What happens when pop culture and sports fandoms collide? Following the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory, trailblazing Chief Marketing Officer Lara Krug offers her unique perspective on the cultural zeitgeist that welcomed a swell of Swifties into their first season as football fans. We follow Lara’s career trajectory from beauty to beer to sports and learn why she believes the most successful companies hire smart rookies.

Highlights:

* 01:36 Navigating New Industries

* 10:15 Re-envisioning an Established Brand

* 15:23 Making the Leap from Beauty to Beer to Sports

* 18:46 The Importance of Soft Skills and Continuous Learning

* 23:13 Expanding the Fan Base: Swifties and Beyond

* 34:06 Why Successful Companies Hire Smart Rookies

* 45:21 The Value of Rookie Experiences and Aligning Aspirations

About Our Guests:

Lara is an experienced and passionate business leader with 15+ years of experience building and growing brands across multiple industries including consumer goods, alcohol, beauty and sports in both global and U.S. roles. In 2021, Lara joined the Kansas City Chiefs as the first Chief Marketing Officer and EVP of Marketing. While overseeing all aspects of marketing in the U.S. including brand strategy, fan development, content & production, events and community impact, she is also responsible for the internationalization of the club in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Mexico.

Prior to joining the Chiefs, she spent more than eight years in multiple marketing roles with Anheuser-Busch InBev, eventually taking over as Vice President of U.S. Marketing for Stella Artois. Before leading the national marketing efforts for Stella Artois, she oversaw AB Inbev’s regional brand portfolio, global experiential and sponsorship business and digital media partnerships. Those roles saw her develop and lead experiential platforms and campaigns around Super Bowl LIV, FIFA World Cup, the World Surfing League, UFC, Wimbledon, Tomorrowland and many more.

Reference:

* Chiefs Defeat 49ers, 25-22, to Secure a Second-Straight World Championship

* Learn how we use the Acorn to Oak Tree exercise in our human-centered design research on our tools page.

Add Your Voice to Our Final Episode!

We’re curating listener questions to include and answer in our season wrap-up. Leave us a voice memo with the biggest questions and takeaways from this season of Smart Rookie. What questions still linger for you? What do you wish we’d talked about more?

Get in touch: DM us on Instagram, or send us an email, smartrookie[at]thenucleusgroup.com.

Credits:

* Chelsea Carlson, Podcast Art Designer

* Ashley Bradford, Theme Music Artist

* Sam Nash, Audio Engineer

* Gabriela Acosta, Executive Producer

* Smart Rookie is brought to you by brand and strategy collaborative, The Nucleus Group.

Please note that our show transcript is AI generated and may not be 100% accurate.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smartrookie.substack.com

Opening Doors to the Chiefs Kingdom (Lara Krug’s Version)

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