Leanne Fremar and Peggy Roe in Conversation at Cannes Lions 2025

Variety

Transcript

00:00Are you ready for a great session? We're really, really excited to have this conversation this

00:13afternoon. Joining me is Leanne Fremar, Chief Brand Officer at JPMorgan Chase, sitting all

00:19the way to my left, and Peggy Rowe, Chief Customer Officer at Marriott. Thank you both so much for

00:25joining us today. Happy to be here. I'm jealous of the popsicles in the audience, though. That

00:32looks really good. We can get one when we're done. So we're talking today about building

00:36outstanding brand experience, which is a fun and interesting topic, a very applicable topic that I

00:41think many of the people in our audience will be able to use and talk about some of the lessons

00:46we learned. So I guess just to start, I was wondering, how do you understand who your customer

00:50and consumer are? Well, that's a good question. And at JPMC, it's a big question. We serve many,

00:57many stakeholders across many businesses. But I would say that the way we get closest to our

01:03customers is really understanding them by segment and by subsegment, and then doing a lot of data,

01:09research, analytics, to really get into the mindset of the customer. And we meet the customer where they

01:17are, not just through the data and the analytics part, but also obviously being in the field,

01:22being IRL with them, being in our branches, and hearing direct feedback from customers. When you're

01:29in a customer service business, like our consumer banking businesses are, you get a lot of feedback

01:35directly. And we integrate that to make for a better understanding of who our customer is and what

01:40they're looking for. And we've, you know, we have traditionally played in the premium and luxury

01:46space. We've extended across, you know, everything from an $80 US dollar range all the way up to luxury

01:53today with our almost 40 brands. And so who is the customer is not only a much broader question now,

02:01but a customer for us, a traveler, which you all are, will use our brands in different ways based on

02:07business or leisure, who you're traveling with, your purpose of your trip. So for us,

02:11we have switched to looking at what we call demand spaces, which is what is the reason someone's

02:16traveling for that type of trip and sizing those demand spaces to understand what motivates that

02:23demand space. And then using real customer feedback to validate, right, the behaviors around

02:28that demand space. And then we obviously work together with our credit cards. And so we also leverage

02:35each other to be able to better understand our customers. How do you differentiate who is staying

02:40within each hotel within the Marriott family? How do you sort of, do you identify different ranges of

02:46customers and preferences based on their preferences for which hotels they stay at?

02:51Yeah. So it depends on the purpose internally of what you're doing, right? So for us, we have a design

02:56target for a brand, right? Weston is about wellness, eat well, sleep well, move well. That's for people who,

03:03it's not just a customer segment, right? It's for people looking for wellness on that trip.

03:09And that's how we think about it. So we're looking at segmentation across price points, again,

03:15based on the trip, and then aligning our brands with different trends that are moving in the market.

03:22What does brand experience look like to you and mean to you?

03:25I mean, that's a broad question again. I think brand experience at the JPMorgan Chase level

03:32is really about understanding, you know, who our audiences are, how our company has impacted scale,

03:38and how we are, you know, making dreams possible for everyone, everywhere, every day. And that is

03:44sort of the mission that we come to work with every day and the way that we approach our clients and

03:50customers and the communities we serve. You know, at the brand level, it really is about

03:56understanding the unique needs of that audience and making those, that brand come to life in ways

04:04that they would expect. And then hopefully also in good ways that they wouldn't expect. And so I would

04:10use, you know, our Sapphire Airport Lounge portfolio as an example of a space where we knew our customers

04:17wanted to hear from us. They wanted to see the brand expressed in that space. But, you know,

04:24it was sort of a surprise and delight moment when we really did bring it to life.

04:28Talking a little bit more about in-life experiences, how important is it to be able to invite

04:33your customers in so that they can experience something in person and get to know the brand

04:38face-to-face?

04:40I think it's critical, actually. And I think there's been a tremendous amount of conversation

04:45here at Cannes this year about, obviously, AI and some of the technologies that are emerging

04:51that are going to be transformative to our industry and to the customer experience and

04:55the client journey. IRL and really being able to, like, see a brand, touch a brand, speak to

05:03somebody who represents the brand, I think is going to become, you know, even more critical

05:08in helping people sort of really understand, you know, not just what the brand sounds like,

05:14looks like, and the products that they serve. But what a brand truly feels like and how that brand

05:19makes you feel when you interact with them is going to, you know, continue to have an outsized

05:24amount of importance and, I think, imprint on the customer loyalty.

05:29And obviously, Marriott is very much about in-real life.

05:33We are. And when we think about the customer experience, we think about it in layers.

05:37So at the hotel level, the general manager is responsible for the customer experience end-to-end

05:43for that hotel. Then you lift it up. And when you think about Marriott Bonvoy, we show up across

05:50the journey end-to-end, right? Whether you're in the inspiration phase or you're booking phase or

05:54you're staying at the hotel or post-stay, right? We look at the moments of happiness and, you know,

06:01critical issues, sad faces and happy faces along that customer journey and try to lean into the

06:08areas that we either see as opportunity or moments of truth. And I think when we think about

06:14the customer experience and the future of AI, like, we know that our brand stands for quality,

06:20consistency, and service. That's mostly served by our associates in our hotels, right? And so we think

06:26about the future of service, always say in this order, human-centered, data-driven, tech-enabled.

06:31Right.

06:32How important, because we're in a day and age where everyone can talk back and share their

06:36experiences. So how important is it when someone voices something about your brand on social media?

06:42Do you track all of that? Do you read all of that? Do you consume all of that? There's obviously

06:46different ways in which people are doing that through, you know, TikTok, through Instagram,

06:51through Reddit. Do you have a team that goes through and looks at what people are saying?

06:55Absolutely. I'll share a journey on this. Like, you know, if you've stayed in our hotels,

06:59by the way, how many people stay in our hotels? Mayor Bonvoy? Okay. All right. We actually ask you

07:06about your experience after the stay, right? And that is actually too late. And so we're in the

07:10process of moving it up because after the stay, you may have forgotten about your visceral feedback

07:15in the moment. And where we're seeing that visceral feedback in the moment is more on Reddit,

07:21on social, on insiders, right? On Facebook. And I started getting that feedback just through my own

07:28alerts to my own phone. And so what I found is as a chief customer officer, every morning I'd wake up

07:33to these love notes and I would ask my team, hey, have you heard about this yet? And they would not

07:37have seen it in the data yet. And so that really motivated me to look at our platform and say, look,

07:43I want to listen to what customers are saying and feeling in real time across the entire journey.

07:50Like, give me a platform that does that. And then I want to get that feedback back to the person that

07:54can do something about it, not to the corporate headquarters like three months later, right? I want

07:59the people in the hotel to be able to act on that right away. So you actually go in and you personally

08:04read what people are saying in real time? Every day. Every morning I wake up. My first 30 minutes is

08:09probably not the best thing for mental health, but the first thing I do is because we know that

08:15the fastest, if we respond quickly to any customer problem, that's the first way to like lower the

08:21temperature. And so I try to be very responsive or at least get it to someone who can respond fast.

08:27And what about you and JP Morgan Chase? Well, it's very similar. And I would say on the consumer

08:33sides of the business, we get a lot of feedback. We read a lot of feedback. We receive it. We

08:39synthesize it. Of course, we're monitoring what's happening on social media and Reddit and other

08:44channels. You know, in certain audiences like, you know, our Chase Sapphire audience, you know,

08:50we have a very loyal customer base and people who express strong opinions about what we're doing.

08:58And we love that level of engagement. We think that means that we've got a really thriving,

09:03healthy brand. And, you know, we also have, just like in the instance of Marriott, you know,

09:09our associates in our banks and in our branches and in our financial centers, you know, really

09:15responding to feedback in real time to help resolve whatever customer obstacles are in the way and

09:22remove those and make for, you know, a great happy journey. What is it about the Chase Sapphire card

09:28that inspires such passion? What is it specifically about that card, would you say?

09:32I mean, I think that that consumer, and obviously we've done a tremendous amount of research on

09:37understanding what they want. You know, they are an audience that loves, you know, great things. They

09:44love food. They love dining. They love travel. They love experiences. And, you know, and so they're,

09:50they're a very passionate audience about their life and they're passionate about where they spend their

09:56time. And so we get to understand, you know, what it is they're passionate about. And then they,

10:01they also obviously tell us what they're passionate about.

10:04What trends have changed in person when it comes to banking after COVID? Do you find that people

10:09are as willing to go in person or is it that they want to do more virtually?

10:14We're seeing both. You know, we obviously, I think during the pandemic were one of the essential

10:20services that were operating throughout the pandemic. Our associates were in our branches and

10:26in our offices, you know, five, sometimes seven days a week. And, you know, and so what we've seen is

10:33obviously there's an amazing shift to mobile for a lot of the easier transaction things across certain

10:38segments and sort of, you know, generations and demographics. But people do love IRL. And so we

10:45never count that out. Instead of sort of retreating from IRL experiences and IRL footprints, you know,

10:54in our branch network, we are building branches. You know, we are going into communities. We have

11:00just launched our new JP Morgan financial centers and we are rolling those out around the country.

11:06And, you know, people love a place to gather. They want a place where they can speak to a human

11:11face-to-face who can be empathetic, who can be private and personal. And, you know, people want

11:17to be heard and to form that connection over a, you know, a part of their life that is extremely

11:25important to them, which is their financial health and well-being and the planning for their,

11:30you know, self or their family or their community. And so we need to and are honored to meet our

11:38customers and clients and small businesses where they are and continue to lean into that,

11:45I think, in the best way. One of the interesting things in our industry and travel is that people

11:50used to use travel agents a lot, right? Then digital experience came in, OTAs came in, and you could

11:57do everything online yourself and they went away from travel agents. And now it's actually harder

12:03in some ways to book your trip. It takes you longer because there's so many places to go search

12:08and compare and like we, there's, there's, there's now like a thousand hotel lodging brands in the

12:14world. I think it's three times what it was like 10 years ago. And so you sort of see, especially at

12:19the high end, this retreat back to, I want somebody to help me plan my travel, right? And so we've been

12:24thinking about how we work together on that. And I, and I think that that level of personal touch,

12:32the level of expertise that our brands can bring, uh, the season's professionals, like, of course,

12:38there are going to be digital tools that are going to be able to enable those experiences to happen

12:43faster or to think through, you know, all sorts of details. But, but that level of engagement, um,

12:50has a very high premium on it in terms of like how you identify with a brand, associate with a brand,

12:55and hopefully have a good experience with a brand.

12:58Right. Peggy, how would you say, uh, the Marriott brand changed post COVID when it came to customer

13:03service and your approach to catering to your clients? The biggest change was from business to

13:08leisure, right? And so the way we were looking at the portfolio before was very much about how do you

13:13drive loyalty and frequency to the high spenders who were largely on business travel. And then we

13:19shifted, we flipped, we were 60% business, 40% leisure, and the whole thing flipped, um, the other way

13:26after COVID. And so we started to really figure out how do we lean more into leisure. And that's when

13:32we got into yachts, homes and villas, right? Even residential product, longer stays. And then now

13:38we're looking at our loyalty program because it's very much based on frequency and business travel

13:44and rewarding you for your business trips. But the real insight here is that usually when you're on

13:48business, like you're not really spending that much time in the hotel to enjoy what the hotel

13:52where you want the benefits is on leisure, right? When, with your family, when you're having that

13:57important stay, that life moment, that's where you want the benefits. So we're shifting both that

14:02way, as well as how do you get the people who are staying more frequently interested in Merit Bonvoy.

14:08And that's why we've leaned into Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the F1 and Superbowl and all these

14:13things that give younger people access to experiences as part of Merit Bonvoy.

14:18So during the Aeros tour, for example, can you give us an example of how you collaborated with

14:22Taylor Swift? Yeah, that one was really fun because our traditional model has been use your

14:26points, redeem for something like the Superbowl sleepover in the Superbowl suite. And while we

14:32did that for people who had a lot of points, we also did things like one point drop, right? So we

14:39drove like 500,000 new enrollments to Merit Bonvoy because younger people said, well, I want a chance to

14:44win, right? And then the other business side of it was, you know, we said, we don't just want to

14:51slap our logo on a touring sponsorship, right? We want to be a partner that does meaningful work for

14:56you. And Taylor didn't need us. She didn't need our money really, right? But what was great is that

15:04we were able to extend the fan experience into our hotels. So when people stayed with us,

15:09we had bracelet making stations in the hotel, we helped them with merch sales, right? On the last

15:15show. And then you could come for a weekend for Taylor Swift, and then you could experience all

15:21kinds of things like in the restaurants and bars and things like that. So that was really fun.

15:26Leanne, is there anything at JPMorgan Chase that you collaborated on in a similar way that you

15:30wanted to talk about as a case study that was really successful for you?

15:33I mean, I think that, you know, we collaborate with a lot of different makers across the space.

15:39One place where I think we're really excited right now is our collaboration with the infatuation as

15:48part of our new platform. And obviously, that has been an amazing acquisition for us as a brand.

15:54And really, our ability to talk with and create amazing experiences for our clients with chefs,

16:00with mixologists, with great restaurants, getting great tables, being able to be a part of that

16:05experience and extending that experience into places and spaces like EatsCon, where, you know,

16:11it might not be, you know, sort of, everyone has access to that hot table. But a lot of people,

16:16you know, at every price point can participate in EatsCon and really get, you know, something that's

16:24special to them and be a part of that movement and be a part of that moment. So there are many,

16:29many examples across the Chase and the JP Morgan ecosystem, where, you know, we are really looking,

16:35again, for that level of, you know, being a part of the cultural conversation, but not necessarily

16:41having the conversation center on one of our products or services, really understanding what

16:47our clients and customers want to do. And then how do we supercharge that experience? Or how do we

16:52deepen that experience? Or just make that experience that much more special for a cardholder?

16:56We have a really fun one that we do together every year. In January, we host the Cayman Cookout at

17:02the Ritz-Carlton Cayman. Yes, we do. And for, I don't even know how many years, like 10 years or

17:07something, JP Morgan and Marriott have partnered together to bring our cardholders to that event.

17:13The event was started by Eric Repair, who has the restaurant there, and Jose Andres as a way for

17:20chefs to relax after the holidays, because everybody's working overtime during the holidays. They all

17:25descend on Cayman to invite their families and cook for each other. It started, it's just for

17:30the chefs. And many years ago, they started to invite some customers to the event. And now it's

17:36still capped at about 150, 200 people. It's very small. But our cardholders together have come,

17:41I go every year, and there's like, for 10 years, like, it's a reunion for the cardholders. And we,

17:46it's very limited. So when the, when the offer comes out, I mean, people are bidding and paying

17:51like $10,000, right, for the week to come to this thing. But they love it. They absolutely love it.

17:57And you can't find that anywhere else. No. And I think it's that, again, like your cardholders,

18:02our, our, our, our shared customers, like they really want to come out for these things, whether

18:06it's F1 or Sundance or the US Open, you know, they are, they, they love those events in their own life.

18:14And if we can make access to those events, more interesting, frictionless, you know, and just

18:21sort of have a deeper connection with whatever it is they're passionate about, be it, you know,

18:25cars or film or, or tennis or sports in general, like, that's what we as a brand feel like is our

18:33part of the value proposition, right? We're not there to talk about ourselves, we're there to help

18:38our customers and facilitate what it is that they're really passionate about. And hopefully give them an,

18:44an experience that is so, that is elevated and that they maybe otherwise wouldn't have gotten

18:49if they had sort of navigated it at without, you know, a chaste product.

18:53And the interesting thing I, the trend I see, which is actually kind of happening here too,

18:58is that there's a core event and then there's the community that comes. And a lot of times people

19:03are even just coming for the community experience and not even the event anymore, right? Same with the F1,

19:08you know, a lot of the other sporting events have become the events that are happening around it.

19:12And the people that are there, because they're like-minded, they're like the same passions.

19:17But I think you can look at what's happening around events like CAN or F1 or the Super Bowl.

19:22And it is, it is proof and data that like, that IRL and being in person and create, being a part of a

19:31community is something that is, continues to be important as people. And maybe even has taken on

19:37sort of a heightened sense of importance after the pandemic. And so, you know, we really love

19:43being a part of that. And we really love seeing that as, you know, sort of positive reinforcement

19:48for the things that we're doing.

19:50This has been an outstanding conversation. We have time for one last question. We've used the

19:53word loyalty a lot in this conversation. And so I want to end by asking, how do you measure loyalty?

19:58To me, I make it simple for internal teams. It's love and money. How much does the customer love

20:06you? And how much is it driving their share of wallet? And at the end of the day, profit for

20:11the company?

20:11Very good answer.

20:12I would say similar. I think, you know, share of wallet is obviously a big metric that we look at.

20:17But I would also say, you know, our clients and customers have been with us on long journeys.

20:22You know, we have clients that have been banking with Chase for, you know, most of or all of their

20:28lives. We have clients that are multi-generational businesses that, you know, where businesses have

20:34been passed down from generation to generation. We have clients that have started businesses in

20:39their garage and have ended up IPO-ing. Like, we really value being on the journey with our

20:44customers. And we really see that as, you know, an incredible expression of loyalty and something

20:53that we never take for granted.

20:54Well, we learned a lot. Thank you, Peggy and Leanne. Thank you both for your time. Really,

20:59really appreciate it. Thank you guys very much.

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