X marketing leader Angela Zepeda on why she joined the platform and what’s next

As Angela Zepeda debated leaving her role as a Hyundai marketing executive to become global head of marketing at X, she never interviewed with Elon Musk, the platform’s polarizing owner—and she says she has yet to meet him to this day, seven weeks into her job as global marketing leader for the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “I have not met the man. He still remains, you know, elusive and a famous person that I only see like everyone else does at this point,” Zepeda, X’s first marketing leader since Musk bought the company nearly two years ago, said in her first interview since taking the job. Zepeda’s relationship with X CEO Linda Yaccarino, on the other hand, goes back years with the two executives getting to know each other while Yaccarino was overseeing ad sales and partnerships for NBCUniversal and Zepeda was running U.S. marketing for Hyundai. Now, together with Yaccarino, Zepeda will attempt to push X into marketing territory it has not yet traveled under Musk—a traditional ad campaign that is targeted to start early next year that will plug new features with an expected emphasis including sports content. She declined to reveal details about the campaign but said supporting it with media spending outside of X is a “giant wish.” Zepeda also confirmed that X has been working with Stagwell-owned agencies that will be involved in the effort. If X engages in paid advertising, it would mark a departure for a Musk-run company given his aversion to such tactics, notably at Tesla. X users “see the innovation coming on it as they use it, but there’s a lot of potential users who don’t know that it’s different, and we’d love to tell that story,” Zepeda said. “And we’re hoping to launch that in the first quarter of 2025—a little more consumer-facing look at what X is and the future of the platform.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs But first X might have to confront its recent past, which has been marked by advertiser defections and concerns about brand safety. Some of those critiques are often directed at Musk’s own controversial posts on the platform. He routinely uses his social media megaphone to lobby for the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump ever since endorsing him in July. Asked if Musk’s views pose challenges when trying to market X to people across the political spectrum, Zepeda said, “The platform is the platform, and it survives on its own. It has incredible innovation that’s happening on it. And I think the whole premise of the platform is that regardless of who you are, you can express your views on the platform.” Musk “has his own opinions,” she added. “Are there things that he expresses in a way that some of us may or may not do? Yes, but that’s Elon.” Still, she credited him with bringing “a lot of excitement, a lot of eyeballs” to X. “I think there’s a lot of expectation of what’s going to happen next, which is what we’re really excited about.” Previous news: Musk tries to win back advertisers at Cannes Zepeda referenced several new X features, including “X TV,” a version of the platform tailored for smart TVs that it began beta testing in September. Beta version of 𝕏 TV is out https://t.co/taODqsMECS— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 3, 2024 X is also planning a new tab dedicated to video that is separate from its main timeline. “We recognize that X is a little behind on video, so it’s quickly coming up to speed to have video be front center on the platform,” Zepeda said. Also in the works is an expansion of its NFL partnership that will include a dedicated hub for league news. “Right now, the NFL fan has to go to different places to get things like player stats, game details, highlights, live odds. This is going to be a home for all of those things in one place, in deep partnership with the NFL,” said X Head of Americas Monique Pintarelli, who joined Zepeda for the interview. Ad sales trends Sports content and advertising have been bright spots for X. Four out of the top 10 spending U.S. advertisers on X in September were tied to sports or sports betting, according to data provided to Ad Age by Sensor Tower, which tracks brands’ spending on digital ads. The NFL, MGM, DraftKings and FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment “increased U.S. ad spend on X by a collective average of 6X month-over-month in September,” according to Sensor Tower analysis. However, X is still struggling to bring in advertising dollars across the board, according to third-party trackers, and recent data illustrates the ongoing challenges. Before Musk’s October 2022 purchase of Twitter, it accounted for about 12% of advertisers’ social media spend across Meta’s apps, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit and Twitter in the U.S., according to Standard Media Index, a research firm that tracks a basket of major agencies’ ad spending. Twitter’s share of ad revenue across the social media apps dropped to 5% in the 12 months of September 2022 to August 2023, and then to just 1% in the 12 months from September 2023 to August 2024, according to Standard Media Index. Meanwhile, X’s ad revenue decreased 68% in the 12 months ended in August 2024 compared to the same period a year earlier, as tracked by Standard Media Index. “We have the real data, and sometimes some of these third-party data that I read and articles can seem a bit shocking relative to what’s actually happening inside the walls of the company,” Pintarelli said when asked about some of those figures. “So certainly we’re not back to pre-acquisition levels, but we’re moving in the right direction, gaining trust and partnership across the marketplace.” She said that “about 90% of our top 100 advertisers are back.” One step forward came earlier this month when X dropped Unilever from its lawsuit against a group of advertisers that X has alleged violated antitrust laws by boycotting X advertising. The fight stemmed from X’s claim that the now-defunct ad trade group Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated the boycott under the pretense of concerns over brand safety concerns on the platform. “We’re thrilled to have [Unilever] back on the platform in the U.S. They were active outside of the U.S. already,” Pintarelli said. “Brands are continuing to come back, engage and grow.” Pintarelli, who joined X about a year ago after serving as North American president of the media platform Teads, is among the new team put in place by Yaccarino, who took over as CEO in June 2023. Zepeda took the Hyundai CMO role in 2019 and had an agency career before that, including leading the Hyundai account for Innocean USA, the automaker’s creative agency of record. In July, Zepeda’s title was changed to chief creative officer, as Hyundai gave performance marketing duties to another executive. She said her move to X began with a “casual conversation.” “I’m really big on working with people that I like and I know I can work with. I did know Linda from previous interactions when she was at NBCUniversal, and I just thought it was the right confluence of all the things I was looking for.” Jason Sperling, chief creative officer of Innocean USA, said Zepeda is “a really good team leader and I hope she can find a team that can help her establish her vision.” “She works really well in a complicated system,” he added. “And I do think she’s really even-keeled which might be a good balance [at X].” See all of Ad Age’s 40 Under 40 honorees here

X marketing leader Angela Zepeda on why she joined the platform and what’s next

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