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CMO leadership vision 2025

PLUS: Adam Driver’s dramatic Amazon product review

Author

Zihan Lyu
November 22, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

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Hi there!

Highlights from today's newsletter:

◾ Adam Driver’s dramatic Amazon product review
◾ CMO leadership vision 2025
◾ Sweetgreen’s PR nightmare and Jaguar rebrand drama

EDITOR’S PICK

#RETAIL MARKETING

Ever seen a two-time Oscar nominee passionately monologue about a banana slicer? Amazon's "5-Star Theatre" campaign puts Adam Driver in a leather chair, dramatically performing real customer reviews. It's product placement that doesn't feel like product placement, proving that "some of our best writers are our customers," as Amazon's Global CCO Jo Shoesmith puts it.

The campaign shows that sometimes the best stories might already be sitting in your review section, waiting for their moment in the spotlight.

Ready to explore how this creative approach translates to real business results? Your front-row seat awaits 👇

WHAT WE ARE READING

Marketing leaders face a pivotal challenge in 2025: balancing strategic vision with operational agility. Gartner's latest report highlights three key priorities: -

  • Bridging the gap between strategy and execution

  • Delivering market differentiation

  • Optimizing customer journey investments.

Data reveals that CMOs excelling in market shaping are 2.6 times more likely to exceed growth targets, showcasing the importance of anticipating customer needs and aligning strategies with evolving demands.

To stay ahead, marketers are urged to audit touchpoints, break down data silos, and embrace a collaborative approach across teams. Questions like, "Are current strategies aligned with top customer journeys?" serve as a compass for realigning efforts.

The era of assembly-line marketing is giving way to a more agile, customer-centric approach. Position-less marketing challenges traditional silos by empowering versatile marketers to handle data insights, creative execution, and campaign optimization in real time. This shift addresses key inefficiencies like delayed trend responses and fragmented messaging, enabling seamless cross-channel campaigns.

With AI tools supporting data-driven decisions and dynamic content delivery, position-less marketing offers a blueprint for efficiency and customer loyalty in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Holistic marketing, as defined by Philip Kotler, integrates all business functions to deliver a seamless customer experience, transcending traditional departmental boundaries.

This proactive approach allows marketing to anticipate needs and collaborate effectively with sales and other teams. Companies can improve overall effectiveness by focusing on a unified goal, such as increasing recurring revenue or driving new subscriptions.

The strategy emphasizes authenticity and customer-centric messaging, ensuring that all marketing activities contribute to a cohesive brand experience.

TOP VOICE

💭STORY OF THE WEEK

Sweetgreen’s latest PR fiasco—dubbed the "Kale Camo" saga—is a cautionary tale in the age of social media and creative collaboration.

Here’s the setup: A year ago, a streetwear agency, Market Studios, pitched a unique merch idea—a kale-inspired camouflage design. Fast forward to last week, Sweetgreen launches the exact same concept…without crediting Market. The internet quickly uncovered the receipts, and the fallout has been anything but subtle.

Market Studios publicly shared proof of their pitch, including the original creative deck, sparking outrage across platforms. The Instagram post from Market garnered 10x more engagement in just four hours than Sweetgreen’s own campaign did, amassing 500K views and rallying brands like Arby’s and Arizona Iced Tea to Market’s defense. Meanwhile, Sweetgreen’s posts are flooded with thousands of angry comments, far outweighing the meager ~1,200 likes they’ve managed to scrape together.

Yet, Sweetgreen has neither removed the campaign nor publicly addressed the accusations. They continue to sell the $120 "Kale Camo" hoodie, leaving the creative agency—and their loyal followers—calling foul. Even the manufacturer of the hoodie, Everybody.World, set the record straight in a pinned comment: Sweetgreen came to them with the design.

And it’s not an isolated incident. Marketers everywhere can relate to the sinking feeling when ideas pitched in good faith resurface without attribution. The controversy mirrors recent drama surrounding Jaguar rebrand, where critics accused the brand of copying Nothing’s iconic minimalist font. These situations raise pressing questions about the thin line between inspiration and outright theft in the creative industry.

Source: Rahul Paul’s LinkedIn

For marketers: creative integrity it’s foundational. Transparency, collaboration, and crediting your partners are key to avoiding PR disasters in a world where audiences demand accountability.

WHAT WE ARE LISTENING TO

🎙 MARKETING SCHOOL

Amazon is becoming a serious competitor in online advertising, challenging Google’s dominance. Hosts unpack this shift, highlighting what it means for marketers:

🔹 Amazon's rise in ad revenue: Amazon’s advertising business is growing faster than Google’s, fueled by its ability to connect ads directly to purchase behavior. For brands, this means advertising dollars spent on Amazon might yield clearer ROI than on traditional search platforms.

🔹 Self-publishing and ads: Amazon’s ad platform isn’t just for retail giants. Self-published authors, for instance, are leveraging Amazon Ads for profitable book launches, bypassing traditional ad-heavy platforms like Google.

🔹 The TikTok effect: Emerging platforms like TikTok are adding complexity to the market, forcing advertisers to diversify strategies. While TikTok thrives on short-form video, Amazon’s focus on purchase intent offers a distinct advantage.

Editorial

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