How Indeed is Breaking Down the Brand-Performance Divide

In this episode of Time for a Reset, host Fiona Davis speaks with Jennifer Warren, Global VP of Brand Marketing and Experience at Indeed, to challenge one of marketing’s most persistent divides: brand versus performance. 

Now, we all know and love Indeed! 

Jennifer argues that growth is not a separate marketing discipline. It is the outcome driven by brand, performance, PR, and communications working in tandem. She explains how separating these functions can create budget battles, fragment the customer journey, and ultimately limit business impact.

The conversation explores how CMOs can make brand investment more accountable by applying brand science, media mix modeling, and incremental testing to connect creative activity with revenue. Jennifer shares why rigorous measurement can shift conversations with stakeholders from subjective opinions about whether creative is “good” to evidence of what it actually delivered.

She also discusses how generative AI can act as a creativity amplifier by helping teams bring ambitious ideas to life while keeping human judgment, insight, and storytelling at the core of messaging. 

For marketers, the episode offers a practical reset: break down functional silos, build cultures that support calculated experimentation, protect innovation budgets, and spend more time connecting marketing with product, sales, finance, and customer success.

Topics Covered:

• Brand, performance, PR, and comms all play a role in driving business growth
• How to connect brand investment to revenue
• Make brand marketing everyone’s responsibility
• Use testing to resolve creative debates
• Use AI to amplify creative ambition by combining it with human insight 
• How to build the marketing framework for faster experimentation

Episode Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction to Jennifer Warren and Indeed
• 03:25 Stop Separating Brand and Performance Marketing
• 07:39 Build Brand Science to Connect Creative to Revenue
• 10:03 Brand Ownership Extends Across Your Entire Organization
• 17:24 How to Identify Breakthrough Creative Ideas
• 19:48 Use Testing Frameworks to Overcome Stakeholder Disagreement
• 21:58 Create a Culture for Innovation While Hitting Business Goals
• 25:04 Hiring for Curiosity and Problem-Solving in Marketing
• 27:25 AI as a Creativity Amplifier, Not a Job Threat
• 29:09 Essential Skills for Senior Marketers Tomorrow
• 31:03 Connect Cultural Impact to Measurable Business Outcomes
• 31:42 Delegate Decision-Making to Enable Real-Time Marketing Speed
• 34:11 Key Takeaways & Final Thoughts

Episode Highlights:

• 03:25 The Case for One Growth System
   Jennifer challenges the brand-performance divide, showing why siloed teams create budget conflicts and miss the customer journey. She explains how a unified growth framework can align marketing functions around short-term demand and long-term brand value.
• 07:39 Making Brand Investment Measurable
  Jennifer explains how a CFO question about brand consideration led Indeed to build brand science. Mix modeling and incremental testing connect creative investment to revenue, replacing debates with evidence that strengthens marketing’s case.
• 10:03 Brand Is Everyone’s Job
   Brand building does not stop with marketing. Jennifer explains why product, sales, customer service, and employee behavior all shape the brand promise, and why CMOs must orchestrate those experiences across the enterprise rather than oversee campaigns.
• 17:24 Where Breakthrough Ideas Come From
   Jennifer’s creative framework starts with problem clarity, customer understanding, brand alignment, and emotional resonance. She explains why ideas need strategic discipline and the ability to make people feel something, and how testing validates intuition without replacing it.
• 19:48 Turning Creative Debate Into Evidence
   Jennifer uses testing to turn creative disagreements into evidence-led decisions. She explains how combining quantitative and qualitative research can challenge opinions, sharpen the work, and help marketing leaders build executive alignment without diluting creative ambition.
• 31:42 Designing for Marketing Speed
   Speed requires more than asking teams to move faster. Jennifer explains how clear guardrails and delegated decision-making can free marketers from approvals, allowing teams to respond to cultural moments while leaders focus on enterprise relationships.