🎙️ Interview w/ Allison Stadd of Shipt, Barkbox, sweetgreen, and Shake Shack
On brand measurement, career moves, and daily routines
Hi there 👋
I had the immense pleasure of connecting with
for this week’s marketing interview to learn about Allison’s approach to brand marketing, measurement, newsletters, and more. Check out my interview with Allison below. And let me know any ideas for who you’d like to see interviewed next!Kevan
(ᵔᴥᵔ)
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Say hi anytime at hello@kevanlee.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Interview with Allison Stadd, SVP Brand Marketing and Creative @ Shipt
Allison Stadd is the SVP of Brand Marketing and Creative at Shipt, a delivery service owned by Target. She is one of the most insightful brand marketers around and generously shares her wisdom on Substack (
) on her blog and on Twitter. (Check out her post about her leadership philosophy. It’s fantastic.) I’m grateful for her taking some time to answer questions about her work and her life and her work-life. Thank you, Allison!You can subscribe to Allison’s Substack here:
And if you want to reach out to Allison anytime, you can connect with her on Twitter or via her newsletter. She’s always happy to share advice, swap war stories, and connect with folks.
The history of Allison
Senior Marketing and Communications Manager @ Shake Shack (2013 - 2016)
Led social, digital, and brand marketing including events, in-store experience, social media, PR, and advertising.
Director of Brand Marketing and Experience @ sweetgreen (2016 - 2017)
Led brand marketing, rebranded the Sweetlife program, and drove retail strategy for 35 store openings, 7 menu rollouts, and 5 new product launches
Director of Retail Marketing → VP of Marketing @ BarkBox (2017 - 2020)
Oversaw full-stack marketing function including growth, brand, creative, and industry-leading social content studio
Global Director, Communications, Creative, Partnerships @ Anheuser-Busch InBev (2020 - 2022)
Ran the Stella Artois brand with “The Life Artois” platform worldwide
SVP Brand Marketing and Creative @ Shipt (2022 - present)
Oversees integrated marketing, product marketing, and an in-house creative agency in service of architecting Shipt’s brand world and driving brand and business growth
Q&A
1. How do you explain what you do to your parents, friends, kids, or non-industry people?
I create and share stories and experiences to connect people with products and services that add positivity to their lives.
2. What does your morning routine look like?
I wake up around 6:30 a.m. and clock a half hour of free time to make coffee, check personal email, do my quick daily DuoLingo Hebrew lesson, and read a couple chapters of a book before my son wakes up at 7:00 a.m.. I'm pretty diligent about not clocking into work — that means no Slack or work email — until he goes down for his nap at 9:00 a.m.
3. Can you share a photo of your phone’s home screen, your computer desktop, or your browser window?
4. How do you measure success in your role?
In my current role, my team's three core KPIs — what we anchor all our work to — are
Awareness
Favorability
Buzz
We want people to know we exist, to like what we're about, and to talk about us.
We track our big 3 — Aided Awareness (“have you heard of Shipt?”), Favorability (“do you have a favorable impression of Shipt?”), Buzz (“have you read, heard, or seen something about Shipt?”) — quarterly through our brand health tool Morning Consult.
We also track several proxy metrics for each of these three core KPIs on a monthly basis to gauge how we’re doing in-quarter. For awareness, we track direct site traffic and branded search; for favorability, NPS and social sentiment; for buzz, earned media value (EMV) and source of awareness word-of-mouth in our member surveys.
5. Which work project are you most excited about right now? Can you tell us a bit about it?
Pleading the 5th, but we're pumped for 2023!!
Keep an eye out ...
6. What are three staples of your "media diet"?
I love this question, because I try to be really purposeful about my media diet. Time is such a precious commodity, so I want to ensure the sources I'm investing in consuming are intentionally chosen.
Three current staples include:
Anne Helen Petersen's
newsletter
Sam Sanders’ Into It podcast
all things Oliver Burkeman (author of Four Thousand Weeks and The Antidote)
BONUS: How did you get your current job?
I love this quote from Walt Disney:
“There’s no magic in magic, it’s all in the details.”
That's true about marketing work itself, and also about your professional journey. There doesn't have to be a clean arc through your career; it's OK to not have some blazing bright "north star" aspiration you're striving for with a deliberate set of steps to get there.
Whenever I make a career move, I gut-check my decision against a rubric of must-haves and nice-to-haves, then during that next professional chapter I focus on
Learning as much as I can
Making as strong of a positive impact as I can, on the brand and the people.
Focusing on EQ over ego will never steer you wrong.
This week’s sponsor …
Many thanks to the Marketing Against the Grain for sponsoring this week’s newsletter. Their latest episode is incredibly timely and insightful — How the Best Companies Navigate Recessions. Check out the episode below, and give them a subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen.
About this newsletter …
Each week, I share playbooks, case studies, stories, and links from inside the startup marketing world. If you enjoy what’s in this newsletter, you can share some love by hitting the heart button at the top or bottom.💙
About Kevan
I’m a marketing exec who specializes in startup marketing and brand-building. I currently lead the marketing team at Oyster (we’re hiring!). I previously built brands at Buffer, Polly, and Vox.
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