Seth Matlins Launches Marketing Podcast With Vox Media

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Longtime marketing executive Seth Matlins has a new podcast, called Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing, created in partnership with Vox Media and its podcast network.

The show is produced in partnership with Matlins’ new venture, The Wisdomous Company. It will feature conversations with CMOs, CEOs, founders, and other cultural figures, including Gary Vaynerchuk, LVMH brand advisor Mathilde Delhoume, and political strategist David Axelrod, among others.

The premise, according to Matlins, is that marketing has been miscast as a tactical function rather than a core driver of enterprise value. Prior to founding the Wisdomous Company, Matlins served as the managing director of the Forbes CMO Network, the first global CMO at Live Nation, and president of Rock the Vote.

“What many enterprises don’t realize is that every decision they make is inescapably tied to value creation or destruction—there is no neutral,” Matlins said. “More businesses need to understand that marketing is a mindset, not a function.”

The launch arrives at a delicate moment for Vox Media. The company is currently fielding competing offers for the Vox Media Podcast Network, one of the most profitable and fastest-growing pieces of its portfolio. James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems submitted a bid earlier this month at $300 million or more for both the podcast network and New York Magazine, joining Versant, the Comcast cable spinoff, which had been the frontrunner.

In an interview, Matlins said the decision to partner with Vox Media went beyond the network itself, citing his relationships with CEO Jim Bankoff and senior vice president and general manager of podcasts Ray Chao.

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The infrastructure mattered, too. In working with Vox Media, the company provides dozens of staffers to manage production, marketing, and promotion, a level of support that would otherwise be unavailable for what is effectively a solo operation, according to Matlins.

The format of the podcast will lean on a recurring set of questions designed to highlight distinctions across the guests’ answers, with certain elements of each episode tailored to the individual guests themselves. The show will release weekly with no season structure and will be available across audio platforms and YouTube. It will also have its own set of social handles.

The partnership extends beyond the podcast itself. Matlins, Vox Media, and The Wisdomous Company are launching a global event series under the Create or Destroy Sessions brand, beginning with a CMO summit in London in September and a U.S. retreat in Napa in October. Canva has signed on as a franchise partner, Gale and LiveNation are sponsoring the Napa event, and ROKT is a partner for both Napa and London.

Revenue will come from advertising, sponsorship, and ticketing, with the specific ad offerings dependent on the needs of the brand partner.

“This is a business show about marketing—it’s not just for the marketing community,” Matlins said. “Everything that I do is intended to have the audience leave better able to do better work because they were a part of it.”