Role: Senior Partner, Executive Creative Director | Ogilvy & Mather
Now it seems like a no-brainer. But when I pitched tween icon Hilary Duff as "spokesperson" for the Barbie brand, I met with "yeah buts" and "what about Gwen Stefani," "how about Fergie?" "Cameron Diaz?" Nothing against Gwen, Fergie, or Cameron but for tween girls at that time, Hilary was it. And she was perfectly synonymous with what the Barbie brand needed to be. All I had to do was to look to my 2 young girls to know the power of Hilary.
After months of hand-wringing and negotiations, we successfully launched Mattel’s first Omni-channel marketing program, featuring Hilary, by repositioning the global Barbie property as an aspirational fashion brand across apparel, fragrance, electronics and toys. The multimillion dollar campaign featured an original song (not a jingle!) that offered the ultimate fashion compliment: "Where'd Ya Get That?" treating the brand as if it were Chanel or Dolce & Gabbana. Spanning web, gaming, television, print, out-of-home and events, the program resulted in a sharp rise in brand health measures, and well as a 33% increase in profits.
Barbie was the crown jewel of the $500M+ Mattel business I led while at Ogilvy, leading creative and content marketing, as well as new business development across youth and entertainment categories. While there I drove the migration of existing clients to digital services and spearheaded global advertising and marketing campaigns for numerous brands and entertainment properties such as American Idol and Fox Kids shows.
