Marketing Beyond with Alan B. Hart

How can you create marketing that feels like entertainment and drives measurable growth? Chime Chief Growth and Marketing Officer Vineet Mehra breaks down the product and marketing choices he sees fueling Chime's momentum, including being named Time magazine's No. 1 banking brand. He frames Chime as "not a bank" but a "financial technology company" built for "everyday Americans." And he attributes its traction to showing up in the channels and subcultures where many people spend time, while building products and features designed to meet real needs. Vineet also shares what other marketing leaders can take from Chime's approach: Start with a differentiated product. Treat attention as the ultimate currency. And use social-first, episodic entertainment to make financial topics more relatable. At Chime, brand building looks more like running a streaming platform or magazine, where the job is to consistently earn attention with programming people choose to watch. To ensure that entertainment-driven attention translates into growth, he leans on "performance storytelling" that connects brand-building, direct response and customer lifetime value. He also explains how Chime is applying AI by mapping tools to "jobs to be done" across customer service, creative workflows and talent development. Vineet closes with his view that the biggest potential threat to marketers is resisting change—that leaders should encourage hands-on experimentation while staying anchored to commercial outcomes. In this episode, you'll learn: Ways attention can be earned through entertainment-style brand storytelling Practical lessons for applying AI to specific high-impact work inside marketing and customer operations How marketing leaders can earn more influence in executive and boardroom conversations Key highlights: [00:00] Introduction [01:30] CMO by day, pizza maker by night [03:15] Vineet's path to Chime [08:00] Success in the banking industry [11:15] Marketing that punches above its weight [14:15] Showing up where people willingly spend time [16:50] A brief history of marketing leading to performance storytelling [23:10] Chime's AI journey [29:30] How AI is impacting talent conversations [32:40] Marketing and the boardroom [36:25] An experience that defines you: Growing up as an immigrant in a blue-collar town [38:25] Advice to your younger self: Bloom where you're planted [40:15] A topic you're trying to learn more about: The platform shift [41:30] Trends or subcultures: Hyper-personalized algorithms [43:10] Largest potential threat: The innovator's dilemma Resources mentioned: Chime "Mama, I Made It" interview series Ball On A Budget Follow the podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Amazon Music Listen on Audible Listen on iHeart Radio Listen on Spotify Connect with Vineet Mehra and Chime: Vineet on LinkedIn Chime on LinkedIn Connect with Alan Hart and Deloitte Digital: Connect with Alan Hart on X Connect with Alan Hart on LinkedIn Connect with Deloitte Digital on LinkedIn Connect with Deloitte Digital on Instagram Connect with Deloitte Digital on YouTube Connect with Deloitte Digital on Threads

How do you raise awareness for complex, highly regulated medical therapies when most eligible patients do not even know it exists? At CES 2026, Alan Hart spoke with Naomi Rodiles, senior director of Global Integrated Communications, Neuromodulation, at Medtronic, about the patient communication required to grow adoption of therapies like deep brain stimulation that can support management of movement disorders like Parkinson's. Naomi explains that the challenge is not clinical efficacy or provider trust, but rather awareness. Even proven therapies can sometimes remain invisible to patients until late in their journey. She outlines how her team is evolving from primarily health care provider-centered messaging to a multichannel, digital-first communications model designed to directly reach patients and caregivers to help them discover, understand and evaluate options earlier. Naomi emphasizes that effective patient marketing in medtech is less about promotion and more about credible education that empowers better conversations in the clinician's office, while strengthening provider partnerships. She also shares practical leadership lessons from the transformation: design for modern consumer expectations, build integrated channel presence so information is findable when people search, and adopt AI carefully to scale content and storytelling within a regulated environment. In this episode, you'll learn: Why awareness, not efficacy, is often the real growth constraint for complex offerings and strategies to navigate it Ways to win trust by prioritizing education over promotion Practical lessons for scaling content in regulated, high-stakes categories using AI Key highlights: [00:00] Introduction [01:00] Starting out at BET's Rap City [02:15] Naomi's path to Medtronic [02:50] The scope of Medtronic [03:50] Medtronic's neuromodulation therapies [05:55] Marketing life-changing solutions [07:50] Evolving the messaging [10:15] Lessons learned [11:45] Symbiotic relationships with health care providers [13:10] An experience that defines you: Falling in love with journalism [14:40] Advice to your younger self: Be mindful of burnout [15:05] A topic marketers need to learn more about: AI [16:00] What are you curious about: AI for equity [16:50] Largest potential threat to marketers today: Resisting change [18:10] CES trends: AI becoming helpful in everyday life Resources mentioned: Medtronic CES Medtronic Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) therapy Medtronic Percept DBS system Actualize Impact BET's "Rap City: Tha Basement" Follow the podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Amazon Music Listen on Audible Listen on iHeart Radio Listen on Spotify Connect with Naomi Rodiles and Medtronic: Naomi Rodiles on LinkedIn Medtronic on LinkedIn Medtronic on YouTube Connect with Alan Hart and Deloitte Digital: Alan Hart on X Alan Hart on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on Instagram Deloitte Digital on YouTube Deloitte Digital on Threads

How can marketing leaders deliver personalization at scale as content demands surge? How do brands protect discoverability as customers shift their search focus from SEO to answer engines and AI agents? At CES 2026, Alan Hart sat down with Rachel Thornton, Enterprise CMO at Adobe, to unpack the ways AI is reshaping customer experience orchestration and the content supply chain. Rachel explains that real personalization drives a major increase in content needs, and that AI can compress production cycles so teams can create, test and optimize large volumes of campaign assets faster than humans alone while staying consistent and on-brand across channels. The conversation then turns to generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) where Rachel notes discoverability is increasingly dependent on how brands show up in AI-driven search results and in the broader ecosystem of content beyond their own websites. Throughout the conversation, Rachel reinforces that making AI work requires coordinated change across data foundations, processes and skills, not just new tools. She also offers practical lessons for other CMOs on centering customer needs and building a culture of curiosity and experimentation, so teams keep learning as the marketing playbook evolves. In this episode, you'll learn: Ways AI enables personalization at scale Strategies to modernize the content supply chain How AI is shifting marketing and the adjustments marketers can make to stay discoverable Key highlights: [00:00] Introduction [01:00] A love of reading [01:40] Rachel's career path [02:50] Life as the Enterprise CMO [03:55] How AI is changing the marketing role [06:05] Content supply chain at its best [07:45] Using AI to its full potential [09:20] Discoverability in the AI era [11:45] Lessons for CMOs [13:20] Examples of companies doing marketing well [14:15] An experience that defines you: Customer face time [16:05] Advice to your younger self: It's not linear. Try new things! [16:45] A topic marketers need to learn more about: AI [17:40] What are you curious about: Robots [18:30] Largest opportunity to marketers today: "Everybody is a creator at heart" [19:50] CES trends: Embedded AI Resources mentioned: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese Adobe Creative Cloud Adobe Marketo Engage Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing Adobe LLM Optimizer Adobe Digital Academy Project Fizzion (Coca-Cola x Adobe) Adobe x NFL partnership CES Follow the podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Amazon Music Listen on Audible Listen on iHeart Radio Listen on Spotify Connect with Rachel Thornton and Adobe: Rachel Thornton on LinkedIn Adobe on LinkedIn Adobe on Instagram Connect with Alan Hart and Deloitte Digital: Alan Hart on X Alan Hart on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on Instagram Deloitte Digital on YouTube Deloitte Digital on Threads

How might your marketing strategy change if you could prove—with shared baselines and benchmarks—which efforts truly move the needle, and which don't? Anaplan CMO Jim Freeze explains how AI is evolving marketing workflows, elevating creative focus, and tightening the link to measurable outcomes. He details how his team sets explicit productivity goals and uses AI to support content development, enabling marketers to spend more time on strategy, creativity and smarter channel-mix decisions. He also dives into measurement fundamentals with practical advice leaders can act on now: establish transparent targets, align on baselines and industry benchmarks, and report progress regularly. The conversation also emphasizes tighter alignment with sales, stronger finance fluency for marketers, and preparing for the AI-driven search that will reshape content and site strategy. In this episode, you'll learn: Jim's tips to demonstrate marketing's value with metrics leaders trust The importance of baselines, benchmarks and transparent reporting to earn credibility with the C-suite The potential benefits of cross‑functional accountability and AI integration to pipeline velocity, win rates and team focus Key highlights: [00:00] Introduction [01:40] Our first math major and second lawyer [04:20] From programming in C to being a CMO [07:55] The scope of Anaplan [12:15] How Anaplan is using AI [15:45] The evolution of the marketer role [18:45] Demonstrating the value of marketing [23:25] The importance of transparency [26:55] Ways to improve your measurement framework [30:00] An experience that defines you: Leaving law [32:25] Advice to your younger self: Take more risks [33:10] A topic marketers need to learn more about: Finance [34:50] Trends and subcultures to watch: AI search [35:40] Largest opportunity to marketers today: AI Resources mentioned: Anaplan Follow the podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Amazon Music Listen on Audible Listen on iHeart Radio Listen on Spotify Connect with Jim Freeze and Anaplan: Jim Freeze on LinkedIn Anaplan on LinkedIn Anaplan on YouTube Connect with Alan Hart and Deloitte Digital: Alan Hart on X Alan Hart on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on Instagram Deloitte Digital on YouTube Deloitte Digital on Threads

What if your next marketing idea could become your company's most valuable product? Armen Najarian, former CMO at Sift, discusses the challenges of marketing in the digital fraud prevention industry, the power of incentives, and how a marketing solution became an impactful product innovation. Armen shares how creative referral programs like "Super Sifters" and a strong focus on third-party reviews have elevated Sift's market position and built lasting customer trust. He also explains how the company's Fraud Industry Benchmarking Resource (FIBR) tool began as a marketing initiative that faced internal pushback over essentially making company data open source. Despite the risks, the idea evolved into a real-time, peer comparison product feature—and ultimately became Sift's top demand generator. Armen's experience highlights the value of bold experimentation and cross-functional, innovative thinking in driving marketing-led growth. In this episode, you'll learn: The incentive strategies that move the needle for Sift How a bold marketing idea can turn into a standout product feature The benefits of finding a personal connection to your work Key highlights: [00:00] Introduction [01:05] Escaping to eastern Maine [03:15] Armen's path to Sift [05:20] The scope of Sift [06:20] From brand management to product marketing [07:55] 10 years in cybersecurity [10:10] Incentive strategies and bobble heads [13:45] How marketing can become a product [15:10] FIBR product demonstration [18:25] An experience that defines you: Entrepreneurship [22:40] Advice to your younger self: Don't sweat the small stuff [24:00] A topic marketers need to learn more about: Experimenting with AI [25:25] Trends and subcultures to watch: Philosophy [26:00] Largest opportunity to marketers today: AI Resources mentioned: Sift FIBR G2 Follow the podcast: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Amazon Music Listen on Audible Listen on iHeart Radio Listen on Spotify Connect with Armen Najarian and Sift: Armen Najarian on LinkedIn Sift on LinkedIn Sift on YouTube Connect with Alan Hart and Deloitte Digital: Alan Hart on X Alan Hart on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on LinkedIn Deloitte Digital on Instagram Deloitte Digital on YouTube Deloitte Digital on Threads