Q: Sarah, the
Adobe Summit looked very exciting! Tell us a little about your experience there.
To even be invited to speak at the Adobe
Summit is a real testament to the incredible changes underway at Girl Scouts. People
are fascinated by what we’re undertaking on behalf of girls and our
commitment to staying relevant without losing sight of our legacy. I think my
favorite line may have been when John Mellor, head of business development and
strategy at Adobe, introduced me by saying “for a 103-year-old brand, the Girl
Scouts is doing anything but act its age when it comes to digital marketing." The
experience was amazing—not only because I was speaking to such a large,
significant audience, but also because of the story I was telling about how
we’re making exciting, necessary changes to serve more girls.
Q: What have
you learned at Girl Scouts that you were able to share with the audience?
Because the audience consisted of marketers, I
tried to make my talk as relevant to them as possible. So while everyone knows
and loves the Girl Scout brand—and certainly goes crazy for our cookies!—what I
wanted to share as candidly as possible is both the unique digital marketing challenges
we face and also those challenges that are quite similar to other major brands.
We’re all trying to understand and improve the customer experience; we’re all
using data to inform new platform builds, campaign development, and resource
allocation decisions; and we’re all trying to figure it out as we go. One of
the most tweeted comments I made was “Nobody has all the answers” and I think
that really resonated with the conference attendees.
Q: Outside of
your role at Girl Scouts, what excites you about the future of marketing—a
rapidly changing field?
I may be biased, but I believe marketing is
hands-down the most challenging and exciting career field today. As its function
moves from being a cost center to a revenue generator, it’s only going to get
more interesting. But as I mentioned, and as every speaker reiterated at the
conference, the pace of change can be intimidating. There are so many new tools
and technology solutions—morphing and expanding simultaneously with changing
consumer appetites and preferences—that it can be difficult to map out a
vision, not to mention secure the budget and staffing resources you need at the
right time. In this environment, every day presents challenges and
opportunities to effect change. For a problem solver, there’s no better place
to be right now.
Q: What
advice do you have for girls looking to make a mark in the marketing world?
First and foremost, you have to be an
analytical thinker. And I don’t mean just looking at the data—you have to be
able to see the big picture and be curious about scenario-planning. I like
to say my team consists of dot-connectors, because everything we do touches
multiple business communities and ultimately informs the customer experience. You
cannot work with a silo mentality and be a successful marketer—you have to
embrace complexity, and the more you embrace it the more valuable you’ll be to
your team and your brand. And of course, the most important advice is to have
fun—which we learn from our girls every day!
Q: So, Nate
Silver, Michael Keaton, Wayne Brady and many other huge names were also
speakers at the summit. Were you nervous?
With that lineup, you bet! But I practiced,
and I knew what I wanted to convey, so when the nerves kicked in I was ready.
We had local Girl Scouts on hand (they get the credit for the standing ovation,
let’s be honest!) and they also got a bit nervous when they saw the enormous
room at the Salt Palace Convention Center. One of the producers who was helping
saw that they were anxious and gave each one of them a paper clip to hold when
they came out—he said it would calm their nerves and give them confidence—which
was so touching. Right before I went on stage, he gave one to me, too. And
you know, when I got home to NYC, I found the paper clip in my pocket and I
realized that it's a symbol of what Girl Scouts can be—we're a girl's paper
clip, but for life!