We were not there this year to cover, but heard great things.  There was a smaller crowd on hand than normal, but many more folks participated virtually.   It was probably the biggest and most successful hybrid marketing industry event so far.  Congrats to Bob Liodice and to his team at the ANA for pulling this off.

One of the conference keynote speakers was Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Mastercard.

For this #BeetCast podcast, I spoke with Raja earlier last week for a preview of his speech and about “purposeful marketing,” the big changes underway for CMO’s, as well the emergence of new media platforms and a chat about the future of identity.

Raja is always enlightening and provocative.  And he is making a big global impact with his book Quantum Marketing which is on several business book best sellers lists, being sold in over a dozen countries and just translated into Korean, he tells me.

Congrats Raja on the success of the book.  And thanks for taking the time to speak with me for this podcast.

And big thanks to the BeetCast sponsor TransUnion.

And thank you for listening, I hope you enjoy the episode.

It is imperative that marketers understand AI, Augmented Reality and other emerging technologies to remain relevant.  Already the role of CMO has eliminated from major companies, he notes.

Much of Rajamannar’s thesis around the crisis in marketing and a way forward is laid out in his forthcoming book:  Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow’s Consumers. It comes out in February, published by Harper Collins.

This video is an except of the next #BeetCast podcast which is a an extended conversation about the “existential threat” to marketing, the impact of the pandemic on brands and how Mastercard has been managing its people through these difficult months.

Rajamannar serves as president of the the WFA, the World Federation of Advertisers.

This podcast episode drops this Monday (November 16).   You can subscribe for free right here.

The #BeetCast is sponsored by Tru Optik, a Transunion company.