Meet the CMOs Turning Video Into a Company-Wide Habit
Forget big budgets and bottlenecks. These CMOs are building the systems that don’t just create videos; they create video cultures.
For decades, video sat in a silo. A specialized team, often tucked away in marketing or creative, was responsible for the videos reserved for high-stakes moments like product launches or ad campaigns.
Not anymore. In 2025, video has become the native format for how modern teams explain, document, onboard, support, sell, and celebrate. And it’s not confined to a department.
Modern CMOs know that video creation is a company-wide capability. They're shifting the mindset from “video as an asset” to “video as a universal language.” And everyone contributes to this living, breathing video culture.
This cultural shift marks a new era in marketing leadership: CMOs no longer “own” video. They enable it. Instead of acting as gatekeepers, they enable the video velocity. They’re the ones removing friction, democratizing tools, and embedding video habits deep into team workflows.
In other words, the modern CMO’s role is to make sure video can be produced by anyone, anywhere. That’s the foundation of video culture.
The Old Model: Centralized, Slow, Expensive
For years, video lived in a rigid, assembly-line model. A campaign idea was briefed in. The request would travel through layers of approvals, land with an internal creative team or an external agency, and disappear into a black box of production. Weeks or months later, the final product emerged.
This centralized, “content factory” approach was built for a world where video was scarce and high-stakes. But today, that centralized, over-specialized approach collapses under its own weight. Videos that are polished, but painfully slow, arrive too late to capitalize on real-time opportunities.
The old model simply doesn’t scale for the volume and velocity modern organizations demand. Fast-moving teams can’t afford to wait three weeks for a 90-second product video. The model turns video into a bottleneck—ironically, in the name of quality.
This isn’t a process issue, it’s a structural one.
When video is owned by a central team with limited capacity and creative control, the entire organization is forced into triage mode.
Ultimately, a centralized video model becomes a liability.
The New Model: Video as a Habit, Not a Project
In the modern model, video has evolved from a formal “project” to a habit woven into daily workflows. Instead of waiting on a centralized team, every function in the company creates video, because every function has something to show, teach, or share.
In this new model, everyone makes videos.
Product teams record quick demos to showcase new features.
Growth marketers whip up product videos and campaign promos.
Sales teams embed video pitches directly into decks and follow-ups.
Customer success reps build bite-sized product walk-through videos or troubleshooting guides.
Even founders share thought-leadership content or async company-wide announcements.
| 📖 Read more: Best Product Walkthrough Software
This shift is powered by a new generation of low-friction tools - webcam recorders, screen recording softwares, instant editors, and AI-powered polishers. Recording, editing, and publishing are no longer technical feats.
💡Turn Screen recordings Into Stunning Videos
Clueso lets you turn raw screen recordings into polished videos and documentation in minutes. You can also translate your voiceovers, captions, and docs in one click, or swap your narration for studio-quality AI voiceovers in 40+ languages and diverse accents. Clueso can also transform your decks into dynamic, engaging videos.
The beauty of this model is that it decentralizes creativity while centralizing consistency. Now, you get high-output teams that communicate faster, without bottlenecks. And like any good habit, its compounding effect is massive.
10 CMOs Using Video to Build Modern Brands
1. Emily He | CMO, Gong
Before joining Gong in 2024, Emily He held senior marketing roles at some of the world’s biggest enterprise brands including Microsoft, Oracle, DoubleDutch, and Saba software. She frequently contributes thought leadership on the evolving role of marketing leaders.
🎬 How Emily uses videos:
Role-specific micro demos; internal enablement clips that double as marketing.
She pairs thought leadership with role-based content. The “How Gong Uses Gong” video series videos turn employees into on-camera educators. Her remit is to scale brand and demand while normalizing video as everyday enablement.
2. Jess Cook | Head of Marketing, Vector
Jess Cook built her career in content and brand at companies like Lasso and Fastly before stepping into her first head-of-marketing role at Vector. Beyond her day job, she co-hosts That’s Marketing, Baby!, a podcast that explores modern B2B storytelling.
🎬 How Jess uses videos:
Founder-led LinkedIn videos; meeting-to-media repurposing.
Through "This Meeting Could’ve Been a Podcast", Jess shows how founder/exec conversations can be filmed, sliced, and shipped weekly. She also uses founder-led videos on LinkedIn to blend brand storytelling with personal voice.
3. Christina Le | Head of Marketing, Plot
Christina Le has led social and brand marketing at high-growth startups including OpenPhone and PandaDoc. She’s also the writer of TheseChapters, a newsletter dedicated to helping marketers stay sharp and creative.
🎬 How Christina uses videos:
Short social explainers
Le leans into quick, social-native, and often humorous videos that spotlight the everyday struggles of Plot’s ideal customer profile: social media managers and marketers. By exaggerating pain points in a relatable way, she creates instant empathy, then pivots to show how Plot solves those exact challenges.
4. David Sandström | CMO, Klarna
David Sandström has been Klarna’s CMO since 2017, after serving as CEO and partner at creative agency DDB Stockholm. He sits on the boards of brands like CDLP and Add Health Media, and brings an agency-honed eye for creativity.
🎬 How David uses videos:
Announcement bites, conference clips, rapid recaps.
At Klarna, Sandström favors announcements, event snippets, and mission driven videos that travel across channels. The approach complements splashy moments with a steady video drumbeat that explains product and brand moves in plain language.
5. Kofi Amoo-Gottfried | CMO, DoorDash
Kofi Amoo-Gottfried became DoorDash’s first-ever CMO in 2022. His path there included leading brand and consumer marketing at Meta (Facebook), serving as founder of Publicis West Africa, and holding senior strategy roles at Bacardi, Wieden+Kennedy, and FCB. His career blends agency, tech, and brand-building at scale.
🎬 How Kofi uses videos:
Announcements, cultural moments, “behind the stunt” explainers.
He uses a mix of announcement, event recap, humor, and influencer marketing. His cadence demonstrates how a major brand can stay personal and frequent without production bloat.
6. Colin Fleming | CMO, ServiceNow
After more than a decade leading brand and product marketing at Salesforce, Colin Fleming joined ServiceNow as CMO in 2024. He’s also an advisor to AudiencePlus and a frequent podcast guest, where he shares insights on the intersection of brand, AI, and customer experience.
🎬 How Colin uses videos:
Event recaps, customer + employee stories
Fleming mixes announcements, event debriefs, customer and #LifeAtNow stories that spotlight employees and offices. The human content builds pride and trust while any function can contribute to the repeatable formats.
7. Frank Cooper III | CMO, Visa
Frank Cooper III brings a unique mix of brand, culture, and entertainment experience to Visa. He previously served as CMO of BlackRock and BuzzFeed, and spent years at PepsiCo shaping iconic campaigns. He’s a sought-after speaker and thought leader on purpose-driven marketing and cultural relevance.
🎬 How Frank uses videos:
Post-event snippets, leadership POV clips.
Cooper leans into event keynotes and recaps among other types of videos, such as updates and rapid interviews that become snackable leadership POVs. The format prioritizes speed, authority, and distribution over heavy post-production.
8. Zach Kitschke | CMO, Canva
One of Canva’s earliest hires back in 2013, Zach Kitschke has been instrumental in scaling the company from a design startup into a global platform with over 100 million users. Over the years he’s led communications, people, and now marketing; giving him a unique perspective on building a product-led, education-driven brand.
🎬 How Zach uses videos:
Tutorials, real-world walkthroughs, influencer marketing.
Kitschke’s signature play is education at scale. Quick tutorials and how-to videos grounded in real scenarios both empower users and reinforce Canva’s product value. Every piece of educational content doubles as brand storytelling.
9. Vineet Mehra | CMO, Chime
Vineet Mehra has held some of the most influential marketing roles in the industry, from Walgreens Boots Alliance to Ancestry, J&J, and P&G. Now at Chime, he blends performance and brand storytelling while also serving on the board of The Lovesac Company and advising multiple startups.
🎬 How Vineet uses videos:
Event bites, company culture, update videos
Mehra uses a broad mix of video formats to keep Chime present and relatable across every touchpoint. He uses how-to videos, customer reviews, event snippets, company culture clips, and more. The diversified video presence educates, builds credibility, and humanizes the brand all at once.
10. Ariel Kelman | President & CMO, Salesforce
Ariel Kelman rejoined Salesforce in 2024 as President and CMO, after previously serving as CMO at AWS and Oracle. He also founded marketing-tech startup Ventaso earlier in his career. His path spans startups and tech giants alike, giving him a rare mix of entrepreneurial grit and enterprise-scale experience.
🎬 How Ariel uses videos:
Product/AI explainers, customer-story reels, keynote→micro cuts.
Ariel pairs in introductory explainers, quick demos, and product updates that spotlight Salesforce’s latest advances in AI agents, automation, and modern attribution to blend customer storytelling with a steady flow of product-driven video formats. This mix ensures the brand feels both visionary and practical.
How Modern CMOs Enable This Habit
If video is going to be everyone’s habit, then CMOs need to be the enablers.
But they’re not doing it by tightening control or demanding brand consistency at all costs. They’re doing it by building smart, scalable systems that empower teams to create confidently. That means setting up the infrastructure, guardrails, and inspiration.
The operational playbook behind a distributed video culture usually looks like this:
Templates & Plug-and-Play Formats
Ready-to-use video frameworks remove the fear of starting from scratch. Employees can focus on the message, while the structure takes care of itself.
Brand Kits & Style Guides
Logos, color palettes, intro/outro sequences, and typography live inside the tools. This ensures every video looks and feels on-brand, even when created by someone who’s never touched a video editor before.
Tools That Minimize Friction
Modern CMOs champion lightweight platforms that anyone can pick up without training, lowering the barrier between idea and video. The less intimidating the workflow, the more natural video creation becomes.
Modern CMOs trade endless approvals for enablement. They invest in education (showing teams how to tell stories effectively), enablement (giving them tools to do it fast), and trust (letting them publish without begging for permission). The outcome is a workforce where every team feels equipped to tell stories through video.
But What About Quality?
The biggest objection to decentralized video is always the same: Won’t this tank quality?
While it’s a fair question, it’s rooted in an outdated definition of quality. Decentralized doesn’t have to mean “off-brand” or “low effort.” It just requires a shift in how we define quality in the first place.
In the new model, quality means fit for purpose; not cinematic polish.
A sales pitch video needs clarity.
A customer onboarding clip needs warmth and accuracy.
An internal async update needs to be concise and human.
In other words, quality is contextual. And context changes across the organization.
In fact, brand-safe doesn’t have to mean bureaucratic. By embedding brand defaults into the tools, CMOs can protect visual integrity without slowing teams down. This setup debunks the myth that decentralization equals chaos.
Distribution Still Matters More Than Craft
A fast, on-brand video with a clear call to action will always outperform a four-week masterpiece that sits in approvals for too long.
Modern CMOs know this, which is why they’ve flipped their priorities. They design videos with distribution in mind. That means:
Will this live on LinkedIn to drive conversation?
Should sales reps embed it directly into their decks or follow-ups?
Can we repurpose it into an onboarding flow or customer success library?
How can one video be reused across campaigns, channels, and teams?
When you start with distribution, the video itself becomes a modular asset. Craft still matters, of course. But strategic distribution drives business outcomes.
Modern CMOs optimize for reach, reuse, and relevance - ensuring that every video is created with its journey mapped out. That’s how video culture scales.
Metrics that Matter for the Video-Habit CMO
The old model worshipped vanity metrics like total views, likes, watch time. But for today’s CMOs performance is about business outcomes.
Here’s what the video-habit CMO is actually tracking:
🎯 Completion Rates → Onboarding Success
Did users finish the onboarding flow? Did they watch the explainer till the end? A high completion rate signals clarity and engagement. It often correlates with faster adoption, better retention, and fewer support tickets.
💼 Sales Video Opens → Revenue Influence
CMOs look at whether a prospect opened and watched the video sent by sales. Every open is a signal of buying intent and every personalized follow-up strengthens revenue influence.
🚀 Time-to-Ship → Team Agility
When video is a habit, speed matters. CMOs care about how quickly teams can go from idea to shareable asset. Because velocity is a signal of creative confidence and operational health.
📊Retention & Engagement Impact
Do customers who watch help videos or success stories stick around longer? Do employees feel more connected when leadership uses video for async updates? Retention impact is one of the clearest proofs that a video culture pays dividends.
🔁 Reuse & Repurpose Rate
How many different places did this one video show up? Social posts, help center, internal training, nurture campaigns? Distribution breadth is a critical (and often underrated) metric..
Modern CMOs track the metrics that signal adoption and influence. They want to point to video as a force multiplier across revenue, retention, and speed.
Build Culture, Not Just Capability
It’s tempting to respond to the demand for video with headcount. More producers. More editors. More approvals. But the CMOs who are truly ahead of the curve know:
Habits matter more than headcount.
You can’t scale storytelling by centralizing it. You scale it by distributing ownership. A single empowered team member creating video in the flow of their work beats a bloated production pipeline that takes weeks to ship.
This shift demands a new kind of marketing leader. The role of the modern CMO is - set up the guardrails, provide the templates and the tools, and then get out of the way. The most powerful stories are the ones told by the people closest to the product, the customers, and the culture.
Frequently Asked Questions About How CMOs Use Videos
1. How can video be used beyond marketing?
Video can be used across teams for onboarding, product demos, async updates, training, customer support, internal communications, and sales outreach.
2. What tools do CMOs use to build a video habit?
CMOs rely on low-friction tools like screen recorders, AI editors, video templates, brand kits, and enablement platforms that simplify creation and ensure consistency.
3. Is high-quality production still important for videos?
Yes, but “high quality” means fit-for-purpose. Cinematic polish matters less than being clear, on-brand, and fit for the use case.
4. Can non-designers create brand-safe videos?
Absolutely. With pre-built templates, brand kits, and guided formats, anyone can create videos that look professional, consistent, and stay on-brand.
5. How do CMOs track success with video?
CMOs look beyond views. They measure video’s impact through completion rates, time-to-ship, sales engagement, onboarding effectiveness, and content reuse.
