诺姆·德·格雷夫谈成长、重塑以及在无情变革中引领方向

在这个充满AI、变革和不确定性的时代，创意依然重要。

In this era of AI and transformation and uncertainty, creative still matters.

确实非常重要。

It totally matters.

至少目前，机器还不太懂品味。

The machine, at least today, doesn't know taste that well.

到目前为止，我见过的所有AI工具都需要一个创意人来指导，告诉它“这个行”或“这个不行”。

All of the AI tools I've seen so far have to be directed by a creative who says that's it or that's not it.

也许将来某个时候，情况会不同，但现在还不是那样。

Maybe at some point in the future, we'll be in a different place, but we are not there today.

市场营销

Marketing

如今让人感到有些不知所措。

today feels a little overwhelming.

变化的速度快得让我们跟不上。

The ground keeps shifting faster than we can keep up.

按理说，现在这个时代，营销应该是增长的引擎。

We're supposed to be in the era where marketing is the engine of growth.

那为什么真正能驾驭这种混乱的领导者这么少见呢？

So why do the leaders who could actually navigate that chaos feel so rare?

你好。

Hi.

我是Josh Vanier，谷歌AI与营销策略副总裁，欢迎收听《前沿CMO》。

I'm Josh Vanier, VP of AI and marketing strategy at Google, and welcome to Frontier CMO.

我对今天的嘉宾很期待，因为他是那种少有的领导者，能在全球最复杂、规模最大、而且可以说是最传统的公司之一，通过变革来创造影响力。

I'm excited about today's guest because he's one of those rare leaders who's delivering impact through change at one of the most complex, largest, and, quote, old school companies in the world.

Norm de Greve职业生涯的大部分时间都在应对巨大的变革。

Norm de Greve has spent much of his career navigating moments of massive change.

在CVS，他帮助重塑了公司形象，放弃了数十亿美元的烟草收入。

At CVS, he helped reinvent the company's identity by walking away from billions in tobacco revenue.

在Digitas，他经历了数字转型的第一波浪潮。

At Digitas, he lived through the first waves of digital transformation.

而在通用汽车，他在公司几乎同时重建一切的时候接手了，包括产品组合、营销模式、运营体系，还有思维方式。

And at General Motors, he stepped in as the company was rebuilding almost everything at once, the portfolio, the marketing model, the operating system, the mindset.

在这一集中，诺姆坦诚地谈到了是什么推动了通用汽车的转型，以及为什么持续的变化对内部团队来说既令人振奋又令人恐惧。

In this episode, Norm talks openly about what sparked GM's turnaround and why constant change is both energizing and terrifying for the teams inside it.

诺姆还深入剖析了通用汽车新的增长架构、由人工智能驱动的Metropolis平台，以及重塑公司形象的创意改革。

Norm also lifts the hood on GM's new growth structure, the AI powered Metropolis platform, and the creative overhaul reshaping how the company shows up in the world.

这是一次坦诚的对话，探讨了在快速变革的企业中领导需要付出什么。

It's a candid look at what it takes to lead inside a business moving at the speed of reinvention.

我就说这么多。

That's enough from me.

下面是我与诺姆·德·格雷夫的对话。

Here's my conversation with Norm de Greve.

我觉得我在职业生涯中犯了一个巨大的错误。

I've decided I made a huge mistake in my career.

我应该坚持留在汽车行业。

I should have stuck and stayed in automotive.

我一直在听这些播客。

I've been listening to all these podcasts.

我一直在看YouTube上的这些视频。

I've been watching these things on YouTube.

我找到了一个叫《汽车线下班后》的播客。

I found this podcast called the auto line after hours.

我不知道这是不是通用汽车批准的，但他们那些人特别有意思。

I have no idea if it's GM approved or not, but they're fascinating guys.

所以我一直在听这些东西。

And so I've just been listening to all this stuff.

而且，我很久以前在广告公司工作的时候，就接触过通用汽车的业务，那时候还是我做银幕广告的日子。

And I I worked on GM way back in the day when I was in my goodby silver scene advertising days.

所以我经常去底特律。

I So went to Detroit a lot.

不过，是的，汽车行业真的超级复杂，也特别有意思。

But, yeah, the auto business is unbelievably complex and interesting.

这也是我接受这份工作的原因之一。

I mean, it's one of the reasons that I took the job.

我之前为通用汽车做过一些工作，也见过很多行业，但汽车行业真的非常吸引人。

I had done some work for GM, and I'd seen a lot of industries, but automotive is just fascinating.

确实如此。

It really is.

很少有行业像汽车这样，产品本身就像一种勋章，能代表你的身份，别人会因此评价你。

There are just very few places that it's like a medallion product where it says something about who you are, people judge you by it.

所以品牌真的很重要。

So brand really matters.

而且还有庞大的研发阶段，会产生大量数据。

And also have this massive research phase that spews off tons of data.

最后还有个人实际注册购买，这样就能形成闭环。

And also has the actual individual register the purchase at the end, so you can close the loop.

很少有行业能具备所有这些特点。

There's just like very few places that have all of that.

另一个让人着迷的地方是，这真的是一个靠势头驱动的行业。

The other thing that's fascinating is it's really a momentum business.

开发新产品需要很长时间，所以一旦你做对了，而且领先于竞争对手，他们就很难追上。

It takes so long to make new products that when you get it right, and if you're ahead of your competitors, they cannot do much.

而当你做错了，竞争对手领先于你时，你也很难翻身。

And when you get it wrong and your competitors are ahead of you, you cannot do much.

你只能在下一个产品周期里做对。

You just have to get it right in the next product cycle.

对我来说，这部分特别吸引人。

And that part for me was fascinating.

看看通用汽车的历史，60年代的时候，它占据了美国汽车市场的一半，50%的市场份额。

If you look at kind of the history of GM, I mean, the 1960s, held half The US auto market, 50% market share.

哇。

Wow.

基本上从70年代开始一直到2000年代，市场份额一直在下滑，因为产品竞争力不够强。

And pretty much once the 70s showed up until the 2000s, sometimes it was just a decline in market share for a long time because the products weren't as competitive as they needed to be.

而且市场营销很多时候就是被用来掩盖这些问题的。

And marketing was kind of tasked with kind of covering that up a lot.

就像在说，嘿，看这边，这个很酷。

Like, hey, look over here, this is cool.

别管车本身了，你有了这辆车就会很酷，你会和别的东西联系在一起。

Forget about the car, you'll be cool if you have this car, you'll be associated with something else.

现在产品又回来了，这可不是件小事，真的是一个了不起的美国企业故事，但产品确实回来了，这让市场营销变得更有趣，也更有意思去做。

And now the products are back, which was no small feat, really an amazing kind of corporate America story, but the products are really back and that makes the marketing a lot more interesting and a lot more fun to do as well.

因为你是基于优势在运作，而不是……

Because, you know, you're operating off strength and not...

你不是基于劣势在运作。

You're not operating off weakness.

所以在我准备这次采访的时候，在我们准备这个“前沿首席营销官”的概念时，我们一会儿会聊聊这个，看看你的简历，看看通用汽车的历史，看看你工作过的所有地方，变化似乎真的是你世界里一个非常持续的部分。

So as I was preparing for this interview, as we were preparing for this notion of a Frontier CMO, and we'll talk about that a little bit, Looking at your resume, looking at the history of GM, looking at all the places you've worked, change just seems like this really constant part of your world.

你一直处在或参与了一些非常大的变革时刻的中心。

You've been at the center of or within some really big moments in change.

但我想回到你刚才说的关于把产品做对的事情。

But I just wanna go back to what you said about getting the product right.

因为归根结底，好产品自然卖得动。

Because, ultimately, good product sells.

再好的营销也卖不动差产品。

Good marketing can't sell a bad product.

通用汽车内部一年前、五年前、二十年前发生了什么，才让今天的产品变得这么好？

What happened inside GM a year ago, five years ago, twenty years ago to get you to good product today?

最终的催化剂是2000年代的破产。

The ultimate catalyst was going bankrupt in the 2000s.

那确实是个转折点。

That'll do it.

因为你可以给自己编任何故事，但当你破产的时候，问题就藏不住了。

Because you can tell yourself any story you want to tell yourself, but when you're bankrupt, there's really no hiding, that there's a problem.

而且那并不是一次性的事件。

And that wasn't just a one time event.

财政部的人曾经长期坐在通用汽车的会议室里。

The treasury department had people sitting in meetings at GM for a long time.

所以每天你都会觉得自己很丢脸，因为你连自己的公司都经营不好。

So like every day, you're a bit humiliated that you can't run your business.

所以对我来说，那才是真正的催化剂，它打破了那种骄傲自满、觉得我们能搞定一切的想法，或者说是让旧模式继续维持下去的那种信念，甚至还有那些各种限制条件……

And so that to me was really the catalyst that said this idea of pride or we can make it work or whatever it was that was keeping the old model floating, or even the fact that you had all these constraints of all these different...

你不能提高价格，不能改变你的息税前利润，成本也固定在那。

You know, you couldn't you couldn't raise your prices or you couldn't change your EBIT or your costs were a certain way.

破产把这些都清除了。

Bankruptcy helped clear that.

那么，你加入通用汽车的时候，已经过去几年了。

So when you were hired to General Motors, it's been a couple of years now.

你觉得你被招进来，是不是带着一个变革的任务，就是我们知道我们的产品很好。

Were you brought in, do you believe, with a change mandate of we know we've got good product.

我们需要扭转营销局面，或者我们需要做出改变，或者我们需要在营销方面跟上产品方面的速度和势头？

We need to turn marketing around, or we need to change things up, or we need to match the velocity and momentum we see on the product side on the marketing side?

对，在我来之前，营销做得挺好的。

Yeah, I mean, there was good marketing before I showed up.

他们请我加入，是为了匹配当下挑战所需的营销模式。

The reason that I was asked to join was to match the model of marketing that was needed for the challenges of today.

当时的情况是，除了推出这些更好的产品，当然还有向电动汽车的大规模转型。

And what was happening is in addition to making all these better products, there was a huge movement to EVs, course.

电动汽车好，原因我们都知道。

And EVs are great for all the reasons we know.

但它们的利润也比燃油车低很多。

They are also a lot less profitable than gas vehicles.

而华尔街才不在乎这个。

And who doesn't care about that is Wall Street.

所以我们当时要推出所有这些新车，其中一些还是全新的品牌。

And so what we had is launching all these new vehicles, some of which are new nameplates.

新品牌意味着新名字，要把这个名字植入人们的脑子里，得花很多钱。

Now it's a product that is a new name, takes a lot of money to embed that name into people's heads.

而且需要的是一种运营模式，不仅仅是营销，而是整个公司的运营模式，以及一个在盈利方面面临挑战的愿景，要实现这个愿景。

And an operating model, not just a marketing, but for the company and a vision that was challenged with profitability to get to that vision.

所以，要实现这个目标，确实需要一种根本不同的方法，和以前的方法完全不同。

And so you really needed a fundamentally different approach to getting there, to delivering on that than we had before.

所以从某种程度上说，这并不代表之前的工作做得不好，只是需要不同的模式，而且时代不同了，那个时代需要不同的模式。

So in some ways it was less about the work before wasn't good, it was just a different model, and it was a different time, and a different model was needed for that time.

这意味着营销的运作方式要进行一次相当大的转型。

Now, what that meant was a pretty substantial transformation of how marketing operates.

我们接下来会深入聊聊这个。

We're gonna we're gonna get into that.

但在那之前，我想先……

But before we do, I just wanna...

我之前提到过，你经历过一些非常重要的时刻。

I mentioned earlier, you've been around some pretty momentous moments.

而且你因为CVS停止销售烟草而闻名。

And you're famous for the CVS dropping tobacco.

你在Digitas工作的时候，正好经历了它历史上非常具有变革性的十年。

You worked at Digitas through a pretty transformative decade in Digitas' history.

你以前也是个创业者，早年自己开过公司。

You were an entrepreneur, started your own company back in the day.

我只是……

And I I just...

当你回想这些变革时刻，然后来到通用汽车，你个人的动力是什么？

As you think about these moments of change and then coming to General Motors, what is your personal motivation?

你喜欢站在这些变革的最前沿吗？

Do you enjoy being at the frontier of these change moments?

有没有觉得不堪重负的时候？

Does it ever become overwhelming?

你是怎么处理和应对这种“又来了”的重大变革和持续动荡的？

How do you process and cope with, here we go again, momentous change, constant upheaval?

我本质上就是喜欢创造东西。

I like to build things is really the core.

感觉我们也在试图找出成为前沿首席营销官所需的特质和技能，在营销和行业的这种最前沿运作。

It also feels like we're trying to identify the the attributes and the skills needed to be a Frontier CMO, operate at this sort of bleeding edge of marketing and and of of industry.

但变化来得越来越快，感觉现在这已经是一个根本性的……

But change is coming faster and faster, and it feels like it's now a fundamental...

没有所谓的正常或常规。

There is no normal or regular.

变化是常态。

It's constant change.

我在谷歌的职位上就看到了这一点。

I see that in my role at Google.

我相信你在通用汽车也看到了。

I'm sure you see it at GM as well.

如果你不习惯在这种变化的环境中运作，你就不会成功。

If you're not comfortable in operating at this change context, you're not gonna succeed.

我认为领导者的职责之一就是帮助人们以不同的方式感到安全，因为变化正在发生。

I think a job of a leader is to help people feel secure in different ways because the change is happening.

所以如果你能告诉他们，我们会想办法解决的，而且我相信你，这就能大大减轻他们的焦虑。

So like if you can tell them we're gonna figure it out and you're gonna, I believe in you, that takes a lot of anxiety out of them.

但实际情况并没有改变。

But the actual facts aren't changing.

我有一句话挺出名的，就是“你只能向前走，或者我们只能向前走”。

I have this, I'm kind of known for a phrase of like, you can only move forward or we can only move forward.

这话说得太对了。

And it's just so true.

事情就是这样。

It's just what happens.

你指出的正是这种变化的速度在持续加快。

And what you're pointing out is the velocity of this change continues to increase.

我觉得AI这件事让人害怕，不仅仅是因为我们已知的那些原因，还有一个原因是它真的颠覆了我们对变化的历史认知。以前在科技领域，我们常常短期内过于兴奋，高估了它带来的影响。

And I think the AI thing is scary, not just for all the reasons we know, but for one reason that it's really defied what our historical understanding of change was, which was a little bit in technology that we get so excited in the short term that we way overestimate what it's going to do for us.

某种程度上，对于我们这些经历过一些事情的人来说，那种模式反而让人感到安心。

In some ways, for those of us who had been around a while, there was some comfort in that.

不，现在是高估的阶段，之后会好起来，但还得过一段时间。

No, this is the phase where we overestimate, and then it will be good, but a while from time.

我觉得在AI方面，我们只是看到我们一直都没有高估它。

And I think in AI, we're just seeing that we continually don't overestimate it.

它一直在超出我们的预期。

It continually outperforms our estimations.

所以这也带来了一些焦虑。

And so that creates some anxiety too.

在所有这些关于不断变化的讨论中，当我为这次对话做准备时，你的角色变了。

In all this sort of talk of constant change, as I was prepping for all this conversation, your role changed.

所以，你现在是首席——对。

So so you're now the chief Yep.

增长官，

Growth officer of

通用汽车的。

General Motors.

那是什么意思呢？

What what does that mean?

这是营销的新模式吗？

And is this a is this a new paradigm for marketing?

首席营销官是不是得变成首席增长官？

Is the CMO need to become a chief growth officer?

你对这些有什么看法？

What's your take on all this?

总的来说，我觉得营销人员压力很大，得清楚自己是怎么推动增长的。

Well, in general, I think that there's a lot of pressure on marketers to be clear on how they're driving growth.

而且你会发现，首席增长官这个职位在很多地方都冒出来了。

And you're seeing the chief growth officer role pop up in a lot of places.

在通用汽车，我们同时推进了几件事，这也是我职位变化的原因。我们在美国做了一次大规模的品牌转型营销。

We had a couple of things going on at GM, the reason my role evolved, which was we had built, we'd done a huge transformational marketing in The US.

然后我们看到了两个增长机会。

And we saw two opportunities for growth.

一个是美国以外的所有业务都需要统一到一个地方。

One was everything outside The US needed to go to the same place.

然后在美国，我们注意到特别是在社交媒体和活动方面，传播团队和营销团队有些重叠。

And then in The US, we looked and we saw particularly like social and events that the comms and the marketing teams were overlapping a little bit.

他们做了一些相同的事情。

They were doing some of the same stuff.

我们想，可以把这些团队整合起来，确保他们围绕同一个主题和同一个故事。

And we thought, well, we could pull those teams together and make sure that they're on the same theme and same story.

所以我们希望实现这一点，并发挥一些协同效应。

And so we wanted we wanted to make that happen and have some leverage.

我认为达成对增长的一致定义非常重要。

I think getting to an agreed definition of what growth is is pretty important.

财务办公室和首席财务官办公室对增长的理解，在这些讨论中往往占很大分量。

There's the financial office, the CFO's office, and what they think growth is, which tends to count for a lot in these conversations.

但是，Josh，你也看到了这一点。

But, Josh, you you you see this.

就是说，增长只有一个定义。

Like, there is only one definition of growth.

那就是销售。

It's sales.

我们可以随便叫它什么。

Like, we can we can call it whatever we want.

但那个……

But that...

说实话，我没见过谁用销售以外的方式衡量增长。

Like, I don't really know people who measure growth any other way than sales.

那我们就接着这个话题聊，因为你几分钟前提到电动汽车的利润率低很多。

So so let just follow-up on that because you said a few minutes ago about EVs are a much lower margin.

那我就随便猜一下。

So I'll just speculate here.

通用汽车内部有一群人会说，我们应该多卖一些燃油车，就是内燃机车。

There is a group of people inside a GM who would articulate we should sell more ICE cars, you call them, internal combustion engine cars

像这样吗？

like this?

内燃机，也就是汽油车，但简称ICE，有时候也被称为冰河时代。

Internal combustion engine, which means gas, but it's called ICE, sometimes referred to as the ice age.

好的。

Okay.

所以我们应该多卖冰河时代的车，因为那意味着更大的利润、更高的利润率，还有其他的好处。

So so we should sell more ice age cars because that's gonna mean larger profits and more more margin and and and all the rest of it.

而且不要那么大力推广电动车，但你们已经押注在电动车上了。

And and don't promote the EVs as much, but you guys have made a bet on EVs.

所以，即使你深入探讨增长和销售的定义，仅仅看销售，感觉还是太局限了，虽然我完全理解销售很重要。

So so there is even when you get under the hood of of what growth is and, you know, sales, just sales, feels like it's too limited, although I completely get the point that sales are important.

嗯，你想卖的产品比例，基本上是由整个业务部门或CEO层面决定的。

Well, the ratio of the products that you want to sell is kind of driven at the overall business unit or CEO level.

市场营销的职责就是帮助实现这个目标。

That marketing's job is to help deliver on that.

现在说到汽车行业，燃油车确实更赚钱，这是事实。

Now, in terms of the automotive industry, it's absolutely true that the gas vehicles make more money.

但我们看到了未来，电动车带来的体验就是更好。

But we had seen the future in terms of it's just a better experience to be in an EV.

它们更安静，加速更平顺，加速也更快。

They're quieter, they're smoother in acceleration, they're faster in acceleration.

从各方面来说，体验都更好。

There's everything about them that's just a better experience.

不过要注意的是，作为公司，我们的职责是跟随消费者的需求。

What's important to note though is, within that, our job as a company is to follow consumer demand.

这就是我们做的事情。

That's what we do.

所以，当我们看电动车和燃油车的比例时，我们会跟着消费者的需求走。

And so, when we look out at the EV versus gas mix, we'll follow where the consumer demand goes.

我自己就开电动车，有好几辆，我特别喜欢。

And I drive an EV, a couple of them, and I love it.

我再也不会开燃油车了，因为一旦你开过电动车，那感觉太棒了。

And I'll never drive a gas car again, because once you drive an EV, it's fantastic.

但其他人可能会因为不同的原因做出不同的选择。

But others will make different choices for different reasons.

所以我觉得你正在触及首席增长官必须与首席营销官进行的那部分对话，即短期与长期、现在盈利与未来盈利之间的权衡。

So I think you're getting to part of the conversation with the CMOs that Chief Growth Officers have to have, which is short term versus long term, profit now versus profit later.

感觉这里确实有一个非常……

And it feels like there's a really...

总是存在一种持续的紧张和拉锯。

There is always a constant tension and push and pull.

在你过去几年担任这个新增长角色并不断摸索的过程中，能否谈谈短期收益与品牌中长期利益之间的这种张力，具体到你的公司？

As you navigate and as you work through this new growth role, as you've done so for the last couple of years, just talk a little bit about that tension between the short term gains and the sort of the medium and long term benefits of the brand for your individual box?

嗯，我觉得首先是如何评判你的营销效果。

Well, I think first it's how do you even judge the effectiveness of your marketing?

我们至少会看十二个月的数据。

We look at it at a minimum of twelve months.

所以当你谈到短期和长期的时候，有时候业务部门的负责人会说，那很好，但我今天就得完成我的指标。

So when you get into short term versus long term, you'll have a business unit leader sometimes who's like, that's great, but I need to make my numbers today.

那你打算怎么办？

And what are you gonna do about that?

这就是现实。

And that's just reality.

你不能活在真空里。

You can't live in a vacuum.

有时候你不得不做这些决定。

Sometimes you have to make those decisions.

但作为一般的运营思路，我们是以十二个月甚至更长的时间来考虑最佳做法。

But as a general operating mentality, we're operating off of twelve month plus kind of best ways to do things.

这样能解决大概80%的问题。

That takes care of, I'd say 80% of the answer.

还有另外20%，我觉得是真正的品牌建设，坦白说，这部分真的很难衡量。

There's another 20%, which is, I'd say really core brand building, that's frankly just really harder to measure.

这源于一种信念，就是给产品或服务赋予更深层次的特性和意义，能推动需求。

And that comes from just a belief system that imbuing your product or service with some sort of deeper characteristics and meaning drives demand.

我在整个职业生涯中都看到了这一点。

And I've seen this over my career.

有人相信这一点，也有人不相信。

There are people who believe in it, and there are people who don't.

不相信的人基本上永远不会被说服，而相信的人也不需要被说服。

And the people who don't will basically never be convinced, and the people who believe in it don't need to be convinced.

所以在谷歌内部，这是好几年前的事了，我们做了一个有趣的实验，我们拿谷歌搜索结果，就是普通的搜索结果页面。

So inside Google, this is quite a few years ago, but we did this fun experiment where we took the Google search results, a regular page of search results.

大概十年前了。

It's probably ten years ago now.

我们把所有谷歌品牌标识都去掉，然后拿另一个搜索引擎的相同搜索结果。

And we took all the Google branding off, and then we took the same results for the same search from another search engine.

然后我们把这些结果展示给人们，让他们给这些结果打分，有的带谷歌品牌，有的不带。

And then we just showed them to people, and we asked them to rate the results with or without the Google branding.

对。

And Mhmm.

这真的挺让人大开眼界的。

It was pretty eye opening.

虽然人们觉得谷歌的结果更好，因为它们确实更好，但差距远比你期望的要小得多。

Although people judge the Google results as better, because they are, of course, the the the delta was significantly less than you might have hoped.

这其实是一个很有力的论据，说明为什么你需要投资于差异化、产品本身，以及长期的品牌建设。

And that was actually a pretty powerful argument in terms of why you need to invest in the differentiation, the product, and in the long term brand.

你不能只指望产品本身就能帮你搞定一切。

You can't just believe that your product alone is going to do it for you.

品牌非常重要。

Brand matters a lot.

确实。

It does.

确实非常重要。

It does matter a lot.

我觉得挑战在于有时候很难量化。

And I think the challenge is it's sometimes hard to quantify.

我这么说是因为我对怎么量化其实很了解。

And I say that knowing a lot about how to quantify it.

并不是说我没在这方面花很多时间。

It's not that I haven't really spent a lot of this time on this.

只是有时候确实比较难搞清楚。

It can just be sometimes harder to to figure out.

你在CVS推销和参与决策的时候，当你工作的时候……

When you were pitching and involved in the decision at CVS, when you were working...

你在CVS工作了七八年，然后公司决定转型，更注重健康和健康生活方式，你们还把烟草从货架上撤了下来。

Worked at CVS for seven or eight years, and you decided as a company to move into becoming more associated with wellness and and healthy lifestyle, and you guys took tobacco off the shelves.

我们不需要再回顾那个决定了。

We don't need to re go through that that decision.

我觉得你之前已经谈过这个了。

I think you've spoken about that before.

对。

But Yeah.

当时你们是怎么讨论的？比如，我们放弃十亿或二十亿美元的收入，但会获得品牌光环的提升。

What were the conversations like in terms of here's a billion or $2,000,000,000 of revenue we're giving up, but here is a brand halo lift we're gonna give.

你们是怎么在品牌定位的背景下阐述这一点的？

How did you articulate that in the context of what's this doing for our brand and our positioning?

这是个很好的案例，因为一般来说，没人愿意放弃二十亿美元的收入。

It's a good case study because, generally, people didn't wanna give up $2,000,000,000 of revenue.

放弃那么多钱确实很难。

That's kind of a hard thing to give up.

所以这里面确实有现实考量。

And so there is a reality in there.

事实上，现实考量的证据就是，退出烟草行业的想法并不新鲜。

And in fact, the evidence of that reality is that the idea of getting out of tobacco was not new.

这个想法已经存在多年，但一直没实现，正是因为这个现实问题——你怎么去做到呢？

It had been around for years, but it hadn't gotten done for exactly that reality, how are you going to do it?

那这一切是从哪里开始的呢？

So where did that start?

不用讲得太细。

Not to go too deeply into it.

就像你说的，一开始是源于对公司未来的愿景。

It started with, as you said, a vision for what's the future of the company.

在大多数行业里，赢家都是离消费者最近的公司。

In most industries, the companies that were winning were the companies closest to the consumer.

在医疗行业，离消费者最近的是药剂师。

In healthcare, the pharmacists are closest to the consumer.

所以一个想法开始慢慢成形：CVS能不能成为一家大型医疗公司，因为医生能接触到人。

So the idea started to percolate that could CVS become a large healthcare company because they doctors see people.

这一切开始变成一个有趣的想法，但有一个问题：你靠销售美国可预防性死亡的头号原因来赚钱。

This all starts to become an interesting idea with the one problem, which is you're profiting from selling the number one cause of preventable death in America.

所以你看上去不太像一家医疗公司。

So you don't really look like a healthcare company.

所以，做出那个决定，不仅仅是为了让大家更喜欢我们。

And so just to get into the decision on that then is not just hope of, hey, people will like us more.

也是为了扫除一个阻碍我们朝着愿景发展的障碍。

It was to knock down a barrier that was preventing growth towards a vision as well.

现在，绝对真实的是，当那个公告发布时，没人认为股价会上涨，但它确实涨了。

Now, what is absolutely true is that nobody thought the stock was going to go up when that announcement was made, And it did.

而且从某种程度上说，那里就有机会。

And in some ways, there's bread right there.

每个人都认识受烟草影响的人，他们感受到了做出这一举措的力量。

Everybody knew somebody who'd been affected by tobacco and they felt the power in making that move.

尽管我们告诉他们我们削减了20亿美元的收入，股价还是上涨了。

And it made the stock go up even though we told them we were cutting $2,000,000,000 in revenue.

这真的让我觉得很有意思。

It's really fascinating to me.

这真是行业变革的一个真实案例。

It's a true case study of of change in the industry.

我觉得这正好说明了我对营销的一些看法，营销的愿景和公司定位确实能推动真实的业务发展和成果。

And I think it speaks to some of the things that I find fascinating about how marketing and vision for marketing and and positioning of a company can, you know, drive real business trajectory and outcomes.

我想听听你的看法，感觉营销这个领域通常没有在高管层或决策层有一席之地。

And one of the things I'm I'm interested to get your thoughts on is it feels to me that marketing as a discipline has generally not had a seat at the high table or whatever table you wanna call it.

我最近读了一份报告，说美国有不到84%的公司董事会里没有营销人员，或者没有真正有营销背景的人。

I I I read a report recently that less than 84% of US companies do not have a marketer on their board or someone who has got real marketing experience in their background.

这确实是个遗憾，而且现在AI快速变化，正好有机会让营销人员、增长负责人这些贴近客户的人，把他们的洞察带到董事会和CEO办公室。

And that just feels like a a miss, and there is an opportunity right now with the rapid change of AI to actually have marketers, growth officers, people who are close to the customer actually bring that insight into the boards, into the CEO suite.

营销人员怎么才能做到这一点呢？

How do marketers do that more?

我们怎么才能获得更多的信任和认可？

How do we get more credibility?

你在你的职位上是怎么做到的呢？

How have you achieved that in your roles?

顺便说一句，我记得有一项相关研究，说那些董事会里有营销人员的公司表现更好。

By the way, I think there's a companion study that says the companies that do have a marketer on their board outperform.

我觉得这很能说明他们愿意承担风险，而且他们非常以消费者为中心，可能在他们把营销人员请进董事会之前就已经是这样了，所以他们才想要一个营销人员。

And I think that says a lot about the risk taking that they're willing to do and the consumer centricity that they have, probably before they even get a marketer on the board, which is why they wanted one.

我觉得这个问题有很多方面。

I think that when, there's a lot of components to this.

首先，营销人员需要意识到，一旦成为首席营销官，他们就不再属于营销团队了。

The first part is that marketers need to realize that once they're a CMO, they're not on the marketing team anymore.

他们属于高管领导团队。

They're on the SLT team.

一旦进入高管领导团队，他们就需要说高管团队的语言，而不是营销语言。

And once they're on the SLT team, they need to speak the language of the SLT team, not their marketing language.

营销是他们回到自己部门时做的事情。

Marketing is what they do when they go back to their shop.

但在高管团队里，你必须说那种语言。

But on that SLT, you have to speak that language.

如果你不说那种语言，你就不会得到同样的尊重。

And if you don't speak that language, you're just not as respected.

第二点是，不管你怎么说那种语言，营销决策的不确定性总是比大多数运营决策要高。

Point two is no matter how much you speak that language, the decisions in marketing will be less certain than the decisions in most operations.

大多数运营决策，你可以调整工厂的投入，重新布置车间，把库存挪来挪去，做这些事情。

Decisions in most operations, you can change how much you spend on a factory, change a floor around, move inventory here or there, do all this stuff.

而且你能得到一个非常量化的结果。

And there's a very quantifiable number that you'll get out of it.

但到了营销，就真的是基于对消费者什么会有效的假设。

When you get to marketing, it's really based on a hypothesis of what will work for consumers.

有时候这个假设通过快速测试来完善，谷歌有PMACs之类的工具。

And sometimes that hypothesis gets refined through rapid testing and Google has PMACs and things like this.

但接着有人过来说，好吧，给你更多钱。

But then somebody shows up and says, well, give you more money.

我能多卖多少？

How many more sales can I get?

然后你说，嗯，我觉得可能是这么多。

And you say, well, I think it could be this.

然后他们就说，你是说你觉得可能是这个数？

And they're like, do you mean you think it can be?

就像那边那个人告诉我，这个数肯定是这个。

Like, that guy over there tells me it's definitely going to be this number.

所以我想说的是，一般来说，CEO、业务部门负责人和财务负责人需要接受，这些决策本质上就是没那么具体。

And so my point on this is just to say generally that CEOs, business unit leaders, and finance leaders need to get comfortable that the decisions are naturally just going to be less tangible.

这和公司战略是完全一样的。

Now, that is exactly the same as corporate strategy.

完全一样。

It is exactly the same.

因为那是对市场走向以及公司应该聚焦在哪里的一个假设。

Because that is a hypothesis of where your market is going to go and where you should focus your company.

这本身可能不算什么争议，但对我们营销人员来说，大多数时候我们面临的挑战是冷漠。

And it may not be controversial as such, but most of the time for us marketers, the challenge we have is apathy.

人们根本不在乎。

People just don't care.

他们根本没在听。

They're not paying attention.

他们在过滤信息。

They're filtering.

别克就是一个很好的例子。

A great example of that is Buick.

别克这个品牌，很多人都不再考虑了，觉得跟自己没关系。

So Buick is a brand that a lot of people stop considering, and they don't think it's relevant to them.

但别克现在也是增长最快的品牌之一……

Buick is also now one of the fastest growing...

在汽车行业里，它在美国的增长速度仅次于凯迪拉克。

I mean, it's only second to Cadillac in terms of being the fastest growing brand in America in automotive.

而且说清楚，这不是因为基数低，而是真的增长得非常好。

And just to be clear, it's not off a low base, it's actually genuinely growing really, really well.

对，对，确实在增长。

Yeah, yeah, it's growing.

它不是从很小的基数起步的，但确实是个较小的品牌，不过它一直在增长。

It's not off a tiny base, but it's certainly a smaller brand, but it's growing.

它的销量比奥迪还高，我这么说吧。

It sells more than Audi, let me say that.

所以它的基数比奥迪还大。

So it's off a base bigger than Audi.

没错。

There you go.

这真是个了不起的事实，对吧？

Which is a remarkable fact, right?

是啊，奥迪被碾压了，我喜欢。

Yeah, Audi SmackDown, I love it.

继续说。

Keep going.

这一切是怎么做到的呢？首先从产品开始，然后是相关性、广告，专注于你的客户群，做所有这些事情。

And that was done, it started with product, Then it started with relevance and advertising and focusing on your base and doing all that stuff.

所以这些事你是能做到的。

So you can do this stuff.

你可以用正确的方式创造增长，也能让人们摆脱冷漠。

You can create growth in the right way, and you can get people out of apathy.

这一切始于核心用户带来的势头，给他们一些新鲜、令人兴奋、有活力的东西，然后让核心圈子之外的人也感受到这种相关性。

It starts with momentum that starts with your core and giving them something that's new and exciting and has momentum and then is relevant to the circles just outside the core.

然后他们就会开始注意到。

Then they start to see it.

他们也会觉得这很酷，想要这些东西。

They think that's cool too, they want that stuff.

我完全同意。

I completely agree.

而且，看这些案例研究，观察危机反应，然后……

And it it is fascinating looking at these case studies and seeing the crisis reaction and then the...

如果一切顺利，就像你们行业说的，踩下油门，在那些积极的时刻真正加速前进。

You know, if it's going well, you know, how you put your pedal to the metal, to quote your industry, and and really accelerate in those positive moments when you can actually do that.

现在作为CMO，有一点很重要，就是既要能在短期内快速行动，也要能在长期内扩大规模，想加速的时候就能加速，同时还要为长远做规划。

One of the things about being a CMO today is that ability to move fast in the short term and the long term of scale up when you want to and then, you know, plan for the long term as well.

我一直对你做的事情很感兴趣，特别是你如何重组你的代理机构结构。

Something I've been fascinated by is what you've been doing and how you've reorgged your agency structure.

你引入了MediaMonks，我希望你现在就能告诉我们听众。

You brought in MediaMonks, and I'd love you just to tell our tell our audience right now.

我对此略知一二，稍后我还会在这个播客里和Samaritan Sorrel聊聊。

So I I know a little bit about it, and I'm speaking with Samaritan Sorrel later on on on this podcast.

但你具体用MediaMonks做了什么？

But what have you done with MediaMonks?

它解决了什么问题，进展如何？

What is the problem it solved, and how's it going?

要理解MediaMonks，你得先了解我们原来的代理机构结构，以及我们想要的结构。

Well, to understand MediaMonks, you have to back up to the agency structure we had and the agency structure that we wanted.

我们原来的代理机构结构基本上是一个控股公司模式，旗下有不同品牌。

So the agency structure we had was essentially a holding company model on different brands.

而且说实话，之前运作得还算不错。

And it was working reasonably well, I'd say.

但随着时间的推移，我们基本上开始把大部分营销工作外包给这些控股公司。

But what had happened over time is we had started basically outsourcing most of our marketing to these holding companies.

所以结果是，通用汽车内部的营销能力没有得到充分发展，而且我们采用的模式也不适合当时的情况。

So what we had was an underdevelopment of the capabilities of marketing within GM and the wrong model for where we were.

所以我们需要改变这种模式。

So we needed to change the model.

这就是我们的出发点。

That's where we started.

要做到这一点，财务部门可不会主动说，你为什么不多给我点钱去招人呢？现实点说。

To do that, nobody in finance shows up and says, Why don't you give me more money to hire people realistically?

所以我们说，那我们就换个方式。

And so we said, Well, we'll switch.

我们会用代理费来支付这些费用。

We'll use the agency fees to do that.

这意味着我们需要削减代理费用。

And that meant that we needed to reduce our agency fees.

然后我们就想，好吧，我们到底想要什么？

That then said, okay, well, what do we really want?

我们真正想要的是顶尖的创意团队，只专注于创意，而不是参与我们所有的运营细节。

And what we really wanted was elite creative teams only focused on creative versus being in all our operational details.

所以我们经历了一个完整的过程，为每个品牌挑选了独立的创意团队，他们只做这一件事。

And so we went through a whole process where we selected these individual one for each brand creative teams, and that's all they do.

他们只负责出色的创意。

They just do great creative.

我在代理公司工作过，我知道这样做的好处，因为当代理公司介入你所有的运营时会发生什么？

And I worked on the agency side and I know the benefit of this because what happens when an agency gets into all of your operations?

是的，他们的收入会增加，但他们的文化会改变。

Yes, their revenue goes up, but their culture changes.

他们的文化会变得更偏向运营主导，而不是创意主导。

Their culture changes to be more of an operationally led versus creatively led culture.

而且每次会议和每份创意作品里都有很多声音，突然之间，质量就开始下降了。

And there's a lot of voices in every meeting and every piece of creative, and all of a sudden it starts to degrade.

所以我们不想让创意团队受到任何这些影响。

And so didn't want the creative teams to have any of that.

我们希望他们独立运作。

We want them to be on their own.

所以我们就这么做了。

So that's what we did.

这意味着在核心创意之下，还有很多工作要做。

That meant we still have a lot of work that has to get done below that hero level of creative.

我们需要一种方法来完成这些工作。

And we needed an approach to do that.

而人工智能恰好在那时出现了。

And AI was, of course, coming along at the same time.

于是我们就让Monks去负责，跨所有品牌，确保我们能在美国实现个性化扩展，同时也要全面扩展，并帮助我们走向全球，因为其他地区的营销预算没有那么多。

And that's where we put Monks to say, go across all of our brands, make sure that we can scale in The US with personalization, but just overall as well, and help us go globally because there are other regions, they don't have as much marketing money.

所以如果他们能轻松地把美国的素材进行本地化改编，使其在当地市场更贴切，那也能帮我们省下不少钱。

So if they could take The US assets and transcreate them easily to be relevant in their markets, that could save us a lot of money as well.

现在，整个事情面临的挑战有两个。

Now, the challenge with that whole thing, there were two challenges.

第一个是，事实证明汽车在AI中很难渲染。

One is, turns out cars are very hard to render in AI.

这其实挺明显的，但即使这么明显，实际做起来比我们预想的还要难。

And it's kinda obvious, but it was even with a big obvious, it was harder than we thought it was going be.

你面对的是两千万个CAD数据点。

You're talking about 20,000,000 CAD data points.

而且车灯会动，灯光会动，反射也会变化。

And headlights can move, and lights can move, and reflections change.

所以我们正在逐步解决这些问题。

And so we're getting through all of that.

第二个问题是，AI不了解你的品牌。

The second piece is that the AI doesn't know your brand.