NXTLVL Experience Design EP.82 "MOMS, RETAIL MEDIA NETWORKS AND MAMAVA" with Dina Townsend Chief Sales Officer, Mamava
ABOUT DINA TOWNSEND
Dina's Linkedin Profile: linkedin.com/in/dinatownsend
DINA TOWNSEND BIO
As Chief Sales Officer at Mamava, Dina leads the Sales Organization with energy, optimism, and a genuine passion for building connections. She is rooted in the belief that strong business acumen and a meaningful mission can be seamlessly intertwined. After a purpose-driven career pivot from Digital Signage Technology to Mamava, she channels her expertise into propelling sales for this mission-centric company. Beyond her professional endeavors, Dina is a former skydiver, a hobby homesteader, an avid college football fan, and a well-intentioned, albeit average, golfer.
email: dinat@mamava.com | 802.347.2111 (o)
Say yes to dignified lactation spaces! Be a hero—here's how you can help.
SHOW INTRO:
Welcome to Episode 82! of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast…
In every episode we continue to follow our catch phrase of having “Dynamic Dialogues About DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.” And as we continue on this journey there will be thought provoking futurists, AI technology mavens, retailers, international hotel design executives as well as designers and architects of brand experience places.
We’ll talk with authors and people focused on wellness and sustainable design practices as well as neuroscientists who will continue to help us look at the built environment and the connections between our mind-body and the built world around us.
We’ll also have guests who are creative marketing masters from international brands and people who have started and grown some of the companies that are striking a new path for us follow.
If you like what you hear on the NXTLVL Experience Design show, make sure to subscribe, like, comment and share with colleagues, friends and family.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is always grateful for the support of VMSD magazine.
VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. I think the IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing us to keep on talking about what makes retailing relevant.
You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.
Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.
SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org
Today, EPISODE 82… I talk with Dina Townsend Chief Sales Officer at Mamava a company whose mission is to create a healthier society through infrastructure and support for breastfeeding.
And, along with partners who share in in their purpose of celebrating and supporting breastfeeding, Mamava is moving closer to creating a future where there is a dignified lactation space anywhere a parent may go.
We’ll get to my discussion with Dina in a minute, first though a few thoughts…
* * * *
A few episodes back I had Claire Coder founder and CEO if Aunt Flow on the show. That was an interesting conversation since we crossed what I think were a few boundaries (at least for me) and we talked quite candidly about menstruation. Not just about the biology of women’s monthly cycle but about the fact that there are many women who have faced the scenario of getting their period unexpectedly and not have pads or tampons to meet them in their moment of need.
Enter the company Aunt Flow who provides free feminine hygiene products in public restrooms, schools and other public buildings and to Fortune 500 corporate headquarters - for which tens of thousands of women are eternally grateful.
This conversation with Dina Townsend, I guess you could say, falls in the Aunt Flow camp of subjects.
Breast feeding moms was not a subject that I had on the list of things to address on the podcast. But here we are nevertheless with a subject that piqued my curiosity because the company Dina works for, Mamava, checks most of the boxes in our Dialogues on DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and he Arts” catch phrase.
First off…I did not know there was something called the “Pump Act”. For the curious out there, a little internet searching comes up with this:
“…The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, enacted in December 2022, expands workplace protections for nursing employees by requiring employers to provide reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space for pumping breast milk for up to one year after a child's birth.
This law allows for legal action if employers fail to comply…”
Now… Dina will contend that many employers do in fact provide such a space and also that a janitors closet with a folding chair would be in line with the requirements.
Sure, a closet meets the description of a ‘private space’ but it wholly underserves the needs of a nursing mother in terms of experience.
I am aware that there are widely divergent views on the whole subject of breast feeding – we are not going to go there – except that I’ll say that I fully line up behind my wife who breastfed our two sons.
My discussion with Dina moves from the necessity to provide environments for nursing mothers to breastfeed their infants while in public places to the buying power of mothers who statistics indicate make an enormous amount of the buying decisions in households to how tying Retail Media Networks - RMNs – to Mamava pods serve a triple bottom line serving People, Planet and Profit. It’s a way of shifting our thinking about business from “How much money did we make?” to: “Did we make money in a way that benefits society and the environment too?”
Nielsen, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Harvard Business Review research tells us that Women drive 70–80% of consumer purchasing decisions in the U.S. and that is even for products they don’t personally use. And that their annual global consumer spending, is $20 trillionwhich, by the way, is a number projected to rise to $28 trillion. In many households, women make or heavily influence91% of new home purchases, 92% of vacation decisions, and 80% of healthcare choices says research by the Yankelovich Monitor, Marketing to Women Conference data.
And Millennial and Gen Z mothers are even more influential: they control about $1 trillion in direct annual spendingand are primary decision-makers for food, home goods, education, and entertainment – says research by the Pew Research Center.
So, women and moms are a force to be reconned with in terms of buying power and why Mamava pods are more than an economic discussion. The behavioral and psychographic aspects of them is important as well.
Women increasingly valuebrands that support family life, caregiving, and inclusivity and so features like Mamava pods in retail locations or corporate HQs or parental-leave policies have brand-equity impact.
We have known for some time that brands that are considered authentic exhibiting genuine empathic concern for their customer and employeesare major drivers in establishing brand affinity and purchase decisions.
The BabyCenter “State of Modern Motherhood” report says that “ 9 in 10 mothers say they are more loyal to brands that “understand the challenges of motherhood.”
And then there is mom’s digital influence. Pew Internet studies explains that“80% of moms research products online before buying and that 60% follow parenting or lifestyle influencers for purchase guidance.”
When you combine these factors with the emergence of Retail Media Networks, RMNs, you have a value add to placing Mamava pods in places that do not actually take up any more space on the sales floors of a store than is already being occupied with stuff that does support the brand experience or selling anything.
Use to be that when digital screens came into the retail world, we had kiosks as wayfinding devices.
Then a proliferation of screens emerged in the market where walls were more digital wallpaper crowding the environment with content and, in my opinion adding little to experience, arguably creating a shopping experience with more visual distraction and diminishing the overall experience. Painting the environment with the broad-brush stroke of digital media is often ineffective in capturing and retaining attention and doesn’t lead to the positive results we think it does.
That said, well considered application of digital media like those found on Mamava pods creates an opportunity to provide messaging to customers that could be more like a public service announcement, like ‘get your flu shot here today,’ or a focused marketing piece that invites customers to consider a particular product that they may not have thought of prior to arriving at the store.
So, you might ask why this matters to retail design
Women and mothers aren’t just your average everyday consumers, they’re key decision-makers shaping the social expectations of brands and spaces.
Retailers, airports, and workplaces that provide amenities like Mamava pods, family restrooms, or flexible shopping experiences are responding directly to data-driven insights like:
- Increased dwell time and spending when caregivers feel accommodated.
- Higher brand loyalty and word-of-mouth among mothers.
- Positive CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility - and inclusivity signaling which is important for both consumer and employee attraction.
If you have recently traveled through an airport, you may have already come upon a Mamava pod or maybe you have seen their “bench” version in a retail store.
Fed up with pumping in bathrooms and borrowed spaces—Mamava’s co-founders, Sascha Mayer and Christine Dodson, applied their decades of expertise in design and brand strategy to solve a problem that was largely invisible: the lack of lactation spaces in workplaces and public spaces and as a result, the Mamava pod was born.
Tying together the Mamava pod, and its various incarnations, and retail media needed some savvy about how to create an effective in-store media application that wouldn’t end up as just another screen in an already overwhelming environment.
Enter Dina Townsend.
As Chief Sales Officer at Mamava, Dina leads the Sales Organization with energy, optimism, and a genuine passion for building connections.
She is rooted in the belief that strong business acumen and a meaningful mission like the Mamava brand platform can be seamlessly intertwined.
After a purpose-driven career pivot from the world of Digital Signage Technology to Mamava, Dina channels her expertise into propelling sales for this mission-centric company.
ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:
LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b
Websites:
https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)
vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)
Email: david.kepron@NXTLVLexperiencedesign.com
Twitter: DavidKepron
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/
NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/
Bio:
David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand ‘why’, ‘what’s now’ and ‘what’s next’. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.
David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriott’s “Premium Distinctive” segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.
In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.
As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.
David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundation’s Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.
He has held teaching positions at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.
In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: “Retail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World” and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon.
The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.
The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.
Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL “Dialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Arts” wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.