Todd Kaplan: CMO @ Pepsi: Culture Bending Creative & Entrepreneurial Leader
Todd Kaplan is the Chief Marketing Officer at Pepsi. In his role, he oversees all brand creative, communications and commercial execution across Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Zero Sugar, while building a long term strategy and new product innovation for the brand overall. He has implemented a unique “culture in, brand out” approach, which has led him to develop big cultural moments, like bringing J. Lo and Shakira to the 2020 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime show, making history as the first two Latina artists to headline the event. More recently, he put together the 2022 halftime show with landmark Hip Hop and R&B acts like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J Blige and 50 Cent. This Episode’s Heavy-hitter’s: Todd started the first student-run ad agency in the country after observing how poor marketing and targeting was in on-campus advertising. Todd’s entry point into Pepsico was approaching Indra Nooyi at a speaking event at his Alma Mater, Yale. He impressed Indra, the former CEO of Pepsico, enough in their time speaking, and it panned out for him at a time where Pepsico didn’t even recruit from Yale. As an entrepreneurial person, Todd’s role at Pepsico has given him the unique experience of launching a variety of different products, in both the food and beverage categories. When designing the packaging around Bubbly, Todd took inspiration from Taco Bell’s hot sauce packets, which each have funny and quirky sayings on them. The first place that Todd looks on a resume is the area at the bottom– where candidates list their interests, so that he can get a better feel for culture fit and who a candidate is as a person. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review: https://ratethispodcast.com/thepozcast #thePOZcast is brought to you by our friends at Interseller – the prospecting + outreach platform of recruiters and sellers. Whether you’re doubling down on business development or recruiting talent, Interseller does all the heavy lifting of finding contact data, automating the email and follow-up process, and syncs all that rich data into 20+ CRMs and ATSs. Reach out and get going in a 2-week *free* trial today and let them know you heard about them from Adam on #thePOZcast. Check out a free demo today! https://bit.ly/2Fbm/BZ If you are curious about how Adam has created #thePOZcast and turned it into an ecosystem that builds real relationships, clients, thought leadership, and content, check out www.thePOZcourse.com. For more, please visit www.thePOZcast.com Thanks for listening!