The IEX Exchange CMO Brings Hot Sauces and Beer to 2021’s Big Game

With the big game right around the corner, marketers put their best work in front of the faces of many. But Kate Gunning, CMO of IEX Exchange, is focused on putting their fin-tech hot sauce and beer directly to people’s lips. Read why Kate is betting on tangible goods to create memories and how the intersection of culture and business is keeping her marketing team inspired. How did you get to where you are today? Any noteworthy aha-moments along the way? Relationships and intuition. I’ve always gravitated towards career and location moves driven by both. I have been so blessed to come across, and have the support of, so many good-hearted and talented people throughout my career. The same goes with trying new marketing ideas: if you have a good and curious relationship with your customer and use your intuition for how to foster that relationship overtime, it usually works out! One AHA moment for me was when I was at JWT London working on the KIT KAT business. Our team really crystalized how the brand should behave when going to market and everything we did was based on the strategy we’d set for how to come across as a real, fun, down-to-earth person that everyone wants to socialize with, not just a chocolate bar. Everything we did had to be representative of pop culture and social currency in some way; this was important for keeping the “Have a break, have a KIT KAT” positioning relevant for the next generation. The fan engagement and subsequent sales off the back of that were powerful, and it proved the importance of being strict with how you behave when you go to market. IEX has really leaned into experiential marketing with the unique products you create for consumers, not something normal for the stock trading industry. What's the future of experiential in your mind? Sense and story are what creates memories. One of our strategies is to use tangible goods in a meaningful way to promote our technologies. The goods we make and the way we share them with our community help us tell our story. They’re born out of culture, to make them relevant to our audience and we try to make them sensorial so that they’re memorable. We use flavors, sounds, fabrics—physical things people can taste, smell, hear, and feel. Drinking beer or tasting hot sauce creates memory association through senses and make our messaging more tangible. IEX Exchange's beer, Liquidity, represents high-quality stocks. Tell us about your latest campaign for the Super Bowl and new ecommerce site. IEX Exchange has a specific clientele. They are professionals on Wall Street who buy and sell stocks: traders. They care about getting the most accurate price when executing a trade and having access to sufficient inventory of stocks (liquidity.) IEX created a new kind of stock exchange, focused on using high-performance technology designed to deliver the most accurate up-to-date prices and inventory when trading on our exchange. We did this because we want all parties participating in the market to have total transparency around what’s happening when they are trading. So, working with our creative agency, Goods and Services, we produced a campaign to introduce concepts that are foreign to most but important to our audience in a unique way. #StockUpResponsibly is the campaign about getting the best performance possible when you trade on IEX Exchange. Our approach this (and last) year is to have fun with the key components of our exchange by creating consumer goods that represent our technology. We’re introducing the “official, unofficial goods of the stock market.” Last year was an ad for “the official, unofficial beer of the stock market.” Our beer, Liquidity, represents high-quality stocks, which are referred to on Wall Street as “Liquidity.” This year we’ll introduce “Lit,” the “the official, unofficial hot sauce of the stock market,” to represent a sector of trading referred to as “Lit” trading. IEX Exchange's hot sauce, Lit, represent a sector of trading referred to as “Lit” trading. We’re also building an IEX Goods website to make our products more accessible to our community and launched a small pilot recently for the beer, hot sauce, and hoodie. It all goes back to creating goods and experiences that people can engage with and remember. How are you keeping the creative spirit alive virtually with your team? One thing we did early on was to create a WFH playlist for everyone to collaborate on and it’s been fun for everyone to share their songs of the week. You learn a lot about people from their music choices. As a team, we’re always sharing culture tips we see, Fin-meme content, and experiential ideas we are inspired by. We’ve also been studying beer culture and swag culture lately for obvious reasons! IEX Exchange's beer, Liquidity, represents high-quality stocks. Where do you look for inspiration to keep yourself ahead of the curve? Culture. Marketing is a beautiful intersection between culture and business. When you think about those two things together constantly, you’ll start recognizing signs and signals all around that give guidance on how to engage with your community. They’re in music, art, food, blog feeds, parks, the way other brands engage with their audiences. Observing, seeing, and recognizing this leads to new ideas. That discovery is one of my favorite parts about marketing. Our strategy with tangible goods started as a beta idea based on cultural cues and business objectives coming together. Now that it’s sticking, we’re thinking about how we approach engaging our clients with these programmatic drips, taking inspiration from brands with strong culture and community, like Supreme. We’ll know our approach is really working when enough people get curious and ask, “what do you think IEX will make next?” What skills or qualities do you look for in talent when developing your team? I look for people who can see things in a new and differentiated way. Open-mindedness, creativity, curiosity, ingenuity, and bravery are key to this. I also gravitate towards people with the grit to tackle a challenge and the desire to do good, and who are graceful and steady under pressure. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received and how has it impacted your career? Trust your intuition. It works every time, because even when it doesn’t, what you learn is invaluable. If you could ask the marketing community at large one question, what would it be? What do you see as the most powerful form of modern marketing? I think SWAG, branded merchandise is one of the most underrated but effective forms of modern marketing. Having people rep your brand is powerful… Consumer goods from the #StockUpResponsibly campaign.