COre Competencies

Inspired, innovative marketing • brand management • analysis • strategy • synergistic campaign management • quantitative and qualitative research and ROI analysis • competitive analysis • excellent written and verbal communication skills

Ad agency background

Foote, Cone and Belding, Goldberg Moser O’Neill, Grey Advertising, and Ketchum
Key agency account contact with consecutive advancements. Led multi-functional teams. Autodesk and Adobe Systems accounts:  Participated in re positioning world-wide positioning of Autodesk and its product lines.  Positioned products for success based on insights garnered through consumer research. Additional accounts: Acura model launches, Kia Motors launches, Sonicare Power toothbrush, C&H Sugar, Hunt-Wesson Lucky Stores and Round Table Pizza.

Prior Experience

Pacific Marketing Associates/The Mark Company (Real-estate Marketing Consulting Firm)
Senior Marketing Manager

Black Angus Restaurants (120 unit chain)
Senior Director of Marketing

EDUCATION

University of the Pacific, BS Degree Business Administration, Emphasis in Marketing Extended
Education in: Graphic Design, Presentation Skills, and Management.

EXPERIENCE

Laura Medanich Marketing Consulting  
Professional marketing services consultancy for clients that include restaurants, real estate, wine, and professional services.

Providing a wide range of marketing services including:

• branding and identity, concept clarity, and product positioning.

• advertising, media buying and planning, digital marketing and optimization, lead generation, revenue management, traffic driving, agency management.

• public relations, communications, reputation management, relationship marketing, social media management, website development, SEO, Google Adwords & Analytics and email marketing.

Clients include Alioto’s Restaurants, Folio Wines (a Michael Mondavi Company), a MedTech startup, a physical therapy startup and TiEcon, Silicon Valleys’ largest entrepreneur focused conference.

We’ve helped companies and brands tackle the big stuff:  re-tune, rethink and re-brand. We help refocus energy on the 20% that will deliver the 80%.  We help refine target customers and then come up with a plan on how to reach them.

We’ve recently helped articulate two time-honored wine brands, Oberon Wines and Piper Sonoma Wines, bringing them to life through storytelling videos.  Through our work, we strive to bring branding to an emotional level and to help ride out cultural shifts. We’ve been able to conduct 360-degree stakeholder exchanges, to obtain buy-in. 

Our marketing consulting spans a variety of capacities, from individual projects to a virtual in-house marketing department/ad agency.  We served as in house marketing for several restaurant clients for years, successfully employing best practices to drive business. We helped Alioto’s harness the potential of digital marketing through their booking engine (+20%), and through a new email marketing program (where we gathered thousands of new guests).  We have also worked on a project basis: we helped generate traffic driving, action-oriented ideas for one of LA’s most iconic shopping malls.

Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group
Director of Restaurant Marketing | March  2011-October 2013
Directed all aspects of marketing and PR strategy and marketing and promotional programs for 67 high-concept, individual upper-end casual restaurants and lounges.

• Authored restaurant division's first brand plan. Developed 10 new concepts and re-branded, refreshed and launched five older concepts. Co-authored new business plans for restaurants and assisted in presentations to owners.

• Improved sales performance: improved sales 25% YOY in 2012, through booking channels. Drove trial among new guests and unique visitors to websites by 16% YOY comp. Improved restaurant reservations through booking engine by 17% YOY comp. Key driver of success: re-engineered and relaunched Kimpton restaurant digital marketing platform including 67 mobile sites, and 50 newly branded sites, established and executed first analytics platform, launched a successful and synergistic, hotel-integrated new email and social media strategy.

• Leveraged restaurant perception rankings as a leading program for booking Kimpton hotels according to September 2012 A&U tracking study.

• Part of an initiative to claim first-mover advantage into modern mixology throughout the operations and culture. Working with Wine Master and Director of Bars.

• Designed Kimpton’s first proprietary custom CRM Loyalty program to improve acquisition.

Tavistock Restaurants
Senior Director of Marketing | 2010-2011
Directed all aspects of marketing strategy and oversee all marketing, advertising, promotion and public relations programs for fast growing 43 unit burrito concept in South West, and 16 fine dining concepts including California Café.

• Supported launch of 19 new Freebirds restaurants, by evolving brand and prototype, menu items, board to optimize for new demographics. Created and launched Freebirds CRM Loyalty program.  Acquisition efforts increased customer base by 40% in 5 months.  Improved traffic through improved frequency, and improved sales through incremental purchases.  Achieved over 50% customer enrollment in September 2010.

• Established media planning and buying goals, then executed the brands first cohesive, goal-oriented awareness and traffic driving program resulting in improved sales for FY 2010 by 3%.