Attention is the new currency. As consumers are inundated with an endless sea of content of all types, the challenge today for brands isn’t just to be seen — it’s to achieve relevance and truly matter. This was the crux of a recent Marketers That Matter® Forum at Rokt headquarters in New York City, where industry leaders gathered to discuss how to break through to consumers who are increasingly dealing with digital fatigue.
Our expert panel included:
- Doug Rozen, CMO, Rokt
- Emma Medina, SVP of Marketing, Cincoro Tequila
- Mia Libby, SVP of Enterprise, Wall Street Journal Barron’s Group
- Thomas Ranese, Former Chief Marketing Officer at Uber & Chobani
- Renee Paradise, Strategic Digital Adviser, Veronica Beard
The conversation illuminated strategies about how to capture consumers’ attention – and then hold onto it. Panelists also shared their insights on AI and data management. Here are some of the key takeaways:
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Prioritize Relevance at Every Turn
Focus on delivering content that truly addresses customers’ current needs, interests and pain points.
Sometimes the best action is to do nothing, which could drive even better response from a customer in future interactions.
- Use data strategically to provide value to your customers, not just to push out more content.
- Optimize message timing and frequency, recognizing that quality often trumps quantity.
- Understand the critical distinction between personalization and true relevance in customer engagement.
Just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should. It all comes down to the notion of choice and relevancy.
Doug Rozen
At Veronica Beard, I don’t need to break through the noise for everybody – just for a very specific corner of the world for whom our product is designed and who love it.
Renee Paradise
Focus on Brand Authenticity
Evaluate new marketing initiatives through the lens of your brand identity and core values.
- When adopting new strategies or technologies, ensure that there is close alignment with your brand’s fundamental identity.
- Remember that customers can often sense when something isn’t genuine, and adjust your approach accordingly.
- Maintain transparency in AI usage, preserving authenticity in customer interactions.
The most important thing is our brand, and so delivering that authentically is number one. Whether it be storytelling on social media or how we execute events, we always aim to create experiences that reflect our brand values with our consumers.
Emma Medina
It’s about staying authentic to the vision of what are you doing and never losing sight of exactly who your customer is. People can sniff out things that are not authentic.
Renee Paradise
Stand for Something
Develop a clear brand identity that resonates deeply with your core audience.
- Use your brand’s unique voice to stand out and remain salient in a crowded marketplace.
- Clearly define and consistently communicate your brand’s values.
- Focus on being highly relevant to your core audience rather than trying to appeal to everyone.
With personalization, you can try to be everything to everyone but it doesn’t work. And with the backlash around purpose marketing, a lot of brands are really scared to stand for something. But you must be clear what your values are and who you are for.
Thomas Ranese
Promote Experimentation and Continuous Learning
Foster a culture of curiosity and controlled experimentation within your marketing team to find fresh ways to connect with customers.
- View unsuccessful attempts as valuable learning experiences that contribute to long-term growth.
- Encourage your team to explore and adopt new technologies and approaches.
- Stay adaptable and be willing to pivot to new strategies when necessary.
Don’t let the engineering team out ‘AI’ Marketing. Unpack how AI could help marketing, create a task force and use cases. My advice is just do it.
Doug Rozen
Continue Embracing AI, but Don’t Lose the Human Touch
Strike a balance between AI efficiency and human creativity in your marketing efforts.
- Integrate AI tools thoughtfully, remembering that human insight is crucial for creating nuanced and relevant messaging.
- Use AI for efficiency in routine tasks, freeing up your team to focus on high-value, creative work.
- Data is the fuel that powers modern marketing, but with great power comes great responsibility. Remember that effective AI use depends on good data management practices.
- Marketing is, and always will be, both an art and a science. AI just helps us do it better and faster.
Talent has always been the core of what we focus on, because it has the power to be transformational for an organization. It has never been more true than in this age of AI, because while AI will do small tasks for us, human insight is going to be more important than ever.
Mia Libby
As we lean into AI, the more the brands that lean into humanity and creativity and true insight and human touch – those are the brands that are going to stand out.
Thomas Ranese
Machine learning is great for looking backwards and optimizing what we already have done. Generative intelligence or reinforcement learning, allows us to predict and go forward. But marketing is both art and science. That’s why I hate the term artificial intelligence – because it needs to be about the idea of artful intelligence.
Doug Rozen
Be Curious, Fearless and Always Learning
As marketing has become even more complex and fast-paced, a whole new breed of marketers and creatives is needed to take companies into the future. The learnings from the key career pivots made by these leaders include:
- Remain curious and open to learning – be vulnerable enough to admit when you don’t know something.
- There will always be change happening – whether it be the emergence of a new technology or something else – so learn how to adapt and how to stay relevant.
- Don’t overthink it; sometimes it is just about finding your joy and doing what you know you do best.
I think the most important thing is to be relevant. Make yourself purposeful – no matter who you are and how you do it – just have that relevance.
Doug Rozen
Be confident enough in yourself to admit what you don’t know. Be open to learning and be okay with being vulnerable, saying that you just don’t know enough about something and then ask for what you need to master a new skill.
Mia Libby
We’re talking about AI, and all of the fast-paced changes happening. Well, there is always going to be change; there’s always going to be a new technology. Don’t let it overwhelm you. At the end of the day, it’s just another tool that we as marketers can use to figure out how to reach customers.
Emma Medina
Stay curious and follow your curiosity. Be willing to not be the smartest person in the room, because others can bring a different angle, a different perspective or a different line of questioning.
Thomas Ranese
Ten years into my career I was really focused on public health and international development. A big pivot for me happened because I had this idea of what I wanted my contribution to be, but it just wasn’t quite working out. Finding something that just felt right, where I said YES -this is great and I can do this! I finally found my joy.
Renee Paradise
In an era of information overload, marketers must evolve beyond mere visibility and deliver genuine value. By crafting messages that resonate on a deeper level with your audience, you can create marketing that captures attention and turns fleeting moments into lasting connections.
About the Participants
Doug Rozen, CMO, Rokt
As CMO, Doug leads strategy and execution for all Rokt’s global marketing efforts, including brand, performance, employee, product and sales marketing functions. Prior to joining Rokt, Doug served as CEO of Dentsu Media, where he transformed over 4.350 of the most progressive marketing experts at Carat, iProspect, dentsu X & beyond, across Canada, US and Latin America. Known for seamlessly exploiting the intersections of creativity, technology and data, Doug has been recognized globally for leading business through change and has been fortunate to be part of many major industry firsts. The last few years, Doug removed barriers by launching Economic Empowerment with 30-day payment terms, propelled dentsu’s industry-best Attention Economy initiative, hired the first Chief Addressability Officer to reimagine people-based activation, developed a trading division to create new products & value streams and much more. Doug is most proud of his efforts to drive inclusion, including creating an apprenticeship program requiring no college degrees. Doug is a vocal cancer survivor and proud advocate for Stand Up To Cancer. He just finished studying artificial intelligence at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Doug is an avid cyclist and skier, living in Connecticut with his wife, daughter and son.
Emma Medina,SVP of Marketing, Cincoro Tequila
Emma Medina, SVP of Marketing for Cincoro Tequila, brings over 25 years of expertise in the beverage industry, with a proven track record of transforming brands and driving growth through strategic vision. Having led global marketing efforts for luxury brands like Clase Azul Spirits and Rémy Martin Cognac, Emma is known for her ability to uncover brand truths and connect deeply with consumers through cultural relevance. Her leadership in building marketing campaigns and innovative brand experiences highlights her belief that true impact lies in creating meaningful, relevant connections that resonate with consumers on a deeper level.
Born and raised in New York to Colombian immigrant parents, Emma’s personal and professional journey exemplifies her understanding of the importance of culture and lifestyle in making brands truly relevant. Emma balances her professional accomplishments with her love for family, cooking, travel, Latin music, and the beach.
Mia Libby, SVP of Enterprise at Wall Street Journal Barron’s Group
Mia Libby is senior vice president of enterprise sales for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, where she oversees an advertising solutions team dedicated to technology, telecommunications and B2B. In her role, Mia focuses on connecting her clients with Dow Jones’ hard-to-find audiences in new and strategic ways.
Previously, she served as chief revenue officer for The Messenger and spent 6 years as CRO at The Daily Beast, where she led the revenue function across advertising, subscription, commerce and licensing with an emphasis on growth and expansion into new lines of business. Mia also held leadership roles at Fusion Media Group, a division of Univision Communications Inc (UCI), and Gawker Media.
Thomas Ranese, Former CMO at Uber and Chobani
Thomas is a marketing executive whose career spans the public and private sectors and across categories from tourism and tech to consumer hardware and packaged goods. Thomas was most recently the Chief Marketing Officer at Chobani and before that the Global CMO at Uber where he led a marketing and brand turnaround. Named to Forbes Top Most Entrepreneurial CMOs, Thomas brings an “outside in” mindset to lead change for brands and businesses.
Prior to Uber, Thomas spent a decade at Google in marketing leadership roles that included Global Vice President of Hardware Marketing at Google where he launched the Google Pixel, as well as founding and leading the Google Brand Studio where he named Alphabet and launched the Google Store. He was also the first CMO for the State of New York revitalizing the famed “I LOVE NY” campaign and a former management consultant at both McKinsey and Interbrand.
Thomas earned a master’s in public policy at Harvard University and a BA in political science at Stanford University. He grew up in Brooklyn NY, the grandchild of Italian immigrants and the first to go to college. Thomas recently returned to NYC with his partner Brian and their lab Bruno.
Renée Paradise, Digital Adviser, Veronica Beard
Renée Paradise has been pursuing a love of shopping experiences and omni channel fashion including serving as the Chief Digital Officer at Neiman Marcus, SVP Customer and Revenue Growth at Bloomingdale’s and GM of Fashion for eBay. She also spent a decade serving clients in media and technology at McKinsey & Co.
She has lead teams including e-commerce, customer strategy, omnichannel operations, digital marketing, CRM, product and technology and clienteling. She currently has the privilege of serving as a digital advisor for Veronica Beard and absolutely loves the brand. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, toddler daughter and two cats.
Forum moderator Kathy Hollenhorst is a Marketers That Matter® Advisor & Chief Community Officer.
Marketers That Matter® is a community of top marketing executives coming together to pioneer the future of marketing, sharing real-time experiences, and solving current challenges.
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