>> My name is Crystal Alu [phonetic].
I am actually in the middle of switching companies from Mattel
to Sony Pictures Entertainment in a very similar role though.
I do marketing procurement.
Nobody ever knows what that is.
I, very simply put, call it millionaire matchmaker role.
So the marketing teams will come to me and say, Crystal, I need an advertising agency
that does x, y, z. I'm launching this new Barbie product.
Who should I use?
Help me. This is how much money I have.
You know marketing folks are really focused on their day to day and often times
with Fortune 500s marketing is one of the biggest areas of spend.
So I'm really here as kind of an internal, I guess, specialist or internal consultant
that focuses only on marketing needs.
So a lot of it is I become that expert in the marketing space, right?
So I know, for example, what's going on in the marketplace.
Who's the hot agency, who's winning the awards at Cannes this year.
Who's really dropped a lot in the marketplace?
[Inaudible] just announcned this week they're merging.
They're one of -- there's only 4 big advertising agency holding companies.
So that's a big deal.
How does that impact our deals right now?
Is there going to be any conflict of interest?
So, I mean, I attend a lot of conferences.
I do a lot of benchmarking with other CPG companies and it's just making
that you're constantly on top of the marketplace because you never know
when a new project's going to come up.
So most of marketing is going to be a vertical.
I'm the horizontal, right?
So we have Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, Barbie, American Girl, et cetera, on and on.
Everyone's only focused on what they're doing.
And I'm kind of the connector piece across the board
on how we're spending all our marketing dollars as a company.
And so usually it's a lot of RPs, a lot of Mad Men style pitches
where the creative agencies will come in and literally give you a horse
and a pony show of this what I'd do for you.
A lot of contract negotiations, working with legal, working with finance
to make sure we're getting the best deal for what we're looking for.
And then also a lot of, I call it, counseling, you know?
It's like a marriage between a marketing agency and the actual marketing group.
Having to make sure that we're setting them up for success and that we continue
to make sure the relationship is strong because it's actually not good for us
to be constantly change our advertising agencies.
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