Digital Opps: KURU Footwear promotes CMO amid spend increases (Score 71)

KURU Footwear promoted Sean McGinnis to CMO in January 2021. McGinnis joined the company in October 2019 as SVP & head of marketing, eCommerce and customer experience. Before joining KURU, he served as president of Kellyco Metal Detectors. It also brought in Stacey Bishop to serve as email marketing manager in February from GearLaunch, where she served as a copywriter & social media manager. These marketers will impact the marketing strategy and potentially the agency roster. 

According to Pathmatics, KURU earned 26.2m impressions YTD through Facebook ads (83%), Instagram ads (13%) and desktop display ads (3%). It placed the majority (97%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as facebook.com, instagram.com and news.yahoo.com. It placed the remainder (3%) indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense onto sites such as allrecipes.com, parents.com, marthastewart.com, bhg.com and shape.com. It spent around $185.2k on digital display ads YTD, a 57% increase from $80.7k spent during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend equaled $1.3m in 2020, a 69% decrease from $2.1m spent during the same time period of 2019. 

Sellers-- KURU​'s products most likely appeal to active Gen-X and older millennials because its products are designed for people with foot conditions and other painful conditions such as arthritis, plantar fasciitis and back pain. I do not expect McGinnis to make any radical changes, but he will have more control over spend and ad placement in the CMO role. It typically spends the most during the spring months (Q2). Sellers start reaching out soon to secure some of these extra ad dollars. 

Agency & martech readers-- You may have better luck looking for work elsewhere, considering promoted CMOs are much less likely to make significant changes than outside hires, and KURU has not worked with an outside agency in the past. However, it may be worth reaching out and trying to convince KURU you can help it attract new customers and retain its current customer base.