The CMO Swap : lessons learned at Fetch Unwired
An entrepreneurial start-up founder swapped places with a veteran marketer at one of the world’s biggest beverage brands in a unique social experiment, launched by The Drum and Fetch — to learn winning business strategies and conclude that what will make a company thrive tomorrow is different from what makes it succeed today.
Fetch Unwired: The CMO Swap lessons learned
Britvic global category director Ash Tailor experienced brand building through the eyes of Tom Stancliffe, founder of natural sports nutrition brand Tribe. And for Stancliffe, it was about sharing the many resources within an established business with world-class research labs and a huge global marketing team with access to the various marketing capabilities and fully developed agency ecosystem.
Establish an agile culture
“As a challenger brand to come into this project and see how an established brand like Britvic does things, was more than interesting,” said Stancliffe speaking at the Unwired breakfast event, organised by Fetch. Tailor echoed the sentiments and added:“Marketers are always talking about being more agile, but this was a great experience to find more nimbleness within the consumer journey.”
When asked if it’s true that most legacy businesses have a culture of consensus that can stifle the momentum of ideas, Tailor said: “At Britvic, we’re a lot more focused on the how. It’s my role on how we get things done. And yes to some extent it’s difficult to keep that drive of entrepreneurship and passion alive. But a lot of the principles and themes that we adopt on a day-to-day basis at Britvic, have been absolutely taken from the world of start up.” He agreed that it’s all about creating a space for innovation and experimentation.
Business structures: building pivotal capabilities
Tailor went on to add that the CMO Swap experiment really made him appreciate the resources available to him “Some of the things I was taking for granted — like being able to go downstairs and tapping into our crazy scientists and our frameworks that have helped build a 160 year old heritage.” Stancliffe said that as a two-year old start-up they know that their brand is about creating an emotional connection with their customers, but then “we do not have the budget to spend on a lot of things we want to do.”
Talking about the difference between the two companies, when looking at purpose and values, they were asked how is that most businesses start with exciting visions but lose that mojo when they become big enterprises? Do all big businesses eventually go from bold to old?
Purpose, value and culture
“The most powerful cultures are born and bred in behaviour, and you see it more at Tribe because the culture is more visible as it’s a smaller organisation. It’s definitely something that I’ll be trying to bring back to Britvic and pull out. I want to inspire that culture to drive passion and growth,” said Tailor.
Stancliffe added: “Everyone knows what our mission, mission and values at Tribe are as it’s in everything we do. And also because there is such proximity to it. But you do have to remember, that as a business we’re still at a very fluid stage in our business, so we can adapt and do most things.”
The disruptor vs the disrupted
Discussing the imperatives of transformation in this age of constant change and unease, the two marketers agreed that although it is true that startups have largely been the disruptors and legacy companies and industries have been disrupted, the experiment was a stark reminder of how marketing is continually evolving.
Tailor’s biggest takeaway from the day was the brand’s “done is better than perfect” philosophy; something he hopes to channel at Britvic.
“I remember this one conversation around the table when working with Tribe, where we may have come with solutions and we had a lot of ideas but actually the task is done now and [the attitude is very much] let’s move on to the next thing. ” said Tailor. “There’s a spirit there that all organisations can learn from: when is enough, enough?”
Stancliffe concluded: “The experiment was an amazing thing to do. I haven’t received any formal marketing experience before, and this made me consciously question what we’ve learnt so far.
“Hopefully [we can] learn from those processes, so we can grow faster and be who we want to be.”
Watch the full video capturing their day’s exchange to gain more behind-the-scenes insight into what happened when Tailor and Stancliffe swapped places and what they learnt from the experience.