Attention IC & HR: It’s Time for the Marketers to Lead Culture Change

Kevin Keohane:

The Brandpie report “The Tipping Point” reveals a startling truth: the role of the CMO is no longer tethered to customers alone. CMOs are now stepping over the velvet ropes into domains historically controlled by HR and Internal Communications—culture, employee experience, and transformation.

Why? Because someone has to.

While HR has fought for decades to prove its strategic value, it has all-too-often calcified into a compliance-first function.

Internal Comms, meanwhile, too often drowns in channels and newsletters, mistaking noise for influence.

Marketing, by contrast, knows how to shift perception and behavior at scale. It knows how to build trust in a skeptical audience.

And it knows how to connect promise with experience—inside and out.

1. Great EX = Great CX. And No, That Doesn’t Just Mean Pizza Fridays

Page 7 of the report states the obvious, yet somehow still radical: “Employee experience and customer experience are critically linked.” That’s not just a branding platitude. It’s a P&L reality. The research shows that when EX is neglected, the customer suffers—and walks.

But let’s be honest: traditional HR’s interpretation of EX is often limited to wellness programs, pulse surveys, and the occasional “employee of the month” shoutout.

Meanwhile, marketers understand that experience is emotional, omnichannel, and—crucially—intentional. They obsess over the journey because they know every touchpoint shapes the brand. Why aren’t we designing EX like we do CX?

It’s time we recognised that a well-designed EX is a growth engine, not a cost centre. Employees aren’t just resources to be “engaged”; they are humans to be inspired. The marketer’s toolkit—segmentation, messaging, behavioural psychology—has a lot more to offer here than another HR workshop.

2. Tactical Isn’t Small—It’s Systemic, When You Know How to Use It

Let’s stop pretending transformation has to be a ten-year Everest climb. Marketers are masters at creating disproportionate impact with smart, simple, well-timed interventions. A 30-second ad can shift a nation’s mindset. An internal campaign can do the same, if done right.

HR and IC often over-engineer. Marketers prototype, iterate, and test fast. They don’t need a steering committee to change a narrative—they just need a smart idea and the green light. We need more of this insurgent mentality in culture change. Not another slide deck about “values”.

3. Trust is Broken. Marketers Know How to Rebuild It

Employees are done being treated like passive recipients of top-down initiatives. They’ve lost faith in leadership promises—often for good reason. But marketers, at their best, are architects of credibility. They don’t just sell dreams; they understand when an audience is skeptical, jaded, or outright hostile—and they adapt.

That’s the game now. Culture is the new brand. Employees are the new audience. And marketers are the ones who know how to move an audience—from resistance to belief, from apathy to action.

Of course, all of this only works if the promise is real.

But when it is, marketers can be the ones to deliver it—beautifully, believably, and boldly.

The real tipping point isn’t just that CMOs are getting involved in culture.

It’s that the old guard—HR and IC—are being outflanked by people who actually know how to drive connection.

Not through policy, but through purpose.

Not with platitudes, but with promise.

If you’re in HR or IC, you can either resent this shift—or you can partner with it.

But the dynamics have changed.

The marketers are here. And they’re not asking for permission.

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Kevin Keohane is US Managing Partner — Brandpie and CEO of Go-to-Market Maven®, an AI startup.