INTRODUCING OUR 2023 HALL OF FAME HONOREES

BY ERIKA FLYNN

Each year since 1994, the editors of the Path to Purchase Institute have selected three industry leaders for induction into the Hall of Fame. From their daily business practices to the work they produce, these honorees represent the very best of the commerce marketing industry. Collectively, these professionals have proven that they don’t just follow the path to purchase; rather, they help build it. The 2023 inductees are:

• Mimi Dixon, Crayola

• Brent Rosso, Ulta Beauty (page 18)

• Bob Waibel, Conagra Brands (page 20)

For a complete list of Hall of Fame inductees, visit P2PI.com/HallofFame.

Mimi Dixon

Director,

Brand Activation and Content Crayola

Mimi Dixon thrives on connecting with consumers. That started when she worked at Barnie’s Coffee & Tea Co. in high school. It was there she got her first taste of marketing, sales and consumer interactions. And even though her first years of college took her down a different path, she never lost that passion.

Today, as director of brand activation and content at Crayola, Dixon leads a team that creates consumer connections every day, guided by four overarching principles: authenticity, transparency, credibility and inclusivity.

The Early Years

Dixon was the oldest of four children, raised in a single-parent household in Camden, New Jersey. She came from meager beginnings and was the fi rst in her family to attend college. One of her earliest lessons was the value of always striving to be better and not being afraid to branch out.

Her early years included experiences through CHAMP (Creating Higher Aspirations & Motivations Project), a summer program out of nearby Rowan University that took inner city kids camping, taught them science, math and sociology so they could learn to network and connect, and eventually introduced them to college. This program helped her on her college endeavors, and she later gave back as a camp counselor.

Dixon also took advantage of a state-certified emergency medical technician program in high school. She was an EMT for a few years, and says it opened her eyes to the world around her. It also dimensionalized the deep roots of prejudice when she encountered racism on the job.

Career Development

After graduating, Dixon moved back to Camden and landed as a temp at Campbell Soup Co. “I had been around Campbell’s headquarters all my life, but never thought about working there,” she says. She proved quickly that she was more than ready for a permanent position after working on one of its signature education programs, Labels for Education, and they created a role for her.

Throughout high school, Dixon also participated in a summer program minored in political science, which led her to a masters

Throughout high school, Dixon also participated in a summer program called PRIME (Philadelphia Regional Introduction for Minorities to Engineering) and was encouraged to follow the engineering path in college. After two years, she pivoted and went on to earn a degree in sociology from Rutgers University, following her passion for understanding people and connections. She minored in political science, which led her to a masters of public administration from the University of Delaware, during which she was a legislative fellow with the Delaware House of Representatives.

Mimi Dixon

Title: Director, Brand Activation and Content

Company: Crayola

Team Members: Stephanie Hudson, brand content manager; Erika Merklinger, public relations and communications manager; Pam Garrity, marketing coordinator.

Career Path:

• Crayola, director, brand activation and content (2017-present), customer development and national activation - sales (2014-2017)

• Campbell Soup Co., senior group manager, shopper marketing – Campbell North America (2013-2014); senior group manager, integrated consumer and shopper marketing (2010-2013), senior group manager/senior manager - consumer marketing (2003-2009), promotions associate/assistant manager/ manager - consumer marketing (1998-2003)

Industry Activities:

• Keynote speaker: 2021 ANA (The Association of National Advertisers) Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference & Awards; Disney Marketing Townhall; Dolby360 Marketing Townhall; John Deere Inclusion Summit; Kellogg’s Innovation Townhall; Pearson Inclusion Summit; Pernod Ricard Marketing Townhall; Inspira-Enthuse Marketing; NPR Marketing Townhall;

• Panelist speaker: Red Bull; SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) Inclusion Summit; NEW (Network of Executive Women) Summit

• Judge: ANA Multicultural Awards, Effie Awards, Reggie Awards, AME Awards

Education: Rutgers University, Bachelor’s, Sociology/Political Science; University of Delaware, Master’s, Public Administration, State and Local Management.

She started as a promotions associate, and during her 16-year tenure took roles of increasing responsibility, ultimately holding the position of senior group manager – shopper marketing, Campbell North America. It was a lesson in transferable skills entering the world of CPG. “A lot of what I learned working on my master’s transferred over to Campbell Soup, almost like an MBA but for the public,” she says. “Being able to put products together, fulfilling a need for the consumer and witnessing the ambassadorship. I liked that, and I wanted more of it.”

Through her Campbell Soup years, she worked in consumer promotions and then moved into shopper marketing, working on different brands in each of her roles. She led the Chunky Soup Mama’s Boys Campaign in partnership with the National Football League for eight years, and eventually led Labels for Education as well, which was her first experience with a cause-focused program.

She counts both as some of her best work while with the company, along with what then became the label’s largest causal program with the U.S. Postal Service, Stamp Out Hunger, in collaboration with Feeding America. Giving back and helping others in need will always ring true for Dixon. “To be able to have a program that was simple and effective, but where we could really make a difference — that’s a message right after my own heart.”

Dixon says Campbell Soup’s then-CEO Doug Conant made a significant impact on her early career. He brought diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and employee resources groups to the company, advocated for healthy lifestyles and was the biggest proponent of work/life balance — all while staying connected to employees on a regular basis and making them feel valued.

Terry Atkins, Dixon’s fi rst director of integrated marketing; Anne Pizzaro, her fi rst manager; and Angel Sasso, who created the position for Dixon when she was hired on, all played integral roles in her growth and success at the company.

Making Her Mark At Crayola

In 2014, Dixon decided it was time to branch out again and made a move to Crayola. She seized the opportunity to lead shopper marketing under Nancy DeBellis, director of customer leadership.

Crayola offered an entrepreneurial spirit and an organizational structure in which she was involved in more planning, discussions, pitching to senior leaders and aligning with them. “It was a whole new level of marketing, presentation skills and political savvy,” she says, adding that her involvement with retail partners increased, which was an exciting change for her.

Eventually she began overseeing the company’s merchandising efforts and, in 2017, she assumed her current position of director, brand activation and content.

Dixon has watched the practice of shopper marketing evolve. Retailers are still looking for ways to engage shoppers, she notes, but are looking to add more value. “Together we want to give more to shoppers,” she says. “We have to ask ourselves how we can do that, whether with content, exclusive product or something else. Here are the bare bones of the product, but how do we give them more?”

An added focus is on leveraging microseasons, on top of the seasons the company has historically activated against. “So think Halloween, Earth Day or Valentine’s Day,” she says. “Other moments that matter, if you will, outside of the big tent poles, when we can engage consumers and give them value add.”

Engaging with teachers and being a better resource for them, as well as new ways to drive loyalty, are also points of discussions right now at Crayola. And finally, supporting DEI. “Retailers want to partner to be more inclusive and make sure we’re not missing any key groups of consumers in our work,” she says.

When the company partnered with beauty industry expert Victor Casale for a new product launch, Dixon led the charge. Colors of the World introduced 24 newly developed colors, which represent 98% of the global population, and became the most successful launch in Crayola history.

Dixon encourages teams to learn from other industries, and to break the mold when given the opportunity. “Don’t be afraid to do things differently,” she says. Crayola had to learn how to produce paint around the Colors of the

World line, something it had never done before. She says the company culture must support the work/product and live into four key principles of authenticity, transparency, credibility and inclusivity.

“Everything we did — from R&D to reaching out to consumers, understanding packaging, crayon labeling, marketing, PR — went through this lens of those four guiding principles,” she says. “Even to this day, when we’re looking at partners for Colors of the World, we look through that lens. If they stand up to those guidelines, that’s what moves us forward.”

Into The Future

Furthering DEI will continue to be a goal for Crayola, says Dixon, as they look at product portfolios and even marketing and content to go after those populations. She and her team are also looking at generational relevance and interconnectivity. “We have products for everyone, and we have to keep those generational congruencies in mind,” she notes. “We have our key target area of elementary school, but how do we make sure we are aging up and growing with you after that?”

Finally, there is work around furthering engagement with its brand mission — communicating to consumers that Crayola has a broader mission in addition to the products it sells.

Brent Rosso Vice President of UB Media Ulta Beauty

Brent Rosso has never been one to shy away from a good startup challenge. A native of the Twin Cities in Minnesota and classically trained as a marketer, he never could have predicted his career path coming out of college. He says job prospects have come and gone that would have taken him away from his hometown, but instead he chose to stay right where he’s always been. And now, with four startups under his belt, he says being in the right place at the right time, recognizing challenges as exciting opportunities — and a stroke of luck here and there — have made for a rewarding and fun ride.

The Early Years

Rosso, who values his childhood growing up with his parents and brother, remembers the lasting impact a sixth-grade teacher had on building his confidence. “At one point, I said I wanted to be a lawyer,” he recalls. “Her response was, ‘You got it, kiddo.’” The power of her support stayed with him, from his first jobs as a kindergarten soccer coach and lifeguard at the city municipal pool, to his current post as vice president of UB Media at Ulta Beauty.

A graduate of the University of St. Thomas with a degree in marketing, Rosso says it was his economics studies (for which he earned a minor) that landed him his first position as an e-commerce manager for online advertising at Fingerhut.

Career Development

Fingerhut was the second-largest catalog company in the nation at the time, and Rosso learned the true disciplines of database and direct marketing. “I was a sponge,” he says. But the job lacked the innovation that he began to realize would fuel his drive going forward.

“They had been around for 100 years and it was a finely tuned machine,” he recalls. Soon after, he was “plucked up” with three others and put in a corner of the organization. “We were told there was this internet thing … go figure it out,” he says. “We did some really cool stuff after that and had a ton of fun building out our digital strategies.” That four-person digital team eventually grew to more than 200 in about 18 months.

Federated Department Stores eventually bought Fingerhut, but Rosso says it wasn’t the best marriage. The day after Fingerhut shuttered, he was in on the ground floor of a new operation: a small mom-and-pop lighting showroom that needed to build its catalog business. As the marketing director of Bellacor, Rosso helped build it from scratch to a category leader within two years.

In 2005, he moved a couple of miles down the road to work in e-commerce for the retail giant that had always been in his backyard. His work at Target would be similar: to build its media presence, starting as the manager of online advertising.

Rosso would go on to spend more than 14 years at Target, ultimately holding the post of vice president of digital media. He led all digital media channels and built teams internally and/or partnered with one of its many agencies to run those businesses, while also standing up new product teams.

“We were building capabilities, based on our data and technology, to support those channels,” he says. “That was very successful — to the point where the marketing organization asked to expand beyond just media and think more holistically for marketing.” A number of product teams stood up to support the marketing organization in that agile manner, he notes, “and that was really cool because what an unlock that became in how we operated and got stuff done.”

He also led the measurement team, which he believes truly transformed the marketing organization, considering how little measurement there was at the time. “We were meeting with the CMO and CFO and their direct reports monthly, reviewing measurement and making real-time changes not just in digital, but even in our broadcast media,” he says. He also led an audience strategy team, and a programmatic strategy and activation team in Bangalore, India.

By 2010-2011, Rosso says Target executives realized this martech foundation was the basis for a new business at the retailer. More specifically, a retailer media network and a more modern approach — and Rosso was tapped to help write the business case for launching that division. “This was all about leveraging that first-party data and understanding the outcomes associated with doing that wherever you might reach customers,” he says. He then guided the launch, leading everything but the sales organization for what is now Roundel at Target.

Rosso says he’s had many great mentors over the years, but Ron Neher, who headed up e-commerce development during Rosso’s early days at Fingerhut, taught him about leading people and teams. That’s what Rosso is most proud of today: the teams he has been a part of throughout this journey. “It’s not about me at all, but about building a team,” he says. “When you come together and empower them to do and see where we want to go, they take you there.”

Rosso spent the next three years consulting for both retail media networks as well as the martech/adtech space.

Impact At Ulta

When the opportunity to lead the retailer media network for Ulta Beauty (dubbed UB Media) arose, Rosso just couldn’t pass it up. It was a strategic initiative for the organization, and 95% of all transactions are tied to Ulta’s loyalty program. Working in a corporate culture that he describes as a “breath of fresh air,” he in October 2021 built another team that is tasked with reimagining and building more capabilities within UB Media’s foundation — and equipping it to handle much more scale. “That team will make or break us, so that’s where we’re spending the majority of our time right now,” he says.

Retail Media Going Forward

Rosso sees retail media’s growth as both exciting and rewarding — and views change as opportunity. He encourages his team members to embrace the ever-rapid changes in the space and to think about what might be next. Their guiding principle is to always do best by the guest. “This retail media network is not a business that sits on the side of Ulta Beauty — we are core to everything that we do.”

Rosso stresses the importance of collaboration with brand partners and especially clients to build stronger relationships. He says his team will continue to focus on building out more owned and operated inventory via the web and their app, but also in physical stores. “That’s a white space in the retail media network space,” he says, “And we believe there’s tons of opportunity there.”

As retail media networks continue to pop up and consolidation is not as likely across retailers, it’s the networks’ job to determine what that means for the retail media network space, Rosso says. “We have to figure out ways to come together and make things easier for our clients and our brand partners. That’s a challenge we’ll have to think more and more about.”

Brent Rosso

Title: Vice President of UB Media

Company: Ulta Beauty

Team Members: Dom Manna, director of advertising operations for UB Media; Alyson Soderberg, senior director of sales and account management for UB Media.

Career Path:

• Ulta, Vice President, UB Media (2021-present)

• Independent Consultant and Advisor (20192022)

• Target, Vice President of Digital Media (20142019), Director, Digital Media (2012-14), Senior Group Manager, Digital Media (2010-2012), Group Manager, Digital Media (2009-2010), Senior Manager, Online Media (2007-2009), Manager, Online Advertising (2005-2007)

• Bellacor, Marketing Director (2002-2005)

• Fingerhut, E-Commerce Manager, Online Advertising (1997-2002)

Industry Activities:

• Lecturer, Kellogg School of Business Northwestern University and Carlson School of Marketing University of Minnesota

• Speaker, Cannes Lions, AdWeek, Mobile Marketing Association, MediaPost, Beet.TV, LiveRamp

• Former member of: Google Retail Advisory Council, AOL Retail Advisory Council, DoubleClick Client Advisory Council, MSN Client Advisory Board, Association for Interactive Marketing: Council for Responsible Email

• Active member of: IAB Retail Media Network Committee

• Industry accolades: Best Digital Marketer, Internet Retailer; People-Based Marketing Pioneer, Digiday; Best Use of Programmatic Technology, AdExchanger; Mobile Marketer of the Year, MMA; and Media Company of the Year, MMA.

Education: University of St. Thomas, Bachelor’s, Marketing and Economics.

Bob Waibel Senior Director, Commerce Marketing Conagra Brands

Bob Waibel grew up thinking he’d be a salesman. His father spent more than 30 years in sales at IBM, and although the younger Waibel wasn’t sure of his path, he was confident (in high school, anyway) that being a salesman was his end goal as well. But a marketing degree from the University of Missouri and a well-known brewery in his hometown changed all of that for him.

This year marks Waibel’s 45th year in the industry, having spent time on both the CPG and agency sides of the business. He is the senior director of commerce marketing at Conagra Brands, leading a team of 20 whom he says “day in and day out deliver great commerce marketing activations for our customers and our brands.”

The Early Years

Waibel grew up in St. Louis in a family with four brothers and sisters. He spent weekends sailing with his dad at Carlyle Lake in central Illinois and bagging groceries at Schnucks early in his high school days. He worked there all through college when he was home, eventually becoming a part of the grocery team and stocking shelves.

His first job out of college was as a manager of promotions at Anheuser-Busch. He had come back to St. Louis, networked and found himself traveling to wholesalers weekly, doing everything from sales, merchandising and store resets to equipment audits, counting barrels in the marketplace and special events. He spent eight years with the company in total, ultimately working in consumer promotions.

Career Development

Waibel’s next stop was at marketing agency The Waylon Co. At the time, agencies were springing up in St. Louis because of Anheuser-Busch (A-B) and other large CPGs. “I’d been working with agencies from the client side and this gave me an opportunity to understand how an agency operated from the inside — what the creative process to final art looked like, how an agency makes money, etc.,” he says.

Then came his chance to work at another world-class company. Waibel had lived in Atlanta while at A-B, and both the area and a job opportunity with The Coca-Cola Co. were too good to pass up. He began in the Fountain Division (now Foodservice), working with major on-premise customers that served Coca-Cola fountain drinks.

“We functioned very much like an internal agency resource to our Fountain customers, developing promotions that would drive Coca-Cola’s and our customers’ businesses,” he says. It was there he learned what great customer marketing looked like and how to make it work — for consumers, customers and its brands. He then moved into a channel marketing manager role, working on strategic planning for the casual dining channel for the Fountain division.

Waibel was at Coke for more than seven years before he moved back to the agency side, working on the bottler’s business. “The work was similar to what I was already doing inside Coke, but it was an opportunity to have a greater role in leading teams and managing the growth for a company which, on the agency side, means new business development,” he says. He held VP positions at Draftfcb, Ogilvy & Mather (BEN Marketing) and Arc Worldwide (Leo Burnett) for more than six years.

With invaluable agency-side experience under his belt, Waibel joined ConAgra Foods in 2007, realizing his passion for working for one company and that company’s goals. He moved to Tampa, Florida, to handle the east region shopper marketing efforts and, eight years later, landed in Chicago to take over all of shopper marketing as senior director.

Waibel’s early work at Anheuser-Busch were some of his first big wins. “Competitive breweries were spending big dollars to sponsor The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc.,” he says. “We wanted to find a more economical way to do something that not only created visibility for our brands, but that our wholesalers could leverage more effectively in local markets broadly.”

His group teamed with its agency The Comedy Store in Los Angeles to identify a group of up-and-coming comedians to take out on tour, eventually securing Billy Crystal and others. “The program was less expensive than trying to sponsor a major rock group tour,” he says. “We were able to execute it in far more markets and our wholesalers could use it to drive displays and promotions in their markets.”

Waibel points to mentors who have guided him throughout his career, including Bill Schmidt, at both Anheuser-Busch and on the agency side, who helped teach him how to navigate the corporate world early on. He says a boss at Coca-Cola, Chandra Stephens-Albright, gave him sound guidance that he’s passed on many times since: “Don’t just go looking for jobs; identify what you enjoy doing first. You’ll find more enjoyment that way.” And longtime colleague Mike Buczkowski, CEO of Digitix, continues to be someone he looks to for advice and coaching.

Impact At Conagra

When Waibel landed at ConAgra Foods (which became Conagra Brands in 2016), then-SVP of marketing Mike McMahon (a P2PI Hall of Famer himself) was just beginning to build out the shopper marketing discipline. For him, it was an opportunity to work with experienced marketers Tammy Brumfield and Tom Lisi, and build out the function. “We put together a shopper marketing team that was really at the forefront of how to structure a shopper marketing function,” he says. “We established a team structure, processes and ways of working that did not exist previously. And they were truly industry-leading.”

About two years ago, the team evolved from shopper marketing to commerce marketing, which was much more than just a name change, Waibel notes. “We have made it our team’s focus to ‘make every moment shoppable,’” he says. The evolution is driven by several macro trends, including a dynamic store experience, with automation/AI and external forces such as the pandemic changing how consumers shop in-store; omnichannel evolution in which physical and digital commerce have combined; and new customer platforms, such as the strong emergence of retailer media networks.

“My team has expanded our focus to continue to fi nd ways to drive our brand relevance with shoppers in every area they’re shopping — instore and online,” he says.

Bob Waibel

Title: Senior Director, Commerce Marketing

Company: Conagra Brands

Team Members: Matt Pabst, Director of Commerce Marketing; Tim Schatz, Director of Commerce Marketing; Reshma Schneider, Director of Commerce Marketing.

Career Path:

• Conagra Brands, Senior Director, Commerce Marketing (2016-present); Senior Director, Shopper Marketing (2007-2016)

• Arc Worldwide, Vice President, Account Director (2004-2007)

• Ogilvy & Mather (BEN Marketing) Vice President, Client Services (2002-2004)

• Draftfcb, Vice President, Group Account Director (2001-2002)

As retailer media networks continue to pop up and retailer-specific shopper data becomes more available, Waibel says his team looks to drive Conagra Brands’ sales across the whole retailer ecosystem through marketing activation by leveraging shopper and retailer expertise, which includes shopper data with its customers.

“How and where my team focuses its efforts has become much broader,” he notes. “Not only are we fi nding ways to disrupt shopper journeys in-store with incremental displays and in-store activation and communication, but we’re also making sure our brands are showing up and standing out on the retailers’ digital shelves.”

Looking Ahead

Measurement will continue to be a big focus for Waibel and his team. Pinpointing accurate, reliable and meaningful measurement and ROIs that are attributable specifically to shopper marketing initiatives has always been the challenge. “Add in retailer media networks, and it gets really complicated,” he says.

While ROAS (return on ad spend) has become the default metric, he’s not convinced it’s the right metric for success in the omnichannel space. It’s a constant battle, but one his team will continue to fight with all of its partners. “We also have to get to some standardization [between the different methodologies and metrics] so we’re looking at things the same way across the universe,” he says.

• The Coca-Cola Co., Trade Channel Marketing Manager (1997-2000); Senior Program Development Manager (1996-97); Promotions Manager, National Accounts (1993-1996)

• Fruit of the Loom, Sales Promotion Manager (1992-1993)

• The Waylon Co., Account Supervisor (19891992), Senior Account Executive (1987-89)

• The Seven-Up Co., Manager, Promotion Programs (1986-1987)

• Anheuser-Busch (1978-1986)

Industry Activities:

• Guest lecturer at University of Chicago, Indiana University and University of Florida

• Multiple Path to Purchase Institute committees, most recently as part of the Commission to Standardize the Measurement of Shopper Marketing

• Final Round Judge for the Commerce & Shopper Effie Awards

Education: University of Missouri, Bachelor’s, Marketing.