Episode 50
Brand Story Podcast

Building Brand Value

featuring Carolyn Walker

CEO and Managing Partner of Response Marketing

Carolyn Walker, CEO and managing partner of Response, talks about the value of a brand and finding the balance between performance marketing and brand building with our president, Steve Gilman.

Your brand reputation goes beyond marketing campaigns and product messaging. It’s every touch point, every interaction your audience has with your brand, including your frontline employees. As Carolyn Walker reminds us: your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what your customers say it is, and if your customers have a bad experience, it can cause a ripple effect on your brand’s reputation.

As the CEO and managing partner of Response, an independent marketing agency, Carolyn helps brands “punch above their weight” and develop creative solutions to build their brands. In this episode, we hear from Carolyn about the importance of brand building for the long term and finding a balance with performance marketing. She shares how the customer experience can impact your brand value, and how to use your brand messaging to talk to your future audience.

About the Guest

Carolyn Walker

CEO and Managing Partner of Response Marketing

Carolyn is the CEO and managing partner of Response, an award-winning independent marketing agency that serves clients like Logitech, McAfee, Netgear, and Amazon Web Services. She has extensive experience working with companies on brand building and performance marketing, and co-created the hugely successful Hackable podcast by McAfee.

Quickfire Q&A

If you could give your younger self any advice, what would it be?

Carolyn: Appreciate the experiences that you’re getting. I completely undervalued the experiences that I got at Saatchi & Saatchi, and Darden. I just feel like I didn’t really know exactly how fortunate I was at the moment.

What's a surprising thing that you've learned about leadership?

Carolyn: Leadership for me is about listening and learning and knowing that I don’t know it all. I’ve learned so much about having empathy toward the people who work for me and understanding the people that work for us.

What event in your career has shaped you the most as a professional?

Carolyn: What shaped me as a professional probably goes back to my Northeastern days and having those amazing experiences with the brands that I worked with back in college. I can honestly say I would not be where I am without both that education and the experiences that I got with them.

About The Host

Steve Gilman

As the President of Gravity Group, Steve is passionate about helping brands reach their goals through honest, creative marketing and powerful brand stories.

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