Hall of Fame Profile: Elizabeth Bishop

In college, she eyed a career in politics. (And while that still remains possible, it chiefly explains why a standee of Barack Obama conspicuously appeared in multiple pictures we received for this article's photo shoot.) But above all, Elizabeth Bishop is a leader. For five of her nine years at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Universal City, Calif., she has served as vice president of creative services and leads a category that is enduring significant change.In the '80s, '90s and at the turn of the millennium, retail was a movie studio's playground. Retailers would take as much P-O-P as a studio would make. But more recently, they are enforcing style guides and taking more ownership of the store. She is working closer with retailers to create category concept shops, including a project with Giant Eagle. Bishop also has a new shopper to contend with: Blu-ray geeks.Bishop is the daughter of a salesman with years of experience in packaging. She's been around the life and now she's being recognized for impressive achievements within it. She is one of three P-O-P Hall of Fame inductees, along with Patrick Hare of Kraft Foods and Tracy VanBibber of The Henkel/Dial Corp. All three will be honored in a ceremony held at the In-Store Marketing Summit, April 1-3, at McDonald's Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Ill. A profile of Hare ran in the March issue; VanBibber will be featured in May.How did you find your way to Universal Studios?I started my current career by answering a classified ad in the L.A. Times -- how old school is that? I was coming off tough times in real estate in the '80s, and manufacturing sounded appealing. I took a job as a sales assistant for The United Group (a local sheet plant in Los Angeles) in 1989. I worked my way up to project manager and then into sales. I worked in sales for a decade, but then opted for a change when a dear friend told me of an opening at Universal. I was hired as a creative director to work on "The Mummy" in-store campaign.It was tough taking a 50% pay hit, but this is the change I was looking for. I was promoted to vice president after five years and now enjoy a much wider array of responsibilities. Now going on my 10th year with Universal, I am lucky to have such a terrific job where every day is different and presents exciting challenges and opportunities.Have you always been interested in marketing or working in a creative field?Quite honestly, I went to school for political studies. I didn't think I'd be in marketing or sales, to be sure. I thought I'd be in law or politics, and I still think I will someday.It must've been my father who got me interested in this work. He was in sales and always in packaging. My father worked for a Styrofoam cup company when I was a kid, then a folding carton company, and then a plastics packaging company. Maybe it was those "bring your daughter to work days" where I got to walk the manufacturing floor; I saw this career as something tangible, having a part in creating something that you would see on the shelf at retail.Were you involved in any other jobs or areas prior to merchandising?On the vendor side, I got to roll up my sleeves to really understand design, engineering and manufacturing -- actually walking the floor every day of a manufacturer. It was a great opportunity to see the genesis of a project and track it all the way through to completion -- understanding the business from the various points of view. Project management, logistics, buying and selling were also part of my repertoire.On the client side, I was exposed to marketing, finance, promotions and the selling side of a consumer product. I was lucky enough to sit on both sides of the desk and that gives me a good point of view on how to be a good partner -- both internally and externally.Describe your role now.As a vice president in the creative department at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, my primary role is overseeing the creative elements for the family slate of titles -- including key art, packaging and point-of-purchase.How was the retail landscape different when you released "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" in 2002?The retail space used to be a blank canvas in the '80s and '90s. DVDs were a traffic builder, so the retailers were excited about signage that "eventized" a title on the floor. Retailers understood the power of leveraging entertainment properties at their store and the category was enjoying double-digit growth with the expansion of DVD.2002 was a memorable year -- we had multiple titles in the range of $10 million and more. To move this amount of product meant large pallet displays, and our industry always took that pallet display a step further to celebrate movies and their visual excitement, so we would attach a life-sized character standee, lights, sound, etc. It was a great time creatively.What made 2002 so memorable?The explosion of the sell-through market with the wide acceptance of the new DVD format. The DVD was a much more ownable commodity, particularly for the large tentpole blockbuster films. 2002 was one of the largest years for our studio. It was a combination of an insurgence of owning home entertainment, coupled by the fact that the industry went from tape to disc, and we had "Grinch" and "Shrek" in one year.As a studio with two huge releases, we were able to sell in many large, creative displays into retail, and really deliver a great, entertaining experience to the consumers.What are some other projects you and your team are proud of?I love some of the high-def displays we did in 2006 and 2007. It was great to marry hardware and software to deliver that high-definition promise. We did a great endcap for Fry's Electronics with Cornerstone Display Group, and we were granted a lot of leeway in conceptual design and materials. It worked really well at retail."The Hulk" window cling installed at Best Buy is another project we were thrilled to see so successfully executed at retail. Best Buy and Universal wanted to "eventize" the title, but we had to limit both our retail footprint and our budget. The solution was to install an oversized window cling in select, top market stores. This window display covered all front-of-store windows, conveying the magnitude of the character and the release.What is it like working with a film as a product? I imagine there is a lot of red tape, as far as using a celebrity's likeness or images of a film that may limit your ability to push a film or DVD release.Movies have to be one of the greatest products to bring to market -- even while I acknowledge my obvious bias. What other industry continually reinvents itself in the eyes of the consumer and has a new product to work with every Tuesday? Filmmakers and actors are very astute, and they get the DVD marketing business. As long as we work with approved images to market that particular movie, we can generally move forward.What are the timelines like? I would guess there are times when you have to market something that's not a finished product.You are right. In general, we will start a campaign as the theatrical release opens and then be able to modify our approach as we receive exit poll data and discover what elements of the movie (story, characters, etc.) are resonating most with our target audience.It seems in the past you could really have fun blowing up a movie in stores, but now you're doing work such as retail redesigns.Retailers have moved away from large, creative displays for DVD launches and don't allow much in the way of pre-street activity (the P-O-P you might see pre-release). I think there has been some consumer reaction in the mass-market environment of late that the shopping experience has been cluttered and tough to navigate.In my opinion, consumers want an engaging shopping experience, especially when it comes to our category, and I think the pallets of the past did a great job executing that need.You lead Universal's High Definition and Customer Centricity initiatives at retail. Explain this.This simply means that I am the creative lead within our organization to aggregate all information, requests and approvals for creative elements in-store. I work with the Blu-ray marketing team internally at Universal and oversee the creation of creative elements in-store. On the high-definition side, this could be anything from simple signage to fixtures and endcaps to creating a store-within-a-store concept.

P2PI MEMBERS

JOIN P2PI

You May Also Like

AD Retail Media’s Transition In-House

Member Spotlight (January-February 2024)