In this episode of The Speed of Culture podcast, Todd Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer at Kraft Heinz North America, joins Matt Britton live from the POSSIBLE conference in South Beach. Todd shares how one of the world&#x27;s largest food and beverage companies manages 70 iconic brands with 96 percent household penetration across a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. The conversation covers the generational divide in media consumption, Kraft Heinz’s new five-year partnership with the NFL, what it takes to build an entrepreneurial mindset inside a Fortune 500 company, and how AI is playing a supporting — not starring — role in the brand’s future. Follow Suzy on Twitter: @AskSuzyBiz Follow Todd Kaplan on LinkedIn Subscribe to The Speed of Culture on your favorite podcast platform. And if you have a question or suggestions for the show, send us an email at suzy@suzy.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Pantry to the Game Day: How Kraft Heinz Keeps Iconic Brands at the Center of Culture

The Speed of Culture Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Speed of Culture Podcast

## Participants

- **Matt Britton** (Suzy)
- **Todd Kaplan** (Kraft Heinz)

## Transcript

When you think of how endemic a lot of our brands are to the game day experience, whether it's at tailgate outside the stadium in your home as you're doing viewing parties, it just seemed like such a natural fit. To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move at an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of Suzy. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now, and how you can keep up. Welcome to The Speed of Culture.

We're here live at the Possible Conference in South Beach, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Todd Kaplan, the Chief Marketing Officer at Kraft Heinz North America. Todd's one of the most recognized marketers in the industry, known for building powerful brands and products and leading iconic businesses like PepsiCo, and now helping to shape the next era of growth for Kraft's powerhouse portfolio. Todd, so great to see you today. It's great to be here. I'm a big fan, always have been ever since the PepsiCo days, and now I know you're here at Kraft Heinz. You've been at Kraft Heinz for a couple years.

What is your take on the culture and the overall brand portfolio to oversee? And what's one thing that maybe surprised you about working at Kraft that you didn't think? Yeah, I think just the breadth of the portfolio is unlike anything else, right? We have 70 brands in North America. Between these brands, it's 96% household penetration, which if I were to open up your pantry or fridge in your kitchen, I'm sure you have five, six, seven of our brands without even thinking, right? And some of these things, which is amazing.

And a number of these brands are over 7,500, 150 years old, right? These are also a lot of legacy brands that have been around for a while. So it's a really interesting dynamic portfolio because of that, where you have these high awareness brands that need to be kind of reimagined or reintroduced to today's consumer. We need to accelerate growth between so many different business dynamics in each of these subcategories we plan as well. So we plan over 50 categories.

So it's the competitive set's different, the consumer needs are different and evolving, which makes it really fun and dynamic to come in as a marketer and think about how are we going to build these brands? How are we going to grow from start to finish? So it's been a lot of fun. And when you kind of onboard for a role such as this, we have about 70 brands, all the people under you, all the partners, where do you start in terms of onboarding, getting your arms around this opportunity? Yeah.

I mean, obviously there's been a lot of onboarding over the last year and a half since I've been there and it's been great. It's a lot of starting with consumer insights. I always start with the consumer, everythin...

From the Pantry to the Game Day: How Kraft Heinz Keeps Iconic Brands at the Center of Culture

Transcript

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From the Pantry to the Game Day: How Kraft Heinz Keeps Iconic Brands at the Center of Culture

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.