Get to Know ZOOM’s Storyteller Rockstar
Lori Smith has been an inspiring force behind ZOOM’s success since 2012. She’s led over 100 client projects and spearheaded ZOOM’s own marketing. Lori is a rare bird, equal parts creativity and efficiency with a dash of wit. An accomplished singer-songwriter, Lori is ZOOM’s rock star. Get to know her below.
How did you get into marketing?
Looking back, two moments planted the marketing seed—one in grade school and one in high school. The first was in 6th grade English class when our teacher, Mr. Howard, offered a special segment on advertising. The assignment: create, name, design the packaging, and record a 30-second TV ad for a cereal product. I had never been so excited about anything in school…well, except maybe for music!
We did a brainstorm to name the cereal and the target audience, my first foray into data-driven marketing. It was definitely a sugar cereal. What kid in the 80s wouldn’t pick sugar as the type of cereal to market? The name I don’t remember. But I remember the packaging. The box was shaped as an upward arrow; the concept was that it brings you up! It was the coolest cereal box I’d ever seen. We also recorded a video, which was our ad, convincing kids they should eat our cereal for great energy.
Coca-Cola’s popular Fruitopia, a brand Lori conceived of in high school a decade earlier
I went on to study four years of graphic design in high school. It was here that my creativity flourished, brainstorming new ideas and compelling ways to communicate through visuals. One assignment was to create a brand. I was inspired by all the warm, bright Color-aid paper I cut up and used to make up the brand Fruitopia, which I imagined as a bottled smoothie line. A decade later, Coca-Cola went to market with their own version of my brainchild, targeted at teens and young adults. Fruitopia quickly gained hype in the mid-90s.
After high school, I studied social psychology to get under how people respond to certain stimuli. I've been learning real-world marketing since my first job at an ad agency.
How is ZOOMer Lori like songwriter Lori?
Well, at ZOOM we create stories. Songs are stories. With songwriting there are no bounds on what I can write—it’s completely made up based on my perspective. A melody and concept will come to me when I wake in the morning or when I’m out with friends. My muse may sing just a phrase in my ear, then I sit down and write based on what the song means to me or what I want to convey. Obviously, the big difference is I’m not only writing words, but the music that carries them and (ideally) woos my audience.
Lori performing her song “Thunderdome,” at The Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California
At ZOOM, I wield my creativity within clear boundaries—such as personas to which our clients are selling, competitors, the industry at large and the economy; not to mention the multiple personalities within our client teams that we need to rally around our process and their story.
Both ZOOMing and singing are opportunities to move an audience with a story that speaks to them, that connects with them. In business as in music, sometimes it seems everything’s been said so the goal is to stand out. Strong positioning and strong songwriting are both about being specific; it is the details that power universal connection. The challenge is to intrigue the audience with something to which they can relate that is fresh and memorable.
The best compliment is when people tell me my song is an earworm or “stuck in their head.” It’s the same for positioning, when I see a client become a unicorn, I know that our positioning played a part.
What do you like about ZOOM?
“In the sea of sameness, it’s a fun challenge to figure out what’s truly different about each client and how to express it in a way that is clear and resonates with the market.”
I like that we have a data-driven process that we can apply to any client yet come up with completely different answers. The method is the same but the ingredients are different. In the sea of sameness, it’s a fun challenge to figure out what’s truly different about each client and how to express it in a way that is clear and resonates with the market. What’s the secret to getting their unique message across? What words and phrases are the landmines or, as prospects will tell us, “sound like marketing” and what’s the secret language customers use?
I’m also a nut about efficiency, another reason ZOOM’s process suits me. And I am always advocating for ways to automate the administrative parts of our process so we can all focus on the content and develop creative breakthroughs that only humans can do.
At ZOOM I love that I can bring together all my creative and resourceful strengths: ideation, storytelling, writing and visuals. Now all I need to do is come up with a ZOOM jingle.