Patti Boyle of Dstillery On The Top 5 New Marketing Trends Leaders Need To Know

An Interview With Rachel Kline

AI will change everything. As a major theme during the 2023 Cannes Lions, no one can argue that AI is changing the marketing landscape in media, creative, messaging, marketing, writing, concepting, and more. Embrace the change.

Marketing trends are always changing, and it’s so important to stay relevant. What are the latest trends? How does one stay abreast of the new trends? Is it good to be an early adopter or is it best to see which trends withstand the test of time? To address these questions, in this interview series, we are talking to experienced CMOs who can share their “Top 5 New Marketing Trends That Leaders Need To Know About.” As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Patti Boyle.

Patti Boyle is the Chief Marketing Officer at Dstillery, the custom audience solutions company. She and her team are responsible for developing and advancing brand positioning, mission, vision and values, digital marketing and demand generation. In addition to her leadership role at Dstillery, she is the CEO of Sapience Leadership, a joint venture with the University of Pennsylvania’s Pennovation Center, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

With a hard-working single mother and a self-sufficient upbringing, I started taking jobs and developing a solid work ethic at a young age. It wasn’t until college that I began working in different areas under the marketing umbrella. I majored in communications and got a taste for real-time broadcast journalism while interning and working minimum-wage jobs as a field reporter. My first paying job in radio news required driving the news van and conducting interviews with city council representatives, political candidates, the District Attorney, and local sports stars. Though my ambitions and education seemed pointed toward a career in radio news, the nature of those jobs was notoriously nomadic, with irregular schedules and not much stability. Given my independent nature, and the quest to put down some roots, I felt immense pressure to find a “real job” — something where I could earn my way based on merit and grit, and most importantly, a path where I could support myself, learn from leaders I respected, and experience career growth. A couple of my professors who mentored me steered me toward the ad agency business, where I spent the first 15 years of my career, most notably with JWT New York and FCB. While I initially envisioned ascending the ranks as a copywriter, I quickly discovered that journalistic writing and creative writing were very different talents. I applied my interest in writing, with a skill set others observed in me, combining presentations, organizational and relationship-building to make my way as an account executive, supervisor, and ultimately management director.

Throughout these early years of my career, I experienced the massive shifts of technology’s impact on every aspect of the advertising industry. Creative development, media planning and buying, print, and broadcast production all transformed into processes and career paths that bore little resemblance to their original, decades-long models. Against the backdrop of these sweeping changes, winners and losers emerged, and a divide in the industry was inevitable. Agencies and client-side marketers who embraced change, innovated, and experimented with how to be “smarter-tougher-faster” catapulted into leadership positions and reaped the benefits of growth. Those agencies and clients who clung to tradition above all else and resisted advances driven by technology slowly dwindled into obscurity. One sweeping dynamic I experienced single-handedly drove me to pursue my MBA, concentrate on global business, and move to client-side marketing. Regardless of industry, and despite how creative and results-driven the agency was, the client always ruled. The best agencies expanded their strategic perspectives beyond pure advertising, approaching clients’ challenges with integrated marketing solutions. Technology enabled this, but the industry’s most significant shift was how technology could be applied to create solutions more than just “ad-like objects.” And the very best figured out how to form genuine partnerships with clients, co-developing strategic plans, co-creating innovative approaches and sharing outcomes.

It has been said that our mistakes can sometimes be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’ve made plenty of mistakes during my career. Most are only funny in retrospect — not so much at the time, honestly. As for lessons I’ve lived and learned over the years, one category that resonates is cultural consciousness. We never had enough discussion around new ways to define and explore audiences, or how best to assess where a product can deliver the most value and have the greatest impact. I’ve worked in industries across categories and around the globe — building campaigns for everything from toys and travel to transportation and technology. Strategy and planning around reaching the target audiences all too often fell to who we had as customers today, not who we could have tomorrow.

With data being so opaque and difficult to access, it’s no wonder we lacked those rich conversations around effective targeting. When discussing targeting in traditional advertising, we were primarily referring to demographics — for example, women in the 25–54 age range who are college-educated, married with children, and residing in the Northeast. This provides a rather one-dimensional snapshot into the “ideal customer” and, not coincidentally, matches the level of targeting available from publishers and broadcasters. For some advertisers, if we wanted to dive into deeper targeting, we could hire a rather pricey global research firm to explore dimensions like consumer behavior, psychographics, and more. The notion of accessing rich datasets from a marketer’s customer base was only just starting to emerge for new product introductions, entry into global markets, and, yes, the technology category — which was in its infancy as a marketer, not simply an enabler.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Three people have followed me through my life and have been my inspiration, support, and overall calming influences every step of the way. I’m not a fan of terms like “achieving success,” as these sound uncomfortably egotistic and, in many ways, terminal, as if there’s some milestone moment when success is achieved. I’ve never looked at it that way. Instead, I’ve seen it as a journey to experience, with joyful moments to celebrate with others who deserve real recognition.

My mother was a single parent working full-time for decades while raising our family. She would often bring me to her workplaces and give me “important jobs” to do, primarily out of necessity — but I never saw it that way. I loved those days when I could “go to the office with Mom” keep myself quietly busy. Throughout my childhood and teen years, my mother helped instill in me a sense of responsibility, strong work ethic and independence.

My grandmother was my second parent, helping to raise me while still raising the youngest of her six children who, to this day, are more like my older brothers. She was an inspiring person, highly educated at a time when women didn’t typically attend college. My grandmother spoke five languages, and in later life, traveled to almost every country on the map. Above all, she was a consistently graceful, positive, humble, and saintly patient woman.

My husband has been my rock in my adult life. No individual in a marriage can achieve anything without the support of a spouse who unselfishly encourages you to pursue meaningful goals. My unsolicited advice for anyone asking about the key to a healthy, life-long marriage would be: practice unconditional love and commitment, and find the person who, when an opportunity arises for you, personally, says, “Good for you. Now go get it. I’ll be here for you, however you need me.”

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

Early in my career I committed to making the move from my homebase, Philadelphia, to New York City, the center of the advertising world, arguably both then and now. I was working with recruiters who connected me with hiring managers representing major global consumer brands, all which seemed like obvious choices as fantastic career experiences. Instead, I went with the unexpected: accepting a role on a B2B technology team leading Verizon’s ad business at JWT New York. I had an instinct that the experience would be unlike any other, and that the learning and mentorship in that role would fuel my career and place me in front of some truly unique opportunities. My instincts were correct, and all of those things, thankfully, came true.

There was a strategic importance about working in New York City that was hard to replicate. Unlike other markets, New York was an early adopter of science in target marketing, providing marketers access to richer data and information with more dimension in real-time. The industry was embracing the discipline and taking the more strategic role of the business side seriously, which was entirely refreshing. Years later, that is actually what attracted me to Dstillery — the prioritization of data science and predicting the future based on current insights.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

The AdTech industry is at an inflection point. With less data available and fewer addressable users to target, brands are adopting new solutions. In this state of flux, many brand marketers are at risk of wasting time, money, and results trying to reach people with traditional methods, like cookie-based targeting. Meanwhile, Dstillery’s targeting solutions are solving this issue today. Dstillery is the custom audience solutions company empowering brands and their agencies to reach their best prospects for high-performing programmatic advertising campaigns, using our data science-backed AI technology to power precise scalable audiences.

While we’re known for over a decade of data science expertise — with 18 patents and counting — we’re also known for our leadership in the industry-wide transition towards more user privacy. To provide the best targeting solutions for clients, we invented a patented, privacy-by-design targeting technology called ID-free Custom AI®. The solution allows advertisers to reach their best audiences without referencing any individual’s profile, web browsing history, or another identifier. Our technology represents a new category of behavioral targeting that is wholly different from anything else in the market or the privacy sandbox, including all contextual or ID-based technology. AI is used to predict the likelihood of conversion based on privacy-safe signals like URL, DMA and time of day. It is both complementary to user-based targeting and a complete alternative.

In addition to our incredible Data Science Team, Dstillery is also led by our fearless Chief Executive Officer, Michael Beebe, who ensures our healthy company culture stays alive and relevant. Michael’s leadership approach, transparency, and core values keep Dstillers inspired to do our best work day in and day out.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Dstillery recently announced the debut of our newest product, Custom Search Lookalikes. Born from the observation that our access to unique search and retail signals and opt-in panel data from 2M+ people could be combined to create a targeting solution that answers the question, “When people search for a specific phrase, where else do they visit frequently on the internet?” Being able to answer this question makes it easier for brands to identify and target that hard-to-reach consideration audience.

Looking ahead, we are continuing to address the needs and concerns of clients who are working directly in a rapidly evolving AdTech environment, and leading the charge for them as major shifts in the cookieless landscape — including Google’s most recent announcement to deprecate cookies from Chrome in 2024. Through collaboration and keeping a finger on the pulse of what is allowing brands and advertisers to thrive, Dstillery is continuing to innovate — stay tuned for more to come.

Fantastic. Let’s now shift to the main part of our interview about Marketing Trends. As a CMO, you’re at the forefront of the marketing space and leading diverse teams. What resources or tools do you use to you stay abreast of the ever-changing landscape?

To stay informed and ahead of the curve, I religiously refer to the Harvard Business Review, BBC News, and The Wall Street Journal — which I can always rely on for fresh, worldly perspectives. I’m also a huge fan of Finimize, The Hustle, and Marketing Brew. Fast Company is a great resource and a wonderful community, as I am a proud member of their executive board and contributing author. Industry specific trades I enjoy are Adweek, Ad Age, AdExchanger, Digiday and the IAB. Lastly, Brian Wieser’s Madison & Wall is a fantastic resource that serves as a confluence between the finance and marketing worlds — definitely worth a read if you are a leader in the AdTech space!

In your experience, is it possible to forecast upcoming trends? How does this process work? Please share a story.

Author William Gibson once said, “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” We can look at how trends are unfolding in other markets around the world, or even how trends from the past have shaped our future. That said, the dilemma is that it’s human nature, especially in high-pressured, fast-paced circumstances, to strive for concentrated focus. Realistically, that same focus can narrow perspective when it comes to recognizing genuine trends. The investment industry has always impressed me as particularly artful at this, particularly how their best leaders focus on what’s unfolding in other global markets to predict what’s coming next. With access to the right data, you can find the trends, but you also have to know where to look. For example, Dstillery monitors the European markets closely as a forecast for privacy regulations in the US.

In marketing, would you say it’s better to be an early adopter of trends or wait to see if they stick before allocating resources? What are the pros and cons?

It’s important for marketers to keep a constant experimentation headset. The idea is to be confident about testing, learning, and not shying away from potential failure. We’ll never know the solution to a challenge if we don’t put in the muscle work, which includes continuous refinement, testing, and setting a low bar for pursuing new thinking.

What are some of the past trends that you embraced? What results did you see?

First and foremost, embracing the exploding field of technology marketing — an industry that didn’t even exist not too long ago — was a major jump that I was grateful to have had the opportunity to make. The lessons I’ve learned in making that leap have stuck with me throughout my career.

Another trend, the “fractional CMO,” has continued to resonate with me throughout my career after first coming to my attention when I ran a business for nine years. I myself was working as a “fractional CMO,” led by my entrepreneurial spirit and desire for flexibility. In this business, I had partnerships with private equity firms for the ability to be brought into individual portfolio companies at inflection points in their business. Companies of a certain size didn’t have a marketing muscle, however they didn’t want a senior person within their organization long term. Instead, they would hire me as a marketing professional to help them propose a strategic plan, develop a resource approach, build a strategy, understand partners, and determine things like ROI.

Can you share a time when a strategy didn’t deliver the results you expected and what you learned from the experience?

One of the proudest moments in my ad agency career was working on a global merger for a major technology firm which was about to split into two, given changing legislation. For over a year, my team and I strategized, developed creative, invented innovative uses of new media, and planned the launch. On one single launch day, we successfully broke the campaign in 22 countries and eight foreign languages, and even made the front page of The Wall Street Journal’s Marketplace section. Our agency executive team viewed this as the single most important success story and geared up to take the campaign forward on a two-year roadmap.

Unfortunately, due to a sudden restructuring in the client’s C-suite, we were working with new leadership who deemed the launch “complete.” Our agency contract was terminated with 60 days notice. We never saw it coming. Our proudest moment turned into a gut-wrenching disappointment. I learned a major lesson from this experience: my team and I did not have the foresight to ask the right questions. Had we pushed deeper past the campaign to confirm long-term plans, perhaps we would not have been hit as hard. This experience eventually led to my decision to leave the agency business altogether.

What factors should leaders consider before jumping on a trend? Can you please explain what you mean?

The first factor to consider is relevance. When it comes to a hot new trend, always ensure there is a direct relevance to your business — with a preference for adopting trends that drive growth. We are seeing now with the generative AI frenzy that many companies are jumping on the bandwagon, though the trend is less meaningful or tangible if your company has no relevance to it.

The second factor is fit. In other words, when the trend is applied, it must be a good fit for your industry. We’re currently seeing an uptick in cultural movements, sparking brands to lend a voice in support, but if there is no “proof in the pudding,” so to speak, you are lacking fit and risking authenticity. Trendiness for the sake of it won’t go far, and it will be quickly apparent to your clients, partners, and customers.

Here is the main question of our interview. We’d love for you to share your expert insight. What are the top five marketing trends leaders should know about in 2023? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. AI will change everything. As a major theme during the 2023 Cannes Lions, no one can argue that AI is changing the marketing landscape in media, creative, messaging, marketing, writing, concepting, and more. Embrace the change.
2. Agency networks breaking down silos. Agencies are still defined by silos — including public relations agencies, promotion agencies, media agencies and more. The winners of the future will be those agencies that can deliver multiple disciplines to a client for an easier, more integrated experience.
3. Globalization is breaking barriers. In leveraging various technologies, including AI, we have the ability to deal with things like language, multicurrency, multi-regulation and more, at a faster, more seamless rate.
4. Embracing a dispersed workforce. In a post-pandemic corporate environment, not only can we work from anywhere, but we can source talent and partnerships from anywhere. Employees and employers now have the power of flexibility and accessibility that is reshaping the horizon.
5. Higher education and credentialing in marketing. Here’s a trend I’d like to set: Today’s Marketing profession — given its dependency on technology, globalization, and cultural sensitivities — should be on its way to becoming a more credentialed career path. I’ve often observed “marketing malpractice” with negative impact on businesses and the knock-on effect of tarnishing the image of the profession. Just as other professions including medicine, teaching, and law have bars to pass, shouldn’t we require credentialing and continuing education for those in Marketing?

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire 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. :-)

If I won the lottery, I would dedicate my professional time to a complete overhaul of political advertising. Americans need a better understanding of what their candidates stand for when they walk up to the voting booth. This education could so easily start with objective education through advertising. Let’s put an end to the mud-slinging, disparaging, and blatantly negative narratives, and take the opportunity to educate voters to drive better-informed, more transparent decision-making.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Keep up with the latest news from Dstillery at https://dstillery.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/dstillery.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.