What a Partnerships and Product Marketing Professional at Activision Blizzard King Wishes They Had Known Before Entering the Video Game Industry
Hannah wishes someone had advised her to investigate the perspectives of senior leadership regarding brand partnerships before entering the industry because "if senior leaders are gung-ho about partnerships," it significantly eases the partnerships team's work. Specifically, understanding whether leaders "see growth in that area in the business going forward or not" is crucial, as brand partnerships often face underinvestment compared to performance marketing, which has a clearer ROI.
Leadership Alignment, Brand Partnerships, ROI Measurement, Strategic Investment, Value Communication
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Hannah Untereiner
Partnerships & Product Marketing
Activision Blizzard King
Yale University
UCLA Anderson, MBA
Political Science, American Studies
Gaming
Communication and Marketing
Scholarship Recipient
Video Highlights
1. The importance of understanding senior leadership's perspective on partnerships and how it impacts the partnership team's role and success.
2. Brand partnerships can often be under-invested in due to the difficulty in directly measuring their ROI compared to performance marketing.
3. The value of brand partnerships needs to be clearly communicated to senior leaders to ensure its prioritization and investment within the company.
Transcript
Have you learned about this role that you wish someone had told you before you entered the industry?
Is there anything about this role that you wish someone had told you before you entered it?
Yes, I think kind of related to my earlier comment, I wish someone had told me to think more about getting insight into how senior leaders think about partnerships before I joined the industry. I didn't realize it could shift the workstream under partnerships so radically from team to team or company to company.
If senior leaders are gung-ho about partnerships and recognize the value of brand partnerships, it just makes the partnerships team's role and job so much easier. That's something I wish someone had told me to look out for and dig into more.
I wish I'd understood senior leaders' perspectives on brand partnerships on the team I was joining. I'd want to know what they view the role of those partnerships as being and whether they see growth in that area.
Often, it's an area that tends to be underinvested in. Performance marketing has a clear ROI, but with brand marketing, it's harder to find the link and isolate its effect on the company, even though everyone knows it's important.
So, it tends to fall down the priority list unless you have leaders who really come from that area or have worked with people who can communicate its value very clearly, which isn't easy to do. That's definitely an aspect I wish I had.