Hasta La Creative!

As the top marketer for the world’s largest vodka brand, Michelle Klein must keep a global perspective. Lucky for her, that comes naturally.

Born in South Africa and raised in Australia, she has lived on four continents. “Often when you’re in a global role you tend to sit in global headquarters,” she said. “If you haven’t seen the world, then I think you have less of an appreciation for global culture.”

Ms. Klein joined Smirnoff owner Diageo seven years ago, overseeing digital for the vodka brand, which at the time didn’t even have a website. Today, she must constantly feed the pipeline with new marketing programs to keep Smirnoff on top of the ultra-competitive category.

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As Univision steals viewers from the English-language TV networks and makes a big play for their advertisers, marketing head Ruth Gaviria is behind the scenes pushing “a complete reset button” on the Spanish-language media giant’s outdated brand identity.

Colombia-born Ms. Gaviria brings a brand-management background that ranges from Procter & Gamble to publisher Meredith.  “We weren’t signaling to the community that we’re forward facing and digital and mean business,” she said.

Now Univision has a revamped master brand for the main network; second network Telefutura is reimagined as UniMas; digital is addressed in part with the launch of UVideos and audio with Uforia (note all the U’s). And Univision will have its first gateway to English viewers through an alliance with El Rey, a cable network to be launched by film director Robert Rodriguez.

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Though Laura Miele pioneered powerful forecasting, analytics and consumer feedback systems and processes at EA Games, she’s also a believer in the power of creativity. Her own "focus group" at home — 8-year-old-twin son and daughter — are constant reminders that games are about fun and entertainment. Not that they play M-rated EA games like “Dead Space,” which got more creative thanks to analytics that revealed that it was too scary for single play, and co-op mode was added.

It’s the combination of art and science that’s kept Ms. Miele at EA in a variety of jobs for 17 years. Now as the head of its games division, she’s looking forward to working for a new CEO — John Riccitello stepped down in March — and the challenges of a changing industry.

"The good news is more people are playing games today than ever before. The challenge is the business model is going in so many different directions," she said.

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If men are from Mars and women from Venus, then Christina Menendez, Pam Forbus and Christine Kalvenes have just completed a galactic journey in potato-chip marketing.

After digging into the male psyche with what they called “bro research,” the Frito-Lay execs led an overhaul of the once-family-targeted Ruffles brand into a chip for millennial men with testosterone-fueled packaging, line extensions and campaigns. The three-year effort culminated a few weeks ago with a guy named “Ruff McThickridge,” a Ron-Burgundy-meets-Burt Reynolds-meets-Clint Eastwood character starring in a campaign that parodies 1970s action movies.

Conventional wisdom might suggest that men — not women — are better suited to lead a rebranding project that leans so heavily on male insights. But this trio insists their gender was an advantage. “The closer you are to something, the more you tend to overlook the "aha’ [moments] because they are so familiar to you,” said Ms. Kalvenes, VP-innovation for PepsiCo-owned Frito-Lay, noting that they gained insights because “we weren’t men.”

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You know what I miss? Media rivalries.

Remember when traditional media companies used to honest-to-God compete — instead of spending all their time and energy bailing water and throwing bodies overboard?

I do. Which is why I'm oddly thrilled by what's been going down between Rodale's Men's Health and American Media Inc.'s Men's Fitness. It's hand-to-hand combat, folks, fought by shirtless, hairless hunks with glistening six-pack abs!

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