This is so cool.
Have you been in a McLaren before?
I have never been in a McLaren.
Whoo!
I love it. I love it.
I’m Karen Tso and this is my new ride for the week.
I’m taking it for a spin along the Croisette for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity,
and bringing along some of the biggest names in advertising, business and entertainment.
As we ask…
Today, I’m taking a trip down memory lane with Stephanie McMahon, Chief Brand Officer for the WWE.
Serving both in the ring and the C-suite, McMahon is one of the most prominent faces of the entertainment brand.
With a social media following of several million, McMahon’s security had to stick close by,
just in case we encountered any diehard fans.
But before we get into all of that, we have to head back to the beginning.
Stephanie McMahon’s journey with the WWE started from birth.
Born in the U.S. state of Connecticut, the family business was present in her life from the beginning.
I was about five years old maybe and I was walking backstage,
and I remember the linoleum floor and the cement walls and the fluorescent lighting.
Very, very glamorous and all of a sudden from around the corner comes George the Animal Steele,
who was a WWE superstar that has hair that looks like fur all over his back, all over his chest.
He was bald, lots of wrinkles in his head and he dyed his tongue green with a Clorets or something.
So here he comes around the corner and these kids just run screaming from him.
And I don't know what they're running from. These kids just run by me
and then all of a sudden here comes George the Animal Steele.
And now I am struck with fear. I scream at the top of my lungs.
I run up my dad's leg, I bury my head on his shoulders and he starts laughing.
I remember the moment because I thought, wait a minute, here is my father who I know would die,
take his last breath protecting me. He is my ultimate hero, and he's laughing in my moment of peril.
And it was my first inkling into our world that everything was not what it seemed.
Just a few short years later, McMahon started pitching in herself.
It wasn’t long before McMahon felt right at home in the family business.
Really I started when I was about eight years old modeling merchandise for our catalog.
I didn't get paid for that though.
I bet you were a great model.
Oh I don't know. Those pictures are pretty bad. They live out there. Our fans have found them.
I didn't appreciate as a child growing up what my parents were really risking.
They took a lot of calculated risks to build our business. For example, WrestleMania
which is like our Super Bowl, was my father's vision of putting WWE on the map.
And he came up with this concept of combining the best of pop culture with the best of sports entertainment.
So we had Mr. T in the main event, who at the time was enjoying A-Team and Rocky fame.
We had Muhammad Ali as a special guest referee.
We had Liberace and the Rockettes open the show, Cyndi Lauper...
Amazing!
Yeah, so we had a whole rock and wrestling connection as it was called in the 80s.
But my parents mortgaged everything they owned to make WrestleMania happen,
and that I couldn't possibly appreciate or understand at eight years old.
Throughout her teens, McMahon continued to take on small roles within the WWE,
all the while learning about every inch of the business.
I really started interning in various departments.
When I was in high school, I worked the switchboard before automation.
I basically operated as fan services at that time. It really wasn't as evolved.
I interned in marketing, media relations, live events, new media at the time,
which was our really just nascent digital business.
I remember our website looked a bit more like early stage Donkey Kong than anything else.
As McMahon continued to climb the ladder,
the ever-growing WWE brand was taking on new forms for her.
What's important about brand is that it's not one person's job. It's everyone's job.
It's not just our employees. It's not just our fans. It's not just our superstars.
We all comprise this giant family that we call the WWE Universe because it's inclusive,
and I love the fact that I'm a part of something bigger than myself.
I love that I am a part of our brand mission, which is putting smiles on people's faces the world over.
I mean that's it, that's our mission.
With a mission like that, maybe it’s no surprise that McMahon ended up finding love within the industry,
marrying fellow wrestler Triple H in 2003.
And we were married and divorced in storyline before we ever actually started dating
so we had a little dry run. Life imitated art.
And now you have three little wrestlers.
We do. We have three amazing daughters. Aurora, Murphy and Vaughn.
They will be twelve, ten and eight at the end of the summer, and they're growing way too fast.
And do they fight?
They don't physically fight with each other. We quell that pretty quickly.
But yeah, they're sisters so they definitely spar.
Meanwhile, McMahon’s responsibilities within the company continued to grow.
In 2007, she became the Executive Vice President of Creative,
where amongst other things, she looked after WWE’s digital and social presence.
I think technology has allowed us to connect and engage with our fan base,
and I want take it one step further, not just engage but empower.
Because social media makes everybody equal. So everyone's voice matters. And I think it's so important.
I think that in order to truly engage and empower, to give people that opportunity to make a difference.
I think it's crucial, I think it's crucial for businesses, for brands. I think it's helpful for life.
I think we're at a unique time. You know, people need to figure out just how powerful that platform is
because it can be quite polarizing and sometimes negative.
But if you focus on the positive aspects of it, use it for good, use it to empower and engage your audience.
I think that it is very beneficial.
But that’s not to say fake news, less than honest influencers
and offensive content haven’t been on her radar.
I think all brands have to be wary of that. I think that this is a new space
for everyone, including the platforms that certainly don't want to have these issues
or these problems and I think that they are tackling it head on alongside their business
partners because we certainly don't want to not have our content available. That's where
viewers are, especially the younger ones. We need to be able to reach all demographics.
So I think it's a delicate balance. We certainly have to be aware.
We have to work with the platforms, work with our partners and make sure we're in a safe space.
Looking after the brand is now McMahon’s main focus.
In 2013, she took on her biggest role yet - Chief Brand Officer.
It was one of my jobs to really build the WWE brand from a B2B perspective.
So we targeted conferences like Cannes Lions, Milkin, Davos.
You know all of the major conferences to make sure that WWE was represented.
And at first I remember there was an Adweek article that said, “Why WWE is in Cannes and why it fits right in.”
So it took a little while to get our brand message out there.
But that's exactly what I've been doing.
My role as Chief Brand Officer has been my favorite role and that's tough to say because
creative, when I ran our creative writing team, that was so much fun.
I believe myself to be very creatively-minded person so I loved that aspect, I love the storytelling aspect.
But what I've got to do in my role as Chief Brand Officer is bring the WWE story to life.
So I'm still telling stories because I do believe that ultimately that's the best form of communication.
It's the most relatable form of communication, which is why people remember it
because it makes them feel something.
And if you can make people feel, that's what they will take away.
From child model to creative writer, McMahon has experienced just about every side of WWE,
all while making her own path in the family company.
I didn't even realize that I was the first woman to hold those positions until I was actually out of them.
I didn't realize how important that was because when I was growing up, my mom was the CEO of WWE.
So I always assumed that women not only could be CEO, I thought they should be CEO.
So to me holding those roles as a woman just didn't occur to me, you know, that I was the first one.
But it does matter.