#277: The Strategy Behind Canva’s B2B Growth with Emma Robinson and Kristine Segrist

#277 Growth | Dave is joined by Emma Robinson, Head of B2B Marketing at Canva, and Kristine Segrist, VP of Consumer Marketing at Canva. Together, Emma and Kristine lead the teams driving Canva’s growth across both enterprise and consumer audiences, helping the company scale into a platform now used by over 95% of the Fortune 500.

Dave, Emma, and Kristine cover:

• How Canva balances brand-building with pipeline accountability, and why they view brand investment as long-term growth.
• The playbook Canva uses to turn bottom-up adoption into enterprise deals, including how product signals guide upsell and expansion.
• How their team structure, data science investments, and creative bets (like the Love Your Work campaign) work together to scale B2B marketing without losing Canva’s approachable brand identity.

This episode offers a practical look at how one of the world’s most recognizable platforms approaches B2B growth.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - – Intro
  
• (03:09) - – Canva’s marketing org structure
  
• (06:09) - – Blurring B2B and B2C
  
• (11:09) - – How Canva measures marketing impact
  
• (16:09) - – Turning free users into enterprise deals
  
• (21:09) - – Data science’s role in marketing
  
• (24:09) - – Balancing brand bets with ROI
  
• (30:54) - – Inside the “Love Your Work” campaign
  
• (37:54) - – How Canva executes large campaigns
  
• (41:54) - – Building enterprise credibility and trust
  
• (44:54) - – FedEx case study on brand governance
  
• (48:54) - – Lessons from Google and Meta
  
• (52:54) - – Why creativity is a marketing superpower
  
• (54:54) - – Closing thoughts

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Emma [0:00:00]: We find that in ninety five percent of fortune five hundred, companies people are using Camp they're using it at work for all kinds of use cases.

Dave [0:00:08]: Oh, hey, everybody.

Dave [0:00:08]: I just wrapped up an awesome conversation would double barrel action out of Cam today.

Dave [0:00:14]: I just had, Kristine, Sea and Emma Robinson on.

Dave [0:00:18]: They are two of the marketing leaders at the marketing Oregon Cam.

Dave [0:00:21]: And one of them runs the consumer side of business.

Dave [0:00:24]: One of them runs the B side of the business.

Dave [0:00:26]: You talked about what is it like is Canva do for marketing?

Dave [0:00:29]: What is a company that has, you know, something like, three billion in revenue and they have basically ninety five percent of the world knows what Canva is, like, we you do from a marketing perspective?

Kristine [0:00:39]: There's a higher purpose branch piece that is around really building long term brand equity for Campbell that is philosophy.

Kristine [0:00:46]: And if you subscribe and believe and I found that they do absolutely passionately about this.

Dave [0:00:53]: We talked about.

Dave [0:00:53]: They're out of home campaign.

Dave [0:00:54]: We talked about running their big event cam create.

Dave [0:00:56]: We talked about how they structured the team to be set up to perform across all these different roles and personas.

Emma [0:01:04]: We do a flagship event every year called Cal create.

Emma [0:01:07]: We hosted in La four about five thousand folks, and it's really about one, you know, setting the narrative about how we can look to reshape work and empower people to bring their ideas to life.

Dave [0:01:19]: Just had a great conversation really enjoyable a little bit, you know, fast paced in some areas that we...

Dave [0:01:23]: Slow and talk about the Or Cam, where things are going with Ai.

Dave [0:01:27]: You like this podcast if you're a b2b marketing nerd like we all are here.

Dave [0:01:31]: You gonna enjoy this episode So enjoy my conversation with Emma and Kristine, pull from Canva.

Dave [0:01:36]: Alright.

Dave [0:01:43]: Hey, everybody.

Dave [0:01:43]: Excited to do this episode.

Dave [0:01:45]: We got double barrel action coming at you from the team from, over at Canva, maybe you've you've heard of Canva.

Dave [0:01:52]: I'm joined by Emma Robinson and Kristine Sea two marketing leaders that are helping scale one of the most beloved brands in intact.

Dave [0:02:01]: I mean, Canva makes me feel like I can do things.

Dave [0:02:04]: I don't need to know photoshop to remove the background in my photos.

Dave [0:02:07]: I've done everything from, you know, we use, obviously, we use Canva Exit Five.

Dave [0:02:12]: We run our business on it.

Dave [0:02:13]: I know it...

Dave [0:02:14]: I don't know if this is a Gen z thing, but do you know that the two Gen z folks on our team.

Dave [0:02:18]: They don't they don't use Google slides anymore.

Dave [0:02:20]: They're making their decks in Canva.

Dave [0:02:21]: That's a noticeable shift.

Dave [0:02:23]: The presentations are happening in in Canva.

Dave [0:02:25]: I hope I hope you hasn't listened to this, but I...

Dave [0:02:28]: I made my daughter a note from the tooth fairy in Canva once.

Emma [0:02:33]: And you you helped her out.

Emma [0:02:34]: You can do it yes.

Emma [0:02:35]: Absolutely.

Dave [0:02:36]: So...

Dave [0:02:36]: Okay.

Dave [0:02:37]: So we got Emma here, Emily, b to b, the B side of marketing at Canva, focus on go to market, customer marketing and growth for the enterprise products, and then, Kristine is Vp of consumer marketing, leading a global team across performance, brand and everything in between, what a cool idea to have you both on?

Dave [0:02:54]: I I can't say that I I take credit for this.

Dave [0:02:56]: It was...

Dave [0:02:56]: It came in inbound, but, like, heck excited to talk to you and we've had a great chat behind the scenes.

Dave [0:03:02]: Just curious, like, what is the what is the marketing or we look like at at Canva and kinda what what brings you both on to get to to talk to this?

Dave [0:03:11]: Like, why not why not just talk to Emma or or just talk to to Kristine.

Dave [0:03:14]: I'm curious about what does that say about the marketing org at Canva?

Emma [0:03:18]: Am emma I was gonna laughing with that double barrel intro.

Emma [0:03:20]: I don't know if you agree with this.

Emma [0:03:22]: But I feel like, we are two parts of a whole, actually in our our working life, whether we're, like, running with passports trying to make a flight together or addressing our teams together.

Emma [0:03:32]: So this is very natural for how we operate.

Emma [0:03:36]: And I would say in terms of how our team is structured, we really kind of think about fluidity between how people work and how people live And, you know, kind of this really strict binary, like, b to b and b to c.

Emma [0:03:52]: We just feel like that's a little bit of an outdated notion that people are constantly moving between different spheres of their life.

Emma [0:03:58]: So it's very natural that when we're building programs or we're planning things together are even working with our teams.

Emma [0:04:04]: It's all about just not having those boundaries, knowing that people are experiencing our brand in the world, in a way where they're not, like, part of the org charts sent me this.

Emma [0:04:15]: Communication.

Emma [0:04:16]: They're just seeing things from Canada, either we're delivering value in that moment or not.

Emma [0:04:20]: So, we're pretty pretty joined at the hip, I would say.

Emma [0:04:24]: So, we pray that we're having conversation together.

Kristine [0:04:28]: You.

Kristine [0:04:28]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:04:29]: I would echo that.

Kristine [0:04:30]: I think we've spend an awful lot of time together, but for good reason because, you know, as you...

Kristine [0:04:34]: Even at the beginning of the year when we start the planning process, as I think, it's an incredibly important unlock to have everybody in the room to be also to have an international leader as well for this sort the three of us, who get in a room, and we all represent parts of the business that are, you know, nuance and different to the audience that's we market too.

Kristine [0:04:54]: But the channels you know, our kids have done across everybody.

Kristine [0:04:57]: So it is important just to make sure we have that consistency across the channel regardless of the audience that you're speaking to.

Kristine [0:05:04]: And then I could probably just dive a little bit on the the structure.

Kristine [0:05:08]: We we have sort of value back our business unit so there's audience I mentioned, beta been be in international, and then we we have core channel support.

Kristine [0:05:17]: So across the organization, is sort of more centers excellence that allow you to kinda get deep into a channel And it into, you know, providing the right subject metrics expertise for that channel, but then that sort of ladder into those business outcomes we're trying to drive across the different business unit.

Kristine [0:05:36]: So it's sort of like, a very heavy heavily matrix model, which I I feel like it's a a Canva budget collaborative company that That works pretty well.

Kristine [0:05:44]: But it...

Kristine [0:05:45]: And, you know, we offer obviously use Camera, to do a lot of that briefing and sharing document and strategy and so forth for that help.

Kristine [0:05:51]: But it's the it's a lot of fun to to build this, and I think, b gives us a lot of creative ideas that B2b she can talk about shortly.

Kristine [0:06:00]: So, yeah,

Dave [0:06:03]: That's the the that works.

Dave [0:06:04]: Well, it's it's interesting because I out out I'm just, like, always it logged into one account.

Dave [0:06:08]: And so I'm not like, oh, let me let me hop into my purse...

Dave [0:06:10]: Let me let me lock into my, like, consumer Can account and and make this.

Dave [0:06:15]: And so it is interesting to think about that split And do you So you have B b b international?

Dave [0:06:20]: And, like, is there...

Dave [0:06:21]: I don't even know.

Dave [0:06:22]: There a Cmo at Canada?

Dave [0:06:23]: Does it this marketing, do you all report into one person?

Dave [0:06:25]: Is it the founder who is it?

Emma [0:06:27]: We do.

Emma [0:06:27]: The amazing sec...

Emma [0:06:28]: Zach is, the Cmo across.

Emma [0:06:31]: Those different areas pulling everything together, and he's directly into our founders, Mel cliff.

Emma [0:06:38]: So that's the way we're structured.

Emma [0:06:40]: And even though the company growing in scaled, we still try to work in a really scrappy way.

Emma [0:06:47]: We try to make sure the org still feels flat.

Emma [0:06:49]: We don't want things to feel highly hierarchical.

Emma [0:06:52]: It...

Emma [0:06:53]: Like, we're very intentional about that.

Emma [0:06:55]: Because I've...

Emma [0:06:57]: That's some of our best ideas are most interesting ideas come from all over the place, you know, whether it's our experiential team, someone in Pm.

Emma [0:07:05]: You know, they're not just the domain of maybe a small group.

Emma [0:07:10]: So we we want that fluidity.

Emma [0:07:12]: And we're really focused on trying

Dave [0:07:15]: to

Emma [0:07:15]: build teams that feel kind of small and empowered, like, little swift boat pods that can just chase after areas that they believe will have impact without a a ton of friction, and, you know, kind of whatever it is approvals, running things up a chain.

Emma [0:07:32]: I just think those kind of bureaucratic elements can, suck the life out of experimentation and trying things and moving quickly.

Emma [0:07:39]: So I think that's also part of the spirit of how we're trying to structure and, Zach definitely said that tone from team.

Kristine [0:07:46]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:07:46]: Like, I know we probably just to through but I think the Ai and accelerated that process too because, you know, there's a lot of functionality we can bring in that helps us go already far, particular, particularly in an area of performance marketing.

Kristine [0:07:57]: And and so that gives us they ability test a bunch of things very quickly, but then find the kind of quality and the high performance piece within that, and then sort of rally around that particular asset or creative.

Kristine [0:08:11]: Idea.

Kristine [0:08:13]: So so I think there's just something the spirit of the the way that you test and learn very quickly in these small spring groups helps to sort of give the rest of the org, like learnings and leverage on what is actually working and So there's just a lot more insight.

Kristine [0:08:27]: I think we're getting, particularly in that sort of show realm Ai.

Emma [0:08:33]: Maybe, like, a practical example, in terms of, you know, testing something in a small group and then pulling it across the organization.

Emma [0:08:39]: We have an amazing team in Japan, and they were discussing, hey.

Emma [0:08:45]: We just logged out homepage, and it's like this amazing surface that millions of people are going to every day.

Emma [0:08:51]: Are we really sweating it?

Emma [0:08:53]: Like, are we thinking about how to make this, like, the most visually stunning fun inviting entry point into the product.

Emma [0:09:00]: And there's was a million reasons maybe did not do those experiments.

Emma [0:09:03]: It was working well for growth that was optimized to do certain things.

Emma [0:09:07]: But they did some experimentation in terms of looking at, you know, fun partnerships, creator content things that they could bring in showcase to feel truly local for the Japanese market.

Emma [0:09:19]: And then he took some of those learnings and, pulled them into other spaces, other markets and found ways to scale that.

Emma [0:09:26]: So I think it's also kind of provoking.

Emma [0:09:29]: Sometimes things are working really well to drive certain outcomes.

Emma [0:09:33]: So maybe you don't look at them again or push on them.

Emma [0:09:37]: But I think actually, the the constantly trying to beat yourself and not getting into, like, cruise control because something is working well.

Emma [0:09:45]: It's something we're we're constantly trying to do.

Emma [0:09:47]: Like, hey, we're hitting our numbers.

Emma [0:09:49]: What could we three those numbers?

Emma [0:09:50]: Like, are we happy with that.

Emma [0:09:51]: Can we maybe test something that feels a little wild and, just make some space for it.

Emma [0:09:57]: And then having that kind of, central connection, but Emma was talking about to make sure that when we do something that shines that we can, you know, tell our tell our friends across the globe, Like, let's see if this if this works in other regions where else can we land this.

Dave [0:10:11]: Alright.

Dave [0:10:11]: And like, especially when you get to the the stage and size that you all...

Dave [0:10:14]: You all are at.

Dave [0:10:15]: Like, that is...

Dave [0:10:15]: That's like a free money found money opportunity where, like, there's probably so many eyeballs and so much traffic to that page.

Dave [0:10:23]: But you're not thinking about a day to day.

Dave [0:10:26]: You got so many other things going on, like, this this other team surfaces this opportunity.

Dave [0:10:30]: Hey, Let's let's see what we can do for our world.

Dave [0:10:32]: I wanna go back to planning a little bit just because one of the most common questions that we see, like, among Exit Five in our community and everything is, like, okay.

Dave [0:10:42]: Marketing is really easy.

Dave [0:10:43]: Well, when when you're selling, like, one product to one persona.

Dave [0:10:47]: And so I always think it's...

Dave [0:10:48]: The question is something me mean like hey, we sell we sell this one thing that has, like, a wide use of applications across lots of personas.

Dave [0:10:56]: And so, like, Canva is a perfect example of that.

Dave [0:10:59]: Right?

Dave [0:10:59]: You can do a bunch of different things with it.

Dave [0:11:01]: It can be applicable to almost any persona.

Dave [0:11:04]: And then on top of that, you have these kind of business units that are responsible for different things.

Dave [0:11:08]: You have the consumers do you have B to b side.

Dave [0:11:11]: You have international side.

Dave [0:11:12]: Any size company.

Dave [0:11:13]: There's always gonna be some some internal, you know, score keeping counting.

Dave [0:11:19]: Like, how do we know?

Dave [0:11:20]: Oh, that was that was actually a B b lead, but that should have gone?

Dave [0:11:23]: I, that should've have gone to Kristine team.

Dave [0:11:25]: That was B.

Dave [0:11:26]: How do we get credit for that.

Dave [0:11:27]: Oh, international expansion.

Dave [0:11:28]: Like, I don't really have a question, but I'm I'm sure you all can get at what I'm getting.

Dave [0:11:32]: What you can figure out what I'm getting at.

Dave [0:11:34]: Like, so I, you as much as you could tell me, like, how how do you how do you track the success of marketing, how do you plan?

Dave [0:11:42]: Like, you can't just do these things in a silo, anything that gets done from, like, the Canva brand side is gonna trickle down and and raise each of these, you know, all their business units and markets like, I don't have a question.

Dave [0:11:53]: I'm hoping you all can figure out the question I want.

Dave [0:11:55]: That.

Dave [0:11:55]: That's the thing that I wanna try to understand a little bit.

Dave [0:11:57]: How how do you how do you get good at that?

Dave [0:11:59]: What lessons can we share with us?

Kristine [0:12:01]: It's really easy day.

Kristine [0:12:02]: And you you just, you know, just all happen.

Kristine [0:12:04]: No.

Kristine [0:12:05]: It is it's complex, for and foremost mode.

Kristine [0:12:08]: But but, like, within that, I think we actually spend a lot of time, the founders is really that very goal.

Kristine [0:12:14]: For what they wanna achieve, The week of start there to be very honest it.

Kristine [0:12:17]: And so then that unpack into...

Kristine [0:12:21]: Well, if these are the goals and these are the outcomes doing a drive, which is typically, you know, how do we create awareness, how do we build on the already strong customer base we have we've paid offering?

Kristine [0:12:31]: For how we driving you know, whether that'd be Arr, other revenue metrics, and then how are we driving, the finance the trial to enable that.

Kristine [0:12:41]: And then really, it's kind of the final view, And then how are you driving loyalty, continuous you, of the product and making sure that people feel, you know, empowered to you all functionality, not just one piece of it, like, design, or or maybe video or or wherever it might be.

Kristine [0:12:58]: So I think this there's sort of again, like, this matrix idea, but each of those metrics around, like, performance will be measured incredibly heavily.

Kristine [0:13:08]: So we have a huge data science team that's spend a lot of time working on these things.

Kristine [0:13:13]: And and, ultimately, so we get to see, you know, bit spite of of all of those metrics and how we're growing them improving them and we'll affect targets around them based on sort the founder goal.

Kristine [0:13:23]: And then on the B b side, we actually do more an attribution model that we're looking at as the sales cycle died, what is that the compelling event that marketing either creates the lead or helps to influence the opportunity and then all of the touch points across that funnel journey are measured and tracked, and we have, you know, algorithms that wait things.

Kristine [0:13:45]: So we are working on attribution.

Kristine [0:13:47]: I...

Kristine [0:13:48]: There's there's not so much of the this is self contributed to of marketing.

Kristine [0:13:54]: I know sometimes an attribution models you sort of get this, like, finger pointing that, you know, would you not do the thing?

Kristine [0:13:59]: And why are you not, responsible for this.

Kristine [0:14:01]: And...

Kristine [0:14:02]: And so we actually have a very tight agreement with sales that we're pretty much driving for of fifty fifty.

Kristine [0:14:06]: Across this sort of attribution funnel.

Kristine [0:14:09]: And that...

Kristine [0:14:11]: And then, of course, that led linked to all of those different activity that we're running, that get measured.

Kristine [0:14:15]: And and then it becomes a pretty productive conversation.

Kristine [0:14:19]: Like, we have to be accountable on the B2b side for the Roi, how it's been, you know, what was returning from the spend we're making.

Kristine [0:14:27]: And so we need to have that narrative created for, you know, our executive our, Cfo and our finance team.

Kristine [0:14:33]: To be able to continue to invest.

Kristine [0:14:35]: So we definitely, have a lot of rigor around that.

Kristine [0:14:39]: It's a very well agreed line model with our sales team, and they feel very comfortable with it, and then it's really about accountability and how we're driving that.

Kristine [0:14:49]: Across the teams to vote in irresponsible for for a total pipeline contribution number, and and that sort of then takes a lot of this steam and the heat out of those sort of sometimes unproductive conversations where it comes to.

Kristine [0:15:01]: Well, marketing fifth.

Kristine [0:15:02]: No.

Kristine [0:15:03]: We had this conversation and, you know, how those things go.

Emma [0:15:06]: And that was much more alec than I was say we just arm Wrestle for who's in Q it is.

Emma [0:15:10]: So I think that was explain it for sure.

Kristine [0:15:14]: We cancel across the office.

Kristine [0:15:16]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:15:16]: Phone.

Dave [0:15:17]: There must be, like, it's is expansion...

Dave [0:15:18]: I don't even know if that's the right turn, but like, if I'm if I'm dave...

Dave [0:15:21]: You know, if I'm Dave at Gmail, and I start using Canva, like, my first thought will be able Dave, like, must have a job of some kind?

Dave [0:15:29]: Could we possibly sell him the team plan?

Dave [0:15:31]: Like, is there a lot of...

Dave [0:15:32]: The overall goal is, like, get people using Canva?

Dave [0:15:35]: And then on the...

Dave [0:15:36]: And that...

Dave [0:15:36]: That's maybe the consumer side and then the...

Dave [0:15:38]: And I don't know anything about your business.

Dave [0:15:39]: I'm just r because it's what I do on the thought leader?

Dave [0:15:41]: But there there must be some of some of that where It's like, okay.

Dave [0:15:45]: Then, you know, can can we use signals from the product to actually...

Dave [0:15:49]: You know, is there an opportunity to sell these people on the team?

Dave [0:15:51]: Okay, Dave was using Canva by himself for a year.

Dave [0:15:53]: Now he's, like, growing his business?

Dave [0:15:55]: And, oh, shoot.

Dave [0:15:56]: I wanna have my brand style I wanna...

Dave [0:15:57]: Okay.

Dave [0:15:57]: Now Have five person team at Exit Five?

Dave [0:15:59]: Like, we should upgrade to that plan?

Dave [0:16:01]: Like, how does...

Dave [0:16:01]: How how do those motions all kinda of...

Dave [0:16:03]: They they gotta all connect in in some way So.

Emma [0:16:06]: I, absolutely, you know, you know, get kind of the heritage of the business with more of a self serve models.

Emma [0:16:10]: Right?

Emma [0:16:10]: Kind of funny what you have where...

Emma [0:16:12]: You're making these these great tooth fairy outputs and hopefully things that work too by using a subscription or maybe, something for your team where you're all working together maybe in, you know, a small business who are a group of entrepreneurs working together.

Emma [0:16:28]: And those are, you know, self serve products that you can sign up for and, of course, are a big part of our consumer led marketing or a P motion.

Emma [0:16:35]: We do get a ton of signal in product of, you know, are there moments that would be appropriate for, upsell because someone is, you know, perhaps they want access to more, Ai credits.

Emma [0:16:50]: They're doing really cool things with some of our Ai features, and the way to get more of that would be to convert them from a with a huge free user base too from a free user to a subscriber, and then there might be other signals where it'd be valuable to think of migrating someone new teams, But not, you know, not everyone, that that will be appropriate for finding those right pockets.

Emma [0:17:10]: And then also, like I mentioned earlier, you know, we find that in ninety five percent of fortune five hundred companies, people are using Camp they're using it at work for all kinds of use cases.

Emma [0:17:22]: So that's all from that kind of, like, bottoms up demand growth, people realizing that this tool as unlocking outcomes for them.

Emma [0:17:30]: It's helping them to bring their ideas forward in a more fluent way.

Emma [0:17:34]: It's helping them with workflows.

Emma [0:17:35]: So that really creates a nice conversation for us to then maybe have a conversation with the C suite or decision makers to say, hey, we're just observing that, obviously, there's some value here.

Emma [0:17:47]: Is there a way we can structure this.

Emma [0:17:49]: To help accelerate and unlock more for you at the tops down level.

Emma [0:17:53]: So that's where we really see this coming together.

Emma [0:17:56]: And I think it also comes back to what we're building.

Emma [0:18:00]: We're constantly getting input from our community, what they say what they do.

Emma [0:18:04]: Both in over context and in a personal context, so it's helping us to build the right products and keep closing that loop.

Kristine [0:18:10]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:18:10]: I would also add for the enterprise specifically, your, of course, they requirements a lot more complicated than, you know, being on a free or even teams or pro license.

Kristine [0:18:20]: And so there are legitimate things about, you know, how do use stay on brand, how are you kinda hailing a lot of organic usage around, you know, un brand content, which is very productive for, the enterprise great brands.

Kristine [0:18:34]: You really wanna be able to, you know, represent their brand in the post best possible way.

Kristine [0:18:39]: So what we offer on the enterprise side is either a lot of kind of rigor, granular controls and you know, brand that people can feel really, you know, compelled to years without having to compromise kind of their creative need.

Kristine [0:18:54]: So that is sort of a way that, I think and and the enterprise was really put in place for that because, you know, Cios don't want to have this sort of crazy organic content usage because they're actually become unproductive for brands so being able to really land brand kit, and then also things like security.

Kristine [0:19:12]: So Though, being able to sign on.

Kristine [0:19:13]: Control use usage and views and all of those type of things the really important.

Kristine [0:19:19]: And so so sort of, like there's different needs for the different pockets of folk, across the these different audiences.

Kristine [0:19:25]: But ultimately, yeah, We're we're we see a lot of products signal that allow us to be able to go market.

Kristine [0:19:32]: To those audiences with this right value proposition around usage and the features that might be more important to them.

Kristine [0:19:40]: And we we do go do that based on this signal.

Dave [0:19:44]: You mentioned having this data science team before?

Dave [0:19:46]: Is that is that a cross functional?

Dave [0:19:48]: Like, is that its own team or is that part of the marketing work?

Kristine [0:19:51]: So they are cross functional, but they fit in, we allocate them to business units, so we have a a few folks that are working on measurement and brand tracking actually, as sort of part of, like, research and brand tracking and and data science of one measurement team.

Kristine [0:20:06]: And they they're responsible for Mean, there's a lot of data because as you can imagine across all of of Canva, but we have so many signals that we can have in marketing.

Kristine [0:20:16]: So it's really about that team being able to find those things you just described.

Kristine [0:20:22]: Like, how to use sort of deep patterns of usage that might show that actually, our, you know, a whiteboard feature is really growing and people are really and, you know, there's a lot of good repeat usage of it but like, give more pocket that more.

Kristine [0:20:34]: And and and things that would just allow us to be able to influence our content strategy and then the right sort of messaging that we wanna lean into.

Emma [0:20:44]: Mh.

Emma [0:20:44]: And this idea of, like, the next best action.

Emma [0:20:48]: So someone is working with certain products, driving, making certain things, driving certain now comes, what's the next best thing for us to share with them to help unlock more value from Canva?

Emma [0:20:59]: Because as you mentioned, you can do a lot of things with Canva.

Emma [0:21:01]: But I think the beauty of it is it's a place they can really kind of enable the end to end, what you're trying to do.

Emma [0:21:08]: But someone may have a a lot of love for the product, but their usage might be more shallow like their knowledge of what they can do.

Emma [0:21:15]: So, like, how you bring them on that adjacent journey of, like, you know, you're crushing it with these presentations, you're having a lot of, great outcomes.

Emma [0:21:22]: Maybe the next adjacent way for us to bring more value to you, could be thinking about how you might bring, you know, documents or video creation into that.

Emma [0:21:31]: And that's...

Emma [0:21:31]: There's a lot of science behind, like, how do we sort of open that value up for people.

Dave [0:21:36]: What?

Dave [0:21:36]: Part of the reason I asked that the data science question was just like, I think a lot of a a lot of times in marketing, we...

Dave [0:21:43]: And I wrote about this the other day, it was, like, your job in marketing is to be great at marketing, not to be the Cfo.

Dave [0:21:49]: And do you have a business partner who's in finance and it's important to understand finance?

Dave [0:21:54]: I'm not people...

Dave [0:21:55]: When I write this on Linkedin people turn this into, like, he doesn't care about measurement And and he disguised no...

Dave [0:21:59]: It's more just like, do you wanna be the...

Dave [0:22:02]: Is your job to be the marketer or the Cfo?

Dave [0:22:03]: Like, you...

Dave [0:22:04]: At any company that grows to certain stage.

Dave [0:22:07]: You you have, ideally, you have business partners and you have other smart people inside of the Org.

Dave [0:22:11]: And so this is a good example.

Dave [0:22:12]: It's like, obviously, Canva grew to a certain level and it was like, hey, We we could do better work if we could...

Dave [0:22:18]: Better measure this stuff.

Dave [0:22:19]: We need more than just, like whatever we can track in Google Analytics or whatever the heck enterprise thing you you all use.

Dave [0:22:25]: And so let's let's build out a data science team to better enable our marketing team and my guess is you can do better marketing because you have partners that are experts in working in data science.

Dave [0:22:35]: So, like, you know, Emma and Aren't spending ninety percent of their day trying to, like, comb through data to make decisions, but you have a partner that can help you make decisions so then you can go and Let's go do this...

Dave [0:22:47]: Let's go create this, like, love your work campaign.

Dave [0:22:49]: Let's go spend time on the things that matter as opposed to, like, you trying to be the data scientist for this team.

Emma [0:22:56]: Yeah.

Emma [0:22:56]: Totally.

Emma [0:22:56]: I think that's a nice spicy topic about...

Emma [0:22:58]: Being a great marketer and a Cfo.

Emma [0:23:00]: Like, what is what is kind of your your role as a marketer.

Emma [0:23:04]: I mean, I think it's about working with your data team in the right way to be empowered by that information, but not limited.

Emma [0:23:11]: Because I think sometimes when you've a lot of information, you can start just doing kind of, thinking in incremental or doing a lot of, like, local optimization.

Emma [0:23:18]: And I think sometimes you still to swing for the fences and bring in informed judgment and have conviction around creativity and a big idea that you just can't, have full, like, measurement sure of what it's going to deliver because you're trying something for the first time.

Emma [0:23:36]: So it's really the balance of, you know, I want...

Emma [0:23:39]: I think it's important that marketing is seen as a driver of the business not a cost center.

Emma [0:23:43]: We all want that.

Emma [0:23:44]: And we're we're we're here to help help the help our communities flourish, help our businesses grow and impact more people positively.

Emma [0:23:49]: But I I think it's just using the data as a way to make you smarter, not a way to make you play smaller.

Emma [0:23:57]: If that makes sense.

Emma [0:23:58]: Maybe one example I'd share, we do a flagship event every year called Canva Create.

Emma [0:24:03]: We hosted in La for about five thousand folks.

Emma [0:24:08]: And it's really about one, you know, setting the narrative about how we can, look to reshape work and empower people to bring their ideas to life.

Emma [0:24:18]: It's also just a very fun joyful confetti festival where we, you know, have musical numbers where we bring our community in to do, everything from, you know, printing Star wars t shirts.

Emma [0:24:30]: To playing in ball pits.

Emma [0:24:32]: I mean, it's really like our brand personified.

Emma [0:24:35]: And there are things in that investment that, you know, maybe on paper when we're first pitching this idea, does does the doesn't math, will it makes sense

Kristine [0:24:45]: but we have

Emma [0:24:45]: a lot of conviction around, the power of having this tangible experience with the brand and having it brought to life.

Emma [0:24:52]: And then it's bringing in all the great intelligence and, know, great marketers like, Emma say, okay.

Emma [0:24:57]: Like, we have this great flagship moment.

Emma [0:25:00]: How are we gonna make that work for enterprise audiences as we care about?

Emma [0:25:03]: Let's build a special track for them.

Emma [0:25:04]: How are we gonna make this work for teachers that we care about educators who are using Canva to classroom.

Emma [0:25:09]: How can we use this as a springboard for our creator community.

Emma [0:25:12]: So it just becomes this kind of, like, center of gravity, that we can make work really hard for us, but it is about making space for that creativity and and and big swings as a brand and kind of living our purpose in a way that maybe wouldn't make sense of a spreadsheet, but we we think allows us to bring that sense of creativity forward to the people we're serving.

Dave [0:25:37]: It's a good lesson.

Dave [0:25:37]: This is, like, just because we have this fancy expensive data science team don't don't get it twisted, like, we...

Dave [0:25:43]: The the great stuff and marketing still comes from, like, taking chances and being creative and doing the stuff that's harder to measure.

Emma [0:25:50]: Yeah.

Emma [0:25:50]: And I third science team imagine just to give them props are creative and fun and adventurous.

Emma [0:25:55]: So they're, like, the right the right left frame right frame.

Emma [0:25:57]: So we're so so lucky to have them Go sorry.

Kristine [0:26:02]: No.

Kristine [0:26:02]: I I, you know, I would just add, you know, there's always work gonna be a narrative, And I think there's also to the Cfo around Investment, and, of course, the everybody be the right return, the right of math, model or these things.

Kristine [0:26:13]: And and it helps as we go, you know, sprint towards know, have pretty been that rigor in place in terms of the sort of projection of whether this is zoe.

Kristine [0:26:22]: You need a lot of this, just sort of that and foundation, But there's a higher purpose brand piece that is around really building long term brand equity for Canva that is a philosophy.

Kristine [0:26:33]: And if you subscribe and believe and I found that they do absolutely passionately about this.

Kristine [0:26:40]: Then that really does set the company up to have the right about due balance between, like, the long term growth and, you know, doing the fun and friendly, una camera, staff and brand work.

Kristine [0:26:53]: With also very tight measurements around the types of things we're trying to drive and then outcome they mentioned around the goal.

Kristine [0:27:00]: So if I think you did the the best possible model or do you have to balance of both And I fully appreciate not every company has the same philosophy around brand and brand investments, but we're very lucky that.

Kristine [0:27:13]: That really does help us to find those new eyeballs and new audiences for us to kind of, like, build long term health on.

Kristine [0:27:20]: So, yeah, we we've left to have that.

Kristine [0:27:23]: But our our data scientists do keep off the accountable to the spend.

Kristine [0:27:27]: At least they're doing B.

Emma [0:27:32]: Yeah.

Emma [0:27:32]: That's a good.

Emma [0:27:33]: I go able to frame it And It's kind of we believe our investment in brand is an investment in growth.

Emma [0:27:39]: So, you know, you're you're playing to, obviously, what are we trying to deliver this quarter this half, but you can't lose sight of the big picture and where we're going and have we're building equity for the long term?

Kristine [0:27:51]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:27:51]: And I think sometimes the way that that actually manifest things some more practical example We we just ran a huge awareness campaign, love your work, which is my seen some of the ads.

Kristine [0:28:00]: We had a lot of at at home and digital or But when we're driving those those assets out into the market, we're actually pulling people through the landing pages, we do have more of a B2b action where they're signing up for demo, it's signing up for contact sales launch.

Kristine [0:28:15]: So actually, you you find you have this really nice blend between the brand awareness and then sort of, like, brand demand gen, which can come through and so you do actually see that you can fall for both in that regard.

Kristine [0:28:27]: And then the way that we look at it is that brand is the...

Kristine [0:28:30]: It investment in league the future?

Kristine [0:28:32]: Like, it's thought, how do you protect the base gen for future state, and that is a very easy kind of mental model for us to prove when we start to subtract these things.

Kristine [0:28:42]: And then build that narrative for the Cfo investment around it.

Dave [0:28:47]: Okay.

Dave [0:28:47]: Since since you mentioned this, love your work.

Dave [0:28:49]: Obviously, massive campaign that you all did, and I wanted to just pull this up brook.

Dave [0:28:56]: We had this.

Dave [0:28:57]: Okay.

Dave [0:28:57]: Canva has two hundred forty million active users in a hundred ninety countries.

Dave [0:29:02]: There are three hundred and seventy six designs created every second in over three billion in revenue.

Dave [0:29:08]: Okay.

Dave [0:29:09]: So that's just setting the stage for what Canva is.

Dave [0:29:12]: Then then you do this massive campaign.

Dave [0:29:13]: Most of us listening this podcast have never spent this level of money.

Dave [0:29:17]: I've never done this level of advertising.

Dave [0:29:19]: I've been in marketing for a long time I still go to the airport, and I see a huge, you know, Cisco billboard and I'm, like, I wonder how they know if that's working or not.

Dave [0:29:28]: So let's talk...

Dave [0:29:30]: Let's go inside this love your work campaign from a from a strategy Like, how do how do you know if this worked?

Dave [0:29:35]: And I'm I'm trying to be broad and ask you kinda like, a a basic level question because I'm I'm curious at how we can teach our audience for how y'all think about something like that internally?

Emma [0:29:45]: Yeah.

Emma [0:29:45]: That's a great question.

Emma [0:29:46]: I think what's interesting about love your work, And I will...

Emma [0:29:50]: I will also caveat up because we believe in being truly local.

Emma [0:29:53]: This is a, you know, our Us strategy.

Emma [0:29:54]: We have different things to unlock growth in different markets where maybe awareness flow or consideration is low.

Emma [0:30:00]: The Us problem we're trying to solve is that Canva is well known, well loved, but sometimes the knowledge of Canva can be shallow.

Emma [0:30:10]: And people may feel great flow the ability to achieve goals in certain pockets of their life that...

Emma [0:30:19]: And, you know, sometimes, it might be like, hey.

Emma [0:30:21]: I made an amazing menu for a dinner party.

Emma [0:30:22]: Like, this has been a great for my kids at school, but helping to pull across that actually Canva a an amazing tool for work.

Emma [0:30:30]: It will unlock that same sense of ease work.

Dave [0:30:34]: It starts with something like this.

Dave [0:30:35]: It it is not like, hey, we wanna grow sales, you know, six percent in the Us.

Dave [0:30:40]: It's like, hey.

Dave [0:30:40]: Strategically, we've have a lot of people that use our product, but we don't feel like they know all the features of it.

Dave [0:30:46]: Let's let's try this, like, mass media campaign to show all the things you can do with Canva, but that's kinda like, Yeah.

Emma [0:30:52]: I think it's a high it's a higher order.

Emma [0:30:53]: It starts more strategically.

Emma [0:30:55]: Like, what's what is the unlock in this market.

Emma [0:30:58]: And really, this idea that we talk to our community all the time.

Emma [0:31:05]: We're getting insights directly from them, and we know people experience the sense of feeling, you know, stuck at work or not having the tools that are intuitive enough for them to use to take whatever ideas in their head and present it and package it in a way that will literally cut through and help you to succeed at work.

Emma [0:31:23]: Increasingly, we're seeing the marketplace at work as more visual.

Kristine [0:31:29]: We just

Emma [0:31:29]: did a piece of research ninety two percent of employers expect their teams to be reasonably adept at being able to communicate visually.

Emma [0:31:38]: But say you're an Hr or you work in sales, like, that may not be your core competence.

Emma [0:31:43]: You're not a designer.

Emma [0:31:44]: But everyone should not feel stuck or blocked by the inability to present their ideas they're thinking in a a way that will feel powerful and get attention.

Emma [0:31:54]: So that's kind of this highest order insight sense of getting people on stuck.

Emma [0:31:58]: And then we try to look at, like, what's a broad entry point for people.

Emma [0:32:01]: In this particular campaign, we focused on presentations and kind of a tongue and cheek idea of, like, presentation trauma, you know, bad presentations.

Emma [0:32:10]: We've endured them.

Emma [0:32:12]: We've probably given them.

Emma [0:32:13]: And this sense of...

Dave [0:32:16]: Me.

Emma [0:32:16]: Canva is gonna not you, Dave, Not, but, you know the the rest of us, unfortunately.

Emma [0:32:19]: So, you know, this idea that Canva is going to help you kind of move move past that and be able to be an effective communicator, a visual communicator, someone who can land their ideas.

Emma [0:32:30]: And that was kind of a broad idea of showing a powerful use case in the workplace that a lot of people can relate to.

Emma [0:32:37]: And then we were able to bring it to life with storytelling humor, Lorraine...

Emma [0:32:41]: The Great Lorraine Bro was our our therapist at which, you know, she's played so effectively in in the past on shows like Sop and brought that really great, credibility.

Emma [0:32:51]: So that's kind of our big campaign.

Emma [0:32:53]: Is this idea that you can love your work and that you can feel that sense of flow on lee's unlock empowerment at work.

Emma [0:33:00]: And that becomes this broad sense than how we know it's working is we're actually measuring that it's shifting people's perception around considering Canva as a powerful tool for work.

Emma [0:33:11]: And we're measuring the full funnel activities through in terms of, is it also helping us to increase now?

Emma [0:33:19]: Is it also helping us to increase incremental revenue on the self serve side, and we're doing that with, you know, a combination of whether it's media mix models or looking at experiments to measure incremental mortality, whether they're geographically based or, you know, conversion lift looking at things like attribution.

Emma [0:33:37]: So this kind of suite of measurements to pull that together.

Dave [0:33:40]: But then how do you look at something, like, perception?

Emma [0:33:44]: We would work with, brand tracking as Emma was mentioned earlier, we would have health measures.

Emma [0:33:49]: To be able to survey folks in a substantial way, and then we would connect it through behaviors.

Emma [0:33:56]: So it's the perception shifting and then it's the behavior shifting in a way that's driving our goals.

Emma [0:34:00]: And then it past an Emma, the campaign like that, creates a springboard for us to then say, well, what are the targeted things we wanna do with enterprise customers.

Emma [0:34:10]: That can be more tailored to micro audiences, whether it's sales or Hr, C suite, etcetera, Cios, to then do things like account based marketing or field marketing events or looking at our lifecycle, and email communication, all these different levers to help land this broad campaign that helps to make position Canva credible unlock for you in the workplace and then thread that through to our B motions?

Emma [0:34:38]: And, And Don't know if you have that and how it count comes together.

Dave [0:34:42]: How do you decide, like, how a campaign like this?

Dave [0:34:45]: Is it a is it a a year long thing?

Dave [0:34:47]: Is it three months?

Dave [0:34:48]: Is it six months?

Dave [0:34:48]: Like, how do you time box this.

Dave [0:34:50]: How do you decide what should be in it?

Dave [0:34:54]: Like, you're gonna do...

Dave [0:34:55]: I I saw the ads on on Tv streaming, you know, how do you decide what levels down the campaign is gonna have?

Dave [0:35:03]: You're gonna have, you know, out of home.

Dave [0:35:05]: You're gonna have influencers?

Dave [0:35:06]: Like, do you make all those decisions and my my fifteenth question on this topic and then you all can choose answer?

Dave [0:35:12]: And then maybe talk a little bit about just the the creative process because, I get overwhelmed of even like, spending money at a smaller scale at another company?

Dave [0:35:23]: It's like, well the Ceo's has gotta be okay with this.

Dave [0:35:25]: And this...

Dave [0:35:25]: How do you how do you not play the dance of, like, there's gonna be people inside the company who don't love it, but you need to commit and ship it and then, like, prove that, like, you you're never gonna create something and investment everyone in the company.

Dave [0:35:36]: This is amazing.

Dave [0:35:37]: There they're like, well no We should done this way.

Dave [0:35:38]: So that's the the messy part of the creative process of...

Emma [0:35:43]: Well, everyone loves it.

Emma [0:35:44]: Just kidding I am.

Emma [0:35:46]: And there was a one you wanna build out at first.

Emma [0:35:50]: Then maybe I'll take a little bit on the media in the comments.

Kristine [0:35:53]: Absolutely.

Kristine [0:35:53]: I mean, the I think...

Kristine [0:35:54]: Yeah, Ultimately.

Kristine [0:35:55]: The the point I made about this philosophy video.

Kristine [0:35:57]: I holds through across our, you know, certainly I found it been and also coming through the executive leadership team.

Kristine [0:36:03]: So In in general, these think, you know, you obviously have to prove the value of them in the right person.

Kristine [0:36:08]: But they subscribe to this idea that it actually put great creative into the market and be differentiated, we'll actually get off the good return in terms of, you know, build the metric that we've mentioned around sign up the that and all the rest of it.

Kristine [0:36:23]: But but I think to just sort of go back, like, you know, this is a nice thing about having a beta of Team together because you start this process together and you work through it together in more of those sprint jeans that we mentioned.

Kristine [0:36:38]: So, you know, we have and props to do creative team.

Kristine [0:36:42]: They run these things incredibly tightly.

Kristine [0:36:43]: It's like, his and fact because the idea is the expected strategy.

Kristine [0:36:47]: And then you have opportunity to be able to input into that process in a very early stage.

Kristine [0:36:53]: And then, you know, it's...

Kristine [0:36:55]: It wants to get the idea to them point, then the creative process can kind of unveil, like, the unveil itself, and they they go through all the steps they need to do in terms of the production element.

Kristine [0:37:04]: And then it's the matter of, you know, checks and balances around the credit when it comes back.

Kristine [0:37:09]: But that early idea idea, that early planning strategy work is always done across the company, like a across b cbd b2b and even in international would see that too.

Kristine [0:37:20]: So so if you, that really helped a of planning point of view, And then, and then the weight and channel make plays out is about the strategy we breathe in, you know, media be you then look at ways that be can hit our goal and they are very tangible goals for the most part.

Kristine [0:37:38]: And so then they build the right sort of that of media planning for us that we then back into with all the creative asset.

Kristine [0:37:45]: So, I mean, we...

Kristine [0:37:47]: You know, what I mentioned earlier, but Lovely your work has the pull through element into a gen platform like the Legion element is in, you know, well, you've seen the great out of home.

Kristine [0:37:57]: Here's the landing page content, and here's the next faction action we'd like you to take to sort of explore him more and how you can find that sort of you know, like, being able to, continue to change that perception.

Kristine [0:38:09]: And then it's about the customer proof.

Kristine [0:38:11]: So we have a lot of enterprise customers that if they are sort be starting the journey and seeing something like an out home ad.

Kristine [0:38:18]: How do you find that sort of line into an experience that will help them, but also prove it with customers.

Kristine [0:38:25]: So we have companies like Fedex and Doc fine who are doing a lot of, really, like, being able to empower everyone's to create but also be able to do it on brand at these sort have, like, this nice aviation part and the scale comes in in the way that you you create your content.

Kristine [0:38:42]: So it's got, like, a really nice line, and we can actually prove that using their incredible measurement change to be able to date the impact we're having for of the toggle funnel right away through it Got.

Dave [0:38:54]: It's interesting that...

Dave [0:38:55]: So on the on the enterprise stuff, and I've always kinda wondered this.

Dave [0:38:57]: Is there is there also some level of, like, just being and feeling legitimate to your top customers, like, if you're a if you're an enterprise customer and you're using Canva, and you're traveling for work, and there's a massive billboard at Jfk for Canva.

Dave [0:39:13]: You're like, oh, company not gonna go out of business tomorrow.

Dave [0:39:16]: Like, feels the legit.

Dave [0:39:18]: Like I remember getting ant, you, you know, for a couple, maybe a year or so ago getting a subscription to ant philanthropic and, you know, starting to really like, claude, And I thought I was super cool because everyone was using Chat, and I'm I'm using Claude.

Dave [0:39:32]: You know Now everybody is.

Dave [0:39:33]: Right?

Dave [0:39:33]: And there was a massive, billboard for it at at the Logan airport in in Boston.

Dave [0:39:40]: And I remember, like, Alright.

Dave [0:39:42]: This this thing's legit.

Dave [0:39:44]: Like, there's some perception to there.

Dave [0:39:45]: And I've I've always wondered, like, if that's a also part of, like, an enterprise marketing strategy.

Dave [0:39:50]: It's, like, showing showing...

Dave [0:39:52]: You know, be being legit to to customers in in some way.

Dave [0:39:56]: Is that is that my silly believers there some truth to that?

Kristine [0:39:59]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:39:59]: No.

Kristine [0:39:59]: I...

Kristine [0:39:59]: I mean I think there's definitely some truth to that.

Kristine [0:40:01]: I I would say that on our strategy with more around how you change protection, that Canva not only for consumers and for knowledge workers, but all for.

Kristine [0:40:09]: You know, everybody up to Cmo or in organizations or people.

Kristine [0:40:13]: So you have to kind of, like, allow us to or all this part of that.

Kristine [0:40:18]: We try to allow people to see the robustness.

Kristine [0:40:20]: The fact that we have a lot of enterprise customers, you know, using this fortune five hundred companies.

Kristine [0:40:25]: There's an element of taking people on that journey.

Kristine [0:40:27]: But in terms of seeing just out of home, like, it the purpose is read is is a creative awareness around that perception change, and that is the sort of strategy.

Kristine [0:40:36]: It's it's, you know, of course, fundamental to show that we're in market in different channels showing up in different places.

Kristine [0:40:44]: But it's more about mapping to the journey that they go on, which is that sort of research journey that sometimes up with than being able to be an at in the in, in an airport when they're traveling.

Kristine [0:40:55]: And there's are many other things that we were to start just be out of home.

Kristine [0:40:59]: I think, you know, when we look at things like awareness we're looking at P and calm we're looking at you know, the relationship we have with that, like, Forrest and Ghana.

Kristine [0:41:07]: I mean, do think they're incredibly important as you're going to the enterprise.

Kristine [0:41:10]: And so it's far more than just sort of that, like, awareness fee to three how do you go drive credibility as a total a outcome in in a market where, you know, you have skepticism in the consumer brand.

Kristine [0:41:24]: So it's gonna get trying to get ahead of that.

Kristine [0:41:27]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:41:27]: We're...

Emma [0:41:29]: I mean, the space is in places is where we are at the point of like, being know with the logic in choosing the channels and choosing the places.

Emma [0:41:35]: I mean, it...

Emma [0:41:36]: There...

Emma [0:41:36]: It is about credibility, But I think credibility is connecting with the people we're trying to speak to, and we we internally call them knowledge workers.

Emma [0:41:47]: Which is just this idea of you're trying to...

Emma [0:41:50]: You have, you're working, and you're trying to drive outcomes.

Emma [0:41:54]: So it's kind of a broad lens that can include lots of different professions.

Emma [0:41:59]: But also, like, what are we saying to them?

Emma [0:42:03]: So you mentioned Fedex earlier as an example, Emma, you know, what's the story there If you are a decision maker at a company.

Emma [0:42:12]: They're in, you know, fourteen hundred teams in forty different markets.

Emma [0:42:18]: And everybody on the ground has to produce assets.

Emma [0:42:22]: And if you don't have some kind of central brand or governance, like, that can get pretty out of control quickly in terms of making sure that everybody can produce, content scale, but also make sure that you're reinforcing the brand and having high integrity for the brand.

Emma [0:42:37]: So what's the takeaway there, would be, like, hey, this brand team?

Emma [0:42:41]: Maybe a central brand team of a few mighty folks They can't govern that.

Emma [0:42:45]: That's too much scale.

Emma [0:42:46]: So by putting Canada people's hands, you've just reduced...

Emma [0:42:49]: I think that brand team, it was like seventy seven percent reduction in brand reviews because people could just run because they had, like, the right guard rails, the right governance the right tools.

Emma [0:42:58]: So it's about seeing that out of home when you're walking through the airport day, but also, like, why do I care?

Emma [0:43:03]: I care because this is gonna reduce time for my team?

Emma [0:43:06]: I care because it's gonna drive efficiency.

Emma [0:43:08]: So what is that kind of like ding ding ding moment for a decision maker?

Emma [0:43:12]: At a company to to look at Canva different and understand that there can be a different type of value that actually will matter in their organization.

Emma [0:43:21]: So it's it's those two things coming together.

Kristine [0:43:24]: And I think the last piece of it who is remember village I mean, you, you know, either have home, because do want your creative to shine and to, you know, cut through the fear of the one zero one out of here in Bay area.

Kristine [0:43:34]: So my drive to work in the thermostat there it's full of Ai ads, the whole way up protect tech market.

Kristine [0:43:40]: And, and, you know, you have to find a message that can connect your audience that stands out from those messages as well, and and just kind of find the way to be it, you know, maybe be a little bit of humorous, maybe she's more human, But I think we're constantly trying to push the the creative on those things because that is the thing that, you know, will compel people and compel them to sort of go and investigate your brand.

Kristine [0:44:05]: And and our brand is very true on empowerment and.

Kristine [0:44:09]: It's about know, the levi, like, having a bit of fun with work it's gonna have to be really boring.

Kristine [0:44:14]: It could be, you know, very pure consumer, but also be robust in the enterprise.

Kristine [0:44:19]: So there's a lot of those things we're trying to hit when we actually finalized creative, you know, but one of them is is definitely to sort of give you a little bit of a a smile on this book on or your driving your commute wherever you are.

Kristine [0:44:32]: And and then just be memorable, like, people will have to connect to the Camera magic and that's the intention of those have too.

Dave [0:44:39]: Okay.

Dave [0:44:39]: I got a couple, like, I guess we have to try to do quick answers to.

Dave [0:44:43]: So so I a couple things I wanna get at.

Dave [0:44:45]: Who's responsible for the Ari at home collaboration?

Emma [0:44:51]: That's our team.

Emma [0:44:52]: He...

Emma [0:44:52]: Did you see it?

Emma [0:44:52]: I love that.

Emma [0:44:53]: Okay.

Dave [0:44:54]: So he's he's one of my favorite creators, and I thought I was, like, the only one, and I'm, like, man, this guy's amazing.

Dave [0:45:01]: I'm totally gonna do something with them, like, bet we could.

Dave [0:45:04]: You know, sometimes it even he's millions of views on Youtube.

Dave [0:45:07]: And I'm like, Damn, I go to...

Dave [0:45:09]: I go and I see.

Dave [0:45:10]: He's gotta a...

Dave [0:45:11]: He's got a Canva Ad.

Dave [0:45:12]: I'm like, I have that kind of budget.

Dave [0:45:13]: But that's the this is the stuff that I love.

Dave [0:45:16]: It's like, sure.

Dave [0:45:16]: You can do the big billboard stuff.

Dave [0:45:18]: But...

Dave [0:45:18]: And so people wanna listen there's guy.

Dave [0:45:19]: Ari at home.

Dave [0:45:20]: He walks around New york City with this keyboard and he makes beats live on the street and he gets wrappers.

Dave [0:45:25]: It's just this amazing organic stuff.

Dave [0:45:27]: And somehow, he made a beat with Canva sheets and then some guy freestyle over that.

Dave [0:45:33]: Well, which is incredible.

Dave [0:45:34]: So I've I've mad at you all for that, but I respect the game.

Dave [0:45:37]: That is a great it's a great play.

Dave [0:45:39]: That's the stuff that I love.

Dave [0:45:40]: Like, it's not...

Dave [0:45:41]: Yeah.

Dave [0:45:41]: The billboard stuff is cool, but finding these kinda more niche creators and doing, a stuff on the industry is great.

Dave [0:45:46]: You each have backgrounds, you know, working, Emma you worked at Google, Kristine, you worked at Meta, just curious how...

Dave [0:45:58]: Maybe if you could each talk about, like, one or two marketing lessons that you both work there, you know, not for just, like, a year.

Dave [0:46:04]: They were a portion...

Dave [0:46:05]: Big portion of your life.

Dave [0:46:06]: Curious to how that has shaped your philosophy and how you do marketing today.

Dave [0:46:10]: I think for for both of you.

Dave [0:46:11]: My guess is that was a huge part of your your marketing career at arc.

Dave [0:46:15]: And so maybe, Emma will go go to you first.

Dave [0:46:17]: How how what what lesson...

Dave [0:46:19]: What one or two lessons you took from there and how you do marketing or think about marketing and business strategy today?

Kristine [0:46:24]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:46:24]: Yeah.

Kristine [0:46:24]: Well, look, I mean, as you know, the ring two hell has been at Google or the Cmo for, Gosh.

Kristine [0:46:30]: I think she may have been there close to twenty years now.

Kristine [0:46:33]: That she started with a very, very simple thing, which was about being able to know your products, know the magic of the product connected to the user, and that's the marketing lesson.

Kristine [0:46:44]: Like, it's very formulaic.

Kristine [0:46:45]: And and actually, it's so foundational and so simple.

Kristine [0:46:48]: But some of people miss it as they're going through their campaign creation.

Kristine [0:46:52]: So, you know, I'm constantly thinking about way the we can, you know, have school leadership, have really great content assets.

Kristine [0:46:59]: But if you're not ringing through the product magic, if you're not explaining that and how it translates into how this can help you, then that's gonna be a myth on everyone's part.

Kristine [0:47:10]: So I I love that lesson from her, and it's it holds true for most...

Kristine [0:47:15]: Most folks at Google because there's such a foundational way that they go to market.

Kristine [0:47:18]: And then, look, I think, the other thing I would...

Kristine [0:47:23]: I've learned from my time at Google web, we were also doing this sort of enterprise transition, which is our Google cloud.

Kristine [0:47:29]: Is that it's not something that's done overnight.

Kristine [0:47:33]: And, you know, it's not like you can go from a P company into Fl very, very quickly, like, it is a multi page multi fat multi year, Journey.

Kristine [0:47:42]: And someday some months and quarters, it might be, you know, you might be huge uplift and some, you may not be as much of a growth and that's okay because this is, you know, I know, huge allergy as a Marathon another sprint, but it you know, it truly is and it's reminding the people that maybe haven't seen that they're expecting to see this silver Approach is that actually with patience and time and, like, the right strategy, right executions you'll get there.

Kristine [0:48:07]: But it if it is something that builds like, changing perception and it's something that you build over a period of month than years.

Dave [0:48:14]: That's a great.

Dave [0:48:15]: I...

Dave [0:48:15]: I...

Dave [0:48:15]: I'm down for any lesson that's timeless that are always gonna be around I love that.

Dave [0:48:19]: Kristine what about you.

Emma [0:48:20]: Yeah.

Emma [0:48:20]: I'm loving those lessons Emma, especially if it's staying the course.

Emma [0:48:24]: Right?

Emma [0:48:25]: I would say two things.

Emma [0:48:27]: One is really...

Emma [0:48:29]: This has been a theme throughout this discussion, but being very anchored in your community and who you're serving and never failing to use that as a true North.

Emma [0:48:37]: When I was...

Emma [0:48:39]: For example, some of the best products that meta has launched has been by observing what is happening organically, and how can we build products and serve those needs an example I share is Facebook marketplace, which I think is just a killer product that came from observing the fact that people on Facebook were building by sell groups all the time.

Emma [0:48:59]: They were doing that naturally within groups.

Emma [0:49:02]: But didn't have sort of a, a structured way to to do that, and until Facebook marketplace launch.

Emma [0:49:08]: But that idea ema directly from the community, not from some kind of ivory tower brainstorm happening in Men park.

Emma [0:49:15]: And I think it's very similar to Canva, how we've moved into enterprise.

Emma [0:49:19]: That's because that's where our customers were going.

Emma [0:49:21]: I yes, where our community was going.

Emma [0:49:22]: They were demonstrating they had this need.

Emma [0:49:24]: So, just using your community as your North star and your source of inspiration and constantly closing the loop with them, we'll never steer you wrong.

Emma [0:49:33]: And the other thing I would note is, creativity is a superpower.

Emma [0:49:37]: It is...

Emma [0:49:38]: And I think if you...

Emma [0:49:39]: Sometimes we can get...

Emma [0:49:40]: So it's very important to be high integrity with your data and your measurement, your credibility and Roi is all very important.

Emma [0:49:46]: But you mentioned that piece with Ari, like, launching a new product like, sheets in an unconventional way.

Emma [0:49:53]: We also launched our enterprise product on stage with, a wrap number, which got a lot of attention.

Emma [0:50:00]: No.

Dave [0:50:01]: Saw.

Dave [0:50:01]: I was not gonna I I have it on my list I was gonna see how this conversation went.

Dave [0:50:04]: I wasn't gonna bring it up.

Dave [0:50:05]: Regardless, that was a perfect example of, like, maybe all P is good P because it did drive a ton of awareness for Canva with...

Dave [0:50:12]: However you feel about how the rap actually went down.

Dave [0:50:15]: Yeah.

Emma [0:50:15]: I mean, I think the thing about this is you have to be absolutely una yourself.

Emma [0:50:20]: You have to do that.

Emma [0:50:22]: Otherwise, you lose yourself.

Emma [0:50:23]: And taking things to market in an unconventional way that has credibility, but also, playful is very true to who we are.

Emma [0:50:32]: And at the end of the day, b to b b to These are people.

Emma [0:50:35]: And it's very easy to get lost.

Emma [0:50:37]: We live in a noisy world.

Emma [0:50:38]: And we want to create work that demonstrates value and also delight people and makes them want to start a conversation.

Emma [0:50:46]: It makes them want to share, and we actually think that's not a frivolous exercise, but it's actually creating the best value that we can for the business.

Emma [0:50:54]: Mh.

Dave [0:50:56]: Hold it.

Dave [0:50:56]: Hey amen.

Dave [0:50:56]: Sister.

Dave [0:50:57]: That's that's a great.

Dave [0:50:58]: The the people thing is great.

Dave [0:51:00]: Like, and I I think that is just a a underrated thing.

Dave [0:51:03]: You know, granted, I saw stat today that said by twenty twenty seven, ninety seven percent of the B to b buying journey is gonna be done by Ai So me...

Dave [0:51:11]: I don't know.

Dave [0:51:12]: I I every day I'm learning and changing my opinion about what the future holds but I I am I'm I'm half kidding, but I do always go back to, like, the the timeless lessons in marketing, understanding people understanding psychology.

Dave [0:51:24]: Anyway, I could hang out with you all for forever.

Dave [0:51:28]: Maybe maybe we'll hang out in person sometime in the future, But this is great.

Dave [0:51:33]: Thanks for help making this happen.

Dave [0:51:34]: Do me favor.

Dave [0:51:36]: If you're listening this episode.

Dave [0:51:37]: Send me a message, David at Exit Five dot com or or reach out to Emma and Christina on Linkedin.

Dave [0:51:43]: That's actually my favorite form of feedback.

Dave [0:51:45]: I don't care about a Cta.

Dave [0:51:46]: I want you to go to them and, like, send a bunch of Linkedin net messages and connections and like, people actually do listen to that podcast.

Dave [0:51:52]: That that means a lot.

Dave [0:51:53]: So I appreciate you both hanging out awesome.

Dave [0:51:56]: Keep doing great things at Canva.

Dave [0:51:57]: I could be in your next ad if you want, like, you know, from two fairy messages to board decks, like, look what Dave did.

Dave [0:52:05]: And I'm just saying...

Dave [0:52:05]: Save we people

Emma [0:52:08]: party email out.

Emma [0:52:10]: Reach out

Dave [0:52:11]: to my people.

Dave [0:52:11]: We can make someone happen.

Dave [0:52:12]: But serge is great.

Dave [0:52:13]: And I I am, like, a truly a marketing nerd with.

Dave [0:52:17]: Like, this is this is me scrambling Like, I got so many notes from this today.

Dave [0:52:20]: So awesome.

Dave [0:52:21]: Great to hang with you both.

Dave [0:52:22]: I hope you have a great rest of day, rest of the week and I'll see all

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