Purpose and Persistence

 

PepsiCo’s Head of US Cola Marketing Todd Kaplan on how he revitalized the Pepsi brand with empathy, creativity, persistence, and a deep sense of purpose.

 

Episode Notes

Perhaps no food and drink company has reinvented itself so expertly over the years, or refined and ended its brand to be more vibrant, more culturally relevant and more inclusive as has Pepsi. Head of US Cola Marketing Todd Kaplan has been the architect of many of those bold moves and transformational ideas.

In his talk with Jesse, Todd describes his journey to becoming a steward of one of the world’s largest and most culturally connected consumer brands. He recounts his experience working with the Olympics at Visa. He tells the story of the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams project that often seemed impossible, but ultimately came to life in vivid detail for one grateful fan and an enthralled public. He reflects on launching Pepsi’s LIFEWATR and Bubly brands with core insights about the consumer. Throughout, Todd cites instances where moving with purpose and persistence helped turn audacious dreams into breakthrough brand experiences.

(4:07) Todd describes his early years in sports marketing and formative work with the Olympics

(10:02) Seizing the opportunity to make connections at Pepsi

(12:15) If you build it…(The Pepsi Max Field of Dreams project)

(16:57) Embracing and understanding the consumer’s mindset

(19:39) Branding with purpose: the ins and outs

(22:59) Launching LIFEWATR to refresh consumers and support the arts

(26:26) How to react when people say ‘no’ to an idea you believe in


Guest Bio

Todd Kaplan is the Vice President of Marketing at Pepsi where he is responsible for leading PepsiCo’s flagship brand. Since Fall 2018, Kaplan has brought a challenger mindset and culture-forward perspective that has been foundational to turning around and re-energizing the Pepsi brand. Under his leadership, the Pepsi brand has delivered twelve consecutive quarters of positive sales growth (and counting), along with significant increases in brand equity and all-time highs in creative effectiveness. Todd was recently named one of the “Top 25 Most Innovative CMO’s” in the world by Business Insider.

Helpful Links

+ Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Todd Kaplan: One of the most undervalued terms, frankly, in business today is empathy. You know, a lot of people are always talking about the data and insights and big data and getting these data scientists in, and it's all very valuable stuff. But empathy, at the end of the day, is where you connect with someone on a human level, and an individual. Back to that emotional heartstrings, it's less rational about, here's the logic, whatever. It gets to the why behind every decision. So it starts with really taking the time to talk and understand, both from a consumer standpoint, you know, having that empathy, but also internally.

[00:00:43] Jesse Purewal: From Qualtrics Studios, this is Breakthrough Builders, a series of conversations with people whose passions, perspectives, instincts, and ideas fuel some of the world's most amazing products, brands, and experiences. Hey, it's Jesse. What are some brands that come to mind when you think about growth, innovation, and disruption? Sure, you could answer Google or Tesla or Spotify, and, well, you'd be right, but before software started eating the world, we people, well, we were eating and drinking food and drink.

And perhaps no food and drink company has reinvented itself so expertly over the years, or refined and ended its brand to be more vibrant, more culturally relevant and more inclusive as has Pepsi. To find out how, I wanted to talk to the guy who looks after the brand in the blue can, Todd Kaplan, head of all marketing for PepsiCo's US Cola business. Todd's one of those people who's seemingly seen and done it all. The things he and his teams have done, whether it's Super Bowl halftime shows, launches of craft soda brands, or iconic partnerships with Major League Baseball.

They read like a hall of fame of breakthrough experiences, and far from just getting into a groove and cruising, Todd has continually worked to skill build and drive impact in different ways within PepsiCo over the years. He's embraced all kinds of roles in his 16 years there from turnaround specialist to category creator to experience builder. And he's learned some incredible lessons along the way that he shared with me in our conversation.

Todd and I talked about that career arc and how to keep getting diverse experiences in a single company, how to dream big and execute it to bring it to life, the valuable and exciting intersections between brand and experience, the importance of harnessing deep customer empathy in business decision making, and the accomplishments that Todd is personally most proud of. We started out talking about his history as a California kid who made his way to the East Coast.

I'm assuming you're a SoCal guy, or you have an even better story for why you're a Lakers fan, but how does a SoCal guy get into the New York ecosystem and then make it home forever?

[00:02:52] Todd Kaplan: That's a good question. I am a SoCal guy and a Lakers fan because of that, as a SoCal guy. But yeah, I came out east for business school. I met my wife while I was in between my first and second year, actually, when I was interning at Pepsi. And then, she's from out here, and then I got a job out here and I blinked and now it's many years later and [inaudible] .

[00:03:15] Jesse Purewal: You know, you've been stewarding and growing one of the most recognizable and iconic brands on the planet for almost 16 years. What have you come to love or appreciate that maybe you didn't see coming?

[00:03:26] Todd Kaplan: I think it's just the impact that this company and these brands have on people's day to day lives. You know, for me, what's really exciting is the brands that we have at PepsiCo not only are in every household, but they're part of people's daily lives and they connect on a more emotional, deeper level as of the role of the brands and sports and music and entertainment and just culture. I think, you know, I'm a big culture junkie, and so all that stuff's really interesting.

[00:03:52] Jesse Purewal: And tell me about getting into sports marketing earlier in your career. I know it's tricky to get into sports marketing, especially early on, before you got a lot of bonafides in a resume. Like what steps did you take to be able to land that gig when you did?

[00:04:07] Todd Kaplan: It's such a good question, because, you know ... Listen, I've always been a sports fan, and sports marketing wasn't even really a field or an industry back then. You know, I mean obviously it existed, but it wasn't as ... It wasn't like schools and programs and things. I think when Jerry Maguire came out was the first time people actually started even talking about it. But when I was in college, I interned at the US Olympic Committee over the summer. I lived out in Colorado Springs at their training center and interned there. And then I did a marketing field studies program for a semester at college, where I literally didn't go to school, but just interned in Chicago at Fox Sports Net Chicago, at the time.

And so that was the local cable affiliate there. Learned a lot, and I was even at the Michael Jordan retirement press conference, did a whole bunch of really cool stuff while I was there, and had a sports business radio show with my friend, Darren Ravel, who went on the ESPN and doing stuff. And for my job, you know, when you're coming out of college, you want to get a job, and you want to get it right. And there was no real way ... Again, this was still, also, early internet days, when I was developed in a lot of those things too.

So I literally mailed 500 letters, physical letters, to every sports team league, property, media partner, agency out there. I will tell you, as a Cali kid out in Chicago, I was freezing. And so I wanted to get back out west. So I moved out to San Francisco and found a company called Millsport where I could lead their Olympic Games and global sports sponsorships. And that's kind of how it all started.

[00:05:34] Jesse Purewal: So you land in San Francisco, I presume that had something to do with how you got attached to the Visa account.

[00:05:40] Todd Kaplan: Yep.

[00:05:40] Jesse Purewal: And you know, Olympic sponsor, Rugby World Cup, NFL, as you look back on it now, what was the specific value of being able to work early in your career on an account with that kind of ambition and imagination and brand clarity?

[00:05:57] Todd Kaplan: It was really cool. And listen, I was fresh out of college. And I was actually working in house with my clients. So I was the agency, but I was based at Visa's global headquarters. And I was working on a global capacity, you know, talking to people all around the world and all their different operating regions and with some of the biggest properties, the Olympic Games and the Rugby World Cup and NFL International. And I would advise them on everything from sponsorship renewal to build the brand activation plans, and I led a couple of these Olympian reunion centers at the Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, and in Athens in 2004.

But it was really cool sitting in house. A lot of the people on my client's side, they were pretty senior. They were all directors, senior directors, VPs, even SVPs at the time. And I became close friends with them, and really just through observing, got to see a lot about how business worked, how the industry worked, and got to really start my [chups] .

[00:06:46] Jesse Purewal: Was there any specific moment or any specific experience that you had, whether it was at a certain game where you were sponsoring, whether it was in a certain meeting with a certain team, where you said, this is kind of a magical alchemy of ... I got sport, I got brand, I got experience, I got culture. These things, were they starting to swim in your head at that point in your career? Or still too early?

[00:07:08] Todd Kaplan: No, it was starting to get there early, because like even just ... I had never been to an Olympic Games before. Right? And so when you're there in Salt Lake City ... I remember I had to go to ... I lived in Athens for a month when the Olympics were there, and that was a whole thing, leading this thing called the Visa Olympians Reunion Center, where they bring all the past Olympians from previous games together and help give them tools to find jobs and things like that. But it was just really ... when you see the grandness of any Olympic Games, and the world coming together and knowing that you're a part of it and you're connecting to all these people and helping, also while you're building a brand and building activation around it, it's pretty cool, especially when you're like 22 year old kid out of college or something. And it's fun too, you know, all that stuff. So it was a blast.

[00:07:51] Jesse Purewal: So how'd you find your way to PepsiCo?

[00:07:54] Todd Kaplan: It's a good segue. Well, actually through business school itself. So one of the things when I was there I also learned is saying, hey, this sports industry is really, really cool, and I love it. I have a lot of passion for it, but it also is very narrow. And as I could see, you know, with a lot of the senior leaders that there's, hey, there's a role and a place, but then you can kind of hit a cap. And I wanted to have some more broad business visibility to marketing. And I think of my passion and creativity, what I could bring.

So I went back to bit business school, I came out of East Yale where I got my MBA, and that's actually in between my first and second years where I met my wife that summer, as I do. And when I was there Indra Nooyi, who was the CEO of PepsiCo who also had gone CEO for business school was speaking on campus, doing a big leadership forum. And I'd always kind of admired Pepsi a little bit as just a great marketer, and like I said, the role in culture and sports and music, and all that stuff. So after she was done presenting, I went up to her and said, "Hey," you know, I was like, "Hey, how's it going? I'm a student here. Do you recruit for marketing?"

And of course she had no idea, but behind her was Dave Burwick, who was the CMO at the time. So she turned around to Dave and is like, "Hey, do we recruit here for marketing?" He goes, "Yep." Even though they didn't, he said, "Yep." And they came back and they interviewed me as one of the candidates, and I got the job and got an internship, had a great internship experience, and then I was hired.

[00:09:16] Jesse Purewal: So your first role at PepsiCo 0607, you're leading out on the creation of a branded entertainment center of excellence, a branded entertainment center of excellence. Now this is pre-social medias, pre iPhone. If I said that phrase in 2016, 2017, everyone was, oh, of course, you know, branded entertainment center. But back in the day, you're doing that stuff before any of us even have that vernacular. So talk about that vision and kind of maybe creating what became the future.

[00:09:44] Todd Kaplan: Yeah, totally. This was way before the trend. And I'll point out all of my roles at PepsiCo as well. They all have that, like I said, that entrepreneurial kind of almost like startup vibe of creating and building something, whether it's new, big brands like creating Bubly and Lifewater on the water business, or starting a new thing, branded entertainment, everything in between.

And so this first role, I was hired by John Galloway, who was my ... He was my boss over the summer as an intern. He had led our sports group at Pepsi, but he also then ended up leading the media team and digital team at the time. And they had to figure like, there's something else we can be doing here, and how we can integrate it in the space, not just paid media. And so I had to really craft the vision, the strategy, and really build a whole center of excellence around, what's our point of view on product placement and TV and film for building proprietary content, what is brand entertainment, bring all the stakeholders, senior leadership, talking to ... how are we going to interface with the movie studios out west, all that stuff.

And now actually reflecting back, it's laid a lot of the foundation, frankly, for stuff I'm even now realizing I'm doing today. You know, this past year we created a Primetime game show on Fox. We created a reality dating show on MTV. We built a documentary on Showtime. I mean, branded content is still alive and well, but you know, it's kind of interesting now that we're leading the forefront and doing a lot of really fun stuff in that domain as well.

[00:11:03] Jesse Purewal: Yeah. You've gotten to build some spectacularly cool and widely viewed experiences of brand activations. You know, you mentioned a few there. I think about inaugurating the Pepsi halftime show at the Super Bowl. I think about Pepsi Max Field of Dreams.

[00:11:19] Todd Kaplan: Yeah.

[00:11:19] Jesse Purewal: Take me behind the scenes for some of those iconic moments. Like what would surprise people to know about what it takes to pull something like that off?

[00:11:29] Todd Kaplan: I'd say anybody who's planned any event or activation or anything at this level of scale, it is a whole different level of just detail and logistics and people and all that stuff.

[00:11:41] Speaker 3: ... You have to leave it all in the field tonight, and then it's Sunday.

[00:11:44] Todd Kaplan: But it's interesting. You mentioned an interesting project, the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams program. It's so funny. I haven't heard that one in years. And that was when I was still pretty junior on the sports team at PepsiCo. I was probably like a senior manager at the time, and one of the things that I shared earlier that I love about Pepsi, is that you can turn your big, crazy dreams into a reality. And that's kind of been my calling card is as a creative person coming up with some crazy idea, running around the building and saying, "Who's coming with me?" You know, how can we get the money to do this? This is why it's so cool.

And so at the time we had just launched Pepsi Max, which is our zero calorie Cola, and had launched a piece of creative around that was themed around Field of Dreams with these Pepsi Max driver was in a field with all these baseball players, and it was a kind of fun piece of TV creative. And so again, I was leading our NFL and Major League Baseball partnerships at the time. And, you know, there's this insight around baseball that people always debate around who is the best living legend at each position? Who was the best pitcher of all time? Who was the best first base? Who's the best, whatever?

And again, everything ... also, I'm now realizing as I'm reflecting back as a calling card, everything I always do starts with a consumer truth or insight. And so this is kind one, just around the sports. And so I had this idea to create the first ever activation, where basically we had people go online and vote for who was their favorite living legend at each position, first base catcher, second base, et cetera. And one lucky person who filled out this form would be a winner. And we would bring all 10 of the living legends to their hometown to play a game of baseball against them and their 10 closest friends.

So it ended up being this guy, Tim [Weisscup] who was this like 41 year old chemist in Columbus, Ohio, with all his friends. And we brought Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson, Wade Boggs, Dave Winfield, Ricky Henderson, Pedro Martinez, Frank Thomas, I mean the list goes on and on. It was, I think, the second largest gathering of Hall of Famers ever in history, to this guy's hometown. And we built in their minor league ballpark, we built cornfields in the back. We had a whole thing. We televised it on ESPN. We sold tickets to 30,000 people, this thing.

And again, this was just me as some guy on the sports team with a random idea. And then to turn that into reality, to your point, the logistics of how do we sell the tickets, who's doing it, how do we get the broadcast? How do you sign the athletes? How do they show up? How do we ... ? Like there's logistics in spades there, but as you go from the big marketing PR buzz and everything that it drove, all the way to all the logistics, it was just one example of like, any crazy idea is possible at Pepsi. And I've kind of taken that through, as we think about halftime show NFL, you know, everything in between.

[00:14:22] Jesse Purewal: And Todd, how do you ... or do you ... tether the crazy to the practical? Like, do you have to have those conversations with leadership around? No, no, no. Here's the kind of impact we're we're talking about. Or is the blueprint at this point so kind of well stamped and established that you just know that when you make these kind of big, bold brand moves or put incredible experiences like that into the world, it just pays off in ways that are immeasurable?

[00:14:52] Todd Kaplan: There's a whole bunch. And I'll say the business is critically important to us as well. You know? And so we don't just do fun, crazy things, even though we like to talk about them right now, as we're talking here, I currently oversee all the business side of Pepsi as well, right? From building the innovation and the strategy and the insights, all the way into our commercial plans with Walmart and Target and 7-Eleven, and everything in between. And we've generated 13 straight quarters of growth on Pepsi now, after ... this is after decades of decline.

But I think to your point on where does the equity measures really connect to it, as you think about our category, we're a high penetration category, you know? And very high awareness, too. When people come present me stuff and they say presented by Pepsi, I'm like, "Not interested." Because frankly, who hasn't heard of Pepsi? We have very high household awareness. It's more about relevance, and what are the real drivers that are really going to make a difference in a low involvement category, where it costs a $1.29 for a 20 ounce or something. This isn't like you're debating on which iPhone to get, or which diamond ring to buy. It's an impulse decision, which gets down to this emotional equity driving level and the role that it plays in really helping add that topspin.

And when you can connect it all the way through to retail activation, other things, is where you really get this, in innovation and new products and categories that we've come out with as well, is where you really get the full business growth.

[00:16:10] Jesse Purewal: So from the outside in, as a brand guy, I think of words like youthful and vibrant and eclectic and diverse and engaging and kinetic, when I think about PepsiCo. But what's in that constellation for you as you try to get to relevance, that's, you know, not just different from the other guy, or a little better than, you know, this other player, but actually kind of getting to that category of one, where you're like, wow, we could kind of do anything?

[00:16:38] Todd Kaplan: One of the things that really helped get the brand back on track during this turnaround in these last few years, is we repositioned the brand and really sharpened what the brand stands for. And so a lot of those words you bring up, youthfulness, exuberance, joy, are spot on, but I would say you need to be distinctive as a brand, and have a distinct point of view.

What we learned about our Pepsi consumers is that they like to enjoy life, what we call unapologetically, which means that, hey, it's, maybe it's eating that extra piece of cheesecake or going skinny dipping on a random day, or going karaokeing with friends or clapping at the end of a movie. You now, having that little impulse to just do that extra ... that little bit extra experience, if you will, even if you might be judged for it. Maybe drinking a Pepsi, someone's going to judge you for doing that as well.

Unapologetic enjoyment is really been a core ethos of our brand these past years, from everything from coming up with innovation, like you can see behind me, the Pepsi Peeps, which is a marshmallow flavored Cola we've made, all the way to, you know, some of the executions we've done around better with Pepsi and these burgers, and everything in between. So really maintaining that distinctive point of view is critical.

[00:17:49] Jesse Purewal: For many years, there was this thought about, you've got to have disruption from the outside, or, you know, only the newly minted companies will actually force disruption or they'll build technology for disruption. And then the pendulum kind of swung back. It's like, no, no, actually the innovators are the ones that can do the disruption, because they have that mechanism you're talking about. But even if they have the mechanism, they might not always have the mindset that somebody like you brings where it's like, no, no, it's okay to break the glass. We might fumble through it a little bit, but like, let's go. We got to do something different.

[00:18:19] Todd Kaplan: You're totally right. I go back to my experience when I was leading our water portfolio, where we had Aquafina for a number of years as a leader in this category. But the category around was growing gangbusters, sparkling water, premium water, all of this kind of ... and it still is going crazy today. It's a huge growth thing. And we were not, as a big company, getting our fair share. And for years, we dabbled in, you know, hey, should we buy another sparkling water company? Should we start another one to it?

And literally I created a couple brands, Bubly sparkling water, which now is going to be one of our next billion dollar brands in that space. I started Lifewater, which is our premium water, which started with an inside of the art on the label on the outside, to really help cut through and connect with kind of creative purpose driven brand stuff. And so it's not always just, hey, big companies, either acquire ... or, you know. You can build from within and innovate. And we quickly, overnight, we were driving the growth in the category for water, which was one of the fastest growing categories.

[00:19:17] Jesse Purewal: Yeah. You mentioned purpose in the narrative there about Bubly. Whether it's that brand or whether it's any of the other brands in the portfolio, how have you taken a hard look at the connection to, not just emotional relationships with consumers, but really declaring that point of view, declaring that purpose and, you know ... What role does that play in how you go to market?

[00:19:39] Todd Kaplan: Yeah, I mean, that's frankly the future of branding. I think a lot of people where they screw up on purpose or brands is they think of it as, oh, well, you need to be a part of a cause, and you need to just help, you know, heal the world. And what you need to really answer is, it comes down to, frankly, a self-awareness exercise of, do you know who the hell your brand even is? It's back to that Simon Sinek of why do you exist as a brand, right? And the golden circle kind of stuff is a starting point. And then once you understand your point of view as a brand, then you'd say, okay, what is our people impact, and what is our planet impact?

We have this thing called Pep positive, where we're really focused on that. And so, as you think about, what is a brand like Pepsi's point of view on sustainability? Sustainability has typically been something done at the corporate level, and we do a ton of really great stuff as PepsiCo, but as a brand, our brand point of view, you know, we just launched this program called Pepsi trash talk, where there's this insight around sports people talking trash to one another as an endemic part of sports.

And one of the barriers to recycling is no one knows what the hell to recycle. It's I go, there's five trash cans. I don't know what goes where. Do I put the cap in? And so we're using that now as a platform to educate consumers in a Pepsi way, a fun way to kind of talk about Pepsi trash talk, and talk about recycling with Deion Sanders and all these kind of famous trash talkers and stuff. So just one example.

[00:20:59] Jesse Purewal: Love that. You also mentioned at the top customer centricity related to empathy, right? Customer empathy. And as you reflect on getting from a turnaround situation into a growth situation, talk to me if you would about the role that empathy, whether it's for employees and what they want to do with their careers or customers, and what they're trying to do with their lives, has played, to kind of right those wrongs in the business.

[00:21:22] Todd Kaplan: Yeah, I think it's one of the most undervalued terms, frankly, in business today is empathy. You know, a lot of people are always talking about the data and insights and big data and getting these data scientists in, and it's all very valuable stuff. But empathy, at the end of the day, is where you connect with someone on a human level, and an individual. Back to that emotional heartstrings. It's less rational about ... here's the logic, whatever. It gets to the why behind every decision. I can look at sales data, data from a survey, whatever it is, that says X percent of people think this, Y percent this. If I don't know the context or the why, that's how it is.

So it starts with really taking the time to talk and understand, both from a consumer standpoint, you know, having that empathy, but also internally to that point. Especially, I'd look at these last two years, as you think about team building through a pandemic, how everyone's experiencing it differently. I have people on my team who are trapped in a studio apartment by themselves with no human interaction. I have people who are juggling two working spouses and kids and whatever, and trying to deal with Zooms. And I have people who have, you know, ailments and family members. And so you need to be empathetic to everyone's situation as you go through it together, which really helps.

[00:22:35] Jesse Purewal: And Todd, give me an example of an experience that you've put into the world for an audience, where you'd say, I am so glad that we channeled that the degree of empathy that we did. What change was made to an existing plan? Or what net new thing was created, where you're like, if we hadn't been deeply listening around the why, we would not have gotten to that?

[00:22:59] Todd Kaplan: Yeah. I mean, I'll go back to my time on water. I think both those brands. Lifewater and Bubly, which are the two most successful innovation launches we had had at PepsiCo, both back to back, really they were all born from real human insights. It's very easy to just kind of take the shortcut and say, hey, R and D team, let's make a sparkling water. Let's get these flavors. Let's do what they're doing. Boom, boom, boom. We can package it. We can sell it. It's not sustainable.

What's made those businesses really sustain is they're built on human truth. Lifewater, and Bubly, for example. But Lifewater is these one liter bottles. People carry them around with them all day. It's less even about the water inside. It's more an accessory and a badge of like you're drinking it in public. People see what it is. And so when you look at this idea of art and inspiration, we know a lot of millennials who were looking to drink premium water at the time, also really care about purpose and creativity. And so we said, what if we built a water brand that supported the arts?

[00:23:56] Speaker 4: ... And you go into a bodega, and you see a radical piece of art on something that you're going to purchase. It's a cool part of your day. There's multi-levels of inspiration there, whether it's through hydration or the experience of picking up the bottle, it offers a visual aspect. That's definitely inspiring.

[00:24:17] Todd Kaplan: And we built Lifewater and put the art on the label, making it a cool badge that would change, you know, and all of that. With Bubly, basically what people wanted was the permissibility of a sparkling water, but the fun of a soda and, you know, LaCroix and some of these other things had kind of accidentally fallen into that space. And we said, "Well, what if we built a brand with playfulness from the ground up?" And so we put all these fun sayings on the tabs and the bright colors and the smiles and built this kind of visual identity. And, you know, we launched it only talking in gifts, you know, and just a lot of really fun things. So it really comes down to starting with that real insight.

[00:24:52] Jesse Purewal: What role do you think strong brands with a cultural currency and maybe a social influence or authority, like Pepsi has come to have, what obligation do brands like that have to reflect a diverse society, and the various kinds of beliefs and values that we might all have?

[00:25:13] Todd Kaplan: I think it's paramount at the end of the day. The tricky thing is you obviously get to a scaled brand like Pepsi is there's a lot of different cohorts that will consume you or participate with you. But I think you need to clearly take a stand for what you believe in as a brand and as a company and all that. We've done a lot, as you think about the space around social injustice, for example.

We've done a number of programs from something around supporting black owned restaurants, this program we have called Pepsi Dig In, which is really an effort to help promote and engage with black owned restaurants and really support them, which again, is back within the lane of our product didn't have a lot of employee groups, internally, that we do quite a bit of activity with, within our team and also just across the company. So it's a critical component for us, I think, as a brand and as a company.

[00:25:58] Jesse Purewal: Yeah. You know, Todd, they have those books, like what they don't teach you at HBS, or the kind of, what do you really, really need to know. If you're sitting down with the next Todd Kaplan or the next kid who walks up to Indra Nooyi at Yale, and you kind of pull them aside and say, "Let me give you two or three chips of advice." What are you telling that young person who's getting started, that maybe took you some time to know or discover?

[00:26:26] Todd Kaplan: Yeah, I'd say a couple things. And this is one I think I innately live and breathe, but I've learned that everybody else does not, and I've now tried to figure out how to teach it on my teams as well. And it's this idea of, take no as a request for more information. There's some idea of persistence that the best creative ideas often die two or three times before they at least even get to see the light of day. And I can give you millions of examples of that, but especially in a big company, there's always going to be a reason not to.

We have our legal teams, we have supply chain constraints, we have a cost budget, we have this, we have timing constraints, but if you have the right idea, don't [futz] it up just because of those other things. Like really try to understand, and often with the right creative problem solving and persistence, if there's a will, there's a way. And you can influence and figure out, maybe you have to reshape something, an element that still keeps the core idea intact, but gets it to the next phase over the finish line. And so that's something that I would say that just this idea of persistence, in taking no or request for information, because the best ideas often usually start with some sort of no.

The other thing I would say that I've said to a lot of folks on my team as well is we do this exercise. I say, write your resume in reverse. So whenever you start role, to say like, hey, this role ... if I think back when I leave the Pepsi team, what would I say would be successful? Well, I've returned the business to growth of whatever, I've fixed the equity around blah, blah, blah. But you know, what are the two or three things?

When everyone goes and recounts their career, you tell the two to three stories per role, and you go to the next one. And like, I'm sure there was a whole lot beyond that inside that role that people did, meetings, projects, important things, but get to early on, what are those critical projects, and spend most of your time on that. Make sure you spend like 70% of your time really focusing on that stuff and not getting sucked into the day to day minutia. So I think those are just two elements that I think can be helpful.

[00:28:26] Jesse Purewal: Todd, as you talk, I'm just so struck by the diversity of the stuff that you've gotten to have your hands on and help create. Creating an insights team, turning around parts of the business, putting number one water brands into the world, these incredible experiences at the Super Bowl, and on and on and on. Beyond the fact that it's an accomplished list, it's just a very diverse list. Like it's almost hard to believe, if you'd say one person had a hand on the pen for all of these things.

Talk to me about the lateral thinking capability that you've had to grow, that you've had to deploy into these roles, and just how somebody looking, you know, 10, 15 years ahead, to do that future resume writing, for example, that you talked about.

[00:29:09] Todd Kaplan: Yeah. It's interesting. I keep thinking to myself like, well, was I in the right role at the right time? Or is it ... Hey, the consistent thing is I was in every one of those roles. And as I've reflected on it, it's kind of like, well, what am I bringing to this as well? And as I've tried to articulate that, one thing I've told people who've asked me something similar is, you make the role, the role doesn't make you. And so it's almost this idea as seeing the world as it is, not how it's presented to you.

So every time you start a new job or a new role, there will have been some predecessor before you. Your boss will say, "This is what the role's job description is." And you definitely want to appreciate what they've done before, what the need is now, what your boss is telling you. But to your point in that periphery, horizontal vision of like, all right, but let's like ... Let's be honest, I'm here in this role. And wow, what if we did this? And what if we did that? That that creative kind of juice comes in, and you could then come up with some new areas to say, hey, you know what? In addition to this, what if we actually looked at broadening this role to really do whatever.

You know, when I went into food service, my team started as 12 people. And by the time I was done, it was like 32 people. It was like ... we had grown to global and insights and equipment and all this stuff. And just as you learn the art of internal selling and creating your own destiny in some of these things, anything is possible. And so I tell people all the time, sometimes the roles people don't want as well, are the most exciting ones. There's opportunity everywhere to build and create.

[00:30:37] Jesse Purewal: Yeah. All right. I want to shift us to a lightning round, here. Just first kind of top of mind response on some of these, if that's all right. You ready?

[00:30:44] Todd Kaplan: All right. Lightning round. Let's do it.

[00:30:46] Jesse Purewal: Okay. So give me a brand, and it can't be the Los Angeles Lakers, and it can't be Pepsi or any of the brands in your portfolio. Give me a brand you admire, one that you personally can't imagine living without.

[00:31:00] Todd Kaplan: I will say Nike. I'm a total sneaker head and huge Nike fan. I just love, culturally, what they've been able to do. I love performance-wise what they've been able to do, and just, they've been very consistent across the board. Just done great stuff. So I'd say Nike.

[00:31:17] Jesse Purewal: And who's your favorite Laker or favorite Laker team of all time, knowing all that you've got to choose from?

[00:31:24] Todd Kaplan: Yeah, I'd say Kobe. And that might be an unpopular choice, but I really admire his mentality and his work ethic. And just, I think just seeing his athletic prowess is amazing. And so I think the Shaq Kobe years were probably even more than kind of the magic creamers, and the current LeBron and you know, everything now. I'd say Kobe, for sure though.

[00:31:45] Jesse Purewal: Who is one person that has had an unbelievable amount of influence on you in maybe a way you did not expect that they would?

[00:31:53] Todd Kaplan: I'd actually probably say my dad. It's one of those things as you get older and you have kids yourself, like I do now, and you know, you have a new appreciation for kind of what your folks did raising you. You know, my dad, well, he was a pediatrician. He still is a pediatrician living out in California and has instilled a lot of like really great, I'd say, leadership lessons. But even just seeing how he approaches his day to day. And I think across the board really set a good foundation for someone to emulate and to really connect with. So I'd say my dad.

[00:32:24] Jesse Purewal: And Todd, what's your secret sauce? You know, you said earlier that you make the role, the role doesn't make you. You got to have some commitment to a secret sauce. That thing that just makes you you, what is that for Todd?

[00:32:36] Todd Kaplan: Yeah, the secret sauce. I mean, I approach everything from a lens of passion. So whether it's my job, whether it's going out with friends and having a banger of a night or doing whatever. You know, like if I'm going to build something with my kids, we're building a fricking crazy Lego tower city. So it's this idea of just going all in, doing it kind of from a place of passion and interest is, I'd say, a consistent theme.

[00:33:02] Jesse Purewal: Well, Todd, I'm grateful for the conversation, the perspective, all the time and input. So thank you so much for spending your afternoon and a big part of your day here with us.

[00:33:12] Todd Kaplan: Good.

[00:33:12] Jesse Purewal: I'm very grateful. And we'll talk again soon.

[00:33:15] Todd Kaplan: Sounds good. All right. Thanks a lot.

[00:33:17] Speaker 5: We're taking it back right now to 1997, baby. Be the notorious [B.I.G.] freestyling in the studio. Let's go.

[00:33:24] Speaker 6: ... Big slam, quick slam, tin can, whatever. Whether too cold or too hot, you got to keep Pepsi in the freezer. I keep a three liter for my crew. My girl likes them diet joints, too. Other sodas taste the worst. I don't even converse. If it can't quench my thirst, what you in my fridge for? What you want to live for? Life with the dry mouth, hot like the South, flash out your 12 ounce and renounce. Nothing can beat P-E-P-S-I, yes I drink it constantly.

[00:33:50] Jesse Purewal: Thanks for listening to Breakthrough Builders. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and a review, and tell a friend about the show. Breakthrough builders as a Qualtrics Studios original, hosted and executive by me, Jesse Purewal. An awesome team of people puts this show together, including our show writer, Todd Bagnull, folks from StudioPod Media in San Francisco and VaynerTalent in New York.

From StudioPod Media, our executive producer is Katie Sunku Wood. Producer is Sterling Shore, editing and music is by Ryan Crowther. And our show coordinator is Kela Sowell. From VaynerTalent, publicity and promotion support come from Samantha Heapps, Hannah Park, Lindsay Blum and Yvvonna Lynn. The show's designers are Baron Santiago and Vansuka Chindavijak. Our website's by Gregory Hedon, and photography is by Christy Hemm Klok.

Special thanks to the entire Breakthrough Builders crew at Qualtrics, including Ali Rohani, Ben Hawken, John Johnson, and Kylan Lundeen.

Season 5Jesse Purewalchief marketing officer, culture, consumer brands, brand experience, sports marketing, empathy, food and beverages, soda, todd kaplan, pepsi