Marketing teams everywhere face the same basic challenge: some click, and others don’t. The difference isn’t always obvious. But after working with teams across the globe, Melissa Wildstein has started to notice patterns. She spends her days talking with marketers as they launch products, test new ideas, and tackle real-world challenges. That kind of access gives her a unique perspective on what actually works. Every team is different. But the ones that consistently succeed tend to share a few habits that set them apart. They aren’t flashy. They aren’t complicated. But they make all the difference.
Observing Patterns in Global Marketing Teams
Every day brings new conversations for Melissa Wildstein. Sometimes it’s four or five different marketing teams, each with their own products, challenges, and dynamics. The variety keeps things interesting, but over time, patterns start to emerge. Some teams just work better than others. And it’s not always about budget or raw talent. During her MBA at NYU, Wildstein took a class on managing high-performing teams. That’s where she first learned about the phases of team development. “There’s this phased approach where you start with storming and then move into norming,” she explains. The storming phase, she says, can be tough. “Everyone has to figure out their role on the team, and there are going to be some clashes.” But the teams that lean into the discomfort and work through it? They often come out stronger, more aligned, and ready to perform at a much higher level.
Identifying Four Pillars that Drive Team Success
Through all her observations, four things consistently separate the best marketing teams from the rest.
Getting Clear on What You Actually Want
Most teams think they understand positioning, but Wildstein sees the same mistake repeatedly. “Many marketing teams will go through the motions of writing down a positioning statement or the space that they want to own in the customer’s mind, and then they complete that phase and they put it up on the shelf and it lives in a PowerPoint document.”
The difference with successful teams? They don’t just write it down – they live it. Take Heinz, which she uses as an example that always gets people’s attention. The company did a blind study asking people to draw what came to mind when they thought of ketchup. “Every single person drew a Heinz bottle from memory—that distinctive shape, whether it was the one that sits at the diner or the squeeze bottle.” That’s not accident or luck. Heinz owns ketchup in people’s minds because they’ve been consistent about it for decades.
Staying Real While Everyone Else Goes Artificial
Wildstein has been watching something interesting happen lately. After all the excitement around AI-generated everything, people are getting tired of fake. “Right now you’ve had so much push towards AI and the AI has become ubiquitous,” she notes. “What I think you’re seeing now is the pendulum starting to swing back to true authenticity.” The proof is in how people respond. Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign gets people talking because it’s real. Meanwhile, Guess introduced an AI-generated ad in Vogue that barely made a ripple. “It’s not the AI generated ad that talks about Guess jeans with a relatively attractive female on it. It’s the actual real female that stands for something.”
Leaders Who Actually Let People Lead
Good leadership sounds simple but proves surprisingly rare. Wildstein sees too many managers who “would grab someone amazing and then take all the work that person has done and present it as their own.” The better approach? “Good leaders empower their team members and enable them to own their work and to recognize their worth.” She’s working with a client at Bioventus where the brand manager is relatively new to marketing but has a boss who lets her shine. That makes all the difference. Building shared vision works the same way. “A vision can’t just be dropped from on high, but it has to be internalized and built from the ground up.” When leaders bring team members into the conversation early, they get real buy-in instead of forced compliance.
Actually Measuring What Matters
The last piece might be the most important. “For high performing teams, you only know if you’re going to be successful if you’re measuring it,” Wildstein says. These teams identify goals, execute, measure, analyze, adapt, then repeat. But here’s where many teams get it wrong. “Sometimes people will rinse and repeat. It can’t be rinse and repeat,” she emphasizes. “You have to go through and measure the results, analyze your metrics, adapt and then you can repeat.”
The difference between rinse-and-repeat versus measure-analyze-adapt separates teams that improve from those that just stay busy. Building high-performance marketing teams isn’t magic. It requires getting clear on positioning, staying authentic, empowering people, and actually measuring results. Simple concepts, but execution makes all the difference.
Follow Melissa Wildstein on LinkedIn for more insights into building high-performing marketing teams and authentic brand leadership.
