Banding Together, Branding Together
Patti Boyle shares her insights into why banding together is essential for success, how to build your relationship currency, and the innovation of data science in marketing.
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Welcome to Demand Gen Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faze on CEO of Cast Mein Studios.
And today I am joined by a special guest, Patti, how are you?
I'm doing great, Ian. How are you doing today?
Excited to chat with you today about all things distillery.
We're going to talk about third-party cookies and what's going on there,
and how y'all go to market it at distillery much more.
So let's get into it. How did you get started marketing in the first place?
Well, my actual first jobs during college were in aspects of marketing,
TV promotion, broadcast journalism as a radio interviewer,
a news writer, a content producer.
So these were all 24-hour operations, as you can imagine,
and which were perfectly with my schedule.
I was on a full academic scholarship, but I also had to support myself so I
could get
all the hours I could handle in a mix of those businesses.
And I got to try out as a bonus different roles so I could help myself decide
what to do in real life.
So under the pressure of needing to get a real job,
a couple of mentors of mine steered me to the ad agency business,
where I spent the next 15 years primarily with J. Walter Thompson and FCB.
So flash forward to today.
Tell us a little bit about your role at distillery.
Yeah, so as Chief Marketing Officer, my primary role is more around team
leadership
of our discipline-specific experts, all in the service of driving distilleries
growth.
And that's growth through the brand profile.
That's certainly revenue growth, customer growth, both at the agency level and
with brand advertisers.
And really, my role ultimately is the higher people that are much smarter than
I am
in each of our disciplines and clear the runway and ensure that our strategies
are delivering.
So I'm there to initiate, to prioritize and advise.
I serve on distilleries executive team and so the voice of marketing and the
voice of the customer
is what comes to the forefront there.
Let's get to our first segment, the trust tree.
This is where you go and feel honest and trusted and you can share those
teeth as darkest marketing secrets.
Tell us a little bit about distillery.
What does distillery do and who do you sell to?
Distillery is, as we position ourselves, the custom audience solutions company.
What that really means is that we use our unique AI-powered models to design
custom audiences
for brands and agent police to use in the most effective campaigns.
And so think of it a bit like a chef in the best five-star restaurant you can
find.
The ingredients are there.
Those who are expert in the field are there so the talent is incredibly
important and the
leadership.
But at the end of the day, what you want to make sure is it tastes great in the
end.
What we're all about is those custom audiences so the advertisers can really
recognize their
best results.
And so what are the types of companies that you all sell to?
Most every brand across industries has used distilleries, custom audience
solutions at some point.
Our heaviest users are in categories that you might expect to see, such as
retail, finance,
healthcare, travel. We're really proud of our ability to retain clients over
time.
So even though we don't have a subscription model, for example,
recurring revenue in the purest sense, our clients choose to work with dist
illery,
choose to put their trust in our audiences and our people time and time again
so that that
relationship currency develops and delivers the more we know and trust each
other.
And what does that buying committee look like when you're going to market?
Yes, so simply, if you envision hold co-agencies, right? So those are the WPPs,
IPGs,
Densu's, Pueblo Sis agencies of the world.
Underneath the hold coz are programmatic specific ad agencies. So these are
places where
it's separate from creative development and production. It's all about digital
media.
And so the agencies are those that lead and run the actual media campaigns and
the media selection
on behalf of their clients, the advertisers. And so in some cases we do have
brands who work with us directly and those are the brands that have developed
amazing in-house
agencies. And so they develop, plan, buy and measure their own digital media.
So they're making
the selections and they're working with us directly and with our platform
partners.
So yeah, it's kind of a mix there of a bunch of agencies. Obviously they work
with and you have
some brands that you work with kind of depending on where that programmatic
buyer sort of sits.
What's their title usually like? Let's say a senior VP of programmatic media
where you'll get
VP of digital media. You might get a programmatic buyer. Data analytics and
programmatic are sort
of the conventional titles. And then on the brand side, ultimately we're
working for the CMO.
And then the CMO is obviously making the selection upfront and their team is
implementing.
And what's your organizational structure to acquire those counts? How does
marketing look?
How does sales look? Yeah, so the primary functions in our company, as you
might imagine,
everything we do is grounded in our data science. So the quality of our data
science and how that
data science has been celebrated is at the core. We want everything we do to
become famous for the
quality of our data science. We have an amazing chief data scientist and she's
been recognized
from all of the industry publications, events, agencies themselves. And so we
're really,
really proud of that. Our technical team, obviously, which is another large and
incredibly important
engine filled with experts in all disciplines from cybersecurity to the back of
the house,
actual engineering, the technical experts who make the business run. We have a
go to market team,
which is led by our president. And that team is also incredibly substantial and
sizable. And it
consists of client partners, a pay a sellers. And there's a whole team
structure to that.
Plus, we also have a dedicated client success team who ensures that all of the
clients with whom
we're actively working are uber satisfied with everything that we're doing and
the experience
that we're delivering. Marketing is a relatively small team, but mighty and a
highly functional
team. We have experts in digital media, in event planning, in PR, and in
product marketing.
As you might envision, they're all working very collaboratively with each other
. And they're vested
in each other's success. And I'm really, really proud of the way our team works
and supports one
another. And what does your marketing strategy look like? Do you have an
official
patty strategy for marketing? Certainly not a patty strategy. But I would say
what I can share
and what we're really proud to share is a three part marketing mission. And so
everything we do
is inspired by number one, raising distilleries brand profile. So becoming
famous for the quality
of our data science, to developing and distributing our thought leadership. And
last but not least,
three account based marketing, which is the foundation of our demand gen
strategy. It allows us to
speak to people where they are and to specialize in the nature of our content.
You have a new product that you've sort of announced. Is it a new product or is
it just the new way of
life in which we're all going to be cokeless and have no third party cookies? I
know that you all
launched this offering and kind of signals this new normal that we're going to
be moving into
if we haven't already. Yeah, so it's a great question and you're touching
exactly on the spirit
of what we've invented and had patented. So it's for now, it's not for later or
someday.
It's in use by the largest agencies and brands and is actually called ID free
custom AI proper name.
And ID freeze patented. It's been proven effective across agencies and brands
and for all types and
sizes of individual advertisers. So we've also developed a health care and
pharma specific
solution known as custom patient targeting. Both are offering privacy friendly
compliant,
but yet precise and scalable digital targeting and delivering this today, not
simply building for
someday. We talked a little before we got into this about Google and its plans
for sunsetting
bookies. We're kind of agnostic to what Google does. We've built these
solutions because they're
right for right now. Privacy is not a secret. It is the hottest topic both for
advertisers and
their clients and their clients clients. So it really serves and meets many
needs well ahead
of any point where it's forced to happen. We've developed it because it's the
right thing to do
and we've developed it because we have the talent and the expertise in house to
come up with a
solution that's every bit as effective as cookie based targeting. It does it
without IDs at all.
I'm so curious for the future because it's just going to change so much stuff
so quickly.
It's very nerve wracking, but it's also something that we saw the writing on
the wall.
Companies like you said, Hey, we're going to jump in and create something that
can fill this void
that's going to be a massive, massive void. Yes, and we're finding that there's
an escalating interest
in testing for those advertisers that would not ordinarily feel compelled to
try this today,
but by testing well ahead and testing even for now because it's the right thing
to do,
they can find the effectiveness in these campaigns, prove out what our ID free
solutions are capable
of delivering. And then they're set. They're set for today. They're set for
tomorrow.
And I know that our solutions will evolve and expand over time in the ID free
category,
but I think we've landed on a solution set that is not by our proclamation, but
by the testimonial
of others is comparable. If not better, it's on par with any of the current
cookie based solutions. Yeah. And so I'm curious as you brought that out to
market,
like what do you hear from the advertisers? And I know that some of that stuff
is coming
through agency partners, but what is the prevailing feeling from advertisers
over this new normal?
Yeah, I mean, there are some, as you can imagine, that are setting their clocks
and watching and
waiting for Google's ultimate cookie application. So there's a set of folks in
that bucket.
The more innovative ones, not just the early adopters, but those that just
embrace the spirit
of being ID free and having no user information driving the bus are exhibiting
joy. I mean,
to be honest, they are grateful to have something that they can use now,
whether it's test or
actually employ that just even in their own headsets as consumers rings the
bell on privacy
protection. And so if they can stand there at the end of the day and say we are
running campaigns
that are ID free and accomplishing campaign goals, that's a pretty awesome
place to be.
I would say that the most important piece of the puzzle here for distilleries
growth and to meet
the industry's needs is that we're constantly out in front. We're constantly
learning,
we're constantly using data driven examples to continue innovating and continue
exhibiting
that thought leadership. And I know that thought leadership is one of those j
argony words,
but until we find something better, everyone understands what it is to be a
thought leader.
And so importantly for us, we have in-house nationally recognized, soon to be
internationally
recognized experts in data science who have shown their ability to achieve
patentable,
exclusive, innovative ideas on solutions. And that's really the heartbeat of
what
distilleries does. To me, what I think a lot of marketers have this decision
point right now,
which is how many data scientists, how many data professionals are you going to
leverage
in your organization? How many are you going to hire? How many are you going to
set up a center
of excellence or something with the current data science team that you maybe
already have at the
company and partner with? That question I think is really fascinating. You have
some marketers
that are going super deep into developing their own capacities, their in-house
capacities for that,
other folks that are using partners for that, other folks obviously using a
hybrid of both,
which is probably going to be what a lot of people do. So anyway, I just think
it's a really
interesting moment in time where everyone knows that their data, their customer
data,
third party data, all this stuff is so critical to how they go to market and
their ad campaigns
and in B2B we talked about with our amazing sponsor, Qualified, just how much
data your website is
creating and how many interactions and stuff like that. So there's just so much
there right now,
and it's really, really expensive to hire data science people and data
professionals.
Well, the best ones, yes, for sure. It's interesting to me because, again, our
Chief Data Scientist is
a rock star, full stop, and her background is just incredible. But it's also,
there's something
about our culture that allows the data science leaders and the go-to market
leaders and sellers
and the marketing professionals and the product developers to all band together
Understanding your background, I can appreciate how the banding together is
essential for success,
because if everybody's not marching in the same direction and you don't have
alignment and you
don't have a shared vision for innovation, for constant continuous learning,
you have a very
average company in that scenario. And average companies are going nowhere in
this new normal.
You have to be regardless of size or nature or the age of the company. You have
to be a proven,
recognized innovator with a healthy, open culture that brings the right people
in. So the voice
of our customer, for example, is an essential ingredient in everything we do,
and not just one and done,
but over the long haul. Okay, let's get to our next segment, the playbook. So
where you open up
that playbook and talk about the tactics that help you win. You play to win the
game.
Hello, you play to win the game. You don't play to just play it.
What are your three channels or tactics that are your uncuttable budget items
for distillery?
First and foremost, uncuttable budget. And I think of budget as a holistic one
for people.
Our people are our highest value resource. And so we've got a super
collaborative team.
Every one of them, they're an essential member of the team. It doesn't work
without any single one
of them. There are, I suppose this is the second uncuttable item. There are
partners that we work
with. So they're external experts in a short list of key disciplines, including
global research.
We have an awesome relationship with Farrister, for example, web design and
digital branding,
and PR. Third is probably the value of our events, whether that's virtual or in
person.
I'm partial to the in-person stuff, for sure. There's no other tactic in our
marketing
pool kit that enables that level of connection, that level of learning and
relationship currency.
And that's never been more important than it is today. So people, partners,
events.
Let's spend a little bit of time on talking partners. How do you think about
investing your
money, choosing partners? What are the hot priorities for you in finding a
partner and why?
So as with any company, there are kind of legacy partners with whom we're
working,
and we have a deep relationship there. There are newer partners that personally
my team and I've
probably feel more glued to because we've had a hand and a voice in selecting
them.
But whether they're long-term or more recent, the notion is that we have
killer expertise internally, but that there are some situations and PR would be
one of them,
where it's more important to have outside, wide lens, macro industry experience
and connections,
and not simply be reliant on internal distillery resources. Because how else do
you get the impact
and the positive, true evidence-based feedback and resources if you don't go
outside the walls
of the company? And so the three that I mentioned earlier, global research,
primary research,
specifically web design and digital branding and PR are the most critical in
terms of resources
that we can rely on as sort of our outsourced marketing team. They also
contribute to and support
our other teams as need. So PR is every bit as essential to support our data
science team
and the visibility of the innovations that they produce as it is to support our
product team
and put the spotlight on all the breakthroughs that are happening there. So
while marketing
"owns the relationships," we own them to expand our own bandwidth, but
importantly to constantly
be fueled by what the market is telling us, what our customers are telling us,
and what they're
hearing importantly from competitors. Do you have a favorite campaign that you
've ran over the past
year or so? So less about campaigns and more about a combination of events and
honors. So we talked a
little bit earlier about being recognized as a top AI provider, having our
chief data scientist
being recognized as one of the at-age is 40 under 40 and being the only data
science leader in that
40, right? Because so many of them are recognized in account management and
creative. So we're really
proud of that. We're a co-sponsor at Cannes this year and that is an example of
an incredibly
vital relationship currency firepower. So not only being on the ground and
being active sponsors,
but being where the industry leaders are, putting ourselves in the environment
where we're able to
learn and connect and equally able to get the word out of all the cool things
that we're doing.
I would put that experience as more of an example of marketing strategies we've
employed
that allow us to get a next level level of recognition. Yeah, so I'm curious
the honors piece is not
something we typically talk about a ton on this show. So it's something I'd
love to zoom in a little
bit on. Is it as simple as being the places where your customers care about,
right? Like we know
agencies care about honors a ton. We know it's a huge differentiator for them
as people are trying
to select which agency to go with and things like that. In the B2B world, not
necessarily usually
as popular. Obviously there's words we've won an award for this show. So
clearly we won our
Finney last year is a very exciting time for us on the podcast. It always feels
good to win an
award, right? But I'm curious, is this as simple as be where your customers are
and do the things
that they care about? That's certainly part of it. Perhaps the more interesting
part is employing a
wide lens and thinking about all of the aspects of what we're offering as a
company across multiple
constituencies so that you paint a portrait, a more rounded view of the
expertise that we have in
house and the leaders that are making it happen. So as an example, on one end
of the continuum
being recognized for the quality of our data science is amazing and essential
unto itself.
Another example might be getting the spotlight, for example, on our ability to
deliver a level of
client feedback, actual testimonials, actual first-hand accounts using services
like G2,
for example, and where we're getting first-hand voluntary feedback. And that
unto itself,
while not an award per se, is recognition from the market. And they're two very
different things,
but they're equally important as part of a portfolio of recognition that we
value.
And so when you go to a place like Can, what's the type of engagement that you
're looking at? Are
you sending salespeople or are you sending your data scientists to have those
type of conversations?
Are you going in rubbing elbows? Also a great question. This year was my first
year being part
of that. And I frankly didn't know what to expect. We sent a forsome, myself
included, of the true
leaders of the company. Not all of them chose to go, not all of them felt like
that was a relevant
space for them, but our CEO, our president, our head of business development
strategy.
You know, they all completely engaged end to end. We weren't closing the bars,
whipping it up in the majestic. We were instead kind of following an
intentional path
of setting up the right meetings and many events along the way with partners
and the leaders of
companies that we care about. So whether it was meeting with Ad Week or meeting
with a senior
leader at Publises, we were there to learn and exchange thinking and generate
ideas and experience
what others in the industry both need and want and are also creating for the
future.
Yeah, I love that. That's really cool. So funny how events are so fuzzy in some
ways and just being
around people and having conversations is ultimately the most important thing
that we always learn
about that. All of the dark funnel activities that happen and all the
investigations and all
that sort of stuff and a lot of that can be dissuaded by a 30-minute
conversation over a
nice beverage or whatever. Yeah, I mean, there's no substitute for in-person.
We've found that
from the day we could get back out there and the minute that we could get back
out there and reopen
the office, we did it and we did it with zeal. It serves us beautifully because
people are still
in work from anywhere mode and that's our new model but we also have a home
base at 32nd
and Park Avenue South where we can go and know that we can gather as a company
and experience the
culture that we love so much in person, same with events. Do you have a most
cuttable budget item
or maybe something that you've invested in the past so you're not going to be
investing in
the future? Yes, yes I do. It's the four-letter word known as swag. I'm saying
that in a cheeky
half-joking way. What I really mean is that other than deciding where the dist
illery logo goes and
maybe the quality of the fabric, marketing has no value to contribute to swag.
As a company,
we have charitable interests, we have a string of volunteer activities that we
're committed to.
We have off sites for various teams that allow us all to be together somewhere
else
and in multiple locations so that it rotates and we share the travel.
But yes, the swag line item is one I can live without. That's so funny. We've
had people on the
show say that swag is uncuttable for them, that they go the full opposite
direction. Trust me,
it's still a vital, incredibly desirable line item but it can be a line item
and somebody
insists on it. I love that. Okay, let's get to our next segment, The Dust Up,
where we talk
about healthy tension of events with your board or sales teams, your competitor
or anyone else.
If you had a memorable dust up in your career petting. So first it should be
said, that's not
really how I roll. So it's unusual that anyone in any situation can really get
me that whipped up
that having said that, it's not never. And so in the few memorable ones that I
've experienced,
I've always regretted participating. I always wished I had just deflected and
moved on or
introduced positive options to make it not so binary. It's not yes or no, your
opinion or mine.
How about if we also think about it in this way? Yeah, I've found myself in
trouble spots for sure
and they're always with major leaders in the company. I'm like, not picking on
someone
in another team or another group or whatever. It's usually a fiery debate about
taking a position
that is probably in the end, not even worth it. I'd much rather have a
controlled,
we all play by the same rules proactive discussion that's oriented to a
mutually acceptable solution.
My experience at Distillery though, is that it's done in an extremely healthy
way.
Let's get to our final segment. Quick hits. These are quick questions and quick
answers,
just like how quickly qualified helps companies generate pipeline faster. You
can go to qualified.com
to learn more. We love them dearly. They've been with us since the first
episode of the show.
You can tap into your greatest asset, your website to identify your most
valuable visitors
and instantly start sales conversations quick and easy, just like these
questions.
Go to qualified.com to learn more, Patty. Quick hits are you ready? Ready.
Number one, what is a hidden talent or skill that's not underestimate?
A proud mother of five, which I don't widely share. I'm very proud of it.
Earlier in my career, that was not a popular data point to put out there.
Well, it's popular here on demand-gen visionaries. That's for sure. That's
pretty darn rad.
Do you have a favorite book, podcast, or TV show that you've been checking out
recently?
I'm completely drawn in by Peaky Blinders. I have to look away from the TV half
the time.
There's a lot of stuff going on that doesn't really work for me, but I'm still
magnetically attracted to the players and the storyline. Guilty pleasure, I
guess.
There's a funny meme that's going around. It's like the worst time ever for bar
bers was when
that show first came out because everyone wanted the haircuts now afterwards.
They were like,
"I think I look horrible." For sure. Do you have a favorite non-marketing hobby
that
maybe indirectly makes you a better marketer? I'm a professor at Temple
University and an
instructional coach at University of Pennsylvania. Maybe the way that makes my
practice better
is that I'm really interested in the reciprocal relationship between learning
from my own students
to then carrying that learning back into my practice.
What would be your best advice for first-time CMO trying to figure out their
marketing strategy?
Yes, first and foremost, I'd want to learn about their vision, their vision for
what marketing is
set to accomplish in their own organization. Then in terms of the team's
contribution
to company growth and value, what's expected from marketing? Because we've all
seen in
one company to another, quote-unquote, marketing serves a different purpose and
has different
expectations. I'd like to learn more before being prescriptive about how they
view
elements like competitive intelligence and target market personas and industry
trends.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, the members of my team are the discipline-
specific experts.
My role is more to orchestrate, to support, to inspire, and ultimately, yes, to
make the decisions
and provide the advice that's needed for our company's growth.
Patty, that's it. That's all we got for today. Thanks so much for joining. For
our listeners,
go to distillery.com to learn more. Any final thoughts? Anything to plug?
We talked a bit about our Cuculus solutions. Without beating the same drum,
I would just want to add that the pride we take in innovation and being thought
leaders
is the cultural glue that holds all of our people and all of our new product
solutions together.
That spirit and that vision of the future that trumps everything.
I love it. Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining. We really appreciate it. We
'll talk soon.
I am so excited to have been part of this. Thanks so much.
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