TOP CMO: Paul Suchman, Audacy - 'The Marketing Power of Audio'

Paul Suchman  0:00  

Going from a house of brands to a branded house fell really right.

Ben Kaplan  0:06  

This is the podcast where we go around the globe, enough marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies and most disruptive startups. Three ideas

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Ben Kaplan  0:24  

creativity is to make it rapidly scalable. This is top cmo with me, Ben Kaplan. Integral breaks record. Today I'm speaking with Paul Suchman. CMO of Odyssey, the company formerly known as Entercom, communications, the second largest owner of radio stations in the United States. Through its media footprint Odyssey reaches 200 million listeners across the US as one of those interesting brands navigating the crossroads, some would say the divide between old and new media. Paul's an especially interesting cmo for a media company, because He previously served as global CMO of real estate giant CBR E, and all 71,000 of its employees. Originally a top global leader at marketing agencies, like BBDO, and Ogilvy, Paul has seen it all. And now with Odyssey heard it all. So how do you transform a perceived legacy business into a brand pushing the envelope in the New World Order? Let's find out from Paul Sussman. I'd love to start out by talking about this notion of reinventing a company and reinventing a brand 2021. It's the spring Odyssey is the new brand name, which was traditionally a company which was I think, historically the second largest radio station network in the United States and are calm and you're in a new day and age. And you're reinventing yourself as an audio platform instead of a company that is a network of radio stations. So talk about the challenge as a CMO in becoming something you were in something that you want to be and doing that all at the same time.

Paul Suchman  2:10  

Absolutely. So Odyssey has been on this transformational journey that really began in 2016 2017. And the company went through a period of exponential growth and that growth was driven both by acquisition and by organic growth. But on the acquisition side, where we had some of the best radio stations in the top markets. We grew that by buying the audio assets of CBS audio, and that put us into virtually every top 50 market with some of the best known respected, loved iconic radio brands. As part of that acquisition. We also got this streaming business called radio.com. We made acquisitions in the podcasting space, we acquired cadence 13, we acquired pineapple Street Studios, we acquired a podcast network for creators called pod core. So we had this really robust podcast offering. We had a lot of events business, and we were going to market under these live events we can survive in LA at the Hollywood Bowl. That's just one of six tentpole events we had at the time. So we had these four businesses over 250 market facing brands. And where we found was that this name Entercom, which was really a holding company for all these market facing brands, it no longer fit who we had become, nor our vision for the future. So we undertook a a robust rebranding project nuts to rename the company, but to really represent who we had become where we were going, and to give us the broad shoulders to continue investing to continue growing, we also made huge investments in technology as well. So our technology had become a very sophisticated ad tech platform, as well. And that's what drove all of it. And we went through a process, we went through a rebranding process that actually began almost exactly when the pandemic began in 2020. And we launched actually, during the pandemic in March of 2021.

Ben Kaplan  4:29  

When you think about rebranding, one to give cohesion, you made all of these acquisitions, so you have to have a cohesive brand, but to also to influence perception. Are you a radio station company, or are you an audio platform? How do you think about that? And then the one little context all maybe throw out there and then you can comment if you agree with this or not. We're a global marketing agency. On our side. We have a lot of companies that come through us because they want to be perceived as company type A not as company type B, because it affects their valuation tremendously meaning is Uber, a transportation company that has some pretty cool technology? Or is it a technology company that's disrupting transportation? The answer to that question influences their valuation by 10s of billions of dollars. So how do you go into and look at and think about redefining who you are in the minds of your audience for a new age or a modern age? It's a great question.

Paul Suchman  5:26  

So radio, capital, our radio is a legacy media. But it's a very, very powerful, relevant media, it's still the number one reach medium, it's still the most trusted medium out there, virtually 96% Penetration across the United States. One of the challenges that the industry was happening was as the way people consumed, media was changing, going from traditional radios, lowercase our radios, to consuming it on their phones, consuming it in through smart speakers, consuming it in their cars in very different ways. Consuming it virtually you know, it's ubiquitous, it travels with you wherever you go. So there was a perception that the medium was not evolving, as technology was evolving. And because Entercom as a brand, really was in the radio business, it wasn't in the podcasting business, it wasn't in the streaming business. It wasn't a live events business. But that brand was not a market facing brand. There was a need there. That was one of the catalysts to push ourselves forward and to be in the consideration set with modern audio media and entertainment companies, Sirius Spotify, I heart, there was a need for us to be in that conversation with a brand. That was a modern facing consumer facing business facing brand, that could carry forward all of the equities of that multi platform offering, but also appeal to our legacy listeners, our legacy over the air listeners and then to a broad swath of new listeners, who are rediscovering radio and rediscovering live content and discovering podcasts, but just consuming it in very different ways.

Ben Kaplan  7:25  

Where did first of all the name come from? And how did you think about telegraphing, it was essentially not only a shift in where your focus is from sort of terrestrial radio to other forms of audio, but also maybe even a shift in business model? Are you advertising based on you see, sell a lot of ads, but is it? Is there a subscription based side of the model? Is there something else? How did you think about the name and those kind of sort of fundamental shifts and how you would communicate that

Paul Suchman  7:53  

the name we went through, you're an agency person. So we went through a very fast and careful strategic and creative process to come up with that new name, we thought about our positioning, we thought about how the company differentiates itself where the whitespace was, and really where the whitespace was, was in our DNA, local radio at its core, not a one size fits all brand, right? We are so deeply ingrained in the communities, we're deeply connected to these marketplaces, and to millions of consumers every day. And we wanted to keep that legacy equity, but we wanted to bring it forward. So we went through this big creative process. And we landed on the name Odyssey, it actually was a name that we heard in the creative process very early on. But you know, it's like when you go looking for a new home and you see a house you love the first house, you can't buy it. But you know, what was interesting was that name was always the litmus test, and the name itself Odyssey AUD AC, why really, it comes down to part audio, part audacious, and part Odyssey to represent that journey we were on and the name just fit, it landed really well. And when we looked at it, going from a house of brands, to a branded house, having that sit on top felt really right. And it also everything else lined up too, because you can't just change your name, you have to if you're going to go through this name change as a public facing company, you have to change all your URLs, they have to be available. You have to change all your socials, they have to be available. We were fortunate that you know we were able to get all of those in relatively easy fashion. Sometimes you know, names fall out because you know, he had clear all the legal the legal hurdles and all the trademark hurdles. They're still URLs are not available. They're still social handles are not available, but we got everything lined up. We tested it you know, this was a name we serve a lot of different audiences we serve our client Since we're an advertising supported model, so we serve brands, and we serve agencies, we serve our employees, we tested it with our employees, we serve the marketplace, the general marketplace. So we wanted to make sure that the name was landing with all of these audiences. And we went through some testing. And then we launched and it was a, it wasn't just a name change, it was every single solitary asset in the company change, that we still have radio stations with their brands with their call letters, we still have events in the market, we have our podcast studios. So there is a there is an architecture that lives there about when you use which brand, but it really was the Odyssey brand. And then the first test was going out into the marketplace to our buying audience agencies brands directly. And what we found was that the story that we were able to tell coming from Odyssey versus coming from Entercom was more cohesive, was more strategic, it was a bigger, broader story. And it really gave us a competitive advantage. These are the our competitive set.

Ben Kaplan  11:06  

So branding a company is one thing when you have a startup with a clean slate, and practically zero brand equity. But it's an entirely different thing, when you have a legacy that you don't want to throw away. Even when that past legacy can hold you back from becoming the podcasting and digital audio brand, you have the potential to be Paul faced one more level of difficulty. As a public company, you can't afford to get signals crossed with the investment community, especially if you're trying to position yourself in a new way, or supercharge a languishing stock price.

Paul Suchman  11:42  

Well, you treat the investment community as another audience, as important as your buying your audience as important as your employees as important as consumers. And you message that out to them in a very similar way, obviously going through those channels that are appropriate for for financial institutions. We were really fortunate that AUD as a as a ticker symbol was available. So we own audio on the New York Stock Exchange. But at the end of the day, you know, the story they want to hear is one of performance and one of growth and one of continued growth. So the name change was well received. But still those fundamentals and that quarter over quarter performance is what they're looking for. It's a story that is resonating, and it's a story that we're gonna have to continue to live up to to our markets. How to doing

Ben Kaplan  12:30  

this during the pandemic effect any approaching this did you get did you think at all about delaying? Or did you say, hey, let's accelerate, because kind of a lot of companies were like investing in things that weren't doing otherwise? This is the time to do it. How did the pandemic play into the thought process and all of this in the role of audio as a marketing channel and you becoming recognized as an audio platform that went beyond radio?

Paul Suchman  12:53  

That's a great question. So from a market perspective, there was an expert, you know, advertisers, as you as you know, Ben advertisers started to pull back during the pandemic, because people were just not out buying products, services goods. So there was a general pullback as there was we were all collectively as a world going into this unknown time period. But one of the things that happened to the audio industry was it accelerated growth, consumption of audio accelerated, there was a perception that maybe traditional radio would go into decline because people weren't in their cars, and they were staying at home, it may have been a little bit of a blip, but people still consumed it. They just consumed it on smart speakers, they consumed it on their phone, they consumed it directly on their laptops, and desktops. So audio consumption actually grew during the pandemic, there was explosive podcasting growth, there was great trajectory for radio streaming audio continued, its upward trajectory. So that was all good. Those were those were tail winds that maybe some other media companies were not enjoying. The to me the most interesting thing putting on my creative hat. Now as a marketing person, we kicked off this project. And we launched it at every single touch point to every single audience during this pandemic. And the implication of that was every person was working remote on my team, or agency partner teams. So there is a school of thought that says productivity, collaboration, creativity suffered during the pandemic, when people became isolated and work from home became the norm. And that may be true, but I think it did not happen for us. If anything, we more creatively excelled. I think there was this feeling that we're all in it together. It became a very intimate project, right? Because you were all in each other's homes and you were working when you're when you're working towards a launch date. That's not changing. You're working funny out You're on the phone at 6am. You're on the phone at 6pm. You're on the phone at 11pm. You got to know spouses, you got to know kids, you got to know dogs, you got to know. Yes, yes, you people's dogs, you knew people, like, you know, I had my dog right with me like that the whole time. And, you know, you felt like you were in the foxhole with these people. And that was our agency partners. You know, that was our creative partners. That was our team. And when you're changing every single touch point, it was literally like, working with virtually everyone in the company,

Ben Kaplan  15:31  

the notion of the role of audio. I mean, I think we have a lot of startup clients, you know, major presence in Bay Area, Silicon Valley. And for a while everyone, at least in this sort of first mover tech community was talking about clubhouse. And I'm interested to hear your perspective of that as someone that's like, Hey, we're becoming a, you know, we're transitioning from radio stations to audio platforms. And these startups come up. And for like a hot minute, it was like everyone was on this thing. And then it kind of went down just as fast. So you're doing your rebrand at the time? What were you what was going through your mind? What were you thinking when suddenly, at least in this sort of tech or creative class, everyone's going on this one platform, and then people kind of stopped using it just as fast. I

Paul Suchman  16:10  

think, our thought whether it was we'd been doing this for 50 years. If you think about talk radio, think about sports radio, think about news, radio, think about any of the voice sled communications that have been happening for the last 50 years. It's the same basic format. Somebody is leading a conversation people are calling in. Now. Yeah, you can have chat and all that. But by you know, by the way, our radio station, our app, have websites where people are, are reaching us with those kinds of communications. So for us, it was nothing new Twitter spaces was another one that was out there. But we had been doing that it's it's the same basic format as podcasting, although you're not having guests call in but you're still having bigger conversations with more than one person, you know, two three way conversations and you're allowing outside voices in so for us, we did not see that as a threat. We saw it as validation for everything that we were doing. And if anything, it accelerated our move towards digital,

Ben Kaplan  17:15  

what is the role and the importance of podcasts. Now, in your opinion, as a marketing channel, we've seen this rise of you know, the Joe Rogan's of world reportedly $200 million dollar deal from Spotify. I think it was reported first that 100 million went up to 200 million. Who knows you have podcasts that come from nowhere, call me daddy podcasts sold for $60 million. Another one brought up by Barstool Sports. What is the role of podcasts or is just an evolution of of radio programs and there was Star performance before or is it something different? What do you think the future is as as a marketing channel?

Paul Suchman  17:51  

Well, I think that the podcasts that really land, like take Glennon Doyle spod cast, right, that is a sensational podcast and Glennon has this relationship with her millions of listeners who build their day around that podcast my wife is is a big Lennon person. And he will take time when a new episode drops to connect with and listen to and hear Glennon and that's it like that is the moment like Lenin is the ritual. What podcasting is doing with consumers is building these just deeply bonded relationships stronger than these personalities have in other mediums that are just one way media.

Ben Kaplan  18:40  

So what's so special about a podcast? And why have they taken over from vanilla radio, consider that radios peak listener periods are during the so called morning drive, or afternoon drive time, to times when people are in their cars and presumably commuting to and from work. Regular radio therefore was in part a way to pass the time doing something more enjoyable than just sitting in a car and heavy traffic. But podcasting gave audio a new sense of freedom, turning it into somebody that could be engaged with beyond the confines of your car, say on your own schedule while going for a jog or working out at the gym. Better yet, for the very best podcast. You might even decide to jog and go for a gym workout. Just have the opportunity to listen to the show. to Paul. All this means that a podcast gives you a real opportunity to make a deeper connection with your audience.

Paul Suchman  19:38  

It tends to not be scripted content, it tends to be real, it tends to be more emotional, it's longer form so the connection is deeper. If you ask a podcaster, who's also in other mediums, they will tell you that the relationship they have with their podcast listeners is just different. cuz they're just talking about more, they're, they're revealing more of themselves. They're opening up more, and all of this. So the reason I was even saying this was because for advertisers, right, that's a real opportunity for advertisers, if they do it right, to insert themselves into these environments that are deeply engaged, deeply immersed, where trust is there, where love is there. And if a brand is in there, a product is in there that is being endorsed, either overtly with a live read, or even through a stop set of advertising that add that brand, that product has a much bigger chance of landing with that audience, because it is coming almost verified, right? A podcaster is not going to have advertising on their program that they don't support, they don't endorse, they're certainly not going to do those libraries. And they have a voice in the stops at advertising as well, lots of times. So there is that trust, that immersion, that engagement, that equity transfers from host to advertiser. So I think that's what the opportunity is, is for these advertisers to find the right hosts the right formats, the right ways to disrupt, but disrupt in a additive way to what's happening in that podcast. So that's what I see as the opportunity.

Ben Kaplan  21:24  

And where do you think all of this is going in five years from now? What do you think we'll be doing as marketers either if there's, you know, many other CMOS listening, there's other heads of agencies listening, where's this all going into maybe how we look at the the media buying mix, five years from now different than what we're doing now, or what we're doing five years before,

Paul Suchman  21:48  

I think for audio, specifically, the role of audio continues to grow, I think, Audio The keeps taking share from other medium. And I think that for a couple of reasons. One, because the content, there's just great content being produced, you're seeing brands run towards audio is still under invested relative to other medium. But as brands are rethinking their 360 plans, they are shifting dollars to audio coupled with that, if you look at the next phase of computing, it's screenless computing is voice driven computing. And all of that together means brands need to really think about how they sound brands spend a lot of time on their visual and verbal identities. And it's critically important, but their audio identity, whether that's their Sonic identity, so Sonic

Ben Kaplan  22:42  

identity, you mean like like if it's Intel inside, and there's a little chime that goes with it or Yeah, people probably you know, back in the day and their new like old like AOL mail account, like you know, you've got mail or something else you mean like as as an audio mark, that's an identifiable sound is what you're talking about.

Paul Suchman  23:00  

Right? Yeah, absolutely. And as people transact with that brand, you know, MasterCard has become the new when we talk about that it used to be Intel, you know, the for the fortune, but MasterCard has done a very, very sophisticated job of of their of thinking through their audio identity of their sound identity, their Sonic brand, not only from how it shows up when when the mark shows up in places, but if you actually transact, you get certain sounds with the brand. And it's really important. Car companies are thinking about that too, not just the way their logo resolves with a sonic identity, but the in car experience how that sounds when you turn on the radio, when you turn on the ignition, when you click buttons, when you close the door, the sonic identity, that Sonic footprint of a brand is becoming a lot more important. And again, you know we're going to screenless computing, right? You're going to talk to your computers, you talk to your you talk to your car now, right? And so the way that car speaks back to you, and the sounds that car makes, that's that's the sonic identity. It's got a way beyond logos.

Ben Kaplan  24:10  

You spent a lot of your time talking about other brands can can mark it using Odyssey but how do you mark it to reach the tripod you referenced earlier? The triangle, right? You work with brands who are big advertising buyers, you work with agencies who facilitate those advertising buys, what do you spend your marketing your day on? And how do you reach those key stakeholders.

Paul Suchman  24:34  

So on the business side, on the b2b side of the house, the agencies and the brands themselves, we have a number of different strategies that we execute. We do thought leadership, we build a lot of thought leadership content in the form of research and insights that we publish as big pieces as small pieces as audio pieces, and we're spending a lot of time putting that in front of the market these

Ben Kaplan  24:59  

days. Insights related to I don't know, consumption patterns or changes, it was kind of a focal point or a pillar for the types of thought leadership content you're doing.

Paul Suchman  25:07  

We follow the trends, you know, we follow the trends. So we'll you know, we talk about, you know, we do it through the lens of audio as the CMO, I have to be a champion of the audio industry and the Odyssey brand. So as an example, twice a year, we publish a really robust piece that we call state of audio. And it's really what's what's happening in the state of audio. And each time it's, it's a different theme. So we just published one last month, and it was on the disruptors. And it talked about how audio is being disrupted by the creative, creator community, what that means for the advertiser community. And the disruption that's happening in the comes from the consumers, because that's the triumvirate of you know, you've creators, you have advertisers, and you have consumers. So we so we do that twice a year, we're working on one that's going to come out in the fall. And we just did some research on rituals, the rituals of people live very ritualistic lives, they get up in the morning, they have their coffee. And we did some research to understand the role that audio plays in people's lives and rituals. And the findings were stunning. I mean, we could do, we could do a whole podcast on that. And we found that the the role of audio is unbelievable in these rituals. And in some cases, audio is the ritual itself. I'm not going to go for a run and listen to this podcast, I'm going to listen, I'm going to go for a run. So I can listen to this podcast, I'm going to take the long way home, so I can finish this program, I'm going to sit in the driveway and finish this radio segment. It's just amazing stuff. So we do that. We also publish some hard insights and articles, a drumbeat, we're spending a lot of time at the conferences where advertisers are, whether it's a an A or advertising week. So we're showing up there next to our competitive set next to other media companies. And that's an air game that we're providing. And then I spent a lot of time as as, as you and I talked about, before we went live, I spent a lot of time with our CRO working on our ground game, giving our sales people the tools that they need to sell better to sell deeper into organizations to win more business more frequently.

Ben Kaplan  27:17  

That's the b2b side. But you also care about reaching audiences, consumers as well, because ultimately, you put brands and consumers together. So how much of your day is spent thinking about just reaching consumers and understanding what either your master brand is, or the individual sub brands that they might experience in their local market?

Paul Suchman  27:36  

The answer is a lot, we spend a lot of time thinking about that we have 200 million listeners on the platform over the air on the stream listening to our podcasts, and we reach them, you know, we reach them on our own platform, we reach them on third party platforms. And we're trying to do two things with that we're trying to grow our audience, we want to grow that audience from 200 to 300 to 400 million listeners, we want them to come on to our app, we want them to spend time on our app, and we want to get more listening time with them. They have lots of other choices out there for audio, and they have lots of other choices out there for other medium that can take the place of audio, and we want them to spend time with us. So we are in acquisition mode to grow that total audience base. And we're also in growth mode with our existing audience base, getting them onto our app, getting them more listening occasions. So if we see Ben, you know, you're on our app, and you're listening to some of our sports stations. We're going to serve you sports streams, we're going to serve you sports related podcasts, we're going to see what else you listen to. And if you're listening to Ultra Music, we're going to give you to serve you different all stations that may not be in your metro area, we're going to serve you really interesting podcasts by musicians. So the idea is not just to grow the audience but to give that audience more listening occasions,

Ben Kaplan  29:01  

a competitor, like Spotify makes a lot of sort of splash for putting a lot of effort and marketing behind stars. What do you think of that as a strategy? And do you try to mimic that? Or do you try to go a totally different way? Or is growth a star driven medium?

Paul Suchman  29:18  

You know, Spotify you as you talked about earlier as one of those those those darlings on the street. One of the things that we have embraced as an organization and I have embraced as a marketer, is being a challenger brand, right? So Spotify, we're not going to outspend Spotify, we're not going to you know, we're not going to put Joe Rogan on the flagship because that would eat an entire marketing budget. And Spotify can do that over and over and over again. But what we have through our roots in radio, is we have Joe Rogan's in virtually every single market across every single genre and we Have them on 24 hours a day. And they are so deeply connected to these audiences and these communities. So while Spotify is doing a top down approach, we have that star power too. We have that star power in our podcasts, we have national radio personalities, but we have so much power in the market. So going bottom up and growing it that way in the community has been a differentiator for us. And brands love that, too. Brands appreciate that connection brands appreciate that authenticity, that you know, it's not a one size fits all. So we see that actually as a competitive differentiator. It makes for some really interesting, scrappy marketing to consumers.

Ben Kaplan  30:45  

You're you're focused on audio, but then you're part of a larger just content ecosystem, where there's been a lot of changes, like the proliferation of all the I call them the pluses, right? The all the subscription to Disney plus the Paramount plus everyone's got got their plus some people CNN had one for a hot minute and then turned it off, I think three weeks after. So it's sort of this, what is your feeling of marketing, and also providing, obviously, audiences for marketers in this broader context, beyond audio have a lot of direct distribution in subscription mechanisms and other mechanisms to reach consumers as you're part of this broader ecosystem to?

Paul Suchman  31:24  

It's exactly right, I think we have our competitive set as as a challenger brand. But at the end of the day, we are competing against all other media companies for that personal primetime, that time when a human being has to devote to consuming media. And that person can say, I'm going to consume video, I'm going to scroll on Social, I'm going to go on Facebook, I'm gonna consume audio. So we are really competing for that personal primetime. And one of the things that happened during the pandemic. And we're still seeing it now. Although I'm in New York, and I commuted into New York City today, and it is business as usual, train was packed subways, pack, streets are packed, like it's palpable that you can feel people coming back into the workplace. And it's awesome. But we had become now this this world where the like, those norms stopped existing for a while, and they probably never gonna go back to the way it was, although, you know, who knows. So the advantage that that audio has is audio of all the other medium out there. Audio is the most ubiquitous audio is the ultimate companion media, it can be with you, when you're driving, it can be with you, when you're on the train, when you're on the subway, it can be with you, when you're exercising, it can be with you when you're cooking, it can be with you, when you're lying with your eyes closed, just finding your breath and finding center. There's no other medium that does that. And we think that with through this proliferation of content, that is one of the shining star powers of audio, we're also seeing on the subscription business side, one of the things that we have seen is that there is so many pluses out there that you say like that you were just talking about, we're almost seeing promiscuity from from from people that I'll go into Paramount plus, because I want to get Yellowstone. But as soon as that's done, I'm not going to pay 495 anymore. And particularly now as people are looking at costs, they're looking at belt tightening, people are looking at those subscription models really carefully. I mean, I do that in my own home with my kids and my wife and I look at what we pay for media every month. And it's it's staggering. And you start to make some decisions. So you know, we feel really good about competing in that overall ecosystem. Because of the power the reached the ubiquity of audio. And because we're an ad supported model versus a subscription driven model that we're not an in a you know, an either or we're an end.

Ben Kaplan  34:06  

Here's one of my favorite aspects of a podcast, it's a real opportunity to develop a deeper relationship with your audience. Podcasts are great for that because relationships form from repeat interactions over an extended period of time. And a podcast facilitates that because of its free form format, and the ability to listen to it while you're doing other things, thereby increasing your overall time commitment to it. But what is Paul's advice for CMOS who are thinking about setting up their own podcast? Is audio, a potentially powerful marketing channel?

Paul Suchman  34:45  

I think you need to think about the audience and what you're trying to do. So as a b2b marketer, you're not trying to reach 200 million listeners, you are trying to reach a more finite clearly defined audience there may be different cohorts in their b2b b2c, there's this almost artificial demarcation. The one thing I think everybody has in common, whether they're wearing their professional hat or their consumer hat, is there is a lot of content out there. And people are inundated with information and messaging all day long. So I think the first thing a CMO needs to think about if they're building a podcast or audio content, for their own brand is, am I going to be putting something out there on behalf of our brand that my audience wants to consume, and will make time to consume and will move other things off of their desktop to consume that, and it's tough. And by the way, you can't just do it once.

Ben Kaplan  35:49  

And if you can make something valuable, yeah. But if you're doing something to go through the motions and and if you're being asked himself, he wouldn't even listen yourself, then then maybe not. But think

Paul Suchman  35:57  

about what you're doing here with me then like this is you got to get up tomorrow and do it again. And then the next day, you're gonna get up and do it again. And again, and it's a lot of work. I mean, you're really good at your craft, and you got an awesome voice, by the way, and I'll tell you, I think that it's it's not easy, you have to this is not just a one and done, if you do it, you're gonna have to keep doing it. Otherwise, it's not going to be worth the resources, the time the energy you've put behind it. And even worse, it could have a negative trajectory on your own brand. So we work with a lot of brands on branded podcasts. And we have teams of people who this is what they think about day in and day out. And they spend a lot of time building these branded podcasts thinking about subject matters, thinking about audience thinking about that content that they are going to produce. And it is it is a significant part of the brands who we work with their budget and their time and they don't wait in they go, if they go in, they go in and they commit.

Ben Kaplan  36:56  

How does all of this, I don't know if we would have chatted 10 years ago, if you would thought this would be the field you're in now in the industry. And you're now you've been a longtime cmo in multiple industries, you spent five years five plus years as CMO at CBRE massive real estate company, you come from the agency world you are CMO at BBDO. I think I think also CMO, I think it's how the CMO in residence at WPP, another massive huge, massive agency holding company. So how does all of that inform what you do now does you know real estate industry marketing impact how you do your job now. And for people that might be jumping sectors or verticals like you have,

Paul Suchman  37:39  

you know, the jump from real estate to audio, it was like that was a big jump. Right? You could argue one was the marketing role was butts in seats in real estate. And now it's ears on content in audio. I think at the end of the day, the thing that I love about marketing is you get to use creativity, you get to use words, you get to use design, you get to use sound, you get to use motion graphics to help communicate really typically complex concepts, complex business lines, in really compelling ways and tried to differentiate. And I think that's the throughput through all of this is great marketing and great creativity can jump from industry to industry to industry, the tenants are the same. So for me, you know, going from just just the real estate to to audio jump, it wasn't a big leap in terms of the great unknown because the tenants remained the same. The playing field was a little bit different understanding the subject matter becoming expert at audio and really learning that and I'm still learning it three years later, you know, that was the learning curve. But bringing that experience of marketing made that jump a lot easier. And I'll tell you it's been it's been incredibly energizing one because this is just such an amazing time for the audio industry. But what this company has allowed me to lead on behalf of the 4000 people here this brand transformation is hyper growth, this really becoming a challenger brand and taking on the giants like Spotify. It's it's fun getting up every morning and doing that. And so I guess if you're asking the advice I give and and the learning that I've taken away is as marketers, we bring a very special skill set to the table. The key is how do we weaponize it for that specific industry for that specific situation and be able to be relevant and be able to be an impact player. The one thing that I have seen where CMOS struggle is where their organization or they themselves become perceived as a marketing as a cost center versus marketing as a business driver a business enabler. And when you do that, when you can use creativity to do that, everybody wins.

Ben Kaplan  40:16  

In some ways, the distinction between a CMO and like just a marketing head, right, a very senior marketing person that runs marketing. I don't know how you describe it. But I often think of it as you know, once you put that see in front of the title, then part of your responsibilities, the overall direction of the of the business, you're responsible for, yes, all the marketing functions, but you're also responsible for it being an inputs into how decisions are made for the benefits of the business and how marketing has it see the table, but also influences interacts with all the other functions that go in? I don't know how you define what makes a CMO or a great CMO, you know, what are the qualities that make it different than just running marketing?

Paul Suchman  41:00  

I think using creativity as a business driver is the key. And it's exactly what you said, it's what is the role of marketing at to contribute to the company's business goals. And once you start delivering there, and you're involved in those conversations, then the conversations involved evolved in include you in the strategic forward direction of the organization. And it's an incredibly exciting place to be, you know, it's about earning that trust and support of the C suite. And I'll tell you, the one thing that I have seen no matter where I am, is marketing is something that everybody has an opinion about, right? People love marketing, people love to talk about marketing, we have an amazing CFO, but you know, I'm not going to go have a, you know, a p&l discussion with him. And we're not going to argue about, you know, the way spreadsheets are set up or the way we're reporting that is his his craft. And that is what he does. Same with our CTO, she is an unbelievable technologist and I am not going to argue with her about our Mar tech stack. But marketing is this thing that touches everybody, right, everybody. And so there's a lot of opinions there. So bringing that together, and being a great collaborator and harnessing that energy of the C suite is a really important piece of that too, I'd say.

Ben Kaplan  42:24  

For Paul Suchman, CMO of Odyssey, the past, present and future is all about audio. While the media that delivers the audio may differ, the underlying principles stay the same. Tell a story, be authentic, engage with your community, and have a clear value or purpose. If you're a challenger brand, then don't be afraid to challenge the status quo. Be real, be more emotional in your marketing, and make a point and develop a relationship with your audience with regular, meaningful interactions. And should you start your own podcast? I might be a little biased on that one. For top CMO, I'm Ben Kaplan.

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