Samir Balwani 0:03

Hi. I'm Samir Balwani, host of Chief Advertiser and Founder of QRY, join me as I talk to industry leaders about their strategies, challenges and successes in managing their advertising and marketing. On our episode today, I have Kristina, the Senior Director of Global Media at Hasbro. I'm really excited to have her. Kristina, I've known you for so long, and I love your energy, and you are probably one of the smartest people I know. So I know this is going to be one of my favorite podcast episodes. So Kristina, welcome to

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 0:34

the show. Excited to be here. I am. I don't know if you can see me, but I'm wearing my sparkles. I'm ready to shine and have some good, smart, fun conversation. Let's do this, I mean,

Samir Balwani 0:45

So let's get started with the basics. So how did you get to where you are today? Like, tell us a little bit more about your career path.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 0:51

Gosh. Okay, so I started my career in magazines, buying print and outdoor advertising for a holding company way back in 2006 for some small brands, some maybe not small, but not necessarily big, known brands, XOXO is a Junior's brand, Sag Harbor, O Oscar. They're primarily sold at Macy's. I went to school for fashion and journalism, so this really was this kind of fantastic intersection that you know, when you're applying for all these jobs, you actually have no idea what you're going to do your life seems kind of fun. Let's do it, plus it like 23 you know, these were kind of like the glory days of advertising, so it was especially in print. So, you know, it's, it's, I remember, actually, it's really funny. I think about my first meeting that I ever had with a publisher. It was Ladies Home Journal, which is like a defunct magazine. I had this really fancy dinner, and my boss, I remember, she elbowed me and was like, Kristina, it's okay for you to have a glass of wine. Like, I had no idea what I was doing. I'm like, Oh, my God, must be professional. Must not do anything. Which is like, clearly, like, you know, I had no idea what like was happening. But after that, which was, you know, I think I was there for about two years, that's when I really made my path towards digital. Started working at one of the large agencies on Seventh Avenue in New York City, mec, which is no more, merged with one of the others I worked on, the Macy's account, which really kind of taught me everything I needed to learn, because they had a ton of money to spend and literally a sale every day. So really went from print into digital, and kind of haven't looked back since. From there, I went to a company that was a holding company, again, that held brands like Rebecca Taylor and Vince, where I worked on the E commerce side of the business, which was really interesting, only because having worked on advertising and you can kind of understand the back end and how all those things worked. Um, from there, that's where I met you. Same here I am at Morpheus, which was truly like this tiny agency, but had by far the most luxurious brands in the business at that point, I would say. And I was there running the LVMH fashion and beauty business, which truly was like putting those feet to the fire.

Samir Balwani 3:13

That was a good time.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 3:17

Which, again, you know, working in luxury, always in fashion. From there I went to Kate Spade, where I was at home. So obviously, again, this was really, truly the like when I think about myself in a brand. It was Kate Spade New York. So it was I was managing their digital marketing, which was such an exciting opportunity. And this was really when Pinterest was just launching. Instagram was really picking up. I always had my nails painted this color called Cajun shrimp, because, you know, I had to always have my hands ready to be in a social media post. Because every day was a content opportunity, whether being, you know, reading the newspaper or eating a cupcake, my hands are all over that Instagram feed. So that was love that that's amazing, super, super fun. But then, obviously, having been in this career for so long, it was kind of time for my husband and I to start a family. So we ended up buying a house and transitioned our lives back to Rhode Island, where we're both from. So that's when I came to Hasbro. So I was at Hasbro for about a year. Ended up actually consulting for both Kate Spade and Hasbro as I was trying to have a camp start. A family was going through some infertility treatment, so we, I was consulting, and then went back full time about eight years ago. So I've been in this job, you know, I guess eight years since then. I

Samir Balwani 4:36

i love it. I love it. I love that. It's like fashion and beauty. Start a family. Go to a toy brand.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 4:42

So true, because it's like, where I was in those like stages of my life, right? Like, oh my god, like in the fashion world, doing this, carrying purses, you know, wearing high heels, running around New York City. And it's like, move home, and now I'm like, slinging, you know, monopolies and blasters and all. My Little Ponies. Like, it's just, it's very funny how it has all worked out. It's so funny. And

Samir Balwani 5:04

I think we'll get to this. But I think the parallels between the fashion world and toy world are really fascinating, because, you know, in fashion, and you know this better than anybody else, but like, you can't tell somebody to buy a bag, you have to make them want the bag. And same thing with toys, right? Like, you can't tell them to buy a toy. You have to make them want the toy and go tell their parents to buy the toy.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 5:28

How you do that are actually, you know, very different, but also very similar. And I will say too, the life cycles of both toys and fashion are similar in the sense that there's two seasons, if you think about it. So like, you know, there's Fall and Spring Fashion Week, and then it's also like Easter and then holiday. So it's very similar in the sense of how you market because it's, it's, it's very seasonal focused, and it's really hard to create that demand in those non seasonal periods. That's

Samir Balwani 5:56

Really interesting. So, so before we go too far into the media side, so tell us a little bit about Hasbro. What is it? What are the things that are covered under it? All those kinds of things.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 6:06

Yeah. So Hasbro, it is the toy company I live in Rhode Island. So I always say that only because there's a hospital in Rhode Island. Hasbro is the toy company. You know, we are within the top three amongst, Mattel, Hasbro and Lego globally. We have some brands that I think, you know, you might obviously recognize as kids, but nerf is a huge one for us, monopoly, our entire gaming portfolio, in fact, is, is probably, you know, I don't think people realize Hasbro has so many, you can think of things like clue, trouble, Twister, Jenga, so many classic, classic games that are all in our closets today. Preschool brands like Play-Doh, Peppa Pig, My Little Pony, Baby Alive. So really, really, some iconic, iconic brands, transformers, and then, of course, from I would say the older crew there is also Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering, which is a newer acquisition, um, within the past

Samir Balwani 7:09

10 years or so, that's exciting. I know who you and I were talking about. That for any of my listeners, I am a big Dungeons and Dragons and magic gathering fans. So wizards, you

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 7:18

guys are very, very loyal bunch with a lot,

Samir Balwani 7:21

yes, yes, that is true. So let's talk about paid media. You cover all the paid media, and then when you're looking at your media campaigns, when you're looking about it, how are you even we talk about this like brand versus performance. And I think that there is this concept of brand versus performance, but I don't want it. I never want it to feel like it's one or the other, but it is an investment strategy, and you need to decide, like, where $1 is going. How are we investing in brand versus how? When are we investing in performance? And how do you guys think about that? Like, how do you balance the two?

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 7:56

Yeah, so I will say we've been under we definitely in terms of transition at Hasbro, I don't oversee all of global media myself. I actually my partner in crime. Her name is Jennifer Burch, also Senior Director of Global Media. She oversees all of the upper funnel types. So any like brand media specifically as I oversee all things lower funnel, so performance, retail as well as kind of media operations. So it, you know, I kind of have done a variety of jobs at Hasbro prior to being in the global role. I oversaw everything full funnel in North America. So I do definitely understand how it needs to function. But I will say that between Jen and myself, we have really well, number one, we really like each other, so that helps you and your coworker truly like can just make all of the things happen very seamlessly because you are, you know, thinking what that person's thinking? I do think we are incredibly lucky in that sense. But also it's worked out really well because we have separate teams that function under the same leader. So we both report into the CMO at Hasbro, but she is overseeing the agencies and tactics that are responsible for brand. I am responsible for everything that's lower funnel. And then we call this, you know, this famous term that we say internally, famous. It's called split sees, where, whenever we're able to super technical, right? Whenever we're able to contra act each other, that's truly where we're able to make that happen. And why that is so so so important is because, as you know, like everything's tied to a budget. So we responsible. We are responsible for the total media budget, but we can flex between the two. When we see something working down here, how do we, you know, flex it up. And something's up here, how do we flex it down? That's really been important, because media at Hasbro, it sits, you know, underneath the CMO org. But, you know, we have different teams, so we have the media, the marketing team that's responsible for the. How things are going into the market. And then there's also the sales team from my world of like, what they've sold into retail. So those align, right? And you have conflicting budgets, but at the end of the day, like, if we need Hasbro Dolin, right? So Jen and I are truly one of the few teams that has full oversight of the entire portfolio, because brands are typically, there's people who work on specific brands, and they only know what their brand looks like from top to bottom, but not how it goes across. So again, like we are a portfolio of brands, Lego definitely has the advantage over us, because they are one brand, right? So it's it's really, it's interesting, it's super fun, but it's also incredibly challenging, just because so much is tied to budgets internally. And for us, it's just like, we just want the things that are succeeding to actually succeed. And it might not be what is planned, but like, that's typically how things work, right? You don't know. So you know. And the beauty about performance retail is you can tell immediately what's working. Jen is definitely at the disadvantage. Her media is expensive, right? Like, it's not typically, if you're going to compare ROAs, it's going to look terrible, right? So, like, you're going to decide budget on that Jen's going to have no money, right? So it just things like really ensuring that the brands that you want to have the best shot at succeeding. We try and set them up for success at the beginning of the planning cycle, and ensure that they are planned to sufficiency. That's the best thing that we can do to give any one of our brands, you know, the best case scenario. It's

Samir Balwani 11:33

Fascinating because it almost seems like the secret sauce is to have a performance marketing person that's an advocate for brand.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 11:45

It's not hard. Yeah, it's not hard. And truly, it's just like having a performance person who's a media person, because at the end of the day, like I could do brand and Jen could do performance, because we're just we want Hasbro to win and right? Don't care. It doesn't matter. We always talk about the brands like picking your children because there's so many, right? Yeah, I don't care which child wins. I just want the best one to win. But you know, like, these are the things, and I would bet you that any executive would probably would feel the same, right? So we can show you that through media. That's kind of what we what we strive to do. It's really

Samir Balwani 12:24

Interesting because, you know, I think you're right, like, so there is this element of a media person, but I think it's also a strategic media person, because what ends up happening is we have so many performance markers, and you see this all over LinkedIn, right? Like, I ran this Facebook ad campaign, and I made this one change, and all of a sudden my ROAs went to wine, and I'm like, Yeah, great, but you could have also just spent that on brand and done so much better. 

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 12:47

One of the things we learned this year, which was pretty great, is, you know, we kind of figured out where our ceiling was. And it was interesting because we had to do in a time when it wasn't key seasonality, right? So it was definitely late summer. Types of period, you know, someone came to us was like, Is it possible to, you know, generate more revenue? We're like, let's see we put a bunch of money in. And guess what?

Samir Balwani 13:11

I didn't, you saw it? You saw the plateau? Yeah, wait 10.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 13:16

So it made it actually was great. Because I was like, You know what we were doing is actually where our spend should be. But you know where that money needs to go? It's brand media, because I have no new people in this funnel that I can be talking to. You need to bring them in. And then it was this whole thing of like, well, do we have the creative on hand? Do we have enough inventory? Is it all like it so it's not like they have I

Samir Balwani 13:37

Do love that. As soon as you hit a brand, it starts all of these really interesting conversations that should still be happening with performance.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 13:46

Is like, I will say, too, like, Hasbro's incredibly we've come a long way. I'm not trying to discredit anyone, but I would say, historically, it's been a very traditional organization. You know, if you go back when I first started at Hasbro, you know, eight, nine years ago, it was all um television, right? So, like, you would make an MSA, which is what people say internally. It's just basically a television commercial, right? You would create that, you would put it out into the world, and your sales would go up, and they'd report, and great, right? Right? Kristina,

Samir Balwani 14:20

because you would run Saturday morning cartoons, and that doesn't work anymore. That doesn't exist. I was, like, trying to get my kids into Saturday morning cartoons, and they don't know what that is anymore.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 14:30

And obviously the evolution, like it just become more fragmented. Who are you even talking to? And the other thing too is, like, with talking to children via advertising, it's incredibly restricted. So, like, we have a lot of things we're unable to actually do. So just the evolution there. So, you know, I think, from a creative perspective, we really have to, and you cannot use a television commercial on digital but like, then it's like, how do I plan for that? As. Brand person, how do I budget for that? Like, what happens if my brand gets caught? Because, like, you know, another brand is doing better, like, like, do we have things in the can, but we might not use, like, it's really complicated when you're talking about a portfolio of brands. And I do think, though, that with digital, there's a lot that you can do now, which is one of the things I am most excited about in terms of having really fantastic brand creative that you can do pretty in effect, like, inefficiently, yeah, that's awesome.

Samir Balwani 15:31

I'm really excited to kind of dig into to that. And I think we'll have to have Jen Jennifer on and ask her all things about that, for sure. But one of the things I really want to chat with you about, too, is because you have this unique challenge in that the people that you want to build demand with are not the people who are purchasing the product.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 15:53

you are talking my kind of conversation. It's true. Because how many you know, six year olds do you know, have a debit card or a credit card allows you to sleep and get what they want exactly. So we have dual targets, which when you think about the expense of that as well, and then the pure volume of brands and making sure that you're spending to sufficiency. Like, yeah, your budget gets eaten up. And we're a global organization, so we're not just talking in the US, we're talking in, you know, at least top five, six markets. So, and

Samir Balwani 16:26

it's got to be split up, because each market's going to react differently, right? Like, yeah, exactly.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 16:30

And the mediums that are available, like, for example, like, you know, a market like Germany, like, they're still somewhat traditional. So, like, and the assets that are required there, they still need a team, like, a television commercial as, like, you know, compared to America, who's watching the cultural differences too, right?

Samir Balwani 16:45

Like, it's just the way you speak to them and how and the things that matter, right? Exactly, exactly.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 16:51

So all of that is, I mean, you could probably also do a whole conversation on creative and the global nuances, and, you know, that is a whole other conversation. But thankfully, I do not oversee that. But yes, I will say so, like a brand like Play-Doh for example, where we truly see that what the brand really take off is the dual target. Is when for kid and adult, and a brand like Play-Doh, just because it is preschool, like that is the target. Another brand like Peppa Pig for example, where truly, it's like something that we call internally, is the Nag factor, which, like, you don't realize how important that is when you know kids are building their wish list, which typically happens we target, you know, our media going live right around when those catalogs drop, because that's what kids are making their list, checking them twice, right? Yeah, or that's all that they want. And that's when we're really going on with the kid messaging, because it combines with what they're seeing in those catalogs. And then after that, we kind of have adults Come on, because that's when you be like, Oh, that's right, a parent's not going to buy a toy for a kid unless their kid has asked for it or expressed some sort of interest. If that's via content, via something they already have at home. It's very rare that a parent would be like, Oh, my kids never played with x. Let me buy that for them, right? So it's really important to kind of lay that foundation with the kid and then have adult take off. So when you think about that, that's really the intersection of brand versus performance, right? Like putting that out there so kids are understanding. And even still, like the landscape for kids has drastically changed. I mean, Paramount is probably the biggest at this point, in terms of a linear perspective. YouTube, of course, is here. But there's certain ways we can talk to kids on talk and I say that in air quotes to kids, because we can't technically target, so there's a lot of restrictions we have there. But then with performance retail, I mean, parents are shopping, and they're also going to an Amazon or a Target or a Walmart, and actually, that's how they shop. They research, they read the reviews. It's not like they're going to, you know, sites where they're reading gift guides, like they used to back in

Samir Balwani 19:03

so it's especially for kids, I feel like, for kids, that's, like, not a consumer journey anymore.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 19:09

No, it's really, it's kind of, you know, I was thinking about it as I was like, Oh, I'm talking to smear. What am I going to talk about today? And it was, I was, like, thinking about where my career started, and toys alone versus where we are now, and the evolution over these past, you know, eight years has been pretty incredible. And just the pure change and the adaption that people have had to take within, specifically the toy industry, I do feel like it is an industry that is changing quite, quite drastically, just because of also the shrinking of the life cycle of how long a kid plays with the toy. Now, just because of technology,

Samir Balwani 19:45

Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, we're taping this literally the first week of January. Yes, so Kristina and I both, we both have little kids and and have just gone through, you know, the Christmas and holiday season of gift giving and. You know, Hasbro has taken over my house. But, like, even that thing, like a battleship, which my kids got, which I like, our buying cycle was nostalgia, right? Like, it wasn't even like, Oh, it's a whole new toy. Like, this is like, we saw it at a friend's house, and it reminded us that we should have it. It's like, how do you continually trigger that, and how do you kind of make sure that that's front and center for from a media perspective, because you're not like that. That's late in demand, right? But I still do need to be reminded of it from time to time.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 20:33

Yeah. And then you just also think too, like, because of the the technology and the impact it's had on these kids life, like, are they going to have that feeling when they're right? So, like, a big focus, focus for Hasbro on the go forward is, you know, the gamification, digitalizing, you know, traditional games. So, like, battleship, how, how is that going to be played online? What does that look like in the future, right? So, like, that's a whole other thing that that is going for sure, and then how you interact and how you promote and advertise like that is.

Samir Balwani 21:10

Yeah, that's fascinating. I know there's so much it's interesting. Because I think going back to just like e com and consumer as a whole kids is an interesting one, because the buying journey changes so drastically, so quickly, because each generation has a whole new like, it's almost like every year you're having to rethink, yeah, how are people looking at toys?

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 21:35

A different consumer, like, every like, I would Say three is being really generous. And if you think about a preschooler like they're they're probably out of playing with Play-Doh, way earlier than they were when we were kids, right? And that just, it just amplifies, amplifies, amplifies. The older they get, the smaller it gets, right? You have girls who are eight years old who are shopping at Sephora. I wasn't shopping at Sephora till I was 20, yeah? Like, I wasn't asking for a sleep mask. Like, no, I was asking for a fisher price, kitchen,

Samir Balwani 22:12

Whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's image,

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 22:15

the impact it has on the toy industry as a whole, right? So, like, there's, obviously, have been, and it's, you know, it's in the press, like the drinking because of exactly this reason, and it's really important. And I think Hasbro is doing a great job in terms of making sure that we are staying on top of that trend of gamification and digitizing and all of that type of stuff, because that is how kids are engaging now,

Samir Balwani 22:40

Yeah, it's interesting, because then it's like, so, so I guess the question then comes back to you around, okay, now I've got a smaller pool of kids that I want to go after. I can't target them, correct, right? Because that's that's

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 22:56

your ability to target any sort of data on them, yeah?

Samir Balwani 23:00

So how do you even, how do you come up with creative ideas that's going to work for that pool? Because I'm sure things like click through rate and engagement rate become really important, because you need people to opt into the needs to actually grow with them, yeah. And so how does that work for kids? And then, what are the KPIs that you're looking at for, like, adult marketing, right? Like they've got to be very different and very Yeah,

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 23:24

You know, and Samir goes right back to brand versus performance, right?

Samir Balwani 23:28

Interesting, yeah, yeah, be fair. 

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 23:31

So, when you're thinking about anything with the kid, like a video completion rate is huge, right? Because that is truly telling us, if a kid, or anyone, I guess, depending on the medium, is how long they are staying within a piece of content. But also that piece of content needs to be really sticky, it needs to be really relevant, it needs to be authentic. And something that used to work on TV doesn't necessarily work on YouTube, right? So again, it's like making sure that our creative is fit for platform, really leaning into best practices. It's not a one size fits all approach. It's incredibly tailored and nuanced, and that's really hard to manage across a variety of brands. I would also say things like brand Lyft studies are really important brand health metrics, because that can tell us, like, Did this really, truly have an impact on the brand, because that's the stuff that's not coming through in a dashboard. 

That's truly the disadvantage of brand media, in the sense of, you know, it's expensive, you don't necessarily see the immediate impact. And, you know, thirdly, it's, it's, it's, it's hard to truly understand if it's working, right? Yeah, performance, I would say, or anything that's adult focused, it's all about, I would say that's where those types of actions are really important that we can track, right? Like the impact of sales, you know, the new to brand is huge for us that we're always looking at within. You know. How were we able to get, like, new customers in a big piece too, specifically that we're seeing some really great success, and currently on Amazon is occasions outside of holidays, so birthdays making sure that we're always relevant in because, again, like, you know, being a media person versus just being like, you know, a parent or a gift giver, um, for five year olds, right? 

Like, shopping, yeah, that's how typical, you know, I'm an uncle or an aunt, like, I don't know what I'm doing, like, what am I going to buy my niece or my nephew? That's how I'm going to search. And that wasn't when you're only focusing on, you know, your brand. You're not going to show up there. So we have the call them pan Hasbro campaigns, which allow us to flex in terms of being a part of these larger types of initiatives, which has really shown and gotten a ton of new people into our funnel, because that's not a place we were investing in. So that's been, you know, and I think when you think about just the overall performance, it's very easy to have tighter metrics, and it's easier to speak to that to an executive. So again, where does the budget get cut from brand new? Yeah, of course, yeah. And then what happens is, it all falls on performance, and then it's literally, you're cutting off the funnel, and then it's like you just can't generate what you need to you

Samir Balwani 26:22

fall into the death spiral, which is, yeah, exactly, yeah.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 26:25

That's really interesting. We can make that all come together in a really easy report. Same here. I don't know it feels like

Samir Balwani 26:35

one day, one day. The hard part, it's not even that. It's not even the fact that it's hard to put it into a report. I honestly think it's just, it's a it's a communication and trust thing. I think it's really hard to get CEOs to trust so I have this theory, I have this thesis. People will probably have heard this before. I think performance marketing led marketers to really bad habits, and this concept of, we're gonna put $1 out there and you're gonna get $2 back. Like, that's not what the biggest best brands were built on. Like, you know, you think Nike or mez, all these guys, like, they're they're not, like, oh, we were performance marketing masters. They were brand marketing masters. Well, and to

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 27:15

be fair, like, can you tell me off the top of your head, like, this was a huge learning curve internally. What are you showing for creative, on performance, retail, a product shot? Yeah, you know, like, obviously, there's tactics that are video and but like, You're, like, you're, when you think about a brand like Nike, it's, it's, or these other amazing, you know, like, I always so many like PNG, like, it's these dub, all these amazing commercials. You're not seeing that on a retail site.

Samir Balwani 27:45

No, it's a DPA, it's a dynamic ad. It's a product ad you at that point, not

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 27:49

a carousel. It is the least sexiest thing you ever, ever see. Like, when executives come and like, I need to see the creative and I'm just like, it's a bunch of products that have nothing to do with the meat, like that. That's not the problem here.

Samir Balwani 28:06

Yeah, yeah. I know it's like, it's this, like, interesting concept. I think a lot of people put so much onus on this consideration phase, right? Like, it's always okay, we're gonna brand awareness is important because you want to, you want to make it into the consideration set. Once you're in the consideration set, that's where we're going to win. And I'm like, actually, when you're looking at the funnel, stop going bottom up. You should sandwich in, because it really doesn't matter if you make it, if you like, run a ton of consideration ad campaigns, you're not even in the consideration set, like, that's where you're capping out. So spend in your brand campaigns, fill your consideration set, spend in your consideration sets, and move down into

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 28:52

the bottom. And then I would say even for Hasbro, though, but we need to prioritize even ahead of that in terms of which brands, right?

Samir Balwani 28:58

Yeah. I mean, I think that that is, that's a, you know, I do have this question for you, because I think this is, this is a unique to portfolio, but like, what happens when you've got a plan and, you know, you've got brand campaigns going for this product and this brand in Play-Doh, and all of a sudden, Peppa Pig takes off. And now, because you're going well, I planned all this performance money for

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 29:24

That's every day it is literally like, there's people internally, I would say, back in the day, where they would prefer to like flow charts as like bingo, right? Like you, yeah, which is actually very accurate. But I would say like it you just you need to be incredibly flexible, you need to be nimble, and you need to make sure, at least in my world, I have it's very easy for us to optimize. I would say it is much harder, just based upon how things are structured in the brand world, like a lot of that's custom content, right? So if it's a it's two. Late, and we have a report internally, which is really helpful, which we call the flex versus the firm. So it's, like, anything that's flexible, like, we can pull off at any minute, anything that's firm, like, that's part of a larger commit, that's part of, you know, creative that we we've already paid for. So like, so you do kind of have to set up your bets. But here's the thing that I will say, media is not the only lever that we should be pulling right. Like, if PR is doing their job, then they should also, like, if media should truly just be like, Okay, people know about it. It's just getting out there at this point. But there are have to be other levers in a portfolio company that allow you to have brands to be successful, because we have gotten to your point, like, there are some really bad habits at Hasbro as well, in the sense of, like, you know, everything has to be media supported. But like, here's the thing, if it's not media supported to sufficiency, you're literally lighting money on fire.

Samir Balwani 30:56

I know, like, when you put, when people put, like, a percentage of $1 or against am, like, what are we doing here? We're not moving anything. Or, like, when it's only media, and you're like, oh, it's only media, and media is going to drive 90% of this. I'm like, No, we are gassed to a fire, but if there's no fire, we're just going to put it out. Like, that's what media is, exactly.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 31:16

And that's a really, it's tough, because you have these folks that are only working on one brand, so like in their pitching externally, so there are a variety of of pressures, and I understand that as well, right? Yeah, we just want to support everything as best as we can. But no one is a winner when we are supporting things that are not sufficient, because then I'm reporting out on something that's saying, hey, guess what? Like, we only saw x from a media perspective, I'm gonna optimize it to its however I can, and it will still be, you know, above our benchmark, but bet you're not gonna generate any sales, and then that's a terrible message for you to have to communicate.

Samir Balwani 31:57

When I was at AMEX, some of the best brand managers, I think they were not. They were the best at coalition building, is what I would say. They would get everybody on. And it made it so much easier for everyone. You got two people to say, Yeah, I'm gonna support this brand. Then all of a sudden, every channel manager wanted to support the brand, right? And so, like, that's, I think that that's, like a key thing is one note for brand managers, please. Media is not the start and the end is a part of the puzzle, please, yeah,

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 32:28

And I think it's just again, I keep going back to the portfolio piece, because I do truly feel it, like I feel it at Hasbro, how challenging it is, because it creates a lot of feelings of like, one brand doing well one but like, at the end of the day, it like we just need if we're going to put media on, and that's all I care about. In charge of the media, right? I wanted to succeed. I don't want to spread that peanut butter like that is what we need to hold the ground to, because otherwise, no one is a winner. 

Samir Balwani 32:56

Yeah, I agree. I mean, so listen, and we're coming up to the end. So I want to ask you my final question. And so as you're looking at the future, I think, you know, we talked about it, your world moves so fast, and you're having to continually innovate, what emerging trends or technologies are you most excited about? Like, where are you looking?

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 33:16

I don't want to sound corny when I say this, but truly, I think AI is going to in a variety of ways. And I'm not talking in terms of, like, what people use it for and whatever. I'm talking more so in efficiencies of processes, I think that digital as a whole is so so process heavy in order, like there's going to be so much efficiency, and unless we from an agency side. I mean, we didn't even touch the agency piece on how we actually function with agencies at Hasbro. But, you know, I think manpower is a huge one. I think creative is something that we need to unlock, because not only like through performance, retail, like I have the ability to understand the types of audiences that I'm talking to in certain climates, like, there should be creative for all of that, right? And it's not something I mean, we're so used to creating a one off. It is like, we should have 20 pieces of creative at any given time, right? 

Samir Balwani 34:15

Like, because you were doing the math, right? Like, if I make this variation of creative and it costs me an extra $1,000 then my click through rate needs to be z to make it but now that math changes. If it's like it cost me nothing or like it cost me 30 cents, right?

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 34:30

And, when you talk about just wanting to be nimble and flexible through AI, like, yeah, let me just create a whole library, an asset library, right? So that way I am set up. I always say, like, I'm Italian. I always love to have a leftover in my, in my, in my fridge, right? Like, don't, like, give me all the leftovers so that I can pull it out and put it out there when ready. Because when you're creating, you know, $300,000 on what used to be a beautiful asset, you can't scale that. Yeah. Yeah, right, so, and it doesn't need to be that people don't expect to see that people are okay with things being, you know, not necessarily polished or rough, but again, like people expect to see content that's tailored to what they're seeing. Now, we have trained the consumer, so you putting something that doesn't feel right, that's not fit for platform, is actually more harming for a brand. So I think in just terms of efficiency, being to be able to scale like, that's where I think from processes, that's where I think AI is really, really powerful is, you know, like writing types of papers

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 35:33

or whatever, right, right, right, yeah,

Samir Balwani 35:35

that's your marketing operations side coming out. Kristina, that's your marketing,

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 35:40

yeah. I mean, there are definitely a lot of uses for AI in the world of operations and contracts and so on and so forth. But I think, from you know, in order to make sure that we are set up for success in a manpower perspective, that is where I think AI is really exciting and can be incredibly transformative.

Samir Balwani 35:57

Yeah. I mean, even for like, you guys, just even, like, checking the creative to make sure that it's on brand, it speaks to the right thing, like there's just this, like, layer of almost a second set of eyes that it could be really valuable

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 36:10

for. And I would say I'm so I'm removed from the agency side, since I've been on client for so long. But I gotta believe, I mean, think, I mean, remember when we were on an agency, like the processes and the spreadsheets and the things that you know to get a click tracker, and just like I could only hope, right? And then, if they're leveraging AI, then ideally, the fees would go down. And then that's obviously really attractive to a brand as well, because then we can invest in other types of things like research or, you know, they're unable to necessarily do at this point in time, because we're paying for people, for hands on keyboard, right? Like, there's just so much that I think is really, really exciting, because we're all just at the end of the day trying just to put the best campaigns forward, to have the best results for, you know, the brands we work for.

Samir Balwani 36:53

What a great way to close that was awesome. Yes, thank you so thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome, I And it's funny, because I'm you and I could talk forever, and I'm looking forward to continuing to if someone wants to find you online, where can people learn more about you? Um,

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 37:10

I guess you can find me on Instagram. Shocking, my handle is @thesparklyredhead. Very much on brand. Also feel free to email me. Kristina.fields@hasbro.com

Samir Balwani 37:26

amazing. Kristina, thank you so much. This was so much fun.

Kristina DiMatteo Fields 37:29

Thank you. We'll talk soon.

Samir Balwani 37:35

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