Driving Change With Erin Clift, CMO of Waze
Erin Clift on marketing with empathy and the unexpected ways that working remotely is bringing her team closer together.
Driving Change explores how leaders at Waze balance big picture innovation with day-to-day challenges.
We caught up with Waze CMO Erin Clift to find out more about her role, how she finds inspiration from the Waze community, and the unexpected ways that working remotely is bringing her team closer together.
What it means to be the CMO of Waze:
I considered myself a Waze power user before coming here. Then I quickly realized how little I knew about Waze and what made it so great: the Community behind it.
From their daily drives to our volunteer Map Editors who share input directly with our team and keep the map up to date, each member of our Community helps build and improve Waze. Because we have such passionate users and have built relationships with them over the years, their excitement matters tremendously to us, and their concerns matter just as much.
That’s why I like to think of our team as being the champion of our users. Every single person on my team needs to think about the motivations, values, and behaviors of our Community so we can build programs and content that meets their needs, and celebrates in their triumphs. Being able to tell their stories and to experience Waze through their eyes is one of the most powerful things that we’ve done.
Leading during a crisis:
I’m still learning how to lead effectively during this time, and I think it’s important to talk about that openly. You have to be honest and a bit vulnerable about your own experiences. Everyone is going through something different. My team certainly knows times when I’ve struggled and needed to step away, and I encourage them to do the same.
Of course, having my gorgeous chocolate lab Bailey around helps. I also don’t have an office where I am right now, but I’ve found that I like all the moving around. It keeps me focused and awake.
Our team works from all over the world, so we really make an effort to come together. Before quarantine, we did a lot of traveling, went on offsites together, and had team dinners. Now we workout twice a week together virtually. We have happy hours. We do trivia games. Part of my typical routine right now looks a little bit as if I were a summer camp director — and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s really important to create personal connections and build a culture that’s motivating, inspiring, and fun. And now that we’re all separated and isolated, this is more important than ever, and you have to work harder to create that.
There’ve been unexpected benefits, too. At Waze, our culture used to be shaped by which office you worked out of, or which team you were on. Now, we have all these thematic chat rooms. There’s one for healthy cooking and one for sharing must-read articles. We’re meeting people for the first time, or getting to know others in a different way. And I love that.
The role of brands during a crisis:
Brands should be authentic in the value they can deliver. This is not a one-off thing. You have to be able to see it through, and you’ve got to keep following up with it. Especially during a global pandemic, my expectation of brands is very high. Brands need to set an example for everyone who follows them.
And when it comes to understanding how to use your strengths, I’m super proud of Waze. We’re really, really good in a crisis because of our Community. Throughout the pandemic, our volunteer Map Editors have helped us add testing centers and food banks to the map, and they continue to give us the information we need. For the Community, stepping up to help isn’t a new thing. It’s always been the case and it’s always been incredible.
But you also have to know when to pull back. We don’t want to offer things that aren’t helpful. We want to make sure that people are aware of what’s happening and what they need to know. And, frankly, we’re not pushing anything else. We paused more things than we put out into the world. In the end, the goal here wasn’t a business goal. The goal was to help people around the globe.
How to market with empathy:
For me, marketing with empathy starts with grounding everything we do in the context of what it means to our users’ lives. Getting caught in traffic, being late, rushing around. The stress and the anxiety. The cost and the time lost. It’s something we can all relate to. But everyone relates to it differently.
A lot of brands talk about saving people time and money. But what does that really mean in the context of a person’s life? It may mean getting home in time to see your kids before they go to sleep, or having some extra money to put toward picking up an exciting hobby. That’s what matters. We try to keep that in perspective and let that guide our strategy — from the way we build our product to the way we share it in our marketing.
There’s a lot of talk about being user-centric and listening to your customers. But you’ve got to actually build the platforms. We’ve created many, including forums and events, to give our Community a chance to share their thoughts directly with us and each other. For example, we have online carpool forums around the world so people can talk about what’s challenging them, their commute, and the product.
And finally, we build empathy for each other. We spend time getting to know each other both as professionals and as people. It makes things fun and helps us do better work. I’m not an engineer, but now I have a better understanding of their challenges and how long things take, and that’s important when you’re leading a team.
Simply put, we often think about empathy as what to say or not say…but I think it’s what you do that matters most.
What everyone should know about working at Waze:
Waze operates like a super scrappy startup. Our team is a collection of people from around the globe who bring different experiences, skills and perspectives to their roles but come together around our shared mission and passion. We’re ambitious and we’re led by someone who encourages us to take risks and put things out there.
And we’re not just part of Waze. We are all users of Waze. So we share in the joys and struggles and burdens of everyone who uses Waze. We all come to work excited that we get to be part of something much bigger than our roles.
We are trying to do something that can bring a real value — whether it’s physical or emotional or social or economic — to people, to communities, and to the world around us. Not a lot of brands get to do that right now, so we feel lucky.
What three things are always on your desk? A big bottle (reusable, of course) of water — I drink a ridiculous amount of water every day. Post-it Notes, because if I don’t write it down, I often don’t do it, and sometimes the best way I can organize myself is with a series of colorful Post-its. My phone.
What is your biggest pet peeve on the road? The constant lane-changers.
What is your favorite thing to listen to in the car? If I’m alone in the car and I’m headed somewhere like the beach, the Spotify playlist that I’d listen to would have a mix of classic rock like Zeppelin, maybe some singalong pop numbers from Pink, and then whatever my daughter’s listening to, because it makes me feel relevant.
How would you describe Waze in three words? Community, helpful, playful.
Which Mood do you relate to the most? Normally I would say Speedy because I feel like I’m always over-scheduled and running around trying to get it all done. But in 2020, I think I’m going to go with the Proud Mood.
