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John Rudaizky: The Better Question

John Rudaizky, Global Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at EY, on why brand building starts by inspiring your own people, why creativity and technology are an and not an or, and how AI will raise the average while lifting the best creative work higher.

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 ·  The Business of Marketing  · S5 E106  · 32 min
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"B2B brands are more emotional because who you choose to work with is your career on your line."

The Conversation

From a university market stall and the rock and roll of Saatchi to leading global brand at EY, a career built inside the creative industries. Rudaizky argues that brand building begins by inspiring your own people, that creativity and technology are an and not an or, and that AI will raise the average while lifting the best creative work higher.

Rudaizky traces his start to a market stall at university and a school full of creative people, where a love of selling met a pull towards the creative industries. He chose advertising over the city and joined Saatchi, which he calls the rock and roll agency of the time, later running his own agency and working across WPP. In 2014 he moved to EY, hired to transform the brand of one of the world's largest professional services organizations, a move many questioned before the rise of the consultancy in business. There he built the Better Questions platform with Steve Dunn and Dave Allen at Brand Pie, landing on the better the question, the better the answer, the better the world works, later tweaked to the better the prompt, the better the answer. He is now Global Chief Brand and Marketing Officer at EY, working through a relaunch under CEO Janet Troncalli around the strapline shape the future with confidence.

In this conversation with host Justin, Rudaizky argues that brand building at scale starts by inspiring your own people, a lesson he took from former chair and CEO Mark Weinberger, who told him that if the brand inspires the people the revenue will follow. He makes the case that creativity and technology are an and not an or, that B2B is more emotional than consumer marketing because a client is betting their career, and that purpose only works when it is a business strategy rather than a wrapping on the outside. On AI he lands in the camp of infinite possibility: the average will rise, but the best creative people will do things they simply could never have done before. Inspire the people, and the revenue follows.

Key Takeaways

  • Rudaizky's career runs from a university market stall and the rock and roll agency Saatchi, through his own agency and WPP, to EY, which he joined in 2014 to transform the brand of one of the world's largest professional services organizations. There he created the Better Questions platform and now serves as Global Chief Brand and Marketing Officer. His throughline is that brands are the engine of the world, whether commercial, people or political, and that they are never something you can rest on because they are continuously evolving.
  • The founding lesson of his EY years came from former chair and CEO Mark Weinberger, who stopped him mid-argument to say that inspiring the people through the brand is what makes the revenue follow. Every piece of brand and marketing work since has been tested against one question: will it work on our people first? For an organization with hundreds of thousands of people, engagement, freedom within a consistent framework, clear KPIs and a hard-won belief in advertising are the fundamentals.
  • Rudaizky insists that creativity and technology are an and, not an or. He points out that when digital first arrived people declared the end of creativity, when it was simply a new format. The enduring magic, he says, is the marrying of science and magic: pre-testing and real-time data on one side, gut instinct and human creativity on the other, with brands now built in real time.
  • On purpose, he draws a sharp line. Purpose is a business strategy, not an external marketing campaign, and if you have one you must make it meaningful and let it shape the way you do business rather than acting as a wrapping on the outside. He also argues B2B has come of age emotionally, because who a client chooses to work with is their career, their mortgage and their home on the line, which makes emotive storytelling more powerful than the traditional rational sell.
  • Rudaizky is firmly in the camp of infinite possibility on AI. He believes it will fundamentally change everything and elevate the average, because anyone can suddenly do better, but the greatest creative people will pull further ahead, doing tomorrow what they simply could not do today. He tells the story of photographer Rankin's exhibition Fake to make the point that in the hands of a magician the same tools produce magic, while he could only produce failure.

Topics Covered

  1. 01 Brand building at scale
  2. 02 Purpose-led marketing
  3. 03 AI and creativity
  4. 04 The evolving CMO role
  5. 05 Emotion in B2B

Key Exchanges

05
01 How do you see AI transforming marketing organizations first-hand?

in the hands of a magician and a truly creative person, you're going to create the magic.

I think AI will fundamentally change everything, and we're all on a learning journey. It will drive efficiency and let us do more: more personalized, more engagement, faster prototyping. But it will also elevate creativity. There's an elevation of the average, because suddenly you can instantly do better. Yet the greatest creative people will come to the fore. I went to the photographer Rankin's exhibition Fake. He used average tools brilliantly, so I tried to do what he did and it was a complete failure. In the hands of a magician and a truly creative person, you're going to create the magic. The average will rise, but the best are asking what they could do tomorrow that they couldn't do today. I'm in the camp of infinite possibility, and the people that embrace it are going to harness it.

02 How important is purpose in modern brand building?

if you have a purpose, make it meaningful, and it's about the way you do business as opposed to a wrapping on the outside.

EY was at the forefront, one of the first to have a purpose, building a better working world. The one thing I realized was that it was a business strategy, not an external marketing campaign. If you have a purpose, make it meaningful, and it's about the way you do business rather than a wrapping on the outside. Purpose is critical for the total stakeholder community, and young talent want to join an organization with a sense of purpose larger than profit. Most boardrooms are struggling to work out what choices to make, and EY at its best helps clients figure out complex questions and shape their future.

03 You've described marketing as a blend of creativity and technology. Has that balance shifted?

the magic for me will always be the marrying of the, the science and the magic.

I believe it's an and, not an or. Technology lets us accelerate and engage more, it's a new set of tools. When digital first arrived, people said it was the end of creativity. It wasn't, it was a new format, a bit like a caterpillar reinventing itself. The magic for me will always be the marrying of the science and the magic. AI means we can all get there faster, but the creative people who harness it with their human insight will dominate.

04 You joined EY with a mission to transform the brand. Why did you take it?

will it work on our people first?

I've always loved big, meaty challenges, and it was a strange move a lot of people questioned before the rise of the consultancy. Mark Weinberger outlined a massive ambition to double the size of the business, with distinctive brand at the heart of it. I said advertising and brands drive growth, and he stopped me and said, inspire our people through the brand and the revenue will follow. That has driven all our work since: will it work on our people first? If it inspires our people, the revenue follows.

05 Is the CMO role becoming more central to strategy, and what's its role in the boardroom?

going to EY was like a, um, an MBA in the other side of the boardroom

The best CMOs are at the boardroom table, whether or not they're on the board, because engaging with customers has changed and the growth driver of a brand spans all facets of the organization. Successful CMOs understand the financial context. Going to EY was like an MBA in the other side of the boardroom, surrounded by deep experts on everything from enterprise transformation and cloud through to tax. CMOs also need a degree of humbleness about what they don't know, and to learn from the experts who do.

S5 E106Season & Episode
32 minDuration
2014 Year joined EY to transform the brand
2x Ambition to double the size of the business

"brands are the engine of the world"

Hear John on
The Business of Marketing
Season 5 Episode 106 32 min
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