WHM Feature: Female Marketing Leads Drive Growth & Loyalty For Consumer Brands

This Women’s History Month is an excellent opportunity to highlight all the innovative, exciting work that women CMOs are doing at consumer brands around the world. As digital becomes more and more indispensable to consumers and brands alike, CMOs are prioritizing digital strategies for authentic engagement with prospective and existing customers.

Minjae Ormes Of Visible Prioritizes Consumer Needs 

When considering how to market to consumers with evolving behaviors, Minjae Ormes, CMO at Visible asked, “How do we first and foremost create the kinds of experiences that people expect now across the industry? Just the simplicity, the seamlessness, but also the humanity with which you show up as a brand and a business.” During the pandemic, Visible, a prepaid cell phone carrier owned by Verizon, saw the chance to create engagement with new consumers and offer a solution to people concerned about bills during economic uncertainty. “We want to introduce the product to people who don’t know about us. This isn’t about the moment or saying ‘We’re here for you because of everything going on.’ We’re a product to fit people’s needs at a value price, but quality you don’t compromise on. This is who we are and who we’ve always been,” said Ormes. 

The resulting “Meet Visible” spot focused on offering a trimmed-down service for new consumers and aired across digital channels, including OTT and social media. Visible also leaned into digital and organic channels to build awareness about its products and services, leveraging a robust social media strategy. (Currently, Kevin Bacon is the new brand ambassador for visible and he can be seen on Instagram, floating in a pool, promoting the brand’s latest deal.) Throughout her career Ormes has prioritized a “holistic approach to inclusion, community and engagement,” which has been reflected in social responsibility initiatives from Visible, like #VisibleActsofKindness, which raised $250,000 for people affected by COVID-19.

Julia Goldin Keeps LEGO Agile When Consumer Behaviors Shift

At the most recent ANA Masters of Marketing Conference, Julia Goldin, EVP and global CMO for LEGO, talked about the importance of children to the LEGO brand. For LEGO, creating something new isn’t enough; the brand wants to have a positive impact on children in the long run. “Children are our role models,” said Goldin. “LEGO wants to inspire the builders of tomorrow who are all the children of the world. We feel we have a role to pay in giving them a developmentally healthy childhood.”

For many CMOs, ushering their brands through 2020, one of the most difficult years in recent history, meant listening to consumers to understand new behaviors, wants and needs. The reality of families stuck at home together wasn’t lost on Goldin, who found herself in the same boat. In response to many families’ changes in circumstances, LEGO stepped up and amplified its #LetsBuildTogether strategy. The #LetsBuildTogether initiative includes a microsite on the LEGO website that offers coloring pages, master builds, family friendly LEGO sets and other activities aimed to keep kids engaged and building. 

YouTube also played an active role in creating opportunities to build, with LEGO designers showing off their fun builds and encouraging families to do the same. The designer videos have more than four billion views on YouTube. “It only takes six LEGO bricks to make 915 million different LEGO combinations, and each combination sparks a child’s imagination and begins to give them the skills they need for the 21st century,” said Goldin. 

Bozoma Saint John Of Netflix Looks To Continue Growing With Personalization Strategies Across Digital Channels

Netflix CMO Bozoma Saint John explains that, for Netflix, the marketing strategies are “not just driving awareness of the brand, but the awareness of titles.” Adding, “If [viewers] don’t know what Queen’s Gambit is, I have to go tell them. That’s where personalization with SMS, email, Facebook paid social is key. I can anchor a campaign with billboards and TV ads, and then once [a consumer] has context, I’m going to tell them why it’s personal.” 

Saint John, previously head of marketing at Pepsi, Apple and Uber, was hired in June of 2020, as Netflix was enjoying an uptick in subscribers because of the rise in streaming during COVID-19. The veteran marketer has been tasked with leading Netflix’s “next exciting phase of creativity and connection with consumers,” according to Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer. In Q4, Netflix added 8.5 million subscribers and revealed that it has 500 TV titles in the works and a record 71 films set to premiere in 2021. Saint John’s “love of consumer behavior” and belief that “storytelling can change perception across cultures” are likely to play a pivotal role in the next digital evolution of Netflix marketing and subscriber acquisition.

Dara Treseder Of Peloton Prioritizes Members To Build Loyalty And Scale Subscriptions

“We’re always member forward. We wouldn’t be where we are today without our dedicated members. And, so everything we do – from how we design our bike, to how we program our content, to how we market – is really optimized to create a better experience, not only for the members that exist today, but for our upcoming members,” said Dara Treseder, senior vice president and head of global marketing and communications at Peloton. Hired in August of 2020, Treseder is now at the creative helm of one of the fastest-growing fitness brands in the world, with Peloton reporting that in Q1 2021, connected fitness subscriptions grew 137% to more than 1.33 million, paid digital subscriptions grew 382% to more than 510,000 and total members grew to more than 3.6 million.

For Treseder, staying connected to the Peloton community is the ticket to maintaining the integrity of the Peloton brand and growing the subscriber base. The “Meet Our Members” advertising campaign, Treseder’s first big launch with Peloton, features real riders for the first time in the company’s history. The riders share why they ride and the affinity groups, or Pelotags, they ride with. The spots debuted across over-the-top (OTT) and social media channels and were a stark contrast to the slick spots the brand has shown in the past, instead building on the consumer behaviors that are driving Peloton use and loyalty. “Our Peloton community [of millions of members] really comes from people from different walks of life,” said Treseder. “We all have our reasons, we all have our different walks of life, but we all come together as one Peloton, and we wanted to show that. We wanted to show that diversity across age and race and gender and location and language. And we do that through this ad.”

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