Marketing Vanguard

Marketers love acquisition. But Doug Zarkin thinks that obsession is helping brands ignore the much more expensive problem sitting underneath it: retention (or the lack of it).

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with the CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone” to unpack why being liked is not the same as being loved, why retention deserves the same energy as acquisition and why some of the problems blamed on marketing actually belong to the entire business. Plus, a breakdown of his “Think Human” philosophy and the leadership lesson he has landed on after decades in the business: being effective matters a lot more than being the smartest person in the room.

Doug Zarkin is CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone”.
His career has taken him from the agency world into brand leadership across Avon, Victoria’s Secret and Pearle Vision, where he spent more than 11 years leading marketing. This decade-long role gave him the opportunity to take a big-picture view of brand transformation, customer loyalty and how positioning moves beyond advertising into operations and experience.

Across his work, Doug has developed a simple philosophy: brands win when they stop treating customers as transactions and start building the trust, relevance and experience that gives people a reason to choose them again.

What You'll Learn:

Why brands often overestimate how strong their customer relationships really are
Why retention deserves the same energy, budget, and attention as acquisition
Why customer churn can signal an operations problem rather than a marketing problem
How the “Think Human” philosophy changes the way brands approach customer experience
Why AI works best as a mirror and an assistant rather than a substitute for judgment
Why marketers should enter new environments with a notebook instead of a playbook

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fastest way to shrink marketing’s influence is to treat it like it’s just another department.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Jenny Rooney sits down with Kellyn Smith Kenny, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T, for a sharp conversation about what the CMO job actually demands.

Kellyn argues that marketing should operate as an engine for growth, gets into why leaders are responsible for raising the bar, why conviction without patience can backfire and a foundational mistake marketers risk making with AI.

Kellyn Smith Kenny is Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T. Here, she brings marketing and growth together - a combination reflected in how she thinks about the CMO role itself.

Her career has taken her across major brands and very different stages of company growth, including Capital One, Uber, Hilton and AT&T, giving her a broad view of what marketing leadership looks like inside both established organizations and businesses undergoing major change.

Her approach is simple: marketing cannot operate as an isolated function. It has to understand the economics of the company, build strong relationships across the organization and create the conditions for both the business and its people to perform at a higher level.

What You'll Learn:

Why marketing leaders need to understand how the entire business makes money
Why finance and operations should be allies, not neighboring departments
What separates being a marketing manager from being a company leader
Why great leaders create the conditions for people to do the best work of their careers
Why raising the bar requires conviction and patience at the same time
Why high-quality data has to come before meaningful AI adoption
Why human insight still belongs at the center of strategy and creative work
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every industry, marketing included, is battling one affliction: sameness.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jason Pirock, Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, to discuss why differentiation may be one of marketing's most underhyped priorities right now. Jason also challenges the industry’s fixation on ROAS, reveals why CXO titles don’t matter as much as you’d think, and what creator partnerships should really look like.

Jason Pirock is the Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, with nearly 20 years of experience across retail, commercial real estate, and hospitality. His career has spanned work across Hyatt, Aparium Hotel Group, Springboard, and Outrigger.

Across those roles, Jason has consistently gravitated toward building and rebuilding, from rethinking an early business at Target to putting content creators into local markets before “creator” became standard marketing language. His perspective combines brand strategy, experiential marketing and a strong belief that differentiation matters even more as technology makes execution easier.

What You'll Learn:

Why hospitality’s adoption of AI is accelerating after years of lagging behind other industries
Why consumers are gravitating back toward real-world experiences and human interaction
Why authentic creator fit matters more than reach or follower count
Why senior marketing titles matter less than alignment with leadership
Why ROAS should be treated as a directional indicator rather than the full definition of success
How a builder mindset can shape a marketing leader’s career
Why differentiation becomes even more important as AI makes generic execution easier

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The old sponsorship model was simple: buy the assets, activate around the big moment, and move on.

Jessica Goldstein thinks that model is already outdated.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica, the NWSL’s Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions, to unpack why modern sports partnerships need to behave more like platforms, built around athlete storytelling, fan behavior, consistent presence, and a role the audience can actually recognize.

Jessica Goldstein is Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions at the NWSL, where she leads partnership strategy and marketing solutions for the league. Her work here primarily focuses on combining both sides of that experience: helping partners build stronger roles inside the league while using athlete storytelling, cultural crossover, and long-term consistency to grow fandom around women’s soccer.

She has spent more than 20 years in sports, beginning at the NBA in production and entertainment before moving into brand marketing. spent more than 11 years agency-side, where much of her work focused on sponsorship strategy and building women’s sports platforms for major brands.

What You'll Learn:

Why athlete storytelling can turn individual players into gateways to broader fandom
Why traditional sponsorship asset lists no longer create enough value on their own
How 360 partnership strategies can connect live moments, content, and fan behavior
Why tentpoles need an always-on strategy around them to drive long-term value
Why data should inform partnership strategy without pretending to make every decision for you
How women’s sports can unlock categories and stories that traditional sports partnerships may not

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Audience targeting may have gotten easier, but getting people to truly care has not.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Dan Moriarty, CMO of Chicago Fire FC, to unpack why the marketing pendulum is swinging back toward creative, what makes live sports such a powerful attention engine and why brands should think harder about the emotion behind what they sell.

Plus, the inside scoop on why he left the Chicago Bulls for a growth-stage MLS club and the difficult people decisions that have helped reshape his marketing organization.

Dan Moriarty is Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Fire FC, where he leads marketing for Chicago’s Major League Soccer club.

Originally from England, Dan began his career agency-side before moving into brand roles at Hyatt. He later spent around eight years with the Chicago Bulls before joining Chicago Fire FC.

At the Fire, he has been part of a period of significant investment and change across the club, from its on-field ambitions and downtown presence to new facilities, fan experiences, and plans for a new stadium. His marketing perspective combines a digital-first background with an increasing conviction that, as targeting becomes easier, creative quality matters more than ever.

What You'll Learn:

Why sports still commands attention in a world built around on-demand content
Why Chicago Fire FC focuses on selling joy and passion rather than soccer itself
How the club turned World Cup energy into an owned Chicago fan experience
Why easier targeting makes stronger creative even more important
Why buying reach is no longer a meaningful competitive advantage
How Chicago Fire FC is restructuring its in-house creative operation
Why avoiding underperformance can cost you your strongest people

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.