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OhHello - Yvette Davis
32 Plays1 year ago
OhHello!
It's episode 77, and this "Hello" (aka a mentor on the OhHello.io 🌞☕️ platform) comes with a smile and reminder to all -- as hard as it is, try not to compare yourself to others!
Yvette Davis, MBA, MSIMC (yes, 2 Masters Degrees!) has worked at some powerhouse companies (Dave & Buster's Inc., Walmart / Sam's Club, The Home Depot, OMD USA, Starcom) wearing all kinds of #marketing hats. In our chat, she emphasizes the importance of #mentorship acknowledging the influential figures who played a significant role in shaping her professional development ...brick-by-brick
The "Bricks":
🧱 Tracey D. Brown: Formerly at Sam's Club, Tracy helped Yvette broaden her strategic mindset and realize her full potential as a marketer
🧱 Tony Rogers: Former CMO at Walmart and Sam's Club, Tony provided Yvette with invaluable opportunities and insights, helping her understand the significance of having a seat at the table
🧱 Jeff Jenkins: CMO at Carters Inc., Jeff was a mentor through the ADWEEK Executive Mentorship Program, providing Yvette w/ invaluable guidance (aka "Jeffisms")
🧱 Kristil Nicholas A constant presence that's been instrumental in Yvette's professional + personal journey
Yvette is thrilled to be a part of the OhHello platform and tribe!
And, as always, please share/like/comment and remember to subscribe to the pod where we feature members of our OhHello tribe: https://pod.link/1666003514/
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For those playing at home, a friendly nudge to "uncover the cure" & bring an end to the silent KPI killer of "Waldosis" at adelaidemetrics.com/ohhello
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Transcript
The Waldosis Effect in Digital Advertising
00:00:00
Speaker
Today, many digital ad campaigns suffer from an affliction known as Waldosis. This disease gets its name from the children's book Where's Waldo, whose protagonist was famed for being viewable, but nearly impossible to find. Just like Waldo, Waldosis campaigns are highly viewable.
00:00:18
Speaker
but capture very little attention.
Addressing Waldosis with Adelaide Attention Metrics
00:00:20
Speaker
The antidote for the silent killer? Adelaide Attention Metrics. Join Audie, Coca-Cola, and the NBA in the fight against Waldosis. Uncover the cure and grab a free Waldo Is Viewable t-shirt at AdelaideMetrics.com slash oh hello. Disclaimer, Adelaide AU may result in elevated campaign performance and a surge in ROI. Side effects may include unbridled joy and envy from competitors. And now, on to her show.
Yvette Davis on Empathy in Marketing
00:00:55
Speaker
Oh, hello, Yvette. Hello, Jeremy. How's it going? It's going great. It's going great. I've had the pleasure of knowing you for quite some time. Can you please tell our oh, hello listeners who you are?
00:01:12
Speaker
That's a funny question. Who am I? No, really everyone. Yvette Davis, so glad to be here. I'm originally from Dallas, Texas. And as you mentioned, we've known each other forever. I left Dallas after undergrad, moved to Chicago. And that's really kind of where my marketing career started, where really for me, I like to say that first I'm an empathetic person. And I think that plays a lot into my ability to be a great marketer.
00:01:40
Speaker
Like I'm always thinking about how communication will be received from customers, what their experience will be, which translates into my experience, not only in brand marketing, but also digital marketing.
Career Path Driven by Empathy and UX
00:01:55
Speaker
And today, you know, as a director of digital marketing for Dave and Buster's and Main Event, overseeing web and really thinking through the entire UX.
00:02:04
Speaker
not only just from the paid media aspect, but when they come to our site, how should they experience go? Where are the friction points? How do I make it seamless and have return visits?
00:02:15
Speaker
And what's amazingly wonderful about your experiences, Yvette, the fact that going from Chicago to Atlanta to Arkansas, back to Texas, where your home was, and is, you have worked at some fantastic companies. You have two master's degrees. You, from Omnicom to PuboSes to, you know,
00:02:41
Speaker
at your time at Home Depot, it's your time at Sam's Club to now being at Dave and Buster's, you have worked on amazing brands, your time at Intel and Kellogg's. The empathetic marketer hat is something that most people should not take lightly because you really put your, you plant yourself in those markets, in those corporate headquarters, learn the lingo. And so that says a lot when you say the empathetic marketer. I just wanted to call that out. Yeah, you know, it's one of those things that,
00:03:11
Speaker
It's almost so natural that anytime I'm working on anything marketing, I literally take my marketer hat off because I think it's easy for us to get so close to like, oh, this is like marketing. This is what we should be chasing after. But at the end of the day, if your consumer can really connect with you, then it's whatever you do in marketing, it's going to work.
Building Consumer Trust through Strategy
00:03:35
Speaker
And so to me, I'm really chasing that consumer connection for them to get that feeling like this brand knows me, this brand understands me, and this brand is here for me. So that's how I think about the strategies that I work on or even the executions that we put out for the different brands. It's that level of trust.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yes. What defines you? What defines you as an executive? What defines you as just a good person? I think once again, it's still like that empathy that I have and just knowing that how important it is to approach everything with such understanding and like
00:04:18
Speaker
with my, you mentioned trust earlier and building that foundational trust with the different people that I work with, whether it's my direct reports of our cross-functional partners. And so I've always been, you know, big on relationships and fostering them. And so you see that in my personal life and you definitely see that come across in my professional life because I feel like that, you know, that relationship, that trust,
00:04:46
Speaker
that knowing that you're dependable, it definitely goes a long way in these corporate environments. Relationships matter. They matter. They do. They do. How would you characterize the skill set that you're going to be sharing with the Oh Hello community just in terms of your background?
Non-linear Career Paths and Foundational Learning
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, I think the skill set, there are a couple of things. You know, the first thing I would say is, you know, really understanding that all careers are linear. So, you know, we were talking earlier about how I have two master's degrees and my first true marketing job was right after grad school, where I literally took an entry level role at the agency.
00:05:29
Speaker
to foundationally understand, you know, the inner workings of media, understanding how the traffic display ads really getting into the weeds and reporting before I was able to like grow. So we're talking about 2009 to 2014, my first client opportunity.
00:05:49
Speaker
We're now managing the agency and helping the client really save thousands of dollars because of learnings I garnered as an entry-level person with two master degrees. So for me, what I want to just help people understand is it's not where you are today. It's taking those learnings.
00:06:11
Speaker
and figuring out how that helps propel you for your next opportunity. You know, at church Sunday, my pastor made a comment that it rings so true. It's, you know, blossom where you're planted at.
00:06:23
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And I feel so often we're like chasing the next thing that we don't take time to like really realize why we're at the place that we're at right now. What are we supposed to be learning in this season at this place that we're at within our careers? Because there's a reason we're here. There's preparation that's taking place in our life that's really gonna help us as we move forward in our careers. And just personally, you can take that same lesson.
00:06:50
Speaker
You wanna keep yourself in bloom, so to speak. Hence the- Keep yourself in bloom. We should always be learning. I feel like I'm constantly learning. I love that, I love that. What kind of advice would you give yourself looking
Avoiding Self-comparison in Professional Growth
00:07:01
Speaker
back?
00:07:01
Speaker
The advice, you know, I tell myself this even to this day, because it's a custom reminder today. Did you tell yourself that? I tell myself this today is like, don't compare yourself to anyone else. Once again, I feel like I am really grounded in like, there's a reason I'm on this path. And I just have to, you know,
00:07:23
Speaker
take hold of what that reason is and really just lean into it. So I would say earlier in my career, once again, you know, coming from two master degrees and starting entry level, looking at people my same age and where they were in their careers, I did a lot of comparing. And I feel like, you know, it
00:07:41
Speaker
was something that was discouraging personally, but there were people in my life who helped me understand like, don't compare yourself to other people, but really focus on where you're at. And I'll just continue to take that advice. But I wish like I didn't have to wait to 25 to learn it, but it's something that I continue to just remind myself of today and to other people.
00:08:04
Speaker
I love that you just said that. I think it really resonates. I think our listeners, our viewers, those that are fans of Oh Hello, the content that we're building, and the platform, they're the only person to mention that. So that really resonates just the importance of not comparing yourself to everybody else. Like, yeah, life itself
00:08:24
Speaker
If you look at it as a consistent rat race, you're going to get injured, you're going to get sick, you got to focus on how you can be better, how you can develop. And it's really hard in fast paced environments of what we do in our ecosystem. That's so true. And what's crazy is like
00:08:43
Speaker
One of the main tools I feel like all of us use as professionals is almost like a comparison tool right in our
LinkedIn as a Professional Tool
00:08:50
Speaker
face. And that's LinkedIn. Now don't get me wrong. I love LinkedIn. I think there's a lot of power in it, but it's just like, make sure you're going into that mindset where you're on that platform, not to be comparing yourself to someone else, but you know, leverage it to help you get to where you want to be.
00:09:06
Speaker
Use it as a tool. As a tool, yes. As a tool. Don't use it as a crutch or as a shiny object because everyone's only going to put up their best accomplishments, their coolest stuff. Hence part of the reason, I mean, I use LinkedIn to broadcast a lot of the
00:09:25
Speaker
LinkedIn live streams that we do for the content. The podcasts, there are thousands of viewers on every single, just tens of thousands of minutes for every different interview that we do on LinkedIn. But what I realized when I put that is we're all putting on our best selves when it comes to LinkedIn. So I love that you said that.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah. Me, you talked about earlier, like what I have found valuable, like speaking on LinkedIn is when people do talk about their failures. There are a couple of people, I remember they talked about like, Oh, I left this company and went to this company. And I was only at this company B for three months. And you're like, wait, three months. But they like talk about why that was and why it was important for them. And once again, there's learnings in that.
00:10:11
Speaker
authenticity. Yeah, being authentic and explaining why. Yeah, you're so right. What excites you about mentorship?
Mentorship and Career Building
00:10:18
Speaker
What excites you about the Oh, hello platform? You know, for me mentorship, and how it's played a part in my life, is that it's, you know, you get the strong foundation, I receive my strong foundation from my parents and family. And then the mentors
00:10:33
Speaker
which I would almost call them like the influencers in my life, have each laid different bricks. And so we're building this house together. And I haven't had one mentor from like the beginning of my career to today. So there's so many people who just place these bricks to help build this house with me.
00:10:51
Speaker
And for me, I want to be that person. I want to make sure that I'm not building a mansion for myself while someone over here is with sticks. I want to help build the bricks and help someone else as they develop and grow. So I do not spend some time today mentoring. At Sands Club, I was able to help with the internship program and being a mentor there.
00:11:18
Speaker
So it is something that's very important to me in my career. I love the analogy of the brick builders. Who have been the tuck pointers, so to speak, or the brick layers in your ecosystem that have played a big role professionally that have helped you become who you are today?
00:11:39
Speaker
Oh, wow. There are so many. There are so many. So if I don't say your name, you're not to say your name. If you're not saying your name, you can email me them and I'll drop it in the notes as well.
00:11:52
Speaker
The few that come to mind, Tracy Brown, who's now at Walgreens, she hired me at Sam's Club, really helped me understand the full potential that I could have as a marketer, not just focusing on media, but really sharpening my strategic mindset and helping me extend from just being a media person, but also a brand marketer.
00:12:20
Speaker
Tony Rogers used to be the CMO at Walmart, CMO at Sam's Club. He really was very influential in my career and brought me in on some assignments and really helped me understand what having a seat at the table meant. Amazing. Even to this day, it's someone that I can call on and just gives me that advice, that push professionally and personally in life. Amazing.
00:12:45
Speaker
You probably saw on my LinkedIn that I got a chance to be a part of the Adweek executive mentorship program. So I would be remiss if I didn't mention my mentor, Carter's CMO, Jeff Jenkins.
00:12:59
Speaker
Like the time I spent with Jeff was just, I mean, words just don't explain it. Jeff gave me so many Jeff-isms as I end up naming them at the end of our program together. We still stay in contact, but he gave me so many nuggets that I feel like really are helping propel me into this next season of my career. And so those are just a few people
00:13:25
Speaker
And then one more person, last but certainly not least, Crystal McPherson, which I know has been on your podcast. But literally from 2009 to today, Crystal has been a part of my professional and personal journey. And really is one of those people that is constantly laying bricks for me. And so she's a wonderful role model and mom. Yeah, she's a great person. Well, Yvette, any other parting words of wisdom that you have for our audience?
Staying Focused and Embracing Mentorship
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, you know, just stay focused, stay encouraged. I'm pretty sure a lot of people have said this, but you'll get a hundred no's before you get that yes. And I've gotten a hundred no's before I've gotten my yeses, but really just staying connected, being engaged in things like the Oh Hello podcast and really
00:14:20
Speaker
you know, stepping out of your comfort zone and tapping into different mentorships and networks is beneficial. You rock, Yvette. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for watching, for listening. I appreciate you, my friend. Thanks so much for being part of our program. Bye, everyone. Take care. Bye.