The Smartest People We Know In Business: Stephanie Latham (VP Global Brand Partnerships & Advertising, Roblox)

Summary

Help Wanted Podcast Summary
Episode: The Smartest People We Know In Business: Stephanie Latham (VP Global Brand Partnerships & Advertising, Roblox)
Release Date: December 31, 2024
Hosts: Jason Pfeiffer & Nicole Lapin

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1. Series Introduction: The Smartest People We Know in Business

In this episode of Help Wanted, hosts Jason Pfeiffer and Nicole Lapin delve into the strategies and insights of some of the brightest minds in the business world. This series spotlights influential leaders from top brands, exploring what makes their businesses thrive and how they navigate the ever-evolving market landscape.

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2. Guest Introduction: Stephanie Latham

Host: Jason Pfeiffer
Guest: Stephanie Latham, VP Global Brand Partnerships & Advertising at Roblox

Stephanie Latham joins Jason and Nicole as the featured guest, bringing her extensive experience in brand partnerships and advertising within the dynamic environment of Roblox. Her role involves forging strategic alliances with major brands to enhance user engagement and drive platform growth.

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3. Lightning Round – Brain Pick

To kick things off, the hosts engage Stephanie in a rapid-fire "brain pick" session, uncovering personal insights and preferences.

• Last Person Stephanie Emailed: Her mom.
  [04:07]
  Stephanie: "My mom."

• Least Favorite Marketing Buzzword: "Synergy."
  [04:12]
  Stephanie: "Eel house synergy lately."

• Favorite Childhood Marketing Campaign: Absolut Vodka’s creative bottle prints.
  [04:23]
  Stephanie: "Absolute. When they did all the bottles print was still really big... It really got me into advertising."

• Out of Office Message: Clear and factual.
  [05:09]
  Stephanie: "I'm not available."

• Most Used Phone App: Roblox, followed by WhatsApp.
  [05:43]
  Stephanie: "Obviously, Roblox. I guess WhatsApp is a close second."

• Last Marketing Campaign That Converted Her as a Customer: Elf Beauty’s partnership on Roblox featuring lip oils.
  [05:56]
  Stephanie: "They made their lip oils available for purchase in Roblox. I could not help myself."

• Go-To Email Sign-Off: Uses exclamation points frequently.
  [06:30]
  Stephanie: "Anything with an exclamation point."

• Avatar Appearance on Roblox: Flaunts a stylish and branded look.
  [37:55]
  Stephanie: "She has fabulous hair... a fabulous Gucci bag, a coach dress, some Adidas shoes..."

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4. Understanding Roblox's Marketing and Growth Strategies

Stephanie offers an in-depth look into Roblox's unique marketing ecosystem, emphasizing the platform's community-driven approach.

• Focus on Community:
  [11:29]
  Stephanie: "What we have leaned into a lot from the marketing side is using the lens of our content... the community that comes together, which basically becomes a viral loop."

• Content as a Vehicle: Emphasis on original IP and brand partnerships that resonate with users, fostering organic growth through shared experiences.

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5. Marketing to Gen Z and Gen Alpha

Stephanie discusses the nuances of targeting younger demographics, particularly Gen Z and Gen Alpha, highlighting their distinct behaviors and preferences.

• Demographics Breakdown:
  [12:39]
  Stephanie: "The majority of our users are Gen Z now. Our fastest growing cohort. Myth busting is actually 18 plus."

• Challenges: Traditional media struggles to reach these groups. Instead, they thrive in interactive, co-creative digital environments like Roblox.

• Authenticity is Key:
  [15:03]
  Stephanie: "From a brand perspective, authenticity becomes really important because this is how they're operating."

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6. Successful Marketing Campaigns and Brand Partnerships on Roblox

Stephanie shares examples of successful collaborations between Roblox and major brands, illustrating the impact of thoughtful partnership strategies.

• Adidas Partnership:
  [16:13]
  Stephanie: "Adidas took a big risk and gave their IP over to one of our UGC creators... It sold out instantly for 2 million robux."

• Beetlejuice and Warner Brothers Collaboration:
  [17:00]
  Stephanie: "They created an escape the Afterlife experience and integrated with existing Roblox experiences, which contributed to their box office success."

• Key Takeaway: Trusting the community and allowing creative freedom leads to authentic and successful brand integrations.

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7. Use of AI within Roblox

The conversation shifts to the role of Artificial Intelligence in enhancing Roblox's platform and operations.

• AI in Creation Tools:
  [28:32]
  Stephanie: "We are investing heavily in AI on the creation tools... making it easier for more creators to join the platform."

• Efficiency and Human Touch:
  [29:54]
  Stephanie: "AI is great for efficiency, but high-touch relationship aspects still require a human touch."

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8. Meetings Culture and Productivity

Stephanie elaborates on Roblox's approach to meetings, emphasizing efficiency and respect for employees' time.

• Meeting Philosophy:
  [30:11]
  Stephanie: "Meetings need to have clear agendas and desired outcomes. Chunking work into strategic meetings and deep work is essential."

• Trust and Remote Work:
  [32:32]
  Stephanie: "Let people work where they want to work to be their best selves and be clear on expectations and trust."

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9. New Initiatives: Selling Merchandise via Shopify

Roblox is expanding its commerce capabilities by partnering with Shopify, enabling creators and brands to sell merchandise directly from the platform.

• Shopify Partnership:
  [33:13]
  Stephanie: "The spirit of this actually is to bring commerce to all of our partners... pairing digital twins with physical items."

• Consumer Behavior Insight:
  [35:16]
  Stephanie: "Young consumers view their digital and physical identities as interconnected, presenting a unique commerce opportunity."

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10. Advice for Small Businesses on Marketing

Stephanie offers strategic advice for small business owners and side hustlers aiming to maximize their marketing efforts with limited budgets.

• Prioritize Organic Growth:
  [36:09]
  Stephanie: "Drive traffic to your experience... Instagram is a great place for jumpstarting."

• Utilize Roblox Tools:
  [37:07]
  Stephanie: "We recently launched search terms for creators... helping them succeed without high costs."

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Conclusion

Stephanie Latham’s insights shed light on Roblox's innovative marketing strategies, emphasizing community engagement, authenticity, and the seamless integration of digital and physical commerce. Her expertise provides valuable lessons for brands and businesses aiming to connect effectively with younger audiences in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Notable Quotes:

• "Friends helping friends make progress." — Jason Pfeiffer, [00:51]

• "Authenticity becomes really important because this is how they're operating." — Stephanie Latham, [15:03]

• "Meet the audience where they are, right?" — Stephanie Latham, [25:02]

• "You need to be able to be flexible and fluid as things are happening." — Stephanie Latham, [26:32]

• "Time is the most valuable resource that we have." — Jason Pfeiffer, [31:17]

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This comprehensive discussion with Stephanie Latham provides a deep understanding of how Roblox leverages community and brand partnerships to drive growth and engagement, offering actionable insights for businesses seeking to navigate the digital marketing landscape effectively.

Transcript

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[Jason Pfeiffer]

This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor in chief of.

[Nicole Lapin]

Entrepreneur Magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

[Nicole Lapin]

And it starts now.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Our listeners want to build better businesses and better careers, and that's why Nicole and I are here to unpack the trickiest problems at work. But you know what? Sometimes it's also really helpful to just look around at the smartest businesses in the world and ask, what are they doing? What makes them so smart? And this is where Nicole and I are lucky because we happen to know lots of incredibly smart people at the smartest brands who we can just call and ask. So that's why we have a series called the Smartest People we Know in Business, which is really the smartest people we know in business at the smartest brands in business today, where we get to ask them what's working over there and what are you doing that's so smart? And today we're exploring the enormously popular gaming platform, Roblox. If you have a nine year old boy like I do, then you know Roblox as the gaming platform that is absorbing all his time while he should be eating his chicken nuggets. But what you don't know is that because Roblox is is one of the world's biggest gaming platforms, the world's largest brands also want to be playing on Roblox, which is why Roblox has built a sophisticated, very smart partnership program. And understanding that partnership program can tell you a lot about how to build amazing business partnerships today. And wouldn't you know it, we happen to know the smart person behind all those partnerships. Her name is Stephanie Latham. So, Stephanie Latham, welcome to Help Wanted because you are now officially one of the smartest people we know in business.

[Stephanie Latham]

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[Nicole Lapin]

We're excited to have you and we know you, Stephanie. But let's get to know you a little bit more through a lightning round that we call brain pick. I'm sure you get requests all the time to pick your brain. So let's do it for everybody. Like a group brain pick. Are you ready?

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Despite. Despite brain pick being truly one of the worst phrases in the world.

[Nicole Lapin]

But everybody asks, right? How many times do you get asked to get your brain picked?

[Stephanie Latham]

Pick my brain. Let's go. Yes.

[Nicole Lapin]

All right, let's do it. So who was the last person you emailed?

[Stephanie Latham]

My mom.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Stephanie, what is your least favorite overused marketing buzzword?

[Stephanie Latham]

Oh my gosh. So many cringies.

[Nicole Lapin]

Eel house synergy lately. Feels like nails on checkboard. But yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

What is your favorite marketing campaign from your childhood? Dig deep.

[Stephanie Latham]

So this is why I emailed my mom. Because I this says about me but I was obsessed. I don't know that this was original, but I was totally obsessed. Absolute. When they did all the bottles print was still really big. This is ages ago. I'm Dating myself and just so many creative articulations of what you could do with this bottle. And that really got me into advertising, actually. So my bedroom was wallpapered with it.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

That's so funny. My bedroom was too. And looking back on it now, I don't think I even understood what absolute was.

[Stephanie Latham]

Me neither. Right. But so creative. I just loved everything about it.

[Nicole Lapin]

Some young girls have new kids on the block. Stephanie has marketing campaigns on her bedroom wall. Perfect. But when vacation. Stephanie, what's your out of office message?

[Stephanie Latham]

Oh my gosh. Probably pretty factual, but super clear. I'm not available.

[Nicole Lapin]

Mine is in case of emergency call 91 1.

[Stephanie Latham]

You can borrow it if you. I think I need to up my out of office.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Oh, mine is the saddest answer, which is that I don't have one because even when I'm on vacation, I'm not tearing myself away from email.

[Stephanie Latham]

I'm trying to get better at that.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Jason, I wholly endorse it. And I completely disparage my own answer and attitude towards vacation. So don't be like me. Stephanie, what app on your phone do you use the most? You can't say Roblox.

[Stephanie Latham]

Oh, man. Obviously, Roblox. I guess WhatsApp is a close second.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

What's the last marketing campaign that converted you as a customer?

[Stephanie Latham]

We recently did a partnership with Elf Beauty. We have an ongoing partnership with them on Roblox. And they made their lip oils available for purchase in Roblox. And I could not help myself. And now I'm addicted and have them in every color of the rainbow.

[Nicole Lapin]

Lips look rather juicy.

[Stephanie Latham]

Thank you.

[Nicole Lapin]

In the best way possible. That probably sounded so weird. Way to make it weird, Nicole.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah, Geez. What is your go to email sign off? How are we ending emails?

[Stephanie Latham]

You know, anything with an exclamation point.

[Nicole Lapin]

How many, though, do you ration your exclamation points?

[Stephanie Latham]

I probably need to ration them more, but I'm an effusive person and I feel like email is not my favorite mode of communication. So you need to, like, up the ante.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

I endorse that. When I was in college, I had like a personal stand. Like, I will not use exclamation marks. And then eventually I realized that it just makes you sound very stern because people can't see you type. And so exclamation mark I think is now just the. It's just the default mode of communication. It just means you're being warm.

[Stephanie Latham]

I didn't realize my exclamation obsession, but anytime any on my team Will draft something or give me something. It has so many exclamation points that I just realized it's just become. Don't put it. Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

People are like, are she mad? Yeah.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Latham]

Right. Exactly.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, you have to own it. Own it.

[Nicole Lapin]

Exclamation point. How often do you check Roblox's stock? We're assuming you have part of your compensation package. Is stock.

[Stephanie Latham]

Sure, Absolutely. The truth is, and Nicole, you have to counsel me on this, but never. I feel like we're early in this build on what my team is working on. And so I think sometimes that like short term view can be a distraction to where you're going. I also happen to be married to someone in finance, so I typically like, don't spend all of my energy on that stuff. But I'm like long view person.

[Nicole Lapin]

I think that's right.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah, I think it's right too. I look at numbers that I am tied to on a very regular basis. I don't look at newsletter subscriber numbers. I don't look at listener numbers. I don't like that stuff. I just want to focus on making the good thing.

[Stephanie Latham]

I think it can be a distraction. Right. If you're like clear on where you're going, keep going and the rest falls in line.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

All right. What slogan should go in the marketing hall of fame? I can't remember. Absolute. Had one, so can't go there.

[Stephanie Latham]

I love Taste the rainbow.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

So, Stephanie, something you don't know about me, which I'm going to tell you and then you're going to want to spend the whole episode talking about it, but we can't because we have to ask you about your smart things. But is that I don't have a sense of taste or smell like I haven't since childhood. And when you said taste the rainbow, which is Skittles. Right. It just made me think. I don't actually know. Do the do all. Do the skittles taste different? Does a red and a green. Do they taste different?

[Stephanie Latham]

Yes, they do.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

They do.

[Nicole Lapin]

Oh yes. Red is the best. It kind of tastes like cherry. Like a distant cherry.

[Stephanie Latham]

Oh, okay.

[Nicole Lapin]

Stephanie, if you have a question for someone on your team, will you call, text, email, WhatsApp, what's your go to mode of communication?

[Stephanie Latham]

Depends how urgent it is, I guess. D All of the above, but probably. I feel like we're pretty slack heavy at the moment. And I'm a phone caller too. Have a few minutes. Just wanted to check in kind of.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Person who is a CMO that you.

[Stephanie Latham]

Admire Someone who has really admired lately is Michelle Crossan, who's the CMO over at Ulta Beauty. We've worked together for years in various roles that she's had. But what I love that she's doing is bringing this idea of making joy accessible to all. Joy is like one of her core values as a human, as a leader and watching her take that to a new company and build it into everything they're doing from a joy council and just I love that. I love the like bringing the goodness of the world through your professional. And of course I have to give a shout out to Corey and the Elf crew. Just the bold swing that they constantly move to change the norms and tackle all kinds of big topics is always just so inspiring to see. And I think what makes marketing fun when you can really push the envelope.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Love that. All right, Lightning round is over. We now move on to. You know, I had mentioned in my intro that I have a nine year old, his name is Fen. He loves Roblox. We have played a lot of death ball lately. For those who don't. Basically you are in a environment with a bunch of characters and there's ball going around and it's going to come towards you at anytime. And when it does, you have to press the button to swing your bat or whatever it is at the right time to hit that ball towards someone else. Otherwise it hits you and you die. That's why it's called death ball. It's actually pretty fun. But you know, also nine year olds have longer engagement times on video games than I do. So eventually I'm like, can we move on to a different game but no death ball. Anyway, Stephanie, I know Roblox from a consumer standpoint, but as a business guy, I love understanding the business behind this. What is the engine and what is driving this great growth. You stand in a really interesting spot over there at Roblox. Can you orient us to the world of how Roblox markets itself and what the marketing focus and strategy is right now?

[Stephanie Latham]

Or I think what is really special and unique about Roblox is this whole community, right? So there's our developer community that's creating all these experiences, there's our users, which yes, are your son, and many more, all the way up, older. And then there's brands, right. And so the intersection of how it all comes together I think is not just really exciting, but that becomes the main vehicle that we're using to tell our story. So what we have leaned into a lot from the marketing side is using the lens of our content. Right. And letting that lead the way. So many of our top experiences now have their own ip, have legs and extensions outside of, have really created fans and they bring that with them. And the same thing is true with a lot of the brands, partners we work with. Right. So you take, obviously we talked about elf, but you Walmart discovered we've done a lot of stuff with music partners and they bring new people in. Our focus is less on the actual brand of Roblox and more on the power of the content on the platform and that community that comes together, which basically becomes a viral loop because as you were sharing, you were playing with your son. People are playing with each other. And so that just then continues to expand.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Nicole Lapin]

And who's the main community would you say your kids are? Gen Alpha. Right. Jason?

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Is that. I don't.

[Stephanie Latham]

Yeah, I think, I think we're calling them Gen Alpha now. So we of course have a great Gen Alpha audience, but the majority of our users are Gen Z now. Our fastest growing cohort. Myth busting is actually 18 plus. And so you're seeing a lot more content come to the platform that's really resonating with that cohort. And as you all know, like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, just how they communicate with each other, how they blur the digital and physical, it's so different than how we have grown up or how we communicate with each other. And that's all transpiring on Roblox, which is really interesting to watch. So back to your question, Nicole, what is that community? It's really all three facets of that coming together. The users, the creators, and then now the brands are playing a bigger role in that space too.

[Nicole Lapin]

And Stephanie, I love you, but I don't think you're Gen Z.

[Stephanie Latham]

What? I thought my zoom filter was looking so good.

[Nicole Lapin]

The lip oil was really compelling. What are some of these challenges and considerations when you're marketing to? I just remember being the youngest person in the room for so many years. You know, as an elder millennial, I'm no longer the youngest person in the room. So what are some of the challenges that you face when you're trying to market to Gen Z and I guess to the younger ones in Gen Alpha.

[Stephanie Latham]

Well, first, thank you for adding me. I am super interested in how they are connecting and how to reach them. And I just think watching all of that has been really fascinating from where I sit. Look, they're really hard to reach in traditional media. That doesn't surprise you. I'm sure you know that in some Cases you're l it Jason they spend a lot of their time in some of these new channels, new forms of entertainment they love to co create. So they like to do things with friends. And for them that line between digital and physical is totally blurred. Right. So the way that they're meeting friends, building community, it's just really magical to watch. And so I think what's really special about Roblox is not just the time they're spending, but, but that co creation and co experience component of it I think really speaks to them and how they like to operate. I guess from a brand perspective, authenticity becomes really important because this is how they're operating. And so the need to really lean in with a lot of curiosity on how this is happening. So then you can then translate that back to your brand in an authentic way. It's not a just show up, check the box environment.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

I before I ask you another question about Roblox, I just want to make you feel better about Nicole's call out there. A little bit ago, a couple years ago I was talking to a speaking agent who was considering bringing me on and we had a nice conversation. And then at the end he said, you know, I wasn't planning on bringing on any more middle aged white guys this year, but I think. And at first I was like, oh well that's cool because that's not who I. Oh no. And then I realized like this is the first time someone was referring to me as a middle aged white guy. And I guess I am. So that was horrible. So here we are talking about reaching the youngins with that. Yeah, let's talk about how this plays out in practice because you know, what you said is really useful, but it's so helpful to see it play out in the real world. And especially as someone, if you've interacted with the games on Roblox, I understand why it's really engaging. I understand why my son is really engaged. But I think sometimes people are like, but then how does a brand play in that space? Where does economic opportunity get created in that. So can you tell us about a marketing campaign on where a brand took a big creative risk and then what other business businesses can learn about why that risk paid off?

[Stephanie Latham]

Yeah, let me give you a couple we can. Yeah, we can back together. So I think one really recent one that I love to see happen was Adidas took a big risk and gave their IP over to one of our UGC creators whose trade and together they collaborated on a one of a kind virtual necklace that was bundled with two rare physical pairs of shoes. So they let control of the brand a little bit, trusted the community, which I think is one of the key rules of engagement on Roblox. And the second they launched that, it sold out instantly for 2 million robux. Significant, right? It gave them a signal of, okay, this is how we typically use our brand and ip, but there's something really powerful about trusting the people that know this community really well and what that then does for us. So I love that. Different type of an example. You may know, maybe you've already been to see it, but Beetlejuice launched and Warner Brothers came to Roblox with an idea of like, how do we make this moment even bigger? How do we make sure it extends not just to people reaching other places, but let's get everyone involved, the whole family involved, and make sure that we take advantage of everything that how we can extend this IP into Roblox and make it immersive. And so what they did, which I love, is they created an escape the Afterlife experience. Right. Launched it well before the movie, so they were able to send people there, but they also integrated with four different existing Roblox experiences so that they were able to really organically get Beetlejuice into everything that was happening on the platform. And then to even just continue, they partnered with us on exclusive ugc. So like items right at the core of Roblox is your avatar and what you're wearing. And so they partnered with us on a few exclusive UGC items that we were able to pair with gift cards. So they're being featured at GameStops around the country right now. And really just bringing that all together to harness the power of our community. They had an epic first weekend at the box office and they credit a lot of that to this because this was additive to their normal playbook.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

And just to translate for people who don't know, like when you're talking about ugc, which is user generated content and also like these items that people are buying for their avatar. So what you're talking about is like my son, for example, continues to buy these things that his avatar can wear or that transforms him. He's currently this like kind of gigantic, crazy future, devilish looking thing. I don't even know what it is. But that's what you mean because there's this world of things that you can acquire and then they carry with you into every game and experience that you're in, right?

[Stephanie Latham]

Yes. So your identity is where you start when you log onto the platform and you decide who you are how you want to present yourself, what you want to wear. Oftentimes you change your attire. Many times in a session we see that. And just to give you a sense of scale, I think in the first three quarters of last year, 1.6 billion items were sold for Avatar. So there's just this really robust marketplace economy that brands are looking for ways to authentically intersect. Because once you buy that Adidas necklace or Adidas shoes, Adidas has a variety of items available in our marketplace, then you're wearing it for two and a half hours a day on the platform, right. And you're an ambassador in many ways. So it's a really exciting place to play, especially as we're getting into commerce and sort of social commerce now. And to be able to multiply that is really interesting for brands.

[Nicole Lapin]

So a bunch of brands give you a bunch of money, right? I'm assuming at least six figures, seven figures. I'm. I'm assuming multiple seven figure deals. When they give you all that money, what do they expect? What are the most important KPIs right now for success for brands?

[Stephanie Latham]

So right now I would say we think about Roblox very much at the top of the funnel and the brand awareness, right? So they're looking for like how many people that can they reach? And then how are we able to move metrics like brand perception, purchase intent, really like top of the funnel and then on top of that, I think there's an association with Roblox of we are Gen Z, we are immersive, we are the future. And a lot of brands really like benefiting from that in their overall marketing ecosystem as they bring in new customers and continue to engage with existing customers.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Stick around. Help wanted. We'll be right back.

[Nicole Lapin]

Let's just double click on the funnel. For anyone who doesn't know, can you just go through what the funnel is.

[Stephanie Latham]

What it looks like or usually we think of marketing in terms of the top of the funnel is like brand awareness kind of association with what's happening. And you move people down through the conversation you have with them as a marketer, as a brand and the kind of your lifecycle with them to get to a point where they convert, right? Convert to purchase or convert to whatever action that you want to take. And Roblox right now plays very much at the top, right? In that awareness space of what you can do. There are other and things that you're getting a very direct correlation to the return on your spend because you're able to show that a purchase has happened or close the loop, we like to.

[Nicole Lapin]

Say, which I only recently, I don't know, maybe in the last year or so, discovered a whole new fun acronym because there's just not enough in business and finance. Roas.

[Stephanie Latham]

Yes. Return on ad spend.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's important. Otherwise, what's the point of an ad spend if there's no return?

[Stephanie Latham]

Super important. And I think just going back to the Beetlejuice example, right. I think what we're really doing and striving to do more is that correlation, right, between what do all the. How do all these metrics then impact the box office and how do you show incremental lift from it? Because at the end of the day, return on ad spend is the holy grail.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yeah. And if you say ROAS three times in a row, then it goes up. Stephanie, let's zoom out from Roblox for a second and just think generic hot thing, hot platform, hot something. Generic brands who want to reach people and start stampeding towards that hot whatever it is. This is something that we see all the time and we've seen it done very clumsily. I won't call anybody out, but let's just say a lot of people spent a lot of money buying houses in the metaverse or whatever, and it didn't make any sense. I wasn't there. So now let's apply it here. What is your advice for, you know, brands and Roblox, but also more generally, as people think about how to engage with wherever culture is, whatever's hot right now? Like, how should you do something where you engage in a smart way instead of just coming across like you are doing it because everyone's doing it or because you're supposed to do it, or you don't understand it, but you're there anyway and you've got a bunch of money to spend. How do you do this smartly, first.

[Stephanie Latham]

And foremost, like, curiosity and authenticity. So I think you've got to make the commitment to understand where you're going and what's already happening there. So you're the brand expert, you know your brand better than anyone, but you have got to understand, like, where you're taking it so that the translation can happen. And I think there's a lot of trust that has to happen there in the community. Right. The Adidas example is a great one of trusting the community to help figure out what that authentic play is. I think there's also, like an organizational readiness piece. This reminds me a lot of early days of Social, where immersive experiences in gaming sit is not cut and dry. Like, it doesn't look the same in every marketing organization. It doesn't look the same in every agency. And so I think one of our objectives on the roadblock side is to make it easier for people to come and engage with our audience, to meet them where they are. You might be ready to have a persistent experience. You have a team built out and a strategy, but you might actually just benefit greatly from integrating into experiences that we already have. Right. And take the halo effect and their return on ad spend, if you will, from that. So we see everything from Coach doing an integration this summer with Fashion Famous to launch one of their new lines, right? So they tapped into an existing audience that overlapped with who they wanted to connect with and were able to release all of these virtual items to them first. Right. And then we see other things like the NFL giving their IP and licensing to our top football game and then allowing that to have them tap into their next generation of fans. Right? So you see the full gamut of this. And now we're even opening up other solutions like video, which are really open to everyone. And you can thoughtfully then think about what your video assets are or who you want to target, but access to our community, just doing it in a really thoughtful way so that they feel seen and that you're showing up authentically.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

You know what's funny about that football example, which I wasn't aware of, was I bet that if somebody wanted to make a football game and they hadn't done it yet, and they went to the NFL and they were like, what does it cost to get the license for all of your IP so I can put it in my football game? The NFL would have said $800 billion. It would have been so much ridiculous. But they went and they. Somebody created a football game that didn't have NFL branding, and it really took off and it was where people were. And so now the NFL very smartly says, well, we've got to be involved over there. We've got to start engaging. And the, the rules in a way change, right? Because I assume, I assume the NFL did not charge them $800 billion, which they might have if the, the flow of creativity had gone a different way.

[Stephanie Latham]

I, I think that's just like the cardinal rule, right, of meet the audience where they are, right? And then do it in a way that's authentic. And stuff that doesn't work is when you don't do that. So this behavior is already happening. It's super relevant. Lean into it and then think about how you land and expand, how do.

[Nicole Lapin]

You balance what's going on in the zeitgeist or trends that are happening with evergreen strategy? You guys did a bunch of cool collabs. One with Charlie XCX and Peak Brat Summer Fashion. Where do you think there's a line between trendiness that's not going to have staying power and evergreen marketing strategy?

[Stephanie Latham]

I think about trends. Kind of like there's trends in IP trends in fashion. And then Roblox, we also see trends in behavior. So what was so interesting? And for those that are listening that don't know, we were able to integrate Brat Summer and Charlie XCX into one of our top performing experiences, which is called Dress to Impress. And it's essentially a fashion show type experience. You get a theme and you collect items and then you walk down the Runway and the other users in the experience with you vote on the winner. And so we were able to bring in some of the Brat fun from the summer to that, which was actually tremendously helpful for our creators. Right. We're always thinking about our creators and that was very beneficial for Dress to Impress also brought in a lot of new users and new female users to Roblox, which was very positive. But I think that the thing about the trends is like back to the brand authenticity, right? That it wouldn't have been as authentic for another brand to do that or run with that in the way that they did and that matchmake wouldn't occur. So when we talk about brands coming to Roblox, we always like to say come with your open canvas, don't come with your masterpiece. Because you need to be able to be like flexible and fluid as things are happening. So it might be the behavior that you want to lean into. It might be a cultural moment that is so natural for you to own. You want to jump into that. But I think that flexible and fluid with your approach and then also just really clear on your brand values. Right? Because it's so easy to jump into every trend, but every trend doesn't make sense for every brand and your objectives.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Speaking of trend AI, it's not exactly a trend, but it can feel like a trend because every business starts waving a flag that says, we have AI, we're using AI. I actually have no idea how, if at all, Roblox is integrating AI. But I'm curious, number one, what your team is doing with AI. But then also where you have found AI to not be helpful and what you would advise companies to be thinking about or alert to as they engage with this.

[Stephanie Latham]

Sure. We can't have a podcast without talking about AI.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

No, it's actually not legal. Yeah, yeah. It was a bipartisan agreement for last year.

[Stephanie Latham]

So, you know, on the Roblox front, we really are investing heavily in AI on the creation tools. Right. We want to make it very easy for more and more creators to join the platform and to make it even easier for them to bring their dreams to life. Immersive 3D this has been super exciting to see. Quick anecdote. My daughter who is your son's age, we'll get him in this program next year. We host camp over the summer and it was absolutely amazing to watch these kids and teens come in and be able to in the course of a week, build really compelling experiences. So I just think you look at that, you look at the AI making it accelerate that even more of what they want to do is really wonderful to see and fuel their entire community. I love AI for all things efficiency. On the business front, I love Gemini, I love Copilot, I love everything that kind of like makes life easier, more effective, more efficient like the note taking and meetings. But I still struggle. Things that need that last mile customization are still really hard to do authentically with AI. Some of the more high touch relationship type things I just, I think still require that human touch or that personality piece that I have not successfully nailed with AI.

[Nicole Lapin]

You mentioned note taking in meetings. Right now we're seeing a lot of discussion about meetings versus deep work and putting parameters and boundaries around the length of meetings and all sorts of other things. How do you think about meetings on your team?

[Stephanie Latham]

I love this topic because I think often we live in a culture that's like death by a thousand meetings and I think that in so doing we lose the time to really have the space to think about the things and put the time into the things that we need to do. My general rule of thumb, I like meetings for things that need to be like discussed, debate, decide. That can't happen Async. So anything that's like the Google Docs gotten out of control. Like it was best intentions to not have a meeting. But then we need to bring everyone together with a really clear like in the next 25 minutes. I also think meetings need to have clear agendas and desired outcomes and everyone needs to have a role. There's nothing worse than getting on the meeting and there's 30 people and am I here to be informed? Do I need to take the lead on next steps? A waste of time and then maybe like the third Thing or I don't know how many things I said, but I think chunking stuff is really important. So I think it's better to have a couple hours of strategic meetings and then a couple hours of deep work and thinking versus 30 minutes. 30 minutes. 30 minutes. I think that code switching is really hard to do your best work in either of those settings.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

You don't even have time to do the work if it's just meeting after meeting after meeting. Yeah, I totally agree. I have a sticker on my computer that says this meeting could have been an email because I hate meetings. I also shout out Sarah Kellogg Neff, who runs a company called the Lactation Network, who has a policy, which I love, which I want to talk about all the time because I want everyone to adopt it. The policy at the company is anybody can opt out of any meeting at any time with anybody, including her, the CEO. If you got invited to a meeting and you're like, you know what? I can't make this meeting. I have more important that I got to do. I just got to be heads down, breastfeed, maybe, like, sure. Or answer emails about breastfeeding or like, literally anything else, then go for it. You can do it. You have the CEO's blessing. I love that. And she says it's basically all about signaling that she trusts that her team can manage their time better than she can. And when you. Yeah, like, when you empower people to be in control of their own time and time is the most valuable resource that we have, then you have given your team such an incredible gift, but also the trust that they can do great work and then they will do great work.

[Stephanie Latham]

I could not believe that more. Right. I'm also a huge believer in remote work for that reason. And let people work where they want to work to be their best selves and be clear on expectations and trust. Like, it all comes down to trust like that. That I love. That speaks to my soul. Yeah, she would.

[Nicole Lapin]

Six months pregnant, by the way.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Yes, we definitely can. Thank you. All right, let's talk about what's new in the Roblox world, because Roblox just announced that it's going to get easier for creators and brands to sell merchandise from the Roblox experiences. What are you focused on when developing partnerships with brands who want to sell on the platform?

[Stephanie Latham]

So this is new, as you guys said. So we're still really early on this, but we did just announce a partnership with Shopify, and the spirit of this actually is to bring commerce to all of our partners. So the creators are a very important audience in this too. If you think about some of the top experiences on Roadblocks, have tremendous IP extensions and opportunities to continue to build fandom and loyalty by enabling this. So the spirit of that always is to grow the whole community. From a brand perspective, I think it's a really interesting opportunity to lean in and test. Back to. We talked about this Gen Z, Gen Alpha crew. They behave differently, right? They transact differently. And so to be able to meet them where they are and where they are shopping with friends is really interesting. So you think about that. For a brand, the ability to pair this, like, digital twin with physical item is pretty interesting. So not only are you getting the person wearing your Adidas shoes all around in the real world, they're also wearing it all around in the virtual world. And for this customer base or these Gen Z shoppers, they see their identity as the same in both places. So I think it's a really interesting opportunity for brands to lean into as they're connecting authentically with their customers. The future is still several years out from full mainstream Commerce Channel here, but I think there's a lot to experiment and learn from what we're doing. And we have a lot of brands that are excited to have a new way to connect thoughtfully with our audience.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

That's actually a really fascinating insight about young consumer behavior that, that they. There are these two parallel. We used to think in the early days of digital that, oh, everyone's escaping into this, like, digital world and they're leaving the real world. But no, what if actually they are existing in what we think of as two worlds, but it's really one world and they're so synced up that they want to be wearing the same shoes in the real world as they're wearing in the digital world. Like, it's not separate things, it's the same thing. And that actually is an incredible commerce opportunity. This is really interesting.

[Stephanie Latham]

One thing about, like, how fun it is if you're going shopping with friends, right? Incredibly easy. You don't have to coordinate when you're going to the mall or where you're going. You can literally do this on Roblox and then you can get the physical item too. So again, very early stages. But exactly what you're saying, Jason, is like, why we have so much energy and we're so bullish on this for the future. Meet them where they are, right? And this behavior is already happening. So now we're just opening up to more brands and partners to be able to take advantage of it.

[Nicole Lapin]

Stephanie, I think our listeners are going to find this conversation so smart, duh. And interesting. But a lot of our listeners are also small business owners and side hustlers who maybe are just starting their marketing efforts. So ROAS is super important. If you were starting a small business or if you had like a baby marketing budget, five grand or something like that to spend, where would you spend it?

[Stephanie Latham]

Well, if I were a creator and I was building an immersive experience, I think I would 1000% use it to drive traffic to my experience. My items on Roblox, I think depending on what category of small business I had, I'm still a big fan of Instagram and I think that's a great place for jumpstarting and I think there's a lot of correlations. But I do think the type of business really there are so many solutions out there now that the type of business kind of lends to what platform is best.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

I might argue if you have only $5,000 to spend on marketing, see what marketing you can do without spending that $5,000. The incredible value of really smart organic content cannot be understated. And I assume people have built incredible things on Roblox. Not having spent any dollars, it's made something great. We're really thoughtful about the community that they attached it to and off it went.

[Stephanie Latham]

I think that's the spirit of my a little bit of push for a creator who's done something like this on Roblox can go a tremendous way in that halo effect and in the fandom they're able to build. And in fact, before we develop any ad products for brands or anything, we're always thinking about that developer community first. So we recently launched search terms for them. Right. Again, very low barrier to entry and cost, but very helpful. Helpful for them to create the associations with the experiences they want to be next to and help them succeed. That's one of our biggest KPIs as a company is how many developers are able to exist from being Roblox creators.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Stephanie, I can't believe that we didn't include this in the lightning round. So I'm going to ask it to you now. What does your Roblox avatar look like?

[Stephanie Latham]

Oh, I wish we had a visual I would show you. Well, she has fabulous hair, of course. Far better than I could ever imagine. She has a fabulous Gucci bag, a coach dress, some Adidas shoes, a mango jacket, and totally fabulous multi string pearl situation.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Wow.

[Nicole Lapin]

I think Jason had that multi string pearl situation on his.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Oh yeah, we're gonna play a lot of a very fancy death ball together.

[Stephanie Latham]

I will be the fanciest one in Death Ball ready for you.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Amazing. Well, Stephanie, see you there. Thank you so much for coming on Help Wanted and being so smart.

[Stephanie Latham]

Thank you for having me. You guys are the best.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.

[Nicole Lapin]

Pfeiffer, and me, Nicole Lapman. Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. You want some help help? Email our [e-mail] for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagramoneynews and TikTokoneyNewsNetwork for exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance?

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Oh, I didn't sign up for that.

[Nicole Lapin]

All right, well, talk to you soon. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate price and coverage match, limited by state law. Not available in all states.