by Emily Jasper on April 1, 2012
Company: Build-A-Bear Workshop
Project Date: June 2011-August 2011
Quick Description: Responsible for aiding in project management and operational enablement for seven new product and program test initiatives, including $40 million in new market opportunity
Description: Before a new product can be launched in all stores, the marketing team at Build-A-Bear Workshop (BABW) manages product testing in select markets. The goal is to evaluate market response and predict success should the product be rolled out to additional stores. Decisions regarding timing, distribution, markets, and promotion activity are made as part of the testing period. Managing new product initiatives includes coordination with cross-functional teams within the organization.
Personal Contribution: During my time working with the National Marketing team, I aided the project management for seven new product and program test initiatives. Responsibilities included weekly meetings and progress checks, creating communications and training materials for store deployment, test market selection, and implementing roll-out strategies for successful tests. Weekly analysis of product financial performance allowed the team to make decisions regarding movement of the product to new markets or to modify promotional activities. Progress for each product test was reported to the CEO and management team weekly. A successful product test included the Angry Birds plush collection, birds and pigs, which began in 50 stores and was later rolled out to all US, Canada, and UK locations.
by Emily Jasper on April 1, 2012
Company: PDI Ninth House
Project Date: September 2009-July 2010
Quick Description: Founded global webinar program for the newly branded PDI Ninth House organization and aided in creating a social media point of view for organization’s online presence
Description: After Personnel Decisions International acquired Ninth House, the new firm PDI Ninth House needed to communicate the new organization’s brand and identity to business consumers in an efficient manner with little confusion. Leadership Advantage Forums had been in-person networking events held regionally for local client teams based on presentation materials built by the corporate marketing team. In order to demonstrate new online technology, the new PDI Ninth House launched a webinar campaign to provide access to global clients to the previously in-person forum event.
Personal Contribution: With a background in social media and online training tools, I had been tasked with managing the creation and implementation of PDI Ninth House’s first global webinar program. In addition to hosting a global webinar, I had to also integrate the online learning tools and video into the software so they could be demonstrated online during the webinar. From early market research to determine the appropriate topic for the campaign, to sales team management, I managed the webinar campaign from beginning to end. By partnering with our online digital team to create a webpage and social media component, we launched a campaign that not only exceeded our attendance goals, but the webpage and tracking data could be tied to resulting sales opportunities.
by Emily Jasper on April 1, 2012
Company: PDI Ninth House and Oracle
Project Date: August 2008-July 2010
Quick Description: PDI Ninth House formed a strategic alliance with Oracle and utilized an HR Analytics Campaign to drive market and client awareness of the partnership
Description: Information Technology investments can be strategic initiatives for a firm, but executive leadership often wants to determine how launching a new software or system will impact the business. PDI Ninth House contributed development content components to Oracle’s offerings, in addition to being a consulting partner for firms determining how best to use Oracle data for decision making. To help clients understand the advantages of our partnership, the PDI Ninth House and Oracle teams created a series of marketing components to help drive awareness.
Personal Contribution: My role as the Global Alliances and Channels Marketing Manager allowed me to partner with the Oracle business development and marketing team to create compelling marketing pieces that could be used in a sales context for the field teams. The campaign focused on bringing together leadership development expertise with data analytics for better decision making. The campaign included: conference speakers at both the Oracle HCM User Groups Conference and targeted invitation-only client presentations; a joint presentation with Oracle Sales and the PDI Ninth House Chief Financial Officer at the Media and Financial Management Conference with a resulting article in Media Financial Manager Magazine; multiple subject-matter-expert webcasts for top-tier clients; and jointly branded marketing collateral, microsites, and an Oracle Solutions Factory website.
Company: Build-A-Bear Workshop
