074: Blending Creativity and Data: Navigating the Children’s Toy Industry with Katy Katz

Danny Gavin Host

00:05

Hello everyone, I’m Danny Gavin , founder of Optige, marketing Professor and the host of the Digital Marketing Mentor Today’s very special guest, Katie Katz , who is the head of digital marketing and e-commerce at Basic Fun. Basic Fun develops and markets enjoyable, innovative and educational toys for kids. They market toys made by Fisher Price, classics, k’nex, pound Puppies, Lightbrite and so many more. Katie has also worked at agencies as VP of Account Strategy and Director of Account Strategy and a number of other roles. She’s a highly regarded international speaker, although not doing as much these days, but we’ll get into it. She’s also a former writer for Search Engine Journal and has been a guest on many of the most popular digital marketing podcasts in the US. How are you, katie? 

Katy Katz Guest

01:06

I’m doing great. I’m so happy to be talking with you, Danny. We’ve been friends for a while. This is exciting for me too. 

Danny Gavin Host

01:12

Yes. So, for those who don’t know, Katie used to live in Houston and then she moved out east to Florida, so we haven’t seen each other as much, but definitely a special connection and it’s wonderful that we’re getting to talk today. Yes, okay, so let’s jump right in. So, Katie, where did you go to school and what did you study? 

Katy Katz Guest

01:30

Oh boy, I studied art history and entrepreneurial management for my undergraduate degree. I went to the University of Minnesota. I wanted to work in an art museum or an art gallery was my original goal, but I also wanted to make sure that I made money, so I was very worried about that, and so I went to the business school as well. And then I was really glad that I did, because I graduated in 2008 from college, which was when the Great Recession was, and so it was not really a hot time for art. It was a very practical time. Funnily enough, my first job out of school was in toys and had a kind of sales and marketing entry-level role in toys a kind of sales and marketing entry-level role in toys and then moved on to Rasmussen College because I was able to get my master’s degree covered working for Rasmussen College and that was really important to me to get a graduate degree. So I have my MBA in marketing and now I have found my way back into toys. 

Danny Gavin Host

02:41

Wow, that is crazy. So, outside of early toys, what other experiences would you say inside and outside of college that were impactful in directing your path today? 

Katy Katz Guest

02:52

When it comes to education, that has always been very important to me. My parents are both very highly educated. They have social work backgrounds, so my mom was a high school principal. That directed the way that I view education and prioritize it. I think that working in marketing, it is important to be constantly learning, growing, and adapting, especially in digital marketing, so I place a heavy importance on that. 

03:25

I didn’t anticipate landing in marketing, though. What’s funny is a lot of my career aptitude tests and things either went to minister or rabbi or marketing. Those were the two top choices for me. I think that my interest in art history matches that first one. Then I was worried about marketing because when I was growing up, it seemed like it was the catch-all place for people to go if they didn’t know what type of business they wanted to do, and I didn’t want that to be the reason I selected it. But it just kept pulling me back in, and I love the psychology base and the excitement of it, especially once I discovered digital marketing and all the data involved with it. I am a huge data and analytics girl, which kept me going. 

Danny Gavin Host

04:23

Now I know why we gel so well: I’m an ordained rabbi and a marketer, so that’s hilarious. I never knew that about you. 

Katy Katz Guest

04:32

That’s so funny. I guess we’ve never talked about that aspect, but they go really well together. If you think about it, you are really kind of a marketer, like a rabbi. 

Danny Gavin Host

04:43

I’ll tell you a funny story. I was just in a pitch to a large grocery chain out west. You know, sometimes I mention it in my calls, and sometimes I don’t. I did, and it was awesome because the company’s CEO has a master’s in theology, and we connected. I was like, ooh, I’m glad I mentioned that. It was a good idea. 

05:02

Yes, you never know what that connection will be, Katy. Any professors back then that were maybe mentors or people that helped me? 

Katy Katz Guest

05:14

At the University of Minnesota, there were definitely several professors who had a very impactful impact on me. One who stood out was Professor Alan Fine, with whom I stayed in contact many years after college. He was also involved in politics, and so in the business school, he led from sort of that lens again, also kind of that orator type of person. I looked to him in many ways in my professional career once I started working and continued that conversation. He ended up writing a book in different ways that we communicated going forward, and I haven’t spoken to him in a while, but he was a vast, impactful person in the early part of my career. 

Danny Gavin Host

06:03

All right. So, Katy, how would you define a mentor? 

Katy Katz Guest

06:06

We often think of a mentor as somebody who has walked much further along the path than we have and that we can then look up to and follow in the footsteps that they’ve identified. But what I have found as I have approached the middle years of my life is that many non-traditional mentorship relationships have had a very impact on me. I don’t like to pigeonhole it into that kind of traditional definition. Many of the kinds of leading relationships at this point in my life sometimes are people who are early in their career but just have different experiences. We can learn, teach, and grow together, which is very rewarding for both sides. 

Danny Gavin Host

07:03

That’s a very fresh perspective. I love it. So let’s jump down memory lane and let’s go through some of your most influential mentors. So, let’s discuss your mom first as your most influential mentor. 

Katy Katz Guest

07:14

So my mom is. I’ve had an emotional week so I’m gonna try to get through this without getting emotional. My mom absolutely impressed the value of mentorship for both my sister and I from a young age, as she worked in school districts and then later became a high school principal and she was very involved in the community in Wisconsin and led a program called Bridges which was for at-risk students and I have very early memories of her up on the stage leading these big groups and initiatives and really helping the community out and seeing how impactful that was on the lives of the people who benefited from it and feeling that pride for her but also feeling like that there was a torch. You know almost that it was important part of just how I was raised and who she was raising me to be, and so it’s just sort of always been part of my life. Was very involved in Big Brothers and Big Sisters in high school and had kind of developed early connection that way and did different groups and organizations throughout school. I was in Teens Against Tobacco Youth, which was a group that worked on policies to remove tobacco from restaurants, which was a thing back 100,000 years ago when I was in high school and then continued on in different programs like that. 

08:52

I was a camp counselor, a new student counselor in college, new student weekend, and really had a lot of benefits from the first side of that. 

09:03

It helped me adjust to college, so I wanted to give back and share in that same way, and really, that’s how my path has evolved. I benefited from bosses that I worked with early in my career. One of them was Josh Broughton, who I attribute a lot of my interest in speaking to him. He encouraged all of us to get out and blog and speak even when we felt like we didn’t have anything to say. That’s how we met people within marketing in our professional career who helped us advance and move further along to our goals, and so again, I wanted to give back and share those skills in any way that I could and joined different boards and organizations within the communities I’ve been in as a result of that. So it’s been this sort of like stepping each time. You know that the different people in my life showed me how those relationships can be of benefit and bring value to me, and then I wanted to share that and pay it forward. 

Danny Gavin Host

10:13

I love what you mentioned about your mom and just the way that you grew up and really giving back to people and being involved Like it’s. Such a special upbringing. You know, there’s this general concept that people are happier when they’re giving right, and I think living in that environment says a lot and is a big blessing, so cool, yes. 

Katy Katz Guest

10:33

Yes, very fortunate. 

Danny Gavin Host

10:34

So I know you spoke at a lot of conferences. You’ve mentioned also that you’ve met some of your mentors while speaking. Any personalities or individuals you feel are mentors from the conference speaking circuit. 

Katy Katz Guest

10:48

There are so many that I would love to list off. One of the cool things about the digital marketing community is that it is. People understand the value of the connections because of the work that we do. You will find that they’re much more approachable than you would expect. We almost give digital marketing speakers celebrity status. I think you have this super fan in any industry you’re in. 

11:18

I remember the first time I saw Rand Fishkin speak. I was like he’s brilliant and I just want to hear everything he says and soak it all up and I can’t get enough of it, which I think we all felt, which was why Whiteboard Wednesdays was so popular. It’s a connecting discipline, digital marketing, and so a lot of the early mentors I had I met through that definitely, and some of them are actually really still kind of on a peer basis. Pernoverge is another one who I learned. You start to hear them speak and you just you can hear the intelligence oozing out of them and you’re like how can I be closer to you, hear the intelligence oozing out of them and you’re like how can I be closer to you? And they’re all so approachable that it’s easy to develop those relationships if you just try and reach out and then you get cool things happen, like when Purna wrote her book. She sent it to me and asked me to review it and share it with my community, and cool things like that come out of it. 

Danny Gavin Host

12:19

Wow, that’s so cool. Yeah, Purna was a guest on our podcast, and I also love her. Most of your marketing team now, I believe, is relatively young, so I imagine that you, in addition to being like a boss but taking on a mentorship role with them, let’s talk a little bit about your keys to mentoring success and how you mentor the people under you. 

Katy Katz Guest

12:38

We have a very young team, which has been interesting, and again, I’m going to jump back to Josh because he did such a fantastic job with us. He had a young team that he took on when I worked at Rasmussen College, which is based out of Minneapolis but has campuses around the country. He did an incredible job in a large company that had 2,000 employees who were very academic and focused. He had this young digital team that was very different from the rest of the company, and he emphasized team building and unique reward systems that the other departments weren’t using. He was thinking pioneering in that way and thought about it differently, and I reflect on that often and try to utilize many similar tactics. 

13:29

In many ways, the company I’m at now is very similar. We have a lot of established, very talented people in the different departments, and then our department is very young. We do many more escape rooms and different things to stay engaged and connected. It’s very important to me. I think that our team functions much better when we’re moving as one and feel very connected, and I don’t know, it’s not always necessarily as necessary for other roles and areas. 

Danny Gavin Host

14:03

That’s from a team perspective, but what about an individual perspective? How do you tailor your mentorship approach to different individuals? 

Katy Katz Guest

14:11

I really kind of jump back to what I was saying earlier about non-traditional relationships. 

14:25

I personally find that, and maybe it’s partly because of this, I like to be in a more learn-teach relationship with people that I’m learning from, because I am very curious and have lots of thoughts and ideas, and I like to have it be more of like a Socratic dialogue, and so I approach the mentorship relationships with younger people the same way that I’m looking to have it be a dialogue. And what’s important to you right now? What are you looking for? to grow, and how can we have a conversation about that? But also have it go both ways because I feel that it establishes trust when I’m also taking advice and listening and hearing what somebody that I’m working with has to offer. I also try to open our relationship beyond the discipline that maybe the mentorship is focused on. We are people, right? We’re whole people. We’re not just toy marketers. So I think it’s important to see the whole person and everything impacting their life and how that affects how they come to the table today. 

Danny Gavin Host

15:36

So, it sounds like your mentorship and leadership styles are like dialogue. I’d love to get your opinion on this, because we had this issue recently in our agency. Someone felt that they weren’t being heard, so they stopped giving ideas, and, like, their manager was kind of like, all the ideas that I heard were never really good, so it was kind of like an interesting situation. You know, how would you approach that, where it’s like you don’t want to shut people down because you want to hear them, but you also need to give the feedback kind of? I’d love your take on that situation. 

Katy Katz Guest

16:06

That’s a challenging part of marketing, and we face it a lot, especially in creative endeavors. It’s funny we were just talking about this today. It’s something about the process of creating something. You feel like you’re putting a little bit of yourself into it. People take feedback very personally, and it’s hard not to. Even 20 years into it. It still is sometimes you face. 

16:33

That challenge is I have three kids, so being a parent has taught me so much about how to hold space for people’s emotions during a feedback loop. I think that is a big part of it because a lot of what we’ve found on our team is that people get discouraged from continuing to give their ideas. Negative feedback has a heavier weight to it, right? It’s somewhat psychologically known that we weigh negative feedback more heavily, and positive feedback doesn’t carry the same magnitude. We don’t hear it as much, so you have to sort of counteract that it as much, and so you have to sort of counteract that you have to give a little extra space, for you’re safe to receive this negative feedback. 

17:30

I’m not viewing you as negative. This is a learning experience for both of us. There’s something for both of us to gain from this, looking back at how much you’ve grown from the last time that we went through this, how that’s helped you, and how your product, in the end, came out so much better when we did it, when we worked on this together, and then kind of also showing some of your vulnerabilities. That’s been another way I’ve helped ease that: sharing mistakes I’ve made, showing that I am also a human and not just perfect. It’s something that is important with my kids, too. Like, oh, mom, you made this mistake before. You also mess up. Yes, I mess up all the time. I am a terrible mess sometimes. You know we all are, and I think easing that sensitivity and making space for people’s emotions in the workplace is important. 

Danny Gavin Host

18:31

Yeah, and I think hopefully you agree that reiterating some of those things you think are given, but I guess when it’s a difficult conversation, reiterating that we’re here to right it’s not a personal attack. I’m sure that that helps. 

Katy Katz Guest

18:44

Yes, exactly, and saying those things out loud, naming them, and making them clear because I think we also make assumptions often. If we’ve said something once or twice, that like, that’s understood. But when you’re in a heightened emotional state, or you are feeling a little vulnerable, that’s when you need to hear that even more. 

Danny Gavin Host

19:05

Yeah, I love that; it’s so important. So let’s pivot a bit. Obviously, you had roots early in the toy industry, but what attracted you to leave the agency world and join the toy industry this time? 

Katy Katz Guest

19:19

It was a really hard choice. I was working for Terry Hoffman at Marketing Refresh for many years, and again, another person I look up to and who, in many ways, has shaped the marketer that I am today, particularly when viewing branding and the whole cycle of branding. I couldn’t be where I am right now with all of the lessons I learned from her, and moving on was a very emotional decision. Actually, a family member of my husband’s works with Basic Fun, and they had been looking to fill this role for quite some time. It’s in Florida, and we work in person. 

20:03

That’s one of those things. In digital space, we’re used to very remote positions. Compared to other industries, we’re a little bit spoiled that our career path has had a lot more flexibility in that way, so they had a hard time filling this position. She reached out, and she said you know, I know someone who might be good for this role. I met with the CEO and a few others. and it was a really good fit. I had been curious about moving in-house for a while. I’ve been in agencies for about 15 years prior to that, and it was just the right place, right time. I love toys. I think that the ability to work on something that impacts the lives of so many children is such a powerful experience. It was very fulfilling and exciting, which was also a big part of my decision. 

Danny Gavin Host

21:01

So this explains why. So, for those who are audio, they’re not going to get this. But for those watching a video, Katie’s got these amazing toys behind her. I’m like, you’re probably at home, but you’ve got three kids, and how come everything looks so good? But now I know why because you’re not the opposite. You’re not at home. 

Katy Katz Guest

21:15

No, I came in. 

Danny Gavin Host

21:17

So now being in an in-house role, what are some of the things maybe you miss from the agency life, and then also what are the advantages now that you have been in an in-house agency because we have different brand managers who are each our clients, and then we are the execution. 

Katy Katz Guest

21:49

Well, I almost said executioner. No, we’re not. Sometimes we are. We execute the work for the different brands, and in so many ways, it is very much like an agency relationship, so that part is very similar. What’s different, though, is that in a traditional agency relationship, you have a contract in place, you have an agreed amount of work that you are going to do, and if it’s out of scope, it’s very easy to have those conversations with your client, say this was the agreed scope. 

22:25

Once you go in-house, that is not in place anymore. It’s very much like do whatever it takes to get success. It’s harder to define those boundaries a little bit. The expectations can be, I found, harder to define, and so I’ve really, having come from the agency side, that’s been a really important thing for me to take into consideration for the mental health of my team, that I don’t want to keep pushing that expectation that there is. You know, keep going until you’re in the ground; everything you can do is not realistic. So, trying to apply some of those concepts that we use in agency space to have boundaries and apply them in-house so you don’t want to be your employees’ executioner makes a lot of sense. 

Danny Gavin Host

23:20

Yes, how many brands or toys are you working with at any time? 

Katy Katz Guest

23:25

We have several brands in development, plus we have about 20 established brands, so not all of them require hands-on experience in marketing strategies right now. Some are a little more impulse-buy type brands, so we don’t have to invest as much effort in those brands. And then you have others like Care Bears Behind Me, or we launched a new brand, the Littlest Pet Shop, this year that is very intensive. So that’s where we’ve been looking at defining for ourselves, defining what that scope looks like. We’ve been setting it based on the revenue potential, which makes sense for a way to define those boundaries and how to define our time so that we can be more systematic and strategic about where we’re investing and have a system around it. 

Danny Gavin Host

24:21

You and I  think we’re about the same age. We found out about toys because we had TV and there were commercials on. You know, after we got home, there were, you know, shows after school, Saturday morning, and Sunday. You know, I didn’t have cable growing up, so I didn’t have as much, but you know, very much in traditional, and we knew all about it from the commercials no-transcript, put the product on the shelf at Toys R Us, and you were set. Like that was all you had to do. 

Katy Katz Guest

25:11

The job was very easy, and now it’s much more challenging. Kids are very divided. If they’re on YouTube, they’re on a thousand different channels and influencers for YouTube. And even if they have a couple they are loyal to and trust, they’re maybe watching little snippets of information from them, and then the next day it’s gone out of their minds. So you do have to have this sort of continual presence. 

25:42

On top of that, there are rules and regulations around marketing to children, as there should be, because, first of all, they don’t have their own disposable income. Still, also, just like for the best mental health of our children, we don’t want to bombard them with choices that are not appropriate for them to be presented with. So we really take all of that very seriously in the toy industry. That’s why there are so many regulations to ensure it is. That’s why you see educational content. There’s a new term that is being thrown around in this space: mes mesh, which is about mental and emotional health. The toy industry is very thoughtful about how we incorporate the best early childhood education into our content and programming, which is a really interesting blend of my personal interests with my marketing experience, and that’s been very rewarding for me to get to work on. 

Danny Gavin Host

26:51

Yeah, because it’s not just about the sales and the bottom line, which is important, but you’re doing it in like a, I don’t use the term ethical way, but I don’t know, it’s just a more meaningful way. 

Katy Katz Guest

27:00

Yeah, and you kind of have to. Initially, it’s required; it’s expected from parents. It is also the most effective way to use content marketing with kids because they’re learning from and growing from it, and it’s very interesting with Littlest Pet Shop. That brand came out in the 90s from Hasbro, and kids started creating stories through playing with the pets. They would use the pets to work through social situations that were challenging for them by anthropomorphizing the pets and having them work through those social dynamics. Then, when YouTube came out, they started creating content around the stories that they would tell through their pets, and what’s really interesting to me as a marketer is the bond that that created for them with the toy that now Gen Z, who is in their 20s, as we know, and were collectors of Littlest Pet Shop when they were kids, they’re still creating YouTube content. They still have the same passion and connection for the brand, and so much of that is achieved through the content creation process. So we really consider that, too, when we’re thinking about bringing the next generation into the brand. 

Danny Gavin Host

28:25

So, how do you balance the need for creativity in toy marketing with the data-driven nature of e-commerce? 

Katy Katz Guest

28:33

Oh boy, that’s one of my whole life questions. 

Danny Gavin Host

28:36

Is that the million-dollar question? 

Katy Katz Guest

28:38

Yes, it’s like that art history degree and the business degree. They’re both in there, and you have to balance them both. I tend to lean more towards the data and logic side, which is kind of funny because I love art and creativity. From a personal perspective, my work roles have been more heavily data-driven. I’ve done a lot of SEO and pay-per-click ads and have been more heavily on the data side. So, I think that’s impacted my personal leaning. But, the creation process is iterative. It can’t be 100% data-driven, and you have to find that balance a little bit. But that’s been helpful for me having that background, especially when I’m communicating with the creative part of our team because creatives don’t always necessarily want to use the data for their starting point, and having both experiences has definitely helped me with those conversations of how you can use data points as a starting like, kind of like a writing prompt, without it destroying the creative process. 

Danny Gavin Host

29:58

How do you stay ahead of changing consumer behavior, especially when your audience is both parents and children? 

Katy Katz Guest

30:03

Also, the million-dollar question. I think we’re all working on that right now. I kind of jump back to that continuous learning and also having a really smart team around you because there is no one person who’s going to be able to stay with all of the trends and changes. As everything is rapidly changing, I firmly believe in having different point people for different areas and then teaching each other. So we have a person who’s really invested in influencer marketing coming back to the team and sharing what they’ve learned and making sure that we all are growing with them. Having a point person for e-commerce to come back to the team. Having that point person for design trends is how we’re continuing to ensure our whole team is evolving, growing, and adapting together. 

Danny Gavin Host

31:00

Of all those different areas, do you have one you’re more passionate about, especially because you’ve done SEO and PPC? So I know you’re more of a generalist these days, but is there something that in particular, like you know, that’s my favorite child? 

Katy Katz Guest

31:15

I love e-commerce because when I started my career, Google took off, and we could start blogging and pulling people into the website. Josh was a huge advocate of the inbound marketing method and pulling leads to your website with educational content so that they were making a choice and you weren’t just pushing cold ads onto them. That has really shaped how I think about marketing, you know. I think about that for the rest of my career and apply it to most of our strategies. I actually still have our team take the HubSpot inbound marketing certificate, the free one that they offer when they start, just because I think HubSpot’s methods are just really. They’ve done a great job explaining that and showing the value of pulling instead of pushing. 

32:17

I’m going to get back to your answer to your question. So I started with inbound marketing and content creation and how that pulled people into the website and the data that would come from that, and we could follow them from lead to customer and that entire life cycle. Then, when e-commerce came, we could do that on another level, where we could run a social media ad and then follow them to the cart, follow up with emails, convert them, and upsell and cross-sell. I really love data, so those opportunities for incremental increases that you can do will have a big result. You just can’t replicate that with brick and mortar or some of the other areas, so I really like having a clear-cut answer and a problem that you can solve and that the data offers that. I think e-commerce is such a great modality because you can see every step in the funnel. The data tells you what’s happening, and you can make many easy adjustments because everything’s so visible. 

Danny Gavin Host

33:27

Yeah, especially when you contrast it or compare it with lead generation, right? For a lot of times, you know, especially in long sales cycles, it is to see which leads turn into sales. Right, it’s a lot harder and more difficult to process with e-commerce. It’s a lot quicker and a lot instantaneous, and, like you said, you can make a little change here, and that’s going to make a bigger change down the line. So, going a little bit deeper into e-commerce, how do you balance your opinion on Amazon versus your own store? I know there are tremendous advantages to being on Amazon, but there’s also a push for many Amazon sellers. Let’s create our own brand and create our own Shopify sites. Let’s see if we can get more business there. Love, from your perspective, how do you see the relationship between those two? 

Katy Katz Guest

34:14

They both have their advantages, and I think, depending on the size of your business and what your goals are, there are different reasons to decide if you’re doing both or focusing on one or the other. We don’t actually have our own, like for basic fun, right now. We don’t have our own direct-to-consumer e-commerce other than through a platform like Amazon, Walmart, or Target, which brings some challenges. In the agency world, when I had clients who were Shopify sites or other e-commerce sites, you had much more access to data, and you can see that full funnel that I was talking about. You can get close to Amazon with UTM tracking and different tools, but it’s not 100%. So that brings some challenges if you like pure data, but there are so many benefits because Amazon is Amazon. 

35:11

It’s where the consumers are. Even just being the platform, you benefit from people who are already shopping there, adding things to their cart, and doing research. A lot of people use Amazon as a research tool. They’re also showing with TikTok shop now that consumers trust Amazon so much that they will. Even if they see something on TikTok shop if they’re not comfortable, they go straight to Amazon and just buy it on Amazon, and they’ve shown that there is a direct correlation. I know there are varying opinions on Amazon as a big behemoth, and they control many things, but I do love Amazon for all of its benefits, and their tools are extensive. You can really get pretty close to what you can get from your Shopify site through Amazon now, which is nice. 

Danny Gavin Host

36:07

So, with more selling happening in these marketplaces, are you still internally? Are you running Google ads or social media ads? I guess what? You would be pushing traffic directly to those platforms. 

Katy Katz Guest

36:18

Yeah, it’s interesting for us because we’re sort of like middlemen, in a way. We sell our products to Target or Amazon, and they purchase the inventory from us, but it’s still up to us to market the brands and make sure that they sell once they are from the shelf. And that’s something I didn’t necessarily understand from outside of this space, that I thought, oh if you got your product in Target, you did it. Good job me. That’s not how it works at all because Target expects you to own your brands and the consumer demand for the brand. Some big retailers do, of course, have ways of promoting themselves and getting customers into the store, as well as different things like that. Still, yeah, it’s nowadays up to individual brand owners to develop, grow, and maintain the health of their fan base. 

Danny Gavin Host

37:21

Do you deal with any of the brick-and-mortar types of marketing, or is it purely digital? 

Katy Katz Guest

37:28

We do a little bit. We have some in-market retail strategies, but because we’re global, essentially, digital is the fastest and most economical way to market, and that’s how we make our decisions. It’s very much about how many eyeballs we can get for the most affordable price to be the leading decision maker, and then you want it to be quality. So is making sure and measuring. Is this working? Is it converting? If you’re getting 10 million eyeballs but nobody’s purchasing them, it’s not useful that they’re so cheap. 

Danny Gavin Host

38:14

It’s time for our lightning round. We’re going to talk about favorite toys growing up. I think let’s both do it if that’s okay. 

Katy Katz Guest

38:20

Yes, please, I would love to hear that. Yeah, let’s both do it if that’s okay. 

Danny Gavin Host

38:23

Yes, I think it’d be cool for both of us. I would love to hear that. Yeah, cool. So I think you should start for ladies first, and um, but yeah, what are your top three toys that you enjoyed? 

Katy Katz Guest

38:31

I had. I was definitely a Barbie kid. We had my sister, and I set up very intricate worlds for our Barbies, and it reached a point where my sister’s rules and worlds were so defined and specific that it became a problem for our relationship. For a couple of years, we had to pause playing together because we both were very opinionated and thoughtful in these worlds that we directed and created, and that was a huge part of childhood play for me. I also had a LiteBright, and I always wanted to be a teacher when I was a kid. So many of my toys were weird to a kid. I had a lot of workbooks and school supplies, just books I love to read and chalkboards. I also would make my sister sit and listen to my lessons, which might have had something to do with art. She had rules for the Barbies, and I had rules for mathematical equations, and we were like, okay, let’s take a break here and reset. 

Danny Gavin Host

39:46

I love that. I know my mom. She always tells me about how she would do the same thing, like sit her brother down and make sure that she was teaching him math in school. So that’s awesome. 

Katy Katz Guest

39:58

How about you? What were your favorites? 

Danny Gavin Host

40:00

Ooh, so I loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know, I had the couple that I was able to get. One of my really good friends had everything, so I was always at her house playing. I remember some of them, like the vans and being able to shoot out pizzas, so that was always really fun. 

Katy Katz Guest

40:16

I remember that one of my friends, Ben, had it, and we would play with that all the time, with the shooting pizzas. 

Danny Gavin Host

40:24

I remember that one, yeah, so that was great. You know, a little bit later on, I would say middle school. You know, maybe I’m a little bit older, but when Power Rangers first came out, it was still really cool, and I loved a little bit of Power Rangers. I’m trying to think, what else? And Legos, you know, I mean, that’s like a timeless, timeless toy. But uh, you know, we loved our Legos, and the cool part about it now is, you know, so obviously, for my children, we’ve bought Legos, but then, like every once in a while, they get to go to my parents, so their grandparents and get to play with the Legos that we had. You know, I tell them stories about what we did. 

Katy Katz Guest

40:58

So it’s cool. That is. One of the coolest things is the connection toys make intergenerationally like that and the stories you can tell. My mom kept a few favorite Barbies, Beanie Babies, and things like that and gave them to my kids when we visited. That’s really fun. I loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, too, when I was a kid, though I remember when I was a kid, we would go for walks. Every time we would pass a sewer, we would yell down hello, teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. Did you try and find them too? 

Danny Gavin Host

41:31

All the time, and I remember, so I’m Orthodox Jewish. So on Saturday mornings, when we’d walk to synagogue, part of us keeping ourselves busy was going from sewer hole to sewer hole and, like, you know, yeah, it was huge, huge. That’s so funny because that’s precisely what we did. 

Katy Katz Guest

41:50

Yes, I just was thinking about that recently, of how that was. It was so exciting to see a sewer every time because maybe the Ninja Turtles were in there, but you don’t know. Maybe that was the one where they were. 

Danny Gavin Host

42:05

Yeah, wow, that elicits some good memories. Thank you, Katy. 

Katy Katz Guest

42:10

Yeah, that’s one of the cool things about toys. 

Danny Gavin Host

42:13

We don’t think about it. But, as I said, I’ve got toys all around me, and I’ve got little figurines, and it’s funny how, you know, not everyone’s like that, but a lot of us growing up, we don’t lose our toys, we still love them. So, Katy, where can listeners learn more about you and your business? 

Katy Katz Guest

42:27

For me. I am on LinkedIn. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. I love meeting others in the marketing space, and, like I said, I have so many important parts of my growth that have come from the relationships I’ve made. I really value those connections, and I think LinkedIn is a great platform to do that, so definitely reach out to find me there. And then, as far as basic fun, we have a website listing all the different brands and toys we market, so check it out. We are on all of the socials, and we do lots of fun things. We would love to hear about your favorite toys as well. 

Danny Gavin Host

43:08

I will add one to the list, but you can still go online and search for Katie Katz for her old presentations. Many of her old decks are up, and they’re still really, really good. 

43:21

Katie was more of a brunette back then, but still a different person, but that content is all really good. 

Danny Gavin Host

43:27

And please, god, Katy, you’ll get back on the stage. I know it’s not a number one priority, but I’m sure we’re all waiting for a comeback one of these days. 

Katy Katz Guest

43:34

I’m slowly tiptoeing towards that. I think I had two kids within two years, so my daughters were born. They are now five and four, so they were born very close together. And then the global pandemic happened, so I think those things kind of put a pause on my outreach. And then moving to Florida and working in-house, so definitely all of it kind of was the perfect catalyst to need to take a little step back. But I have been missing it. I miss the community and the growth I get from working with other thought leaders and experts in the connections, so I’ve started reaching out a little bit more to the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association and making some of those connections. 

44:32

Lisa Beyer, interestingly, was one of the people I met early in my career. She was at ZenithCon in Minnesota, which I don’t think Marty runs anymore, but it was a small Minnesota conference, and I met Lisa there. She was very instrumental in my speaking career. She does a lot of work with PubCon, and she has her podcast. She’s another person I’ve continued to find myself bumping into, and now she’s right down the street again. I’ve never lived in the same state as her, so that’s cool. I met with her recently and have started slowly stepping back into the community. 

Danny Gavin Host

45:15

There’s room for a woman marketing e-com, ninja, and I think that place is ripe for you. Well, Katy, thank you so much for being a guest on the Digital Marketing Mentor. This really has been enjoyable, and thank you, listeners, for tuning into the Digital Marketing Mentor. We’ll speak with you next time. 

Katy Katz Guest

45:32

Thanks for having me. 

Danny Gavin Host

45:33

Thank you for listening to the Digital Marketing Mentor podcast. Be sure to check us out online at “thedmmentor.com” and on Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts for more marketing mentor magic. See you next time.