Transcript The Youth Trust - Solutions Marketing

Unlocking the Power
of America’s Youth
Our Mission
• Our focus is to understand and interpret the ever-changing relationship
between the wants and needs of youth and the influences which guide
their attitudes, usage and purchase behavior.
• Our commitment is to help companies develop and grow their
business through a more responsible relationship with America’s youth
by providing fact-based strategies drawn from our proprietary studies
of kids across a broad spectrum of businesses and brands.
• Our organization is committed to assembling an experienced team of
researchers, child development specialists and business experts who
will work to provide member companies with direction which will
help them unlock the power of America’s youth.
Business Rationale
•
We understand that it is challenging to keep abreast of the ever-changing
youth market. Until now, there has been no affordable way to access
information on a periodic basis which helps to define the choices kids
make and the degree to which these are influenced by parents, teachers
and peers.
•
We appreciate that too often we define our competitive set by the brands
with which we directly compete rather than the world as it is defined by
the way kids live. We also recognize that “success” is very often achieved
by applying the lessons learned from another category.
•
The Youth Trust responds to these issues with three business units …..
Business Structure
Youth Consult
Provides results driven solutions to clients in the areas of
Strategy Facilitation, Business Development, Marketing
Planning, Licensing and Creativity Coaching.
Youth Vest
Applies know-how to start-up companies in the youth
market which involves securing financing, building the
commercialization strategy and/or acting as line
management with focus on sales and marketin
Founding Partners
Mr. Llewellyn P. Smith has more than two decades of sales, marketing,
entrepreneurial and general management experience. He began his career in sales and
marketing positions with Playtex, Oscar Mayer and Keebler rising to the position of
Director of Sales and Marketing. He moved into the service sector upon joining the
Promotional Consulting Division of Marketing Corporation of America (MCA ) where
he achieved the position of Managing Director. He left MCA in 1986 to form
Connecticut Marketing Associates consulting for American Airlines, Lotus 1-2-3 and
Ocean Spray. In 1990 established Solutions Marketing, a direct marketing, promotion
and branding consultancy which was acquired by Grey Advertising in 1994. He
continued to serve as President of Solutions Marketing as a division of Grey
Advertising adding expertise in youth publishing and co-marketing for Vlassic, Best
Foods and Tropicana. In 2001 he re-established an independent Solutions Marketing
and worked with Thompson Murray to help Coke and BIC improve their Wal-Mart
business and relationship.
Mr. Smith is a board advisor to Viro-Free and Ursinus College and board President of
STAR, Inc., Lighting the Way. He graduated from Ursinus College and received his
Masters in consumer behavior from Wheaton College.
Mr. Smith is married to Christy and lives in Darien, Connecticut with their three
children
Founding Partners
Mr. J. Baxter Urist has a diverse background of building brands & businesses globally
through strategic partnerships for both nonprofit and for profit organizations with a special
emphasis on kids. Most recently Baxter helped The Smile Train, a foundation founded to
help cure the problem of cleft lip and palate for over 17,000 children.
For ten years Baxter was Group President of International Television and Global Product
Licensing at Children’s Television Workshop. Under Baxter’s leadership the number of
viewers who watched Sesame Street doubled globally by expanding into Russia, Poland,
Egypt, China, South Africa, and even an Israeli-Palestinian version. Also under Baxter’s
leadership licensing mushroomed at CTW with the #1 selling toys globally two years
running, Tickle Me Elmo and Sing-and-Snore-Ernie.
Before joining CTW Mr. Urist was Vice President of Marketing at Emery Worldwide where
he managed the global marketing of business-to-business overnight delivery. Baxter started
his career at Richardson Vicks in marketing helping to grow such famous brands as NyQuil,
Vicks Formula 44 and Oil of Olay.
Originally form California, Mr. Urist received his BA in Cultural Anthropology and Business
from the University of the Pacific where he earned the Outstanding Humanitarian Award in
2001. He has a Masters in International Management from Thunderbird International School
of Management in Arizona. He and his wife Sandra live in Westport, Connecticut with their
four children.
Founding Partners
Mr. Dennis W. Perry has more than twenty-five years of
global marketing and
general management experience. His early career was in sales and product management
with Oral-B, Richardson-Vicks and Chesebrough Ponds. Subsequently, he was a partner
with the Consulting Group of Marketing Corporation of America ( MCA ). In 1987, he
became President of the New York based Connor Toy Corporation and in 1990 became
COO and later CEO of the Hong Kong based HCL Group which markets and distributes
over 125 brands in fifteen countries throughout the Asia Pacific region. During Mr.
Perry’s tenure with the HCL Group, he increased profitability five-fold and successfully
completed the sale of HCL to the Dutch group, Hagemeyer, N.V.. Upon his return to the
United States, Mr. Perry worked for United Distillers and Vintners and was later Group
CEO for Vtech Electronics, the learning products division of the Hong Kong based
Vtech holdings with headquarters in New York.
Mr. Perry has been a member of the Board of the Toy Industry Association and former
Chairman of the Watchdog Early Learning and Development Center in Hong Kong
which serves Cantonese and English speaking children with developmental delays. He
is currently on the Board of Advisors for the Nantucket Cottage Hospital and a trustee of
St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Mr. Perry is a graduate of Boston University and has an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson
University. He and his wife Martha live in New Canaan, Connecticut with their three
children.