Head of Community Events, Accel

DeShazo made the list for starting the Uber events team as a team of one—her. Realizing that the brand desperately needed a strategic events team, she ran events solo until management was convinced. It worked. For more than four years she ran the global events team, which produces high-profile experiences on behalf of Uber, including press conferences, product launches, b-to-c conferences, driver partner events and internal experiences, from a conference on flying cars to a 6,000-attendee experiential recruitment event. Last month she left to run community events at Accel.

Manager-Promotions Partnerships and Consumer Events, Amazon

A former hedge fund auditor at Ernst & Young, associate producer at NBC Universal and content creator, Magliocco’s been hooked on experiential since working on Amazon’s awards, which called on her to use skills from her finance and TV days. She believes the future of advertising and marketing is experiential, and brands will continue to communicate most effectively through that lens.

Manager-Global Promotions, Partnership, Consumer Events, Amazon Prime Video

Where is experiential headed?

I see experiential overtaking what was traditionally field marketing and stunt marketing of the past. I think people see the value in a p.r. moment or a social media moment, but to create an experience is something completely different and it registers so much more with a customer. If you have the opportunity to interact and create an actionable item from them at the end of an experience, it fuels marketing longevity.

Why do you love this industry?

I love experiential because it doesn’t live in any other marketing discipline. It’s not traditional field marketing; it’s not p.r.; it’s not research and development—it’s a hybrid. The takeaways of experiential can be very powerful and can create brand love that we haven’t seen historically… It’s actually going out and creating a moment for our consumers to take with them.

What’s the most exciting tool or tactic right now?

I love the linkage from an event to a customer action. To me it’s the holy grail of experiential marketing. We’re actually seeing that develop and we’re seeing the tools come together around that—and that redefines how we market. Being able to connect a consumer action from an experience really changes the landscape of the marketing world.

Where do you find your inspiration?

When I hear from my family or close friends who aren’t in this field, or who aren’t even in marketing, that something made an impact. If they saw something that really struck them, or they were at Coachella or comic-con and they were part of an experience that stayed with them, that’s when I really try to dig in and listen—because these are the people I’m trying to reach. A lot of the time in marketing we get caught up in the cycle of what we know, so it’s important to go out and hear from people who aren’t in this world.

Director-Global Experiential Marketing & Partnerships, American Express

Ulrey leads brand experiences for Amex sports and entertainment partnerships across Coachella, Panorama and Austin City Limits music festivals, U.S. Open Golf and US Open Tennis.  She was also behind the brand’s Tribeca Film Festival and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week activations. Her work at Coachella included a first-ever brand integration into the festival app that gave cardmembers a $10 back offer and rewards and VIP experiences through push notifications.

Senior Manager-Experiential, Anheuser-Busch

Prior to landing in experiential at Anheuser-Busch, Onwuzurike worked on the Super Bowl, Final Four, Electric Daisy Carnival and SXSW. When Anheuser-Busch sought to drive change in the experiential and sports landscape on the West Coast, the brand tapped Onwuzurike to make the leap from a traditional brand marketing role to a full-time experiential one. Today he leads marketing programs for 19 professional sports teams across five sports, experiential strategy for all sports and music events and all brand-owned events.

Former Senior Experiential Marketing Specialist, Audi

Bonzelaar was behind Audi’s Major League Soccer and U.S. Ski Team sponsorships as well as sponsorships with Aspen Skiing Co. and Vail Resorts. As her role at Audi evolved, she took over the brand’s national auto show program, international dealer meetings, and Audi Sport marketing initiatives, including the Audi driving experience at Circuit of the Americas in Austin. To develop enhanced professional skills in measurement and analytics, Bonzelaar took a leave from Audi last month to pursue her MBA at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Senior Experiential Marketing Specialist, BMW

Rutherford’s first large-scale program for BMW was a U.S. Olympic Committee partnership, which entailed hosting an event at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA, followed by hosting a group at the London Olympic Games. She got her start at an Omnicom agency fresh out of college where she immersed herself in the golf and automotive industries. Since then she’s managed events across five continents and is currently responsible for all of BMW’s U.S. dealer incentive events.

VP-Marketing, Bumble

Bumble, the dating app where women make the first move, used to be just an app. Today, Maclin is helping the company transition into an experiential connection hub through events. Take Bumble Hive NYC, a pop-up space that brought together thinkers, artists and entrepreneurs to celebrate the empowerment of women with art, music, education and tech. The space saw more than 3,500 visitors across its 19 days of existence. Expect the Hive to continue buzzing year-round.

Senior Associate-Experiential Marketing, Coca-Cola Co.

Having worked as a tour manager, brand ambassador and finally a hospitality manager for the Special Olympics before joining Coca-Cola, Martin has a strong sense of navigating the various stages of experiential programs, from ideation to in-progress to execution. Her curiosity keeps her on top of the latest trends and technology in experiential. She believes the industry will see a rise in incorporating micro-influencers, more brands finding solutions to community problems and issues, and an increase in brand partnerships between like-minded companies.

Senior VP-Brand Marketing & Events, Comedy Central

Where is experiential headed?

It’s going to go much deeper into immersive storytelling. Our “Daily Show” library is a great example of that, bringing to life a narrative and showcasing a lot of great content but also telling a great story through it. There are a lot of other entertainment brands out there doing some cool on-the-ground experiences where you get to step into the worlds and become almost a character in them. You’ll see more brands create those worlds and let people play in them.

What do you hope to be doing in five years?

My role’s a little unique in a sense because I also oversee the paid advertising for all of our shows and campaigns, beyond experiential marketing. But I think five years from now we’ll be able to utilize all the great data that we use from a paid advertising point of view to reach the right audience at the right time and bring that more into our experiential marketing efforts.

Why do you love experiential?

The great thing about experiential marketing is it allows you to see the reaction of the fans you’re trying to reach. You get real-time results of what they’re liking, what they’re drawn to, what’s making them excited about the product or brand that you’re promoting. It truly is rewarding to give those experiences to the fans that love those worlds and want to step into those worlds because without the fans, we’d all be nothing. In real-time you can see your hard work and all the blood, sweat and tears that went into building it pay off.

Director-Communications, Dell

Mauro developed the first influencer program at Dell, dubbed the Dell Inside Circle, which is now integrated into most areas of marketing and events at the company. Through combining live events, press coverage and social influencer stories, she’s run high-profile activations like Dell’s 2016 Sundance Film Festival pop-up that included a VIP Filmmaker event with Adrian Grenier, a Buffalo Jeans party and a 4D VR experience developed by Dell, Grenier and 3D Live. All told, the experience saw more than 170 million impressions on social media.

General Manager-Brand Communications, Delta Air Lines

Honeyman went from project leader to general manager in fewer than four years at Delta. She launched the first sponsorship program there that integrated SkyMiles, and translated to trackable revenue. She’s behind the strategic and wildly successful “12Status” program, which rewarded Seattle Seahawks fans (known as “12s”) Skymiles for every passing yard thrown on the field. Prior to joining Delta, she worked on experiential campaigns at Ketchum for brands like Wendy’s, DoubleTree by Hilton, Embassy Suites and Walmart.

Senior Brand Manager-Buchanan’s, Diageo

Irish-born King set out to New York from Dublin in 2013 armed with 1,000 business cards and determined to land her dream job. She found a home at Vita Coco and then in 2015 joined Diageo and was assigned to Buchanan’s. King led the “Es Nuestro Momento” campaign, which amplified Latino pride through a 360-degree experience with Latin music superstar J. Balvin. Year One it garnered 150 million media impressions.

Director-On-Premise Strategy, Diageo

Blades currently creates strategy and manages execution and budgets for 50,000 Diageo consumer engagement and sampling events per year that reach three million people. She’s responsible for the product sampling operation of Diageo’s portfolio of spirits, which she completely overhauled through prioritizing technology and data to more efficiently engage consumers. Blades engages Diageo’s significant trade audience through oversight of “World Class,” a trade program to compete for the title of Global Bartender of the Year.

Assistant Integrated Marketing Manager, Dunkin’ Brands

Where is experiential headed?

I think augmented reality is going to be a big part of experiential. I’m even seeing it on the retail merchandising side, the other hat that I wear on a daily basis. I think that’s a big piece of people’s ability to take an experience—a 10×10 booth and turn it into something bigger without a huge footprint. It’s going to become more digitized, but more immersive than just looking at your phone.

What do you hope to be doing in five years?

I hope I’m still at Dunkin! I love this place. In terms of the sports marketing piece of my role, which is where most of the experiential comes into play, our NFL sponsorship is just the tip of the iceberg where we can go in terms of national and local sponsorships. I hope to have worked through different strategies and reasons why we should be partnering with great brands and really owning that piece of the business.

Why do you love experiential?

As much as we’re always glued to our phones, I feel like human beings crave getting out there and being a part of something bigger than themselves. People want to come to events. Maybe it’s because they want to get a really cool Instagram picture, but I feel like even for a moment in time people are experiencing the world around them instead of just heads down on their phones.

Where do you find your inspiration?

From the customers at Dunkin’. It’s thinking about what’s going to represent Dunkin’ as a brand successfully, but also resonate with the guests that come into our stores every day. They are our inspiration. We want to make them happy and also leave them with a great taste in their mouths and great memory of their experience at Dunkin’s booth or tent or wherever we may be.

Senior Events Producer, EA

What’s a key component of the EA experiential playbook?

Offering authentic experiences with whatever product we’re pushing out there, and getting consumers to experience and use the product versus just offering a photo op. For us, it’s all about trials and demos and getting the games into the hands of more players. I’m always a proponent of doing a photo op—they’re cool and we need them to provide that bit of fun, but I’m not going to be spending mega-millions on it. I’ll put that money towards more game stations for people to play the game on.

Why do you love experiential?

I love being around people and interacting with people. I’ll do the desk job, but I like being out and interacting in social settings and events and experiential obviously caters to that very well. And also, entertainment. Although I am trying to learn the guitar, I’m not super awesome, musically, so this is my form of entertaining by putting together all the people who can entertain into our events.

What’s the most exciting tool or tactic you’re seeing in experiential?

Using live streaming as a tool to reach people outside of the immediate experience area. Events are very local, so one way to help build the value of events is to keep them building with live streaming. It’s showing people what you’re doing outside of the walls of your own tent. You don’t put a camera up there and film everything—you have to be selective about it, know your audiences, and know where they’re at.

Senior Associate Marketing Manager, General Mills

Kelley’s focus at Annie’s is new product innovation—translating to no fewer than five product launches in the past year—and furthering the brand’s mission to feed people while restoring the earth’s resources at the same time. She has led experiences, including the brand’s trade show booth at the 80,000-attendee Natural Products Expo West, that facilitate the brand’s mission to advance regenerative agriculture through products, partnership and marketing. Previously, she worked in the White House for First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative.

Experiential Marketing Specialist-Cadillac House, General Motors

Flora started at Cadillac in 2009 as a product specialist and brand advocate at the North American International Auto Show. Since then, she’s worked on experiential campaigns such as the Concours d’Elegance, Cadillac’s World Challenge Racing Tour, World Golf Championship, V-Lab High Performance Driving School and art and culinary events for customers. She’s currently based at Cadillac House, the brand’s first experience center, which just celebrated its two-year anniversary with a 1950s-inspired ice cream social.

Experiential Specialist, Jaguar Land Rover

Anderson has worked for a decade in experiential marketing, from the moment she was plucked by a marketing agency while in college to work on a promotional event. She’s produced complex events in a variety of categories, including consumer engagement, branded entertainment, sponsorships, sports and lifestyle. As the auto industry embraces autonomous vehicles and electrification, she believes it’s an exciting and challenging time to be an experiential marketer. As for her take on the future, experiential marketing will evolve as technology develops and will become more immersive and interactive to enhance brand engagement.

VP-Sports & Entertainment Marketing, JPMorgan Chase

In her eight years at JPMorgan Chase, Johnson has worked her way through banking, corporate philanthropy and marketing, finally arriving at a true passion: sports and cause marketing. She leads the $17 million, 13-city JPMorgan Corporate Challenge, which she modernized to engage a more youthful audience; a platform to address the Bay Area’s economic and social challenges, for the Warrior’s forthcoming Chase Center arena in San Francisco; and the partnership between Chase, Under Armour and Steph Curry.

Associate Brand Manager, Kashi

Inspired by a passion for the natural food industry, nutrition and holistic wellness, Knopp leads experiential efforts for large-scale events for Kashi, Bear Naked Granola, Stretch Island Fruit Company and Pure Organic. Another one of her creative outlets at the brand is packaging design, which is driven by a clean design philosophy towards food photography that she then incorporates into live event spaces. At the Natural Food Show Expo West, she pioneered an innovative “anti-booth.”

Senior Director-Global Entertainment Marketing, Marriott International

Where is experiential headed?

I see more brands investing in in-house experiential services. I was the first of my kind at Marriott and now there’s quite a few of me in differentiated experiential roles. I see brands investing in strategists, producers…and I see these roles having a seat at the table early on in product and campaign development—which I think is really critical, because we talk to the consumer, we know what they engage with. We’re in this new generation of experiential marketing that takes into consideration cultural context, content development and positioning our efforts around long-term business goals. I also see an opportunity to leverage tech in more meaningful ways, to collaborate with the influencer and talent community, and personalize experiences.

What’s your favorite part of the experiential industry?

The reality is that consumers are too informed and have low attention spans and, frankly, traditional marketing is no longer enough. They turn to engaging, immersive-centric experiences that take them on emotional journeys that inform their brand decisions and loyalty. Seventy-two percent of millennials prefer to buy tickets to a show versus merch at a show of their favorite artist. That is such a statement of what we’re doing and proof in the pudding if we do it right we really do influence brand decisions and loyalty. And I think tracking that and seeing the results is so meaningful in our industry and only going to grow.

What’s the most exciting tool or tactic you’re seeing in events and experiences?

I see more of an opportunity to leverage smart AR and VR. I think the challenge is that it’s not yet all that affordable. Leveraging this technology in a meaningful way that allows you to do more with an experience versus set design and concerts. I also think there’s a lot more cross-pollination we can do with like-minded brands versus the pay-to-play sponsorship and partnerships. Nobody’s doing them anymore, and if they are, they are rarely successful—just slapping a logo on a bus is no longer going to do the trick.

Senior Director-Experiential Marketing, Mashable

Oreck brings Mashable’s digital brands to life IRL through unique experiences—from a BB-8 race tournament to a bitcoin ballpit at the Mashable House at SXSW to a Dairy Queen snack shop pop-up in New York City’s Union Square to a gathering of top kid entrepreneurs to inspire adults to dream big. She also executes tentpole events such as Mashable’s Social Good Summit, focused on the role of technology toward social good, and hosted with the UN Foundation, the UN Development Fund and the 92nd Street Y.

Strategic Marketing Manager, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy

This luxury and lifestyle marketing expert crafts high-profile events in music, film, fashion, art, sports and food. For the past seven years she has led initiatives for Hennessy and now leads programs on the strategic and entertainment marketing team, collaborating with Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon, Belvedere, Veuve Clicquot and Estates & Wines. Skilled at managing influential talent for partnerships (Oprah, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nas and Michael B. Jordan), Savell excels at building emotional connections with today’s polycultural consumer.

Senior Manager-Brand Experiences, Oath

Galloway plans Oath’s experiential presence at Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW and the NewFronts. After AOL merged with Yahoo to become Oath, Galloway was charged with planning the company’s very first, massive, global sales conference for 2,300 employees, which she effectively “festivalized.” Think: a grassy fairground, complete with brand orb domes, activations, a general session area and a huge concert finale. In the words of her cmo: “You nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it.”

Mngr.-Experiential Marketing and Live Production, Pandora

Hired to build an entire event department at Pandora with content, industry relations and event divisions, Jennings has excelled in creating revenue-generating experiences at the company for the past five years. She produces 75-100 events and concerts a year for Pandora, with the goal of creating meaningful, immersive experiences for listeners and fans. Case in point: Pandora Holiday, the brand’s annual free concert in New York that now draws 5,000 attendees.

Senior Manager-Experiential Strategy and Live Production, Pandora

Brochhausen leads the execution of 20 percent of Pandora’s events and was responsible for executing all T-Mobile and MetroPCS events with Pandora in 2017. She cut her teeth at Billboard managing shows, awards and influencer events. Accomplishments include growing attendance of the Pandora Sounds Like You: Summer, which enjoyed a 50 percent increase year-over-year, and growing revenue for one client by 450 percent since 2014.

Marketing Analyst-Gatorade Partner Services, PepsiCo

What led you to this industry?

It was pure chance and luck. I accepted a role on Gatorade’s Partner Services team, of which a key component was strategy and activation at sports nutrition conferences. After getting a feel for our current activations, I identified opportunities to add more interactive experiences, and we ran with it.

Where is experiential headed?

This industry will continue to grow and become a critical part of brand marketing. I’m excited to see how technology and customization can be further integrated into experiential activations.

Why do you love experiential?

I love the opportunity to watch others experience first-hand what our team has built. Knowing we only have our consumers’ attention for a short window of time, I consider it an exciting challenge to make every second fun and memorable.

What’s the most exciting tool or tactic you’re seeing in experiential?

Experiences that incorporate creative and artistic technology like lighting and interactive art pieces.

What’s the most exciting—or pervasive—trend you see in experiential today?

Leveraging technology and attendee data to make sure each person has a uniquely individual experience. As we learn more about our consumers, technology now allows us to tailor our experience to meet their needs.

Where do you find your inspiration?

I find inspiration all over the place—from mundane everyday experiences to big activations from others. I am always thinking about how to improve experiences or what experiences I enjoyed and how can I incorporate those into my work.

What would be your dream event to work on?

A Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Creative Director, 29Rooms and Refinery29

One of the creative minds behind the visionary experiential 29Rooms exhibition, now in its fourth year, Hueston built Refinery29’s in-house experiential division from the ground up since arriving at the company in 2014. Hueston is skilled at building narrative-driven experiences that inspire creativity from audiences and create emotional connections. Previously part of Paper Magazine’s experiential team, he led creative strategy for brands like Target, Rèmy Cointreau and Opening Ceremony—and in his twenties, he used to plan warehouse raves in East London.

Head of Events-Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce

Myers got her start in events at AOL, where she happily took on challenging projects like AOL’s events at CES, SXSW, Ad Week NYC, Global Company Meetings and AOL’s Global Volunteer Day. With little agency support and a small team, the experience forced her to be scrappy, which was perfect preparation for her next gig: running events for the massive tech bonanza that is Salesforce. After managing four Dreamforces she took the new role of head of events, Salesforce Ventures, a corporate VC fund within Salesforce, where she plans 20-25 events a year.

Head of Consumer Communications, StubHub

Erskine is behind StubHub’s “Next Stage,” which includes a series of benefit concerts for the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, whose mission is to donate musical instruments to under-funded music programs. She led the program’s presence at SXSW where StubHub committed to putting $3 million in music instruments in public school music programs by 2019. There she brought together musicians and student performances, and a text-to-donate campaign that gave fans custom t-shirts, guitar pick necklaces and totes with their donations.

Senior Associate Manager-Marketing, Taco Bell

Taco Bell is a brand that loves to show up in pop culture in totally unexpected ways. Barbosa’s role is to shepherd that experiential strategy and creative across broadcast, digital, social, point-of-purchase and brand moments. Case in point: Taco Bell’s Test Kitchen, an exclusive dinner held inside the brand’s HQ and catered by chefs for a lucky few who landed the reservation. The brand legitimized the dinner—a five-course meal with specialty cocktails—through a partnership with OpenTable that sold out 34 seconds after going live.

Director-Global Marketing and Events, Tinder

The dating app space is burgeoning—which makes working for Tinder, the OG, both rewarding and challenging. Probyn leads all global marketing events for the brand, the most recent being a campaign for Tinder U. The contest created a bracket-style competition between universities where the most swiped-right student body won a Cardi B concert. She also recently produced a #SwipeSessions LIVE event at SXSW with a branded snow cone truck, a Tinder graffiti wall, a meme gallery and even a Tinder puppy party with adoptable pets.

Event Marketing Manager, UFC

What do you hope to be doing in five years?

It would be awesome to one day run the Super Bowl and be on that committee. It’s a big undertaking—you’re working with the city and then you’re also working with the NFL. I’d want to be running one of the biggest staple sporting events.

Why do you love experiential?

I love experiential because I’m someone who also loves going to experiences, living in that moment and taking it all in, but also capturing the memories with friends and family. I’ve always been a big fan of going to concerts and sporting events and then just more intrigued by how they put that on. The back end of things, how it gets done from beginning to end, has always interested me.

What’s the most exciting tool or tactic you’re seeing in experiential?

Something that we’re starting to do more of is integrating mobile into different activations and then following up with that consumer after they’ve already experienced it on the ground at the event. You don’t want their experience to end there at the event; you want to continue their journey. It’s always important to make sure you’re using that data for the next experience you do or to make sure you’re following along the journey so you understand what they like and so you’re feeding into their needs and wants. We’re getting smarter when it comes to collecting data. We’re not doing a data dump where you capture the data and put it into your system and keep blasting them with emails. With some activations, we are able to follow along when someone interacts with a brand. 

Manager-Global Internal Events, Under Armour

Brown uses experiential to educate and engage teams internally, creating experiences that staffers can share together—from happy hours to workout opportunities where the team can test-run new products. Brown’s team also gets the chance to work experiential into partner meetings—like an impromptu driving range at a waterfront restaurant Brown cooked up to showcase the brand’s new golf product the sales team was pushing.