AI Is Moving Fast. Are Marketers Ready? | Live from the TransUnion Summit with Liz Bacelar

Liz Bacelar (0:00)

I feel that today, the CEOs need to understand that with their spend, there has to be a value exchange across the organization. Lawyers need to learn technology, tech people need to learn the law, so they can be better in the implementation, so they want to do better advisors for other functions. Marketing needs to learn tech and law, sorry, marketing once again.

And CEOs need to learn a little bit of tech.

Jim Stengel (0:27)

Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose.

Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges, along with how they try to build a full, healthy and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders. So here we go.

A few weeks ago, we joined the team at TransUnion in Chicago for their annual True Audience Marketing Summit. It was our first time at the event and what a terrific experience. TransUnion is a global information and insights company with revenue north of $5 billion and growing at a double digit pace. I kicked off the day with a keynote and then returned to the stage that afternoon for a live recording of The CMO Podcast with someone who has been at the forefront of one of the biggest transformations happening in business today, artificial intelligence. My guest was Liz Bacelar, whose career has taken her from Emmy nominated journalism to entrepreneurship, and into senior technology and innovation roles at some of the world's most recognizable consumer brand companies, including the Estee Lauder Companies and Under Armour. Our conversation was inspired in part by fascinating new research from TransUnion on what they call the AI confidence readiness paradox. Marketers are investing heavily in AI and confidence is high, but our organization is really prepared to turn that investment into meaningful business results. We will talk about that. Liz has spent years working through that very challenge, and she has some strong opinions about what's working, what's not, and why the real opportunity with AI has much more to do with people, leadership, and organizational culture than the technology itself. A big thank you to our friends at TransUnion for welcoming us to Chicago and making this conversation possible. So here's my live conversation with the leader who sees a positive path forward in this new tech landscape. Here's Liz.

Welcome to The CMO Podcast, live audience here at the TransUnion Summit.

Liz Bacelar (2:42)

Happy Monday, everyone.

Jim Stengel (2:43)

How's the conference been for you?

Liz Bacelar (2:45)

Any new friends? I'm very impressed with some of what I've heard here today. It gives me hope because I heard a lot of good things. I'm going to touch upon some of these things, and it's refreshing. I came from a very large retail conference from California last weekend.

I was feeling the opposite of hope this morning.

Jim Stengel (3:04)

Why is that?

Liz Bacelar (3:06)

The gap between expectations from the leadership in this age of AI and reality, and that's causing snap decisions, they are erroneous, that then will have to be addressed later. And actions, they are not measured, and a lot of hype.

Jim Stengel (3:23)

Well, we're going to get into all of that. By the way, we're going to bring the audience in, as we did this morning. So get your questions ready. We'll come back in a bit.

I'm going to ask Liz a few questions, then we'll go to the audience. And, you know, I want to keep it light first before we jump into some of the issues you're raising. If you are a listener of my show, and I know you are, I always ask guests the first brand that made an impact on them when they were very young as a child.

Liz Bacelar (3:46)

Is this a good time to say how starstruck I am that I'm doing this with you? I'm so happy.

Jim Stengel (3:50)

Come on, come on. You're a sweetheart. So tell me the brand, the brand that you remember when you were growing up as a young girl.

Liz Bacelar (3:56)

When you were saying that, we were talking about that, the first one that came to mind was Dove. There was this campaign that was with a sketch artist from the FBI.

And he made, this artist did two pictures for each woman in the commercial. The first one was her describing herself without looking at her. And the second one was someone who really knows and describing her.