Christina Kozloff Of Plenty of Fish: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Hire the right shooters. After you’ve clearly articulated the goals, you need to ensure you have the right people to get the job done. Hiring the right people is mission critical.

As a part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Christina Kozloff.

As the Chief Marketing Officer at Plenty of Fish, Christina oversees brand, performance marketing, and public relations for one of the largest global online dating companies — impacting millions of lives. With 20-years experience in performance and brand marketing at leading consumer-facing technology companies, Christina brings a holistic approach accelerating brand momentum and measurable business results.

As vice president of global marketing at Rosetta Stone, Christina led a 50% sales growth solely through marketing, leading a 60-person global team.

While working with the Bing and MSN brands at Microsoft, Christina created a brand strategy that disrupted the category. At Expedia Group, she oversaw all aspects of Expedia.com’s $35M online advertising program.

Christina lives in Seattle and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian Studies from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an MBA with concentrations in Marketing and International Business from the University of Washington.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My career path was definitely not a straight line! I started my post-college career in international relations focusing on the former Soviet Union, primarily in educational exchange and business development. After a few years, I went back to school for my MBA. I intended to focus on international business but caught the marketing bug and ended up with a double concentration in international business and marketing.

What I love about marketing is similar to what I loved about Russian Studies — the duality. Marketing is a complex relationship between art and science. To me, you can’t have one without the other. There’s the focus on performance and attribution which attempts to be as logical and scientific as possible, yet does have some art to it. And then there’s the subjective artistry of creative that is equal parts data-driven and pure magic when done well.

All of this fueled my career through a variety of businesses and industries that I felt a connection to, but nothing quite as magical as Plenty of Fish. When you think about what business we are in, it’s helping to foster human relationships and connections — and if we’re lucky, love. What could be better?

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I hate to say it but there are several so I will try to pick just one! My favorite was probably when I was at Expedia early on in my marketing career. Our UK office was having great success selling travel via infomercials — long form television ads. Our leadership was curious about our ability to mimic that success in the US. I was asked to drive this effort. It was a bit of a hot potato on the team but I was green enough to see it as a great opportunity to try something new. I was involved in every phase of development, completely hands on…and it failed miserably. I will never forget sitting in a conference room with our leadership team reviewing the results after the test. The performance was awful. I actually had to point out that the numbers in the deck were the actual numbers — they were not multiples of 1,000 or even 100. It was a spectacular failure and we learned so much about what did and didn’t work for the US travel market. Most importantly, I learned the value of failing. As long as you are learning quickly and applying those lessons to the next thing, failure is usually a blessing.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We’re a bit unique in the world of online dating. So much of social media and dating online is focused on appearances. There’s a desire to curate experiences and personas to such a degree that it’s hard to tell where the image ends and the real person starts. Plenty of Fish is all about being your real, authentic self. It’s not about creating an image that may not truly reflect who you are. We were the first online dating site to ban face filters for this reason. We are for people who want a more relaxed dating experience and to feel comfortable being themselves.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Of course! We are continuing to promote a more welcoming dating experience by encouraging healthier behaviors on Plenty of Fish. We launched the campaign with the Gallery of Dick Pics (https://virtualgallery.pof.com/) which brought attention to a much despised online dating behavior — the unsolicited dick pic — and we will continue to turn bad behavior on its head by promoting a more positive approach. We’ve rebranded the app and site to present a fresh modern look to our users. And we’re launching pre-match experiences to enable people to meet more naturally like in real life. Our first initiative in that vein is Cue’d Up, our interactive game that provides daters with an opportunity to get to know one another in a more relaxed and fun environment. Stay tuned for more!

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

It’s simple — I wouldn’t. Gone are the days — with a few exceptions — of brands that can afford to have brand building budgets that are evaluated solely by positive movement in brand health metrics. Now all marketing needs to demonstrate value to the bottom line. Thankfully there are some incredible attribution models out there that enable marketers to understand the value of marketing throughout the funnel — not just at the bottom. For that reason, I don’t view marketing as a world of performance and brand — it’s all marketing.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

I love to refer back to a quote from Henry Ford to explain the importance of investing to build a strong brand: “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” It simply doesn’t work. Some brands are very lucky in that they do not need to invest a great deal to establish their brand early on. They hit the market with perfect timing and a product and brand that instantly connects. But that’s the exception and not the rule. Even those companies hit a plateau where they need to invest just to remain relevant and grow their connection with consumers. Building a brand enables a company to have a relationship with its customers such that it transcends the product. At least half of the value of Coca-Cola is brand equity. It’s a brown carbonated sweet liquid. It’s not unique. It doesn’t really do anything that another brand of brown carbonated sweet liquid couldn’t mimic. But not to its customers, because they’ve formed an emotional connection to the brand that gives the product more meaning.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

• Be clear on the problem you’re trying to solve with your brand. One of the most frequent questions I will ask is — what are we trying to accomplish? This question is never more important than when you are defining your brand. What value are you delivering to your customers? What is lacking in the market? What is the emotional connection that’s currently missing? If you don’t know what you are trying to solve, your brand will be built on shaky ground
• Know thy customer. For me, this is mission critical and I cannot emphasize it enough. Invest in the research to understand your core target audience — what makes them tick, what their hopes and dreams are, what they do in their free time, how they consume media. Understand what sets them apart from other potential customers and what’s most important to them. And then understand what percentage of potential revenue they represent so you have more clarity on the business opportunity. Only once you have an in-depth understanding of your key target audience, can you start to develop the right creative, buy the right media, and create meaningful campaigns that will resonate with them. It also enables you to enhance the product in meaningful ways.

A lot of companies get this step wrong. They look at the customers that are coming to them and simply try to find more who are similar. But how do you know those are the right customers for your brand? Often those are not the people who represent a greatest value to the business and the greatest customer potential.

• Paint the bullseye. This is the most important role for marketing leaders. If you’ve clearly outlined the end goal, what it looks like, and why it’s important, then your team will understand the opportunity and their role in attaining it. It sounds simple, but so many marketers miss this step and then wonder why things aren’t going well. Clarity is essential.
• Hire the right shooters. After you’ve clearly articulated the goals, you need to ensure you have the right people to get the job done. Hiring the right people is mission critical.
• Get out of their way. And then, don’t micromanage. Get the right people in place and get the heck out of their way so they can do what they do best.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

There are a few that I truly love. I’m a huge fan of Alaska Airlines. They are user-friendly, they are IRL friendly, and their loyalty program cannot be beat. They have a clear personality that comes through.

My favorite example of a beloved brand though, is Disney. Not everyone loves Disney, and that’s ok. But they have their hooks thoroughly implanted in me. One of the most magical things about having young children is watching them learn about the world and the wonder that lights up their eyes. Walt Disney famously said that he created Disneyland so that parents and children could have fun together — essentially a place where they could all be children together and experience that magic. Disneyland embodies every bit of that to me. My daughters are now teenagers but they still love to visit Disneyland and embrace that playful magic — even with me! And when they have a bad day, they will often put on a favorite Disney movie to cheer themselves up. It renews their positivity and gives them a little magic back in their lives. We are total Disney nerds.

Replicating that is no small task but it comes down to understanding the customers and connecting with them on an emotional level. For me, Disney understands how important it is to connect with my children — at any age — and provides magical experiences to enhance that. The result is that we not only have that connection with each other as we experience the brand, but with the brand itself.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

As I mentioned, gone are the days of measuring the success of “brand marketing” solely by brand health metrics. Those are still important, but brand efforts also need to earn their keep by having a clear role in driving the business forward. I tend to think about the levers collectively as all marketing, since they all need to work together. I don’t believe in siloing “brand” and “performance”. They need to be interconnected, and work together to drive business and brand health metrics.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Social media is an important channel for us. It’s a great way to connect with users on a more personal level than many other media channels. It’s also inspiring to see how users talk about and utilize the brand. What’s wonderful about social media is the feedback loop. We don’t just speak to our customers as much as we hear from them and talk with them. We have learned about a lot of beautiful love matches that people have found on Plenty of Fish this way. Our daters have shared photos and videos of their weddings and babies! It never gets old.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

That is terribly kind of you and I don’t know if I can fully own that description. That said, I hope we can inspire a movement with Plenty of Fish’s Gallery of Dick Pics (https://virtualgallery.pof.com/) to encourage healthier and more welcoming dating behaviors. The gallery is intended to draw attention to an unwanted behavior — unsolicited nudes — and flip it on its head by showing a photo gallery of men named Richard (aka “Dicks”) to demonstrate a kinder, more friendly way to experience Dick Pics. There’s a lot of negativity in our world today. It doesn’t need to carry into dating. Dating should be fun. We want to encourage people to have more fun dating by being real and kinder to each other, not objectifying and belittling each other. A more welcoming way to date is how dating should be — and that’s what we are trying to encourage on Plenty of Fish.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

It would be Helen Mirren: “If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words ‘f*ck off’ much more frequently.”

As a woman in business, I’ve encountered many well meaning men throughout my career — and a few women — who have “encouraged” me to smile more, not be so assertive, not be direct, etc. And frankly, it’s BS. We should recognize that everyone has different strengths and gifts to bring to the table and none of us should be judging those who might not be carbon copies of ourselves. We need to focus on substance and not get distracted by the less important elements. Most women I know, regardless of their career, have encountered people attempting to tell them how to behave — often in ways that you would never hear anyone speak to a man — and it’s just nonsense. This quote reminds me that we all have permission to say “no” and forge our own path.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

There are so many! If I had to choose one, it would be Hillary Clinton. She is the epitome of grace under pressure. She’s brilliant, accomplished, and yet has experienced such chaos and failure while handling it with aplomb and an amazing sense of humor. She exudes optimism despite her experiences. I truly admire that Phoenix quality about her.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckozloff/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.