'Put your neck out there': Former CMO turned CEO Ben Foo on why marketing must lead

Marketers who walk into the boardroom armed with reach and frequency are speaking the wrong language, said former marketer turned CEO Ben Foo, who runs Woodpeckers Group. Woodpeckers Group currently operates brands such as llaollao, Shae.co and ChaTraMue in Malaysia. Foo added that marketing teams that cannot tie their metrics to money will lose the argument with the CFO.

A former marketer himself who had been CMO at Taylor’s Education Group for over nine years, Foo said he is also "very hard" on his own marketing team. Foo adviced audiences during a fireside chat at Digital Marketing Asia Malaysia, "Don't tell me about reach. Don't tell me about frequency. Just speak the language of finance."

For Foo, who had to trade his marketing instincts to wear the CEO hat, the stakes are about where marketing sits in the business. "I want marketing to always be in position as the driver of the business," he said, noting that in some companies the function is seen only as support. 

You've got to equate your reach and your frequency and your engagement to dollars.

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When asked how marketers can convince traditionally minded management to invest in experimental areas, he said case studies help, but it all boils down to conviction in your idea. That doesn't mean marketers need to always get it right 100% but they must be willing to have conviction to try and take on accountability when a bold idea doesn't work.

"You got to put your neck out there. You're willing to be wrong and spend the money and not get the results. You're willing to do that. And if I see that conviction as a CEO, I will back you up because you're all in," said Foo adding that his job as CEO is to make room for that risk-taking.

"My job as CEO is to create the environment and culture to say, okay, we are okay to experiment and fail as long as we quickly learn and try again. But I always want to see the passion. Otherwise, marketing becomes a support function. You have got to be a driver. To be a driver, you got to put your neck up there," he said.

Giving the audience full of marketers a dose of reality check, Foo added that marketers are always going to be scrutinised and will never really be the "most favored person" in the room. "When things go well, you're also not the favorite person in the room. And when things go bad, you're also not the favourite person in the room. You need to wrap your head around the fact that you are always under scrutiny. So even if things don't happen as you plan, roll with it and find your next win," said Foo.

Elaborating his point on wins further, Foo also added that gaining organisational trust comes through a string of small wins - not always big ones - and communicating those wins. "Celebrate and communicate the small wins. You don't always need to wait for a big win to shoutout. Start small and build credibility. You just need a few small wins to begin building the trust," he said.

AI behind the scenes, people at the counter

On AI, Foo said that the F&B business is not yet at the same maturity level of larger corporations with large tech stacks. Currently use of AI is mainly through agency partners for media planning and buying, with some digital creatives partly AI-generated, and for competitor and pricing analysis and recipe development.

"We use AI in the backend and for behind the scenes testing and learning. We won't use AI when it comes to customer facing because as a F&B business, it is all about the human experience for us," he said.

On the digital side, Woodpeckers is exploring conversational commerce through WhatsApp instead of building an app, accepting that this will result in relinquishing of gathering some first-party data in the short term. But the tradeoff is one Woodpeckers is cognizant of. "We want to be where consumers are," he said.

How to go from marketer to CEO 

For marketers who want to climb the ladder and take on the role of a CEO one day, Foo’s advice is threefold. 

“Number one, you need to make sure you always drive the agenda and not don't wait for him or her to hand a task to you. If I know the business problem, I will run to it and own it. I will drive the agenda.” 

To Foo, driving the agenda means incessantly informing the CEO about the challenges, your objectives, and what you’re doing to achieve it. 

Secondly, you must run towards the crisis.  “You’ve got to be the first person to run to the crisis because in a crisis, you expose yourself to risk,” he said. “Don't be afraid of crisis. Run to it and be the person to try and solve it.” 

Above all, Foo believes it’s key to be a good communicator. And that doesn’t just mean speaking well but knowing who you’re talking to and adjusting accordingly. You have to speak to your CFO, supplier, and HR person in different ways. 

“Speak at their level in their language,” Foo says. “Because nobody is going to hire a CMO to be CEO if you are always fighting your CFO. And I'm not saying don't disagree with the CFO, but you must always agree with the problem statement you are both fighting to solve. You're fighting the same problem.” 

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