Sarah Larsen, chief marketing officer of Hisense USA, is a self-described “non-traditional CMO.”
“That’s my secret weapon,” she says. “I love marketing. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and there has never been a day where I doubt if this was the right industry or career. It makes me happy every morning that I have this opportunity to do marketing.”
Larsen joined the consumer electronics and home appliances brand, Hisense USA, in December. She is on a mission to bring a customer-centric approach to the role and to bring the human experience into the equation. “People are changing and having a very diverse background makes you better equipped to be more open-minded and flexible to how the consumer landscape is shaping,” says Larsen.
Larsen’s background in earned media and agency experience is her unique marketing CMO superpower, she says. “I definitely know what it takes to promote a brand but I inherently have ingrained in my head how to protect a brand as well,” explains Larsen. “I can see risk as it’s coming up in real time in ways that a lot of my counterparts that grew up more on like the traditional ad and marketing side of the house wouldn’t necessarily recognize. My vision as a CMO is to continue in that non-traditional path.”
Brand Innovators caught up with Larsen from her office in Alpharetta, Georgia to talk about how she is growing the technology brand by showing up in culture and at retail. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you navigating the consumer landscape?
Consumers are smart. They’re people. I try to never talk about it as targeting or speaking at people. It’s so important for a CMO to never lose touch of the reality of what we’re doing.
It’s real humans and we’re helping them understand how the products, the brands, the services, whatever we are doing helps to make their lives better. That’s the underlying mission of pretty much everything that I do. Marketing is very consumer-centric. What’s in it for them and how do I effectively communicate that in a way that resonates and stands out and is memorable but also shows that we get it.
Tell me about the Hisense mission and how this shows up in your creative.
We make outstanding, phenomenal technology that’s on par, if not better, than anyone else out there, but we don’t gatekeep it. Instead we make it very attainable so you can get that top line technology at any price point. We have so many different screens and styles of viewing and home entertainment and home appliances that if you come to Hisense you have a solution for any problem.
How are you showing up in culture?
Culture is key. You have to be aware of what’s going on in the world around you because it is what every person in America is consuming. People care about culture, whatever their definition of culture is. When you look at a consumer and what their path to purchase is for whatever they decide to buy into you have to insert yourself as a brand in a very genuine and authentic way.
How do you break through in these conversations?
In the consumer electronics space it’s pretty much a sea of sameness. At Hisense, we really pride ourselves in being very consumer centric. I want to show, not tell consumers why they need Hisense. We have to write everything we do from our messaging to how we’re showing up in PR and in the media to how we are even representing ourselves in store in a very consumer centric lens.
I care about how our products are going to help make a consumer’s life better, easier and more convenient. It’s not patting myself on the back as a brand. It’s that layered approach of making sure everything we’re doing communicates to the consumer that we get them, their life and their issues and their problems and we spend our nights thinking about the solutions to make life better.
How are you thinking about retail?
Retail is huge. I am not a big fan of experiential pop-ups in major urban centers because that’s very exclusionary. Unless you live in New York City near Hudson Yards you don’t have an opportunity to take advantage of what’s going on. Retail is so important whether it’s in-store or online because consumers are already going to begin their purchase journey or start their education. If you are not present at the retail experience, you’ve already missed the boat. Retail is where I put a big percentage of my marketing budget because it helps consumers both understand the new technology and educate them on the different use cases and why Hisense products are going to be the best purchase for them.
What are the marketing challenges keeping you up at night?
There are so many. Hosting is a big theme for us because we are an official FIFA World Cup sponsor. We’re the host nation and we, at Hisense, help consumers host the best watch parties. We did a study on the state of hosting in the U.S. and found 35 percent of Americans still think getting great picture quality and color in a TV is unattainable. That’s mind-boggling to me because we’ve been working on that from a marketing perspective for decades. The fact that still 35 percent of people think they can’t afford a TV is a marketing quandary that definitely keeps me up at night. We haven’t been doing enough to show not tell consumers why our products help make their lives better. That’s a marketing challenge.
I am also a huge proponent of research, not me search. When it comes to understanding our consumer, it drives me nuts when I hear someone say, ‘Well I don’t really like that because it just doesn’t seem like something that I would do – but you might not be our demographic so honestly your opinion’s irrelevant. I have to catch myself doing that too. We bring our own biases. We can’t help it, we’re human but we should be as stringent and disciplined as possible. We should rely on the numbers both quantitative and qualitative for what a consumer is saying and not what our own opinion is.
Where do you see the opportunities in the market?
The trajectory of acceptance of technology and new tech is astronomical ever since covid. I remember having to figure out a QR code and now a two-year-old knows to scan it with their mom’s phone. It’s unbelievable how much we have accepted this wonderful world of technology and how it can make our lives better.
For all the downsides to AI, there are also a lot of upsides. It’s fascinating seeing in both professional and personal circles how different people are experimenting with AI and using it in different ways. We have gotten really good at leveraging the positives of AI and how that can help us for marketing, while being hyper-aware of how marketing with AI has its own pitfalls and to be on the watch out for those too.
Tell me what you’re seeing when working with creators and how you’re entering that realm.
I have always been very anti-influencer. I’ve gone on record as saying I have a big issue with it. My issue though is not the creators themselves, it’s more the brands and how they use them. If you are very careful about what your criteria are for a creator you partner with, it can be a very successful relationship. For example, if I am trying to sell a TV during the FIFA World Cup partnering with a creator that’s a huge soccer fan is not the right partner and a tech influencer that only talks about technology is not right for a FIFA World Cup initiative. As smart marketers we need to do that Venn diagram and find that center that combines people that influence your purchase decision but also have credibility in the lifestyle space. If you are partnering with creators that are truly the right fit for what your brand message is, then it works. I won’t just do it because someone’s a big name.
What have you got planned for FIFA?
On April 23rd we have something huge that’s going to drop. It’s a fun one. We are going to take out a page of Taylor Swift’s brilliant master class in marketing to do some easter eggs along the way. If you pay attention to what Hisense is doing, you might be able to piece together what we’re going to announce.
Tell me about how your past experiences at brands including Samsung have shaped your perspective today.
Any CMO worth their salt takes a piece of everything that they’ve done in their career with them. Your responsibility is to be the conductor and make sure all the different marketing disciplines are working in concert together.
I’ve run the gamut from retail to CPG to consumer electronics. I’ve worked at Samsung, LG, on the agency side with Unilever, McDonald’s, Walmart, Sam’s Club. The consistent thread through all of them is two-fold. One it’s know your consumer inside and out and don’t assume consumers stay the same. The worst thing that you could do is not keep checking in and doing pulse checks on consumer behaviors.
Two, empathy and emotional intelligence are the most important things you can bring to the table whether it’s with your own teams and the people that you’re sharing that office space with every single day in and day out or it’s your consumers and having empathy to where they are in their life journey – what’s happening from macro and microeconomic conditions, what’s keeping them up at night.
