← Marketing Vanguard
Marketing Vanguard
The Proven Playbook for Cultural Relevance at Georgia-Pacific with Laura Knebusch
00:31:51
Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:01]
Adweek Announcer
Who do you think does more planning for football's biggest game? The coaching staff or the advertising teams? Well, while we may not have insider access to the locker room, we do know just how much goes into fine tuning the perfect brand moment for advertising's brightest stage. On February 6, Adweek House will be touching down at the City Club of San Francisco to huddle up with the industry leaders whose winning approaches have won the competition for consumers attention. Join us to build connections, pick up playbook, defining strategies and predict which creative work will will have everyone buzzing and quarterbacking on Monday morning. Head to adweek.com for more information.
- [00:42]
LinkedIn Ads Promoter
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 linked 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.
- [01:12]
Laura Nebusch
We reinvented the entire product line of brawny to be 3 ply paper towels. We did it because we knew Brawny is about strength. We really looked again at how do we make the Brawny man relevant and showing up in today's culture and the way that would best connect and resonate with consumers.
- [01:31]
Jenny Rooney
Hi everyone. Welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with Adweek and I'm thrilled today to be joined by Laura Nebusch. She's the Senior Vice President, CPG Marketing and Consumer Experience at Georgia Pacific. Laura, welcome.
- [01:43]
Laura Nebusch
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:45]
Jenny Rooney
Well, I'm thrilled to have you here. I'm thrilled to have you on the podcast. We were just talking and for those of you listening, we are actually recording this just prior to our Brand Week conference, our annual Brand Week conference that is going to take place in Atlanta this year next week. And Laura is based in Atlanta, Georgia Pacific, one of the foundational companies based in that city. Laura, I'd love for you to just tell us a little bit about. Let's just start there real quick and then I want to get into to learning about you. But Georgia Pacific, I mean it's in your name. So talk a little bit about the history of Georgia Pacific and its headquarters in the great city of Atlanta.
- [02:21]
Laura Nebusch
Georgia Pacific's actually getting ready to celebrate their 100th anniversary in a year, which is. Or a year and a half, which is pretty exciting. We are a leading manufacturer of wood products, so I work in our CPG division. And so we make household essential brands like Bronnie Sparkle paper towels, Quilted north in an angel soft bath tissue, Dixie plates and cups, Vanity Fair napkins. We also make a lot of items you might see as you're out and about in restaurants or in office buildings or stadiums, like in motion and specific blue and compact. But then we have other divisions. We have a building products division and a packaging division as well. So we do have a large presence here in Atlanta headquarters and we'd. The city.
- [03:00]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah, listen, it's such a great place for so many brands to be headquartered. So that is really interesting that it's celebrating an anniversary. What are you going to be doing for that?
- [03:08]
Laura Nebusch
We've got a lot of great work in process, really, to celebrate internally with our employees. I mean, that's again, a huge part of our success as our employee base. And so to make sure everyone feels recognized and we can all appreciate what a hundred years of history means, but then really set the stage for what the next hundred years will look like.
- [03:25]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah, no, I mean, any company that has that kind of heritage, I have to imagine that even as you seek to innovate, you know, it's the classic kind of let's balance the history, let's balance the heritage and the legacy and the, frankly, the equity that the company has amassed over a hundred years, even as we're thinking about reframing. So how do you think about that balance?
- [03:45]
Laura Nebusch
Yes, I mean, a lot of it, and this is something we think about with all of our specific brands too, is we have so many great heritage brands. When you think about Dixie or Bronnie or Quilted Northern, I mean, all of these are decades, decades old. And so I've had a lot of evolutions over their time period. And I think it's really important that that's part of brand building today is being able to connect heritage and what makes a brand different and authentic to how is that relevant today and how is that meaningful to consumers today? And that's honestly, I think the fun of marketing today is trying to build those connections. I absolutely feel strongly you should lean in to your heritage and the things that you have stood for over time. But doing that in a fun and new to connect with consumers today is a challenge.
- [04:27]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah. So tell me about the individual brands, because you said obviously, yes, Dixie's iconic, Bronnie's iconic. I mean, a Lot of us grew up with those in our kitchens, you know, on our tables. How are you thinking about the marketing of those individual brands and how much time is spent on. I mean, Georgia Pacific is the corporate brand, and yet I think it probably lends credibility to the individual brands. So tell me a little bit about how you think about that internally and what that means for investment.
- [04:59]
Laura Nebusch
Right.
- [04:59]
Jenny Rooney
Of marketing.
- [05:01]
Laura Nebusch
Absolutely. So I would say my remit is really the consumer brands versus the Georgia Pacific brand. We recognize that each of our brands has a different consumer, and so we really want to make sure we understand that consumer, whether it's for Bronnie or Sparkle. Two different paper towels, but two very different consumers. We understand what that brand objective is, and then we really think about what's the right strategy and investment to support that. So it's different for all of our brands because each of them has different consumers, different objectives, and different tactics that may help them be successful. So that's part of what we do every year, is assess how we want to support those marketing strategies, what the investment looks like and what's tried and true, and what do we want to do that's kind of new and different to connect with consumers today?
- [05:41]
Jenny Rooney
Can you give me some examples? So let's take Bronnie. Let's take Dixie. Just because you've referenced Insparkle, you know, like, tell me about some activations. Tell me about some things you've done that have actually sort of moved the needle for those individual brands.
- [05:54]
Laura Nebusch
We can start with Brawny. We had a really big launch for Brawny this year. We launched three ply paper towels. And it wasn't just a line extension. We reinvented the entire product line of Brawny to be three ply paper towels. And we didn't do it just because three ply sounds cool. We did it because we knew Brawny is about strength. It's about cleaning up everyday messes and life's kind of common messes. And we wanted to make sure that we had the paper towel that could do that. Today, coming out of the pandemic, we saw that people were using paper towels for a lot more than they have been previously. There's kind of the typical light tasks. You might think about wiping counters or windows, but people were really using it for tough tasks, too. And so we wanted to make sure, as we thought about being relevant and increasing the usage occasions of these products, we had a product that stood up to that. And so the 3 ply is the strongest paper towel, and it does that. But that obviously wasn't enough. We also have this absolutely fantastic kind of brand heritage and brand icon, and the Brawny man, who also stands for kind of that strength and dependability. And so we really looked again at how do we make the Brawny Man. You know, we don't want to lose what's core to him. He is iconic. But we did want to make sure that he was really relevant and showing up in today's culture in the way that would best connect and resonate with consumers. And so we did some great work with a refreshed view of our Brawny Man. And not only is he in our traditional advertising, our radio, and our display, but he's also shown up in social once again thinking about what are some of those messy situations, unexpectedly, where the Brawny man can show up and help with that mess. And a lot of those have been partnerships or collabs with influencers or reality TV stars where there are often very messy situations. But it also has a very passionate fan base. And when you can connect with those moments and those influencers, you know, again, authentically, consumers really get behind it. I mean, they loved it. And so that's been a great way to continue to lean into what makes the Brawny man iconic, but also show how he can be iconic in today's world, not just 30 years ago.
- [07:54]
Jenny Rooney
Consumers love their icons, their branding. You know, Cracker Barrel had a very different situation with change. People don't like change, especially people who are so passionate or have had such a relationship with these brands over many years. To your point. So can you talk about that? I mean, there's a lot sort of riding on making a decision like that.
- [08:16]
Laura Nebusch
There is. And I think it all has to start with, again, what are the fundamentals of the Brawny Man? What was the role of the Brawny man and the brand, and what were the things about him? We did a lot of work on just what's the Brawny man story? And to make sure, again, over time, are we still all committed to kind of what the Brawny man stands for? Where does the Brawny man live? What does he like to do? What's his tone of voice like? We did a lot of work internally and with agencies to make sure that we were all grounded in that. And then everything we did was then based on that. And we did pulse checks with consumers along the way. It wasn't like this was only an internal decision, but we made sure our internal foundation kind of fit, and it was authentic. And then we did the gut check with the consumers to make sure nothing Felt like it was off for them. And I think because we were still staying true very much to his cores of strength and dependability, we were just introducing him to some new consumers, bringing that to life in a different way.
- [09:07]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah. No, I love the idea of bringing people along. Right. I mean, there's no reason why brands can't do that because of social, because of all the platforms that are available. So it's very interesting. I think we're seeing a lot of brands toy with how do I continue to change and stay relevant, especially as my consumer will always be ever younger. Right. Because as consumers age out, you're getting a new group of consumers that you want to make sure they choose you, not just the folks that have been with the brand for as long as they have. So let me shift gears real quick because we dove right into the company and its brands and I lied because I said I would want to talk about you first. So I'm going to flip it and now we'll talk about you. Laura, I would just love for you to share for folks who don't know you, just a little bit about your background on what got you to this role. Sure.
- [09:52]
Laura Nebusch
As we've talked about, I'm head of marketing for Georgia Pacific Consumer Products. I've actually been here 17 years, which is crazy when I think about it, because it's flown by. I have a pretty, you know, traditional background. I came out of an MBA program. I went to Procter and Gamble for a number of years. You know, I knew early on I really enjoyed marketing, you know, and I had done some early jobs in marketing and I really wanted to go into brand management. I love that idea of really thinking about brand as core to everything.
- [10:18]
Jenny Rooney
And by the way, you went to Duke Fuqua, right, For your mba?
- [10:21]
Laura Nebusch
For my mba. I'm North Carolina born and bred, went to Wake Forest undergrad. So I have a lot of good North Carolina schools in my res.
- [10:27]
Jenny Rooney
Such an excellent marketing program. I mean, it is.
- [10:30]
Laura Nebusch
I was exposed to so many great companies, exposed to a lot of very smart professors and just smart classmates who I'm so connected with. And again, great opportunity then to intern at P and G and to go back full time and so just learned a lot while I was within the world of P and G. It's such a great place to build your brand knowledge and to build the fundamentals. But then I did have the opportunity to move to Georgia Pacific 17 years ago and I actually started on the brawny business. I love all my brands, but, you know, it's still Got a special place in my heart. And I've had seven or eight roles since I've been here. And I have had such a great opportunity just to challenge myself in different ways. I've worked in our marketing capability. I've been the general manager of our town napkin business. And then when this, the opportunity to lead the marketing capability came open a few years ago, coming out of COVID I raised my hand and said I wanted to move back into this area because I felt like it was such a turning point in the world of brands, in the world of marketing, in the world of consumers. And I really thought it'd be an exciting new challenge. And I thought I could uniquely bring some skills that would help us navigate that.
- [11:32]
Jenny Rooney
I like what you were saying before about, like what you learned because you are a classically educated marketer, right? And in my experience, I would say 50% now of CMOs and leading marketers in any given organization have come up through a more traditional marketing education background. And then there's probably another 50% who come from all kinds of things that, you know, and it's almost like a very sort of indirect route to leading brands and to being the head of marketing in companies. So it's just interesting that you are classically driven. You went to P and G, I mean, which arguably is a competitor now in many categories for you. Obviously I'm not going to say the.
- [12:08]
Laura Nebusch
Name of the paper towel that is.
- [12:10]
Jenny Rooney
Probably in that horse race constantly, but it's just fascinating. And I can. And yes, look, P and G, not unlike a Pepsi or a Mondelez. You know, there have been some other companies over the years, years that have sort of established that reputation as being essentially kind of like a training ground. Right. For people who then go off into other, certainly in the CPG category, go off into other companies and have impact. So I love. That's your background. But you were saying about your education, you know, you quickly learned. And I think what you were going with is the value of brand and driving business. You know, that is something that obviously all CMOs have kind of come back around to really honing in on and zeroing in on. And not just them, but by the way, CEOs and CFOs. Like, if you're not proving the value of marketing in any given organization, then what is it good for? So talk a little bit about where you're spending time from the metrics, measurement and proof.
- [13:02]
Laura Nebusch
I would say too, I'm going to give you kind of two different areas. One of them comes very much from My foundation of like brand is fundamental to driving business value. And, well, that's something that, you know, many people believe. When I took on this role, I recognized it wasn't something that was universally, I would say, known or understood within my broader organization. So as I thought about all of my category partners and leadership, so we actually underwent an initiative that's still ongoing called Living Our Brands, which was to kind of reinstill a culture of focus on our consumer and brand and not just as a marketing department, but as an organization knowing that everybody plays a role in how consumers experience our brand. Whether you're in the mill, whether you are in sales, whether you're in quality or supply chain or marketing or customer service, you are doing something that the consumer is going to experience. And I think that accountability was really important and helping to continue to evolve the mindset around this isn't just brand isn't a marketing thing. Brand is a business kind of priority. And so that was more of just, I would say the mindset. So the other key thing that's been really helpful is we internalized a lot of our marketing analytics. So we partnered with a lot of the normal companies. We chose during this time to kind of build out our own data strategy, build out our own internal mmm, and really again, try and solidify kind of our marketing cycle of measurement of when were we, what metrics were we looking at? When were we going to get them showing that we were optimizing and changing plans. And then over time you could really see how our performance was continuing to improve. And so I would say those two things, starting with the foundation, but then having the measurement and being consistent about delivering that measurement over time, that's allowed us to have improved results, have both been really important and helping to connect the business to our role and how that's driving value.
- [14:49]
Jenny Rooney
Tell me a little bit about your marketing organization. So correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, it's a large marketing team. Yeah, 80 plus people. Is that.
- [14:58]
Laura Nebusch
That is correct. I think I have 84 right now. Our job is there are actually marketers in the category to. In our brand teams and they are focused on the brand. Our team is focused on all the capabilities that are going to help them basically bring to life the plans and the vision they have for the brand. I have insights, I have a strategy, a brand strategy and content team with an internal creative agency. I have a media strategy and digital team which also have. I have internal media buyers or a programmatic team. I have a shopper marketing team, analytics and then data driven marketing and our first party data team and Martech. So it's a great team. And again, when I came into this role, we may have had like four of those six functions in this team. And by really thinking about consumer experience, thinking about all the different places we were interacting with consumers, we thought more holistically about the type of capabilities that needed to be together to kind of deliver a more integrated experience but then be able to measure and optimize more frequently.
- [15:57]
LinkedIn Ads Promoter
Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads you can know your 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 at LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply.
- [16:30]
Adweek Announcer
Who do you think does more planning for football's biggest game? The coaching staff or the advertising team? Well, while we may not have insider access to the locker room, we do know just how much goes into fine tuning the perfect brand moment for advertising's brightest stage. On February 6, Adweek House will be touching down at the City Club of San Francisco to huddle up with the industry leaders whose winning approaches have won the competition for consumers attention. Join us to build connections, pick up playbook, defining strategies and predict which creative work will have everyone buzzing and quarterbacking on Monday morning. Head to adweek.com for more information.
- [17:11]
Jenny Rooney
So how did you think about then external partners and what kind of external agencies do you work with? Are they just creative or are they doing other things as well?
- [17:19]
Laura Nebusch
We believe there's a balance we bring in internally when we feel like there's either we can do the work but do it for a lower cost, we can as good at a lower cost or we believe we can actually be more effective because of the internal knowledge that we have by having it internally. But I absolutely believe in the power of our strategic partnerships with creative agencies, with our media agency, because I still believe that they have great knowledge, great strategic thinkers. So I would say for our big kind of strategic platform work, for our ongoing strategic media planning, we are still partnering. We're bringing a lot of the execution in house.
- [17:54]
Jenny Rooney
Okay Laura, you know I'm going to go to this question, but the AI question, you can't not ask it. Tired of it as we all may be and I just moderated a discussion yesterday with agency executives at Adweek, were asked that question of them and they were pretty explicit with where they see AI picking up slack. So tell me your perspective on where is AI able to pick up slack for you guys and get rid of redundancies?
- [18:20]
Laura Nebusch
Yes. I will also preface it with my answer. Today could be different, tomorrow will definitely be different in like two weeks. And I think that's part of the journey we're on. I would say today we've got work going on within our creative team, particularly our creative agency copywriting help, image generation. We're excited about some of the new video capabilities. Again, that's not going to be all content, but there's definitely certain types of content that it is being used more for. But I would say in some way, shape or form we're using AI on every aspect of the creative process. We've seen a lot of potential with it within media buying optimization or targeting optimization. And so that's one area that we've been leaning into that leveraging kind of our partners and tools that they're building. And then the third area is Insights and that's been pretty exciting. I would say a lot more exploratory. We haven't yet said, oh, this is where it's going to change the game. But when you think about synthetic data or AI generated moderators or even just ability to get to Insights faster and quicker and get that more broadly across the organization, I think there's a lot of interest there. So I believe there are certain tasks that will become almost fully automated in the future. And then I think there's a lot of tasks which are going to be they're going to enable the person in that role to be better. Like I don't think it's one or the other. I think it's going to be a combination. And that's part of our challenge as leaders is to start to try and identify where things are headed and how do we best prepare our organizations to get there.
- [19:46]
Jenny Rooney
How do you personally, as a marketing leader and honestly as an important business leader within your organization, like where do you turn to level up your understanding, awareness, education in the world of AI? What are you reading? Where are you spending your time? Like, do you think about it internally? Are there internal work groups that are spending time? I'm just really curious how you're thinking about that to make sure that you have to your point, it could change tomorrow, but at least like today, how do you strive to be as knowledgeable about it as you possibly can.
- [20:20]
Laura Nebusch
It's basically all of the above and then leveraging generative AI to compile it for me. I feel like that's kind of where we're at. You know, I came back from a couple different conferences and peer groups over the last few weeks, and this is definitely a hot topic and one I think we're all reaching for. Certainly some of our vendor partners who are leaning into this space articles. I'm anxious and excited and hungry for the information. So if someone mentions a book, I'll buy the book and start to read it. And then I have people on my team who are doing this too. So no one's going to have all the knowledge, but I think trying to compile it, we made this a fundamental of our vision this year. My team's vision, not AI, but transforming how we work. And that's part of how we transform how we work. And so I think a much higher expectation on everybody on the team of, you know, even if you're not quite sure how it's going to impact your job, how are you exploring? How are you playing? You know, I got in and created my own AI generated videos for the first time last week and now I'm really dangerous. So, like, we have to get in it too and know how it can work. Just so we can be leaders, show our teams that we're doing it, but also continue to recognize all the ways it can help that we probably aren't even thinking about yet.
- [21:30]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah, no, and I love that. What I'm hearing in that is that you are approaching it as a means to an end. Not the end in and of itself, which obviously is nuanced, but so important. You did reference media and you did reference shopper marketing. So two questions. One is for you personally, what's your personal view? Obviously, the media landscape is fracturing, so you can automate that. And yet there's so much happening there that from an intentional choice standpoint, where are you seeing the biggest pockets of either success or opportunity vis a vis media options? I mean, we just had an article the other day on how Reddit everybody's investing in. I mean, that's where people are going. So I don't know if that's relevant for your brands, but just things like that.
- [22:14]
Laura Nebusch
Yeah, I would say what we are trying to start with and this is how we're also bringing in the shopper and the retail media part to it. And I actually, one of my previous roles was as head of our chopper team, which I think helps enable me to think a Little bit more across the integrations because we do believe retail media is important. We've been investing more in it over the last few years and as those companies become more mature, we see more uses for how we can leverage that retail media. It's not just a end of the funnel kind of conversion driving tactic. It can be a lot more within your plan. But that means we really need to start with our audience. You know, again, I'll use angelsoft as an example. Where am I most likely to find Rose? Who's the, what we call the target, the angelsoft target. Where am I most likely to find her? And then I go back to what's my targeting strategy and then what's the best way to execute that targeting strategy? And that means I'm thinking about what could be retail media options. I'm thinking about a lot of different tactics across digital and video. And so we start from the strategy. We use the lens of what we know is working and not working. So we bring in mmm or other measurement to say, okay, if this is where we think she is, what do we think we can do that gets us to our objective at the best cost or best efficiency? And then we use a lot of automation at that point then to go execute or optimize within kind of guardrails and guidelines. So what we've seen in the last couple years we've shifted pretty significantly into the digital space. We were probably over invested in the video space, so into the digital space. But you know, we've had a lot of success obviously with social. That's not a surprise, really leaned into social and then influencers. Audio has been another one that we've had a lot of success in, starting with just streaming audio, but starting to kind of move into podcasts. Retail media, of course is another area that we've been continuing to invest and explore because that's another one that's changing. You know, every year is kind of evolving. So those are definitely three areas as we continue to shift into digital that I think we'll continue to explore. And then every year we maintain a certain level of our investment for like pure experiments, new places we want to explore and it's something that we're truly going to learn. Not because we think it's going to drive a short term business result. We want to learn if this is a place we should go be spending more time in.
- [24:24]
Jenny Rooney
Okay, so much interesting there. Do you ever have viral moments? You know, there's always things that go viral. Memes or anything ever associated with any of your brands and like, if that were to happen, whether it has or hasn't, but if that were to happen, like, how do you think about that? Do you ride that out?
- [24:39]
Laura Nebusch
Do you let that happen?
- [24:40]
Jenny Rooney
I mean, we see that all the time, right, in your brands. I could see people could make them viral. Maybe there's people on TikTok are using them for things you never even thought people would use them for. How do you as a marketer think about those anomalies or those sort of spikes?
- [24:55]
Laura Nebusch
Sorry to keep going back to Bronnie, but I would say the Brawny man is probably our most. As our most iconic. He's also the one you let. You'll see show up in the most places. We're getting ready to go into Halloween season. There's a lot of Bronnie man happening in Halloween. So those are the type of things where it's like, it's just organic and it's happening out there. And for something like that, we lean into it. We do surprise and delight. Last year, we actually hosted a Brawny man, or two years ago, a Brawny man kind of costume where we all dressed up at work. But again, I would say some of the things we did this year with. With the social media influencers, we did a collab with Rachel Kirkconnell, who's a former Bachelor contestant, and she was going through a messy breakup. We decided to do this great video together showing the Brawny man as her kind of the new dependable man in her life. And that one, I would say, met Viral's status and how it went forward before we even put anything paid behind it. And so that we loved. We thought there was an idea there, and it showed us there was a hot moment. And when we can again bring something unique, authentic, but unexpected, that's the type of moments we want to get behind. We've had smaller cases. I mean, angelsoft had a great Potty Tunities. That was our super bowl commercial, the Potty Tunities activation. And then afterwards, there were one or two moments where Potty Tunities showed up. There was a moment with Shaq. He was sports casting and had to leave. And so, you know, we were able to jump in with like, potty Tunity moment there. You have to know what those moments are, and then you have to be listening. And then you do have to have a plan of action. Do I want to make this bigger? Do I want to lean into it? Or am I just going to let it kind of ride itself out?
- [26:26]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah. Your brand's so embedded in culture and so embedded in people's lives. So you can't. I mean that is the whole lack of control piece of it. But then how do you respond is really where you can get strategic. Talk a little bit about, I mean, you mentioned the retail strategy and obviously retail media and all that is huge. But from a sales standpoint and distribution standpoint. So obviously you're in every major big box retailer, you're in every major grocery store chain online as well. So any new trends you're seeing just from a pure shopper standpoint that you're paying attention to?
- [26:59]
Laura Nebusch
Yes, I would say post Covid, I felt like everything became so focused on omnichannel, like online, like have make sure you're winning online, which I agree with. So this is an and versus an or. I think you have to have your online strategy clear. I think you have to have your online journey clear, whether that's through your content or through your media or through the actual kind of buying experience itself. But I think what we're seeing too is that it's starting to come back in store too. The need to make sure you're delivering that same level of experience in store, you know, is still there, being able to think about what's working online, because we've actually had a lot of success. But then how do we continue to bring that type of experience to consumers in store? Whether it's the amount of information they can get, feeling more information, like the type of imagery or content or just experiences. So I think that's something we're testing back in store. What are TV walls or audio in store? And some of these things that we're actually seeing work in other places. So I think from a marketing standpoint, I think that's really interesting. I would say the other thing obviously we're watching from a shopping standpoint is just how shopping is occurring. So even skipping so many steps with it, you know, to think about shoppable ads and social commerce and now the potential for people to buy just within regenerative engines themselves like that frictionless takes on a whole new meaning. And then again as a brand, what does that mean for us and how do we come to life and make sure that we can still get the right content to our consumers in the right moment when they may be making decisions. And so a lot, I think, to unpack there that we're going to be learning in the next few years. But I say that's a trend that I think is really important for us to be on top of and start to have that answer.
- [28:35]
Jenny Rooney
Sustainability. How much. Is that a motivator for consumers right now?
- [28:40]
Laura Nebusch
I think it's always a motivator. I mean, we found in our categories, and I think this is with a lot of categories. You have to have performance and price. Right. But they want sustainability. They want to know that you're making kind of the right decisions for the environment. At various points, we make sure that there's information for consumers where they want it, whether it's on packaging or on the website, like it's there or available. But we found that it's not what's driving. Like that's not the emotional connection to our brand. That's not what's driving the purchase. So we need to make sure that they understand, but it's not how. We're not messaging our brands that way because we want to make sure that we are 100% focused on what's going to connect with them in their journey and in their life.
- [29:16]
Jenny Rooney
And economic conditions also are such a big input and determinant.
- [29:21]
Laura Nebusch
Right.
- [29:21]
Jenny Rooney
In that hierarchy of needs, if you will. So price and reliability certainly are high right now. I do want to get some cues from you as to what we might expect to see from you next year. I know that this has been a busy year for you. Obviously you mentioned Bronnie a lot. But what's on the horizon as you approach the, what, 100 year in two years? Yeah, you're like that much closer. So are you doing some stair step things? Just some breadcrumb work now so that once that hundred year anniversary happens?
- [29:52]
Laura Nebusch
Yeah, so we've got probably a couple things going on as I think about the brand. So kind of our other big event this year that I haven't talked about is angelsoft and Potty Tunities. And we did our first super bowl ad. And so that was a very big for us, not just because it was our first super bowl ad, but also we were really trying to launch our angelsoft mascot, angel to the world. We launched a campaign two years ago really featuring her and this kind of animated angelsoft world. And that allowed us to kind of expose her to a lot more people. And we did see great recognition post Super Bowl.
- [30:23]
Jenny Rooney
Will she make a return appearance?
- [30:25]
Laura Nebusch
She will not be making a return appearance to the super bowl, but I would say I would definitely expect to continue to see her to come to life in kind of cultural moments and in other ways. We want to continue to drive awareness of angel as this great representative of the AngelSoft brand. And I think, you know, again, what we found is if there's things that tie to the brand where we can bring her to life and she can be really engaging in that moment. Like that's what we're going to be looking for. And so you'll see that with Angelsoft. We've got some fun things I think lined up for Bronnie again next. This is year two of launch, so I would continue to expect to see the Bronnie man show up in some fun places and maybe in some fun cleaning up some fun messes. And then I'm excited. Our Dixie brand should have a new campaign coming out in the second half of the year. And Dixie's one of our iconic brands, very well known, a lot of emotion and connection with that brand.
- [31:10]
Jenny Rooney
Super bowl for Dixie.
- [31:12]
Laura Nebusch
You never know. You never know.
- [31:15]
Jenny Rooney
People have to put the wings on something. Okay, well, we'll stay tuned. Last quick two questions. Everybody listening has heard a bit about your journey, your background, your 17 years there. What would your team say about you as a leader?
- [31:30]
Laura Nebusch
I can answer this only because I literally just had this conversation with them. The answer that came out was, is unflappable. Which is kind of a funny word. But it's this idea of I take a lot in stride. Like there's always going to be a challenge, there's always going to be something new, but I take it in stride. I really try and stop and assess what it means to us, to our organization. I try and listen to how people are feeling about it, but then I'm all about, let's thinking about, okay, what's the path forward and what's kind of the upsides and downside, risk and kind of moving forward. So I'd say that kind of leadership, I'm not the first to react. I'm not the first one to yell in a room and make my voice heard. But I have that kind of calm during the storm that I think helps us navigate both the good times and the rougher times and kind of get to that end destination that we want to go for. So hopefully it's trusted, it's empathetic. I like to lead by example and empower of the team as well.
- [32:23]
Jenny Rooney
Well, you're 17 years. I mean, certainly credibility is at the core of who you are because of how long you've been there. And that's uncommon. Right? And in high level marketing roles at organizations, we often see a lot of change, you know, in folks who are overseeing that. So that consistency, I'm sure, serves you well and, you know, is encouraging to the team. Last question, who's next? Who's Somebody I should have on the podcast. This can be a marketing leader who you know really well and you just know that they're like, incredibly smart and driven. Or it can be somebody you don't know, but you admire their work and it's somebody you've often wanted to hear from and haven't had a chance to yet.
- [32:59]
Laura Nebusch
This is a good question just because it was a conversation I just had with somebody. You know, I just met Laura Jones for the first time, who's a CMO at Instacart. Have you already had her?
- [33:08]
Jenny Rooney
I had her once and I would love to have her on. She's due to come back.
- [33:12]
Laura Nebusch
How shopping is changing, but also how they're trying to drive that brand. I just think it's an interesting study right now. So I think it hits on a number of different key points as you think about marketing today.
- [33:23]
Jenny Rooney
Yeah, no, she's super smart and I do think there's a lot of innovation happening there and obviously just their business model and the way they've evolved that. Right. The media network aspect of what they're doing too, because they have such incredible insights based on the delivery service. So I'll have her back on again and I'll credit you, Laura. And in the meantime, thank you so much for joining me. I look forward to seeing you in person sometime very soon. But thanks for being on the podcast.
- [33:48]
Laura Nebusch
Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation. 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 podcasts by visiting adweek.com podcasts. Stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter DWeek podcast.
- [34:07]
LinkedIn Ads Promoter
And if you have a question or.
- [34:09]
Laura Nebusch
Suggestion for the show, send us an email@podcastadweek.com thanks for listening.
- [34:17]
LinkedIn Ads Promoter
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 get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn. Com. Campaign terms and conditions apply.