TOPCMO: Joanne Gilhooley, Adarma Security - 'Securing Vision'

Ben Kaplan  0:00  

I'd like to actually start out by you have a background, from really big tech companies, we're talking about Microsoft, we're talking about HP doesn't get much bigger than that. Now you're at a different type of company, some would call it a scale up, talk about thinking about marketing in a different way from some of the largest, most established tech companies to accompany with a lot of promise and potential, but you're in that growth phase. How, what is the difference? How do you think about things differently?

Joanne Gilhooley  0:30  

Yeah, thanks, Ben. And firstly, thanks very much for the opportunity. It's fascinating. I've been at a Dharma for just over 12 months. So I left from Microsoft, in the UK where I'd been very happily for for about three years. And then this opportunity came up to work in an industry that I've got a lot of background in, but I've also got a lot of passionate passion for in terms of cybersecurity. And I would say I was both terrified and excited in equal measure, so terrified in the, you know, working with a board of directors, working with private equity, you know, get understanding how to scale a business, excited about the opportunity, because I think that the proposition that we actually have the value that that we can create for organisations, the help that we can give us is palpable, and Adama is that you know, been an organisation that has traditionally kind of grown from word of mouth, we've kind of grown from reputation, which as a marketeer as a marketing dream, in terms of how you build the great foundations of an organisation. But specifically to your question on actually, what does it mean to do marketing, I joined an organisation that at the time had one market here. And when you think about scale, certainly from what I'd come from, you know, teams of hundreds of people, it was it was fundamentally different. And I think that was, you know, what, what the challenge that actually excited me, but as I said, kind of terrified me. So what I've learned in that is to be really clear in your thought process about what what good looks like for marketing. And not to actually kind of rush to too quickly on it, you know, I think what I have learned in working in an organisation that hasn't really had that that operating model, or certainly a marketing mindset is that conversation and the raishin that we might have as marketers, that seems quite normal for businesses, or sensible to us, doesn't always translate into other groups of individuals, or businesses, etc. And so really kind of thinking about what the right way to both build out a function, but also to think about how to build out a brand, and then build, you know, various different other functions within the in the in the operating model, whether it's a demand generation kind of function, or a communications and a PR function. What's the right pace to do that? What's the right sequence to do that? What are the interoperability and the dependencies for the rest of the business that I'm going to actually meet to do that, I would say that the last 12 months have been a huge learning curve for me in terms of how to do that in the right way. And that's something that I've kind of, you know, really, really relished. We have built a team, we had, you know, now have a kind of what I think of as a small but mighty team, we've definitely kind of continuing to scale, we have the ability to fail fast is the way I think about it in terms of testing and learning what actually develops, but definitely had underestimated the, the interoperability between other business functions, what you really need to be actually fulfilling a functioning kind of content lead marketing machine, and how much additional pressure that was going to put in the system in the business. And that's been really the kind of challenge. So I would say that, aside from the work that we've done, we've actually repositioned the brand, we've led out with a new kind of a purpose led brand launch, we've stood up a marketing, automated lead demand generation machine, we've switched on and started to kind of look at a tech stack, we are starting to understand what data means to us. And actually how we can use data into insight to really think about what we're trying to do. At a strategy level we're really started with who's our target market? Who are those prospects? What does an ideal customer look like? And it's actually not, not until I'm actually saying this, now that I reflect on actually how much we've done

Ben Kaplan  4:18  

a lot of things and let me, let me, let me offer this. Maybe one added thing to everything you said, was you're doing all of that, during a black swan event, like a pandemic. You're trying to do this change, you're making this transition, kind of like the old adage about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and you know, there's plenty that Fred Astaire can do but then ginger Swarovski do everything backwards that Fred Astaire could do to how is doing all of those changes then with a pandemic on top of it, in terms of what you need to accomplish in the past

Joanne Gilhooley  4:50  

is absolutely huge. And actually just something I will I will add in terms of actually kind of how you try and sort through that huge amounts of work. I think I'd probably got to about month three or two I'm when I always think you have a bit of a bell curve in terms of you join, and it's great. And then you kind of start to think, Oh, my goodness, this is an enormous task, can I do it, you know, all that kind of impostor syndrome starts to come out. And I had a brilliant conversation as I was kind of noodling online with our Chief Revenue Officer, actually. And I said, I just can't get on top of everything, you know, there's so much to do. And he said, Don't try and do too much at once. Think of it as a sequence and a journey. And I keep referring to this, because it was exactly the nugget of information I needed to hear at that point in time. And since then, I've been very much kind of trying to take more of a step back to allow to have that kind of purview to say, what really matters now, what do we need to build for, you know, midterm? And ultimately, how is that going to affect us in the long term, so I did just want to share that because it really helped me in terms of when I was going through that, my goodness, this is so much I feel overwhelmed, specific to the pandemic, I think there's there's a few learnings. And I think this will probably relate with,

with everybody. In fact, I listened to your podcast with the lady from DHL, but I found a fantastic listen. And I have definitely kind of taken some learnings from that. But one as an individual joining an organisation in a pandemic is really hard. I had underestimated the power of being able to meet people engage with them. I think I'm obviously someone that likes face to face interaction, it's really difficult to understand how to read body language when you don't know people, you know, the kind of usual chat when you're meeting teams, etc, as hate you fancy a coffee? And instead it was, hey, do you fancy a team's chat or, you know, zoom, whatever else everyone's kind of using, right. And so I would say that, until probably about six to nine months, when we started to actually kind of see each other again, I hadn't met as many people as I would normally have done. And I think that was a challenge. You know, I think from an engagement perspective, that was really hard. So never underestimate the challenge of working in a digital environment. And actually what that can mean for people, there's definitely some learnings in that. If I think about the pandemic, I mean, when when the pandemic kicked off, I was working in the UK marketing team at Microsoft. And I feel really fortunate to spend, you know, three years at Microsoft, I don't need to do any selling for them. Right. It's an amazing company. There's been an incredible transformation culturally, but also, you know, operationally and from from a strategy perspective, and it was really fascinating, I feel lucky to have worked for an organisation that was able to help. If I kind of go back to thinking about again, me as an individual, we, we suddenly found ourselves all, you know, spending 10 hours on teams every day, right? I got physical eyestrain. And then when you kind of magnify that into what was actually what else was going on, and it was fascinating. If I then think about from a marketing execution, or what we actually learn, we reacted pretty quickly, we spent a lot of time trying to understand what customers needed or what the market needed. We learned a lot about, you know, we conducted research, etc. But we learned a lot about the type of content that people were looking at in the beginning of the pandemic. And I don't know how that I think this has probably changed. Certainly my my approach to marketing and content, you know, since then, people were telling us they, they just wanted factual information they wanted how to, they wanted to understand how to use things, they were looking to us as a source of truth and information, there was enough scare mongering going on. They wanted practical content they wanted to so so thinking about that across a content journey was super important to us. So we kind of paused everything, until we'd really understood exactly what we were trying to do. And then we kind of thought about, right, what do people need to hear from us. And it did become more of a kind of a communication function over and above a marketing function for it, certainly for that beginning part of the pandemic. So how can we get information to you? How can we give you practical advice in terms of how to set up teams? How can we actually give you, you know, an understanding of how to radically change your business or switch on cloud services and actually help you to adopt technology. And I tried to put myself in the shoes of a teacher. And that could be a teacher anywhere around the world, by the way, but a teacher in the UK, which is obviously where I'm based. And they are suddenly flung into this situation where their responsibility is to educate 3040 however many children through an online platform, which is just not in their kit bag at all. And so when he kind of put yourself in the user, and to understand, you know, their their drivers what they need, it was a really pivotal time for us, I think, in terms of actually what the right approach to marketing and the right way to present it. And I think that, you know, I've always been a kind of a champion of that type of approach. But I do think that b2b And probably tech firms have had a reputation for being potentially a bit Lagarde in their approach for potentially being a little bit too much of Here's the product, here's all its features and benefits without really thinking about what it means to connect to that audience. And I have seen something over the last couple of years where organisations because they have to, by the way, but the right thing to do is to actually try and connect from that brand, that emotional perspective and actually taking on lessons and learnings for some, maybe some of our consumer colleagues, I can see that change and that blur now, between b2b and b2c. So there was there was just something huge and pivotal in that in terms of what that jumped did to us all. And actually how that continues to, you know, to kind of permeate I suppose, across across marketing functions, but

Ben Kaplan  10:38  

Well, is it a shock, when someone is maybe someone listening to this podcast has been maybe a successful marketer at a large organisation, and they're contemplating jumping into something smaller? Because there's, there's, there's a lot of benefits to that, right? You can you can build something, you can grow something, you can build a team, you have opportunities, it's more of a blank canvas, there's more blue sky. But also, has it been your experience, like you show up on day one, you're like, oh, where's my person who does this? And I go, there is no person who does this. So either I'm hiring for this, or I'm doing this, how's that for anyone contemplating that kind of move, where it might be a great career move for them? Or might be a great opportunity to do something very meaningful work. But suddenly, you're like, Oh, am I resource constrained, or I'm not used to that,

Joanne Gilhooley  11:30  

you know, I had this conversation with our chief exec the other day, and it's exactly that, you know, I've been, I've been lucky to work in small teams, I've been lucky to lead big teams, right, I've kind of had, you know, the ability to kind of work around it, but certainly in a smaller organisation, across the last 12 months, when you have a great idea, and you turn around to look at actually who's going to help you with it, you realise that actually, you're gonna have to do self. And you know, I have days when, when still when I can be looking at, you know, strategy or market positioning, and actually how and where we want to go over the next three years, whilst also writing a communication that's going to go out to all of our employees, and also trying to think about, you know, how I can support maybe some merchandise at an event, which honestly hasn't been my hasn't been what I've been doing over the last kind of five to 10 years, I've probably sat more in the strategy, product, product marketing and product development side of the house. And what I have learned is, I'm really outdated in a lot of this, you know, these lots of these disciplines, I am not a digital marketing expert, I'm pretty good at working, and finding individuals that actually have that understanding. And I watch in or when I look at how competent people are in terms of the blend between, you know, on an offline tradit, what I would kind of call traditional how their innate sense of actually using social platforms or you know, syndication, etc. And all of this kind of melds comes together. And so, you know, that's been, that's been a massive, massive shock, you also have to learn quite quickly to think on your feet. I talked earlier on about the breadth of actually what we've done. And I've been really fortunate to have hired some incredible people in the team. We're going for, you know, I talked about this, but going for small but mighty. But you've got to be really kind of agile, and you know, the the long term effects that you're trying to drive might only actually happen if you can only you're able to build that content today, or figure out what that proposition needs to be tomorrow. And so that kind of drumbeat of work that actually supports the overall objective is something that I've you know, that we've been continuing to look at sewing allow allowing ourselves to kind of learn and fail a little bit. It's been it's been super important. The other the other part of it right is is communication, and how important it is to take people on that journey with you. So we're a services business, our people are our brand, you have to be able to land messages in a way that actually engages people to ensure that they can actually go out, you know, go go forth and conquer and actually feel that they're, you know, they've invested at an organisational level in the brand and certainly from an employee perspective, but that they understand exactly what we're doing, where the proposition is how we differentiate, so that they can continue to kind of drive drive that organically in the market. And that's super important in a services business, because, you know, there's an awful lot of investment in people. And so they become one of your marketing channels. And so really thinking about how you turn that on internally, to support the external work has been has been really important as well and, and that that culture, communication, the clarity of messaging, what it takes to ignite a workforce, what it takes to kind of get people really excited, but cognizant of your company vision, what it means to have a company purpose that is more than just words on a website. What it means to create those values and live by those values and ensure that those values permeate through everything that you do. There's a big, there's a big part in that. And certainly, that's what I'm, I'm really enjoying, it sits in the exciting and terrifying part when you're so directly responsible for it. I think that's another thing that you know, moving from larger organisations to where I am now, the kind of the buck stops here, right. And so being confident enough to make those decisions, but being, you know, get big being kind to yourself to allow yourself that, you know, the odd the odd hiccup, and certainly the team as that as they continue to kind of think about how to do it. It's been really, it's been a fabulous 12 months, it's been a hard 12 months, I found, but I think,

Ben Kaplan  15:46  

sure, how do you think about in terms of sort of marketing within organisation, which, which is new? This notion of core values, meaning something? How do you make it do that? I'll tell you a short anecdote, I was at a conference, there was a lot of other CEOs standing around the circle company. And I actually was curious, I asked everyone, do you have core values? Everyone recently? And then I just want to see what what happens is kind of put people on the spot, like, what are your core values? Name them? So you see, you see them kind of struggling? There's like, you know, the common thing was, I got one, I got two, there's another one in there. I'm not sure what it is just just as and you know, CEOs have a have a lot on their plate. So I understand. But how do you make it mean something? And be more than just something you sort of send out to candidates when they apply for the job? And how do you actually is there any way to connect that to what you actually tell customers? or external? Or is it something that's like totally different? How do you view that?

Joanne Gilhooley  16:52  

You know, it's fascinating, and it's been, it's definitely been kind of, you know, a part of that part of the work that we've actually been driving here that I've had the most time learning. And I think that you should learn at every part of your, you know, every part of your career, right? If you're foolish, if you think you know, you know, everything, we do have five core values. And actually, I'm not going to name them all because I'm sure I'm going to forgotten, forget one. But I'm going to pick on a couple that I think are really important to us. One of the things that really sold me on a Dharma, when I went through the interview process is the integrity of the people that I met. And if I think about what we actually do, we provide, you know, cybersecurity services and solutions for some of the largest and some of the smaller organisations, you know, well known financial services, organisations, or retailers, etc. And so thinking about that, from a trust perspective, and actually what it means to actually be a trusted partner to these organisations, that integrity and the people I met, they the fact that they had really strong values was something that I really liked about the organisation, I knew that there was something in there, but if we could continue to translate that into how we show up asset service competence, you know, our service delivery, how our people are, that there's actually something really exciting in that. And we have a couple of them. So we talked about being passionate, we talk about being passionate defenders, we have people who work day in and day out, potential shift rotation or whatever, to protect our organisations from some of the most complex threat environment that we've ever known, right the the backdrop of everything that happens in the world, whether its geopolitical, societal trends, etc, the number of devices, we've all got the shift, the sudden shift to everything cloud or everything online. You know, the backdrop of the threat environment is huge. And so having this passion, to want to get up every day to do the right thing to protect and to serve those customers has been something that really kind of lands and definitely kind of comes out. We also talked about being transparent. I think I've mentioned before, I'm, I'm a huge champion for removing the fear, uncertainty and doubt in marketing from cybersecurity, the world is scary enough. Everyone knows that there's some you know, there's some bad stuff going on. There's very sophisticated organisations that are targeting businesses or individuals. And so trying to be transparent with our language, trying to make it understandable is something that's super important. And I think about our engagement with our customers, and how we communicate, that's been something that we're really trying to take on in our communications approach. I wouldn't say we've absolutely nailed it, but I do know that it's something that we continue to think about. And we also talked about being accountable. So, you know, if you're, you know, I've talked about the buck stops here, right, but empowering individuals within an organisation to feel accountable, to feel accountable to do the right thing for customers. And again, as a services business, when you're built, you know, predicated on people, it's super important to have that and so, there just kind of three of the three of the ways that we thought about, but we are looking more at more societal kind of broader issues. I think ESG seems to be an acronym that everyone's talking about at the moment, right? But if you think about Environmental, societal and governance and all those kind of pieces that actually make up a brand. And actually how you translate values and the things that you should be doing as an organisation, not because you need to do it because someone tells you how to do it, but because it's the right thing to do, then there's an awful lot in there to continue to look at. And that's something that, you know, I think we'll continue at a brand level to try and figure out what's our what's our purpose over and above, you know, the making money, or they're doing it in the right way? Sure. Well,

Ben Kaplan  20:27  

and certainly, companies are trying to pivot I think, famous example is Ubers core values went from always be hustling to we do the right thing, period. And that's kind of a different, a different shift. It's kind of like night and day. And then of course, they had a cultural issue that they had to fix as well. So I'm also curious about just being in the cybersecurity space marketing in the cybersecurity space, of course, during the pandemic, but the pandemic also, because it accelerated digital transformation, accelerate a lot of cybersecurity risks. So how has it been being a marketing in this space? Very competitive space, very big players, your scale up company? How has that been with kind of the accelerated interest and sort of the industry direction within cybersecurity?

Joanne Gilhooley  21:19  

Yeah, I mean, look, cybersecurity is they one of the hottest or fastest growing industries within the tech space, but for for more than a decade, right. But actually, the heightened the heightened kind of threat factor that the the vectors that I talked about a minute ago, actually. So you've got the backdrop of what actually happens in the world, you've got, you know, geopolitical, you've got societal kind of pieces, you've got movements, etc, driving it, you've got digital pervasiveness, we've all got a phone that's connected to a smartphone that's connected to your fridge that's connected to your headset, etc. the pervasiveness of technology all around us as just means that the threat surface has just got even bigger. And so in a pandemic, when everyone very rapidly certainly from a business to business perspective, and much shifted to the cloud. It just exacerbates it, right? And actually, the cyber criminals are incredibly well funded organisations, they're incredibly well thought out, they operate as businesses that there's it's very sophisticated in terms of what what what's actually happening. So that's the kind of backdrop of the industry. I think, with that interest in cyber and the fact that it's a really hot market, because it comes a lot of investment, obviously, you know, in and around the Bay Area, or other parts of the US there is hundreds and 1000s of startups every year, they often come out to Europe, where actually a UK business or domestic business. But certainly kind of getting that share of share a voice that you know that brand awareness has been super important to us. And actually, as we thought about it over like the last 12 months, certainly as I've been with the organisation, increasing our brand awareness has been super important to us, we went through an exercise to really land on our brand and our purpose and our proposition, etc. And so we're continuing to think about ways to kind of accelerate that, what I would say is, we're trying to do it in the right way. And I'm sure most marketers would say that to you. But I'm a huge champion on the fact that, you know, we, we want to say what we do. And we want to back that up with actually what we do as well. And so that that notion of being trusted, both in the way that we communicate, or market, or serve our customers, or anything else is super important to us. And so we haven't, you know, jumped on a lot of the bandwagons to a certain extent in terms of what I'd call over marketing or picking the latest threat thing and making it really scary, and then talking about how wonderful our products are. And maybe we should, you know, maybe there are organisations that are getting, you know, bigger brand awareness, greater share of voice etc. But for us that integrity and being transparent and having the right communication, talking to our target market, you know, our prospects and our customers has been about, you know, building it the right way, communicating in the right way trying to remove some of that, you know, the font, the FUD stuff that we will see, and actually trying to build our own our own movements and motion and we've got a lot to do with you know, we've come a long way. We've also got a lot to learn. But as you said it's a crowded space.

Ben Kaplan  24:26  

Do you actually look to mean it in terms of FUD? fear, uncertainty and doubt. Famous reason for why people would choose IBM big company over something else kind of aimless. You're in a space where there's a lot of threats it's kind of a negative space by design right because you don't have a business unless there was these negative threads towards you. But But are you trying to be a positive company in the space? How we as a way to separate yourself

Joanne Gilhooley  24:56  

and how we are and I see other you know other fun tell them And in many of our partners, I mean, we work with an awful lot of, you know, security vendors and providers that actually kind of come over. And so I do think there's a movement behind that. It's certainly more cerebral in terms of that thought process, I think there's something that, you know that one part of the security organisations role is to definitely defend their businesses. That's actually what they're there for. That's why they get budgets, etc. The other part that is probably as important as in any business function is they have a role to actually allow their business to go and innovate. And we talked about, you know, being able to drive innovation securely. So if you have the right security policies in place, you know, to have the right measures and protocols, etc, you can allow businesses to take calculated risks. And so there is always a positive story for it. We, of course, talk about threats. And so by nature, that probably is quite funny. But I think that, you know, they're trying to remove it from being too alarmist, and trying to think of practical measures, reiterating the basics, driving out hygiene, supporting a movement with our partners in the market, doing the right thing with organisations and affiliations, to try and make sure that we continue to educate, on how good cyber can look, and actually what that can enable. That's definitely been something that's part of our marketing strategy. And like I say, we are, we are at the beginning of our journey, we've got an awful lot to do in that area. But it's something that we're always cognizant of,

Ben Kaplan  26:27  

and how is different when you go from big public companies, and the fact that you're a publicly traded company puts a kind of strategic focus on you that can be tied to the stock market has a certain effect on the business? What about when you're a company with private equity? Investment, like Dharma is? How do you deal with those who invest money in private equity usually want results fast, they're usually impatient, although it's a different type of thing than in the public markets. How do you think about that? The stakeholders you have as investors, in your doing your job, very different for a private equity based company than a public?

Joanne Gilhooley  27:09  

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that you know, every organisation which whichever type of derivative you sit in, right, has actually got a set of stakeholders. And I think it goes back to that, what I was talking about earlier on, right, I mean, if I think about it from landing a marketing, landing and executing a marketing strategy, then it's important that you can actually translate what it is you're trying to do in terms of the business imperatives. And that's the same in a public or a private organisation, right? People want to understand what you're actually doing with their money. And so that that doesn't really differ the way in the type of kind of conversation engagement you have might be, but you know, might be might be fundamentally different. But it's about actually kind of having the ability to communicate effectively to all sorts of stakeholders. So I always talk about marketers, kind of certainly, marketers, we need to geek out on marketing data, right? bounce rates, click throughs, etc, that's not really the language that you ever want to have, you know, in a in a board setting or sitting with investors or even, you know, an executive leadership team, you've got to be able to think about the throughputs of what are the three things that I think are really important to do this week, or this month or this quarter? Why does that ladder up into what's really important in the business? I think the one thing that I would say about, you know, the kind of the model I sit in at the moment is it's quite fast paced, you know, like you say, there's, there's very results, it's kind of results driven in that area. And whilst every business is like that, working in a smaller business, it's much more visible. And so having the ability to be agile in your thought process, having the ability to really kind of think about what are the fundamental pieces that actually make a difference, it is just so much more visible. And so being able to react to that is super important. One thing that we are looking to do a to dharma, and it kind of moves off from, you know, your direct question, but, but something that I think is worth mentioning, is the use of, you know, the kind of the data and the insight that marketers tend to sit on nowadays, and actually how we think about that marketing, like every discipline, right has gone through its own kind of rebrand, I suppose it's gone. It can be everything from the colouring in department, to the roller banner department, to the merchandising team to really sophisticated, you know, you sort of actually utilising data and analytics to fully understand the, you know, your customer or your prospect and profiling and actually the types of tactics that look at that. And we are definitely the beginning of our journey. But we're definitely now trying to start to aggregate through the use of our marketing stuff, tech stack, how we take data, but turn it into insight, but also turn that into action. Because I kind of think it's a bit you know, a bit of a triangle in that right data is great, but data without insights or context doesn't give you very much, and having that insight or that context without knowing what to do with it next. Doesn't make a great deal of use anyway. So I do think that marketers have a responsibility myself included right to be able to translate the information that we get on our customers, how they engage with us how that engagement looks from a propensity perspective to buy over time, what you know, how it looks in the past, how they've actually kind of come to us what they've done, etc, to build out insight that actually informs both a marketing strategy, but ladders up into a business strategy as well. And so, I think, you know, whether you're sitting in private or public companies that the tooling that marketers have nowadays, is definitely not what was around when I was 31st. Starting out my first kind of marketing campaign roles, I remember being really excited when we first got our first newsletter tool. And we thought it was so sophisticated, I'm going back 1520 years, right at the time that we could put some names in there and create our newsletters and send them out. And if you look at the sophistication of the tech stack now, and the blur between marketing, sales, customer experience in digital and actually how that all comes together, marketing if done, right. And if marketers step up to that kind of more analytic, analytical and data driven pretence by hiring people that actually have, you know, have huge analytical skill sets can really kind of shape and dry future direction of organisations. And so certainly in the b2b space that I've been playing in, that feels like a huge pendulum shift. And so the future looks really bright for marketers, I think, you know, in the right context.

Ben Kaplan  31:25  

So I want to end on a lightning round, which in this lightning round, I'm going to give you some different marketing topics, you're going to tell me, is it overrated? Or is it underrated? Oh, the pressure, the pressure, okay. I promise. I promise I won't be it won't be that difficult. But first of all, a mainstay of b2b marketing. Is the testimonial. So testimonials, overrated or underrated? And how do you approach it?

Joanne Gilhooley  31:54  

Oh, is there a middle ground here? Ben? Am I allowed to use the like, you know, phone a friend kind of piece? I mean, as with everything, I would say context, so testimonials done in the right way, with authenticity, etc. Very useful, the kind of the standard mark some of those standard marketing content that looks overly scripted that probably hasn't actually, you know, the overly product feature that really kind of lacks the emotional connection or the outcome based kind of messaging? Probably not. So I'm gonna go middle of the ground and test test the road here.

Ben Kaplan  32:24  

Okay, fair enough. Second, data for content marketing, using ADA as a source of thought leadership or content overrated or underrated? Yes,

Joanne Gilhooley  32:38  

I'm looking for my virtual machine

Ben Kaplan  32:39  

you need you need your buzzer, but you're gonna hit the buzzer. You're gonna select it. Why would you hit the buzzer?

Joanne Gilhooley  32:45  

I'm going over and over underrated all the time. I think a little bit like I was just trying to explain all that you've probably more succinctly explained it right. The utilisation of data on engagement and actually kind of propensity to actually push people through customer journeys is super important. I wouldn't say it's underrated. It's probably under less understood. Because it's a very different mindset right from it depends what type of marketing you think you sit in, I don't, I think I'm a jack of all trades. But if you've kind of come from a more creative route, that understanding of how you utilise data, the utilisation of that excetera probably feels quite hard. But that's why you need that blend of skill sets in teams, right? You need overly operational, overly analytic analyst type individuals who can build out data that can build out data models to support the content piece so that you understand how you're building engaging content journeys. So I think it's I don't know whether it should be over or underrated, it's massively underrated. It needs to be higher up the stack. It takes a very different type of skill set to really be effective in that area.

Ben Kaplan  33:52  

Next one, geographic localization in your market, localising things for geographies, overrated? Or underrated? And how do you approach it?

Joanne Gilhooley  34:06  

Gosh, that's a really good one. I don't know where I sit on that. And I've sat in global roles probably for nearly 15 years, I'd probably say underrated. As long as it's done correctly, you know, but it needs to be done and executed correctly. So if you go back to putting on your your user, your user hat, nothing is more annoying than actually getting an email or a piece of content or some literature that does either, you know, spelling mistakes, or it doesn't quite resonate with you because it's not quite personal enough or it doesn't understand the industry you sit in, or it doesn't take into account some of the problems that you think you're facing. For me. That's a massive No. And so if I apply that to a localization perspective, you know, there is there are common languages that are well understood around the world, but there are also types of marketing treatment or brand or content or communications, that fundamentally mean diff Have things in different areas? And so having some applied common sense to localising where possible I think is really important so that you continue to engage the audience? I think that's probably quite important.

Ben Kaplan  35:13  

Fair enough. Well said. And then finally, final lightning round question, maybe a controversial one. ce o BI in your marketing plan, buy in from the CEO, overrated or underrated? And how do you approach it?

Joanne Gilhooley  35:33  

Gosh, I don't know why that would be controversial. But for me, that is an absolute must. And I wouldn't just say it's the chief exec, I think it has to be across the C suite or the leadership team that you sit in. I mean, obviously, marketing as a discipline has very set functional kind of areas that they need to fulfil. But I think marketing done right, in particular, what I'm learning in a small, you know, in a smaller scale up kind of organisation, that is, if you don't have the buy in of the executives or the functions that you sit with the interoperability that you depend on as a marketeer, it's really drive for brands to create engaging content, to nail your proposition, to have really exciting campaigns to be able to support a fully fledged PR and communication strategy with individuals in the business that can actually stand up and talk about you without the buy in of the various different functions that those those people representing sitting. It's a really hard slog. And so where possible, I'm sure that you know that there are many different types of personas of marketers, there's definitely many different types of personas of Chief execs, but where possible, then feeling that they own or have fingers on the planet, the marketing piece, and that they feel, you know, that actually it is an accurate reflection of the business that they're trying to portray is probably one of the most important things that you can actually do. But I wouldn't just say it's the CEO, I think it goes across the business functions. And for us as a slightly smaller organisation and permeates through our workforce. We want people to feel proud when they, when they see us, you know, in lights or online or at an event, etc. And so not thinking about engaging stakeholders thinking about how to translate it for what it means for them, and thinking about how you get them involved. I think that's probably you know, there's a little bit of secret success in there. And I think that's really important.

Ben Kaplan  37:22  

And final question today is, we have a lot of listeners who are future CMOS, they're not there yet. Maybe they're five years away, maybe they're a little further away. If you're gonna go back in time to five years ago, Joe Gilhooly or 10 years ago, Joe, and give her some advice on what you should be doing now to prepare for the CMO role that's coming up in your future but might be, you know, just a little bit out of reach right now. What would you tell that earlier version of Joe or what you would you tell these future heads of marketing?

Joanne Gilhooley  37:57  

Goodness me, I mean, so much in there, right. I mean, I think there's, there's a few things that are super important one is give yourself the time to learn and fail you. I think you learn and grow from the hard, the hard challenges from the hard times, etc. So don't ever be knocked off your stride by what feels like an uphill struggle. Sometimes that's actually what you need to actually be able to think about, you know, to actually think about how you're going to fully fledge, I think thinking about what you want to be and how you want to show up is super important. I've I've been very fortunate to have been on a number of either leadership development development programmes or coaching or you know, various different kinds of things that I've actually had throughout my career. And the one thing I have learned to actually in it, I think, probably manifest as you get a little bit more mature, maybe a little bit more confidence, etc. That is super important to be yourself. It is exhausting trying to be someone else. So finding your style. And owning that style, being comfortable with it is really important. And whether that means you know, you're an outward extrovert and you love being on stage or you're not, you know, you're an introvert, but you actually love getting things done behind the scenes, figure out what it is that drives you, which compels you, that gives you energy and you know, support your career development and make that real as well. And then the third thing is, I would say is look outside of marketing to really go and get experience, I think it's absolutely critical to be able to land, you know, marketing context and strategy, as I've mentioned a few times right in the language of the business. So put your hand up for those types of projects, which feel a little bit strange. Go and spend time in other parts of the departments to really understand what time people you know, make make people tick, and allow yourself that kind of Breath and breath and to actually understand exactly how you're going to be as in that role. I think that'd be the kind of the three areas that I would pick on. If I you know, kind of could have a word with myself and I'd love to avoid with myself 10 years ago, right and I think there's probably a little bit in there as well. Just be kind to yourself, right? Always Always look after yourself. I always kind of have a bit of a mantra in teams that I've built, which is like we're going to work really hard, but we're also going to have some fun. We want to trust each other. We want to like each other. If we have to work 20 hours a day, we need to be able to kind of you know, have that relationship and so building those relationships and actually having fun along the way, I think super important.

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