Executive: Eric Gillin, Chief Brand Officer
Company: Trusted Media Brands
Industry: Community-driven entertainment across streaming, social, web, and print
Company Snapshot: Trusted Media Brands is behind names like Reader’s Digest, Taste of Home, and Family Handyman, reaching hundreds of millions through streaming, social, web, and print.
Format: CMO Journeys Interview
Why It Matters
Eric Gillin didn’t chase a straight line. He chased the biggest problem in the room—first in content, then in product, then in revenue. Now, as Chief Brand Officer at Trusted Media Brands, he’s connecting content, product, and distribution while pushing what he calls a “pivot back to brand.” For agencies, his viewpoint is useful because he’s worked in editorial, product, and ad sales—so he’s seen what actually moves work forward. And he’s allergic to shortcuts.
Their Path, in Short
Gillin breaks his career into three chapters.
The first was as a writer and editor. He came out of college wanting to write, got pulled into the first dot-com wave, and went to TheStreet.com as a reporter. With no CMS, he learned HTML and “hand hack[ed] all the content.” He launched websites out of his living room, worked at Maxim, and later served as a digital director at Esquire and Hearst. In that chapter, he learned how to create, edit, and build the tools that help content work in a digital world.
The second chapter was product. He went to Condé Nast and asked to work on product for Epicurious. That move blended his content instincts with product thinking and pushed him into a general manager mode—focused on how to run the machine behind the stories.
The third chapter was sales. He moved into running sales for a group he’d been part of, then became head of U.S. ad sales at Condé Nast across brands and categories. He didn’t predict that path. But he says it fits his pattern: “I was always sort of going to where the biggest problem was.” Media kept changing, so he kept learning new languages.
Big Themes From the Conversation
Gillin’s engine is curiosity, but not the flashy kind. Early on, he watched friends get bylines and feel thrilled. He had bylines too, yet he realized he wasn’t “mega interested in being the center of attention.” What excited him was building: launching a site, hosting it, figuring out how systems work. “It felt good to build things,” he says—and that became the pull.
He also carries a simple standard from his dad: “No one can take away the work.” Put in the time. Learn the craft. Gillin translates that into a warning against hacks: there are “no shortcuts.” The “cheat code” fades, so you have to come by the work honestly, start with the user, do something special, and then “insist on consistency.”
That same steadiness shows up in his leadership style. He calls himself “jargon-free” and “drama-free,” and tells new teams, “I’m not a table flipper.” In a crisis, he leans on what he calls “service management”: “I work for my team. My team does not work for me.” If emotion creeps in, he takes a walk, takes a break, and returns to examine the problem clearly.
And he’s blunt about uncertainty. Leading through the pandemic came with “no playbook.” AI brings the same feeling. In his words: “You just can’t depend on the past to get to the future.”
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How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
When I asked what cuts through when an agency or vendor reaches out, Gillin didn’t lead with credentials. He led with humanity.
“Great ideas and brands cut through,” he says. Even with all the talk about measurement, he comes back to a simple belief: “We’re all human. And I think you know a good idea when you see it.”
He also meets agencies where the pressure is real. He describes a world where “the math no longer mats out,” where “reach and frequency is broken down,” and where marketing decisions can shrink into spreadsheets. He doesn’t deny the math. He just doesn’t want it to be the whole conversation.
So instead of starting with a CPM or KPI, he prefers to start with the audience. “Let’s talk about who you’re trying to reach,” he says, and how you want to reach them—through emotional connection, not just optimization. Otherwise, he warns, you may “get anything other than a spreadsheet back” that you feel good about buying, without changing anything meaningful.
He’s quick to spot copy-and-paste thinking, too. He says he often slows work down with questions like, “Why are we doing this? Why are we doing it this way?” Sometimes it’s not a hard no—more like a “speed bump in the parking lot.” But the point is to challenge the comfort of “we always did it this way,” because “what worked yesterday won’t work today.”
And if you listen closely, there’s a consistent thread in what he respects: honest work, clear thinking, and ideas that don’t depend on a temporary trick. He’s seen trends come and go. So the agencies that stand out aren’t the loudest. They’re the ones bringing a grounded idea that’s actually built for real people—and then showing they can deliver it with consistency.
What Stood Out
The most revealing moment wasn’t a framework. It was a cookie exchange.
Gillin described a Taste of Home event in Cleveland that “sold out in six minutes.” Three hundred people showed up with cookies to swap, and he laughed at the sheer volume. Then he talked about a “peach cookie,” a Midwestern specialty he’d never seen—made to look like a peach and tasting “just like peaches.” He called it “mind-blowing.”
It’s a small story, but it captures his whole approach. He’s chasing the human element: real people, real places, and moments that feel true.
Inside Scoop
This article focuses on the journey, the leadership philosophy, and how this CMO works with agency partners.
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