The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® ads

Many leaders see Marketing Ops as the team that keeps the trains running on time, essentially the plumbers of the marketing department. But what if I told you they’re actually positioned to be the architects of your company’s most durable competitive advantage? 🎧 EPISODE 858: Agility requires moving beyond the transactional nature of campaigns and technology. It demands building a durable, responsive ecosystem around your brand, one that can listen and adapt not just quarterly, but constantly. Host Greg Kihlstrom talks with Mike Rizzo, Founder & CEO at MarketingOps about how to reframe the marketing operations function from a cost center or tactical execution engine into a strategic driver of growth. And we’ll explore a powerful, and perhaps counterintuitive, way to do it: by building a genuine community, not just as a marketing channel, but as the core of your go-to-market strategy. #MOps #marketingops #marketers

As you race to adopt AI-powered shopping experiences, are you creating a new data black box that will make your customer journey less understood, not more? 🎧 EPISODE 857: Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new channels like generative AI, but the foresight to ensure these new touchpoints don't become blind spots in your customer journey. It demands that our data strategy evolves as quickly as our customer-facing technology. Host Greg Kihlstrom talks with Zack Wenthe 🧠📢, Director of Product Marketing & Customer Data Evangelist at Tealium about the hidden challenge of AI-driven commerce. As major brands roll out compelling shopping experiences on platforms like Google's Gemini, they risk creating a new data black box. When customer interactions happen inside these AI environments, the insights from those conversations can become disconnected from the overall customer journey, making it difficult to measure impact and act on what you've learned. #genAI #marketingAI #CMO #marketers #marketing #ecommerce

In an era dominated by high-definition home entertainment and endless digital distractions, what does it take to convince a fan that a live, in-person experience is not just worth their time and money, but is something they can't afford to miss? 🎧 EPISODE 848: Agility requires not just having a plan, but building a system to listen and respond to your audience in real time. It’s about turning feedback from a retrospective report into an in-the-moment action plan. Fresh from Qualtrics X4, host Greg Kihlstrom talks with Zachary Carlson Carlson, Director of Fan Engagement at PGA TOUR about what it takes to engineer a world-class #fanexperience. We'll explore how a legacy brand moves beyond the traditional event model to create personalized, memorable moments, and how they use real-time data not just to measure satisfaction, but to proactively shape the fan journey from the moment someone buys a ticket to long after they've left the course. #customerloyalty #customerexperience #CX

What's the real cost of only having the bandwidth to focus on your top-performing products? 🎧 EPISODE 850: Agility requires systems and processes that not only respond to change but also proactively manage complexity across an entire portfolio. It’s about creating the capacity to act on every opportunity, not just the most obvious ones. Host Greg Kihlstrom talks with Tambi Younes, Vice President of E-commerce at Newell Brands about a critical breaking point for large consumer brands: the operational limits of #ecommerce execution. When you’re managing thousands of products across countless digital shelves, manual processes don't just slow you down—they force you to leave opportunity on the table. We’ll explore how automation and AI are moving teams from being reactive firefighters on their top SKUs to strategic drivers of growth across their entire catalog. #retail #B2C

In the rush to implement #AI across the #customerexperience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down? 🎧 EPISODE 850: Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently. Host Greg Kihlstrom talks with Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized #content and ensuring it’s accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for #brand growth.

Now that AI can generate endless content, what is the true strategic value of a human-led content strategy? 🎧 EPISODE 854: Agility requires more than just adopting the latest tools; it demands a foundational strategy that allows you to integrate new capabilities without disrupting the core customer experience. This means being able to distinguish between a promising innovation and a distraction. Host Greg Kihlstrom talks with Jennifer Griffin Smith (She/Her), CMO at Acquia about moving beyond the hype cycle to build a marketing technology ecosystem that actually delivers. We'll explore how to treat content orchestration not as a task but as a core strategic discipline, how to make AI a practical asset rather than a science project, and why so many CMOs are re-evaluating what they truly need from their platforms and partners. #CMO #martech #marketers