Melissa Sierra

expert panel

In recent years, several prominent brands have learned that marketing can misfire when it collides with consumer sentiment. Bud Light, American Eagle and Cracker Barrel, among others, have drawn public attention not for their creativity or ambition, but for misreading how audiences would react to “clever” campaigns or evolving branding. Even well-intentioned marketing or modernization efforts can alienate longtime customers if they believe campaigns aren’t grounded in authenticity and respect. For marketing leaders, these examples underscore the need for disciplined “backfire filters”—structured ways to assess cultural sensitivity, audience alignment and brand equity before campaigns reach the public. Here, senior marketing experts from the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share how they would have approached the internal conversations surrounding recent “marketing misfires.”

expert panel

Google’s grip on how consumers discover information online may finally be loosening—and marketing leaders are taking notice. In a landmark antitrust ruling, the tech giant has been ordered to share search data with competitors and limit its exclusivity deals, signaling the first meaningful crack in its long-standing search dominance. Marketing leaders agree: This is not a narrow story about the future of Google, but an inflection point in how discovery systems are designed—and who controls them next. The ruling suggests marketers should revisit long-held assumptions about search channel dependency, audience access and the role of owned data and experience design in an increasingly open, multisurface search future.  Members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank have lengthy and wide-ranging expertise in brand storytelling, digital advertising and customer engagement. Here, three of them unpack what this shift means for brand visibility, customer acquisition and data strategy.