The CMO Office Podcast

What happens when a fintech CMO challenges how marketing value is measured?

In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I sit down with Jason Huan, Chief Marketing Officer at Endowus, to explore what it really takes to build trust, drive growth, and prove impact in financial services. This is a category where the stakes are high. Decisions carry real financial consequences, and trust is everything. That makes marketing both more powerful and more accountable. Jason brings a thoughtful, commercially grounded perspective. We talk about why traditional measurement approaches often fall short, and how marketers need to take a broader view of performance because too many organisations still rely on fragmented metrics that miss the full picture of how marketing drives growth . A big theme in our conversation is the role of brand. In financial services, brand is not a distant, long-term play - it directly shapes short-term outcomes, from conversion to retention. Jason reveals how stronger brand equity makes every other marketing investment work harder, amplifying performance rather than competing with it . We also discuss what this means in practice at Endowus. How do you balance brand and performance? How do you ensure your marketing builds credibility, not just attention? And how do you demonstrate value to a leadership team that is rightly focused on results? What I found most compelling about Jason’s perspective is its relevance beyond fintech. The pressures he describes, from rising scrutiny on budgets to the need for clearer accountability, are familiar to every CMO. In this episode, we cover: * How to rethink measurement to reflect real commercial impact * Why brand and performance are strongest when planned together * How to build credibility with finance and the wider business If you are looking to sharpen how you measure and communicate marketing’s value, this is well worth a listen. Listen now now on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/1Ork5ZebjBK2D8dmVfvaI9?si=e28172b1d5504ac4], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cmo-office-podcast/id1812771249] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@The-CMO-Office]. Thanks for reading The CMO Office! This post is public so feel free to share it. Listen more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com [https://www.the-cmo-office.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

🎙️PODCAST: Why Marketing Mix Modelling is the map for marketers in a volatile world

Marketing Mix Modelling is entering a new phase. Built on decades of evidence and rigour, it is now evolving to meet the demands of a more volatile, fast-moving environment. As expectations shift from explanation to action, MMM is becoming a more active part of how organisations plan, adapt and grow. In this episode, Paul Sinkinson, Managing Director Asia & Australia at Analytic Partners, returns to The CMO Office Podcast to explore what has changed over the past year, and why it matters now more than ever. The conversation reflects a broader shift in how leading organisations are approaching measurement, moving beyond static views of performance towards something more continuous, commercial and decision-focused. 🎧Listen now on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/1Ork5ZebjBK2D8dmVfvaI9?si=e28172b1d5504ac4], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cmo-office-podcast/id1812771249] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@The-CMO-Office]🎧 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com [https://www.the-cmo-office.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Why Most Marketing Plans Fail the Moment They’re Written (and What to Do About It)

Welcome to the first award winning edition of The CMO Office! Last night we were proud to take home Silver for Best B2B Content Marketing Strategy for ‘The CMO Office’ at Marketing Interactive’s Content 360 Awards, in no small part thanks to your support so thank you and please keep on subscribing, reading and sharing, Nx🙏 Now, where was I? Oh yes, when I spoke at the Digital Marketing Summit in Seoul recently, I wanted to focus on a gap that most marketers recognise but rarely address directly; the world moves quickly but our plans do not… Many organisations are still working to annual plans set months ago, sometimes close to a year in advance. Those plans were built on a set of assumptions about demand, pricing, supply, competition and consumer behaviour that may no longer hold true. At the same time, the dashboards used to track performance tend to capture only part of the picture. Campaign metrics update constantly, but they rarely reflect the broader forces shaping results. For instance, a campaign may underperform not because the media plan is wrong, but because distribution has shifted. Or results may appear strong when demand has been artificially inflated by external factors. The consequence is a growing disconnect between what marketers see and what is actually happening in our complex world. So, what can we do? 1. Don’t blindly believe your dashboard Modern marketing dashboards are powerful. They provide real-time visibility into campaign performance across channels but they are not designed to capture everything that drives results. They are only the tip of the iceberg. Most dashboards focus on media metrics: impressions, clicks, conversions, ROI. These are important, but they sit within a much wider system. Marketing outcomes are shaped by a combination of factors such as pricing decisions, distribution availability, competitive activity, macroeconomic conditions and consumer sentiment, which all play a role. Our proprietary ROI Genome [https://analyticpartners.com/knowledge-hub/roi-genome/] analysis shows that marketing contributes between 10 percent and 50 percent of business performance, with the majority influenced by factors beyond marketing itself. When these elements are not included in measurement, performance can be misinterpreted. A campaign may appear underwhelming when the real issue is product availability. Strong results may be attributed to media when they are driven by external demand shifts. Without a broader view, decisions are made on incomplete - even misleading - information. 2. Widen your field of vision Speaking of taking a broader view, one of the key points I shared in Seoul is that marketers need to widen their field of vision. Understanding performance requires looking beyond individual channels and beyond marketing itself. It requires a view of the full commercial system. This includes how channels interact with each other. It includes how brand and performance activity work together. It includes how external factors influence demand. Integrated strategies consistently outperform siloed approaches. Combining online and offline channels delivers significantly stronger results, with up to 50 percent greater efficiency compared to single-channel strategies . These effects are not visible when channels are measured in isolation. They only emerge when the full system is considered. 3. You can’t predict the future. But you can prepare for it. Now you can see more of the picture, the question becomes: what do you do with it? Most organisations are still set up to look backwards. Campaigns are analysed after they finish. Insights arrive once the moment to act has passed. In a stable environment, that delay is manageable. In a volatile one, it becomes a risk. Because the reality is, you cannot forecast the future with certainty. But you can prepare for it. Reporting tells you what happened and simulation tells you what could happen. That means building scenarios in advance. Understanding how your business responds to different conditions. Knowing which levers to pull, what to pull back on, how to adjust pricing, and how to rebalance your mix across brand and performance when conditions change. Because when those moments come, and they will, the organisations that win are not the ones scrambling for answers. They are the ones who have already pressure-tested the decisions. This is where marketing moves from reporting the past to shaping what happens next. 4. Use Marketing Mix Modelling And this is precisely the context in which marketing mix modelling becomes most valuable. At its core, marketing mix modelling provides a structured way to understand how different factors contribute to performance. At Analytic Partners, we extend this into Commercial Mix Modelling, which goes beyond marketing to include pricing, distribution, operational factors and macroeconomic conditions. It connects marketing activity with broader business drivers and external conditions, which makes it uniquely suited to today’s environment. Rather than relying on partial metrics, Commercial Mix Modelling provides a holistic view of performance, enables forward-looking scenario planning and supports continuous recalibration. It is no longer just a retrospective tool used to validate past decisions. It is becoming a system for ongoing decision-making, not by measuring in real time, but by pre-planning scenarios so teams know how to respond when conditions change. Companies that adopt this kind of approach move faster and make more confident decisions. Organisations that embed data-driven decisioning into their operating model have been shown to achieve significantly stronger growth outcomes, including up to five times the growth of those that do not. 5. Move from plans to possibilities The implications for marketers are clear: * Annual plans still have a role, but they cannot remain static. They need to evolve as conditions change. * Measurement needs to extend beyond campaign metrics to include the full set of factors influencing performance. * Decision-making needs to shift from retrospective reporting to continuous, real-time optimisation. * Most importantly, marketers need to recognise that the environment they operate in is not fixed. It is dynamic, interconnected and often unpredictable. The path forward The gap between the pace of the market and the pace of marketing decision-making is becoming more visible. Closing that gap requires more than better dashboards. It requires a different approach to measurement. One that captures the full system. One that looks forward as well as back. One that enables faster, more informed decisions because in a world that does not stand still, marketing cannot afford to either. Thanks for reading The CMO Office! This post is public so feel free to share it. If you would like to hear the full keynote, you can listen to my session from the Digital Marketing Summit on The CMO Office Podcast, available now on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/1Ork5ZebjBK2D8dmVfvaI9?si=e28172b1d5504ac4], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cmo-office-podcast/id1812771249] and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@The-CMO-Office]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com [https://www.the-cmo-office.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

🎙️PODCAST: Marketing in Asia-Same, Same But Different? My Conversation with WARC Asia's Rica Facundo

If you spend enough time talking to marketers across Asia, as I do, a pattern emerges. Everyone insists their market is different. And yet, somehow, all of us are wrestling with the same questions about growth, measurement and the role of brand in a region that refuses to sit still. That is exactly why I wanted to bring Rica Facundo, Managing Editor of WARC APAC and co-author of The Pace Principle [https://www.warc.com/the-pace-principle], onto The CMO Office Podcast for Episode 8. Rica spends her days analysing what truly drives marketing effectiveness in our region, and she brings a rare blend of empathy, evidence and lived experience to the conversation. And let me tell you now. She does not hold back. Asia moves fast. But not too fast for brand building One of the biggest myths I hear repeatedly in APAC is that long-term brand building does not work here. We are told our consumers are too pragmatic, too fragmented, too digital-first or too price sensitive to respond to the classic effectiveness principles. Rica and her team at WARC have now shown, with data from across the region, that the opposite is true. When you combine long-term brand building with smart, measurable performance activation, you unlock what WARC calls The Multiplier Effect [https://www.warc.com/the-multiplier-effect]. And the impact in high-growth markets can be even more dramatic than in the West. As we discussed in the episode, the challenge is not that Asia ignores the rules. It is that Asia tests them faster. Culture is not a nice-to-have. It is a growth lever One part of our conversation that really stayed with me was Rica’s view on cultural insight. Western brand playbooks do not simply plug and play in APAC. They cannot. Our region is too layered, too contradictory, too alive. But that does not mean we abandon the fundamentals. It means we apply them with greater cultural sensitivity. Rica shines a light on examples across Asia where brands have built genuine emotional connection by grounding their work in local truths, not borrowed tropes. And for those of us leading marketing in this region, she makes a compelling case. Culture is not just flavour. It is strategic advantage. And measurement. Always measurement You know that on this podcast, I will always bring the conversation back to measurement. And Rica was beautifully candid here. Too many marketers in Asia are still evaluating effectiveness through a short-term lens. That means they miss the delayed, compounding value of long-term brand building and underestimate marketing’s true commercial impact. This is where modern MMM plays such an important role. Not the black-box models of ten years ago, but adaptive, always-learning commercial analytics that help marketers make the right call at the right time. If you are trying to build credibility with your CFO or COO, this is the evidence base you need. A must-listen for marketers in Southeast Asia and beyond I loved this conversation. Rica brings such clarity to a topic that is often muddied by opinion, trends and the myth that Asia is somehow an outlier. Spoiler: We are not. We are simply moving at two paces at once. And when you manage the sprint and the marathon together, the results can be extraordinary. 🎧 Listen to Episode 8 Everywhere * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@The-CMO-Office] * Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/1Ork5ZebjBK2D8dmVfvaI9?si=e28172b1d5504ac4] * Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cmo-office-podcast/id1812771249] Are you a CMO with a story to tell? Would you like to boost your personal profile on our podcast? Then for goodness sake, get in touch with me at nikki.taylor@analyticpartners.com. Thanks for reading The CMO Office! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com [https://www.the-cmo-office.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

🎙️ LIVE Podcast: Creativity, Commerciality and the Data Dilemma

In our first EVER live-recorded episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I sat down with Toby Aldred, Managing Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, to explore one of marketing’s most persistent tensions — the balance between bold creative thinking and the demand for proof. Recorded live on stage at SXSW Sydney, this conversation is a fast-moving, funny, and refreshingly honest take on what happens when creative ambition meets commercial reality. Toby, fresh from collecting eight Effie Awards, shares how data can sharpen great ideas but never replace them. “Agencies were founded to build brands and grow them,” says Aldred. “We’ve built our own effectiveness practice so that even our boldest creative ideas are underlined by the impact they’ll have.” From the CFO’s demand for hard numbers to the CMO’s instinct for emotional connection, this episode digs into how creativity and data can (and must) coexist. Toby argues that marketing’s true growth lever lies not in performance metrics alone, but in the human insight that turns spreadsheets into stories. “If you make every decision based purely on what the data tells you, you’ll miss those imaginative leaps that create real impact,” he explains. “It’s about using data to guide and prove — not to decide everything.” We also dive into the evolving role of AI in creative development during which Toby admits he’s “a ChatGPT guy,” using generative tools as “a brainstorming partner” rather than a replacement for human originality. And when I ask him which marketing buzzword gives him “the ick”? His answer is instant: “Lean in.” “In creativity, we don’t want to lean in — we want to stand out.” 💡 Key Takeaways * Creativity needs evidence. Data and analytics should amplify, not stifle, creative ideas. * Growth is the ultimate KPI. Marketing must prove itself as a business growth lever, not just a cost centre. * Emotion still wins. Storytelling and human connection remain the most powerful differentiators. * AI is a partner, not a pilot. Generative tools can accelerate ideation, but great ideas still come from people. 🎧 Watch or Listen Now * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@The-CMO-Office] * Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/1Ork5ZebjBK2D8dmVfvaI9?si=e28172b1d5504ac4] * Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cmo-office-podcast/id1812771249] Are you a CMO with a story to tell? Would you like to boost your personal profile on our podcast? Then for goodness sake, get in touch with me at nikki.taylor@analyticpartners.com. Thanks for reading The CMO Office! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com [https://www.the-cmo-office.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]