Welcome to Knight Talks, the Uni of Florida College of Journalism and Communications talk show produced by students for student Im Maha Nhiri, a senior studying advertising.

And our guest today is Leigh Rad a CJC graduate who spent over 30 years in leade roles with Proctor and Gamble building and growing brands such as Olay and Vicks.

And now she's a board member for multiple organizations, includin E.W.

Scripps Company and Goodwill Industries Internat Hi Leigh.

Thank you so much for being here It's great to be here.

You earned your bachelors degree in advertising from UFs College of Journalism and Communications.

What drew you to the field of ad You know, what drew me was a com of creative and business, and that's what I felt the advertising industry did.

And I absolutely loved it.

And I've always had a creative s and I've always loved that busin And I wanted to really see the b side of advertising come forward And the experience I got here was was astronomical.

I still think about my campaigns but I minored in business and the live experience I had on where I led many, you know, student groups and different creative articulations on the Ac I dont know if that's even here it's still here today.

Or the Celebration, which is a fine arts celebration So I was able to take my adverti and put it into different type of campaigns, even when I was here on campus, that took me and gave me a portf before I even left.

It's interesting, I was just pul my old portfolio as I was cleani and, you know, all the things I were really the cornerstone of e that led to me getting eventuall into Procter and Gamble.

After college, you worked for Ea Continental Airlines.

What was your responsibility as of Sales, Planning and Developme Well, airlines, a lot of people know, airlines has a sales force And it was right after deregulat we were out there selling our pa So meeting packages, travel for corporate planning and corporate meetings.

And so I was responsible for a l planning organization of the sal So I started off in sales where I was out calling on corpo and calling on travel agents.

And then I was promoted into a planning position where I organize and plan the needs of what the sales orga needed corporately to be success And what inspired you to pursue degree in business administratio from the Northwestern University at this time?

I always wanted to go back for m I think the passion for business and I also knew I wanted to aspi to even greater heights, and I w to have that that Masters behind At the time I was in the travel I thought I may stay in the airline business.

And Northwestern had an amazing international bus and travel business and marketing business.

So I was able to focus on those concentrations when I went back And what made you stay away from the airline industry?

Well, I graduated in 91 and alth love the industry, it's very, ve It's a tough business.

And I saw a lot of it, which was you know, a bit challenging at t And I wanted to have something more stable.

Proctor and Gamble had come to m even though a lot of my resume focused on airlines and travel a Hey, would you consider coming t And so I strayed because I knew P&G was an amazing company that would give me an amazing ca and could take me back really to my marketing and advertising which it beautifully did.

How did you get your first oppor with Procter and Gamble?

They interviewed me on campus, so they approached me and said, I know your airline background and your resu but you look like an amazing lea Would you consider coming to P&G So I interviewed and I got my po at Procter and Gamble, and then 31 plus years later, I eventually retired.

And brand manager over oral care What were your main goals and ch I started in the oral care category with P&G, and that big brands such as Crest and Sco and those are our main big busin And I also did some innovation t And as a assistant brand manager start in a company, you learn th You learn about how do you do your marketing for your planning, your advertising, the positioning of the brands and of course new product develo And how did those goals and chal change when you became the brand for personal cleansing products?

Well, personal cleansing, you always want to advance.

And there was an opportunity to get a brand manager position where you really start owning the P&L of the business.

And so I was able to move into, first of all, the global Safegua But then the iIvory business whe the Ivory business, which is P&G longest standing brand.

Actually one of the first brands that brought branding into the w And so it was a classic brand, and I was able to run a business and continue to grow it and deve and then just continue on from t And what are some of the campaig you did for Ivory?

Well, it's very interesting.

Ivory is over a hundred year old Everyone probably knows it, 99 and 44, 10 And it had a lot of history, but it also became a little bit And at the same time, we brought new innovation that brought a more moisturizing care to the business.

So I had a new brand, a new prod the brand that I was looking to And we brought back the Ivory Ba and that's how Ivory started.

You know, gentle enough for your And that was an amazing campaign that really launched the busines you know, 50 years plus ago.

And we brought it back.

I even brought back Brooke Shiel who is one of our original Ivory and started to do that with the brand as well.

So it was an amazing opportunity and just a classic brand.

Having those opportunities to wo those businesses is a delight.

You became the Marketing Director of Global Skin Products How was this role different than the previous It starts getting broader.

When you've become a marketing d you have multiple brands underne You have bigger organizations, and I always want to get into be So Ivory was my first step into the beauty business, and th was just an amazing business we had acquired from Riches and And had a big growth opportunity And so I started in the personal part of Olay and their body wash business and then moved into their main s and did that for many years.

And it was also a big global bus Ivory was a U.S. business.

We were also in Canada, but mainly it was a US business.

As we went into Olay, we were in markets around the world.

And so then I got global marketing and global brand creat and campaign development, and that was a lot of fun.

And it was a business and brand that kind of had also similar to Ivory, it needed to be refres Everyone thought of Olay as Oil You're probably too young to even know that.

But that was originally the name and people thought it was for their grandmother.

And oil, why would I put that on And so we dropped the “Oil of ”.

Really relaunched it as Olay and it became, you know, an amazing 10-12 years rapid growth.

And you then held several vice president general manager positions for Procter and Gamble care, Vicks and Olay brands.

How were you able to influence their growth and su Those were amazing, amazing care So I started on Olay, as I had m and I was there for many, many y and we had grown.

We introduced Total Effects, which was the first time we went from a $7.99 average retail to o for a jar of beauty skin product And then we launched Regenerous, literally is synonymous with Ola And that's really how the brand And then I expanded it around th along with some great campaigns.

The Love Your Skin Youre In cam just amazing because it was a way of loving w And some men use Olay as well.

A lot of people don't know that.

They should for all these viewer And it just allowed us to really reposition the brand on a global basis.

And to the campaign idea, we were able to say, love the skin youre in, regardl of who you are and what is the b There's not one definition of be And that was really important for us to say.

And the brand responded really, really well on that.

And so what are the challenges you had as senior vice president You know, even doing global camp when you have multiple markets t you know, some are more successful than ot And, you know, I do believe and what we've learned, that the global consumer is very very similar.

But there is a nuance and those are really important when you're talking to consumers and trying to get them to buy your products And so one of the biggest challe you know, I had as a vice presid running those businesses is how do you get a campaign togeth so the brand looked like it was So on a packaging and artwork an and feel and just bringing those And then also making sure consumer insights, as we did loc you know, commercial shoots and that would bring local insights But the brand was still a unifie And we did that on Vicks, as wel And Vicks is also a very old established b again in over 150 markets.

But it was more fractured and it was also more complex bus from a regulatory standpoint.

What you could say and couldn't say in the United S NyQuil was one of our big sub br In some markets, NyQuil didn't e So how do you think about growing a big business when even the lineup isn't the s And so those are some of the cha how do you really think about growing an entire business while growing an equity that is critical for the long term success?

And we had an amazing campaign on Vicks called Breathe And it goes again back to the heritage of Vicks, which was the sinus brand of vap A lot of people know about VapoR breathing in when you're not fee and that is still a big insight today around the world.

And so we really went back to that insight of breathe life in to feel better for all of our line of respiratory products.

And do you have any other favorite campaigns or executions that you've had a hand in?

Yeah, gosh there were many.

You know, we talked about the Iv I also probably, you know, my Ivory was the return to pureness, was a bi But I think those are the two bi and they lasted many, many years A really good campaign, you know are the ones that you really inv over the years.

And what goes into a successful Great question.

The number one advice I give anyone going into adverti is really the partnership with the corporate side of advertising and the agency side of advertisi Some of my best friends today came from the agency side, and we were really responsible for growing the brand, the busin and the strategy.

But making that come alive, I really relied on the creative, you know, knowledge and expertise of our agency part And really by having that magic and really working on those rela is probably the biggest advice I will say on any piece of advertising, but especially global campaigns, because it's really important that core strategic group really understands and are toget and what the future of that bran So when you go to execute in cou after country after country, it stays together.

What were some of the challenges that you had with going on an international s Yeah, the biggest challenges we is just keeping it together because we didn't do a lot of local production, or like global, you know, production that we cen We still did it out in the marke And so we just need to make sure that strategy was so clear and the design elements were so and the logo was so clear.

And really making sure that ever and the guardrails of the brand.

And then also leave the flexibil for the creativity on the local insights that we talked earlier.

I think that's the biggest chall and just motivating everyone because sometimes there are mark that may believe something else is better than wh trying to propose on a global sc And one thing that I found worke really well is to allow them to test it, because good ideas come from eve And sometimes our great ideas- Pantene is another example.

I did work on Pantene, but our global Pantene came out that wonderful hair flip shot.

And so if we didn't allow for local creativity, I'm not sure that would have bee the global campaign or visualization of the campaign So I think it's about pulling it but with enough flexibility and listening to the people in t that are closer to the consumer in a lot of regard.

And then test and learn and evol and always know that you're not always right.

From a leadership standpoint, how do you keep everyone else motivated in these situations?

A lot is gaining an enrollment, the trust that you build with the relationship with your and also your organization.

I am truly a believer that great leaders are built on and believing in others.

And believing in their ideas and testing their ideas, knowing that your ideas are neve not always right.

Cause they are right, not always And I think the biggest thing is really opening up with your agencies and particula especially going global, that you allow that flexibility and the listening to evolve.

You founded P&G Ventures in 2015 as senior vice president-general What is P&G Ventures and how did it come to be?

Well, it's very interesting.

P&G Ventures, a lot of people kn about the surge of startups that were taking place and reall to eat at some of the big corpor And especially on recruiting.

We were losing a lot of great pe going to more of a startup world And we also knew some amazing in was coming out of startups and v And so I was approached by the chairman of the company and asked if I would think about coming in and helping to create for Procter and Gamble.

And it wasn't necessarily someth I wanted to do, believe it or no I came to P&G to run big global multibillion dollar b and what was needed is creation of new brands.

And P&G had always been known as creating new categories such as Swiffer or Febreeze or Pampers or Pringles.

And we needed some more of those And we started getting a lot of on the street saying, hey, we need to see that local innova coming.

Well, what was so interesting on my Vicks experience and also on my Olay experience, I was one of those vice presidents-general managers that created brands from brands.

We talked on Olay about Regenerous and Total Effects, which were re step change the growth of that b similar to our Vicks brand.

I introduced ZzzQuil.

Hopefully you guys have all heard of ZzzQu And that was just a major win.

So I was really approached by th of the time, we need more brands How can you help us create brand And even though it wasn't someth I necessarily wanted to do, I wanted to take on the challeng definitely wanted to support the And I realized going into the ve world was a good way of doing th and looking and working with sta and innovating in a different wa What I knew was the way we had to innovate in the past may not be the way we need to innovate in the futur So I created a venture group, roughly 150 individuals, both on all technical sides, mar the full lot.

And we worked both internally and externally to find unique te or brands or ideas that met big unmet needs.

And that's how P&G Ventures was Can you provide some examples of successful new brand launches under P&G Ventures and how you w to foster innovation?

We launched four brands when I w which, you know, was a pretty bi and then we were working on 25 more in our portfolio.

Probably the one we like to talk most is Zevo.

And Zevo is still a fairly new b but it's growing amazing.

And Zevo takes Procter and Gambl into the non toxic insect contro And that was a big industry that disruption because there was no and most of the products that we there were were fairly toxic.

And we wanted to provide and con wanted without the harm to their family or pets.

And that is what we found.

And that was one of our big brea innovations.

We found the innovations by looking with and working with from all over the country.

A little technology out of Vande a little technology out of Los Angeles, a little technology out Boston, and brought it together and created an amazing brand.

So tough on bugs but safe on famili And with a 30 year career at Procter and Gamble, what was like climbing through the ranks organization rather than leaving And how did the culture there encourage internal career advanc I loved having a corporate career, loved it.

But I was also in a corporation that had a lot of options.

We had over 150 brands, 150 mark So the ability of growth was so and they did an amazing job of c to challenge and grow and advanc and prepare, you know, leaders for senior level positions.

It's not to say I never thought about leaving.

But when I did look, I always co to what I had and I always wante And where do you see the advertising industry going f Wow, It's changing rapidly.

I mean, it's already changed very quickly in my career timefr I mean, everything that's in front of us is AI, rig And the creative content that can come out of that.

You're already seeing the consol the role of creativity and creat I think is going to continue to I mean, the media is changing so of how people are absorbing adve and what they're willing to sit or what they're willing to engag will continue to evolve.

So both from the media, the creativ and even the industry, how it is created is very differ You know, back in the early days we would spend sometimes up to $1,000,000 on an advertising production.

You don't really need to do that And so even production is changi And so it's going to be an amazi industry to continue to be part But I think the one thing that w the same is a need for creative consumer insights and advertising and creative tha the minds and hearts of consumer to think about your product diff In the advertising field, there's a lot of research that g How important is that research that goes into that?

Yeah, the one thing about resear that's changing dramatically is how instant it is.

And one example, you know, we talked about Olay when I did that global campaign.

I mean, the amount of research a we spent to qualify Regenerous was staggerin But we also knew we had really one chance to get because the way that the media w at that time, you would go vertical investment you had to get them on the shelv And so you spend millions and millions of dollars right out th And if you didn't have it right, to pretty disastrous consequence And now especially what I learne in Ventures, you know, on Zevo we would literally launch iterat of iteration of creative and content and advertising and and insight that we could do within 24 hours and just get research back so you could perfect what your m and your creative articulation was very, very little costs, money or time We spoke about your advertising but who was behind that and helped you to achieve all those goals that you had?

Yeah.

You need a team.

You really need a team.

I have my husband, John.

He's also a fellow Gator.

Has been supporting me from day He's the one that literally pack up, followed me to Northwestern, followed me to Cincinnati, built his career while really en And being the global leader, I travel a lot.

I mean, around the world.

A lot.

And so I also have twin boys who are now 18.

You know, they're seniors in hig hopefully future Gators.

But I needed that support staff and then it goes extends out to my parents and my family but they were never local.

But I attribute a lot to my family and John, but also all of my mentors, my bosses, my friends, those net You know, the expression, it takes a village.

It does take a village.

And I could never have accomplis what I did without the support of the people around me.

And as a woman, how do you navigate everything and what was your experience in the advertising field?

Sometimes it was a lot, but to the point of having the s staff and having people you trus You know, we talked trust earlier in the interview, which is what I believe is the n thing for success in business.

And it's not only trust in the people who work under you but trust the people above you and the people around you.

And when you kind of have an environment of trust, it provides an amazing support s around you to get things done.

I could never have done my caree that support beams all around me Since retiring from Procter and in early 2022, you've become an industry adviso for Cross Creek as well as board for Fast Studios, Heaven Hill Brands, VF Corporation, Women's Sports Network and the E Scripps Company.

Tell us about the work you're involved in now.

Sure.

It sounds like a lot.

Most of its board work, and that was always a vision for I love corporate business and I always wanted to even look at that and participate on a board level And so I had the wonderful oppor but something I worked even befo I retired from P&G, that I knew where my next path was going to I love the Scripps Company.

It takes me back to the roots on you know, broadcast and advertis And it's such a changing industr Interesting along with that, I'm on Fast Studios, which is a where we're into the connected T and providing new content for all the connected TVs that are out there.

And we just launched Women's Sports Network, which is all exclusive women's sports cha that's available for consumers t And we're very pleased with how that's doing as well.

And then I do some venture work staying close to startups.

So Cross Creek Ventures, where I'm an advisor as well as VF Cor You probably know that by North Vans and Timberland and things like that.

And we just spun off their ventu into Wild Creek Ventures.

And that's very similar to what I did at Proctor and Gam We didn't spin off but having that experience of how do you create venture within a big corporation?

And I still wanted to give back and do a lot in that regard.

And then also nonprofit.

So Goodwill International, a lot of people don't know that' an $8 billion nonprofit and one of the biggest contribut of getting people off of federal you know, removing barriers for individuals to really, you know, get their feet under t and, you know, provide productiv to their family and themselves.

And that has been amazing.

And I'm working very close with We just launched a new campaign Goodwill because a lot of people totally misunderstand that brand and what they do for people in our communities.

And so being able to take my adv and campaign work and put it towards real good and growth has been a Thats amazing.

And what advice do you have for someone like me wholl be entering the advertisi industry?

It's an amazing industry, changing very quick.

One thing I always say, and I th this a lot with people in advert or broadcasting or any of the fi is there's a big passion.

You know, we pick, you know, tho because we're passionate.

And so the biggest advice is follow your passion and continue to evolve where the industry is evolving.

So don't think there's one way to think of advertising.

Even when I was here, I don't think I even had the vis of the corporate side of adverti Everyone thought about agencies.

And I love the agency side, but I love even more the corpora So keep your eyes open and go ex but follow your passion and continue to make the change in this indus is available to us.

Thank you for your insight, Leig And thank you for giving me some on the advertising industry.

And thank you for our viewers for joining us today.

Until next time, goodnight.