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Marketing Vanguard
Disrupting the Marketing Landscape with Purpose with Sarah Leinberger of Yoobi
00:17:18
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- [00:00]
LinkedIn Ads Narrator
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- [00:30]
Sarah Leinberger
We're really thinking about how do we intertwine ourselves with culture and be there where the newest properties are coming out or what people are excited about so that we can really leverage that across our equity. Show up together in a collaboration to build our brand awareness, to build our equity.
- [00:48]
Jenny Rooney
Hi, everyone and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard Podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with adweek and I am coming to you live from Brand Week. We're on site in Atlanta, which is super exciting. So we're doing a special edition of the Marketing Vanguard podcast and I'm thrilled to be joined right now with Sarah Leinberger. She's the vice president, head of marketing at ub. Sarah, welcome.
- [01:08]
Sarah Leinberger
Hi. I'm so excited to be here. Amazing program. Fabulous, fabulous. Thank you for everything so far.
- [01:13]
Jenny Rooney
I did not ask her to say that, so. But thank you. We always love to hear good feedback and I'm just thrilled to have you here because we're going to unpack what you're doing at ub. What UB is for those who don't know. And this is going to be a really fun opportunity for us to kind of dive in. As with all of my Marketing Vanguard podcasts, this is as much about you as a marketing leader and a business leader within your organization as it is about the company. So with that, would love for you to just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to this place. Yeah.
- [01:44]
Sarah Leinberger
So my name is Sarah Leinberger. I'm the head of marketing for ub. UB is a purpose based school supply and stationary company. So for every product purchased, we give back to a child in need. And so it has been an amazing opportunity to be part of something much larger than myself. So most of my career was spent at Target and General Mills, really big organizations learning incredible things. But I came to a point in my career where I wanted to mix all of my background. I had done marketing, I had done merchandising, I had done change and transformation. Digital work. And I wanted to find a place where I could do all of that but serve a larger purpose. And that's what I get to do every single day at UB.
- [02:21]
Jenny Rooney
So how long has UBI been around?
- [02:23]
Sarah Leinberger
UB has been around since 2014. We've had some ups and downs through Covid, of course, was a really challenging time where school supplies were not as needed because everyone was working from home. So the business has really evolved over that time frame and we've had a really strong growth trajectory and it's really exciting to think about what comes next.
- [02:41]
Jenny Rooney
So tell me about your market. You know, is it parents, is it kids directly? Is it educators? How are you thinking about?
- [02:47]
Sarah Leinberger
Great question. Yeah. So the core of everything that we do is really about the child, of course. And we believe that with the right tools, you can unlock an amazing future for any child. You can unlock creativity and inspiration. And so we think a lot about our core purchaser of the child and the. The 6 to 12 year old and, and what gets them excited every day to be and really bring their best to everything they do at school. Of course, also thinking about mom and what she's excited about. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it is the kids in need across the country and the teachers serving those kids. So there's millions of kids every single day across the country who don't have the basic supplies to do what they need within school. And what ends up happening is teachers reach into their own pockets. They average being almost $900 a year that a teacher is spending on school supplies. And so we are thinking every day we try to make really fun products that are fun for our kids to purchase and mom gets excited about. So I actually brought some props. Our newest is a wicked collaboration. You could find it at Target, which is super fun. Everyone's out there looking for that these days. And then of course, like classics like Snoopy and the Peanuts. And we just do really fun things, everything from Barbie to Star wars to Harry Potter to collaborations like this. And so this is what gets the kids excited. But what gets me excited is then a kid in need gets supplies as well.
- [04:09]
Jenny Rooney
This is amazing. So that's a lot of licensing deals that you're doing. How much of your experience, you know, previously at Target, General Mills enabled you to kind of dive into this space.
- [04:19]
Sarah Leinberger
Yeah, well, it's so interesting. At General Mills, we did licensing as well. So I was on our snacks brands for a long time and we did amazing collaborations, but we always had a team of a team that had A team to get the work done. And so I'm so much closer to it. It's still the core of partnership and thinking about kind of what you can unlock together. But actually being in the work and seeing the larger business conte and how you can lift all tides by doing the right things together has been really fun to see.
- [04:45]
Jenny Rooney
I love that. So tell me a little bit about as you think about building the brand. I mean it is a unique situation that you're in, right? So like brand building in the classic sense might apply differently. I asked you about target market, but more importantly this concept of brand building. And by the way, you know, how much do you want UB to be known? Sort of UB be the choice versus Snoopy, for example, in this case.
- [05:08]
Sarah Leinberger
Yes, great question. Everything we do is considered a collaboration. So you will always see UB branding on, on everything. So it's UV and peanuts, UV and Wicked. And so that's a really important part and a huge part of our brand building. We're of course scrappy and we don't want to overspend in any one bucket because ultimately at the end of the day, like that's not the core of our purpose. And so we're really thinking about how do we intertwine ourselves with culture and be there where the newest properties are coming out or what people are excited about so that we can really leverage that across our equ show up together in a collaboration to build our brand awareness, to build our equity.
- [05:45]
Jenny Rooney
Okay, so you're, it's borrowed equity. I mean, you're borrowing. There's, there's on both sides really, because this is an intentional choice on the part of Wicked and Snoopy to be working with you now. They might. Exclusivity probably isn't really a concept that you have to worry about because I imagine, do you have any direct competitors in this space? Do you feel like you own this, the space?
- [06:06]
Sarah Leinberger
We have a really unique space. So from a novelty perspective and really leaning into the characters and the fun, there's others that do it as well, but we're the only ones who kind of do the collaboration, UB and brand. And so that is our competitive advantage. We also, because we're a founder led company, we have a different mindset. Like we are really unique in that we go from insight to idea within days. And so we can respond really quickly to what a partner at a retailer might need, what the licenses might be getting excited about. And so our flexibility is really a competitive advantage within that space as well as we think about how we show up and how we make everyone better within the process.
- [06:47]
Jenny Rooney
So you've referenced it a couple times. The concept that you went from big, big behemoth companies where I mean big marketing organizations, teams of. Teams of teams. Now you're at a, I imagine, much smaller company. What new skills do you have to adopt just to make sure you're impactful in this environment?
- [07:03]
Sarah Leinberger
Yes. So I'll start with what's the same. So I think what is the same and what has really driven me has been tapping into the consumer. So when you can understand that insight, that is universally true. But now the newest muscle, honestly is just moving quicker than I've ever moved in my entire life. I joke with people, I thought I was scrappy. I was on teams that were small and scrappy. But people ask me how many millions of dollars I was playing with when I was being scrappy as millions of dollars being scrappy. And so moving fast, having things 80% right, but continuing to stay true to the insight is kind of where I'm continuing to navigate. And I get to wear so many hats, which has been so incredibly fun. I go from insights to, to communications, to the licensing partnerships constantly throughout the day. And that is really, really energizing for me to be able to see the end to end perspective. And then because I'm also working so closely with our sales team and our sourcing teams and design teams, you see the whole picture. And so as you think about how you want to move and what comes next, it is such a holistic picture of who the consumer is and what they need.
- [08:09]
Jenny Rooney
Are you a virtual? Are you virtual? You have a.
- [08:12]
Sarah Leinberger
Yes, we're home office remote. Yes. Yep. And we're truly global. We have folks in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, all the way into Europe and Asia. And so we're really fortunate too in that we're uniquely diverse in our thought processes and how we get work done. And then of course, tariffs have been a big thing this year. And so having a really global team that can move quickly, try to problem solve together all around the world was something that's built into our DNA. And so as a challenger brand, we can do some of those things that others, it would take so much longer to do or just don't have the infrastructure to do some of those things.
- [08:47]
Jenny Rooney
So when you say challenger brand, who are you challenger against?
- [08:51]
Sarah Leinberger
A great question. So we have lots of different categories within our assortment typically. So from paper products, you've got the means of the world. I was laughing with the CMO from Newell Brands last night. The Sharpies of the world like everything from paper to writing. We also do things like home goods like pillows and blankets. And so we're really, really diverse. And our competitive advantage, too is that we show up with a collection. And so if you come in and you love Wicked, you can buy multiple items. Or if you love Barbie, we've got all kinds of things that you even knew that you needed. But that's part of the story that we get to tell, too, and the kids get really excited about, because when you buy one thing, you've got to have everything. When you go to school, you got to have the backpack and the water bottle and all the good stuff.
- [09:33]
LinkedIn Ads Narrator
Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority, skills and. Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started@LinkedIn.com Campaign terms and conditions apply.
- [10:03]
Jenny Rooney
So are you thinking regionally? What's the strategy regionally? Because you do have a unique customer, if you will.
- [10:10]
Sarah Leinberger
So I will say it's been a really interesting journey for us. We are thinking first by retailer and what the retailer needs from an exclusivity perspective. So we pride ourselves too. Design perspective. We want to make sure that we are right on that core Target of who the retailer is, and then leaning into whatever kind of regional considerations you might want to have, but you will typically not find. We have some items, but we work to build really unique collections for Target or for Amazon. And that again too, is something that because we're small and scrappy and nimble, we can move really quickly, create a lot of really compelling designs that are best for that retailer.
- [10:48]
Jenny Rooney
I didn't hear Walmart in that conversation. An exclusivity thing with Target?
- [10:52]
Sarah Leinberger
No. Well, we actually started as a Target exclusive brand way back in the day, so we're a little bit of a Target sweetheart. And they're working to rebuild their Target. And so we feel really fortunate that we get to be a big part and a big partner with them within that. But we love all of our retailers equally.
- [11:09]
Jenny Rooney
Let's talk about. Because retail media is such a talked about topic these days among all marketers, how are you thinking about Retail media agency strategy, that resource for you as you obviously build up your data and awareness of your customers.
- [11:22]
Sarah Leinberger
Yeah, retail media has always been a core tool in my toolbox. So ever since my days back starting at Target, I was actually a merchant for a long time. Coming to General Mills, retail media was a core part of my foundational strategy. And now at UB it was. It's actually really interesting in that they've been on a learning journey around how do they actually deploy this and what does it look like? We don't know what is possible yet in the retail media space for us because we've just been testing and learning within the last year or so and so. So it is a huge part of my strategy to make sure that we are converting at the point of purchase. And honestly, it took some foundational building. Like with so many companies that are either small and scrappy, sku intensive, et cetera. If you don't start with the first, the right PDP content and some of the core of that to then drive any organic search and ranking, it doesn't make sense to build some of the retail media on top of that. So that is now a core part of our future strategy and of course in expectations with retailers as you're continuing to move forward of how you show up in the world. We don't want someone coming looking for like the wicked collection. They can't find the dang stuff on the site. But we're really thinking too around great holiday items, great Easter basket items, et cetera, that we're thinking about as well.
- [12:33]
Jenny Rooney
And you sell direct as well.
- [12:35]
Sarah Leinberger
We have a small D2C business. Yes. So always available on ub.com it hasn't been a huge focus for us, but something that we're thinking about for the future.
- [12:43]
Jenny Rooney
Okay, so when you think about agencies and external partners, do you have budget capacity for those as well? And how are they? How are they working with you?
- [12:53]
Sarah Leinberger
I would say we've been a little bit of a journey. I think as a bigger guy, I always had my specialty roster of who I needed to go for every little thing, which we actually had too. As I came into ub, we had either between agencies or contractors or folks who were helping us with all of the different pieces and parts. I think as we're thinking about the future, my hope is to create more holistic synergy there. And so we still have a disparate team that we're leveraging. I always did a lot of agile marketing and brought my partners in and tried to figure that out. And so super transparently, we're kind of on that journey of like, where do I consolidate and use less partners, where do we continue the specialty? And then how do we internally modify our ways of working to move as fast as possible? I will say we're leveraging the power of AI and we're building agents to help fill gaps where we might not have the talent or we might not have quite the partner. But also as we think about prototyping, rapid iteration, it's fascinating for a smaller company like us can move so quickly. We can go again with the power of AI and consumer profiles and agents from idea to execution within days, which is super fun.
- [14:02]
Jenny Rooney
I mean, that was obviously my next question because that feels so relevant to what you're doing, not that it's not relevant to everybody. That in turn moves to the question around talent. You know, how are you like building up your in house capabilities, your teams, your talent, your skills that you feel are most crucial and making intentional choice around that?
- [14:20]
Sarah Leinberger
Yeah, so I have always prided myself on wearing lots of different hats throughout my career. I was someone who was always curious. And so I, I bounced around from marketing to merch to transformation and then back to marketing and through that, learned just to always have a really broad mindset and I think even more important within a small organization and building up that team internally that has that really broad perspective and can see things from many different angles and then have the external expertise where you need it to help make stronger and lean into the capabilities that your team either does not yet have or needs to learn. But I want them wearing broad hats internally and leveraging the power of our partners to be really smart in spaces that we need to be.
- [15:04]
Jenny Rooney
So as you think about again, your personal journey, you know, what does good look like for you in this moment in time, in this point in your career, given all the things you've done previously and what you're doing now, you know, what do you want to be able to look back on this chapter of your career and say, I was able to accomplish that.
- [15:20]
Sarah Leinberger
The biggest journey that I've been on is really personal and actually I've chatted with some folks here about it too, is allowing others to be their best selves. So as a leader, as a human, as somebody in spaces like these, if I can show up in an authentic way and remove my mask and encourage others to remove their mask to be their best selves, that is where I think you get the best connection, the best trust, and then the best work from people. And so I feel like, for so long within my career, I was trying to prove it, and everyone's trying to prove it, right? Yeah. But inside, we're all just kids inside that want to be accepted and feel like we belong. And so the quicker that I think I can encourage others to show up as their authentic self and be authentic and invite that in, the faster I'll build those connections, the faster we'll do good work together.
- [16:06]
Jenny Rooney
So we're here at Brand Week in Atlanta, you know, especially since this is a special edition. Why are you here? What are you hoping to get out of this week? Have you gotten out of it so far?
- [16:15]
Sarah Leinberger
Oh, it's so incredible. I will say with the pace of change, you need to be at places like this. You need to be constantly learning. I think the people that are going to continue to win are those that are curious and connected. And so where better to come and find those connections, have those conversations in a place like this? And the caliber of the people that are talking, the realness of the conversations have just been incredible. And so super grateful to yourself, folks in the room. Like, it has just been an amazing experience.
- [16:46]
Jenny Rooney
Awesome. What's on the horizon? What can we expect to see from you in the next remainder of this year and certainly into next year?
- [16:52]
Sarah Leinberger
We have some super exciting collaborations. I can't say much, but in terms of the hottest fashion brands or the hottest toy brands are all coming to you within the next year. And so we're super excited about it.
- [17:03]
Jenny Rooney
Okay, well, Sarah will be paying close, close attention to that last quick question. I asked this of everybody.
- [17:07]
Sarah Leinberger
Who's next?
- [17:08]
Jenny Rooney
Who's somebody I should have on the podcast? It can be a CMO of a brand that you know really, really well, or it's just somebody you admire from afar and you think they're doing some really cool things.
- [17:17]
Sarah Leinberger
Well, I have to give a prop to Keith Bendis from Lynkia. So he was just on the stage and I thought I knew his business, I thought I knew Influencer, I thought I knew all of the things. And he just came and gave incredible information that blew my mind in like five minutes. And I was like, gosh, again, I know him, we are long friends, but he's super powerful speaker and he's got great things to tell people.
- [17:38]
Jenny Rooney
Awesome, awesome. Well, people will want to seek him out and learn more directly. So, Sarah, thank you so much for being here. Look forward to seeing what's to come from UV and look forward to our next conversation. Thanks so much.
- [17:52]
LinkedIn Ads Narrator
Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the ad Week Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting Adweek.com podcasts. Stay updated on all things Ad Week Podcast Network by following us on Twitter at Adweek Podcasts. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email@podcastdweek.com thanks for listening. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply.