Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Welcome back. Another Brands, Beats ,and Bytes podcast and LT, we have an old friend. We have an old friend and in honor of Jim Nance and March Madness with just concluded
LT: and the Masters.
DC: Hello friends and
LT: And the Masters, hello friends.
DC: And the Masters. Hello friends, we, we have an old friend, Brand Nerds. Sometimes, um, we're, we're, we're lucky. We, uh, we work our careers and we meet people that are not just good marketers, but they're good humans. And then sometimes LT will meet folks along our career path where they are trained in one thing classically trained, and then you watch them apply that across things that you didn't even imagine.
LT: What they didn't imagine.
DC: What they didn't imagine. Thank you, Larry. Thank you. They didn't imagine. And sometimes They go to another level of things that were not even conceived.
LT: Yep.
DC: And LT, we, we go, how in the hell did that classically trained marketing brain end up in that? And Brand Nerds, you want to stay tuned on this one because there might be some learning in this that can help you navigate a career step that wasn't even around a few years ago. With that LT, who do we have in the building with us on this auspicious occasion?
LT: Oh, yes, DC we have Don Scheibenreif in the house today. Welcome, Don.
Don Scheibenreif: Hey, hey guys. Great to be here.
LT: We're really thrilled to have you, Don. So I'm going to take the Brand Nerds through the journey that DC started to give a, a peek towards.
Uh, so Brand Nerds, as DC said, here's another Coca Cola alum doing some great work. First in the marketing world and now focused in the tech world. In other words, Brand Nerds, we have someone who is a full three toolkit of Brands, Beats, and Bytes.
DC: You got them all. You got them all.
LT: That's right. And DC really set this up great because Brand Nerds you know, yes, we're biased, but if you are truly a great marketer, you are at the fulcrum at the foundation of anything that is related to business. And so many times, if you go with the flow and think about where you're personally headed and where your career is headed, you then go, go somewhere that you couldn't have imagined. So let's take you through Don's awesome journey. So as a Chicago guy, Don goes to DePaul University right there in Lincoln Park, and also the alma mater, a friend of the show, Tyler Borzak. At DePaul, Don earns his undergrad degree in marketing, and no surprise, he stays in town as a true Chicago guy and obtains an MBA from the very prestigious University of Chicago Booth School of Business. So as a Chicago guy, he continues to stay in town and goes to work for, at the time, one of the most renowned packaged goods companies in the world, Brand Nerds, Quaker Oats. Don spends eight years at what everybody in the business always termed them as at Quaker, first in brand management with brands such as Gatorade and Kibbles and Bits dog food, and then is in the first wave of corporate brand folks deployed in the field as customer marketing managers. So now Don gets a great opportunity to join the Coca Cola company.
On the very profitable fountain side of the business, where he starts as a customer marketing manager and is eventually promoted to director of customer marketing, where he oversees a group of 20 with a 75 million marketing budget. At Coke, he then gets tapped on the shoulder. To be their first director of kids and family marketing, leading an eight person team and developing that first ever marketing group, which is pretty really cool at the time.
So after a great six and a half year stint at Coke, Don joins DraftFCB, which is a very prominent ad agency in their Chicago headquarters. As VP group account director for the very large Burger King account, managing a 17 person account team. Real realizing he is more of a client guy. Don then joins True Value Hardware as their director of customer marketing.
After successful stint there, he moves over to WW Granger first as director of segment marketing, then director of strategic marketing. And then he's promoted to VP of strategic marketing. Where he's the marketing leader for the five billion, yes with a B, five billion dollar U. S. division and responsible for segmentation strategy, brand strategy, new service development, market, customer analysis, and planning for sales and marketing team.
So okay Brand Nerds, this is what we were alluding to. We have talked about this a lot on the show. Most people in their careers face A real interesting pivot, a real interesting fork in the road. This is one for Don. And in 2010, he decides to join Gartner as VP Distinguished Analyst for Customer Research Experience. And he is still there today. Don advises IT leaders around the world on technologies, strategies, and trends that drive improved customer experience in the era of digital business. He is also a founding and active member of Gartner's Digital Business Research Leadership Team. As a short personal tangent, I've often thought that there are far too many analysts who do not have real business experience, like in the spokes of the wheel, as I mentioned before, and very few with marketing experience.
So, no surprise to me, Don is truly thriving in this role. Additionally, as part of his job, he's been able to, uh, Don and Mark Ruschino have written Gartner's newest book called "When Machines Become Customers on the Emerging Trend of Machine Customers" and the growth opportunity they represent for all types of organizations.
Second edition was published last September 2023 to add more information on what else generative AI and is available globally of course on Amazon. com. So really looking forward to this one Brand Nerds. Welcome to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, Don Scheibenreif.
Don Scheibenreif: Thank you very much, Larry. Uh, that was a great introduction. I almost thought I was at my own funeral. I almost missed it up a little bit, but thank you so much for that, that very lovely summary.
LT: You're welcome. It's funny. A lot of guests say this, right? And honestly, we never intended it to be that, but you know, it's really cool that you do get to hear it. And, and D gives me platitudes and I get uncomfortable with that. We just have amazing guests and you've done great things and it's really cool sometimes for you to hear that in one place, you know what I mean? So we're happy to, uh, and it's really setting the stage. It's all about our listeners to know who we're talking to. So they really understand, uh, what we're, uh, what we're talking about in terms of where you're coming from.
Don Scheibenreif: Awesome. Yeah, that's, it was great. Definitely. I'm really happy to be here.
DC: Uh, Don, it's funny that you mentioned obit. Uh, what happens at, at funerals, as we all know, is flowers show up. What Larry does is ensures that our guests get their flowers while they're still here. So those are your flowers. And by the way, you planted them. You watered them, nurtured them, fed them and they grew. So
Don Scheibenreif: I also, I also swatted away a lot of pests too.
DC: I bet you did. I bet you did. All right, Don. Now we, we are in the Get Comfy section and, uh, what, what Larry does. Every week that we do this is he sends me options and I look at the options and I go That one not so much that one this week. I'm not going with any of the options Larry. I'm, sorry, brother
LT: Hey, that's all good. We love your organic nature of this.
DC: I got I got to go with something else. Thank you Larry all right, so Um your journey don is one of the most interesting that that we've heard And this is one of the reasons why i'm really glad we reconnected about you coming on to bless the Brand Nerds.
But I want to go to something here called Interbrand Interbrand, and it will highlight your experience, but it'll use of the brand. So Interbrand Brand Nerds, you may or may not know they are the, you know, gold standard of ranking brand value, global brand value year to year. Maybe do
LT: anything like at least 40 years, I think, right.
They've been doing,
DC: I thought it was about 40 years as well. 24, Larry. Yeah, it's really, yeah. Okay. 24 Interbrand, by the way, all due respect to Gartner okay. We're not, we're not trying to compare Interbrand to Gardner, but Interbrand, different deal standard. So in 2023, uh, Don and brand nerds, uh, I'm going to give you the top 10, top 10 brand value 2023.
So last year. Number one, Apple, two, Microsoft, three, Amazon, four, Google, five, Samsung, six, Toyota, seven, Benz, eight, Coca Cola, nine, Nike, and 10 BMW. Okay, so that, that's 2023. All right, now, in 2011, let's go back, so 2011, 2011, number one, Coca Cola, two, IBM, three, Google, four, Microsoft, Five. Apple, six. General Electric, seven, McDonald's, eight. Intel. Nine Toyota, and then 10 Disney. Now what you will notice from 2023 back to 20, uh, 11, is there are a lot of tech brands. A lot of tech brands. So top five in 2023, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Samsung, that's all tech. But in 2011, while you had tech, it. To IBM Tech at three. Google Tech at four. Microsoft Tech at five. Apple number one was Coca Cola. Let's go back to 2000 2000 top 10 number one again, Coca Cola, two Microsoft, followed by IBM, Intel, Nokia, G. E. Ford, Disney, McDonald's and AT& T. So a lot of tech there as well, but Coca-Cola number one.
Don Scheibenreif: Mm-hmm
DC: From 20, from 2000 to 2023. There are only two brands in the top 10 for on in 2020 11 and 2023.
Those two brands are Microsoft and Coke in 2023, Microsoft was ranked number two. In 2011, Microsoft was ranked number four, and in 2000 Microsoft was ranked number two. For Coca Cola, number one in 2000, number one in 2011, and then number eight in 2023. So a CPG brand and a tech brand from 20, from 2000 to 2023.
Don, you are a person who has worked at a CPG, started at Quaker, then went to Coke. That's one of the brands here in all three of the, um, um, the rankings, 2000, 2011, and 2023. And now you're in tech. So you got CPG, uh, like foundational training, and now you've been doing tech for like more, more than a decade.
Can you Don Schabenreif explain to the Brand Nerds, the value to you as now a tech guy, quote unquote, of getting the foundational brand management training early in your career. And how that has prepared you to do the work that you're doing now in tech. I know it's a long question.
Don Scheibenreif: No, no, no. It's, it's a great one, DC.
Um, so in the CPG world, you are trained to be a versatile-ist. You are trained to be dropped into any situation and be able to think your way through it. That's, that's the training that we get in CPG at a high level. If you double click on that, it's about running a business, understanding how supply chain works, how marketing, you're not just doing marketing and brand management, you're involved in sales, supply chain, legal, finance, you touch every part of the business.
In brand management and in a CPG company. Uh, and you're in the middle of a strategy. You're in the middle of financials. You're in the middle of budget cuts. Every conceivable situation you could think of is thrown at you in these types of environments. And, you know, I'm in my, I'm in my mid to late twenties.
Uh, many of us are in their, uh, twenties, thirties doing this stuff. So that training, uh, to be able to think through any situation, to be able to draw from the experiences of others, uh, is makes you a versatilist. So that, that, that, that training DC has enabled me to switch industries. It has, and as you mentioned, enabled me to switch professions. So a quick story, when I was leaving Granger, you know, I have my heart set on being a VP of marketing because I literally trained my entire career for that job, entire career. But I had friends who knew me really well and said, I think you can do this. Because the people that hired me, Steve Smith, who still also works for Gardner, he and I worked together at Quaker and Brand Management.
So he knew our skill set. And, and I didn't even realize it. So this is Larry. Kind of went through my background. I didn't realize that my skillset was appropriate for being a Gartner analyst. So that's, that's what I did is, um, I listened, um, you know, when, uh, I was in executive outplacement, I wasn't taking Gartner seriously at all.
Honestly,
DC: Yeah.
Don Scheibenreif: And because I that's not was that wasn't my concept But my wife my executive coach my friends when I said here's what i'm interviewing for gartner They said without hesitation. Oh, I could see you doing that So the universe was telling me This is good for you. And it actually has been great.
Um, so I've been very, very fortunate.
LT: D, I have to chime in here. I love that you said the versatile list is a really cool word even to use. And literally just yesterday, um, again, we all know Tim Halloran. Uh, Tim is, is a marketing professor at Georgia Tech. And Tim asked, Uh, that we do a presentation to, uh, uh, his class is brand management class and Tim has talked a lot.
He talked about this when he was on the podcast that many of the students that he has both in undergrad and grad school don't, you know, they see the sexiness of tech. And they don't really understand how CPG, in their view, just looks like it's sort of old and, and, uh, and of yesterday. But the reality is, everything you said, Don, puts you right in the fulcrum of everything.
And that experience is so invaluable to go do anything. And so you, you did such an amazing job of describing that. So thanks for doing that.
Don Scheibenreif: I think, I think what's also been good, um, LT is that you learned to be a communicator. So as an analyst at Gartner, I have to research, which I did a Quaker. I have to analyze, which I did a Quaker and Coke.
I have to be able to, to package my insights. I have to sell internally. And DC knows this all too well. Selling new ideas at companies like Coke is not easy. You have to have a sales mentality, which is what you know, which I learned from from past experience. So again, that not only the ability to strategize, but also to sell to collaborate.
You know, when I was in marketing at Quaker, I didn't, nobody reported to me, but yet I was responsible for getting massive projects done, which means I had to collaborate or be dead. And I took that all the way through, and at Gartner, I'll be damned people say, well, God, you're great at collaboration and I'm like, well, that's all I know how to do.
So it's interesting how those skills will find a new life, even in a different profession.
LT: You illuminated it great. I have to share a quick story again from my Coca Cola days. When we were launching PowerAid, Um, and a lot of people don't know this. The folks at Coca Cola. I'm talking headquarters. You all know this in North Avenue.
You know, the product that they sell for carbonated soft drinks is literally the syrup. And so when we embarked on Powerade, we were actually producing product. That we would then sell to the bottlers because it was power it is too complex for the bottlers to do. So I got called in to this meeting, like emergency meeting, I walk into this meeting, there's 25 people there, and they're afraid to tell me.
Larry, we just realized that right now with the bottles we have on hand, we're going to run out of product in the seventh week of the launch. And, um, I'm 31 years old at the time, right? And they're all looking at me. Right. It was on me. What do we do? So again, without going deep into it, what we had to make the decision was that the decision came to, we either have bottles that had, um, an indentation of our logo in the bottle.
We've got to run out of those or we can use generic bottles and still make sure that we have product on shelf. For me, it was an easy decision to run out of product when you're, when you're first launching a product. So that's the decision we went to, but that's the kind of thing. That as a, as a CPG person, you have stuff like that.
You're the person that has to make those decisions. And that wasn't that of course had a huge impact on marketing, but that was, uh, that was, uh, operations and all other things that we had to involve.
Don Scheibenreif: Um, yeah, I remember those days. Well, actually it's funny. Um, when I was at Quaker. Working on Gatorade.
Obviously, we were up in a tizzy because of Pepsi and Coke's work on that one. One of our competitive moves was I, I was part of the team that launched the 32 ounce plastic bottle. Because as you and I talked about before, um, in 1990, it was glass bottles, believe it or not, Gatorade was sold and you could not bring glass onto the field.
So that was a, you, you would have no idea what a massive project that was, switching from glass to plastic. It was amazing.
DC: Don and, uh, and Larry, um, Don, I don't think I've heard the term uttered versatilist, uh, before, but I think that is brilliant because about maybe 15 years ago, what was propagated is be a specialist, specialized, specialized, specialized.
And that's the case now. And that's good as long as that's the only thing you want to do. But what, what Don is saying, Brand Nerds, is that if you become, uh, someone who is versatile, if you develop that skillset, there are lots of ways you can go in your career. And Don, I find it fascinating that you had your heart set on a particular job, but your skillset, because you had a variety of experiences, you were able to allowed the universe to bring something in a different form that you happen to be perfectly suited for.
Yeah. Had you not had the versatility, you would not have been perfectly suited for that particular role that you occupy now. So brand nerds specialize, got you become an expert at something. But, but fan out as well. So that if something pops up today, I guarantee you that both Don and Larry on this with this one packaging project, you might think going from glass to plastic is easy.
It ain't. It ain't. You may think making a call from some, some packaging that has an indentation of Poweraid and one that does not, you may think that decision is easy. I know Larry says it was an easy decision, but when 25 people in the room looking at you like, what the hell are we going to do? It's not that easy.
You're going to learn things in those experiences that you can apply for your entire career. That's dope. That's dope, Don. Alright, we're going to the next section. Larry, you got anything else before we go to the next section?
LT: Oh, I love this. Love it. Let's go.
DC: This is good. Uh, Scheibenreif you're off to a roaring start.
A roaring start. Okay. Uh, we will give you some, some more flowers.
Don Scheibenreif: I would love it. Yeah. I answer questions for a living, DC, so this is, this is, this is perfect. This is good.
DC: All right. All right. Well, we got five questions. That's the next question. That's the next segment called five questions. I asked one Larry asked when we go back until we arrive at five.
All right, brother, you have, um, you have analyzed many, many brands. So you were on the client side, then you were on the agency side and usually on the client side, you'll get a couple of brands you work on. Then you get to an agency, you work on more. Now you're an analyst. So now you have literally analyzed, I don't know, probably thousands of brands, thousands of different brands, but I want to take you back when you were a pup, maybe a pup, maybe a little, uh, maybe a little older than a pup.
And you had the first branding experience, uh, Don. That really like, wow, what, what is going on? I love this brand. I love the experience almost like a first love. What was that for you?
Don Scheibenreif: So I actually spent some time thinking about this one and I actually went back into my childhood and, um, this was before video games existed before the internet, before mobile devices, before social media, all that stuff.
And what did we do? We played board games. So I think, I think about all the board games that my siblings and my friends and I played like battleship and life and mousetrap and perfection and monopoly and sorry, and operation. I realized they were all made by one company, which is Hasbro. And, and I said, I said to myself, well, I didn't know it was the Hasbro brand, but if a brand is a promise and the promise was a fun for children, They delivered on it.
So it was one of those things where I didn't realize it at the time, but I was enamored with Hasbro because of all the games that, um, I was fortunate enough to be able to play and some, I still play today too. So that, that to me was my very, very first brand experience. Um, I have others, but, but that was the, that was the first one.
And I didn't even realize it either.
LT: Well, a lot of times we don't realize it, right. And that's, what's really cool about it because it really hits you, you know, uh, where you're really emotionally connected. And I think. You know, you described that really well done and growing up in an age where and again growing up in a, in a place where the weather wasn't always good either.
Right. So you have to find things to do. And what you realize is that that Hasbro was a big part of your childhood because, uh, you know, they had all these wonderful games, uh, that, that you played. And, and that's a really, that's a, that's what we haven't heard D that's really cool.
DC: Not heard, not heard that one have experienced it and heard it.
Don Scheibenreif: Yeah, that's fun. Especially Perfection. I would, I would, you know, I would annoy, I figured out a way to toggle the, um, the on off switch to accelerate the actual, the game and make it go faster. And I would win still, I would annoy my cousins when I would do that. But, uh, there's even still ways you can hack these decidedly analog games. But anyway, it was fun.
LT: That's funny. That's really great. Love it. D you got anything else to add?
DC: I do. I just, I have one. Um, I hadn't thought about these board games in years. Um, and I used to play all of these games that you, that you mentioned as did I not realizing that they were from Hasbro, but what it, what it reminds me of is that now, if I play a game on my phone, I can play the game against the computer or virtually, uh, compete against other people.
Whereas when I was growing up, uh, Don and lt, all of the games that you mentioned, uh, Scheibenreif I played with another human, right? Mm-Hmm. and typically
LT: in person let's In person. In person. Face to face.
DC: Yeah. In, in, in person. So when, when I, uh, when I think about some of those experiences. Um, it was a communal kind of fun and learning that I don't know if our modern day contemporaries, I don't know where they're getting that.
Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. I don't know where they're getting that. So that's my, that's my takeaway. All right, LT.
LT: Let's go to the second question. All right, Don. So who has had, or is having the most influence on your career?
Don Scheibenreif: So I'm going to go back actually to the first brand manager I worked for at the Quake Oats Company.
Her name is Jill. I won't say the last name.
LT: You said Jill?
Don Scheibenreif: What's that?
LT: You said Jill?
Don Scheibenreif: Yeah, Jill Garling was my first brand manager. And, um, and she taught me the importance of discipline. So I was probably, You know, 23 when I first went into brand management, uh, maybe 24. And while people said I was smart and I had potential, I wasn't as disciplined as I thought I was.
So she kicked my ass. a lot of times in a good way. I mean, uh, I learned the importance of thoroughness and detail and double checking my work and getting input from others and, um, the disciplines of strategy, strategic thinking. And she gave me a lot of responsibility. I was managing a 70 million budget at the age of 25.
Wow. I mean, I still can't believe that. And I, And
DC: by the way, that's in 1990.
Don Scheibenreif: That's in 1990. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I lived and breathed that budget. I carried it with me because that was my main job. Uh, I had to know the ins and outs of those details, which means I had to know the projects. I had to know the people that were working on them.
And, you know, I, I messed up a number of times and she. Corrected me and she got me back on track. So a lot of the discipline that I still use today, I owe to her. Um, it wasn't fun at the time. Um, you know, we have a good relationship, Jill and I do. But at the time, it was really hard. It was really hard. But that's, those were the tough lessons that I learned.
And, um, and I still carry, carry them with me today. Uh, So that's, that was somebody who really shaped my career very early on the importance of discipline and detail. I get made fun of it today. Actually, you're too detailed, you know, but, um, you know, you have to do that. You have to be able to float, you know, this, both of the, both of you that you have to float between strategic thinking and detail seamlessly.
If you're going to survive, some people are really good at detail. Some people are really good at strategy, but we have to do both in, in the CPG world. And, um, she taught me that.
LT: Ooh, this is so deep. So, D, I have a follow up on this. That's good.
DC: Oh, that's good. Go ahead, Larry. That's good, Don. So,
LT: uh, So, Don, did you at the time, sort of begrudgingly know this?
Did you know this, or did you need some space to a few years later or many years later to understand. Well, man, that was tough with Jill, but boy, that was great.
Don Scheibenreif: You know, I, I think I, I realized it after I left her and went to my next assignment, which was on Gatorade. And actually the, I was a marketing assistant, the assistant brand manager, Steve Smith is the gentleman that hired me at Gartner.
So he was the one that saw me getting put through the grinder. And he was the one, um, he's, he's the second person who's influenced my career. He's the one that, that, uh, got me to calm down, put it in perspective. He coached me things like that. So it's, it was really the combination of the two of them, uh, that actually led to my, you know, to my next assignment, which, you know, each assignment that I, I got, I did something different, but I still went back to those basic skills.
So yeah, at the time I was miserable, Larry. I, I was.
LT: That's what I was really asking. I was miserable.
Don Scheibenreif: Yeah, I was miserable. But like any type of boot camp, you know, you're, there's misery, but you come out of it a stronger person.
And I did certainly.
LT: Right. It's sort of like in sports, having a coach that's incredibly demanding.
Don Scheibenreif: Yes.
LT: You know, doesn't, uh, doesn't take any shortcuts.
That's what you're saying about Jill and, uh, that was a huge blessing that maybe you didn't realize at the time, but you certainly, uh, it, as you say, it still pays dividends for you to this day and beyond.
DC: Larry, I want to pick up where you were with Don. Okay. So, Don, you said. This is, this is before you started working with Jill, or as you begin working with Jill, by the way, shout out Jill.
LT: Yes.
DC: You said, I wasn't as disciplined as I thought I was. This is what you said, right? What was the moment where you recognized? Through Jill's teaching that you were not as disciplined as you thought you were.
Don Scheibenreif: Oh, it was, I remember it, it was my first budget review with her and she, oh my God, it was bad. It was really bad. I would like to say that I, I obtained a new orifice somewhere at my body.
DC: Oh, Oh, Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. We we've been there.
Don Scheibenreif: So, you know, I, uh, I went back to my cube and, uh, licked my wounds and then, okay, figured out, okay, this cannot happen again. And so then, you know, I got my act together. So it was, it was, uh, it was definitely, you know, humbling for sure, uh, but, but necessary. And I think she knew that too. And after that she was still tough, but it wasn't that like, Oh my God, I'm not ready for this.
DC: DeAndre Jordan NBA player. Now, he's a role player, but when he was on the Clippers, uh, Brand Nerds it was him. Um, Blake Griffin and a young Chris Paul and they were, they were taking the league by storm and they used to, you know, call the team a nickname, Lob City, because they were doing all these miraculous punks.
And so, uh, folks were saying, uh, Don and Larry, you guys know this. So they might, they might win a championship and then they hit a rough patch. And then DeAndre Jordan's being interviewed about this rough patch. And he said, you know, I, I, I think we were smelling ourselves.
And then, and then they got, of course, uh, introduced to humility and I can see you, Don kind of smelling yourself before that, that I'm pretty disciplined and then she, she settled you down, she settled you down.
And then the other thing is that, uh, uh, Don, I don't know if you've had this experience. Larry and I have talked about this, but when you come up in brand management, And, uh, and you get this rigorous training and often we have someone or several, someone's who are very demanding and it's miserable. We make our way through it.
When you go into other environments with folks that have not had that to me, if I'm using a baseball analog, just baseball, I just got started. It's like I'm used to deal. I'm in the batter's box. I'm used to dealing with high heat, curve balls that look wicked. And then, uh, when I go to some other places, I'm like, okay.
And they throw the ball and it's like, all what's happening here. I don't wreck it. I did not recognize the value of the training that I was getting. Cause I thought this is how it happens everywhere. Have you had anything like that?
Don Scheibenreif: Oh, certainly. So, so I would say Coke and Quaker, we were all pretty much trained.
I was part of the, there was a second wave of, uh, Coke was hiring CPG marketers left and right. This was in like 1995 when I joined, I think it was part of the second wave of people coming in. But when I went, for example, like say to True Value hardware stores or Granger, when I was managing teams without the training that I had.
It was hard, right? It was hard because you would expect things from people that they just weren't trained to do. So then I had to shift into and I became the trainer. I had to teach them some of the disciplines that I learned And um, and that was very gratifying for me as a manager and as a leader Um, because I I had people walk away saying hey, you know what I learned so much working for you.
I'm not just saying that, but I didn't get that quite a bit. And part of it was, well, I want you to be your best. So I'm going to teach you what I know and teach you some more discipline and how to think through stuff. So that was very gratifying for me. Um, I would say Gartner is another environment where I'm, I'm, I met with equally smart people, but we've been trained differently, different ways, different industries.
So it was those, those couple of those, uh, you know, the agency. Uh, True Value, granger. Those were the places where I had to do more teaching than just working.
DC: Got it. Anything else, Larry?
LT: No, I think we can hit the, this is great though, Don. Thank you.
DC: This, this is really good stuff that I'd wish I'd heard when I was in my early stages of career and, and frankly, even later now, uh, all right.
Lots of successes, many different industries. Good has nothing to do with this third question. What's your biggest F up and what you learned from it, Don?
Don Scheibenreif: Yeah, there's, there's been a few for sure. Um, I'd say there's two that stand out one. I was at the Quaker Oats company and I was in charge of the Kibbles and Bits brand of adding a chicken piece to the product again, sounds really small, but it was a huge deal.
I, um, provided incorrect direction to the plant and it ended up costing us about 100, 000. We had to scrap an entire product run. Um, but at the time, Quaker was doing this thing called, um, high performing organizations, which is if you make a mistake, you have to diagnose it. You have to tell people what you've learned and try not to do it again.
So that's what happened. As soon as I knew I effed up, I immediately, um, analyzed the situation. I wrote it up. Submitted it to my boss, went up to the division president. Yeah, they were not happy about the a hundred thousand dollars, but I actually ended up getting recognized for, you know, admitting the mistake, uh, and not more importantly, how do we avoid it in the future?
So that was, that was kind of early in my CPG career. Another one, which for your listeners, when they start to move up and they get into the politics of the organization, the second F up was, um, I had spent more time, this was at Granger, I had spent more time managing down and leading my team than managing up.
I was not as good at the politics up as I could have been. And it ultimately resulted in me losing my job. Um, at the beginning of the 2010, recession, which was a horrible time to be out of work, which led me to Gartner, obviously in the pivot. But that was something that, you know, I think deep down I knew I needed to go, but I didn't play it as well as I could have.
So the politics piece of it, which I thought I was good at, um, I wasn't good enough. And I missed it. I missed the signals and it cost me my job at the end. And as you, as you, as you know, and as listeners will know, the higher you up in the organization, it's about relationships. It's not as much about performance.
So the relationships, while I thought were strong, were not strong enough. So that was, that was my kind of my later in career F up.
DC: What, what'd you learn from that later in career F up?
Don Scheibenreif: The later in the career? F Up was really about, you have to do both, you have to balance both. Now some we, we've all worked for managers who are good at managing up but not managing down.
I did not wanna be that, so I had not found the balance. So if I were to do this again, there would be much more balanced approach to up and down I was. And I was actually pretty good at across too. That wasn't the issue was up that I was having the issues.
LT: Oh, this is juicy D.
DC: I have some machinations, but Larry?
LT: Please go first.
DC: All right. Okay. So Brand Nerds. You're going to find yourself in close proximity to folks who are exceptional at the politics. They have a gift for it. They know how to manage up, and that is their primary concern. And as a result of managing up, and some of you Brand Nerds may actually be this way, and I'm not begrudging that at all.
And by virtue of this extremely developed talent at, uh, managing and navigating the politics, you will be rewarded with more responsibility. Um, you will be rewarded with the, the best projects. And you will also be rewarded with wonderful compensation. These are all things that accrue from being exceptional at politics.
Um, and you don't, when you're, when you're that good at politics, to your point, uh, Don, just tangentially. That you don't necessarily need to be as good at managing down because you're so good at managing up you're so good at managing up, and those who do that so,
LT: and D I'm sorry but a dare I say there was a lot of people at Coca Cola when, when the three of us were there that were really good at what you just described.
Don Scheibenreif: Oh yes.
DC: Some of the best. To have ever walked the planet. That is a place where you could literally for those that are the best at the politics, they could leave and join the United Nations and just fine. You know, I speak the truth there. That's why you said what you said, Larry. All right. So brand nerds, um, I got bad news for you.
Um, because I was like Don and Larry knows this, that I was like, it's just about the work, it's about the work. And the people that I work with and the team doing the work, that's what it's about. If we get the results, we're all good. Wrong. That, that, that's wrong. That, that, that, that was wrong. And so I then began to shift and grow, albeit painful.
And view politics a bit like you're in Washington right now, you're in the state of Washington living in Seattle. It rains in Seattle.
And if you're going to live in Seattle, you best have an umbrella, a trench coat, and some goulashes. Otherwise you're going to get wet. And in the corporate environment, this managing up is the equivalent of rain in Seattle.
It happens. So unless you figure out your umbrella, your trench coat, your goulashes, you're going to get drenched. And it ain't gonna be pretty. And I have been drenched many, many times.
LT: So I'm so glad Don brought this up. So I'm going to share something I haven't shared, Don, in our hundred plus shows. I left Coca Cola because I saw the landscape of people who did well, the people who did well were not the best at what DC said they were far and away not the best people at their jobs.
They were the best at politics. I am as a pride myself in a no BS. I'm a no BS guy. What you see is what you get. And I'm looking around me and going, this is not right for me. You know, I'm not going to be one who thrives in this, but I was really short sighted and that's what you do sometimes when you're younger, because what I should have done was at least not compromising myself, because I was one, I'm not compromising who I am.
I still could have done played it much better and at least figured out My way for a lot longer, which would have taken me much further in my career when I did leave. And it was a huge mistake because I prided myself on not playing politics. What DC said is so true, Brand Nerds if you're in any organization, and by the way, I'm in Silicon Valley, I've seen startups be this way. And Don, I know, you know what I'm talking about, cover them. Even small startups have incredible politics. Who's the, you know, who knows the VC, who know, like all that stuff. So no matter what, if you're in an organization with more than two people, it's going to have politics. And so you got to figure out how you can navigate it.
In a way that doesn't compromise yourself, actually optimizes the best of who you are and your abilities. So, I'm so glad you brought this up, Don. Thank you.
Don Scheibenreif: Thank you. No, it was, it was a hard lesson. There's actually, if you're familiar with, um, Dune and Frank Herbert, there's a line in there. "Politics is the art of appearing completely open while concealing as much as possible."
It's, uh, favorite, favorite definition, but, uh, it, yeah, it's, it's hard because I, Larry, I was like you, I did not want to compromise myself. I did not want to appear fake or inauthentic. But there's a price to pay. And I think that was part of the reason why I got out of being a manager, went back to being an individual contributor at Gartner, and I've had many opportunities to be manager leader, and I I've said no, because I like being an individual contributor.
I like having an impact and I just had a bad taste on the politics side. So like you said, it's, it's a choice. You have to decide what's going to work for you. And in some cases it will, in some cases it won't.
LT: And I just want to close with this. This is so big D and I'll throw it to you. Dare I say this, the three of us are, were, I know DC and the way you described yourself, Don, the people that work for us, loved working for us.
I was really good at managing down. And I thought that again, that, that would, would do really well. And that's, you, you still shouldn't compromise that, but you can do the other one as well. Go ahead, D.
DC: Larry, you went where I was going, and then I've got a, uh, a definition myself for politics, but I where you're going about managing down, looking out for your team.
You did the same thing, Don. I'm the same way. We're really, um, protective of our team, making certain that they get the resources they need, that they're acknowledged, that they're rewarded for the
LT: protected,
DC: protected, protected. Yep. But here's the deal, brand nerds. When you do that and do not also play the political game and you're moved out of the way, primarily because of your inability.
Uh, to play politics or someone simply is better than you, what then replaces you could be someone who is better at the politics and not necessarily interested in the team below. And the team suffers because you left and you did not protect them. So, This, this is very important. Very important Brand Nerds.
Second thing is, uh, Don, can you give me that definition of politics again?
Don Scheibenreif: The, uh, the art of appearing completely open while concealing as much as possible.
DC: Wow. And what's the source of that?
Don Scheibenreif: This is a Frank Herbert who wrote the Dune series.
DC: Okay. Frank Herbert. Okay. So, um, I, I did, I, I didn't know that Dune was a book.
I didn't know it came from a, uh, from a book until I talked with my nephew, Larry's son, Jake. Yeah, Jake introduced me to that. I have another definition for politics, and it's one that is commonly known, although I don't know that it's connected to politics, and that is where two or more are gathered.
Don Scheibenreif: Yeah,
DC: right.
Without question. All right, Larry. Next question, brother.
LT: Okay, Don, this is so good for you. Uh, especially it's so perfect given what you where you started and where you are now. Um, so regarding technology and marketing, can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech or you could go in areas they that they should be leery or simply avoid and please feel free to get into what you've done with your book where machines become customers.
Don Scheibenreif: Great. Great. Thanks, LT. So, um, I cover customer experience at Gartner. I've done it for a number of years now. And, um, one of the things that I write about is the fact that we are relying on technology too much to the extent that we might be over automating relationships and losing something in the process.
And, um, I think that was especially true during the pandemic. There was a lot of organizations that simply did not listen and did not care. And, um, and that doesn't have to be the case. Uh, so I, I love technology, obviously I've been in it for a while and I think it has pretty amazing possibilities, but some organizations use technology.
They say, when we have a problem with customers, we're just going to throw more technology at them. And that's the wrong thing to do. Especially when we think about chat, GPT, generative AI, AI technology in general, if we rely on that technology to manage human relationships, we put a lot of things at risk because people will get tired of it.
If there's no utility, they will not be, they will not use your brand or engage with your company. And my I have been advocating for a couple of years now is what is, there's a balance between the use of technology, maybe to automate certain low value parts of the relationship of where do humans fit into the process.
I think a classic example we have today is IVRs. So the systems that we call into for customer service, they're horrible. Absolutely horrible. And you know, you, you, I talked about this in my research, there's a very prominent organization who says we love our customers. We put the customers in the center of all of our decision making, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We're a customer centric organization, but when you call their customer service line, it's a 10 branch IVR with no hope to talking to a live person. Or if you want to, you have to go to the internet and find a secret code that somebody figured out to get to a live operator. So it's that lip service, um, between we're a customer centric organization and the 10 branch IVR that I kind of call out with people, I think it's a, if you're going to be customer centric, then be customer centric use technology to smooth the process, but don't take humans out of it completely.
Understand your customers. And value them as human beings, not just as transactions. So that's, that's one of the things that I talk a lot about in my research at Gartner is use technology judiciously in managing relationships. Now, how does that, how does that contrast with the other thing, which you mentioned, Larry, is where Mark Russino published, we published a book when machines become customers.
We also talk about that in the book, but there are simply tasks that are of no value. I mean, um, let me ask you, do you. and DC like to buy toilet paper or buy car insurance. No offense to those companies, but it's not the top of your list, right? Kind of don't like it opening up, you know, getting your cable installed.
Those are all we are. We are faced with tasks both at work and at home that we are just think are drudgery. We just don't want to do them. But we could delegate those to a machine who acts on our behalf. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. Uh, but you know, there's a, there's a limit there and it's not going to be true for every product category.
So for example, my wife would never delegate buying a purse to a bot. Never. She might use the bot to say, help me research the available inventory among these brands and these colors and these styles in my immediate area. So I can go try it on or try it out. Yes, we can do that. So the book is really about.
Getting people to understand that machines backed up by intelligent systems are going to take on more and more of our behaviors as human customers. But we always say that we, the humans, are still in charge. We're not, if we delegate, it's because it's something we don't want to do, not because we want to lose any agency for the things that we do want to do.
So it's, it's a, it's a bit of a delicate balance. And for marketers, um, one of my colleagues in the practice, you know, slammed the book. He says, You know, machines, you know, brand is important. Brand is important. And I'm like, I know I'm a brand marketer myself, but how do you market to an entity that doesn't have emotion when so much of brand management today, right or wrong relies on emotion to sell.
So let's just, let's, let's just play this out. So I'm, I'm trying to, I'm a human salesperson trying to sell. The Coca Cola brand to Walmart, who's using Pactum right now to negotiate with suppliers, do you think that AI is going to give a rats, whatever about, you know, the, the, the swoosh, not the swoosh, but the dynamic ribbon and the hundred and 100 plus years of history and all that kind of stuff.
No, what's the price, what are the delivery terms? What are the discounts? It's all very fact based. So when we reduce transactions or interaction to even brands and people, just to the facts, and we don't have emotion involved, that's an issue. But let's, so what I pivoted to that is that brand is important in a world where customers are machines.
It's. If you believe the brand is a promise, then what is the promise to a machine? The promise is my information is going to be available when you need it. I will deliver when you ask me to, I will be fair on pricing. I will do all these things, um, be a machine to still deliver my promises to you, but it won't, I won't have Beyonce as a spokesperson.
I won't use. I won't use the color purple. I won't use this particular font. So there can be two brands, um, gentlemen, a human brand and a machine brand. Both are important and both serve a purpose. And that's how I think, you know, marketing is going to have to change in a world of machine customers because you can't rely on emotion.
You have to rely on logic and information and speed.
DC: Larry, oh, oh, Brand Nerds this one is juicy. It is juicy.
LT: It's so, Don said so much. D, you go first.
DC: Okay. I'll go first. All right. So you started in one place and then you went to another place. I'm going to try to deal with both.
Don Scheibenreif: Sorry about that.
LT: Oh, you said great stuff, but great stuff.
DC: Great stuff. Great stuff.
Shopping. Right. Where this started for me was. You said, do you want to, would you rather do buy toilet paper or car insurance? Not to disparage car insurance, but like, what would you do? And then, uh, and I thought to myself, well, I'd rather get a tooth, uh, like I, I, I want a root canal, rather than be dealing with some insurance, forget the toilet paper.
And then you said there are certain things like, and you, you mentioned, I think you mentioned like set up a cable installment and, and so I, I, I like, uh, corollaries and analog. So my analog corollary to that is. I had, I had a lunch yesterday, had a wonderful salad with strawberries and blue cheese and mixed field greens.
It was great. Now, if this were, you know, a hundred years ago, First of all, sadly, I would not have been allowed in this restaurant, but that aside, I'm, I may have had to go out and pluck the strawberries from a tree and go, go get some cheese from a cow and dig up some lettuce. All right, so I'm very happy with the fact that, uh, humans and machines have taken care of that for me.
So I can go into a restaurant and order. A salad and it shows up on my table. So that is my corollary to, I don't want to do a cable installment. So if a machine can do that, I'm all good. So I'm all good there. Then Don, when you started going into the Walmart thing and negotiating price and not caring about the brand.
So in that scenario, what I'm hearing is that Walmart, they will, they will talk to let's, let's call it. Keurig, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, and Coke as entities, Pepsi North America, and they will go, okay, load in your stuff, three companies, and then machine, this machine isn't going well, no, no, this is off here, this delivery schedules different, is it?
And so therefore, It will spit out, well the cheapest price is this brand, the fastest delivery is this brand, the response time to issues is this brand, therefore BANG! We think you should do a deal with this brand. All right. That's when I go in the words of Lee Corso, not so fast, not so fast, because what that could do is I'm going way back, uh, brand nerds.
I can see whatever this technology, this machine is, Uh, 30, 30 something years ago going, yes, you should launch new Coke.
You should not stick with this thing. All of the data says you can do this. And then you have a fucking revolt. This is my issue with that. I don't know how far this thing can go. All right, I'm done.
LT: And I want to build on this. Don, this is so great. Oh, man. This is good. So we know Brand Keys is a, is a consulting firm. We've shouted them out a few times. They have, they, they track this every year. And in 2023 that a consumers 85 percent of P of the decision process for decisions they make on brands is emotional. 15 percent is logical. In 1997, they said it was 60 percent logical and 40 percent emotion, which shifted greatly. And I'm just positing a theory, I wonder, as we can, we feel like we control less in 2024. And so many things are automated. And maybe there's a that's a part of the response that people are making just emotional.
That feels right. I got it. So in your Walmart example, that the purchasing department and procurement may make that decision. But to DC's point, you would talk, they might have a revolt in their hands when their consumers go to find the Diet Coke and there's, it's barely visible because You know, Pepsi did a better job of all those other things that are non emotional. So there's that, right? And so it all goes back to balance. Like, that's what you're really saying in your book, I think is that there's certain things lean all the way in. Like I love your wife's purse example. Do you want to lean in as, as it relates to, uh, understanding, doing the research? But then your wife's going to make that emotional decision of which purse which brand and what color and what she wants to make.
Right. So at some point the humans have to take over. And, um, I just want to continue because you started with the customer experience. I experienced something yesterday, which was so incredible. I, I have, we have, um, Terminix, which I don't think is doing a good job in our house. Got a bunch of flies, blah, blah, blah.
So my wife, Sherry's like, we got to investigate other options. So I called this company, Planet Orange. They're a Bay Area company. And somebody answered the phone.
I honestly shocked. I did not get any system. They answered Planet Orange. How can we help? And I was like, Oh my God. So, so right away, I'm thinking, I like these people, answer the phone, because we're all, we don't even realize like you're always trying to go around the, you know, the system, Don, what was the acronym that you used for the system that, that, you know,
Don Scheibenreif: we, we call, we call, I call it the customer management industrial complex.
LT: Okay. That's what it is. That's what it feels like. Right. And you're trying to go around it. Right. Right. And it's, and we think as, as brand people, we've talked about this on the show, when you have these negative experiences with what you were saying, like that, that certain company says they're customer centric, and then they have this phone bank that you're screaming, agent, agent, and you're still not getting an agent.
What's the negative. What's the negativity that you feel for that brand? It's astronomical, right?
So where's the line? What's that optimal line between where machines go and then where humans pick it up? That's where I think we're going to here.
Don Scheibenreif: I totally agree, LT. And part of it is its voice of the customer.
We can't assume just because we offer this functionality that people are going to use it. And I think that's the other area where we've noticed a Gartner that people are not investing enough in B. O. C. Because if you don't really unders and that's what I learned at Coke and Quaker, we did extensive Knowledge work understanding customers and consumers, but that doesn't happen as much these days.
People are relying on anecdotes or judgments. Well, I think I know what the customer wants and they don't. So I think I think one of the areas is do you are you as close to your customers voice as you can be? Can you let that guide you about this balance between automation and human engagement?
LT: Love it. So true.
DC: Excellent. Last question, Don.
Don Scheibenreif: Yep.
DC: What are you most proud of?
Don Scheibenreif: So, uh, in my personal life, I am most proud of, um, I've been, uh, I've been married for almost 30 years now. And, um, we have two, thank you to, uh, wonderful children, adults that are off the payroll. I should, I should, I should say, and, uh, both, uh, very good, kindhearted individuals making their way in the world.
So I'm very proud of that.
LT: Can you shout out names for us, please?
Don Scheibenreif: My wife's name is Mona Lung and our children are Monica Ray and Anthony Ray. So they're, uh, they're, uh, they're based in, um, Burbank in California. And then professionally it's going to be the book. So I'm writing a book is something that had been on my bucket list for many years.
And, um, it was one of those situations where I saw an opportunity. I got Mark to coauthor with me and we basically, you know, got it done at Gartner wasn't easy. Um, we had, uh, our book program was was interrupted during the pandemic that we were able to get it back on track. But the whole process, I mean, it took us about four years from start to finish. And, um, the common thread between that and my first thing is, is, um, you know, being strong, being positive and never give up. You know, that's, that's the one thing I would, I would impart to your Brand Nerds listeners is that there will be times when you want to give up, but don't, don't give up.
DC: That's good. That's good.
LT: Great stuff. That's a mic drop. Um, and thanks for sharing that. Um, we know how hard we, we think we know how hard it is to write a book, but what you're saying is it's infinitely harder when you do write one. That's what I'm .
Don Scheibenreif: Oh yeah. If people knew, if people knew what we went through, they would run the other way screaming.
Um, but it was one of those things where, um, I wanted to do it and I knew I could do it. And I knew we could get it published. So it was that, and again, if we go back to the beginning of this conversation, it was that, that versatilist, that, that belief that we could think through anything and get it done.
LT: Yeah, that's awesome. All right, D, we ready to hit the next segment? Let's do it. Okay, so Don, so we're, this is our, our, uh, our segment that we are so loving. It's called What's Poppin What's poppin D? What's poppin Don?
DC: What's poppin?
LT: So Don, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening.
In and around marketing today or business today technology, you know brand tech and culture that we think is good fodder for discussion So we know you have a really good one don so hit us with it.
Don Scheibenreif: So, um, I I am anxiously awaiting my Rabbit R1, which is, uh, it was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show. It is a little orange box with a screen on it, and basically it is a device that you give it access to your applications, and what it does is it uses a large language model to learn about your intent, and then it pairs it up with a large action model to take action. So, for example, this device, if I want to go out to dinner.
Uh, and I need to get transportation instead of me opening up Uber and doing that stuff, opening up open table, doing that stuff, maybe even my payments app, um, the Rabbit R1. Theoretically what they claim we'll do all of that for you. It'll string together multiple jobs to be done seamlessly. So you actually do have an agent that works for you.
So can this do what it says? I don't know yet because I haven't gotten my box yet. It should be in June or July of this year. We actually, we, we discovered it in, in our research on machine customers because it's this type of technology that strings together multiple steps that is the most, um, interesting to us because without it, we're still actively involved in, in projects.
So that's where, um, that's what I'm interested in right now. And, uh, and I'm also a gadget person. So is it market rate marketing related? Yeah, it is because it's, you're basically engaging with different businesses. Uh, so it'll be interesting to see what actually happens with that device, but so far, you know, everything they're saying is, is looking pretty cool.
So that, that's kind of like my, what's happening right now.
LT: D, your thoughts?
DC: No, you, you brother, you.
LT: So what do you mean by the box? You're waiting for the box. That was when it's a,
Don Scheibenreif: it's a orange box.
It's about this big. And it's, um, it's, I think it's rabbit ink. com and you check it out. And, uh, they did a demo of it at CES.
It has a very basic screen and a camera and a, and a, and a squirrel wheel. But it's voice activated. It learns from you. It learns your intent and then actually starts to take action on your behalf. It's the things that we were talking about in the book itself. Now, are people going to walk around with another box in their pocket?
Probably not.
LT: That was my first question.
Don Scheibenreif: Yeah. So, I, I view it mostly as a trial run for the operating system. It's the operating system that will be is what we want to keep your eye on. Um, so that, that's, that's, that's what's most interesting to me right now.
LT: So with the operating system eventually get folded into our phone, is that where that is possible?
Don Scheibenreif: It's possible or, or, Software companies will mimic or create it. But, um, at Gartner, we talked a lot last year about large language models, which, as you know, are about how data is organized, how the generative AI will create, um, stuff based on the language model. But large action models are really about Actions think of it as next best actions on steroids.
And that's what these that that's what this operating system brings together, which to me is, is a tech person as a consumer. That to me is most interesting.
LT: Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that. D, you got any thoughts?
DC: I'm like you LT. I got, I got a couple of questions here. So Don, does this Rabbit ain't. com device. Is it just listen to what's going on and you direct it or is it just you tell it you wanted to listen to something and then it picks up from there.
Don Scheibenreif: So my understanding from the demos is that you will talk to it, it will learn from your behaviors, and then take action. So, whereas today's systems will only you tell it to do something, it does it.
This one is actually going to learn. About your preferences, your behaviors, and then take action on it. So again, without having used it, I can't tell you definitively, but conceptually it is something different. Actually, Amazon came out with something called Rufus, which is their generative AI shopping assistant.
So that to me is, is, is pretty similar to it because Alexa is not generative AI. Let's make no mistake about it. It's all rules based, right? Rufus is generative AI. So I think that, I think those two developments are things that I'm keeping my eye on, um, cause they, they do offer some very interesting possibilities because I think we have, we have, we're faced with the paradox of choice right now.
There are so many choices. We get paralyzed when it comes time to make a decision. So what if a machine could summarize the top five options and then let you choose? That's what I think is most interesting about this.
LT: Well, I'd love for you to stay in touch with us with how this works out because yeah, definitely.
Don Scheibenreif: I'd be happy to,
LT: you know, to, to hear what you have to say about it. Um, sounds really cool.
DC: It does. And we, we should put a link. We will put a link in, uh, in the show notes to, um, um, rabbit Inc. com for people to check it out. I do have, uh, something connected to Alexa. Then I'm gonna give it to Larry. Give the mic to Larry.
So with Alexa, you have said is, it is not generative Ai. So I I understand that. Um, I get a little nervous about Alexa because while it is not generative ai, it does have a microphone. Mm-Hmm. . So it can listen. And when I hear about this rabbit ink.com thing and the fact that it's generative AI and it can learn my intent, yeah.
On the one hand I go, if I am telling it, hey, I just had more ketchup. And it's getting low. And this thing goes, Hey, you've done ketchup three or four times over the last six months. He's looks like you're rolling out. There's a deal at Publix which is you might want to go check it out that I like. What I don't like is If my fiance and I are in an argument,
I have not said to rabbit. com anything. And the next thing I know, I've got popping up out of rabbit. com counseling. There's a counseling. I don't want that shit. I don't know. I don't want that. So we'll see how this thing works.
Don Scheibenreif: Oh yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I, I work with Bart Willumson at Gartner.
He's our privacy expert and he talks about this stuff all the time. Uh, if privacy is a huge deal, DC, it really is. And, um, you know, what Amazon tells us is that Alexa only wakes up with the, when it hears the wake word, but I don't think that's the case. At least that's been my experience.
LT: No, Larry, yeah, I'm dubious about whether that's the case or not.
No, I, I'm, uh, thanks for, uh, for, uh, really hitting us that with that, Don, it sounds really interesting. Uh, you know, we're, like I said, keep in touch on tracking with that. I think, I think D we're ready to go, uh, to the show close, which, uh, again, That Don, this has been so much fun, man. Uh, this has been awesome.
So what we do at this point, Don, is we, DC and I each share our learnings and then, then we'll throw it to you to share any final thoughts before we sign off here. So I will, uh, lead us off on, on the learnings and man, there was a, there was a plethora of learnings, but I'm going to keep it to five. So Brand Nerds, I'm going to do a little, um, uh, a little, uh, chamber of commerce for CPG.
Really consider CPG is your first step into marketing to be the versatilist that Don alluded to, because there's no better place to start off. in your career to provide you the real variety and scope of, uh, of things that you'll touch, but with marketing as the central focus. So it's a wonderful place to start.
So that's number one. Number two, when you have a manager like Jill, that seems tough, but it's really fair and is really good. While it may be hard at the time, please think of that as a true gift. So that's the second one, third one to be successful at anything. And that includes as a marketer, Don said this so well, I'm going to quote him.
You need to seamlessly float between strategy, the big picture and being detail oriented. That's number three. Number four, no matter what business you're in, no matter what you do, if you're in an organization with more than two people, you gotta figure out how to effectively manage up. And the last one, and it's so important that you have to be as close to your customer slash consumer, whether it's B2B customer, B2C consumer, you got to understand that customer slash consumer as best as you can be.
And Don was alluding to it. A lot of folks right now are giving it short trip because they think they can use. Quite honestly, machine learning or other things. Maybe those are good tools. Maybe they're not, but you've got to understand your consumer and customer incredibly well to be successful at whatever business you're in.
Those are my five.
DC: Good brother. That's good. Uh, by the way, Don, the reason why LT had five is because our business partner, Jeff, he's like, it's three or five. Don't, don't give me four. Don't give me two. Give me five. That's great. Larry. Don, uh, I've got four and a bonus so I can call it five, but it's really four. All right. But it's, it's, it's four and a bonus.
LT: And we do that a lot, by the way.
DC: We do that a lot. Yeah, we do that a lot. And, uh, and Don, I never know what's going to happen when Larry and I are sitting down talking to people like legit do not know, uh, as far as this section. And, um, but at some point.
Fortunately, the human before me in, at least in my mind, really starts to take shape. I've known you, Don, for 30 years. I've known you for 30 years. We worked together, walked the same halls as has Larry for a, um, a portion of our life that was formative in our, in our adult lives. And so I got to see you. On your good days and your bad days.
And you saw the same of me. I've seen you when you have had some successes that were applauded in the hallways, and I've seen you when you haven't been so happy about what's been going on, uh, what was going on and you've seen the same in me. And so it's fun for me during these podcasts to really begin to understand more dimensions of the person that I thought I knew that I didn't realize.
Which takes me to this for you, Don, when you went to, uh, to Gardner, before you went to Gardner, you said you had your mind set on another kind of job and you did not realize that the skillsets that you were developing as a versatile list, Larry, for, for going back to that. We're perfectly suited for Gartner.
And, uh, uh, I'm not sure about this, but have you been at any other of your corporate jobs as long as you've been at Gartner?
Don Scheibenreif: No, uh, uh, it's 14 years. So the longest was, it was eight years at Quaker. Yeah. 14 years.
DC: So this is the longest, and you did not realize when we ask you about your, your first branding experience that you really love, you talked about the games.
Board games and then you said Hasbro and then you said again I didn't realize at the time that they all came from the Hasbro brand and then you talked about how you were hacking Perfection in order to get it to speed up Which you probably also did not realize you can do but that's what happened with you Then you went into talking about, uh, your, your F up, and you're a Quaker, and you're just kind of smelling yourself, you're thinking you're disciplined, and Jill lets you know you're not as disciplined as you thought you were, and you said, I wasn't as disciplined as I thought.
So, so here we, we got The Gartner, I didn't realize that I could go there. And then we have the Hasbro. I didn't realize that these board games came out and then on the discipline piece from Jill, shout out Jill, I wasn't as disciplined as I thought. And then I said, wait a minute. Now he's got this book of when machines become customers.
And I bet that most of the folks listening to this podcast, And those that are the readers of your book, and even hearing the title, did not realize that machines are in fact becoming customers. They just didn't realize that. Which brings me home to my final and summary point about what I think you, Don Chobin Wright, are gifting us with your life and your career.
And it is the following. I think you are the poster child for epic experiences. That can happen when you don't realize what is possible in the moment. Each one of the steps along your career is that brother, your life is that. So that's what I think. Um, uh, you are, and I'm going to give you an example. So this is a time based thing.
You don't recognize it in the moment, but over time you look back and then you realize, but in the moment you don't realize it. And not just you, Don, many of us don't realize it. And in your case, I want to point something else that you may or may not have realized. What was the name of the company that you, uh, that you mentioned that you said, uh, you didn't really get the politics up, right?
Don Scheibenreif: It was Granger. It was
DC: Granger, right. Yeah. Okay. And then what, what was the company that you went to right after that?
Don Scheibenreif: Gardner.
DC: Got it. Okay. Do you know the difference in the letters? I do. Granger to Gartner? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Gartner has all of the letters of Granger except the letter T.
Okay. And I think that's for time.
Mmm. That's for time. Allowing you to look back over time to see what you didn't realize was actually happening as an epic, epic experience when you were having it. Yeah. That's what I, that's what I think you, you, you've given us brother.
Don Scheibenreif: Well, thank you. That was, uh, yeah, nothing that I would have come up with myself.
It's, uh, it's, it's very interesting.
LT: He always does that. Yeah, that's,
Don Scheibenreif: uh, I think that's one of the books for sure. I love it. Absolutely love it. Love it.
LT: So, Don, anything you'd like to share before we sign off here?
Don Scheibenreif: I mean, this has just been an amazing experience. I've done a number of podcasts for the book, but nothing to this depth.
And, um, I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to give back to your listeners, share with them some, some things that I've learned along the way. Um, I think It to kind of sum things up a bit. Um, I learned from a mentor a long time ago that being a marketer means you have optimism and you believe that creativity matters
DC: and
Don Scheibenreif: those are two things that I I've carried with me my entire career and, and DC not realizing something, um, means that I have to be optimistic that I will eventually discover it.
And that also means being available. You know, sometimes we get so locked into our way of thinking that we have, we become unavailable to the things that life puts in front of us. And thankfully, uh, either through my own means or for people that are people around me, um, I did become available and I'm, I'm immensely grateful for all those people that have helped me a long way, including, including you, Darryl.
DC: Um, you know, I, I was a big, I am a big admirer of yours. I aspired to, to be like you at Coca Cola and, um, I'm, I'm sorry that we didn't get the opportunity to work together more closely, but who knows what the future will bring, maybe there'll be something else we didn't realize. I
hope so. And I pray so, Don.
Thank you.
LT: Thank you. This was so great. Uh, so that's our, uh, our sign off for Jade here. So, uh, uh, thanks Brand Nerds for listening to Brands, Beats, and Bytes. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, and Larry Taman and Hailey Cobbin, and Jade Tate and Tom DiOro.
DC: The Podfather.
LT: That is he. And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share.
And for those on Apple Podcasts, If you are so inclined. We love those excellent reviews. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.