Doug Zarkin has spent his career helping brands deliver experiences that make them impossible to ignore. His book, Moving Your Brand Out of The Friend Zone, offers a master class on nuanced strategies that elevate the brand beyond surface-level connections to deeper, more engaged customer relationships. He joined host Mike Berberich to discuss how brands can empower frontline customer service employees to make empathetic choices when dealing with unhappy customers, what many brands get wrong in their approach to customer service, and how to communicate the importance of quality customer interactions at every touchpoint to the C-suite.

On “Marketing News You Might Have Missed,” Mike and show producer Ryan Dinger discussed a PQ Media report that suggests media might be facing an extinction level event and hypothesized what brands might do to succeed should traditional and digital media no longer be the boon for marketing that it once was.

Don’t miss your chance to attend marketing’s premier annual event! Check out the agenda and register for the 2025 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference by visiting www.ana.net/masters.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

USAA has been putting on a clinic when it comes to PR and marketing collaboration. In this episode, USAA CMO Francesco Lagutaine and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Lindsey O’Neill joined the show to give listeners an inside look at what the secret to their success is, especially when so many brands are falling short on getting marketing and PR in sync. Along with host Mike Berberich, the duo discussed the origins of the marketing-PR disconnect, how middle managers and associates can affect upward cultural change, and the brand’s annual Army Navy Game activation, which is a masterclass in communications execution.

On “This Week in ANA Magazine,” IBM’s new large language model tool, dubbed “Brand Brain,” is raising some eyebrows, but it might be a bellwether for some very powerful AI-powered applications that will soon be added to the marketer’s toolbelt.

If you’re an ANA member who wants to learn more about how to get the most out of your membership, you can register for the complimentary “Unlocking the Power of ANA Membership” webinar by visiting www.ana.net/mem-webinar.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

Anne Bahr Thompson is an accomplished author and a brand purpose pioneer. In her book, Do Good: Embracing Brand Citizenship to Fuel Both Purpose and Profit, she deftly laid out the case for purpose and provided valuable insights for how brands can better execute on it. She joined host Mike Berberich in the ANA Studio to discuss how brands are currently failing to meet the moment on the purpose front. The pair discussed how brands are coming up short, practical advice for marketers to navigate the current social climate, and a few brands Anne believes are excelling with purpose right now.

On “Marketing News You Might Have Missed,” Mike and show producer Ryan Dinger discussed research that shows most consumers will abandon a brand after just two negative experiences.

If you're an ANA Member, you can learn about the cornucopia of "MemBens" (Member Benefits for the uninitiated) at www.ana.net/mem-webinar

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

Rich Antoniello has been making waves in the music industry for the last 20 years. But his latest venture with UPROXX Studios might just upend the way marketers think about branded content and music entirely. He joined host Mike Berberich to discuss all things marketing and music, including why many brands seem to get it wrong when it comes to working with musicians, how unexpected partnerships might be a powerful way forward, and what the future of IP looks like in branded content. The pair also looked at an activation UPROXX did with Qualcomm and popular electronic music duo ODESZA, which left attendees literally crying tears of joy.

On “This Week in ANA Magazine,” editor Matthew Schwartz joined the show to discuss a new story on what might be a disturbing new trend: fractional CMOs. Find out what they are and what their rapid adoption might mean for the industry going forward.

To learn more about the 2025 ANA Digital and Social Media Conference, explore the agenda, and register, visit www.ana.net/2025digital.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

As the founder of MLA Consulting, Maarten Albarda is a bit like a doctor for brands. He’s looking beyond the surface-level symptoms that slow down the marketing practice and aiming to get to the root cause of disorganization and inefficiency. He joined host Mike Berberich to discuss his approach for “diagnosing” the issues hampering his clients and dove into the steps he then takes to make their marketing organization run more smoothly. The pair also discussed the most common barriers to efficiency among marketing teams and their partners and approaches for measuring the “how” of marketing.

On Scope producer Ryan Dinger also joined the show to share an exciting update and to discuss a new “rule” for listeners.

To check out the full agenda and register for the 2025 ANA In-House Agency Conference, presented by Monday.com, visit www.ana.net/2025in-house.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

Liberty Mutual CMO Jenna Lebel and Bandits & Friends Founder and Co-Chief Creative Officer Danny Gonzalez joined the show to discuss why insurance brands seem to be so good at humor while other brands kind of suck at it. Along with host Mike Berberich, the trio opined on where most brands go wrong when it comes to crafting humorous creative, what the process of character development and world building looks like at Liberty Mutual, how the brand has used pop culture to amplify its more traditional advertising efforts, and what it takes to write an effective jingle.

On “This Week in ANA Magazine,” Matthew Schwartz discussed a new story examining what might happen with marketing to gen Z if the TikTok ban goes through. He outlined some new strategies brands might consider and highlighted the “Tik-Tok-ification” of media, a term that describes how the video-sharing app has fundamentally changed audiences’ expectations for content, regardless of whether the ban is upheld or not.

To check out the wealth of proprietary research, tools, and great content available from the ANA, visit www.ana.net/mkc.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

Corey Elliott, EVP of local market intelligence at Borrell Associates Inc., joined host Mike Berberich for a lively discussion on all things small business. The duo covered how small business marketing strategies have evolved in the digital age, the consequences of over-indexing on social media, the perils of striving for instant gratification, and how artificial intelligence fits into small- and medium-sized business building.

On “This week in ANA Magazine,” editor Matthew Schwartz highlighted a new article on the history of brand spokescharacters and how these lovable personalities might provide unrealized benefits for B2B brands, sharing some examples of brands who have already deployed them with success.

To learn more about the ANA’s lineup of stellar national industry conferences, visit www.ana.net/conferences.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at onscope@ana.net.

The rise in use and importance of first-party data has made data clean rooms a true marketing imperative. On this episode of On Scope, Devon DeBlasio, VP of product at InfoSum, joined host Mike Berberich to cover this increasingly important technology, outlining what data clean rooms are and what their ideal state looks like. The pair covered the necessary mental approach for companies deciding how to leverage clean rooms, what partner collaboration might look like, case studies from brands who have used clean rooms with great success, and key watchouts for marketers.

On Marketing News You Might Have Missed, Mike and show producer Ryan Dinger discussed an interesting filing in which CPG giant Coca-Cola indicated that the company is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to DEI rollbacks, caught between knowing that eliminating these programs will negatively affect its business but also not wanting to reap the wrath of the current administration by failing to comply with new recommendations.

Download the ANA’s Ultimate Playbook for Data Clean Rooms and find more information on responsible data use that drives growth while protecting consumer privacy at ana.net/data.

The On Scope team would love to hear from you! If you have a topic or guest idea for the show, you can email us at