\n\tMarketers face an increasingly pitched battle to grab consumers\u2019 attention. And increasingly, they\u2019re making it harder for themselves by taking aim at too narrow of a target.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat was one of the conclusions drawn during the session focused on reaching \u201cthe new American consumer,\u201d held April 24 as part of Variety<\/em>\u2018s Entertainment Marketing Summit presented by Deloitte. Later in the day, a selection of top franchise and brand management executives weighed in on the importance of world-building to extend the life of content franchises.<\/p>\n \n\tChina Widener, Deloitte vice chair and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications industry leader, and Gayle Troberman, executive marketing advisor for iHeartMedia, talked about the challenges of sifting through huge volumes of data to develop effective marketing messages.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat you want from the consumer is their time. You want their resources and you want their engagement. And so you have to understand where they are,\u201d Troberman said. Troberman warned the crowd in Hollywood about missing the forest for the trees with the heavy emphasis on advanced advertising formats that now fuel sales.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cPart of the problem is we are targeting our way to oblivion. We are targeting our way to irrelevance. We need to talk to more people to sell more stuff. Not just people who love Taylor Swift and this kind of shoe and have cats and are really into pop music,\u201d Troberman said. \u201cIf Taylor Swift just targeted Swifties, she wouldn\u2019t be Taylor Swift and the Eras Tour wouldn\u2019t have done a billion dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTroberman cited iHeartMedia research indicating that many consumers feel \u201cunseen\u201d by marketers. Widener cited Deloitte research that supports Troberman\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIs this a function of we\u2019re trying to reach too many people too broadly and in a way that sort of whitewashes the notion of what actually matters to them,\u201d Widener said. \u201cThe average consumer is spending six hours of time [on media] across multiple platforms. Whether that\u2019s on the little screen on their phone, whether that\u2019s actually streaming, whether that\u2019s movies, whether that\u2019s audio, it\u2019s six hours a day. But in those six hours, the battle for their time and attention is extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe session on franchises and world-building was moderated by Rohith Nandagiri, managing director of Deloitte Consulting.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBecause of the saturation of content, it becomes much more interesting and much more engaging when you include things like building a franchise, merchandising and the way you distribute different content pieces and ancillary products,\u201d Nandagiri said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tDeloitte Consulting\u2019s Rohith Nandagiri, Pinterest\u2019s Sara Pollack, AGBO\u2019s Marian Koltai-Levine, Matte\u2019s Josh Silverman and NBCUniversal\u2019s David O\u2019Connor attend the Variety Entertainment Marketing Summit presented by Deloitte<\/em><\/span> \n\tJosh Silverman, chief franchise officer of Mattel, emphasized that franchise management is a huge part of the toy business \u2014 one aspect that it has in common with entertainment.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe leverage insights, we leverage research. We don\u2019t think about consumers, we think about fans because it expands our aperture,\u201d Silverman said. \u201cHow do we create an interconnected ecosystem truly on a global basis that allows our fans [to engage], whether it\u2019s a T-shirt or a toy, whether it\u2019s a live or a digital experience, whether it\u2019s a film or a piece of content on YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDavid O\u2019Connor, president of franchise management and brand strategy for NBCUniversal Studio Group, echoed the sentiments of the earlier session with Widener and Troberman.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cAs much as we like to develop global strategies, you still have to think locally and you still have to activate locally and evolve some of the creative and some of those consumer touchpoints and strategies that you might have had in place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tO\u2019Connor offered an example of how fan enthusiasm helped the studio realize that its \u201cJurassic Park\u201d film series had untapped potential. \u201cWe really wanted to understand just how potent that property was,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did a big global study and found this property was as powerful as any of them out there.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMarian Koltai-Levine, chief marketing officer for AGBO, the content venture lead by Joe and Anthony Russo, said the brothers\u2019 focus has been to look outside the U.S. for new talent and new sources of viewership and fandom.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe\u2019re also very much globally oriented. When you look at all of our projects, you\u2019ll see we have a lot of regional productions,\u201d Koltai-Levine said. \u201cWe did a film in Arabic. We\u2019ve done a film in an Italian. [2020\u2019s] \u2018Extraction\u2019 was actually very little in English, it was mostly in Hindi. We make a very concerted effort to be respectful and aware of these regional fan bases and offer a look that you wouldn\u2019t have normally.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSara Pollack, global head of consumer marketing for Pintrest, said a great deal of activity on the platform for crafts and projects revolves around expressions of fandom.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe way that it was when I was growing up \u2014 we probably had posters all over our walls of what we were into. That very much happens on Pinterest now,\u201d Pollack said. \u201cTo the extent that fandom is about your identity, Pinterest is a platform where people really do come to sort of figure out their identity and express their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2211828585.jpg?w=1024\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVariety via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n