Over the past 20 years Lauren Boyer, the CEO and owner of Underscore, has led dozens of unique advertising programs for brands of all shapes and sizes. While the majority of her work is in the health and wellness category, she has also contributed strategic marketing solutions for consumer products, retailers, energy, publishing, and entertainment brands. Lauren is known for her ability to turn strategic insights into actionable and accountable programs that yield strong ROI.
Lauren has earned a degree in Specialized Technology from the Art Institute of Philadelphia and lives in South Orange, NJ where she enjoys spending time with her two teenage kids.
On Women Empowerment
“I believe in equal employment and professional opportunity and compensation for everyone regardless of gender”, Lauren expresses her view on women empowerment. “What matters is the individual’s ability to contribute to the situation, and to fully realize her potential. The woman should be encouraged and supported in their professional journeys, given the same opportunities and held to the same standards as their equally experienced and qualified male counterparts”, further she adds.
As Positivity and Confident Leadership are the core values at Underscore, the women employees are given the same opportunities for training and to advance as their equally qualified male counterparts. “It’s important to me that we create a safe environment for all team members to learn and grow”, affirms Boyer.
Outside of Underscore, Lauren is also an active member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), serving on the board of her chapter in NY. She also speaks publically on topics around balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship, and regularly volunteers to mentor professionals to achieve their next level of success.
Clouds and Silver linings of Lauren’s Life
The childhood of Lauren was not like that of a fairytale princess. She reflects,
“I grew up in what some have described as a challenging situation: I had divorced parents who focused more on winning against each other than being strong role models or creating a safe environment for their kids to grow and thrive in.”
Belonging to a family with limited financial resources, Lauren didn’t get any opportunity to hone skills and have experiences outside of school. “I was mostly on my own after school and responsible for my younger sister and for helping with the family’s needs while my mother attended night school”, she ruminates.
However, Lauren belives these experiences created a sense of drive and motivation that made her challenge herself to go beyond what others expected of her. She focused on what could propel her forward and away from the day to day survival challenges.
“I never really had a comfort zone, so stepping out of it wasn’t something I needed to learn. I think it goes to show that anyone can do anything if they truly focus on what’s needed to get them there”, adds Lauren.
Another important lesson she heard in her early childhood helped make Lauren the strong woman she is today. Her mother’s these wise words shaped her life unlike anything else:
No matter what you decide to do in life, it is important to always be able to take care of yourself. Getting support from others is ok, but requiring others to support you could make you a prisoner in your own life.
While Lauren couldn’t fully grasp what her mother meant at that early period of her life, later on she decided that she would make sure that she could always support herself financially.
Unique Services of Underscore
Underscore is a unique organization. Many consider it an agency because of the focus on advertising media planning, buying and campaign impact analysis, but it’s different than typical media agency in many positive ways. Underscore was built largely out of Lauren’s own experience working on the client marketing side of the industry. Given her unique perspective on why advertisers need to take certain tacts, every Underscore media program is developed with its client’s unique situation and end goals in mind. The company figures out nuances that no one else thinks about because it approaches the challenge from a different angle, and the results are consistently stronger..
Experiences derived from Unlearning and Self-learning
Lauren is personally committed to increasing her self- awareness and has worked to unlearn self- limiting beliefs and narratives that used to hold her back. She avoids labeling situations and people as no two things are the same. She reserves judgment on why we have a challenge and focuses instead on how to tackle it positively.
As a life-long learner Lauren strives to listen more that she speaks. She looks towards expanding her perspective with new experiences, new skills, and more deeply mastering those in which she’s already built some perspective.
Future Prospects
While asked about the future prospects for her company, Lauren asserts,
“Underscore is working on technical innovations that will further empower marketers with campaign intelligence. We are on a high growth trajectory and while positive and exciting, it will come with its own set of new challenges as we scale.”
