Joy is the Real ROI: Creating Brand Moments That Stick (Like Slime!)

What happens when a logistical nightmare turns into a major sign of success? This week on Making the Moment, we dive into the chaotic early days of Sloomoo Institute with co-founder Karen Robinowitz. She shares the wild story of their launch, where a massive ticket mix-up, that could have damaged their business, set the stage for a slime-filled empire built on joy.

Karen breaks down how an unconventional concept rooted in play turned into a scalable, sticky brand with massive reach—and why families, especially kids, are responding to real joy in a way that can’t be ignore.

If you’re a brand marketer or CXO chasing loyalty, resonance, and cultural relevance, this episode is a joyful gut check on what truly moves people—and why bold ideas, delivered with heart, always rise.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why emotional engagement and multi-sensory design drive deeper brand loyalty—especially with families
• The brands that build spaces where people feel seen are the ones rewriting the rules — and reaping the returns
• What the rise of tactile, immersive spaces like Sloomoo Institute means for the future of brand experiences

#MakingTheMoment #ExperientialMarketing #BrandStrategy #EmotionalROI #CXLeadership #InclusiveMarketing #SloomooInstitute #CulturalImpact #BrandLoyalty #ImmersiveExperiences #MarketingPodcast #HighProfileClients #EventPlanningSecrets #BusinessPodcast #MarketingPodcast #Events #ExperientialMarketing #Slime #BrandMarketing #BrandEvents

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Transcript

Introduction  

We've all seen them, those experiences that stop us in our tracks, the moments that flood our feeds, shift culture, and bring people together. I'm Aja Bradley-Kemp, and I've helped generate millions in revenue and billions of impressions by creating scroll-stopping moments for some of your favorite brands and celebrities. 

This is Making the Moment, the podcast that brings you the untold stories, unfiltered insights, and big ideas from the architects behind the moments that matter. In each episode, I'll show you how to design experiences that not only captivate audiences, but also drive tangible value for your organization. 

Whether you're looking to build buzz, boost loyalty, or drive revenue, I want to help you design customer experiences that truly make an impact. This is for the moment makers and the culture creators. Welcome to Making the Moment.

We've all seen them those experiences that stop us in our tracks the moments that flood our feeds shift culture and bring people together I'm Asia Bradley Kemp and I've helped generate millions in revenue and billions of impressions by creating scroll-stopping moments for some of your favorite brands and celebrities This is making the moment the podcast that brings you the untold stories Unfiltered insights and big ideas from the architects behind the moments that matter

In each episode, I'll show you how to design experiences that not only captivate audiences, but also drive tangible value for your organization. Whether you're looking to build buzz, boost loyalty, or drive revenue, I want to help you design customer experiences that truly make an impact. This is for the moment makers and the culture creators. 

Welcome to Making the Moment.

Aja Bradley-Kemp  00:49 

Hey, Moment Makers. Today we are diving into a world where slime meets science, creativity meets commerce, and joy is more than just a feeling, it's a business model. We're joined by the brilliant and endlessly creative Karen Rabinowitz, the co-founder and co-CEO of Sloomoo Institute. It's the wildly popular immersive slime experience that has redefined play and exclusivity and has captivated audiences across the United States.

Before she was slinging slime and spreading smiles, Karen was shaping the influencer marketing landscape as the co-founder of Digital Brand Architects, the first ever talent management agency dedicated to digital influencers. She's been a journalist, an author, and an entrepreneur. 

Karen, welcome to Making the Moment. 

Karen Robinowitz  1:37

Thank you so much for having me. It's so good to see you and reconnect. Because we've been through so many iterations of our careers together.

Aja Bradley-Kemp 1:46

Yes. Your previous lives, our paths have intersected. As I was saying to you before we started, I have just been so inspired as an entrepreneur, seeing this current iteration of your journey and what you've been able to build and we're going to get into so much. 

But I wanted to start in the process. Present in the thick of the slime, so to speak. Some will know what Sloomoo is, some will not. So when you walk into a Sloomoo location today, what is the very first thing that you feel? 

Karen Robinowitz 2:20

Joy. Our mission is delivering joy. So you walk in and you're greeted with incredible, bold color. Every ounce of our space has been thoughtfully curated. Color comes from color therapy. The journey of what you go through in the experience is all about how are you triggering moods and lifting them or calming, lift, calm, lift, calm, inspire, trigger, create. 

And when you are in a place where there are literally hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds, I'm taking out my slime right now, gallons of this slime, people literally lose their minds. They lose their minds because they've never seen that much of it. And then it is about just diving in. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp 3:13

How did that come to be because it's so interesting that Sloomoo is based on joy and in Conversate Collective, my experiential agency, we say our purpose, purpose is to create inclusive experiences that leave people feeling seen and filled with joy. Joy is a driver for us. So how did you come to that moment where joy is the center of it? 

Karen Robinowitz 3:38

I came to this, to be honest, through depression. I was in a very, very dark place with a lot of pain, never-ending grief and mourning and loss and I didn't think I would ever come out. I was kind of in a shell for about a good year and a half. One day my friend came by with her then 10-year-old. Her daughter happened to have slime with her and it wasn't store-bought slime. It was handmade. 

And I knew there was this cultural zeitgeist anyway, as somebody who consumes culture and content like a 12-year old, I knew there was a thing in the world. I said to her, I want to see her slime. And when I sat on the floor with her, just thinking I'd have a minute squeezing her slime and leaving, I was so enthralled that four hours went by. 

I realized during that time I had forgotten about my pain. It was gone. In fact, I didn't just stay on the floor with her. At one point, we were drizzling slime for the roof of my building to see how far it can stretch. I mean, I was seven again and I never thought I would see that version of me who was so free and innocent and playful again. So when I was greeted with that, I said, if this did it to me, I need more. 

That is really the mission of delivering that feeling and I don't believe you can deliver that feeling without inclusion, without welcoming everybody, without the sort of innocence that people have when they are children and they can sit in a room with other children. Nobody has to be from the same country, nobody has to speak the same language and yet they can talk, play and communicate through their actions, through their emotions, through their smiles. 

That's what slime is. I look at it as this weird, great equalizer because when you are stretching and playing, it doesn't matter what you look like, you're actually not pretty when you're playing with slime. It doesn't matter if you have a handbag or not. It doesn't matter what your political beliefs are. It doesn't matter where you come from. It matters that you're squeezing and stretching and looking and you're in awe with those around you. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp  6:02       

This came from something personal to you. You've been able to translate that in a way that so many people connect with. But then the other thing, the inclusivity piece, I think is really important as well, because I remember going to the New York location and one of the things that stood out to me was just the diversity of the staff to begin with. 

I was surprised to see it, especially in a SoHo neighborhood. Can you talk about the intention behind that and why the cultural, understanding, I've heard you call it, is so important? 

Karen Robinowitz      6:40

All of that can only stem from the people who create the company. As a human being, I'm always the person who I look to who somebody is to connect, not what they might be on the outside, it's what's on the inside, right? Our outsides are shelves; our souls are who we are. 

Somebody's shell, it doesn't matter what color they are, it doesn't matter what size they are, it doesn't matter if they're missing a piece of their shell. It's who they are inside of that shell that I always seek to connect with. I think it's probably because, and it wasn't done on purpose, but I went to a school growing up from fourth grade on, that was so diverse. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     7:33

Where'd you grow up? 

Karen Robinowitz      7:34

I grew up in New Jersey. I went to a school where my friends were Indian, they were black, they were Chinese, they were Buddhist, they were Muslim. I was the Jewish one. It was such a small school, there were only 50 kids in my grade, 500 kids in the whole school so imagine that times all of the grades, like everyone I knew was different. 

I remember then going to sleepaway camp where everybody had my exact same background in a way, right? They were 98% Jewish girls from the Northeast and I had such different friendships. I'm still friends with a lot of the people I went to camp with and a lot of the people I went to high school with but I think what I realized, and I didn't realize it until I was in college. 

One day I was in college, I went to Emory, it was very segregated. I remember Freshman year sitting at the lunch table being like, I don't understand why everybody is apart. Why is one group of people who may all be Indian sitting over here and one group of people who are all Asian are sitting over here and one group of people who are black are sitting over here and one group of people who were Jewish were sitting over here. I was like, I don't understand that and I felt a real longing and sadness in college. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp  9:08

You said you went to Emory? 

Karen Robinowitz      9:10

I went to Emory. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     9:11

Here in Atlanta. Okay, got it.

Karen Robinowitz      9:12

And I really was like, how do I get out of this? How do I take a piece of everybody? Because that's what fulfills me as a human being. I know my point of view, the world is not my point of view. The world comes together when I see what everyone's point of view is. So I've always been somebody who strives to hear what other people see and think and how do we all blend to make it one.

To me, it's like, I don't need a DEI policy to think about inclusion. I'm going to think about it because that's who I am as a human, that's who my business partner is as a human. My business partner has a daughter who has a rare genetic syndrome. It's called Angelman Syndrome. She is an incredible, beautiful human who is really happy, that is a side effect of, or symptom of her syndrome. 

But on the other side of her syndrome, she is nonverbal, she is not able to feed herself, she's not able to go to the bathroom alone, she doesn't get dressed on her own. She can walk and she can see things and she loves dancing and she laughs a lot but I've seen a world now through the eyes of somebody who has a lot of limitations.

Yet I went to the Barbie movie with her and she was laughing at all the same jokes I was laughing at, like a beat before me. I was really paying attention and I was like, oh my God, she really sees it and gets it. 

Having a partner who has introduced me to somebody who sees the world and processes things differently and having a partner who celebrates that and being a part of it is so beautiful that that's part of what we want to bring to others is everyone in the world. 

When you look at the two things that we have both faced with, mine coming out of mental health and hers coming out of neurodiversity, physical limitations and diversity, everyone can relate to one of us. And so when we bring both of our missions into our business and mine is, I want to deliver joy, I want people to have a place where like this can give them escape. 

And she's coming from a place of, I want people who might think and process differently to be seen. And obviously as a human being I’m that way, and as a human being she wants joy, she supports what I'm about also. Our whole world is built around that mission. We don't have to think about it and say, do we have representation? Do we have inclusion? It's there. 

I think if you gave us the list of boxes that we ‘check’ and said, build the business around it, I never could have done it. This is all just like naturally part of us. I think if somebody is saying in the world, like we're canceling a DEI policy, does that mean they're canceling being inclusive? Could they not have a policy but still be equally inclusive because that's who you are or not. 

I wouldn't want to be inclusive because a policy was making me do it, otherwise, it's not natural. I don't believe anything is good without inclusion, different points of view. Nothing, nothing in the world is good without different points of view. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp 12:46

I love that. Oh, you said so much and it actually warms my heart because you don't get to speak to many business owners where that is baked into their DNA. I have to shout out and give props to where we're from, you grew up in New Jersey, I grew up in New York. I'm so grateful for having that experience because like you, my elementary school looked like the United Nations, so to speak. 

My friends were everyone and so my own world is the same like I can't comprehend being in a world, in a workplace, in a friend group, in a society where I'm not engaging with people and enjoying being around people of all different backgrounds and experiences. 

What I love even more listening to Sarah's story, between here and the research that I was doing, I need to talk to her because her story is amazing and what she's doing. There has been a lot around a neuro-diverse workforce and being able to provide opportunities with people that have those limitations. What does that look like in actuality and reality behind the scenes for you guys?

Karen Robinowitz      14:13

I think there's many levels of it and there's many levels of what we would call neurodiversity. I'm like super, super, super ADHD but I don't identify as neuro-diverse. So when we talk about neurodiversity, we're really talking about people who need job coaches to get through their days. 

What's really fascinating is they all have different ways of processing and learning and participating in the world and we have to really talk to their job coaches. So here's a really good example, we have somebody who works with us and if I was carrying something really heavy and I walked by him, he wouldn't help me, not because he doesn't think about it, it's not how his brain works. 

If I said, hey, will you please help me? He would say yes, but he would still stay there doing his other thing. I have to say to him, and I learned this from his job coach, not even ask him, hey, help me carry this chair right now. When I heard that, I was like, that sounds really bossy, I don't know if I want to talk to anybody that way. 

His job coach was like, that's actually the way he's going to understand and help you. He doesn't see it that way. So I then can be carrying it and walk by him and I'm like, hey, help me carry this chair right now. I might never talk to you that way and I would never talk to somebody, I would ask, but he has to be told. And you can't then go to the next person and think the same thing will work. 

So part of it is understanding from job coaches, how each person is will respond and then we have to empower general managers who are, let's say, working in the experience or the director or whomever the person that they report to, to say, this is how you support this person. 

To be honest, it’s a lot for somebody maybe to hold, but having that difference that's life. We all go through different things and not everybody has the facility to say, I don't understand you unless you say it like this. A neuro-typical person may, but a neuro-diverse person may not. 

What I believe this does is it makes everybody more accepting of other people, it makes everybody more patient. I remember I was once on a conference call and somebody who is neuro-diverse was trying to order food and was having some struggles and she kept coming up to me and asking.

If it was my brother, I would be like pointing to my phone and giving him this look of like, how dare you? With her, I had to say to the person I was on the phone with, please hold on. I need to, I need to support someone for a second and I like came over and was like, what do you need and I did it and then I went back to my phone and I was like, well, you can do both. 

Then I explained to the person on the phone I'm supporting somebody we work with who processes a little differently and if that person doesn't understand it, I kind of don't want to be on the phone with them. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     17:31

Right. Right. 

Karen Robinowitz      17:32

That's the human experience and we have so many families who come in who might have a neuro-diverse child, sibling, cousin, somebody, and when they see those faces reflected back at them, they know it's a place where they're welcome. The most amazing thing and one of the best stories I have from being in this experience of Sloomoo, is our first opening day in Houston. 

The person at the door for an hour and a half before we opened was a little girl with Down syndrome. She was going through the experience, but then at one point she looked over at a couple of people and then it registered for her and she said to her mom, mom, look, I can get a job here one day. 

I was just in tears because she may be used to hearing or seeing that she can't and of course she can. I think it's really important that it teaches everyone around us patience. We also work with a nonprofit called Kulture City.

They come in and there's training for everybody who works for us, who are at the experience so that if somebody comes in who might be much more sensory sensitive or react certain ways because of being neuro-diverse, we have kits like here are some earphones or do you need a quiet space or do you need a fidget toy. Or do you need to come back at a time when we're less busy because we have sensory hours and Saturday at noon is wild and loud and not built for those who are more sensitive. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     19:10

Yeah.

Karen Robinowitz      19:11

Sometimes you have to train people over and over and over and over and over, but we believe in the mission and it's never not going to be part of our mission. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     19:20

I love that. That's absolutely amazing. And so many things that our audience can take away to apply to their own experiences that they're creating, even the one-offs. There are so many lessons there. 

Karen Robinowitz      19:33

Oh, I want to share one more thing. We're building a new experience that will launch in August, a new interaction. When we were looking at the first drawings with the architecture team, not our immediate architects, but like a group of architectural artists that we're working with to fabricate something. 

The first thing we all said was, can a wheelchair go through that and navigate it fully? If it can't, we start over. While our space is ADA compliant, we also look at every individual moment to say, will that leap on the floor be too high for a wheelchair and what if somebody is hearing-impaired? We're not doing it yet, but it is a conversation we're having where do we train our whole staff in ASL?

So that if somebody comes in, like they can actually be seen and communicate. I can only do cool slime in ASL, it's something I want to learn just being inspired by some of our guests. Last night I was at an event and I was listening to a man speak, he's blind and he works in technology to make, things that would be accessible to the blind. 

And then I think back about, well our experience is accessible, you're touching everything and you're feeling everything and that's amazing for somebody who has some vision limitations or struggles. How else are we doing it? Like, where can I be better? Because we're not, no one's perfect but these are the things that kind of keep us up at night and they're really important to us. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     21:14

That's amazing because a lot of people aren't thinking about that. How did you implement all of these different support systems for your neuro-diverse staff? Was it through Sarah's experience and she kind of just like gave suggestions, we need to do this, we need to do that or did you get some formal guidance? 

Karen Robinowitz      21:36

A little bit of both. It started with Sarah saying, let's start with one person, just one and let's see the impact this one person has on people, which is huge. Then, as we said, we want to grow it in all of our cities that we're in, we work with a nonprofit that provides scaffolding and staffing for those who are neuro-diverse and then that nonprofit team will come in and look at our space. 

One challenge that we actually have is that our spaces can get really loud. You put a group like hundreds of guys, fun and just all the other things that you can do in our world. People are screaming and they're excited and they're yelling and they lose it a little, even the adults, actually more so the adults sometimes. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     22:31

I was fighting with my mother over slime when we went. I was like, lady. 

Karen Robinowitz      22:38

We're like, sorry, sir, you can't throw that at the ceiling and it's like some 56-year old man. Some of the nonprofits were like, I actually think that it's going to be hard for us to find somebody who will work at the experience because it's loud. So we need somebody who is okay with noise. We also have a backup house which is our ‘kitchen’ where we make all the slime.

That is a place where it might be easier to staff. However, it's equally important for me that it doesn't feel like it's just back of house. They're not there because they're hidden. They're there because it might be quieter but there are people who welcome the energy so you have to find the right person.

Because if somebody is really sound sensitive and has a hard time with a lot of people, then that's not working at Lake Sloomoo where people are running across 500 gallons of slime. Part of it is also understanding how each person operates and where they're great and where they need things to be different and ensuring that we're meeting those accommodations. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     23:54

And that's in a lot of work environments, right? You got to put people where it plays to their strength. 

Karen Robinowitz      23:58

Yeah, so it's no different. We've had guests who've come in and complained and said, it seems like somebody on that staff was stoned and we're like, sorry, they're neuro-diverse, they're not processing the way you're processing. That's a hard conversation to have because you don't want to literally point out somebody else's blinders in a way that's wrong, but you don't want them deciding who somebody is because they might be a little different. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     24:33

Yeah, you can see both sides of it. I would kind of feel the same if I walked into a place with my child and felt that one of the people participating or in charge of the experience was not up to the job. Could you share the nonprofit that you guys work with that supports Sloomoo? 

Karen Robinowitz      24:49

There's one that we work with across all of our locations called Kulture City. They provide us with training for our staff to understand guests and sensory kits. So if a guest comes in and it might be louder than they expect or they might have sent sensitivities because our slime is scented. We have like nose plugs and earphones and quiet spaces so we know to get them the Kulture City bag.

But in Houston, we have a very specific nonprofit that we work with where they're helping us staff it and then when they do that, they also help with the training. And then there are some people that we work with who literally have their own individual job coaches, some people are a lucky enough position that their parents are able to give them and we work with them. 

There's a woman who comes in with her job coach and her job coach works alongside her. Not everyone has it at that level, but it's amazing, it's meaningful employment and they're a part of something and they're opening eyes to their coworkers also.

Aja Bradley-Kemp     26:11

And is that in terms of cost? Is that like a huge investment for you guys financially to be able to support this different levels of staff, especially the ones that might need a job coach because that's essentially two people?

Karen Robinowitz      26:27

It depends on where it's coming from. Sometimes the nonprofit brings in the coach and that's the nonprofits world so we're not actually paying out of pocket for that. I think the only time where it can cost more is there are some people who might move at a different pace.

If they're moving a little more slowly, and let's just say they're packing slime, they might not pack as 80 slimes every 30 minutes. But I think that it's too important for us to worry about that bottom line. 

It's not that big of a difference and where the big difference is, is the universe goodwill, I think it's a gift to have that experience of working alongside somebody who shows you a different way of thinking and being and accepting and patience and empathy. That for us is really important. 

The other thing is when you're doing that you also build a lot of loyalty because not everybody is going to be as welcoming. We had somebody who once said to us, I've always had people who didn't hire me because of my neurodiversity and I thought people should hire me actually because of my autism and I'm so detail oriented and I count everything.

I might be slower but I don't miss any details and we're like, that's the beauty of you and they feel seen and that's amazing. We're living in a world where we're all waking up in the universe and saying, I don't feel seen, I don't feel seen and being seen is important. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     28:07

I love that. I love that. All right. So switching gears a little bit, when you and Sarah came up with this idea from what I read, it was supposed to originally just be a pop-up, right?

Karen Robinowitz      28:19

Yeah. We imagined we would open New York as a six-month pop-up. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     28:23

And then when did you realize that it was going to be a long-term experience?

Karen Robinowitz      28:28

I know this sounds crazy, but day one. Our ticketing platform accidentally oversold our tickets by 100% so the day we were supposed to have like 1,500 people, we had 3,000 and we were literally like, we're going to need a bigger boat. During the pandemic, when we had to close we pivoted with all kinds of digital experiences and doing things online with kids and adults and corporate. But we said, let's go in, let's go back to our landlord, let's negotiate five more years. This is the time to do it and let's build out a larger business strategy. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     29:12

How long were you guys open before COVID hit and you had to shut down?

Karen Robinowitz      29:17

Four and a half months. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     29:19

Oh, wow. And then how long were you closed for physically? 

Karen Robinowitz      29:22

That whole period of time is such a blur, but we were closed until we were allowed to open. And when we were allowed to open first it was just the shop, not the experience. Then it was, you can open to 20% capacity. You can't pay a full rent on that capacity but we opened and then it became 40%. 

Then there were some shutdowns again, then it was back open. So we just went along with everything we could go along with following all the regulations and the rules. But we just knew it would come back and we knew that it would be needed more than ever because we couldn’t get off our screens, right? 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     30:06

Yeah.

Karen Robinowitz      30:07

The digital addiction is so real. We're this universe of touching and there are hand wipes everywhere. We keep it clean but we're this sensory universe of touching and listening and smelling and the visual and that's something that everybody lacked during that time. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     30:28

Speaking of that sensory experience, there's a lot of technology that I want you to talk about that has been integrated into the Sloomoo experience. How do you balance that innovation while keeping true to the analog part of the experience and the essence of what Sloomoo is? 

You could say it's easy because it's slime and of course it's supposed to be touched but people are always looking for a wow moment. You can get carried away with having the CGI character and all those things. How do you find that balance? 

Karen Robinowitz      31:08

90% of what we do is really, really based in analog, but some of it has some digital powering what's behind it. One thing we're going to be removing from all of our spaces and adding something new, we have this immersive video room that it's like very slimy and #satisfying from a visual perspective. 

In New York, we just took it out and brought in two new analog experiences, but we're building something right now that I will launch in the end of June. It's about touching slime, that's in a copper bowl because copper is a conductor and there's a capacitor built into the bowl. 

And because our skin is made of essentially we're full of water, when you touch the slime and it triggers sounds so it's turning slime into the equivalent of a 10 instrument like DJ cool, laying down tracks. So the technology is powering it, but you're actually going in and it's an analog thing that powers technology. 

We are trying to look at things that way because when we have something that's all tech, it usually doesn't last that long in our spaces. And then we have to think how we have to do this a little differently. These are the lessons we've learned the hard way.

Aja Bradley-Kemp 32:33

How do you come up with the experiences and changing them out? How do you come up with these ideas? 

Karen Robinowitz      32:40

Sarah and I just sometimes sit in a room and we talk about what would be the most insane, crazy thing to do? How can we evolve? How can we think differently? What is inspiring us? And then when we think of something, we're like, how does it check? Is it delivering joy? Are there senses, are you touching, are you seeing, are you feeling, are you listening? What are you triggering?

Would you put your phone down to get into this? Can the whole family enjoy it? Can everybody understand it? We have to kind of go through those series of questions. We work really well with our architectural design team called Method Design. From day one, they were with us sketching everything out. I have the first napkin sketch. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     33:27

Wow. 

Karen Robinowitz      33:28

We did a dinner together where we came up with all the experiences just sitting there. We were like, what if you could slingshot slime? What if you could walk on slime? What are the things you can't do at home? So that's how and now we've got great team members and thought partners and fabricators that we also work with in order to help us think bigger. 

We'll give them one idea and then we'll say, I know this, this could be possible, how do you bring this to life? They might come back from an industrial engineering perspective and then we layer in with our architecture team and design team. 

Then how does it kind of convey the visual identity of what Sloomoo is about and being like sophisticated and sinuous and playful and architecturally contemporary and not feel like it's just a schlocky kids’ thing appeal to adults and do all of the other elements. It takes time, these things don't happen overnight. The sound one we've been working on for eight months and we'll finally kind of have it brought to life at the end of June. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     34:47

Wow. 

Karen Robinowitz      34:48

Then it's coming up with, what are you going to call it? 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     34:50

Right.

Karen Robinowitz      34:51

So a world of characters that are in the Sloomoo-verse and we have one character called Boom and Boom is a dancer and personified disco ball, so we're calling it Boom’s Boom Boom Boogie Room. The person who came up with that name is actually our facilities supervisor who goes to all the experiences and maintains our IP of the dispensers and all the things that we do that we've developed. That's her role and she came up with Boom's Boom Boom Boogie Room. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     35:22

How often are you changing out the experiences in each location? Do you guys have a set timeframe like every six months we've got a refresh?

Karen Robinowitz      35:33

No, mostly because it's really expensive. Obviously we refresh our slime constantly and we always say that there's over 4 million reasons to come back because there are 4 million plus unique combinations to make it our DIY bar. There's always this desire to come back. And also all the slimes are different, the scents are different, the textures are different. 

We bring in programming, so mental health month we’ll bring in something that's around mindfulness and sound baths or meditation. If it's grandparents’ day, we'll turn it into a month of intergenerational play appreciation and have craft corners of doing something that might be making a card for your grandparent. 

We look at programming and other partnerships that we could bring something in, versus changing out an entire installation because changing out an entire installation is literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. The biggest lesson I've learned is the level of durability we need. If somebody can rip something apart, they will find a way. So how do we make this indestructible? 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     36:50

Yeah.

Karen Robinowitz      36:51

That's the key for us and that's expensive. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     36:55

Yeah, you talk about the financial part of it. What would you say for brands that want to create immersive experiences? They're probably not going to be as enduring as a Sloomoo, but they don't have these big budgets to create them, but they have big ideas. 

Karen Robinowitz      37:14

I think you should invest in what people remember. When we moved into our New York space, thank God, we inherited great Toronto floors. We inherited very average lighting and we were like, we can't spend a million dollars to make this stage lighting, to make this theatrical. We have to do it like the slime is the star. 

Spend in the places that will impact. Do less well versus doing everything. What has somebody not seen before? I think a straight up Instagram-able moment is not experiential. It's a photo. We want to be more than a photo. We want to be like an actual memory versus remember this with a photo.

We want you to smell something and you're like, that reminds me of Sloomoo. I'm not kidding, one of the best experiences that I've had in the world outside of work was—I’m actually wearing it right now. This is my Sloomoo charm attached to my jeans. I was wearing it on a Saturday, I walked into an art gallery and the little girl ran up to me screaming Sloomoo, went hugged my bag charm. 

Her mother was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry, she doesn't understand personal space yet and I was like, oh, I don't care, are you kidding? That’s actually my business, this is the best thing that ever happened to me. 

I gave her my name and number and was like, if you want to come back, I will show you the kitchen, I will give her an extra slime. It was so amazing and that's when you’re like you created something that someone remembers and it didn't matter that I didn't have great lighting. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     39:05

And that's joy. That is a joy personified. I know we've got to wrap up so I have a couple of other quick questions for you. Besides that kind of anecdotal experiences that you get and interactions with guests, do you guys track any specific metrics to understand how certain installations are resonating with people? Are you able to track in some way or quantify the way that you guys are creating memories? 

Karen Robinowitz      39:44

We obviously do post visit emails and have an MPS score and we send in mystery shops. We have people going into the experience all the time with their own little checklist to get back to us. In a lot of times we'd say, oh, are you re-tracking repeat visitors but the obstacle we have is that some kid could come eight times but come with eight different adults and we would track that as eight different visits.

Then suddenly your mom is coming back and buying tickets with a different email and then suddenly they're going to two different birthday parties and then one day they're going with their best friend and then one day they may be going with like their uncle or their aunt or their dad like.

So suddenly somebody who's been four times or eight times or six times, we're seeing it as six different visits versus the same. You can't obviously get information and data on people under 13, COPA laws. 

That's an area where we say we might track a 10 to 15% repeat, but we actually know it's more like 20% when we hear anecdotally and like, we know somebody has come to all of the experiences and all of our cities. But when we like see the mother's email, we're like, oh, I can only track them to two. That means the other three were purchased by somebody else's email. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     40:58

Right. Right. 

Karen Robinowitz      40:59

That's really tricky but at the same time, I know we understand the health of our business and we're constantly looking at that. And then again, it's NPS is the way that we can actually formally track it. I'm not putting in the technology of oh, let's heat map and see where they're lingering. Are they staying more here or over here? I think I can get that anecdotally right now and I don't think that that's the use of our money because we don't have huge budgets. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     41:29

What has been the hardest part about this phase of your entrepreneurial journey? Because it sounds like Sloomoo is a rocket ship and it just keeps going from strength to strength. But as entrepreneurs there are ups and downs. That's life. That's reality. What's been the hardest part for you?

Karen Robinowitz      41:48

I have days on the floor where I'm like, is this happening? But I think, honestly, staff is really hard. We're in a challenging environment. When you think about somebody who is at Lake Sloomoo, as an example and I used that example earlier, like that's like a really upbeat environment. where it's like, welcome to Lake Sloomoo, this is where our character Sloomoo vacations, it's 500 gallons of cloud slime. You have to wipe your feet with alcohol and you walk on slime. 

If your kid just walks across and plays with slime and walks on the slime that goes through, and we have a little mini obstacle course iIt's really fun. If your kid has got a slime, we call them slime tenders, if a slime tender is there being like, freeze in the middle of walking across it, go, freeze! Or timing them in the obstacle course and playing with them or saying, I'm putting squishies down, the slime is lava, the slime is lava. That's an even better experience. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     42:52

Right. 

Karen Robinowitz      42:53

So now imagine somebody who is there for six hours and they're doing that 300 times. It's easy to lose your energy. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     43:02

Yeah. 

Karen Robinowitz      43:03

So if you're the 300th person coming in to do that, it's your first time experiencing it so you want all the jazz hands. It might be that person's 300th time and it's really hard to muster up those jazz hands but I'm like, that's the role.

So make sure you're taking your breaks when you have that, make sure you're swapping out. And that's from a general manager perspective, they're managing that. But on a human level, it's human nature to have sometimes a bad moment. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     43:29

Right. 

Karen Robinowitz      43:30

I somebody has a bad moment with a guest. It's difficult. They've paid for it. That's not acceptable. But it's hard to go back to somebody and say, that's not acceptable, you are human also. That to me is really difficult. You have to really want to be in our world to be a tender. 

We say to our sign tenders, your whole job is delivering joy, how awesome is that? I see them when they’re not actually ‘on’ and working and they're still playing with the slime. So I'm like, you get to play with slime all day. You get to make bubbles with people. I know that it's going to be, you're going to have challenging guests also because everyone's human. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     44:14

Yeah. 

Karen Robinowitz      44:15

I think that's the most difficult part and it's really difficult when there's just an enormous crowd coming in and then you have a school group coming in and they're 45 minutes late. Now it's clogging the experience that everybody else has paid for and then you have to say to the school group, like we talked about this, we can't have you come in because now I have another 300 people here and it's not a good experience for anybody. Again, you've got crying kids on the school bus. Like these are real. These are real human moments that you have to figure out.

Aja Bradley-Kemp     44:48

Yes. Dealing with the public is not an easy job at all. What does the Sloomoo universe look like in the next five years? Because we didn't even get to talk about all of the products that you guys made, all of the AR. You're going to have to come back because there's so much, so much more.

Karen Robinowitz      45:08

I would love to. Anytime. I have fun with you. So we're working on opening many more spaces. So we're looking at real estate across the country, we're working on a licensing deal to bring Sloomoo to the Middle East. We're working on a world of our IP so taking our character Sloomoo who has a host of friends and family. I don't know if you remember from the New York days, Melissa Dela Cruz, who I wrote my books with. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     45:36

Yes. Yes.

Karen Robinowitz      45:37

She went on to become this unbelievable world-class best-selling YA novelist. She wrote The Descendants for Disney. She's writing the Sloomoo narrative of how we bring Sloomoo to life and what would the Sloomoo character origin story be? 

How do you tell stories that are really about inclusion and resilience and dealing with your emotions and connecting with other people and making friends in a way that isn't didactic, but real? We're doing that with her and her husband/ partner, Mike Johnston so there will be a whole media universe to this too. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     46:18

This is amazing. 

Karen Robinowitz        46:19

It’s never-ending and then it's products and toy development and it goes on and on. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     46:25

That is amazing. Congratulations on all of your success. I know you've got to run. My daughter thought it was so cool that I'm speaking to you today, she's 10 years old. Her best friend that lives down the road literally has a garage full of slime that she makes, and the two of them get together on the weekends and concoct things. So last question for you we ask all of our guests; who is having a moment, what is having a moment or where is having a moment? 

Karen Robinowitz      46:53 

I'm sure everybody right now is saying, I think the two biggest moments that are happening are Doechii and Labubu, that's another toy-ish collectible moment. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     47:06

I don't know about Labubu.

Karen Robinowitz         47:08

Oh, oh!

Aja Bradley-Kemp     47:09

I'll get into it. I got to get into it.

Karen Robinowitz        47:12

Bad Charms are obviously having a moment, Cute is having a moment. There's this real need right now for Cute’s swooshy, lovey things that just make you smile. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     47:31

There you go. And I'm all for that because we need it.

Karen Robinowitz      47:35

Every which way on the planet. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     47:37

Yeah. Yeah. We need that. 

Karen Robinowitz      47:38

LaLisa and Jenny are also having a moment. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     47:41

I don't even know who that is. I'm head down at the moment in my life. So we need to have another call so you can fill me in on all these moments that I need to get into. 

Karen Robinowitz      47:57

Okay. We will.

Aja Bradley-Kemp     48:00

Thank you so much, Karen. I know you have to go. We so appreciate your time and being here with us on Making the Moment and we can't wait to talk to you again and have you back. 

Karen Robinowitz      48:08

Okay. 

Aja Bradley-Kemp     48:09

Bye hun. Karen, thank you so much for this incredible conversation and for all the work you do to make the world a more playful, inclusive, and gooey place. If you haven't been to Sloomoo, make sure that you put it on your cultural bucket list. And if you're building brand experiences, I hope you use your notes from today's masterclass and put them to great use.

Whether you're dreaming up your next pop-up or rethinking retail, this was a great reminder that joy is a strategy. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share this episode with a fellow culture shaper. And until next time, stay bold, stay curious, and don't be afraid to make your mark and make the moment.