Branding truths and tariff myths

DARA TRESEDER: A brand is the sum of the promises we make and the experiences we deliver. I think Cracker Barrel learned, hey, this is too core. We can’t touch this. I give bravery and courage for saying, hey, we messed up, but they’ve got to evolve. As a brand when you’re using AI, you want to be clear with your customers. And with J. Crew, because they weren’t transparent, they kind of got called out. So trust was lost. Trust is earned in drops, but it’s lost in buckets.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing Officer of Autodesk. Recorded live at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on October 8th. In today’s episode, we’ve combined two fast-paced segments from the summit. First, I talk with Dara about the highest profile branding topics of 2025, getting her unvarnished read on Sydney Sweeney, Cracker Barrel, Taylor Swift, and more. Then in the second half of the episode, I talk with Flexport CEO, Ryan Petersen, about the five biggest myths around global trade and tariffs. Dara and Ryan are both uncommonly candid, including Ryan’s advice about avoiding jail and what he calls dumb competition. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response.

[THEME MUSIC]

Please welcome the Chief Marketing Officer of Autodesk, Dara Treseder. We’re going to do this chat in two parts.

TRESEDER: Okay.

SAFIAN: We’re going to play two different games, okay? First, I’m going to take you through four topics in marketing and branding right now, and then we’re literally going to play a fast-paced game called Buzzword Bingo. Okay? All right, so are you ready?

TRESEDER: Don’t get me in trouble, Bob.

Copy LinkWas Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad successful?

SAFIAN: I know. I’ll try. I’ll try. So we have some visuals for this first four. So first up, Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad.

TRESEDER: I literally said, don’t get me in trouble, Bob.

SAFIAN: I know. No, no. So this ad, it sparked all kinds of controversy and discussion about jeans versus genes. You and I talked before about what is healthy tension and toxic tension. So was this healthy tension, toxic tension? What does the reaction mean about where we are?

TRESEDER: Well, first of all, we are here at Masters of Scale with some of the biggest leaders in the world, and we’re talking about American Eagle. I know we are not shopping, so I think they definitely check the tension box. Was it healthy? Was it toxic? Let’s talk about it. Let’s dissect it.

Healthy tension is tension that moves the brand and the business forward. Great work must always have tension. If it doesn’t have tension, it’s not great and it’s not causing conversation. Healthy tension, when it moves the brand and business forward, it goes beyond awareness to drive actual acquisition and business results. Sometimes you can have awareness and instead of acquisition, you end up with alienation.

So that is where instead of it being healthy, it goes into the toxic space. I think that they checked the box on tension, they raised awareness, but was it healthy? There was a lot of alienation. You don’t need a focus group to know that in this very polarized world that we are living in, when you use the word genes, and by genes I mean, G-E-N-E-S, and then you show only one demographic, they’re going to be people with thoughts, right? And there’s going to be a lot of energy around that. You don’t need to do a focus group or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on research to get to that point.

So there were some people that felt alienated. Did the awareness overall drive acquisition? We don’t know yet. I think a good example of a brand that jumped into the conversation and drove awareness and acquisition is Gap. They had a counter ad with Katseye and that drove a lot of acquisition and Gap sales on TikTok are through the roof. So that’s an example of healthy tension.

SAFIAN: Of using the tension to help?

TRESEDER: Of using the tension in a healthy way to drive not just awareness, but acquisition. I think, gone are the days where all publicity is good publicity. There’s some publicity we just don’t need, you know what I mean?

SAFIAN: All right, let’s try. Let’s go to number two.

TRESEDER: Bob.

SAFIAN: So I know I’m making it difficult for you here, huh? All right, let me-

TRESEDER: He said, we’re going to have fun.

Copy LinkWhat went wrong with The Cracker Barrel logo change

SAFIAN: Let me frame it this way. Let me frame it this way, right? When Cracker Barrel fans responded to the removal of this old timer from the logo, right? They walked – and we’ve seen other brands backtrack, like HBO walking back Max, right? So are there situations, do you know, in the situations where it’s like, this is a cultural conversation that I’m losing. I can’t drive this conversation versus like I just made a mistake.

TRESEDER: First of all, brands have a lot of power because when we have brands where we’re having commentary from everybody, from the President, to your hairdresser, you’ve touched a nerve. And what I will say is, as a brand, Cracker Barrel had been experiencing a decline in sales. That’s why they said, what can we do to ignite or spark the next wave of growth for the business?

So we have to give them kudos for saying, “hey, we can’t just keep going down the path we’re going, we need to change something.” Now when you are evolving a brand, you have to either adapt or you die as a brand. You have to evolve. So they got, check, we need to evolve. Now there’s the heart of the brand or the soul of the brand because what is a brand at the end of the day? A brand is the sum of the promises we make and the experiences we deliver. That is what it is. It is the sum of the promises we make and the experiences we deliver. The soul of the heart of the brand is at the core of that.

For Cracker Barrel, it’s around that southern hospitality and comfort. That is a non-negotiable. I think with the logo change, I mean you all can see the second logo. It’s not exactly screaming Southern hospitality.

SAFIAN: It’s not really screaming anything. It’s pretty sanitized.

TRESEDER: It’s not screaming. It could be Panera Bread, you know what I mean? And so, if you are someone who, immediately you see this, you go to, this is changing southern hospitality and comfort. So all of a sudden you start to question what is this brand going to deliver? And so it affects the trust with the customer because you’re evolving something that is too core.

So I think Cracker Barrel learned, hey, this is too core. We can’t touch this. Let’s look at other things that we can evolve. So I’m going to give them kudos for actually saying, hey, we listened and we’re going to not touch the heart or the soul of the brand. We will evolve something else. I don’t actually think it’s capitulation, I think it’s smart. I think it’s good stewardship of the brand. We’re not in a perfect world. We’re all going to make mistakes. I give bravery and courage for saying, hey, we messed up this. We’re going to go back.

SAFIAN: All right.

TRESEDER: But they’ve got to evolve. So we’re all going to be watching.

SAFIAN: They got to make a choice.

TRESEDER: Yes, they got to make a choice.

Copy LinkWhy J. Crew’s AI generated ad didn’t work

SAFIAN: They got to make a different choice. All right, let’s go to the next one. J. Crew’s AI generated ad. So this also sparked a lot of discussion. I know you’re bullish about AI and Autodesk’s Flow Studio AI is used by a lot of creatives in the ad marketing community. How should folks think about using AI in their brands and their messages and what are the risks? What are the opportunities? How do you think about that?

TRESEDER: So at Autodesk, our software is used to design and make anything. Whether it’s products you use and love, movies and games we all enjoy, or it is used to make buildings we live and work in. Now we are bullish on AI, but we are also team human. We are AI in service of humanity and not the other way around. And I think that’s really important. So I think brands get it right when you are clear about what AI is and what it is not. AI can help all of us. It lifts the floor, but it’s actually human ingenuity that is going to raise the ceiling. So there is still a space for humans in this AI narrative. Now where J. Crew, I think got it wrong, was they weren’t transparent about what AI was driving. And there is fear around AI and it’s not just fear for the sake of fear, but it’s fear around being manipulated or being disenfranchised.

So as a brand, when you’re using AI, you want to be clear with your customers and be transparent so that they understand you’re not trying to manipulate them, you’re just being clear and you’re also not trying to disenfranchise them. And with J. Crew, because they weren’t transparent, they kind of got called out and they had to go back and edit the captions to show it was generated by AI. So trust was lost, right? Trust is earned in drops, but it’s lost in buckets.

So that transparency, I think, is important. And for example, at Autodesk, with Flow Studio, we are making sure we are clear that our AI is here to help creators, but creators are in control. It’s like riding a tandem bike. The creator is deciding what direction we’re going to go, how fast we’re going to go. AI is simply helping provide that additional horsepower by automating some tedious tasks like scene integration.

SAFIAN: All right, we are doing one more and then we go to the game.

TRESEDER: All right, this is already hard, so I’m wondering what’s happening here?

SAFIAN: I know, I know. All right, so this is an image of the UK street wear designer, Tega Akinola. It’s part of Autodesk’s, Let There Be Anything campaign. Partnerships are so important for brands right now. So how do brands associate and get the most authentic partnerships with creators, celebrities? How do we think about making sure you get the right choice so you get the right ROMI, the right return on marketing investment?

TRESEDER: Yes. Show me the ROMI. Everything has to start with business impact. First of all, you have to figure out, how is this going to advance my brand objective and ultimately drive the results that I’m going for? So there are three key things you look at.

Copy LinkDara’s 1:3 ratio strategy for ROI

First of all, is this an add? It has to be an add and a build. It should not be a detraction. And honestly, if it’s going to be neutral, don’t even do it. Do something else with your resources. So that add and that build is really important. The second thing is you need to be pushing not just for reach, but also resonance because reach does not equal resonance and you cannot compromise resonance for reach because if you are not getting both resonance and reach, you’re ultimately not reaching that new target audience and you’re not expanding your demographic to get the needed business results. I think the third thing is you have to make sure that whatever partnership you’re doing, it fits into the bigger picture and is a force multiplier, not a force divider.

So that’s a third thing you need to look at. I think when you check those three boxes, whether you’re working with a creator or it’s a brand partnership, that’s how you get to ROMI. And if you’re thinking, what should the math be? I like to use a 1:3 ratio. So if I’m spending a dollar, I want to make sure that I’m making at least $3. If I’m not going to make $3, there might be a better investment for those resources.

SAFIAN: All right, you ready for the game?

TRESEDER: I’m scared.

Copy LinkOver-hyped or under-hyped: Apple, AI artists, Taylor Swift & more

SAFIAN: All right, so these are buzzwords. I’m going to ask you over-hyped or under-hyped. Okay? You can give me a quick explanation if you want. We’ll see how many we can get through in three minutes. Can you put three minutes on the clock? There should be a clock up there.

TRESEDER: All right.

SAFIAN: All right, ready?

TRESEDER: All right.

SAFIAN: All right. Number one, return to office mandates.

TRESEDER: Appropriately hyped.

SAFIAN: Appropriately hyped. Good or bad? All right.

TRESEDER: It’s good, it’s good. I think we like to spend time in person. There is a space for in-person intentional gatherings and experiences.

SAFIAN: Tiktok’s algorithm?

TRESEDER: As a marketer, I think it’s under hyped because you can reach a lot of people and drive a lot of results. As a mom, it is over hyped. Those kids need to get off TikTok, go outside, drink water, touch the grass.

SAFIAN: All right. Apple’s brand power?

TRESEDER: Under hyped.

SAFIAN: Under hyped?

TRESEDER: Yes, many tech brands right now, there is no trust. Apple’s one of the few brands that people – how many people are using an iPhone? Who’s using an iPhone? Look at that. Look, a sea of Apple people, they’re using it.

SAFIAN: All right, Tilly Norwood and the Velvet Sundown? You guys know them? They’re AI artists.

TRESEDER: They are over-hyped. I’m team human, okay? So over-hyped. Human ingenuity is still going to be needed. I don’t think we’re ever going to get to a world where it’s just AI taking over. I mean, I don’t want to live in that world.

SAFIAN: Shein and Temu?

TRESEDER: Over-hyped. I’m a sustainability queen.

SAFIAN: All right. Next year’s World Cup in North America?

TRESEDER: Under-hyped. Yay, USA. I’m excited. World Cup L.A. ’28. Autodesk, we are the official designer make platform. So I do have to say that.

SAFIAN: All right. Here we go. Taylor Swift’s power?

TRESEDER: So I think appropriately hyped. Everybody’s talking about Taylor Swift. Look, I love my man too. And if anyone was going to listen to my music, nobody does. I would also be writing an ode to him. So look appropriately hyped. Tell you who is under-hyped is Tree Paine, her publicist. Give it up for Tree Paine. And also Travis Kelce is also under-hyped. We like a man who supports his powerful, ambitious wife.

SAFIAN: Right on. All right, Ryan Reynolds’ business exploits?

TRESEDER: He is under-hyped. That man does everything from whiskey to Deadpool. Under-hyped. I also work with him.

SAFIAN: Labubu love?

TRESEDER: Over-hyped. Too many in my house. I’m like, what is happening? I’m teaching my children about hoarding. We can’t hoard labubus.

SAFIAN: Meta’s AR glasses?

TRESEDER: I think today it might be over-hyped, but I think tomorrow it’s going to be under-hyped. They’re still figuring out the use cases, but I’m bullish on it. Bullish on it.

SAFIAN: All right, Netflix’s dominance?

TRESEDER: Under-hyped. K-pop Demon Hunters have taken over my – we’re going out pop, like it’s…

SAFIAN: All right. We’re almost at the end of our time. Late night TV hosts?

TRESEDER: Under hyped. God bless the late night TV hosts.

SAFIAN: All right, I think that’s it. All right, last one. Pumpkin Spice?

TRESEDER: Under hyped. Get your pumpkin spice while you can. Starbucks, let us have it all the time.

SAFIAN: Dara, thank you.

TRESEDER: Thank you so much.

SAFIAN: I have to thank Dara for being willing to play the buzzword game and to take on some of the trickiest topics in marketing. Dara makes it all sound fun and shares important insights about positioning any business or brand. Coming up next, we’re going to switch topics to global trade and tariffs. The mood of candor will persist courtesy of Flexport CEO, Ryan Petersen. That’s after the break. Stay with us.

[AD BREAK]

Before the break, we heard Autodesk’s Dara Treseder live at the Masters of Scale Summit, break down the biggest marketing and branding lessons of the year. Now we switch gears to Flexport CEO, Ryan Petersen, also recorded live, who assesses five major myths about global trade and tariffs. Let’s dive back in.

So Ryan, I have created five myths for us. These are things that are based on sort of what I’m hearing from different folks in the business community. I’m going to go through them. I’d love your perspective on them. Are you ready?

RYAN PETERSEN: I’m ready.

Copy LinkDebunking myths about global trade and tariffs

SAFIAN: So myth number one is, don’t act on tariff announcements too quickly. Policy could shift again. I remember you telling me about customs border protection, finding out about changes on Truth Social. Things just keep changing.

PETERSEN: We have a Supreme Court case that’s coming down the pipeline and it may actually – all the tariffs might just get refunded and we’ll find that out in the next couple of months. And then, by the way, for sure, the administration will claim that as a victory because the stock market’s going to go way up and they’ll go, look.

SAFIAN: We did it again. But when you’re talking to clients, are they like, yeah, “we got to do things. We don’t have to do things?”

PETERSEN: Sometimes the best thing is to do nothing. You might say that’s actually an action. It could be a radical action to just say, hey, we’re going to stay calm. Some changes in a supply chain take many years to play out, if you’re going to move your production to a new country. We’ve seen this where people said, “Oh, okay, China doesn’t work. We’re going to set up production in India.” And it turns out the tariffs on India are just as high as on China right now. So it is very difficult to make long-term decisions in a policy environment that changes so quickly.

SAFIAN: Are they looking over their shoulder at each other and saying, what’s that one doing? Should I be doing that? What can I do differently?

PETERSEN: Yeah, there’s a lot of that. It’s been very interesting. So we’re a customs broker to help companies figure out what duties they owe and pay them. And it’s a really complex world as you can imagine. There’s every variety of product out there. I’m used to being the expert when I talk to my customers, but now, the CEOs, they have to know their product at a level that I don’t know every single product and every rule and then I’m just like, a smile and a nod, yeah, yeah. It’s been really tough for us to be at that forefront trying to monitor what’s happening and interpret it for our customers and figure out, give them advice. What decision should you make?

SAFIAN: Let’s move to myth number two. The government has a plan, don’t worry. They know what they’re doing. Everything’s going to turn out great.

PETERSEN: It’s difficult to say. I think there’s maybe a plan. I don’t know if it’s a good plan. The reality is there’s actually some pretty good reasons for us to be concerned about the lack of industrial production in the United States. And one of the problems in life though is you get a bunch of people in a room and you say, hey, we got this problem, we got to do something. They’re going to do something. And it doesn’t always mean they’re going to do the right thing or like, yes, tariffs may actually be an effective way to stimulate manufacturing. The way they’ve been done so far, actually, I’ve met more companies that are removing, like shifting production offshore as a result of the tariffs because you have to pay duties on the components that are coming in and on the machinery that you use.

SAFIAN: These sorts of unintended consequences. Second-order impacts, maybe?

PETERSEN: Typical. Economies aren’t meant to be centrally planned.

Copy LinkRyan Petersen on why “trade is a positive sum scenario”

SAFIAN: All right, let’s move to number three. Myth number three. China’s in a better position to adapt to trade volatility than the U.S. And I’ll have to say that I’ve heard this exactly the opposite way too. I almost wrote this the other way that the U.S. is in a better position to adapt to trade volatility than China’s.

PETERSEN: Which is actually very illustrative that you could have written it both ways and it does illustrate trade is a positive sum scenario. Both parties do trade because they’re both made better off by doing it. And this idea that you can win a trade war is sort of inherently wrong. You win a trade war by just not having one and doing trade in both parties.

That said, United States does depend on global trade less than China does. We’re self-sufficient in food and energy and they’re not. And that’s a big deal. They import, I think 80 percent of their energy. They import a lot of food from around the world. So if you’re talking about subsistence level, who’s going to survive in a terrible situation? We do depend less on trade. But that said, I think both parties, definitely both parties are going to lose.

SAFIAN: You have a lot of communications, you say, with CEOs here. Is there communication or information that you’re getting from contacts in China about how the trade war is impacting things there that maybe we’re not seeing as much?

PETERSEN: The thing that we’re seeing actually, and it’s not just China related, you see this on a global basis, is when you jack up duty rates the way we have, you just create this huge incentive for fraud.

SAFIAN: For fraud?

PETERSEN: Yeah, for cheating. And it’s quite simple what’s happening. And it’s happening in mass. We’re actually spending a lot of time in DC trying to help them understand how this happens. The United States is the only country in the world, the only major country in the world that allows foreign companies to import goods into the country without any kind of legal entity, physical presence, employees, bank account, nothing. You just, as a foreign company fill out this form and you just get approved and you can start importing from overseas. Well then you just don’t, you just mis-declare, you say the products are worth 10,000 when they’re worth a 100,000, you just reduce your duty rate by 90 percent. And it’s very difficult for customers. We don’t have enforcement agents in other countries for trade compliance. We do for terrorism, for drugs, but not for trade compliance.

SAFIAN: Because it hasn’t been a measurable, it hasn’t been worth it?

PETERSEN: Yes, exactly. And now the incentive is there. So I suspect there’s probably going to be some kind of… There’s a bill in the Senate that’s being talked about and maybe Executive Order we will see to make it much more difficult for this type of fraud. But it’s not China specific. I think this is like anyone in the world if you’re in a foreign country.

SAFIAN: You can take advantage of this.

PETERSEN: Don’t do that by the way. And if you’re an American company that’s buying from those people on those terms and they’re importing for you, you are committing fraud. And I only have one rule in life: I’m never going to jail. I don’t have the personality for it.

SAFIAN: If you don’t come away with anything from this event, remember that.

PETERSEN: It’s not worth it.

SAFIAN: Don’t go to jail. All right, let’s go to myth number four. The trade industry itself is struggling to keep up with the times. I remember you telling me a story about a Long Beach taco truck story?

PETERSEN: The trade industry, it’s an old industry. They sometimes call it the world’s second-oldest profession. And we all want to be data-driven in this world. But the problem with data is it all comes from the same place, which is the past. And when the future looks different from the past, all that expertise and experience actually might serve you wrong. You might be bad at responding to these circumstances. And I push my team a lot because when a new rule comes out, people turn to the experts to understand what it means. I’m like, well, they’re just going to read the thing. And you could also read the thing yourself and get in there. And I think some of the bad habits that form as people just rely on experts instead of going to do it yourself and go learn. And so you see a lot of cases like this.

So one really interesting example, maybe it’s too nerdy for you guys or too industry-detailed. But if you take these new duties that are on steel and aluminum and it’s based on the percent of the value of the product that’s made up of steel and aluminum, which is the first time, I think in my knowledge, the first time that duties have been done this way. Duties in the past have always been done based on the classification of the product. And so each product gets a tariff code based on what its classification is. Now it’s that plus based on a percent of steel and aluminum composition. This is a simple thing by the way. We could do the math at the whiteboard and figure this out in 30 seconds.

SAFIAN: But the industry doesn’t have–

PETERSEN: It is totally broken down. Big parts of our industry, they can’t calculate. First of all, you have to track the data. That’s kind of hard. What is the percent of steel and aluminum? Nobody knows. They didn’t track that before. That part’s kind of hard. But once you have that, you just stack it on top and you do the math. Well, our software engineers built this in three days, built this calculator. The entire industry is using our calculator and acting like it’s God’s gift. You’re like, three engineers built this in three days. It shouldn’t be that hard.

SAFIAN: Sometimes the older an industry is, the harder it is to adapt to technology that makes things easier. Not that a calculator maybe, may not be the most.

PETERSEN: The key to success is a dumb competition in it sometimes.

SAFIAN: Another thing to remember. Choose in the industry an opportunity where you –

PETERSEN: And the cause of failure is arrogance, so I got to be careful.

Copy LinkHave we entered a new era of trade?

SAFIAN: Let’s do myth number five here. This, I hear constantly. Buckle up. We’ve entered a new era of trade, never before seen. This is a whole different game.

PETERSEN: That I do think is a myth, although this is my opinion. In fact, a lot of people believe this and it could be true. But I love history. I’m a history buff. I read a history book every single week basically. And if you look at the long run of global trade, first off, tariffs have been here forever. Some of the oldest numbers were invented to calculate tariffs. That’s why we have math, so you can figure out how much you owe the Lord. So they’ve been around for a long, long time. It’s like the primary form. Governments were funded off tariffs for most of human history. Some of the big progress that we made was breaking down these barriers to trade, like national unification in Europe. France, they used to have a tariff every time you cross to the next county or whatever, to the next property over, you had to pay tariffs. And they kind of got rid of that and created countries.

But the borders of countries have almost always had tariffs. We’re in a relatively unique era that we’ve had, for the last, since World War II or so, or since Bretton Woods that you’ve had low tariff barriers, but they’ll go up and down. I don’t think that’s dramatically different. But one thing you do see in the long run of history, talk about a thousand years of history, really since the Mongol invasions, you’ve had 4 percent annual growth of trade. And 4 percent growth, doesn’t sound like much for those of us here in Silicon Valley, but when you put it on a 1000-year trajectory, it looks like a hockey stick. In fact, I plotted this and it looks like a hockey stick curve of exponential growth on a logarithmic graph. And so it is very rare you see a hockey stick on a hyper exponential function. It looks like a straight line up. And we’ve had all kinds of disruptions in that period. You may not be aware of things like the Black Death and the 30 years War and World War II but – 

SAFIAN: And it’s still, globalization, trade keeps moving.

PETERSEN: It kept growing, and all of those things are way worse than a couple of presidents not getting along with each other. So I think you’ll see, my prediction, 10 years from now, there’ll be more trade, not less, but we’ll see.

SAFIAN: And that means for those of us who are running businesses that are engaged in trade, don’t rush too fast to reweigh the way you’re thinking about things?

PETERSEN: Yeah, I mean hopefully you’ll get a big refund in two months and we’re having a party.

SAFIAN: Well, Ryan, this has been great. Thank you so much.

PETERSEN: Thank you.

SAFIAN: Ryan’s insider view of trade and tariffs is refreshing and not just because he calls some of his competition dumb. Ryan’s insights about the changing nature of trade echoes what’s going on in other disrupted industries that we can get distracted by the noise and miss the bigger picture. Like Dara Treseder at Autodesk in the first part of this episode, Ryan breaks through the conventionality that marks much of business dialogue to address unspoken truths.

We’ll share several more unconventional conversations from the Masters of Scale Summit here on Rapid Response, including an exploration of character with retired U.S. general and leadership icon Stanley McChrystal and a dynamic round-robin exchange about the shifting nature of venture capital and entrepreneurship featuring our own Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners and the investor who coined the phrase unicorn for billion-dollar companies.

You can also catch up with videos from the Masters of Scale Summit on YouTube via the Rapid Response and Masters of Scale channels. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.