Coworking with Holland Martini

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

Holland Martini is co-founder and chief insights officer at research firm GoodQues. Throughout her career, she’s worked at Grey Group and UM Worldwide.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in marketing? Have you ever played the classic game, The 36 Questions That Lead to Love?…Yes? Now imagine doing this every day, with someone new—from different states, countries, backgrounds, ages, interests. Why does this game work? Because it helps you understand who the person really is so that you can connect with them. Our jobs as researchers are to be liaisons between our clients and consumers—helping the clients truly learn who their consumers are as real people, so those people can fall in love with them for who they are.

What’s your favorite ad campaign? My passion was never for advertising or ad campaigns—it was sexy, but I never saw myself in these campaigns. My passion, which led me to the industry, was studying people—what we do, why we do it, what we think, etc. My favorite ads are those that aren’t memorable for bizarre characters or [being] bold and sexy but that can truly capture something we all can feel. One example is Progressive’s “Turning Into Your Parents” campaign, which does just that for me. It’s something we all feel sometimes—turning into your parents—and brings emotion to what can be such a mundane industry.

One thing we can’t guess from your LinkedIn profile? I’m from a family of fishermen! My family describes me as “the one that lives in the big city.” When I am not nerding out behind the computer, building GoodQues, or even running marathons, I am with my brother and dad, knee-deep in swamp water, or freezing on a lake. It’s so easy for us, especially in advertising, to assume the people we are serving live lives just like us. Having a background so different from the world I live in today reminds me of the importance of looking at trends and data from multiple perspectives.

What’s one marketing-related podcast, social account, or series you’d recommend? This may be a cliche, but How I Built This with Guy Raz always inspires me. While it may not feel directly marketing-related and more business-related, every entrepreneur speaks to how they had to market themselves, their ideas, and their brands to be the success they are today.