Growth Marketing Advisors

The #DeltaSphereKeynote in the MSG Sphere was one of the defining moments of #CES2025. 20k CES attendees soared over beautiful global terrain with a birdseye view from a Delta plane cockpit while listening to Delta CEO Ed Bastion. He spoke of a tremendous legacy and future at this special moment in time to a captive audience. So the big question…was this ~$10-$15 million investment worth it? Estimated ~$15mm expense -- Experience would be most costly at ~$7.5mm led by content production and venue rental. Sponsorship and Ad Buy would follow at ~$4mm driven by CES sponsorship fee. Oversight and T&E at ~$3.5mm. ~$15mm may have been reduced to ~$10mm via contributions by Delta’s partners (Uber, Airbus, Joby, YouTube, Qualtrics, DraftKings, Starlink) who made joint announcements at the event. Assuming $0.75mm buy-in by each of these 6 partners, that’s $4.5mm or ? total expense offset. Delta’s annual revenue is $61.6 billion of which $3.46 billion is net income. Delta’s spends 10% or $347mm of its net income on marketing; so the ~$10mm-$15mm spent on the Sphere Keynote is ~2.9%-4.3% of the entire annual marketing budget. Delta got a massive PR event, new features (Delta Concierge App, 4K HDR OLED Displays) & #Partnerships launches, technology-forward positioning, 20k attendees activated, mesmerizing content, media amplification, and affiliate/influencer management. Searches for Delta Airlines were highest in last twelve months excluding the 1,200 flight cancellations in late July associated with the Crowdstrike outage. Delta wanted to be perceived as technology forward and customer-centric. It did alright with the former, not as much with the latter. Customer-centric moves would improve ticket prices, nuisance fees, time wasted, comfort, inflight internet quality, and dilution of loyalty point value. But they barely touched on this. The below could have been more prominently featured: - Airbus spoke about commitment to reduce fuel costs by 25% through fascinating technology like lighter planes and flexible wings. - Ed Bastion announced partnership with Starlink which can address a major decline in inflight internet quality. - Most airlines already have great mobile app functionality ("Digital Concierge"); this doesn’t address time wasted and comfort. - The Uber/Skymiles partnership doesn't address eroded value of loyalty. Could Delta have done better, yes. But, it was an incredible marketing program. Delta went above and beyond. Going to CES was already a bold move; instead of spending ~$5mm-$10mm on a mega booth, Delta took a novel approach to build #BrandAwareness. It could have more closely tied to what truly matters but Delta doesn't need to fix air travel unfortunately; it just needs to outperform rivals in mediocre air travel experiences. Delta for the win! What do you think Alicia Tillman & Ed Bastian? For more details on expenses, return, and pictures, see link in comments. Thanks Mehul Gandhi for your excellent copiloting ;-)

AI has simplified many tasks but is far from delivering value that meets its enormous hype. I have been skeptical. But at #INBOUND2024, and especially during Dharmesh Shah’s opening day talk, some of my skepticism was alleviated. After 8 years of #SalesforceEinstein, #HubSpotBreezeAI's launch has surpassed its #CRM AI predecessor naturally weaved into HubSpot’s CRM for sales, marketing, service, and operations - 200+ new features (and expertly presented by Kyle Jepson, even more engaging in real life). This feat was only possible because of HubSpot’s service-oriented architecture, commitment to user experience, and obsession with AI. Only HubSpot customers with the right data model, workflows, and solution architecture will realize the full power of BreezeAI - further reinforcement that GMA’s work with HubSpot CRM is future proof and invaluable. In Darmesh’s terminology, GMA is one of the most powerful #AIAgents. While impressed by BreezeAI, my favorite part of INBOUND2024 was meeting up with colleagues new & old. On Partner Day, I led a Braindate session “Championing Quality in Competitive Markets: Strategies to Sell High-Caliber Enterprise Solutions” with Andreas Wessolly wielding Content Hub at scale, Ryan Wright asking great ?'s, and ?? Chris Carolan ?? championing #CRMStrategy. Was also great to see my former AmEx colleague Nisha Goklaney who now works at HubSpot. At Arrows happy hour, I spoke with Max Cohen ???? who may literally know everyone at INBOUND2024 and shared great insights about the #HubSpotCommunity. Before his podcast, he introduced me to HubSpot community pillars George B. Thomas, Justin D. Givens, Kyle Jepson, Nick Waverek and Chris Carolan - like Max, all great people. At DealHub.io happy hour, enjoyed an old fashioned with John Mitchell-Patnett followed by a delicious dinner at Barking Crab. The ambience was good, food was better, and company was the best! Boston Harbor views were nice incl the Boston Tea Party site. Next day, had dinner at TV’s most famous bar Cheers with Adam Kantrowitz. Had the pleasure of meeting GMA partners HubSpot’s John Murphy, Brittany Foley, and Michael Hodsdon, DealHub’s Elie Skolnick, Samuel Bratsztejn, Haim Cohen Mintz, and Mark Lerner, Zuper's Christopher M Barone and Joshua Lee, CallRail’s Bailey Beckham, Aircall's Louis Dumortier, and Funnel's John Regan, as well as new ones like Syncari's Mary Vue and Supered? Blake Lytle ??and Caleb King ? in real life. While enjoying the food trucks, met a lot of interesting people - Kristine Hansen who is large agency alumnus and now large company HubSpot admin, Brandon Taylor who is a savvy marketer and creative thinker, and Alan Stein who is a high energy founder who I also know from AmEx and Columbia Business School. So, that’s a wrap on INBOUND 2024.? Some AI skepticism alleviated.? Wonderful colleagues new & old.? Inspiration about the value GMA delivers for its clients and partners and more possibilities for the future. Onwards!