In this episode, Carl Johnson, defines what innovation means within the walls of Campbell’s. Specifically, how the company has encouraged and utilized innovation in order to sustain a competitive advantage in their category and enhance their existing brand equity.

Carl Johnson joined Campbell Soup Company in April 2001, as Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. He has direct responsibility for corporate strategy, Research & Development and Quality, corporate marketing services, licensing, and e-Business. He reports to Douglas R. Conant, President and Chief Executive Officer. Carl joined Campbell from Kraft Foods, where he ran three successively larger business divisions. He joined Kraft in 1992 as Vice President, Strategy, for Kraft Foods, USA. In 1993, he became Executive Vice President, Kraft USA and General Manager of Kraft’s Specialty Products Division. In 1995, he was made Executive Vice President of Kraft Foods, N.A., General Manager of the Meals Division and member of the Kraft Foods N.A. Operating Committee. 1997, Carl was named President of the $2.5 billion New Meals Division when the former Meals and Enhancers divisions were consolidated. In this capacity through early 2001, he led the division’s three-year transformation, restoring sales and earnings momentum and achieving record-high operating income growth. Prior to Kraft, Carl was a senior partner and director of the consumer goods consulting practice at Marketing Corporation of America, where his key clients included among others, Kraft, Con Agra, Cadbury Schweppes, Readers’ Digest and NYNEX. Before that, he was Vice President of Worldwide Advertising at Polaroid Corporation. He began his career with a 10-year tenure at Colgate-Palmolive in marketing management on both personal care and household products. Carl earned his B.A. degree in government and economics from Wesleyan University, and his M.B.A. degree from the University of Chicago. Carl is an Advisory Board Member of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute, University of California, Davis. He serves as a Trustee of the Adelphic Educational Fund at Alpha Delta Phi, Wesleyan University. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of Avedro, Inc., a pioneer in vision correction technology.

In this episode, Bart Decrem, Founder and CEO of Tapulous, shares how brand marketers should utilize Apple’s new iAd network and IOS platform.  The iAd gives an exclusive interactive opportunity for marketers to harness the emotional power of the 30-sec spot.  You simply have to hear this podcast!

 Bart Decrem is founder and CEO of Tapulous, a Palo Alto-based startup building social apps for the iPhone, including the wildly successful rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge. Bart has been featured as one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business (May 2009), in Advertising Age’s “2010 Creativity 50” (March 2010) and Newsweek’s Silicon “Valley Future Superstars” (April 2010).  In May 2010, Fast Company featured him again, as a “Blast from the Past”.  Tap Tap Revenge, the Guitar Hero of the iPhone, launched in July of 2008. Twenty days later, the game nearly reached 1 million downloads. Tap Tap is now the most popular app on the iPhone and iPod Touch, with one study claiming that 1 in every 3 U.S. iPhone users has downloaded the game. Bart Decrem has launched two sequels and brought the success to record labels, which created artist-branded versions from the Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber. With over 15 million combined downloads, Decrem is turning his attention next to the iPad and Android.  Before founding Tapulous, Bart was the founding CEO of Flock, the social web browser company, and a co-founder of Eazel, a company working to make Linux easier to use. Bart also headed marketing and business affairs for the Firefox 1.0 launch. In between, Bart has been an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Doll Capital Management and worked on a number of community projects, including founding Plugged In, one of the nation’s first digital divide programs. Bart speaks 8 languages and was born and raised in Belgium.