As Senior Marketing Manager, Digital and Ecomm Strategy with the Consumer Health team at Johnson & Johnson, Tulsi Patel’s primary interests frequently dovetail with those of a behavioral economist: Why will people buy a given product at X price point at Y time through Z channel, but not at X if Y2 or Z3? What are the conscious motivations in those decisions? What else is driving them?
“Honestly, I’ve always been so fascinated by these questions about consumer behavior,” Tulsi said. But she also frames the scope of her role much more succinctly: “I’m a digital strategist primarily focused on earned and owned channels.”
That’s an important distinction in the context of digital marketing, one that can be summarized as follows:
- Earned channels: Content referencing your brand that you didn’t pay for directly. Think: newspaper articles, blog posts, radio interviews, LinkedIn hashtags and so on.
- Owned channels: Content referencing your brand on channels you own or control. Think: the blog that you’re reading right now, our Johnson & Johnson YouTube channel and similar.
Tulsi, after launching her career as a management consultant fresh out of college (Northwestern, B.A. in economics and history), moved to a role where her interests in consumer behaviors could be put to better use: a digital marketing position with a major consumer retailer.
Five years later—and many insights richer—Tulsi joined Johnson & Johnson.
“I was drawn to the fact that Johnson & Johnson offered more opportunities and growth, particularly in the digital marketing and eComm space,” she said of the move.
But something else about Johnson & Johnson stood out to Tulsi as well: “This is a company that not only has a number of different consumer brands, but consumer brands with deeply rooted brand equity—equity that has been built, in some cases, over the course of a century or more.”
History aside, the opportunity to drive major transformation at scale was a big part of the draw for Tulsi as well.
“It’s true that I was interested in the idea of leading the transformation of these brands. These are brands that had for a long time been operating and doing things a certain way—which we might call ‘analog’—and all of that has changed. I was motivated to be part of the effort to implement this truly ‘digital-first’ mindset and approach for a company whose products touch billions of people’s lives every day.”
Decentralized Decision-Making (and Other Surprises About Johnson & Johnson)
Approaching the one-year mark in her tenure with Johnson & Johnson, what stands out to Tulsi about Johnson & Johnson? What differentiates our approach from what she has seen at other companies?
Two things primarily.
The first: “In my prior experience, chief marketing officers or EVPs and SVPs were the ones who made the ultimate impactful decisions in digital marketing and eComm. At Johnson & Johnson, while there’s very much a ‘we-move-together-and-we-work-together’ socializing of ideas and projects, decision-making is much more decentralized.”
Tulsi added: “You’ll have an opportunity here to make decisions that will really shape the futures of these brands. There’s not really a higher-up saying, ‘No, this is the way we do things here, this is the way we have always done it.’ You’ll be able to put your own footprint or stamp on digital transformation at Johnson & Johnson.”
The second: “There aren’t easy solutions to the challenges we’re facing. As an example of that, I’m not working with direct-to-consumer brands for the most part right now, which means we don’t own a lot of the data that a traditional retailer might. We don’t own the entire consumer funnel for many of our consumer brands.”
Lest you think that was a there’s-good-news-and-there's-bad-news scenario, Tulsi quickly clarified: “For me, that challenge is honestly a big part of what I find so motivating, because it requires us all to engage in this incredibly inventive thinking and to come up with really creative solutions. I mean, the data challenge alone is a pretty big and exciting gap to try and fill, especially as we in the world of digital marketing are increasingly talking about and thinking about data itself as a kind of currency.”
Taking on new challenges. Being challenged to grow. Tulsi clearly embraces both sides of that equation. Do you?
Join the Consumer Health Team at Johnson & Johnson Today
If you’re ready to join Tulsi—and to help us build the digital marketing and eComm ecosystem of tomorrow today—be sure to check out all of the opportunities we’re hiring for in Consumer Health. Plus, you should consider signing up for our Global Talent Hub, too. It’s a great way to keep in touch, learn more about our culture at Johnson & Johnson and even get updates about jobs that might interest you in the future.