In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Advika Aggarwal, former Senior Director of Marketing & E-Commerce at Paravel. Paravel is a sustainable travel brand that revolutionized how DTC brands approach product ecosystems, email marketing, and influencer partnerships. Through her experience scaling Paravel from brand marketing to overseeing the full commercial operation, Advika shares tactical insights on transforming underutilized marketing channels, building authentic creator networks, and balancing data-driven decision making with brand storytelling. Her journey across Coach, Gap, and Paravel provided her with a unique perspective on how digitally-native brands can punch above their weight through strategic constraint and focused execution.

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Elly Simpson, Director of Marketing at the Iowa Cubs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. As the organization's first-ever Director of Marketing, Simpson is rebuilding the team's marketing infrastructure from the ground up, shifting from traditional advertising approaches to sophisticated digital segmentation while maintaining the multi-generational appeal that makes Minor League Baseball unique. Operating in a medium-sized market with deep baseball roots, Simpson demonstrates how hyperlocal sports properties can leverage customer journey mapping, intelligent segmentation, and behind-the-scenes storytelling to drive ticket sales and build lasting fan relationships.

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Samuel Goodman, Co-Founder of Cheeky, a sleep and wellness company disrupting the dental care industry. Cheeky pioneered the direct-to-consumer night guard market by leveraging 3D printing technology to create custom dental devices at a fraction of traditional dentist prices—turning what was an $800-1,000 purchase into an affordable subscription service. Starting with zero dental industry knowledge and a cheap 3D printer purchased at a convention, the three co-founders have scaled to a seven-plus figure business serving hundreds of thousands of customers while maintaining a lean team of just four people in-house, supported by specialized external agencies.

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Shae Biron, Marketing Director at Candy Digital. Shae shares how she's building community-first Web3 experiences for DC Comics collectibles without any marketing budget—relying entirely on organic reach and cultural momentum. From creating the first AI-powered DC supervillain through community voting to launching multi-layered campaign experiences tied to major film releases, Shae reveals the tactical playbook for marketing in the participation economy. Her approach demonstrates how Web3 enables fans to transition from passive consumers to active co-creators, fundamentally changing the relationship between brands and their audiences.

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Adit Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Leena AI. Leena AI has built WorkLM, a proprietary large language model designed specifically for enterprise environments, helping Fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola, Sony, Puma, Vodafone, and Nestlé eliminate 10-12% of their total costs over three years by automating back-office operations. What started as Chatteron—a horizontal chatbot platform that attracted 30,000 users but only 20 paying customers—pivoted dramatically when the founders identified a specific, high-value use case in enterprise IT, HR, and finance support. The company now deploys AI agents that go live in 24 hours, replacing journeys that previously took enterprises 1-2 years and teams of 50+ people to build internally.

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andres Figueira interviews Kaz Komolafe, Vice President of Experiences at Sofar Sounds. Sofar Sounds has scaled from intimate living room concerts in North East London to operating in 400 cities across 78 countries, building a global network of culturally-resonant live experiences. Rather than standardizing operations across markets, Sofar empowers local leaders to curate hyperlocal experiences while maintaining quality through data-driven systems and strategic content distribution. Their approach to scaling community-driven experiences offers critical lessons for consumer marketers navigating the tension between growth and authenticity.

Stephanie Cleverly operates as a one-person people team at Because Market, a 30-person remote e-commerce startup selling bladder incontinence products to older adults. The unique challenge: building a passionate, engaged culture when your entire workforce is decades younger than your customer base. As the company's first formal HR hire, Stephanie has navigated everything from processing 14,000 applications for a single role to achieving 97% employee satisfaction and Great Place to Work certification—all while managing recruitment, engagement, compliance, and culture solo. Her approach centers on systematic employee feedback, responsible growth planning, and leveraging AI to scale a team of one into an efficient people operations function.

In this episode of The Future of Marketing, host Roman Kirsch interviews Nikos Bartzoulianos, Group Chief Marketing Officer at Electrolux Group. Leading marketing for a 100+ year-old home appliance manufacturer, Nikos is orchestrating a brand transformation that balances Swedish heritage with contemporary consumer expectations. From challenging the performance marketing orthodoxy to navigating creative decisions with 15 executives in the room, he shares tactical insights on building brands in matrixed organizations, measuring ROI beyond short-term metrics, and knowing when to trust consumer research versus when to take bold leaps of faith.

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Andrés Figueira interviews Neil Prendergast, Senior Director of Growth Marketing at Cornbread Hemp. Founded in 2019 by two Kentucky cousins with deep roots in the state's 250-year hemp cultivation history, Cornbread Hemp has scaled from a $100,000 seed investment to a $50 million DTC e-commerce business. Operating in one of the most heavily regulated consumer categories, Cornbread Hemp has had to pioneer creative marketing approaches that circumvent traditional advertising restrictions while building consumer trust in a market crowded with lower-quality competitors. Through native mobile advertising, podcast sponsorships, and rigorous quality standards including USDA organic certification and flower-only extraction, they've carved out a premium wellness position in the hemp and CBD space.

In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Brett Stapper interviews Jeff Koenig, Chief Marketing Officer of Getmyboat, the world's largest boat rental marketplace with 85,000 boats globally. After spending a decade building supply, Getmyboat has shifted entirely to demand-side marketing—a transition that reveals hard lessons about marketplace liquidity, seasonality constraints, and the strategic tradeoffs between demand capture and generation. Jeff explains how his four-person team navigates the complexity of marketing to event coordinators (not boat renters), competing against their own charter company partners, and operating in a business where weather can devastate quarterly results. From finding unexpected wins in streaming audio to the stubborn reality that TikTok remains unsolved, Jeff shares the unglamorous truth about marketing a category where the product sells itself—but only if customers know to look.