In the AI era, marketing should be unstoppable, and its future is being written in real time. Frontier CMO talks to the leaders shaping it. Join Joshua Spanier, Google's VP of AI and Marketing Strategy, in his deep-dives with the leaders, marketers, technologists who are rewriting the playbook. Welc
How do you transform one of the world's most iconic telecom giants into a modern, customer-obsessed growth powerhouse? In the latest episode of Frontier CMO, host Josh Spanier welcomes Kellyn Smith Kenny, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at AT&T, for an inside look at AT&T's multi-year reinvention. Kellyn shares how she bridged creative storytelling with financial accountability, gained unanimous C-suite buy-in to become more customer-centric, and established a sustainable competitive moat in connectivity. Tune in for a master class about CMOs as the voice of the customer. 00:00 – Rebuilding…
Gap Inc. is having a moment and Damon Berger, an SVP who leads marketing shared services across the company’s portfolio of iconic brands, is focused on turning that moment into momentum. Live from Google’s Rethink Retail event in New York, he joins Josh on stage in front of 350 retail marketers to unpack how Gap Inc. is blending entertainment, cultural relevance and AI to drive sustainable business growth. From viral YouTube campaigns with KATSEYE, Young Miko, Mr Beast and more, to pioneering employee-creator programs, discover how one of retail's most loved brands is transforming relevance…
Jo Malone. MAC. La Mer. Tom Ford. Clinique. The Ordinary. These are just a few of the powerhouse brands behind The Estée Lauder Companies. For more than 80 years, the beauty giant has reinvented itself with every era – from the department store counter to the digital storefront. Now it’s making its biggest leap yet: AI. In the season 3 premiere of Frontier CMO, host Josh Spanier sits down with Chief Digital and Marketing Officer Aude Gandon to explore how one of the world’s most iconic beauty companies is using AI to personalize consumer experiences, reimagine creativity, and build brands…
The future of content and websites isn't about chasing vanity impressions—it’s about driving true digital retention. Recorded live at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Knotch CEO and co-founder Anda Gansca joins Frontier CMO host Josh Spanier to unpack how the brand website is evolving in an AI-first world. In this episode, we uncover the hidden trap of "corrosive content" driving 80% of web traffic to bounce instantly, and outline a strategic playbook for modern marketing leaders. Because the website remains the definitive front door for customer discovery and high-stakes decision-making,…
Marketing is moving fast, but are we moving in the right direction? In this episode, legendary strategist Rishad Tobaccowala (former Chief Growth & Strategy Officer of Publicis Group) drops by to deliver some seriously spicy thinking on the state of the marketing industry. Spoiler alert: He thinks we’ve lost the plot. Instead of obsessing over technology and optimization, Rishad breaks down why the future actually belongs to talent, human insight, and deep curiosity. We dive into his blueprint for navigating "tectonic times," why you need to stop writing an "AI strategy," and how thinking…
Few marketing leaders have navigated as much change as Google’s Chief Marketing Officer Lorraine Twohill. She’s one of the industry’s longest-tenured CMOs who’s led Google’s marketing through massive product and platform shifts, from Search and Chrome, to mobile, YouTube, and now AI. Recorded at Cannes Lions 2026, Frontier CMO host Josh Spanier sits down with Lorraine to unpack how she’s built one of the world’s most influential marketing organizations, why marketers belong in the room with engineers, and why agility is the ultimate competitive advantage. 00:00 Intro 01:00 Google's Startup…
In today’s creator economy, the audience is in charge. Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry explain what this means for CMOs trying to build brands people actually chose to spend time with, not just marketing they scroll past. Back by popular demand, this Frontier CMO conversation unpacks the creator landscape and why attention without connection is a dead end. Whether you’re building a creator strategy for the first time or rethinking how your brand shows up online, this episode offers a practical playbook for building lasting creator partnerships, earning audience trust, and staying ahead of…
What does it take to “win the internet for a day”? What happens when a billion-dollar beverage company throws out the traditional marketing playbook and rises to the top without a brand book, ad agencies or creative briefs? Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Frontier CMO host Josh Spanier joins Liquid Death’s Chief Media & Digital Commerce Officer Benoit Vatere for a refreshing conversation on the ‘method behind the madness’ of one of the most talked-about brands in marketing. From its outrageous creativity of “doing the unexpected” to its masterclass ability of turning awareness into…
What do CMOs and Formula One champions have in common? They're expected to perform under pressure, make split-second decisions, and keep showing up when the odds aren't in their favor. Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Frontier CMO host Josh Spanier sits down with McLaren Chief Marketing Officer Louise McEwen and Formula One World Champion Lando Norris to explore how they're winning on and off the racetrack. In a world where most Formula One fans will never attend a race, they reveal how McLaren creates connections beyond race day and builds a brand that performs 365 days a year. Buckle…
Chances are, one of the 400 household brands today’s guest oversees is sitting somewhere in your home right now. Maybe it’s Dove in the shower, Vaseline in the drawer, or Hellmann’s mayo in the fridge. Leandro Barreto is the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Unilever, a nearly 100-year-old company behind brands used by billions of people around the world. From the award-winning “Vaseline Verified” campaign to creator-led marketing strategies and partnerships with Arsenal Football Club, this episode of Frontier CMO unpacks what it’s like to be a CMO leading through an AI transformation aimed…
Teams are moving faster than ever, producing more content, running more campaigns, and optimizing everything. But without strategy, it’s mostly noise. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh travels to London to sit down with Mark Ritson, brand strategist, former marketing professor, and advisor to companies like LVMH, Sephora, and Donna Karan, to talk about the state of marketing, which frankly is a mess. Based on new global research, Ritson argues that most marketers don’t actually understand the fundamentals of marketing. In an AI-driven world, that’s about to matter a lot more. Drawing on…
On this special episode of the Frontier CMO podcast, host Josh Spanier, VP of AI and Marketing Strategy at Google, sits down with two of the driving forces shaping the future of AI and creative: Robert Wong, head of Google’s Creative Lab, and Josh Woodward, head of Google Labs, Gemini, & AI Studio. Together, they tell the story of how their teams of engineers and marketers came together to create Flow, a groundbreaking AI tool that is unlocking creativity and storytelling in marketing, Hollywood and beyond. Taped at Google Marketing Live, Google’s biggest marketing event of the year, this…
Most football clubs are built around matchday but not Arsenal. As it enters its 140th year, the team in a lot of ways, is only just getting started. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh travels to London to meet Juliet Slot, Chief Commercial Officer at Arsenal Football Club, on home turf to go inside the playbook behind one of the most engaged global fanbases in sports. From the rapid rise of the women’s league to the clubs’ staying power of “cool,” Juliet shares why serving your fanbase is better than trying to sell them. This conversation lands at a historic moment with the club reaching…
Marketing is entering its most complex era yet. AI is accelerating everything—but the real challenge is making sense of a system that is fragmenting faster than ever. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh Spanier sits down with Asmita Dubey, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at L’Oréal Groupe, who leads digital transformation across the world’s largest beauty company. With more than 90,000 employees and dozens of global brands, Asmita is responsible for navigating how AI, data, and creativity reshape marketing at enterprise scale. The conversation explores why fragmentation defines modern…
Marketing is no longer downstream from product. It is the operating system. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh Spanier sits down with Emma Grede, founding partner and Chief Product Officer at SKIMS, Co Founder & CEO of Good American, and Co Founder of Off Season, to unpack what it really takes to build durable brands in a culture obsessed with moments. Emma shares why product discipline matters more than hype, how to operationalize cultural relevance, and why speed is the ultimate competitive advantage. The conversation explores AI adoption inside fast-scaling companies, where automation…
Marketing leadership today is defined by pressure: AI disruption, declining trust in institutions, cultural fragmentation, and relentless growth expectations. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh Spanier sits down with Carla Hassan, Chief Marketing Officer of JPMorganChase, who leads more than 3,000 marketers across one of the world’s most recognized financial brands. From her early life shaped by displacement to stewarding a 200+ year-old institution, Carla shares how resilience and clarity shape her leadership. The conversation explores why “you don’t build trust with a tagline,” how…
Marketing is being reshaped by forces far bigger than any single campaign: AI, geopolitical fragmentation, economic pressure, and collapsing agency business models. In this episode of Frontier CMO, host Josh Spanier sits down with a legend of the advertising world: Sir Martin Sorrell. As an architect of the industry over the last 50 years, Sir Martin shares his unvarnished perspective on where marketing power is shifting now and what CMOs must do to stay relevant. The conversation breaks down why traditional agency holding companies are struggling, why AI adoption is being driven more by…
In this episode of Frontier CMO, Vineet Mehra, Chief Growth Officer at Chime, joins Josh Spanier to unpack what it takes to lead marketing through the next platform shift. Drawing on a career that spans Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Silicon Valley, Vineet shares how CMOs must evolve from brand managers into capital allocators who drive growth by effectively managing where dollars are deployed. To do this successfully, they must become "balance sheet literate" and learn to speak the "love language" of the CFO—specifically focusing on unit economics, payback periods, and the…
Marketing is being rebuilt from the infrastructure up. Search is changing. Commerce is becoming agent-driven. Measurement is being redefined in real time. And the line between engineering and marketing is disappearing. In this episode of Frontier CMO, host Josh Spanier sits down with Vidhya Srinivasan, Head of Ads and Commerce at Google. As the leader responsible for Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Shopping, Merchant Center, Gemini integrations, and payments, Vidhya is helping architect how the modern marketplace actually works. The conversation explores what “agentic commerce” really means, why…
Marketing is colliding with a creator economy that looks more like television, community, and culture, rather than what we used to think of when we think of social media. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh Spanier, VP of AI & Marketing Strategy at Google, sits down with Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, creators and hosts of Colin & Samir, to unpack how the creator landscape has fundamentally changed, and what CMOs can do to get creator partnerships right. They explore why attention without connection is a dead end, how creators have become the arbiters of taste, and why brands must stop…
Brands are currently caught between two realities: the pretty strategy deck and the real world where attention is the currency. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia joins Josh Spanier, VP of AI & Marketing Strategy at Google to discuss why traditional brand models are failing and which channels remain the C-suite’s most misunderstood growth levers. Gary argues the bottleneck isn’t media—it’s creative slowed by excessive approvals and organizations built for campaigns rather than culture. To win, brands must collapse the walls between media and production, treating social as a daily operating…
Today’s CMO is being asked to deliver growth in a landscape defined by radical uncertainty and AI disruption. In this episode of Frontier CMO, Norm de Greve, Chief Growth Officer at General Motors, joins Josh to explore what it takes to drive reinvention inside one of the world’s most complex legacy brands. Norm uses his experience making high-stakes decisions that have defined his career— walking away from $2 billion in tobacco revenue at CVS to steering GM’s resurgence—and turns it into actionable tactics for modern leaders. His thesis: Own the entire business engine, not just the brand.…
In marketing, AI is not a technology problem, it’s a leadership challenge and opportunity. Our premiere episode of Frontier CMO comes to you from CES 2026. We skipped the crystal ball hype to get to the point: AI is not just a tech shift, it’s a leadership test. In the first episode, Josh Spanier sits down with Shelly Palmer—CEO of The Palmer Group, Advanced Professor in Residence, and one of the most trusted advisors to the Fortune 500—to separate business-model signals from gadget noise. Shelly was direct: reorganize your marketing around human-agent pairs. In this new era, subject matter…
In the AI era, marketing should be unstoppable, and its future is being written in real time. Frontier CMO talks to the leaders shaping it. Join Joshua Spanier, Google's VP of AI and Marketing Strategy, in his deep-dives with the leaders, marketers, technologists who are rewriting the playbook. Welcome to the Frontier. New episodes drop January 2026. We’re asking the questions others won’t: How do marketing leaders prove ROI to executives? What does a modern marketing strategy look like when AI and analytics are reshaping the rules every day? Each episode of Frontier CMO explores the…
This week on Modern Marketers, Tombras president Dooley Tombras joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to discuss being the third generation to lead the family business, what it means to be an independent agency focusing on data and creativity, and the partnership with PODS and Google to create an impossible ad campaign using generative AI. Dooley shares a few favorite campaigns from his 20 years at Tombras, how he balances classic marketing metrics with modern approaches, and what the next five years look like for the agency.
This week on Modern Marketers, McDonald's VP of Marketing Elizabeth Campbell joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to talk about her 20-year career at the company and how the brand keeps consumers at the center of everything it does. Elizabeth shares some of McDonald's most iconic marketing campaigns and product launches she has worked on over the years, as well as tips for engaging with consumers in a way that feels natural to them and how the brand decides what does and doesn't need to be tested.
This week on Modern Marketers, Jim Lecinski, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to talk about Jim's career pivot from tech executive to college professor, what traits make up the most effective marketer, and the ability to combine left and right brain to be a whole-brain marketer. Jim discusses what he sees as top of mind for rising-star marketers in his classes, how he wrote a book on AI — well before the recent buzz — in 2021, and advice for creating a marketing plan that excites your…
This week on Modern Marketers, Walmart SVP and CMO William White joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to talk about how he empowers his team to stay nimble, using customer insights as a competitive advantage and how the brand breaks through during the busiest time of the year: the holidays. William discusses how brand purpose and values act as a guide, getting to the crux of what's driving consumer behavior and staying a season or two ahead.
This week on Modern Marketers, Kipp Bodnar, CMO of Hubspot, joins Google's Joshua Spanier to discuss how to make B2B marketing creative better, how to convince your CFO it's OK not to attribute 100% of your marketing spend, and the importance of taking risks as a leader. Hear how Hubspot has built out its marketing team, approaches growth opportunities, and about Kipp's experiences from his days as an early employee at Hubspot to now.
On this week's episode of Modern Marketers, Colgate-Palmolive's chief digital officer Brigitte King joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to talk about her core leadership principles and how the brand adapts to ever-changing technology curves. Brigitte shares the five P's that have guided her through her career, how she upskilled her entire organization to be digitally fluent, and the importance of a leader allowing room for experimentation — and sometimes failure.
About Frontier CMO Podcast by Think with Google
In the AI era, marketing should be unstoppable, and its future is being written in real time. Frontier CMO talks to the leaders shaping it. Join Joshua Spanier, Google's VP of AI and Marketing Strategy, in his deep-dives with the leaders, marketers, technologists who are rewriting the playbook. Welc
Frontier CMO Podcast by Think with Google is a English business podcast from Presented by Think with Google. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.
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