The Array.

About The Array.

The podcast for marketing, technology, and business leaders shaping the future of customer engagement in the AI era. Cutting through the hype, The Array explores the ideas, strategies, and real-world lessons driving meaningful business outcomes. From building AI-ready organisations and strengthening customer relationships to protecting brand identity, unlocking the value of data, and empowering creative teams, each episode features practical conversations with the leaders turning AI from experimentation into measurable impact. Learn more at www.jacquard.com

Publisher

Jacquard

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Nov 2024

Latest episode

16 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

30 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   16 Oct 2026

   Can AI build brand love? Doug Zarkin on trust and growth

   Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.com (http://www.jacquard.com) In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper speak with Doug Zarkin, CMO at Take 5, bestselling author, and TEDx speaker, about what it takes to build brands that earn customer trust and drive lasting growth. Across a career spanning Avon, Victoria's Secret PINK, Pearle Vision, and Take 5, Doug has learned that effective marketing starts with understanding people, not just measuring them. He shares why his experience selling Avon door-to-door and working on the frontline shaped his approach to brand strategy, and why marketing without operational excellence is just stuff. This conversation explores how marketers can use AI without losing the human touch. Doug sees AI as a powerful tool for research, idea generation, and exploring possibilities, but warns against treating it as a substitute for curiosity, judgment, or human connection. He also explains why tracking endless metrics can lead to analysis paralysis, and why trust, reputation, and customer sentiment matter alongside sales and lifetime value. From anticipating customer needs to empowering frontline teams, Doug makes the case for designing experiences that build relationships beyond a single transaction. Ultimately, the goal isn't simply to get customers to choose your brand once. It's to give them a reason to choose you again. What You’ll Learn: Why human connection and trusted recommendations remain powerful drivers of brand growth Why more customer data doesn't always lead to better insights How to use AI to fuel curiosity, explore ideas, and improve execution without replacing human judgment Why customer service should strengthen relationships instead of simply resolving problems How trust, reputation, and customer sentiment reveal the health of a brand Why marketers should focus on the metrics that directly influence business performance How to recognize when customers are quietly losing faith in your brand Why successful transformation requires more than agreement, it requires genuine commitment Doug Zarkin is the Chief Marketing Officer at Take 5 Oil Change, part of Driven Brands, and a brand transformation leader, bestselling author, and TEDx speaker. His career spans agency leadership and senior operating roles across beauty, fashion, retail, healthcare, wellness, and automotive services. Doug helped build Avon’s mark. brand to $118 million in 18 months, scale Victoria’s Secret PINK to $400 million, and grow Pearle Vision’s franchise business from $500 million to approximately $1 billion. At Take 5, he has led marketing transformation across brand strategy, customer experience, CRM, media, analytics, and omnichannel marketing. Through his book Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone and his “Thinking Human” philosophy, Doug champions a customer-first approach that connects brand strategy, frontline execution, trust, and commercial performance. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here (https://www.fame.so/follow-rate-review). Episode Resources: Doug Zarkin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougzarkin/) Driven Brands Inc. Website (http://www.drivenbrands.com/)

2. 

   14 Oct 2026

   AI can build 200 campaigns. Should you use it all?

   Analyze your brand messaging for free at www.jacquard.com (http://www.jacquard.com) In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper chat with Rachel Kamel, Director of CRM at Zwift and a growth marketing leader with experience across B2B, gaming, entertainment, and fitness. Together, they explore what it really takes to keep customers engaged when marketers have more tools, more data, and increasingly powerful AI at their disposal. Rachel explains how different industries have shaped her approach to retention, from the annual cycles of B2B to the constant engagement demanded by gaming and fitness. This conversation then turns to AI and CRM. Rachel sees the biggest opportunity in automating repetitive work and giving marketers more time for strategy, analysis, and creative thinking. But she warns against assuming that because teams can produce twice as many campaigns, they should. More messages can create customer fatigue, and AI can make it easier to automate the wrong things at scale. Rachel also shares a smarter approach to experimentation: instead of testing isolated creative variations, marketers should look for repeatable insights that can influence future campaigns. Finally, she explains why the numbers behind funnels, retention, and performance ultimately connect back to something more human: creating a better customer experience. For her, the most rewarding marketing work is work that makes people's lives better. What You’ll Learn: How CRM strategies differ across B2B, gaming, entertainment, and fitness How AI can remove repetitive work without removing human judgment Why scaling campaigns doesn't necessarily mean scaling value How customer fatigue can change the way you approach automation (https://www.jacquard.com/resources/8-ways-to-fight-customer-fatigue-and-transform-crm/) How to build experiments that generate reusable marketing insights Why audience context should shape your messaging and creative When humor and insider language can strengthen or hurt engagement How to personalize CRM strategies around customer behavior and motivation Why better funnels and retention ultimately start with better customer experiences Rachel Kamel is Director of CRM at Zwift, where she leads customer relationship marketing for a fitness platform built at the intersection of sport, technology, and gaming. A growth marketing leader with experience across B2B, gaming, entertainment, and fitness, Rachel specializes in building and refining customer journeys across acquisition, onboarding, retention, churn prevention, and winback. She is also passionate about making cycling more accessible and using marketing to help people have better experiences with the products they use. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here (https://www.fame.so/follow-rate-review). Episode Resources: Rachel Kamel on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelkamel/) Zwift Website (https://www.zwift.com/)

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   The CRM makeover your growth team needs

   Analyze your brand messaging for free at ⁠www.jacquard.com (https://www.jacquard.com/) In this episode of The Array by Jacquard, Toby and Jasper chat with Marina Vogt, Head of CRM at loveholidays, to explore how CRM can evolve from a campaign-led function into a strategic driver of commercial growth. Drawing on her experience leading large-scale CRM transformation at loveholidays, Marina explains what it takes to build lifecycle programmes around the customer journey rather than simply sending more campaigns. From trigger-based journeys and segmentation to experimentation and personalization, she explores how CRM teams can create more relevant customer experiences while delivering measurable commercial outcomes. This conversation also examines the importance of experimentation in modern CRM. Instead of relying on assumptions about what customers want, teams can use structured testing and incrementality frameworks to understand what actually drives additional conversion, engagement, and retention. This creates a more disciplined approach to customer marketing and helps teams separate correlation from genuine commercial impact. Toby, Jasper, and Marina also discuss the challenges of scaling CRM across markets and building the technology, processes, and cross-functional relationships needed to support meaningful personalization. This episode offers a practical perspective for CRM, marketing, and growth leaders looking to build customer engagement capabilities that scale, generate incremental growth, and become an integral part of the wider commercial strategy. What You’ll Learn: Why lifecycle marketing should be built around customer behavior and intent rather than generic campaign calendars How trigger-based journeys can create more relevant and timely customer experiences The role of experimentation and incrementality testing in identifying genuine CRM-driven growth How segmentation and personalization can improve conversion, retention, and customer engagement Why CRM transformation requires close collaboration between marketing, product, engineering, and data teams How to build CRM operating models that can scale as businesses enter new markets Why practical execution and measurable impact should remain at the center of modern CRM strategy Marina Vogt is Head of CRM at loveholidays, where she leads the transformation of CRM from a generic, campaign-led function into a strategic, lifecycle-driven growth channel. At loveholidays, Marina has led large-scale CRM transformation across strategy, technology, experimentation, and lifecycle journeys, partnering closely with product and engineering teams to enable more meaningful personalization. Her work has helped connect CRM more closely to measurable business outcomes across conversion, retention, sessions, and bookings. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do so are here (https://www.fame.so/follow-rate-review). Episode Resources: Marina Vogt on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-vogt/) Love Holidays Website (https://www.loveholidays.com/)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Spotify

5.0 / 5

13 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.