Future of Consumer Marketing

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Deniz Kural, Director of Product Marketing at Candywriter, the Miami-based studio behind BitLife. BitLife is a text-based life simulator that has captured millions of players with its unprecedented depth, cultural relevance, and ability to let players role-play literally any life path imaginable. Seven years after launch, the game continues to dominate its category through hyper-culturalization, consistent community engagement, and innovative marketing approaches that bridge traditional entertainment marketing with mobile gaming's unique demands. Kural shares hard-won insights from his journey through consumer goods giants like Coca-Cola and Durex, to mobile gaming powerhouses like Supercell and Rovio, revealing how entertainment marketing must balance immediate ROI pressures with long-term brand building.
Topics Discussed:
Structural differences between traditional consumer marketing and mobile gaming marketing
The tension between tactical ROI-driven marketing and strategic brand building in gaming
Building and scaling influencer-first content strategies for text-based games
Hyper-culturalization as a competitive moat in mobile gaming
Community management as a cost-effective growth driver vs. paid user acquisition
The role of product marketing in entertainment companies
Adapting live-action video creative for games without traditional graphics
Creating revenue-share creator programs to drive sustainable content generation

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Alicia Moore, VP of Marketing at Halfdays. Halfdays is disrupting the ski and snowboard apparel industry by creating performance fashion specifically designed for women at the intersection of outdoor functionality and contemporary fashion. Founded by Olympic skier Kylie Tinsley, fashion strategist Ariana Ferwerda, and Karel Vredenburg five years ago, the brand addresses a fundamental gap in the market: ski apparel that actually fits women's bodies and makes them feel confident on the mountain. Operating with a lean team of 30 people in Denver, Halfdays has built a thriving community of nearly 10,000 members and is expanding beyond winter sports into year-round adventure apparel while maintaining their commitment to authentic, human-centered marketing.
Topics Discussed:
Disrupting the "shrink it and pink it" mentality in women's outdoor apparel
Building authentic community through monthly meetups and brand ambassadors
Leveraging Slack as an unexpected community platform for 10,000 members
Scaling a small marketing team (9 people) to compete against legacy brands with massive budgets
Developing insight-driven creative campaigns around emotional themes like "girls trips"
Balancing paid media experimentation with community-first brand building
Strategic use of AI tools while maintaining human authenticity in customer experience and creative
Expanding from seasonal ski wear into year-round adventure apparel

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Brett Stapper interviews Curtis Schlaufman, VP of Marketing and Communications at DeFi Technologies. Curtis shares his journey from crypto skeptic to marketing leader at a publicly traded digital asset company that nearly went bankrupt during the 2022 bear market. DeFi Technologies survived by maintaining an aligned management team willing to make extreme personal sacrifices—including going without pay for six months, selling homes, and taking out second mortgages. Today, the company manages the most diverse array of regulated crypto products globally, marketing to both traditional investors seeking regulated crypto exposure and equity investors looking for broad industry exposure. Curtis reveals how to build trust and credibility in a highly volatile, fast-moving industry while managing multiple business lines, subsidiaries, and constant evolution.
Topics Discussed:
Surviving a near-bankruptcy during the crypto bear market through management alignment and personal sacrifice
Marketing a dual mandate: products to consumers and equity to investors simultaneously
Building trust and credibility as the foundation of all marketing in financial services
Evolving brand narrative while rapidly scaling from one to six+ business lines
Coordinating marketing across multiple subsidiaries with different names and identities
Navigating the unique challenges of public company marketing in crypto
Executing integrated news releases across multiple channels and stakeholder groups
Identifying and avoiding scammers in the crypto marketing vendor ecosystem

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Joshua Cabrera, Marketing Director at Hakuro.io, a new game publisher building a proprietary AI-powered engine that analyzes gaming sentiment across Reddit, Discord, TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. By scraping and correlating community data, Hakuro provides developers with actionable insights directly from gamers—informing both game design decisions and go-to-market strategies. Currently emerging from stealth mode and seeking their first published title, Hakuro is taking a contrarian position in a post-COVID gaming market still facing widespread layoffs and reduced investment, actively funding indie developers while larger studios pull back.
Topics Discussed:
Building a B2B platform go-to-market strategy during industry contraction
Using AI for sentiment analysis and data correlation across gaming communities
The failure modes of marketing automation in creative B2B markets
Conference-led distribution strategy for early-stage technical products
Structuring qualifiers and KPIs to filter partnership opportunities
Navigating global developer outreach with a seven-person remote team
Maintaining capital-efficient growth with aggressive ROAS targets

In this episode, host Andrés Figueira interviews Ian Wishingrad, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Three Wishes Cereal, a high-protein, low-sugar, grain-free breakfast cereal brand. Unlike typical CPG startups that burn venture capital pursuing rapid market share, Three Wishes has built a profitable, growing brand now in 15,000 stores across North America through disciplined expansion and creative marketing. Ian shares how his background running a creative agency informed his approach to brand building, why he treats AI as a "creative sidekick," and how the brand capitalizes on cultural moments—like being the first to put a college athlete on a cereal box when NIL rules changed. The conversation reveals a methodical approach to growth that prioritizes profitability over vanity metrics while still executing disruptive marketing tactics.
Topics Discussed:
Building a CPG brand while maintaining profitability and avoiding the typical VC-funded burn model
Threading the needle between novel ingredients and familiar formats in legacy categories
Leveraging cultural and regulatory shifts for marketing opportunities (NIL rules, MAHA movement)
Using AI as a creative collaboration tool rather than replacement
Managing influencer marketing with algorithmic evaluation and creative freedom
Scaling from zero to 15,000 retail doors while staying operationally lean
Balancing in-house creative capabilities with strategic external partnerships
Testing marketing ideas through internal team validation rather than expensive external research

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Brett Stapper interviews Genefa Murphy, Chief Marketing & Content Officer at Udemy. Murphy leads a 140-person team managing both B2B and consumer marketing while overseeing a community of 85,000 instructors who create content for the platform. She shares how Udemy is navigating the shift from paid channel dependency to organic growth, adapting to the AI-driven search landscape, and building authentic experiences in an increasingly noisy market. With a background in product management before moving into marketing leadership, Murphy brings a business-first perspective to marketing strategy, emphasizing execution speed, customer impact, and the critical balance between brand and performance marketing.
Topics Discussed:
Transitioning from paid marketing dependency to organic channel dominance
Navigating the shift from traditional SEO to GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AI-powered search
Building and managing a global marketing team of 140 across B2B and consumer functions
Leveraging third-party agencies strategically to elevate internal team capabilities
Managing a creator community of 85,000 instructors as a marketing asset
Structuring marketing around method, message, and execution
Implementing hyper-localized marketing strategies across global markets
Balancing AI adoption with human expertise in marketing operations

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Brett Stapper interviews Llibert Argerich, Chief Marketing Officer at Thumbtack. Thumbtack is a two-sided marketplace connecting homeowners with home service professionals, competing primarily against word-of-mouth referrals in an extremely fragmented market. Over the past two years, Llibert has transformed Thumbtack's marketing from a concentrated SEM strategy into a sophisticated 11-channel growth engine that balances national profit maximization with aggressive local market penetration. His approach treats marketing as a P&L driver rather than a cost center, combining performance marketing rigor with brand building to create sustainable, scalable growth in a category where frequency is low but intent and trust are everything.
Topics Discussed:
Evolving from SEM-dependent marketing to an 11-channel diversified media mix
Building local market penetration strategies that operate at calculated losses for long-term market share gains
Creating profit maximization frameworks that determine exact incrementality points for media spend
Positioning against word-of-mouth as the primary competitor in home services
Leveraging AI and LLMs for content strategy, personalization, and agentic marketing systems
Managing marketing team productivity and efficiency without headcount expansion
Balancing performance marketing with brand building in low-frequency, high-stakes categories
Optimizing for emerging search behaviors including AI Overviews and LLM-based queries

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Michelle Nadeau, Head of Marketing & Communications at Martie. Martie is transforming the surplus grocery market by connecting brands with excess inventory directly to consumers through a deal discovery platform that delivers savings of up to 70-80% off retail prices. Operating as a digital-first marketplace with over 4,000 brand partnerships and 1,500 active SKUs at any given time, Martie has solved a critical problem for CPG brands while preventing food waste and making premium products accessible to price-conscious consumers. Through AI-powered logistics, personalized customer experiences, and a no-subscription business model, Martie is carving out a distinct position in the grocery e-commerce landscape—not as a 15-minute delivery service, but as a deal discovery platform that makes shopping fun while saving customers money.
Topics Discussed:
Building a surplus grocery marketplace that prevents food waste before it happens
Repositioning overstock from liquidation to brand opportunity
Creating trust in a discounted product marketplace through customer service excellence
Leveraging AI for logistics management and operational speed
Developing personalized shopping experiences through data-driven customer insights
Operating a lean, distributed team across multiple time zones
Differentiating from instant grocery delivery services
Implementing free sampling programs for brand discovery

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Ankit Patel, Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer at Obvi. Obvi is disrupting the supplement industry by transforming collagen from a clinical product into a consumer lifestyle brand. Starting six years ago in a market dominated by medicinal-looking white and gray packaging, Obvi created a colorful, cereal-aisle-inspired brand that appealed to consumers who wanted premium supplements without the clinical feel. Through a combination of superior formulation (multi-source collagen with added ingredients), competitive pricing, bold branding, and community-driven marketing, Obvi has grown from a direct-to-consumer startup to a brand available in 20,000 retail doors nationwide, including Walmart, Sprouts, and Vitamin Shoppe.
Topics Discussed:
Transforming supplement branding from clinical to consumer-friendly
Building and scaling a 150,000-member Facebook community as a product development tool
Transitioning from direct-to-consumer to omnichannel retail strategy
Using data-driven design testing to optimize retail packaging
Leveraging emerging ad platforms like mobile gaming for customer acquisition
Implementing AI for product development and competitive analysis
Managing brand positioning when target demographics shift unexpectedly

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Ryan Reese, Marketing Director at Mechanical One, a home repair and maintenance company serving Central Florida. Mechanical One launched their residential division in 2021 after establishing themselves in new construction, and Ryan was brought on to build their consumer-facing marketing from the ground up. In a hyper-competitive local services market where customer trust is paramount and competition is fierce, Ryan shares how they've differentiated through celebrity partnerships, hyper-local targeting, AI-powered customer data analysis, and an obsessive focus on customer experience that has generated over 2,500 five-star Google reviews.
Topics Discussed:
Building trust in a category where strangers enter customers' homes
Leveraging celebrity endorsements (NFL's Scott Hansen, Lily Estefan) for local brand credibility
Using AI to analyze customer data and predict seasonal demand patterns
Creating authentic Spanish-language campaigns for Hispanic markets
Transforming technicians into brand ambassadors through review-focused performance metrics
Avoiding vanity metrics on social platforms in favor of high-intent marketing channels
Competing in a commoditized market through elevated customer experience