“We shouldn’t be having this particular panel,” said Emily Freed, global account lead at TikTok. “It should be a given.”

Indeed, many panelists in the conference’s women in leadership track acknowledged exasperation with the need to keep pushing to increase female representation in the top ranks of the industry. Marketing organizations are seeing more women in the C-suite, but challenges remain, said Marc Sternberg, co-founder and co-CEO of Brand Innovators. 

In spite of the progress women have made in the workplace, there still remains some residue of “this scarcity mindset” where women still expect to be the only female in the conference room, said Erin Malone, senior director of marketing, analytics and insights at apparel brand Free People. Fortunately, the industry is also seeing more women working together “to bring ourselves up,” she said. 

Despite recent pushback against diversity and inclusion drives at many corporations nationwide, the drive is “a mega continuing trend” that won’t fall to pressure, said Amanda DeVito, CMO of Butler/Till. She noted that she worked with the agency’s two female founders when they wanted to turn over management to continue its efforts to remain an inclusive workplace. 

“The age is shifting,” she said. “I don’t even know why we would have the discussion about walking it back.” 

The pandemic pivot, paradoxically, helped many executive women, as remote work and videoconferencing highlighted the “second shift” that many still face, and their efforts to balance both. Being an executive and a mother is like being a superhero, with the struggle of managing work and home going unnoticed, “but during COVID we got a glance,” said Jessica Ricaurte, chief revenue officer at Adsmovil. 

“COVID happened, and now there are no more secrets,” said Ashley Schapiro, VP, marketing, media, performance and engagement at American Eagle. She remembered being on a video call with her boss, who was consistently distracted because Schapiro’s young daughter was—quite literally—on her head. 

The remote work pivot gave the industry a glance of what executive women—and mothers in particular—have to juggle, said JulieAnne Evanina, senior VP, brand marketing and creative at SiriusXM. “Balance is sort of a myth,” she said. 

Women need to keep pushing forward, finding allies and avoiding the trap of self-imposed perfection, said speakers. “Successful men didn’t do it by themselves,” said Jen Vianello, CMO of Cars Commerce. Find allies and champions in the organization—whether they are male or female—document and celebrate the successes to build your personal brand, and learn from failures, they advised. 

Executive women in marketing have to learn to let go of overhyped expectations, accept will fail sometimes and learn from those failures, said speakers. “Trust yourself. You know so much more than you think you know,” said Kathy Maurella, CMO of sparkling water brand Waterloo. 

Allies are important, as is finding a supportive partner who will hold down the domestic front sometimes, and having both mentors to advise and champions to empower a woman’s work. “Find someone else to bring you into that session, into that conversation, into that room,” said Amy Lanzi, CEO North America at Digitas. She credited her predecessor, Sharon Love, with helping her ascend and building a network for women at the holding company, Omnicom.  

Jennifer Halloran, CMO, head of marketing and brand at MassMutual noted that she often has to teach young women in her team to step up and take the spotlight. In meetings, women often gravitate to the outer ring of chairs in the conference room, rather than sit at the table. “If you were invited to the meeting, your name on the invite was the same as anybody else,” she said. 

“I don’t care who’s in the room. If you did the work, it’s your turn,” said Maurella. Women have to take credit and document their successes, including keeping tabs on all praise and recognition for a job well done, said Sukhmani Mohta, chief marketing and partnerships officer, display division, Samsung Electronics America. “It really helps in end-of-year conversations.” 

Indeed, asking for pay equity and recognition remains a barrier for women in many organizations, said speakers. “If you won’t do it for yourself, Do it for a hundred women that are in the industry, so you’re establishing a baseline,” said Lanzi. Women still face obstacles, but they can be overcome with effort and using skills that come more naturally to them, such as emotional intelligence and persistence. Alison Herzog, head of global corporate marketing at Visa, likened EQ to a “superpower” that allows women to “read a room” and adjust. “To some degree we all hustled to get to where we were, but also used our superpowers to overcome the obstacle of being the only female in the room.”

The post Women marketing execs talk challenges at Advertising Week appeared first on Brand Innovators.

Having spent more than eight years at the global medical device company, she says that the brand has always relied on creators to help tell its story of changing lives through better smiles.

“Social media and influencers have been a core part of our approach before influencer marketing was influencer marketing,” says Bhandal. “We have been a leader brand and a challenger brand at the same time. We’ve had to be scrappy – we turned to real people using Invisalign telling their stories.”

Bhandal says that brands need to join the conversation, and for that matter, earn their place in the conversation, rather than broadcast messages at consumers. 

Incorporating creators and storytellers into their messaging, had to be natural. “We collaborate with individuals who want to transform their smile and then have them tell about their experience authentically,” she adds. “That is how we earn the right to be a part of conversations.

Bhandal was recently named to Brand Innovators Women to Watch in Brand Marketing Class of 2021 list, has spent her career gravitating between tech, consumer and health tech companies, learning the best of both worlds. She will be speaking at Brand Innovators’ Women in Marketing livecast on May 12.

Brand Innovators caught up with Bhandal from her home office near Align’s offices in the Bay Area to learn more about how the brand is approaching social media and Gen Z and what is in store for 2022. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Social media and influencer marketing have been transformed since the pandemic began, as more consumers turn to digital channels to engage. Can you talk about how this shift is impacting how Align connects with consumers?

As consumers were engrossed with digital content, we leaned into that. We have always been a data-driven brand, a data-driven team, so we leaned into what the data was telling us and that is that consumers were responding positively to creator-led content and it is also really important to us to show up authentically in the marketplace and that became even more important through the pandemic, so that we could ensure that we were striking the right tone in the moment when there is not a lot to smile about.

We turned to creators to help us spread smiles and create joy. Creators talked about their experiences with Invisalign(R) aligners in their own words. It’s been an impactful way to share our brand story and educate consumers about what to expect with Invisalign treatment. 

Can you talk about the Invisalign brand pillars and how these foundations shape your approach to marketing?

Our mission is very much centered around transforming smiles and changing lives. Everything that we do stems from that purpose. There are a few elements to that purpose. One element is functional. We straighten teeth but we do so much more than that. We really do find that people who use Invisalign and have their smile shaped the way that they want it shaped, transforms their lives and it transforms their sense of who they are. Our pillars have always stemmed from that purpose. 

Beyond that for us what becomes important is to earn the right to be a part of conversations. Gone are the days where brands can talk at people. I think it is incredibly important that brands earn the right to become part of conversations. It is a core part of how we go to market, whether that audience is an adult who is thinking about changing their smile –hopefully that is a right that we earn, or if it is a Mom or a Dad who is considering for their child, or the teen themselves. We all know Gen Z is incredibly full of choice, in terms of which brands they allow into their lives. For us it is important that we show up authentically and that we meet consumers on their terms. 

Prior to working for Align, you worked at Progyny, Johnson & Johnson, and Sun Microsystems. Can you talk about how these experiences have shaped your current role?

My career has been at the intersection of consumer, health and tech and each chapter of my career represents those pillars. I started off in tech and I learned a lot during my time in hardware and software independently. Never did I think that I would utilize the hardware and software skills that I gained during my early years in tech to the degree that I have throughout my career .

The second piece is working in big companies and small companies, you learn different things. I have worked in both and have volleyed between both. Intel was a great place for me to gain an understanding of the fundamentals of business. Intel is a fantastic organization when it comes to process and really helping you learn about the various aspects of its business. Sun was a big company, though at the same time it was very much startup-like. What you learn in a startup is that you are the jack of all trades. As a marketer, you are both the copywriter, the web producer, the web developer, the product manager, the product marketer, the brand manager, all of these things souped up into one. You learn how to be nimble, make decisions quickly and you learn how to apply best practices from a tech development standpoint to your marketing approach. 

And then Johnson & Johnson was the place where I really had the opportunity to learn consumer marketing. Since then, I have been pulling on all of those learnings across my career into my roles, both at Progyny, which was a startup, and of course here at Align. If you think about where we were at Align when I first joined, we were roughly 5000 people worldwide and now to think about where we are today 8+ years later and the growth that we have had is just phenomenal.

As a leading woman on our Women to Watch list, what advice would you give to other women trying to succeed in marketing?

Remember that when you are in a room of onlys and firsts – if you are the only woman in the room, if you are the only person from an underrepresented group, the first marketer, whatever the first is – remember there is a reason why you are there,” she says. “Don’t let the only or first allow that self doubt to creep in.”

Use your seat at the table to have a conversation. When you are in conversations and you are in those meetings and you are at the table, share your perspective. Don’t let that opportunity pass you by and have the seat that you do have at the table go wasted.

Also remember that it is all of our responsibility to reach down and pull up. No matter where you are inside of your marketing career, think about other women inside of your network, inside of your organization or organizations that you can get involved in to help create access for others. There is always somebody who you can help reach their potential and help navigate this otherwise wild and crazy world so that she too can be successful.

What predictions do you have for 2022?

The creator economy and Gen Z is going to continue to demand that brands show up to the market differently. I also think that more and more brands will begin to engage creators to become a part of the creative process as opposed to only being amplifiers of other content that is created elsewhere. I think that is going to be a big trend. 

The second thing that I will say is that it has never been more important for leaders to lead with compassion. It is remembering that compassion starts with not just having empathy with other people but it is in the daily interactions that you have with people and really trying to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and take the pause to understand what might be going through their head, what might be the unique challenges that they are navigating because every person’s pandemic experience is a different experience. People have different needs, there is no universal need. Teams are made of people who are very very unique and I think part of compassion in my mind is really ensuring that leaders take that time to get to know the people on the team as individuals.  Get to know their story, get to know who they are. Spend some time, have a coffee chat virtually. 

The post Innovator Interview: Align Technology’s Kamal Bhandal appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“As live games and events were canceled, our games have really become a vehicle for sports consumption and it has really broadened the engagement of sports fans who are coming for a game to connect and participate,” says Hopelain. “We had a really exceptional year with our biggest launch year yet. We had unprecedented success with our FIFA launch, we’ve seen Madden NFL engagement grow week over week, and we had one of the top racing games of the year with FI 2021.” 

EA SPORTS – which includes Madden NFL 22, FIFA 22, NHL 22 among its robust line of games– ranked No. 4 for most culturally relevant brand according to a recent global study by creative sports agency Ear to the Ground, behind only Nike, Adidas and Jordan.

“I am really proud of our position on that list,” says Hopelain. “We were 9th last year. I am really excited about the future of sports. The future of sports is interactive and EA SPORTS is well-positioned in the industry today. EA SPORTS has become sports and leading not just with the amazing products and experiences we are building but leading with our values and meeting our fans where they are.”

Embracing athlete and consumer values is a key motivator for the brand. During Ramadan, the brand ran a campaign with a team called the Midnight Ramadan League. “This was a piece of creative centered around FIFA and the world of global football but tapped into a group of really passionate footballers, who observed Ramadan and would have to wait until after dark and after the break in the fast to be able to participate in sport,” explains Hopelain. “We followed their journey during Ramadan on how their values were still held very true but they still were able to exhibit and participate through the love of sport with one another. That was a really powerful piece of creative that really showed our audiences how we are focused on serving the diverse communities that love sport around the world.”

Brand Innovators caught up with Hopelain from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area to discuss EA SPORTS growth, the shift from linear to interactive entertainment and working as a female leader in male dominated industries. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The sports video game industry has grown significantly over the last few years. What kinds of experiences are consumers looking for and how is EA SPORTS building these experiences? 

It has been a massive year for EA SPORTS. We have had over 230 million players engage with our games over the last year or so and we are on trend and have great ambition to hit 500 million fans in the next couple of years. We have had tremendous growth and we see great growth coming ahead. That growth has really been driven by some very important trends, some of which have been blooming for some time but the pandemic has definitely helped accelerate some of those trends for us.  

Those trends are that we have really started to see the shift in consumer consumption of entertainment from linear entertainment into interactive. So participation has grown and wanting to participate is increasing.

The second trend is that we have seen social connections shift from physical engagement with one another to digital socialization. What has been most powerful about that is that we are seeing the digital space has really opened up avenues for like-minded people. So where so much of our connections in the past are about who is around us and our communities, now the digital space has opened up channels and sports fans in particular to connect with like-minded fans that share the same love of athletes, teams and clubs with them. 

Those trends over the years from linear to interactive and physical to digital connections have allowed us to really thrive in the sports space as the world has continued to evolve to this new way of working and living.

How is the company approaching NFTs and how do you expect this to evolve?

Fandom is really continuing to evolve. We are seeing many adjacent spaces in the sports category with things like NFTs, which are really just a new digital form of collectibles, fantasy, wagering, watching highlights, all of these things that are really adjacent in engagement territories for sports fans. At EA SPORTS we are very focused on continuing to serve the fans and we spend a lot of time with our players and our fans really trying to understand their motivations and the things that are really lighting them up in the spaces. I do believe we are uniquely positioned to win in some of these spaces. We are going to continue to be focused on meeting our fans where they are, with adjacent experiences that extend from the interactive play that we already deliver.  

Can you talk about EA SPORTS’ brand pillars and how these foundations shape your approach to marketing?

Our mission at EA SPORTS has always been to grow the love of sports. And as we think about that, that comes through a lot of different vectors. It comes through play. And for us play and competition are really intrinsically tied because so much of sport is around competition and whether that is playful, friendly, or head-to-head competition. Play and compete continues to be at the foundation of how we grow the love of sport. 

Other pillars we’re focused on are how we allow fans to connect with one another, to participate, to create and to watch. 
The other thing that has become an important growth driver for us, is as fandom is evolving, we are seeing sports fans care as much about the athlete as the team. Sports fans, particularly Gen Z sports fans, are following athletes versus teams. I grew up following the Denver Broncos and watching a Broncos game with my Dad. Today, the next generation is following the athlete. And that athlete is not just about the stats that they show up with on the pitch or the octagon or on the gridiron, it is really about their values. So for us at EA SPORTS, our proximity to athletes and their values and how we show up and market and talk about values is important to the motivations of our fans. 

Prior to EA, you spent years at Hasbro, Disney, ESPN, and Sony. Can you talk about how these experiences have shaped your current role and how your resume in entertainment is key to this experience?

I have been very fortunate to work and grow my career with companies that center their entire being around creativity, innovation, fandom, brands that make real emotional connections with their audiences. Being able to connect with fans, being able to tell stories, being able to talk to passionate consumers has been one of the most thrilling parts of my career. The thing that keeps me coming back to work every day is serving the fans through the characters, the stories, the worlds, the teams and the competition that they enjoy. 

As a leader on our Women to Watch list, what advice would you give to other women trying to succeed in marketing?

It is an honor to be on that list and to sit next to some amazing women that I have met in the community. I take my role very seriously in helping to cultivate the careers of women in leadership. I happen to have spent the bulk of my career in heavily male dominated industries whether it was time early on at ESPN or here at EA SPORTS in gaming. I know that my role as a female leader here is significant. I take a lot of pride in mentoring the next generation of female leaders. I also encourage women to seek out other mentorship opportunities, not just with me, but with other leaders who they see characteristics and traits in that they want to emulate and really building that network of mentors that can teach and guide. I really believe we need to continue to include female voices in all of what we do in particular in a male dominated industry. It is really important that we show up as women for our female players and audiences.  

What predictions do you have for 2022?

I expect the video game space to see an acceleration of those trends that I mentioned at the top. Content consumption really shifting from linear to interactive and connection moving more digitally. If you combine that into some of the adjacent territories, I think that our players and our fans are going to lead us on exciting new paths  with their different set of motivations. 

On a more human level as I think about my team and the teams that I get to lead every single day, the last two years have been a really wild ride in how to drive culture, in how to drive creativity, in how to support our most talented assets, which are our teams. We have learned a lot about each other at home, we have met each other’s families at home. They have all made special guest appearances. I do think that as leaders, it requires that we show up in 2022 as many of us return to work in the office with a different level of empathy with a different level of understanding of the humans we have gotten to know over the last two years, not just the employees.

As a creative company that thrives on the kinetic energy of being together, we are still working on how to replicate that energy and that has probably been one of the hardest parts for us. We will go back to the offices, we are planning to return in a hybrid environment in the future as we return to the office when it is safe to do so. 

The post Innovator Interview: EA SPORTS’ Andrea Hopelain appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Always be learning, always be adding, don’t be afraid to do something you know nothing about,” says Kelly. “And to actually grab hold of opportunities, jump into them, and when you do, have a look at it from afar and say, what is the legacy that I am going to leave on this position or this company and then write that story and deliver that legacy.” 

Kelly is particularly committed to developing female leadership and paying it forward as she didn’t always know where to look when she wasn’t as connected when she first started out her career. She encourages women to stand up for their value and worth and embrace their boldness and love of  transformation, even if that is seen as negative. 

“I have been described as having the superpower of being bold and brave and honest in business and I continue to do that and I encourage other women to do that and to be comfortable if you are described as bossy or aggressive. Own it. It is ok,” says Kelly. “Women need to not believe that they need to be differential, they don’t.”

“A lot of people say, how do I get noticed or how do I get to the top. Or what does progress look like? Progress to me looks like, what do I want to bring to this environment, to this company, this brand, what is the legacy I am going to leave on it when I leave and then going about doing that,” she explains. “Getting alignment to do it, causing the change that you believe you can cause and then driving that through in performance. If you stay focused on that, you are probably going to be very successful.” 

She also recommends that women follow a career path that excites them. “If you are excited about something, you are probably going to be really good at it,” she says. “Do things you haven’t done before. Do things that excite you because if you are passionate and excited about something, you are going to throw your energy into it in a completely different way and you are probably going to be excellent.” 

Brand Innovators caught up with Kelly from her New York apartment to discuss how brands show up in culture, the importance of purpose and how working in the agency world helped Kelly build different creative and leadership muscles. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you talk about Diageo’s brand pillars and how these foundations shape your approach to marketing?

It is a lot about understanding how to play in culture and how to be relevant in how you turn up in culture and how you connect in culture. It has got to be around relentless recruitment of new consumers into your experiences and new audiences. A keen eye on innovation, what do people need from you? What kind of experiences are they seeking? Where are they seeking them? Showing up as a brand or company with a conscience is critical. 

Crises are never good thing and this one is still going on, but if something good has come out of it, it has been that turning up as a company with a conscious and having a positive impact on the world and being grounded in good and purpose is critical You are not going to get away without being that way. Having shared values with the communities that you are talking to and operating in and supporting the people that support you in business. For our business that is bartenders and people in hospitality. 

It is about math and science, which it always has been. It is about using data in a way that provides utility or a kind of value to consumers. There is a lot of conversation around quality marketing. Yes, you need to understand quality marketing but you still need to use data to provide consumers with inspiration, education, utility and entertainment to bring them into your brand experiences.

At Diageo, we deserve, desire, ease and good. Create desire for our experiences, and what we offer people, make it easy for people to transact with us and access those experiences and then be grounded in good.

What did the pandemic mean for your company, your approach to media/digital and how are you emerging from it?

When you think about people and company, one of the things that I thought was fascinating was the definition of leadership and how that changed and how that was recognized and the kind of leaders that emerged through the pandemic. People needed to be ok with ambiguity, they needed to be ok with changing financial environments and activities, they needed to look at the cultural climate in a completely different way and work out how they were going to go to market that was relevant and sensitive and empathetic and right for the moment in the culture that we were dealing with. 

What you saw was that leaders emerged that were ok with ambiguity and who had an opportunity to find direction and create things and get them out there to move the agenda forward. That sense of entrepreneurialism and drive and decisiveness was observed across all layers and companies. Ideas people and transformative thinkers who are sometimes a little hard to swallow, really rose to the top, because when everything goes to chaos, it is those kind of people who enjoy the ambiguity and the dynamics and the listening to culture, who became energized with ideas to help and to connect in culture in a relevant way.

The notion of leadership and what companies saw as leadership and leaders who emerged was really a big positive out of the pandemic. Also relationships have evolved. We just spent two years inside each others’ homes. You will probably hear my dog bark in a second or something else will happen. There is a level of transparency, understanding, empathy and humanity that we have for people that I don’t think we had before.  

If we are a company that lives at the intersection of socializing and lives in the hospitality industry and stands for celebrating life every day, every way, what does that mean through this time? What it means, is we better get in the game of supporting those that support us. Bartenders, bars, clubs, restaurants, the hospitality industry, our job became, how are we going to pivot to help them? 

What did that pivot look like?

If I were to sum it up in what the biggest pivot was, it was that we had to take an approach that was around respecting the cultural climate we were living in, doing actions that supported people and that had impact far beyond measurement and CPMs and the normal rate of investment on activities. 

From an innovation perspective, we put everything in a can, supporting bartenders to make craft cocktails for people to create at home, so a whole lot of different partnerships and formats were born out of the pandemic.  

We were already connected with the hospitality industry but what we really needed to work out how to support them and what that became is rather than turning our marketing off, we turned it into support. It was important to get bartenders working and connected with consumers and consumers wanted quality cocktails. We did tips from home platform which is where every time you made a drink, take a photo of it, upload it with #tipsfromhome, we will tip a bartender in our community.  

This past summer, Bulleit Frontier Whiskey encouraged New Yorkers to go out. Can you talk about this effort and why connecting with the bar and restaurant community is so important at this time? 

This was all about the most recent activity with Tribeca was all about the fact that our brands sit at the heart of socializing and we have just been in an 18 months period where the cities haven’t had their experiences, they haven’t had their festivals, they haven’t had their music, so part of our role was, we have got to support these festivals to get back. And how are we going to support people and the local community around festivals like bars and restaurants, well we are going to do the first drink on us. What does that do? It just encourages people to get out there.  

Our business is an in real life business. We operate in a digital universe, yes, but we operate our businesses in real life, so we had to take them all digital through the pandemic. And I think we did a really good job of that. We put cause at the heart of it. So we worked with influencers to do concerts and we made donations to people who needed assistance at this time. What you have seen in the recent Bulleit stuff, the first drink on us, is an example of us continuing that support level as things reopen.

Again I am going to say, we wouldn’t miss the last 18 months on anyone, it was horrendous. It is still horrendous for people, and will be for a long time. But out of that period, what we are very proud of is how we turned marketing to actually support those who support us and actually bring partnerships and new formats and new experiences into consumers homes that had cause at the heart of it.

Before you were at Diageo, you spent years holding roles at Pepsi, The Barbarian Group and JWT. Can you talk about what you learned through these experiences that you have brought to your current role?

I was really lucky because I worked in agencies for a long time. I was an account person, I understood how to run a really fierce project. Iwas in planning and in media, so mining data and thinking about consumer insights and constructing communication plans and platforms was always deeply ingrained in how I thought and looked at ideas. At JWT, I did both US business and global business, so I saw the importance of stepping into the future as a kind of global leaders and helping brands in markets think about the next five years vs the immediate performance deliverables that they had in the short term,

If I think about my change out of that into something like Barbarian, which was an amazing journey for me, to help transform what was the coolest digital production shop into a full service agency, was a real business challenge. It was about taking the skills and the story and the heart of that agency and transferring it for really big multinational clients. We started to become known as the people who could create a digital ecosystem and a digital story for brands in a way that other agencies didn’t. It was about transforming PNL from multiple projects to core big businesses, it was about adding capability and talent and resources and accessing resources and ultimately about understanding what happens when your company gets fully bought out and getting your head about that change. 

A new chapter at Diageo, I have learned about supply, value chain, manufacturing, what it takes to take new innovation to market, PNL management, taking brand distilleries and turning them into retail hospitality consumer destinations, really driving the Society 2030 goals for Diageo around inclusivity and diversity and sustainability, what it means to turn up and be a brand of good is something that I am hugely passionate about. We have done some great work, such as the first carbon-neutral distillery in Kentucky and much much more to come. 

I have always believed that creativity helps transform business and that learning and understanding things is what keeps you getting up every day. I have brought this sense of creativity and transformation to this role and I have learned a lot about manufacturing and supply and the business from that perspective that I would not have done in the agency world. It ticks all boxes for me because it is big business, we are making stuff and there is lots of room to transform and we have good at the heart of how we are doing everything. It’s another chapter. 

The post Innovator Interviews: Diageo’s Sophie Kelly appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Our brand purpose is to care for people in life’s journey,” says Craven, who was recently named to Brand Innovators Women to Watch in Brand Marketing Class of 2021 list. “In the business we are in, we get the privilege to be part of some pretty significant moments in our customers lives from trips where they are going to close every business deal to family reunions, to spring break trips to weddings to funerals – big moments in people’s lives that we get to play a role in. Our tagline “You are Why We Fly” is really at the center of all of that. Our job is to care for people wherever they are on that journey while they are traveling with us.” 

The brand launched a new tagline in March 2020 – “You Are Why We Fly” a collaboration with Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Debuting the first new brand work in four years at the beginning of pandemic-era lockdowns, American was ready to adapt to what this means. “Our tagline really reinforced everything we are doing to become a more customer-centric airline,” explains Craven. “In the pandemic, that reflected the work that our front line team members were doing to help keep the world moving. It was essential travel and it was getting doctors to the places that they needed to be, a loved one who needed to be with somebody across the United States. That is what it meant and truly why our teams got out there and kept doing what they did.”  

“Over the course of 2020 and 2021, the message has then shifted to mean how we are connecting people to the other people that matter to them, and that the best places are people and being with others, which I think is something everybody learned in the pandemic, just how important the human connection is,” she continues. “Virtual meetings cannot replace that human contact.”  

Travel has seen a rebound in 2021 and flights have almost returned to 2019 levels. After dropping to only 3 million passengers in March 2020, 65.2 million passengers flew in the US in July 2021, inching closer to the 77.3 million people that flew in July 2019, per the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Even amid the rise of a new variant, airlines are optimistic that next year, flights will begin to return to pre-pandemic levels.

“In 2022, we are really excited about how our brand messaging will continue to evolve,” says Craven. “With the world opening back up and more travel restrictions continuing to be relaxed as well as those passionate travelers getting back out there and exploring the world, new cultures and the globe again,” says Craven. “Returning to travel can mean different things to different people. For one person it may mean exploring one state away and to another it could be exploring more exotic locations. We are excited about how our brand strategy and communications will continue to evolve to reflect this.”

Brand Innovators caught up with Craven from American’s headquarters in Dallas/ Ft. Worth to discuss how travel is evolving, what that means for loyalty programs, and how working in the brand’s London office helped expand Craven’s perspective. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.  

Travel has seen a major impact from the pandemic, first as flights were grounded, and now as demand is spiking as consumers return to those trips they had long put off. How has air travel changed and what long-term consumer trends or behaviors do you think will stick around?

A lot has changed. Two of the big consumer trends are the desire for increased flexibility and simplification in their lives with more travel restrictions and complexities these days. American, specifically, has adapted to that by offering travel tools to help our customers navigate these complexities, especially when it comes to international travel, which can vary market by market and country by country. Our travel tools help customers understand these requirements.  We offer travel resources and check-lists that give the step-by-step guidelines and what customers need to do to be ready for their trip. 

On the flexibility side, consumers now expect it as an option – it started as people were concerned about COVID, but now there is the expectation that “you know what, I want to be able to change my plans, I might want to change those dates.” So we have started to offer various booking options that enable consumers to buy those fares if they want that additional flexibility in their lives to be able to change their plans with no additional fees. People have gotten used to that flexibility in the world and they want that freedom to change their plans if that’s what they choose to do.

How is American changing its approach to loyalty and earning status with your recent loyalty program changes?

The pandemic provided us with an opportunity to reimagine our AAdvantage loyalty program and what that meant for our customers. With travel behaviors changing, we wanted to be able to recognize and allow consumers to build loyalty and to build status with us no matter where they were at in their journey with us or with travel in general. 

Back to the simplicity trend, we simplified it. We had a variety of different metrics that needed to be met in order to earn status with American, now it is really simple. You fly, you can spend on one of our co-branded credit cards or you can spend on one of our partners, whether it be our AAdvantage Dining, our AAdvantage eShopping program or another partner. Essentially you can earn miles through many ways and that all builds towards earning Loyalty Points with us and towards your status. So if you are someone that flies all the time, that is great, you will earn miles and your status. Or if you are someone who really only travels when you are going on leisure trips with your family a couple of times a year, you can spend on your AAdvantage co-brand credit card to earn miles and status.We are excited about what that means for travelers. It gives them more ways to earn miles and build status with us in the ways that they want.

You have spent 11 years at American working on different roles across the brand including time in the London office, and time as an integrated marketing planner. Can you talk about what you learned in these roles and how they help in. your current role directing brand and global advertising?

My time in international was probably one of the best personal and professional experiences that I have ever had. It gave me a different perspective of the brand and understanding of our customers from outside of the US. Also, working alongside our airline partners, I was able to also learn best practices from them and how they approached marketing.

Then back at our headquarters in the US, I’ve held several different marketing planning and strategy roles. In these roles I learned how to work cross functionally with different departments across American to bring together route support plans, product launch plans and how to shepherd some of those big initiatives throughout a large matrixed company. With my international experience, it then gave me a great understanding of how our brand and marketing messages could be perceived by consumers in markets across the world and how our consumer needs change depending on where you are at.

As a leading woman on our Women to Watch list, what advice would you give to other women trying to succeed in marketing?

Always have a growth mindset. Really ask yourself, what am I learning in my current role? Am I taking on a project that is helping me learn something new? Continuing to push and challenge yourself, to really ask, ‘how am I being stretched to learn? 

Also, never underestimate the importance of relationships and that aspect of your role. Relationships can help you bring projects to fruition by helping you to understand a different perspective.  You can ask those tough questions that maybe you couldn’t really ask in a formal meeting setting, but if you have great relationships, you can use that relationship to learn more and understand different perspectives better in a less-formal setting.

I got some great advice early in my career, never sit and eat lunch at your desk every day. Always make sure that you are using that time to connect with others, whether it be your own team – getting to know them better and their challenges or a colleague or someone else in another department that you want to get to know better. We have been back at the office at American for some time now, but for those who are still in that virtual setting, you still have to be more intentional about it and almost plan it out like you would plan out your meetings and your day.

What does 2022 look like for travel?

We know there is a desire for human connection and while virtual meetings are great, we really look forward to seeing more people travel in 2022 for business. We’ve been excited to see our agencies in-person and other vendors and partners face to face. And American will continue to be there to help our customers navigate travel requirements with our Prepared for the Air resources and Ready to Fly checklist. We really look forward to a great 2022. 

The post Innovator Interviews: American Airlines’ Amy Craven appeared first on Brand Innovators.

Since the IPO, the company has seen its revenues and user base grow, cementing its position in the dating app industry. Bumble differentiates itself in the dating app business by honing in on women. The app’s mission is to be the place where women can make the first move and create a safe space for developing healthy and equitable relationships. “The IPO just really allowed us to accelerate and also scale our mission,” says Scott.

Scott was recently named to Brand Innovators Women to Watch in Brand Marketing Class of 2021 list, an apropos placement for a woman who is trying to change the world of dating for women. As we head into 2022, she is very hopeful that next year will be the year of women. 

“I think 2022 is the year of female empowerment,” says Scott. “After almost two years of having the opportunity to be so introspective and thoughtful about how we want to live our lives and who we choose to spend our time with, women, in particular, are just in a really incredible place. There is opportunity for them to feel empowered and encouraged to make the first move in other facets of their life, not just in dating. 2022 is the year of women empowerment and really allowing women to be in their aura, in their natural state.” 

Scott caught up with Brand Innovators from her home in Los Angeles to talk about Bumble’s mission, how the app is working to make the Internet safer for women and how working at Apple and Snapchat prepared her for her current role. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you talk about Bumble’s brand pillars and how these foundations shape your approach to marketing?

What I love about the brand is that our mission and our product USP [unique selling position] are all inextricably linked. The differentiator on our platform is that it is women led. Women make the first move. They initiate contact and really take control of communication, really being intentional about what they are looking for and that is a brand pillar for us too. We are constantly sharing and amplifying the value of what happens when women make the first move and really showing the power and courage that it takes to do that but also the reward that comes along with it. A lot of our marketing is really founded on that pillar of women making the first move and this idea is infused in everything that we do.

From a mission standpoint, it really is about creating healthy and equitable relationships and that has also infused the way we approach our marketing message, our channels, the platforms that we choose to work with and also the message that we are providing potential and existing users about our service. The mission and values of Bumble is also how we approach our marketing.

Online dating as a category has performed well during the pandemic. Can you talk about how you have adapted your business to meet the new needs of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what long-term consumer trends or behaviors you think will stick now that we’re coming out the other side of it?

What we saw during the pandemic was the slow dating movement and I don’t think that that is going anywhere. Slow dating allows people to really get to know each other, slower than they normally would pre-pandemic when they would just make plans to meet up, because that wasn’t possible during isolation and during quarantine. People really invested more time in the app to get to know people, so we added features like video chats and video notes to allow people to express themselves and break the ice. 

We launched on Valentine’s Day, Night In, which is a trivia game that allows people to get to know each other in a really playful and fun way. The slow dating movement was born out of the pandemic and I don’t think it is going anywhere. I think people really enjoyed getting to know people and making sure that when they do go to meet out, they are on the same page already. We have also added features like that vaccination badge and really sharing people’s COVID comfort levels of meeting people or not so that people who were in different places of comfort around meeting out at a bar or at a restaurant or even outside were matched with similarly minded people so that you weren’t forging a match and then not able to actually take it forward anywhere. 

So that was a big shift in the online dating industry. What we chose to do was to create more ways for people to create meaningful connections on the app and spend more time getting to know people through fun, easy and engaging features that we launched throughout the pandemic.

Bumble’s user base has grown significantly over the last couple of years. Can you talk about your approach to customer acquisition?

We have always been very intentional about who we are looking to reach and also connect with. Our growth team and our brand team work together hand in hand to really make sure that we are creating very consistent messaging for the platform and with our users so that when they are in a mindset of using a dating app, which is very apropos for how people meet today, that we are top of mind and on the top of that list. 

We know that people use multiple dating apps but that they use Bumble differently and that their experience on Bumble is different and the benefits also beyond dating, because we also have BFF and Bizz, because we allow people to connect in this very safe environment no matter what they are looking for. Maybe they aren’t looking for a romantic relationship but they are looking for friendship. Maybe they relocated during the pandemic so we are trying to find people no matter where they are in that spectrum and mindset to make sure they know the difference between Bumble and all of the other options out there. 

From a customer question standpoint, people are relying on apps like Bumble to make meaningful connections with people in their life. The main differentiator is our mission and how we approach dating, giving women control and allowing them to make the first move is our core product and differentiator. We ban body shaming on our platform, all kinds of it. We also have a feature called private detectors that uses AI to prohibit unsolicited lewd photos from appearing in people’s feeds. We are trying to create a safe and healthy space where women can create healthy and equitable relationships.

Can you speak about your recent body shaming ban and what the reaction has been?

We announced an explicit ban on body shaming on our platform. That was a no-brainer for us. Body shaming should not be allowed on any platform. Part of the work that we do on Bumble is not just to create that safe environment in the app but to actually create that on the Internet, and in all areas of women’s lives. Our hope is that by starting here at Bumble that will actually have a halo effect on other platforms that people spend a lot of time on. It was a very natural extension for us and our brand but what we are hoping that that will do is actually help make the Internet safer for women in general.

Before you were at Bumble, you spent years holding roles at Snapchat and Apple. Can you talk about what you learned in the agency world and what learnings you have brought to your current role?

I have spent two decades at the intersection of marketing and technology, at the forefront of innovation, that is what made my experience at both of those companies so remarkable. I was at Apple when they launched iAd, which was at the time, Apple’s first foray into online advertising within their apple ecosystem within the App Store, then launched iTunes radio which was an ad-supported music service now known as Apple Music. That was an innovation. It was an uncomfortable place for Apple to be, they didn’t; really allow advertising previously in their ecosystem but as the App Store grew and grew they needed to support developers in monetizing their content. It was a huge honor to work on a brand that is so ingrained in our culture and the way that we spend hours of our time. 

Snapchat also was an incredible experience. I joined shortly after the IPO there and really built marketing from the ground up at a relatively new publicly traded company. I was there for almost four years and really helped marketing internationally, taking our brand internationally, taking our brand and growing it and scaling it from market to market. I worked on incredible activations that we did at industry events, as well as really evolving the app experience through the camera and really codifying the place where SnapChat started between the other social media platforms at the time, really as a communication platform and not as just a social media platform. I feel very fortunate to have worked at clearly some of the world’s best brands.

What I love about my experience is tech. It has always been tech as a force for good. The products that we love, the platforms that we use, the ways that we meet people. These are all amazing advances in the evolution of the way that we connect with each other as humans and it has been amazing to be at the forefront of all of that. 

The post Innovator Interview: Bumble’s Shachar Scott appeared first on Brand Innovators.

“Our job really was to remind parents – so many of them who were Osh Kosh kids themselves – why they first fell in love with the brand,” says Bromberg. “We needed to start by ushering in a bold new creative approach and this really style-focused direction to continue to keep the brand relevant and top-of-mind. Our design team has been evolving the product over the last few years to keep it as timeless and iconic as ever. Consumers really do love the product and love the style, so this was much more a marketing communications mission than a true brand reinvention.” 

Back-to-school was unlike any other year this year, with many children returning to school for the first time after being participating in virtual school or homeschooling for 18 months. This timing offered the brand a great opportunity to be a part of this iconic moment. In July, the brand dropped the “Today is Someday,” campaign which was designed to update the 125 year old brand by paying homage to the personal childhood experiences of iconic celebrities including Outkast’s Andre 3000 and Big Boi, as well as Mariah Carey, whose daughter Monroe Cannon, portraying her mother at age 10 in the spot.

“We wanted to reintroduce into culture ahead of what we know to be one of the biggest children’s wear shopping moments of the year, Back to School,” Bromberg says. “Back to School 2021 was even bigger than usual since a lot of students were coming back to the classroom for the first time in almost a year.”

Bromberg, who was recently named to Brand Innovators Women to Watch in Brand Marketing Class of 2021 list, has also been busy evolving the positioning for Carter’s, helping launch a new organic baby brand called Little Planet by Carter’s, developing Kid Cycle a partnership with TerraCycle, and debuting new collections for the company’s Tween Squad and our Bold Basics collection.

Prior to working for Carter’s, Bromberg held senior marketing positions with Pizza Hut and Hilton. Brand Innovators caught up with Bromberg from her office in Atlanta to discuss the rebrands, the holiday season and the optimism of 2020 babies. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Since joining Carter’s you have been tasked with a major rebrand of the family of brands under the Carter’s umbrella. Can you talk about this process and what you accomplished?

We started by executing pretty extensive consumer research. We built a new comms platform and launched a wildly successful campaign with celebrity talent like Mariah Carey, who was played by her daughter Monroe. The focus was really reaching millennial parents in a way that allowed a reappraisal. It was about reminding them of the brand they know and love and driving a modern perception of it. And we did it with the functional benefit of showcasing a lot of our iconic timeless products like the world’s best overalls and lots of our denim-anchored styles.

We also have this emotional element that inspired future generations to Dream Big. After that campaign, we followed up with a collaboration with the streetwear brand KIPP. They worked with us to design a very cool collection inspired by the OshKosh vintage archive.

Last holiday season you ran the ‘Hello, Optimism,’ and ‘Made for This,’ and a tri-branded holiday sweepstakes that drove the highest volume of contest entries and engagement in brand history. After last year’s efforts, how are you thinking about this year’s holiday season?

It is all about engaging families throughout the season and helping them prepare for family time and gifting. What we found as we talked to consumers is that parents have really shifted their priorities this year. They have been focused on what they deem, really important, and for a lot of our families that is togetherness and family. They are looking ahead to the holidays with a lot of excitement and optimism. They want to share joy with their families and the people that are closest to them. We want to create experiences that make that easy, even amid the stress of the holiday season.

This year we are teaming up with Molly Sims, Vistaprint and a stable of other exciting partners for what we are calling the ultimate holiday giveaway. We are doing 50 days of exciting offers, giveaways and sweepstakes to help families check off a lot of their holiday to-do lists, like ordering their Christmas cards and getting their Mom wardrobe ready to go and even entertaining the kids. We also have Molly Sims curating a list of must-have items. Families can sign up daily for chances to win, things like Carter’s gift cards.

Can you talk about Carter’s brand pillars and how these foundations shape your approach to marketing?

Carter’s is the most recommended baby brand. Carter’s has continued to lead the way for generations and we really have raised the bar for the children’s wear category by innovating consistently to deliver on family’s needs as their needs evolve. So the product quality, value, comfort all the way to those little touches that Carter’s has always been known for like the two-way zipper on our sleep and play that helps you with midnight diaper changes has always been exceptional. 

What we find is that children’s clothing is so emotional. That first body suit that you put on your child, all the way through to the outfit that they pick the first time they ride the school bus. We see that memories and milestones are practically woven into the fabric. Emotion and optimism are the core pillars of the brand. There is joy, there is hope, there is sentimentality, all of those feelings that an expectant and new parent feels when they hold that tiny body suit at a baby shower – it is magical.  

We also know that parenting is imperfect too. Our take on optimism at Carter’s means relating to and acknowledging the challenge and the messy moments of parenting and still helping them see the optimistic bigger pictures and really tap into that magic and joy. Our ‘Hello Optimism’ video spot last year in 2020 was the most overt application of that strategy. It starts in a dark hospital room and describes a lot of the challenges that families faced in 2020. As the spot progresses, the darkness starts to lift and we land in labor and delivery and you see this family welcoming their new baby into the world. The spot ends on the celebration of all of the babies that were born in 2020. Amid so much darkness and difficulty for so many, the babies that were born represented the three million reasons we have to be hopeful, that we can make tomorrow better than today. You see acknowledging the challenge and the stress and the difficulty but still landing in this place of optimism and looking forward.

In 2021, we launched Made for This, which is our new communications platform and brand campaign. We found, outside of the cultural insight, the real true parenting insight is you’ve got parenting books and Instagram and all of these millions of resources that people now have at their fingertips that are all trying to tell them the right way to parent. They are made to feel insecure constantly. Because we have all of these resources. As we spoke to all of these new parents in our ethnographies and focus groups, we found that some were doubting themselves. They were walking through the depths of new parents wondering, “Am I really made for this?” 

The key insight was we wanted parents to believe in themselves. We developed a new brand spot called “Voicemail from Mom,” in which a new parent couple is washing their baby in the sink and in the background you hear the Mom’s mother, grandma, leaving a voicemail for her daughter. She is telling her, “It will get easier. That little baby’s eyes light up when you walk into the room, and that’s what really matters.” You hear that grandma giving the new mom reassurance. It felt so natural. It is that juxtaposition of that stressful bath time routine and the reassurance that just felt so right and moving.

Before you were at Carter’s, you spent years holding roles at Hilton and Pizza Hut. Can you talk about what you learned in these roles and what learnings you have brought to your current role?

The position that gave me the biggest prep for this gig has been my role of Mom. My son is five and he wore a Carter’s bodysuit home from the hospital. I had a ton of heart for the brand as a consumer and I was the Mom who wondered early and often whether I was made for this. I really relate to the mindset and experiences with the other parents in our community. It means a lot to me to be in a space where we can serve as a lighthouse for parents like me. I am motivated every single day to tell these stories that help inspire a generation of parents.

I came up through social media at Pizza Hut. I grew the function as the space evolved and continued to become part of a marketer’s core toolset. Later on in my career, I moved into product and brand marketing and advertising roles at Pizza Hut. I used social and social content to hone my creative skillset through video content and digital activations, which you are seeing a lot of at Carter’s as we look to build communities of parents where the parents are engaging with parenting content, which a lot of time is places like Instagram and Pinterest, and even more so now, TikTok.

At Pizza Hut, I had a couple of faves that really broke into culture. One was partnering with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie to create a lifesize version of the famous pizza thrower toy. We brought it to Comic Con. Later on, I created the PieTops shoes, which were high top sneakers that ordered pizza for you. That certainly prepared me for some out-of-the-box thinking. At Carter’s, I think the pace of QSR and those big crazy bold ideas that helped us break through at Pizza Hut, definitely help us break through here at Carter’s on sales overnight goals and brand overtime goals.

At Hilton, that was about creating distinct swim lanes among a multi-brand portfolio. It was much more about execution and evolution of brand positioning and I led the largest brand in the portfolio, which is Hampton by Hilton, and I was working on a multi-year brand positioning project to help evolve and modernize, which is the first thing that I did at Carter’s. So that certainly helped lay the foundation for both the brand strategy work that I have been doing here.

What predictions do you have for 2022?

We are going to continue to inspire this generation of parents. Carter’s is in a unique position and children’s specifically is in a unique position in that we are introducing ourselves to a generation of consumers who have never had these brands in their lives before and they are entering this really emotional season of life. It is really cool to be a part of it. For Carter’s specifically, we are going to continue connecting with the next generation of parents every day through partnerships, brand creative and of course, our amazing product offering that helps meet the needs of children and young families. We also have some unexpected surprises too.

We are also focused on sustainability to help meet the goals laid out in our first ESG report, which we released in 2020. We are also focused on extending our brand in new ways, so we will be focused on content that really connects with parents in a relatable way that really taps into that emotion. We’ll be in those spaces and places that drive conversation. The world looks quite bright. We are very excited about 2022 after our community of families are coming out of what has been a tough couple of years. There is a lot of hope and energy and a lot of joy and togetherness with our families. 

The post Innovator Interview: Carter’s Jenna Bromberg appeared first on Brand Innovators.