Echo Sandburg, Chief Brand Officer for CP Skin Health Group US: “Marketing in today’s environment requires us to be courageous”

You may be wondering who CP Skin Health Group is. The key is those initials, which stand for Colgate Palmolive — a company that Echo Sandburg has worked for since 2001. And as will soon become obvious, those two decades saw her build up a huge amount of experience before becoming Chief Brand Officer.

This is a huge job. Echo is responsible for building the US brand experiences (professional and consumer) for EltaMD, PCA Skin and Filorga. All of which are big brands in the skincare market. In addition to leading the individual brand teams, she oversees education, communications and media — plus the in-house creative cross-brand teams.

As with so many people that we interview, what drives Echo is the passion for her job. Not merely the marketing side: she is passionate about the skin care industry and sun safety as a whole, and works to advance sun safety awareness and education. 

One reason for this is that Echo didn’t grow up with sun-safe habits and is determined to change that for her children’s generation. That’s why she has championed programs like “The Sun Bus” in partnership with Epiphany Dermatology and Colorado Melanoma Foundation.

To discover how Echo sees the future of marketing, the role of AI and the importance of building great teams, read on.

Why Dust or Magic? That stems from a quote by legendary American advertising creative director, William Bernbach: “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.” (And if you’re wondering where you’ve heard the name, Bernbach was the inspiration behind Don Draper of Mad Men fame.)

Could you please introduce yourself to our audience? What motivated you to pursue a career in marketing, and how did you embark on your journey in this field?

My name is Echo Sandburg and I currently lead the US marketing organisation for CP Skin Health Group, which includes the Professional Skincare brands of EltaMD, PCA SKIN as well as Filorga. Skin health has been an interest of mine since I was a teen, so it has been very rewarding working in the category for the past four years.

I became passionate about the field of marketing during undergrad after I took an intro marketing course. So much so that I decided to switch from being a psychology major to a business one. I love that marketing is focused on people, and in that way, it includes an aspect of psychology in addition to allowing me to utilise my creativity. 

The CP in CP Skin Health Group stands for Colgate Palmolive, and I have worked for the company in various capacities across various parts of the world for over 22 years. I started at the company as a finance intern (did I mention that I minored in accounting) before moving to marketing. That helped to build my data-driven foundation.  Throughout my career, I also held several positions in customer development which in many ways helped to further refine my marketing skills (especially as it relates to B2B marketing). 

What are your thoughts on the escalating integration of AI in digital marketing and its potential influence on the future of marketing, Martech and social media?

Looking at it from a marketing perspective, we can see the changes have already begun. AI is the biggest factor at this point, aside from creative, within digital campaigns across the major advertising hubs like Google, Meta and Amazon where, if we want to see success, we need to trust the platform to adjust quicker and more efficiently than our own teams. The push over the last couple of years to let campaigns adjust and develop algorithmically was a precursor to the generative boom that would help produce creative this year and what we’re seeing now is the redeveloped landscape.

From a generative perspective, I think we’re on the cusp of that becoming a necessity. I still believe that human-generated content is superior as it contains the personable touch that only we can provide but capturing that is the objective for generative AI. It is almost certainly more efficient to have creative adjusted and tweaked through AI to represent your different audiences than making new, individual files for each one specifically in-house. With that said, the sheer amount of platforms, (of which there are more and more dedicated to creative, content, audio, etc every day), means that some are going to have to make the major breakthrough in creating compelling creative.

Given that we already have tools within Google and Meta where the algorithm picks the creative that is most compelling, assuming it will create or at least instruct you on how to create is not far-fetched. 

There are certainly inherent risks around this. The idea that a person’s face and voice can be recreated via code and archival footage poses a risk to our personal security and the very concept of truth. You can see precursors to it across social media platforms as people create AI songs or conversations between presidents, which has been a trend. When someone can make your face and your voice say anything, what are the checks and balances that need to be in place to keep that safe for your brand?  So while AI is very exciting for the field it is something that needs to be approached with care. 

Related reading: What will the digital landscape look like in 2028?

How do you ready yourself for an AI-driven landscape as a marketing leader? What new skills do you need?

The biggest way to develop is to build a team around this. The growth is exponential and no one person can be on top of everything at once. If your brand/agency/service wants to leverage this to remain current, your entire marketing team must be on board and aware of what’s being developed, tested and marketed to them regarding AI.

We have set up a subject matter task force within our organisation whose responsibility is to provide thought leadership in this area as well as help bring the rest of the organisation along in the process. 

I also think it’s important to value iterative strategies. We need to be willing to test and learn with these platforms and not just expect a final result upfront.

How do you think AI might evolve B2B Marketing and ABM strategies in 2024?

The name of the game here is personalisation and that applies to both of the above-mentioned. Generative AI specifically is paving the way to have dynamically adjusting creative that rearranges and reframes itself based on the details we provide.

If we create a system in which the data we have regarding our B2B clients and accounts and have fed into a generative platform that can iterate and test based on those details, we create a pipeline that allows us to adjust and cater to creative and educational materials needed directly for the ones asking at the click of a button.  AI may also be a resource for the internal sales team to access technical product content and questions.

In the future, marketers could tweak the creative to fit the captured attributes of an account like size, location, prior success, etc, and create the assets so that sales and other account managing individuals can continue to provide their personal service with quicker results and customised assets.

Could you share some of your most noteworthy accomplishments that you take particular pride in?

The number one focus across all three of our brands is to win attention and bring more people into our brands. We have phenomenal products that can drive transformational results for people’s skin health but have overall low awareness.  

I have had the longest tenure with the EltaMD brand, and during that time the business has more than doubled in size. We have achieved many key milestones as well including; the Fast Company “Brands that Matter- General Excellence” 2023 award, WWD’s Beauty Inc 2022 “Breakthrough Brand of the Year” distinction, and Fast Company “Brands that Matter” Corporate Social Responsibility 2022 winner, and enjoy being the Dermatologist #1 recommended, trusted and personally used professional sunscreen brand in the US.

Building and harmonising our tech stack across our brands to fully unlock personalisation has been fulfilling as well. The team has worked to build a consistent stack across our brand and has dramatically expanded our capabilities which in the end will ensure that we are better marketers to professionals and consumers alike. 

I am, however, most excited by the team that I have built, which I know will continue to drive these brands to growth in the future. 

What core values have played a pivotal role in shaping your approach to marketing and communication?

First and foremost, a core characteristic that is critical for marketing and business leaders to possess is curiosity. The world around us is constantly changing so it is important to have a growth mindset and ask questions to further learning, keeping a wide lens to gain a bigger picture view.

Marketing in today’s environment requires us to be courageous, embrace change, and keep agility in one’s ways of working. When it comes to marketing communication, If something feels a bit uncomfortable, that often means that you have something great. 

Digital should be inherent to the whole team and not a siloed part of the organisation, but we shouldn’t focus on digital alone. Rather we should focus on delivering a superior omni-brand experience. 

Great work comes from high-performing teams. To be high-performing, they have to be engaged in the company vision and purpose and need to be empowered and supported by a caring culture. Over the years, Colgate has always provided that which is why it has been a top place to work for many years. 

What major hurdles have you encountered as a marketing leader, and how did you surmount them?

The changing environment I referenced earlier has made it more challenging for a marketing leader to navigate. While managing the complexity of dynamic variables can be difficult, it also makes it exciting when you see progress despite the obstacles.

COVID19 was an example of a dramatic change in variables that impacted not only marketing leaders but the world. In my business, we work with many small brick-and-mortar offices including Dermatology offices, Medical Spas, Plastic Surgeons and Spas (including solo aestheticians). These skin professionals were impacted in different ways, and we needed to pivot our marketing strategies to best support them and their clients.

We also needed to pivot our digital marketing consumer strategies to ensure we were delivering rich content in the places people were looking to consume it (think TikTok and IG). Skincare became self care so we focused on helping people find the best products to meet their individual needs. In addition to content, an example of this is our personalised AI recommendation bots that we have added to our D2C sites. 

What piece of advice would you offer to fellow Marketing leaders that has been particularly beneficial to you personally?

Be curious and continue to seek out learning opportunities. Marketing evolves and changes and it is important to not stay static.

Let data guide your decisions and your approach to your marketing mix, but leave some room in the budget for new unproven tactics and find ways to place small bets.

Get external. Especially when it comes to MarTech, seek out ways to learn from others to give your team an advantage in implementing. 

Build a trusted internal and external network.

Surround yourself with excellent people and work to get them the resources they need to succeed.