Coworking with Kristen Klein

Each Tuesday, we spotlight Marketing Brew readers in our Coworking series. If you’d like to be featured, introduce yourself here.

Kristen Klein is CMO at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Cincinnati.

Favorite project you’ve worked on? Our capital campaign to raise $50 million for an expansion so that we would finally have enough rooms so that everyone who wants to stay at our House can do so. We exceeded the goal in 18 months.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? I look for opportunities to engage the community with our House and our mission.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? SickKids [The Hospital for Sick Children] in Canada does amazing work. Everything from powerful videos that bring you to tears to testimonials from Ryan Reynolds that are humorous but heartfelt.

What marketing trend are you most optimistic about? There’s nothing more powerful than a firsthand account of a product or service, which is why we love to have our guest families share their experience of living with us. A platform like TikTok that celebrates that every day has huge potential.

Least optimistic about? As far as least favorite, I just read an article that suggested I commit two to three hours every day to learning to navigate the metaverse with an Oculus. And after I was a master, I needed to identify a team of people at my nonprofit who would also make the same commitment because the metaverse is going to be that important to the future success of our organization. The article couldn’t say how or why, but just to commit the time. That sounds exhausting.