Blurring the Lines with Heather Craft at Hotwire

This week I spoke with Heather Craft , Chief Executive Officer at Hotwire North America. Heather joined the agency in 2016, and her leadership and vision for Hotwire North America has led to it being the growth engine for all of Hotwire.

Before we get into your current role, take us back to the beginning of your professional journey leading up to where you are today. 

I was a journalism major with an emphasis in public relations, so it started then. After college I interned in San Francisco at Schwartz Communications, now known as MSL (Global) . At the time, I really thought I would end up doing sports communications and marketing, but being in San Francisco you’re surrounded by tech, and Schwartz MSL was mostly dealing with B2B clients, so I worked with a lot of early stage startups. There I experienced the downturn of the recession, the resurgence of clean tech. During that time in the agency world I had the opportunity to work with iconic tech brands at pivotal moments. 

After I left Schwartz MSL I went and worked with Dell, while working at WPP. There, I worked to promote Dell's corporate reputation and leadership in enterprise solutions back when the company went private, so it was this really transitional moment for them and the industry. That solidified for me that working with technology companies going through high stakes moments was my passion. 

While still within the agency team, I would spend my day onsite with clients and really felt part of the in-house team. I love solving complex problems, and so taking the really complex topics and technical stories and creating narratives that moved business and made sense to society was really what attracted me to this space. It was that complex to simplified, complex to emotional, those jumps. 

Over the course of time, my career expanded from traditional PR to digital and marketing services, and everything that goes along with that. I joined Hotwire almost eight years ago, just after we acquired Eastwick in the United States. Change was happening, and it was exciting. 

I had been at small and large agencies previously and we were midsize, so the opportunity to get to do a bit of both worlds where you have a depth of expertise in the team but not so large that you're part of one of massive global networks where it’s easy to get lost. There’s so much goodness in an environment like ours. For example, I know the UK team personally, and that’s so amazing for any practitioner growing in their career. Eight years later, I've had the opportunity to work with big tech brands, fast startups, and build really cool teams that get to do exciting and innovative work. 

Last year you were named CEO of Hotwire North America. For those who are interested in remaining agency-side, especially women, seeing that glass ceiling shattered is inspiring. In fact, 7 out of the 11 leadership team members at Hotwire are women, which isn’t common. What leadership or management advice do you have for people?

I'm incredibly proud of the women that I've had the opportunity to lead alongside, and have had some phenomenal mentors that are agency leaders who are male as well. For me it has never been about having a limiting factor of where opportunity sits. It's showing up, and showing up every day in a way where I find personal meaning in the business and in the work that I'm doing.

It's been a mix of really strong leaders that have taken smart bets on me, me betting on myself and being confident in challenging myself and those around me in a way that isn't driven by ego, it isn't driven by sort of my own individual success. It's really about the success of the whole team. That is a leadership principle that I've always operated from and has created a lot of opportunity for me and hopefully for those around me too. 

If you think about it as a marketing or communications practitioner, no matter where you're leading from, the more influence that you create and impact you have, opportunity flows, not just for yourself, but those around you. 

What are the biggest advancements, changes or transformations you have seen within communication agencies over the past nearly two decades? And what skills does the modern day communicator or publicist need to excel in this space?

There’s a couple of big changes we’ve seen. There is the expansion of role that communications plays across a business. It's not just employee or internal communications, it's not just media relations, it's not just content. It's the communications organization and the partnership that we have with marketing, the impact that we can have on the business. So whether that’s talking about a business's reputation, the relationships that matter, or the ability to drive revenue, today CCOs and CMOs lead many of those conversations. I'd say historically that wasn't the place where we led conversation from as communication practitioners, but today it’s a critical one. 

The second would be diversification of channels available to engage with audiences on. So whether that be media relations, social media and the evolution that it's gone on, internal platforms or even slack. We live in a world that’s always on, and we communicate in a very wide variety of ways, across multiple platforms and mediums. As a comms practitioner, you have to continuously evaluate which you’re using and does it connect your brand with your audience in a meaningful way.   

The third is driven by technology and most recently that’s been generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). While AI is something that we can utilize as a practitioner in terms of being able to use different tools that leverage AI to be more efficient or effective, we should also be thinking about what things like GenAI Chatbots could mean for brands in the near future. Are LLMs and Chatbots the next channel for comms to understand and influence? 

They all intersect with one another. As communicators, our ability to never become stagnant, continue to test and learn, are what keep us fresh and really relevant to the businesses and the brands that we're helping drive forward. Whether that be thinking about new audiences, new ways to reach those audiences, or just sort of new ways of working. 

Hotwire works with clients across industries, from cybersecurity to e-commerce to social platforms. What’s the most popular reason you’re hearing companies turning to communications agencies for? What’s the biggest need you’re solving? 

I think they fall in a couple of different categories. First is reputation. They’re coming to us to change their reputation, up level their reputation, or secure long-term reputation in a market. 

Second, they need to build relationships that move the business. Those can be relationships from a sales pipeline and new prospects, relationships with employees, relationships with others who hold massive influence in their market and in their business, including analysts and investors. 

Third, they need to drive revenue. And driving revenue comes in two forms. That's net new revenue, but that's also retention of existing clients and the growth within that. 

I would say 90% of the businesses that we speak to fall within some combination of those three categories - reputation, relationships, and revenue. And if you think about the market, whether that be the global market or the United States, the pace at which uncertainty and change continues to happen, those three categories become exponentially more important.

There are a lot of conversations happening around artificial intelligence, especially within the communications industry. Hotwire recently launched a global AI innovation team and your first proprietary AI tool, GAIO.tech. As an agency investing heavily in AI, can you share more about Hotwire’s views on AI, and what capabilities this tool has?

At Hotwire, we have a deep heritage in technology and innovation, and AI technology has been something that we've been talking about with our clients for years. Maybe not in the same way that it is today where it's been taken mainstream with generative AI, but technologies like machine learning and AI powering products and platforms isn’t new to our team. We often talk to engineers, developers and data scientists that have been doing this for years. It's been really interesting to see that mainstream moment happen, and it’s been really beneficial for us because we're more informed than most since we've had a seat at the table in that conversation for the start. 

The way that most brand and marketing communications professionals should be thinking about AI is really twofold. How can I be using AI or where does it fit into my tech or tool stack? And two, what does AI mean for your brand and your brand narrative? 

For Hotwire, we’re thinking about our own AI story. How is it relevant to the audience that matters to us? How are we utilizing AI ourselves? And so it's interesting, as agency practitioners, we have this dual role. We find ourselves consulting with clients on both AI tools to use as well as how AI fits into their brand narrative. 

We also utilize AI tools within our own tech stack, and we have guidelines for the team around how to use GenAI. We’re creative, entrepreneurial and focused on innovation. Our generative AI optimization tool GAIO.tech that we launched earlier this year demonstrates that. 

People are using AI, chatbots, and LLMs to find product recommendations like the best noise-canceling headphones for travel. If I'm Bose, SONY or any brand offering that product, I don't actually know how I'm showing up today in those responses. And so for a brand marketer, communications or product person, understanding how these platforms are portraying your brand is so important. 

On the other flip side of it, if you think about it from a customer experience, my dishwasher has got some crazy error code that I have no idea what it means. Do I have any clue where the manual is and do I want to dig through that? No. I just need to wash the dishes that are in there. I'm going to ask ChatGPT a very specific question and it's going to serve me up answers to that. That’s how we’re seeing the places that we go for customer service and support also change. And it creates a whole new vehicle of communication and channel to think about. 

That's the premise of GAIO.tech, because these chatbots are a bit of a black box today. You may not know where the information they’re serving is sourced from, or how you can influence it. With GAIO.tech you can start to demystify some of that and understand the sources of information. But the idea is that at some point we start to shift from thinking about AI as just a technology, to generative AI being another channel to influence. 

What advice would you give to someone about to graduate college that wants to work in integrated communications, or what tips would you give someone who wants to pivot into this industry?

Don't shy away from agencies and consultancies. A lot of students have an aspirational brand that they want to work at, which is great, but the beauty of an agency or consultancy is the exposure that you get to different sectors and verticals. Don't underestimate the value that experience brings you in terms of being able to accelerate your career.

Rapid Fire Questions: 

What’s your favorite song right now? Anything by Post Malone

What’s the last podcast you listened to? The Daily by The New York Times, NPR’s News Now and The 7 by The Washington Post

Who’s one person in this industry that inspires you, that everyone should go follow? Eleanor Hawkins at Axios

What industry jargon do you hate? Pivot

What is one word you would use to describe 2024? Uncharted