Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. Angela Zepeda (below), who left Hyundai recently after finding her job had changed from CMO to chief creative officer (do advertisers need one? Not Hyundai it seems) has emerged as the new head of marketing for Elon Musk’s X.
She will work with CEO Linda Yaccarino to try to restore X’s ad fortunes following a series of spats with advertisers which have seen X’s revenue more than halved.
Yaccarino, who’s becoming an expert at putting a brave face on things, says Zepeda “brings incredible experience and expertise, understands how to grow a brand globally and is exactly the right person to lead X’s marketing as we accelerate our innovation.”
Innovating to what end remains unclear at X as Musk’s one-billionaire crusade to bring back what he calls “free speech” has led to advertisers leaving in droves, fearful of what eccentric posts they will be next to.
CMOs, especially in the US, seem to have a target on their back these days. Long-serving Unilever media chief Luis Di Como is leaving to be replaced by Diageo’s global media chief Isabel Massey as vice-president of integrated brand experiences. Which, presumably, means marketing. Unilever is in the midst of a global media review. Massey is a former media planning director at Vizeum.
Unilever was one of the big companies that seemed to be led by marketing, with its focus on so-called ‘purpose.’ This now seems to have been largely abandoned after shareholder pressure.
