Building Authentic Marketing in Baby Tech with Elizabeth Teran of Owlet

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Marketing Vanguard – "Building Authentic Marketing in Baby Tech with Elizabeth Teran of Owlet"

Date: October 6, 2025
Host: Jenny Rooney (Adweek)
Guest: Liz Teran, Chief Parent Officer (CPO) and CMO, Owlet

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Marketing Vanguard features Elizabeth "Liz" Teran, the newly appointed Chief Parent Officer (and CMO) at Owlet, a pioneering baby tech brand. The conversation centers around building trust and authenticity in marketing to parents, Owlet’s evolution from risky startup to an FDA-cleared medical device company, and Liz’s steadfast commitment to parent-driven product innovation and authentic brand storytelling. Listeners will hear about Owlet’s regulatory challenges, Liz’s unique career trajectory, actionable marketing wisdom—especially in an era of AI—and how community remains at the heart of everything Owlet does.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Liz Teran’s Background and Role Evolution

[02:11]–[03:18]

• Career Journey: Liz has a decade of experience at Skullcandy in product marketing and joined Owlet over five years ago.
• Recently expanded her role from CMO to Chief Parent Officer, leading parenting organization functions: marketing, product management, design, and customer service.

"I'm very much a marketer but I'm also very much a product person and a very consumer-obsessed person... this is really exciting for me." — Liz Teran (02:34)

2. Owlet’s Mission and Product Differentiation

[04:07]–[05:48]

• Born from the founders' desire to address the anxieties of new parents after bringing home a baby.
• Differentiates from traditional baby monitors by providing hospital-grade health data (via wearable sensor sock) in addition to video/audio monitoring.

"We monitor the most important things about the most important people you care about in your home. And that's really what we're all about." — Liz Teran (05:37)

3. Product Evolution, FDA Hurdles & Regulatory Milestones

[07:18]–[10:20]

• Early days: bootstrapping, founder-led innovation.
• Core product, the Smart Sock, launched to meet a clear parental need.
• Significant challenge: Received FDA warning (2022) for lacking medical device clearance, forcing product and marketing pivots.
• Milestone: Achieved FDA De Novo clearance for Dream Sock in Nov 2023; global expansion followed.

"We got the clearance in November of 2023... now we are just taking that medically cleared experience all across the world." — Liz Teran (10:08)

4. Building Trust: Medical Community Relationships

[10:43]–[12:53]

• Initially, many healthcare professionals used and advocated for Owlet's product unofficially.
• FDA clearance allowed strong, open endorsement from pediatricians, nurses, and the broader medical community.
• Clearance received was “De Novo”—the first of its kind approved for OTC baby monitoring.

"We have NICU nurses that love it and recommend it to every family they send home. So it's been really exciting." — Liz Teran (11:53)

5. Importance of Outcome-Focused, Authentic Marketing

[13:14]–[15:36]

• Marketing kept tightly focused on tangible benefits for parents, not just features or technology.
• Shared powerful real-life testimonials about the device detecting invisible but critical health issues in infants.

"That outcome is irreplaceable with another product." — Liz Teran (15:20)

6. Data Acceptance: Adults vs. Babies

[16:27]–[18:42]

• Discussed shifting societal acceptance of personal health data.
• Noted skepticism around health tracking for infants, despite its clear value for early intervention and prevention.
• Liz gave anecdotes on how monitoring health data even for older children has changed outcomes in her own family.

"There needs to be a huge shift in people's desire for—and understanding of—the benefits for this kind of technology from early stages of life." — Liz Teran (18:34)

7. Marketing’s Strategic Seat at the Table

[18:47]–[20:13]

• Marketing is integral and well-supported at Owlet, reflecting the brand’s foundation in solving parental problems and requiring significant education.
• Recent “Parent Org” structure merges product and marketing for greater authenticity and impact.

"In my time at Owlet, marketing has always been a valued perspective at the table." — Liz Teran (19:16)

8. On Influencer & Celebrity Marketing: Relentless Authenticity

[20:13]–[21:35]

• Liz opposes paid influencer/celebrity endorsements, believing parents today are quick to spot (and distrust) paid promotions.
• Instead, Owlet “seeds” the product and welcomes organic advocacy from all parents, famous or not.

"I'm pretty explicitly against the kind of paid endorsement. I think parents see right through it. I think customers see right through it. And for our product, trust is so important that it has to be very authentic." — Liz Teran (20:34)

9. Advice to Marketers: Be Authentic

[23:05]–[24:25]

• Whether for individuals or brands, authenticity is paramount—even more vital during times of rapid change and AI disruption.

"If you're genuinely being authentic to who you are, you're going to find people that will resonate with that and that will invest in that and it will just be so much easier to be good at it..." — Liz Teran (24:17)

10. Owlet’s Approach to AI

[24:56]–[26:21]

• Liz embraces AI tools (like ChatGPT) as accelerators or creative sparring partners but opposes using AI as a "replacement" for human creativity.
• Stresses “common sense” in evaluating where and how AI fits.
• Owlet has a cross-functional AI committee monitoring best practices and regulatory developments.

"I don't view it as a replacement of people or replacement of thoughtfulness." — Liz Teran (25:13)

11. New Product Announcement: DreamSight Camera

[27:20]–[28:25]

• Owlet is launching a new baby monitoring camera, DreamSight, at a $99 price point—making their technology more accessible.
• Bundled with their iconic sock as Dream Duo for a comprehensive monitoring experience.

"We are launching DreamSight, which is going to be a $99 new smart baby monitor camera... As we do want people to feel like we're not an inaccessible brand or product." — Liz Teran (27:41)

12. Building and Nourishing Parent Community

[28:25]–[29:55]

• Community is organically central—word of mouth drives over 50% of sales.
• Owlet Cares Foundation partners with parents and support organizations (loss, special needs, education).
• Actively seeks to involve parent voices in product and brand evolution.

"We are heavily reliant on our community... that's word of mouth that most brands would kill for." — Liz Teran (28:49)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On cutting marketing budgets and stopping paid influencer campaigns:
  "We had to actually cut our marketing budget by over 80% within a year and survive. And one of the first things we cut was paid influencers... our perspective is if you love our product, you'll speak about it." — Liz Teran (21:07)

• On authenticity as both brand and career advice:
  "Just be authentic, like understand yourself. So, what are the things that are driving you?... I do think... you can't go wrong. If you're genuinely being authentic to who you are, you're going to find people that will resonate with that." — Liz Teran (24:00–24:17)

• On Owlet’s core purpose:
  "We monitor the most important things about the most important people you care about in your home." — Liz Teran (05:37)

• On trust and the parent community:
  "I am so wary of going astray from what our parents really need and want." — Liz Teran (29:52)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Liz’s background and new CPO role: [02:11]–[03:18]
• Owlet’s mission & product overview: [04:07]–[05:48]
• Startup story & FDA journey: [07:18]–[10:20]
• Medical community and de novo clearance: [10:43]–[12:53]
• Brand authenticity over paid influencers: [20:13]–[21:35]
• Advice to marketers (on authenticity): [23:05]–[24:29]
• Approach to AI in marketing: [24:56]–[26:21]
• Product launch: DreamSight camera: [27:20]–[28:25]
• Community and word-of-mouth: [28:25]–[29:55]

---

Conclusion

In this episode, Liz Teran exemplifies parent-first, purpose-driven—and above all—authentic marketing leadership. Her refusal to compromise trust for paid reach, deep commitment to parent community, and willingness to embrace both technology and regulatory hurdles are instructive for any marketer, especially in fast-evolving and sensitive categories. The conversation offers actionable advice and inspiring perspective for both brand builders and aspiring marketing leaders.

---

Transcript

[Experian Advertiser]

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers and more across over 200 top platforms. With over 2,400 pre built audiences, there's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust made simple. Learn [e-mail] Adweek that's exp er I ian.com Adweek I'm pretty exclusively against the.

[Liz Taran]

Kind of paid endorsement. I think parents see right through it. I think customers see right through it. And for our product, trust is so important that it has to be very authentic.

[Jenny Rooney]

Hi everyone and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with adweek and I'm thrilled today to be joined by Liz Taran. She is the CMO of Owlet and I'm really excited to dive into this conversation. And as you may know on Marketing Vanguard, I invite CMOs and equivalent titles from a whole host of different kinds of companies to come join me and talk about their personal journeys, what brought them to this place, and the headwinds and opportunities that they face in leading marketing strategy for their companies. And really try to parse apart the decision making that these individuals make. Because as we all know, decisions can change the trajectory of a brand or business in a nanosecond. So we try to really unpack that. That and Liz, I'm thrilled you're here because for one thing, you're going to introduce me to this brand. I'm super excited to learn about it. I'm sure our listeners are as well. But yeah, welcome.

[Liz Taran]

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. And don't worry, I have no shortage of challenges to talk about.

[Jenny Rooney]

Doesn't every cmo. I mean, if that isn't consistent, I don't know what is exactly. No, they might be different challenges. Right? And that's the whole point, depending on category, brand, market, position, et cetera. But I'd love to start by having you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your own personal career journey. Always love to hear that and also love to hear what your educational background is too.

[Liz Taran]

So yeah, I have been at Owlet now for about the last five years. I'll share a little bit about my experience before that. I was with Skullcandy, which is a consumer electronics company for about 10 years prior to that and had a lot of fun. Actually most of my experience at school kidney was in the product marketing realm and so I'm very much a marketer But I'm also very much a product person and a very consumer obsessed person and that's really guided my career and decision making on where to take my career. So that led to me transitioning to Owlet. I like I said, I've been there last five and a half years or so and for the last three years I have led the marketing team here. But actually, and this is new news to you as well, in the last two months or so I have taken on a new role as chief parent officer and chief parent officer leads the new parent org which now includes marketing, product management, design and customer service. So this is actually, yeah, really exciting for me and just thank you so much. So, still leading marketing but getting to get my hands on some of the other things that I'm really passionate about as well.

[Jenny Rooney]

Well, what's really cool about that is, I mean anymore and I talk to folks all the time and yesterday I just happened to have a conversation with frankly an exec recruiter who said anymore a CMO is fully the chief customer officer. And especially in the age of AI and everything else, like I do think that it's taking on a new significance in this era of AI and we can dive into that in a minute. But more and more it seems to be coming into relief that that sort of understanding of your community, your customer, your audience, your participant needs to be first and foremost in terms of what a CMO brings to an organization. So that's thrilling for you. Congratulations. Owlet itself, it's a new kind of company for the baby, infant and baby.

[Liz Taran]

Market, which, yeah, I mean there's no.

[Jenny Rooney]

Shortage of competition in that category. So tell us a little bit about Owlet.

[Liz Taran]

So Owlet, for those that are not aware, we've been around for about 10 years now and it all started actually with a really passionate group of parents who wanted to be able to solve for some of those early challenges that parents are experiencing when they're bringing a baby home. And I'm a mother of two, I have a nine year old and a six year old. So somehow it actually feels like a century ago that I was bringing home my newborn. But that concern, that worry that you feel on night one is just indescribable to someone before they've had a child and immediately understood once you've had a child and there's like an immediate connection with other parents in this struggle that they go through. And I think Owlet was founded on the mission to make that journey more joyful, more reassuring, have more peace of mind, because that's what it should be. But some of those early years are instead plagued with worry and confusion. And that's just not how we want the journey to be for parents. So, yes, the baby category is very crowded, especially baby monitoring specifically. But what's really unique about ALLA is we actually go beyond what traditional baby monitors do, which can include seeing baby or hearing baby. Our founders invented our own proprietary technology that uses medical grade technology on the child's foot to track their life health readings. And when you layer that with being able to see and hear your baby and also understand their life health readings, there is just a level of reassurance and peace of mind that is unattainable from another market. And one of my favorite ways to sum it up is that we monitor the most important things about the most important people you care about in your home. And that's really what we're all about.

[Jenny Rooney]

So it's interesting as you talk about it, you're clearly leaning into the product qualities. And you mentioned your role. You were at Skullcandy before, as you described yourself, you're a product first marketer.

[Liz Taran]

Right.

[Jenny Rooney]

And thinking about that, back to my question about education, I'm just curious, do you have a formal or traditional marketing education? Is there anything in your educational background that is tech related? How did you sort of get to this niche? Because it's a really cool one.

[Liz Taran]

It is, actually. I have a BA in advertising with a copywriting emphasis. And so for me, definitely understanding consumers, understanding problems to solve, and rooting yourself in an insight was some of my more formal training, but also just my passion as someone that loves to buy things and loves marketing, talk to me how I want to be spoken to. So a lot of it is traditional education and some of it is just kind of who I am and what I'm interested in as much as I am product forward and product obsessed. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily technology obsessed. I very much care more about the solutions than like how it's done. And so I kind of naturally lean towards what are the actual benefits, not like, what are the features that are driving them.

[Jenny Rooney]

It's a means to an end. It's not the end in and of itself.

[Liz Taran]

No, I love that.

[Jenny Rooney]

So how old is the company?

[Liz Taran]

It's just a little over 10 years. Yeah. Okay.

[Jenny Rooney]

So I'm sure that frankly, the product itself has evolved in those 10 years as well.

[Liz Taran]

Yes.

[Jenny Rooney]

Okay, so talk a little bit about that because you've been there for more than half of that, the length of its history, I should say.

[Liz Taran]

It's one of those is a little hard because technically founded in 2012, but you know, some of those very early years are four people in a room above a Chinese restaurant, you know, so it's, you know, what, the exact day we had the product first lunch. Which day do you count? But I have been here for a very long time and been through a very interesting evolution. Our main founder that is talked about most, Kurt Workman. When he got married, his wife informed him of a heart condition she had when she was little that led to her as a baby having to get a surgery. And it was genetic. So he was concerned that when they were having kids, that's something he would have to deal with. And as he thought about this problem to solve, he was talking to a classmate at college and was mentioning this and they were saying, I'm a nurse up at the hospital and we use these pulse oximeters on babies and that's how we look at their heart and oxygen. He thought, oh, how cool would it be to be able to bring that technology, technology at home and have that reassurance at home. So he kind of kicked that off. And him in a small group had several different prototypes. They traveled the country in these startup competitions and early stage funding type things. And when they first launched their concept of our hero product, which at the time was called the Smart Sock, the response from parents was just overwhelming, like, yes, this is completely unmet need for us. I didn't sleep when I brought my baby home. I just stared at them for two weeks straight, that sort of thing. So they knew they were onto something. And since then, the sock itself has evolved over several generations. And when I joined in 2020, we were just about to launch the Smart SoC3, which was our most advanced smart sock. Just proven technology, proven accuracy, best functioning product. And about a year and a half after I joined, this is where the challenges come in. We received a warning letter from the FDA saying, hey, you don't have clearance as a medical device, but you're essentially operating as one. And that was obviously huge, horrible ordeal. And it was really interesting because it wasn't that we had any sort of safety concerns. We didn't have any sort of complaints or recalls, but you know, it was a regulatory body saying, you shouldn't be selling this. And also it's interesting because you think about like your Apple watch or your OURA ring, there are tons of devices that do this for adults, but infants are considered a vulnerable audience. And so there's more regulatory hurdles you have to cross to be able to share this information. So I was over the marketing department when we received this letter. And it was a very challenging time, but also exciting time to reimagine the product experience we could deliver while we worked arduously to deliver on a real FDA clearance. And so we got the clearance in November of 2023, and in January of 2024, we were able to launch our FDA cleared dream socks. We do have FDA clearance. We have medically certified clearance all across the UK and eu. We just received medical clearance in Australia. So now we are just taking that medically cleared experience all across the world. And it's such an exciting time.

[Jenny Rooney]

Oh my God. So exciting. So first of all, there's a lot to unpack there. So it was a startup essentially, still founder led, still private company.

[Liz Taran]

We are a publicly traded company.

[Jenny Rooney]

Got it.

[Liz Taran]

Okay.

[Jenny Rooney]

And when did that transition?

[Liz Taran]

Such a good question. That transitioned in June or July of 2022, about two months before our warning letters. So that was really fun. Wow.

[Jenny Rooney]

Oh my goodness. Interesting. Okay, now you're a public company. How have you been building the product with the buy in of the medical community and with physicians and things like that is. It would feel like you'd want to have that, not only the FDA clearance, but perhaps engage with that community just to get buy in or at least credibility in some respects. Because the trust issue is very big for parents.

[Liz Taran]

Right? Yeah. One really super interesting thing in my time in 2022 was, you know, right before the warning letter, we had been doing a bunch of customer research and actually about 30% of our users worked in the healthcare profession and were huge advocates of what was called the smart sock at the time. And the reason they were is they understood pulse oximetry technology, they knew how to interpret it, they knew how to use it, they knew to what degree to trust it and all those sorts of things. But one challenge we did face was if you were to actually go to your pediatrician and say, oh, should I use this product? They would never recommend something that's not FDA cleared. Well, there could be no real sort of official endorsement, even though they made up a huge portion of our actual user base. And post FDA clearance, it's been so exciting and wonderful to see just a influx of pediatricians and healthcare professionals coming in saying, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I can recommend this to my patients. We have NICU nurses that love it and recommend it to every family they send home. So it's been really exciting. There are definitely always going to be some people that take issue with it. But one really exciting thing is the clearance we have on Dreamstock specifically is a de novo clearance, which means it's like the first of its kind. There wasn't a predicate device based on that. We met some other standard for it. There was an extremely rigorous set of standards that we had to meet net new for a brand new technology that was going to be over the counter and we were able to meet those standards. And if you achieve a de novo clearance, it essentially means like our tests and our product has proven to be more valuable than not having it. Meaning the monitoring. There are some claims that we aren't legally or regulatory allowed to make.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yep.

[Liz Taran]

But it does provide us with the reassurance of like, hey, you've proven that this does provide value to parents and is worth monitoring versus not.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah. Oh my gosh, there's so much to unpack there. Because back to the product focus and the way you think about the technology and the product itself even is not the end in and of itself. It's a means to an end in.

[Liz Taran]

You as the marketer or you're the.

[Jenny Rooney]

Voice of the customer, you're the voice of the parents. Like I can imagine you were continuing to push that narrative alongside the product build because somebody in the room had to say, okay, but guys, we need to think about the outcomes, the benefits that the parents are going to really sort of attach onto in a thoughtful and emotional way.

[Liz Taran]

Absolutely. That is the rigor I definitely try to push the teams on because some examples I can't use because it's feature innovations. But there are definitely times where our teams will kind of fixate on technical feasibility. And I challenge them to think, hey, the desired outcome is X. How we get there, There are a million pathways, like, let's figure it out. And so for me, yes, our product uses medical grade hospital technology, pulse oximetry, Trax oxygen, pulse rate. But what I really want parents to understand is that there are so many things happening with your baby when you bring them home. They don't have a voice, they can't talk, they can't tell you what's good or not good, what's well, and if they're not well. And traditional baby monitors only let you see and hear them. They can't really tell you what's going on below the surface. So our product goes beyond what's happening on the surface to tell you the most important information you can about them and give you real reassurance. We have so many parent stories of these critical moments that our product has supported the parent in and some of them are more dire than others. But one of them that has stuck with me is one where parent was, I think she was sitting at the table with her child and usually were worn while they're sleeping. So this was interesting, but she said her baby looked completely healthy. It was just sitting there picking at its food. And the alarm was going off multiple times and she kept thinking, oh gosh, this, there must be something funky going on with this alarm. Why does it keep going off? Now for the third or fourth time it went off, she thought, okay, fine, maybe this is something I should go look into. And she took her baby to the doctor and her baby had a heart rate that was well above normal thresholds for an infant. Looked completely normal on the outside, but then inside was really struggling and having tachycardia. So that was just an incredible story that really stuck with me that she was like, I never would have known if I had this product. And I think that's a benefit I focus on is not so much getting hung up on the technology of it, but that outcome is irreplaceable with another product.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah, I mean that is the meaningfulness that the product needs in the world. Trademarked. Do you have to go down that path of trademarking this product, patenting it?

[Liz Taran]

We do have a lot of patents with our product. Pulse oximetry is a technology that really is not patented to us specifically, but this use of it, our product specifically and in the market we do have some good patents around.

[Experian Advertiser]

Finding the right audience shouldn't feel like doom scrolling with Experian. It doesn't. Experian syndicated audiences help you reach holiday shoppers, car buyers and more across over 200 top platforms with over 2,400 pre built audiences. There's no more doom scrolling. It's audience targeting you can trust. Made simple. Learn more at experian.com adweek that's E X P E-R-I-A-N.com adweek.

[Liz Taran]

That'S great.

[Jenny Rooney]

The other point I was going to make and what I'm acknowledging here is that it's good that this product came into the world at a time when you mentioned the Oura ring. And I mean listen, the Nike Fuel band has been around for what?

[Liz Taran]

Well, yes, I remember 20 years.

[Jenny Rooney]

And so like we're living in an era where there's an acceptance around data in this concept of personal data. Understandably it's babies and that's a different kind of dynamic. But the bar is lowered to get acceptance generally in the concept of like, this is a tool that's going to enable you as parents to see more data around your baby.

[Liz Taran]

Right? You would think that. And for some people I think there is, but I actually find it interesting and this is again, maybe another one of our challenges. It's definitely very broadly accepted for adults as a wellness tool and a health tracking tool. Or, or maybe I'm an athlete that wants to excel more and there is a little bit more resistance or I would say perspective that this is an unnecessary level of monitoring for infants. And I find that so interesting because in my experience, both as a user and in reading parents stories, I think there is no more important time to be tracking these things about a child. I mean, there is so much that you can understand from your child's health very early on that can have really big implications for the rest of their life. And I'm a Oura Ring user and understanding my own baselines and health trends and how those are impacted by what I do or eat or whatever has been instrumental in changing my health. And I see that same thing for children. We used to, before our FDA situation, we used to sell a sock that was for kids up to five years of age. And so I would use it on my older child and getting those sleep insights for my child as old as five and he's nine now. And I still sometimes sleep slap it on him, even though not supposed to. It's intended uses up to 18 months. But when I can see how he's sleeping and the impact that has and watch his health over time I have been able to make decisions that have totally changed the trajectory of his emotional health, behavioral health. And I just think there needs to be a huge shift in people's desire for and understanding of the benefits for this kind of technology from early stages of life.

[Jenny Rooney]

And that's, listen, that's where marketing comes into play.

[Liz Taran]

That's my job. That's my job to figure that out 100%.

[Jenny Rooney]

And that segue into my next question, which is what is the role of marketing at your company? How supported is it as a practice? That's not just an expense, it's not a cost center, but it's actually an investment in growing the company. And how did you make sure you had buy in from your CEO, from your founders, from your other C suite peers just to make sure that you felt that marketing had endorsement and support at the company?

[Liz Taran]

Great question. Well, credit to our founder who has recently announced his intent to move into a different role on our board. And so we have a new President transitioning into CEO role, but credit to both of them. In my time at Owlette, marketing has always been a valued perspective at the table. And I think that does come back to how it was founded and rooted in parenting problems to solve and how necessary marketing has been in explaining the value and.

[Jenny Rooney]

And there's an education element.

[Liz Taran]

Yeah, there's so much education involved with our products. So it's always been incredibly valued. It's always been well funded. And I think this recent shift into the parenting Org of merging that with product reflects just how committed this organization is to really being parent first. And for that means not only building the right product, but then making sure parents understand the product and are able to get the most out of it. So I've always felt a real prioritization and dedication, which I know a lot of people can't say the same. So I very much value what I have here.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah. So I can imagine that your category, you could see an opportunity for celebrity endorsement. I mean, there's a lot of parent celebrity parents out there that. How have you thought about either working with celebrities or creators or influencers who are going to give you that reach?

[Liz Taran]

I hope I don't give too controversial of an answer. Listen, I love parents and parents that want to work with us and sharing our story and promote us, whether they be a celebrity or your neighbor down the street, I want them part of our brand. I want them part of our mission, and I want to hear their voice. I'm pretty explicitly against the kind of paid endorsement. I think parents see right through it. I think customers see right through it. And for our product, trust is so important that it has to be very authentic. When we got our warning letter just to survive as a business, because these kinds of clearances are extremely expensive. And we had just become a publicly traded company. We had to actually cut our marketing budget by over 80% within a year and survive. And one of the first things we cut was paid influencers, which we were running at the time. And now, you know, we do seeding certainly to celebrities and certainly to bigger names. But our perspective is if you love our product, you'll speak about it. And we're happy to give it to you free and we'd love to partner with you, but otherwise, like, we want an authentic real opinion and not paid one.

[Jenny Rooney]

I love that. No, I love that. I love the candor of that answer and that you have a clear opinion on that for sure. I think there could be people listening to you hearing your story. I talked to CMOs at big multinational brands. And I think that frankly they would find your story and your position very interesting because I do think that some of these younger brands and some of these more disruptive brands, and frankly some of these brands of companies that are building new kinds of actual products, like bringing new products to bear as opposed to taking existing products and retelling a story around it or introducing a new campaign to sell it, would find what you're talking about very interesting. Also, obviously young people who are coming into the marketing world who are thinking about long term opportunities, although I think nowadays there's probably less of this. But you know, historically you'd think about if you were a marketing student or an MBA student at the college level, you might think the stalwart companies that you go to are like a P and G or a PepsiCo or Mondelez. You get your foot in the door and that's very B2C and very CPG quite frankly. But like marketing opportunities exist in so many different types of categories, so many different stage companies. What's your, I guess, best advice or perspective on really the plethora of opportunity that exists for certainly marketing work, but also marketing leadership and how people need to be thinking more broadly about the opportunities that are available to them, especially right now in the age that we're living in.

[Liz Taran]

That's a good question. And I feel like a just difficult one because every industry right now is, feels like is going through so much change. So as much as there are lots of opportunities, it also feels like especially with AI and marketing, how are those opportunities changing? I think it's, we're just entering this really volatile stage. So for me, I think my advice would be the same as it would be for a brand, both like a personal level and a brand level. Just be authentic, like understand yourself. So what are the things that are driving you? What are the values? What do you want to see? For me, I knew I was passionate about product always. I took a marketing job right out of college that just didn't align with who I was. I was helping to sell prom dresses and pageantry stuff and I just, it wasn't me, you know, and so I couldn't even get up in the morning and go do it. So I ended up going to school, Kenny, just because. And I actually ended up taking a job at the front desk. When you talk about like getting your foot in the door and working way up, that was my first job, was answering the phones. But I knew it aligned to my values better and that just totally changed the trajectory of my career. So I do think, just in general, whether it's in your personal career or your brand, you can't go wrong. If you're genuinely being authentic to who you are, you're going to find people that will resonate with that and that will invest in that and it will just be so much easier to be good at it because it's just who you are.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah. No, I love that. That's such great advice. Honestly, it's really just common sense.

[Liz Taran]

Yeah. Which we need to get back to.

[Jenny Rooney]

So we really do. Because there's so much narrative around this and there's so many things that people think about and talk about that gets away from sort of the basics and think more realistically about, to your point, what they need, what they want and what's going to drive their passion and environments where they can really employ their innovation, their creativity. All the things that we love to think and talk about AI. Let's just ask the question, was every marketer, no matter what you're selling, what's Liz's take on that?

[Liz Taran]

I'm a personal big user of chatgpt. My team is encouraged to use it. I view it through the lens of a tool that can accelerate your work, it can challenge your work, it can open up new perspectives. I don't view it as a like replacement of people or replacement of thoughtfulness. But for me personally, for example, my team's like me, encouraged to hey, go create an entirely new creative campaign with just AI driven graphics. But what it might be is, hey, less concept together. And then let's go ask ChatGPT, like, what have we missed in this concept? What are the gaps? Like, how could we be pushing this further? What are some examples we could pursue in creative execution? That's how I think of it, is really a tool. I think it's so hard to paint with broad strokes on AI because I absolutely think somewhat. I read an article the other day that compared it to like the dot com bubble burst and I thought that was such a good analogy because I feel like in the dot com bubble burst it was like bing.com for the sake of bing.com, just getting everything online, even if that wasn't the right channel for it. And I think of the same thing as AI, like everything's AI, whether or not AI was the right way to approach it. And so again, I don't feel that smart. I feel like I'm saying common sense. Just like, is it right? Are we using it with the right intent and is this the right application of it? Then you probably will be using it in the right ways versus I am conscious of any sort of like, oh, we're just going to replace 10% of the workforce.

[Jenny Rooney]

In your role as leading marketing, do you feel like you have a say in the conversation around how the business thinks about integrating AI operationally?

[Liz Taran]

Yes. Again, I feel very lucky. ALLA has actually recently created an AI committee that is very cross functional. I think this will be an evolving conversation because there are constantly new tools and new ways of applying these tools. So our goal is to meet regularly, assess the tools that are being used internally and that are also newly available and assess what level of support or integration we want to have with some of those tools. So it's been great. I've been very involved in that conversation. And also there are a lot of new legal and regulatory guidelines around. You know, if you are using AI in marketing, are you disclosing that or to what level are you using it? So I think it's super important to keep marketing involved in those conversations and to have active, regular, cross functional conversations about it.

[Jenny Rooney]

Absolutely. What's on the horizon? What are some cool things that you can share with us? Any news, anything you want to tip your hat to?

[Liz Taran]

Yes, I'm super excited actually in a couple of weeks. And I can share this now because this won't be published until after it has launched. But we have a really exciting new product launch coming up. We are launching a new baby monitor camera and as part of that, a new bundled product as well. So we are launching DreamSight, which is going to be a $99 new smart baby monitor camera. It'll be our smartest camera yet. We've always been known for the dream sock or the smart sock and we've had a camera before. But this is our more intentional effort at providing a really great camera experience and also at a price point that can invite more people into the Owlet brand. As we do want people to feel like we're not an inaccessible brand or product. We want to make more of this technology available to parents. So our dream site product is launching September 9th and with that we'll have our latest generation of the Dream Duo, which combines our camera and our sock together for that really all in one robust. See here, no babies. Okay. Monitoring experience.

[Jenny Rooney]

I love that. I love that so much. And I have to ask the community question. It feels like a brand like yours, you're naturally going to be creating a community along with the build of the product because it's parents and parents want to hear from each other how have you sort of built out the community around outlet?

[Liz Taran]

Oh my gosh, in so many ways. And we're so lucky because parents are so great to Owlette and we wouldn't be here without them. We have research that shows over 50% of outlet purchasers first heard about from a friend or family member. So we are heavily reliant on our community. I mean, that's word of mouth that most brands would kill for and it's all positive and great. So there are so many ways we engage with them, whether it's through Facebook channels or we also have a Owlet Cares Foundations program that we work with parents all across the country who have either experienced loss and they want to educate parents or they exist solely for education on safe sleep, or they have kind of a niche passion or interest that they want to support parents in like special needs or down syndrome. So we work with those parents to help support community of parents around them in their local areas. And that also helps us kind of get outlet in the hands of people that maybe otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it or find it or know about it. So that's really exciting as well. We want to make parents part of this launch itself, but that will kind of come after it's announced. But just in general, that's why we're so parent obsessed. I mean, we wouldn't be here without them. We have to have their viewpoint. I am so wary of going astray from what our parents really need and want.

[Jenny Rooney]

So, yeah, it's super exciting. I mean, there's really no end to that ability. And for you guys to think about as you continue the product forward, bringing the parents along with you, very exciting. The last quick question I wanted to ask you is who's next? Who's somebody that you admire?

[Liz Taran]

Admire?

[Jenny Rooney]

And this can be an individual CMO that you know or somebody you admire from afar or given your category, given where you sit, what are brands that you really admire and you think they're doing pretty extraordinary things. And who should I have on the podcast interview next?

[Liz Taran]

I will first give shout out to my first cmo. I worked for Jessica Claudnicki. If she ever sees this, I'll be so happy. She has just shaped who I am as a leader my whole career. So I adore her and really look up to her. I think she's recently transitioned to new role, so I don't know exactly what she's up to right now, but she's so awesome. Otherwise, I wouldn't say that I've spent much time watching or idolizing a lot of other people and maybe I should spend more time thinking about it. But again, I'm kind of so rooted in the end user and consumer that I just really don't think as much about that. And on the brand side, I am just a total fan girl for what Aura has been up to. Part of me is a little bit jealous because they don't have any sort of FDA clearance or anything like that and they're able to do a lot more than I can say and do. But I just really admire what they're up to. I think our missions are so aligned and I think they're gonna help pave the way for real innovation on consumer health. And I just, I wanna see people be healthy and live happy lives and be strong and that's all I want for infants and parents and everybody. So I really admire what they're doing. Love it.

[Jenny Rooney]

Thank you so much for being here. This has been super, super interesting. You're an example of somebody who's actually truly living purpose led marketing, purpose driven marketing. I mean, there's such a purpose to it and you, it's palpable how much you personally buy into this and the impact that it can make on people's lives. So it's exciting to see. So, Liz, thank you so much for being here.

[Liz Taran]

Thank you for having me.

[Jenny Rooney]

I look forward to continuing the conversation in person sometime soon. So awesome.

[Liz Taran]

Let's do it anytime.

[Marketing Vanguard Host Outro]

Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Adweek Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcast by visiting Ad. Stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter at Adweek Podcast. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an [e-mail] thanks for listening.

[Philo Ads Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Philo Ads. Want to get your brand in front of the right audience? Philo Ads is the way to go. With 98 for the percent of viewing on connected tvs and over 900 million monthly ad impressions, Philo gives advertisers unmatched accessibility, flexibility and results. Power your next campaign with Philo Ads. Today, head to Ads Philo TV to get started.