posted on Twitter 2 hours ago - written by Yitzi WeinerAs a part...

posted on Twitter 2 hours ago - written by Yitzi Weiner

As a part of our series about strong female leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melanie Huet. Melanie Huet is the Chief Marketing Officer of Serta Simmons Bedding, a market-leading bedding company. Melanie leads SSB’s evolution to becoming a more consumer-centric company and directs the Marketing, Innovation and Customer Experience divisions focused on delivering breakthrough innovation, strengthening the house of brands and growing portfolio revenue. In just six months, Melanie restructured the organization and innovation process delivering the iComfort by Serta launch that shocked the industry with its speed to market, extensive consumer research and top scoring advertising campaign.

I was at the Furniture Today Bedding Conference. I was still relatively new at Serta Simmons Bedding, and I did not know many people yet. I sat down for breakfast and a really nice man sat next to me. He said, “You don’t know me, but I work for one of your largest suppliers.” He then said, “I hear you are a person I can trust.” After that, he began to tell me many things Serta Simmons Bedding could do to improve its performance.

I listened carefully and took in his thoughtful ideas. One in particular stuck out to me — our company was slow to create and launch new, innovative products. After that conversation, I was inspired. In a taxi ride to the airport with our Chief Sales Officer, Derek Miller, and the Serta brand’s VP of Marketing, Onney Crawley, we decided to move up the launch date of our new iComfort line from February 2020 to October 2019.

Now the launch is in full swing and it has been a tremendous morale boost for our employees. This was the first line that capitalized on the data captured from our newly implemented consumer insights team — our research showed that 59% of people have difficulty sleeping because of a hot mattress, which is why we decided to develop a self-cooling mattress line to specifically meet those needs. We proved to ourselves and the industry that we could be quick to market while delivering on a quality product that consumers actually want.

That conversation at the conference was pivotal in driving change within our company. Today, we have the right team in place to be creative, strategic, nimble — ultimately giving us the capability to continue to innovate and launch new products outside of the industry’s traditional two-year cycle.

https://medium.com/authority-magazine/serta-simmons-cmo-melanie-huet-women-should-make-an-extra-effort-to-help-diverse-talent-lower-e6f89968c943