How to Succeed in a New Era of Marketing with Raja Rajamannar of Mastercard

Raja Rajamannar is a true giant in the field of marketing. President of the World Federation of Advertising and CMO of Mastercard since 2013, Raja argues that there is no such thing as brand loyalty. Raja warns marketers not to mistake consumers liking your brand for consumer loyalty to it. What marketers confuse for brand loyalty is merely brand stickiness. Marketers need to understand the true drivers for customer choices in order to leverage them and encourage stickiness.

Raja shares his advice for marketers just getting started building their careers. The most important thing is trying to stay ahead of the curve - grounded in commercial realities. The second thing is to have formal internal and external mentors. Third thing is networking, both internally and externally. All of this is facilitated by a strong work ethic, dependability and know-how.

If he could start over from the beginning, Raja would spend a lot more time learning about technology and consulting, where marketers gain exposure to multiple industries at once and thus huge amounts of learning. 

Raja’s advice for marketers: 

1. Learn: Dedicate time and effort to learning and staying on top of things around them
2. Broaden: you should have multi-industry experiences
3. Broaden: If you’re in the US, leave! Don’t restrict yourself to your surroundings.
4. Broaden: Don’t stay put  in marketing. Stints in sales, finance, technology, data will help you understand your role. You have to be a general manager with deep marketing expertise.

To learn more about Raja’s industry-shaping ideas, check out in his latest book, Quantum Marketing. 

Scratch is a production of Rival, a marketing innovation consultancy that develops strategies and capabilities that help businesses grow faster. Today's episode was produced by Leanne Kilroy and hosted by Eric Fulwiler. 

Find Rival online at www.wearerival.com, LinkedIn, Twitter. 

Find Eric on LinkedIn and tweet him @efulwiler.

Say hi at [email protected], we’d love to hear from you. 

Rival is a marketing consultancy for brands that want to challenge convention in their category. We’re on a mission to understand what challenger brands do differently to grow in categories that are being disrupted, and use a challenger playbook to deliver outsized impact through an integrated, tech-enabled approach. Past guests include CMOs from Mastercard, GE, Shell, Hyperloop, Adobe, PepsiCo, and Papa Johns.

If you’re interested in learning more about marketing from successful CMOs, we compiled a list of the top 5 CMO podcasts to listen to in 2024; check it out here 🔗  https://www.wearerival.com/content-hub-articles/cmo-podcasts-you-cannot-afford-to-miss-in-2024