Can a 125-Year-Old Brand Stay Cutting Edge?

How does a 125-year-old brand stay cutting edge? Kathy talks about UL’s purpose and structure to keep up in dozens of vertical B2B markets.

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Hey everyone, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. I had a great conversation with Kathy Seegebrecht, the Chief Marketing Officer of UL or what used to be known as Underwriters Laboratories. It's the largest independent testing laboratory in the world. They test for safety, security and sustainability. And the thing that amazes me is that every day you, me, everyone, we all use products and services they test. Yet it's not as if they're top of mind. So I wanted to hear from Kathy about that. I also wanted to know how you market a 125 year old company in new areas without sounding outdated. What's the secret to staying on top for 125 years? Spoiler alert, it's all about living the company's purpose. Check it out. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.

Transcript:

Rudy Fernandez  0:56
Welcome to Marketing Upheaval. My guest is Kathy Seegebrecht, Chief Marketing Officer of UL, which used to be known as Underwriters Laboratories. UL is the largest independent testing laboratory in the world. And chances are, you use products and services they test for safety, security and sustainability. In her four years at UL, Kathy has expanded and evolved the role of marketing there, and we're going to talk about that. So thank you for joining me, Kathy.

Kathy Seegebrecht  1:21 
Great. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited to talk about UL, one of my favorite topics.

Rudy Fernandez  1:26
UL the certification approval - it's ubiquitous, and we all use products and services that you've touched somehow, just really top level: automotive, lighting, mobility, technology, building materials, healthcare, energy, utilities, financial transactions, it's everywhere, all sorts of consumer products. But here's my first question is: Given all that, as a CMO, who is your customer?

Kathy Seegebrecht  1:51 
We certainly have a very broad customer base. We service clients who buy products and wants to know if it's safe, secure or sustainably sourced. We have clients that sell products, who want to know if it meets regulations, where they want to sell it. And then we have clients who make products, who want to know all of those things. So our customers include brand owners, retailers, manufacturers and banking institutions. And that really just names some of the bigger client categories. We're firmly a B2B company. However, consumers are also really interested in what we do, and they benefit from our work, so thus you can see I've got the challenge as marketing all of those services, all of those various customer bases.

Rudy Fernandez  2:26 
That's really what I wanted to get into. That seems overwhelming. How do you reach your customers or engage with them?

Kathy Seegebrecht  2:35
It's interesting because our customer base actually gets even more complex when you get down to the persona level. So we work with a variety, wide variety of customers whose titles range from quality assurance, regulatory compliance, workplace health and safety.

The rest of the transcript is available at: https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/10/30/kathy-seegebrecht-cmo-of-ul-underwriters-laboratories-o

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