Coworking with Spencer Burke

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

Spencer Burke is SVP of growth at Braze, a customer engagement platform, where he’s been for nearly 15 years. Before that, he worked at PwC.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I focus on a mix of go-to-market strategy and AI transformation. I spend a lot of time thinking through Braze’s product positioning, how we communicate the platform’s value to customers, and how we can continue to accelerate the company’s growth. I also focus on integrating AI both internally for our employees and externally for our customers. At a very high level, this means testing ways we can automate the repetitive and draining aspects of a marketer’s day, make their lives easier, and enable them to spend more time on the creative aspects of their roles.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Most recently, I found it very rewarding to work on the launch of Braze’s new AI products, BrazeAI Operator and BrazeAI Agent Console. These products bring decisioning, content generation, and execution directly into the marketer’s workflow, helping them move faster and create relevant customer experiences with ease. I’ve especially enjoyed being close to how we tell the story—from shaping the messaging to developing the pricing strategy for Agent Console. It’s rewarding to see early results from customers.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? A campaign that caught my eye recently is Equinox’s New Year’s campaign, which took the conversation around AI slop and turned it on its head. I have long admired their bold marketing (they are one of our customers), and this campaign was no exception. The campaign centered around the tagline, “Question Everything But Yourself,” which felt intentional, provocative, and reflective of a bigger conversation happening across marketing right now about how to use AI in a way that feels creative, deliberate, and distinctive.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I’ve been at Braze for over 14 years, and after all this time, I still greatly enjoy hands-on work. Even as my role has become more strategic, I make time to build, experiment, and learn new tools. I thrive in this type of environment—being in the field and trying the latest tools myself allows me to stay up-to-date and relevant. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with how to do more with Claude Code and Cursor.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? Least? I’m most optimistic about how the role of marketing has continued to evolve in the face of disruption. The current proliferation of AI draws parallels with the rise of mobile and cloud that we saw at the time Braze was founded in 2011. AI is the next evolution, the next frontier. It is not just an opportunity to do things faster, but it’s an opportunity to pursue projects that just weren’t possible before.

Like many, I’m least optimistic about the flood of low-quality, AI slop content. The real opportunity isn’t simply producing more, but using AI to build better relationships and experiences.

What’s one marketing-related podcast/social account/series you’d recommend? I’ve been enjoying the Acquired podcast. It’s not exclusively about marketing, but it offers a fascinating look at how some of the world’s most iconic brands are built, scaled, and sustained over time. It’s especially valuable for marketers because it combines business strategy, brand storytelling, and founder history in a way that’s both practical and inspiring.