you know, 50 different partners. And you’re there kind of not having enough frequency or enough where in and enough reach on that platform to really inundate that customer. I think you can look cross-channel and in some areas you can look cross-channel to make sure that you’re, you know, heavy in certain places or lighter in other places. But for me, it’s like keeping a really simple strategy and having an audience first strategy and being very focused on who you’re trying to reach and I think like for me, you know, the video industry has changed a lot in the last couple of years. And, you know, I had an agency that I was working with in the last year, and when they came to do an RFP for us, they really talked about this like being screen agnostic and just reaching customers where they were like not worrying about we’re going to slice up this much for linear and this much for streaming and this much for out of home and this much for YouTube. It was more of looking, where are the customers? Who are we trying to reach? And then we’re going to just pick very efficient and smart channels to reach them. And depending on where they are versus, you know, just trying to like slice up that budget in advance.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, the whole omnichannel push where like it’s all these different touchpoints working together, but not necessarily beholden to historical allocations.
Lindsey Scheftic
Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
How often were you changing your playbook? Even at Ring for a couple of years, like what was the frequency that you were like rethinking what that mix should be?
Lindsey Scheftic
I think every year I mean, I think looking at, you know, I think like trying to move a brand who’s been doing more traditional things into more digital platforms, whether it’s, you know, streaming or programmatic or just, you know, thinking more holistically about cross-channel reach and frequency is, I think, something every marketer probably struggles with. Like you’re especially if you’re more probably a younger CMO or more modern CMO, you’re, you know, thinking about that digital strategy and you’re trying to kind of pull dollars out of maybe some of the more traditional channels that maybe the dollars were sitting in because it was easier to, you know, easier to buy and execute. And so I think it’s like really thinking about you know, how you make those baby steps in those step changes in your strategy every year to get leadership comfortable with making the shift. Like, I don’t believe in kind of making like super radical change because I feel like if your strategy is kind of working, it’s kind of working.You’re just like you’re optimizing it every year. You’re making it better. So I think it’s about like testing new partners and making sure that you’ve got, you know, that testing budget to put new partners into the mix. And then I think it’s about making like those baby steps.
Jonathan Gudai
But when you think of just like the rapid pace of change where I like in and others have linear TV to a melting ice cube and every one of those droplets of attention leaving that channel and going toward phone platforms like TikTok or YouTube. But just the notion that, you know, Gen-z, Millennials are going to behave differently than those that are older. Thinking about your ideal audience, which I know it’s product specific, but like the thought process that goes into here’s an emerging channel you see the stats that are being reported by the major platforms, eMarketer or Digiday or anything like that. How do you approach and how do you recommend approaching for CMO’s the testing process and making those, those incremental changes?
Lindsey Scheftic
I still think influencer is being like very underutilized. They see influencers still being a little bit of like a bolt on strategy versus like part of your overarching strategy. I think influencer is a media channel in of itself, but it’s also content generation and authentic content for your for your brand. And then I think also like not utilizing that content, like being able to take that content and use it in different channels I think is really important.You know, a couple the last brands I worked with, we were taking great content and then we were putting them in other places and putting them highlighting them in other channels, like for example, and now in digital, you know, programmatic out of home, like being able to extend your content onto to bigger screens and into different places. This content people love to consume in their phones, like why wouldn’t they love to consume it in other places. And I’ve seen brands kind of utilizing social content and CTV in other places. And I really think that there’s a value and I don’t want to say repurposing, but using content that your customers are engaging with and really enjoy on, you know, platforms that also have high scale.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, the authenticity that that kind of is baked into that approach. How do you see that also playing out in public where creators show up in public and brands support them showing up in public? How do you see that dynamic on both the creator side and on the marketer side sort of playing itself out because we’re obviously making some big bets on the Adomni, but I’d love to hear your perspective.
Lindsey Scheftic
I think it’s huge. I think that, you know, creators have become and influencers have become celebrities within themselves. Right. And, you know, I think taking, you know, a lot of influencers, they’re off doing comedy. They’re out, you know, doing things in the real world. They’re having appearances, they’re at events. And I think that taking that content more in the real world as these people are just definitely more recognizable than and or as recognizable as any other celebrity, sometimes I would argue even more. And I also feel like there is like an accessibility with an influencer in that they seem like they’re like you, right? Like, whether it’s a mom or it’s, you know, somebody just doing something similar to what you’re doing that I think gives like a connection to yourself versus maybe like a celebrity or to really feeling an emotional connection to and you’re going to take an endorsement a little bit differently versus if you’re going to see something from an influencer.
Jonathan Gudai
And that’s one of our bets, is that the democratization of influence is what TikTok and YouTube have created and Instagram. Yeah, but it seems historically, for whatever reason that ended in the phone or on the computer and then we’ve got video, some fun videos of the reactions that creators have and seeing themselves.
Lindsey Scheftic
Yeah.
Jonathan Gudai
Out in the marketplace. So for us, it’s really exciting to like actually not just have them extend into the physical world, but then capture what’s happening in the physical world and bring it back to social. And seeing that kind of like 360 approach.
Lindsey Scheftic
I mean, I was featured on a billboard in Times Square this year and it was like I was like, I’ve made it. I don’t know why I felt that way. It just felt really big and like I had a picture of it and, you know, I posted it. I don’t ever really post on Facebook anymore, but I was like, I’m going to post this on Facebook. This seems like what that audience would like. And it was like the most liked thing, commented thing that anyone had ever seen. You know, it was pretty funny.
Jonathan Gudai
And yeah, a point of pride. Yeah, it’s a point of pride. And so then the question is, if it has this emotional value and you see CMO’s all the time bragging about their times Square placement or their Piccadilly Circus, whatever it is, why are the budgets not flowing to the channel that people love and want to be on and want to celebrate after they’re on? What do you think is holding back unlocking the budgets for, let’s call it real world, formerly digital out-of-home, still digital out-of-home, but what’s holding it back?
Lindsey Scheftic
I think there’s a few things. I think one, I think that there’s still you know, I like to call Mythbusters, like I still think there’s myths around the channel that the channel has changed so much, but there’s just a lack of education. And I think that, you know, especially in the agencies, I feel like your digital buyers and your, you know, people who have come up digital, you know, out of home is something that’s archaic to them and it’s sat on a side team and they maybe don’t know much about it. And I think that there’s a lack of education on the agency side when you know you have an integrated planner coming to the table with a recommendation for a plan, out of home seems like always like a bolt on or an afterthought. The other thing is just, you know, the channel has changed so much in terms of targeting. We talk about mass media, right? And that’s mass media to I think a lot of people means not targeted. It means you’re talking to everybody. I think with digital out of home, with tracking, that can be done now with knowing who is by boards and understanding that you can actually find an addressable audience at scale and target them in specific locations where they’re at, where they shop, where they live is something completely new that is probably like an unlock for marketers. I think also this perception that out of home is so expensive. Oh my gosh, it’s so expensive. The production is expensive. I think even digital seems expensive, even though I know that there’s lots of automation in creating the creative. Like I don’t think it’s as I think that’s a myth. And I think now that you can buy it programmatically and you can also shut it off. I think the, the old myth of, you put out of home up, you’re committed to a month or two or whatever the run of the board is. That is not a thing anymore. Now, I see that changing over, like, just the last year.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. And with the trends that are happening right now in just marketing in general, where privacy is obviously changed a lot already, we don’t have that issue in the real world. You know, we never relied upon the 1 to 1 and that sort of thing. The second was around just this omniplanning approach where television now CTV is being planned alongside video display, you know, audio, even digital audio. So do you think that those forces actually also have CMO’s are kind of rethinking how this fits in?
Lindsey Scheftic
I think so. I think that, you know, again, it’s just like another way to extend the reach of your campaigns, like in a digital way. And I think like I do think and I was saying it’s like a little bit of like in art and a science, I think that, you know, in the past, like out of home, you just look at it for like from like a big brand perspective or you’re going to have a big brand campaign. And I think now because the targeting is so much better, you can really look at it to help drive considerations for your campaigns and be more middle, lower funnel. And so I think sitting next to where I feel like linear still considered above the line, but CTV seems to be sitting more mid right? consideration. And I think that’s really kind of more where digital out of home is going to come and how you buy it, how you can target and then where you would put that in the playbook of your marketing plans.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. Yeah, we like to compare CTV to the cousin of digital out of home or video digital out of home because it literally is in most cases televisions that look the same as what you have on your wall in the home, just in a public place.
Lindsey Scheftic
I find myself less and less on my phones in store these days, so I feel like, you know, now that us humans are back out in the world. Like, it seems interesting to layer on like, what does that experience with your brand feel like when that person is out of the home and they’re in a shopping mode and, you know, they’re not just staring at their you’re competing with your TV, your iPad, your kids iPad, your phone, all happening at the same time, right? So I just think there’s more attention there than there ever has been. We did just spend all this time at home with our heads down on our screens. And I think people are like really starting to lift their heads up.
Jonathan Gudai
Talk a little bit about how you see creative in today’s day and age where, like you said, the influencer authentic is important, but how does that play itself out on these big screens in the real world? And what are any predictions there?
Lindsey Scheftic
I think that this like influencer, creative or creative that just feels and looks more authentic is going to take over that space. I’d love to see some video out there of just, you know, just stuff I just find visually interesting. Like in the TikTok world, like people like playing with things or like using products in different ways. And I think that there’s, you know, something to be said for that type of content when you’re either at a point of purchase or, you know, you’re just seeing something out in real life that looks like something that you kind of like have seen on your phone or something similar to on your phone. And maybe you’re actually more interested in it because you’re like, that’s kind of cool. So I do feel like she’s showing some of this more raw creative in real life is going to become a big thing. That’s a future thing. I don’t think a lot of brands are doing that right now. But, if I was, you know, where I was at before and wherever I go next and or the brands I’m working with right now in my consulting like that is how I’m trying to direct content strategy and really create that connection with customers today and how they like to consume content.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. And look, I mean, TikTok is shaking it up with a lot of different things. A lot of people are talking about the shopping, you know, what’s happening now with shopping, the commerce on TikTok and everywhere else. But Tiktok’s out of phone program where Adomni is a partner. Hopefully is the first major sort of showcase of you extending what you’re putting on platform off platform. And it works. It actually does kind of hit hard.
Lindsey Scheftic
Yeah. I think if you have like great content that’s going to work here, it’s most likely going to work in a bigger placement and you’re going to have, you know, be able to extend your reach and, you know, have more familiarity. And I think that I think it is going to be huge. Like, I think what you guys are doing is awesome. I know we met in Cannes and we also reconnected in New York, you know? Right. I think right before you had this announcement and you and I talked a little bit about it and I was like, wow, that’s going to be cool like that. That is going to be huge. Like, I think that, you know, brands are making all this, like, really great content now. They just have more places that they can put it that scale and you know, why limit some of the things that you’re doing to one channel? It’s just like when you make a TV spot and you make 15 cut downs and six cut downs and you put them in all these different places, why wouldn’t you leverage this really authentic, great content that you’re making in social. Especially in a you know, in a video channel that has some of the biggest boards in the world and or sitting at point of purchase, it just seems like a no brainer to me.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, totally. And we see it the same way and the convergence is happening. And I think it’s marketers like you that, you know, are leaning in and talking about it and thinking about it and and ultimately start doing it, you know, and getting the flywheel turning and then the case studies have come out. So we’re excited. We’re very, very excited. Well, thank you for stopping by today. It was really nice to see you.
Lindsey Scheftic
Thanks for having me so much. It was so fun to be here.
Jonathan Gudai
Great to see you as always.
Lindsey Scheftic
Thank you.