How Citi’s CMO drives differentiation from within

I’ve spent decades studying what makes brands tick. One truth has remained constant: In professional services, the only real differentiation comes not from what you sell, but how you deliver it. And, that comes from brand culture. No one understands this better than Alex Craddock, Citi chief marketing and content officer, who shared his insights at the 2025 ANA/AEF Future of Marketing Leadership event.

When you’re a bank like Citi, you don’t sell better dollar bills. Think about it – all banks essentially offer the same products. Your competitive edge emerges solely from the experience your people provide to customers. As Craddock aptly noted, “What makes a team high performing? What happens when you take a star and put them in a team, but the team doesn’t get any better, and sometimes that star is less of a star?”

The answer lies in brand culture — specifically, how teams work together to deliver exceptional experiences. It’s not complicated, but it is profound. This internal excellence is ultimately the only sustainable way professional service firms can differentiate themselves and command premium pricing in the marketplace.

Craddock brilliantly illustrated this through a clip from “Ted Lasso,” where the coach tells star player Jamie Tartt: “You are truly great at everything you do out there. … You might be so sure that you’re one of a million that sometimes you get out there and act like one in a million … you just figure out some way to turn that me into us.”

That transformation from “me” to “us” captures the essence of professional service differentiation. The stats confirm what many of us know intuitively — studies show 60% to 85% of workplace teams underperform. Craddock himself admitted that, in his 30-year career, he’s only been part of truly high-performing teams twice.

What creates this rare environment where individual excellence becomes organizational superiority? Craddock offered four practical tools:

First, create personal playbooks – essentially user manuals that help team members understand each other deeply. These cover everything from working preferences to communication styles, breaking down barriers through authenticity.

Second, embrace vulnerability by sharing failures and development areas. Craddock openly discussed his own challenges with “being too British” and impatience with change, creating psychological safety for others to do the same.

Third, acknowledge failure as a pathway to success. As Craddock noted, we learn through failure – from touching hot stoves to riding bikes. Yet in professional environments, we expect perfection in new endeavors. By creating spaces to discuss what didn’t work and why, teams build collective wisdom.

Finally, discover personal purpose – the “why” behind the work. For Craddock, it’s “creating an environment where we can grow and do our very best work, achieve ambitious goals whilst feeling respected, valued and recognized.”

In an era where 61% of employees admit they simply collect a paycheck without engagement, this cultural resonance makes all the difference. When a brand becomes less an external marketing tool and more an internal force defining how teams work, it serves dual purposes: accelerating team performance internally while communicating unique value to customers externally.

Professional service firms face unprecedented challenges today – remote work disrupting cultural transmission, pressure for growth through mergers and accelerating technological change. Yet paradoxically, as routine tasks become automated, this human element becomes even more crucial.

The magic happens when you flip from transactional to relational environments. As Craddock concluded, “If we focus on fostering a sense of community, collaboration and shared experience … we have the power to create high-performing teams.”

In other words, when culture shapes a brand and brand reinforces culture, the resulting exceptional customer experience becomes a differentiation that competitors cannot easily replicate – the true source of premium value in professional services. The strongest brands have always been built on simple, compelling ideas. There’s nothing simpler or more compelling than a team that truly works as one.

Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.

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