Couverture de Scratch: CMO Interviews

Scratch: CMO Interviews

Scratch: CMO Interviews

De : Rival
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Why do some businesses grow faster than others? What do the marketers leading them do differently? How can we learn from them to grow our own businesses and careers? Scratch explores the world of challenger marketing - the thinkers and doers questioning the status quo and rewriting the marketing rule book ‘from scratch’. Each episode will dive deep into the experience and perspective of an industry thought leader to understand the unique insights and ideas that have powered their success. We will interview some of the biggest names in the marketing world - the people with the most interesting stories to tell. We’ll hear from the CMOs of the biggest brands in the world, but also the entrepreneurs building hyper-growth start-ups to really understand the full spectrum of challenger marketing today. We’ll get into the nitty gritty: the details of how they think and what they do differently in order to deliver simple, clear, and actionable lessons for all marketers. Scratch is the ‘How I Built This’ of marketing - we hope to inform and inspire a generation of marketers to grow their businesses and their careers like true challengers ‘from scratch’ every day.2026 We Are Rival Direction Economie Management et direction Marketing et ventes Réussite personnelle
Épisodes
  • How Ladder became Apple's favorite app and made Hilary Duff the face of fitness

    How Ladder became Apple's favorite app and made Hilary Duff the face of fitness
    Jun 24 2026
    In the latest episode of Scratch, Philip Edsel, VP of Brand & Creative at Ladder, breaks down why most marketing misses the mark and what separates brands that feel cultural from those that feel tone-deaf. As fitness platforms multiply and algorithms fragment audiences, Ladder's strategy isn't to chase trends. It's to listen obsessively to what members actually want—and let that drive every creative decision. We get into: → Why cultural relevance can't be outsourced (or bought from a report) → How to build culture listening into your creative process without overthinking it → Why structuring teams around culture matters more than having the right budget → The brands that win: Skims, Bandit, Nothing-and why art direction is strategy → What happens when you listen to members instead of investors The key takeaways: Self-awareness is the number one attribute of great marketing - Most work fails because it lacks it. It's not about being clever. It's about understanding how your brand is actually perceived and what conversations are happening around it. Culture listening is structural, not magical - Put 30 minutes on your calendar every week. Get obsessed with what your audience actually cares about. Make it non-negotiable. By the time most brands catch on, they're six weeks too late. Either you have the people or you don't - You can't bottle up cultural taste. Either your team feels the pulse of what's moving culture, or it doesn't. If you don't have those people, recruit differently or organize differently. Yeti structured their entire team around communities. Most brands didn't even think of it. Listen to what your members want, not what trends are screaming - Ladder runs 45-minute surveys by the thousands. They're drowning in feedback about what members actually want. That drives product and creative not investor mandates. Simplify your language - Bad copywriting is Philip's biggest pet peeve. If it's a teaser that says "something's coming"—that's meaningless. Use words you'd actually use at dinner. Momentum is found too late for legacy brands - Challenger brands can move faster because they're willing to take creative risks informed by audience data. The inflection point is real. You have to be willing to swing. Watch this episode: ▶️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/pYQH4xUeU9o Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy. Hosted by Eric Fulwiler, featuring Philip Edsel of Ladder. Find Rival: wearerival.com | LinkedIn Find Eric: LinkedIn Find Philip: LinkedIn Find Ladder: joinladder.com Say hi: media@wearerival.com Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.If you’re interested in learning more about marketing from successful CMOs, we compiled a list of the top 5 CMO podcasts to listen to in 2024; check it out here 🔗 https://www.wearerival.com/content-hub-articles/cmo-podcasts-you-cannot-afford-to-miss-in-2024
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    53 min
  • Checkout.com’s Playbook for Beating Global Giants: Pick One Fight.

    Checkout.com’s Playbook for Beating Global Giants: Pick One Fight.
    Jun 10 2026

    Rory O'Neill, CMO of Checkout.com, doesn't just solve for payments- he's solving for brand preference in a crowded payments space. And he's doing it by competing on what's different, not what others do better.

    That insight changes everything, from how you position payments to how you build a team that can sustain growth as a challenger.

    In the latest episode of Scratch, Rory breaks down the playbook that lets Checkout compete with global giants. Brand preference wins 95% of B2B deals before salespeople ever show up- so your marketing owns the invisible 60% of the buyer's journey. Challenger brands win by picking one fight and building culture around it, not chasing everything competitors do. He reveals the three-part formula: focus your core business, build your culture, reinvest profit. Consumer marketing skills-data, insight, action-are B2B's secret superpower. And his rule: if you wouldn't say it at dinner, don't write it in marketing.

    The key takeaway:

    1. Brand preference wins deals - 95% of the time, the brands on the day-one top-five list are the ones that win. B2B buyers spend 60% of their journey before contacting a salesperson.
    2. Define your focus as a challenger - Compete on what's different, not on what competitors do better. Checkout only does digital payments to stay focused while competitors spread across multiple business lines.
    3. Three elements beat category norms - Focus on your core business, build the human operating system (culture, people, vision), then reinvest capital in new products.
    4. Consumer marketer skills are powerful in B2B - Data, insight, action, brand building, and performance marketing from the consumer world unlock B2B success.
    5. Understand stakeholder maps - B2B is complex: CTOs influence CFOs, recommenders influence buyers. Map those relationships to win.
    6. Simplify your language - Ditch jargon like "frictionless" and "seamless." Use words you'd use at dinner. Marketing becomes more interesting and understood.
    7. Marketing is logic and magic - Be both data-driven and creative. Avoid letting fiefdoms kill integrated work. Join everything together.

    Watch the video version of this podcast on Youtube ▶️: https://youtu.be/chR0mn9Pum0

    Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Scratch is hosted by Eric Fulwiler, and he's joined by Rory O'Neill of Checkout.com in this episode.

    Find Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn


    Find Eric on LinkedIn

    Find Rory on LinkedIn

    Say hi at media@wearerival.com, we'd love to hear from you.

    Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.

    If you’re interested in learning more about marketing from successful CMOs, we compiled a list of the top 5 CMO podcasts to listen to in 2024; check it out here 🔗 https://www.wearerival.com/content-hub-articles/cmo-podcasts-you-cannot-afford-to-miss-in-2024
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    40 min
  • The CMO Who Faked a Data Breach for Black Friday. The Payflex Playbook.

    The CMO Who Faked a Data Breach for Black Friday. The Payflex Playbook.
    May 27 2026
    In the latest episode of Scratch, Tracey-Lee gets into what it really takes to build trust in a controversial space, how she sells brand investment to a CFO who only speaks performance, and the Black Friday campaign where Payflex faked a data breach and somehow lived to tell the tale. The key takeaway: 1. Radical honesty is not a risk, it's a requirement In a controversial category, you have to be as loud with your rebuttals as your critics are with their attacks. Silence reads as guilt. 2. BNPL customers aren't who the headlines say they are Payflex users are not over-indebted people stretching to survive. They're actualizing. Identity-driven. The emotional need sits at the top of Maslow's hierarchy, not the bottom. 3. The two-year brand cliff is real Cut brand budget today, nothing happens for six months, maybe a year. Then sales tank. And to recover it, you spend two to three times what you cut. The lag is the weapon CMOs need to use in every CFO conversation. 4. Brief writing is a tattoo, not a tick box WATTW. What are we trying to achieve here. If you can't answer that before you brief, you shouldn't be briefing. 5. Marketing is an advocate for the market, not a go-to-market function Marketers need to be in the product room early, sometimes aggressively, because no product strategy survives contact with a customer insight that nobody bothered to bring in. 6. Learn the finances early The biggest unlock in Tracey-Lee's career was understanding what CFOs actually care about: customer equity, market share, lifetime value. Not ROAS. 7. Boldness needs justification, not just instinct The data breach campaign worked because it had a clear strategic logic behind it. Payflex is an innovator and Black Friday demands standout or silence. Watch the video version of this podcast on Youtube ▶️: https://youtu.be/fPIrrl9Qg3I Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Scratch is hosted by Viren Samani, and he’s joined by Tracey-Lee Zürcher-Campbell of Payflex in this episode Find Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn Find Viren on Linkedin Find Tracey-Lee on Linkedin Say hi at media@wearerival.com, we’d love to hear from you. Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.If you’re interested in learning more about marketing from successful CMOs, we compiled a list of the top 5 CMO podcasts to listen to in 2024; check it out here 🔗 https://www.wearerival.com/content-hub-articles/cmo-podcasts-you-cannot-afford-to-miss-in-2024
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    45 min
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