Top 15 Interviews of 2024
Read our top 15 interviews to discover strategies, lessons, and inspirations that will help shape your next move in 2025.
Topics
This year, Martechvibe has had the privilege of conversing with some of the brightest minds across industries—individuals who have pushed boundaries, transformed challenges into opportunities, and redefined what success looks like in their respective fields. From pioneering AI-driven marketing strategies to reshaping customer experiences, these leaders exemplify how bold thinking and execution lead to exceptional results.
Our “Top Interviews of the Year” list features insights that resonate beyond their industries, addressing universal challenges such as customer loyalty, product innovation, and the integration of cutting-edge technology. Their words inspire action, foster understanding, and empower readers to think differently, whether they’re seasoned professionals or just starting their journey.
These 15 interviews showcase not just the accomplishments of remarkable individuals, but the ideas and philosophies that earned them their spot among the top voices of the year. Dive into these conversations to discover strategies, lessons, and inspirations that will help shape your next move.
Adam Smart, Global Director of Product—Gaming at AppsFlyer
“Understanding your target demographic and their preferences is crucial for optimising ad engagement. Analysing engagement patterns reveals optimal timing and frequency for ad placements while identifying preferred content types.
It’s important to monitor the user feedback and sentiment to highlight effective elements and those needing adjustment. Recognising behavioural triggers, like specific themes or calls to action, enhances ad relevance and appeal.”
Full interview: It’s Game Over for Ad Fatigue with AI
Amr Helmy, Marketing Director at Red Bull
“Customers churn because they get bored easily. This is because a lot of brands are not being innovative and proposing something new. I believe this comes not only from a consumer marketing approach but also from a product marketing approach.
I think they also need to innovate when it comes to the product range, size, design and so on. This is what sometimes people take for granted. Do not wait for people to get bored and then start being active on that front.”
Full interview: This Week on the Grill: Amr Helmy, Red Bull
Anuj Nagpal, Former Director – Supply & Ads Monetisation at Swiggy
“Every product that goes through a GTM process must go to an XP, which is mandatory. When running an XP, we look at an app and its user experience from multiple directions. So, any kind of experiment that leads to damaging a
conversion on the platform is something that we don’t entertain as it will not aid the conversion on the platform. No product on Swiggy goes live without the XP in place.”
Full interview: In Conversation with Anuj Nagpal, Director – Supply & Ads Monetisation at Swiggy
Asma Beljaflah, Head of Emirates Islamic Contact Centre at Tanfeeth
“Investing in an omnichannel platform to gain better visibility of customers is a must. Containing customers in their channel of choice is crucial. The worst experience a customer can have is if they are conversing on Whatsapp and are then asked to call their bank to complete their request.
Whilst there is always an element of risk associated with ‘non-conventional’ channels, as an organisation we have to solve for this and eliminate the risk by upgrading our infrastructure rather than put our customer through inconvenience.”
Full interview: Are Contact Centre Agents Becoming Too Robotic?
Dipti Khalate, Head of Growth at Zalora Group
“Once traffic is accurately tracked, the next step is designing a conversion attribution model. This involves assigning appropriate weight to different channels. Each channel contributes uniquely to discovery, consideration, and the final purchase.
It’s important to recognise each channel’s contribution and allocate investments accordingly across the funnel. Attribution is key to this process, and data analytics plays a vital role in extracting insights. However, it’s crucial to have a clear objective and a structured approach to analysing data.”
Full interview: Ace Pre and Post-Purchase Experiences for App Growth
Joshua Foo, Senior Retention Marketing Manager at Chronos Agency
“All DTC brands crave loyalty. When it comes to products, finding a hero is step one. But what if you’ve got that covered? What more value can you give to your customers? Try not to be a one-trick pony, continue innovating and expanding. The unique opportunity DTC brands have is they have a direct line to their customers.
Get to know them, grow with them, explore opportunities with them; you might stumble upon another hero product or two. Building that relationship with your customers is a game-changer – it becomes a two-way street.”
Full interview: Can DTC Brands Compete with Marketplace Apps?
Kartik Mittal, Head Ad Sales & Monetisation Revenue at Snapdeal
“We need to do relevant targeting based on user behaviour, user demographics, and what the user has previously searched for and bought all of that. This is driven through AI and ML. Apart from that, an ad has to be noticeable but can’t be disruptive.
An ad has to be very leaked into the slot so that the customer notices it, but it should not be disruptive during the journey while the customer is in.”
Full interview: In Conversation with Kartik Mittal, Head Ad Sales & Monetisation at Snapdeal
Luke Jamieson, Global CX / EX / Future of Work Thought Leader
“I think we messed up as CX practitioners. We put too much emphasis on the role on certain tools like journey maps and not enough focus on getting the metrics right.
Nate Brown once told me in an interview that CX is about finding friction and removing it. That description has never left me and sums up exactly what we as CX professionals should be focused on.
Instead, I see so many CXOs focused on the panacea, on fringe experiences that became use cases and the envy of other companies.”
Full interview: NPS is Losing Traction as the Primary Metric for CX
Manpreet Kour, Director – Experiential Marketing at Cvent
“Setbacks highlight the need for adaptability, showing how crucial it is to quickly adjust or pivot strategies when things aren’t going as planned. They also emphasise the importance of a
customer-focused approach, revealing gaps in understanding customer needs and underscoring the value of listening to feedback and iterating based on those insights. Many failures occur due to a lack of proper testing, illustrating the need to foster a culture of experimentation to prevent larger setbacks down the line.”
Full interview: Key Lessons and Emerging Trends in Experiential Marketing
Dr Melanie Van Rooy, CMO at Clicks Group
“Brands aiming to re-imagine their CX stack for better customer engagement and retention should consider partnering with an experienced agile CX partner to guide them in rethinking their CX strategy.
It is important to select CX management platforms that cover as many management and engagement points as possible, from incident management to third-party voice of customer (VOC) integrations. This ensures that there are no gaps between collecting feedback, analysing it, and taking action for closed-loop management. The same holds true for Digital Experience Platforms (DXP).”
Full interview: Strategies to Win the Experience Revolution in Retail
Dr. Raul Villamarin Rodriguez, Cognitive and Behavioural Psychology Expert
“There are several cognitive biases that marketers should be aware of, as these biases can influence consumer decision-making processes. For example, the anchoring bias causes individuals to rely heavily on the first piece of information they receive when making decisions, making initial price presentations critical.
The availability heuristic leads people to overestimate the likelihood of events based on their ease of recall, which can be manipulated through strategic advertising and branding efforts.”
Full interview: Are Marketers Wary of Cognitive Biases?
Simon Kriss, Author of The AI-Empowered Customer Experience
“It is my hope that by mid 2025 we will see a large push by company boards, executives and procurement teams to move AI from ‘black box’ to ‘glass box’. Some of the foundation models have already started to publish System Cards
so you can understand where the model came from, how it was trained and who trained it as well as identifying known bias limits – thus you can compensate in your application design or use case.”
Full interview: The 2025 Transition from AI Black Box to Glass Box
Sindhu Sreenath, Managing Director, EMEA at QuestionPro
“What are you doing with the metrics you capture? How are you really closing that loop? What actions are you taking? What incremental actions are you taking? And how are you tracking those actions from an outer loop perspective?
At the end of the day, focus more on the outer loop and the closed loop elements, because this is what also helps you understand what is the ROI of running these programs in the first place.”
Full interview: In Conversation with Sindhu Sreenath, Managing Director, EMEA at QuestionPro
Subhash Dawda, Head Marketing, RazorpayX
“More than shortening the way the path to conversion, I think it’s about finding those who are in the market. From a B2B perspective, at any given time, only 5% of my total addressable market is actually in the market purchasing things.
But finding those five is the first step to solving the problem. How do you get signals within your different touch points that will tell you that they are more in the market than the others?. But at the same time, the other 95 are equally important because if they’re not in the market today, there is a tomorrow.”
Full interview: In Conversation with Subhash Dawda, Head Marketing, RazorpayX
Vita Nikolaieva, Marketing & Communications APAC at Columbia Group
“Keep an eye on your value proposition. What makes you stand out?
Back when the travel industry hit some bumps, Airbnb didn’t just tighten the belt and wait it out. They added value to their offerings with unique experiences.
It not only kept them competitive but also created a whole new angle that appealed to a broader audience. And don’t be afraid to get creative with promotions – loyalty programmes, bundles, you name it – another way of staying competitive without sacrificing the bottom line.”
Full interview: What’s the Narrative Around Your Product?
