Marketing In The Now

How Great Brands Inspire Irrational Loyalty

What separates a brand people use from a brand people love? In this episode of Marketing In The Now, host David Reske sits down with Lee Nadler — CMO of Flip and marketing veteran behind iconic brands like Snapple, DoubleClick, and MINI Cooper — to explore the discipline of building brand movements. Drawing on three decades of experience, Lee unpacks how the most powerful marketing goes beyond messaging to create communities of zealots, from Snapple fans sending love letters to Mini owners driving across the country together. He also reveals how AI — and Flip's voice technology specifically — is transforming customer service from a cost center into a competitive advantage, and how listening at scale can be the first step toward turning any customer into a lifelong fan.

How AI Is Rewriting the Buying Journey from Search to Purchase

Mike Ensing, CEO and co-founder of Revere, returns to Marketing In The Now to go deeper on what he calls the "AI brand control crisis" — a fundamental shift in how brands are perceived, discussed, and recommended in the age of LLMs. Host David Reske and Mike pick up where they left off a year ago, exploring how dramatically the landscape has changed: from the rise of clickless search and AI-driven buying decisions to the coming wave of autonomous agents that will evaluate and execute B2B purchases on behalf of users. Mike explains why traditional SEO and even GEO strategies are no longer enough, and shares Revere's six pillars of AI brand transformation — technical SEO, GEO, brand management, company reputation, data readiness, and company practice — making the case that the brands winning in 2026 and beyond will be those that treat LLMs as the powerful, opinion-forming influencers they've already become.

The Missing Layer Under AI: A Marketing Operating System

In this episode of Marketing In The Now, David Reske sits down with Maria Scheifler, a 15-year go-to-market veteran and Fractional CMO of MKT Velocity, to unpack her sprint-based marketing operating system — a framework built to help growing teams cut through chaos, align with revenue goals, and ship meaningful work consistently. Maria explains why AI alone can't fix a broken team dynamic, and why the real foundation of high-performing marketing is a combination of the right culture (trust, psychological safety, and a growth mindset) and agile practices borrowed from the world of software development. From two-week sprint cycles to transparent stakeholder reviews, this conversation is packed with actionable insight for any marketing leader who's tired of their team staying busy without moving the needle.

From Fear to Fluency: Leading Your Team Through AI

In this episode of Marketing In The Now, host David Reske sits down with Pam Boiros — fractional CMO and creator of the Marketing AI Jumpstart — to explore why successful AI adoption is fundamentally a people challenge, not a technology one. Pam shares why AI literacy is the antidote to workplace fear, how to reimagine marketing workflows from the ground up rather than simply layering AI onto existing processes, and what it takes for marketing leaders to build a culture of responsible, high-impact AI use. Whether you're a CMO navigating organizational change or a marketer trying to future-proof your career, this conversation offers a practical and human-centered roadmap for thriving in the AI era.

Train AI to Sound Like You: Brand Strategy in the Age of AI

In this episode of Marketing In The Now, host David Reske sits down with brand consultant, keynote speaker, and author Ernie Harker (Your Brand Sucks: How to Ignite a Brand That Doesn't) to explore how AI is reshaping the world of branding and design. Ernie shares his fascinating journey from storyboard illustrator to AI-powered brand strategist, and why the rise of AI image and content generation — rather than threatening his career — pushed him to become one of its biggest advocates. Together, David and Ernie dig into the difference between using AI generically (and blending in with everyone else) versus training it on your unique brand voice and strategy to produce content that is authentically, unmistakably you. They also tackle the big question: where does human creativity end and AI assistance begin when it comes to building a brand from the soul up?

How AI Is Changing the Role of Product Marketing

In this episode of Marketing In The Now, David Reske sits down with Andy Donkin — growth strategist and former Amazon executive — to explore how AI is fundamentally transforming the role of product marketing. Andy makes a compelling case for reimagining the product marketer not as a tactical executor, but as a "marketing architect" — a strategic quarterback who leverages AI tools to synthesize customer insights, align product development with market demand, and drive consistent, personalized campaigns across channels at unprecedented speed. From the evolution of go-to-market strategy and the growing importance of storytelling in an AI-commoditized world, to the rise of AI-driven customer personas and generative engine optimization, this conversation is a must-listen for any CMO or product marketer navigating the fast-changing marketing landscape of 2026.

Why AI Can't Fix Marketing Without a Data Foundation

In this episode of Marketing In The Now, host David Reske sits down with Marie Bahl, CMO of Uptempo and a three-decade veteran of enterprise software marketing, for a thought-provoking conversation about why AI alone won't solve marketing's biggest problem. Marie argues that before marketers can truly harness the power of AI, they need something the industry has long been denied: a unified data backbone that ties every campaign, dollar spent, and marketing effort back to measurable ROI. Drawing on her experience across energy, healthcare, education, and AI, she makes a compelling case for why marketers must stop accepting fragmented tech stacks, take ownership of their complexity, and demand the infrastructure that every other business function has had for decades.

Gut Instinct vs. Data: The Modern CMO

In this episode of Marketing In The Now, host David Reske sits down with Kevin Dougherty, CMO of NeuraPoints, for a candid conversation about what it really takes to lead marketing in today's fast-moving, opinion-heavy business environment. Drawing on 26 years of experience — from boots-on-the-ground sales to executive marketing leadership — Kevin shares why trusting your gut isn't just intuition, but the product of deep customer knowledge built over time. The two explore how CMOs can cut through the noise of endless marketing options, how to earn credibility and autonomy with your CEO, and why building genuine relationships — with customers, teammates, and leadership — remains the most powerful strategy of all.