Coworking with Scott Morris

Each week, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Scott Morris is the chief marketing officer of Sprout Social. He has also served in senior marketing positions at Zendesk, where he was SVP, global marketing and acting CMO, and at Adobe, where he led product marketing for Creative Cloud and campaign marketing for Creative Cloud and Document Cloud.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Certainly the most impactful was leading the product marketing team at Adobe when the company brought Creative Cloud to market. Adobe was the first large software company to turn its business model upside-down by going all-in on SaaS and subscriptions. We were on the front lines of this transformation, which was both exciting and terrifying, and occasionally met with customer apprehension. While it was the hardest project I’ve ever worked on, it had the biggest impact on my career and taught me invaluable lessons about navigating significant shifts in the industry and focusing on customer value.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? I’m a huge fan of Liquid Death. The tagline, “Murder Your Thirst,” is provocative and incredibly memorable, which sets the brand apart. I also like its strong focus on sustainability and how consistently innovative the brand is with collaborations and stunts. From its casket-cooler partnership with Yeti to the hot-fudge-sundae product and marketing collaboration with my favorite ice cream brand, Van Leeuwen, Liquid Death consistently pushes boundaries that align with the brand’s rebellious and authentic spirit. And the fact that they’ve achieved this level of visibility and virality without traditional paid advertising? That’s truly next-level marketing.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile: While I like to describe my first job out of college as “developing account-specific sales and marketing plans,” the reality is that I drove a gray minivan around South Florida trying to sell end-cap displays of faucets to plumbing department managers at Home Depot stores. Glamorous, it was not. But we all have to start somewhere, right?

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I love what Lara Cohen said in Coworking back in November: It’s clear we’re just seeing the beginning of creators becoming the new engine for marketing. The rise of the social-first customer journey, coupled with the creator economy and the impact of AI, opens up new opportunities, fundamentally disrupting many of our traditional approaches to marketing. I also love that owned media is becoming a bigger part of brands’ strategies, with companies investing more in building communities, blogs, newsletters, brand-owned podcasts, and video series to offset the ongoing challenges with traditional paid media.

And while I’m a fan of personalization at scale, hyper-targeted campaigns can cross the line and feel manipulative and invasive, eroding trust rather than building it. It’s important for brands to strike the right balance between relevance and respect, prioritizing transparency and consumer boundaries.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? For marketing-related content, I highly recommend the MarTech Podcast hosted by Benjamin Shapiro. I have a relatively short attention span, so long episodes don’t work for me, but this podcast breaks down complex topics into bite-sized segments—perfect for consuming actionable insights quickly. Ben is a great host, and his guests are other marketing leaders who always share valuable, real-world strategies for insights into consistent business growth.