How Hostess’ Tina Lambert built her innovation team

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How Hostess’ Tina Lambert built her innovation team

10 Feb 2023

Evan Bail

Annie Hollon is a journalist, copywriter and social media strategist from the Dallas, Texas area. She found a love for magazine writing during her time at the University of Alabama where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in public relations and English. Beyond writing, you can find her expanding her library, attempting to teach herself the guitar and trying new hobbies.

KANSAS CITY, MO — Remaining resilient in the face of reduced consumer confidence, a looming recession, supply chain disruption and more, Tina Lambert, VP of the Marketing Center of Excellence of Hostess Brands, celebrates that, through it all, the company supports what she and her team believe will drive long term growth.

“My three favorite things to do are build teams, create new strategies and tackle tough challenges,” she said. “I’m an innovator at heart, and if you give me something meaty and challenging, that’s when I get really excited. And this role has allowed me to showcase those three things, for sure.”

Of the three, Lambert prides herself most on the team she’s built. The experts who have joined her team over the past three years — all new to Hostess Brands — are transforming the company’s brands, Hostess and Voortman, through innovative and agile marketing.

“Our advertising is 100% digital at Hostess Brands, so we’re able to read the results every few weeks and actually make adjustments to our advertising program to maximize the ROI,” she explained. “You can’t do that with a traditional TV kind of plan. But the fact that we’re 100% digital really gives us that flexibility and efficiency.”

It all comes back to that first title Lambert ever held, long before she led teams at major CPG companies: big sister. Lambert isn’t surprised that throughout her career people have described her leadership as “sisterly.”

“As a senior leader, when you’re running a team of experts, it’s all about giving them the tools they need to succeed, clearing obstacles out of their path and then getting out of their way,” she explained. “And as a big sister, it’s kind of the same thing. I’ll give you the support and help that you need, and then you’re going to run from there and be successful.”

Throughout her history of working in innovation, Lambert seems to inevitably return to one guiding mantra: The Ford Model-T wouldn’t sell today.

“I say that because what worked in the past can’t guide our future,” she said. “You have to look at three things: innovation, the advertising tactics you’re using and the advertising messages you’re delivering. They all have to be constantly evolving to meet changing consumers’ needs.”

With the wisdom of an older sister, Lambert’s learned that innovation will more likely fail if the benefit to consumers is weak. Whether it’s difficult to communicate and market or it faces challenges from competitors or distribution, innovation’s biggest enemy is often the idea itself. As she continues her work at Hostess Brands, Lambert will use her experiences, lessons and commitment to the consumer to maintain her track record of success.

“I’m an innovator at heart because my whole life I’ve been two things: an idea person and someone who prides themselves on understanding people,” Lambert said. “I think that’s where it’s helped me learn from my failures and succeed in a lot of other places.”

This story has been adapted from the 2022 Innovations Annual issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.

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