From Murder Your Thirst to Electric Air Taxis: Creating Brand Desire // Lessons from Liquid Death, Duolingo, and Joby Aviation

0:00Jim Stengel:I spent years at Procter & Gamble trying to answer that question. We had the creative. We had the reach. We had campaigns that genuinely stopped people. And then we watched that value quietly disappear somewhere between the moment of engagement and the proof of a business result. That gap between attention and action is where most media budgets go to die. And most digital media platforms have been content to live inside it just a little upstream from accountability. Infilion is the company that decided to close it. They started as the original attention company built on the idea that a consumer choosing to engage with an ad is worth more than one who ignores it.

0:35Jim Stengel:But they did not stop there. They have built the infrastructure to connect the moment of attention to the proof of action across every screen, every format, every vertical. That is not a feature. That is a fundamentally different idea of what an ad platform should be. And it is the one brands have been waiting for. Learn more in the show notes. If you were a chief marketing officer in consumer products, I want you to think about something for a moment. You have creative that works. You have campaigns that capture attention. But somewhere between that moment and the register, the signal gets lost.

1:06Jim Stengel:You cannot see what actually drove the sale. You are making optimization decisions on inference, not truth. Well, that changed in February. Infillion acquired Catalina. Four decades of deterministic purchase intelligence. 130 million U.S. households, 70 retail banners,$600 billion in verified annual consumer spending. And here is what really matters. Over 90 % of consumable purchases still happen in-store. Infillion and Catalina together can close the loop from digital advertising to in-lane purchase and incentivize the next one. This is not a measurement tool you consult after the campaign. This is a live signal that runs through your media while the campaign is in flight.

1:47Jim Stengel:You can now optimize from attention to action in real time against people whose actual purchase behavior you know. A consumer product's brand needs return on ad spending. It needs foot traffic. Infilion now delivers all of it. Not as separate vendors you reconcile later as one connected platform. That is what closing the gap looks like. And we have a fun culture internally as well. So we reflect that in our marketing, in our product, but also in how people work at Duolingo. So fun is really that common denominator to what we do. We underrate fun, I think. Yeah, I agree. If we're not having fun with our work, who's going to enjoy it in the outside?

2:26Jim Stengel:Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling, and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges along with how they try to build a full, healthy, and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders.

3:00Jim Stengel:So here we go. At the Cannes Lion Festival this year, we partnered with our friends at the Havas Group for three special live roundtable conversations, exploring the question of creating desire through three different lenses, through media, through creativity, and through a health and longevity lens. Our first discussion brings together three senior marketing leaders from three very different industries to explore media and desire. In other words, the role media plays in building brands people don't just notice, but genuinely want. I'm joined first by Manu Orso, the Chief Marketing Officer at Duolingo, the language learning app with the famous Al Mascot.

3:39Jim Stengel:Manu is a returning CMO podcast guest. He previously shared the remarkable story behind one of the world's most culturally relevant brands. Before joining Duolingo, Manu led global marketing strategy at Spotify. Before that, he spent nearly a decade helping build the PlayStation brand across Europe. Next is Benoit Vater, chief media officer at Liquid Death, one of the fastest growing beverage brands in the world. Before joining Liquid Death, Benoit founded Mammoth Media, building media strategies for leading consumer brands. Benoit also previously served as CEO of the gaming platform Playhaven.

4:13Jim Stengel:Today, he's helping redefine what modern media looks like for a challenger brand liquid death. And finally, Oliver Walker-Jones, who leads marketing, communications, and brand at Joby Aviation. Oliver has helped guide Joby from a stealth startup into a company on the cusp of commercializing electric air taxis. Before Joby, Oliver held leadership roles at Lilium, Rolls-Royce, Walmart, and Blackstone. He's currently tackling one of marketing's greatest challenges, creating desire for a category that doesn't yet exist. Together with these three gentlemen, we explore how three different companies think about media, creativity, culture, AI, and the role brands play in earning attention, building affection, and creating lasting desire.

4:58Jim Stengel:Here's my conversation captured live at the Havas Cafe with Manu, Benoit, and Oliver. Hey guys, welcome to the special edition of the CMO podcast, all about desire. This is really weird for me. I usually have women on the show. So to have three guys at once, I'm not quite sure where to go with this. So you'll help me out? We will. Because actually the function is largely women. Yeah. You know, which is great. And that's evolved over time. But super to have you here. So what I want to start with is I want you to introduce yourself with a question. And that is about a brand that creates desire with you.

5:33Jim Stengel:Here we are in Cannes with lots of brands trying to create desire. One brand that creates desire for you. Manu, do you want to start? You look very quizzical. I'm thinking at the same time, right? I've got to prep my answer. So I'm Manu, Chief Marketing Officer at Duolingo. And maybe the brand, I was just with them right now, so that's what they're top of mind. But I think, you know, Netflix is an amazing brand that creates desire because they have this, you know, content play all the time with new ideas and new content coming out. So it's a big source of inspiration for us at Eurolingo. Yeah.

6:04Jim Stengel:And you're a previous guest on the CMO podcast. I am, yeah. A great show. I recommend it to so many people because there's so many fundamental marketing lessons in that show. And how you leverage the owl is hilarious. I was at dinner last night with a woman who's on her 800th session with you. That's amazing. 800. It's sweet, yeah. And she's still getting crazy remarks from the owl. Yeah, of course. Every day. Every day, exactly. You have to do your lesson. Yeah. Okay, who's next? I'll pick it up. I'm Oliver, and I work for Joe Beaver, a company developing electric air taxis. I find Rivian to be one of the best desire-inducing brands.

6:39Beautiful brand. They came along to a sector that hadn't really changed all that much in the years, and they created something that felt very different. Kind of took a little bit of the outdoors, a little bit of Patagonia, a bit of IKEA, some design, some external world stuff, and made you want something that felt fresh and new. Yeah, I agree. It's a beautiful game. As soon as you see it, it's very striking. Right, it's striking. and they did something very smart with the headlights. When people saw it first, they thought it wasn't really all that beautiful, but somehow it's very memorable. I drove a Mustang EUV, Mach 3 EUV,

7:08Jim Stengel:also striking to start. I drove a gas one. Oh, yeah. Okay. You do, really? I do. Okay. All right. Kind of ironic. I bought a review as well. Okay. All right. Benoit. Yeah, I'm Benoit. I'm Chief Media and Digital Commerce Officer at Liquid Death, beverage brand. For me, actually, I'm going to go like very old school, Nike Nike it is And I'm inspired by how they are able to sustain that strength of a brand over time And obviously, they have ups and downs But overall, it's such a strong brand How they contribute to so many sports And I think I got a soft spot now I got to get in front of them My son got to Oregon, University of Oregon as a freshman And they are so ingrained in that university and the impact that on the university is pretty amazing and understanding how they've been working through the university.

7:59All of it makes me just love that brand.

8:02Jim Stengel:Yeah, great choice by your son, by the way. Have a great four years. Awesome, I bet you will. So I want to get a little more personal now in the next question, keeping in the desire theme. You all work for three different companies, three different business models, three really interesting companies. So could you talk about one characteristic in your company that makes it desirable for your employees and your customers? I mean, I would start, what we're doing is electric airtices, right? They're electric. And that does something kind of cool because it's, you know, it appeals to you either because it's sustainable and you want to change the way that you travel or because it allows you to travel in a way that you haven't done before.

8:38So we're going to let people move around cities in ways that they've just never even conceived before. So for our employees, they're changing the world and they're also saving the world. And same for our customers. Yeah, beautiful. Now, I haven't not experienced, no, you haven't hardly anymore. just the pilots. You have. I haven't. I haven't been. You have not. I've watched it fly. Oh, God. But we flew from JFK to Manhattan the other day. First big city demonstration. So it's real. It's out there. Yes, I know. I've seen video. First passengers coming soon.

9:04Jim Stengel:Wow. Okay. Super. Well, let us know. Come back on the show if you've had the ride. I will. Benoit, what do you think? For us, it's, I mean, I would say with two things, it's unexpected and it's healthy. That's what really get people to know us and to stick with us. And we try, I mean, on the product side, health has been what is guiding us with every development we made. But the unexpected is really what drives our marketing. And we always have that filter, like, is it liquid death or not? If it feels liquid death, then we should not do it. Right, right. That's a high bar for your marketing group, right?

9:37It's a very high bar. You never repeat anything. And it's very difficult. And to be funny every single time is even more difficult.

9:43Jim Stengel:Yeah, yeah. How long are you going to stay? Exactly. it's hard to be next to him because we have very similar brands in that we have the same DNA right we try to be surprising fun where people don't expect us to be so it's I think there's there are few brands that are as like-minded as Liquideth and Duolingo in the way we approach marketing we still haven't collaborated but at some point it will happen I'm pretty sure we're trying to find the idea it will be too expected to do it now exactly exactly now after this podcast now we kind of Yeah, ruin the surprise. I think, you know, for us, it's the fun.

10:20I think, you know, the fun is the promise that we sell you in the product, is the thing that will keep you coming back every day, where learning is a chore, right? But we made it fun. And we made something that feels so rewarding. Spend, you know, five, ten minutes a day, and you feel great about yourself. And we have a fun culture internally as well. So we reflect that in our marketing, in our product, but also in how, you know, people work at Duolingo. So fun is really that common denominator to what we do.

10:49Jim Stengel:We underrate fun, I think. Yeah, I agree. If we're not having fun with our work, who's going to enjoy it in the outside?

11:01Jim Stengel:One of the things I have learned from years of talking to the best CMOs in the world is this. The question is never just whether your creative is working. The question is whether your infrastructure can keep up with it. Because a brilliant campaign still has to travel through an ad stack, through data, through decisioning, through supply, through measurement. And every hop in that journey is a place where value leaks out. Most platforms solve one piece of that, a data company, a DSP, a measurement vendor. You stitch them together and pay a fragmentation tax in performance, in speed, and in accountability.

11:33Jim Stengel:Infillion built something very different. Demand, supply, data, measurement, and creative connected in a single composable platform. The highest performing opt-in attention formats via Infiliens proprietary tech in the industry, agnostic identity resolution solutions, and now Catalina, 130 million U.S. households of verified purchase truth running as live signal through every campaign they execute. No black boxes, no hops, no fragmented vendor relationships to manage. The only company I know of that can take you from the first moment of attention to the final proof of action for any vertical on any screen without leaving the platform.

12:11Jim Stengel:Open, composable, agentic. That is Infilion.

12:19Jim Stengel:Now, the theme of this is sort of the role of media and creating desire in the podcast we're doing here, the first of three. So you all leverage media in interesting ways, your strategies for earned, paid content. So I'd like you to talk a little bit about, take us behind the scenes. How do you do that as a leader? Create the strategy in media to attract people to your brand and to keep them interested and engaged, to keep you relevant, right? If we're not relevant, we're not salient, we're dead. And you all do that in an interesting way, and I think a successful way. So could you talk about how you approach it, your strategy, the kind of choices you made, what others could learn from you?

13:02Jim Stengel:I can start. I mean, beyond what we just talked about around our lens for creativity, which is unexpected, which is funny, we have different type of content also based on this, if we go into media on the stage of the funnel we're in. And actually, if you go behind the scene, the media strategy is very driven by data. It's as simple as it can and sticking to fundamentals. So for us is obviously you have this crazy marketing that you see at the top of the funnel on social and on TV. But for me, from a media standpoint is, how do I get this awareness and capture this awareness down the funnel? In our case, selling at retailers through retail media, right?

13:43So the behind the scene of the media is actually very boring compared to the creativity of the upper funnel of my creative team. But the strategy is really dialed in to get that audience to move down from, I know the brand to I want to try the brand to I buy the brand to I buy the brand again. And all of that with ways that I cannot really measure well, because it's not through a D2C. It's not through an app where I can measure every single interaction, every single streak or anything. It's through signals that the retailers send me back. So it's not easy. So I have to play with signal rather than very precise data point.

14:17So that's how we do it in the back end. And we measure very closely all the way down to conversion.

14:24Jim Stengel:So how do you keep your brand's personality and voice consistent through all that? Yeah. So obviously for us, the look and feel, the consistency of the visual is critical, but also we play a lot with frequency. We try to go as broad as we can, but we rather go high frequency than too broad. Right. And so to be able to get people to remember us and who we are and what we stand for, especially on the upper funnel, it's all about a very high frequency. Now, what we also want them to remember what I said earlier, we are funny, we are unexpected, but also we are healthy. So as they are now aware of the brand is how do I bring messaging that is still similar visual as the upper funnel, but now talks about why it's healthy.

15:07So that's how we try to do it. We try to obviously not move away from that besides so many different factors. Like if I'm on the NFL, the NFL is going to tell me you cannot do that crazy stuff. Well, I need to, if not, that's not me. So those are very difficult. And then you get on the retail website and it's like, no, you cannot use that word. Murder your thirst. No, there's no way you say that on a website. So it is difficult. It is challenging. But we rather not do it than do it in a different way.

15:32Jim Stengel:You must have some sort of governance to keep that going. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the governance is that our taglines are our taglines. We don't change. Our visuals are our visuals. Our campaigns are the campaigns. The only time we really had to tone it down and we were okay to tone it down was the Super Bowl. Because we wanted to be in the Super Bowl. We need to be in it. And the NFL is the NFL. So we pushed them as much as we could. Probably the brand that pushed them the most. But at the end of the day If he hadn't been to the Super Bowl We probably had backed off from it But because it was the Super Bowl We went with it And you were happy with it And we were happy with it People are kind of like When they see our Super Bowl It's like This is not really We don't have a choice And I want to be in front of 200 plus million people That are tuning in To actually watching ads So we will really be ourselves Outside of the Super Bowl But I just need to get in You're pragmatic Exactly Yeah Oliver, how about yourself?

16:28I saw it Yeah, I did too. I face a very different challenge. So we're doing category creation, right? Yeah, you sure are. We're introducing a company, we're introducing a technology, and we have this kind of unique challenge of talking about the company for around about six years before we take our first passenger, right? So what we've tried to do to maintain the interest and maintain the audience growth is we took a very particular journey from the beginning to the end. We knew the audience groups that we wanted to start with, it's investors and it's government affairs people and it's infrastructure partners, and we slowly built that up and we're just getting to turn the corner to bring consumers into our brand and over the course of that we've kept the same tone we've kept the same approach it's all about transparency and trust and we've built a really kind of hardcore of people that want to evangelize for us and now we're just getting to the bit where we get to have a lot of fun right which is where we start talking about the usp and what this is going to be and we're able to kind of turn the emotional dial it's been very very rational for the past few years as we try to put the brand together and get people to believe in something that everyone has a thousand reasons not to believe in, right?

17:27And we've been talking about flying cars for decades and decades. And they're finally here. We need to make sure we have the permission of everybody when we get to that point that we start selling the tickets.

17:38Jim Stengel:When you flip sort of into more emotional media strategy or communication, what's that look like? How do you do that in a way that keeps the trust building? Yeah, well, I think we do it from a foundation of having taught about technology and safety and all of the tens of thousands of hours of testing. like that's all there for people to go back and reference. But then we add on the beauty in the golden age of flight, right? Everybody knows what it was like the first time they took a flight. Everybody gets inspired every now and again. They look out the window. It's not hard to find emotion in travel.

18:08And we can tap into that. We just do it from a base of having explained what it is and why we're there and trying not to get too far on the hype curve.

18:16Jim Stengel:Might have read about you in editorials. I've seen you on podcasts. I mean, your company. Yeah. And it's a disruptor that I think is, you tell me, is well-liked, which is not. that easy to do right but a lot of disruptors are not liked right and we've been very intentional about it and it's taken us a long time to go through that journey and we purposefully started with not getting too exciting because you can jump to the end point yeah like we're going to be whizzing around they're going to be everywhere there'll be 10 000 in the sky and you'll see me we didn't do that right we started with let's not scare people off let's bring people with and we do a lot of demonstrations we bring aircraft to places we let people see and feel and touch it we flew it in the bay area we flew it in new york we're doing all of that before we're asking anybody to get into consideration.

18:56And those that would see you possibly as disrupting their business are partners. They are. We have Uber and Delta as partners, but they say, you know, we're connecting. We're providing something that doesn't exist today. So we're not really disrupting. We're trying to make a way for people to travel that doesn't exist today. That's a good point. Yeah.

19:12Jim Stengel:Manu, your media strategy behind the scenes, pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy. You know, at the highest level, we have two main jobs, right? The first one is being a retention business. It's a battle for us every day to get your attention and get you to come in our products to do your lesson. So when we wake up every day as a team, it's like, how can we get your attention? How can we create content that we want to consume? And eventually we'll bring into the apps so you do your lesson. And so that's really the primary strategy is showing up in people's life across any media, anything that we consume and making sure that they see the owl they see something from Duolingo, they'll be, I haven't done my lesson today.

19:55It's time for me to do it. And then the second part is really trying to connect our brand to people's aspiration around language and be able to see those moments in culture that will happen, that will create, basically, a demand for language learning. And, you know, you've got the obvious ones like travel season and the rest, but you also have the big ones like Bad Bunny, Super Bowl. When that got announced three months before we were there, right? Three months before the Super Bowl. And, you know, if you want to enjoy the halftime show for the first time, not in English, come to Duolingo. And it's trying to get ahead of those moments that will inspire people to learn the language.

20:36And so we always keep an eye on culture. We always keep an eye on what's happening because culture drives so much demand for language, whether that's K-pop, K-drama. And so that's 3DL Sprite as you go. That's cool.