Ep 4. – Insights and Authenticity in Wearable Technology, with Meghan Reynolds.

Transcript

Intro

Welcome to The Elusive Consumer. Today, Ellie is speaking with Meghan Reynolds, Vice President of Marketing at ŌURA, a leader in wearable technology. Join us as Meghan shares her insights on data-driven strategies, the impact of wearable technology on the health and wellness industry, and the importance of authenticity in marketing. Let’s get started right now on The Elusive Consumer.

Ellie Tehrani:

Well, thank you so much for joining today. I understand you must be incredibly busy working for a company like ŌURA. You must have a lot to do with your time, so we appreciate it. Welcome to The Elusive Consumer. We’re just trying to understand a little more about you, your professional and personal journey, and what led you to what you do today. And I would love to hear a little bit more about what data and insights mean to you in your day-to-day work. So, let’s start with talking a little bit about Meghan and what your professional career has looked like that brought you to ŌURA.

Meghan Reynolds:

Awesome. Yeah, thank you for having me. This is going to be fun. I’ve spent probably about 18, or 20 years in the marketing field. I always say there are two times at which I sort of fell into it. So one was when I first started, it was after 9/11, I thought I was going to move to New York, get a high-powered job, and really start my career. 9/11, unfortunately, put a damper on a lot of things, one was my job search. And so I ended up working for a smaller company startup back in the day with PalmPilots. Pretty funny. So it was tech, but a very different tech, and got a really good broad understanding of how to take a product to market and what it means to work with a bigger product like Palm. At the time they were a big brand. I worked through PR, marketing comms, little bit of advertising, how to work with customer service, what we tell people once we’ve launched this thing, and how we solve customer problems.

From there, I worked at a bunch of smaller companies and went to grad school for a brief period. Really thought I was going to go into the public sector. Very interested in foreign service and just how business operates globally, not just in our own country. Realize I’m not a public sector person, I am a private sector person. I’m action-oriented, probably why I lasted at Amazon so long. And then I say where I ended up now I fell into it again, sort of good occurrence. I was laid off in the recession of 2009. So I always tell people, a layoff is not the end of the world, right? Good things come out of it. So I was laid off and had to just take a break from interviewing. I was doing pharmaceutical healthcare advertising at the time and did not like it. It was not something that didn’t wake me up every morning. I was kind, “Ugh, do I have to do this?”

And so I took a break, and I went and worked at Lululemon. Worked in a store, just decided to clear my brain, refocus, and start, and then give it a couple of months. Ended up loving it, became a manager, opened up stores, and was able to start working with them in corporate, with the New York stores in corporate, advertising, or the in-store yoga online. So Facebook had identified Lululemon back in the day as a good brand, a unique brand to test into some of their early offerings like event pages and things like that. And so we got to experiment and run betas with Facebook about how do we take this amazing local grassroots marketing that we had and put it on digital. And that sparked my… I was like, “This is fascinating. Look at how many more people we can get look at.” I know when they clicked on the page. They can raise their hand and say, “I want to join.” And then we have an idea of how many people are actually coming.

So that resonated with me, and then that’s what started doing more with Lululemon. I went on to another small company called Ragnar Relay, which launched all of its digital and social. And then, from there, I got to work at Adidas, and that was great. That was so fun. That is a brand that has a good amount of money, has a good amount of risk tolerance, and they want to explore. They were pushing the boundaries back in 2013, and 2014 of social and video and how do we get their shoes into how do we get the eyeballs of the right people. There, I got a job at Amazon, and that also changed how I approach digital media. Worked at Amazon for about six and a half years, two different stints. Now I’m at ŌURA after a few small hops with some smaller companies, and I love ŌURA. I run all of their media and acquisition, and we’re looking into international growth next.

Ellie Tehrani:

Wow, that’s great. I love how each of those roles shaped who you are as a professional today. Some of the key things that you mentioned that got my attention, getting the eyeballs of the right people. How do you do that in today’s world in any kind of role?

Meghan Reynolds:

I wish I had the magic potion, the magic spell for it. It’s actually one of those things that’s oddly fun, you get to figure out. This is why I love being in media and the digital world because it changes. So a year and year and a half ago, everything on… And we’ll just take meta as a platform, everything was interest-based. You could go and target the female who worked out at SoulCycle, and wore Alo pants. You could do all of that and be very, very targeted and really understand what your dollars were doing. And then I want to say about six, eight months ago, Meta was like, “No, no, no, no, just go broad. Just go broad. Pick an objective, we’ll find the right people for you. Trust us.”

Meghan Reynolds:

And so you have to play that game of saying… And we did; we tested both. And it ended up that broad targeting did get us cheaper CPMs, the higher conversion rates. But now we’re still playing into, “Well, let’s do broad, and then how do we still have that interest group? How are we still making sure our messages are hitting the right people?” So we look at it as a bit of balance of both when it comes to digital platforms. So going broad, testing into messaging, and letting the message find the right customer as well as being very targeted of, “Okay, this is much more of a female marketing message.” And then how are we shaping that? What else do we know about her that we can apply to the ad, to our targeting?

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. No, that makes sense. How do you handle that in a market like the US tech where going broad could also risk losing out on the diversity aspect in terms of different ethnicities, different age groups, all that sort of stuff? How do you handle that at ŌURA?

Meghan Reynolds:

So that because of the price point of our product, it’s broad with some interest targeting or some targeting. So it is specific age ranges. If we can do household income, so on TV, for example, I can buy according to household income, we do tend to buy at a certain household level. And above, not below. We’ve seen that conversion rates are much lower below. So I would say it’s broad with some targeting, but it’s not how it used to be where you would go very deep into… Even across OTT and TV, you would be looking at that female who’s watching this type of show. And these were the day parts because we know that’s when she’s watching. Now it’s, “Let’s span or across all day parts on TV, for example, across multiple genders, and ages on Facebook and see what’s hitting.”

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Okay. No, that makes sense. In terms of ŌURA, let’s talk a little bit about the product and the company’s vision and mission. Could you talk us through what differentiates ŌURA from other wearable devices?

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah, so ŌURA’s mission is to make health accessible to everyone. We believe that this is something everyone should have access to and be able to understand and use to make better decisions about their health, right? So, we look at sleep as a huge unlock. So if you can get, I’m using quotes here, the right amount of sleep for you, the right REM, the deep sleep, that tends to help unlock a lot of other things in your life. Probably, it’s easier to manage stress, you’re probably going to be a little bit nicer to your coworkers and your kids.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right.

Meghan Reynolds:

Right? You’re much more able to handle things. You probably don’t get sick as much cause you’re allowing your body to rest. So we look at that. I would say our vision is to get this in as many hands as possible, on as many fingers as possible, I should say.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. So the company has been around for… Is it seven or eight years now?

Meghan Reynolds:

It’ll be 10.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. And I think I went somewhere, or you have mentioned that it’s still acting as a startup. Is that right?

Meghan Reynolds:

In a sense, yeah. I mean, it’s a hardware-based company, so funding is, it costs a lot of money to fund the product. We have amazing scientists running their research behind everything that can be budget money intensive.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. For you in a marketing or growth marketing role, how does that impact your work? Coming from a background at an organization like Amazon to ŌURA, how do you approach your work differently, and what do you find yourself doing at ŌURA that is perhaps actually more innovative in terms of your work style than it would’ve been at a larger organization?

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah, I think one of the biggest things I have to do is slow down. In Amazon, you get very used to… One of the leadership principles is called Bias for Action. And you’re really judged on not how fast you can get things done but how easily adaptable you can be and pick up more projects and figure out how to scale. So at ŌURA, I found that I’ve had to, (and I would say this with the couple of other startups that I’ve worked for recently), slow down, ask a lot more questions, and make sure people have really good ideas.

Meghan Reynolds:

At Amazon, through the doc writing culture, it’s like you get really good at ensuring you have ticked off every risk concern that you have an answer for. You know all the pros, you know all the cons. You’ve looked at this a million different ways. And I find that type of rigorous, I guess, behavior around product launches and campaigns isn’t as much of a practice elsewhere. So I’ve had to slow down, ask a lot more questions, and honestly help steer a little bit of making sure, “Is this the right objective? If this is the objective, okay, what’s then the goal? What K P I are we actually taking away? How will we know if this worked? What do you really want to get out of this campaign?” So it’s probably a little bit more coaching that I’ve had to do here as well. Did I answer your question?

Ellie Tehrani:

No, you did. I’m trying to understand if the sort of data-driven approach that you would’ve been used to at Amazon is something that you’ve carried with you through to your position at ŌURA and if that’s something that startup would also emphasize to collect that data, whether it’s customer data or user data in very different ways to better shape products for the future.

Meghan Reynolds:

Gotcha. Yeah, so that definitely once you’re ingrained with that, it doesn’t lead. I’m lucky enough that we’ve got some really great teammates who work on the data science side and then who work on the consumer insight side. And so there is rigorous data collection and understanding from a, “Will this product work? Will this feature work?” And then, from a consumer standpoint, it’s, “Okay, is this message resonating with the consumer before we go do a full-on campaign?” And then I am working through, I think, where we still have some room to grow, and I see this at a lot of places is, “Okay, we’ve done the work.” Consumers are saying in a focus group, “Yay. Nay.” We bring it into a campaign. And then I’m like, “Okay, now how are we tracking that this worked?”

Meghan Reynolds:

One of the biggest things is people love to… One of the biggest objectives you’ll see, or the number one objective in a campaign, is to drive awareness. Okay, that’s huge. How do you do that? It’s helping educate people about the amount of money that’s needed to break through, and what that really means. I always throw these out in the middle of different meetings that we have. I’m like, “How much do you think an NFL spot costs? How much do you think it costs to be a bachelor?” This is not you’re couple thousand-dollar ads that you see on Meta. But I think a lot of where the work that needs to be done to really drive home a measurement approach at a company is really connecting a KPI back to your objective and not just saying things like, “I want to grow brand awareness.” It’s like, okay, is that in terms of traffic? Traffic in a certain demographic? Is that, “Are we going to do a brand lift study?” So it’s helping get the rest of the team to understand that and to think that way. Whereas at Amazon, it was just very much ingrained.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Right. And in terms of some of the research or data that you’ve gathered through your time at ŌURA, have any findings surprised you or anything where you thought you were going to take a product in a certain direction or marketing in a certain direction? Then suddenly you found, “Actually this isn’t going to work at all. Our users aren’t reacting well to this”? Or has that happened to you?

Meghan Reynolds:

No, because what’s interesting is ŌURA, It’s one of these things that when people see the app, because there’s the ring, and people kind of go, “What does this thing do? That doesn’t look like it’s…” It’s not like your iWatch or anything. But when you start to see the app, and you hear word of mouth what this has done and how people talk about it like, “Oh my God, I had a 90 sleep score.” People are like, “What’s a 90 sleep score?”

Meghan Reynolds:

“Oh, that means I had 25% REM,” and they can get into it. And then people are like, “Wait a minute, you could unlock all that data?” So what I’ve found is actually quite the opposite. It’s like all of our messaging, it’s hitting really well because it’s being packaged in a new way. This isn’t just your “How many steps did you take?” The same old thing. We’re really putting sleep as the main focus. I think it also helps that we’re in a really good climate or we’re in a… Now, I shouldn’t say good. We’re in a climate where mental health and wellness and recovery are much more the main talking points, as opposed to probably the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s, it was like, “Right. Go. Perform as many spin classes as possible, sweat as much as possible.”

Meghan Reynolds:

So we’re riding that wave of consumer behavior definitely shifting, but it’s kind of shocking to me the messaging that is resonating. I guess in that light, the one message that probably has not resonated as much is you can track your steps in calories … clearly, a product where people are prioritizing health and well-being, and activity is just a piece of it. And so that’s not the thing that’s getting them to buy, right? It’s really the sleep and the accuracy data.

Ellie Tehrani:

So the data itself, I guess it’s user-friendly enough for people to not only read their results and metrics but also understand them and take actions to improve them.

Meghan Reynolds:

Yes. Yes. So, the product was developed in Finland. This is probably just me saying this: I feel like it’s the IKEA of apps.

Ellie Tehrani:

I love that.

Meghan Reynolds:

Meaning, It’s very clear. Where you click, you understand like Macs back in the day. 

Ellie Tehrani:

Right.

Meghan Reynolds:

You just move. Of course, this is where you move things. This is how you intuitively would use something like a screen. So, I think we’ve done a really nice job of breaking down the information. I mean, we definitely have some ways to make sure that some of the data is cleaner and easier to understand because it can get really complicated with your heart rate variability and then your temperature and why your temperature would spike and not spike. So it’s pretty clean and easy. And I think people… It also has a score, it’s a marker of time, right? Like, “Okay, I had an 80 yesterday; now I’m at an 85. Okay, what changed?”

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Wearable devices have been around for many years. We’re getting people to use them continuously. Something that I’ve read about ŌURA, it seems like people tend to wear it more often than they would wear, say, a watch. And I’m wondering if that’s something that then leads them to actually continue to improve on their health journey as they see the patterns.

Meghan Reynolds:

Yep. Well, you bring up two good points that I think do lead to people being able to catch being sick or potentially more serious diseases is that it is fairly easy to wear. If you’re not used to wearing rings, that is one thing. But we give you a sizing kit, and we ask you to wear that sizing kit for a few days to see how the ring fits as your fingers swell throughout the day and night. So it doesn’t move as much as a watch. So that’s the big thing. The watch tends to shift. They’re kind of bulky. And then the next thing is people don’t like to sleep with a watch on, and the batteries die faster. So by having the ring on at night, that’s obviously when you’re getting your sleep data, but that’s when you can get a lot cleaner data in terms of what your heart rate is doing, your breathing, and your temperature. And so, by having potentially six to eight hours of very little movement in the same spot, we get very accurate data.

Ellie Tehrani:

Understood. Okay. And in terms of that data, with the focus on data privacy and security, how do you balance that? The need to collect large amounts of data for research purposes, for improving products with the responsibility to protect user data?

Meghan Reynolds:

We take it very seriously. Everything has to go through our privacy team. Everything is in the app because there are no ads on the app, nothing is sold, and everything is hidden in terms of user IDs and hashes.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Okay. And, how do you see the developments of different algorithms and innovations that your team is building on at ŌURA contributing to the broader landscape of health and wellness? And what other potentials do you see for wearable technology?

Meghan Reynolds:

Oh, that’s a good question. Well, I personally love having a more lightweight, less screen-focused wearable. Everything is a screen these days, right?

Ellie Tehrani:

Right.

Meghan Reynolds:

So it’s so nice just to be able to go and not… I mean, because I wear a Garmin constantly. I’m still slightly unsure of how fast I am running and how many hours I have worked out this month. And so I think there’s something really nice about slowing down and having more of the Scandinavian outlook of Finland’s always voted the happiest country, and they probably have a lot fewer screens. And I’m hoping ŌURA can contribute to that and that wearables have a go towards that so that it’s more holistic as opposed to these very intense moments in our life where it’s running as fast as you can, burning the most calories.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Right. I like that, the slowing down and going out into nature. I actually grew up in Sweden, and we had a lot of that. Yeah, it’s all about heading out into nature, keeping a healthy lifestyle, and not constantly looking at a screen like you mentioned.

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah, I’m so jealous of this. When they talk about it, they’re like, “Yeah, we just did our…” I think they call it a Nordic … Is it a Nordic sauna where they go, and they do?

Ellie Tehrani:

Oh yes.

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah, the sauna, and then they go through the lake plunge?

Ellie Tehrani:

Yes. Yeah, I would not recommend that personally, but many people enjoy it. In terms of the consumer side of things,, let’s look at the users. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that are facing consumers in the health and wellness space today, and how can technology, in general, help address those challenges?

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah. Wait, so this is me anecdotally. So I think it’s two things. It’s access to your data, and then it’s understanding what that means. So you’ll go to the doctor, and they’ll run a scan, and they have this huge printout, and then they sort of run through it with a bunch of acronyms and crazy medical terms, and you’re like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” You’re like, “Okay, break that down for me.” And I always think about it as, when you have a really good analyst or your technical product manager, if he or she can translate the crazy gobbledygook of engineering and data and development, that’s what we need doctors to do more of, right? “I need that. Draw the ‘so what’ out for me and in a way that I can do something with it.”

Meghan Reynolds:

I think I’m hoping with more things like ŌURA… And there are other rings coming out, and I’m sure Apple and Google, are working on a whole other slew of features for us to understand how to be healthier, that what it’s doing is empowering the consumer to take better care of themselves and to go seek out the specific things that they might need as opposed to always waiting for something to happen. Then, a doctor has to describe it. So it’s kind of both, right? It’s giving the data, the information to the consumer, but then I’m really hoping this also helps the doctors and the medical professionals explain it a little bit more easily and in a more human layperson fashion.

EllieTehrani:

Right. You brought up a good point there in terms of the healthcare professional because as we move away from that sort of reactive healthcare towards a proactive one, how do you think the healthcare professional will be open? Will they be accepting of these types of devices? Do you think that they’ll feel like the data is valid for them to use? What are your thoughts on that?

Meghan Reynolds:

That’s a good question. I would hope the ones who are more open, I would hope they would adopt it and also look at it with a critical eye. Ideally, they should push the wearable and tech industries to do more peer-reviewed studies and make sure that what is… And that’s one of the things that I would say ŌURA does really well, and I would assume Apple and Google probably do this as well. But it takes years to develop some of these products because of the rigorous testing and the amount of testing that they want to do to make sure this is stat sick and that it can be verified and then rolled out and actually have the same results when it’s hundreds of thousands of people, not hundreds of people.

Meghan Reynolds:

I would hope doctors would look at it as a way to help facilitate care, too, as opposed to always having to wait to say like, “If you had come to me six months earlier,” maybe now some of this helps to provide those warning signals to consumers so that they can go to the doctor and say, “Something’s off. My temperature keeps spiking, or I’m not sleeping well. And here’s the data.” And then something can hopefully be useful.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Let’s return to the marketing aspect for a bit. You mentioned through some of your previous experiences that the world of digital marketing opened your eyes to the insights you were gathering. I want to talk about the influencer marketing campaigns. What are your thoughts on those? And particularly in a world with so many social media platforms targeting various age groups, some of whom might be more vulnerable to media, what are your thoughts there?

Meghan Reynolds:

That’s very much a love-hate relationship. Recognize the power that they have. If you align yourself with influencers who understand that power and hold it with responsibility, you can get really good marketing out of it that’s authentic, and it doesn’t just feel like influencer A pushing the 100th product of the week.

Meghan Reynolds:

And so I do think it needs to be approached very thoughtfully. And that’s why I think some of it, I totally get the companies that have figured out platforms to scale, but I don’t know if that’s… For certain products, it could be great. I don’t know if it’s the best product for something related to health, right? Because it is very personal. So you want to make sure that the person that you’re contracting with to speak on your company’s behalf really understands the product. We’ve had some really great experiences with influencers, and I think we know that in a couple of different ways. One, their audience did respond really well, but two, they continuously talked about it even after being paid. It’s over, it’s done, their contract is done, and they’re still wearing it. They still talk about it on Instagram or TikTok, and it still comes up as something that they would recommend. So it’s really nice to see that. “Okay, we did pick the right one.”

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. And part of what you mentioned goes back to the consistency and authenticity. How do you consistently represent your brand across different marketing channels and campaigns?

Meghan Reynolds:

It can be hard. I kind of look at it differently from an organic versus paid perspective. So organic, if they’re going out and they’re trying to find as many, let’s just again use females, females, who do yoga who are focusing on sleep, and they’re just asking them to create some content, and it’s being put on their channels, there’s not as much you can do to force a brand message. If it’s on paid, then I want them to be very specific so that the message is correct it is on brand, and we’re not saying anything that would be legally incorrect, for example.

Meghan Reynolds:

But I have to say it is hard, and that’s where I always have to bring in the creative team. I want to make sure that the brief, whether it’s my team, the media team writing it, the creative, or the brand team, is the brief getting to put forward what we need. But then, is it also resonating with the influencer? Because you can tell if they’re just reading something. So, it tends to take a little bit longer. It’s not something that we don’t really have on one of those influencer platforms where we just hit a button, and we light people up. It’s a little bit more. It’s personal briefings. It’s getting people to understand the product. We want them to use it. We typically say, “Use it for a month, and you can speak authentically about it.”

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. And the word authenticity is something that is widely discussed lately within various organizations, particularly in tech. Do you feel that this is now becoming one of those popular words companies throw around? Or do you feel like there are organizations out there that are actually creating products with authenticity in mind or thinking of their end user? Could you give examples of that through your professional career where you’ve seen that the data gathered or the research done is actually being used for good? Because we often talk about data being used for good.

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah, mm-hmm, that’s a great point. I’ll say I think authenticity is being overused in a marketing sense. I think from a product perspective, from what I have seen, especially at ŌURA, what is being developed is helping solve problems. This might not be a problem that thousands of people have said, but it’s pulling those insights out of the customer service, inquiries, emails, or things you read online. Reading through social it can be a wasteland of just horrible comments. You can find some really good gems that help infuse future product learning.

Meghan Reynolds:

So I don’t have a lot of specific ones, but I do know at Amazon, as they were developing new features for Alexa and what she could do and the voice services, a lot of it would come from social comments or emails that Amazon… Usually, it went up through a Jeff, but talking about how Alexa helped with something in their life, helped with a child, it helped with an elderly parent or grandparent. And that would usually spur, “Okay, well, how do we make that better? How could we roll that out?” So, it’s a key feature that people would know to ask Alexa for. That was always nice to see because it would pull through the brief. So when the brief came to the marketing team, we would know, “Hey, this is from a customer. The customer had requested this or said that this is how Alexa has helped.” So now we want to let people know, “Hey, you could use her in this way.”

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Okay. And in terms of changes in the market, whether it’s due to unexpected changes in the world that happen with a pandemic or geopolitical changes, how do you pivot your marketing strategy? And are you currently thinking ahead, considering what’s happened in the world over the last few years in terms of your existing role to what might be next and how you can develop more future-proof marketing strategies?

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah. Oh, good one. So what’s coming to mind right now is ChatGPT?

Ellie Tehrani:

Right.

Meghan Reynolds:

And an AI, and what does that mean for marketers, content creators, and copywriters? The way I look at it is it’s almost like it’s the discovery phase. Gather all the data. I’ve asked my team, I was like, “Let’s sign up for it, and let’s start… What do you get? You asked this question, I’ll ask this question. Or we asked the same… What are the responses? What does it look like?” And so we are playing around with it now, and that’s typically what I like to do. I remember when Snapchat came out back in the day, right? And it was like, “What do we do with Snapchat?” And this is what I love about Adidas. They said, “Everyone goes sign up for it and play around with it and then come back in two weeks and let’s round table. What do you like? What do you not like? What made sense? Will this work for our customers?”

Meghan Reynolds:

So I think marketers need to utilize the tools and seek to understand and not make crazy decisions. I mean, there are those brands that just jump, and you’re kind of like, “Oh God, that was a good risk” because it paid off, doing one of the first big Snapchat campaigns. But I tend to encourage my teams to explore research and figure it out so that we can then answer questions because you know it will always come up. I mean, it’s already been asked. You know the CEO, you know someone will say, “Why are we using this?” Like messaging bots with Facebook, when that first came out, the automatic messaging bots, right? I remember that one actually. Everyone was very scared about that we would just say the wrong thing and really turn someone off at Amazon. So yeah, I think you have to be able to be nimble and adapt to it. But I personally tend to be someone who’s probably a little bit slower to utilize it. I want to understand, I want to see some case studies. What did the brand down the street do?

EllieTehrani:

Right. Right. You like to slow down and review first before you dip your toe into it. That makes perfect sense. I want to talk a little bit about your contributions to Team Fox. You have been running as a coach for them. Could you talk to us a little bit about that and how that has approached your leadership style and teamwork and professional life in general?

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah. Oh, thank you for bringing this up. This is one of those things that it sounds so cheesy, but it brings so much joy. It feels like, “Oh, I get to give someone some information that’s truly just for them to go do this crazy thing called running a marathon.” And so yeah, we’ve been working with them for, I want to say, almost ten years now, and love it. We’ve unfortunately had a lot of connections to Parkinson’s, and that’s what spurred us to work with them. Hopper running is my kind of side hustle with a girlfriend from college. We started way back in the day.

Meghan Reynolds:

And so I think one of the things that it helps me with is remembering where you place emphasis. And this was really key during Amazon because Amazon, I always say, I’m like, “That New York Times article is true.” It is true what you hear. It is all-encompassing and it’s really hard to pinpoint why. But it was always nice to then take the time and to have calls with the runners to go to the events and see these people doing something so selfless, raising all this money, doing running because their family member or their good friend had Parkinson’s. So it really helped me remember work is not everything and that there’s other stuff going on. And then people do these amazing, amazing things for other people.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Right. I think that’s encouraging to hear and see also, because I think for a lot of younger generation that are now growing up in a world where you have to succeed in any shape or form, sometimes it’s all about also what success looks like. I always like to ask this question, what is success to you? What does it mean to you? Because it’s not always what you might think, and how you get there is not always what you might think. So could you talk to us a little bit about that?

Meghan Reynolds:

Oh, I love that. Yeah. I mean, that’s another great point just to go back. Yeah, I mean, because even when I was running marathons, it was all about how fast I could run it. And these people are like, “I just want to finish it.” And I’m like, “What’ll get you there then?” And it was really refreshing. So, thank you for reminding me of that.

Meghan Reynolds:

Oh, and then I love that question because if you had asked me 20 years ago what success looked like, I would’ve been like, “I am going to be a high-powered CMO. I will be the leader. I will do all these things. I will make all this money.” And now, honestly, I just want to be able to not work during the weekends. I want to be able to enjoy life with my family and friends. And honestly, since I’ve had the pleasure of managing some really amazing people over the last few years, I want them to succeed.

Meghan Reynolds:

Lululemon taught me this, and I’ve never forgotten it, and I think people kind of look at me like I’m cockeyed, “Why would you focus on this?” I’ve always wanted to find the person who will take my role. Like, “Who is my predecessor? Who am I leaving this to so that I can go off and either do a different job or expand my scope and learn something else and know that everything that we built is not going to fall apart because I’m not there? Who is the person who can do this?” So I really love managing people, and I think success to me looks like my team doing well. They’re the ones leading the meetings. They’re the ones getting the pats on the back, right? Yeah, so it’s come full circle where it’s like, I don’t necessarily care that much about me, I want them to shine because I’d much rather… They can do the work on the weekends. No, I’m kidding.

Ellie Tehrani:

No, but I love that. And they do say that what sets a great leader apart is one who leaves many leaders behind them. So I truly like that.

Meghan Reynolds:

I wasn’t always like that. It was definitely-

EllieTehrani:

No.

Meghan Reynolds:

I did not necessarily want that mentality, but it’s fostering now.

Ellie Tehrani:

Great. Well, Meghan, is there anything else that you would like our listeners to know about life and working in marketing, at tech companies, and at startups that we haven’t discussed today?

Meghan Reynolds:

I think the one thing that whenever I talk to… I go back to my grad school quite a bit and talk to undergrads and graduates who are in my program. I think the biggest thing I always say to them is like, to have a great plan but accept the left-hand turns. Take the left-hand turn. It’s okay to kind of start over after working for seven years if you want to learn something new. It’s always building, and it’ll always help you. So, I encourage people to take risks, change jobs, and really figure out what’s going to make them happy. Don’t just sit there and force yourself to do a job because that’s what your teachers, your parents, or someone you thought success looked like.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. And to end the note on the consumer side of things, what would you say to consumers out there today who might be hesitant to use wearable technology, for instance, for various reasons? How would you tell them that this might actually be something that could help you in your health journey?

Meghan Reynolds:

Yeah. I thought you were going to go a different way with that question. I’ll answer [inaudible 00:41:50]. I thought you were going to ask me in a minute. I would encourage them to do the research and figure out how I ask my team, “Okay, what do you really want to get out of this campaign? What do you want out of your health? Or why are you even considering a wearable?” And I would say that I think it’s definitely an additive to your life. I don’t think it’s the end all and be all by any means. I think it provides extra data, another view into what’s going on with you, right?

Meghan Reynolds:

Because back in the day when I was taking yoga, I had this great teacher, and she used to always say to us, she’d be like, “Get up in front of the mirror and then turn your head and look.” She goes, “Because no one knows where their ass is in space.” You don’t, right? And so I think the wearables and things like that, just like getting a pair, but all of this is helpful data and helpful ways for you to really understand what’s going on and then to ask the right questions, hopefully to the right people.

EllieTehrani:

Brilliant.

Meghan Reynolds:

What I thought you were going to ask was what would I ask consumers just in general about marketing. I was going to say, please don’t turn off all privacy. Let us serve you relevant ads.

Ellie Tehrani:

Right. Right. I love that. Yeah, don’t be afraid to share some data.

Meghan Reynolds:

Well, some data, right? I want to make sure you see the right ad. I don’t want to start serving you dog food and that… You don’t like that.

Ellie Tehrani:

That’s great. Well, thank you so much for your time with us today. We really appreciate you taking the time. It’s been wonderful speaking to you.

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