CarMax just promoted a longtime employee to CMO. She tells Insider how she went from search analyst to marketing chief.

Turning CarMax into an ‘iconic’ brand

CarMax has grown significantly since it started as a Circuit City side hustle in the early 1990s, but Lane hopes to turn it into an “iconic” brand.

“We haven’t permeated culture in the way that brands today want to and need to, to have that lasting legacy,” Lane told Insider. “I don’t want to be one of several in a consideration set. I want to be the only place to consider when you buy a used car.”

CarMax has already made inroads toward that goal, Lane said, through big name partnerships. In 2022, it began a multi-year partnership with the National Women’s Soccer League and in May, it renewed a partnership with the WNBA. CarMax has recently partnered with sports stars like Candace Parker, Sue Bird, Steph Curry, and Usain Bolt — and intends to do more of those types of ads to make sure the brand is part of the cultural conversation.

“You’ve seen us use female athletes in our commercials and we’ve gotten a lot of value there,” Lane said. “It helps drive sales but it also connects the brand to something more important and bigger. It’s more important to be in the hearts of people.”

New messaging

Lane is also building messages around a bevy of new products from CarMax, from taking advantage of trade-in offers to helping to nail down financing. As electric vehicles become more popular, she also is looking to help customers understand EVs, so they know what to look for when they buy a used one.

“A big consideration with a used car versus a new car is how mechanically it breaks down over time, and how to think about repairs,” Lane said. “When you change the car type, everything else is different.”

She’s also monitoring the United Auto Workers strikes to figure out how they could potentially drive more demand to the used car market. “Anything that disrupts the new car supply chain works its way down to us,” she said.

Rising up

Being chief marketer means Lane has to do a lot of big-picture thinking — considerably more expansive from when she started at CarMax nearly two decades ago as a search marketer and analyst. But those roles prepped her for what was to come.

“That’s the most tremendous training ground for a lot of roles in business,” Lane said. “Everything has become so data-driven and it’s a luxury to grow up around analytics and what drives the business.”

While data science provided a good foundation, Lane was later entrusted with larger projects that gave her more responsibility and a wider view of CarMax’s different facets. Twelve years ago she led a massive effort that modernized CarMax’s brick-and-mortar stores, which were these giant warehouses from the big box era.

“We brought more warmth to the space,” Lane recalled. “We had all kinds of elements, like a greeting station pushed back versus a traditional dealership where you feel attacked once you go in. It looked pretty starkly different.”

That job required Lane to get out of marketing and work across CarMax’s various operations. “I learned a ton in our process about our retail experience and what our associates are doing every day,” Lane said.

Then a few years later, Lane led CarMax’s digital transformation.

These projects helped equip Lane for the CMO role, and she credits the support from a high level exec, then-SVP of marketing Joseph Kunkel, for helping her land them.

“He was one of the first ones that saw something in me and believed in me, certainly before I personally felt ready,” she said. “He put me in some different seats and advocated for me.”