Working—and Playing—at Hasbro
For Hasbro’s Julien McCluney, hanging out in the toy aisle is part of the job
Julien McCluney (BSBA’02, MBA’09) could take you down in a Nerf blaster battle and leave you bankrupt in Monopoly. As director of US marketing for Play-Doh and games at toy giant Hasbro, she spends a lot of time letting her inner kid have some fun. If you want McCluney’s job, you’ll need to get playing.
Feel the passion. “People are inherently very passionate about toys and games, whether you’re a child, an adult who grew up with toys and games, or a parent. You have to be able to understand that passion, but also have that passion yourself for the brand you work on, in order to really be able to do the brand justice and tell that brand’s story to the consumer.”
Take a shopping trip. “Go see and hear what people say about your products as they walk down the aisle. It’s so gratifying to see a child’s face light up when they pick something off the shelf and they say out loud exactly the message you intended to convey. And that visceral reaction of seeing how utterly excited that child is to be able to take that product home with them—there’s nothing like it.”
Play well with others. “I’m constantly in my finance counterpart’s office bouncing ideas off of him. It doesn’t really matter what function you work in, we all have a singular goal of growing our businesses, and we all work with very smart people. It’s nice to be able to go to somebody who may not technically be a marketer, but still has great ideas because they live and work in this space, and they’re parents, too.”
Don’t dismiss feedback from business partners. “It is imperative to listen to people when they give you comments and provide feedback, because ultimately they want you to succeed. Disney spends a lot of time and effort creating these fantastical worlds where their characters live—and the dolls and action figures need to be true to those stories.”
Have fun. “With games, it really is an experiential process to understand the game play and what’s important in the game—how you win and all of those emotional feelings. You can’t just look at it flat on the screen or sitting in front of you, you have to engage with it. To be able to play with a blaster in a meeting or play a game where people get pied in the face is just great fun.”
