XBIZ Premiere is pleased to present “Execs of 2016: The Year in Review” — a special showcase of the thoughts and strategies of 2016’s most influential and motivational leaders as they offer their take on the year’s top trends.
Each of the executives we spoke to is among the finalist nominees for the retail industry edition of the 2017 XBIZ Exec Awards.
One of our core strengths has always been finding creative ways to drive engagement not just with our end users but also, with our distributors and retail partners. -Gideon Perez, The Screaming O
The following question about the year in review was asked to those running for the Marketing Executive of the Year Award:
XBIZ: How did you elevate your brand this year?
Kristen Tribby
Director of Marketing And Education, Fun Factory
“For our 20th anniversary, we tapped into the sense of fun that defines the brand. We worked with our retail partners on pop-up displays in strategic locations and exclusive events designed to take the consumer out of the typical retail experience and invite exploration, including an aphrodisiac food and toy pairing event and an opportunity to design a custom scent. We also worked with mainstream designer Karim Rashid to offer a limited-edition gift with purchase toy bag and toy box with a colorful Fun Factory-inspired design. For our 20th anniversary celebration, we opened up our factory to give people a look at our green practices and discover how the fun is made.”
Erica Braverman
Marketing Coordinator, Doc Johnson
“This year, we’ve reached just over 36 million people through earned media alone, and we’ve created plenty of engaging owned media content as well, including informational product materials and in-store marketing support that we also leverage on our B2B website: B2bDocJohnson.com. Through our media outreach campaign, we targeted and generated coverage in high-profile publications with diverse readerships — from millennial favorites like BuzzFeed and Refinery29 to traditional media giants like Cosmopolitan, the New York Post and Forbes, allowing us to establish Doc Johnson as the leading name in American-made pleasure products. We also use a variety of channels to keep a pulse on what our customers are saying, including site behavior, customer service reports, product reviews and social media. And we are constantly reacting to trends and feedback, acting wherever we can to solve unmet demands.”
Gideon Perez
Marketing Manager, The Screaming O
“One of our core strengths has always been finding creative ways to drive engagement not just with our end users but also, with our distributors and retail partners. We strive to create interactions that last longer than just a brief glance at a magazine ad or social media post. This year, in addition to our ongoing free, large format custom signage that we provide to any retail stores that carry our products, we’ve also implemented a custom lanyard campaign that cross-promotes our brand along with the retailer’s brand and drives consumers to inquire about various Screaming O products at the point of purchase. At the end of the day, it’s these types of interactions that not only maximize our brand’s reach but also, our retail partners’ profits.”
Megan Wozniak
Marketing Director, Adult Empire
“To effectively maximize online brand presence, marketers nowadays have to reach across multiple channels to engage the user. A brand’s online presence serves as a validity tool for consumers of the brand’s credibility. Foremost, maintain brand consistency across your website, multiple social networks, blog, contests, podcasting, etc.; this helps to reinforce the brand and what you offer to your target market. Pushing our efforts towards the mobile world was essential in order to be available to consumers anytime, anywhere and on any device. We took this mobile-first approach to site design and optimized our website to be the first major adult e-tailer to offer a fully responsive site. Social media is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase visibility and gain access to audiences across the globe; it promotes visibility, brand loyalty, fan interaction and engagement, all while growing traffic and sales. Quality content will help attract customers even if they haven’t heard of your brand. We’ve devoted time to producing our own fun, unique content and distributing via our YouTube channel.”
Sabrina Earnshaw
Sales Manager, Lovehoney
“I have recently returned from 12 months in the U.S., where my working visa with Lovehoney enabled me to build valuable relationships with our American retailers and distributors. It was a fantastic opportunity to be really hands-on and to seek out new opportunities in the marketplace. We’ve made sure to be seen at as many trade shows as possible. We’ve showcased our new licensed ranges at various industry events. Our licensed ranges have expanded to include tokidoki and Mötley Crüe, and new collections have been developed for Motörhead and, of course, Fifty Shades Darker. I have been able to put clients’ feedback into practice, developing point-of-sale materials and improving packaging, which has resulted in increased footfall for U.S. stores. It’s amazing to see how much the Lovehoney trade team has achieved during my year in the States, and I am extremely proud to have contributed to that success.”
Nichole Grossman
Assistant Director of Marketing, CalExotics
“Expanding our reach is a major goal for the marketing department at CalExotics. This year, our focus has been on directing that expansion straight to the consumer. The consumer is the ultimate decision maker, and getting them familiar with the brand allows us to better close the gap. We’ve been successful with several different efforts. One, in particular, is with our outreach to mainstream media. CalExotics and our founder and CEO, Susan Colvin, have been profiled in a variety of outlets; this helps spread the CalExotics message. We’ve been talked about online and in print by major outlets such as Huffington Post, Forbes, the Economic Times, Cosmopolitan and others. From these mentions, we see a tremendous increase in our website traffic and other media mentions. This tells us our efforts are paying off and ultimately, creating more brand awareness.”
Ryan Fraga
Director of Sales & Marketing, Oxballs
“This year we increased our resources aimed at building global brand awareness and focused on strengthening customer relations with a hands-on approach. With the addition of two new reps to Oxballs’sales force, we have expanded our customer support and reach with an increased presence at global trade shows, on-site trainings and participation in webinar classes. We’ve also bolstered our branding efforts with co-op print and web ads with distributors and retailer partners, expanded consumer-focused advertising campaigns in mainstream print and web magazines, and actively engage consumers and wholesalers through various social media platforms.”
Joanne B. Queenin
Executive Administrator, Sportsheets International
“Easy: social media. With our customers being the distributors and the retailers, we began a campaign to heavily market to the end user and increase our brand awareness. This will increase not only our revenues, but our customer’s revenue as well. Everyone benefits. We market to them, our customers, of course, but they already know who we are, what we stand for — and they know the high quality of our products. They know that we stand behind what we sell every day in every way. We wanted to reach out to the end consumer. We have launched a huge marketing campaign and social media blitz, and that’s what’s worked for us this past year and will work well into next year. Reaching out to the consumer directly, increasing our brand awareness, going to trade shows and meeting those people who buy and use our products — we’ve put together some pretty amazing campaigns to reach out to those important end users. We wanted to introduce the user to our brands, our products and what our company stands for. We’ve had more fun than even we anticipated.”
