Prepare to be inspired as we journey with Kitty, the dynamic Vice President of Brand Experience at Heroic Productions, who shares her unique career evolution with both humor and wisdom. From her early days in sales to the dazzling world of large corporate events, Kitty's story is a rich tapestry of embracing passions, pursuing a jewelry side hustle, and co-hosting this podcast. Her experiences provide a treasure trove of insights for anyone standing at the crossroads of their career or looking to stoke the fires of their own diverse interests.
As we peel back the layers of experience design, you'll discover how companies, big and small, from Disney to Caribou Coffee, have mastered the art of creating memorable customer connections. The role of technology in shaping how we interact with brands and the profound impact of personal touches in sales strategies take center stage. Plus, we tackle the latest shifts in the C-suite, emphasizing the fusion of design and business strategy that's reshaping industries. So, buckle up for a ride through the transformative world of branding, teeming with practical wisdom for the marketing mavens and the curious novices alike.
Make sure to subscribe to our channel, comment, like, and share!
Amy, Kitty & Stacey
P.S. Isn't our intro music great?! Yah, we think so too. Thank you, Ivy States for "I Got That Wow".
Prepare to be inspired as we journey with Kitty, the dynamic Vice President of Brand Experience at Heroic Productions, who shares her unique career evolution with both humor and wisdom. From her early days in sales to the dazzling world of large corporate events, Kitty's story is a rich tapestry of embracing passions, pursuing a jewelry side hustle, and co-hosting this podcast. Her experiences provide a treasure trove of insights for anyone standing at the crossroads of their career or looking to stoke the fires of their own diverse interests.
As we peel back the layers of experience design, you'll discover how companies, big and small, from Disney to Caribou Coffee, have mastered the art of creating memorable customer connections. The role of technology in shaping how we interact with brands and the profound impact of personal touches in sales strategies take center stage. Plus, we tackle the latest shifts in the C-suite, emphasizing the fusion of design and business strategy that's reshaping industries. So, buckle up for a ride through the transformative world of branding, teeming with practical wisdom for the marketing mavens and the curious novices alike.
Make sure to subscribe to our channel, comment, like, and share!
Amy, Kitty & Stacey
P.S. Isn't our intro music great?! Yah, we think so too. Thank you, Ivy States for "I Got That Wow".
I got that. Who wants some heads up right now? We got that Turn it up loud. I know you're wondering how I got that.
Speaker 2:Here I go. Here I go, coming. I can't ever stop. I'm a tour de force running. Give me to the top. I don't need an invitation. I'm about to start a celebration.
Speaker 3:Hello, hi, hi friends, hello, how is everybody today? Peachy Clean trade.
Speaker 4:Thumbs up. It's warmed up. It's hard to be not, I mean even though it's kind of gray and overcast. Yes, it's not freezing as cold.
Speaker 5:Yes, I went and got a car wash today.
Speaker 4:Oh, I need one so bad.
Speaker 5:Well, I couldn't see out my rear, the backup camera mirror or the backup camera Couldn't see out of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have this never, yep, but I just used the old squeegee when I filled up with gas and then I do the mirrors, rocking it old school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sounds Yep, everyone needs to do that. Well, hey, everyone, this is three cocktails in, we're back, and actually we're back with part two. So part one was all about Amy and her career and what she does, and guess what. This is part two, all about kitty. So here's our question kitty, what exactly do you do?
Speaker 5:Today currently in 2024, I am the vice president of brand experience at heroic productions. We are a corporate event production company, so when I tell people that, I often find that they still don't understand what I do. So, basically, we work with large corporate clients, and particularly corporate clients who are using meetings and events as part of the marketing strategy, and our area of expertise is the audio, video, lighting and staging, so we help them design and execute what the whole stage production is going to look like for their big meeting or event, and sometimes these are one day events. Sometimes these are four or five day events. They're typically at convention centers or big, beautiful hotel venues. Oftentimes they are in warm climates, but that's where I work. That probably still doesn't answer the question about what I do, though, does it no?
Speaker 3:And you, that's your company, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, my whole career has been in a business development role actually, and that is the role that I have at heroic. The whole evolution of my career started my first sales job was in the mid 90s and I worked for a company called duplication factory. This was back in the days of when video marketing had emerged as a really hot marketing tool, and so I kind of curious to know how many people remember getting a videotape in the mail? Probably quite a few that are around, you know, around our age and older. That became a hot, a very hot. It wasn't a commodity, a hot marketing approach.
Speaker 5:And so while the company that I worked for was the manufacturer, we did the high speed duplication. The core of what we did was we were executing marketing campaigns, basically for our clients. So that kind of sent me on this marketing trajectory, and I have worked for a variety of agencies over the years in a business development role. So I always tell people everything that I know today about branding and marketing. I know just from working inside an agency environment. So I am selling, I am out talking with prospective clients all the time and finding corporate clients who have a need for what we do. And then we talk about the scope of their project and we put a deal together.
Speaker 4:How do you think you landed on this one? You've done a bunch of different things and you've just alluded to it. Yeah, you know done. So what is it about? What is it about this experience? Is that what we're? Is that the right word?
Speaker 5:Honestly, I would say that if I look at the entire path of my career, it was a complete evolution and it really is a testament to letting things unfold in front of you. I really believe that I was born to do what I'm doing right now and but let me be clear, what I'm doing is a lot of things. So not only what I do at Heroic, which I love, but also you guys know, I have the side hustle with my jewelry business, doing the podcast with you guys. These are the things that I feel like I was born to do. But if I had to point to moments that really defined this direction that I went, I think it would be. It would have to be the 10 years that I spent at Capsule, which is a brand design agency, downtown Minneapolis, and that's really where I fell in love with branding and design and the whole philosophy of experience design. So when I get really excited, I'm usually talking about experience design.
Speaker 4:So what does that mean? How does that because you've mentioned it before what does it mean to me, the shopper, the person out of the know yeah, somebody who doesn't, you know, isn't really thinking about it, thinking about it through a marketing lens.
Speaker 5:It truly is the design of creating a physical experience. So a brand, creating a physical experience that's going to, that will interact with a customer and I try to not use the word customer or user or people, and regardless of whether or not we're making a purchase decision for you know, for me, for my home, or I'm making a purchase decision for my company, we go through, in general, we go through the same thought process, we go through the same decision making process. So the experience design is truly creating an immersive experience for a person that brings them closer to the brand. And I like to think about this topic in terms of sort of the well, I like to back way up and remind people about the evolution of our economies over time, because I will often hear people say things like you know, this, this modern world, that that we live in, nothing is the same anymore. And you know, with the rise of these, everything is digital now. And the fact of the matter is everything is always evolving. And I think I think back to when retail was changing in a big way and people were saying retail is dying, retail is going to be dead. Retail was never dying or in danger of dying. It was simply changing, and so I think, to help people get comfortable with that change factor as it relates to this topic, let's think about the evolution of our economies over time.
Speaker 5:10,000 years ago, we were an agrarian economy, we were farmers, we were plucking out of the soil what we needed to survive, and that was a commodity. And then I'm guessing it was, I'm recalling, like mid 18th century we moved into the industrial economy, so now we're manufacturing and creating goods. The 1960s, roughly, we moved into the service economy. So this is now where you started to see true service offerings like financial services, retail. This is when retail emerged. Hospitality, health services, those would be some examples. And then, in the mid 90s, the experience economy emerged, and it is defined as an economy in which many different goods and services are sold by emphasizing the effects that they can have on people's lives.
Speaker 5:So, rather than just being a good or a service and one of the best examples is Disney. So whenever people will ask me, I still don't understand what you mean what is an experience? So let's think about Disney, all of the products that Disney owns. What they have excelled at is creating an immersive experience. So when you go to any of the Disney properties, you're gonna go into the little stores and you're gonna buy the little plush toys and you're gonna put the whatever the little ears on and you're gonna buy all of those Disney products.
Speaker 5:But it's the experience that is bonding you to the brand and that is once brands started to figure out that as human beings, we have all of these senses and we want to have an experience, and when you have a physical experience with a brand, you create a memory and that's what creates a bond. So this experience economy bloomed late 90s and it has just continued to become more and more prevalent. Brands have figured it out. Some brands do it better than others, but it is truly. I think it's a super creative and vibrant component within marketing and I can't get enough of it, watching it, observing it, writing about it, speaking about it. It's fascinating to me.
Speaker 3:Sounds very interesting. So, even throughout your career, has technology and advancements in that made change the branding and marketing and your experiential type events? Has that changed throughout your career? Because I would assume did they have your company or your job 30 years ago.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yes, it has definitely changed. Technology has changed everything in our world. When you think about so this is fascinating to me when you think about people who are in their 90s and hundreds, because we are living longer and longer and I believe I heard a futurist speak on this once where they said the first person who will live to be 150 is living today. Let that sink in for a minute.
Speaker 5:I do not like hearing from futurists. They freak me out. But yes, technology has changed everything in our lives. So I was just reflecting on can you imagine how the world has changed for people in their 80s, 90s and hundreds? The evolution of technology amazing. We know what it has been for us, the young people in our lives. They've always had it. Our kids, they were born with a phone in their hand. Not really, but yes, technology has changed everything and this is it's one of the reasons why I am always reminding people that the way people by today has changed, and it's because of this. It's not because of COVID happened way before COVID. It's because of these computers that we keep in our pockets every day. We are more informed, we are more apt to want to do as much research as possible on our own before we talk to a salesperson. So that's one thing, and so-.
Speaker 4:We talked about that in real estate. Oh, people have already bought. They're already seeing themselves in the home based off of the photos that they've found on their home or on their phone. Yes, where they ever come or talk to anybody about what the home might have to offer for them, they've gone through. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they want to go as far down the path to purchase as possible until they get to the point where they're like okay, now I need to talk to somebody. So we as selling entities, so we as salespeople as well as sales driven organizations, they need to acknowledge that and acknowledge the fact that if we're still selling the way that we were selling 40 years ago, you're not gonna have success. So there's a whole bunch of new technology that allows us to better connect with people in that environment where they want to be. It's why we have digital ads. It's why you're served up ads when you're scrolling Facebook or Instagram or whatever it might be, and you click on one thing and then, all of a sudden, you start to see ads. Well, those, yeah, it's built that way because that's just how we shop as consumers.
Speaker 5:From our business perspective, we sort of went. We've gone and this was because of COVID. We've gone from all in-person events to when COVID happened. Our business went away overnight. So I wasn't working at Heroic when that happened. I was at another experiential agency. We went from a hundred people to 35 overnight because the business went away. I was let go from that company. And at Heroic, same thing. Our company lost all of our business overnight. So the quick pivot that Heroic did was that we converted a good portion of our warehouse space into a studio environment so that during those months of lockdown, in a safe way, our clients could come in and they could execute virtual events. So we went completely virtual, you know, and people thought, oh, this is going to, this is just going to last a couple months.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:It went on and on. So then, at a certain point, when restrictions were starting to lift, when our clients were able to be back in person doing in person events, again they were back in a big way. So what we're seeing now? We're seeing clients not want to have anything to do with virtual and they just want to be back to in person. Because, again, you know, even though the three of us are sitting here in a virtual environment, we're doing this because we want to share this with a wide audience. But whenever possible, we want to be together, we want to be in the same room, having an experience together, and that's just human nature, yeah. So, yeah, technology has changed everything and it will continue.
Speaker 5:To you, it's interesting now to see what's happening with AI Lots of conversation, tons of conversation. So and this is something so, amy, we should track back and ask you how is AI affecting your industry Stacy? When we're, when we're getting ready to hear from you next week, I would love to hear how that is being received in your industry and at your company. It is nobody has the answer. You know. Everybody's just saying, well, it'll be interesting to see. I hate that, but it's, it's evolving, and you know what? It's not new. It feels new to us because we're just now starting to use it, but it's been around for a while. Yeah, I do use it in my business, primarily because I have right now.
Speaker 4:I have a lot of people who are primarily because I have right now I have I have eight homes that are available for sale. Five of them are the exact same home and the pictures because they're under construction are the exact same photos. So I look at chat GPT Sorry, there's there's a little. Maybe we'll get some sponsorship. Yeah, I love it. It's free, but I can put my first description of the home in and I can hit rewrite and it just rewords what I've already said. Now I do. I'm too much of a control freak to let AI just go. I think that good AI comes from good input. Yes, you have to start with good ideas and then you're just asking chat, gpt or AI to be your editor.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so, or or for it to just start your outline, for you give you the initial thoughts and then you go and make it better, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, give me 10 reasons why. Five reasons why. But like so many things, it's only as good as we put in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you have to feed it some information before it will give you what you know, a better version of what you're looking for, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:I use it pretty much every day as well and I it's never. It's always a thought starter for me. It just gets me started and then and then I make it better. So when I do hear people feel just very negative about it, like yeah, you know it's, kids are going to use it to write their papers and OK, those, all of those things are being addressed, absolutely, you can't. Whatever is that you're crafting or writing will still need the human touch. The AI is only going to be able to take it so far, and you can tell when something is just generated by AI and hasn't been refined or touched, it's going to be it. It's interesting to hear designers talk about this, because it's happening in the design world as well. I'm not a designer, so I don't really feel qualified to talk about that Boy. That could be an interesting topic. We're always creating a list of who are the guests that we want to be on her show.
Speaker 4:That that would be a good one, but I'd like to talk to artists about it. Yes, you know there's big, big discussions about AI generated art. Yeah, we got, we went to an, we went kind of off on a tangent.
Speaker 3:I know we got off on off away from the topic all about kitty, so well it's a good back. Get back to that. Yeah, the questions.
Speaker 5:So I think I did. Yeah, I think I did. That's, that's really important.
Speaker 3:So we have any information about how you know consumers have changed their buying habits. You know what's changed over the past few years.
Speaker 5:Well, I think that the biggest one is our, our. We talked a little bit about our ability to do our own research and do our own comparison and and just go and buy things online. So, going back to when I mentioned that there was all this scare about retail dying retail never, in fact, was dying. People were just wanting a different way to buy. So and I think all of us we have times where we'll just go to Amazon and grab something because we don't have time to go to the store, but then there are times that I want to get in my car and I want to drive to the mall or whatever. So I go to the gallery and I'm going to walk around and I want to immerse myself in the retail environment. We have the option now more than ever.
Speaker 5:So, while we find we know what we know when we want to online shop, we also know when we want to physical shop as well. So retailers are having to put more into their experience, which has been fun to see, right? Isn't it fun to walk into a store that has a game? Yes, you love to be in the environment. They're doing that because we we are demanding it as consumers. We're demanding it by either we're not shopping there or you know they. They create this better environment and it's truly you build it, then they will come. That design or that focus is proving itself out by getting people back into stores again.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it also. You know, for me I don't think about the great experiences, because I think that's where the standard is. Now I notice when something isn't up to par. Yes, I just went to a mall yesterday and walked in what used to be one of my favorite stores and went what a dump. Yeah, you know, and it used to be the place to go.
Speaker 5:I know which one you're talking about. Yes, you do.
Speaker 4:Yes, you do, and and so we have become kind of accustomed to a certain level of experience. Yeah, and it's not always I'm. Perhaps you have some examples of companies or companies that you've worked with. I don't know if you signed NDAs or anything, but it's not just really expensive companies that are doing this. This is, I mean. Am I wrong? No, Am I wrong there no.
Speaker 5:And and I think that that's a misunderstanding too that, well, it's only big brands that have million or billion dollar budgets that can can create experiences like that. It's not true. It's going to take some creativity, but there are ways to think about. Well, what is the experience that you, where are the opportunities that you can create an experience for someone? And it can be as simple as behaviors. It doesn't have to be in, you know, necessarily within the brick and mortar. It could be an experience. Here's an example. So this is a caribou coffee example. So, for those of you who aren't in our area, caribou coffee is like a Starbucks, be like scooters. And so they.
Speaker 5:When you think about the, the person who is going consuming coffee or whatever drink or food item that they might be going to Care Roofer, you've got several different customer types, and so you need to think about the different experiences that those people are going to have. So you've got the person who is going to drive there. They're going to park, they're going to go in, they're going to order, get their coffee and walk out. You've got the person who's going to park go in, get a coffee and sit down. They might be meeting somebody, they might be planning to sit there and work by themselves. Then you've got the person who's going to go through the drive-thru. Those right, there are three different experiences that you need to think about. What is that? What experience is that person going to have? What are they going to see? How are they going to interact with the brand?
Speaker 5:And a behavior that can be infused into the experience is as simple as this. So you, I order my coffee. So let's say I'm getting my medium skim vanilla white mocha with less chocolate, less vanilla whip and no other toppings. Yes, that is my order, and I pay five or six something for that drink. And so the person at the register takes my order, it goes to the barista and now I wait for my coffee.
Speaker 5:And so, as she's crafty or he, they're crafting my coffee that I have. You know, obviously I love this drink, I have fine-tuned it to that recipe and I shell out six or maybe seven dollars for it. What a great experience would it be if, when that barista is done making it, she actually takes it with two hands and hands it to me and makes eye contact with me. That is a completely different experience than throwing it up on the counter and saying skim white mocha and then going on to the next. That's a behavior that has a tremendous amount of value to it. Now some people business analysts and things might look at that and say, well, how much more time is that going to take for that person to do that? Well, yeah, it's going to take time, but I guarantee you that memory that is created from that experience, the value of that is tremendous.
Speaker 3:Right, it's hard for companies to value or put a value on the customer service aspect of their business. You know, and just like you said, somebody's gonna crunch numbers and think, well, that's taking too much time. Someone else is gonna say, yes, but it's very important that we do it.
Speaker 5:Yes, yeah, and sometimes you need people like that inside your company or inside your organization to raise those things up and say I hear what you're saying there, but this is really important and here's why and how it can make a difference for our brand. Several years ago I want to say maybe 10 years ago some of the biggest brands in the world started to add to the C-suite for the first time and they created a position that was the chief design officer. Coke did it, pepsi did it, and for the first time, they took a stance and they said design needs to be at the center of our business strategy. They need to have a seat at the table. And so it wasn't just about you know the physical design of something or that you know just the brand. It was about infusing design into the entire business, and that's gonna look different for every business, but it needed. That person needed to be at the table. In this experience economy that we are living in.
Speaker 3:Sure, If someone wanted to get into your business, how would they do that? You know what does that look like today.
Speaker 5:I think that it would start well. Boy, you know I didn't go to school for marketing, and if I had, I don't know that there would be a whole lot from that education other than the peer fundamentals. You know, the economic, marketing slash, marketing fundamentals. Those, of course, would be tried and true, but all the tools and the tactics have changed so much. I'm not saying that a marketing degree isn't valuable it absolutely is. Today it is valuable for sure.
Speaker 5:I'm not sure, though, that there are, that there are educational institutions out there that are teaching this granular or that are teaching these, these verticals within marketing. You've got this umbrella of marketing and then underneath that, you've got all of these different disciplines that you can explore. So I think that it I think I learned the best way being inside an agency. I think that's the best way to become immersed in seeing how brands work with their agency partners. Come at it from you know, with a marketing degree or marketing interest, but get into an agency where you have an opportunity to work for many different brands. You're not just in one, not just in one industry. It's one place to start, and we've got lots of agencies around here in Minneapolis, tons of agencies very good, and it's that that's a vibrant industry all across the country.
Speaker 5:Interesting, though, that oftentimes, when there is a downturn in economy, marketing tends to get cut.
Speaker 4:Isn't that just bananas? It is. It's completely upside down, that's when you need marketing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, more than ever yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so totally agree with that. I know, yep, we. You know, as you were talking, I just kept thinking about man. I've been. We talk about influencers, on media, we talk about that, but if you talk about your experience with companies, the experience that they have worked on, crafted and set up, I've been influenced for years. You've been influenced your entire life, yes, by experiences. It's why I like to go to this store instead of that one, it's why I buy this instead of that, because, honestly, the stores both carry the same stuff.
Speaker 5:Yes, one speaks to you differently than the other.
Speaker 4:Yes, and in really. I mean, you're talking about coffee being crafted. I drink Diet Coke. Now I could go on about the differences in. Diet Coke comes in a can, a bottle, a fountain. You know, regionally there's all sorts of things in country, out of country, overseas, international, but it's a Diet Coke. It's not that much different from from where I get it. But you can be damn sure that there are places where I am not going to get my Diet Coke because it's not a good experience. Yeah and yes, I will end up paying more money to go over here because it's a great experience. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:It's the eye contact, it's the, you know, yeah.
Speaker 5:It's, it's the, it's the dispenser. Even right, coke and Pepsi did so much work around designing that new dispenser that has the. You know the round section that you and you've got the touch yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I so. Again, back in my days working at the agency we had, we became fairly close with the chief design officer at Pepsi, and so we were meeting with him in New York in his office, and we're standing there in front of one of the prototypes of that machine, and I think Coke had actually come out with it first, and and one of us asked him so what do you think about? What do you think about Coke? You know, launching that or whatever? He said great, we are, yes, we are competitors, but we make each other better. Mm-hmm, we make each right, we play off of each other, and it's all in an effort to continue to bring really great products to to market.
Speaker 5:And I know we're getting close to time here, but I would I would close this conversation with Um I, you know, thinking about Steve Jobs and what a loss that was to lose, just to lose the amazing innovator that he was and just the way that he thought and the products that he brought. His whole philosophy was don't you know? Your inclination is to give people what they want. He said we need to give people what they don't know they need yet, and I love that, and that just sums up everything about how he thought about product design Give people what they don't know they need yet. Because once they get it into their hands and they use it and they realize, oh my, how did we ever live without this before? This is right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that sort of forward thinking, that sort of innovative thinking is what I think the most successful brands in the world today are doing. They're always thinking so far out and thinking in terms of designing for what people don't know they need yet.
Speaker 3:Very good yes. I'm not good at making that heart sign. I'm not gonna go like that. Okay, that was very interesting. I hope you, as the listener, was, as you know, interested in that topic, as I was, if you were remember listener. Please share and like and comment, even if you want to DM one of us or about something. Please let us know what you think Every time. Yes, yes.
Speaker 5:Love it. I think we're. Are we all on LinkedIn? Yes, yeah, yeah so we are all on LinkedIn. You guys find us on LinkedIn. Let's connect and be network buddies.
Speaker 4:Yes, we can be professionals too. We can, we can. You won't see these videos being launched into the LinkedIn, our LinkedIn world, but you know, we actually do earn livings, we do, we do what we do.
Speaker 5:We listeners, we're short.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, we have to do that to support our podcast habit. That's right, you do have to. We're not, you know, quitting, we're just part-asses. We are smart people Right, yeah Believe it, that's true.
Speaker 4:Well, stacey, I hope you're ready. You're in the hobby. Yeah, next up is me, yours, I'm really excited. I'm really excited about yours, because I know nothing, me too. You check corn.
Speaker 3:I don't do that.
Speaker 5:So, stacey, you know what I tell people, you do.
Speaker 3:Once a year, what? Oh, yeah, I tell people I do, you're right.
Speaker 5:I tell people that you buy and sell corn.
Speaker 3:Kind of half of that, I do half of that.
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure I do, but I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 5:I'm not sure. Close.
Speaker 3:Close, very close. Clearly we need a class. I know we're going to get one Right.
Speaker 5:Well, and I I will try to work that into 40 minutes, but I don't know. I love it that when we are on girls weekends and it must be a week day Wait, it was not weekend.
Speaker 3:I do, yeah, I love that Pretty exciting. We each have very interesting, very different areas of expertise and I think that's what makes it so great, because just this, you know both, amy and I. There's a piece of marketing, and both you know what we both do, and we, you know, kitties are expert at this, so you know.
Speaker 4:and you both live in houses.
Speaker 3:Yes, we do have houses. Yes, we'll see how this goes next time. Otherwise, yeah, all right, cheers ladies. All right, cheers, see you next week. Yeah, turn it up loud.