Full episode transcript.
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Desiree Duncan: [00:00:00] To than a normal show, though brought to you by BPDA marketing services firm that delivers the future to healthcare’s leading brands, this shows where we leave all things status quo, traditional old school and boring, and the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, all focused around the future of healthcare, marketing, and communications. I’m your host, EZ Duncan, vice President of Health Equity and Inclusion at BPD, and I’m joined by Chris Bevel, chief Transformation Officer here. Hi Chris.
Chris: Hi Des.
Desiree Duncan: How’s.
Chris: here.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah. Good.
Chris: It’s great.
Desiree Duncan: Well, glad to hear it’s not all doom and gloom over there. Um, but we are also, we are also joined by a special guest, a friend of the pod Ryan Kani, chief Communications Officer here at BPD. for joining us Ryan, what’s, what’s going on with you? What’s new?
Ryan Colaianni: It’s good and great to be here just as Chris said. Good and great.
Desiree Duncan: I love this theme. All right. So on
today’s [00:01:00] show, we will be covering the HBO Max brand Whiplash, uh, as well as some branding hills will die on. But we really wanna dive into the future of the CMO and looking at some of the opportunities that marketers, uh, have in this world. Uh, but, but first, um, the CMO report, it is.
Out now, um, you are able to, uh, grab a link of that in the show notes here. Uh, and then also if you can’t get enough of the no normal show, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. The No Normal Rewind, which recaps the discussion to hear on our show with some extra insights you won’t find anywhere. Else. Uh, so let’s dive in. What’s going on with HBO Max? So there has been a bit of a, a whiplash, uh, HBO became HBO MAX and HBO Go and all the things and that, and then it became Max, it really put a foothold on. We are max. And then that has been re and now they’re allegedly going back to HBO Max.
Like why, what is, what is happening? Chris, what’s your take?[00:02:00]
Chris: My take is that I’ve never seen anything more idiotic in my entire life. the the shift HBO Max and then to Max was criticized as maybe one of the stupidest identity shifts of all time. Just that, right? But now we’re finally just like, everybody’s just moved on like they should, and we’re like, okay, it’s Max fine, and they’reWhat is happening?
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, there’s like
Chris: Ryan? What is
Desiree Duncan: too much cachet left on the HBO, but yeah.
Ryan Colaianni: Are they gonna bring back like the static sound start to every show? Because every time I hear that, I want to do the curb. Your enthusiasm, bum, bum, bum every time that happens no matter what. So they should bring that back and then I’m in. But yeah.
Chris: mean
Ryan Colaianni: Um.
Chris: that goes
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah. Or remember back in the old days, like in the eighties, there was all the, all like the cities lighting up.
Like let’s bring that whole thing back.
Chris: over. Yeah.
Desiree Duncan: exactly why they should not have left HBO branding to begin with. It’s like it’s a household name. It’s kinda like with [00:03:00] Netflix, it’s the sound. You hear it, you know it’s about to come on. I remember there was a movie that they produced that had like the um, the retro HBO logo that was just like, I.
Uh, so amazing. Um, but some other examples of brands that have done this. I know Google, uh, Chris, you’ve talked a little bit about this and like there’s a bit of the.
Chris: I don’t know anything about it other than it was back rub, which is a very legitimate made print shift. Like I don’t, Google was, is nonsensical. Google was a mistake. It was actually a mistake in spelling of what they wanted it to be, but it stuck, but it didn’t go back to back rub or the appropriate spelling of Google.
I think it was Google Plex or something. They just stuck with Google, which was nonsensical, but doesn’t matter because as somebody wise once told me, the brand makes the name not the other way around. HBO max, HBO Max quit fiddling. [00:04:00] Just leave it be and move on.
Ryan Colaianni: Does this mean that that Google’s gonna bring back Google Plus? ’cause maybe it’ll be HBO plus one day. I mean, everybody’s adding pluses to things.
Desiree Duncan: no,
Chris: and
Desiree Duncan: God.
Chris: the thing, like why would you just think about this? Why would you, you have HBO and you have Cinemax and you’re going to go with Cinemax as your primary brand. Like what? thinks Cinemaxx is the trash version of HBO? That was always, that’s how everybody thinks about it. It’s the, it’s the Dollar General to HBO’s, Nordstrom’s,
Desiree Duncan: Wow.
Chris: go with the Dollar General brand.
Ryan Colaianni: Well, this is how dumb I am. I didn’t even make that connection, Chris. I did not realize it was HBO Max from Cinemax. Like I knew they owned each other, and I also don’t think Cinemax exists anymore, but Huh. Like,
Chris: I don’t,
Ryan Colaianni: but I, I didn’t even realize that connection.
Chris: well, if it wasn’t intentional for people like me that are old enough to have grown up on Cinemax. It’s, it was, it was, I assumed that’s what it was. I don’t really know, to be [00:05:00] honest. To be fair, maybe it wasn’t, but they were owned by the same company a hundred percent. And it was, it was kind of like the rundown version of HBO where you put cheap shit on there.
’cause it didn’t meet HBO standards. So whether they meant it or not, that was what it invoked for Gen X
Desiree Duncan: Gen
Ryan Colaianni: lost the value of, to DE’s Point, I mean, HBO is the brand, so let’s double down on what people know it for and what they’ve known about it for decades.
Desiree Duncan: And, and one last example that’s more true to my heart and it it ’cause it also has to do with the experience of the brand. Starbucks, they’ve kind of gone back and forth with, you know, who they are and there was a recent couple of articles and conversations around them adding the coffee back into their name and the brand and like who they are.
Which, if you look at their website, it’s even really f. Kind of hard to find like where they’ve added the coffee back, but it’s all the name of getting back to the actual original experience of Starbucks, which was going, there was a place to hang out. It was that third place. And I remember in college, like that was [00:06:00] like the thing to go do.
It was like, oh, I’m gonna go hang out a. Starbucks and now it’s just so super transactional. You just like order from your phone, you go and pick up, you’re like, I don’t wanna talk to anybody, I just wanna walk in, grab my coffee and, and leave. Um, but it’s been really interesting to see them kind of try to give, uh, go back to that original roots of the experience.
But knows if that’ll actually take off? ’cause we, you’ve trained us to just like look at our phone and do the thing. But I don’t know.
Chris: isn’t it? It’s even more distinctive that they’re going to coffee store or coffee shop, which is a coffee store, coffee
Desiree Duncan: Coffee company. Coffee company.
Chris: know it’s coffee company. Um, I don’t think anybody ever thought Starbucks was anything but coffee. Of course they have other things. Um, but there’s never been like, oh wow, now you’re just like a grocery store. It’s coffee. That’s what people go there for.
Desiree Duncan: [00:07:00] Mm-hmm.
Chris: off, but.
Ryan Colaianni: They write the names on the coffee cups. Now they’re back to doing that. That makes the personal experience, so they’ve solved it.
Chris: away. I didn’t even know that went away.
Ryan Colaianni: I thought they came back. They had, they were the, the new guy wanted to have everybody have the Sharpies back, so they had to like ship all the stores a million sharpies so that they can start doing that again.
Desiree Duncan: also, they need to get the comfy seating back because it just does not give place that I wanna hang out in at all anymore, but.
Ryan Colaianni: there a time where they tried to start, they were gonna sell wine. It was gonna be a bar in the afternoons too. So maybe, maybe that’s the, the, maybe that’s the next play.
Desiree Duncan: I’ve missed that. They’ve done that with the Starbucks Reserve. I don’t know about the regular
Ryan Colaianni: that’s what it was. Yeah.
Desiree Duncan: Alright, so moving on to
Ryan Colaianni: I.
Desiree Duncan: next topic, which is kind of getting into the experience world, uh, looking at the Hills will die on, and I, as I think about this, the hill that I’ll die on is that essentially within healthcare, you were in the business of hospitality. It’s, it’s in the name, you’re a [00:08:00] hospital, your hospitality. So they should be thinking and acting more like that. Uh, I’m thinking more about that patient experience, not necessarily uh, about the other things, but I don’t know, that’s just my heel. I feel like there should be more of a focus on the experience and how hospitality, but point, counterpoint.
What are your thoughts, Chris? Go. ’cause I’m sure you are gonna be contrarian and say no.
Chris: I
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah, I have,
Chris: first.
Ryan Colaianni: I have a cynical business of healthcare take to this that I agree with Des, that it’s required because as there are fewer and fewer commercial, uh, patients, they need to appeal, hospitals need to appeal as much as possible to that, that audience. And that requires doing things like. You’re only, you’re not gonna have somebody sharing your inpatient room with you.
Um, you’re gonna have a nice view from the window. We’re gonna get good food and all those types of things, you’re, they’re gonna try to strive for the higher patient satisfaction scores. Like all those types of things essentially are, it’s a business argument to [00:09:00] take. I. The hospitality approach. I don’t know if anybody is thinking about it that way as from from a CMO perspective, but, um, that ultimately if you’re gonna want to drive volumes, you’re gonna have to improve the patient experience, particularly in large markets where there’s multiple competitors.
So that’s my perspective there.
Desiree Duncan: Okay, so we’ve got experience and we’ve got business. Chris, what’s your take?
Chris: I agree with business. I agree. We’ve, we’ve said forever that the experience is the number one di way to build your brand. best brands in this space like Mayo Clinic have the best experiences. Uh, and it does draw people. People come in whether they know it’s a good experience or not, but then they have one they tell other people, and word of mouth is the number one driver of patient choice.
So I’m, I’m in on all of that, where I get hung up as. Hospitality. Um, maybe that’s semantics, but I, I do think like there’s, I used to be the, the mo, the strongest advocate for hospitality and, and experience and for some reason, I don’t [00:10:00] know why I’ve come back around to. Maybe we’re going too far with this.
There’s always been a balance with it, but it’s the pit. The pit keeps shaping my view on things, the show. And within the first five minutes of that, that whole show starting the administrators, her ringing, Noah Wiley, the head of the, the chief er doctor, about his press kidney scores, um, and he says things like. patient should be satisfied if they’re alive, in the ER is fair. And then she says something like, but you want them to rate us higher, like rank us higher online. And he’s like, we’re not a Taco Bell, we’re an er. And so that’s where I get, that’s where I get torn more than I used to. He’s, I’m a purist in everything. So for me it was always, you gotta have a great experience. Doctors need to get on board, nurses need to get on board. And now I kind of actually fall. on their side and defend them more like let them [00:11:00] stabilize for crying out loud. It’s
Ryan Colaianni: Do your job.
Chris: does. I’m tired of the 2 cent nation, so I’m, I’m rebelling a bit against people who are gonna go online and flame a cancer doctor who saved their life because Gulf Digest was three years old.
Desiree Duncan: wow.
Ryan Colaianni: a reasonable criticism.
Chris: Not
Desiree Duncan: Okay.
Chris: not a stretch.
Desiree Duncan: But there is a difference between like what I mean the ER experience is going to be what it is because it’s, you’re moving fast and it’s very much urgent. Right. Versus the rest of the health system and hospital. Right? ER is only one part of the ED is only one part of the equation. Um, but the re it’s almost like once you get through the ER and then you are kind of taking up to your room, uh, to be more, um, kind of watched and looked after. That’s where it does start to get more into hospitality. I. Um, situation, but it’s not just that. It’s also the regular, just the intake of coming in [00:12:00] for a regular visit, a checkup where you have to go through all of this rigamarole and fill out all of this paperwork 15 different times, uh, that we’re kind of talking about.
So I, I hear you on that piece of it, but there are multiple.
Chris: see, that’s a distinction. Put it, let’s put it this way, all the things that you talked about in terms of scheduling the process, that should be smooth. That should be easy. I agree with all that. Um, should people be able to order their own food when they’re in a hospital room? I would like to order a steak with red potatoes and lightly grilled asparagus. Or should they be able to pick from three options that are on the menu? That’s hospitality. Hospitality is that kind of stuff. To me in my brain, that’s different than how quickly can we get you through the process. That’s the
Desiree Duncan: like a restaurant.
Chris: That’s what I’m saying. But there are people that complain about that stuff. So like you are not in a restaurant, you’re in a [00:13:00] hospital. You just had an appendectomy to expect hospitality. The way a hospital, a restaurant would give it is where I would say, uh, no. Am I
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, know if tho if those are the reviews, then that’s wild to me because yeah, that’s, uh, but I guess I’m looking at more of just like, how can you reduce friction of like actually kind of going in and using the services
Chris: That’s fair. That’s fair.
Desiree Duncan: are,
Chris: see, I hear that different than hospitality, and hospitality. Hospitality is the next level. Right?
Desiree Duncan: level.
Chris: It’s a difference between checking in at the hotel and having mobile key and being able to go right to your room. That to me is not hospitality. That’s just. Smart business to Ryan’s point, that’s convenience.
That’s of course you need to do that. Um, do I need chocolates on my pillow? Do I need turn down service? Do I need those things? That to me mean hospitality. I need a friendly face, but I don’t know if I need all that [00:14:00] stuff in a
Ryan Colaianni: But if, but if you went to your, if you did the mobile check-in and it didn’t work and you had to go back to the front desk and then the, the, the key card didn’t work and all those types of things, you’re gonna, you’re, the overall hospitality experience for you is going to go down. Even if you did, even if you wanted the turn down service in the cho, in the chocolates on your pillow.
Chris: I’m just being pedantic with hospitality. I’m hearing it
Desiree Duncan: word. Yeah.
Chris: a higher level of service that I don’t think is required. Should you have good patient satisfaction scores? Yes. But if you got somebody who’s arm is cut off and your fighting to save their lives you’re not. not sweet and nice to them in the moment.
You’re just Kurt. ’cause you gotta save their life.
Desiree Duncan: So then.
Chris: what you, I don’t know what people want.
Desiree Duncan: There’s that. What do you want? So essentially it’s like specificity, please. Because words mean things like when we’re talking about hospitality, when we’re, versus what we’re talking about, which is a patient experience. We need to be specific. So, all right. All right. I, I hear you. I’ll, I’ll think more on that.
Chris: [00:15:00] a, I think I’m in the minority on this, I’ll be honest, but really I’ve come full circle on it. Not full circle, because somebody’s having the same place. I’ve done a 180
Desiree Duncan: 180. There you go.
Ryan Colaianni: You are on the other half of the circle. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. I didn’t do a 360. I did a 180. I.
Desiree Duncan: Blessings. Alright, let’s get into our main topic and that is the feature of the CMO. Uh, so with this report, one of the opportunities we saw here was around the idea of, you know, there’s two rows of verge of whether you were going to go for in camp one. The land grab where we’re going to take on experience, you’re going to take on, uh, maybe even some cons, some strategy and, and the like. Uh, and then there’s also the other, uh, camp, which is that less is more. Uh, but for this particular, uh, episode, we’re really gonna talk a bit more, and while we have Ryan on, is that opportunity you have with some elements of the land grab. But I don’t know, Chris, if you wanna kind of set up more of the context from the Joe public retreats you’ve, uh, attended and surveys you’ve [00:16:00] done.
Chris: Yeah, we did. We did a lot of research. I’ve had a lot of conversations and this idea of span and control kept coming up. But I think what was, was two things that jumped out, um, at the Joe Public Retreat where we hadn’t really in depth conversations about this. One was I. marketers own the experience, which is a completely different opportunity that we talk about in the study, and we’ll get to a different time. But the other was just communications, right? There’s all kinds of different ways to expand your span of control. It could be pricing strategy, it could be strategic planning, it could be business planning. There’s a lot. But comms led to a really charged. because there were a few people in the room.
There were a number that already owned it, so there were CMCO, but there were a few that had just kind of inherited it. They didn’t intentionally go after it, but they were asked to take it on. I. and they were very honest about their struggles with it. Uh, the, it is, it is not [00:17:00] marketing, I think is a fair way to put it in terms of the demand that it requires, uh, the speed it requires. Uh, there’s all kinds of different things, uh, and so call it out in the paper, but it’s definitely worth a, a deeper dive because it is a, it’s a great opportunity for A CMO who wants. More, um, and authority and drive more value in the organization to own comms, but you gotta know what you’re in for and I think that’s where Ryan can help us.
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah, I think, I think you hit on all the key points there, Chris. I mean, the, it, it really requires kind of a mindset shift. You are, you know, 90% of the times in the communications world within a health system, you’re focused on, you know, what, what issue, what issue is popping this week? Is it a policy threat?
Is it, uh, you know, a payer negotiation? Did we have something horrible happening and it happened in our, our ED, those types of things that are naturally just gonna suck up time. Um, it’s gonna take away resources and you aren’t gonna be focused on [00:18:00] the strategic approach that you’re taking to build the reputation or build the brand of the organization.
So it is really, I can totally see how. You know, as a comms guy, how that can be a real struggle for folks that have primarily grown through the organization on the marketing side, because the demands are different. With that being said, I think over the last five years in particular, uh, essentially since March of 20, um, uh, both in healthcare and beyond healthcare reputation has become a far bigger focus for boards for leadership, for C-Suite.
Um, which presents a tremendous opportunity for CMOs to, um, influence and build that reputation to not only protect it when something goes wrong, but to build that reputation over time. What are you known for in the market that you stand for? That takes all of the other types of things that you’re focused on, on the marketing side.
Um, but how are you making sure that from a reputational perspective, um, you’re top of mind for. Not only patients, but policy makers, your employees, all those types of things are so huge and we have, you could just count the number of things that systems have had to [00:19:00] navigate over the last five years, whether it was the initial threat of COVID, whether it was the, uh, the, the internal challenges on staffing, um, when, when staff, uh, either were departing or where we were dealing with travel nurses.
Those types of things you’ve seen in increased union activity in those inside of organizations. Now you’re seeing it on the policy side. You’re seeing it on through broader industry attacks, um, against hospitals as being too expensive. All those types of things kind of ding at your overall brand perception among consumers and among those you serve.
So I think if you’re able to find the right mindset to allow you to kind of turn one side off and on to, to kind of support both the brand and the communications and reputation pieces, you can be tremendous, tremendously successful. And even on kind of overseeing all of it, making sure you have. The right deputies on your team that are able to focus on that from a day-to-day perspective while allowing you to still set that larger organizational strategy perspective and how a reputation could influence that.
So that’s just kinda my thinking there.
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, that was my initial thought is [00:20:00] like, you know, who’s the team under you to help navigate that? ’cause like the, the concerns around like all of this stuff of like, comms being this completely different world of like always on situations and it’s gonna be about like, who is, gonna be my question.
I was like, your thoughts around, you know, how do you set up a team or your, even your, your role, your department so that you can stay more high level visionary, uh, while making sure that those things are covered.
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah, I think, I mean, empowering the team is huge. Um, particularly the larger, the health system that you operate. I mean, you can’t be everywhere at once. And so having somebody that has grown up and, and developed that communications focus, um, we see a lot of organizations hire former journalists for that role.
We see a lot of, uh, folks hire former agency folks to, to, to serve that role. Folks that are able to, to quickly move from one. Problem to another, or one task to another are incredibly helpful. And then Des, to your point, what is that overall vision for not only the entire marketing and [00:21:00] communications department, but what is your, what is, what is your vision for how we want to enhance the reputation of the organization?
Now, a lot of times that may ladder to an organizational strategic plan or those types of things. Um, providing and having. Um, that kind of delineation of work is gonna be incredibly successful for you to allow you to manage the day-to-day, but also still be out there and not get distracted by the day-to-day so you can have that longer term strategy out there.
Um, that’s the biggest challenge we see, at least on the communication side. Within health systems, they’re so challenged to manage the immediate day-to-day needs that they, there is no focus on the longer term and, you know, six month, 12 month, 18 month reputation planning piece. It just doesn’t happen. Um, because they don’t have time to do it.
Chris: We see that take shape all the time. Is it the payer provider world? when you’ve got a health system with a contract that’s coming up from United or CI or whoever, uh, you know, we do a lot of work with health systems to help them navigate those difficult [00:22:00] negotiations and sometimes even going public with the fight. Uh, but so often it’s left to like the last four months or the last six months was like, oh gosh, this is not gonna be easy. And it turns into a crisis rather than. Having an always on strategy that requires the ability to kind of be above it all, to think in those terms and act in those terms, rather than just run into each fire.
That’s a pretty big fire. Like you don’t want to be left with a, you know, opening the door and there’s a, a raging payer provider negotiation in the room. Uh, if you’ve, if you’ve got to that point, you really missed an opportunity to what you’re talking about, Ryan, of, of being strategic because this’s gonna help you all kinds of ways.
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah, I mean the number of systems that we’re working with over the last, frankly, two years that have recognized that. It is really hard to manage your reputation when you’re in the middle of the fire, like a payer negotiation, or we’re gonna announce a major merger, those types of things. You can’t, it’s hard to build [00:23:00] friends and allies in that time.
It’s, it’s requiring a longer term approach and a longer term just strategic vision of how you’re going to manage your reputation in that market. How are we reaching policymakers, employers, uh, community partners, all those types of organizations? Well in advance of when we need to ask ’em for a favor, Hey, we need you to take our side versus UnitedHealthcare is during this negotiation, um, you’re able to do that through what we call kind of agnostic reputation building over time, um, and more of our, uh, uh, our, uh, payer clients and more of our m and a clients are seeing the value of doing that 6, 12, 18 months before they know a major negotiation’s probably gonna be out there in the public realm.
Desiree Duncan: Along those lines of the m and a I was thinking about that. What are then the opportunities, um, if, especially from a person coming from more of a marketing and a brand, um, standpoint. Uh, ’cause oftentimes, I know when talking to you and our clients, most of the m and a, um, focus has come to more of a, a comms communications focus and lens. But what are [00:24:00] some of the opportunities that a chief marketer, um, that’s overcomes or of a brand, like what are some opportunities there that they have?
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things to think about. One, there’s kind of the broader positioning of the organization well in advance of when a deal I. Might be announced. So what, you know, what are the three things that make us different in, uh, in Seattle, Washington, or whatever. It’s whatever market you’re in.
How do, how are we different than the other system across town? And those are things that you can come up with three, four pillars that we’re gonna hammer on. It’s gonna be, you know, our clinical excellence or it’s gonna be our commitment to our community. Like those types of things we can have out there.
Um, when you get closer to announcing a partnership or an m and a deal, um, a lot of things that you can think about are related to. Kind of the why does it? Why does this matter to me as a consumer? Why does it matter to me as a stakeholder? What does it get me? And thinking about more, not only reputation building, but what are the operational things we can point to?
It’s gonna be easier for you to get an oncology appointment because we’re expanding the number of oncologists within our [00:25:00] system as a result of the deal. Or we’re gonna invest $150 million. In a community health clinic network, and we’re gonna set these up all over the state. Like those types of tangible things that make it real for folks are things that often don’t get announced, um, when the deal is announced.
That’s something that comes years after because these integrations take forever. The organizations that are gonna get get communities excited and frankly. The number one goal during an m and a transaction is just to get the deal through so we don’t run into opposition. If we’re able to provide a little bit more of those spec, those specific specifics of what we’re going to have come as a result of us coming together, that will be more successful and they can tie back to your organizational pillars, what makes us different, all those types of things that I talked about.
You know, what’s authentic to your organization, um, but being tangible. For the stakeholder groups, um, is in critical importance all the way down to internal. I mean, the number of m and a deals I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been on have been fascinating to see. Some of the internal questions that they get, they’ll hear about a benefit that one side has and be like, is that coming over here?
Like, are we now getting free [00:26:00] massages every two months as part of our health plans? They get really tangible in those types of things. So how do we, how do we make sure that we demonstrate that to all the different stakeholders involved in a deal?
Chris: I would add one thing that we’re gonna spend a lot more time talking about this year. Uh, and in terms of m and a, and that is with brand, and it’s really interesting to think about it related to comps because, uh, most brand decisions when it comes to m and a are just literally put in a box and put on a shelf. And brought back out, you know, a year after the close. But folks, for all kinds of reasons, just do not want to deal with brand identity, naming, positioning, any of that as part of the m and a deal. And there’s valid reasons for it, but it causes a lot of issues, right? You’re way better off if you can actually deal with that at the deal stage. Uh, and the trick of this is. Somebody has to be aware of that. ’cause it’s not gonna be the C-suite, it’s not gonna be the CFO. Uh, it might be a Chief [00:27:00] Strategy Officer, but probably not. It’s probably the CMO. But the CMO will not be in the room for a lot of that. But the CCO will be the CCO has an opportunity because of the communications that are required. At some point, they’ll be in the room pre-loss. For all kinds of reasons. So if you as a CMO also have communications that brings you into the conversations at a point where you could actually advocate for dealing with and addressing brand at that time, rather than being handed a challenge, you know, a year later.
So it’s a, It’s a interesting kind of backdoor way to get it to somebody that’s really critical. And again, we’re gonna be spending more time about this over the next six months because it’s something. our m and a activity that, that we’ve been involved in, we see as time and time again. Uh, and it really does cause harm to the brand.
It causes harm to the, the organizations that are involved and [00:28:00] it costs money. So when you know all of those things, you might rethink where brand plays a role in m and a, but we’ll get to more of that later. But comms might be a way to get in that conversation earlier.
Ryan Colaianni: Yeah. ’cause if you, when you really think about the, the, the individuals you’re talking about, you know, a, a leader of comms is not thinking about what this brand looks like. Three, three years from now, they’re thinking about, okay, what do I need to do to make sure that this deal is well received when we announce it?
Um, and so having that different perspective in there allows us in, in the organization to anticipate, um, some of those potential issues that, that naturally we know are gonna come up and have that different lens of thinking of what this impact for the brand long term.
Desiree Duncan: What is it that makes it so that the chief comms officer is more so in the room than the CMO and you know, how can we kind of flip that, I guess?
Ryan Colaianni: I think it really, it really depends on the organizational structure. Um, you know, sometimes there are, it’s A-C-M-O-C-C-O joint role as it with a single individual. Sometimes they’re split like Chris is talking about. Um, I think that just [00:29:00] goes back to kind of the overarching kind of vision and connectivity that has to happen across the Marco Comms enterprise.
To ensure alignment, um, on these sensitive types of issues. Um, you know, obviously if the, if the, if the comms lead is underneath the marketing lead, but as part of the conversations, then seemingly the marketing lead is aware of this and kind of inserting themselves to have a seat at the table, not to drive.
The announcement of the deal. Um, but to really ensure that the full perspective of the impact of the brand are included is, is important. So I think a lot of it is just making sure internal alignment. Having a team that trusts each other is obviously huge. And then having a C-suite that knows the importance and, um, is open to the perspective of both sides from a marketing and from a communications perspective, uh, to bring those perspectives into the room.
When these conversations are happening, when, when these critical deal points are being discussed, all those types of things that impact the longer term organizational health,
Desiree Duncan: Yeah, I mostly ask, thank you. Um, just
Ryan Colaianni: I.
Desiree Duncan: of, you know, throughout this report, you know, there’s top. [00:30:00] Topics of conversation around, like, for example, how can you be that market whisperer? But then also conversations around how can you actually be more in the room to then offer up, uh, that perspective.
And so it is really an interesting take of being able to have, even though at the front end of it, it feels like, oh my. Uh, there’s all this stuff, issues and crisis and mergers and acquisitions and oh my, that’s being dropped on my plate that I, I now have to figure out. But like you said, if you have the right team set up, um, you have some deputies, you have some really strong folks that can help really lead that day-to-day charge, that gives you more that opportunity to. out, be in those rooms and really thinking about all of the different ways that this whatever, um, strategic thing is happening or purchase or what have you, so that you can be more thoughtful in that moment and not just kind of inundated with like, oh God, I gotta get this other thing out. Being able to pay attention.
Ryan Colaianni: Exactly.
Chris: The, the thing I’d add too is that the point about the deputies just can’t be overstated. [00:31:00] can’t be overstated. We don’t want to understate it. I’m confusing whether it should be overstated or understated. It’s important. My Elmer fud, it’s important because I, I, I think it’s fair to say that for a long time I’ve been around this, this. All system marketing gig for a long time you would see CMOs who rose up through the comms because that was really back in the day, and I mean the nineties, there was far more comms than marketing people. And so a lot of people would elevate to the top marketing position through comms, and you would see some struggles. With marketing strategy, with the marketing mindset, and I think it’s fair to say that there are pure marketers, pure brand people that would struggle with comms. It’s, it’s gonna be rare to find somebody who’s like super strong in both marketing and comms. I. those are both, while very related, completely different disciplines.
They’re different disciplines. And so to even expect one person to be great at [00:32:00] both is probably a, a bad expectation. You certainly can have experience and it can handle it, but if you’re a, if you’re a marketer, I. That’s what your, that’s what your experience is. That’s where your strength is. And you want to take on comms, you need to have that lieutenant who is all about comms. Uh, and I would say vice versa, right? If your strength is really communications, but you’re in A-C-M-C-O role, you need to have a super strong marketing, lieutenant. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just an important call out, right? I don’t think there’s any CMCO that’s like the best at both of those. That would be a real unicorn.
Ryan Colaianni: Yep.
Desiree Duncan: They say the best leaders are not the ones that like know all the things of making sure that they have a team of folks underneath them that know all the things. Alright, any other final thoughts around like just really. The, um, the opportunities or even just kind of the watch outs to really like set yourself up for, being in camp one.[00:33:00]
Ryan Colaianni: I just, I wouldn’t wait to you until you get asked the question by a CEO or a leader about kind of where and how everything fits together. Um, I think that’s, that’s of critical importance to ensure. You are continually thinking about this and understanding, um, kind of the vision and, and where you want to go, um, so that it doesn’t, uh, come as a surprise, um, uh, having that strong POV of kind of what fits for you makes the most sense.
Um, but Chris, obviously you’ve talked to a lot more folks on this type of topic.
Chris: Yeah, and you wanna, youve your own path as much as you can. if you’re. In, in the cases we even know of, it’s probably ’cause it’s not working well. So you’re being handed a bit of a issue, a problem, um, in a department for one reason or the other. And so that’s not a great place to start. to own it because you, you have a plan for it and it’s something you want to take on.
So yeah, be proactive. Also breaking news, uh, HBO just announced that they’re changing the name again now gonna be [00:34:00] called. So that that will be happening after they go back to HBO Max and then they’re gonna switch again to Maximo. So I wanna make sure we got that in there at the end.
Ryan Colaianni: I like Max Bow. Let’s, let’s go with that.
Desiree Duncan: Max. Oh, wow. Well, we’ll wrap on that. So be proactive, be be proactive, uh, for. All of you listening, don’t forget that we want to hear from you. So shoot us an email at no normal@bpdhealthcare.com so that your questions may be featured in our next episode. And make sure to share with the, the show with your friends and colleagues and give us a review and ratings on iTunes and Spotify, preferably five stars.
And all of that would be greatly appreciated. And until next time, don’t ever be satisfied with the normal push that no normal y’all, and we’ll talk to you next week.
