EP69: Stop Thinking Small with Meghan Nameth

Marketing isn't a cost centre – it's your greatest growth engine. Drawing on three decades at brands including P&G, Mars, TD Bank, Hudson's Bay and Loblaw, CMA Board Chair and President and Owner of Pattern and Path Consulting, Meghan Nameth joins CMA President and CEO Alison Simpson to make the case. Discover how to tie marketing directly to business outcomes, why most teams have the 80/20 planning rule backwards and the mindset shift Canadian marketers need to compete on a global stage.

CMAConnect-Ep69-MeghanNameth_FINAL.txt English (UK)

00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson.

00:00:23.640 — 00:03:03.100 · Alison In a world where marketing can be wrongly treated as a cost centre instead of a growth engine, transforming that perception requires more than great marketing. It absolutely demands strong business acumen, strategic vision, a deep understanding of consumers and the evolving market realities, and really knowing how to speak the language of business.

For today's episode, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome Meghan Nameth, the newly appointed Chair of the Canadian Marketing Association's Board of Directors and President and Owner of Pattern and Path Consulting. Over three decades, Meghan has built a diverse and very impressive marketing career, working in both Canada and the U.S.

She started at Procter and Gamble, where she learned brand building fundamentals that have served her well throughout her career. After spending almost 11 years with P&G in progressively senior roles in Canada and at their U.S. head office, Meghan moved to Mars. She then expanded beyond CPG with roles in financial services as VP Marketing at TD Bank and Managing Director at PWC Canada.

She was also CMO at Hudson's Bay and the SVP of Marketing at Loblaw. This diverse industry experience further strengthened her marketing and business acumen. Meghan's work has been very well recognized at the Cannes Lion Cassie's, of course, the CMA awards, Cleos, Effies and the Media Innovation Awards. In May 2025, she was appointed Vice Chair of the CMA board, where she led the search for a new President and CEO following my announcement of my retirement, a responsibility that speaks to the trust and respect she commands in the marketing community. Meghan has now stepped into Board Chair role, and I'm really excited to see how she builds on the CMA's strong momentum during her two year term. What makes Meghan's perspective particularly valuable is her conviction that Canadian marketers have untapped potential.

We both share a belief that marketers must think bigger, drive more innovation, and really position themselves not as service providers seeking approval, but as strategic partners co-creating growth. Throughout her career, the CMA has been an anchor, providing the network's learning resources and advocacy platform that have really enabled her to elevate marketing's role in every organization she served.

Welcome, Meghan, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on CMA connect, and I'm really looking forward to your conversation today and celebrating your appointment as Board Chair.

02:41 - Meghan Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm happy to talk about marketing anytime actually.

Alison So our third annual CMA Marketing Week wrapped a bit earlier this month. And I know that you, along with thousands of marketers across the country, took full advantage and really engaged with a number of our events, thought leadership sessions as well as the training sessions. So I'd love to start by having you share your three big takeaways from this year's CMA Marketing Week.

00:03:03.100 — 00:05:59.800 · Meghan It was an amazing week. I feel that these events are in some ways a bit of a reunion. I get to see so many people that I haven't connected with in so long and catch up and learn. And so it's really an amazing opportunity for networking and reconnection. And I think that's probably one of my biggest takeaways is that when I attend these events, I really feel the full value of what the CMA brings in connecting people across industries.

I see people from financial services, from when I worked in retail, CPGs, that I haven't connected with in a long time. So it really is that power of connection and learning what people are doing. So I think that's the biggest takeaway I have, because you can get really heads down in your own day to day job and forget to sort of look up and look around.

And that was kind of one of the biggest values that it brings. Secondly, though, there was a keynote speaker, Tucker Bryant, who talks a lot about how creativity and actually the creative process of poetry can bring value into innovation cycles. And from that, his message was do different things differently.

That really resonated for me because, you know, we talk a lot about AI, and AI was very present throughout the week of how we leverage AI, what AI can do for us. But there is a risk that we go so fast with AI that we forget to really interrogate the ideas, to really think about what's creative, what's different, what's really driving growth for an organization.

And I think his message was really about, you know, we can't all be the same. We should be different. We should be thinking about things differently. And so really thinking about a process to sort of do that inside your organization, I thought was really valuable. And then I think the third takeaway is the impact of marketing.

So there was a study that the CMA did with Signal 49 that really demonstrated or proved, I guess, the value of marketing to the Canadian economy. And so there was some sort of shocking statistics that, you know, $130 billion in GDP, really, 1 in 25 jobs are marketing jobs. This, for me, underscored, I think, what I've known for a long time, which is marketing, has tremendous value to drive growth for organizations, and that's really critical.

It also is the unlock for our productivity challenge in Canada that we can really demonstrate that these companies that we work in, we can help them to grow beyond our borders. And lastly, with the number of people in Canada involved in marketing, how critical the CMA is and our role to sort of really upskill and future proof that sort of function and people involved in the discipline.

So I think that was my takeaway, is the power of connection, doing different things differently and then the impact that marketing can have on productivity.

00:05:59.920 — 00:06:45.120 · Alison Those are such great takeaways and the impact that marketing have now that we've been able to quantify it and really demonstrate that it is foundational, regardless of what sector or industry you're in, marketing is a driver of our economy. To your point, it's a key way that Canada can overcome our productivity issue.

And building on the keynote from Tucker, we are the best served around the executive table to really drive innovation and doing different things differently. Now Meghan, before we dive into your vision for the role as our new Board Chair, can you share a bit about your story? I know you started your career in supply chain at Procter and Gamble, which isn't the typical path into marketing.

So what drew you to this profession and how has that background really influenced your approach to marketing?

00:06:45.240 — 00:08:39.610 · Meghan It definitely is not the typical path forward, but I'm so grateful, actually, that I got a chance to start in supply chain. And and after that, I actually did a really very brief moment in sales as well before moving into brand at P&G. But supply chain really helped me understand the mechanics of an organization.

Like, how does the product actually move from R&D into production and then onto customer shelves and all the challenges that can exist within that system? You know, especially in packaged goods, you can generate demand, but if there's no product on the shelves, it's really it's really sort of like, does a tree fall in the forest?

Will anyone know because they can't buy the product? And so I think really understanding that a strategy or a demand generation plan is only as good as what you can operationalize has sort of really continued on through my whole career. And now as I sit in a more service provider role, what we're working with clients on is not just how do you generate insight, but it's how do you actually take that to a business strategy?

How do you take that into your execution? And so I think that actually has been foundational for me. And how I approach marketing is more as a system. So it's marketing is part of an organization's system for growth. And it's not the only part of the system. And so we have to work across all these different functions to pull them together, to really realize that demand generation and benefit that we create.

I feel really lucky that that's where I started, because I think that was a huge benefit. And I think the other thing was that very early in my career, because of how supply chain organizations are structured, I had very early people management experience and that, you know, has really benefited me in leading teams and helping to like, learn how to unlock the power of the talent on your team.

And I think that was a really great benefit as well.

00:08:40.169 — 00:09:09.060 · Alison That sounds like a great starting point when you think of it. The best marketers have a very deep understanding of all aspects of the business and from a credibility perspective as well, the fact that you know and have worked in the operational side of the business, the fact that you've worked in the sales side of the business, those are such key partners to delivering on the marketing strategy and the marketing initiative.

So I would think that it also helped elevate your credibility across the organization as well. When you did move into a marketing role.

00:09:09.100 — 00:09:39.140 · Meghan Maybe, I mean, I moved to different organizations, so sometimes that doesn't always translate across. But I would say what it gave me is tremendous empathy for those roles. So a lot of times when you sit in one function, you really haven't walked in the shoes of another function. And I think it helped me to say, you know, we're not giving them enough information or we're not collaborating strongly enough or learning what they are up against to be able to influence different outcomes.

And so I think it gave me a lot of empathy for the challenges that exist in other parts of the organization beyond marketing.

00:09:39.180 — 00:09:58.750 · Alison Now, we've talked a bit about your career spanning CPG, financial services and retail, including moving from very marketing-focused organizations to PNG to industries where marketing traditionally has had a bit less emphasis. So what motivated you to make these industry pivots, and what did you learn about leveraging your skills across very different sectors?

00:09:58.830 — 00:12:28.120 · Meghan So many things, we could do an hour just on this, I think. Yeah, I did start my career in CPG and I would say the biggest difference was that they were multinationals. So in most of my time I was in Canada supporting organizations like Mars and P&G that were headquartered out of the U.S. And so Canada, you had to, first of all, you had really big roles.

Like maybe the size of the market wasn't as large, but the breadth of your role was quite large. And so you had to touch a lot of things, even if you couldn't go very deep, you were kind of moving across different elements of the business. And so that was a huge benefit to being in those multinationals. But you're always sort of, you know, working with your North American partners to sort of prove the value of investing in Canada, and you're sometimes adapting more work than you are creating work from scratch or even strategies from scratch.

And so it builds a different muscle in those multinational roles. Moving into financial services, in part, I did it because I wanted to work for a Canadian headquartered company where there was room for career growth, so that was a big part of that move. I wasn't actually sure that my skills would translate into financial services, but I think what I've learned is that the fundamentals of marketing, you know, who are you trying to attract?

Why are you marketing like, are you trying to convert new business, you know, deepen relationships? Those things move across all different industries. From what I've really experienced, the benefit of moving into financial services is how digital those businesses are. That really built out a different muscle for me around digital marketing and the amount of data.

And so I think one of the best things about moving into financial services was I really fell in love with analytics and insight because of how rich the data sets are in financial services, and also the talent that exists in those organizations to really look at new insights from all of that data. And it's kind of the same in retail.

You know, I had the great benefit of working for Loblaws and their PC Optimum portfolio has a tremendous amount of insight because of the breadth of that program. And so I think a lot of what motivated me was the opportunity to have an impact and opportunity to learn something new and experience something.

But I think the skills from each role sort of built on top of each other to help me make an impact in those roles.

00:12:28.160 — 00:12:44.970 · Alison That's a great perspective for everyone in our audience to understand. I worked across very diverse sectors as well. And initially you think, oh, is this going to work or not? But to your point, the fundamentals are absolutely there, and I have a bit of a bias that makes us even stronger marketers when you have to translate them to very different industries.

00:12:45.010 — 00:13:21.450 · Meghan When I think about what gets in the way of a great plan, often it has really nothing to do with understanding the industry, but a lot to do on aligning the pieces of an organization to make choices and move something forward. And that's kind of true across all different industries. If you can get everyone sort of aligned on a direction, making those clear choices a clear point of view and, and execute with excellence, that really works.

But often what disconnects is not understanding the industry. It's often getting the internal alignment.

00:13:21.610 — 00:13:28.650 · Speaker 2 Our ability to influence, for sure. Now you embraced a much more entrepreneurial career path. So what led you to take that plunge?

00:13:28.690 — 00:14:40.940 · Meghan Well, so many things. I would say that the number one thing is, and I talked about it a bit as I talked about TD and the opportunity to work with the insights and analytics team. I really have always loved finding that unique insight that is going to move a business forward. That's been the favourite part of every job I've ever had.

It's, you know, really looking for that unlock from the consumer, from the market, from the business and trying to figure out what is it that's going to move something forward. And so when I thought about what did I want to do next? After my last role, I wasn't sure that I wanted to work in a larger CMO role because I wanted to work on multiple businesses and brands.

I've had, to your point, a lot of different experiences. And I also really wanted to focus on helping organizations find those unlocks. And that's really what we do is we are looking for deep insights that help move an organization forward, and we're really focussed not just on what is the insight, but how does a company take that forward, how do they get aligned, how does their, what are the next steps coming out of that insight? And that part is the part that I love the most. So I'm very happy to be doing this.

00:14:40.940 — 00:14:49.380 · Alison And what was the biggest surprise, moving from the corporate brand side into more, much more entrepreneurial and service side part of the profession?

00:14:49.420 — 00:16:31.550 · Meghan Well, there's a couple of things, and I think one is that it's hard to be a small business. Go from a large corporate organization where you have all these resources and support to, you know, a small business where you have a small team and you're trying to make an impact. So for smaller agencies and organizations, it is tricky.

There's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of things that you need to do that you don't have as many resources to get it done. So that part's challenging. But also, you know, you just build a different muscle. I think the second thing that is maybe surprising is in some cases, we see clients being very disconnected from their customer.

And so I think it's an opportunity for everyone to remember that you need to see and talk to the people that are using your product or service on a somewhat regular basis to stay connected, and I am seeing a lot of people using AI, which is good to be efficient and using data to make decisions. So these are all good things.

But what's missing is that we've, in some cases, lost the human connection, and we're not spending enough time seeing people in real life using the product, observing people in stores and how they're shopping or observing how they're shopping online. I think we're relying a lot on digital tools, which have a limit to what you can really see in terms of human behaviour.

So I think what's an opportunity for everyone is to remind ourselves we can't understand our customer from our desk and to really get out there and see people in real life.

00:16:31.590 — 00:16:50.510 · Alison Great advice. Now, you've also spoken about the importance of marketers connecting their work to the business growth and really helping the C-suite understand the mission critical impact that marketing has on the business. So from your experience leading marketing, where do marketers need to improve in order to get more credibility with the executive team?

00:16:50.550 — 00:17:56.200 · Meghan Yeah, I think there's really nothing worse than a marketer that comes in to a leadership team and says how great the marketing is doing when the business is not doing well. So I think the first thing is, is that all marketers need to operate like leaders of the business and that marketing is a component of success.

And so that's the first thing, is to really recognize the context in which you're operating. So if the business isn't doing well, the marketing campaign might be performing, but something else is not, and everyone needs to be a part of that solution. The second is we have to speak the language of the business, not the language of marketing.

So I very much believe in building brands, but building a brand isn't a business outcome. And so I think we have to sort of start to translate our language into language that the CFO and the CEO are really interested in, creating shareholder value, generating income sources, new revenue streams, and really thinking about it from their lens, not from our own lens.

00:17:56.280 — 00:18:09.800 · Alison So the language is such an important piece of how to do this effectively. So can you share an example of how you've translated marketing strategy into business outcomes that really resonated with the CEO or the board?

00:18:09.840 — 00:19:37.820 · Meghan Yeah, definitely. So we talk a lot about whether marketing is a cost centre or not. I firmly believe that marketing should be really tied to revenue growth, because why would you be marketing if you're not trying to grow? That's really what marketing is designed to do. So one of the things that I did in a previous role is we were able to use and work with some great partners to build a model that helped to show when we market, are we generating profitable sales?

So what is the Ebit contribution to each marketing dollar? And what we agreed with our CFO is that we would spend until that got to a certain threshold, so that we were able to, on an ongoing basis, measure contribution of the marketing and whether or not it was incremental. And then we would stop marketing when it stopped being incremental to the business.

I mean, this was on a somewhat of a small scale. We were testing it before we rolled out, but it proved out to be very successful. And not everyone has access to that kind of data or that kind of performance. But I think what it demonstrates is that marketing should be very tightly tied to contribution. And that's where I think the you get more credibility is when you're willing to stop marketing, when it's not incremental, and you're also able to show how high is up and how big something can be if you continue to to invest in marketing that works.

00:19:37.820 — 00:19:54.980 · Alison That's a really great example. Now your consulting work and being on the service side of our profession gives you quite a unique vantage point. You're now advising organizations instead of operating within them. So what patterns are you seeing across different companies when it comes to how marketing as both positioned and leverage?

00:19:55.180 — 00:21:30.470 · Meghan Yeah, I think one of the things that is I think a myth is that that people don't value marketing. I think every CEO or leadership team that I have spoken to highly values great marketing. They may not think that the current marketing function is operating at its best, or they may not understand the constraints that the marketing team is up against.

But I have not spoken to a CEO or a leadership team that doesn't think marketing's important. So I think that's one thing that marketers should take to heart, is that it's not necessarily that you have to earn a seat at the table. People want you there. They want to know how marketing can make a difference.

And it's really up to us to demonstrate how we can do that for the business in a way that they can understand. So we come back to that, that language. And, you know, I had I was facilitating a session with a marketing organization and people were saying, oh, you know, we're not sure if if people really value us and the conversation we end up having is if a company wants to grow, how would they do it without marketing?

I'm not sure. I mean, they may be able to grow just on a sales team, which is possible, but the sales team will also want marketing support. So I think there's really if companies want to grow, they're going to need marketing support. And so I think we just need to step into that chair, need to step into that role and demonstrate what we can do to support the business in a really meaningful and efficient way.

And so I think we need to take less of a defensive posture and more of a proactive posture.

00:21:30.510 — 00:21:36.270 · Alison Are you seeing any common blind spots that organizations don't realize are really holding back their marketing function?

00:21:36.310 — 00:23:35.960 · Meghan Yeah, definitely. I think in some cases we've done a disservice by silencing different parts of marketing. Like we may push the marketing tech stack over to a technology team that may not have marketing experience. We may have siloed digital e-commerce into one role and then marketing into sort of more of a comms function.

I think marketing is at its best when they can see across a number of different capabilities so that they can more seamlessly connect communication to execution with technology. So I think that that's one area that organizations need to deeply look at is their connectivity across these different silos, and whether or not that's working effectively for them.

I think the second blind spot is, you know, with AI coming in in particular. Everyone thinks it can move really, really quickly. So what's true is that great creativity takes a little bit of time. You know, people really need to deeply find an insight and an unlock and understand the business challenge.

And so when I was in product supply, we had a rule that you should spend 80% of your time planning and 20% of your time executing, because if you have a great plan, your execution is pretty seamless. But I see today most people are spending 20% of their time planning, if that, and 80% of their time trying to execute so many different things that I think were off balance.

So I wish leadership teams would take a minute, do the offsite, spend some time planning what they want, what they need, what each function needs to contribute, how they want their customer experience to deliver. You know, all the different great strategic planning that we know makes a difference, because that would enable the whole organization to actually go faster in that execution.

And we would remove maybe that layer of suboptimal execution that we see, get out the door and or tactical things that people are spending a lot of time on, but might not be making a big difference.

00:23:35.960 — 00:23:44.800 · Alison It's such a great point, because when you're under stress for driving results, when you're short on time, it is hard to resist the urge to move to tactics.

00:23:44.800 — 00:23:45.640 · Meghan Just do do do.

00:23:45.680 — 00:24:14.600 · Alison Yeah, yeah. But to your point, you end up spinning wheels and wasting a lot more time on the tactics and getting them right than you could have saved if you spent a little bit more time up front getting the alignment, making sure the strategic focus was solid, and committed to you by the organization before you moved into tactics, for sure.

Now I'm going to switch gears a little bit. You have been an active member for the CMA for many years, so a huge thank you for that, and I'd love to hear what led to your active involvement and how have you benefited?

00:24:14.600 — 00:26:32.620 · Meghan I think the first time I went to a CMA event actually, was when I came back to Canada from the U.S. and I had gone to the CMA Awards, and I, I very much remember feeling this huge sense of community that I didn't really know existed because I had been connected to my organization at the time. I was at Mars, and I felt really good about my network there, but I realized there was this whole other world of people facing some of the same challenges I was facing and understanding the world I lived in, and that that was really meaningful.

And so that's when I started to get involved and really enjoyed the events. And every time I would take the time to come to a CMA event, I would realize again and again what that connectivity brings in meeting new people, hearing what they're working on, hearing the challenges, getting access to new insights or, you know, some of the policy work that the CMA does.

Those things are very, very helpful. And I think they're a bit of an untapped resource for many people. So that's really what inspired my involvement. You know, I've been lucky enough to be a member of a Council. I have been on different committees and now sitting on the Board, and I think that continues the connectivity across the vendors, across a different agencies.

It's the breadth of experiences people have. If I have a question about sponsorship, there are, you know, easily 4 or 5 people I can call to get insight if I'm, you know, concerned about how do we implement an AI policy. There is one ready for me to look at as a starting point. And so I think that's really been the benefit of the CMA for me is that connections, the connectivity, the resources, and for my teams.

You know, when I was at a couple different organizations where we didn't have built in marketing training, the benefit of being able to leverage the CMA course catalogue to help augment people's personal development was really helpful, and then my organization didn't have to build our own marketing training.

We were able to really just tap into what already existed and that that was meaningful. Certainly for the people that worked in my teams.

00:26:32.660 — 00:26:51.460 · Alison And in some of our earlier conversations, you also mentioned that the CMA served as a bridge to connect you with leaders across other industries. So can you share a bit about how the association supported you as you've navigated your career across from CPG to retail to financial services, and now to the entrepreneurial path that you're on?

00:26:51.500 — 00:27:58.110 · Meghan Yeah, again, I think it's always about the people that you're connected to. And in some cases when you work in one organization, you only are talking to the people that you work with. So people inside your organization, vendors or agencies that you work with and so you don't get the opportunity to meet those that are outside your circle unless you really go out and look for it.

So it's been a really great opportunity for me to hear from other client partners. So when I was sitting in a CMO chair, you know, speaking to other CMOs, what are they working on? What are they finding successful in different challenges? And then I think, secondly, now as an entrepreneur, it's really wonderful to have the different councils and some of the white papers and the thought leadership that they produce allows us to stay on top of what's happening in the industry, what's happening across different elements of the industry.

And so I think that's been very meaningful for me my career.

00:27:58.110 — 00:28:24.360 · Alison And you're sure we are incredibly fortunate to have an incredible calibre of leaders, certainly on the CMA Board and also across our CMA committees and councils and the thought leadership that they helped generate is a really powerful resource for everyone that's a member and part of our marketing community.

So what has working alongside these industry leaders taught you, and what industry insights or trends have most resonated with you from those conversations?

00:28:24.400 — 00:29:48.160 · Meghan Yeah, one of the things would be public affairs. The Public Affairs Committee is, first of all, a very well-run committee. They're the ones that helped to spearhead the marketing impact report, and they have skill sets that I haven't had as much exposure to working with government, talking about policy and self-regulation.

And those things are areas that I haven't had as much experience with. So I get a lot of value out of hearing from that group and hearing their perspective on different issues like privacy and AI, that I wouldn't have considered from this seat that I have been in. And so that's always meaningful to me, is hearing a perspective that's completely different from my own.

It really helps to sort of elevate my thinking. I would also say the leadership on the Board is incredible. So these are some of the strongest leaders in Canada, and they're across different industries. So it can be financial services, it's agency world, it's CPG, it's analytics. There's so many differences that are represented.

And the challenges that they're facing are sometimes similar and sometimes really different. And so it always gives me a person that I can call if there is something that I would like a different perspective on. And yeah, it just brings a lot of diversity of thought to the table. So we're very lucky now.

00:29:48.160 — 00:30:31.690 · Alison It's also a really exciting time for the CMA. Our talented new President and CEO, Esther, officially joined us in March. And thank you so much for leading the recruitment process for that. I know we had a wonderful outpouring of very senior leaders from across the country raised their hand for the role, and it was wonderful to see Esther emerge as the unanimous choice.

And she is certainly off to a brilliant start. Now you're stepping into the Board Chair role. So we've got such a wonderful opportunity with two talented new voices to really lead us into the future. So I know our listeners are very curious to hear a bit about your vision for the CMA, and what do you really hope to champion and prioritize during your tenure?

00:30:31.850 — 00:31:43.420 · Meghan Yes, so I think Esther is a wonderful choice. And actually I think I need to say thank you to you, Alison, because what you have done in the last few years at the CMA is what what made it so easy to lead a search for the CMA. So I think you've really elevated what the CMA can do for the marketing profession. And that made it an attractive role for so many.

So I actually think it's due to you that we are in this very fortunate position. And in terms of the vision for the CMA, for the future, I would say Esther and I are very aligned that marketing has a huge potential to support the growth of the Canadian economy. And so our focus is going to be on how do we need to support the industry to really accelerate that impact, and whether that is going to be learning and how we do that, or whether that's going to be advocacy or more community focused initiatives, we are very aligned that the CMA is here to help future-proof the industry and to help really accelerate the impact on the Canadian economy and help marketers be equipped to do that in the best way possible.

00:31:43.420 — 00:32:03.060 · Alison And part of that is really helping Canadian marketers to think bigger, to drive innovation, to be really proud of the mission critical role that we have to really recognize that there's a lot of untapped potential in our industry. So where do you see some of the biggest opportunities for Canadian marketing and marketers to raise our game?

00:32:03.340 — 00:33:11.350 · Meghan We need to be bold. So I would say that that is one of the biggest things we need to start to be bold and think really big. I was very inspired by a conversation I had with the team at Bell Media around how they've made Heated Rivalry such a global success, and that was a risk. And it was a risk in two ways. I think one thing it could have been a risk that that kind of show doesn't see the light of day, that someone doesn't greenlight that project, that someone doesn't distribute it effectively, that it doesn't get the platform that it could have deserved.

And so I think kudos to them for not just making the show, but making it a huge success by thinking boldly about how can this be a global phenomenon? And that's what I think Canadian marketers need to do, is instead of thinking about, how do I make this a little bit better than last year, it's how do I make this a global phenomenon?

That is, you know, second to none. There's no reason that we can't have our companies and our brands sit on a global stage. And I think we can we can be bold. We have that opportunity.

00:33:11.470 — 00:33:27.950 · Alison You're absolutely right. It is long overdue time to retire the humble Canadian thing that we are so proud of and absolutely come out to be proud of the boldness and the seats that we all deserve, both nationally but on a global stage as well. I love your Heated Rivalry example of that.

00:33:27.990 — 00:33:32.750 · Meghan Well, thanks to Bell for that, because that certainly has nothing to do with me, but very impressive. Very impressive.

00:33:33.510 — 00:34:00.720 · Alison Oh, it's definitely an inspiring example of what we can do when we approach opportunities like that with the boldness that we should do. So I have the pleasure of hosting very senior people as guests on the podcast, so I always end each episode by asking you to share one piece of career advice for our listeners who aspire to follow in your footsteps.

Now, given you've got quite a unique journey across industries into board leadership, I'm very excited to hear the piece of wisdom that you're going to share.

00:34:00.760 — 00:34:32.480 · Meghan I wish I could say more than one, but I think the biggest thing that I would say is to say yes. So I think one of the things that has helped me in my career is being willing to say yes to opportunity, to say yes to the job, say yes to the next project, to the challenge. And I think saying yes was part of what has enabled me to move across.

So I think a lot of people might have said no to moving from, you know, chocolate marketing to insurance. Or they might have said no to, you know, moving to the U.S. or trying to move into insights and analytics. And all of these moves have been so helpful and have built on new skills. And so I would say for those that are starting out in their career, say yes to that next opportunity. Really look to build a portfolio of experiences that are going to help to drive you forward, because that's that's what I think has helped me the most is the breadth of experiences and the, um, you know, the different experiences.

So my advice would be to say yes to this.

00:35:05.120 — 00:35:27.800 · Alison Well, that is great advice. And on behalf of the CMA and our marketing community, thank you so much for saying yes to coming to your first CMA event years ago, saying yes to your first Council, to joining the Board, and now saying yes to becoming our Board Chair. I'm really excited for how bright the future is for the CMA under your leadership.

So a huge thank you and thanks for a great conversation.

00:35:27.800 — 00:35:32.160 · Meghan Thank you. I'm very honoured to be part of the team. So thanks.

00:35:34.560 — 00:35:47.520 · Presenter Thanks for joining us. Be sure to visit theCMA.ca and sign up for your free my CMA account. It's a great way to stay connected and benefit from the latest marketing thought leadership, news and industry trends.