Jonnie Cahill (PepsiCo) | How to Onboard with Intention

24:28And I don't feel that at all. I haven't seen that at all. It's truly consumer centric. The obsession is around how do we unlock killer insights? How do we unlock amazing creativity? And I had that question in the back of my head. At Heineken or at Diageo, you don't have the same muscle. There are probably three or four companies in the world who have the muscle like a PepsiCo. You've worked in one of them. And I wondered, would there be that imbalance or at least that leaning on the familiar muscle? And it's been such a great surprise because it couldn't be further from the truth. The obsession is consumer centricity, unlocking powerful ideas to then feed what is a very powerful machine.

25:11So I'm really pleased that that's there. It feels like a very exciting combination because if we can do those things and elevate the creativity and you have the machine, most CMOs are actually in a compensatory mode of like, I don't have this, so I need that. I mean, what if we had both? It's just going to be amazing. Again, we're here in Cannes. Can you reflect on, just talked about cultures, and you've been part of some incredible cultures. Has there been a role model? I know you've had several, all my guests do, but is there one or two in your background who have been especially influential to you in building strong organizations and organizations that stretches, that is creative, wins awards, grows brands?

25:52Yeah, I think I probably go back to arriving at Heineken. You know, I'm so recently into PepsiCo that I hope the answer to that in three years is some of the people I'm working with now. I joined Heineken with Alexis Nassar and Alexis made me understand the value of two things, ideas and craft. And he was a CMO at the time. He was a CMO. XP &G. So I'm sure you probably knew him over the years. Very intelligent, very thoughtful, very consumer centric, but his relentlessness on ideas and craft. And I think of all the things I've tried to take with me is I've had that moment of, if I walked in to see him with this, how would that meeting go?

26:32And they could go badly. And I think that sort of sense of really be committed to the core insightful thought, but then do it magnificently. Because a lot of what we hear in the conversations on the beach is amazing idea, amazing execution, but the really brilliant work is the stuff that does both. So that's a, and we work together for a short time. And often your mentors are people you work together with for years. I worked with an advertising lead at O2, Emer McCarthy. She was the best advertising practitioner I ever worked with for craft, for just squeezing the idea to points of perfection.

27:11And Emer reported to me at the time. And I think that's the other misnomer is your mentors are not. They're all over the place, right? Your mentors can be anyone who's teaching you to be a bit better.

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28:34So now you're in a global role. You're in a regional role before. And you talked a little bit about that. I mean, I did the same. I was in a line job and it wasn't on my career plan to be CMO and in corporate staff and to be a functional leader. And a call center. And a call center, yeah. So that was a shift for me. And I had to sort of be talked into it and to also imagine what could be possible in the role. And once I did that process, I got super excited by it. And I would say once I get into the role, I realized my leverage on the success of the company was far stronger than in a line role.

29:12The horizontal impact on a company of P &G scale was what had tremendous potential. So I want you to talk a little bit about that. It's going to be a different skill set for you. You're going to develop new muscles, new ways of working. So we've already touched on that a few minutes ago, but I'd like you to go there a little bit more. What excites you about it? Do you have any trepidation? You think there's new skills you're going to have to sort of develop and learn from. I did a little bit of a road trip when I got into the job to talk to other people who were in roles like that. It was massively helpful.

29:42Yeah, I've been fortunate to be on both sides in the operating businesses. I was in the low and no alcohol function and led that at Heineken, which was a new vertical at the time, which, again, from head office and had spent some time on the global brand team at Guinness. having been in the most local brand team of all in Dublin. But I would say the majority of my career was in, let's call it the line roles, a CMO at O2 or at Heineken in individual markets. I agree with you totally that understanding the opportunity you can have across multiple geographies. And that's what excites me at the moment about this role and leaving things that are enduring in multiple geographies, in multiple contexts, not the matching luggage of does everything look the same not the matching suitcase craziness of you know the global obsession with copy paste but that there's a fundamental red thread between how the brands show up around the world because consumers can feel it and they can see it now in a very different way so we don't have to look the same but we have to feel the same and I think that that's a hard thing to do if you're on the quarter if you're on the monthly sales if you're in the line role.

30:54So for me, what's exciting about it is the opportunity to help, which is an undervalued thing. It's like there are other CMOs in the markets doing the really tough stuff, the conversation with Walmart, the conversation with Tesco, the conversation with your distributors. We are fortunate enough in these roles to get to come up a level and to think what's needed for the enduring success of the brand. And actually the trap door or the danger having been in line roles is you default back into that work. I wouldn't describe it as up or down. It's just different work. And that's your comfort blanket.

31:31Because at moments in the last few weeks, I've thought, well, I really want to do something because if I was at Heineken as the CMO, I'd have done this by Friday. So it's also learning to understand how you grow and grow the business through others and accepting that that is the role, that when you're in the line role, you have your fingerprints on everything. Whereas in these global roles or regional roles, it's through others. So I think if you operate with empathy, maybe if you don't have a high degree of selfishness, like if you need to have your back padded, they're nightmare roles because people only call you when something's wrong, right?

32:06And when they need something. But if you really like working through others and you think, you know what, what makes me happy is I've helped you deliver X and we've grown the business together, then they're super rewarding. But ambiguity in these roles comes as standard. And I've been asked so many times, like, would you recommend global roles? Wholeheartedly because they give you access to a variety of cultures, a whole worldview to do things you'd never do in a line, but they are ambiguous. They're sometimes weird. They're hyper collaborative. and you have moments when you have to remind yourself how you're adding the value and not default back.

32:44So trying to connect to the teams is really the number one thing because it's all done through other people. So I know, yeah, this is probably an unfair question where you are in your onboarding, you're still listening, but any emerging trends in terms of where you think you'll spend your personal time, your personal priorities in this role once you're, you know, you've kind of done your listening tour and so on and so forth? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a few things that pop straight away. We have huge opportunities across the portfolio. The platforms and sponsorships and partnership platforms that we are lucky enough to have strike me as just being a massive opportunity.

33:17If you think about all the conversations we've seen, so many of the conversations we've seen through the week, the power of sports, of live, of connection, especially given, remember what business we're in. It's foods, it's beverages at a macro level. we naturally show up in that world we organically show up in the world of sports and partnerships and and so that to me seems like a really massive jumping off point if i take what's going on like we have world cup next year we've just launched a big report to this week with nielsen around the power of women's sports and the you know 38 growth in women's soccer 800 million fans coming and we're a partner with fifa and with uefa for champions league for women's world cup in 27 and so on.

34:04It's just a massive opportunity. And I really feel, and I'd seen this also in BevAlk, because the products we sell naturally live in that environment, it's so much easier. It's hard to hardwire MasterCard into that, harder to hardwire, you know, Citibank or MasterCard. Both brands who've done incredible work in sports, but they are having a beverage. They might be eating a pack of Lay's. And I think there's a simplicity in that that says, okay, what can we do with those platforms? We just signed Formula One and Doritos and Sting and Gatorade are partners of that. Again, a world I've been used to working in.

34:44Our experience at Heineken was that that platform was a massive unlocker of equity, of engagement with the brand, disproportionate equity. So really excited to get after that. So I think from a tactical and platform perspective, our partnerships and our sponsorships look like an incredible opportunity to connect. And so back to the common sense and things that are understood, these platforms give you such an opportunity to do creative work because the shortcuts are understood and you're not creating that. So that's a hot place to go. I think our portfolio in foods with brands like Doritos, which actually when you look at the penetration, it's less than you would expect it to be.

35:25Really? Not in developed markets like the US and Mexico, for example. But globally. But globally, 31 % penetration in Saudi. I mean, what if? What if? What if? And the question at the end, what if what? What if 35? What if 50? What if 60? In a fast-growing economy with a young population who are really open to our brands where we have system strength. So, you know, developing the portfolio, activating the partnerships for joy, for just unbridled joy, that feels like a lot of fun. And then, you know, making sure the science is embedded as well, because it's also important to understand because of our structural strength as a business, there are scientific levers we can push and pull, no pun intended, and that will grow the business.

36:14So also embedding that sort of commitment to the science of growth. Johnny, you were a good hire. I hope so. Let's see in a year if I'm back, Jim. We have to see if I'm still here. The point you're making, I want our listeners to take away. This is work that you're looking at that really only you and your team could do. Because it has scale and leverage potential that all markets can benefit from. So that's where your real value is. Working on the kinds of things you're talking about. So for anyone listening in a global role, there are a lot of lessons of what you just said. Yeah, I think at the end, when you think about your peers, and they're your peers in the markets.

36:48Like, what would I like them to say in a year's time? I'd like them to say, he's helping. Yeah. He's working on the right stuff and he's helping. And that's enough. If that's what they think, boom. And then the business will do what the business will do. I have one more area I want to pro before I go to the creative brief, and that is you worked in the non-ALC section in Heineken. It's obviously getting a lot of press. I see more shelf space. I've tried a lot of the brands myself, and I've been very pleasantly surprised how great they are. There's really no compromise and they're everywhere. So what did you learn about that category that was nascent?

37:24Yeah. What did you learn about its explosion? I know it's still small, but it's growing fast. But why now? And what's the consumer insight behind this? Yeah. So there's a, and it was an amazing privilege to be there as it happened. As the first thing I, you know, to go back a step at the time for the beverage alcohol companies, it looks like an existential threat. So the mega consumer trend around moderation, consciousness, wellness, on the surface of it, if you interpret the data superficially, this is a problem. Actually, no, this is an opportunity because you're going to have a whole new cohort of people who are going to come into the brand who would never join your brand.

38:06And they are coming in occasions that they would never come to your brand in. What could non-alc do for Monday nights? What can non-alc do for Saturday afternoons after yard work? Became the sort of the driver of the commitment. Now, there's two things going on at the time and continues to have momentum. You have a mega consumer shift towards moderation and consciousness around alcohol. That is a good thing for the world. I want my 20-year-old son at Clemson to drink a little bit less than I did in school and probably a little bit less than his grandfather did. That is a good thing. The technology also enabled the products to become truly brilliant, whether it's Tanqueray Zero available at the beach, whether it's Guinness Zero, whether it's Heineken Zero, you had products that were great, not a compromise.

38:55And then what happened because you have a mega trend and you have a product that delivers, you're able to talk with confidence about the category. And if you think about the last 40 years of non-alk, they are shadow brands because the The consumer wants to engage with brands like Guinness or Heineken or Tanqueray. They don't want Jim and Johnny's non-alek. The product, therefore, has to be good enough to be a brand experience. But once we unlock that, you could talk positively about the category. Now you can, was the Heineken launch tagline, Heineken Zero. And that was the first time we had transitioned the category from a distress category.

39:33I'll have a non-alek beer. What's wrong with you? Was always the next question. Two, I'm choosing this because it's a positive choice. So you had a mega trend, companies who looked at it like an opportunity, not a threat, a technological unlock to get the product up to scratch. But most of all, creativity that flipped it from this is weird to this is fabulous. And what the brands have seen, great for penetration, great for occasion, great for margin. Let's not forget, there's no excise on non-alk. So you have a happy CFO, you have a happy CMO, business model, and you have a happy consumer. So it was a brilliant experience.

40:16But the big thing was, it's not a threat. It's an opportunity. I love that. I love that.

40:30We're in the crib. Hey, everybody. This is Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive, and we produce the CMO podcast and are so excited to have partnered with Jim Stengel for so many years. Wanted to tell you a little bit about something that could be right for you. Vive is a program for entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to get more out of their life and become their best and happiest selves, both personally and professionally. We have a 12-month program that allows people to meet up with some of the best business leaders out there. and additionally experts in the wellness sector so that you can learn how to nurture yourself.

41:05So we teach things around sleep optimization, meditation, all those good things as well. Please reach out to us at podcasts at vibe.co to get more information. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at V-Y-V-E dot co. Thanks for listening to the CMO podcast and hope to talk to you more about vibe. Create a brief now. We're going to make it extra creative because we're in Cannes. First brand you remember creatively impacting you as a young boy. I don't know if everyone will know this, but they can Google it. There's the Smash Martians. So Smash is a brand of dried potatoes. If you want the epitome of a 70s product, this is it.

41:46It was actually on my Cadbury at the time. But such an amazing piece of work where they had Martians. And the Martians had an insight that only humans would be dumb enough to peel potatoes. And now I've come full circle. I work for a company who's built on the quality of our potatoes. But the smash Martians insight was there's a place called Earth. They seem like nice people, but they're dumb because they spend all their time peeling potatoes. Remember, I grew up in Ireland. You're destined for this role. I grew up in Ireland, so I have a special relationship with the potatoes. That's why I think I ended up on Lay's, right?

42:20Because it was always going to happen. But those, I didn't know it was an insight, but I remember thinking that's kind of clever because what did my mom and dad do? They spent quite a bit of time peeling potatoes. And this product proposition was, we'll save you time. At the time, sort of space age, a little bit geeky. They were made of pots and pans. And I remember just thinking, that's cool. And actually through my childhood, loved advertising. and ended up going to study marketing. And almost everyone you meet in marketing is an engineer or a nuclear physicist or a finance person. Advertising made me want to study marketing.

42:55But if anyone wants to see some old school 70s weird stuff, the smash Martians are worth a look. That's good. I think of Pringles when I think about the 70s, right? Yeah. That's kind of my P &G background, I guess. So what creative person in your career has been the most influential? We talked about role models and mentors, but what creative person? That's a great question. You know, I think if I go back to some of the poetry you read over the years, like coming out of the category, you know, I try to be very reflective. Things like Yeats, you know, where it forces you to reflect on the impact.

43:28His work forces you consistently to reflect on the impact you're having. tread lightly. It was a great Yates quote. And I think that keeping perspective and understanding that your creativity and your outputs have outcomes. You were in the business of making people feel things, making people think things they maybe didn't think or didn't want to think in some cases or didn't want to accept. So that concept of treading lightly, I think is probably something that sticks in my brain. Or maybe I'm just defaulting to an Irish poet because it's an easy answer. We're here in the south of France. It's a good default.

44:07You lived in so many interesting cities in your life. Which of the cities did you feel most energized and creative? Look, your hometown is always a beautiful place to live. And to work on Guinness in Dublin was a lot of fun. But I would say the challenge was it was easy to become lazy. Homogenous culture, same people, your tribe. I know how to talk to my tribe. So while that was really rewarding, I don't think it was the most energizing. I'd say the answer was Moscow, mostly because A, you're afraid for a year, just because of the sheer change in culture. Brilliant talent. I mean, the talent was, and you had colleagues who were there and visited many times.

44:46I think everyone accepted that the marketing talent on tap was just phenomenal. But I found it the most energizing because I was the most alive out of your comfort zone, really thinking about the fundamentals of how to run the business, really thinking about what does this mean culturally, linguistically, creatively, when you know nothing. Yeah, your brain's sort of on fire. Your brain's on fire. I always think it's like the rev counter on a car when you're at the traffic lights. It's normally at a one. It was at a three all the time. But it was so energizing because you realized, I don't understand this.

45:26And therefore, I'm going to try to. And I guess as a marketeer, isn't that the thing that we're all got into this business for? It's like it's to be empathetic. Like, I don't want to know what people do. I want to know why they do it. And when I got to Russia, I didn't know why they did things. I didn't understand the nuance maybe that we have in Western culture where there's more homogeneity. So that was super energizing, a lot of fun, hard, and probably the point in your career where you really didn't know if you're going to make it. It was a tough place to go, but I was also there at a very beautiful time, 2012, 13 through 16, when the country was super open.

46:06And you had, I mean, the other thing is you had so many peers from around global CPG that there was a support system, which was great. But yeah, I felt them super alive there, although they were hard yards. I was in Prague in the mid-90s, also kind of creatively on fire, but probably one of my biggest business mistakes in my career, I made in Prague because I made an assumption that I should not have made. We can talk about that later, but it's a funny now to look at it. I think I understood that my cultural understanding of the world didn't mean that this is how it was. And that's a very affronting moment when the world says to you, just because, Jim, this is what you think doesn't mean it's true, is very challenging.

46:50And you can go with that two ways. You can rail against that and actually sort of retrench into your belief system. And you see people who do that. Or you can say, holy cow, I know nothing. This is scary. Let's go find out. I mean, I used to hang out in the grocery store and watch the grandmothers and think, this is awesome. But it was a really energizing period. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And people are often surprised that that's the answer. What do you think your headline will be on Cannes when you return to your team? Don't forget the big idea. Be consistent. Stop thinking like marketeers and changing everything all the time.

47:26Like all the great work, there's red threads. You look at the brands that are doing the best work. There's a lineage back to a core idea. And we have them. So I think it's like, let's not chop and change. Let's be truthful and respectful of the ideas that have built the business. I also think one of the things we're seeing down there is more joy. I saw a piece of work for OnCloud. And I just love it. It's Elmo and Roger Federer. And it's called Soft Wins. And the inside is great because everyone in running is like, run hard. What do you mean you only did six miles? It's like, I did a mile because that's all I can do.

48:06And Elmo's saying, you know what? As long as you run a little bit. Very on brand, very warm, very endearing. So I think there's plenty of joy, which maybe is a reaction to, you know, a complicated world. There's a lot of fear in the air. It's great to see playfulness. It's great to see brands. And yes, there's purpose work. That's super important. AXA, you know, three more words. And domestic violence. super important, beautiful work. But when I look at Elmo and Roger Federer, it's just gorgeous, right? We look at Caramello and Pedigree. There's a lot of warmth down there, which I really like.

48:43I think the world probably needs it. So let's stay light and let's have some fun as well. Last question. Who's been the most inspiring person in your life? My granddad. Grandfather was a printer and instilled a bit of work ethic, I think. No nonsense. Very, very kind man. Didn't say much. We always say, you might not tell you you were loved, but you knew. And as somebody who rolled up his sleeves and made his life for his family better than it was, it's a bit like the brand concept. Like, can you leave it better than when you got it? He had a family of four with two handicapped daughters, twins in the fifties in Dublin they were hard yards and so what he did I can sort of trace the red thread back to like I'm sitting with Jim in the Louis Vuitton mansion in Cannes because he did something he did something he probably didn't have to do and and so I think it reminds me to be grateful so I would say yeah that combination of his situational environment the time the traditionality of the culture and the job he had to do makes me feel yeah that you're standing as we do in brands but also in families you're standing on the shoulders of giants how much time did you spend with him?

50:10I was very lucky he was at my wedding oh so I got time I also got lessons One Christmas he said, let's have a beer. I was probably 18 at the time. And I said, I couldn't wait, you know, because it was my grandfather. So I arrived with a bottle of Corona and he had, of course, a glass of Guinness. It's Dublin. It's, you know, whatever. It's Christmas. It's somewhere in the nineties. He took one look, patted me on the knee, stood up and walked away. He was going to have a beer with me, but it wasn't going to be a Corona. So he was true to his values. That's good. Yeah. I got some time and I got a few lessons.

50:45That's a good place to end it. That's the mark of a great brand. Yes, absolutely. And I couldn't wait to drink it. You shot your grandchild. I couldn't wait. I thought I was so cool and he thought I was so crap. That was my conversation with Johnny Cahill. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand in life. The first one, learn to be a conscious onboarder. We're always onboarding to new roles. I did it lots and lots in my career. I am sure you are too. Johnny is a wonderful role model in how to think about onboarding with intention. He talked about speaking with many, many of the right people, taking the opportunity for good connectivity, and how he's used to pivotal events like Cannes Lions Festival as ten-pole moments to learn more about the role, his team, and their roles.

51:30Second takeaway, never lose your common sense. This guy is full of common sense. He thinks about it as an unlocker of creativity. And as brand leaders, we do often overthink the ideas. He loves the thought of leaning on things people already know and leveraging that, but thinking of them in a bit of a different way. And third takeaway, keep your promises. Johnny talked about not choosing a role because of a promise he made to his daughter to not move her to another school. So we often talk about family life, business life, and how they're integrated, intertwined. Johnny was very intentional about keeping his promise to his daughter, and he's very happy about that in retrospect.

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