Épisodes

  • Episode 109 - Doug Zarkin

    Episode 109 - Doug Zarkin
    Dec 8 2025
    Great brands don’t win by being faster or louder—they win by treating every customer as if they’re the only customer.

    That philosophy sits at the core of this week’s guest, Doug Zarkin, Chief Marketing Officer at Take 5, an award-winning brand builder known for transforming legacy companies into modern-day leaders.

    In this episode, Doug joins Jason to break down his “Thinking Human” approach—the method he’s used to reinvent brands like Victoria’s Secret PINK, Avon, Pearle Vision, and now Take 5. He shares what it really takes to move a brand out of the “friend zone,” build trust through emotional experience, and drive growth without racing to the bottom on price.

    Doug also opens up about the realities of leading transformation: overcoming fear-based resistance, elevating customer experience at scale, and why marketers must rally both consumers and employees for change to stick.

    Key Takeaways

    ✅ Treat every customer like they’re the only customer—that’s the root of brand love
    ✅ Brand reinvention succeeds when emotional experience matches business strategy
    ✅ The frontline team is your most powerful marketing channel
    ✅ Small, consistent improvements (“the sum of marginal gains”) outperform big swings
    ✅ Great CMOs lead by casting the right team—not by being the smartest in the room

    Memorable Moments

    💡 “It’s not about putting a brand on the brain—it’s putting a brand on the heart.”
    💡 “Think of every customer as if they’re the only customer.”
    💡 “You can’t lead a brand from a PowerPoint. You have to learn the business from the ground up.”
    💡 “Speed is a cost of entry. Experience is the differentiator.”
    💡 “If I’m the smartest person in the room, I don’t need to be in the room.”

    Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    38 min
  • #106: How Champions Think | Dr. Bob Rotella, World-Renowned Sports Psychologist

    #106: How Champions Think | Dr. Bob Rotella, World-Renowned Sports Psychologist
    Nov 30 2025
    Exceptional performers aren’t defined by talent alone—they’re defined by how they think. And in marketing—where uncertainty, pressure, and change are constant—the right mindset is a competitive advantage.

    In this episode, Dr. Bob Rotella, one of the world’s most influential sports psychologists, joins Jason to explore the mental principles that fuel greatness in sports, business, and brand leadership. Bob has coached champions like Rory McIlroy, Nick Price, and Ernie Els—but his teachings apply just as powerfully to CMOs, founders, and teams navigating high-stakes decisions every day.

    Key Takeaways:
    ✅ Confidence is a leadership skill—and marketers have to choose it daily
    ✅ Process beats outcomes: breakthrough marketing comes from consistent attitude, not periodic wins
    ✅ Optimism fuels resilience in fast-changing markets
    ✅ Exceptional teams maintain belief through uncertainty, noise, and shifting conditions

    Memorable Moments:
    💡 “Fear and doubt kill more dreams than failure.”
    💡 “How you think about yourself has to match the dream of you—and the dream of your company.”
    💡 “If you want to be exceptional, you can’t think like the middle.”
    💡 “Blind faith is seeing success long before anyone else can.

    ”Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    34 min
  • #105: Keurig Dr Pepper CMO Drew Panayiotou | Challenger Energy Fuels Dr Pepper

    #105: Keurig Dr Pepper CMO Drew Panayiotou | Challenger Energy Fuels Dr Pepper
    Nov 16 2025
    When you’re up against giants, speed and creativity become your superpowers.

    Recorded live at Advertising Week New York 2025, this conversation with Drew Panayiotou, CMO at Keurig Dr Pepper, dives into how Dr Pepper’s challenger mindset—and relentless creativity—turned an underdog into a market leader.

    From transforming Best Buy’s digital future to guiding Pfizer through the pandemic, Drew has built a career on driving growth through agility and purpose. He and Jason explore how to turn legacy brands into modern disruptors, why longevity beats reinvention, and what it really takes to build raving fans in a world that rewards speed over substance.

    Key Takeaways:
    ✅ Challenger energy fuels creativity, not chaos
    ✅ The best campaigns evolve—they don’t reset
    ✅ Great brands grow by deepening relationships, not widening reach
    ✅ Progress beats perfection in a world that never slows down

    Memorable Moments:
    💡 “The best brands don’t chase new fans—they obsess over their raving ones.”
    💡 “Marketers get bored faster than consumers ever will.”
    💡 “Agility isn’t about moving fast—it’s about moving together.”
    💡 “It’s not funnel thinking anymore. It’s a flywheel.”

    Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    32 min
  • #104: Building a Brand That Lasts Beyond the Hype | Sara Kear, CMO at Condado Tacos and Tequila

    #104: Building a Brand That Lasts Beyond the Hype | Sara Kear, CMO at Condado Tacos and Tequila
    Nov 9 2025
    Energy gets attention. Trust builds loyalty.

    In a world obsessed with virality, longevity still wins. The best brands aren’t just loud—they’re reliable, repeatable, and relentlessly consistent.

    With a background in digital strategy and brand storytelling, Sara Kear, Chief Marketing Officer at Condado Tacos and Tequila, has turned a regional taco spot into a fast-growing national brand built on creativity, consistency, and community.

    In this episode, Sara joins Jason to talk about balancing creative energy with operational discipline, rebuilding a brand after rapid growth, and how structure can actually unlock innovation. She shares lessons from Condado’s rebrand, the role of “flavor rebellion” in defining identity, and how listening—to both teams and guests—became the company’s most powerful growth strategy.

    Key Takeaways:
    ✅ Consistency is the foundation of brand trust
    ✅ Creative limits can expand, not restrict, innovation
    ✅ Listening to your audience reveals what data can’t
    ✅ Growth without structure risks brand identity

    Memorable Moments:
    💡 “A million small moments make up the feeling of belonging.”
    💡 “We outgrew our brand before we realized it—so we paused to rebuild.”
    💡 “Confines create creativity. When you define the sandbox, you can scale.”
    💡 “Fun brings people in. Trust makes them family.”

    Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    38 min
  • #103: BetterHelp Chief Growth Officer Sara Brooks | Scaling Empathy

    #103: BetterHelp Chief Growth Officer Sara Brooks | Scaling Empathy
    Nov 3 2025
    Empathy at scale isn’t easy—but it’s the heart of BetterHelp’s mission.With two decades of marketing leadership at Facebook, The RealReal, and Beyond, Sara Brooks has helped brands grow from startup to IPO and beyond. Now, as Chief Growth Officer at BetterHelp, she’s using data and storytelling to make mental health care more accessible around the world.

    In this episode, Sara joins Jason Harris to talk about leading with empathy in a data-driven world, the power of authentic storytelling, and how vulnerability has become one of the most effective tools in brand building. She also shares lessons from campaigns with Lewis Capaldi and college athletes that prove empathy—and humor—can coexist with rigor and scale.

    Key Takeaways:

    ✅ Empathy and data aren’t opposites—they’re accelerants
    ✅ Authenticity can’t be automated, but it can be scaled
    ✅ Vulnerability builds affinity faster than perfection
    ✅ Destigmatizing mental health starts with honest storytelling

    Memorable Moments:

    💡 “When you feel better, everyone in your life feels better as well.”
    💡 “Vulnerability isn’t a risk—it’s the whole point.”
    💡 “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Just get started.”
    💡 “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

    ”Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    37 min
  • #102: Redefining Success Through Service | Stinson Parks III, Former Marketing Executive at PepsiCo & Amex

    #102: Redefining Success Through Service | Stinson Parks III, Former Marketing Executive at PepsiCo & Amex
    Oct 26 2025
    Building a brand takes focus. Building a meaningful career takes range.

    From leading global campaigns at L’Oréal, PepsiCo, and American Express to driving purpose-driven change in accessibility, youth empowerment, and the arts, Stinson Parks III has built a career by refusing to be boxed in. After surviving a near-death experience, he redefined what success means—shifting his focus from building brands to building impact.

    Today, Stinson is using his marketing mindset to drive change across four pillars: accessibility, youth, community, and the arts. In this episode, he joins Jason Harris to talk about transforming professional skills into personal impact—and why the same tools that move brands can also move people.

    Key Takeaways:

    ✅ The skills that build brands can also build change
    ✅ Accessibility isn’t charity—it’s innovation and inclusion in action
    ✅ Art and storytelling have the power to heal and connect
    ✅ True success isn’t what you achieve—it’s who you help

    Memorable Moments:

    💡 “I went to the school of Mattel, PepsiCo, and Amex—these were my universities.”
    💡 “I was literally dead for a month. Now I see my injury as the biggest blessing of my life.”
    💡 “Change happens one person, one conversation, one community at a time.”
    💡 “It’s not what you have to do—it’s what you get to do, and who you get to serve.

    ”Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    38 min
  • #101: When a Movement Becomes a Brand | Kyle Lierman, CEO of Civic Nation

    #101: When a Movement Becomes a Brand | Kyle Lierman, CEO of Civic Nation
    Oct 19 2025
    How do you turn civic engagement into a brand people actually want to join?

    Kyle Lierman, CEO of Civic Nation and former Obama White House staffer, joins Jason Harris to talk about leading large-scale movements—It’s On Us, When We All Vote, Made to Save—and the organizing principles that make them work.

    Kyle shares how his time at the White House shaped his leadership philosophy, why Gen Z is the most pivotal generation for social change, and how cause-driven campaigns can harness creativity and data to move millions without losing their humanity.

    Key Takeaways:

    ✅ Organizing and branding share the same goal: building trusted relationships at scale
    ✅ Great movements have a sprint mentality—urgency drives innovation and impact
    ✅ Gen Z controls the culture for a 30-year block; win their trust, and you shape the future
    ✅ Build where people want to be, not just where they already are

    Memorable Moments:

    💡 “Put your head down, do your job incredibly well for six months, and then you can do anything.”
    💡 “We’re making one plus one equal five—organizing power plus creative storytelling.”
    💡 “Gen Z has the power to bring an issue to the forefront in a way no other generation does.”
    💡 “Our job isn’t to give people medicine—it’s to build the kind of community they want to join.”

    Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    37 min
  • #100: From Viral Content to Retail Scale | Black Rifle Coffee CMO Donny Jensen

    #100: From Viral Content to Retail Scale | Black Rifle Coffee CMO Donny Jensen
    Oct 5 2025
    How do you build “America’s coffee” without getting lost in politics?

    Donny Jensen, CMO of Black Rifle Coffee, joins Jason Harris to share lessons from a career that’s spanned Nike, Red Bull, Beats by Dre, Spartan Race, and now one of America’s fastest-growing coffee companies. Donny explains why brand is the ultimate differentiator, how Black Rifle balances irreverent viral content with disciplined growth marketing, and what it means to stand for veterans and first responders without playing politics.

    Key Takeaways:
    ✅ Below $1B, CMOs must know the growth levers themselves—not just manage from the top
    ✅ The sweet spot is a hybrid model: in-house talent plus specialized agency partners
    ✅ Brand is the moat—when ads shut off during COVID, Spartan’s traffic kept coming because of brand strength
    ✅ Plan your own calendar: cultural relevance matters less than staying true to your brand moments

    Memorable Moments:
    💡 “If you don’t know performance and growth, you’re at a massive disadvantage as a CMO.”
    💡 “We want to be America’s coffee, America’s energy—positive energy, every time you encounter us.”
    💡 “A great brand gets you the retail meeting. It makes everything easier.”
    💡 “My dad paid me a dollar an hour to sweep on his job sites—I still work like nothing is owed to me.

    ”Brought to you by Mekanism.
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    38 min