Episode 199 | December 01, 2025
Why Zoom’s brand evolution is more than meetings with CMO Kim Storin
Zoom CMO Kim Storin discusses brand evolution, collaboration ROI, AI-driven productivity, and how leaders reduce friction and build authentic customer connection.
Redefining a beloved brand: What Zoom’s transformation teaches modern business leaders
Most companies dream of having 100% brand awareness—but few realize how complicated it becomes once the world thinks it already knows your story. That tension sits at the heart of Zoom’s transformation, and it surfaced powerfully in a recent conversation on the Insights Unlocked podcast with Zoom’s Chief Marketing Officer, Kim Storin.
Kim’s perspective illuminates a broader truth about business today: the need to rethink how we evaluate collaboration, how we support customer journeys, and how we lead teams through ongoing change. As Zoom continues expanding far beyond its well-known meetings product, the lessons from this transformation touch on everything from collaboration ROI and workflow optimization to human-centered B2B marketing and brand reinvention.
Below, we explore the major themes from the discussion—what Zoom is becoming, what the research reveals about collaboration, and what leaders can learn from Kim’s approach to transformation.
Understanding transformation through the human lens
Transformation often gets framed as a technical exercise—new systems, new products, new strategies. But Kim starts with something more fundamental: people.
“Change is hard. And whether that's the change our customers are going through or the change our people are going through, bringing them along on the journey is the biggest challenge,” she explains.
The root of successful transformation, in her view, is balancing two forces:
- Optimism, which fuels forward motion and the belief that improvement is possible
- Pragmatism, which grounds teams in what’s required to actually get there
Kim calls this a necessary counterweight to overly rosy declarations of “growth mindset” or “change mindset.” Optimism opens the door, but pragmatism walks teams through it.
And the same duality applies to culture and strategy. You can have a powerful roadmap, Kim says, but “it can all be broken with not having the right culture.”
This balance becomes even more essential as Zoom works to expand its brand beyond what most people know.
Why Zoom must evolve beyond meetings
One of the most interesting points Kim raises is how 100% brand awareness can be “a double-edged sword.”
Zoom’s meteoric rise during the pandemic made it a household verb—an enviable position, but one that fixed the brand in people’s minds as a meetings tool. That perception now creates friction as Zoom evolves into a multi-product collaboration platform.
“People don’t really realize all of the capabilities of Zoom,” Kim says. “We have a world-class webinar and events platform. We have a customer support platform. We have a revenue acceleration platform for sales and an employee engagement platform.”
The challenge is not just broadening awareness—it’s broadening awareness strategically. Instead of talking about the full portfolio at once, the company is focusing on cohort-based marketing that aligns messaging to specific stakeholders (CMOs, Chief People Officers, IT leaders, sales leaders, and more).
Kim puts it simply: “We can’t try to be everything to everyone. We have to be everything to you.”
In other words, brand expansion doesn’t come from shouting louder. It comes from understanding each audience’s pain points and making Zoom’s value unmistakably relevant.
A new storytelling model: connecting the core to the adjacent
A key part of Zoom’s strategy involves anchoring all messaging in what the company already does best: high-quality video and communication technology.
“We tap into that core competency,” Kim explains, “and bring it into adjacent areas where we can deliver even more value.”
- Hybrid events leverage Zoom’s familiar interface
- AI features are built around the context of real meetings
- Workflow tools extend the capabilities users already rely on
This is where the SEO theme of Zoom transformation intersects with the concept of multi-product collaboration platforms—the company's evolution isn’t a leap away from meetings but a natural extension of what meetings make possible.
It’s a transformation built on continuity, not reinvention for reinvention’s sake.
The collaboration paradox: Why companies aren’t seeing the ROI they expect
Another powerful theme in the conversation centers on the findings from Zoom’s recent research with Deloitte. This research uncovered a striking disconnect: despite record spending on collaboration tools, organizations still struggle to measure productivity improvements.
Kim calls it a collaboration paradox.
“There’s record investment in collaboration tools, but the real productivity gains remain elusive,” she explains.
The research revealed several insights with major implications for enterprise leaders:
Employees spend 25 hours per week on meetings
This includes preparing for, participating in, and following up on meetings—three full workdays lost to coordination instead of creation.
Next-generation features—not basic tools—deliver real ROI
Companies actively using AI-powered features such as meeting summaries, intelligent recaps, and integrated workflows save an average of three hours per week per employee.
This directly ties into the keyword cluster around collaboration ROI, AI-powered collaboration tools, and workflow optimization.
Tool consolidation can create more friction—not less
Many companies assume fewer platforms means more efficiency. But Zoom found that forcing everyone onto a single platform “can actually reduce flexibility and productivity.” Employees naturally self-select tools based on task and context.
The takeaway? Adoption matters more than standardization.
“The real ROI comes from adoption,” Kim emphasizes. If employees don’t use the features that actually save time, no amount of consolidation will make the organization more productive.
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Seeing collaboration differently: Stop measuring tools and start measuring outcomes
A major shift is beginning to emerge in how IT leaders evaluate collaboration.
Rather than counting licenses or measuring uptime, the new focus is on:
- Time saved
- Task completion
- Workflow reduction
- Knowledge transfer
- Meeting recaps and actionability
- Employee flexibility
Kim puts it bluntly: “We have to shift from thinking about cost savings to thinking about outcomes, adoption, and human connection.”
This shift aligns directly with the semantic keywords around enterprise productivity, human-centered B2B marketing, and user adoption.
And it also reframes a surprising idea: Zoom wants people to have fewer meetings.
“We want you to be more productive,” Kim says. The company’s AI and workflow features are explicitly designed to help employees spend less time coordinating and more time completing meaningful work.
Community as a competitive advantage
Another compelling insight from Kim concerns authentic community building—a topic rarely discussed with such nuance in B2B marketing.
She argues that as AI accelerates content creation, what audiences crave most is real connection, “People are dying for authenticity.”
Community isn’t just about events, she notes. It’s about creating shared space where customers:
- Feel seen and heard
- Learn from one another
- Co-create solutions
- Build relationships with the brand
- Engage in conversations outside the sales cycle
The most striking example is the emotional connection Zoom users have developed with the platform.
Kim recalls hearing customers say: “I am a Zoom user.” Not in a transactional way—but in a way that signals identity. Some even avoid meetings when they see a competitor’s link.
Few brands—especially in B2B—command that level of loyalty.
This is one of the biggest themes relevant to today’s marketers: brand love is built through community, not campaigns.
Aligning IT and the end user: Helping every stakeholder succeed
One of the unique challenges Zoom faces is serving two different “customers”:
- IT buyers, who care about cost, reliability, security, uptime
- End users, who want ease, speed, and friction reduction
Kim describes it as a balancing act. “IT has to switch from being a cost driver to being an outcome driver.” But they need the right data and stories to make that shift.
That’s where Zoom’s research becomes a strategic tool. It gives IT leaders insight into the daily reality of the people they support and the friction points inside their workflows.
Zoom’s role, Kim says, is to “arm IT with information” that helps them champion better collaboration—both for the organization and its people.
It’s a prime example of customer-centric marketing that serves multiple audiences without diluting the message.
What today’s leaders can learn from Zoom’s transformation
Near the end of the conversation, Kim outlines the three traits she believes are essential for leading through modern transformation. They also serve as a fitting summary of Zoom’s journey and the broader evolution of business collaboration.
- Curiosity: The willingness to explore what’s possible and imagine new futures.
- Agility: The ability to quickly scale what works—or kill what doesn’t.
- Calculated risk-taking: The courage to experiment while staying grounded in data and customer insight.
These traits don’t just define Zoom’s transformation. They define the mindset required for any organization seeking meaningful progress today.
At a moment when many companies feel stuck—overloaded with meetings, overwhelmed by tools, and uncertain about the role of AI—Kim’s perspective offers clarity and direction.
She leaves us with a powerful reminder, “Curiosity, agility, and calculated risk taking are what I think is the formula for success right now for marketers.”
Episode links:
- Zoom CMO Kim Storin on LinkedIn
- Johann Wrede on LinkedIn
- Nathan Isaacs on LinkedIn
- Fix the gaps: how to optimize the customer journey for better ROAS and higher ROI — on-demand webinar about reducing friction and increasing marketing-driven ROI.
- The brand strategist’s playbook: how to elevate, protect, and strengthen your brand — on-demand webinar about brand trust, consistency, positioning and customer insight.
- Stay ahead of the competition: how to use customer insights to outsmart your rivals — guide focused on using customer feedback to benchmark competitors, refine positioning and identify differentiation.
- Segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) guide for better CX — blog article on how enterprise marketers refine segmentation, targeting and brand positioning with customer insight.
- How AI in UX research is augmenting (not replacing) human insight (Episode 191) — explores productivity, AI, collaboration and human-centered design in research.
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