The Executive Lounge

Featuring 

Bonin Bough

Former Chief Media and E-Commerce Officer, Mondelēz &

Chief Digital Officer, PepsiCo

Hosted by

Michael Seidler

Founder & CEO, Madison Alley Global Ventures

February 2, 2022 @ 6 – 7 pm ET

EXECUTIVE HIGHLIGHTS

Introduction  

MadisonAlley.tv virtually hosted an exclusive conversation with Bonin Bough, former Chief Media & E-Commerce Officer of Mondelēz, and Chief Digital Officer of PepsiCo, in The Executive Lounge.

Overview of Bonin Bough

• Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Bonin Ventures
• Former Chief Media & E-Commerce Officer, Mondelēz
• Former Chief Digital Officer, PepsiCo
• Advertising Hall of Achievement; Fortune’s “40 Under 40;” Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business; Ebony’s Power 100

– Interview –

Who Is Bonin Bough?

Bonin Bough says: “The best way to create the future is to hack it.” He created some of the first marketing programs across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; and was named Mobile Marketer of the Year by the Mobile Marketing Association. Though he’s worked with billion-dollar brands, he believes those same strategies can translate to small businesses: “There are a lot of things we can do from a big-business standpoint in terms of what we’ve learned to help small businesses grow. Just because they’re a small business doesn’t mean that they have to think small.”

Reimagining PepsiCo

While at Pepsi, Bonin engineered many firsts: the first-ever corporate startup incubator, called Pep10; the first mission-control to reinvent Gatorade; the first-ever user-generated beverage on Facebook—all of which helped to drive business. Bonin was also an early champion of SXSW, making Pepsi the first non-endemic brand at the conference, where he took over activations across film, digital and music. At the conference, Bonin had three rules: Do no harm, add value and be ready for critique. Throughout the years, SXSW became the go-to place for major PepsiCo product launches, including PepsiCo Zeitgeist (an app that directed people to parties and panels and later became the base technology for Gatorade Mission) and a personalized digital marketing campaign that would target ads to people. Bonin is a big believer in “announcing where you’re going even if you don’t know how you’re going to get there. We projected where we were going to go even if we didn’t have all the pieces.”

Transforming Mondelēz

When Bonin joined Mondelēz, his single biggest goal was to increase the percentage of digital spend —which he ultimately accomplished, increasing it from 3% to 32% during his tenure. He first focused on consolidation, reducing the number of media companies from 12 to two. To get buy-in from management, he promised to deliver the same value as long as they let him control the media mix. With management on board, Bonin made several large spends, including the first mobile-only deal with Google and the largest geographic Facebook deal in 52 countries. At the upfronts, he mandated parity spending across channels. As a result of the shift in media strategy, Mondelēz increased net revenue by $2 billion. It also changed the way the company plans by tying all media together. Bonin credits the consumer for facilitating the shift. In the same way some brands were hesitant to move from radio to TV in the 1950s, Mondelēz simply moved with the consumer. And though digital is now a large component on any ad spend, TV is still powerful as the centerpiece of a communications strategy. For Bonin, the next big wave will be all about personalization. “How do you create products that adjust to the needs of consumers in real time?”

Bonin Ventures

Through his venture capital firm, Bonin is focused on figuring out how relationship experiences will progress, and how to turn them into utility experiences for consumers. That is going to be a huge market. Whatever exists for ad technology today will have to exist for the messaging space tomorrow.

Equitable Ownership & Lockstep Ventures

In the aftermath of George Floyd, Bonin discussed the situation with his father—who grew up in Chicago in the 1920s and experienced discrimination as a Black photographer. His father said: “nothing ever changes.” Deeply saddened, Bonin and private venture investor Michael Loeb teamed up to launch Lockstep Ventures, which invests in African American-founded businesses. They focused on issues that perpetuate racial inequality in the U.S., with an emphasis on the criminal justice system, healthcare, education and financial literacy, ensuring that money goes to those lacking access. One of Lockstep Ventures’ first investments was in an ice cream company, founded by a formerly incarcerated individual who couldn’t find a job and now strives to provide fellow returning citizens with jobs and brighter futures. Bonin believes corporations are good at solving problems, especially when it has to do with our bottom lines.

Hacking The Future

What does hacking the future mean? To create value by breaking things: breaking your organization, breaking its process and mindset. Hackers wake up to the challenge to reinvent the new. The rest of us must ask, “How do we build muscle memory to do the same?” That’s the hardest thing but what propels growth the most. Bonin wrote a book, TXT ME +1(646)759-1837, boldly inspired to change publishing. After finishing, he decided to change the title from Digalent, to his phone number, but his publisher wouldn’t agree. Bonin bought back the rights to the book and published it with his phone number and personal photo. Text #ExecutiveLounge to Bonin and he will send you a complimentary copy of the book.

– Q&A –

How can agencies be successful with large brands and conglomerates?

“I tell this to everybody: The single biggest thing is to understand the real objective of people you’re working with. Everybody wants to do good work, but the brand marketer is fighting for a job. Most sales folks go in and say this is going to drive your business and that’s where they stop. If you can bring in the other side and tell them how it’s going to help them progress through the organization, they’ll be more likely to listen to you. They don’t just go to work to sell Oreos, they go to work to become CEO.”

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