Creativity as a Life Skill: Crayola CMO Vicky Lozano Breaks the Myth

0:00Hey, welcome to the CMO Whisper Show. I'm your host, Steve Olenski. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency veteran, part journalist. I was a writer for Forbes for 10 years. I've had so many insightful conversations over the years with business leaders, to athletes, to celebrities, to, of course, CMOs. The only difference now is instead of sharing those insights through written form, I'm doing it this way. All right, folks, let's talk crayons, creativity, and some serious brand firepower. My guest today, Vicky Lozano, the CMO of Crayoli. Yes, the company that basically defined many of our childhoods.

0:39My hand is ripped. In her role, Vicky leads Crayola's consumer communications, partnership marketing, digital slash omni-channel marketing, interactive app portfolio, education and location-based entertainment. Now, before Crayola, Vicky ran a$1.2 billion gum and mints portfolio at Cadbury. You know, little brands like Trident and Dentine. She's also had big roles at Miller Brewing, Warner, Lambert and Pfizer. What I love most about Vicki is she's not just a brand leader. She's a creativity evangelist with a business brain. We're talking about how you keep a legacy brain fresh, why creativity isn't just kid stuff, and what it takes to build something that actually matters.

1:23Vicki, I know it's been, what, we tried multiple times last year, but you're here now, and welcome. So glad to be here, Steve. I really look forward to chatting with you. It is going to be an absolute treat for me. And if I had younger kids, I would ask for the 64 or 120. Do you guys still make the 128 box, by the way? 120, that's right. 120, sorry. Oh, my God, memories. And is it still the sharpener? Of course, that's the best part. Of course, oh my God. Okay, enough about Steve's reminiscing. I want to jump right into something that's in its second chapter, I think you should call it. And that's Crayola's campaign for creativity.

2:04But my first question is, for those not familiar, tell us about it. Sure. Well, Campaign for Creativity kicked off officially last year. And the idea behind this is to really kind of elevate the narrative and the understanding and appreciation of creativity as an important life skill. You mentioned Crayola is part of childhoods, right, all over the world, and especially in the United States. And what I think what we want to really be able to talk about, how it's not only defining the memories, the nostalgia, and sort of like all these feelings around childhood, but also the incredible role Crayola and creativity in general play in child development and in how kids think, the kinds of skills that they develop in terms of critical thinking, problem solving, the skills that really last a lifetime.

2:58And then we as adults continue to use, regardless of what careers that we choose and the paths that we take in life, the incredible importance that creativity plays. We as a brand have been inspired and grounded in that since the beginning, 122 years ago. But what we're sort of finding is that in the general marketplace, around just for consumers in general, there's a lot of myths and misconceptions around what creativity is, the role that it plays. And we sort of began this campaign with an effort to say, let's change some of this narrative. Let's really start a bigger societal conversation around what it is, why it matters, and how we collectively could nurture it, not only in our kids, but also in ourselves as adults.

3:48Because for us as adults, it continues to be a core part of who we are and how we sort of be the best version of ourselves and how we show up in the world every day. I cannot tell you how much I love this for kids, of course, anything with kids I'm in, but for adults. And as you're talking, one of the things I'm thinking, one of the words that popped into mind, and maybe it's like a second cousin of creativity or something, but it's curiosity. Oh, it is directly related. It's not a cousin. It is directly related. Being curious, exploring many possibilities are core behaviors associated with creativity.

4:24And when you get involved in hands-on creative experiences, so whether it be arts, whether it be baking, whether it be music, all those activities help your brain sort of explore those possibilities and explore being curious, explore not getting fixated about the right of life. wrong and had a problem solved or something didn't work and I'm going to do it differently. And all those things are core elements of creativity, the core elements of creative behaviors. And that's what I mean when I talk about, you know, creativity as a life skill. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I so love, there's so much being written today about, and a term I'm hearing is skills for the future.

5:07And it's, it's not replacing the three R's, you know, that we all grew up with, the reading, writing, but it's in addition to, and it's critical thinking and it's problem solving and it's creativity. And then the, in the next breath is measuring all of it. Yeah. Couldn't agree with you more, Steve, but what you're sort of poking at is exactly one of the tension points that this campaign tries to, to, to challenge. One of the things that we know is that there are a good portion of parents, somewhere around half of parents out there, believe and associate creativity specifically with the artistic pursuits.

5:44So the people will tell you that, yes, I value creativity, but then will also say it matters most if my kids choose to pursue careers in fields such as fashion or the arts and whatnot. And things like curiosity and problem solving, critical thinking, that's agnostic of your career path. It is those soft skills that you could use in anything that you do. And I think that's the notion that we're trying to challenge. As I always talk about, as part of any interviews I give, is one of the longstanding partnerships that Crayola has is with NASA. And on one hand, you'd say, what does Crayola and NASA have to do with each other?

6:28But that's exactly this point, right? NASA will be one of the first to tell you is they have a thousand careers in their organization and they all use creativity to get their jobs done. So challenging that notion and that perception of how you use, it is not replacing, it's an addition. And unfortunately, we tend to unconsciously unteach creativity when we focus on these hard skills and the three R's that we think our kids are going to need. We tend to unconsciously unteach some of these softer skills like creativity. And sometimes we as adults, even as we grow up and we get into our careers, we get so fixated on being judged for the quality of the output that this fear and this barrier of, you know, using creativity and being involved in creativity means there has to be a productive output.

7:19I have to generate something and it has to be a certain quality. And if I can't do that, I'm not creative. Nonsense. You are, all right, I'm going to hop on my soapbox for one second because you touched the nerve. So one of the things I love to do is the way I give back, one of the many ways I give back is to go talk to college students. And I'll stand in front of a group of college students. A lot of times it's business or marketing. And I'll say, raise your hand if you think you're creative. And I purposely keep it that ambiguous. Maybe half raised your hand. And I'll go, believe it or not, every single person in this room is creative.

7:54but society has these labels of what creative means, meaning like you said, the arts and other things that have been deemed quote, creative jobs. And I'll, I'll take an example of someone who didn't raise your hand. I said, how did you get here today? Well, I took the train. I thought you were creative. Right. And they, and you see the light bulb go on. So you were, I, you were absolutely preaching to the ultimate choir when you say this. Absolutely. Those are, those are the misperceptions. Those are the myths. And I think we sometimes limit ourselves. in how we use it and how we apply it. And frankly, you know, the value we get out of it.

8:29So our full effort is to, like I said, is to really change some of these societal misconceptions and societal understanding, evaluation of creativity, because we believe it matters. It matters so much. You know, there's also, you know, what you're also kind of alluding to is this myth is that creativity or Crayola is just for kids. And, you know, sort of sometimes it's also limiting in the way that we think about it. And, you know, if you think about it, and I'll just talk about Crayola for a second, over 50 % of households who purchase Crayola last year do not have children present in the household.

9:08And some of them are grandparents, but half of them are not. They're buying it for themselves. And what it's really they're buying for is because those kinds of activities play a role in their life and they help them unleash and express certain parts of themselves that is reminding them of some of that creativity, reminding them that they can then go and use in their everyday life. It is just so important. It's beyond important. Again, totally, we'll save this for part two because I could have an hour discussion just on this topic, but I absolutely want to be respectful and I want to get to Cadence, who was the young artist, for those unfamiliar, and please elaborate on what I'm about to say, is her drawing inspired the Crayola's Creative Active Colors campaign, right?

9:52So tell us about that campaign. Tell us about Cadence. And then why was it so important to build the campaign around her story? So just for a little bit of context. So Crayola campaign for creativity started last year. And one of our main focus was around what we call the art return. It was really telling the story and the importance of creativity through the means of searching for and finding some original creators for art that Crayola had in our archives, dating back to 40 years. And that part of the campaign actually won a number of different awards, including three bronze can lions a couple of weeks ago.

10:30And this part of the campaign started evolving into what we're talking about right now, which which is Creative Arts of Color. And it's focusing on this idea of how color inspires creativity. Cadence is a really special child. She's nine years old. And this part of the campaign, she actually created this drawing, which is really pretty phenomenal. And we are asking for creators everywhere to help join the cause of basically getting inspired by her drawing and creating their own creations in whatever form, in whatever kind of medium that they want and sharing that with the world. And really what we're trying to, A, show how color inspires creativity and B, how creativity inspires creativity and begets and sort of becomes this bigger movement that we can all be part of.

11:27And we just kicked this off last week, got a tremendous response to her story, to her drawing. And we're actively working with a number of creators that have raised their hands right now and say, I want to create something for Cadence. Our goal is to actually create a surprise reveal so that Cadence can really see the tremendous amount of creativity, passion that her work has inspired. And Cadence, while she's a very, very special child as, you know, individually, She also kind of represents all children out there and just tremendous power, their imagination, their creativity, and the way that they use color, the tremendous impact that they can make on the world.

12:15That's fantastic. You kind of answered my second part of that question is what does her journey represent for the brand? But if you want to elaborate, please do. Yeah, absolutely. this, as you know, Crayola is sort of a brand that is really associated and it's really built on color and specifically not just color, but the emotion behind color. How many people will tell you, you know, my favorite color is, you know, Razzmatazz or Roe Umber or some of these really special Crayola color names, because those colors evoke nostalgia. They bring back memories. They're often associated with certain events in your life, right?

12:51And everybody has a color story. In fact, wherever I go, if I ever say, you know, I work for Crayola, a couple of things happen every single time. First, there's a smile. Second, they tell me what their favorite color is. And then they ask me if I'm actually part of coming up with new colors. So it is just such an important part of the brand. And we as people, right? And we know color inspires creativity. So we're sort of trying to reframe it as a, not just a thing or a product, you know, attributes, but truly a tool for emotional connection and child development. And Cadence is really helping us bring that story to life.

13:30Not that you asked, but I'm going to tell you anyway. My favorite color has always been sky blue, assuming it's still called that. It is. It is. It's always been my favorite crayon. Well, you know, mine is hysteria. So it's, you know, everybody's got a story. Everybody's got a story. Exactly. Everybody's got a story. So the color part is really, really interesting, right? And the emotional side to it, right? But then there's the developmental side. So Crayola, you know, you can look at how many years ago was the company? 122 years. 122 years. So it's a startup. Sarkistically. Colors were the product feature, right?

14:09Back then, of course they were. You've got to get your name out. But now it's gotten into so much more. And I love that the company is kind of reframing, if that's the word, the core aspect of you, if you will, that deeper emotional and just as important to me or even not more is that developmental side. And it's not just a product feature. Yeah, no, it is an incredibly emotional thing. And I think it's just about time, who better than Crayola, who's going to tell stories, right? The story of color in the way that not only like showcases, but actually engages, engages creators, engages consumers.

14:46And actually, again, part of this campaign is to start a broader conversation, right? Around the importance and value of creativity. And color is something that unites generations. It's not just for kids. You know, one that we've done, interestingly, just we've done some research very recently talking about, you know, favorite colors specifically. And one of the things that we found is this notion of we all have one favorite color is actually not true. There's a huge portion, vast majority of people actually have multiple favorite colors and it triggers different emotions. It triggers different memories.

15:18Right. And that's cross generational. You could be five years old. You could be 95 years old. And you will have your favorite color and you will have a multiple and you will have your story. And it's really just it's cross-generational. Interesting. That's really interesting. I hadn't thought about my other favorite colors. I'll do some self-reflection. And we're done. Well, please let me know. I'm curious. I will do that. I want to shift a little bit to brand purpose and advocacy. You know, over the past, I guess, three to five, seven years, it's really taken on a different meaning. especially in the younger generation where Gen Z and Gen Y want to work with brands who really have a purpose.

15:55Sure. The question as a CMO, and I like to pose this to every CMO in every industry, is how do you make sure it's not just perceived as a marketing play? Well, I think authenticity, right? Authenticity is key. If it smells and feels like something that you decided to do as this year's campaign, that would be doing it wrong. If it feels like something that is truly you know authentic and it's tied to who you have been uh who you are or what you're really planning to be as a brand go forward and you are consistent it can't just be a marketing campaign i think that's a big you know one-on-one mistake in my humble opinion it has to be part of who you are and it has to live through your culture it's kind of like what we sometimes like to say do your insights match your outsides right it has to be true how you think as a company how you behave internally, your culture, and then it shows up in how you, you know, and how you show up and how you talk to the outside world.

16:53I think Crayola is very fortunate in that space is that the mission and the purposefulness and the advocacy for creativity as just a human, you know, superpower and a special power has been in place for 122 years. So frankly, for us, it wasn't that hard on, it really was more focused on how do we be more purposeful in sharing that mission and talking about it and not just talking about it in the context of our brand, but broader, the importance to society, importance to kids, the role of kids, the role in their development, the role it plays in the adults' lives when they use it for themselves.

17:27All of that for us, it was really around how do we be more proactive? How do we play that leadership category and leadership role? Because it was already true who we were as a brand, how we functioned as a company, how we made our decisions, the choices that we made, the decisions that we made, it was really finding the voice in bringing it forward in the campaign. And that's what this campaign, you know, campaign for creativity has been doing for us and why it's been not only so important, but the reason this campaign has really been striking a chord with whether it's, you know, consumers, whether it's our partners is because of that authenticity.

18:04And because when you see it, you go, but of course, as Crayola as a brand would be able to lead that narrative. I have long since, and I will take this to my grave, marketers collectively do not give consumers enough credit. And what I mean by that is, yes, they know brands are in business to make money, of course. But going back to what you said about being consistent and being transparent and really actions matching words. It sounds so simplistic, so I interrupt you, but it just blows my mind when I see brands not quote unquote getting it. Yeah. Well, you know what? I think the other thing that sometimes marketers really get caught up in, and it sounds silly, but it happens all the time is marketers get so focused on what they want to say, right?

18:47And what they're solving for and what their kind of campaign is, campaign of the moment. And sometimes they forgot to think about it. What does the consumer actually need or want to hear, right? And you end up with this campaign that is really about. Let me tell you what I need to tell you versus how does this brand truly is meaningfully, you know, meaningfully helpful. How is it relevant? And when you look for something, you know, go back to your original question is purpose, right? And purpose driven campaigns. The only way you can resonate is if you're actually delivering a message or doing something that people care about.

19:21It's not about what you want to say. It's about what they want to hear. Can you repeat that? The last part? I love that. it's not about what you want to say it's about what they want or need to hear okay can everyone please stop hit pause write that down play street and you're probably going but steve it's so simple and that's the point so that was awesome and it just flowed i love that no script nothing okay let me i wasn't we're on the ground level i'm going to come back up now to 30 000 foot view about marketing. And I would be remiss, of course, if I didn't bring up those two little letters that's permeating every marketing, everywhere is AI.

20:02How's it showing up in your marketing, like in upside and not just hype? How are you balancing that? Sure. Well, not that surprisingly and consistent with what's everybody, conversations everybody's having, right, is what role does AI play and how it's impacting a job and how it's impacting how we do work. I would say that there's a lot more actively going on. I would say that's true for Crayola, but just based on all the other CMOs that I've talked to, I think it's generally true about everywhere is that AI is already heavily impacting and is getting integrated in how we do the work, right? I think the bigger debate is how does it really show up in the sort of forward-facing things that consumer truly sees and that the consumer gets to interact with.

20:50I think that that's the place that is actually more tension points and more debate. And especially, as you can imagine, a brand that is sort of rooted and based on advocates for creativity. Well, wait a minute. Does that mean that's in conflict, right? And I actually believe, no, it's not. I think if you really think about what I talked about earlier, that for a lot of people, one of the barriers to creativity is this expectations of productivity and expectation of how I spend my time and expectations of the kind of output. And it becomes a barrier that prevents many adults from actually reengaging in, you know, creativity in a lot of ways.

21:29And I do mean specifically right now, creativity, not just in the context of jobs, but more like a, you know, experience that they may do for hobbies, for wellness, or for stress relief, which is obviously a thing. And if you think about in that context, you know, somebody said this to me the other day, and I actually did write it down because I thought it was just perfect, is, you know, AI gives people courage, courage to be creative, a little bit of that help that, you know, I can actually create some of these amazing things. So if we think about it in that context, why shouldn't be harnessed, used, and, you know, and being able to actually use to help people express and get involved in the creativity, just do it right.

22:10So I think that the point for us is finding that balance and how do you do it right? So it could be used as a tool. It could be used to give people courage and help overcome some of the barriers that we know are keeping some folks from getting engaged and reengaged in creativity and really kind of make it a tool for empowerment. That's the debate that we're having. The fact that we're using it and we're going to continue to use it to a greater degree in just getting work done, no question. It's that consumer-facing, all of an experiential use of AI that I think really intrigues me because it could be a tool for empowerment if you do it right.

22:49Oh, a thousand percent. But the operative is if you do it right. Exactly. Right? That's really what we're pressure testing, right? If you're going to see details, those are the details that we're sweating right now. How do you do it right? Okay. I've been waiting to ask you this question because it's one of the ultimate marketing debates. Brand versus performance. It gets debated, as you know, it gets written about. If I see one more study on brand versus performance, if I just say brand versus performance, what comes to mind like a word association? I think it's a bit of a silly debate. I think you don't have performance unless you have a brand, but you need both.

23:29and they play a different role and it is part of your mix, right? You don't convert or you don't convert at the same rate at lower funnel if you don't have a strong brand. But you can't build brand and just do lots of fluffy things without actually closing that loop. So I think the debate isn't either or. The debate is how to use them right and what's the right mix because I think the way that I usually like to talk about it, I think from marketing and the way that I view my job and I think generally think about marketing is I think our jobs are twofold. You got to build the brand and you got to drive revenue.

24:05And to me, revenue and performance is sort of, you know, I'm using them interchangeably in this context. So you have to do both because they both play a role. And I think whether it is a truly activation and marketing, like, you know, like the campaign for creativity or whether it's a revenue generating business, like what we do in the interactive space or what we do in, you know, in location-based entertainment, you have both of those components. They might be slightly different mixes depending on what you're doing, but you've got to build a brand and you've got to drive the revenue. And you have to have the right sort of KPIs and measurements that you are going to choose that are important in order to be able to understand how those two interact for your specific business and then how you want to track and define your success criteria so that everyone organizationally, including your CFO, understand our line and the supportive of the direction that you're going.

24:56Okay. Again, go back and pause this again, people, everybody, please. You don't have to pick. Thank you for saying what I'm thinking. And I think a lot of marketers think you don't have to choose between brand versus performance. You don't. You need both. You need both. So I think the expertise and the nuance is in the balance and how you go about doing it for your specific business and your brand. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Before we get to some fun as we wrap up, let's put the prognosticating hat on. What are some shifts you see in consumer behavior or tech in the next three, five, seven years that you're betting, not betting on, but anticipate?

25:36What do you think is going to happen? Give me some predictions. I think ongoing growth and use of technology, no question. I mean, that's been happening for how many years and it's going to continue to happen. And the AI is part of that conversation, but not the only part, right? I think general fragmentation of marketing vehicle, of marketing mix, how you invest your money, kind of economies of scale. I think that's also been a trend that's been happening over the last number of years. And I think will continue to happen. I think the part that I probably some of the trends that I worry most about, if I may, is, you know, if you look at how I think technology is not a substitute to hand on.

26:19But the way that technology is impacting how, especially in kids, attention spans, ability to focus, ability to problem solve in terms of the amount of time that you actually focus on something and you're like resilience to be able to adjust and modify so you can work it out. Those are some of the things that I sort of worry about, even when I look at my kids and the way that they use technology and social media. so it's not about social media and the fragmentation that it's causing in marketing i think that's like that's not the part that worries me it's really more of those just some human behaviors and traits and you know and kind of like brain impact if i may see if i use that word that probably leaves me just as a as a marketer as a as a parent and i think those are the things that we have to be thinking about for us um you know for adults but especially for future generations and how we sort of balance it, those trends with the ability to keep some of these incredible human brain powers that we all innately sort of have and born with and how do we continue to nurture them.

27:31One of the things that worries me, and I think it dovetails perfectly into what you're saying, and I'm saying this because I know I'm a natural conversationalist, but what worries me is future generations to have the ability to do what you and I are literally been doing for the past 30 minutes, which is engage in the conversation. Think about a job interview. Like, do we be able to hold conversations? Like, that's a major, major issue for me. Yes, I really do think, you know, while it might, you know, ability to just go and do something hands on, to do something creative, whatever that medium is, or whatever, if you're baking, if you're playing music, If you're putting marks on paper, if you're using digital creativity, it doesn't matter.