CMO Spotlight | Jonathan Karron - The V Foundation
The CMO Spotlight is a chance to get an inside look into the minds and journeys of high-performing marketing leaders.
Setup CEO, Joe Koufman, virtually sat down with Jonathan Karron, the Chief Marketing Officer of The V Foundation, to discuss the importance of building connections, his favorite campaign, what it takes to build a utopia, and how he finds inspiration from an unlikely source (Yoda!).
WATCH + READ THE RECAP BELOW (SCROLL TO THE END FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW)
Q1 | Is there any advice you’d like to share?
Networking, especially early in careers, is the key to success. “I know it takes a lot of work, but you can get little nuggets of information and also make connections with people who can help you as you go on in your career.”
He also encourages marketers to always seek new information from various sources. “There's no excuse to not get yourself out there to be a sponge. The more you learn, the more you know, and the easier it is to decide what's right for you.”
Q2 | What is your superpower?
Karron always tries to have the mindset of the customer or target audience for the company he’s representing. He is always thinking about the customer journey, even if it can be easy to take the consumer insights for granted. “I think my ability to ground myself in customer insights and represent them is something that I'm really good at.”
The following questions help Karron’s team keep the consumer top of mind:
What is the consumer consuming?
How do we get them into the funnel to tell them the [brand] story?
How do we create those connections with them to motivate an action (donation, attending an event, purchasing a product, sharing something on social media, etc.)?
Karron enjoys connecting with people and connecting people with others. “I enjoy people and I learn from people, so I think that has been a gift of mine. I've built a large network throughout my career.”
Q3 | Where do you find your inspiration?
Karron finds inspiration from the people surrounding him in addition to blogs or podcasts. “It's great to listen to a podcast like ‘How I Built This’ or ‘The CMO Podcast’ when you're out on a walk. I take notes on my phone and I figure out how to use some of those things to apply to my work or even my volunteer work.”
Q4 | What values do you live by?
Integrity is one of the values Karron lives by in his work and personal life. “At the end of the day, it's [about] trying to have fun while trying to respect people's different points of view and backgrounds so that people can bring their whole self to the organization to have fun and be proud of the work they do.”
Q5 | Tell us about an impactful campaign.
During his time at Turner Classic Movies, he helped launch a campaign called "That's Classic.” The goal of that campaign was to make classic movies more contemporary and relevant to younger audiences. They did a big launch for the campaign in consumer publications and trades like Vanity Fair and People Magazine. Despite having a small budget for the campaign, it was very successful and won many awards. He shared, “That's a campaign that I'm really proud of because we wanted to make our brand more contemporary. We wanted to turn classic on its head,” and they did.
For more marketing leadership advice and a view into the mindset of marketing executives in various industries, be sure to watch the full interview with Jonathan Karron, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights.