Lights Camera Action

[0:04]

Vincent Introduces the Show and Special Guest Wendy Rubino

Welcome to the Marketing Stir podcast by Sterista, where we chat with industry leaders and get their take on the challenges facing the market.

And maybe we’ll have a little fun along the way.

On this week’s episode of The Marketing Stir, Vincent is joined by.

[0:15]

Speaker 2

Wendy Rubino, senior vice.

[0:17]

Speaker 1

President of marketing events regional publicity at Warner Brothers Pictures, they told premieres, influencers and getting fans in seats.

[0:26]

Speaker 2

All right, ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to another episode of the Marketing Stir.

I am your happy host, Vincent Petrofessa.

It is so good to be talking to everyone.

I am the vice president of B2B products and still the interim general manager.

[0:43]

I still was not promoted.

I’m still interim.

Those listeners know the inside joke there.

But it is so great to be talking to you again.

I feel like it’s been a while.

I don’t know.

Have you felt that way?

A lot of things have been happening, right?

But first let’s talk about Starista just for like 10 seconds, right?

[1:01]

We don’t take any advertising on this pocket.

We’re a marketing technology company.

We own our own business to business data, business to consumer data, plus the technology to push out to that data.

We have our own e-mail sending platform, our own demand side platform.

We help companies get new customers.

[1:19]

Who doesn’t want new customers, right?

Also my Co host, my CEO AJ Gupta, who I just saw in New York at advertising week.

We may talk about advertising week for a moment.

He cannot make it.

He is on a board meeting.

[1:35]

So his lost people because we have an amazing episode today.

She’s based in LA, but she’s in New York a lot because of her role, because of the amazing company she works for.

But before I start, I just want to give a special shout out.

[1:51]

One of our employees, he is moving on to another company.

He’s been with Starista for 11 years.

He listens to every one of these podcasts.

That’s why I’m saying it.

His name is Blaine.

Blaine Britton.

We wish him so much luck, so many great memories together here at the six years that I’ve worked here.

[2:10]

And I know he listens.

He’s a big fan of the podcast.

And good luck, Blaine.

We will miss you, but we know you’ll still be listening.

And let’s get right to it.

[2:20]

Wendy Robino’s SVP Role at Warner Bros Pictures

Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is from Warner Brothers Pictures.

She is the senior vice president, marketing, events and regional publicity.

Wendy Rubino.

What’s going on, Wendy?

[2:32]

Speaker 3

Hey Vincent, happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

[2:35]

Speaker 2

It is so great to have you again.

We just missed each other, right?

You’re just in and out at Advertising Week, but we will meet here in New York a lot.

I know there’s so many other places where it’s being filmed, but I live in Manhattan and it is every single day I feel like there’s like a premiere or there’s something on my street where they’re filming which which I love, maybe some people don’t like.

[3:00]

I love it, it means so much.

Tell us about Advertising Week, what you spoke about, what brought you in to New York for I think it was just a day for you, right?

[3:12]

Speaker 3

Yeah, it was a panel that me and a Co worker on with Westfield Rise, which is kind of the event experiential department of Westfield, which is a chain of really nice malls across the country.

We had done a really successful experiential activation at their location in Los Angeles at Century City Mall for a Minecraft movie back in late March, early April.

[3:36]

And so they wanted to have a panel and talk about the future of experientials.

And so that’s what we did and it was a great time.

It was a packed house and we had some great feedback.

So really glad we did that.

[3:48]

Speaker 2

That’s awesome.

Yeah.

And thank you for the Minecraft movie.

I have an 8 and a five year old and Oh my goodness.

And lava chicken and, you know, chicken jockey.

Yeah, it’s like it’s.

[3:58]

Speaker 3

That song again, that’s.

[4:00]

Speaker 2

I know I I even bought my son like a a chicken jockey shirt that he wears and all his friends like, Oh my God, you know, that’s so cool.

So yeah, thank you for that.

I’m so excited to talk to you about so many things.

Let’s get into your role within Warner Brothers Pictures some of your day-to-day.

[4:18]

Speaker 3

Sure.

When I was brought into Warner Brothers back in 2019, it was during a reorganization that the previous head of global publicity had initiated.

And what she had decided to do was, which, you know, made sense.

[4:33]

But initially, everyone was a little bit sort of like what’s happening.

She decided to make 2 departments within publicity into one.

So originally, my job was actually two different people.

There was a head of events that really just focused on the premieres, and there was what’s called the field marketing or regional publicity.

[4:54]

And that’s the department that’s overseas.

All the different markets outside of New York and LA and all the media outlets in those markets.

And we’re talking Chicago, San Fran, Seattle, Atlanta, and they oversee agencies in those markets to basically execute film campaigns locally.

[5:09]

So that was those two departments were combined into one because the field team did do a lot of events and it just made sense to bring it into one cohesive group.

So I had both backgrounds.

I had worked in field for many years at Universal Pictures, at Grand Field, at MGM, at 20th Century Fox, and then I’d all then once after my Fox stint, I pivoted over to, you know, what we called the dark side, the agency side, and did experiential marketing and events.

[5:41]

So that’s how this all came to be.

This woman who was running publicity, we knew each other from our universal days, and she reached out.

Instead of combining these two departments, you have skills of both.

So basically I oversee A-Team that’s really collaborative team and one set of folks, like I said, handle all of the regional publicity promotions.

[6:04]

And what falls under promotions is what we call earned media.

So you’re working with those media outlets, local morning television, radio and you’re exchanging tickets or an experience for, you know, free advertising.

They do stunts in those markets, they engage with influencers in those local markets and just make sure that that campaign is is something that works for that local market.

[6:27]

The same way that like international territories, you can’t do the same thing cookie cutter that you do in France for say LATAM, do the same in in the local markets.

And then the other side is it is film premieres, but we’ve change it to marketing events because we also now do all the influencer events, genre press events, awards event.

[6:49]

So it’s branched out into all these multiple events, experiential stunts.

It serves marketing, but it goes beyond just red carpet premieres.

[6:58]

Wendy’s Path to Film Marketing and Publicity

What first drew you into marketing and publicity in the film industry in the first place?

[7:05]

Speaker 3

Getting the heck out of Florida I’m.

[7:11]

Speaker 2

Getting the heck out of Florida.

[7:12]

Speaker 3

I know, I mean, I’m just being honest here.

[7:14]

Speaker 2

That’s the name of the episode, ladies and gentlemen.

[7:16]

Speaker 3

Yeah, my major was not marketing.

I was all mass calm and I wanted to be in broadcast news.

And I worked for a radio station out of college doing promotions with the radio station.

You know, when you have like man on the street, DJs going to Norm Reeves, you know, different car dealerships, stuff like that.

[7:35]

And this job position, this position became open in Atlanta.

And back in the day, movie studios actually had field offices.

So the field office that I was hired for was based in Atlanta.

We handled the Southeast, so all the southern, Southeastern states.

So that’s where my journey began way back when with Universal.

[7:54]

And the very first movie I worked on was a interesting horror movie called Shocker about guy that was put to death via electrocution and then came back to terrorize everybody.

So really high end stuff.

[8:09]

So then, yeah.

And then eventually after eight years of, you know, in Atlanta working for Universal, they had a position open in LA and I got moved out to, to Universal City.

[8:19]

Speaker 2

That’s awesome.

Yeah.

So from Florida to LA and I I know, I think you and I talk and I often mention this to people and I was like, I don’t know.

I was like, Wendy feels like a New Yorker to me.

I think that’s a compliment.

I feel like, I don’t know, maybe it’s like an AJ, my Co host who’s from San Antonio.

[8:35]

He’s like, I don’t get it.

I’m like, come on.

It’s the feeling.

But you never lived in New York, but you hear a lot.

[8:40]

Speaker 3

No, no, I always wanted to, but I’m not.

I’m East Coast, so there’s that.

But yeah, I would say I definitely have an affinity for for New York.

And if, you know, had the opportunity presented itself to work in New York, I would have jumped at that chance.

[8:57]

Speaker 2

But the weather, you got the great weather out there and and films are still primarily I, you know, LA, right?

You know, New York, they do a lot here.

Like I said, it’s always, you know, hustling and bustling with it in New York’s area and where I live, you just walk around and there’s just like film stars and television stars.

That’s right in my neighborhood.

[9:12]

So yeah, New York is.

[9:13]

Speaker 3

Many, many live there.

In fact, one of the film makers we’re working with on a title next year called The Bride.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is a New York based.

[9:21]

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah, there’s, I live in a neighborhood called Tribeca and there’s in Manhattan, it’s like tons of them.

It’s like people I see every weekend.

I’m running into someone in the film industry, and that’s awesome.

[9:34]

Bringing Audiences Back to Theaters After the Pandemic

I want to get into something because I mean, look, I also feel that Warner Brothers Pictures was really responsible for a lot of this, right, where you joined in COVID.

But like, after COVID, I remember you saying to me, Wendy, when we chatted, we talked about bringing families back to the theater.

[9:53]

What kinds of experiences make audiences want to come back?

What was that whole process like?

You joined during COVID, right?

Right before it, before the 2019 and like it’s like boom.

All right, welcome to Warner Brothers pictures.

[10:09]

Here’s, you know, COVID coming, but but talk to us about that whole experience, you know, bringing families back to the theater.

What what was your experience like there?

[10:18]

Speaker 3

We were all kind of shell shocked of like what, you know, what do we do?

And what we did was we pivoted to a lot of virtual things.

So I will tell you this, COVID hit what, March 2020, everything kind of stopped, right?

Our first big title coming out that year.

[10:35]

We had a couple of titles that we pressed pause on, but we had a really big Chris Nolan movie called Tenant.

So what we did was it was still again in the heart of COVID.

The movie was coming out.

We had moved the title to August just to give, you know, more breathing room, if you will.

[10:54]

And that was the first time we did an in person press junket because that’s another thing my team handles our press junkets and we didn’t do a premiere.

We couldn’t.

But we did release the movie in theaters, which it did as well as it could.

[11:11]

Let me just that way.

And at that time, We were dead just launched.

I think HBO Max, I can’t really remember, was right around that.

I believe it was right around that time when HBO Max was was out.

So yeah, it was it was a struggle because, you know, how do you still get your content out to consumers?

[11:34]

But yet the place where your consumers consume are all closed, all the movie theaters closed.

So, yeah, it was.

I really don’t want to, you know, think about it because it was a great time to be honest.

And then to your point, getting people back out into the theater, we had to make sure that that the titles that we put forward first felt very cinematic.

[11:57]

And not just cinematic, but also the communal, like you wanted to go see a movie with your friends or family because you were so isolated during the pandemic.

So that’s what we focused on is that community and cinema idea of something being getting really big.

[12:14]

Speaker 2

And I remember talking on the podcast, we had the CMO of Regal Cinemas, which I know show a lot of your films and that was kind of it, like they were just gutted, right, that they couldn’t do that.

And you know, I remember hearing the almost the pain in the CMO Ken’s voice at the time.

[12:31]

And but I also remember, though, that one of your films, Barbie, bringing people back to the big, bringing families back to the theater.

That’s what I remember.

Yeah.

I mean, you’re sure you’re like, no, we had a couple more.

But like, I remember.

[12:47]

And part of what you do right is like, I remember South St.

Seaport in Manhattan, there was this restaurant or experience that was all pink and they had people take photos and it was right near a few movie theaters.

[13:02]

There’s a there’s two right here.

And just seeing that and I didn’t see it in the theater, but I remember I saw it and what a picture, what a movie.

Oh my goodness.

You know, that being the first kind of like, oh, families are back now, OK.

[13:17]

You know, because it was that whole thing was like with them and another Nolan movie, Oppenheimer, and just that, you know, bringing that together.

So I mean, that must be unforgettable too.

I mean, it was unforgettable for me.

[13:31]

The Future of Theatrical Experiences and Audience Engagement

Yeah, I would agree.

I would say coming out of the pandemic 2021 and even a lot of 2022, it was still really hard getting people to feel comfortable and come back into theaters.

It was, it was.

I mean, we, we have some great movies in 2022 as well that did well.

[13:47]

But to your point, I would say that summer of 2023 with Barbenheimer and having all the other talent like Tom Cruise and others post about, you know, getting into the theater go these are movies.

I mean, I’m sad you didn’t see Barbie in the theater because there’s some, you know, numbers in there that are just so great on the big screen.

[14:07]

But those two, that sort of, you know, mishmash of those two movies, which couldn’t be more different.

But it really, it really did kick start a big push, you know, back and it’s sad to think it took really three years back into the theater.

[14:22]

I think what’s becoming very important, I don’t know if you just with the Regal CEO, but is what you don’t get on streaming, which, and trust me, I’m a huge streamer consumer as well.

But what you don’t get is you don’t get the premium formats.

You don’t get IMAX, you don’t get you don’t get 70mm or things.

[14:37]

And I think that’s becoming educating consumers on the experience of seeing films in those formats like we did on sinners And then recently 1 battle after another in this division.

I think it’s really getting it’s, it’s almost like the Gen.

Z Gen.

[14:53]

Alphos I, you know, are feeling very nostalgic.

So and they’re interested in these formats and they’re they’re coming out for them.

[15:01]

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, yeah, you took the words out of my mouth with those recent films.

You got some bangers out there right now.

It’s with all the buzz it’s getting and I’m so, so happy.

And you know, I blame my children for not allowing me to go to the theater as much as I want to because they’re little.

[15:16]

And it’s like, all right, some movies, I take them to the theater, right?

Like Minecraft, for example.

But then there’s others where like me and my wife want to go, but we’re like, all right, we got to get a babysitter, then we got to go.

But there’s no better experience because there’s no television in someone’s home that is the size of a movie theater TV.

[15:37]

And it’s just the whole process.

I love now taking my my kids to the movies.

But yeah, it’s like that experience.

And I know it’s, you know, I’m happy to see certain comedies, like comedies come back to the theaters, right?

I’m such a big fan of it.

[15:54]

I like the days of I saw a movie in the theater and you had a seat in the theater because that movie wasn’t coming out to another year and it was on VHS and you had to go to Suncoast or whatever it was and you had to get that movie.

I missed that.

[16:09]

I do, I I do miss it.

And and so I know I still very much go to the movies.

I want to start going to more adult, you know, I yeah, I.

[16:17]

Speaker 3

Would.

[16:18]

Speaker 2

I would adult themed.

Yeah, adult team.

[16:21]

Speaker 3

I know, but we understand.

Yeah, you’re talking about Stormy Daniels story.

I would say it’s worth the babysitter to go see one battle on a big screen because there’s a couple scenes in there, especially very end, that you’re just cheating yourself if you’re not seeing it on the big screen the way Paul shot it.

[16:38]

So highly encourage you to make that be be your adult night out.

[16:44]

Designing Interactive Premieres for Viral Social Moments

I know it’s Paul Thomas Anderson and DiCaprio.

How do you go wrong?

And I’ll tell her, Oh my goodness.

[16:48]

Speaker 3

Sean Penn is.

[16:50]

Speaker 2

Sean Penn, Like, yeah, the legend, the legend himself.

Look how many legends are in there at Academy Award winners.

Are you kidding?

So speaking that you were talking about like these experiences, like what makes a red carpet event unforgettable?

[17:06]

Speaker 3

Wow.

You know, even just the 6-7 years I’ve been at Warner Brothers, it’s changed.

Honestly, it’s evolved even in that short time.

What makes it unforgettable, I would say is when you have a carpet that is designed in a way that’s interactive to where even the talent interact with the carpet and fun and playful ways that makes for great social.

[17:29]

Because you know, 10-15 years ago, it was always about the outlets on the carpet, the coverage.

I mean, you always had a platform for Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood and you don’t even you know, we don’t even talk about those outlets anymore, really all about these craters.

[17:45]

And so we try to make our carpets feel experiential.

So like, I’ll give you a recent example on one battle.

You haven’t seen the movie, but there is a great scene with Sensei, which is Benicio del Toro, where he goes down into a bunker through a trapdoor.

And we had a bunker and trapdoor on the carpet for people to play with.

[18:04]

And we, we even had A and there’s a great scene you probably saw in the trailer with Leo on, on a, on a payphone screaming at somebody because he can’t remember the, the code word.

We had an actual old school payphone on the carpet for people to, you know, hold and take, you know, take pictures with and even the talent interacted with it.

[18:22]

So things like that, because those those images tend to get picked up and go viral are are now what we think about as we’re planning our carpets.

[18:32]

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, exactly right.

Those moments there, like a lot of people have probably never even seen a payphone until until that time.

Yeah.

And it’s crazy.

I remember calling my mom collect like mom, it’s been coming from a payphone.

[18:47]

It’s so funny.

So Wendy, how do you decide based on what whether the premiere should be like, really big or kind of a little bit more intimate and low key just for the listeners is every movie get a premiere in some way?

It’s.

[19:02]

Speaker 3

A great question actually.

It’s it because every filmmaker wants to have their moment.

I get it.

They, we all get it.

Like they, they want to have their big, their party and celebrate.

And because it’s like this culmination, but at a certain point you got to think about what’s right for the film.

[19:19]

What’s the best way to spend the money that’s going to do the film justice.

So the last Conjuring movie, the final chapter, we did not do a red carpet premiere.

What we decided to do instead was we did 3 fan screenings.

We did New York, Atlanta and LALA had the director, Michael Shops, Atlanta had Vera and Patrick and then New York had the warrants and we just leaned it hard to create to the craters and influencers.

[19:50]

We had a couple of fun photo OPS for them to take in and post and we just did collabs with these craters.

We did like a pre reception and that was it.

The film, you know, open number one, it was the highest grossing Conjuring movie.

And it, it was the right decision.

[20:06]

Now was, was the filmmaker totally on board from day one with that plan?

No, we had to get him there.

But then he saw everything coming out of those 3 screenings and was thought it was great.

But to answer the rest of your question about how big or small, you know, like any business, there’s margins.

[20:25]

I don’t want to get too into the financials because even I don’t understand it completely.

It’s not my area, but but then you know what the tent poles are, right?

You, you know, Barbie is going to be huge.

We had a giant bass premiere at the Shrine Auditorium F1, you know, took over 2 blocks in Times Square where at Radio City, you, you kind of know which ones are the right ones to go really big.

[20:47]

And then you know which ones are ones worth.

Let’s spend our money in other, more effective ways because even though the big part of my job is red carpets, I do have to realize that it’s not sometimes the best way to spend marketing dollars.

Yeah.

[21:01]

Speaker 2

No, that makes sense.

[21:02]

Identifying Good Ideas and Navigating LinkedIn Solicitations

But I want to get into you know, you’ve said before you can’t make fetch happen.

How do you recognize when a campaign idea won’t work, even if it sounds good on paper?

[21:14]

Speaker 3

If there’s no way to, to have additional layers, like if there’s, if it’s challenging to, to make something easily shareable, I think that’s a red flag.

I think if there’s no opportunity for publicity layer extension, I think that’s a red flag.

[21:35]

I, I think that if there’s no way to have a big digital major, you know, digital component, I think that’s a red flag.

So I’m sure we have really great ideas, but when you then get into the nitty gritty of and you know, we, we’ve had some things that didn’t work because we we didn’t consider those elements.

[21:56]

But so I think now we took learnings from that.

Now we think about, OK, well, what’s what’s the shareable coming out of this?

How is it going beyond just doing this one thing in San Diego, right, that we’re spending money?

How what, what’s coming out of San Diego?

[22:12]

So if we’re going to spend all this money in San Diego doing and activate like what’s coming out of that and thinking about that, that’s where we start.

We think, think about our goal and then we think about how we reach that goal.

What are those levers we’re going to pull to do that?

[22:26]

Speaker 2

Nice.

These are some more fun questions and then we get to know you personally a little bit here, but this is a question we ask all of our guests.

Wendy, you must get solicited all the time through LinkedIn.

What’s a message that resonates with you and what what is one that you just never replied?

[22:45]

Do you hate?

It’s, you know, come on, what are you doing sort of thing.

[22:49]

Speaker 3

OK, I will start with the second-half because it’s easy to answer when I get solicitations and it’s clear people haven’t looked through my, my profile and seen the work that I do because I’ll get, I’ll get solicitations for, you know, digital metrics and things like that.

[23:08]

Like I, I don’t even pretend to be, I work closely with our digital team, but I am not a digital marketer.

So I just, I don’t even look at those or like database management, things like that.

I mean, look at what this person does and it doesn’t jump out at you that you have something to offer them.

[23:28]

Just reach out to somebody else.

[23:30]

Speaker 2

Which one that resonates with?

Yeah.

[23:32]

Speaker 3

Well, there’s two kinds.

I do respond to young people that are recent grads or in school or and just want to learn more really.

I give them credit for having the gumption to reach out, especially if they write a nice well written note and explain why they’re interested in speaking with me.

[23:48]

It’s I always pay attention to those.

And then the other more business minded one would be, you know, if they call out something we’ve done in the past and then they share something that they’ve done similar and how successful it was.

[24:02]

Speaker 2

Wendy, talk to us about right, this is some of my favorite times of the year because you get these amazing films that come out that are Oscar worthy and then you get into the holiday time and like those are some like like fondest memories of films or some films that you’re working on that you’re excited about that’s coming out.

[24:24]

New Releases, Minecraft, and Wendy’s Personal Passions

In 2023, we were working on releasing Wonka and Color Purple and also awards campaigns for Barbie and Color Purple.

And so that was tough.

I’ll say upcoming films that I’m excited to be working on is definitely, we have a relationship with Lucky Chap, which produced Barbie.

[24:44]

It’s Margot Robbie’s production company with her husband and we have Wuthering Heights coming out around Valentine’s Day and then The Bride.

I sat through that film twice.

I loved it.

I think it’s some people are going to love it.

Some people are maybe not so much their taste, but it definitely is something up for discussion.

[25:03]

And that is, like I said, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s film that has a Christian Bale and it is great.

I’m looking forward to Don’t Laugh, but the Mortal Kombat 2 movie is great ice.

[25:19]

Speaker 2

I know you’re you’re talking to a kid from the 90s who loves Mortal Kombat, the very first video game I ever got on Sega Genesis back in the day.

I love it.

[25:30]

Speaker 3

So ridiculously fun.

You are gonna love this movie that comes out May 8th.

And it is.

It is just a ride.

It’s so ridiculous that you have you just can’t stop laughing and having a good time.

[25:45]

Speaker 2

So that’s awesome.

Yeah.

Mortal Kombat?

No, I love it.

What, are you crazy?

I love that movie.

You know, that’s what.

[25:52]

Speaker 3

Is it finish him?

[25:52]

Speaker 2

Finish him.

Yeah.

You know, I love it.

And this is a question from Hudson Petrofessa, age 8, my son.

Will there be another Minecraft movie?

Can you reveal it?

[26:08]

You might not be able to, but this is coming from an 8 year old third grader here in New York City.

I told him who I was talking to, told him the movies that you work on, and that was his question.

[26:20]

Speaker 3

I would tell your son that sometimes dreams really do come true, but you know we’ll.

[26:27]

Speaker 2

See.

Nice.

That’ll be.

Yeah, I think he’ll be excited.

Yeah.

And then.

And can’t he meet Jack Black?

No kidding.

That’s.

[26:37]

Speaker 3

I mean you.

[26:39]

Speaker 2

Talk about dreams come.

[26:40]

Speaker 3

True, Yeah.

I mean, you never know.

Jack loves the kids and he’s such a great guy.

So I mean, they both are, actually.

So you know, if and when that happens, I think your son needs an invitation to the premiere.

[26:54]

Speaker 2

Oh my goodness.

He would think I’m the coolest dad in the world, and that would be amazing.

Yeah.

You see those videos with, like, Jack Black?

You ever see him on that one episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show where he met the kid from Love on the Spectrum?

Oh, my God, Wendy.

I was like in tears.

[27:10]

It was like in it was, Oh my, you’re like, this is the greatest, like the nicest man in the world.

Jack Black is.

Yeah, who’s promoting the Minecraft movie and watch it.

Go watch that.

It’s like he meets the one of the guys from Love on the Spectrum, that TV show, and he’s like the Jack Black’s like his hero.

[27:29]

He starts tearing up Jack.

But it’s amazing.

Yeah.

Just be ready to cry.

It’s like AI was like at my desk.

And I’m like, what is happening?

Yeah.

But anyway, what do you like to do for fun?

I want to understand what you like to do on the weekends.

You see, either you or someone in your family is a huge Elvis fan because I see pictures.

[27:46]

I see pillows.

Tell me about that first.

And then tell me about your hobbies, what you like to do out there in LA.

[27:52]

Speaker 3

Well, Elvis, I just grew up with Elvis.

I feel like, you know, for, for parents that are like in their 70s eighties, you were either a Beatles or an Elvis fan family.

I mean, I guess you could be both, but my, my mom was an Elvis fan.

So I just grew up with Elvis and love, love, love his music.

[28:11]

And I can watch that 60 eights comeback special over and over again.

And I just, you know, I’ve been to Graceland multiple times.

Then we ended up junketing at Graceland, which was a dream come true.

Been to his birthplace in Tupelo and I really hope his his sort of legend status doesn’t die off.

[28:30]

I do get worried but and it’s just shocking.

At least I can’t still can’t believe Lisa Marie that her passing hat I that just blew us all the way As for as far as like hobbies now that the kids are grown up and I don’t have to like spend the weekends on a soccer field anymore, which is fantastic.

[28:49]

My whole family, my husband and I and all our kids too.

We’re big winter sports folks, so we can’t wait for winter.

I’m so over I’m I’m a never summer person.

Like take me to any mountain.

Wow.

[29:03]

Speaker 2

The the the irony there, right?

[29:05]

Speaker 3

Yeah, but hey, you know LA like 2 hours away, you’re on a mountain skiing.

[29:09]

Speaker 2

Yeah, that is true actually.

[29:11]

Speaker 3

Great.

So I snowboard the rest of my family skis.

I was a terrible skier many years ago.

So I’ve been snowboarding about 30 years.

And so we do that on the weekends and then other than that, just I’m up for whiskey or wine tastings or, you know, wine festivals or anything like that.

[29:31]

Speaker 2

I love it.

I love it.

Yeah.

And this Sunday I will be at 2 soccer games coaching the five year old and attending the 8 year old.

I know that’s and at least it’s like one day, you know, my son doesn’t do like the three, you know, three days a week.

[29:47]

He didn’t want to do it, but yeah.

No.

I feel you.

That’s awesome.

Wendy.

It has been a pleasure getting to know you and talking to you.

I hope we meet in person.

Get out there, Ladies and gentlemen, go see some of the films.

It’s such a great time.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Wendy Rubino.

[30:04]

She’s a senior vice president, marketing events and regional publicity at Warner Brothers Pictures.

AJ is in a car somewhere.

I’ve been Vincent Petrafessa, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll talk soon.

[30:18]

Speaker 1

Thanks for listening to the Marketing Stir podcast by Sterista.

Please like and subscribe.

If you’re interested in being a guest on the podcast, please e-mail us at the Marketing Stir at sterista.com.