Why Brands Win or Lose - Scott Davis

0:00Scott Davis:Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. I'm your host, Steve Olenski. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency veteran, part journalist, I was a writer for Forbes for 10 years. I've had so many insightful conversations over the years with business leaders, to athletes, to celebrities, to of course, CMOs. The only difference now is instead of sharing those insights through written form, I'm doing it this way. My guest today is Scott Davis, Chief Growth Officer at Profit. Scott is one of the architects behind Profit's evolution from a 35-person brand shop into a global growth consultancy with 500-plus people across 16 offices, partnering with CEOs and CMOs who are serious about turning brand into a real growth engine.

0:48Scott Davis:He leads Profit's global go-to-market, the CMO practice, and corporate marketing, sitting squarely at the intersection of strategy, execution, and results. Over his career, Scott has worked with some of the most iconic brands on the planet. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, IBM, the NBA, J &J, Hershey's, and if I kept going, we would be here too long, so I'll just say and more. While also advising PE and VC firms and their portfolios on how to scale with intention. He's the author of multiple influential books on brand and growth, an adjunct professor at Kellogg, a longtime partner of the ANA, a Forbes columnist, and a trusted voice boards, founders, and operators listen to when growth actually matters.

1:41Scott Davis, as I was saying to you off air, one, I'm shocked we have never met before, and two, welcome to the show. It's great to be here, Steve. I am shocked too, and I would appreciate if you could share that intro with my wife because she does not believe a thing I do. So, very excited to be here.

1:58Scott Davis:Oh my God. I've said it hundreds of times, for some reason people like when I read their intros. I'm like, you know, that's a career. I shouldn't just be charging people to read intros. You have the voice. Exactly. Okay. We're going to cover a lot, including Super Bowl, which we're recording this the day after. but I want to start with the most recent 2020, 25 brand winners and losers, right? You've been writing this for years, this piece, and we can get into the origin of all that if you want to, that'd be great. But I want to start when you look at the 2025 list, the most recent list, what jumped out as different this time around?

2:36Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for asking. So this is a study I've been doing for 14 years, lots of brands that I covered. You know, what's interesting is as you write an article, like this, and I know you've written a lot for Forbes also, it starts to become a snapshot of the year, of what happened culturally, what happened to society, what happened politically, what happened with brands, obviously. So this was a year where there's a lot. There's a lot of trends, and we'll probably cover this off when we talk to Super Bowl. AI, obviously, was big. GLP-1s were big. I mean, there's just some trends that you could not avoid.

3:11So I'll just give you like some of the highlights. I still saw a lot of inclusivity, which has been a trend for a while, you know, with Sephora and Patagonia, Skim's big announcement of their kind of their partnership with Nike, Nike itself, investing two and a half billion dollars in women's sports. I saw other brands leaning out of exclusivity and into inclusivity, which was really cool, like Victoria's Secret, which is a brand I used to put on my brand losers list for many years, is now one of these inclusive brands that is really reinventing itself and had like a crazy, crazy year last year, 183 % gained year over year.

3:50And Abercrombie, you know, you walked into the stores with a cologne and you walked right out going to throw up somewhere. Now it's a great store. It's modern, it's made for everyone. And it's just totally, so I love that. You had brands that went for pure reinvention last year, Walmart, which is one of my brand winners this year. They now consider themselves an e-commerce tech player first, and then they just happened to sell a lot of stuff in a big box. And that was earmarked by their reclassification on NASDAQ. Hinge is a brand I love following. 27 % year-over-year growth, huge market share, 30 million users.

4:29The best thing I love about them, Steve, is their brand mission, their North Star, their purpose is we're designed to be deleted. And that is such a different way of thinking about these dating apps and their overall purpose. I talk about Reinvention of the Gap, McDonald's Coke. I talk a lot about newer brands that I think are here to stay. I talk about Quinn's, the 100 % transparent clothing brand that's online that just has, I think, totally reinvented this world of what consumers are looking for most. They'll pay for it, but they want to understand how you got to that cost. And this transparency model, I've used Quinn's for several of my other clients, Oura Ring and Whoop, I mean, two, Biometric and Core Health Mark, you know, they just measure every single thing about your body and how it works and how it doesn't work.

5:16And it feeds you insights to help you live a healthier life. And then of course, there's Labubu. So, you know, newer brands. And then there's brands that Steve had some bad trust issues. Boeing has been on my list several years now. They just can't get the comms right. When there's a data breach like Wells Fargo had or the United Health Group, you're going to end up on the list. Or when you're Southwest Airlines, who was on my winner's list for several years, and then you decide to rewire your purpose and reinvent some of the signature policies and some of the things that you promised to your consumers and try to be like every other airline, you're not going to have a great year.

5:56And then finally, the one that I talk about, I don't blame Tylenol for what happened to it. I blame them for the response and how long it took them to respond to the issues that arose from the administration back in August, September. That was the preamble to getting to the actual winners and losers.

6:14Scott Davis:Yes, exactly. Which I want to get to in a second. But I think it'll help the listeners who are not familiar with the list. Yeah, yeah. You know, how is I mean, what is it? What are the parameters? What are you judging on? Give us some of that kind of behind the curtain stuff. Yeah. So this is this is a study I started when I was writing for Forbes 14 years ago. And quite honestly, it was polling my 600 colleagues around the world. So we have a lot of different offices, a lot of different folks from different generations, and getting getting their insights on the brands that It had the biggest impact on them personally or in the news, culturally, brands that their clients are talking about.

6:55They're talking about with their clients. And it just turned into a thing. So as I continue to do this, I've used my profit family. I've used clients. And I've used a lot of research to get to this list. And all it is, is a winner is a brand that did something special, different, innovative. It could be an experience. It could be a product. It could be a new channel. It could be a total revitalization, like I talked about earlier, or it could be a total cultural shifter. And then the loser, and I hate that word, but it's just the mere juxtaposition of winner, is a brand that does something that put them on the wrong side of the customer, the wrong side of the consumer, the wrong side of the news.

7:33And generally when a brand does something to break trust or whatever the brand promises that they made. and I've had, I went back and I did for this interview a little longitudinal study of the 14 years that I've done this study and there's been 65 unique brand winners and losers and the amount of repeat offenders on both the brand loser side in terms of continuing to come up year after year but then also a number that have been winners year after year. It's been pretty amazing.

8:01Scott Davis:Yeah, I definitely want to dive deeper into the list as a whole But let's just look at last year, go back to that, and start with the winning side. Okay. On the winner's list, what were the few behaviors or decisions that clearly separated them from everyone else? So if I think about the winner's list overall, they did things that were relevant to consumers. They met consumer needs in ways that their core competitive set could not. They did things to get into the cultural zeitgeist, to make their brand more prominent and potentially introduce their brand to new consumers or new customers. Innovation is always, you know, I look at some of the brands that won last year.

8:46Innovation is always a core hallmark of those that did something really unique and different and really stood out. And then brands that recognize that brands built in isolation are not going to really succeed longer terms. brands built with partners and in a larger ecosystem, those are the ones that tend to do well.

9:05Scott Davis:Okay, that's great. From the winner's perspective, let's look at the other side. In terms of that, would it be bad execution, bad leadership? How do you summarize those who fall on the bad list, the loser list? It always starts with bad leadership. So let's be clear. There's choices that have been made that I imagine leaders will look back, some will, and say that was just a bad choice that we made that affected our customer base, our employee base, and ultimately it eroded trust. Sometimes you could be on this brand loser list if you're just going against the cultural current and you're doing something that is not in favor.

9:43And a lot of us are looking for brands that are more aligned with our values than ever before. And other times you just totally just break the promise. Like you did something that's just so off quote unquote brand for your brand that it just, it leaves consumers and customers with their scratching their heads wondering why. Yeah, exactly.

10:04Scott Davis:That's, that's exactly, yeah, we could talk about that for sure. Okay. If I'm a CMO and I'm listening and it's the early part of 2026 as we're recording this and I'm wondering, hmm, are we quietly drifting toward the loser list? What, what are some early warning signs you would give them to be on the lookout for? Yeah, I would, you know, as I look at both the winner and the loser list, I would be ridiculously clear about what my brand promises and what you should expect. I always talk about this with my clients. The easiest way to define brand is a unique and relevant promise made and an exceptional experience delivered.

10:42That's it. Get your promise right, get your experience delivered right, and you've got a great brand. Either of those fall apart, you're in trouble. And so I would say many of these lost sight of what the promise was and And then probably delivered an underwhelming experience on the other side. So I would say that's number one. Number two is make sure your employees are clear on what the promise is and what they're expected to deliver on that promise. Whether it's a physical, whether it's a physical or a service, online, offline, be crystal clear. And then continue to have like a rolling thunder of moves that affirm and reaffirm your promise that you're making to the world.

11:21Scott Davis:Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's take a holistic look back at the whole time you've been doing this. I think you said 12 or 13 years, correct? Yeah, yeah. First question, when you looked at the 30 ,000 holistic view, what hasn't changed about what makes brands win? Innovation has not changed at all. I look at some of the tech winners. I look at the consumer winners. I look at the entertainment, media, or business, retail. All of them have won in that year for something they did from either an innovation perspective, a new experience perspective, or kind of an expansion into a new category perspective.

11:57So innovation has always been at the forefront. Developing experiences that are remarkable, especially as we've moved into more, when I did 14 years ago, is a little bit more physical. Then we had this bridge period where it's physical digital. Now it's, you know, obviously much more digitally oriented. And these brands have all moved and they've made the right kinds of moves and they've understood the incredible balance that they have to have with consumers that are expecting seamless, frictionless experiences across all of these. And then, you know, quite honestly, continue to invent and reinvent yourself and look at what's next and be prepared for that next wave of innovation, that next wave of consumer needs, that next wave of change and shifts in your category.

12:39And so every one of these, I look at the 30, 37 winners over time. Again, many multiple winners just continue. I mean, Netflix in 2013 was the winner because of the moves they made from mail to streaming. And obviously, they continue to be a winner for continuing to innovate. Same with Microsoft, Samsung, and several others.

12:57Scott Davis:Okay. Kind of conversely, what has changed dramatically over those decade-plus years? A little twist, though. What has changed dramatically over this year, but CMOs still underestimate today. Yeah, I think CMOs underestimate that the promise that they made, and I'm going to use Target as an example. I love Target. I still love Target as a brand. But I think they underestimate the idea that that brand halo that was created in the Tarjay years, I'm going to just use them as an example, will carry them into the next horizon of growth and the next horizon of consumers that engage with that brand. And that's just not the case.

13:38And so I think that is something that you have to continue to think about. You can call it your brand promise, your brand purpose, your brand North Star, your brand mission, whatever you want to call it. You have to continuously look at that and continuously reinvent. When you break promises like Facebook and Meta, which has continuously appeared on my list and a few others you could imagine, you have to look at the fundamental reasons why. Why trust is so low? Why trust in Facebook is in the 20 % levels? Like, what is it about it? And are you going to do something different? And I mean, those are, again, to your earlier point, these are leadership choices and your employees.

14:16And then often the market will just follow those leadership choices.

14:20Scott Davis:Yeah, it's just, to me, it's always been, and you know, I talk like you, I talked to my whole career has been basically been talking to CMOs. And there's some, and I'm not going to get all the traits here, but that I see, but a chief among them is, you know, keep things simple, get out of your own way, right? And you got to have that really honest lens, like you were just talking about going, is this working? Or do I want it to work? And there's a difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Walmart is a great example. And I mentioned them earlier of a brand looter. It was, you know, this was back in pre 2017.

14:54It's just a big warehouse with terrible customer service. And just it wasn't made for, you know, every consumer, obviously. And they just kind of jumped on the, I'll just say, Amazon-led tech wagon and continuously reinvented themselves every single year to basically, I would say they're almost a category of one next to Amazon in the big box space. And if anybody's going to take on Amazon, it's going to be Walmart. What was cool in doing this analysis, there was some losers that became winners, and then there were some winners that became losers over the 14 years, and some of them for very obvious reasons.

15:31Scott Davis:Right, right. And is that, is there a, how fine is that line? I think some people would wonder, Scott, between. I'll give you a great example, Steve. The fine line last year, Duolingo was a brand winner. It crushed. I'm not going to say it came out of nowhere, but it became a cultural phenomenon in a zeitgeist and in learning new languages and doing it on your time. And it was very human centric and humanity is such a big part in human centricity, such a big part of brands today. And then last May, they introduced a more profound AI interface and Duolingo lost a lot of that humanity and that personalization and this feeling of I'm in it with this company together, we're going to figure out and crack the code on this language.

16:16And they ended up as a brand loser this year. That's in 12 months, 12 months. So it could go really fast the other way. So you have to be very careful.

16:25Scott Davis:Is the opposite true? Can it go very fast the other way to be on a winner's side? Or does it take longer? It takes a little longer. If you're trying to truly transform and be a different kind of brand, sort of what McDonald's is going through and a few other stalwart brands, it's going to take a little while to get back some of that legacy attributes that you once owned and also get to a new generation of buyers that really don't know that much about you. I'm constantly fascinated by when you and I, we look at through the same lens of kind of that brand's doing really great. In A. Brogan, why the hell are you trying to fix it?

17:04Yeah, yeah.

17:05Scott Davis:It just blows my mind. I will give you one that I think has made really quick strides, especially for the scale of a top five QSR. It's Starbucks. Yeah, Starbucks in the last, you know, before last year, before New Leadership came in, it was a highly commoditized or in-store service, oversaturated menu options. And it was just not what you and I remember kind of growing up that third destination and had lost a lot of that brand mojo. Introduced New Leadership, went back to its roots, cleaned up the menu board, rewired the stores to become that third place. writing a little nice note on your cup every single day, doing some phenomenal advertising.

17:46And I would say Starbucks is one of those that you ask the question, you know, this is moving the Titanic. The Titanic just moved. It moved over the last two years and it's pretty cool. So I remain a Starbucks fan.

17:57Scott Davis:Understood. Okay. We were recording this the Monday after the Super Bowl. And every year we hear the same thing. Nothing stood out, blah, blah, blah. From a brand perspective, what are people missing when they judge Super Bowl ads too quickly? Well, I think, first of all, I'm like you. I'm a consumer. I'm always excited, curious, never wanted to get off the couch. I don't want to miss that cultural moment. But deep in my heart, I am a brand nerd and a brand consultant. So I'm really listening with intent and watching with intent as I see each of these brands having their moment. But the dirty little secret that I do know in the back of my mind is brand trust is at all time low, as I mentioned earlier.

18:36And that at any given point, the consideration set for the category your brand lives in, only 1 % of the total addressable market is even thinking about buying in your category. So these, you know, you go into these knowing that you're probably not going to impact sales, but you're going to create, you're going to create conversation and you're going to open eyes and you're going to probably create awareness that didn't exist before. So to me, what I learned a lot about yesterday, and I'm a student of this with brand, is what some of these health and wellness brands are doing. It's just been a big movement trying to help us change our lifestyles in ways that we have not seen before.

19:13They're not like the old drug ads that just went on and on and on. Now, one of them, Wegovi, went on a little too long yesterday with all the issues tied to it. But I love that. I love this idea of empowering us to take control of our health and our wellness. And that's, you know, that gets back to my brand winners. I think we learned a lot about AI yesterday. And it was kind of AI as product, AI as production, AI as friend and partner, AI as scary. But if you didn't have a clear understanding of all the different ways AI is going to impact your life, mostly as a consumer, you saw some as a business, you did yesterday.

19:50And that was a, I think it was a learning, awakening moment. And I,

19:54Scott Davis:By the way, I thought Anthropic going after OpenAI was brilliant. I think they put this little seed of doubt in our minds that is OpenAI, ChatGPT can soon be an advertiser, an advertiser-led? And are they going to sell that data too? And is it going to be like some of the social media? So I thought that was absolutely brilliant. And then there's always a place, Steve, for humor, nostalgia. And we saw a lot of that in space. Again, we'll drive sales tomorrow. No, but you and I are talking about those brands. And I know billions of people listen to this. So we are creating awareness for those companies as we speak.

20:30Scott Davis:So when the ads do work, right, Super Bowl ads, you know, because let's face it, they're not cheap, right? And they could literally make or break some brands. Yep. When they do work, aside from humor and being funny and emotional and touching on the heartstrings, what are they usually doing right? Or is it being funny and emotional and just causing people to think? And what makes a Super Bowl ad work, I guess is what I'm asking. One, is it something that's memorable that you will talk about tomorrow morning, quote unquote, around the coffee cooler, the water cooler? Two, is it something that you were already interested in and you just learned something new about it?

21:07Is it the total addressable market or the serviceable addressable market? Is it the total addressable market? And if that person is in the market for that product or brand, it's obviously kismet, perfect timing. And then obviously, if there's an action step to take. That's why I loved a lot of the GLP ones. What they did is we had something to go do as an action coming out of it, either to learn more or to contact or to take action. And some of them, like the GLP ones, two years ago, for most of us, they seemed inaccessible. And what we learned yesterday, one, they don't seem as expensive as they were.