{"id":21411,"date":"2024-08-03T20:58:36","date_gmt":"2024-08-03T20:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=21411"},"modified":"2024-08-03T20:58:37","modified_gmt":"2024-08-03T20:58:37","slug":"verizon-cmo-leslie-berland-talks-rebrand-and-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=21411","title":{"rendered":"Verizon CMO Leslie Berland talks rebrand and career"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Leslie Berland knows a thing or two about a rebrand.<\/p>\n

As Twitter\u2019s first-ever chief marketing officer nearly a decade ago, she crafted the platform\u2019s brand identity beginning in 2016. After leaving the company in 2022 and spending about a year at Peloton, she started as Verizon\u2019s chief marketing officer in January, where she worked on the brand\u2019s refresh unveiled in late June.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear and apparent that there was a massive opportunity for us to rebuild a brand that was a powerful reflection of the company as it is today and really where the company is going,\u201d she told us.<\/p>\n

Marketing Brew asked Berland about her experience in the C-suite, how companies can avoid overcomplicating things for consumers, and how a telecommunications company can endear itself to its customers\u2014namely, by offering them free tickets to big events like NFL games.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/em><\/p>\n

You joined Verizon in January. Talk to me about the rebrand. Was this underway when you got there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was not underway before I got to the company\u2026When I entered the company and took a step back and looked at the brand and looked at the research and customer perceptions of the brand\u2014on the B2B side and on the consumer side\u2014it was clear and apparent that there was a massive opportunity for us to build and rebuild a brand that was a powerful reflection of the company as it is today and really where the company is going.<\/p>\n

What was the customer perception?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fascinating marketing challenge\u2026Verizon is a leading brand. It has a 99% awareness in this country. It is known for being trusted and reliable, which is a dream for any brand, big or small, and there\u2019s a lot of weight in that.<\/p>\n

When looking at the customer research, though, we saw something really interesting. Verizon, and what we do most of the time, is invisible to people. But we touch everything within people\u2019s lives\u2014how they live, how they work, how they play. You really don\u2019t see it, and you don\u2019t feel it. It just works\u2026When you\u2019re at home, when you\u2019re on the road, when you\u2019re traveling, when you\u2019re at work, Verizon is really powering your life.<\/p>\n

What we found in the research is there\u2019s sort of this invisible nature to what we enable and what we create. There was a distance between us and our customers. There\u2019s sort of a gap between what we do and the role we play in people\u2019s lives, and what our customers are thinking about us and whether or not they\u2019re thinking about us.<\/p>\n

We have been known as a telco brand, right? And really, what\u2019s clear to us is that we\u2019re a life brand, and that\u2019s a very different way of showing up, that\u2019s a very different way of communicating, and that\u2019s a very different way of expressing ourselves. That gap was very apparent.<\/p>\n

The company unveiled a new offering called Verizon Access, offering customers things like access to NFL games and VIP experiences. That\u2019s very AmEx, where you worked before joining Twitter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What we\u2019re providing through Verizon Access is something that the company has focused on over the years. There was a program over the last couple of years that enabled and created these experiences for customers, but nobody knew about it. It had very, very low awareness\u2026We rebranded it, there was a repositioning of it, and certainly, it\u2019s something we\u2019re going to be putting much more at the forefront.<\/p>\n

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Why does my cell-phone provider\u2014which I view almost as a utility\u2014need to offer its customers something like tickets to a concert? What does that give you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you talk about it as a utility, what we provide and what we power is so much embedded in music, sports, and entertainment, and what you\u2019re watching on TV, what you\u2019re doing on the internet, what you\u2019re streaming through your phone. Our technology and our network actually powers stadiums\u2026If you love sports, you\u2019re going to love what we\u2019re offering through Sunday Ticket<\/em>. You\u2019re going to love what we do in stadium, and we\u2019re going to give you special access that is just for Verizon customers.<\/p>\n

How powerful is that as a sales strategy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We want to deepen the loyalty and emotional connection that our current customers have with the company and what we do, and we want to reach new audiences. We want to reach people who we haven\u2019t yet touched. And so it is very clear and apparent that when you offer this type of value and this type of experience, it definitely drives loyalty, and it drives a connection to the brand that is deeper.<\/p>\n

You were Twitter\u2019s first CMO. How is marketing a platform like Twitter different from a telco?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are similarities in that this is all about connection, communication, and conversation at both companies. At Twitter, it\u2019s very much an open platform, a very public platform, a very visible platform\u2026versus the challenge at Verizon, which is, we power the ability to even use Twitter on your phone, but we\u2019re very much behind the scenes. There\u2019s a significant difference there.<\/p>\n

I think the most important thing to focus on is: What is the role that you play in other people\u2019s lives? What do they love and care about the most?<\/p>\n

How do you not overcomplicate things? If I\u2019m paying for a wireless service, how do I manage all of these add-ons, like a streaming bundle, or access to events? How do you not overload the customer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a journey that we\u2019re on. The brand reset was much more than just a change in our look and feel\u2026I think we\u2019re getting better and better at this every day, to achieve what you\u2019re describing, which is more simplicity in our messaging so that customers don\u2019t get overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

You want to enable customers to have choice and customization, but when we explain it, it needs to be simple and clear\u2026You mentioned AmEx; when you have companies that have so many offerings, and so many things that we provide\u2014I mean, there\u2019s a ton at Verizon that I never knew existed before I joined the company. That\u2019s a part of the marketing challenge.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my obligatory AI question. How is your team using it today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re using it across the board, and our agencies are using it in lots of different ways, from research to creative development to copy development to design to targeting and beyond. Even in the brand relaunch, we started playing with AI in bolder ways in some of our creative\u2026There continues to be a lot of opportunity here for us, but we want to be really intentional about it, obviously, and take great care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leslie Berland knows a thing or two about a rebrand. As Twitter\u2019s first-ever chief marketing officer nearly a decade ago, she crafted the platform\u2019s brand identity beginning in 2016. After leaving the company in 2022 and spending about a year at Peloton, she started as Verizon\u2019s chief marketing officer in January, where she worked on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\nVerizon CMO Leslie Berland talks rebrand and career | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Leslie Berland knows a thing or two about a rebrand.As Twitter\u2019s first-ever chief marketing officer nearly a decade ago, she crafted the platform\u2019s brand\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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