Speaker Links
- Personal
McKee Floyd
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Sweetlife
A month ago sweetgreen, a Washington D.C. based salad and yogurt company, started a new online magazine with only one rule: don't talk about anything sweetgreen.
Instead of serving as a soapbox for All Things Spinach, the website (http://sweetlife.is) is a destination for music, food, fashion, and lifestyle musings. Internally, the blog serves as a location for sweetgreen to constantly redefine and understand the concept we call the sweetlife. Building upon sweetgreen's expansion into the music space with the sweetlife festival this past May, the site will lead the sweetgreen brand into new ventures and spaces, as opposed to chronicling its daily moves for consumers (as most corporate blogs typically do).
As the Director of Brand Development for sweetgreen, in 5 minutes I will explain why we went out on a limb to invest our time and money on a marketing venture that does not allow us to even mention our product, and what I believe this says about the future of marketing and creating emotional connections with retail consumers. I will also shed light on what sweetgreen sees for the future of the sweetlife and the new circles the brand will move in.
About McKee Floyd:
After graduating from the University of St. Andrews in 2008 with a Masters in International Relations, McKee moved to Washington D.C. as a Legislative Assistant for Congressman John Tierney (D- MA). In 2010, McKee chose to leave her career on Capitol Hill to open Washington D.C.'s first whoopie pie bakery - Whoops! Bakeshop, which she ran during the summer and fall of 2010. After closing her bakery, McKee joined the digital and experiential marketing firm iStrategyLabs and in the spring of 2011 McKee led iStrategyLabs team as the experiential and digital strategy firm for sweetgreen's sweetlife festival. After the completion of the festival she rejoined sweetgreen's ranks as their Director of Brand Development.
McKee's work has been featured in national publications including NBC Washington, the Hill, and AOL. Her writings have appeared in AOL City's Best, and All Things Go, and she has consulted on product development with national brands Nestle Toll House and Willy Wonka Candies.
