Humanizing Marketing in a Data-Driven World

Welcome to Episode 11 of the Breaking Through the Mayhem podcast, where we explore marketing and advertising in a time of constantly shifting risk and opportunity.

Brought to you by Sightly, our goal is to share the insights of industry leaders from brands, agencies, publishers, and partners as they discuss the challenges and possibilities emerging from the ever-shifting media landscape, such as real-time marketing, brand safety and purpose, influencers, cancel culture, data privacy, technology and more.

Today's guest is Jacqueline Leng.

Jacqueline, the SVP of Global Client Solutions at IPG, is a seasoned sales and marketing professional with over 20 years of experience in data, adtech, and martech. Beginning her career in San Francisco, she has thrived in both start-ups like Vibrant and MaxPoint (now Valassis) and large media companies such as Oracle and Yahoo. With a significant stint in London, she has navigated diverse markets across EMEA, MENA, and APAC.

Formerly a Senior Agency Development Lead at Oracle Advertising, Jacqueline focused on expanding revenue and partnerships for Oracle's agency portfolio. In her current role at IPG, she collaborates with their agencies to support clients, emphasizing data-driven solutions. Her adaptability and knack for problem-solving make her a vital resource in the ever-evolving landscape of advertising technology.

In this episode, Michele and Jacqueline discuss the delicate balance between data-driven strategies and human interaction. Jacqueline shares insights from her impactful journey in the ad tech and media world, emphasizing her expertise in building Customer Advisory Boards (CABs). They delve into the art of harmonizing data insights with intuitive decision-making and highlight diverse opportunities for companies in the tech, agency, and brand sector.

TRANSCRIPT
The Breaking Through the Mayhem podcast - Episode 11
Title: Connecting with Consumers: Balancing Data and Humanity
Host: Michele Ching, VP Sales at Sightly
Guest: Jacqueline Leng, SVP Global Client Solutions
Recorded on October 6th, 2023

Michele Ching
Jackie Leng, SVP of Global Client Solution at IPG, welcome to our podcast.

Jacqueline Leng
Thank you. Great to be here, Michele

Michele Ching
I'm so excited to be getting to connect with you in this way because folks who are listening don't know we're actually friends, outside of the industry that we’re both in, so getting to feature somebody that you actually know personally, it’s like a true joy.

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah, I'm thrilled. And I think I have to be thankful for our connections through Chief. And I think it was the API event that you really organized. And I just remember sitting in the Chief office in L.A. and clubhouse in L.A. and you're typing away, putting great ideas together and you have this great activation around API month for all of these different Chief club houses across the country.

And we were even ambitious trying to include the UK, but ended up focusing on the US. It was such a great activation and brought a lot of people to the clubhouse and got us this sense of community going and I just spent some time with one of the API vendors from that event last night. Just sitting at the Chief clubhouse with piano playing and just great conversation. Such lovely connections.

Michele Ching
Oh, amazing. So amazing. Yeah. No, and I got to say, that was such an adventure. And what an incredible ride. And specifically it was you, if I remember correctly, who kind of gave me the nudge to do it. I was just spitballing ideas. And Jackie, you were specifically like Michele, you should do that. I’ll totally support it. Of course I will absolutely activate this for us in San Francisco.

And then I feel like that little bit of courage gave me the courage to actually bring it to the Chief community. Where the head of DEI and impact at Chief Trey Boynton, she specifically fed her feedback on the whole experience, was setting the bar. She was so grateful for the work that we got to collaborate on together, as am I.

But before we dive into all the cool stuff that you and I have done, you know, in our advocacy journey, I want us to tell the audience a little bit about your personal journey as a professional in the Ad tech and media business, so tell us a little bit about you.

Jacqueline Leng
Sure, sure, and I'll go back a little bit because I studied finance and marketing in college and that was during the time where the .com boom was happening in San Francisco. I went to the University of San Francisco. It was just this great vibrancy and energy around advertising and the technology behind it. And at just the start of all and for me as a college grad doing internship, this was a great exposure and I sort of always had this drawn to be in ad sells and that's the journey that sort of led me from San Francisco to New York, working with various layers of technology within the adtech space from a sales standpoint and selling to agencies and sometimes clients direct.

And it ultimately, you know I think New York was that Madison Avenue moment that there were quite a few years six seven years and had the opportunity to start a London office, with one of the startup companies I was with, Max Point, which was substinley acquired. But it's been a great journey and I'm now back in the Bay Area.

I'm on the agency side. Before joining IPG, I was actually with Oracle on their advertising side and the data cloud side. That was the opportunity that moved me from London back to the Bay Area. You know, being the right show headquarters. But I would say it's been a great journey, just sort of seeing the adtech industry evolve. You know, we've talked about that extensively as we got to know each other through Chief.

And I think the evolution has been an interesting journey. But there's a little bit of this maturity point where the industry and I think we're at that point in terms of, you know, to the name of this podcast, how do you break through the mayhem and watch this disruption and challenges for the industry look like?

Michele Ching
Absolutely. And I feel like that is actually how we initially connected. If I'm remembering correctly, it was through Chief but one of the ad tech and marketing meetups where I heard you actually speak about and we'll get into this a little bit later, but I heard you speak about your personal journey as a thought leader in the industry, paving the way for new technologies.

And so, I mean, I'm just so grateful that we're going to get to hear the inside scoop on what this journey has been like for you and the experiences and expertise you can share with our listeners.

But before we jump all the way into that, I wanted to just make a quick pit stop and ask you, cause it’s our origin story of how we connected. What is your experience with the work that we've been doing over at Chief and the Asian Pacific Islander Group? And like how has that actually enhanced your career so far and your work with, you know, creating a community around this industry, maybe even overall?

Jacqueline Leng
That's a great question and thank you for asking that. And then I feel like, you know, it's this journey of development and I would say it's about leadership development. I think we're at this point in our career where, you know, there's people you work with, people you manage, and being able to pass a quick turnaround.
I think it was literally less than a month in terms of having an API then in the month of May and connecting with our partners, bringing people to the Chief clubhouse, getting the word out, having a panel, and then there's a lot of details that happens and it's reflective of their daily lives, professional lives that we’re in, you know, things is always going to come out.

There's different priorities that's going to play at you. The what's the common goal is getting the events put together and having everybody working on different parts aligned to a common goal that you're driving towards. And it's really sort of building sort of that leadership skill set. And I'm at a current point in my career where I get to work with a lot of different people.

But it's having the right influence, too. You know, there's no direct report. I can't tell you what to do. And even with direct reports, you can't really tell them what to do. So what's the way to understand where they're coming from and meeting them where they're at and bringing them along the journey to get to that common goal together.

So I would say through Chief, it's been a great experience and also working with you and learning from a lot of intelligent women, on leadership development, and hearing about the different challenges and knowing that whatever you're going through, you're not going through it alone and you can go on this intense learning, growing journey with all these Chief communities.

Michele Ching
I think that you're hitting on exactly a point that we've been talking about at the Chief X conference that I'm actually recording live from-

Jacqueline Leng
Nice.

Michele Ching
-Kerry Washington is one of the featured guests and she was asked, you know, what's her secret like, How does she do it all? And she goes, have great partners. That was her answer.

And so part of the reason I was asking that question, as we move into the rest of the questions on your professional journey is I think that one thing that makes you unique is as you explain all of the places of expertise and impact that you've had in your career.

I notice that the way that you have been building has always been around this sense of leaning on your partners and relying on community to provide your customers and clients with best in class performance outcomes, support relationship building, whatever that it is that I think that's why I asked the question. Because I noticed that in your career, community and partnership has been a big part of how you support best in class client service excellence. So actually with that, I'd love to ask you about your experience, your expertise in the history of building customer advisory boards.
So let me just give you a little bit of background. I think here at Sightly, as you know, we're really excited about the adtech that we've been building. Brand mentality we think is the way forward. Of course, I know we've had a lot of side conversations about that.

What we've found similar to your journey is that leaning into. a customer advisory board helps to drive innovation. It keeps your ear to the ground, but it also helps to solidify the key client stakeholder relationships. And I know you had a ton of experience with that, so can you just like share with the audience a little bit what are some of the secrets that you have around creating accessible CABs?

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah, and that was one of the Chief panel events that I was speaking at just about setting up CABs. And I think in the tech role also in SAS you know, there's a lot of challenges around standing out and getting partners and vendors and clients to spend money, right? So you rely a lot on the ecosystem. Even in adtech, it's the same way there's this, you know, which Oakland called it the frenemy relationship right?

You have the people that you're competing with, but you're also working together. And I think this is that when I was at Oracle and I had just moved from London to back to the San Francisco Bay Area, and it's really now me and in the U.S. market, I'm just getting to know the lay of the land. And I was on a more sort of activation focused sales team, and we have this whole partnership team.

And selfishly, my personal goal is to get into that partnership team because that is kind of my ethos, as you rightly mentioned, and pointedly and I think the way instead of saying I want to be in that team is seeing that opportunity on the field and saying, you know what, we have a way to really bring together these agency people.

They know Oracle, they know Oracle advertising, they're using some of our data. But how do you elevate that relationship and go from top down and bottoms up, really combine that together? And that was the sort of the idea see this for a CAB and that allow me to raise my profile, that allow me to sort of put together a framework again, sort of that leadership development.

Right? Owning something, seeing it through, talk to product, get them involved. Come along on this thing with me. Why do you need to be involved in it? Because you get to hear from customers first hand, get the leadership buying. This is what we can do. We'll focus on one holding group at a time and, you know, building the business case behind it.

So there was a lot of internal stakeholder mapping and convincing, and then it's working with the partnership team that knows this senior relationship and working with in the field clients across different regions. I was on the West Coast, we got a midwest person, got a East Coast person.

So a great exercise adds, you can call it herding cats but I see it more as building a relationship and again, that back to the original point of leadership development influencing in the right way, inviting people to come on this journey and driving towards setting up a CAB And it was during the pandemic, we did it all over Zoom and got marketing support with some sort of, you know, welcome sheet that we emailed a background that, you know, showcased their title.

So there's this nice little touch that we were able to bring in, have some icebreaker just to kind of joke about the pandemic of working from home. Feels like so long ago but it's really not. And we were having to do it on a quarterly basis for I think three or four get togethers. So quite successful and having the right theme and keep bringing these people back to engage in industry challenges and just sharing.

I think we'll talk a little more about this. But even within that big holding company, there's different agencies, there's holding company level and individual agency level. So helping to break down that silo a little bit and I would say over was quite successful. And I've since left Oracle, but I would love to see if they roll that out to other agency holding companies.

Michele Ching
That's amazing. So I'm just going to read back the notes that I wrote down. I was furiously scribbling down notes cause I’m like Jackie is giving us the tea. Okay, so I heard that you built out a framework that sounded very cross-functional, which you said herding cats.

But that's kinda what it is, right? It sounds like you came up with the idea. Then you had to work directly with partnerships, marketing, and then building the relationships with the clients and the customers. And what I really like that you said one of the key learnings I heard come out was that one of the elements was bringing people back.

I think that when you're creating a sense of community, we can all join that meeting one time and feel really great about it and pat ourselves on the back. But it's that repetitive behavior of engaging in community around the centralized goal that feels really meaningful, that as a customer and as a thought leader for the CAB, you are together driving and creating impact.

How long would you say there's an element of ritual there, right? So how long would you say each of your quarterly meet ups were. Like, are you asking your customers for, you know, 15 minutes? Or is this a more meaningful connection?

Jacqueline Leng
Definitely more meaningful. We tried to break it into chunks, right? So it's about 90 minutes. There's definitely a little bit of us talking. But the goal, we were very clear upfront and as with any sort of sales conversation, you want the customers to speak more. So the idea is to have a theme. You know, I think one of the first ones was around just how to handle the particular challenge.

We're still talking about it, but we're still talking on the theme, right? Yeah. So have a theme around it and have teaser questions. You know, so and so at this agency, we were coming from there from this perspective. Tell us about it though. So there's that facilitating role decks becomes quite key as well. You need to have the knowledge of the business that represents the clients.

You need to have the clients that are behind these agencies. So I say there's a little bit of orchestration and making sure because I wasn't doing the moderating, my boss was so making sure she has the right information. This person is on these things. It's like a production and sort of having your nose, having your background and having your lines and having your cues quite a I would say a lot of prep goes into it, but being able to see it come together really well and having that community, having that sharing and saying, Oh yeah, this person I've known within the company, within the holding company forever.

And it's great that we're finally talking now and just being like minded and hopefully and I'm quite sure that they will come back afterwards to share ideas, collaborate and help drive growth for the agency.

Michele Ching
Did you find it difficult to get those high level clients and agencies to actually commit to 90 minutes quarterly? I think that that feels, you know, just as someone who's been working in this business, absolutely possible but it also feels a little intimidating. And I guess the real question I'm asking is what was in it for them?

What was in it for them to create? Like for them to feel the impact, to feel like their decisions mattered, that they keep showing up and keep actually dedicating those 90 minutes to you?

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah. Yeah. I think that that took a little bit of, and sometimes people do fall out last minute things do come up. But there's the element of you’re our trusted advisor and the sort of the value exchanges we're giving them first look into the product development road map. And to the agency thought leaders it's helpful for them to know being cutting edge and knowing what's coming up at Oracle side and say and being able to to know that Oracle values my thoughts and input as they're building out, you know, the CDPs or sort of, you know, the clean room environments.

I think at that time that was very smart. Oracle was calling it a data sanctuary. You know, what are those environments looking like? How should they be? What will be important to you? So having that product involvement back to that herding cats and and getting them excited and say, Hey, you know product team I'm connecting you with firsthand customer and agency I'm connecting you with the at the tech innovation that we're doing let's invest some time together and I think it was helpful that during the pandemic nobody was really going anywhere.

It's like everybody's kind of you know, on their zoom call. So it made it easier and I think normally would take a lot of orchestration. And I don't know, it would have been as seamless if it wasn't during the pandemics. So maybe that's one good thing that came out of the pandemic.

Michele Ching
But that is, you know what? That's actually a really good piece of advice that you want to take into account in life context. I know that kind of gets into the realm of brand mentality a little bit because that's kind of the whole premise is how are you contextually relevant to people's lives? But specifically you designed a CAB experience that was relevant for the context of our lives at that time or the context of your customers lives at that time.

I also really loved, I pulled out a highlight that you said as part of the value exchange of that product involvement. What I found with the way that Sightly manages our customer advisory board experience is it's really about exactly that. How do we lean in with a client to get their opinion on If they had a magic wand, what would they do with the platform capabilities, AI data science, like what does that mean for them if they can create something for them?

And it sounds like you guys were able to really harness that relationship and then actually deliver that value exchange, right? Because it's not just about like asking the questions. It's also about, okay, we listened and now here's what we're doing and here's the impact you're having on our product roadmap because of you.

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah. I think you're perfectly right and you captured it Michele, how do you build on the first conversation that you saw, the same feedback and you want to make sure product takes some notes and saying, these are some of the iterations that we've taken into account, and here's this next iteration we want to get your thoughts on or input on or hear some prototype or you could you be our beta tester?

It’s the building on again you know, back to the theme of going on that journey. It has to kind of move forward. And there's that Northstar of what are we driving towards? You got to become part of our you know, the product development team if you will.

Michele Ching
Yup yup and I love, I'm going to use the Northstar key to take us into our next question because I think one of the things that I want to hear more from you about is, well, what is the North Star, in your opinion, of this industry? Let me ask that differently. You’ve got, you know, multiple decades of experience in technology and media.

And so I'm wondering, what are your current insights about what is the North Star our industry might want to be thinking about through the lens of your experience and the big one, you know, not so small elephant in the room, right, is like data driven decision making. And specifically AI. So I want to hear from you, like from a North Star perspective.

What would you say is something that is the key insight of like the big challenge in our industry right now.

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah I would say just so I look back and look forward. I think looking back all these tech ad evolutions and adtech companies have come and went. It's all about the right message at the right time. The age all right. And we're in this phase now where it's data driven, still trying to get to the same thing and from the work that I do at IPG now, we really try to think about it from, you know, what's the motivation, what's the mindset and what's the moments that you want to connect your consumer with? And data helps inform that, but there's a little bit of you know, back to the sort of the challenges, if you can zoom in on the data crunching and get really deep.

It's easy. Data is there. There's a lot of data. Everybody has data and it's a commodity, but it's about how you use that, how you use that in the way that still addresses the core questions. It's the right message at the right time in that meaningful way. Looking at the right moments, what's the consumer's mindset, a good place or bad place, a positive news, negative news, brand mentality right from Sightly? All that plays a part. So I think there's a little bit of this science and art coming together and that's a skill, I think. And I see our creative guys, they're so smart. They have this great strategy, they have great vision. That's the art form.

And there’s the data scientist. They're in their sequel, they're, you know, running queries. They’re so deep into it and it's almost like being able to take a step back and then the left brain, the right brain coming together, we human, the visuals are creative beings and we have these tools to make us more creative so that the marrying of art and science is the balancing act.

I think some people do it better than others. I would like to say I'm trying to strive towards that. And sometimes it's not always easy because you can go down these two paths very quickly, very deeply.

Michele Ching
And here at Sightly I think you've probably heard from other guests or hosts on our podcast. But I think that we feel exactly the same way about balancing this art and science and specifically around humanizing marketing, because I think when you over rotate and this I know like I borrow some of this language from you when you over rotate on data driven decision making, you're losing that human element.

And it's like, how do we constantly find that and navigate that balance? And I'm curious for you, as you've been doing that at one of the largest holding companies in the world, right, Like how is IPG influencing the industry or innovating in its own right to kind of address, maybe I should ask it this way first. What are the biggest challenges that you see that our industry is struggling with to navigate that balance?

Jacqueline Leng
I think within companies, within holding companies, you know, within one agency, there are certain silos that happen. You know, there's still the process where strategy needs to breathe creative and they have to take client brief, translate that into a creative and deliver that. And then there's this process of getting some messaging back in the same time. We're coming in to inform the data on a persona that the client has that may or may not be right that maybe based on whoever so the agency may they have their perspective. So how do we use data to shift the client's perception?

There's one aspect of it, but I think back to my original point, there's, you know, you've got all these different teams, busy bodies trying to work on a campaign, work on a pitch and pulling in the staff that they need to. But again, there's a little bit of we're so busy on the day to day, you know, lifting that hat back and making sure all the pieces have that thread through, that commonality.

And we like to say data is the piece that can kind of bridge that together. You know, the right mindset, we have the right brand mentality can stitch a lot of these siloed pieces, if you will, together. And sometimes when you're very much in a quick turnaround in day to day when people work in silo, the finished product in a presentation to the client just doesn't kind of thread through and you raise questions like this piece doesn't make sense.

That piece doesn't connect with that piece and it kind of and it's tough when that happens, but it does happen sometimes. And I think that's the challenge that we see from the agency side. And that often also happens, I think coming from the vendor and partner side, that also happens when you have a big presentation that you need to deliver to a client with the agency.

So you've got different stakeholders trying to orchestrate some things and do we have time to run that agency through the presentation that we have? Maybe, maybe not, because it's not completely finished. So we'll do this piece so it's not always seamless and there's always best intention behind it. But I think being able to have the big picture in mind again, the right leader should be able to bring everybody on a journey, even though there's a lot of the craziness, even though there's a short time to tomorrow, guiding the team to that Northstar.

Michele Ching
So I heard a couple of themes addressing silos and cohesive leadership. I feel like keeps coming through a lot of the stories that you're sharing with us. The other thing I would say is that you mentioned that, you know, the holding companies aren't doing it perfectly. But one thought that came to mind when you said that is that I think also as folks who've been in this industry or any industry honestly for a while, when you're innovating or you're actually addressing a large challenge perfect is the enemy of progress.

And I take us back to the conversations around CABs and customer advisory boards. It's like, was any innovation perfect the first time? Is any current innovation that you rely on perfect ever? Right. I think that during a pandemic, maybe like no one’s Uber was working, but we still all like use ridesharing services.Right?

Jacqueline Leng
Yes.

Michele Ching
I think it like, innovation invites mistakes and imperfection. And I think that one thing that you didn't say, but I'm starting to kind of also hear is that being risk averse and having a perfectionist mindset is just something that I think we have been afforded the privilege in technology and innovation, the ability to get imperfectly, but one thing I think is unique and why I liked what you shared around CABs is that as we navigate paths imperfectly, when you're coming back to the Northstar, when you're coming back to, you know, ethics, we didn't even get into daily usage and ethics.

Jacqueline Leng
Yes.

Michele Ching
So when you're coming back to all of these topics, it's like to your point about cohesive leadership and addressing the silos, those are how you address and bravely fix the problem that you might not otherwise have even encountered without the appetite for risk of innovation.

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah, and I would say my personal motto is always and I argue with my husband about this. He's a perfectionist. But I always say done is better than perfect. Right. So that's why we mentioned four times as a CAB because it's iterated. That's why when we make a proposal to clients it's a face approach.

You know, it's a cheesy term, but it's crawl, walk, run. So what's the thing that's available right now and what's the thing we want to work towards? That's the Northstar. And then there's all these steps in between that come into play and I think data driven, the brand mentality, you have all these great tools to kind of help you get to those stages in terms of where do we want to be right now?

You know, one of the recent examples is we have a client that's in the travel industry and there's a need for staff right now just because travel is booming. So that's the immediate sell. But then sort of longer term is how do you think about recruiting the right staff? How do you go down the funnels to start like recruiting some training academies or something like that?

So I think that I feel like that's the story piece that we touched on earlier is being able to again, I’ve mentioned this a few times, lift your head up and think about okay it doesn't have to be perfect, but we have to do something. We have to innovate, we have to help solve client problems. And these are some of the ways that we are able to do it.

Michele Ching
Yeah, it has to be iterative, it has to be dynamic. And one thing that we talk about a lot at Sightly as you know, is like you have to be able to keep up with the external life forces in the context of things that people are going through right now. And customers think about that for their end consumers. But, you know, being in technology, it's a little bit more B2B or a lot more B2B.

Jacqueline Leng
Yes.

Michele Ching
That's sort of how we think about innovation also is like how are our technology solutions helping our clients and the businesses that we support be entered of and be dynamic and even the way that they do business because that creative that they made that made sense when they brainstormed it six months ago doesn't make sense anymore now that it's actually the campaign live date.

And then that goes back to your point about data driven decision making and the balance between the art and science and humanizing it, right? Speaking into that context lens by external life forces, who's getting it right? Jackie, Can you give us maybe some examples of the brands or businesses that you've seen, you know, navigate the balance successfully, be dynamic with external forces of the context of life?

Jacqueline Leng
That’s a great question. I think there's lots of good examples of brands doing it right. If you think of a marketing campaign, we have the tentpole seasonality that kind of comes into play. There's a layer of, you know, the life stages that comes into play. You can break down with all kinds of different data that's available. The channel that they are on, in terms of a small screen or a big screen, text or audio, right?

So all these become tactical executions that can be paralysis almost. And again, pick your head up, you know, zoom out. What's the ultimate message? A lot of it is driving growth, driving revenue on some level. But how do you increase that mindshare? So what does that execution look like in that context on that audio environment, which is more intimate, you can do that more and there's research behind that.

So being able to understand all those nuances is key and I can't think of an example off the top of my head and I would say I think a lot of the CPG brands are good at those right moments. A lot of finance brands are good at those life stages. And is there one brand that's ultimately doing their fully, I have to think about that and get back to you.

Michele Ching
Well, yeah. No, I think that that brings up a good point though, right. And I think that's where full circle that I think, and I'd love your opinion on this, that's where I think there's that massive opportunity for innovation in our industry to really create the kinds of solutions so that brands can meet the needs of consumers in the context of their life that change at, you know, a matter of a moment, because -

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah.

Michele Ching
- consumer decision making and buying patterns are influenced by those external life forces. So, you know, obviously that's a big priority for us here about how we think about things, you know at Sightly and helping to arm our clients in that way.

And I know that's something that you guys talked about over at IPG around the innovations that you think about are your harmonizing all the different team stakeholders along the marketing supply chain essentially from creative to PR COM to media. Right? So -

Jacqueline Leng
Yes. Yes.

Michele Ching
I think that kind of like I'm really hearing cohesive leadership and addressing silos is like the theme of the whole podcast.

Jacqueline Leng
Yes.

Michele Ching
But would you say there's any other big opportunity that you would kind of flag of what are some big opportunities that agencies or tech companies or businesses have to quote unquote get it right not perfect, but get it right for the time?

Jacqueline Leng
Yeah, I think there's a lot of desire for trying to do the right thing, trying to, you know, you touch on ethics, trying to be sensible and trying to be ethical and trying to focus on inclusivity. And again, I would bring it back to that balance of art and science. You know, you have the data and you have the storytelling and brands come from different sides of these left and right brains.

Agencies also cover these two sides as a partner, helps us cover that two sides. You know, the brand mentality has a lot of great stats and insights. But how does that apply? You know how a junior planner paints that story in the context of the brand he's working on? Right? This is like sales 101 a little bit, but that storytelling, that art form in terms of this means, you know a young high income not yet rich person cares about status in terms of having the right car or that message around, you know, socializing with friends and being out and nice dinners is important in painting that context.

Painting that environment back to that moment and mind state. And how does the data kind of support that, right? How does the technology put that right message in that environment?

Michele Ching
Totally, yeah. So we're still, we're all the way back at the beginning of our conversation around-

Jacqueline Leng
I’m pretty consistent as you can tell.

Michele Ching
Yeah. Right. Well, I think you're actually, it's not just consistent. You're actually just really emphasizing the key problems and the key challenges. And then therefore also then the biggest opportunities that our industry has to solve some of these problems and challenges, not just for the industry, but what I really also loveI hear you saying is like especially for the end consumer, right?

How are the needs of the end consumer being met and then how are businesses being able to stay continuously informed and then kind of dynamically and think with those needs? Okay. So this brings us to, I’m ready to wrap it up. This actually brings us to a quick little lightning round that I wanted to do with you, if that's okay.

Jacqueline Leng
Sure. Let's do it.

Michele Ching
Okay. So just first, top of the mind answers, doesn’t need to be like very well thought out, but just really quick answers and I want to get your perspective. So the first question is to name your favorite mission driven business and why?

Jacqueline Leng
I do think about that a little bit. Mission driven to me is not necessarily like, you know, we’ll donate a pair of glasses to, you know, the needy if you buy a pair of glasses or donate a pair of shoes too if you buy a pair of shoes, I feel like it's a consistent “on brand ” of a company. I'll say Lululemon just because it's that wellness gets people moving and having the right wear and making you feel good and doing the right thing.

And you know we're in California a lot of people wear their Lululemon all through their lives. So I think there's that kind of lifestyle of just everyday life consistency.

Michele Ching
And thank God for athleisure, right?

Jacqueline Leng
Yes.

Michele Ching
Like I’m just so grateful for the entire category.

Jacqueline Leng
For the pandemic, perfect!

Michele Ching
Yup, right exactly. Yeah. Okay. Second question. And the last question before we say goodbye is what would you leverage your courage for?

Jacqueline Leng
I think I wouldn't consider myself courageous, but I think it's the everyday confidence, right. And being able to pass it on to the people I work with, mentor young women, having the peer camaraderie achieve and supporting each other, that's what I will leverage my courage for. So I would say being consistent is that that community we talked about, you know, how do I protect, give confidence to my team, work nicely with others on my team, work well with my boss, get shit done.I can say that right? You could bleep that out and -

Michele Ching
You can say that. When I'm hosting, we can say that.

Jacqueline Leng
Okay, good, GSD we will say. And that same courage is about, you know, building that for the women that I spend time at the Chief clubhouse. The young women that I mentor and see them come up in throughout their careers and that's trying to build her career after college, that's what I will use my courage for.

Michele Ching
Aw, beautiful. Of course, and you're doing such an incredible job of it. Jackie, thank you so much for sharing your courage, your expertise and your experience with us today. I hope that anyone listening can follow up with you and follow along with your career so that they know where to find you, where might people be able to find you and your work online?

Jacqueline Leng
LinkedIn is probably the best. I’m off Twitter/ X but LinkedIn.

Michele Ching
Okay sounds great. We’ll put all of the links to that and IPG and your work there in the show notes. But thank you again for spending some time with us today. And we look forward to talking again soon.

Jacqueline Leng
Thank you, Michele. It's been such a pleasure. You are just an inspiration.

Michele Ching
Aw, I feel the same way about you. All right. We’ll close this out for today. Thank you so much for listening to Breaking Through The Mayhem and we'll see you next time.