What’s the story? with daniella levy

Welcome to our interview series What’s the Story?, where we will be sharing conversations with some of the most fascinating, thoughtful and refreshing marketing professionals, creatives and storytellers we’ve worked with. Join us as they reveal what drives them in their personal lives, the greatest lessons they’ve learned, and what they predict for the future of the industry.

We caught up with Daniella Levy, who is a part of the marketing team at Major League Baseball. Starting from a lifelong passion for sports that stemmed from a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, Daniella took us through a roller coaster time in her life where the pandemic, being furloughed from work, and starting grad school all converged to get her where she is today. She also taught us about the two-hour job search method, why building a brand positioning is so important, and what to watch out for from MLB in the near future.

YOU ARE CURRENTLY THE SENIOR DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL BRAND MANAGEMENT FOR MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. HAVE YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO WORK IN SPORTS?

Back when I graduated college, I knew that sports was my passion. I was willing to do anything in sports but at the time, getting a full-time job in sports was hard. You had to have lots of experience, even for entry-level positions. As a result, I did four different internships all in different areas of the sports industry.

I am one of three children and the only girl with two brothers. They are sports fanatics. I would say none of us in the family are athletes, at all. In fact, I played one year of basketball, maybe half a season of softball…definitely not athletic. I used to ice skate, but it was because I loved the outfits and it was fun to go there on Friday nights. It was more of a social activity than anything else.

However, I loved sports, I loved football, and I had previously dated athletes in high school. Just being exposed to that environment, I realized I could probably get into that industry because I was a good networker and communicator. And really just wanted to make my brothers jealous!

One of my first internships was with the Redskins [now the Washington Commanders], and I distinctly remember: I'm on the field, doing my thing, and my brother was all the way up in the 400s section. It was everything you want in a sibling dynamic. I didn't come at it from an athlete’s passion perspective, it was a business perspective.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR FIRST JOB(S).

My first job was working for the DC Sports Commission, where our role was to market DC as a sports destination. We were a non-profit, so we did a lot of fundraising events. I did a little bit of everything: events; grassroots marketing; and I spearheaded a lot of the bids for large sporting events. NCAA events, Army/Navy games – these types of events have a bidding process to go to various cities. We would partner with the city, and with the venue, and then put together a collective bid for the city to bring these sporting events to the DC region.

Unfortunately the organization decided to go through a restructuring and I was laid off. It was a week before Christmas in 2011. It was horrible. I felt like I'd lost myself; I wasn't sure what to do next. I let myself grieve for two weeks, waited for the holidays to pass, then started to pound the pavement. I was opening myself up to all industries and all roles.

A connection to a connection brought me into Discovery Communications. They had a flex role that was maternity coverage; I was brought on as an account coordinator for their in-house agency. I loved, loved working for Discovery. I had such a good time there (and thought I would be back).

WHAT WAS A TURNING POINT IN YOUR CAREER?

While working for Discovery, I had gone to this conference, the association for in-house agencies (IHAF). All of Marriott's in-house agency account team at the time had come to this event.

Marriott felt very similar to Discovery. Right around then, my time was coming up at Discovery, and someone from Marriott had reached out to me on LinkedIn saying they had a role; would I be interested?

Marriott Hotels, at the time, was just beginning their brand transformation: updating their logo; creating a new brand campaign; and modernizing the brand like never before. They were planning on funding six full time people to be able to accomplish the brand transformation. I knew I had the job before I even walked out of there.

After almost four years of working in the agency, we acquired Starwood [in 2016], and a lot of positions were opened.

I got a job as the Senior Manager for Sheraton in brand marketing. It was challenging at first as we were one of the only Marriott teams now working on a Starwood brand.

We went through an entire brand refresh for Sheraton. I had always been the account manager, and I had to relinquish control to pull off this brand refresh. I did a lot of great work and grew a lot as a marketer during that role.

However, I knew I wanted to make more money and I was performing at the level of a Director, even though I didn’t have the title. I started to look around for Director roles internally and ended up getting the role of Director of Brand Marketing and Brand Management for Delta Hotels. That was fall of 2019. I was like: “I like this job, but I’m not being pushed like I was within the Sheraton role. I'm going to stay in this role since I just started, but I want to do something to make myself better, while in the role.”

HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT DOING THAT?

I decided I was going to look into getting my MBA. In January, I went to a women’s prospective students happy hour for UVA Darden. It was a panel where current students were talking about being career shifts by being a climber, a switcher, or an entrepreneur. We heard from three women talking about what category they fell into and what they were doing to get there.

There, I met five girls who were all thinking about either applying to the school or had already been accepted. I walked out of there thinking, “these are my people.” I only applied to Darden, got in February 2020, paid my deposit March 9...then on March 13, the world shut down.

We were told the following Friday that we were going to be furloughed at Marriott. I called Darden admissions and the career center trying to figure out my next steps – they suggested I begin taking advantage of Darden services and the alumni network. They really started to bond our class early on in the process; anyone who had been admitted started hanging on Zoom, a Whatsapp group was created…that group made an effort to start the process early because we had nothing else going on.

I was told, without being told, that my job was going to be okay. So, I stopped looking for jobs, relaxed, tried to enjoy my summer, and fast forward to August, I started school. It was super intense. They made the decision to do everything remote. I was on Zoom eight hours a day for a full week. The month right after, we started back at work. I had not done anything with my brain for six months. Now I was in full time school, full time work…and losing my mind.

The school experience was incredible. The people I met that January are still some of my best friends. I just knew, at that moment, that these are my people and I'm going to stick it out.

HOW DID YOU FIND THE ROLE YOUR’RE CURRENTLY IN WITH MLB?

Once I was a full year into school, I started to utilize the two hour job search method. I highly recommend this. You make a list of every company you can possibly want to work for. What you might want to do for them. Make a list of who you know: for me it was Darden alumni and my extended LinkedIn network.

And then I went through the list of people – one by one – setting up time with each of them, asking career details about each person; they would relay their whole life story and their career path. Around that time in school, we were talking about finding your passion. I used to really be passionate about sports…so I thought to myself, maybe I should go back into sports? Two or three days later I got an email from AdWeek that Karin [Timpone, former Global Marketing Officer at Marriott] was the new CMO at MLB.

Early on in Covid Karin really helped me, we had great conversations, so when I saw the announcement, I thought to myself, this could be it. A couple months later Scott Weisenthal [former VP, Global Creative and Content at Marriott] got a job at MLB and I was like alright, this is a sign! So, I reached out to Scott, and it turns out that his counterpart was building out a brand new organization called brand and experiential marketing. I set up time with her, and, at the time, she just had an idea of what she wanted her organization to be. MLB had never had a brand positioning and they were looking to make a shift in marketing. Their entire business objective was fan growth, and were now making the steps to get there.

I started last August (2022) and moved to New York a few months later. I was brought in to create a brand positioning for MLB and create a brand-level campaign. They didn’t have full-blown brand guidelines or a design system. They have an in-house design team but were never working off guidelines so the MLB branding was not consistent.

That's what I did for the first six months: figure out the brand positioning; circulate it amongst the executives; explain what brand positioning will do; how we can capitalize on it; how we can use it to achieve our goal of fan growth. As a result of those efforts, we were able to launch our brand campaign called “Baseball is Something Else” on opening day this year.

WHAT IS THE THING YOUR MOST PROUD OF ACCOMPLISHING WITH MLB SO FAR?

Rolling out the brand positioning and helping people understand what that can do for the business. Having a north star that everyone can rally behind.

It helped us understand the clear consistent message we wanted to portray. Helping people understand that, yes, we can sell tickets all day, but if you don't feel an emotional connection with the sport, player, club - it doesn't really get you anything. This season has been successful in ways I don't think anyone thought. I would love to say that's because of us, but brand level marketing takes a bit more time. That plus all the work that the league has done in terms of rule changes and keeping players top of mind, mixed with our brand positioning and brand level marketing, is what's going to help us in the future.

WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED FOR IN THE FUTURE FOR MLB?

This next year, we are going to really be able to dimensionalize what “Baseball is Something Else” means. We're going to do a lot more storytelling in terms of the athletes - beyond just a game, it's an experience. We have a quote in our positioning deck: "MLB is the enabler of a million meaningful experiences yet feels so personal." That should make you feel something, and if we're able to message and market that, fan growth is the next step.

WHAT’S SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU?

I'm such an open book that I'm pretty sure people know everything about me. I come off as very extroverted, very much a people person, always happy to speak my mind. But I am very much an introvert. That definition: if you get your energy from being around people or alone - I need that time alone. I live alone, I get a lot of the time that I need. If I have too much going on, I just feel exhausted. Physically and emotionally.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU’RE CURRENTLY TRYING TO MAKE A HABIT OF?

Experiencing New York and all it has to offer. Making myself get out there even when I want to say no. It's the “yes” year. I’m really trying to make an effort.

KNOWING THAT YOU RECENTLY TOOK UP RESIDENCE IN NYC, WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY YOU’VE MADE THERE SO FAR?

A couple weeks ago was my birthday and I did one of those nighttime sailboat cruises. I had 22 people on the boat, half were from DC and half were new New York friends. It was the best night. I felt like this is my city. I'm so happy to bring my people here. It was a perfect night in terms of weather. I'd never seen the Statue of Liberty that close. It was such an incredible moment. I've had a couple of those times since I've lived here in the last 6 months where I'm like OK, this is my home, and I love it here. I'm glad I made the move. We’ll see what the future holds, but I am going to stay in NYC as I have a lot more work to do here.

That sounds like such a lovely birthday and the perfect way to commemorate moving to New York. Many thanks to Daniella for the “inside baseball” perspective into working for MLB, and for filling us in on the journey it took to get where she is today. See you on the field!