Tamara Littleton 00:12
This is the Genuine Humans podcast brought to you by Social Element. I’m Tamara Littleton
Wendy Christie 00:18
and I’m Wendy Christie
Tamara Littleton 00:22
In our podcast, we’ll discover the stories of the leaders behind the brands and the trailblazers who are making a real difference in our industry. We’ll delve into how they got to where they are today,
Wendy Christie 00:33
and we’ll hear about the genuine humans who supported and influenced them along the way.
Tamara Littleton 00:44
Welcome back to Genuine Humans, and I’m here with my co-host, Wendy. Christie, Wendy, how are you doing?
Wendy Christie 00:51
Really well. Thank you. It feels like a while since we’ve recorded a podcast, so I’m excited. How are you?
Tamara Littleton 00:56
I’m good, actually, yeah, sort of. I think Summer might be over. I’m not quite sure. It was very exciting for a moment, but I’m very happy today because we’re actually welcoming a very special, genuine humans guest. It’s Rob Hanson, and he’s joining us today from Boston. Rob is the senior manager of social intelligence and operations for Keurig Dr Pepper, and we’re absolutely delighted to have him on the podcast. Welcome, Rob.
Rob Hanson 01:25
Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Tamara Littleton 01:27
Now, Rob, something that I love to ask our guests is, can you give us a bit more of a flavour of how you got to where you are now? Because I know that you’ve sort of worked in marketing, full stack marketing. I know there’s a bit of sort of working with startups as well. How did you get to where you are now? Get give us a little flavour of your career.
Rob Hanson 01:50
Yeah, absolutely, it’s quite the journey.
So, dating back to when I was graduating from college, I really had aspirations to work in some capacity in sports, and I was lucky enough to complete a couple of internships in college that were specifically around sports marketing, and that was working both with the athletic department at my college, University of New Hampshire. And then I also was lucky enough to intern with the Boston Celtics development team in Maine for a Summer.
I had this fascination with sports and in the business of sports, but I wanted to kind of figure out where I could sort of insert myself, as far as kind of career goes.
As a fresh college grad, I had those aspirations and ultimately was able to land a job with a marketing agency called Octagon. Octagon specialises in sports marketing in the role that I gravitated towards and initially was hired for was kind of focused on partnership and sponsorship activation in a kind of sports capacity. And so I was lucky enough to work with a couple of big clients, Hyundai Motors and LG Electronics, and it essentially was acting on behalf of those brands to activate and implement a lot of the investment they had made in sports, and specifically college football as well as professional golf.
So that was kind of my initial entry into the world of marketing, and it was very hands-on. We were travelling across the entire country. It actually allowed me to move from where I am now on the East Coast, all the way out to the West Coast in Los Angeles, and I was able to get a unique experience and delve into the world of marketing. But more, kind of like that consumer-facing, very much more kind of bootstrap field marketing, representing clients and their brands and activating their sports partnerships, you know, as a result of that.
It was kind of that that really scratched that initial sports business itch.
It was two years of doing that, and I had kept tabs on this very small at bthe time startup that not many people had heard of outside of kind of niche fantasy football fans and sports betting fanatics. It was a company called DraftKings. And so at the time, this was about 2014 I saw a role that had opened up, and they were a very small, startup, scrappy startup. At the time, I think it was about 30 employees when I first arrived at DraftKings.
But this was an interesting transition for me, going from kind of partnership, activation, field marketing to then taking this sort of unknown role. Because at the time, there were, I think, maybe four or five other folks that had marketing in their title when I arrived at the company. And so it was sort of, you know, wear every single hat, type of mentality, kind of sink or swim, you know, learn how to do things on the fly. And, for me, it really kind of inspired and sort of helped me figure out what it is I really liked, and what it was I actually didn’t, didn’t like so much, and where I sort of gravitated towards versus, you know, things that that maybe I didn’t enjoy as much, and I got to kind of try and test and learn a little bit of everything.
I worked initially in more of a customer retention capacity and then transitioned into more of like a user acquisition and partnership activation, and kind of like more holistic brand marketing. But then part of, sort of the brand marketing component was social media, and I eventually was given the reins, or told with so many words, hey, we have no social strategy, very limited presence on social media. Can you just go do it, and figure it out?
Tamara Littleton 05:45
I remember those days it was kind of like, yeah, you can do social media.
Rob Hanson 05:49
Yeah, exactly. It was early on – this was 2014 so, you know this was sort of the norm, I think, for a lot of brands, especially in the tech startup world.
So, I took that as an opportunity, and I saw it sort of glass half full and did my best to sort of approach it with as much optimism as possible, and just kind of jumped head first in, and tried to not only conceptualise a strategy for draftings at the time, but also figure out all the other nuance that came with social media and content, and how do we structure things like customer care from a social media perspective and response, and what’s the proper cadence, and how are we reacting to what consumers are saying, or fine-tuning our content plans based on their feedback?
It was a whirlwind, to say the least. I remember growing our at the time, formerly at Twitter now X account from, you know, just opening the account, zero followers and growing it to over 100,000 in a matter of a year and a half. And I think it was a humbling experience. It was very educational, and it really helped me understand, you know, consumers in a different capacity. And I think, as we all know, people are very real and don’t hold back when it comes to social media. And so you kind of have to develop a thick skin as a community manager and somebody who works in and around social media. And I certainly had to develop that.
I built on that experience and gravitated towards other, other social media adjacent roles and responsibilities within the organisation, but that was sort of the most meaningful, I think, for me, was, was my experience doing social media at DraftKings, and I think was a big part of, you know, where my career in trajectory inevitably went. And I was at DraftKings for just about four years. And, by the end of it, I had gotten so much experience, had an incredible time there, worked with some amazing people, got to do some amazing things with athletes and travelling, and I spent a lot of time in Las Vegas, and got to travel internationally. And it was, it was the best job I think I could have had, especially for somebody at that stage in their career and at my age.
So, you know, when I had left, it was bittersweet, but I knew from a growth perspective, it was, it was a good opportunity for me to kind of look outside of DraftKings. And so I inevitably transitioned to another startup, Boston-based startup. It was a brand called Starry, and they are an Internet service provider and still very much active in doing both kind of B2C and B2B business. But their whole model was kind of flipping the script on internet service and how people both pay for it, and the cost of which they pay for it, and the quality of the internet, and that was a role that was not too dissimilar from my time at DraftKings, where I had to kind of wear all the hats, but it was also a very heavy emphasis on some of more of that consumer interaction, face-to-face field marketing.
I had to quickly grow a team there. By the time I had left, I think, I had 15 direct reports, and I grew all that within about a year and a half. It was definitely another kind of bootstrap mentality, type of startup world, where things moved very, very fast, and I was expected to do a lot with kind of minimal guidance and direction, which is something that has, I think, helped me progress throughout my career, but it was another great experience in sort of that tech realm.
And then my last step before I got to my current role was another tech startup, a company called Teltech, and they primarily have user-facing apps in the App Store. And the one I worked on the most was called Robo Killer. It was a robocall blocking app. And this role and this job experience was very, very unique. I had, I had seen it more of as a challenge and a unique opportunity to really kind of diversify again, my skill set, my background, which, again, was my goal.
You know, all along I’m trying to check different boxes and try to think, What can I do differently or more of to learn and to evolve my approach as a marketer in general, and so this role was specifically focused on growth marketing, and social media was involved in that in some capacity, but more so, trying to figure out, how can we leverage test and learn mentalities to evolve and grow the app and the user interface, like the UI UX to bring in more customers and retain the ones we already had. And that was very unique to the other experiences that I had, but, but certainly an incredible one.
Ultimately, towards the end of my time at Teltech, I was ready, and kind of doing some thinking as far as career trajectory, where I wanted to go, and I knew tech startups were certainly something that was fun and exciting for me, but I also had an interest in something a little bit more timid and a little bit more predictable. And what’s better than that, than a Fortune 500 CPG brand?
And so fast forward to today, and I’ve been at Keurig Dr Pepper now for going on five years in January, and it’s been amazing. It’s been such an educational experience for me in terms of taking everything I’ve learned in my career thus far and then applying it to my current role and I will say kind of, my current role is, as you would allude, to social media, intelligence and operations, and it’s certainly a bit unique and different than I think, most of the roles that I’ve had in the past, but also somewhat, somewhat specific to the organisation.
I’ve started to see more roles in the social intelligence space pop up, and there are communities that have been developed, but essentially, my day-to-day is trying to understand the voice of the consumer through social media data, and we do that through a variety of tools and technology that helps us aggregate conversations and dissect those conversations and try to extract insights, and then think about how those insights are relevant to the business to help inform decisions and ultimately guide or prove or disprove some hypotheses, and just kind of get us closer to really what consumers are saying about the Keurig Dr Pepper brands or the competitors that are in the space, or the categories that our products play in. So yeah, that is kind of where I’m at today, and it’s been quite the journey, that’s for sure.
Tamara Littleton 12:24
It’s the perfect blend, though, of everything that you’ve done up until now, though, isn’t it that kind of mixture of the marketing or the experience at the startups, getting at a little taste of everything, and then obviously, your the tech side and the consumer side. I love it. When that happens, you kind of look back and you can see you’re at the perfect place.
Wendy Christie 12:44
Yeah, and if you don’t mind, let’s look back even further because I think as busy adult humans, I don’t think we tend to sit around thinking about, what were the clues from my childhood that might have, you know, led to where I am now. So let’s talk about that a little bit. So what were you like as a child?
Rob Hanson 13:02
Yeah, I think one of the first words or ways to describe me, if you talk to my parents or my friends now, I was definitely an introvert growing up. I was also very type A, I’m the firstborn. I have a younger sister, so, you know, I was more comfortable, kind of, in smaller settings. And I like to kind of balance, sort of my the social, the social dynamic with doing stuff on my own. So I had always kind of been a little bit quiet, quieter when I was younger, and kind of grew to be a little bit more outgoing and embrace a little bit more of that extrovert mentality, but, certainly more of an introvert growing up. And it was, I think, a sort of good balance that I eventually sort of overcame some of those hesitancies that I had when I was younger.
Wendy Christie 13:46
Sure, and it sounds like sort of from college onwards, you were obviously really into sports. Was that something that you loved as a kid as well?
Rob Hanson 13:55
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I grew up playing every sport I possibly could, but I was also just as big of a fan of professional sports, just very committed to my teams being a New England sports fan, it was, it was easy to do, so, especially during the time frame that I grew up and became a fan. We had Tom Brady take over at quarterback for the Patriots when I was really just starting and getting into football and so sports in New England, I think, you know, are synonymous as far as fandom goes. And then, as an athlete, growing up, you know, it was always something I enjoyed. And then, eventually, I was very fascinated with the business of sports. And you know, that obviously played a role in a lot of my career.
Wendy Christie 14:39
Cool, and I guess there, you’ve already named a couple of sports people there who you clearly looked up to. And were there other people from your childhood, whether in your own circle or other personalities that you looked up to?
Rob Hanson 14:54
Yeah, I think you know, first and foremost, my father was somebody I had always looked up to. He was, you know, kind of, from the get-go, always instilling work ethic and accountability and trying to push me to kind of be the best version of myself, which sounds cliche. And, you know, I know a lot of parents do that, but my dad in particular, he’s one of 10 kids, and out of all 10 kids, he was the only one to attend college. And you know, for me looking up to him and seeing how hard he worked and how much he sacrificed for me and my sister and my family like it was aspirational.
He was always really helpful at kind of guiding me and giving me advice, you know, whether that was when I was much younger, all the way through high school and into college and then through kind of all the different stages of my career thus far, career thus far he’s been very, very helpful in providing his perspective and guidance with some of the decisions that I’ve made.
Wendy Christie 15:49
And I think we don’t always have a sense at the time of how important that is and, you know, and reflected, it’s really cool to be able to reflect on it. And how about as you’ve grown into adulthood and in your career, have there been other genuine humans who’ve helped you or supported you, influenced you along the way?
Rob Hanson 16:09
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot. And I think understanding sort of the primary foundation of what you guys do, and the focus of the podcast, I think, you know, I love the definition of a genuine human and for me, you know, there’s, there’s certainly been, there’s been a lot, I think, dating back to when I was a little bit younger, I had a basketball coach that really stood out. He had created this kind of basketball league that didn’t require tryouts and was open to anybody, and in, you know, encouraged volunteering in the community. And he was somebody that I really looked up to, and he helped, again, similar to my dad, kind of instil some of that work ethic. And everything that he was doing, whether it was for other kids that just wanted to play basketball, or for the community, was really exceptional.
And then there’s been other people in my career, former colleagues, even you know, my current manager at my role here at KDP, who I’ve known dating back to my days at DraftKings, where we work together. There have certainly been people that have helped me evolve like who I am, both as a person and professionally in my career. And you know, I can’t thank them enough, but it’s just, it’s really kind of special to be able to look back and analyze those relationships with a little bit more specificity in terms of how they kind of impacted my life along the way.
Wendy Christie 17:31
Absolutely, and it’s, it’s nice to sort of tell those people as well, isn’t it. I think people don’t always realise at the time what they’re doing for you.
Rob Hanson 17:39
Exactly.
Tamara Littleton 17:40
I know that you’re very passionate about building new approaches and processes and the whole focus on, obviously, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. Can you just share a little bit more about that? That passion?
Rob Hanson 17:54
Yeah. I think it’s, it’s sort of my redeeming professional quality. When I’m thinking about, hey, you know, what’s your skill set? What do you think you do really well? And, you know, that’s the one I always kind of cite or point to, and I think it’s, I’ve always been a curious person, you know, I’ve always loved organisation and process, and that’s been for as long as I can remember. So the idea of having ownership over something and then being able to apply, you know, kind of those organisational skills and creative problem solving to kind of build this sort of unique program or process or workflow, or, you know, improve on into something that’s already existing, or break something totally and then redo it. I think that has been something that I’ve continued to develop as a skill set, but it’s also something foundationally, I’ve always had a kind of a passion for, but also, you know, like kind of a working, consistent knowledge of how to do properly.
Tamara Littleton 18:51
And if we can kind of indulge me with my geekiness here, I know that there’s a real spotlight on sort of human-led versus technology-led brand building. Where do you sit on that particular sort of fence? And maybe I’ll just ask you, what do you think that the next decade looks like?
Rob Hanson 19:09
Yeah, I mean, this is, this is the interesting one. I think generative AI has made this conversation even more relevant over the last couple of years. But you know, for me, the kind of the marriage of humans and technology, I think it’s critical if it’s done correctly for brand building. And, you know, especially as everything becomes more data-driven, and you know, that’s a huge emphasis in a lot of the roles that I’ve had, is, but especially here at KDP, in the role that I’m in, is, is being data-driven and sort of enhancing that mentality and that approach with technology is super important. But I really think blending both kinds of human interaction with technology is sort of that winning approach, and I think that will be the case for years to come. Now, it could certainly get easier, as I mentioned with with AI becoming more integrated into kind of everyday workflows and day-to-day roles and responsibilities. But I think there’s always going to be that need for kind of that, that cohesiveness and that blend of the humans and tech.
Tamara Littleton 20:11
And what about the balance of creativity and practicality in the projects that you’re working on with KDP?
Rob Hanson 20:18
You know, absolutely, I think that is something you have to always be mindful of, and it’s potentially easy to lose sight of because a lot of what I do in my day-to-day is driven by technology, and we’re extracting information and looking at different data sets, but the creativity comes into play with the storytelling, and that’s part of my role and my job in general, that I enjoy and appreciate the most is being able to articulate in a meaningful way and also in a creative way, ideas or concepts or key insights that can be applied or, you know, help inform decisions, as I mentioned.
So I think there’s always that element and that requirement for some creative thought process to be able to make any type of project successful, especially in the work that I’m doing, because it’s easy to say and pinpoint, like, here are some metrics, and here is this, you know, this chart that shows, you know, this trend line, but without the background information and a lot of the context layered in a creative way that actually highlights, you know, the most important components, you know, I don’t think you’re doing the project the service it requires. And also you’re probably missing out on some of the creative thought starters and helping to kind of inspire ideation.
Tamara Littleton 21:39
Yeah, and I know, I mean, we’ve talked about the entrepreneur focus, but you’re a massive fan of Shark Tank as well, aren’t you? Or Dragon’s Den, as it’s called in the UK. Has that been like an ongoing fascination? Is that something that you’d ever want to go on? Have you been on it? What pitches do you like?
Rob Hanson 21:58
Yeah, I’ve been watching it since season one, so I can’t remember what year it came out. It’s been out for quite some time here in the States. Never been on it. Maybe one day, I don’t know, because, as you said, I’ve, I’ve always had entrepreneurial kind of aspirations, but I think a lot of what I’ve done is sort of scratched that entrepreneurial itch through the intrapreneurial types of experiences and roles that I’ve had so but, yeah, Shark Tank, as far as you know, I certainly enjoy watching it.
To me, it’s, it’s fascinating. It definitely always kind of gets, you know, my mind thinking of different ideas and concepts or what I would have done differently, you know, I could go through a million.
I think there’s, you know, the, obviously, the big ones that people still use today that were early on in Shark Tank, like Scrub Daddy and Ring, I think, stood out to me, but some of more of the niche products that I found just really interesting terms of, you know, what made them stand out was sort of solving or addressing an interesting want or need state were Bombas, the socks company, and how they had this philanthropic component built in, to me that was just super smart and really well done.
Mad Rabbit, which is a tattoo lotion that has sort of now evolved into a larger kind of like health and beauty brand. The two founders just had such a fascinating backstory and how they got started and the growth trajectory, and now, apparently, Mark Cuban has reinvested from the initial investment. So, you know, they’re doing well, gosh, I can name a bunch, but maybe, like, Sand Cloud the beach towels. I mean, I’m a customer of theirs, and I just love their story as well. So I think they all had unique kind of offerings and in stories. And that was, you know, for me, just super interesting.
Tamara Littleton 23:40
That’s definitely your curiosity at play, there, isn’t it? Yeah. So we’re going to switch gears now and we’re going to ask you a few more quick-fire questions, a bit more sort of personal. So I’ll let Wendy kickstart with hers.
Wendy Christie 23:54
Thank you. And as we’re getting towards the end of the week, it feels like a good time to ask this question. So what’s your idea of a perfect weekend?
Rob Hanson 24:03
It’s got to involve a beach. My perfect weekend is, ideally a beach house, and hanging out on the beach all day. I surf in my free time, so getting in the water at some point, you know, and then having some great food, friends and family, and then, you know, maybe end the night or the weekend with a bonfire on the beach. Like anything related to ocean and sand, for me is sort of the dream experience.
Wendy Christie 24:33
Sounds incredible. Okay, switch gears again. If you were walking on stage and there was an intro track playing for you? What would it be?
Rob Hanson 24:43
I have a very diverse taste in music, but probably something, maybe Red Hot Chili Peppers, or I’m a huge fan of the band the Dirty Heads, so maybe the Dirty Heads, “That’s All I Need”, that’s the name of the song, so we’ll leave it at that.
Wendy Christie 25:02
I’m going to look that up.
Tamara Littleton 25:05
How would you fare in a zombie apocalypse?
Rob Hanson 25:08
This is good. I have certainly seen my fair share of zombie movies and shows I’ve seen most, if not all, of The Walking Dead. I think I would have a pretty good shot. So I would call that, you know, enough research to maybe have a leg up. But I think I would do, all right.
Wendy Christie 25:27
Cool. I think I’ve seen enough of The Walking Dead to know that I would fare terribly in a zombie apocalypse. How would your friends describe you?
Rob Hanson 25:37
I would hope they, I hope they would say I was outgoing, caring and funny. I’ve always been the one to kind of make things happen, meaning, like, I’m usually the one to kind of organise the plans and get the group together. So, you know, I think they would, they would kind of point to that as sort of my redeeming qualities. But, I’d like to think that, they would say I’m approachable and fun to be around.
Wendy Christie 25:58
Okay, another, gear switch, if you could time travel to any point, either in the past or the future, with no consequence, where or when would you travel to?
Rob Hanson 26:08
This one’s such an interesting one, because, there’s, I think there’s a lot of debates I think that could be had, as far as what would be the best for me. I loved growing up in the 90s. I think it would be really cool to go back now, or, like, as an adult, because, you know, I’m a dad now, I think it would just be cool to go back to where there were no cell phones, there was great music. It was just a different way of life. You know, I remember growing up being outside and playing and riding bikes and doing all that. I just think it’s a lot different now. So I would be, I would be really interested to go back to the 90s. But as you know, my current self, with sort of my current state of life, that would be interesting.
Tamara Littleton 26:45
If you were going to write a book what would it be about?
Rob Hanson 26:52
I love this question I have. I have a feeling, you know, that I’ve accumulated enough knowledge, and I feel like I could provide some insight from for first-time dads, and I think it would be more sort of an advice piece or something, to kind of guide dads in similar situations, to kind of help them kind of cope with the initial phases of parenting. I think I have some funny anecdotes and takeaways that could potentially be helpful. And in a similar vein, you know, I could imagine writing something with the target audience being college kids ready to kind of graduate and sort of embark on the next phase of their lives. I think that moment where you realise that up until that point, most, if not everything, has been pre-planned or kind of set for you, and then this sort of ominous feeling of not knowing what’s next. I think my experience in that, and a lot of what I spoke about today, as far as my career path, I think I could maybe write something that would be enticing enough.
Tamara Littleton 27:53
Yeah, so it’s kind of those, those big, transformational moments, those little pivot points and a bit of process thrown in by the sounds of it.
Rob Hanson 28:00
Yeah, absolutely emphasis on the process.
Tamara Littleton 28:04
So I love a bit of karaoke. Are you a karaoke kind of guy? Do you have a go-to song?
Rob Hanson 28:10
I will certainly participate if it’s presented. You know, I think this answer may get some black from from friends or family. I have been known to do karaoke for Nickelback songs, and in particular, my goal, my go-to song is How You Remind Me so despite any of the negative feedback that I might get on that, that’s typically my go-to
Tamara Littleton 28:32
Solid choice. I love that. Rob, it’s been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. And is there anything that you wish that we’d asked or do you have any closing thoughts? I’ll hand over the mic to you.
Rob Hanson 28:47
You know, first and foremost, really appreciate you having me. Was really excited to get a chance to sit with you both today and have a conversation. You know, I think I was able to kind of explain my sort of beginnings to where I am today, and shed a little bit of light on sort of my career path and and how it’s kind of come to fruition. But, you know, so no other questions necessarily, but, you know, I will just kind of plug social intelligence and listening as sort of a practice at a program. And, you know, I think a lot of what I’ve learned and involved as a marketer has sort of kind of come through in my current role and sort of how the evolution of my role has progressed. And you know, I will just say it’s an emerging practice and program. I encourage brands and organisations to embrace it. It’s certainly becoming more and more relevant and important. And I, I hear this every single day from colleagues, as well as other folks in similar roles at other organisations. It’s really fascinating stuff. And I think it’s, you know, it’s definitely not going anywhere, and if anything, it’s becoming more important for organisations. So, you know, something to be mindful of. It just an interesting topic that I am always excited to chat about
Wendy Christie 30:05
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