What'cha Drinkin'? with Cathy Wray
Editor's note: Automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Hello everyone. Welcome to What'cha Drinkin'? My name is Emily Koenig Hapka and I'm the digital content editor here at Quirk’s Media. We launched this series to help everyone in the marketing, research and insights community stay social while we're social distancing. Today I have the pleasure of meeting with Cathy Wray, director of Client Lab at MassMutual. How are you doing, Cathy?
Cathy Wray:
I'm good. I'm good. Thank you.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Thank you so much for joining me today. Let’s get right to it. What are you drinking?
Cathy Wray:
I am drinking what my kids call a mama drink. It's cranberry juice club soda and it has fresh limes in it. My kids absolutely love it. They're constantly stealing it off my desk.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
That is fantastic. I am surviving potty training right now, so I have another large cup of coffee with cream. It's locally roasted here in Minnesota.
Cathy Wray:
What does your glass say on it? It has something fun on it.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Yeah, it says “they whispered to her, you cannot withstand the storm. She whispered back. I am the storm.” It says Strong Women's Society.
Cathy Wray:
Oh, yes. I love that. I love that. Yes.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
So Kathy, could you tell just a little bit about what you do at MassMutual with your team?
Cathy Wray:
Yes. We have a client lab that was put together by our CMO. It's a new group and we're very unique. We work together to create white papers, case studies, we do some tests and learn. We work with our clients and with our internal and external clients. Some of our competitors have some client labs that are similar to ours, but ours is a little bit more unique in terms of that we can provide new campaigns. We're very action oriented and we're very customer and client facing. So we've had a lot of good traction and we're continuing to grow and change. And so there's a lot of excitement at MassMutual about our team and what we have to offer. So we'll see where we go in the future.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
That sounds great. Yeah. And so is that fairly new then?
Cathy Wray:
Yes. Our CMO has been here for almost a year now. I think it'll be a year this summer. And so yeah, this is something that he has put together. Our team has been evolving. I've been at MassMutual it'll be, oh gosh, I haven't even been there a year yet, a year and a half. And so I came in under one CMO and then Jack started in June, so he has evolved us to what makes sense or what he felt the organization needs were. And so financial services continue to evolve, the needs evolve. It's very competitive but it's also just because consumer needs are constantly changing. Even with the market that's going on right now we know that our consumer needs are changing. I mean, yours and my financial needs have changed so much and so it just makes it more challenging.
And so what MassMutual is trying to do is figure out, what do consumers need and how do we help them? And it's all about helping our customers be financially healthy. And so that's what our team is tasked with doing: How do we figure out how to help our customers be financially healthy? And so I work across the organization and talk about financial wellness and work with the different teams as we are developing, as they're developing financial wellness products and services and helping them market that to the consumers and talk to the consumers about that. And so it's very exciting to be able to do something positive. I've done lots of different things in my career and I always keep saying, I'm not curing cancer by selling consumer products or working on what the next packaged food item is, but at least now that I'm working on something that's financial and something that really does impact someone's life and is life changing, it's been very exciting. So I really enjoyed this journey.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Whenever there's a shake up in the economy, I think we all then face ourselves and say, well, where am I sitting? So that must be fascinating to have that consumer insight and research aspect on your end for MassMutual.
Cathy Wray:
Yeah, it is but it's also very, it's exciting because then I feel what they're feeling, so I'm not only being an insights person. I have all those insights from the millions of people behind me, and then I feel it and I can say I feel it, then working with MassMutual and then as I'm getting excited about these tools or thinking about what we can do or how we do it, it's also very personal. And so, it's exciting and it's something that I finally feel like I found something. I've always been passionate. I'm one of those, I don't know how other researchers feel, but I've said this, I've said this for a long time. It's one of those to where I can go, I honestly still love my job. I can wake up in the morning and go, even after doing this for 30 years, I can still say I love my job.
Not everybody can do that. Not everybody can say after they've had this kind of a career that they still love their job. I'm still curious, I'm still wanting to solve problems. Even when I was looking at packaged food or what's the next thing for technology, I still was, I tackled it. But now I feel like I really am curing, not curing cancer, I'm not curing covid, but I'm solving, solving a crisis. I'm helping with something that really is personal, that really does impact people's lives because if we don't get retirement, you're going to be broke. It does impact people's lives. It impacts you for generations.
So, it is very personal. And so I finally feel like that. And I still love my job so I can get up in the morning and I love the people that I work with. Some people are challenges, but that even makes it more fun to just kind of figure out those solutions. So I like to find a problem and figure out how to solve it and to take on new challenges. And so I kind of chuckle. Bring me a problem and I'll help you fix it. So I like to find creative solutions. That's kind of my challenge.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well, thank you so much. Before we wrap up, I am going to ask you a fun question I have. Okay. I'm sure only people in Minnesota are familiar. I have my son's St. Paul Saints hat over here with a few questions. I'll pull one out.
Cathy Wray:
Okay, cool.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
All right. Let's see. If you could have another career, what would it be? Anything, sky's the limit.
Cathy Wray:
Oh, that's a good one. There's so many things I would love to do, but now that I'm helping my daughter pick out what her career potentially could be, since she's getting ready to go to college. Yeah, I think I would like to be a construction engineer.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Oh, interesting.
Cathy Wray:
Or a project engineer on a construction site. I love being outside and I love construction. And my brother owns a construction company and I've always said, oh, I wish I could have found a way to work with him. And so my daughter is getting ready to do that. She wants to be a construction engineer. I'm like, this is not fair. This is what I wanted to do. So a construction engineer I think would be fun. Or being a project manager out there running heavy equipment, something so that you're outside, but you can also be inside when it's really, really cold, I don’t know. I can put my snow pants on and then go outside. So maybe something in that realm would be a lot of fun or a jockey if I was small enough. But you got to be, I'm just not the right size. I'm too big. But that would be –
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well sky’s the limit on this question.
Cathy Wray:
So, I can be anything I want. If I could wish for my body to be smaller, I'd have to be shorter, weigh a lot less, have a smaller body frame, that would be a really tough one.
Emily Koenig Hapka:
Well, thanks so much for the laugh today and for sharing a quick drink with me.
Cathy Wray:
Oh, yes, yes. Thank you, Emily. Have a great afternoon. Thank you. You as well. Bye. Bye.