United Airlines made headlines earlier this year with a new hire: Oscar the Grouch, the beloved Sesame Street curmudgeon, who came on board as the brand’s first chief trash officer. A buzzy move to communicate United’s commitment to sustainable aviation fuel, it’s one of the many strategies Maggie Schmerin is deploying to further establish United’s reputation as an airline for the future.

Schmerin, a former agency executive, joined United, her former client at Edelman, six years ago to lead consumer PR. She quickly proved her acumen at social media, taking over the division soon after. In 2020, she was promoted to lead the brand’s global advertising during the pandemic—a time United needed its voice to be heard.

“We had a great story to tell and advertising was the missing piece,” said Schmerin. “During the pandemic, we were making big, bold moves and getting a lot of credit and buzz on social media and in the news, and advertising needed to better reflect that story and be used as a force multiplier.”

Last year’s “Good Leads the Way,” United’s largest global campaign in nearly a decade, did just that.

Up next, Schmerin and her team of 30 will keep touting United’s environmental efforts and finding opportunities to differentiate the brand from competitors, such as recent work poking fun at rival Southwest Airlines.

“For us, it’s all about getting noticed and being relevant,” Schmerin said.

What advice would you give your younger self? 

I’d tell my younger self that it’s OK to know exactly what you want and to be confident in and have fun going after it. I see a lot of focus these days in articles and in general workplace conversations that celebrate embracing uncertainty in what one might study, changing career paths and to an extent, figuring it out as you go. I understand and respect that and see the benefits of remaining open and flexible. But to those at the other end of the spectrum—the ones that know early on what they want to do and continue to pay into that and don’t waver—that can be equally valued.

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? 

Not going to law school. Becoming a lawyer was often discussed with my family when I was growing up and ultimately while I was in college and after graduation. My first job was with a boutique PR agency that specialized in law firm PR, a natural stepping stone to get a few years of real-world work experience under my belt and then go to law school. And while law school would have been a tremendous challenge, in many ways it was also the path of least resistance in terms of appealing to any sort of external pressure or expected next steps. But I felt comfortable knowing myself, my strengths and the type of work I wanted to do, and knew I wouldn’t be happy taking a detour from that—even a three-year one. 

If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing and why? 

I’d love to focus more on writing—essays, a movie script, maybe even a sports column. I enjoy writing—it can be incredibly frustrating, but when the writer’s block finally breaks open, it’s one of the most rewarding feelings. Regardless of what type of writer I’d be, I’d no doubt still be a United Club member since I get some of my best work done in the airport lounge.

What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks? 

Better demonstrate through consistent, meaningful actions that there is a clear and fair path to positions of leadership.

How do you expect emerging tech like Web3 and AI to impact your job in the future? 

There are a growing number of tools in the marketing toolkit that we have to not only read about and discuss, but spend quality time using ourselves. We’re past the point of theorizing about something like ChatGPT with anyone in our line of work who hasn’t spent even a bit of time testing it out. AI will no doubt help us be more efficient with the ability to produce work in shorter amounts of time and take the lead on time-consuming tasks—for example, summarizing themes in data—so that teams can better focus their thinking on building the right strategy. AI will become fundamental to an extent, but can’t replace a human’s perspective, experience, instinct or wit.