Marketing Re-Imagined: Jacqueline Woods Of Teradata On How We Can Re-Imagine The Marketing Industry To Make It More Authentic, Sustainable, And Promote More Satisfaction

An Interview With Drew Gerber

Lead with customer centered insights. It’s marketing 101, but it’s surprising how often brands miss on this: Connect with your customers by understanding their needs, pain points, and ambitions, then communicate how you can help. Do your research, and let data be your guide in uncovering the white space that your product addresses. A customer-first orientation, coupled with continuous reinvention to demonstrate value, will win the day.

From an objective standpoint, we are living in an unprecedented era of abundance. Yet, so many of us are feeling unsatisfied. Why are we seemingly so insatiable? Do you feel that marketing has led to people feeling unsatisfied and not having enough in life? If so, what actions can marketers take to create a world where people feel that they have enough, and they are enough? Can we re-imagine what marketing looks like and how it makes people feel?

In this interview series, we are talking to experts in marketing and branding to discuss how we might re-imagine marketing to make it more authentic, sustainable, and promote more satisfaction. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jacqueline Woods, CMO, Teradata.

Jacqueline Woods is Teradata’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team. Woods is the company’s chief storyteller and guides all aspects of marketing and communications, including strategic marketing planning and delivery, advertising, brand and reputation management, digital and social properties, as well as customer generation, influencer marketing, public relations, industry relations, events, corporate communications and creating enriching customer experiences.

Woods is a results-driven technology and marketing executive known for leading corporate transformations and leveraging modern marketing approaches that utilize data and insights to accelerate business outcomes. Recognized for her track record in successfully growing businesses, Woods’ experience covers both business-to-business and business-to-consumer initiatives. Woods holds a BS from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to know how you got from “there to here.” Inspire us with your backstory!

After graduation from the University of California at Davis, I stared my career in telecom, at GTE (now Verizon) working in finance and accounting, business development, and business planning. This was a great training ground for me and its impact can still be seen in what I am today — a fact-based, no-fluff marketer, who’s known for having great relationships with the CFOs I work with — especially considering their recognition of my focus on outperforming ROI and other KPI targets. After those initial years in accounting, internal audit and receiving my MBA from the University of Southern California, I landed my first marketing role as an area marketing manager at GTE. After that I was recruited to join Ameritech, which eventually became AT&T again. I was a general manager and director of product management, and led the Customer Premise Equipment portfolio, which meant I was responsible for developing strategies to reach retail and business customers and help with their on-site telecom equipment solutions.

With experience in telecom and business-to-business marketing under my belt, I was then promoted to a role at Oracle as global vice president, reporting to the office of the CEO, in charge of managing strategic marketing, pricing and price optimization strategies, finance and other marketing programs across Oracle’s entire Software and Services portfolio. I eventually moved to General Electric, leading the Segmentation and Customer Experience team, managing more than 60 marketing programs across the GE portfolio valued at $178B at that time. Later, I joined IBM, where I held several roles, culminating in chief marketing officer. As CMO of the $14B partner ecosystem, I drove marketing efforts around the channel business, with a focus on growing partner momentum in IBM’s cloud and AI technologies.

More recently, I was chief marketing and communications officer at NielsenIQ, where I led all aspects of global marketing and supported the company’s transformation from a division of Nielsen into an independent organization. And as of December 2021, I became, and am currently, the CMO at Teradata, with the remit to guide all aspects of marketing and communications. I am also an independent director for Winnebago Industries and a board member and trustee for CRF/USA. Along the way, I’ve been featured in Fortune Magazine as one of the 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America, and other held various board positions, including the UNCF and the Greater Fairfield County Foundation, Incorporated.

What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?

1. I am enough. I will always be enough, and I don’t need that validation from anyone else.
2. When I was 7 or somewhere about that impressionable age, I was in a ballet called “Babes in Toyland.” There were two dressing rooms: one for the big girls and one for the little ones. At 7, obviously, I was a little one. Our parents were instructed to drop us off and the other volunteer moms would take it from there. With my costume and my ballet slippers in tow, I was patiently shuffled from station to station for costume, hair, and make-up. I was the only little black girl in the room. When it came to the make-up station, one of the mothers started spreading “pancake” on my face. (I guess it would be an older version of today’s foundation — dip the sponge in water and then this cakey pad and spread a pinkish-beige cream on the child’s face.) After spreading this mixture all over my face, the mother responsible for this part of the assembly line turned to the studio owner’s daughter, Leigh, and said, “stunning, isn’t it!” Leigh looked at me and said, “You don’t put pancake on them.” It was the first time I knew I was slighted and “othered” at the same time, but it would not be the last. It hurt. The pain was immeasurable. I was already isolated as the only little black girl in my group; now I was a “them,” an outsider. It felt like my skin color was weaponized against me, a “them” whatever that is, and I was made to feel less than — whether it was intentional or not.
3. Be your own personal advocate. Grit and belief in yourself will carry you further than any degree or any other advantage that someone may give you.

Simply put, you are enough.

None of us are able to experience success without support along the way. Is there a particular person for whom you are grateful for that support to grow you from “there to here?” Can you share that story and why you are grateful for him or her?

Whether it was Mike Walsh, at GTE (Verizon), Safra Catz, Larry Ellison, and Charles Philips (Oracle), Evaristus Mainsah and Rod Adkins (IBM), David Kenny (Nielsen), and Kathy Cullen-Cotes (Teradata) — they all had a common thread: they liked me and they liked me as I am — my authentic self.

More important, they believed that the “me” that they saw [someone with empathy, who speaks directly and acts fairly] and experienced would be an asset to their organization and the company. In many ways, they noticed that I had a high say-do ratio and that I was known for delivering. And they accepted those results and facts at face value — not attributing them to luck or some one-off…or some other but, but, but — which sometimes happens with women and minorities. They believed. No buts.

I appreciate each of them and will share a couple examples of what I mean. When I was interviewing for my first job — I obviously had no corporate experience. I had worked two jobs simultaneously — one for the State of California as an inspector grading tomatoes and the other as assistant manager at Video Express. Mike (GTE) was curious and asked me about the “tomato job” a lot during the interview and he later recounted that he offered me the Accounting Unit Supervisor job because “anyone that could precisely articulate how tomatoes are graded and with such passion” would be a good fit for GTE. The second example I’ll share is more recent. Last year, prior to joining Teradata, Kathy Cullen-Cote, our Chief People Officer, shared with me the “why” she knew I was a good fit for Teradata — how she thought about leadership, the amazing leadership team she was helping CEO Steve McMillan put together, and the ambition they had around transformation, and then truly demonstrating the authentic, diverse, inclusive leadership that I had been looking for my entire career.

But with all those people as part of my corporate journey, removing boulders and whispering words of encouragement along the way, I still wouldn’t have ever had any of these opportunities or accomplishments without my husband, Ron, and the sacrifices he made to see me reach these heights. At a time when it wasn’t in vogue, he chose pushing my career over his own. My parents instilled in me, always, that I was more than good enough to do anything, and my kids continue to cheer me on with every new threshold that I break. My gratitude for them in my circle of friends knows no bounds.

What day-to-day structures do you have in place for you to experience a fulfilled life?

For 10 consecutive years, I had the best routine. And it was the one thing that girded me up in the best and worst of times. It was my 5 a.m. bootcamp — Monday through Friday. Pre-Covid, even when I was on the road, I connected with this group of 30–35 people and always felt tethered, loved and supported. Together, we’ve experienced the typical ups and downs of life, but we always rallied to support each other’s needs — whether that was advice, a prayer, or an open heart. It is the one constant that rejuvenates me and brings me so much joy. Since COVID in 2020, and with our instructor’s move to Savannah in July 2022, we’ve gone completely virtual, which is hard. I need to get back to finding my center. I’m feeling a little off balance, due to my hectic travel schedule and I’ve absolutely been missing this group. Now that you posed the question of what day-to-day structures I have in place to experience a fulfilled life, it has reminded me that I need to continue to keep pushing myself to continuously seek out the place that bring me joy — even when it’s difficult to find the time to do so.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think it might help people?

Yes, this summer we launched Teradata VantageCloud Lake and ClearScape Analytics. Whenever people think B2B marketing is less sexy than B2C, I know that they don’t understand what we do. Getting someone to pay attention to comparing one brand of toothpaste to another is usually decided by one person and the channels to show up are reasonably straight forward. Getting people to understand the nuances in technology is a little more difficult, and now imagine that every time you want to talk to or reach that person, you know it’s not a single person — it’s more like a family unit where “mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, kids and even extended family members” can influence both the decision and the ultimate decider. I love this complexity — it is exhilarating to figure out who in the family has the most influence, who is the ultimate decider on the executive committee and who do we target and in what places.

Our cloud-native product establishes Teradata as one of the major cloud players with a new cutting-edge product. For us, this is significant because we’re a 40+-year-old data company with a very rich and exciting history. We’ve delivered most of “the firsts” in our space — but that said, it’s a new day and we can’t just stand on the laurels of the past. Today, we are demonstrating that we can beat the startups at their own game and deliver a superior analytics experience that is focused on helping our customers meet their ambitions. It is not about us or our technology, but it is about our laser focus on how our technology is better at helping our customers meet their own unique moment to drive their momentum and to help them thrive by overcoming their specific challenges. These are vast opportunities that can range from improving operational resilience within their supply chains, to helping a company get products to their customers on time, to improving customer experience by reducing wait times in customer service queues, as a couple of real-world examples. By being authentic to our brand heritage and showing our customers how they can leverage our cloud analytics and data platform for growth, they can control costs, run ad-hoc data analyses and experiment with look-alike models to speed up innovation — all without disrupting mission-critical processes. At all levels of the organization — from the C-Suite, to division, to functions, this is huge and the entire “family” benefits. Along the way, our marketing organization, in short order, is helping transform our image into a modern and nimble data analytics company.

Ok, thank you for sharing your inspired life. Now let’s discuss marketing. To begin, can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on marketing?

Absolutely. To be a great marketer, you need to be a great businessperson first. I started my career in Finance and Accounting, including internal audit, and I did stints in sales, business development and business operations and ultimately, I have run a P&L, valued at about $1B. I’ve done nearly every job in marketing — product marketing, pricing, strategy, offering management, communications, content, segmentation, customer experience, PR, analyst relations, product & solutions development — all at some of the most valued, trusted and well-known brands in the world. Most importantly, I’ve focused on bringing transformational leadership to modernizing the digital marketing experience, increasing ROI while improving the customer experience.

Throughout history, marketing has driven trade for humans. What role do you see that marketing played to get human societies where we are today?

The act of marketing has driven commerce since trade began. Marketing has been instrumental in communicating benefits and services throughout human history, so as a result the discipline has played a pivotal role in society. At its core, marketing begins with communications — whether its communicating through a logo, word-of-mouth, shouting from a rooftop, etc. For example, going back to 1500 BC, Mesopotamian societies started the mass production of goods that required quality control. Producers would stamp their goods with a unique mark — or logo — that communicated where the product came from and provided an indication of quality. As a result, consumers would seek out products with the stamps they knew delivered quality goods. Marketing practices have gotten more sophisticated over time, of course, but the premise remains the same — communicating a promise or expectation of what a product can do for customers.

I work in marketing so I’m very cognizant of this question. What role does marketing play in creating the human experience of “I don’t have enough” even when basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing are met?

I think Media and Social Media have played a significant role of encouraging high-end, have-it-all lifestyles that are out of reach for most people, and encouraging a “keep up with the Joneses” mentality, which is especially challenging when the median family income in the U.S. is about $71K. The average high-end designer handbag can easily start at $2,500 and quickly be $5,000 for the most popular ones you see an influencer carrying around and posting to TikTok or on Instagram. The pursuit and illusion of this lifestyle has been propagated in many advertising campaigns — by associating lower cost CPG items with specific types of style and lifestyle. Marketers and brand leaders have been complicit in buying into this narrative of having to have A, B, and C to be a complete and worthy person — the right car, clothes, job, house, you name it — they are dictating a way to exist that is unattainable for most people, even if they had a desire to be that or live like that. Consider advertising campaigns that suggest you need a certain car, a certain house, or a certain toy to be happy. However, this is starting to be change — and we are seeing more focus on honest brands, literally and figuratively, who are pushing power and choice back to the consumer. Today’s buyers are savvier than in years past and can quickly spot and shut down inauthentic marketing that prey on insecurities. There is a lot more competition for consumers’ mindshare, and brands that use tired tropes or inauthentic messages to get attention are quickly buried, and even canceled. Simply put, customers will not respond to your message if you’re making them feel poorly about their lives and themselves. Brands that do will quickly fail.

To create a message that will resonate, brands need to put their focus on the customer, not the product. The focus must be on the customer. Make them the hero of your story, where the company and its product(s) are an advocate for them. For example: why do I need good oral hygiene? Because it actually leads to better health outcomes, not just a pretty smile. Tell me how you care about my family and why that matters, not just in the early years, but throughout my life. Toothpaste isn’t just for eliminating bad breath. By choosing the right dental care product, I, the consumer, advocate for my family. Make me a hero for making good choices. But if you elevate the product above the customer, brands appear inauthentic at best, and deceitful at worst.

Marketing should reflect the brand promise, and clearly communicate what the customer can expect from the company. Far from making customers feel worse about their lives, good marketing should communicate the company’s true essence and philosophy. Once marketing is centered on this premise, it will be authentic and more likely to resonate.

What responsibility do marketers have when it comes to people feeling that they aren’t enough?

It’s irresponsible — and bad business — to make your customers feel that they aren’t enough. On the contrary, marketing messages need to focus on the positives it can bring a customer. So, for example, how can the brand help their business? How can it make their life easier? Focus on benefits, not the outdated idea that a customer’s life is incomplete and only your brand can make it better. Today’s consumer will not stand for inauthentic, predatory marketing.

Many 21st-century marketing professionals in a capitalistic society will discuss solving human “pain points” as a way to sell products, services, and other wares successfully. In your opinion or experience, has aggravating pain points led to more pain?

I would characterize this differently. If your product is solving problems or overcoming challenges that people or companies are experiencing, it’s important to express that — it is part of your value proposition. If you taped lectures in colleges and then transcribed your notes — you know having speech to text can save you hours. There’s nothing wrong with expressing a pain point that many persons would identify with, be it being time-starved or having a lack of time to do everything you need to get done, and articulate the “solve” this type of application can provide. The payoff to the challenge is the benefit your product provides — it doesn’t have to be positioned negatively for pain points to be identified or highlighted.

Different cultures view trade/marketing differently. While some may focus on “pain-points” others may focus on “purpose-points”. How do other cultures differ in how they approach marketing? Please give examples or studies you may know about.

In a December 2019 article from the Diplomat, you’ll find a discussion about the phenomena of using skin whitening products in Asia. “Today, whitening is big business. A World Health Organization survey found that nearly 40 percent of women polled in nations including China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea regularly use products for lightening their skin. Market intelligence firm Global Industry Analysts shows that the demand for whiteners is rising, projected to reach $31.2 billion by 2024” The article indicated that darker skin implied a person spent time working outdoors and was poor or from a lower class. There was a significant “clap back” against this type of marketing and in 2016, when a company used the slogan “White makes you win,” they were taken to task.

Women, in particular, are starting to stand up — owning and being proud of their unique beauty and their natural cultural differences and embracing them. A company that got it right is Unilever. They introduced the Crown Act, which can be found on Dove.com. They are a brand that lives its truth in support of all women. Here’s what they said, “We want all beauty to be welcome in all places and institutions. Narrow beauty standards make it difficult for Black women and girls in particular to freely celebrate their own beauty. While all women experience pressure to conform to certain standards of appearance, society’s bias has resulted in unfair judgment and discrimination against Black women based on hair texture and protective hairstyles, including braids, locs, and twists, that are inherent to their race.”

“That’s why we co-founded the CROWN Coalition to advance anti-hair discrimination legislation called The CROWN Act. The CROWN Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, is a law that prohibits discrimination based on hair texture and hairstyle”.

You can use your brand voice to uplift or to tear down. Companies on either end are penalized or rewarded accordingly.

Okay, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview: It seems as if we have never stopped to question marketing. In your opinion, how can marketing professionals be more responsible for how their advertising shapes our human experience of feeling safe, secure, and knowing that we matter? Based on your experience or research can you please share “Five Ways We Can Re-Imagine The Marketing Industry To Make It More Authentic, Sustainable, And Promote More Satisfaction”?

I hope it’s clear that the days of marketing by making unrealistic promises or by preying on people’s insecurities are coming to an end. We can — and should — reimagine how marketing can project the brand’s culture and values to truly connect with the customer. So, here are five ways we can reimagine the marketing industry:

1. Ensure marketing messaging is consistent and grounded in the brand’s DNA. Inauthentic marketing always focuses on the product. Authentic marketing that connects with customers in a positive way focuses on the customer, and how the product’s benefits can help them. Be an advocate for your customer. Make them and their needs your ambition and your brand will be rewarded.
2. Embrace your heritage. Earlier this year we launched a new cloud-based product that enabled Teradata to compete head-to-head with cloud-native upstarts. We knew that if our message was going to resonate, we needed to be authentic to our brand heritage and embrace our identity of being a mature tech company and that 85% of the top 20 global banks rely on. There is no other company’s analytics that I’d rather rely on then Teradata to reduce fraud, money laundering, or just ensuring that it’s actually you using your card internationally. You can also say the same for American Airlines and its 28 business operations that rely on us too. By nodding to our history and showing customers how our new solutions can enable them to further innovate their businesses, we are able to drive home our message while elevating the customer experience.
3. Lead with customer centered insights. It’s marketing 101, but it’s surprising how often brands miss on this: Connect with your customers by understanding their needs, pain points, and ambitions, then communicate how you can help. Do your research, and let data be your guide in uncovering the white space that your product addresses. A customer-first orientation, coupled with continuous reinvention to demonstrate value, will win the day.
4. Create a sense of wow. Companies need to create experiences where customers feel a sense of “wow” about the products, the services, and the brand. At the end of the day, good marketing will help a company grow by communicating the brand value. When the company can back up this message with new, innovative products and services — as well as a superior customer experience — organizations will see greater brand loyalty, higher market share, and make customers feel good about themselves in the process.
5. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Gone are the days of brands having the luxury to sit out social issues. Today, consumers expect brands to take active positions on environmental or societal issues that are important to them. But far from paying lip service to issues on your ESG page, true commitment to sustainability issues can humanize your brand message and give customers another reason to choose your company over competitors. But tread carefully — consumers will be able to spot a brand just going through the motions immediately. The commitment to issues must also match the company’s brand heritage — does it make sense for the brand to take a position on an issue? And if so, is the company putting its money where its mouth is? These are questions you must be prepared to answer before committing to an issue.

For you personally, if you have all your basic needs met, do you feel you have enough in life?

No, I don’t. If you go to my website, I state that “if you keep moving forward, you’ll always get there.” That’s understanding that there is nothing wrong with having goals, desires and ambitions. And often, people have made me, a Black woman, feel ‘some kinda way’ for wanting more for myself and pushing hard to get it.

Having your most basic needs met, like food and shelter, doesn’t mean that you’re thriving or growing. In some ways, you’re simply existing and staying in the same place — leading to atrophy of yourself and preventing you from being the best you can be.

I love that as humans we have certain characteristics and traits that have help push society forward: curiosity, stick-to-itiveness, optimism, innovation, and an insatiable desire for a better way of doing something — from counting fingers, to an abacus, to a slide rule, to a calculator, to a mainframe, to a desktop, to a laptop and now a tablet — with the last one having more processing power than the first mainframe and clearly faster than your fingers. Imagine where we’d be without a curiosity to do it better, faster and what those inventors believed would be the benefits of these new technologies. They all had a desire and ambition to be more than “basic.”

Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you to live with more joy in life?

It’s funny — both my daughter and son would tell me that I’m always researching something and that I love to work. It’s not so much that I love to work. It’s more that I like problem solving, so you’ll often find me researching new topics that I want to learn about — like web 3.0 or metaverse or understanding issues that affect women and people of color. I am also constantly thinking about customer experience, and I am obsessed with it. Angel Customers and Demon Customers, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Outliers, Who Moved My Cheese, Mind of Strategist — are books I’ve read multiple times. I always find something new to pick up. I listen to a variety of marketing podcasts and read lots of blogs, ebooks and studies on the discipline of marketing.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I want marketers to know their power and understand that they have a responsibility to represent the profession altruistic ideals and uphold its integrity. Full stop. Marketers have a high degree of influence on beliefs, trends, and behaviors. You must understand this and always act with integrity and accountability. Businesses rely on you to help them grow, but people rely on you to tell the truth. So, use your skills to ensure that integrity is at the top of our profession.

People often say speak truth to power. I simply say, speak the truth. You have a responsibility to be an ally, not a bystander — and that goes beyond the concept of DEI. We know what “right” is and we also know what wrong looks like — it really isn’t a slippery slope. That’s the reason why math has always been my favorite subject in school — it is unambiguous. 2+2 always equals four.

You don’t have to fight every battle, but you do need to act with integrity and understand that in every dimension, and in every way possible or imaginable, we are all related to each other and affected by what we decide to do or not to do.

Looking away does not stop whatever is happening to someone else, and eventually it will happen to you. Ignoring poor corporate policies in one sector will eventually leach out to every other business sector — think former companies like Enron, MCI and Andersen. Think air pollution in one hemisphere, flowing to yours.

So, when you see ads, names or logos that marginalize one group of people –even if it’s not yours — assume that in some other city, county, state or country, your group could be in an unflattering ad or logo.

Understand that negative impressions last and do harm to all groups, and reinforcing negative bias against genders, ethnic groups and religions continues to create division — not great when our biggest problems like climate change and resource management requires us all to work together.

Decide what kind of person you are, and who you want to be. You carry the privilege and honor of shaping the thinking about a person, group, product, or company.

Be honorable in your work, the business of marketing, and ensure that it is respectable, innovative, and uplifting.

What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?

I’m active on LinkedIn and Twitter, so I invite readers to follow me there and we can continue the conversation.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world.