Chief Marketing & Growth Officer, Att
Search every verified Kellyn Kenny interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a 2020 interview, Kellyn Smith Kenny, then CMO of Hilton, discussed the importance of redefining success metrics for marketing leaders. She argued that focusing on return on ad spend (ROAS) can lead to acquiring cheap but transactional customers who require repeated spending to retain. Kenny advocated instead for prioritizing lifetime value and brand building, stating that "if you can focus on lifetime value and brand building...you're going to be much better off." She described redefining "hero metrics" and achieving a holistic return on investment as crucial. Kenny also addressed the rapid pace of innovation in marketing, saying that "if you're standing still for a year, you're gonna find yourselves ten years left behind." She noted that more innovation had occurred in the previous half decade than in the prior two hundred years. To keep up, she emphasized the need for a blend of data and intuition, stating that "the answer is not in the spreadsheet" and that "the spreadsheet is never going to tell you what's gonna happen six months from now."
“The thing that we say on our team is that if you're standing still for a year, you're gonna find yourselves ten years left behind. There's been more innovation in marketing in the past half decade than we experienced in the past two hundred years; it is going at a juggernaut pace.”
“In order to keep up, you do need people who think with your head and your heart. You have to be guided by data, but the answer is not in the spreadsheet. It's super critical to have data and information, but you have to have instincts and intuition; the spreadsheet is never going to tell you what's gonna happen six mon...”
“We need to redefine the scorecard that really is sort of where I was going with the narrative. I think you get into a conversation with the CFO and it's ROAS, return on ad spend, and again we've actually done a nice job in the past year getting people to not focus on ROAS because it leads you to get the cheapest custom...”
“If you can focus on lifetime value and brand building and them and the people who represent the most potential value to your organization, you're going to be much better off.”
Kellyn Smith Kenny, CMO of Hilton, says that keeping pace with innovation requires a blend of data skills and good instincts.
Kellyn Smith Kenny, CMO of Hilton, talks about the importance of redefining success as a CMO.
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