Audible CMO John Harrobin: 'Incrementalism' is not in a marketer's nature

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“Can you hear me now?”

If you’ve ever heard that infamous Verizon tagline, Audible CMO John Harrobin has made an impression on you. He didn’t originate the iconic slogan, which has spawned a universe of jokes and memes. But as the former CMO of Verizon, he played a big role in its evolution and cultural ubiquity in his nearly 20 years at the company.

Now, as CMO of the Amazon-owned audiobook and podcast service Audible, he’s after something similar to what he chased at the telecommunications giant: a share of your ear. 

As the streaming and audio content wars heat up, Harrobin’s job is to convince you to spend your time with Audible instead of Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Netflix, HBO Max and dozens of other services. 

“Not too long ago, people would view audio listening as a way to fill their downtime, when your eyes are occupied but your mind is free,” Harrobin says. “The pandemic has opened the world up to this idea that audio is no longer just some way to fill that time and make it more productive; it is the experience, just like video.” 

Audible, which began as a subscription service for audiobooks, is expanding into the world of free, original podcast content. Harrobin is bullish on subscription-centered business models and says the brand’s push into original content is only natural, adding that COVID-related changes to listening habits expedited that shift. 

With the disappearance of morning and evening commutes, the service saw a drastic drop in listenership at the beginning of the pandemic. But with that came a new marketing opportunity.

 “We had external, third-party data that people were listening to other services [at night], whether it be radio, meditation apps, white noise,” he says. “So, we developed a whole sleep proposition to better serve those customers and to keep them in our ecosystem.” 

Harrobin says he consistently steps out of day-to-day marketing to test a new technology or listen to something to get a better understanding of culture and people’s behavior. 

“To be a really good marketer, you have to almost hobby in cultural anthropology,” he says. 

While Harrobin calls himself a “quantitative marketer,” when I asked if he had any advice for people who are contemplating a job switch, he spoke like a storyteller who looks for fresh challenges: “Marketers can’t be too comfortable with status quo because incrementalism is not in our nature. Once you’ve achieved your bold charter and mission, you need to compose the next chapter in the narrative. If what you read doesn’t inspire you or match your goals, it’s time to take on some new challenges.” Below, he shares more of his story. 

1. What has had the most impact on your perspective as a marketer?

Like many people, when I was a teenager, I thought that marketing was about advertising. But when you study it more deeply, you understand that it’s much more than that—it’s about understanding customers, driving empirical growth, and achieving the brand’s full potential.

Sometimes these objectives seem to conflict or run counter to one another. For example, when Apple first launched its brick-and-mortar stores. It was years before the iPhone and many retailers suggested that they would never be able to deliver against traditional store metrics like gross margin return on investment per square foot or incremental sales per store. But, they knew it was an extension of their brand experience and that every touchpoint along the customer journey is part of that experience. Today, Apple stores are wildly successful and, in many ways, set a standard for physical retail.

So, my takeaway from that observation is that it is incumbent upon marketers to look after every touchpoint in the end-to-end (E2E) customer journey and make sure that each touchpoint is adding value to the brand and to the customer experience. 

2. What’s changed the most about your job as a marketer over the course of your career?

The need to serve both the head and the heart. I’m a quantitative person by background and as a brand, we lean very heavily into data analytics and what it reveals to us. The insights we’ve learned from data have had a huge impact. It not only informs our ability to target customers and personalize our service to them in new and relevant ways, but it is also a jumping-off point for creative.

But some marketers don’t connect the two. They keep chasing the same audience, optimizing to a narrower target, and never expanding their reach or appeal.

Because our tools are pretty robust, we can learn quickly, and I believe it is essential that marketers have an always-on Test & Learn strategy. Get your brand creative team together with your acquisition team and your insights team and come up with hypotheses to serve customers and expand the relevance of the brand to new audiences. 

3. What’s the hardest part of a marketer’s job today?

I always say, my job is easy. I don’t create the awesome content on our service (that’s the hard part), I just need to let them know about it and ask them to give it a try.

The most difficult part is making sure you're exercising both left and right brain muscles. Measuring what matters, and using data as a jumping off point to innovate.

4. Tell us about the marketing campaign you’re most proud of working on in your career.

Putting a visual network behind the “Can You Hear Me Now” guy to represent Verizon Wireless’s reliability, launching VZ’s B2B value offerings with a campaign called Susie’s Lemonade, and definitely Verizon’s Droid franchise to establish Android as a challenger to iOS. 

At Audible, we had so much fun with Audible the Horse when we co-opted a horse actually named Audible that was racing in the Kentucky Derby for our “Listen for a Change” campaign where we put a stake in the ground about our brand promise and our recent global launch of The Sandman. We worked with some incredible producers to adapt Neil Gaiman’s epic comic book series into an audio-only experience. This title challenged us to get into the psyche of the target audience and the results were fantastic…the title set records and immediately placed on The New York Times bestseller list for two months in a row.

 5. What’s a marketing campaign you wish you’d thought of and why?

The Aviation Gin ad, created in response to an infamous Peloton ad. It put things into a new perspective by referencing the dialogue generated by the Peloton ad in a meta way. It smartly commented on social media culture and turned that negative conversation on its head by displaying a positive version of humanity while being hysterical at the same time. It also redeemed the actress who became the center of attention for no fault of her own.  

6. What’s your must read, watch or listen for all marketers?

It might sound counter-intuitive, but I believe that marketers need to step outside of the marketing world and hobby as cultural anthropologists. I listen to the “Hidden Brain” podcast, which is all about how thinking and the unconscious drive behavior. I also really like “99% Invisible,” which explains the why behind things we don’t think about. 

And, a very different genre, I really like “Crime Junkie” on Audible. The creators figured out a consistent framework to tell stories that have been told many times before, in a fresh, modern, and engaging way. It’s a great lesson for students of storytelling.  

7. What’s an under the radar brand you’re watching and why?

Tonal, it’s the Peloton of resistance training. They’re notable for using user data to create a unique experience no one thought they could have at home. Their product isn’t made for the heavy weight lifters, but this is a great product for 99% of people. They have scale potential. 

Square, because they’ve reimagined services to make workflow simpler for payments and transactions. Their model can be applied to so many industries.

8. Name a product you can’t live without (that doesn’t connect you to the internet) and tell us why.

My Jeep has become a meaningful part of life, especially over the last year. During Covid you can’t do much, so taking drives is one of the most peaceful things to do by yourself or with your family. During the summer, we keep the roof and doors off, go off-roading, and drive on the beach. It’s beautiful, especially now that we’re limited in what we can do.

9. Finish this sentence: If I weren’t a marketer, I would be…

A coach or advisor to companies and leaders that want to scale their business or re-imagine their brand. 

10. Finish this sentence: The marketer I most want to see do this questionnaire is…

Emmanuel Marques from Disney Parks.

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