DoorDash’s Kofi Amoo-Gottfried: “You find out who you are in a crisis -- as a person and as a company”

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When I first met Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, he was sitting in a booth at an empty Chili’s. Keep in mind, this was a virtual meeting. But his background looked so real, I thought he might have commandeered a local Chili’s as a temporary COVID workspace. He hadn’t. The dozens of virtual backgrounds were part of an April DoorDash campaign called “The Lunchroom” that put you in partner restaurants ranging from McDonald’s and Baskin Robbins to The Cheesecake Factory (many with corresponding playlists, no less). Backgrounds are also available for The Moon, which at first I thought was a restaurant chain I hadn’t heard of, and then realized was exactly what it sounded like. The Lunchroom campaign is a classic example of the creativity Amoo-Gottfried has brought to DoorDash in his role as its top marketer.  

It’s been a busy year for the food-delivery platform, which has become the leading player in the food delivery space and found itself one of the pandemic’s most relied-upon brands when restaurants around the country shifted to take out-only. Sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic, and the company cites Second Measure data showing the service has more than 45% market share, ahead of competitors like Uber Eats (24%) and Grubhub (22%). The company announced a multiyear marketing partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) on Monday that makes it the first-ever on-demand delivery platform of the NBA, WNBA and NBA 2K League.

The recently-valued $16-billion company (it reportedly filed confidential paperwork for an IPO in February) positions itself as “merchant-first” and has leaned into that messaging in its support of the restaurant industry’s pandemic struggles. It cut commission fees for local restaurant partners by 50% through the end of 2020, announced expanded assistance and protection for its Dashers and pledged commission relief and marketing support to help restaurant partners generate up to $200M in additional sales this year. The brand has also introduced specific initiatives to support Black-owned businesses including a loan-matching program with the global non-profit Kiva and $0 delivery fees for merchants in the Black-owned Business program through the rest of the year. 

When discussing the last few months -- a recession, a global pandemic and civil unrest over police killings of Black and Brown Americans -- he said, “You find out who you are in a crisis -- as a person and as a company.”   

Prior to joining DoorDash, Amoo-Gottfried was VP of Brand & Consumer Marketing at Facebook and Head of Consumer Marketing for Internet.org. In his roles at ad agencies Wieden+Kennedy and Leo Burnett, he worked with brands like Kellogg’s, Coca Cola and Nike. Ultimately he made what he calls a “completely bonkers decision” in 2008 to leave his dream job leading strategy for the Nike account at W+K to build an agency for Publicis in Ghana: “While this looked like career suicide on paper, I couldn’t say no to going back home, to being an entrepreneur, and to playing a small part in the story of Ghana’s development,” he has said. 

“It ended up being the hardest and most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. We built a world-class agency in sub-Saharan Africa, and I learned a ton about leadership, about resilience, about fighting for what’s right, and about managing ambiguity and uncertainty.” He shares more of his story below.  

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

I’d have to say it’s my background and journey. Growing up in Ghana as part of a very large tight-knit extended family, leaving home at nine for boarding school (shout out to Achimota School), leaving Ghana at 17 for St. Paul, Minnesota to attend Macalester College, and building a career as a Black man in advertising and tech all have one thing in common - I’ve had to understand and empathize with perspectives different than my own. As a result, I have a deep curiosity about people - which, as it turns out, is a great starting point for marketing. 

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

There’s this quote that’s attributed to Einstein: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” I feel like earlier in my career, we knew that marketing counted but couldn’t figure out how to count it. Now we can count all our marketing activity, but are grappling with whether marketing counts. Does marketing drive growth, does it have a seat at the table, does it influence the business? I believe that marketing matters more than it ever has - that in a noisy, distracted world with a proliferation of brands, products, opinions, options, and channels; the ability to build a connection and win a consumer’s trust and their business (i.e. marketing) can make all the difference.

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

Finding the signal through the noise. Whether you’re a culture-first marketer or a data-driven marketer, you’re drowning in a sea of information. Especially now, when culture is moving at warp speed - with the pandemic shutting down industries and daily life, the Black Lives Matter movement provoking a long-overdue reckoning with racism, and record unemployment all happening at the same time - it can be paralyzing to figure out if you should say or do anything, nevermind what to say or do.

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

I have two. The first is the work we did to reimagine the Bacardi brand and connect it more deeply to its authentic Cuban roots. The campaign was “Untameable Since 1862” and it told the story of the irrepressible spirit of the Bacardi family, but more than the campaign itself, the “irrepressible spirit” positioning led to reinvention of every part of the Bacardi brand - the packaging, the liquid, the portfolio, the signature cocktails, and so on.  

The second is the #openfordelivery campaign we launched for DoorDash - in six days - at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic to help restaurants weather the crisis. “Open For Delivery” was an ode to the influence of restaurants in our lives and communities, and a call to action to support them through the crisis. It galvanized thousands of restaurants to participate and let the world know they were #openfordelivery. In part due to the success of the campaign, restaurants on DoorDash are four times more likely to have remained open during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to U.S. restaurants as a whole.

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

The Guardian’s “Three Little Pigs.” It’s so good that the first time I saw it, I was angry. Like, how? How did they get there? How do you conceive of using that particular kids folk tale (with a twist) as an allegory on the evolution of how the news is made and shared, all set against the backdrop of the mortgage crisis? And how do you nail every beat of the story - getting me to empathize with the pigs, the wolf (!) and the pigs again? I could wax poetic about this forever - for me, “Three Little Pigs” got everything right: the strategy, the idea, the execution, and the craft.

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

Anything that provides a profound, unusual, or beautiful lens on people, humanity or culture. This year, I’ve loved “Heavy” by Kiese Laymon, “Unorthodox” on Netflix, and this incredible story by the New York Times, “The Jungle King of Delhi.” None of these are marketing “texts” per se, but they’re all beautiful studies of the human condition. And in each of them, I feel like I get to inhabit these people’s lives, thoughts, and feelings - which is fundamental to great marketing - and I get to be inspired by extraordinary storytelling.

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

I’m not sure that this is an under-the-radar brand, but at the moment, I’m obsessed with Ben & Jerry’s. Their radical no-holds-barred response in support of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as their decades-long tradition of corporate activism is a reminder of two eternal truths: 1. Actions speak louder than words - here’s a brand that doesn’t spend much in media but stays relevant by leaning hard into its values. 2. You can’t be all things to all people - Ben & Jerry’s undoubtedly loses some customers through its stances, but builds incredible loyalty and attachment with people who align with its values.

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

Shito. It’s the Ghanaian equivalent of hot sauce, but so much more rich and complex. It’s a marvelous concoction that takes me back home, and I put it on everything.

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

A writer. 

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

Jabari Hearn, Vice President of Brand at Lyft.

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