It is rare that a brand has such reach and such impact that people all over the world can not just recognize it, but have memories of using the product for generations. 

Crayola is one of those rarities. Of course, Crayola was built around the production of crayons, but throughout its more than 115 years in business, Crayola has vastly expanded its product offerings and worked to build a community of consumers who gather around the idea of creativity. But how do you sell that expanded brand and provide opportunities for customers to find and interact with you in new ways?

On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Josh Kroo, the Senior Vice President Brand Marketing and Digital Strategy at Crayola, joined us to discuss some of the strategies he is putting into place to increase brand awareness, expand digitally, and offer experiences for all kinds of audiences. Because whether your company is a century-old or a brand new startup, finding ways to adapt and expand will always be important. 

Main Takeaways:

• The YouTube Generation: A recent study reported that 81% of parents with children of children age 11 years and younger use YouTtube to find content for their kids. As more and more children — and parents — find their way onto the platform, brands need to be prepared to invest there if they want to stay relevant, as well in order to achieve relevance. 
• Can I Interest You in Some Apps?: There are a number of ways to use apps, so you have to decide the purpose and KPIs of the app you are building and then deliver the type of experience that will bring the engagement you want. And it’s important to remember that one app doesn’t have to do it all. You can have different apps for different purposes and customers — one to drive discovery and brand awareness, another to drive conversions and sales.
• Every Kind of Experience Is Available: Physical experiences with brands — whether in store or at an event — have been the bedrock of creating a connection with customers. As the world changes, though, there is more opportunity to connect with customers in a new way – through digital and hybrid experiences

For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

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Transcript:

Stephanie:

Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce. This your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show we have Josh Kroo, the senior vice president of brand marketing and digital strategy at Crayola. Josh, welcome.

Josh:

Hi, good to be here.

Stephanie:

It's really exciting to have you on. I was actually just playing with some crayons with my two-and-a-half-year-old right before this, trying to get [crosstalk] for the interview.

Josh:

Excellent, that's good. I like that.

Stephanie:

Yeah, it's top of mind now, yeah. So, I want to hear a little bit about what led you to Crayola?

Josh:

Sure. So, I grew up kind of in a traditional brand marketing capacity. I started my career at Kraft and Danon, and had spent a lot of time building businesses there, but when the opportunity came calling to come to Crayola, which is one of the most iconic brands in the world, it's one of those brands where people ... you say that you work at Crayola, and everyone sort of has A, a memory, and then B, their face lights up, and they generally ask you a fun question like, "Oh, who names the colors?"

Josh:

It's just one of those brands that has touched so many people, and pretty much everybody along the way, and so for me to get the opportunity ... I joined Crayola to lead the marketing communications group. It was an opportunity to be a part of that brand, part of the mission, which I think is really wonderful, which is all about celebrating, and nurturing, and helping to spark the creativity in children, and giving parents and teachers the tools to do that, and then the chance to bring some energy to the brand, and I don't want to say revitalize it, but contemporize it, make it relevant for today's kids and parents, and lead a great team through that process.

Stephanie:

Yeah, that's great. So, I mean, Crayola's been around since, I think it's the 1880s, right?

Josh:

Yeah, we are over 115 years old. So, started with eight little crayons. Edward Binney, our founder, his wife wanted kids to be able to color the world as they saw it, and so we launched with eight crayons. That's actually where Crayola comes from, cray meaning chalk, and ola is sort of like oily chalk with the colors. So, a lot has happened over the last 115 plus years in terms of the brand, but what's amazing is that the mission and the purpose of the company has still always really remained the same.

Stephanie:

Yeah, that's really cool. So, what does your day to day look like at Crayola, because I'm sure you've seen a lot of shifts happening over the many years that you've been there, or throughout the brand as a whole I'm sure you've heard of shifts, what are you doing now that maybe was different than a couple of years ago?

Josh:

Wow, there's a lot for unpack in that, I think-

Stephanie:

Yes.

Josh:

... first of all, my role has certainly evolved, but no, I think you can go ... or I personally can go from a meeting where we're talking about ecommerce marketing strategy, to looking at pieces of creative or creative work that we're building out for holiday, to a meeting where we're looking at what our strategy is going to be going forward from an annual planning perspective. I manage our interactive business right now, so it could be a meeting where we're looking at what are the next updates for the plans for our apps, and how are they performing? So, it really it can touch all different parts of the business, and I think that's part of the joy of working for a brand like this, and in my role. It's everything from all the brand marketing, but now most recently digging deeper into the digital and ecomm side of things, and helping to guide the company in that way. So, you never know what's going to come on any given day, but I think that's what keeps it fun.

Stephanie:

That's great. So, you were just mentioning apps, and I think that would be fun to kind of dive into Crayola's mobile efforts, because I think when I think of Crayola I, of course, think of the crayons that we have in our living room, but I'd love to hear how you guys think about building out apps, and how do you know what's going to work, or what doesn't? How do you think about what you want to invest in when it comes to that area?

Josh:

So, that's a great question. I think it's been a really interesting journey for us in the app space. We've actually been making apps for over a decade now-

Stephanie:

Oh, wow.

Josh:

... but the way that we've been doing it has really evolved. So, this predates my time even, but we had what we called here physical to digital apps, which was this idea of how do you merge physical creativity and digital creativity, and bringing them together in an app. We were working hard at that, we had the first augmented reality coloring books that were out there, we had augmented reality based animation, we had all these products, and I think ultimately what we figured out was we have to be okay with kids being creative in a digital space.

Josh:

I think overarching what you recognize is that if you look at kids' free time in a pie, they're spending more and more time with technology, depending on the age of the kid it can be upwards of 30 plus percent of their time with technology, and certainly within that, they're being creative. So, what is the best way for Crayola to play there? And we evolved from this kind of idea that you had to do something physical, or physically creative, which is at the core of what Crayola's been about for well over 100 years, to what does modern creativity look like for a kid? And I think that's really where we set out to build from, from an app perspective.

Josh:

So, looking at it, and then you start to ask yourself, and we've got a variety of different apps today, we've sort of got a flagship app called Create and Play, which is really the premium Crayola experience, everything that you could want for digital creativity that's sort of targeted to younger kids in that three to five space. And then we've got other apps that are out there that are supporting different brands or IP of products that act as a marketing vehicle. I think for our flagship app, what we really wanted was to create an experience that was if you think about opening a crayon box, what is the magical experience that a kid gets from opening a crayon box? I'm sure your two-and-a-half-year-old can relate to the smell of the crayons-

Stephanie:

I wa