Renee Weber, VP, Consumer Strategy and Research, The Marketing Store

Renee is an expert in youth and family.  At The Marketing Store, her primary responsibilities have been to provide more in-depth understanding of youth/families, youth promotions/product development, help lead consumer-based product innovation and establish the Marketing Store Play lab. A mother of three (8, 15 and 18 years), she also has plenty of firsthand experience. Prior to joining the Marketing Store, Renee worked at Leo Burnett, General Mills Restaurant Group, NutraSweet, Keebler and SBC (now AT&T).

Renee holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Northwestern University and for the past 7 years, a primary area of her focus has been children’s play. As part of that focus, she’s devoured most of the academic literature on play, tracked changing play patterns, and conducted hundreds of focus groups/observations. Insights from these efforts have been instrumental in guiding successful toy development for The Marketing Store’s promotional premium and retail product clients (e.g., McDonald’s, General Mills, Nestle, Met Life, Wild Planet). In addition, Renee has been sought after to present her original research at national conferences and has spoken at numerous events, most recently Playcon 2011 conference where she keynoted alongside Nickelodeon.