Nasser:
Welcome to Shift Happens, I’m Nasser Sahlool. Today I’m joined by Maria Unwala, Vice President of Business Development at DAC. Maria spends a lot of time talking with marketing leaders about their ambitions, their challenges, and the decisions they’re trying to make. Those conversations offer a window into what’s happening behind the briefs and presentations, and what’s really on marketers minds. There’s pressure to demonstrate growth, make limited resources go further, and keep pace with changing customer behavior. There are new technologies to evaluate, teams to bring together, and investments to justify. And through all of it, people still need to make decisions and give their teams a clear direction.
Today, we’re going beyond the brief to explore the human side of those challenges. What’s weighing on marketing leaders? What helps them moving forward, and what the people making progress are doing differently. Maria, welcome to Shift Happens.

Maria:
Thanks Nasser, I’m so excited to be here. Did you know it’s my first podcast ever?

Nasser:
I did not.

Maria:
I know, and I know you know this about me. I’m a bit of an over preparer. I usually come to Nasser’s team with, you know, 17 pages of meeting notes over the course of 2 to 3 year with the prospect before an RFP starts. So as I was preparing for this conversation, I realized the best conversations are those that I have every day with a ton of twists and turns unpredictable. And that’s why I love my job. So I’m going to throw the notes aside. The preparation is gone. Let’s go!

Nasser:
And for anyone listening, that was the sound of Maria’s enormous collection of notes that she’d put together for this conversation. I’m really delighted that you felt the need to put together all of those notes to talk to me after we’ve been talking for, how long now?

Maria:
Seven years, but that’s okay. Be prepared, be prepared!

Nasser:
So, Maria, you’ve been here for seven years, and obviously you’re a pro. You’ve been doing this for much longer than that. Have you ever seen an environment among marketers like the one that we are working through right now?

Maria:
Oh my goodness. So when I was thinking and preparing for this conversation, there were so many themes that are coming across in my conversations with brand leaders every day, and they’re pretty consistent over the years. I would say how the marketers are reacting to these massive amount of changes is what has changed. But at the end of the day, growth, new business development, whatever you want to call our role is a human-to-human experience. And you really get into the hearts and minds of these marketers to build trust and to help them solve problems. But there’s a lot that’s different based on the pace of change that we’re experiencing, absolutely.

Nasser:
So, Maria, what’s really on marketing leaders minds right now?

Maria:
So one thing on their minds is the pressure to keep up. You know, I used to receive frantic calls about leftover spending in Q4 and they were like, how can you help? And to me, it was Christmas has come early. It’s amazing. Now the frantic calls are: “My website traffic is plummeting.” “We don’t even know how our customers are discovering us.” “How am I going to explain these metrics to a CEO?” And in my role, it’s more about helping them stay ahead of these enormous changes we’re experiencing. A lot of those conversations turn into, do we need another tool? Do we need another capability? Should we hire someone with GEO in the title? And at the end of the day, for me, what I believe is actually going to make an impact to their business is to get back to the basics of marketing and take a walk in their customers shoes, talk to them about what makes your brand great.
What’s the competition doing? How can we stand out based on what our customers want and need? And having these strategic conversations early on as they’re feeling this pressure to keep up is what’s really important, well before a partnership scope is signed or a brief hits your desk, right? A lot of the media conversations are also about, “we don’t really need order takers anymore. We need strategic guidance.” It’s such a fast=changing world out there. We need agency partners that can help us through this, and I think AI is helping a lot from an execution efficiency standpoint. But the expectations of what they’re looking for in agency partners and not just tools, is going way up. So it’s an exciting time.
It definitely elevates the types of conversations that are happening earlier in the partnership journey. But yeah, the pressure to keep up is huge. And the other one is also a theme that’s been years and years in the making right? Do more with less. It’s the same story we’ve always heard. And in today’s day, AI adds another layer of expectation. So that again builds the pressure, it slows down decision making, and then it means you’re having to build trust much earlier on as someone in my role, right? So yeah, a lot of those same themes but, different ways of reacting to them I guess.

Nasser:
You mentioned GEO and also speed of change. And I remember the other day coming across some outreach that was sent to me by somebody whose title was GEO expert and Reddit community engagement specialist. And I’m like oh, I hate everything about what you stand for right now.

Maria:
Another day, another acronym Nasser. I mean, I heard “TAYA” recently, they ask you answer. I’m like, okay XYZ.

Nasser:
I hate it in here sometimes. So Maria, you know it’s interesting because you mentioned the tool. You know, “do we need another tool?” And you know, when you look at things today, we have more data, more tools, more analysis. Does that make decisions easier for senior marketers these days?

Maria:
I would beg to differ, because I think we have plenty of information out there and still no clarity on what the next move should be. And that is the type of conversation these brand leaders want to have. You know, an audit is identifying opportunities. Then what? Had a conversation last week with a global CMO and was it really cool. At DAC, we get very geeky. We dig into the data we present really cool stories early on, we were diagnosing opportunities we saw across digital, across the customer journey. And she was like, oh, it’s amazing. It’s like you’re a fly on the wall, we’re so aligned. But what do we do about all these problems you just uncovered and that I’m also aligned with? How are you going to help guide us through that?
And I think the conversation has shifted, and the gap between identifying the problem and helping brands out there solve the problem needs to shrink. And it’s no longer about just a bunch of reports, “what happened?” It’s guidance on what to do next. And that guidance may change tomorrow with how quickly things are evolving in our space, but I don’t believe more data tools and technology is always the answer. It’s really how can we help them move forward strategically and do so early on in the journey.

Nasser:
Yeah, an audit without any kind of guidance or context is… it reminds me of that scene in that old movie The Mummy, where they’re kind of walking through the lair and, you know, they’re turning around everything going, “this is cursed, that is cursed.” You know, it’s like, hey, I’m already dealing with a lot of stuff. All you’re going to do is sit there and tell me that my baby is ugly?

Maria:
Correct. Yeah, nobody wants an ugly baby.

Nasser:
By the way, every baby is ugly up to a certain age. But I learned through bitter experience…

Maria:
Speak for yourself!

Nasser:
No, it’s true. Every baby up to a certain age is ugly. Just don’t tell the mother.

Maria:
I agree. Yeah, I look back at my kids pictures I’m like, oh my God, I thought they were so beautiful. I hope they don’t listen to this podcast.

Nasser:
Yeah, just don’t tell them. So given all of that noise that’s happening and people looking for some kind of way forward, how can they move forward when they’re under pressure to prove results and they don’t have every answer?

Maria:
Yeah. I think there’s a lot of pressure and they’re overwhelmed. You know, I go to tons of conferences, and I’m there to meet, I’m there to connect, I like to walk the floor and listen to the presentations. And there are so many things you could potentially buy, there’s so many more tools on the market. Everyone from last year to this year took down their banners, slapped on AI right? So there’s so much pressure to buy what’s next. But I really believe based on the conversations that I have, is there’s a lot of value unused in what’s already there.
To give an example, I was speaking with a major hotel company, and they’re going through a re-platforming. And he basically said, through this re-platforming, we found out where all the bodies are buried, meaning all the tools they have invested in that have gone unused or not used as intended. And I think more important than ever is that marketing data and technology cannot be disconnected. You can’t just add another tool, it just becomes another thing to manage. And again, it’s looking at what a business have that has already that could work harder.
Another recent partnership we brought on with the major retailer was, they have a huge physical footprint. It’s a major advantage against competitors in the B2C space for example. They can use that national brand strength, and you can have people finding your individual stores and highlighting those better across digital, across marketing. They had a tool in place to manage this. It really is about how can we take that and drive more performance from it. Again, adding strategy, have conversations early on and how we can solve business problems. It all sounds very simple and back to the basics of marketing, but I think with all these shiny tools out there, we tend to lose sight of that. And there’s so much in what they have or could just add another layer to without investing enormous mounds of money and energy to it, and still achieve greater results.

Nasser:
So a hotel company discovering where all the bodies are buried means something entirely different in Las Vegas right?

Maria:
Hahahaha, hmmm okay. Yeah scary.

Nasser:
So from what you’re seeing right now, what is the key to those marketers who are actually able to move forward and thrive in this environment? Like, what are they doing differently to everybody else?

Maria:
At the end of the day, I believe those that are winning, the marketers are doing it right, still have the human element at the forefront of their role. I’ll give you an example. You know, hate to bring the pandemic into this, but I think pre-pandemic, we were learning to build trust and relationships through screens. And then we figured that out. Now we’re back together in a hybrid way or not, and we’re letting AI speak for us. You know, we’ve received RFPs that are 45 pages long, that are clearly written by an agent. And then I’m sure in many cases, an agent is responding to that. So it’s just an agent talking to an agent at the end of the day. And I believe that the human conversation can get really lost in all that output. So marketers who are looking for the right chemistry and the partners that are curious and really dig into, “do they understand our business and what problems they can solve?” are what’s most critical to look for in a potential partner.
On top of that, I think marketers that are doing it well expect strategic guidance from partners or from their internal teams. Bringing a point of view, helping them decide and then they’re doing something with what they learn right? They’re not just getting buried in the data. They’re making decisions, right? And they’re adjusting as they go. And then last, I think marketing teams who bring the right internal stakeholders along are those that are setting themselves up for success. Historically, it’s been about CMO CFO alignment, right? We’ve all heard that same story, and those are the best programs at the end of the day. Now, operations, entire IT teams because of AI, security, etc. are involved in these decisions. It’s not just marketing. While that takes longer to form partnerships or launch campaigns and programs, I think at the end of the day, they’re going to really have a strong foundation with so many people involved to solve whatever problem their aiming to solve right?

Nasser:
So this idea of involving more people, I understand that you end up with a better outcome, right? Because you have more buy-in and all that. But surely it also has this tension where suddenly what was a two month decision could become a one year decision, because you have all of these people that are now involved and have an opinion on this. And part of the challenge is that if you think about a CMOs average tenure these days, it’s what, 18 months, two years? And they have to deliver results. So how do these things play out? Aren’t they at odds with each other?

Maria:
It is interesting, but there is a lot of data out there that speaks to the CMO not being in his or her own silo and their tenure increasing because of it, because they are embedding themselves. I do relate that to what we do in business development as well. And yes, it is a frustratingly long cycle on top of what already was a long cycle from a partnership standpoint, for example. You know, in many cases we’re talking to brands for years and then the opportunity arises and now you close a deal, but there’s a security assessment with an entire IT department due to AI and a lot more dependencies and questions that are coming up throughout it. And the coordination just extending to this much bigger team. So I believe that it still is good for the brand and the business results in the long run. And if a CMO thinks of it in a cup half full standpoint, they’re really building a lot more relationships within the organizations. They’re very clear on what every department needs, and it takes more of a holistic view. And it’s not just marketing doing this and the results will be there. Hopefully their tenure will be much longer.
But yeah, stronger internal alignment, much better foundation. More people in the decision ultimately means it’s less disconnected in handoff, better performing programs, longer tenure. It’s just kind of my gut feeling of where this is heading. But yeah, in a landscape that is changing minute by minute, we do need to find a way to speed this up, because by the time that security assessment is done in seven months, you know, our initial proposed program may no longer be valid because of how quickly the landscape changed. So I don’t have the magic wand answer, but yes, speed, in addition to involvement from many stakeholders. If we can kind of increase speed and increase involvement at the same time would be a gold star program.

Nasser:
And the key to all of that, of course, ultimately make a decision. Do something.

Maria:
Make a decision, absolutely. Do something, test it, change it later, but do something. I think we’re kind of past the point of sitting and waiting on how this will change. And I think a lot more marketers are realizing they have to try things out. Last year was a different story. They were sitting and waiting in half the cases and the other half were more innovative minds, let’s go, let’s test and learn. But at this point, I think everyone is moving and grooving.

Nasser:
So behind every brief is a person making decisions under pressure and a team that needs to understand where it’s going. What I’m taking from this conversation is the value of getting clear on the problem, bringing the right people into the discussion, and making a decision you can learn from. That takes judgment, honest conversations, and someone willing to take responsibility for the next step. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by everything competing for your attention, start with one question: “what are we actually trying to make better for our customers and our business?”
Now make it happen. Follow Shift Happens, leave us a review and share this episode with your team. You can find more about DAC at dacgroup.com. If you have any questions for the podcast, email us at shifthappens@dacgroup.com. We’d love to hear from you.
Maria, thanks for bringing us into the conversation behind the briefs.

Maria:
Thanks for having me.

Nasser:
Thank you for listening. I’m Nasser Sahlool, and this is Shift Happens.