Family First Podcast
The Wild World of Marketing to Parents
Welcome to a first-of-its-kind podcast dedicated to conversations with marketers to explore the wild world of marketing to parents.
Families may be one of the most elusive audiences to reach given the chaos that comes with parenting. Below you’ll find a library of episodes featuring best-in-class marketers who share their challenges, successes, and advice for how they’ve approached marketing to parents.
Listen below or tune into your favorite podcast channel.
Introduction
Welcome to “Family First: The Wild World of Marketing to Parents.” We’ll be learning from some impressive marketers who will share their challenges, successes and advice for how they’ve approached marketing to parents. Many of our guests are parents themselves so we’ll learn more about how being a parent has influenced their perspective as a marketer.
This is going to be fun, insightful, and a new way to learn from others who likely have the same or similar challenges you might be navigating. I invite you to join us on this wild journey of marketing to parents.
Julie Powell Christopher
Julie shares some powerful insights, ideas, and advice from her time leading iconic brands including Elf on the Shelf, Peppa Pig, and PJ Masks. Julie shares invaluable advice and a reminder to parents and marketers alike that parents put too much pressure on themselves to create perfect moments with their children. Kids don’t want perfection, they want connection.
Lan Nguyen Chaplin
Lan Nguyen Chaplin, a marketing professor and researcher at Northwestern University, shares more about her work studying children’s consumer behavior and branding. Lan talks about how being a parent has inspired her work and how neuromarketing has started to catch on and why it’s important. Lan discusses her highly acclaimed work, “Material Parenting, How the Use of Goods in Parenting Fosters Materialism in the Next Generation” as well as teasing upcoming research around gratitude and why our children may be more grateful than we realize.
Arthur G. Affleck, III
As Executive Director at the Association of Children’s Museums, Arthur shares an interesting perspective for the value of Children’s Museums. This includes how their mission is grounded in guided play which is so vital to supporting early childhood education since 75 percent of the time, children are not in a formal schooling education.
Josh Arnold
Josh has had an incredible career leading experiential marketing at iconic brands including General Mills, Best Buy, Amazon, and Weber (Grills). In this episode Josh shares an interesting perspective for how to find success selling through new experiential ideas internally. Josh also offers valuable insights for how to approach working with family-friendly entertainment venues for brands interested in reaching parents & kids during shared moments together.
Mark Pannes
Mark has had an incredibly accomplished career including spending a decade with the New York Knicks serving in many roles, including as CMO. After his time with the Knicks, Mark founded HSBC Private Bank’s Global Sports Group, based in London. He’s also been CEO at AS Roma, pro soccer club out of Serie A, CEO at the Vancouver Whitecaps from Major League Soccer, and President at Circuit of the Americas. In this episode, Mark shares some interesting parallels between sports & entertainment venues, why staying inside the “box” is a good thing, and how to consider giving yourself more grace vs being epic.
Jim Andrews
Jim Andrews is a well-respected veteran in the sponsorship industry, boasting a wealth of experience spanning sports, music, events, festivals, and family-friendly sponsorships. In this episode, Jim shares his insights on the advantages of diversifying a brand’s sponsorship portfolio by adding family entertainment properties to achieve a more balanced approach.
Tim McGhee
In this episode Tim shares more about a recently announced sponsorship between Campbell’s Snacks and Major League Soccer including how it came together, some of the strategic thinking and insights, and how they plan on activating the partnership. He also shares his thoughts on how data and analytics has changed the sponsorship landscape in addition to how he thinks about family-friendly sponsorships to attract and appeal to the entire family.
Ian Goldberg
Ian is the founder and CEO at iSport360 where he’s on a mission to change the culture of youth sports. He’s also a board member at the National Alliance for Youth Sports providing an important perspective on using technology to create better youth sports experiences for kids, coaches and sports parents. In this episode Ian talks about youths sports sponsorship and a new way to align valuable content with brands interested in reaching youth sports parents.
Alisha Snow
In this episode, Alisha shares some interesting trends and universal truths about the family/parent demographic including their shopping behaviors, entertainment choices, and advice for how marketers should approach custom research when targeting parents and kids. Alisha is an executive vice president at Smarty Pants, a custom research and strategic consulting firm. Alisha leads research initiatives for a diverse set of Smarty Pants’ clients including Target, LEGO, Aetna, PBS Kids, and Kellogg’s. Prior to joining Smarty Pants, Alisha designed and facilitated global research initiatives for Hasbro. Alisha’s depth of experience with youth research has positioned her as an expert in the media.
Julian Franklin
Julian has some of the most diverse career experiences you might find from a marketer including starting in sports with a 7 year run at the Toronto Blue Jays. He spent an accomplished 10 year career at Kraft Heinz including stints running shopper teams, consumer engagement, and as the portfolio lead on sports & entertainment partnerships, negotiations, and retail activations including the NHL, MLS, Stephen Curry, WWE, USA Hockey, Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings, among others. Julian spent 2 years as Managing Director of Geometry Global in Toronto. He also started his own marketing company, Franklin Management, and served as President for over 3 years, prior to taking on his current role as VP of Partnership Development & Strategy for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.
Matt Barlow
Matt has led marketing and managed brands including Whirlpool, Slim Jim during his time at ConAgra Foods, Bel Group, and is currently the Director of Marketing at Plum Organics, recently acquired by Sun-Maid. In this episode Matt talks about the unique challenges for marketing to new Moms, what it means to be a “digital-first” brand, and how Plum positions itself as a trusted resource that supports parents mental health journey.
Katherine Wintsch
Katherine is the founder and CEO of The Mom Complex, where she helps some of the largest companies in the world such as Walmart, Johnson and Johnson, Pinterest and Chobani develop better products and services for mothers. She is also author of the popular book, Slay Like A Mother, which Parade Magazine named one of the top 10 life-changing self-help books of the year.
Lesa Ukman
Lesa is widely regarded as the Godmother of Sponsorship. In 1982, Lesa Ukman founded IEG (sponsorship.com) and built a company that spawned a new industry, one currently worth more than $85 billion. She created the processes to measure what was deemed immeasurable: the fair market value of sports, arts, entertainment and nonprofit sponsorships, now used by the worldwide marketplace. After selling IEG to WPP, she chartered a new path to put the “S” in ESG by founding ProSocial Valuation where her company calculates the social capital as part of the greater partnerships and sponsorships market. She has been sought out and counseled the biggest names and properties in the world including the IOC and NFL to name just a couple.
Miguel Zorrilla
In this episode, Miguel shares his thoughts on the unique challenges that come with marketing to parents. Miguel offers several examples from his time leading Butterfinger, and now Kinder Joy, including examples for how they leverage partnerships across sports, movies, gaming, and the value of influencer marketing to amplify brand fandom. Miguel also talks about how to approach reaching the new family environment reaching beyond Mom & Dad, while also staying grounded in research and insights from a core group of their primary consumers using a panel they call the Kinder Community of Moms. He also shares what they prioritize when it comes to measuring specific brand campaigns.
Tiffany Krumins
Tiffany’s infectious spirit has attracted the attention of media such as Dr. Oz, Fox Business, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and most recently the Today Show. She was even touted in The Huffington Post as a modern day Mary Poppins. Tiffany cruised from nanny to inventor to entrepreneur on a wave of uncanny creativity, cunning business strategies, and substantive causes that tugged at her giving heart. A respected inventor, iHeartRadio host, motivational speaker, successful entrepreneur, and mother of four, Tiffany now leads all of her ventures with a daily intention that business success and personal fulfillment are not mutually exclusive.
Jenna Paquin
Jenna has spent the better part of the last decade working in FMCG marketing with some of the country’s most well-known brands including Lysol, Coca-Cola, Honest Tea & Resolve. She is currently the category manager for the Air Wick Equity team at Reckitt Benckiser. In this episode, Jenna talks about how some of the brands she leads think about advertising to parents including the value of using simplicity to craft marketing messages while prioritizing the link to emotional benefits by being a purpose-led brand.
Mary Katherine (MK) Woltz
“MK” Woltz shares her thoughts on the rise of retail media networks including the value for the data and insights these channels offer. MK talks about how being a parent has influenced her perspective as a marketer and how having less time has made her more efficient at her job. In our discussion, we also dive into new sponsorship opportunities for marketing to parents and kids, the value of licensing, how Danone approaches ESG, sponsorship ROI, and how to strike the right balance of digital and experiential partnerships.