Vol 25. Insights from Kickstarter’s CMO

Case Studied Experts
Meet Courtney Brown Warren

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their career, insights, and accomplishments. This week, that marketing leader is Courtney Brown Warren.

Courtney is Kickstarter’s first-ever Chief Marketing Officer. Having worked across many industries, she’s consistently found herself at the cutting edge of what’s new—in music, media, and more. 

Here are the need-to-knows about Courtney:

• As CMO of Kickstarter, she oversees all marketing functions and initiatives across brand, creative, content, social, partnerships and communications.

• She served as Global Head of Brand at Twitter, where she owned the brand’s cultural presence in countries around the world.

• In her time as Head of Creative at Audible, she launched Audible Latino, which offered Spanish-first content for U.S. listeners.

From Pre-med to Magazines

Courtney started off as pre-med in college. “I was good at math and science but I wanted to do something I loved. My dad always said, ‘You’ll never work a day if you do something you love.’ I don’t know if that’s completely true but it did make me want to find something I could dig into and love doing.”

After pivoting into art history and graphic design, Courtney fell for the creative side of business. Early roles took her into music and fashion, before she landed at Time Inc. as a creative director—what she jokingly calls her “real college.”

“We were ultimately doing branded content. It was print, video, digital—all the things that are now part of a regular marketing mix. It was fun, but then the digital revolution hit and suddenly everything was changing daily.”

That early media experience helped equip Courtney with the skills of someone who thrives at the edge of transformation.

Learning Fandom at MSG 

From magazines, Courtney jumped into Madison Square Garden—another heritage brand with a whole different kind of audience.

“When I got to MSG, I thought I understood entertainment. I didn’t,” she said. “The fanaticism of sports was something else. The Knicks were losing, but the fandom was so real, it kept the revenue flowing. It was a fantastic experience as a marketer. It shifted my perception about how to tell a story and what a brand meant to a consumer.”

Those storytelling lessons carried into the roles that followed Courtney’s time at MSG. At Audible, she told stories with cultural authenticity with the launch of Audible Latino. And at Twitter, she made sure the brand had a culturally relevant, authentic voice in other countries.

With each industry change—media, sports, tech—Courtney was building her skillset as a marketer who could drive cultural and brand impact. 

Meeting the mission at Kickstarter

By the time Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor called her about an opportunity, Courtney knew what she wanted: to lead marketing for a brand with a mission she cared about.

“I wanted to impact culture, but the mission had to matter too. Kickstarter is about keeping your creative independence and owning your ideas. That resonated with me—being part of the greater good and still making a living out of it.”

Courtney came into the business with the task of making Kickstarter relevant to a new generation of creators and backers. To do that, she’s rethought the brand’s presence digitally and IRL. 

“I like to think we're all brand ambassadors at the company. Myself, Everette, and other executives being out there speaking on behalf of the brand has been very important. We’ve also made an investment in social media and how we show up on different platforms.”

A Standout Campaign

Of all her recent work, Courtney lights up talking about Kickstarter’s Ideas in Action campaign.

“We wanted to show up where we were born—Brooklyn—and celebrate 15 years of Kickstarter. It wasn’t about going global right away. It was about being representative of where the company planted its roots.”

Courtney said Ideas in Action was a test campaign so she didn’t put the largest budget towards it. Though it was niche, it had a global PR presence that helped it reverberate more broadly.

“When I came to Kickstarter, we had not done larger marketing campaigns before so I said, ‘Let’s see how this campaign does and where we want to put our dollars.’ We ended up using our PR presence and creator stories to expand more globally, and we got a lot of great press from it.”

Advice and Takeaways

1) Do the job before you have it.

Courtney built her career by leaning into stretch assignments and acting beyond her title. “You don’t just get the job. You’ve got to be doing the job ahead of getting the job.”

As you move through your day to day, don’t wait for permission to lead. If you see a gap, start filling it. By operating as if you already have the role you want, you not only gain the skills but also prove to leadership that you’re ready.

2) Find the fan in every brand.

From Madison Square Garden to Kickstarter, Courtney learned that fandom isn’t just for sports teams. “Every brand has its own kind of fandom. The job is to figure out what keeps them coming back, even when the team is losing or the product isn’t perfect.”

Instead of chasing broad appeal, dig into what your audience cares about most. The quirks, passions, and obsessions of your community are often your best growth engine.

3)  Make customers the story.

At Kickstarter, Courtney’s mantra is, “If creators succeed, we succeed. Their wins are our wins.” This mantra is evident with a quick glance at the company’s social media. Creators (literally) have the mic and tell their stories, giving Kickstarter’s brand a more personal, human-centered feel. 

Explore how you can spotlight your customers as the heroes of your brand. Feature their voices, share their successes, and build narratives around their journeys. When you amplify them, your brand grows naturally alongside them.

Think long-term: What could help make your campaigns more successful over time? The right agency partner. And Vendry can help you meet yours, for free. Get started.