In this episode of YouShouldTalkTo, we sit down with Hillary Settle, VP of Digital at the iconic undergarment brand Hanky Panky, to talk about how modern marketing is evolving and what that means for brands that want to stay relevant. From AI strategy to influencer marketing, Hillary brings a refreshingly honest take on what’s working, what isn’t, and why getting back to the basics of human connection is more important than ever.

With a background that spans both creative strategy and performance marketing, Hillary shares how she’s navigating the shifting landscape. VPs don’t just sit around counting all their budget’s money, they strategize the best way to see what it takes to meet customers where they are. That means adapting brand messaging to the changing times without losing their identity and exploring new ways to reach their audience. We are in a new era of marketing. People are moving farther away from brick and mortar stores, and even moving away from household names in favor of the next new platform. Consumers are moving to TikTok and eventually ChatGPT, if you can believe it.

We also touch on the future of agency partnerships, the power of social media apps like TikTok for organic marketing strategies, and what it really looks like to build relationships that move the needle. If you’re not investing in influencer marketing, you’re leaving money on the table. Companies are not seeing the same return on investment in paid ads as they used to. And it’s because people are not buying from ads, they’re buying from people.

Tune into Hillary’s episode to hear more about how you can stay ahead of the curve and invest in the right channels before you lose your audience to the next new thing.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Hillary Settle, VP of Digital at Hanky Panky

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights:

Today’s Products Have To Meet People Where They Are

Hillary knows that there’s always something going on that’s bigger than whatever product you're selling. Whether it’s political changes or economic instability, your audience will face unique and persistent challenges. The brands that win will be the ones that respond in real time, not just with messaging, but with solutions. It’s no longer about selling an idea, it’s about showing up in the everyday. So when the fires hit LA earlier this year, Hanky Panky partnered with a company that helped donate undergarments to women who had just lost everything. People remember that kind of thing.

AI Is Only as Smart as Your Strategy

AI is everywhere, but it’s not enough to tell your team to just use it. Use it to do what?? AI is a tool, but it can’t do all the work for you or your team. You need a strategy. The leaders that thrive will be the ones who ask smarter questions, and not just about how AI can make them more efficient, but how it can deepen what they already do well. Tools like ChatGPT aren’t magic—they’re multipliers. And unless you’ve defined what exactly you want out of these tools, they won’t get you anywhere faster.

TikTok is Reshaping the Beauty Commerce Landscape

Times are changing, and legacy retailers are already feeling the pressure. Platforms like TikTok Shop are redefining where and how consumers discover beauty products, and it’s working. As sales shift from brick-and-mortar storefronts to influencer campaigns, brands need to show up in the right channels with the right content. It’s not just abou

In this episode our host Daniel Weiner sits down with Jeff Crow, CEO of TapMango. He shares his wisdom about the best marketing strategies he’s seen, including how we can improve the role of marketers for 2025, the radical impact of AI, and the timeless importance of strategy, storytelling, and courage in leadership.

Jeff kicks off with a strong stance on AI, one that I have to agree with. While many people in C-Suite positions see it as a replacement for creative work, Jeff believes its true power lies in reinforcing the value of human marketers. As AI handles more of the routine work in a business, it's the human element, the empathy, storytelling, and intuition that we all possess, that make brands stand out. Trust and connection will be the new differentiators. Newer marketers nowadays have to lean in, not step back.

Speaking of new marketers, Jeff reflects on the data-driven culture of today’s marketing strategies. Yes, metrics matter. But insight comes from both data and curiosity. New marketers have to ask why people buy and what really motivates their behavior. He says it’s a lost art, especially among younger marketers who haven’t been trained in foundational brand positioning work.

When asked about a terrible agency experience he’s had, Jeff told the story of a lesson he learned at an agency that didn’t necessarily value the marketing department, even though he was just hired to lead the team. He ended up having to tell leadership point-blank: marketing must have a seat at the table. If you ever find yourself in the same position, Jeff’s advice is to walk into new roles with clarity and confidence. If leadership doesn’t prioritize marketing, the partnership is doomed from the start. Investing in marketing is about more than budget; it’s about commitment, and that commitment starts at the top.

Tune into Jeff’s episode to hear more about how you can cover the blind spots you didn’t know about and how to harness that creative instinct.

Guest-at-a-Glance
💡 Name: Jeff Crow, CEO at TapMango

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights

AI is Highlighting the Best Parts of Humanity

AI is transforming marketing—but not in the way the most recent headlines suggest. Rather than replacing marketers, it's creating an even greater need for human creativity. As AI starts to handle the more routine tasks, the marketers who will thrive are the ones who can tell compelling stories, build authentic connections, and bring emotional intelligence into their campaigns. The future of marketing still belongs to professionals who understand that tech should amplify human insight, not replace it.

The Lost Art of Brand Positioning

In today’s fast-moving, performance-driven market, brand positioning is often overlooked. Many younger marketers just haven’t been trained to develop it, but defining your brand’s place in the market is still essential to long-term success. Positioning gives context to every campaign, it’s what allows a company to differentiate in the dreaded sea of sameness. Reinvesting in foundational brand work isn’t just smart—it’s necessary for companies that want to stand for something meaningful and stay top-of-mind when buyers are ready to make a purchase.

Hellman’s? Really?

For a creative campaign to land, it has to be brand-specific and culturally grounded. Generic ideas that could belong to any company in any category fall flat, especially when they don’t align with the product’s reality or the audience’s context. Take the recent commercial with Hellman’s mayonnaise and Katz’s deli, for example. What is Hellman’s mayonnaise doing at Katz’s Deli? Unthinkable! Knowing your customer, your brand heritage, and your cultural setting matters.

In this episode of YouShouldTalkTo, host Daniel Weiner sits down with Justine Fisher, VP of Marketing at bartaco. From teaching marketers to speak fluent "finance" to breaking free from cookie-cutter creative briefs, Justine shares incredible gems of information for anyone trying to thrive in today's hyper-saturated marketing world. With experience that spans successful restaurant brands and teaching marketing courses at NYU, Justine shares her perspective on how marketers can drive real impact through calculated risk-taking, stronger alignment with finance, and more human-centered agency partnerships.

Standing out in today’s saturated market is no small feat. Throughout the episode, Justine emphasizes that one of the biggest challenges in marketing is figuring out how to stand out amongst the “sea of sameness.” This seems to be a growing concern in the marketing industry, as she is the second person on the podcast to bring up the ‘sea of sameness’ this year. With consumers overwhelmed by a constant stream of content, brands can no longer afford to play it safe. Differentiation requires bold, strategic choices and the willingness to experiment, particularly in competitive spaces like the restaurant industry.

One of the ways marketers can break free from the sea of sameness is by using the market data as a suggestion and letting it guide the creative team. While attribution is critical in today’s marketing environment, Justine says that it can’t come at the cost of creativity. She specifically calls out advertising as a space where being overly dependent on metrics can lead to forgettable campaigns. The result? Campaigns that blend in, rather than break through. To stand out, you have to start spending less time on the attribution and more on creativity.

Tune into Justine’s episode to hear more about how you can harness your team's creative success with just a side of marketing attribution.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Justine Fisher, Vice President of Marketing at bartaco

💡 Where to find Justine: LinkedIn

Key Insights:

The Sea of Sameness is Real

One of marketing’s biggest challenges right now is cutting through the noise. With ad content being pushed at consumers 24/7, standing out isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s key to a company’s survival. According to Justine, it’s not just about being louder. It’s about being braver. And that bravery usually means taking a risk.

Prioritize Relationships over Pitch Decks

If you’re trying to win over a VP like Justine, here’s your pro tip: drop the one-size-fits-all pitch deck. Justine says she’s much more likely to engage with someone who introduces themselves as a human first and expert second. Even if the timing isn’t right, that relationship might pay off later.

Show Curiosity, Don’t Be Overconfident

In this week’s episode, Justine shares an experience with an agency that stood out to her in the best ways. This agency did their homework, stayed humble, and came in with curiosity. They didn’t pretend to know her company better than she did. Instead, they collaborated. That partnership worked because they listened first and added value later. Agencies that miss that listening part can come off as presumptuous.

In this episode of "YouShouldTalkTo," our host Daniel Weiner chats with Robert Dimson, Associate Vice President of Product Marketing at Cox Automotive, Inc. We are a quarter of the way into the new year, and 2025 has still proven to be a bit more unstable than we’d like it to be. Consumer spending is still down, the idea of a recession is still looming, and it’s getting harder and harder to get social media content to stand out. Luckily, Robert has decades of experience in the marketing industry and is on the show this week to share what he's learned.

As a matter of fact, Robert worked with Toys “R” Us back in its heyday. He moved on to another opportunity before things took a turn for the worst, but he says in hindsight that he could see the end was near. The company was missing key trends in consumer spending that they could have taken seriously. But instead of shifting their strategy, they waited too long to adjust, and it proved to be to their detriment.

Another trend to look out for is a change in copywriting strategies. Robert’s noticing that companies are pivoting from B2B copy to just P2P - People to People. That distance that we used to keep between each other is getting smaller and smaller. It’s much more effective to speak to the person rather than the role they play. That of course, doesn’t mean that every ad has to be a tear-jerker! But connecting with people on a human level goes a long way.

Tune into Dimson’s episode to hear more about the current trends and strategies that you can use to stand out in 2025.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Robert Dimson, Associate Vice President of Product Marketing at Cox Automotive, Inc.

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights

Keep an Eye on Trends

Not every trend is here to stay, but when they are, it’s time to readjust your strategy. Toys “R” Us was a huge success back in its heyday, but because they were so big, they didn’t notice a major change in consumer spending until it was too late. Robert’s advice? Don’t be afraid to pivot.

Officially People to People

There’s a shift in how companies are leveraging their copy, and you’re gonna want to pay attention to this. Companies are pivoting from B2B copy to just P2P - people to people. Next time you're working on a campaign, try writing to the person and not the business. You could make a better impression that way.

Be Aggressive

Marketers have been pumping the brakes for far too long. Trying to play it safe every time is creating a sea of sameness, because now everyone’s trying to play it safe. Push the envelope and put your trust in something fun and interesting. It’ll help you stand out with your customers.

In this episode of "YouShouldTalkTo," our host Daniel Weiner chats with T.R. Wilhoit, VP of ECommerce at Case-Mate. The internet is now a huge part of our lives and that means it’s a huge part of ecommerce. We not only have to keep up with the ever-changing trends, but we also have to see which evergreen strategies are actually still evergreen. To get ahead, we’re speaking to someone who's been in the industry for years, both on the brand side and the agency side.

One hot take he has may shock you! He says that AI is overblown and not the savior all these ads are making it out to be. Or at least not yet. So whether you’re in an agency or with a brand, don’t get sucked into Shiny New Object Syndrome. It’s not worth it to put all your eggs in the AI basket just yet. Especially when so many companies are and are failing to keep up the same level of quality they used to have then they focused solely on their employees. If you want to get ahead, depend more on your people than you do on AI.

One of the best strategies that still works to this day is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is flexible and can be adapted to any platform or audience. For example, right now TikTok's affiliate marketing plan is incredible for ecommerce. Companies are making millions of dollars off of their TikTok affiliate strategies and it’s because people are using TikTok as a search engine.

Tune into Wilhoit’s episode to hear more about how ecommerce is evolving and how you can keep up on the brand side and the agency side of things.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: T.R. Wilhoit

💡What they do: VP of ECommerce at Case-Mate

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights
AI is Overblown

How much can you really trust AI to do its job? It's a nice add-on, but it’s not replacing people any time soon. The best work often comes from companies that depend on their employees more than they depend on the next new AI program. Don’t get Shiny New Object Syndrome, it’s not always worth it.

Agency Nightmares

When asked about the worst agency experience he had, Wilhiot said he had to call up his point of contact because they were raising fees without being attentive to his account. He knows how agencies work and he knows he’s not their only client. But it was becoming pretty obvious they were phoning it in and they had to work it out before they could move forward.

Consumer Behavior Pre and Post-Election

We know that consumers tend not to spend too much during an election year. But now that the election has passed, consumers are not spending like we thought they would. This might be the start of a new trend in consumer behavior and it might be time we start adjusting our strategy to keep up with the changing times.

In this episode of "YouShouldTalkTo," our host Daniel Weiner chats with Joe Artime, VP of Marketing at Moe's Southwest Grill. As a VP, Joe knows that his job is all about finding the right balance between two extremes in order to get the job done. For example, when asked about the phrase ‘doing more with less,’ he encourages marketers to consider it a time for growth. While budgets are leaner, taking on a role that could bring incredible results to your team could be a great way to show off your skills to your team lead. This just might be the opportunity that you were looking for to prove how much of an asset you are.

Balance is a huge part of the job with both your internal team and your contracted team. Joe says that he appreciates when companies are upfront with their expectations during the pitching process. He prefers to know what is realistic before they start the project as opposed to finding out in the middle of it. Especially if it’s a budget issue.

But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t appreciative of risks. The biggest evolution that Joe has seen in consumer spending has been the changes to the delivery system. Restaurants were starting to build their own delivery system on their own websites rather than relying on the customer to always come to them. When COVID happened and delivery systems became a necessity, that nice-to-have tech became instrumental to a restaurant's success. Building your own delivery system rather than relying on in-person sales was a risk, but it proved itself at the end of the day.

Tune into Joe’s episode to hear more about how restaurant marketing has evolved over the last decade and what you can do to keep up with the changes as a marketer.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Joe Artime, VP of Marketing

💡Company: Moe's Southwest Grill

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights:

Do the Numbers Work

Numbers and metrics are an important part of any marketing launch. But the right metrics are what put us over the edge. Keep track of the metrics your client actually wants you to measure. In the restaurant industry, Joe is looking for sales and traffic. No other metric are more important than sales and traffic metrics.

Evolution Post COVID

When asked about the biggest change he’s seen in consumer behavior both pre- and post-COVID, Joe’s answer was all about delivery systems. What used to be a nice-to-have was now a necessity. These new systems are here to stay, so now it’s his job to learn how to work with them.

Agency vs Client Expectations

We all want the best relationship with our agencies - and that starts with setting realistic expectations. Whether it’s budgeting or scope of work, Joe says he has to find the right balance between two extremes to get the job done. Once that’s done, the real work can begin.

In this episode of "YouShouldTalkTo," our host Daniel Weiner chats with Mark Huber, VP of Marketing at UserEvidence. Trusting your gut has been a recurring theme in this podcast and Mark’s episode is no different. No matter how good the numbers are, it’s the human element that helps you and your company stand out. Mark has found this to be true in marketing and in life.

Mark gets tons of agencies cold calling and reaching out to him asking for a meeting. Most of the time the answer is no. But if he can see some of that human element in their pitch, he’ll take the meeting. And that doesn’t mean, “Hey {first_name}, you’re not ranking first on Google.” If you’re going to pitch to a VP, you have to offer up some value.

The two also talked about the common trend of marketers having to “do more with less.” Mark’s advice? Stop saying that. It’s true that marketing teams have become leaner. But that also means that your strategy has to be leaner too. If you’re a marketer, take some time to see if your new assignment is really necessary for this launch to do well. If not, bring it up to your team lead. Having a leaner team means trimming the fat on your list of things to do.

Tune into Mark’s episode to hear more incredible marketing advice and how to know when you trust your gut.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Mark Huber, VP of Marketing at UserEvidence

💡Noteworthy: Trust your gut more than you trust the data.

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights

Guts over Numbers

This may be an unpopular opinion, but Mark doesn’t care about UTM parameters. Or web analytics in general! There are so many kinks that need to be buffed out that he can’t rely on them fully. He’d rather rely on a blend of trusting his gut and web analytics. But his gut always comes first.

Don’t Waste My Time

When asked about cold calls with agencies and vendors, Mark says he’ll only have a meeting with them if they offer real value. They have to have audited his site or his strategy and really bring something tangible to the table. Otherwise, it’s just not worth it.

Quality over Quantity

Instead of trying to get involved with every social media platform possible, Mark is focusing on just two channels - LinkedIn and email marketing. Now that he has the autonomy to hunker down and focus on fewer platforms, he’s been able to thrive. His work has been successful and he hasn't been spreading himself too thin.

In this episode of "YouShouldTalkTo," our host Daniel Weiner chats with Steph Hoppe, the Vice President Omnichannel Marketing at Casey's. Casey’s is a well-known Midwest giant and they are currently launching a brand new coffee venture. Steph and her team have been pouring over the data they’ve collected for weeks. But she’s also realizing that sometimes you have to ignore the data and trust your gut.

Having the skill to trust her gut has been such an asset to her and her team. For example, the data they collected is incredibly useful, but it would have made their campaign very basic. By looking at the data, she felt that consumers were very comfortable with the way that they’ve been marketed to when it comes to coffee. She didn’t want comfortable. Steph wanted to shake up the industry. So she trusted her gut and went in a completely new direction. Tell us what you think of Steph’s work when Casey’s coffee program launches!

Steph and I also talk about the differences in the marketing practices in the last five to ten years. It used to be that brands decided who they were and what they meant to the consumer. Now we’re finding that the other consumers' opinion of the brand has a much stronger hold on buying practices than it used to. Consumer influence is now a huge part of marketing and whether it’s from an established influencer or someone you know, it’s definitely shaking up the marketing industry. And while that means that some of our strategies aren’t useful anymore, we know that we can always go back to the basics.

Steph has had a ton of experience with contractors and agencies over the years. She says that the most positive experiences were with people who knew how to be problem solvers. When contractors and agencies are as invested in your business as you are, they don’t come to you with more problems. They are invested, and therefore, they are invaluable.

Tune into Steph’s episode to hear more about how she leads a midwest giant, like Casey’s and how you can partner with companies like hers in the future.

Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Steph Hoppe, Vice President Omnichannel Marketing

💡Company: Casey's

💡Noteworthy: People now own brands

💡 Where to find them: LinkedIn

Key Insights

Get Scrappy

In this week’s episode, Steph tell us that the marketing industry is changing and that can mean needing to work with what you’ve got. When budgets are no longer unlimited, reusing the content you have on different platforms is a surefire way to get the most bang for your buck!

It’s Me Or You

When asked about her worst agency experience Steph brought up the time and agency was more focused on winning an award than they were on doing the work they were hired for. This agency had great ideas, but it just wasn’t what they wanted at Casey’s. But this agency kept pushing. In the end they had to go their separate ways.

Authenticity Above All

When asked about her most positive agency experience, Steph brought up one agency that was as invested in their work with Casey’s as she was. And it’s not that they were completely perfect either. They made their fair share of mistakes. The difference was that they owned up to it and they were honest with her. That authenticity set that agency apart from the rest.