Mint Mobile CMO Aron North on the transformation of marketing from a job to a passion

Mint Mobile is an underdog in the fight against wireless behemoths like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and more. But the brand’s top marketer Aron North is leaning into that status.?

Much of its marketing strategy is built on vilifying its competitors (in sort of ridiculous, yet funny ways.) Mint Mobile wants to be known as a brand you don’t hate to deal with, touting great deals, transparent pricing and superior customer service.??

One ad that made waves? Satan taking a job working for big wireless . He’s praised by his bosses for raising prices, elongating customer service wait times and inserting more hidden fees — three things most people hate about their service providers.?

“These guys torture people on a whole other level,” the devil laughs. “I’m learning so much.”

It’s a tongue-in-cheek ad in part devised by a bold-faced name who has helped build the brand’s profile: Mint Mobile co-owner and mega star actor Ryan Reynolds.?

Much of the brand's marketing activations can be considered stunts — something North says is key to raising awareness and consideration.

“What we're really doing is we're pushing to become relevant and distinctive.”

But North knows he’s responsible for driving much more than buzz: He has to deliver growth.?

“I’m the champion of both the organization and the customer at the same time, and I have to evaluate who wins and by how much margin,” he says. “Some of the things we've done that have made us very successful don't make commercial sense at first.”

Like lots of marketing, he says, it’s about believing in the promise that an investment will pay off later on.?

North started his career in the agency world working on brands like Burger King, Heineken and Southwest Airlines. But he quickly became disillusioned with the way agencies function.??

After 11 years at agencies, he landed a big gig at Taco Bell as director of advertising and branded content. Some of the work he’s most proud of is launching Taco Bell Breakfast. ?

The campaign, which involved 25 people named Ronald McDonald, was shot down by Taco Bell’s legal department multiple times. But the marketing team’s belief in it was steadfast. When it came to life, it was one of the most successful activations in the company’s history.?

When North joined Taco Bell in 2011, brands were in the early days of social media advertising. It was an era that inspired new levels of freedom and creativity, he says.?

“Those two things are what turn it from a job to a passion,” he says.

Below, he shares more of his story.

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

The biggest impact was a mindset change for me – marketing stopped being a job and became a passion. I became a fan of great marketing and started collecting and storing the ideas on paper and in my head, trying to work backward to better understand the strategy and why this execution was selected. I guess you could call it reverse engineering but it became more like a game to me –– one that I play all the time. Building a deep knowledge of what is possible and why has completely opened my perspective to what is possible. It is so cliché, but when you love what you do it doesn’t feel like work. I love doing great marketing, it brings me joy. Entering every day with that mindset changes how you work.?

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

I spent the first 10 years of my career agency side - Consumer, Promotion, and Advertising. Even though I’ve had fantastic client relationships, agencies are outsiders and only able to provide recommendations. This was a challenge for me. To go into a client presentation so convinced the recommendation was the right business decision – only to have a different concept chosen was a gut punch. After my decade-long agency stint, I made the move client-side and have grown and grown in both accountabilities and decision-making authority. The ability to “make the call” and live with the business and brand impacts is easily the largest change over my career.

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

Marketing departments are being asked to do more than ever. In my role my accountabilities have expanded to include commercial ownership, meaning that I’m the person accountable for business performance. Such an amazing opportunity, but demands a pretty wide skill set to combine business management and marketing savvy. I constantly ask myself and my team the question “Who wins? The customer or the business?” That decision is one I wrestle with daily.

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

Argh! So difficult to answer. If forced to choose one, I’ve got to go with launching Taco Bell Breakfast . The idea was so big and so bold it was killed (by legal) and we resuscitated it several times. Why? We decided to use Ronald McDonald (25 of them actually) to launch Taco Bell Breakfast. Yes, we went out and found a bunch of people named Ronald McDonald and had them try and endorse our breakfast. The launch was insane. We were getting billions of PR impressions at launch as media dubbed the campaign the “Fast Food Breakfast Wars .” Our Consumer Insights team told us it took us 10 weeks to get to awareness numbers that took Burger King 10 years.?

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

I’ve thought about this off and on for days, then it clicked. Corona, Life’s a Beach. Why? Location.?

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

Purple Cow. I read it early in my career and it gave me the confidence to challenge convention and question why things are a certain way. As marketers, I think that is an important part of how we invent and simplify.

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

Rivian , the electric truck manufacturer. Of course, we all know about the Cybertruck and the Tesla-maniacs. I think Rivian is a legitimate competitor from a product standpoint so I am very curious how they market vs. a company that has no ad budget and no PR department.

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

All my surf gear. For that exact reason – it doesn’t connect you to the internet.

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

?an idea grower.

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

Ken Muench , CMO of Collider at Yum! Brands?

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