Dive Into Reborn Coffee: Hannah Goh

Hannah Goh is an NYU Stern alumna who is currently working at Reborn Coffee as the VP of Marketing and Sales. Reborn Coffee is a coffee company based in Southern California and has earned the title of “America’s Best Cold Brew” in 2017 & 2018. I have been given the pleasure of interviewing Hannah to ask about her experiences at Reborn and in marketing. Hence, below are some questions and answers I had for Hannah regarding her role and marketing expertise.

What is your role at Reborn Coffee?

I currently work as the VP of Marketing & Sales at Reborn Coffee -- so in general, I run the entire marketing and sales department. Since the headquarters are pretty small, I am able to wear multiple hats in my job. For example, sometimes I am able to go into stores to help with events, sometimes I get to sample coffee, and other times I work on strategizing advertisements and designs for the company. Overall, I literally do everything and anything: from some grunt work to strategizing plans to working with other companies.

What would you say is the brand of Reborn Coffee? How do you approach marketing Reborn Coffee's brand?

I would say that Reborn Coffee is a forward-thinking company -- in the sense that we are always thinking of innovation and focusing on the craft of coffee. In the brand, we prioritize serving and creating a great experience in coffee. As for marketing Reborn Coffee's brand, my biggest considerations include the various demographics in the market (i.e. age, location, avid-coffee lover vs. casual drinkers, etc.). It is no secret that the coffee market is saturated, so it is incredibly important to think about who we, as a brand, are targeting and how we may reach this audience through our marketing efforts. Additionally, customer experience is very important in the coffee industry. The quality of customer service in-store can make or break how people see our brand. These are all aspects I take into consideration when marketing Reborn Coffee's brand.

What is your biggest challenge as the VP of Marketing & Sales for Reborn Coffee?

From the perspective of my role, one of the biggest challenges I have is having to wear multiple hats. The benefit to this is that anything I do is impactful to the company. But on the other hand, a con is that I would sometimes feel burnt out and would need to establish my work-life balance. Amongst all this, I love my job as it is incredibly fun for me to do.

From the perspective of marketing in general, the biggest challenge/discovery I have encountered was that marketing is not just about creating assets and putting them out there. Marketing is also very analytical, and this is something a person may not understand until he/she is confronted with it. With the campaigns I create, I've learned how important it is to guide myself using solid evidence and data to effectively target our customers.

What is your favorite marketing campaign, project, or design you have worked on?

One of my favorite designs is the Reborn x Fellow Carter Move Mugs (as seen on the left). Some other favorites include the gift sets I created for Reborn Coffee, the Reborn Coffee pint glasses, and the labels I designed for our products. As a fun note, I've also created Reborn Coffee memes in my spare time.

Do you have any advice for current undergraduate students pursuing Marketing?

The biggest thing I would like to highlight is that: marketing can be so many things, so don't close yourself to other options just because you want to do marketing. Believe it or not, so many other jobs have marketing in it as well! Hence, I would recommend taking some time to think about what marketing means to you and what aspect of marketing you are attracted to (whether it be content creation, designing, data, etc.). Furthermore, I believe it is important to think about what industry you are interested in. This is because marketing in the television industry would be drastically different than marketing for a firm like JP Morgan.

Why did you pursue Marketing?

Personally, I chose Marketing because it is very much about people. As I am a people person, I enjoy being able to focus on how the strategies and campaigns I create may affect other people. Furthermore, I am a visual person, so the visual elements of Marketing are very appealing to me.

What is your personal favorite marketing campaign/strategy?

I love Spotify Wrap! Spotify Wrap shows how Spotify is able to utilize data visualization to enhance the customer experience. I believe this is a great example of how a company is able to really understand its data to create a personal experience for each person.

That is all! I hope this article was helpful to those of you interested in pursuing Marketing or are considering it as a possible career path. Click here to check out Reborn Coffee and the products designed by Hannah! Finally, comment down below your go-to coffee order and whether you would categorize yourself as a coffee-lover or casual-drinker.