Autodesk CMO Breaks Down Branding Lessons from 2025 Campaigns

2 hours ago7 min read

In the swirling vortex of modern marketing, where every campaign can become a cultural referendum overnight, Autodesk's Chief Marketing Officer Dara Treseder offers a masterclass in navigating this treacherous landscape. Speaking at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit, Treseder dissected the year's most talked-about campaigns with the curiosity of a generalist who finds fascinating connections everywhere.She began with the American Eagle ad featuring Sydney Sweeney, which ignited a firestorm over the wordplay 'jeans versus genes. ' Treseder didn't just see controversy; she saw a fundamental lesson in brand physics.'Healthy tension,' she explained, '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. ' She drew a sharp distinction between this healthy friction and its toxic counterpart, which leads not to customer acquisition but to alienation.'Gone are the days where all publicity is good publicity,' she noted wryly, observing that while American Eagle certainly achieved massive awareness, the campaign's narrow demographic focus in our polarized climate likely alienated as many potential customers as it attracted. In a fascinating counterpoint, she highlighted Gap's savvy response—a counter-ad featuring the diverse girl group Katseye that harnessed the existing cultural conversation to drive both awareness and measurable sales spikes on TikTok, demonstrating what healthy tension looks like in practice.Then came the curious case of Cracker Barrel's logo redesign, where the removal of the iconic 'old timer' sparked such customer revolt that the company reversed course within days. Treseder approached this not as failure but as fascinating brand anthropology.'Brands have a lot of power because when we're having commentary from everybody, from the President to your hairdresser, you've touched a nerve,' she observed. She gave Cracker Barrel credit for recognizing they needed evolution to reverse declining sales, but identified their crucial misstep: tampering with the 'soul' of the brand.'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,' Treseder stated, her definition echoing across industries. The sanitized new logo, which could have been for Panera Bread, violated the core promise of Southern hospitality and comfort, making customers question what else might change.Rather than seeing the walkback as capitulation, Treseder framed it as 'smart stewardship'—a brand listening to its constituents and protecting its essential identity while still seeking evolution elsewhere. Finally, she turned to Autodesk's own 'Let There Be Anything' campaign featuring UK streetwear designer Tega Akinola, using it to outline a rigorous framework for modern partnerships.'Everything has to start with business impact,' she insisted, detailing three crucial filters: the partnership must be an 'add and build' rather than neutral or detracting; it must deliver both reach and resonance; and it must serve as a 'force multiplier' within the broader marketing ecosystem. Most compelling was her practical ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) mathematics—a 1:3 ratio where every dollar spent should generate at least three dollars in return.'If I'm not going to make $3,' she said with the pragmatism of someone who bridges creative and quantitative worlds, 'there might be a better investment for those resources. ' Through these case studies, Treseder painted a portrait of marketing in 2025 as both art and science, where cultural intuition must be married to business rigor, and where the most successful brands understand not just how to make noise, but how to make that noise translate into sustainable growth.

#featured

#marketing

#branding

#Sydney Sweeney

#Cracker Barrel

#Autodesk

#partnerships

#advertising

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