Build a brand that captivates skeptical consumers w/ Intuit Mailchimp’s Jeremy Jones & Mark Lodwick

When you're marketers marketing the marketers, it's a really fun and interesting and different place to be.

You're marketing to yourself. We know

that our audience will give us that positive credit for being creative, being clever, being witty, a little bit unexpected, quirky. There's all these

unexpected, quirky. There's all these different kind of elements we can play with that marketers say, what Mailchimp, Bravo. You're not just shoving a a very

Bravo. You're not just shoving a a very rational message down my throat. And

when you are, you're kind of aware of it.

[Music] Hi everybody. Welcome back to Funnel

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Funnel Vision where we're speaking with leaders in digital marketing who are thinking big and leaving their mark on their industry. Consider this an opportunity

industry. Consider this an opportunity to stop and reflect and learn from some of the industry's best. My name is Pa Mia and I'm Sasha Balanki. Let's get

started. So today on this show, we're joined by two marketing leaders from none other than Mailchimp, a company that has evolved from a simple email marketing tool to a full-fledged

all-inclusive marketing platform. We're

joined by Mark Lewick, senior director of integrated marketing and advertising, and Jeremy Jones, global group creative director. Jeremy and Mark, welcome to

director. Jeremy and Mark, welcome to Funnel Vision.

Thanks for having us. So it's a pleasure to have you both here today. Intimate at

Mailchimp is one of the most recognizable companies I would say maybe in the last 30 years or more and there are a thousand reasons for that. You

have super strong brand personality, very memorable creative, probably the most memorable podcast ad I've ever heard in my life. I think you kind of invented podcast advertising in a way

because of that ad. So, we wanted to take an opportunity to learn from your experience how you made all this work.

But before we jump into the really the meat, it would be great if you guys could tell us about how you landed here.

What was your journey? Mark, do you want to start? Sure, no problem. Mark Ldwick

to start? Sure, no problem. Mark Ldwick

and I'm a classically trained marketer, if you will. A lot of my background is in the CPG space in brand management, brand marketing, and about three years

ago decided to make the move into tech.

And I've always been interested in tech solutions. And clearly marketing is

solutions. And clearly marketing is heading in a direction of personalization and firstparty data and I wanted to see how a different business

model operated and it's been a really cool journey. We'll get more into it,

cool journey. We'll get more into it, but one of the things that I was really drawn to joining into a Mailchimp

was that the brand Mailchimp in a B2B space really didn't behave like a typical B2B brand and that spoke to me.

I think at the end of the day, we're talking to consumers. We're talking to people and emotion and brand leading the way is never a bad thing. a very cool

brand that aspired to join and since coming here I've only seen that it's been fantastic ride. And what about you Jeremy? Yeah, I went to school

Jeremy? Yeah, I went to school untraditional for a creative. I went to school for marketing and business and thought I was going to work Yeah.

thought I was going to work in the music industry. I was touring and playing in

industry. I was touring and playing in rock bands which then somehow all famous advertising cloaks. you just ended up

advertising cloaks. you just ended up landing in the advertising agency world.

And so that's where I got my start on the account side before transitioning to the creative side and becoming a copywriter and then cut my teeth at kind

of small local shops before joining Jay Walter Thompson and having global roles within WPP big network advertising and worked my way through the ranks and got

to the point to where I was just exhausted. tons of traveling, managing

exhausted. tons of traveling, managing lots of teams all over the world and was looking for what my next step would be.

And this Mailchimp opportunity came about where they were looking for somebody to help start their in-house creative team and really help scale it.

So, I took the leap of faith. Like Mark,

I was so curious about the brand and who the people were that were bringing it to these new unexpected places and just really excited to have the opportunity

to be a part of that team to push forward. Especially now as Mailchimp's

forward. Especially now as Mailchimp's gone from startup to grownup a little bit more and with the acquisition of in it of just how fast we're accelerating

and moving on market. Yeah, it's really exciting space to be in right now and we're in the next chapter of the brand's history. Wow. So, there are so many

history. Wow. So, there are so many things you guys touched upon that I just were like not sure which one to to tackle first. Um, I hope our audience

tackle first. Um, I hope our audience feels the same. scope. I think uh something that really resonates and has come across in a few of the interviews we've done is how important that human

to human connection is whether you're doing B2B PC and I think Mailchimp like you said Mark is so good at it and that partly has to do I think a lot to the

creative approach that you take. How do

you think about it? Like how do you create that? How do you make that the

create that? How do you make that the standard and make sure that all of those interactions with your brand feel so so genuine and human as opposed to I don't know I think of not to call them out in

a negative way but I'm thinking like a SAP very different vibe than Mailchimp.

So what is your playbook? Yeah.

Um this could take on the entire the entirety of the rest of the podcast, right? This one topic because it is so

right? This one topic because it is so core to what we do and so important.

First off, I lead the brand experience team. Part of that team is our agency

team. Part of that team is our agency partner, our family member, if you will, in WINC, which Jeremy leads.

And what I'm trying to do and what the team is trying to do is to make sure that the brand is always coming across as creative, compelling, and that it's consistent. So, those are the kind of

consistent. So, those are the kind of the three things that I think about all the time. And when I got here, there was

the time. And when I got here, there was a commitment to certainly creative like above all else. It was like we if we do nothing else, we want to make sure that

we break through and we're interesting and we have a personality. It's a strong personality brand. Some people are not

personality brand. Some people are not cut out to work that feels uncomfortable, but we think that it starts with building that emotional

connection with the brand over and over again consistently.

And if you think about the space that B2B can be, it can be highly transactional. Hey, we've got a product,

transactional. Hey, we've got a product, we've got a solution, buy here. We can do that, but we can do it

here. We can do that, but we can do it in a really interesting wrapper in a way that makes you want to be drawn in a way that makes you want to connect with the

brand. So, a lot of times our briefs

brand. So, a lot of times our briefs will start with the human insight.

That's where everything is centered. And

then we figure out all right what are the intersection points where the product the feature the benefits are going to come in that ultimately that

kind of human layer of that is backed by an insight that then Mailchimp is going to bring its personality in and establish and bring all the way through

that's at the backbone of how we approach creative and briefs. Jeremy can

go into the process even more.

Yeah, I mean I think especially in our category when you're marketers marketing the marketers, it's a really fun and interesting and different place to be.

You're marketing to yourself and so just understanding that like that's a hat that you wear, but throughout the day you're wearing all kinds of other hats

as a person, as a mom or a dad or just living living your life. First, we

understand and and we always talk about just how core it is when we're thinking of our audience to make sure that they feel understood. We always say

feel understood. We always say internally like we get you, we got you.

And it's the we get you part first. So

that's acknowledge that comes across in our work with the little wink that comes from Freddy, which is why we named ourselves Wink to honor that connection that we have with our customers. I think

also it's really quick when you're coming up with work or thinking of a brief to be very rational first. I think

we as humans when we make decisions um we don't make them rationally like we make them emotionally first right like you you've probably heard of the saying

think feel do but it's really the order is different right the order is really feel think do and so I think when you unpack that and that kind of comes across to us in our briefs as Mark

mentioned we really try to get at that human insight to where we can make those human connections first and then acknowledge folks as a marketer and the problems that they're trying to solve.

There's something that you said that's really interesting because often when I think about maybe a more traditional performance marketing brief or something that's more like you said transactional,

the first insight that you look at is what's the pain point of your audience?

You didn't use the word painoint, right?

And obviously there is a painoint you're trying to solve for. You went a couple layers back around what is what is important to this person? what's in it for them beyond I have this problem. How

are you going to how much money can I pay you to solve it for me? Can you give us an example of a creative that you have that you're really proud of in terms of that insight and how it set you on the right path uh to connecting with

your customer?

Yeah I think one and this was was like the first where we really brought to life this feeling that customers had and we

brought it to life visually and it was a campaign that we called the customer.

And in our world, marketers are really trying to personalize all of their marketing as best they can, but without really segmenting and using certain tools they didn't realize or they get to

a point where they're stuck where they're just sending the same message to everyone at the same time. U and so in research, we we picked up on this insight where, you know, they got to

this point and they weren't sure really what to do. And so bringing to life that problem in a fun way, right? It was just you don't realize it, but you're creating this cluster, this amalgamation

group of people trying to send one marketing message to many and it's not really working. And so we unpacked that,

really working. And so we unpacked that, showing how with Mailchimp, you can dissect those different groups of people and personalize your marketing and kind of save them from the customer. And it

was something the team really ran with early on. It was just a word on a piece

early on. It was just a word on a piece of paper before we had the idea of cluster and we were like, "Huh, what is what is cluster? What can we do with that word?" Yeah, what can we do with

that word?" Yeah, what can we do with that? And we use AI actually to

that? And we use AI actually to visualize it quickly to see what a customer could be or look like. And when

we just had this different ball of people that was moving around and working in concert talking directly to marketers, you're creating us. It's not

very fun to do this. why don't you try another way? It was just light bulb

another way? It was just light bulb moment for us and when people saw it in testing too they just lit up on it and said yes that's right customer I have that problem I get it thank you

Mailchimp like you this is what I've been trying to say that would probably the first that be the first big one for us where it was the big unlock and we also have two kind of I don't know

simple tests that we throw out there just culturally as a group one is am I excited to show this work to my family myself. Do I want to show this to my

myself. Do I want to show this to my friends? Am I proud of this? That's a

friends? Am I proud of this? That's a

really good litmus test that we're always would I be interested in it? Let

alone do I want to show people that are removed from it? And I think it's just important that we also acknowledge we we

don't like to halfass things. So if it's halfbaked, it's probably not baked. And

so those are just a couple of overarching quick tests that we all have as in our guts that we all buy into on the team.

Yeah. And you have that in your gut, right? Because like you said, you're

right? Because like you said, you're marketers marketing to marketers. Do I

get that right? Yeah. It's kind of meta, but it's not. Awesome. You know, I mean, so many marketers, they start out with, I will never be the expert. I will never know as much as my customer. And you

guys are not in that position. You start

out at a baseline of really understanding your audience on a deeper level. We're in a similar boat because

level. We're in a similar boat because we also market to marketers. So the

online presence and we're moving very hard into the like creation of digital assets. So definitely marketing to

assets. So definitely marketing to marketers and I always think does that make our job harder or easier? Of

course, being the ICP, there's a huge advantage there, but marketers are, you know, we're exposed to marketing content as a consumer, but we also are always

consuming it, like you said, in a meta level. And I feel like I whenever I get

level. And I feel like I whenever I get targeted in anything, whatever, whether it's a cold pitch or an ad, I'm always like, really, was that the right copy?

Right. You judgier. Yeah, a little judgier. And I think what's fun about

judgier. And I think what's fun about interacting as a consumer with a brand that it connects with you emotionally is you're able to remove that judgy layer because you connected it like you said

emotionally first as a human first and then whether it's the right solution for you you can evaluate that later with the thinking part of that process. But I

think it gives you an in that some of the more like 3,000 word white papers that are gated. I have a harder time pronouncing those. But I was curious if

pronouncing those. But I was curious if you felt because you've also gone mid-market and that's also our play if the legacy of Mailchoose's brand which is very strong but in maybe more

dominant in a different area of the business. Do you see it as an advantage

business. Do you see it as an advantage or do you sometimes feel like it hold you back a little bit because it's harder for some consumers even if they're marketers to see you in a

different light? I'll start and Jeremy

different light? I'll start and Jeremy jump in. So this is more in in my

jump in. So this is more in in my opinion being right for the time. So

that that's at the heart of the story.

Back when Mailchimp started um the competitive context was nowhere near where it is today. And so providing what was email

marketing and what the definition of marketing automations is has just gone up over time. And yeah, when you start

out and you become the main player in the category, you then have to evolve as fast or faster than the category does.

And AI, for example, computing power in general, the things that you can do that has gone through the roof over the past

couple years and is accelerating faster and faster. So, we have a job to do to

and faster. So, we have a job to do to meet our customers expectations, but also their customers or C2s, if you will. The the consumers on the other

will. The the consumers on the other end, they have expectations on how they're going to be marketed to.

Personalization, the expectations for I'm going to get a message that's right for me at the time that's right for me, in the way that's right for me. Like,

that in a nutshell is what we're trying to do. But at scale that's really

to do. But at scale that's really complicated. And so we have a job to do

complicated. And so we have a job to do as Mailchimp to drive out ahead of the

competition and continue to provide product solution experience that is very powerful but at the same time

accessible, intuitive. Our brand definitely allows

intuitive. Our brand definitely allows for that and then we have to pay off that promise over and over again with our customers. So it's a challenge. It's

our customers. So it's a challenge. It's

a challenge all of us are dealing with in the space. I think Wick's no different in that in that pursuit. Yeah.

I think the complexity has just gotten at such a a monumental level in in just terms of consumers and how they're just the the

attention economy, right? There's so

many different channels that you need to show up in. And Mailchimp started with kind of the one and the core and the base. But like Mark was saying, we've

base. But like Mark was saying, we've had to evolve rapidly and quickly bringing on SMS, taking on and getting into more ways that you can automate

your marketing across the journey and just growing with your customers. I

think is our brand has opened up doors where people acknowledge and now it's just showing that we have all these other tools and it's hard when your name's Mailchimp, right? Of showing that

you're more than just email, you're more than just these email marketing tools, that you are a marketing platform. And

so that's part of our challenge is getting folks to understand just maybe the things they don't see in app or what they're not using that's there. And so

it's an interesting challenge and I think you picked up on it because Mailchimp in the past was historically the brand you start with and now we're trying to get people to understand that it's also now the brand you can grow

with. We were actually curious about how

with. We were actually curious about how you've tackled that evolution and what specifically you're doing to create those signals across a very wide audience that there is this change

happening without compromising on like the core essence of Mailchimp is this fun and really the wink thing. So how

across so many touch points are you able to move everyone up or segment according to who you're talking to?

Yeah, it's really become functional, right? Like before, maybe a few years

right? Like before, maybe a few years ago, we didn't have a really big life cycle marketing initiative. We do now.

We didn't really play in the space of thought leadership as much. And so, it's just having those intentions and really leaning in, but doing it in a Mailchimpy way. And because that's what people

way. And because that's what people expect from us when we show up. And

again, just making sure folks understand we get them and we got them not just with the tools, but now with the insights and information and relationships that we're able to bring

in because we're still democratizing marketing in a way outside of just the software by bringing in these, you know, we're working with Lesbian, one of the kind of the godfathers of the long and

the short of it, like balancing performance and brand marketing. And

we're offering folks and thought leaders like that up to our customers and so they can be better at their jobs, become better marketers. And it's just

better marketers. And it's just signaling and really leaning into those things now and making sure we have them stood up and have operationalized them as part of our marketing mix, so to

speak. I think we embrace the funnel

speak. I think we embrace the funnel too, Jeremy, to help us do this. At the

top, you're going to have uh a broader base of me. And then we really start to drill down into features and functionality and hey, and customer

stories. A customer like you that

stories. A customer like you that succeeded with Mailchimp, check us out.

And so, as you get through the funnel and you've got a more qualified audience that's really considering, you want to show even harder proof points. and we

work really hard at our claims and making sure that we're always trying to up our game as our product continues to develop. We have less of a job to do to

develop. We have less of a job to do to establish Mailchimp in terms of its awareness. We have more of an

awareness. We have more of an opportunity to show what's underneath the hood. But to your point, Paula, we

the hood. But to your point, Paula, we can't lose the brand in that. We can't

get just too overly functional. So, it's

constant balance and something that we incorporate in all of our briefs and we really utilize the funnel. I think uh we've done that successfully in order to drive consideration. It sounds like now

drive consideration. It sounds like now you guys really understand what that balance is, but was there ever a point where there was internal debate? Should

Freddy be a little more serious? Should

he be like Frederick up market? Do we

need to like massage this thing a little bit? Or is it we know who we are

bit? Or is it we know who we are Mailchimp and regardless of where in the market we sit and and who that audience is, we're Mailchimp. You talk about

Mailchimp shows up like any anybody. If

I show up, I can show up black tie or I can be in sweats and I'm still Mark, but and I still who I am, but how I present myself might be different for different

occasions. Would you talk about that?

occasions. Would you talk about that?

Um, and Freddy's school name, for those wondering, is Freddy von Chippenheimer IV. So, if we really wanted to get

IV. So, if we really wanted to get serious, Yeah. Yeah. We could really

serious, Yeah. Yeah. We could really lean into that. His mom calls him Frederick, though. Yeah.

Frederick, though. Yeah.

That's not even the name. But I I still think back to making sure the wink is in the work. Whether the tonality changes

the work. Whether the tonality changes because we're in more of a serious conversation or we're more kind of a brand level, we still make sure that

little is in there regardless of where we're at in the funnel and where we're speaking to because that's the part that people remember and take away from the brand. Just that thoughtfulness, that

brand. Just that thoughtfulness, that little extra bit. We're going back to the marketers and who we serve. They

give is it a double-edged sword? Is it

actually they're more critical because they know that you're marketing to them.

But on the other side, on the flip side, you get credit when you're clever and when you do good marketing. So, we

really try to make sure that we pay that off because we know that our audience will give us that positive credit for it. So being creative, being clever,

it. So being creative, being clever, being witty, a little bit unexpected, quirky. There's all these

unexpected, quirky. There's all these different kind of elements we can play with that marketers say, what Mailchimp, Bravo, you're not just shoving a a very rational message down my throat. And

when you are, you're kind of aware of it. There's some of that stuff that's

it. There's some of that stuff that's true deprecation part. Because yeah,

look, when you are marketing a software as a marketer, if your advertising for that isn't good, they're going to have start to have questions about your

products. And so, we understand that

products. And so, we understand that balance. And so, we're very thoughtful

balance. And so, we're very thoughtful when we do go to market in every single part of the channel of just making sure the craft is really there and that we're

not taking anything for granted.

I want to ask you guys about the the performance marketing versus brand marketing. And I think there's this

marketing. And I think there's this constant struggle that a lot of companies face to keep performance marketing from crowding out brand building activities. Now you guys have a

building activities. Now you guys have a very strong brand. I think it's almost impossible to crowd out the Mailchimp brand, but is that something that that you're seeing? How do you guys think

you're seeing? How do you guys think about that internally? What does that balance look like? that first of all that that is the challenge of every marketer that's listening to this podcast. It's long-term versus

podcast. It's long-term versus short-term. And I'll tell you, I don't

short-term. And I'll tell you, I don't know any business that is like pounding the table going, I need more long-term results. I think of it a little bit like

results. I think of it a little bit like you have no choice but to have short-term. You've got to have results

short-term. You've got to have results now, otherwise we're going to be out of jobs, right? We're here to sell a

jobs, right? We're here to sell a product. We're here to drive a business.

product. We're here to drive a business.

So, it's like you want dessert, you got to eat your vegetables, but I really want dessert. It takes

want dessert. It takes leaders to have it as a

non-negotiable that we will not sacrifice long term for short term. I I

think yeah, you're going to get a crunch where you've got to hit shortterm in a short sprint. That's fine. But then you

short sprint. That's fine. But then you got to find ways to experiment and you got to find ways behind Jeremy does an awesome thing with his team. He gets

them together whether anybody likes it or not and they ideulate on crazy fun wacky interesting things that they're

passionate about. They then package that

passionate about. They then package that up. We have a sit down and this happens

up. We have a sit down and this happens once every month or two months and it's hey we've got a really great brand idea.

We want to talk about it. what do you think? And it forces all of us to go, oh

think? And it forces all of us to go, oh man, this is why we got into marketing in the first place. This is exciting.

I'm excited. Jeremy's excited to bring it to our boss. And that that kind of exercise also helps ritualize. We've got to continue to

ritualize. We've got to continue to drive brand here and we all love it. And

so why wouldn't we spend a little bit of time just thinking about that and throwing it out there? Do you think given the size and recognition of their

brand that any interaction could be separate from the brands? At Wix, we talk a lot about brand performance because even our performance marketing

at this point is pushing a a view of our brand and experience of the brand every time. And sometimes you have, you know,

time. And sometimes you have, you know, a whole Super Bowl ad to do it. And

sometimes you have a couple seconds in a static post that's interrupting someone's day. and the accumulation of

someone's day. and the accumulation of all of those interactions is eventually what's driving both. Sure. So obviously

there are some assets that you put out there in the world for a very specific goal. But I I feel like we're in a luxur

goal. But I I feel like we're in a luxur like Wix is in a luxurious position where we want growth and we also wanted short and long term. It's less like

urgent to drive that incremental growth than maybe a smaller business who needs to make X-target or that series C is just not going to happen. And where the

performance and brand efforts might be competing for resources also, right?

Always that that is a constant challenge. We do a one thing that comes

challenge. We do a one thing that comes to mind is we do tabletop reviews which is like old school where you just lay out everything you got around the conference table if you will and we take

a look at it we take a zoom back and to your point Paul whether it's a a long format video experience or just this quick hitter static

banner the sum of all those parts and each of them individually has to be paying off on our brand asset cuts, what we represent as a brand, our

personality, our tone, copy, even the fonts that we use. This all establishes that long-term equity. And that's

something that we also do just to get a sense check. Zoom in, zoom out.

sense check. Zoom in, zoom out.

That establishes the long-term equity.

And then also in the other direction, brand has the power to to lift every other metric, right? And you need that recognition at a leadership level, I

think, to really value the interplay between both. Yeah. Brand brand is like

between both. Yeah. Brand brand is like the 401k of marketing, right? It's going

to pay off over the long term, but you're not going to check in on your 401k every day. That's refreshing,

right? Yeah. As long as you can get folks in leadership to to understand that then they can picture like yeah that's going to grow and compound over time but that the performance aspect

because you invested like you were saying Sasha is going to increase too.

There's like a benefit like the two of them together become a superpower. When

you focus just in one or the other it doesn't it's not having the same impact.

I think the more that um you can create that multiplier effect to where they're each benefiting from each other and you're putting signals of each like we

spend a lot of time on CTAs. It may

sound ridiculous but we're like crafting there's three words in a CTA but we're making sure that combination of word is doing the best that it can. And then

we've created on our team within Wink working with kind of our integrated marketing friends a sandbox where we're just constantly testing ads and ideas

like just random ideas and putting them in the mix to understand how they're performing just to give ourselves that gut check that we talked about like

maybe this brand thing in the bottom of the funnel works better than this really performance marketing focused thing and vice versa. So I think it's being able

vice versa. So I think it's being able to stay curious but understanding that you have to have that balance. What are

those metrics that are most important to you?

So depending on where we're at in the funnel, it's getting people just to lean in that one next step and whether it's they're in market. We talk about in market and out of market a lot, right?

95% of your audience is usually out of market. And so that's why brand is so

market. And so that's why brand is so important. So, we're top of mind when

important. So, we're top of mind when people do get to that trigger to where now they become in market and they've heard of Mailchimp before and we have that familiarity. And then when we're

that familiarity. And then when we're hitting folks in market, maybe with a claim or that kind of harderhitting message, we want them to take that just that next action, whether that's

visiting our website and getting to that pricing page and talking to a sales rep on the other side. just getting them to raise their hand now in a way that's they're they've been primed and they're

ready and we've gotten them over that hump. Do you guys work with your sales

hump. Do you guys work with your sales team like from a creative perspective?

Cuz I'm curious, you have such a unique experience at least until the pricing page and then a human takes over. How do

you make it one cohesive?

Yeah. So, I think that's the beauty of having an in-house creative team within Mailchimp especially is our team fits

across the entire end toend experience.

And so, we have a whole team focused on sales enablement, working directly with our sales team, hearing what they're talking about each and every day with our customers, where potential hurdles

are, things that people are loving. And

so we're developing different creative stimulus for them videos. When we hear of a really amazing kind of success story, we're quickly trying to get in there and bring that story to life.

Whether it be through a quote that ends up in a in an ad or a banner or something that we're then able to create kind of a video from and use that as marketing or in our newsletter. It's a

constant communication back and forth and and we're designing the materials that they're using such that the prospects on the other end are having again a a consistent brand experience

even if it's a takeaway a one pager and Jerry's right like that connection where our marketing

team but also our creative agency is at the same dinner table with the sales team. It's unique and not something that

team. It's unique and not something that I've experienced before. It's a

competitive advantage, I think, especially for the brand experience, the longer term elements that we're able to provide.

It sounds like you have a really strong balance also between the strategic and the creative. It seems like there's

the creative. It seems like there's still a lot of space to to just see what comes out and get together and brainstorm. There's a respect, I think,

brainstorm. There's a respect, I think, unique and special respect for both sides of that same coin. Yeah. And the

sides, if you will, have earned the respect of the other side. Not, it

hasn't been just dictated. It's, hey,

we're really good at what we do. Let me

show you and over and over again paying off on that. It's, okay, I can trust here. And it's Jeremy and my job to

here. And it's Jeremy and my job to ensure that both sides of strategic and creative or performance and long-term

these these push pulls are being brought into balance and we really have an open kind of got your back

optimistic culture that we've cultivated and we encourage curiosity and a flat organization if you will. It doesn't

matter what your tenure or your title.

You've got an idea, you've got a curiosity, you've got a wonder. Bring

that forward and we encourage that behavior. A few little nuggets in there

behavior. A few little nuggets in there for how we operate. Yeah. In terms of a wink, it's interesting because you have

a world-class advertising agency, design agency, strategist, life cycle marketing experts, content and editorial folk,

original content people. Like it's such an amazing diversity of thoughts. We

call it like a mly crew or we practice this MLY crew mindset of where we're all moving as different parts of the band, but we'll lean into certain kind of

instruments or channels at times which everyone is supporting. And it's this really amazing dance that's just grown over time, specifically within the last 3 to four years of just how much we've

scaled. And it's because of how much

scaled. And it's because of how much more Mailchimp has grown up too. So how

we were talking about before of making sure we're as we're going more upm market that we had the capabilities wink has grown with that to kind of service

those kind of new channels or or new initiatives but still bringing that wink to the work or to everything that we do like Mark was saying we're so embedded

in the business and in the same meetings to where it's almost an unfair advantage to have creatives that are understanding the companies these different initiatives, what's going on with the

product in real time at the same time as everyone else. We're just able to move

everyone else. We're just able to move so much more quickly. How many people are in your team? Because it sounds not small. So, how do you how are you

small. So, how do you how are you everywhere?

Yeah, it's I don't know. It's roughly

like Yeah, it's so hard. We have about 40 people in Wink that are full-time folks. And then outside of that, we're

folks. And then outside of that, we're constantly expanding and contracting with contractors. Sometimes right now

with contractors. Sometimes right now we're in the busy season. It's about 80 folks total working across the entire experience. Uh and that expands and

experience. Uh and that expands and contracts like I was saying depending on the season and the time of the year. But

yeah, it's a large team and it's big on ops helping with and orchestrating just that delicate dance across all the different channels. Yeah. And and we're

different channels. Yeah. And and we're also expanding in a different way uh geographically. So pushing out

geographically. So pushing out internationally more I mean that that you know no surprise that's a multiplier in terms of our creative output um

because you have localized opportunities uh localized insights you know the more um sophisticated we get as a global

company um the more markets we go into that puts that much more on the creative output And it's cool, but it's it's a

constant resourcing prioritization kind of discussion. And that's something that we

discussion. And that's something that we also lean into big time. The ops group, our producers, they're fantastic and they really help organize not only the

creative agency, but the full marketing operation.

So I think creative output is actually a great transition point for us because one of the things that we always like to ask on Funnel Vision at the end of the show to get creative output you also

have to get the right input and we like to ask marketers what is inspiring you?

Who are you following? What are you reading? And what are you listening to

reading? And what are you listening to to stay inspired either in the field or outside of it?

Jeremy, you're going to be much more interesting than me. Go ahead.

It's all interesting. It's getting with getting in someone's head, you know?

That's always interesting. Yeah. I think

I tend to like to fish in a lot of different people's rivers and spend a lot of time outside of kind of marketing to draw insight from. I like to fly fish

for one. That's like a new hobby to

for one. That's like a new hobby to where I'm just able to disconnect and clear my mind of everything to then have fresh new ideas that come to me. So

that's one thing that I do and I encourage everyone to do is take time outside of your normal dayto-day, no matter what that is, just to give yourself that time to reflect and focus on something else because that's when

I'm usually hit with a big idea or a thought when I'm not trying to think about it.

one book that I'm Yeah, I was wondering if that was a metaphor at first. It is.

It's both. It's both a metaphor. It

started as a metaphor. Fly fishing. It

started as a metaphor and then led me to taking up fly fishing. That was

beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. And now I'm like an etmologist like studying bugs.

It's like it's fascinating. So from bugs to marketing. I don't know how I got in

to marketing. I don't know how I got in there, but I can tell you about the life cycle of different larae and stuff. Life

cycle marketing. Yeah.

It all full circle. It all connects. But

yeah, and then I'm reading uh a book right now by Damon Stapleton, a New Zealandbased creative. I followed him

Zealandbased creative. I followed him for a while. He had a really interesting blog called Like Damon's Brain. Just a

lot of different insights from a creative standpoint that he's given. His

book is Keep Shooting Until You See the Smoke, and it's all about ammunition for creatives. And it's really great. I

creatives. And it's really great. I

recommend it to anybody if you're feeling stuck. There's just lots of

feeling stuck. There's just lots of different ideas in there to help you think differently or to get you out of your rut. What I'm watching, I just

your rut. What I'm watching, I just finished Penguin, which was not what I thought it was. Really great acting by Colin Carroll. So that's in my free

Colin Carroll. So that's in my free time. I'll I'll dive into whatever's out

time. I'll I'll dive into whatever's out there in Netflix entertainment. Cool.

What about you, Mark? time away from the screen, time away from um per purposeful thinking and more the ability to let

your mind wander. Things that I hold sacred for me is exercise, cooking, and spending time with my family and my

kids. I think focusing on my kids

kids. I think focusing on my kids constantly brings up the import just the bringing us back

to curiosity and questions and seeing life through their eyes. It's just a totally different lens and it brings me back to the simplicity and what's at the

heart of the human experience. This all

sounds very heady and everything, but it's I think a really important source of strength,

inspiration, and reggrounding if you will. And I think time to even just the

will. And I think time to even just the morning walking the dog. I don't bring my phone with me. I think we have just so much of this screen time and you

don't have that idle time for your brain just to do its thing. How many times do we had that great idea in the shower, for example? It's real. So, that's

for example? It's real. So, that's

something really important that I totally agree with Jeremy on books I'm reading. It has nothing to do with

reading. It has nothing to do with marketing, but it's a very cool book.

David Gogggins, Can't Hurt Me. I'm like

twothirds through. But if I think my life's tough, okay, we got this guy over here. Incredible perseverance. It's just

here. Incredible perseverance. It's just

a ridiculous individual story of grit and determination and what the human body and mind can do. So really cool from that standpoint. What am I

listening to? I'm listening to music.

listening to? I'm listening to music.

Actually really like music and that also is another time to let your mind do its thing. I might have disagreements with

thing. I might have disagreements with my kids as to what music is good and what to listen to, but I really enjoy it. And then from a podcast standpoint,

it. And then from a podcast standpoint, I do listen to Rogan. I think that there's stuff having to do with just culture and what's going on out there and there's some really interesting guests and sometimes if I don't like the guests I just don't listen to them. Alex

Freriedman I think is a typical one in terms of just technology and where things are heading that way and again bringing some of these topics that I wouldn't have any knowledge of to the

forefront. And then I love the Crush

forefront. And then I love the Crush Live poker podcast. I also really like the game of poker. There's a lot of strategy, a lot of math involved, a lot

of reading, human interaction, and it's an exciting, interesting mental challenge. And what am I watching? I

challenge. And what am I watching? I

just finished Shogun because right loves Shogun. It was like, okay, am I going to

Shogun. It was like, okay, am I going to get into this or not? But I stuck with it. And holy cow,

it. And holy cow, impressed by people who listen to Rogan and Freeman Freeman. Those are threehour long podcasts. Oh, please. I don't It's

long podcasts. Oh, please. I don't It's not like I hit this thing in one fell swoop. I'll take I'll be breaking that

swoop. I'll take I'll be breaking that up into bite-sized chunks. Yes, for

sure. For sure. And it's by topic or guest. Okay, this is really interesting.

guest. Okay, this is really interesting.

I'm going to go deeper. Mark and I also have this text exchange going back and forth on trying to perfect the omelette.

The French. The French omelette. We

recently shared a restaurant experience together of this amazing omelette and we were so mindboggled by this. We committed

ourselves to trying to perfect that omelette and so we constantly send each other back and forth omelette pictures iterations on the omelette. Yeah. Have

we made substantial progress? Yeah. I'm

curious. There's weeks where we peak and then Yeah.

There's three elements that we're trying to get all into perfect harmony and one is always out of far out. Yeah, exactly.

And it's like the color, the consistency, and the shape. Just feel

like you have it down with just three eggs. That's all you can use. Butter,

eggs. That's all you can use. Butter,

salt, and creme fresh.

But creme fresh just on top, not in.

Yeah. After the fact. Oh, got it. Can I

ask you guys a question? Of course.

Reuse. All right. You mentioned before, we might have been rolling, we might not have been, I don't remember, but you said, "Hey, you guys invented the podcast advertisement."

podcast advertisement." Can you tell us from your vantage point what you remember and what you're struck

by relative to that statement and the serial podcast and all of that? And do

you think that we should embrace more of that? I already knew Mailchimp before I

that? I already knew Mailchimp before I heard the podcast. I think I was even using it for a side hustle that I had and I remember the little kid saying Mailchimp. I just remember and it was

Mailchimp. I just remember and it was always and I would listen to cereal probably like on a long run or something and it would always come on and typically when there's an ad I'm like fast forward I want to hear this. But I

would never fast forward that one because there was something pure about that reaction that I was always like it just gave me a little chuckle like every time I was like oh there's the milk and then I would just whatever wait for the

very dark cereal hut test with something about the contrast between the content and this this moment of like joy. I think that like that essence is in your marketing today.

Okay. So, I think you have embraced it.

Whether it's silly, I don't think I've heard a podcast ad for mail tube in a while, but that just maybe because I'm listening to very different type of podcast than I used to back in the day.

Yeah. But that always like actually if I think of podcast advertising, I always think of like every single time. All

right. It's a good place to be. Thank

you both so much for joining us. Uh that

is it for this episode of Funnel Vision.

can find us on all the major podcast platforms and we'll be posting the full interview on YouTube under the Wix studio page. Be sure to hit subscribe to

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can also find more great resources for marketers at our content hub linked below or in the show notes. Thank you

everyone and see you next time on Funnel Vision.