Welcome to this particular best hits episode of the Advertising Vanguard podcast. It’s a pleasure to welcome Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard’s chief advertising and marketing and communications officer and founding president of its healthcare enterprise.
Rajamannar is a change chief with substantial senior administration expertise at corporations around the globe. He has managed large-scale companies at Fortune 500 corporations throughout monetary providers, consumer-packaged items and healthcare, together with at Unilever, Citigroup and Anthem.
Rajamannar shares his journey from environmental engineering to advertising and marketing and emphasizes the significance of steady studying. He discusses the evolving function of CMOs, the necessity for collaboration with different executives, and the stability between innovation and driving enterprise outcomes.
He additionally highlights the significance of each creativity and logic in advertising and marketing, and challenges the outdated advertising and marketing curriculum in enterprise faculties.
“The role of CMOs is changing rapidly. We can no longer just focus on creative campaigns and brand building,” he says on the podcast. “We have to be data-driven and analytical. It’s about combining left-brain and right-brain skills to drive business results. We need to be able to tell a compelling story with data.”
Tune in to achieve worthwhile insights from Rajamannar’s expertise and experience.
Key takeaways:
02:36 — The Energy of Steady Studying in Advertising: Rajamannar finds pleasure in pushing advertising and marketing boundaries, exemplified by his guide Quantum Advertising, which is now printed in 10 languages and taught at 300 universities. To increase this work, he started a profitable LinkedIn publication, Advertising Sense, with 125,000 natural subscribers. This ongoing technique of studying, together with interviews with CMOs and teachers, brings him immense satisfaction.
10:32 — Balancing Innovation and Driving Enterprise Outcomes: Rajamannar advises in opposition to leaping at each new advertising and marketing concept. As a substitute, he stresses the necessity to consider concepts based mostly on their relevance, scalability and alignment with key goals. Deal with whether or not they improve the model, drive enterprise or construct aggressive benefit. Allocate 3-5% of the advertising and marketing funds for experimentation, guaranteeing concepts are examined and scaled or discarded based mostly on their effectiveness.
14:05 — The Have to Collaborate with C-Suite Leaders: Rajamannar displays on his expertise in managing companies and P&L, noting a typical problem: Advertising groups typically battle to indicate how their spending impacts enterprise outcomes. To deal with this, they established a CFO for advertising and marketing to make sure transparency and construct belief. He additionally emphasised the necessity for collaboration with different departments, like know-how and human assets, to align advertising and marketing with broader enterprise objectives.
