REGGIE Brand Catalyst Awards Grand Jury

MEGAN HOPPENJANS

Executive Director, Strategy
VML

BIO

Megan Hoppenjans is the Executive Director of Strategy at VML. She’s passionate about bringing industry-leading growth mining, creative commerce, commerce experience strategy, and omnicommerce content to life. 

As a former retail leader at America's largest grocer and Fortune 20 company, The Kroger Co., Megan’s expertise spans retail strategy, marketing, merchandising, assortment, price and promotion, retail media, supply chain, retail operations, and eCommerce. 

Megan has been recognized as a Progressive Grocer Top Woman in Grocery, a SOAR Woman of Achievement. Previously, Megan has served several of WPP's top CPG clients including Unilever, General Mills, Haleon, GSK, and Pfizer. 

Megan is an avid equestrian and a Kentucky Derby winning racehorse owner. 

Q&A with Megan Hoppenjans

Please provide one word that defines great brand leadership today. 

Trust 

Please share one trend you are watching closely. 

Agentic Commerce - as we shift from humans actively discovering and choosing products to AI agents making purchase decision autonomously on their behalf - brands must optimize not only for human emotion and attention, but for machine trust and algorithmic preference.  

In one sentence – What will it take to make an entry worthy of a REGGIE Brand Catalyst award? 

A REGGIE Brand Catalyst winner is a campaign that fuses genuine brand conviction with bold, authentic, relevant creativity - and then proves, through hard data, that it drove incremental business growth.  

What advice would you offer to teams preparing submissions for the REGGIE Brand Catalyst Awards? 

Lead with impact and let creative be what delivers it - building backward from measurable impact, making the insight feel inevitable, spotlighting the braveness and relevancy of creative, and closing with hard numbers makes a compelling case.  

Why do awards programs like REGGIE Brand Catalyst matter to the health and progress of the marketing industry? 

Programs like REGGIE matter because they enable us to do three things consistently over time:
1) Raise the standard and create a shared language of excellence;
2) Drive talent and culture by celebrating when we bring the best minds together - and highlighting when we don't;
3) Prove the business case for creativity spurring onward our mission of calculated strategic bets that unlock risks in creativity.  

What distinguishes exceptional brand-building work from work that is simply “good”? 

Exceptional work changes something — a perception, a behavior, a cultural conversation — while good work simply executes well. The difference is whether the idea could only have come from that brand, at that moment, for that audience, through that activation. 

When reviewing submissions, what signals tell you that a program is driving real, sustainable business growth? 

The clearest signal is when short-term metrics and long-term brand health move in the same direction — sales lift alongside brand love, not at the expense of it. Sustainable growth shows up in repeat behavior, not just acquisition. 

When you review the “breakthrough insight” or “aha moment” behind a campaign, what tells you that a team has uncovered something truly meaningful?  What do you most want to understand about their thinking in this section? 

A real insight makes you feel slightly uncomfortable — like someone said out loud what everyone knew but no one had named yet. Oftentimes, there’s a gasp in the room. If the insight could apply to any brand in the category or to any audience, it isn't an insight; it's an observation. 

How do you balance creative ambition with commercial accountability when assessing great brand work? 

I don't see them as opposing forces — the most commercially accountable work I've ever seen was also the most creatively brave, because a timid idea doesn't change minds or behavior. The question I ask is whether the ambition was in service of the strategy, or in spite of it. 

A key section of the case study submission is dedicated to how teams brought their big idea to life; for you as a judge, what details would you consider critical for entrants to include? What will it take for this section to achieve a higher score over other submissions? 

Tell me where you made hard choices — what you cut, what you fought for, and why — because execution details that reveal strategic discipline are far more compelling than a highlight reel of touchpoints. Show me how the idea scaled without losing its soul. 

Get to know the 2026 REGGIE Brand Catalyst Grand Jurors.