New Podcast Series // The Brand Builder's Playbook - Episode 1 // Why Is It Important To Build a Brand?! With Chris Burggraeve

0:00Hello all, Jim here, and I'm thrilled to be sharing an exciting new show that we've been working on for months. And I can say that my team and I are super excited to finally bring it to life. It's called the Brand Builders Playbook, a special eight-part series created in partnership with our friends at Barra.ai. In a world where CMOs are expected to do more with less, drive revenue, prove impact, and keep pace with accelerating change, the Brand Builders Playbook is your guide to what actually works. I'll be joined by my fellow host, Ryan Barker, CEO of Barra.ai. and along the way we'll welcome guest co-host Lindsay Waking of Nonfiction Research and Kate Lamberton of the Wharton School.

0:38Together we'll sit down with senior marketing leaders from some of the world's most iconic brands including MasterCard, Molten Coors, Gap, Ally and many more. These are unfiltered conversations about how today's top marketers are building resilient revenue-driving brands and how they're reimagining the playbook in an era of AI, shifting consumer expectations and constant disruption. Now, here's the important part. You'll hear the very first episode right here in the CMO podcast feed. But if you'd like to hear the rest of the series, and I hope you will, head over and follow the Brand Builders Playbook on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.

1:15If you're tired of vague advice and want to know how great brands are actually built in 2025 and beyond, this is your playbook. So let's get started. This is the Brand Builders Playbook. Brand health today is top line tomorrow. Warren Buffett had this famous phrase around this saying, it's only when the tide goes out that we can see who's swimming naked. There's a lot of people swimming naked at the moment. Welcome to the Brand Builders Playbook, the show for modern marketers who are done with guesswork and ready to implement what actually works. I'm Ryan Barker, CEO of Barra.ai. And I'm Jim Stengel, the former global marketing officer of P &G and host of the CMO podcast.

1:54In a world where CMOs are asked to do more with less, this is your guide to building resilient, revenue-driving brands that thrive no matter the climate. We'll unpack the strategies behind iconic brands, talk to the leaders shaping the future of marketing, and challenge what you think you know about brand building in the age of AI, evolving expectations and constant disruption. Okay, Ryan, let's get into it. Hi, everyone. This is Jim Stengel, and welcome to Episode 1 of the Brand Builders Playbook. Hey, I have another show called the CMO Podcast where I've been doing it for six and a half years, talking to senior marketing people about their life, their passions, their work, their teams.

2:31This one's going to be different. And what I hear a lot now from the people I talk to in the branding marketing space is things are really changing. Every day is different. Chaos, uncertainty. We hear it all. We were talking about it ad nauseum. But the implications of that for how we build brands, I don't think we've unpacked enough. So our goal for this show, The Brand Builders Playbook, and it's going to be eight episodes, we want to leave you with a playbook that is built for 2025 to help you build your brand in these really challenging times. So I think if we can give you guidelines, a playbook, and eight episodes, each with a different theme and each one sequential, so that you can, I hope, leave this series with more confidence that you are bringing it all to build your brand and help it reach its potential.

3:24So anyway, I can't wait to do this. I think it's so timely. The two people I'm about to introduce to you, I love, I love working with them. Every show will have a special guest. Today's is Chris Burgrave, which we'll talk a lot more about in a few minutes. I'm going to turn it over to one of my co-hosts, Ryan Barker, who I've known for many years and have a tremendous amount of affection and respect for. Ryan, great to join you for the show. Thanks, Jim. Excited to be doing this. I'm Ryan Barker. I am a CEO and founder of Avera.ai. I've spent my career helping CMOs justify their contribution to the bottom line by bridging the gap between marketing and finance.

3:58And I totally agree, Jim. There's so much uncertainty going on in this world. Brand is sort of taking the back seat. Yet, with all the advancements of data and technology and frameworks, how do you navigate that? It could be overwhelming. And so this is a no BS playbook where we can give practical advice, bringing stewards of the industry. And Lindsay, over to you. Hey, guys, I am Lindsay Waking. I am the chief strategy officer at Nonfiction Research. And Nonfiction Research specializes in both deeply immersive and also deeply quantitative research into audiences and brands. And we have done a lot of the audience work that laid a lot of the brand building foundations for some of the biggest brands, Google, Disney, Frito-Lay.

4:44We're on the ground floor of some of what we'll talk about during this series. Well, I'm super excited to be working with both of you in this series. And I think it's helpful to talk about our history together, right? Ryan, I met you maybe eight years ago when your company was young and was super inspired by the mission of your company and the new capability you're bringing to the marketplace. Lindsay, you're a newer friend. I met you, I don't know, maybe a year and a half ago when I asked you to be on the CMO podcast. Then we ended up doing a presentation together at the 4A Stratfest. And I fell in love with your company, the team, your mission.

5:19So I just think the three of us, we share a lot of values. We enjoy being together. You two are newer friends. I'm sort of the glue that brought us together. But I am so hopeful that what we're about to do in the series is going to be fun and useful and meaningful for all the brand builders out there who are seeking a new playbook for the times we're in to build their brand. So before we jump into this, it's our episode one. How are you both feeling about this? I mean, are you a little bit nervous, a little bit excited, a little bit apprehensive? Lindsay, I know your own sabbatical. You're running around the country researching all kinds of bizarre things.

5:55So how are you feeling about it? I'm so excited. I feel like I haven't talked to people in our industry for a month and a half. So I'm a little bit untamed right now. Perfect. And I'm thrilled, Jim. This is a topic that is so long overdue. I think the importance of brand is stronger now more than ever, especially with all the uncertainty going on in the world. So what's your hope, both of you, for... I mean, we're doing several episodes for this series. Every one will have a different theme. Today, we're starting with a very fundamental one, which we'll get to in a minute. But what's your hope is just step back from this that our listeners will gain from the entirety of this series when they walk away from it?

6:31And I assume most of the listeners, you never know, but most of them will be people who are running brands at all levels from junior to senior. What's your hope that they will get from this? And Ryan, why don't we start with you? Yeah, my hope is that CMOs and other brand builders understand in a linear fashion on how to measure, manage and maximize brand in a way that is used as a strategic asset, not an overlooked expense that a lot of Wall Street and finance individuals think of. Lindsay, my guess is your answer is going to be different. I mean, I hope this, you know, I think it can be so hard to carry the conviction and belief in the value of brand through tumultuous times, you know.

7:11And so I really hope I think we can inspire people to have that conviction and then give them the tools to translate and have those hard conversations where, you know, they need to defend value and figure out how to measure and translate to other parts of the organization. I mean, this topic is evergreen, right? We could have done this show 40 years ago and it would be relevant. but things are really crazy in 2025. And I think everyone I talk to is trying to figure out the playbook. What's changed? What's different? How should I approach my work? How should I approach my teams? What's the role of brand?

7:40So I think our timing on this is spot on. And we have lots of different voices coming in throughout this series. And I'm so looking forward to, I hope, producing something that's really going to help people in what they're wrestling with right now in what's the playbook to grow their business and grow their brand. We're going to open every episode. We're going to have a little bit of a tradition here. So because this is the Brand Builders Playbook, we're going to start with what do each one of us see right now going on in the market that is kind of inspiring us? Some brand that's using a playbook, which we think is really interesting, surprising, and this could be a success, could be a failure, could be something that we like, something that we don't like.

8:19And the playbook that I think is really interesting now is the Chili's Playbook. you know, the bar and grill, just some financial background on this. The stock price of this company is up 5X in three years. It's up 2.5X in the last 12 months. Okay. And we're dealing with some interesting market conditions. And the reason I like the playbook is the CEO has been there about three years, the CMO about the same time. They're part of a larger leadership team. They came in and said, you know, it's not that complicated running a restaurant, right? Great service, great food, great ambiance, clean restrooms, fun.

8:55So let's do that and do that really well. And they focused on the most popular menu items and they doubled down on those. So focus, simplification, clarity, and then, so they're doing all that really well. They're being rewarded with higher traffic. But the real, I think, clincher is they noticed on social media. So people were holding up their receipts after going through the drive-thru lane in fast food chains like McDonald's. And they were holding up like$42 I just spent in the McDonald's drive-thru. So Chili's basically took that and said, we need to expand our TAM, our total market. We're not competing just with casual restaurant consumers.

9:37We're competing for everyone in fast food. So they sort of took McDonald's as their foil and said, for about the same price as McDonald's, You can come into Chili's and sit down, have great service, have$6 margaritas, have endless chips, and have a great burger and fries. And their traffic just skyrocketed. So the playbook, reframe your market, think about what you're really good at, provide tremendous value, and be in touch with social and be agile enough that you can pivot when you're hearing something from customers. So it's a playbook that's really working. They're really growing. The morale of the company's all-time high.

10:12So fabulous playbook. So Ryan, what's a playbook you're loving these days? Yeah, I've been really impressed with Liquid IV. I think they play in a world of a sea of sameness. And while many different brands in their space communicate and over-communicate on functional benefits like hydration, they're doubling down on the emotional connection and consistently at every touch point and every channel. And I think a big part of that is having to prove that emotional connection is a way to build differentiation when perhaps from a functional standpoint, you might be at parity. I also think a lot of companies have been over-relying on performance marketing, on promotions.

10:53And here's a company that's really focusing on emotion over promotion to win the day and they're not taking shortcuts. So I've been very impressed with them. Their CMOs, XP &G, by the way. So great, great young CMO. Lindsay, you're on sabbatical. You're doing all kinds of strange things. You're planting a garden, which we were talking about before we started recording. So who knows what you're going to say here? What playbook are you admiring now? Oh, so a couple months ago, a friend of mine, like a childhood friend said to me, they were like, remember when we were young and our parents forced us to shop at Aldi and it was like embarrassing.

11:26Like, I think Aldi's cool now. I was like, is Aldi cool now? And then I started looking around and I was like, Aldi is cool now. And I have become obsessed with, I mean, they're exploding. They're like planning to open, I think, 225 stores in the U.S. in 2025. And I think what's so genius about it is like, you know, when I was a kid, like honestly, in the U.S., I feel like the product wasn't it was cheap, but like their fresh goods weren't that great. They've like really upped the quality of their fresh food. Their food's great. Their products are great. But they've also like started to build a brand around a store that has no brands, which I think is genius.

12:06And they've like leaned into the fun of like frugality, which I think is like, you know, we tend to think about price and these discount places are so functional. But I think they've really found this like emotional angle. And they, you know, they have this very infamous it's called the Aldi Fines Isle. And it's like random products. Like it can be anything from like a dress to like a blazer to like a piece of furniture to like a basket at this like grocery store. And it's constantly changing. and it's all like super discounted, great deal of stuff. And fans have taken to call it the Aldi Isle of Shame because they end up spending so much money on these random things they find in Aldi.

12:46But it's worn like a badge of honor and people will like show off the things they have found. It's got like a Facebook group with like millions of followers. And so they've just managed to have so much fun. They did this campaign a couple of years ago. They created like a generic brand version of Adidas called Aldidas. And so they're just having, I just feel like they're having so much fun with that like mindset around frugality and creating this like fandom around a brand with no brands. It's interesting that you mentioned that, Lindsay, because we pulled some Baradata on Aldi. What you're seeing here is what we call a DNA chart where we can see the high associations for the brand versus a competitive set.

13:24And specifically, Kool, one of the things you called out is, in fact, one of the primary impactful drivers for the Aldi brand. And they've evolved, right? We lived in Germany in the late 90s, and we shopped in Aldi in Germany. They were not having fun back then. You know, so give them credit, right? They've been in touch. They've evolved the brand and everyone wants a little bit of a smile in their life. And they're certainly doing that. In addition to everything else, they do well. The first episode of this series is the right topic, right? And it's such a fundamental question. Why would we be doing a series on the Brand Builders Playbook if it wasn't important to build a brand?

14:00There wasn't conviction in building a brand. And I don't say that lightly because that's not the case in many companies, right? There is not that conviction to build one. I remember years ago after I left P &G, Toyota invited me over to Japan to speak to their board about why it's important to build a brand. And this is a pretty good brand, right? But they were asking philosophical, why should we spend resources in building our brand if we make great products and that people like our products? So it is an age-old question. And so we're starting there. That's going to be the topic. And our guest will reflect back as someone who's committed his life to the importance and value of building a brand.

14:41So Lindsay, I want to start with you. When did you discover your aha moment or your conviction that building a brand is actually really important in business and I guess in life at large? When was that moment in your life? You know, I think sometime in my mid-20s, I just started in the industry. And, you know, this this idea of brand is such an abstract concept in our industry and we get really heady about it. Right. We have brand frameworks and brand purpose statements. And and we, you know, we do a lot of these abstract exercises to to find the one word that our brand is going to stand for. And I think that makes it all this abstract thing.

15:18But I think when you step away and you think about yourself as like a person in the world and like what things are you drawn to and what things do you remember? and what things do you like mean something to you, you start to realize that everything that is very important to you symbolizes something. And, you know, I was just talking, this is like a very recent exercise, but like I was just talking to a friend about Charlie XCX and Brat Summer last year. And I think what's so amazing about that album and something that like artists, I think sometimes get more easily than marketers in this day and age, because I think they don't overthink it, is like, it's not just about the music, it's about the world that you build.

15:56And it's about what that world stands for. And it's about creating a world that people want to be a part of. And I think when you think about the things that you love as just a human, not as a marketer, you find that idea of there is a symbolic world that exists in the places that you want to go and the groups you participate in and the things you buy and the music you listen to. And all of that is essentially brand. Like we can define brand a million different ways, but I think about it as like a symbolic world that you want to be a part of. And that's what makes Brat more than just a music album.

16:30That's what made Nike more than just a shoe. And, you know, there's other aspects of marketing that are so important and the machine doesn't work without it. But brand is ultimately what creates the meaning and desire. And if you don't have that, then what's the draw, you know? And I think looking at my own life and looking at the things that I loved, that's where I found that, I think, truth. Well, meaning and desire, which leads to financial impact, which obviously we'll get to a bit later. Ryan, I want to flip it to you. You obviously have conviction that brand is important because you started a company to really measure, optimize, and prove the financial impact of brand.

17:07But I want you to reflect a bit, as Lindsay just did, when did you develop that conviction? You've been in this industry a while before you started your own firm. You're WPP. So when did that aha moment happen for you? Yeah. Well, prior to WPP and even Omnicom, my background is in economics and finance. And so here I am in the agency world and I was blown away by the power of creative. And I'm a huge believer in creative. However, I started seeing people getting awards of really funny commercials or cute babies and puppies. But the financials of the company are tanking. And I was like, why are we celebrating this?

17:42and there's creative that has financial impact that doesn't. And then that's really where the conviction became to understand behavioral economics on, is there a way to do both? How do we understand that brand is an asset, not an expense that does that? And so from there, I just dove in all things brand, wanting to understand the economics, the research, analytics, and how it comes together. But it started in my early 20s. That's a good segue to bring in our featured guest for the week, Chris Burgrave. But before we do that, Lindsay, we're going to give you a bit of a break. You can go grab a cup of your favorite branded coffee or whatever you're drinking.

18:18So, Lindsay, enjoy your little break. And Chris, can you come into our conversation? My good friend, I won't say old friend. He's very young at heart. My good friend, Chris Burgrave. Welcome to our show. Now, listen, I can't imagine, Chris, I'm going to embarrass you a little bit, make you blush. You are the perfect guest to start this series. I've known you for a long time. We met at P &G. You went to Coca-Cola, first global CMO of AB InBev. And since you've left, I think you have been a leading voice, if not the leading voice in this topic of the importance of brand in finance and marketing and in companies at large.

18:53In fact, you have a couple of books on the topic. So I want to thank you for joining us. It's great to see your face. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. And Ryan, you two are going to probably nerd out here a little bit. My role in the next 15 or 20 minutes is to prevent you two from getting too geeky. But I want to toss the ball over to you, Ryan, geek number one, to start this conversation with Chris on the importance of brand building as a financial activity and as a financial asset. Yeah. So this is great, Chris. I read your books as well. So excited to jump in. So while the topic is what's the importance of brand, I'd like to start with you is when did you realize that brand is more than an expense, that it's an asset that needs to be measured with the same finesse and science as any other financial KPI.

19:37When did that dawn to you? Well, you know, when you're a young brand manager in P &G, they keep telling you that you're the general manager of the brand. I mean, at least at that time, that's what they told us. And it resonated with me. Now, when you work on bigger brands like the Pampers, which was my first brand, or the big detergents, you're in that communication framework. But then at some point in time, I was thrown into the new category of drinks where P &G started to compete with the likes of Coca-Cola. And all of a sudden, I had to put my hands on the business of drinks, a brand called Punica, a German brand that was acquired like Sunny Delight equivalent.

20:16That was not easy. That was a completely different animal in the business, a way for P &G to drive growth, but with different dynamics. And we needed to learn not just how to make great advertising on Punica, we were great on that, but how to compete on a business model, how to think about distribution, how to think about all the aspects and facets on a brand. So this is the first time that I met, probably earlier than I anticipated, the need to think holistically, financially, business-wise around the brand. And that the brand is a means to an end and not just, you know, as a brand manager, you want to win Cannes Awards.

20:51While we're probably going to jump into many of the war stories of how to quantify brand and the financial benefits, what was the number one financial benefit of brand that really opened your eyes beyond potentially just sales? To me, a brand is, I mean, very simply, it's a means to an end, financially speaking. If you're, I mean, I sit on boards, you look at it through the lens of a balance sheet and building intangible assets. in the end, a brand is all about growth, profit, and your risk profile. I think it's a way to drive growth with customer acquisition and retention. It's a way to drive profit with pricing power.

21:30It's a way to de-risk your profile and famous alphas and betas and create some more surprises. So de-risk, reduce your beta in financial terms and increase your alpha. So now, So, Jim, I'm geeking out. Yeah, you are. Could you explain that to my seven-year-old granddaughter or my two-year-old granddaughter? What drives boards? What do people like about brands? What do brands do? They help you create predictable cash flows in the future. It's all about cash flow. Repeatable, predictable cash flows. And so that's the growth component. De-risking those cash flows. the more you have a brand that people love repeat by which whatever the rhythm of your business is the better your risk profile the more predictable your risk profile comes technically your beta which is your variance versus the market where you go to market average in terms of risk and the chance that you outperform which is the surprise alpha that every wall street guy thinks about you know how can i overperform versus my expectations that's alpha you can do that with brands.

22:35Brands can truly surprise and outperform. Now, Chris, I talked a minute ago about, I left P &G and Toyota invited me over to talk about why is this concept of brand important? Now, if I had you with me at that time, and I had a skeptical board in front of me that thinks if they just make great products and have a great sales organization, they can win. How would you have handled that presentation to a skeptical board about the concept of brand? You can start from the base principle, right? Is Toyota selling cars or is Toyota selling Toyota? I mean, there's a difference between a cola and a Coca-Cola, between a diaper and a Pampers, between a beer and a Stella Artois.

23:10There's a difference between a car and a commodity and a brand called Toyota for which you are in principle willing to pay more for. So ultimately, back to those cash flows, I would speak Wall Street and finance and direct the whole discussion around gentlemen and ladies. if you are interested in building the strongest intangible assets as part of your fiduciary duty as a board, you have an obligation. I mean, if you choose to be in the branded business, you have an obligation to, because you can also choose to be in the commodity business. So if you make a strategic choice to be in the branded good business and not compete on pure operational excellence, then you have a duty to infuse that name Toyota with all the functional and emotional reasons possible for people to pay more for your product.

24:02It adds to the product. I mean, if you go back to the fundamentals of the four Ps, it starts with a great product, always. I mean, I absolutely am convinced of the need for product superiority, but it's the start. It's a necessary but not sufficient condition of the whole equation. You wrote a few books on this. What's been the reaction to those books in thinking about brand as a financial asset? I think it is exponentially increasing. And you know why it's increasing? Because of the world we're living. We are being hit by meteors at the moment. There was no reason for people to think too much about the bridge between marketing and finance.

24:37So academia calls this the managerial marketing finance gap. It has been around for 60 years. And if you think back to our zero interest rate policy from the last decades, for 40 years, we had no inflation, nobody worried about the P of price. Now, all of a sudden, people are waking up and saying, my margin is under pressure. How do I maintain or strengthen that margin as a CEO in these environments? And the only way you can do that is on a branded good business is to raise your price, but justify that price increase in the mind of the consumer. That means willingness to pay must be built. And my old adage, which I would use for Toyota, which I did use at ABI, which I use at every meeting I have, is brand health today is top line tomorrow.

25:24Warren Buffett had his famous phrase around this saying, it's only when the tide goes out that we can see who is swimming naked. There's a lot of people swimming naked at the moment. Totally agree with you, Chris. Yes. And one of the key things we talk a lot about at Thera.ai is how to measure brand love in a way that it reduces price sensitivity. I'm curious because in your tenure, you've been in good times and bads when finance or private equity wants to cut marketing investment. Even if you proved brand is a valuable asset, how did you have that conversation? What did you do to fight back? It's a very good question and it's not an easy answer.