Ken Stern

Ken is a strategic thinker whose creativity, deep business experience in multiple industries, and commitment to collecting and analyzing pertinent project data infuse every project he undertakes.

Throughout his career at the helm of retail, healthcare, event, and experiential advertising and marketing agencies, Ken has demonstrated a unique ability to translate market data to create and produce numerous highly successful, integrated, and innovative consumer and trade campaigns for local, regional and national retail and media accounts including cable networks, TV network affiliates, and radio stations.

Selected Work Experience

1. Brickyard Mall Planning and Presentation

Ken was instrumental in successfully developing the Brickyard Mall in Chicago, the country’s first public/private partnership of its kind. He gathered all the economic and demographic data and then researched the competition, historical background, traffic counts, and more. He then packaged this data and the developer information to produce the mortgage presentation shown to the lending institutions. He also created the marketing campaign for the center opening. The project was so successful that the developer was asked to make a presentation to the Mayor’s Council in Atlanta, Georgia, and again a week later at the White House. To accommodate this request, Ken produced a multi-media presentation featuring eight synchronized slide projectors and four film projectors detailing the project’s history and public/private cooperation.

2. “Retailtainment” and Experiential, Integrated, Omnichannel Marketing

Ken pioneered “retailtainment” marketing and experiential, integrated, omnichannel marketing programs. These programs, which occurred simultaneously in thousands of retail stores across the country, featured in-store entertainment to generate increased trade merchandising support and consumer takeaway for some of the nation’s largest food brands.

3. Sponsored Entertainment to Generate Retail Merchandising Support

For national brands, Ken pioneered sponsored entertainment events and concert tours designed to gain incremental retail merchandising support and generate consumer takeaway, including Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton and Barry Manilow for multiple Procter & Gamble and Kraft brands, The Beach Boys for Borden Snacks, the Moody Blues for Alberto-Culver and Frank Sinatra for Seagram. He operated two touring companies for ABC TV Networks, Saturday morning cartoon shows that visited over 40 malls and state fairs each year.

4. Launch of Fruitopia Juice Brand: Coca-Cola’s launch of its Fruitopia brand juice drink was a unique project.

Research showed that the Gen X target demographic was not interested in anything that felt “commercial” to them. They were drinking less soda and more juice. To cater to Gen Z’s behavioral tendencies, Ken created an experiential campaign that became the most successful promotion in Coke’s history. The Fruitopia tour was a mobile tour that utilized performance artists (Buskers) from all over the world and visited more than 65 markets in six “retrofitted” graphically arresting school buses — an industry first that propelled mobile marketing into the experiential marketing spotlight. The tour lasted nine weeks, generated more than $2M in free publicity, and sampled more than 1M bottles of Fruitopia. Before visiting each market, Ken’s group had to research where Gen X lived, worked, and played and prepare daily itineraries where the tour busses would appear.