From Art History to AI: Digital Marketing Pioneer on Reinvention, Razorfish, and the Future of Fintech | Episode 62 with Francie Staub

Francie Staub has been at the bleeding edge of every major marketing shift for thirty years — and she saw each one coming before most people believed it was real. From an art gallery in Atlanta to banner ads nobody wanted to touch, from Razorfish at its peak to managing a $175 million media budget at TD Ameritrade and US Card at Capital One, Francie built her career by jumping toward the scary thing every time it appeared. Now she's in Greenville, SC doing it again — as a fractional CMO helping AI fintech startup WNSTN bring financial-grade artificial intelligence to brokerages, banks, and wealth management platforms worldwide. In this conversation, Chris and Francie cover the full arc — how digital marketing went from the Wild West to a science, what great advertising actually does versus what most brands think it does, why customer retention beats acquisition every time, and why the AI moment feels exactly like the early internet did in 1999. They also spend a considerable amount of time planning a food crawl through New York City, which is exactly what this show is. Francie Staub Spiced nuts: francieskitchen.com Staub Kent Consulting: staubkentconsulting.com Instagram: instagram.com/fjstaub LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/francie-staub WNSTN wnstn.ai WNSTN in action: benzinga.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/wnstn-ai X: x.com/WNSTNai Follow the Show instagram.com/sundayafternoonsmokes Sunday Afternoon Smokes. Upstate SC. Every Sunday.