Emily Chang is a connector, someone who brings consumers to brands in an engaging way. The former Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of hotel chain IHG, CMO of Starbucks China, and CEO, China of McCann WorldGroup, Chang recently joined CHAGEE as its CCO. CHAGEE is a global tea house chain serving as a third space, where people connect and pause. The shift could not be more appropriate for Chang, whose memoir, “The Spare Room,” tells the story of the people who came to stay in her home over several years, needing a place of refuge.
Her impulse to connect with people — in whatever guise of her life — has only strengthened her marketing prowess. The insight has also helped her understand how to use tools, such as AI, appropriately: She believes humans — not tech — must remain the focus of any story.
“The human is always at the center of who we serve,” she says. “If you put tech at the center, you start to go off on a tangent….and people may not be drawn to what you’re creating.”
You can hear more from the conversation with Signal 360’s Stan Joosten in our video below or read our lightly edited transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT:
Stan Joosten
Hello everyone. We are here for another Signal Conversation. Today we have Emily Chang, who is just announced as the CCO of CHAGEE, and she can explain in a little bit what that is. But more importantly, she is an alumna of the Signal Conference, as well as a long illustrious career in many leadership roles across the world. Emily, we’re so happy to have you here. It’s wonderful to welcome you to Signal 360.
Emily Chang
Thanks, Stan. Great to be back.
You’re very welcome. We’re very happy to have you back. I’m always impressed when I look at your career, where you have worked and what you’ve learned from every place. You’ve worked at many renowned brand companies as well as several agencies. Can you give us a brief overview of your background?
I’m glad to. I started at P&G, as you know, and always probably where my heart would feel the most at home. I worked 11 years at P&G. I think the biggest thing I learned there, and I’ll jump ahead to this new role I’ve picked up in a bit, but it’s given a structure for how we think about building brands. Specifically, something so simple as starting with your who, putting the consumer in the center, moving to what and how, sounds so second nature to a P&G-er, but isn’t outside. It’s really something that I’m very grateful for, having started my career there. I then went to Apple and I led retail marketing for Asia Pacific. What I learned there from a marketing standpoint is almost the opposite of this structure that has so enabled me at P&G, which is anything is possible. If you’re about to open a new store in two days beforehand, Steve Jobs highlights that the brushed metal of your storefront is going lower left to upper right instead of lower right to upper left, fix it, you think, okay, what has to be true? That kind of thinking and that kind of pressure in some ways for really perfection was a very different mindset in terms of how we create engaging brand experiences.
From there, I moved to IHG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, and that was an incredible opportunity. I led the biggest team I’ve ever led at over 5,000 people and I had the chance to work across a wide portfolio of hotel brands. I led a merger and acquisition with the Kimpton brand, created our own hotel brand called Aqualux. I think ultimately the key marketing learn would be this integrated experience because how often do you book a hotel online and have one experience? Then you walk in the hotel and it’s a completely different thing. So the goal I think for those who work in the online and offline space was really inspired by IHG, which is creating an integrated brand experience.
From there, I went on to be the CMO of Starbucks in China. I learned a lot because I looked after everything from category management, which is very consistent with what we do at P&G, but then also a broader spectrum of functions, including the digital flywheel. Figuring out how to accelerate that digital flywheel is something that I think is invaluable learning, particularly having the opportunity in China to partner with Alibaba and some of our commerce and with Tencent on some of our social engagements.
As you mentioned, Stan, I worked about five years leading agencies, both McCann, then Wunderman Thompson, which then merged and I got to kind of integrate VM West in North America. I think working with agencies was a very, very good mindset. I think we’ve got to be agile and constantly learn. And sitting on the other side of the table is incredibly eye-opening. I think it’s helped me come back to the corporate side with a much deeper empathy and unlocked thinking on how to get the best out of agency partners.
So that leads to today. I haven’t even formally announced it yet, but I have joined CHAGEE, which is an incredible opportunity. When I went back to work after Starbucks and went to the agency side, I really thought about what gives me joy. And it’s very simply the intersection of being able to contribute and learn. Beyond that though, I was thinking what motivates me? And for me, the model was head, heart, and soul.
Head, I love to be at the cutting edge of tech. You and I just had a long conversation on social commerce and technology enabled insights and engagement. I also love from a heart standpoint, especially as I get older, being able to support younger talent as they grow in their careers. And soul speaks to the book that you mentioned, which is I want to work for a company that is really good. And I took for granted a little bit, having 11 years at P&G, the ethical and high integrity sort of value that weaves across Procter and Gamble. So those were the things I was looking for. And after working in agencies, I realized there’s something else I’m missing, which is I love being that bridge between US and China. So this new role puts me back in corporate, kind of is the culmination of all the things I’ve learned these last 26 years, and also puts me back at that place of bridging US and China, which I love.
That’s remarkable and thank you for sharing that incredible journey with us. Over the course, and you pointed out some of that already, you’ve learned a lot about brand building and you bring a truly unique perspective in many ways. So how do you find that marketing has changed since you started the P&G to now?
I think it has quite a lot. There are a couple of things I’d say. And in fact, I would even say marketing itself. Everybody has been talking about the different C-suite titles, Am I CMO, CBO, CXO, CCO? To some degree, does it really matter? But on the other hand, I do think there’s a signal. When you say you lead marketing, or what you say you learned commerce. So for instance, you I called myself just now the CMO of CHAGEE. It doesn’t really matter, but I think my title is going to be Chief Commercial Officer. The reason for that is it’s a little broader in what it encapsulates. And for those that I’m seeking to bring onto my team, it’s important for them to know that I’m looking after more than what we would traditionally think about as marketing. Three thoughts. One, in the older days, you know, I started with P&G in 1999. There is a little bit more push and now we’ve shifted to pull. We need to draw people with relevant content versus pushing content out into the marketplace. I think a simple example of this is just looking at the platforms. Now everything goes through social channels versus what used to be, which was much more broadcast.
The second is we talked about advertising and I think we’ve shifted from advertising to engaging. I think it is now our opportunity to engage not just consumers, but humans with an appealing offer at the right time through the right channel. You and I recently talked about Hunger Station, which is an online delivery app. And to stand apart, they created this subconscious ordering experience. That really piques curiosity and it inspires people to come check it out. That is an example of engaging, not advertising.
Last, I would say what’s changed from old to new is probably shifting from Seeking the opportunity to have somebody consider us to engaging somebody to experience our brand. I didn’t say that very well, but the idea would be really this online meets offline experience. You and I talked recently about OREOCodes and then they followed Oreo codes with Oreocalls. I like that particular version. They went on to do many more launch and leverage experiences, but OREOCalls is where you could see Oreo stacked sideways in umpire uniforms.
And what they did is basically they hacked sports marketing. What an incredible way to not just drive consideration of Oreos, but engage people who are watching games to think about and then really never stop seeing Oreos.
That’s a great example of how it has changed. Now there are also some fundamentals of marketing that would stay the same. From your perspective, what stayed the same and what should all new marketers learn as the foundation of what marketing is?
I think marketing will never change in that what we’re trying to do is engage people with storytelling. Our job is to position what we offer, a product, a brand, a service, by understanding the person we seek to serve. I think, you know, through these 26 years, I’ve often seen a mistake which is putting our product at the heart more recently putting technology at the heart of all we’re doing, getting drawn to shiny objects. But for me, the model is always very simple. The human is always at the center of who we serve. It’s going to be insight-inspired and fueled by technology, but it’s never tech at the center. And it’s never our product at the center. A, if you put tech at the center, you start to go away off on a tangent and you’re starting to chase tech. And people may not even be drawn to what you’re creating. Second, if you put the product at the heart, you start navel gazing. You start telling stories that you think matter because you’re thinking about the product instead of engaging people with stories that matter to them and appeal to them because you’ve put them at the center.
I think that this absolutely true is put the humans at the center. And I love the fact that you point to humans instead of consumers. I know some people in the industry will be very happy with that statement because in the end, we’re human beings with all our faults. With that, let’s look ahead a little bit. Again, with starting with humans at the center, I think, because what do you see is shaping the future of marketing in the next three to five years?
Well, there were three things we just talked about. Just to recap them, I think we shifted from push to pull. We shifted from advertise to engage, and we shifted from consideration to experience. I might add one, which is entertain. Of course, I live in Los Angeles now, so it’s hard to avoid that. The thing about entertaining though is you can’t only entertain, right? I live right near the Sphere, which is doing some really great work. And the creative lead used to work with me at VML.
I think it’s about finding the intersection of what may sometimes appear to be two opposing forces. So it has to be not only entertaining, it has to be entertaining and compelling and relevant. I think we need to think about, you know, when I think about the title of a commercial leader versus a marketing leader, I am responsible for sales and brand. I’m responsible to deliver commercial and creative. And ultimately, I believe every one of us has to find that intersection between purpose and profit and people.
I love the fact that you say that. And you didn’t say the word AI at all. So do you think that is just another technology that might be distracting for people right now and we should really just focus on the fundamentals and putting humans at the center? Or do you see that AI might actually create fundamental change in how we do marketing?
AI absolutely does, but it goes back to putting the human at the center and those experiences that we craft, the stories that we tell are enabled by technology, which includes AI to me. So how do we entertain? AI is a part of that. How? How do we come across as compelling? AI is a part of that ability to draw people. I think the intersection of sales and brand, commercial and creative, will all be underpinned by technology including AI. I think AI is part of that and, but it’s part of the how, not the who we appeal to or the what we offer.
One of the things that you mentioned is that you love being a bridge between China and the Western world or the rest of the world. And I have found that often China’s misunderstood what’s going on. Not everything translates. Culture is quite different. But some things are worth watching out for and people don’t see it coming. When you look, when you cross that bridge back and forth. What are the things that you are seeing in China right now that we should prepare for here?
I think China is an awesome indicator of what’s to come. Douyin was out there years before we experienced TikTok. Xiaohongshu, which we call Red Note, has been doing social commerce for years and we’re just starting to unlock that in the States. I remember years ago talking with a friend who led a social commerce, an e-commerce company, and he was interested in doing OTT advertising and he said, “What’s one tip you would give me?” Now, the guy’s not a marketer, so he’s an engineer. And my answer was, you’ve got to create a seamless experience to buy. And he’s like, no, I’m talking about advertising. I said, well, yes, so am I. Because that goes back to your question of old and new. Why would you not put an ad that enables somebody to immediately learn more or purchase if they want? I think that’s where China has always been ahead. And you know, now what’s interesting when I talked about entertaining, that was partly inspired by China because now they’re going to these sort of short dramas and they’re creating new entertaining ways to engage humans because not just consumers.
I think China embraces the and in a way that’s very inspiring to me. Let me say more about that. China moves fast and learns and they iterate. I think that is a big difference. You know, with P&G back in the day, we had the simple process and that was wonderful because we are such a big company. We invest so much. We want to make sure we hit key milestones before we move on to the next stage. At the same time, when you look for perfection before you launch into the market, you may be missing opportunities. China has a way of thinking, which is let’s get the minimum viable product out there. We’re going to not hit a necessary benchmark per se. We’re going to learn a lot every day and we’re going to improve every day. So that is a way of iterating that says, My goal isn’t the end all be all. I’m going to put something out there and learn and optimize as I go. That to me is learning. I think oftentimes in the West, we put something out there and if it doesn’t hit our goal, we wouldn’t call it learning. We would call it failure. Sometimes we pull out of the market entirely and maybe we’ve missed a moment because of that shift in definition.
I love that perspective. Thank you so much, Emily. I want to switch gears here because you recently wrote a very personal book called “The Spare Room” and it centers around the spare room in your home, where you have provided the refuge for many people who are in need. Tell us a little bit more about the book and why you wrote it.
Why I wrote it and then what it became are sort of two different things, Stan. So I wrote it because I had the privilege, our families had the deep privilege of having front row seats to seeing amazing life stories and transformation of 17 kids, babies, young people in our spare room. And we wanted to tell those stories. And specifically the very first one from when I was just turning 20 years old was starting to get a little bit tough to remember, so I wanted to be as true as I could to memories. So that’s why I took a year off to write the book. What it became, though, was something much bigger. My agent was encouraging me, it has to be stories beyond just your own. So how do you widen that aperture? And that was great fun because I got to do what you’re doing. I got to interview all these people who had amazing stories like “The Spare Room.” And then we included another 15. And then when the publisher agreed to take on our book project, they had a suggestion.
I often refer to P&G because they said, how do you create this book such that when somebody closes it, they don’t just think that was nice stories, but they feel called to action. And so I said, hey, you I grew up at P&G. I’d like to create sort of like a workbook at the end of every chapter that helps somebody reflect and create an action plan. And the publisher said, could you please not call it a workbook? And now three years later, I’m still calling it a workbook. So that hasn’t stuck. But the idea has evolved. So it’s a collection of stories, all real stories.
“The Spare Room” is a euphemism for what everybody has to offer and what everybody may be compelled to take that offer and point it against in terms of an offense. When you find the intersection between your offer and your offense, I call it your social legacy. I think every single person, every one of us has the opportunity to live more abundantly. This isn’t about sacrifice or charity. This is about living a richer life because you have defined the legacy you want to leave and social crafts the space in which you want to have that impact. That’s what “The Spare Room” is all about.
Well, that’s just remarkable. You’ve also said in your book, in conversations, that this also has affected your leadership style, correct Can you explain that a little bit?
Yes. Absolutely. I would say in some ways, growing up at P&G, you have a sense of what a leader ought to be. And, you know, at least in the older days, leaders were somebody you looked way up to. They were on the 11th floor. Wow, I remember going up there for the first time and I just thought the cushion is so soft. I can’t even hear my own footsteps on this carpet. It was so aspirational that I think in some ways it was probably on my own mind. But I started to separate work and life. I thought at work, this is how I need to appear. And an Asian American woman was not maybe the person you saw in every hallway at P&G back then. There was a certain image I wanted to project so that I could be seen as part of the group and successful.
I think after I left P&G, I’d already had many spare room kids, but I hadn’t really ever talked about it. It was only when I was at Intercontinental Hotels Group that I was being a little bit difficult to somebody who was pitching his agency. And I was kind of saying, Look, I don’t need an agency. We’ve already got an agency and I’m not going to change.” And finally he sort of put his hands up and he was like, okay, okay. And then he asked me about the photos he saw in my office around the corner. And through the conversation, there were kids that had been in my spare room. That was sort of my happy corner when I took breaks. He said, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Cause clearly I’d already bitten his head off. He said, I just want you to know you’ve just become a really lovely human. I love talking about your family with you. And I felt like I did, I melted and my self came out. And then he said, I’m not sure you need to separate because how much more engaging are you when you talk about your family? And that moment, it was with a guy named Will Travis. It changed me. It made me realize that I should bring my best self to work, that there are different ways we can be leaders and we should be our own authentic leader, know, Brené Brown, then introduced this concept of vulnerability in the workplace. And that vocabulary word sort of transformed the way I think about how I can be as a leader. And now as I’ve just turned 49, I think I want to be the kind of leader that maybe people don’t normally see because there is something about representation. It’s not just my ethnicity, the color of my skin, where I come from. It’s the fact that there may be a woman of color who is a CEO and maybe she doesn’t post-produce her videos and maybe she talks about silly things and maybe she doesn’t project the image that you might see from a normal C-suite executive and I think that should be okay.
Emily, this is such a great example of how personal life and business life can blend together in a seamless way. You certainly are setting an example for many. So thank you for joining us today. And thank you for the many lessons that you’re leaving behind. You’re certainly leaving a legacy in many ways. So I really appreciate your time.
Thank you. And so are you with Signal. Thank you, Stan.
Thank you, Emily.
