Nextdoor CMO Maryam Banikarim: ‘Marketing is all about humanity’

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“Life is about choices and chapters,” Maryam Banikarim wrote in a 2018 New York Times article headlined, “What Am I if Not Employed?” At 50, Banikarim left her position as chief marketing officer of Hyatt, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, unsure of her professional future. She had worked nonstop since she was 16, and she faced a fear familiar to many of us: that we are nothing more than our jobs. But for Banikarim, the break was a necessary pause. 

“I was reminded about the importance of community,” she says. “Many of the things that I got to do in my time away from a day job were enabled by the communities I'd been part of over the years.” 

In February 2020, she began a new chapter inspired by that realization. She joined the neighborhood platform Nextdoor as its first head of marketing. This time, she was going local, telling a brand’s stories through the ultimate insiders -- neighbors. 

Think of Nextdoor as a message board-meets-Yelp-meets-Google Groups -- but with your neighbors. It’s a source of information (referrals for a local plumber), feel-good stories (found pets) and posts that make you question who on earth would post this (are you missing a can of beans -- and can you prove it?).   

Like many social networks, Nextdoor has attracted a vast community that can turn ugly at times. A lack of safeguards and clear policies on content moderation have led to racism on the platform. It's a challenge the platform faced long before our 2020 racial reckoning — and one that probably won’t go away — something Banikarim and her team will have to confront.

An additional challenge for Nextdoor? COVID-19, which erupted just one month after Banikarim joined the company. The pandemic has changed neighborhoods and what it means to be a neighbor. Nextdoor is leaning into that with campaigns promoting fundraising for schools, supporting local businesses and ways to find the connection we're hungry for right now.

“For me marketing is all about humanity,” Banikarim says, noting that tackling issues around the world's loneliness epidemic is something she will bring into the team's work. “Understanding how we can come together to solve what is a significant underlying problem that has been worsened as a result of the pandemic is critical.” Below, she shares more of her story.

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

The brands (from Univision to Hyatt to Nextdoor) and people with whom I’ve had the privilege of working are what has impacted me and my perspective as a marketer. Purpose-driven brands have the opportunity to change the world, and drive bottom line impact for a company that is built to last. To do this you have to inherently believe in collaboration. And I’ve been fortunate to be part of teams that understood how a marketing partner could be a critical unlock for the overall business. I think some people think purpose is their corporate social responsibility. Some people understand that it's their north star.

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

The role of a marketer continues to evolve but the job to be done is the same as it has always been. Understand your customer and meet their needs in meaningful ways. There are more tools at your disposal to do this work today. But the underlying premise hasn’t changed. 

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

I’ve often been an organization's first CMO. As a result often my role is to show what is possible — to bring the organization and the team along the journey. You are often pushing against history. And so you are focused on showing rather than telling. So you have to be able to motivate the team to take on challenges that they are not familiar with and often seem impossible. Mobilizing your team and the organization is about culture change and that’s always the hardest and most rewarding part of the role — the team. Showing them what they are capable of so they can do the kind of work that moves the needle and makes everyone proud.

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

In August, tired of all the stories about NYC being dead, I gathered with a group of friends and out of that NYCNext was born. Together we set out to change the narrative around NYC and to celebrate and support our artist community. In 3 months, in the middle of the pandemic, we’ve had 12 live pop up performances including A Moment for Broadway that featured 2 dozen Broadway performers including Bernadette Peters, and The Met at the Met, featuring members of The Met Opera Chorus performing on the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I couldn’t be more proud of how New Yorkers have organically come together, to volunteer and pull together as a community. We all do this as a side hustle -- because we believe in the city and what is next for New York. The coming together of community to build an organic movement has been incredibly rewarding. 

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

The one I love this month is the Pepsi Bodega Give Back Campaign. I love the ingenuity of this hyperlocal campaign that recognizes the bodega as the heart to the neighborhood and in turn supports the very bodega that is featured with a year’s rent. We all are connected to where we live — particularly in this last difficult year. And we all have things we love about where we make our daily lives. Love the authentic way Pepsi leveraged the Bodega Boys to remind us that we need to support our local businesses that are the heart of our communities.

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

This past month I’ve been focused on the topic of loneliness. I recommend listening to the Brené Brown interview with Vivek Murthy on Loneliness. And go back and re-read Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, that arguably began the community movement. For me marketing is all about humanity. And understanding how we can come together to solve what is a significant underlying problem that has been worsened as a result of the pandemic is critical. And since I don’t want to point to a problem without giving some pathway out… I also recommend reading the NYT article that quotes loneliness expert, Julianne Holt-Lunstad that offers some ideas worth considering. 

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

Caring.com because the elder care market is big and ripe to be rethought. So brands in this category are interesting to watch.  

Ragged Priest, because it’s one my 21-year-old is currently a fan of. Natasha definitely spots trends early. And I love to follow brands her age cohort are focused on.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say, Nextdoor. We’re one of those brands that is still under the radar that you should be watching for. Nextdoor is where you go to plug into the neighborhoods that matter to you.

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

Peet’s Coffee. Their French Roast is what I start every day with. 

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

I would be a foreign correspondent or an investigative journalist.

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

Riccardo Tisci, the Chief Creative Officer at Burberry. I loved how he reimagined the brand via Singing in the Rain.

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