Ben Kaplan

Great. Okay. Well, we’ll start. So, welcome to Top CMO. I’m Paul Sussman, CMO of Audacy. And I’d love to start out by talking about this notion of reinventing a company and reinventing a brand. In 2021. It’s the spring Audacy is the new brand name, which was traditionally a company, which was, I think, historically, the second largest radio station network in the United States and are calm. And you’re in a new day and age. And you’re reinventing yourself as an audio platform instead of a company that is a network of radio stations. So talk about the challenge as a CMO in becoming something you were and something that you want to be and doing that all at the same time.

Paul Suchman

Absolutely. So Audacy has been on this transformational journey that really began in 2016 2017. And the company went through a period of exponential growth and that growth was driven both by acquisition and by organic growth. But on the acquisition side, where we had some of the best radio stations in the top markets. We grew that by buying the audio assets of CBS audio, and that put us into virtually every top 50 market with some of the best known respected, loved iconic radio brands. As part of that acquisition. We also got this streaming business called radio.com. We made acquisitions in the podcasting space, we acquired cadence 13 We acquired pineapple street studios, we acquired a podcast network for creators called pod core. So we had this really robust podcast offering. We had a live events business, and we were going to market under these live events we can survive in LA at the Hollywood Bowl. That’s just one of six tentpole events we had at the time. So we had these four businesses over 250 market facing brands. And where we found was that this name Entercom, which was really a holding company for all these market facing brands, it no longer fit who we had become, nor our vision for the future. So we undertook a a robust rebranding project, not to rename the company, but to really represent who we had become where we were going, and to give us the broad shoulders to continue investing to continue growing, we also make huge investments in technology as well. So our technology had become a very sophisticated ad tech platform, as well. And that’s what drove all of it. And we went through a process, we went through a rebranding process that actually began almost exactly when the pandemic began in 2020. And we launched actually, during the pandemic in March of 2021.

Ben Kaplan

And so, take me through when you think about rebranding, oh, one to give cohesion, you made all of these acquisitions, so you have to have a cohesive brand, but also to influence perception? Are you a radio station company? Or are you an audio platform? How do you think about that? And then the one little context I’ll maybe throw out there, and then you can comment if you agree with this or not, because we have a tonne of. We’re a global marketing agency. On our side, we have a lot of companies that come through us because they want to be perceived as company type A, not as company type B, because it affects their valuation tremendously meaning is Uber, a transportation company that has some pretty cool technology? Or is it a technology company that’s disrupting transportation? The answer to that question influences their valuation by 10s of billions of dollars. So how do you go into and look at and think about redefining who you are in the minds of your audience for a new age or a modern niche?

Paul Suchman

Absolutely. It’s a great question. So radio, capital, our radio is a legacy media. But it’s a very, very powerful, relevant media, it’s still the number one reach medium, it’s still the most trusted medium out there. Virtually 96% Penetration across the United States. One of the challenges that the industry was happening was as the way people consumed, media was changing, going from traditional radios, lowercase our radios, to consuming it on their phone, consuming it in through smart speakers consuming it in their cars in very different ways. Consuming it virtually you know, it’s ubiquitous, it travels with you wherever you go. So there was a perception that the medium was not evolving, as technology was evolving. And because Entercom as a brand, really was in the radio business, it wasn’t in the podcasting business. It wasn’t in the streaming business. It wasn’t a live events business. But that brand was not a market facing brand. There was a need there that was one of the catalysts to push ourselves forward and to be in the consideration set with modern audio media and entertainment companies, Sirius Spotify, I heart, there was a need for us to be in that conversation with a brand. That was a modern facing consumer facing business facing brand. That could carry forward all of the equities of that multi platform offering, but also appeal to our legacy listeners, our legacy over the air listeners and then to a broad swath of new listeners who were rediscovering radio and rediscovering live content and discovering podcasts, but just consuming it in very different ways.

Ben Kaplan   

And so as you went through this, where did first of all the name come from? And how did you think about sort of telegraphing, it was essentially not only a shift in where your focus is from sort of terrestrial radio to to other forms of audio, but also maybe even a shift in business model. thought that you could be are you advertising based on your see sell a lot of ads? But is it? Is there a subscription based side of the model? Is there something else? How did you think about the name and those kind of sort of fundamental shifts and how you would communicate that?

Paul Suchman 

Yeah. So the name, we went through your, you’re an agency person. So we went through a very fast and careful strategic and creative process. To come up with that new name, we thought about our positioning, we thought about how the company differentiates itself where the whitespace was. And really where the whitespace was, was in our DNA, local radio at its core, not a one size fits all brand, right? We are so deeply ingrained in the communities, we are so deeply we’re deeply connected to these marketplaces, and to millions of consumers every day. And we wanted to keep that legacy equity, but we wanted to bring it forward. So we went through this big creative process. And we landed on the name Audacy, it actually was a name that we heard in the creative process very early on. But you know, it’s like when you go looking for a new home, and you see a house you love the first house, you can’t buy

Ben Kaplan 

1. Yeah, you got to see all of this stuff to get back and say, Oh, that was a pretty good, that was a pretty good one. Okay, sure.

Paul Suchman

Right. But you know, what was interesting was that name was always the litmus test. And the name itself Audacy AUD ac y really, it comes down to part audio, part audacious, and part odyssey to represent that journey we were on. And the name just fit, it landed really well. And when we looked at it as a as a, going from a house of brands, to a branded house, having that sit on top felt really right. And it also everything else lined up to because you can’t just change your name, you have to if you’re going to go through this name change, as a public facing company, you have to change all your URLs, they have to be available, you have to change all your socials, they have to be available. We were fortunate that you know, we were able to, to to get all of those in relatively easy fashion, sometimes, you know, names fall out, because, you know, if you clear all the legal, the legal hurdles, and all the trademark hurdles, they’re still URLs are not available, they’re still social handles are not available. But we got everything lined up. We tested it, you know, this was a name, we serve a lot of different audiences, we serve our clients. We’re an advertising supported model. So we serve brands, and we serve agencies, we serve our employees, we tested it with our employees. We serve the marketplace, the general marketplace. So we wanted to make sure that the name was landing with all of these audiences. And we went through some testing. And then we launched and it wasn’t just a name change, it was every single solitary asset in the company change, that we still have radio stations with their brands with their call letters, we still have events in the market, we have our podcast studios. So there is an architecture that lives there about when you use which brand, but it really was the Audacy brand. And the first test was going out into the marketplace to our buying audience agencies brands directly. And what we found was that the story that we were able to tell coming from Audacy versus coming from Entercom was more cohesive, was more strategic, it was a bigger, broader story. And it really gave us a competitive advantage visa the our competitive set. You want

Ben Kaplan 

to answer? I’ll pause Go ahead. No. So and So how is it doing this as a publicly traded company? You know, you’re a publicly traded company that you know, you’re you’re on the New York Stock Exchange, you have your kind of perceiving a legacy business where those are going to, you know, you have like kind of, you know, startup digital native darlings with huge valuations relative to your assets, a smaller valuation, you want to change, you want to pivot that, how do you think about that? Is there anything difference being a publicly traded company trying to do this? Where, you know, suddenly, you’re used to everyone knowing who you are, and then that you’re like, you know, Audacy and like, Oh, you guys, your Entercom? How does that kind of factor into your thinking as maybe an added level of difficulty being publicly traded?

Paul Suchman 

Well, you you treat the investment community as another audience, as important as your buying audience as important as your employees as important as consumers. And you message that out to them in a very similar way, obviously going through those channels that are appropriate for, for financial institutions. We were really fortunate that AUD as a, as a ticker symbol was available, so we owned audio on the New York Stock Exchange. But at the end of the day, you know, the story they want to hear is one of performance and one of growth and one of continued growth. So, the name change was well received, but still those fundamentals and that quarter over quarter performance is what they’re looking for. It’s a story that is resonating, and it’s a story that we’re gonna have to continue to live up to to our markets.

Ben Kaplan 

And how to doing this and during the pandemic effect any approaching this did you get did you think at all about delaying? Or did you say, hey, let’s accelerate, because, you know, it kind of a lot of companies are like investing in things that we’re doing otherwise, this is the time to do it. How did the pandemic play into the thought process and all of this and the role of audio as a marketing channel? And and and you becoming recognised as an audio platform that went beyond radio?

Paul Suchman

It’s a great question. So from a market perspective, audio, there was an expert, you know, advertisers, as you as you know, Ben advertisers started to pull back during the pandemic, because people were just not out buying products, services, goods. So there was a general pullback as there was we were all collectively as a world going into this unknown time period. But one of the things that happened to the audio industry was it accelerated growth, it can consumption of audio accelerated, there was a perception that maybe traditional radio would would go into decline because people weren’t in their cars, and they were staying at home. There may have been a little bit of a blip, but people still consumed it, they just consumed it on smart speakers, they consumed it on their phone, they consumed it directly on their laptops, and desktops. So audio consumption actually grew during the pandemic, there was explosive podcasting growth, there was a great trajectory for radio streaming audio, continued, its upward trajectory. So that was all good. Those were those were tail winds that maybe some other media companies were not enjoying. The to me the most interesting thing, putting on my creative hat. Now as a marketing person, we kicked off this project. And we launched it at every single touch point to every single audience during this pandemic. And the implication of that was every person was working remote on my team, or agency partner teams. So there is a school of thought that says productivity, collaboration, creativity suffered during the pandemic, when people became isolated and work from home became the norm. And that may be true, but I think it did not happen for us would, if anything, we more creatively excelled. I think there was this feeling that we’re all in it together, it became a very intimate project, right? Because you were all in each other’s homes and you were working when you’re, when you’re working towards a launch date, that’s not changing. You’re working funny hours, you’re on the phone at 6am, you’re on the phone at 6pm. You’re on the phone at 11pm. You got to know spouses, you got to know kids, you got to know people’s dogs, you knew people like you know, I had my dog, right with me like that the whole time. And, you know, you felt like you were in the foxhole with these people. And that was our agency partners. You know, that was our creative partners. That was our team. And when you’re changing every single touch point, it was literally like working with virtually everyone in the company. For me, it was a transformative experience.

Ben Kaplan

Well, and how do you think about I mean, because the notion of of the role of audio, I mean, I think we have a lot of startup clients, you know, major presence in Bay Area, Silicon Valley. And for a while everyone, at least in the sort of first mover tech community was talking about clubhouse, right. I don’t know if you’re familiar, like it’s an app on your smartphone, these kind of like conversations around topics. And I’m interested to see your perspective of that as someone that’s like, Hey, we’re becoming a you know, we’re transitioning from radio stations to audio platforms, and these startups come up, and for like a hot minutes, it was like, everyone was on this thing. And then it kind of went down just as fast so you were doing your rebrand at the time. What were you what was going through your mind? What were you thinking when suddenly, at least in this sort of tack or creative class or Everyone’s going on this one platform. And then people people kind of stop using it just as fast.

Paul Suchman

I think our thought with it was, we’ve been doing this for 50 years. If you think about talk radio, think about sports radio, think about news, radio, think about any of the voice led communications that have been happening for the last 50 years. It’s the same basic format. Somebody is leading a conversation people are calling in now, yeah, you can have chat and all that. But but you know, by the way, our radio stations, our app, have websites where people are, are reaching us with those kinds of communications. So for us, it was you know, it was nothing new Twitter spaces was another one that was out there. But we had been doing that it’s it’s the same basic format as podcasting, although you’re not having guests call in but you’re still having bigger conversations with more than one person, you know, two three way conversations and you’re allowing outside voices in so for us, we did not see that as a threat. We saw it as validation for everything that we were doing, and if anything, it accelerated our our move towards digital

Ben Kaplan

and, and what is the role and the importance of, of podcasts. Now, in your opinion, as a marketing channel, we’ve seen this rise of, you know, the Joe Rogan’s of the world reportedly $200 million dollar deal from Spotify. I think it was reported first that 100 million went up to 200 million. Who knows? You have podcasts that come from nowhere. Call me daddy podcasts sold for $60 million. Another one brought up by Barstool Sports. What is the role of podcasts? Is it just an evolution of radio programmes and there was Star performance before or is it something different? What do you think the future is? As as a marketing channel for advertisers, brands agencies?

Paul Suchman

Well, I think that the podcasts that really land like take Glennon Doyle’s podcast, right, that is a sensational podcast. And Glennon has this relationship with her millions of listeners who they build their day around that podcast my wife is is a big Lennon person. And she will take time when a new episode drops to connect with and listen to and hear Glennon and that’s it like that is the moment like Lenin is the ritual. And what podcasting is doing with consumers is building these just deeply bonded relationships stronger than these personalities have in other mediums that are just one way media, whether they’re broadcast or they’re in movies, or

Ben Kaplan

What do you think that is? Is it because a podcast is longer form? You develop more of a relationship over time, it can be passive, meaning you turn on the background, you do other stuff? And then you’re like, oh, what would they just say that that was interesting was that you listen? Like? Why would it be sort of like, have a deeper relationship with audiences and the content creators?

Paul Suchman

Well, it’s one I think it’s not, it’s tends to not be scripted content. It tends to be real, it tends to be more emotional, it’s longer form. So the connection is deeper. If you ask a podcaster, who’s also in other mediums, they will tell you that the relationship they have with their podcast listeners, it’s just different, because they’re just talking about more, they’re revealing more of themselves. They’re opening up more, and all of this. So the reason I was even saying this was because for advertisers, right? That’s a real opportunity for advertisers, if they do it right, to insert themselves into these environments that are deeply engaged, deeply immersed, where trust is there, where love is there. And if a brand is in there, a product is in there that is being endorsed, either overtly with a live read, or even through a stop set of advertising. That add that brand, that product has a much bigger chance of landing with that audience, because it is coming almost verified, right? A podcaster is not going to have advertising on their programme that they don’t support they don’t endorse, they’re certainly not going to do those libraries. And they have a voice in the stops at advertising as well lots of times. So there is Is that trust, that immersion, that engagement, that equity transfers from host to advertiser? So I think that’s what the opportunity is is for these advertisers to find the right hosts, the right formats, the right ways to disrupt, but disrupt in a additive way to what’s happening in that podcast. So that’s what I see as the opportunity.

Ben Kaplan

Well, and and and where do you think, you know, all of this is going and five, five years from now? What do you think we’ll be doing as marketers either if there’s, you know, many other CMOS listening, if there’s other heads of agencies listening, where’s this all going into maybe how we look at the media buying mix, five years from now different than what we’re doing now, or what we’re doing five years before.

Paul Suchman

I think for audio, specifically, the role of audio continues to grow, I think, Audio The keeps taking share from other medium. And I think that for a couple of reasons. One, because the content, there’s just great content being produced, you’re seeing brands run towards audio, it’s still under invested relative to other medium. But as brands are rethinking their 360 plans, they are shifting dollars to audio coupled with that, if you look at the next phase of computing, it’s screenless. Computing is voice driven computing. And all of that together means brands need to really think about how they sound brands spend a lot of time on their visual and verbal identities. And it’s critically important, but their audio identity, whether that’s their Sonic identity, or experientially, how that brands

Ben Kaplan

like, like if it’s Intel inside, and there’s a little chime that goes with it, or people probably you know, back in the day and their new like, oh, like AOL mail account, like, you know, you’ve got mail or something else. Yeah. I mean, like as, as an audio mark, that’s an identifiable sound is what you’re talking about,

Paul Suchman

right? Yeah, absolutely. And as people transact with that brand, you know, MasterCard has become the new when we talk about that it used to be Intel, you know, the for the for China, but MasterCard has done a very, very sophisticated job of of their of thinking through their audio identity of their sound identity, their Sonic brand, not only from how it shows up when when the mark shows up in places, but if you actually transact, you get certain sounds with the brand. And it’s really important. Car companies are thinking about that too, not just the way their logo resolves with a sonic identity, but the in car experience how that sounds when you turn on the radio, when you turn on the ignition, when you click buttons, when you close the door, the sonic identity, that Sonic footprint of a brand is becoming a lot more important. And again, you know, we’re going to screenless computing, right? You’re going to talk to your computers, you talk to your you talk to your car now, right, you talk to your car. And so the way that car speaks back to you, and the sounds that car makes, that’s that’s the sonic identity, it’s got a way beyond logos.

Ben Kaplan

And in what is you know, what talk about how you spent a lot of your time talking about other brands can can mark it using Audyssey. But how do you mark it to to reach sort of the kind of the tripod you referenced earlier, the triangle, right? You work with brands, who are big advertising buyers, you work with agencies who facilitate those advertising buys, what do you spend your marketing your day on? And how do you reach those, those, those key stakeholders.

Paul Suchman

So on the business side, on the b2b side of the house, the agencies and the brands themselves, we have a number of different strategies that we execute. We do thought leadership, we build a lot of thought leadership content in the form of research and insights that we publish as big pieces as small pieces as audio pieces. And we’re spending a lot of time putting that in front of the market meeting. What

Ben Kaplan

are these, like data insights related to to I don’t know, consumption patterns or changes, it was like, Is there a is there a kind of a focal point or a pillar for the types of sort of thought leadership content you’re doing?

Paul Suchman

We follow the trends, you know, we follow the trends. So we’ll, you know, we talk about you know, we do it through the lens of audio and we do it through the you know, as as as the CMO I have to be a champion of the audio industry. Three MVP Audacy brand. So as an example, twice a year, we publish a really robust piece that we call state of audio. And it’s really what’s what’s happening in the state of audio. And each time it’s it’s a different theme. So we just published one last month, and it was on the disruptors. And it talked about how audio is being disrupted by the creative, creator community, what that means for the advertiser community, and the disruption that’s happening in the, from the consumers, because that’s the triumvirate of you know, you’ve creators, you have advertisers, and you have consumers. So we so we do that twice a year, we’re working on one that’s going to come out in the fall. And we just did some research on rituals, the rituals of people live very ritualistic lives, they get up in the morning, they have their coffee, and we did some research to understand the role that audio plays in people’s lives and rituals. And the findings were stunning. I mean, we could do, we could do a whole podcast on that. And we found that the role of audio is unbelievable in these rituals. And in some cases, audio is the ritual itself, I’m not going to go for a run and listen to this podcast, I’m going to listen, I’m gonna go for a run. So I can listen to this podcast, I’m going to take the long way home so I can finish this programme. I’m going to sit in the driveway and finish this radio segment. It just amazing stuff. So we do that. And we also published some hard insights and articles, a drumbeat, we’re spending a lot of time at the conferences where advertisers are, whether it’s a an A or advertising week, so we’re showing up there next to our competitive set next to other media companies. And that’s an air game that we’re providing. And then I spent a lot of time as as, as you and I talked about, before, we you know, before we went live, I spent a lot of time with our CRO working on our ground game, giving our sales people the tools that they need to sell better to sell deeper into organisations to win more business more frequently. So that’s what we’re doing on that side of the house and on the other side. Okay,

Ben Kaplan

so yeah, it’s, that’s that’s the business b2b side. But you also care about just reaching audiences, consumers as well, because ultimately, you put brands and consumers together. So how much of your day is spent thinking about just reaching consumers and understanding, you know, what either your master brand is, or the individual sub brands that they might experience in their local market?

Paul Suchman

The answer is a lot, we spend a lot of time thinking about that we have 200 million listeners on the platform, over the air on the stream listening to our podcasts. And we reach them, you know, we reach them on our own platform, we reach them on third party platforms. And we’re trying to do two things with that we’re trying to grow our audience, we want to grow that audience from 200 to 300, to 400 million listeners, we want them to come on to our app, we want them to spend time on our app, and we want to get more listening time with them. They have lots of other choices out there for audio, and they have lots of other choices out there for other medium that can take the place of audio, and we want them to spend time with us. So we are in acquisition mode to grow that total audience base. And we’re also in growth mode with our existing audience base, getting them onto our app, getting them more listening occasions. So if we see Ben, you know, you’re on our app, and you’re listening to some of our sports stations, we’re going to serve you sports streams, we’re going to serve you sports related podcasts, we’re going to see what else you listen to. And if you’re listening to old music, we’re going to give you to serve you different old stations that may not be in your metro area. We’re going to serve you really interesting podcasts by musicians. So the idea is not just to grow the audience but to give that audience more listening occasions. And that’s really what the advertisers Go ahead.

Ben Kaplan

Well, and how much of that like like, like a competitor, like Spotify, you know, makes a lot of sort of splash for putting a lot of effort in marketing behind stars, right stars of these podcasts, they command large audiences bringing them in putting large sums. What do you think of that as a strategy? And do you try to mimic that or do you try to go a totally different way? Or is growth a star driven? Medium?

Paul Suchman

You know, Spotify you as you talked about earlier as one of those, those those darlings on the street. And one of the things that we have embraced as an organisation I have embraced as a marketer is being a challenger brand, right? So Spotify, we’re not going to outspend Spotify, we’re not going to you know, we’re not going to put Joe Rogan on the flagship, because that would eat an entire marketing budget. And Spotify can do that over and over and over again. But what we have through our roots in radio is we have Joe Rogan’s in virtually every single market, across every single genre. And we have them on 24 hours a day. And they are so deeply connected to these audiences and these communities. So while Spotify is doing a top down approach, we have that star power too, we have that star power in our podcast, we have national radio personalities, but we have so much power in the market. So going bottom up and growing it that way in the community has been a differentiator for us. And brands love that, too. Brands appreciate that connection brands appreciate that authenticity, that you know, it’s not a one size fits all. So we see that actually as a competitive differentiator. It’s, it makes for some really interesting scrappy marketing to consumers.

Ben Kaplan

Well, and you’re you’re focused on audio, but then you’re part of a larger just content ecosystem, where there’s been a lot of changes, like the proliferation of all the I call them the pluses, right? The all the subscriptions, the Disney plus the Paramount plus, everyone’s gonna got there. Plus some people CNN had one for a hot minute and then turn it off, I think three weeks after. So it’s sort of this, what is your feeling of marketing, and and also providing, obviously, audiences for marketers in this broader context, beyond audio have a lot of direct distribution in subscription mechanisms and other mechanisms to reach consumers as you’re part of this broader ecosystem to?

Paul Suchman

It’s exactly right, I think we have our competitive set as as a challenger brand. But at the end of the day, we are competing against all other media companies for that, that personal primetime, that time when a human being has to devote to consuming media. And that person can say, I’m going to consume video, I’m going to scroll on Social, I’m going to go on Facebook, I’m going to consume audio. So we are really competing for that personal primetime. And one of the things that happened during the pandemic. And we’re still seeing it now. Although I’m in New York, and I commuted into New York City today and it is business as usual train was packed subways, pack, streets are packed, like it’s palpable that you can feel people coming back into the workplace. And it’s awesome. But we had become now this this world where the like, those norms stopped existing for a while, and they probably never gonna go back to the way it was, although, you know, who knows. So, the thing, the advantage that that audio has is audio of all the other mediums out there. Audio is the most ubiquitous audio is the ultimate companion media, it can be with you, when you’re driving, it can be with you, when you’re on the train, when you’re on the subway, it can be with you, when you’re exercising, it can be with you when you’re cooking, it can be with you, when you’re lying with your eyes closed, just finding your breath and finding centre. There’s no other medium that does that. And we think that with through this proliferation of content, that is one of the shining star powers of audio, we’re also seeing on the subscription business side, one of the things that we have seen is that there is so many pluses out there that you say like that you were just talking about, we’re almost seeing promiscuity from from from people that I’ll go into Paramount plus, because I want to get Yellowstone. But as soon as that’s done, I’m not going to pay for 95 anymore. And particularly now as people are looking at costs and looking at belt tightening, people are looking at those subscription models really carefully. I mean, I do that in my own home with my kids and my wife and I look at what we pay for media every month. And it’s it’s staggering. And you start to make some decisions. So you know, we feel really good about competing in that overall ecosystem, because of the power the reach the ubiquity of audio. And because we’re an ad supported model versus a subscription driven model that you know, we’re not an in a you know, an either or we’re an end.

Ben Kaplan

And what is your advice for those other CMOS listening now, let’s say we have a whole group of b2b CMOS as our listeners who, you know, have increasingly become content creators themselves, meaning like you’re saying you’re doing like they’re creating thought leadership. They’re creating white papers, they’re creating other things. Then, and, and increasing number I think about like, should we have our own podcast? Should we do some of those things that we even have clients now of of ours is the agency where we’re producing podcasts for them. So what do you think? What do you what’s your advice to other CMOS? That just like, you know, now, everyone’s a content creator, everyone who wants to be a thought leader? Do you actually think about wading into audio or podcasts as a medium that’s important for your business, even if you’re not, you know, you’re not an advertiser for consumer marketing or something like that.

Paul Suchman

I think you need to think about the audience and what you’re trying to do. So as a b2b marketer, you’re not trying to reach 200 million listeners, you are trying to reach a more finite, clearly defined audience. There may be different cohorts in there. But b2b b2c, there’s this almost artificial demarcation, the one thing I think everybody has in common, whether they’re wearing their professional hat or their consumer hat, is there is a lot of content out there. And people are inundated with information and messaging all day long. So I think the first thing a CMO needs to think about if they’re building a, a podcast or audio content, for their own brand is do am I going to be putting something out there on behalf of our brand that my audience wants to consume, and will make time to consume and will move other things off of their desktop to consume that, and it’s

Ben Kaplan 

valuable, that’s that that makes it make value. But if you’re doing something, to go through the motions and and if you’re being asked me stuff, you wouldn’t even listen yourself, then.

Paul Suchman 

But think about what you’re doing here with me Ben like this is you got to get up tomorrow and do it again. And then the next day, you’re gonna get up and do it again. And again, it’s a lot of work. I mean, you’re really good at your craft, and you got to awesome voice, by the way. And I’ll tell you, I think that it’s not easy, you have to do it, this is not just a one and done, if you do it, you’re gonna have to keep doing it. Otherwise, it’s not going to be worth the resources, the time the energy you’ve put behind it. And even worse, it could have a negative trajectory on your own brand. So we work with a lot of brands on branded podcasts. And we have teams of people who this is what they think about day in and day out. And they spend a lot of time building these branded podcasts thinking about subject matters, thinking about the audience, thinking about that content that they are going to produce. And it is it is a significant part of the brand’s who we work with their budget and their time. And they you know, they don’t wait in. They don’t wait in they go, if they go in, they go in and they commit.

Ben Kaplan 

How does all of this, I don’t know if we would have chatted 10 years ago, if you would have thought this would be the field you’re in now in the industry. And you’re now you’ve been a long time cmo in multiple industries, you spent, you know, five years five plus years as CMO at CBRE massive real estate company, you come from the agency world, your CMO at BBDO. I think I think also cmo I think it’s our CMO in residence at WPP. Another massive huge massive agency holding company. So how does all of that, you know inform what you do now does does does you know real estate industry marketing impact how you do your job now and for people that might be jumping sectors or verticals like you have

Paul Suchman

you know, the jump from real estate to audio it was like that was a big jump right? You could argue one was the marketing role was butts in seats in real estate. And now it’s ears on content. In, in, in audio, I think at the end of the day. The thing that I love about marketing is you get to use creativity get to use words you get to use design, you get to use sound, you get to use motion graphics to help communicate really typically complex concepts, complex business lines in really compelling ways and try to differentiate and I think that’s the throughput through all of this is great marketing and great creativity can jump from industry to industry to industry, the tenants are the same. So for me, you know going from just just the real estate to to To Audio jump, it wasn’t a big leap in terms of the great unknown because the tenants remained the same. The playing field was a little bit different, understanding the subject matter, becoming an expert at audio and really learning that, and I’m still learning it three years later. You know, that was the learning curve. But bringing that experience of marketing made that jump a lot easier. And I’ll tell you, it’s been, it’s been an incredibly energizing one because this is just such an amazing time for the audio industry. But what this company has allowed me to lead on behalf of the 4000 people here, this brand transformation, this hyper growth, this really becoming a challenger brand and taking on the giants like Spotify. It’s fun getting up every morning and doing that. And so I guess, if you’re asking the advice I give, and the learning that I’ve taken away is, as marketers, we bring a very special skill set to the table. The key is, how do we weaponize it for that specific industry for that specific situation, and be able to be relevant, and be able to be an impact player, the one thing that I have seen where CMOS struggle is where their organization or they themselves become perceived as a marketing as a cost center, versus marketing as a business driver a business enabler. And when you do that, when you can use creativity to do that everybody wins.

Ben Kaplan

And isn’t that in some ways, the distinction between a CMO and like just a marketing head, right, a very senior marketing person that runs marketing, I don’t know how you describe it. But I often think of it as you know, once you put that see in front of the title, then part of your responsibilities, the overall direction of the of the business, you’re responsible for, yes, all the marketing functions, but you’re also responsible for being an input into how decisions are made for the benefits of the business and how marketing hasn’t seen the table, but also influences interacts with all the other functions that go in? I don’t know how you define what makes a CMO or a great CMO, you know, what are the qualities that make it different than just running marketing?

Paul Suchman

I think using creativity as a business driver is the key. And it’s exactly what you said, it’s what is the role of marketing to contribute to the company’s business goals. And once you start delivering there, and you’re involved in those conversations, then the conversations involved, you know, evolved to include you in the strategic forward direction of the organization. And it’s an incredibly exciting place to be. You know, it’s about earning that trust and support of the C suite. And I’ll tell you, the one thing that I have seen no matter where I am, is marketing is something that everybody has an opinion about, right? People love marketing, people love to talk about marketing. We have an amazing CFO, but you know, I’m not gonna go have a, you know, a p&l discussion with him. And we’re not going to argue about, you know, the way spreadsheets are set up or the way we’re reporting that is his craft. And that is what he does. Same with our CTO, she is an unbelievable technologist. And I am not going to argue with her about our Mar tech stack. But marketing is this thing that touches everybody, right, everybody. And so there’s a lot of opinions there. So bringing that together, and being a great collaborator and harnessing that energy of the C suite is a really important piece of that too. I’d say.

Ben Kaplan 

Well said Paul Sussman, cmo Audacy, you’ve become you’ve had a long career in a lot of different verticals. You’ve run you’ve been a SEMA on a lot of companies. And now you’ve become a champion for audio, the potential of audio what it is, thank you so much for joining us on top CMO.

Paul Suchman

Thanks, Ben. It was a pleasure speaking with you.