#68 - Driving the Future of Automotive | Real Talk about Marketing an Acxiom Podcast

Buckle up for a fascinating episode of the podcast with Aaron Shaffer of GM and Janet Cinfio of Acxiom. They examine fascinating aspects of data, privacy, data governance and partnerships needed to innovate marketing strategy and evolve an iconic brand in preparation for its next 100 years. 

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Transcript

Dustin Raney (00:00):

If you fed the data about Janet into ai, what are the three words that would produce to describe you,

Janet Cinfio (00:08):

Giving, curious and passionate?

Dustin Raney (00:14):

Aaron, what would yours be?

Aaron Shaffer (00:17):

Adaptable, builder, or rebuild and gratitude. And I think the last piece of that gratitude that extends to the team, that extends to the work, that extends to the craft, I think that we all do.

Kyle Hollaway (00:37):

I'm Kyle Holloway and I'm here with my co-host Dustin Rainey, and today is a special day. Dustin, we have the honor of having not one, but two incredible guests and I'd like to introduce everyone to Janet Sinfield, Acxiom's chief Information Officer and one of the founders of the women lead, BRG here at IPG. Janet's been at the forefront of driving technological transformation, ensuring that Acxiom and Acxiom's clients can harness the power of data responsibly and effectively, and from streamlining complex IT ecosystems to fostering innovation. She is definitely redefining what it means to lead in the digital age. So Janet, welcome to the show.

Janet Cinfio (01:21):

Thank you, Kyle. Excited to be here.

Kyle Hollaway (01:24):

Yeah, well thank you. We're excited to have you. And so Janet, why don't you take a moment to just give our listeners a quick glimpse of your background and then you can do the honor of introducing our special guest today.

Janet Cinfio (01:37):

Sure. Thank you. Yeah. So here at Acxiom, our team is responsible for three main areas. We develop and operate all the underlying cloud and data platform that supports our products and client services. We also ensure we protect that data responsibility for cybersecurity and risk. We also oversee architecture governance so that we can look across all the different product and engineering teams ensuring that we're driving to the best innovations and leveraging a platform to benefit all our clients. Prior to Acxiom, I worked in various IT roles. Recently prior I worked at Electronic Arts responsible for our digital platform there and helped to transform electronic arts from a kind of offline game company into the digital game platform that Electronic Arts operates in today. So that's just a little bit of my background and I'm thrilled to welcome Aaron here. Aaron Shaffer, he is on the team at gm and all of us know many of the iconic brands at GM like Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC. And I've had the honor of collaborating with Aaron and his team on some of GM's customer engagement initiatives. We have had a great time working together. Aaron is the director of marketing applied sciences. So Aaron, maybe you could start and provide a brief overview for us and how you came to this transformative role at gm.

Aaron Shaffer (03:25):

Thank you so much, Janet. Thanks for having me today. Kyle and Dustin, I'm excited to be with you today. As noted, I've been at GM for about two years. Really today focused on the marketing applied sciences space. We're focused on activation, experimentation, measurement, insights that really help power our vehicle brands and our corporate brands to really deliver the right content and an efficiency perspective to our consumers. From a marketing lens, prior to this role had been in other transformational roles. They spend time as a leader at Starbucks, Nike, VF Corp, and Farmer's Insurance.

Dustin Raney (04:04):

Very cool. Aaron, and thanks so much for joining us today. We're always super excited to have people on that are actually practitioners that aren't just speaking about it, but actually using data to drive meaningful experiences. So let's dive right in. GM's goal is 0, 0, 0 and that software and software defined vehicles are a big part of that future. How about we start with question number 1, 0, 0, 0, what does that mean?

Aaron Shaffer (04:37):

Sure, we'll start there. So zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion. That's really a reflection of GM's ambitious vision to lead the industry in developing cutting edge technological services through vehicles that enhance safety, reduce environmental impact, and really think about the alleviation of traffic challenges. I know for me personally to join gm, that mission was really important to me

Kyle Hollaway (05:02):

And I think as a general consumer of vehicles, certainly that resonates well, right? Those are all pain points that each of us have top of mind. So love that that hyper kind of focus on that from a corporate perspective. Now, certainly your role specifically around data and analytics. So can you talk to us a little bit about how analytics software and data are being applied to achieve that goal?

Aaron Shaffer (05:35):

Sure. Data analytics, they play really a critical role in everything we do here. How do we enable prescriptive insights and measurement along with the right services that sort of link together customer vehicle, other environmental factors to really bring that zero zero vision we talked about earlier into life. And the role that I sit in today within our enterprise data analytics and insights organization is really focused on driving better decisions across the enterprise.

Kyle Hollaway (06:04):

Yeah, I love that play on words there. Driving, that's key, right?

Dustin Raney (06:10):

Yeah. So Aaron, it just seems like we're in a state of just constant disruption, not only as marketers but as people. And I'll use an example, I often travel to San Francisco for business. 10 years ago I was using a taxi then past five years, I don't know the last time I used a taxi. I'm using Rideshare Uber, Lyft as I'm there a couple of weeks ago. I'm sitting in the back of the Uber car driving down and I'm seeing six Waymo self-driving automated cars and I'm empathizing with my Uber driver there as he's sitting there looking at disruption of his own livelihood potentially. But all of this is being driven by this data economy and it's like we talked about screens, devices, our TVs are now just a smart device, it's another device. Vehicles are kind of becoming another device. So software-defined vehicles seems to be the next frontier of innovation and automated. You want to talk about that a little bit, what that means?

Aaron Shaffer (07:15):

No, I think you sort of questioned or set the question up well rather, which is software-defined vehicles really build on the principles that you mentioned earlier around digital modernization. And really they're focused on leveraging some of the advancements that we've seen in software that move beyond maybe the constraints of your traditional hardware. So just like smartphones, just like smart TVs have really evolved and they've integrated maybe seamlessly and differently into our lives to our vehicles. So here we think about customers and giving them greater sense of connectivity. We think of personalization and the role that's going to play there. And then lastly and maybe most important, we think about the safety and security through that piece.

Kyle Hollaway (07:57):

That's really, really interesting because I think we're all so steeped in the mechanical nature of vehicles and the historical model and like, oh, if I want something new, I got to go trade it in because I've got to get the next release and such. But now incorporating that software aspect to it where there's this aspect that, like you said, it is improving itself over time. It is a fascinating concept when it comes to the automotive space because I think it just opens up this whole new world because some of the frame and the mechanics that are there can stay a little more consistent, but you're experiencing something new on a much more rapid basis. And so that's really cool. Which leads us to another theme which is if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. And it feels like we're kind of almost bringing a whole nother level there, which is go fast together. I mean we're going faster together. And so it's an interesting next step there, but you and your position as a leader within such a massively important organization on a global scale here, how would you describe your leadership style and how your team is able to contribute to that mission?

Aaron Shaffer (09:29):

Leadership's really about connecting the what and the how through the why. And I think when I hear this question first, I so much feel privileged to be a leader. And I think it's my job to live leadership every day. It's not something I take for granted. And I'm fortunate in my career to have just many leaders to learn from and see how they handle different situations, different decisions. And I'm really grateful I think for how I've had those opportunities and experiences. But the reality for us is leadership is dynamic, it's adaptable and it's really evolving and it evolves to me different scenarios and people are involved in that. There's an empathetic and change view to that that's really important. And I think when we talk about the context of what we're discussing here, which is marketing and digital marketing and data, it's not only that leadership is adaptable and dynamic, it's also that the environment is extremely changing and adaptable and dynamic.

(10:25):

So I think at its core I try to focus on maybe three different areas when I think about leadership, and I think in the last six months I've sort of stood up a new team here that's really been focused on driving transformation and change in the organization the way that we think about some of the marketing capabilities. And the first one I would say that's really important is the strategy. So here being new to a team, the mission is to drive smarter strategies and smarter decision-making in media and marketing. So what that means is that it starts with sort of that what and the how. And then that lens of pulling through the why, how do you craft and share really that clear and compelling vision with the team? How do you also make sure that lands with other leaders, your peer stakeholders, that you want to make sure you've got collaboration with your higher level leaders where you want them to sort of buy in and help champion the work.

(11:17):

And as I work really closely through the team, I try to drive empowerment so that the team feels like while we've got a vision, the vision's not fully baked and they have the ability to bring solutions to the table. We create safe environments so that they feel like they can bring those ideas forward. And then the focus with stakeholders is really, excuse me, around co-creation and what do I mean by that? It means that we both have the ability to add inputs to our work to make it better. And I think if you create that sort of safe space through the team safe space through partnership, you can really drive clear success beyond that. I think as a leader you have to have a growth mindset. And what I mean by that is I'm learning every day and I think there's a problem if I'm not learning.

(12:04):

And so that's been part of my career trajectory. That's kind of what's driven me. But I appreciate learning new functional areas, I appreciate learning new things about leadership. And I think you think about the work we do, we build products that help answer marketing solutions. Those are all continuous optimization frameworks. So is leadership, right? My focus here, what do I do from a delegation perspective to understand really what areas are in my control that I should handle? Also, who's better at other things? Let's let them run with it. Let's let them inform the project or strategy, let's let them sort of share with me what's important. But I think that also then creates new opportunities for the team to really think through where they can shine and where they can excel.

(12:51):

I think the important part here is maybe the cultural part, which is when you empower others, when you create the space so that they can in a safe way push back and say, I'm maybe having a dissent on that direction, let's talk about it. That's a positive thing. And if we can huddle and drive to some level of alignment, and maybe that's a disagreeing commit alignment for now, but if we've had that success, if we've heard the team, we can then say, great, we're going to go forward together in the right way and then we'll come back and revisit this if it doesn't work. And I think that's just part of the mindset of maybe shared success and that culture that might build to growth. Lastly, for me as the leader, the thing that I really appreciate is how do we celebrate the wins we have as a team here at gm, we call that one team.

(13:47):

When I was at Nike, we oftentimes talked about we win as a team, but it's how do you kind of carve out the milestones in the work to decide, hey, we're going to celebrate what's happened here. We're going to celebrate both the deliverable of what we've done. We're also going to celebrate the stakeholders who are maybe on our team or not who are part of that. We're also going to celebrate what we learned because we ultimately learned and as we deliver what our data products and services that's really central to the team and how we think about emphasizing knowledge sharing, whether that's smaller things like code review or methodology review, maybe it's storytelling tips. I know this way of explaining this complex thing really landed well when we explained it this way. Let's share that with the team so that they can enable themselves in a different way that helps us deliver some real value.

(14:38):

And the agility I think we have as a team is how do we learn from things that maybe didn't go the way we want? You might call those mistakes, but really maybe they didn't land in the space we wanted in the land. And ultimately make sure that we take those things and what we do is we put orange tape around them and what do I mean by that? We basically stop and say, Hey, this thing happened. I'm going to talk to you about it so that you don't trip over it. I'm going to put that orange tape down for you and I'm going to ensure that everybody gets the chance to learn from this. And that's not a punitive thing. That's more of a celebratory thing. And we start to say, great. Now I know that the rest of the 50 people working on this are going to know what to do in this scenario. And I think if you sort of focus the from two on just that continuous learning mindset, it starts to change that focus. And for us, I think winning as a team has been here at gm, we've really changed the makeup of this team. And so we have sort of the right talent and we're empowering them in terms of delivering the right products that match the strategy. And I think it's this sort of mix of sharing the vision but not being overly prescriptive. That creates a culture where people can feel empowered to create,

Dustin Raney (15:50):

Man, Aaron, I just got to say, I've got to speak some words of affirmation man over you. When you're introducing yourself, it'd be really easy for a leader like yourself just to come in and focus on, Hey, this is how I'm going to sell more cars. Of course that's a goal and everything, but the fact that you're sitting there bringing purpose and a deeper purpose, a deeper meaning in the work, like the 0, 0, 0, the things that people might care about beyond just the revenue streams, I think that ends up leading to positive outcomes. But just to hear you with conviction, talk about things that I think matter to a lot of people and how a company like General Motors can actually impact society, impact humanity, I think that brings a much more exciting narrative to the people on your team. And it's obvious that that's instilled in your leadership style. So with that said, how is the progress going with the mission?

Aaron Shaffer (16:52):

We've really focused on driving some innovative data products and measurement activation experimentation and where we're looking to uplevel as things like advanced techniques. So net lift modeling causal AI models for experimentation. How do we think about activation differently using the right data attributes from a first and third party data perspective? That's really exciting. And I think for us, when we talk about achieving progress, we're sort of doing it through a newer culture, which at times has been some really scrappy, but I think we're iterating really quickly. And I think the job we're doing is we're really setting things up in a milestone fashion. And so you sort of hit a milestone. What did you hit during that milestone? What did we learn? What do we accomplish? Great, what do we take into the next milestone? And I'd say for us, it's a version of agile.

(17:42):

It's not the safe version of Agile, but it's a way in which you could develop the right products and services around analytics. And it's really, it's proving the value of what we're doing. It's also just helping earn leadership confidence. And as an organization, recently we talked a little bit about a book by a gentleman named Kotter that talks about a high impact short winds framework, and we've been able to leverage some of that in how we've started to bring our work to life. And then lastly here as a new team, we've got some recent hires. They bring in maybe more depth in terms of that media marketing functional knowledge. And that team has really blended seamlessly with some of the folks here that have been at GM and have been existing data scientists, product owners, engineers. They have a great wealth of data, knowledge, consumer understanding, marketing knowledge. And that mix is sort of in the best of both worlds. It's really created a culture of iterative delivery of learning. And again, I think just kind of getting back to your question earlier, there's this sense of likeness in the culture. People feel like they're learning, people feel like this is evolving, and that to me, I think is sort of conducive to the mission that we're on.

Kyle Hollaway (18:52):

So thanks, Aaron. Wow, that's a lot of great nuggets there. I'm sure I'm going to have to go back and listen to this podcast again myself and gleaned some things from that. But Janet, you've been working with Aaron over the last period of time. And talk a little bit about how your leadership and your views on leadership kind of dovetail. I know you guys have had a really a good relationship going forward here.

Janet Cinfio (19:21):

Thanks, Kyle. Yeah, I agree. The things that Aaron brought up are so important, aligning on strategy, ensuring everyone knows how they can contribute, and then ensuring that you can just serve the team to enable what you're looking to deliver. I fully agree with that and those are practices that I use. And I think that's also where Acxiom and GM have come together so well in that we align together. And also he talked about the way of working and iterating, and we've been working together as a team. I'd really like to say in working with Aaron and his team, I can see how his leadership, your leadership has also encompassed your partner teams in the same way with Acxiom that you're doing, as you mentioned with your internal teams and bringing people together. You're being inclusive across that and really focused on the teams, bringing them together to innovate and win. And so we've been able to be part of that. And I think it's great not to see, say a partner as a silo, but to bring us all together as one group to deliver on a strategy together.

Aaron Shaffer (20:47):

What I like about the relationship we have, and we have a similar relationship with others is partner teams are truly there to be partners. And so how do you best be a partner? Well, you bring in industry expertise, we should leverage it. You need to have context of what we're doing to feel informed. And I think if you can start of bring the team together in that way, you can win together. And I think we've really done that. And I think sometimes what evolves best here as a team is when you sort of have dueling viewpoints that push each other and you sort of let the best viewpoint at that moment win. And we've gotten good feedback from partners obviously, that, Hey, you changed our thinking on this or you pushed our thinking on that. And in the same way we've taken a lot of great value from folks like yourselves and others who are doing this. You're seeing this across a number of clients and then you're helping us develop a really strong POB.

Dustin Raney (21:37):

All right, so that's great Aaron, and thank you so much for being or trusting us, right? It'd be one of those valued partners. We kind of want to maybe go into the next theme of the conversation, get a little bit more tactical because we are talking about data-driven this day and age. So let's dive deeper into some of those areas your teams focused on starting with third party data and unlocking the power of third party data. So how does GM leverage third party data from Acxiom and others to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences?

Aaron Shaffer (22:14):

So we have a unique opportunity with what we're doing with the change in technology, including EVs to really overcome maybe non GM brand loyalty and add to our customer base. And this is really where the value of third party data plays a pivotal role for us. And we're using things like machine learning, additional customer attributes to really understand what matters most to these customers and tailor the effective reach that we can do. And obviously every time we pick these things up, we do it in a safe and compliant way, but I think it can extend the reach that we have well beyond well-known first party customers and really start to think about media channels in a different way, and obviously start to think about that match case between the known first party audience and that third party audience that we want to reach but don't necessarily have that relationship with yet.

Janet Cinfio (23:07):

Yeah. So with that, can you share some examples of how this data has helped GM improve that engagement?

Aaron Shaffer (23:13):

Yeah, so appreciate the question here again, while we're early in our journey, we started to put together the proof points of success here. And so we started comparing Core KPI lists between some of the newer work we're doing from a modeling approach with some previous approaches. And while that's again, a very initial stage, those results are super encouraging. And I think we're constantly challenging ourselves to find creative ways to leverage all the permissible data. Really thinking beyond traditional methods of creating insights and audiences, for example, feature stores and the richness of features that we might be able to glean from integrating third party data really helps us better understand where we can do campaign activation and different types of media approaches. It's

Kyle Hollaway (24:02):

Obviously a key component in those strategies is developing that comprehensive view of a customer. And so can you talk to us a little bit about the integration of the various data sources, whether it's like GM first party data, you've got Acxiom's third party data through the data marketplace and partners, mutual partner data like Polk in creating that comprehensive view. How's that come along for you?

Aaron Shaffer (24:30):

Yeah, so great question. I think that is really the grail here. It's the comprehensive view, and it's something we've worked a lot on. Each of the inputs you mentioned, they all have a different pattern. There's all a different type for our models, and they really allow our data scientists to think through how do we perform advanced feature engineering? And I think we've fine tuned our first party through probabilistic and deterministic matching, and we're able to actually think through how do we augment that through third party or how do we build new third party targets from that universe? And so for us, things like leveraging third party data, leveraging VIN data from Polk that you mentioned earlier, it really provides valuable insights. It helps us understand closing the loop on respect to behavior. Really for us it's about increasing precision and driving some more accuracy in terms of things like reach and frequency of media. For example,

Dustin Raney (25:29):

Aaron, one of the trends that we're seeing in market to enable some of that is this kind of more collaborated collaborative economy starting maybe with marketing clouds, right? So think about snowflake, Databricks, things like that. So at a recent Databricks Summit actually, you talked about GM data evolution. Tell us what that concept means.

Aaron Shaffer (25:57):

Sure. So I'll speak a little bit about this. The reality for an organization like gm, you have a hundred years plus of data, you have this rich history, you have a great relationship with dealers, and now you're beyond the dealer sale service pieces like that. You're now at a customer level with things like mobile apps. But conceptually what that means is that you have a great opportunity to think through the data and insights, democratization to power some of the bigger organizational decisions we want to make here. And so taking a stance and approach partnerships like yours, Microsoft, our friends at Databricks, to really create centralized access. And so that data really start to think across data domains where we have the right permission to break down some of those silos, align on business domains and use cases, and start to think about how do we modernize the workflow, how do we use the cloud and safe ways like Delta share from Databricks to really improve the way that we drive internal data democratization?

(27:07):

And so we've had a great set of partnerships there and we've made really great inroads with other teams because we're actually able to say, this was a GM data source, it was available to you, but you couldn't access it for one reason or another. We've sort of stitched things together, we've made it more accessible. Now think about things that you want to do in a different way. And again, going back to what I said earlier, that becomes a co-creation opportunity for us. And not only do they have that at their fingertips, well, they have the collaboration from our organization to co-create experiments or activation or new ways of measurement, deeper insights, et cetera.

Janet Cinfio (27:48):

Yeah, I think we see many organizations that are challenged with these areas and driving the transition that you described, especially breaking down the silos, modernizing the workflows is really going to lead to that more speed and improved customer satisfaction. So let's talk a little bit about how is GM's collaboration with Acxiom and the use of advanced data analytics and platforms like Databricks that you mentioned driving the data evolution there.

Aaron Shaffer (28:22):

So we get tremendous value and really it's easy use. And first what maybe took months or weeks before we can now do in days and hours, and that's because we have a better data catalog that's managed centrally and we've got the right governance and pipelines to make all those things a reality. I would say beyond that, the opportunity that we find in groups like yourselves is what are you opening us up to that we wouldn't know internally? And that's really around that third party data piece. And so overlaying those insights help us drive transformation.

Janet Cinfio (29:05):

Yeah, I think this really has been exciting and fun for our teams to do together, as you mentioned earlier, more of a startup culture. And so it's been so important for us to work through and iterate and deliver progress quickly so that your business partners can leverage that. So in talking about that, the speed, so how critical is the speed of decisions to support that customer engagement as well, thinking about their customer privacy and security. I

Aaron Shaffer (29:44):

Mean, it's the tant importance here of striking that delicate balance. And it really starts with having the right engagement on our privacy teams to make sure that we can get started on some of these use cases and sort of making sure those things exist first and making sure we're doing the right thing by the customer. I think that's not only an organizational goal, it's a team and personal goal too. And so how do we do the right engagements? How do we make sure we're doing those right things? We're putting the right content in front of the consumer at the right time as the old adage here, but again, we're respecting their privacy needs. We're also securing their data in order to have trust and relationships.

Kyle Hollaway (30:24):

Well, I'm certainly excited about that having previously been a Hummer H three owner and now seeing the new Hummer like, man, that resonated with me. I was like, the creativity and certainly the ambition of bringing EV to a broader range of vehicles, I think is a kind of a pivotal moment for the industry. I didn't necessarily want to drive the Prius type car as just my own personal preference. And so seeing optionality in the EV space is a cool deal. And certainly the challenge, as you mentioned there, of the infrastructure coming alongside that, I think it's going to be interesting to watch that develop over the next couple of years. They definitely go hand in hand and do that. So talk about that, that kind of piece as it starts to come together, whether it be some cross brand partnerships, charging infrastructure, what are some strategies going in that

Aaron Shaffer (31:40):

Maybe first this idea that you mentioned is the automobile? It's sort of the new third place is an emerging trend, and we see this where cars are seeing not just as a means of transportation, but as a space for things like social interaction, relaxation, connectivity. Fast company wrote an article about that earlier this year, but it's basically referring to the fact that your social surroundings are starting to change from maybe your home or your school or your workplace to have another third place. And traditionally that might have been a cafe, might have been a library, might have been a community center. So people are starting to think about their cars as that. I think overcoming those challenges, you mentioned maybe what would be rage, anxiety or the infrastructure that's necessary. Those are critical steps that need to happen in order to help consumers make that transition from ice vehicles, EVs.

(32:31):

And I think obviously this is going to differ on a number of levels and reasons, but it needs to be a continued focus. So these efforts are really important to what our initial commitment to zero is, and ultimately we want to accelerate that adoption. We want to work really hard to drive economies to scale. How do we make them more affordable vehicles? How do we make them more accessible for everyone? How do we start to change that anxiety around range and how do we make sure that we support the infrastructure ready so people can feel that that range anxiety is reduced?

Dustin Raney (33:06):

It is crazy how quickly things are moving in this direction of even places like your car that were once viewed as just getting from one place to another now becoming another social place where you kick the shoes off and relax a second, maybe have a pleasant conversation with a new acquaint. It's just crazy to think about how fast things are moving in that direction. And you can see it. You can see the trajectory of all this data and obviously the three zeros that you talked about I think are important factors in allowing that and making that happen to make that experience more relaxing. You feel like you're not causing emissions every time you get in your car or whatever. So I think it's really exciting to see where things are going. And Aaron, unfortunately all good things. Well, maybe not all good things. I have to come to an end. We are running low on time, so we do have some wrap up questions, a few kind of quick ones we want to throw at you, if that's okay. So first one being, what is one piece of advice you'd give to another marketing analytics executive embarking on a transformative journey like the one you are?

Aaron Shaffer (34:27):

Yeah, I think first, how do you become a customer to understand your product, your service on that level? I think that's really important. I think the other piece I would say is think about the product. Think about the design of the product, think about the storytelling on the product, and that should sort of wrap itself as a raw set of materials for the ingredients that you're putting together to focus on marketing, to focus on transformation, or really to focus on how you build teams that support those products. But those would maybe be two places that I would suggest and having done a lot of transformation organizationally personally, maybe the last thing here is again, just how do you think through this as just a learner and just having that growth mindset to make sure that you're not fixed in terms of what you're thinking about the team's going to change and the way teams operate are going to change. Covid was a great example of that. The industry is going to change. Are cookies going away or not? That was another great example of that. And so how do you continue to evolve as the space evolves?

Dustin Raney (35:40):

Oh, man, I love it. Storytelling, and there's never a dumb question. I love both of those. I think I know that's how I like to see things personally. And I know many of our listeners are going to glean so much from this conversation, Aaron, knowing everything that you've shared, thank you so much for being part of this podcast. We certainly would love to have you back. You as well. Janet, thank you for being part of today's episode. Both of you are incredible thought leaders, change agents and your organizations, and I think that's part of what brings people to this podcast to hear how they can do the same ways that other people are actually doing this, putting this to action. So Kyle, do you have any other thoughts before we wrap today with these esteemed guests?

Kyle Hollaway (36:41):

Well, I think you kind of hit on it. I mean, just there's so many nuggets in this conversation, and like I said, I'm going to definitely want to go back and pull some out, some that are just applicable just as a leader, just straight up. You guys gave some great examples, both Aaron and Janet on applying leadership principles into transformation because it's just a situation that we're all going through. Certainly automotive has some really interesting kind of use cases to it of the dynamics of the consumer journey as well as the journey that the whole automotive industry is going through, but also just any marketer, anybody leading a brand effort is facing these challenges. So really appreciate the insights and your openness to share that with us today. So thank you very much, and I think it's probably time for a good standard wrap up question.

Dustin Raney (37:41):

Yeah, so man, I had love to ask this of both Aaron and Janet, right? It's like, I guess we'll start with you, Jen, and then we'll end with Aaron. If you fed the data about Janet into ai, what are the three words that would produce to describe you?

Janet Cinfio (38:07):

Yeah, so I think it would be giving curious and passionate, I think.

Dustin Raney (38:17):

Awesome. Wow. What incredible. Three words. I would want those spoken over me, for sure. Aaron,

(38:25):

What would yours be?

Aaron Shaffer (38:26):

Sure. Claude has been my chat, GPT choice of late, but I think it's a great question. I think there's probably a lot of things it would say, and the thing I loved about leadership here is everything I've told you, let's validate that with the team. If I treated the team that way, has that all talk about it, be about getting back to some of the other things that you said on the call. But I think adaptable builder or rebuild and gratitude, and I think the last piece of that gratitude that extends to the team, that extends to the work, that extends to the craft, I think that we all do.

Dustin Raney (39:04):

Wow. Well, thank you both for bringing your incredible insights to the table here. I know our listeners will certainly appreciate as much as we have.

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