Dana Barba
Senior Vice President, Marketing, North America Operating Unit
The Coca-Cola Co.
Main job responsibilities:I lead the frontline marketing team, which amplifies brand and shopper strategies with our bottling system, integrates shopper marketing with our top retail customers, and leads the marketing of our Freestyle beverage experience for North America. Collectively, the team serves as the face of our brands to the customers, asset partners and bottling system. My team focuses on the last mile to the consumer.
As part of our evolution in 2021, we launched a new high-touch, brand edge field marketing capability. It combines strategic consumer recruitment and partnership marketing with retail engagement. Unique and authentic sampling experiences are amplified by local influencer, social media and partnership drops, and then leveraged for new business and sales.
How you win with shoppers during uncertain economic times: We are focused on building end-to-end ex-periences tailored to our customers, which has helped us react quickly and adapt to challenges as they arise. We used agile design principles to introduce (in just six weeks) “The Coca-Cola Value Collection,” which features new and existing package assortments of our popular sparkling beverages across various price points, sizes and flavors. The value packs will be featured in large store, convenience and value channels.
New marketing tactic in your toolbox: We’re very excited about the way we have approached our Coca-Cola Creations innovation platform. Coca-Cola Starlight harnessed Gen Z influencer culture with a digital experience that articulated the full magic of the Starlight experience, including bespoke influencer “unboxing” of product and an AR music performance unlocked by the label. Next, inspired by Gen Z’s connection to drop and gaming culture, Coca-Cola Byte became the first Coca-Cola product to launch in the metaverse and debut on the livestreaming platform Twitch. We continued to build on this successful platform with our most recent launch of Coca-Cola Dreamworld in August.
Memorable aha moment in your career:Learning about and applying insights from our new consumer segmentation model. It’s defined by higher order needs and motivations versus simple demographics. It can be applied to customer planning and shopper marketing. The aha came when in diving into the work, they described a consumer based just on demographics. We look at six additional layers of influences and differentiators beyond demographics to really understand who the consumer is, what is important to them and how to connect with them.
Amber Hubbs Golegos
Shopper Marketing Manager
Merrick Pet Care, Nestle Purina
How you win with shoppers during uncertain economic times: Our messaging has a humanized approach to develop a connection with our pet parents. Similar to how they shop for their children, pet parents are not willing to sacrifice quality for a lower cost.
New marketing tactic in your toolbox: Not a tactic, but a new approach. All of our programs are built from an omnichannel lens. We try to think about the pet parents’ shopping behaviors as a cohesive experience between online and in-store. Personalization has been a big unlock for us also. We bring this to life via digital media and CRM activations.
Best career advice you’ve received: Start with the end in mind. When you understand what success looks like, you are able to create more effective marketing plans that measure against your KPIs. And as a mom with two boys under 2, the advice was, “It takes courage to be a working mom. You need the courage to leave your kids with someone other than you. You need courage to prove your value in the workplace. And you need courage to focus on what’s right for your family. As a working mom, you are stronger than you think.”
Memorable aha moment in your career: During a summer internship, I gathered more information and found that a role in sales would be extremely beneficial in making me a well-rounded candidate for future marketing roles. From that invaluable experience, I realized that not all paths are linear. There are infinite ways you can get to an end goal, you just have to be open to alternate routes to get there.
