Marketing Vanguard

Audience targeting may have gotten easier, but getting people to truly care has not.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Dan Moriarty, CMO of Chicago Fire FC, to unpack why the marketing pendulum is swinging back toward creative, what makes live sports such a powerful attention engine and why brands should think harder about the emotion behind what they sell.

Plus, the inside scoop on why he left the Chicago Bulls for a growth-stage MLS club and the difficult people decisions that have helped reshape his marketing organization.

Dan Moriarty is Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Fire FC, where he leads marketing for Chicago’s Major League Soccer club.

Originally from England, Dan began his career agency-side before moving into brand roles at Hyatt. He later spent around eight years with the Chicago Bulls before joining Chicago Fire FC.

At the Fire, he has been part of a period of significant investment and change across the club, from its on-field ambitions and downtown presence to new facilities, fan experiences, and plans for a new stadium. His marketing perspective combines a digital-first background with an increasing conviction that, as targeting becomes easier, creative quality matters more than ever.

What You'll Learn:

Why sports still commands attention in a world built around on-demand content
Why Chicago Fire FC focuses on selling joy and passion rather than soccer itself
How the club turned World Cup energy into an owned Chicago fan experience
Why easier targeting makes stronger creative even more important
Why buying reach is no longer a meaningful competitive advantage
How Chicago Fire FC is restructuring its in-house creative operation
Why avoiding underperformance can cost you your strongest people

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brand or performance? That’s the wrong question for marketers to ask, according to Nick Fairbairn.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Chime’s SVP of Growth to unpack why brand lift and direct-response accountability belong in the same system, why buying an AI tool does not amount to AI transformation and why scrappy creative may do more brand-building work than marketers want to admit.

Nick also gets into TV’s messy shift from linear to streaming, executive conversations around brand investment and why creators should perhaps be a part of every channel.

Nick Fairbairn is Senior Vice President of Growth at Chime, where he leads a broad growth organization spanning paid media, organic growth, go-to-market, lifecycle, product, engineering and onboarding.

His career started in media buying, including television and radio, before he moved into agency entrepreneurship and then brand-side marketing. Along the way, he’s worked at ProFlowers, helped build acquisition at Dollar Shave Club during the DTC era, led startup growth and later joined Chime to build its product marketing capabilities before moving into his current growth role.

What You'll Learn:

Why AI adoption needs active leadership instead of waiting for teams to figure it out themselves
Why buying another AI tool rarely changes how a marketing organization actually works
How Nick measures TV with the rigor of a performance channel
Why brand lift and direct-response accountability should sit in the same conversation
How data can turn a defensive budget discussion into a stronger case for brand investment
Why lower-production testimonial creative can still move brand equity and consideration
Why Nick thinks creators should eventually become part of every marketing channel

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When every company starts looking like a tech company, a media company and an entertainment company at the same time, brand clarity becomes mission critical.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Grace Kao, CMO of Snap, to talk about what it takes to build a brand people actually understand and want to spend time with. Plus: a breakdown of Snap’s push toward chat, real-world connection and why marketers should be asking the question, “How do we actually add something?”

Grace Kao is Chief Marketing Officer of Snap, where she leads marketing across Snapchat and the company’s broader brand portfolio.

Her career began almost by accident after she stepped away from graduate school and joined BBDO as an executive assistant on the Apple account. From there, she built a career across agency and brand roles spanning PlayStation, Yahoo, Pandora, Instagram, Spotify, and Snap.

Across those chapters, Grace has consistently gravitated toward brands with strong identities, youth audiences, and clear points of view. At Snap, she is focused on keeping the brand rooted in friendship, creativity, and real connection while exploring new ways for brands, creators, and communities to participate on the platform.

What You'll Learn:

Why brand clarity becomes more valuable as businesses stretch across categories
How relationships and people can shape a career more than a perfect plan
Why challenger brands and youth culture have more pull
How Snapchat is moving beyond passive consumption toward active participation
Why brand marketing has to match the creative standard of the community
How chat, Maps, and IRL experiences can create new roles for brands
Why unexpected partnerships can make audiences see a brand differently
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CMOs are being asked to do something increasingly absurd: deliver more growth, with less budget, while marketing gets more complex and more expensive.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica Apotheker, CMO of Boston Consulting Group, to unpack what it actually takes to survive and matter in the modern C-suite.

Jessica Apotheker is Chief Marketing Officer of Boston Consulting Group, where she leads the BCG brand while continuing to work directly with clients on marketing, digital transformation, and growth. Before joining BCG, Jessica worked in product marketing at L’Oréal.

Her approach is grounded in one principle: strategy only matters if it survives execution. Whether she is advising clients or leading BCG’s own marketing agenda, Jessica focuses on measurable impact, stronger capabilities, and making sure marketing earns its place as a growth driver.

What You'll Learn:

Why granular execution is what turns strategy into actual impact
How to think about marketing through orchestration, art, and science
Why BCG increasingly sees itself as a force multiplier, not just a consultancy
How the impact, asset, and muscle model creates measurable client value
Why CFO and CIO relationships can determine whether a CMO succeeds
What makes the CMO role uniquely vulnerable in the C-suite
Why AI should be positioned as a growth lever, not just an efficiency play
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary Yee, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sony Interactive Entertainment, started her career in accounting, not marketing. And, yet here she is.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mary to unpack how a career that moved from finance to Clorox to PlayStation to the CEO seat at Tatcha (and back to PlayStation) shaped her view of what great brand building actually requires.

Mary Yee is Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, where she oversees the PlayStation brand globally across hardware, peripherals, network services, subscriptions, digital retail, and games.

Her career began in public accounting before she moved into brand marketing at Clorox. She later joined PlayStation during the PS4 era, helping build the brand through a major period of category growth and digital transformation. In 2021, she became CEO of Tatcha, where she helped expand the luxury skincare brand across channels and into 34 countries before returning to Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Across gaming, beauty, and CPG, Mary’s approach is rooted in the same core idea: understand the business, understand the consumer, and build brands around real human connection.

What You'll Learn:

Why financial literacy can make marketers stronger brand builders
How analytics and creativity should work together, not against each other
How Tatcha used communities, creators, and retail to fuel growth
Why Mary defines herself, first and foremost, as a brand builder
How cross-media IP expands reach beyond a brand’s core audience
Why PlayStation anchors products, games, and IP under one master brand
How curiosity helps leaders move successfully across categories and roles
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.