Moderna’s Kate Cronin on turning a pandemic hero into an everyday hero

Major League Soccer’s VP of Brand Marketing, Jesse Perl, joins The Current Podcast to discuss how young people are growing more interested in soccer, the league’s deal with Apple TV+, and the importance of building local support for MLS teams.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

TTD_S8_E10_MLS//JESSE PERLMAN

Ilyse Liffrieng: (00:01)

I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler: (00:02)

And I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Lieffring: (00:03)

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Damian Fowler: (00:10)

This week we're delighted to speak with Jesse Pearl, the VP of Brand Marketing at Major League Soccer 

Ilyse Lieffring: (00:16)

For Millennials and Gen Zers. It almost feels like the MLS has been around forever, but actually the league wasn't founded until the USA's successful bid to host the 1994 FIFA World Cup. Before then, the US just wasn't a serious contender in the soccer game or football as it's commonly called across the world.

Damian Fowler: (00:34)

Times have certainly changed, but the league still has to compete with the likes of sports juggernauts like the NFL, which has long reaped higher viewership and fandom in the US. Jesse talks to us about the unique challenges the MLS faces compared to other sports leagues and how he's prepping for the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup and how he envisions MLS as a brand.

Jesse Perlman: (00:57)

I feel really kind of privileged to, you know, be in the role that I am because I think brand really guides how we think about what MLS is and, and what we stand for in the world. And I think there's no real separation, no real daylight between the MLS brand and and MLS. And I think it's really, it's kind of the, the DNA and and the heartbeat of who we are. And I think one of the first things about the MLS brand that's really important is that we are proudly North American. There's a lot of stuff in the world, there's a lot of sports in the world, there's a lot of soccer in the world. And being North American, being kind of uniquely North American, this idea of creating our own North American version of what soccer means is actually really powerful. And I think if, if we look at all these different places across North America, the US and Canada, where MLS is thriving, I think it is about being able to tap into something that really represents, you know, what those cities are.

Jesse Perlman: (01:49)

There's a kind of an attitude and a spirit of North America that is really kind of transcendent in culture, right? I think North American culture itself is, is an export. And for us it's this idea of being really positive and confident, but in a really sort of positive way. So this kind of infectious positive North American spirit and attitude where we're kind of getting to remix the best of international soccer as well as the best of North American sports traditions and kind of make our own thing out of it. We've got playoffs, right? That's not something that happens in soccer, but I think we just kind of witnessed why it's, why it's great. And all of that sort of creates this idea of, of another part of our brand, which is this idea that, you know, without overstating it, it's a soccer movement here that's happening in, in North America that's kind of sweeping North America. So how we get to all that really is through our supporter groups, our supporter culture, the TFOs, the chance, the Kapos, all the things that they kind of bring to the party is, um, it's really kind of the secret sauce of all of this.

Damian Fowler: (02:45)

And what's fascinating about this as well is the fast evolution of this. I want to sort of date myself and say I arrived in this country just after college in 1994, and that was when the US last time the US hosted the World Cup and now we we're seeing it's gonna be hosting it again with Canada and Mexico in 2026. So that's basically three decades, you know, and you've seen this tremendous growth of professional soccer. Could you talk a little bit about those bookends and you know, how you've seen the trajectory of the sport, how quickly the sport has grown in those three decades?

Jesse Perlman: (03:16)

It's pretty staggering, and I think even the biggest optimist, I don't think would've bet that we'd get to where we are as quickly as we did. The 2026 World Cup is such a great kind of marker to, to kind of measure these things because you know, our story, the story of MLS starts with the 1994 World Cup for sure, right? We fulfilled what the hope and the potential, you know, was, you know, we launched in 96, you know, on the heels of the 94 World Cup. And by the way, that's in no way to say that we're declaring victory in its job done for us. I think to be in 29 cities, to have the amount of soccer specific stadiums we have to have the support that we have in these MLS communities that are, you know, settin record attendance to look at media partnerships like Apple that I think are rewriting the scripts in sports media to have the current reigning ballon d’or World Cup champion greatest player of all time messy here in our league, you know, to look at the young up and coming players, homegrown players, stars from, you know, some of the most storied teams in in South America and players that'll also, you know, will sell for record fees that go on to win Champions league games.

Jesse Perlman: (04:26)

And, and so I think it's really, I think the complete picture of everything that we could have hoped to set out to do. But for sure, you know, the the best is still yet to come.

Ilyse Lieffring: (04:35)

But you know, North America, particularly the US I would say, aren't known for being big soccer fans. So what would you say are like the challenges and then the opportunities of marketing soccer in this context?

Jesse Perlman: (04:49)

You know, I do think it's changing when you look at youth, when you look at Gen Z, when you look at six to 14 and 14 to 18, and these critical ages of where fandom is really, you know, set and takes root, soccer's a top sport of interest, that's been the trend and that trend is continuing and it's really favorable for us as a sport. You know, millennials, right? Are, are now parents of young kids and, and we know the influence that parents have on the interest of, of their children. And there are some kind of studies came out, uh, recently naming MLS as a top 10 fastest growing brand along among millennials right there alongside our, our great partner, you know, apple tv. So especially as marketers means that we've just gotta constantly think about how do we infiltrate culture in all kinds of creative and, and unexpected ways that are, that are true to us.

Jesse Perlman: (05:36)

We've got nothing but respect and admiration for the other North American sports leagues, whether that's the NFL or NBA or I think what we've got all is respect and admiration. I think we're also able to kind of look at, you know, some of those traditional North American leagues as traditional. We really feel like we get the permission to to be the enemy of tradition sometimes. And, and, and we love that. So I think kind of being able to stand for the things that differentiate us is ultimately how I think we'll continue to, to win over time.

Ilyse Lieffring: (06:03)

Are there any numbers you can point to that show the growth of the MLS over these past three decades?

Jesse Perlman: (06:09)

Big picture. There's, you know, there's probably a few things that are, that do really kind of stand out and I think kind of signal the continued kind of really explosive growth. Um, you know, one of the most important in sports is attendance. And we're continuing to set record attendance year over year. We just had another record year. That's a huge indicator. You know, ultimately there's um, we're in entertainment, right? And we're competing against, you know, sitting at home on your couch and binge watch and Netflix and you know, going to the latest restaurant and whatever else you can do. And I think for people to be motivated to go out there, go to the stadiums in record numbers kind of says it all. And I think in addition to that, we can look at things like valuation of an MLS franchise. You know, I believe LAFC was reported in Forbes as just crossing the, uh, the billion dollar threshold for franchise valuation.

Jesse Perlman: (06:56)

I could tell you when I joined in 2007, 2008, that was not the value of an MLS franchise. And all those kind of economic indicators I think are, are really healthy. And um, even if it's not necessarily an exact quantified metric, you know, the ability to go out there and, and have a, you know, media partnership like Apple again, right, or Adidas partnership in these best in in category global brands, I think again is another indicator. And I think the last one that's worth mentioning is the brick and mortar kind of growth. Here again, I think when I started we had, you know, a handful of soccer specific stadiums and now virtually all of our teams are, if they're not already playing in a soccer specific stadium, they're in the process of open the doors on one.

Damian Fowler: (07:35)

One other thing that stands out to me is as to go back to that nineties thing, I remember when I came here, I could, it was hard to actually find, you know, international games on the dial, on cable channels. Obviously in the last few years we've seen this sort of flourishing of the game across many streaming channels. I mean, you can watch the Premier League on Peacock, you can watch Champions League on Paramount Plus and media and the presence of media is such an important driver of fandom. Is that one of the big factors for the MLS?

Jesse Perlman: (08:07)

No doubt. Similarly, right? Like growing up, you know, in the nineties being a huge soccer fan, right? You had to work so hard to seek it out. I remember running to the Barnes and Nobles to get my monthly magazine of 442 or World Soccer and um, that was how you stayed current. Now there's so much access, right? Ultimately I think that's a good thing for us, more people watching more soccer. I think it just, you know, increases the amount of interest and curiosity and, and conversation. And there's certainly a lot of, you know, competition for eyeballs. And you know, what we're trying to win more than anything is as hearts and minds. And, um, it's great for you to be a fan of other soccer teams and clubs and leagues and we really do embrace that. But if you're here in the US and Canada, you really can't get up close to that, right? And so being a fan of MLS just means something different. That's where we really feel like it's a huge differentiator that access, you know, to kind of be a part of an MLS community.

Damian Fowler: (09:00)

Can you talk a little bit about the significance of the Apple TV season pass?

Jesse Perlman: (09:05)

It's a game changer. It really is in so many ways. I mean, I think the first thing for me is as a marketer, as a, as a kind of brand leader, there's probably no brand that's more recognized and admired than Apple on the planet, the ability for us to become an Apple brand, which I think is what's happened, right? It changes the perception, the reach of Apple, the scale, the reach, the deep love and admiration for their brand that people have. All those are really just kind of the starting points. But when you get inside the sort of Apple world and you kind of realize and learn like how many incredible layers there are to their growing and expanding ecosystem of products and services and ways for MLS to show up and, and be a part of that, you know, we just officially wrapped our first season together.

Jesse Perlman: (09:50)

When we kind of think about all the things we were able to do as co marketers, even year one, it's been a really fantastic starting point and we had some incredible activations around Messi, his game here in New York. We were able to work with our friends and partner with them at New York, Red Bulls and Apple to have this, you know, kind of takeover in Times Square of a live viewin party that sort of traveled around the world. That moment of people gather in Times Square to to watch Messi on a giant Times Square billboard. And I think some of the real sort of inside culture things that we did with Apple Music, you know again, partnering with great club like Nashville had a kit inspired by a Johnny Cash, the Man in black kit working with the Johnny Cash Estate and Apple Music. We all kind of came together working with some incredible music artists and talents to cover Johnny Cash songs. And so these really kind of integrated kind of campaigns that we were able to to do. Um. 

Damian Fowler: (10:42)

I wanted to ask you, uh, Jesse, about the kind of cross-fertilization with international leagues. You know, I'm a big fan of Liverpool, I watch the Premier League every weekend and you know, obviously there's La Liga and then, you know, la bundesliga, all of those things, you know, and football from south of the border. How does that work? How is that an important factor in driving fandom and is it a sort of cross fertilization or is it like a separate kind of group of fans?

Jesse Perlman: (11:07)

No, I think, I think it's really additive are clubs that are really succeeding and have these, the thriving kind of fan bases that they do. Those fans are also fans of other international soccer teams and, and we love that it's part of the, the thing that we love about soccer as a sport for anybody that truly loves it, it's the kind of international dimension is like what makes it different than other sports, right? For me personally, it's been a lens to kind of learn about the world and learn about other cultures and it really kind of expands people. We're never shying away from that. I think we want everybody who's a fan and has a team in, whether it's in, you know, the Premier League or the Bundesliga or Serie A or anywhere else around the world, or Argentina or Mexico, Liga MX, you know, we want them to know that they're invited to still be loyal fans of, of those teams, whether it's passed down from generation to generation or something they discovered on their own. 'cause all that is complimentary, right? I think, you know, that's part of what being a soccer fan, you know, looks like. So we, we embrace it.

Ilyse Lieffring: (12:05)

As much as it's a global game. It's very much made up of very localized fans at the same time, how important are local efforts in each city? For instance, building stadiums or the infrastructure, how is that key to driving that local support or community supports?

Jesse Perlman: (12:25)

Really as important as anything. And I think it's been what's defined this incredible growth period for MLS. We were kind of chatting earlier about like what it means to be North American and the importance of this kind of brick and mortar investment and building these like incredible cathedrals to soccer. And I think not just building stadiums, but building 'em in the right places, right? Building these in the kind of heart of the downtowns. I think it's made all the difference and, and continues to, and it's really timely. I mean, we just had MLS cup in columbus@lower.com field, brand new state-of-the-art best in sports anywhere in the world placed to watch live sports. That stadium was rocking, you know, it was completely electric fan, 28, 30,000 strong in the rain, right? Singing enchanting for 90 minutes and the streets were alive, the city was alive. And you don't have to go back that far to just kind of be reminded of how this franchise went through like one of the most traumatic things you could go through in sports, right?

Jesse Perlman: (13:20)

There was ownership change, there was concern about what the crew still be around. It's an emphatic like not only are they here, but they just won MLS cup again. On and off the field I think it's so important that it's so local. You know, I think what Columbus represents to crew fans is, you know, is so different than the team that, that came to play them in Columbus. These clubs, they represent really different ideas and communities and, and fan bases, but the common thread is that what they really represent is their cities and, and the idea of their cities in this moment in 2023, I don't think there are brands that better represent Columbus and you know, how it sees itself. I think it being local and localized and really kind of deeply rooted in these, you know, local communities and cultures has been the difference maker.

Damian Fowler: (14:07)

As I mentioned, I'm a Liverpool fan, and Anfield is, you know, very much a Liverpudlian tradition and they have the traditions there. And at the same time, if you look at the field, it's absolutely international. And so it's that beautiful kind of conjunction of the local and the global. Wanted to ask you about that international presence, you know, the, the MLS of course has been drawing headlines. How do you see the star power playing into your marketing efforts?

Jesse Perlman: (14:31)

It's another part of what makes sports sports, right? Star players. It's another part of why people tune into sports, why they care about sports and love sports. And you know, certainly people are fans of teams and clubs and, but people also really care about players, right? And some of them will become fans of a team because they're fans of a player. The other thing that's so special about sports, and I think even more so with soccer is who's gonna be the next star? The idea of like the emerging stars, especially we think about these homegrowns the future of the US men's and for the US and Canada national teams. And you know, I think as we look at, you know, Messi, right? We're equally excited about Benjamin Cremaschi learning from a guy like Lionel Messi every day, right? These kind of, you know, future world beaters that are coming through MLS and we're really spending a lot of time and, and energy and focus on how do we continue to hype up all the right players, but especially these, these up and commerce, these emerging stars and really sort of build their brands on and off the field and help more people kind of, you know, fall in love with them because they have incredible stories and we're gonna be hearing about them for years to come.

Damian Fowler: (15:35)

I heard that the Messi shirt in that iconic pink sold out instantly, impossible to get.

Jesse Perlman: (15:41)

It is, uh, I can tell you firsthand, I, uh, I failed as an uncle on, uh, on Hanukkah to come up with the goods for my nephews. So it is truly, it is a scarce product.

Ilyse Lieffring: (15:51)

You know, along with more like just sports documentaries out there on streaming channels, there's also like the rise of live sports at the same time. How would you say the rise in like live sports and streaming contribute to the rise of soccer overall in the us?

Jesse Perlman: (16:06)

Well, I think it's only increased the amount of soccer that's available for sure. I think we've got more access to more soccer here in the US than just about anywhere in the world. You know, there's probably a lot of people that'd be surprised to learn that, but you know, as a Liverpool fan, I'm sure you'd agree, there's a lot of people in the UK that like, man, that is a pain point in life is just how hard it can be to, to kind of watch the, so you wanna watch and the amount of blackouts and how you kind of just gotta jump through hoops to, uh, be able to watch games sometimes. And so we're spoiled for choice here, and I think streaming has only increased that to me it's an indicator of this is the sport for the future, right? Gen Z and, and younger fans, linear TV is not where they're spending their time, right? They're spending their time on devices and streaming and places like YouTube and, and places like Apple tv. And so I think it's great for us that we're ahead of the curve on that respect as far as kind of live games, and I think we're just so well positioned for that.

Ilyse Lieffring: (16:59)

The US also gets to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup along, of course with Canada and Mexico. How are you planning to ladder up your marketing to this massive global event,

Jesse Perlman: (17:13)

I guess can't reveal all the secrets, but No, it's very much in focus for us and to really be thinking multi-year about not just how does the marketing kind of ramp up to the World's Cup, but how does all of our activity as a business really deliberately think about what that's gonna mean for us. I think what's really interesting is during the World's Cup is gonna be the noisiest loudest, most crowded for anybody else marketer. I think everybody's gonna be trying to find a way to talk about the World Cup and soccer, whether, whether they've got the official, you know, FIFA rights to do that or not. And I, and I think all that noise is gonna be, is gonna be good, good, right? I think soccer is just gonna really bleed into the mainstream conversation, uh, in a way that'll kind of eclipse, um, you know, anything before it.

Jesse Perlman: (17:59)

But I think as, as you know, as marketers here at MLS I, I think the most critical moment for us is actually gonna be what do we do the day the World Cup ends? You know? And I think that's really the incredible opportunity for us to seize because, you know, that kind of World Cup Fever that everybody's gonna catch, the World Cup's gonna be incredible, but it's gonna, it's gonna come and go. There's gonna be a lot of people here that aren't gonna be able to make it to World Cup games that maybe wanted to or maybe wanted to take their kids to it, or it got priced out, or there's only so many seats in so many games. And for MLS to really make sure everybody knows where they can find us, how they can find us, again, I think meet that, meet that moment is, is gonna be, uh, I think it's really gonna be the, the big unlock for us.

Damian Fowler: (18:46)

And that's it for season eight of the current podcast. Stay tuned for our next season of interviews with the industry's top marketing leaders.

Ilyse Lieffring: (18:54)

The current is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The Trade Desk team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce

Damian Fowler: (19:02)

And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report, our weekly digest of what's making news across the open internet. And remember,

Jesse Perlman: (19:14)

Especially as marketers, means that we've just gotta constantly think about how do we infiltrate culture in all kinds of creative and, and unexpected ways that are, that are true to us.

Damian Fowler: (19:25)

I'm Damian,

Ilyse Lieffring: (19:26)

And I'm Ilyse. 

Damian Fowler: (19:27)

And we'll see you next time.

Now firmly entrenched in Americans’ shopping habits, Instacart is eyeing the growing retail media space. Laura Jones, CMO of Instacart, joins The Current Podcast to share the strategy behind the company’s tie-ups with Peacock and Roku and how she’s reaching shoppers by framing them as the COOs of their households.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse: (00:02)

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing And

Damian: (00:04)

Welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse: (00:10)

This week we're delighted to talk with Laura Jones, the chief marketing Officer of Instacart.

Damian: (00:16)

Laura has been on a rampage at Instacart since she left Uber and joined the company. In June, 2021, Laura launched the brand's first integrated brand campaign, built an internal creative studio and performance media function, and scaled the marketing department five times to more than 150 people. What

Ilyse: (00:35)

Started as a grocery delivery service quickly boomed during the pandemic to the point where Instacart now has over 7 million monthly active orders and works with 1400 retailers growing into areas like retail media, on and off its platform.

Laura: (00:55)

So Instacart started just over a decade ago and started out as a grocery delivery company. And then when you fast forward to today, the business looks a lot different, the world has changed a lot, there's been a global pandemic and we've come out the other side and Instacart has really evolved over the course of this journey. So we've transformed from being just grocery, just delivery to now a service that has many more retailers on the platform. Of course, uh, most of America's top grocers, but other verticals that we serve like beauty with Sephoras, um, home improvement with Lowe's, as well as of course different modalities. So there's delivery, there's pickup, and we've extended into, uh, B2B offerings as well. So we have a retail enablement platform that our retailers use to power some of their online grocery services and pickups and really continuing to innovate now even getting into in-store.

Laura: (01:54)

So really thinking about how, you know, in a post pandemic world, customers are really shopping in a more omnichannel way. It's not just delivery, it's not just in-store, it's much more of a hybrid. So we've developed technologies like caper carts or carrot tags, other in-store tools that help bring some of the magic of online shopping into that in-store experience. So you can see that the company has really evolved and as a result, you know, the way that we're thinking about our brand and the future of innovation at the company has to evolve and keep pace as well.

Ilyse: (02:30)

On that note, from a brand perspective, how have you really worked to evolve the identity of Instacart from that delivery service to a major media platform? Now

Laura: (02:40)

We really wanted to build across all four sides of the marketplace and make sure that we were building a brand that would mirror the dynamism is of the business. So really wanted to root ourselves in, in our heritage and in our core equity, which of course is the carrot, and really stretch that, um, into a new design system that would enable us to show up and in a really seamless way in all these new different touchpoints that that we have. And so a lot of what my journey has been has been really trying to build out that marketing team across the four sides of the marketplace and build out all the different functions. So of course, continuing to double down on our performance marketing strength, but also building out functions like product marketing, brand marketing, making sure we have great co-marketing teams to partner with both our retailers and our advertisers so that we can go to market in partnership with all of them. And what that enables for us is not just to be a marketing team, but also to help enable other marketing teams. From a co-marketing standpoint, we have, uh, 5,500 brands on our platform from category leaders to emerging brands. And this next chapter of marketing is really about partnering with those brands as well as with our retail partners to make sure that we are going to market using all of our channels together and really helping provide insights to help each of their business grow.

Ilyse: (04:12)

How do you feel all these additives have really helped differentiate the brand, not only from a consumer standpoint, but perhaps to advertisers as

Laura: (04:23)

Well? One of the things that this has unlocked for us is the ability to do true full funnel marketing. So instead of just capturing inbound demand through, um, those classical performance channels, we've also been able to really start to generate more demand by going out there and reaching a broader audience and telling a more robust story across channels. So we see that by showing up in both upper and lower funnel and doing so in a coordinated way, we're able to really grow the category and deepen the use cases for existing users as well. So it's been a really critical, uh, business driver that we can go out with a full funnel program. Then from a advertiser standpoint, because of this depth that we have and the level of sophistication that we have when it comes to our own consumer marketing, I think that gives us a, a really thoughtful edge when it comes to thinking about how we're building tools for our advertisers.

Laura: (05:23)

So of course, I think the reason that most advertisers come to Instacart in the beginning is just because we are so close to the point of purchase, we are quite literally at the point of purchase. So what we find is that our ads on average deliver more than a 15% incremental sales lift and in some cases twice that for our brand partners. So it's a really valuable service to, to our partners, but again, inspired by our own journey, we've thought a lot about creating more spaces in the upper funnel for our advertisers. So of course, sponsored product listings and pricing and promotional discounts are, are wonderful, but once you've tapped out that kind of low hanging fruit from a demand standpoint, you need to generate more demand. What I was talking about, you know, from our own first party experience and the way that we do that is through introducing new formats that help drive more consideration for consumers that might be a bit higher up in that purchase funnel.

Laura: (06:19)

And so what that looks like for us are shoppable video ads, shoppable display ads in ways to help introduce customers to new categories or products that they might not have been actively considering before that shopping session, but we can actually really make that case to get them focused on it, get their attention, and then help drive that purchase and really be able to measure again, the impact of, of those different formats. The final frontier, which I think will bring the two together and that we've started on this year is that co-marketing I was mentioning. So we can move up the funnel within our own platform, but I think the, the really exciting piece for me is what does it look like when we move off platform and go to market together with a brand partner and really make their existing multi-channel campaigns shoppable regardless of what channel they're occurring on. Um, the co-marketing campaign we did earlier this year with AB InBev, um, in the NFL playoffs, um, making their TV campaign shoppable and integrating it with our CRM system so that we could deliver push notifications timed to hit folks as they're viewing TV ads. And we've done a ton of that over the past year and we're really excited to see the momentum that this program has in addition to our on-platform ads.

Damian: (07:37)

Could you talk a little bit more about how you use customer data to kind of close that gap between the top and the bottom of the funnel?

Laura: (07:46)

We take data protection and privacy very seriously. We don't tell consumer data to our retail partners, nor do we share competitive data across retailers or brands. Uh, what we do do is leverage anonymized, aggregated insights. And I think that's especially powerful in this world where our industry is grappling with signal loss and looming third party cookie deprecation. And so that's why this data is really valuable and can be provide a lot of insights to our partners as we think about, you know, how can we more effectively target folks at different stages in the funnel. From our standpoint, we have an incredibly deep understanding of online purchase behavior. Our customers are building large baskets, they're spending a lot of time to engage. They're doing their primary weekly grocery shop on the platform. And so we have a lot of insights about the, the purchase behavior that underlies that.

Laura: (08:44)

We can also surface insights about complimentary or adjacent purchasing behavior. So for example, if someone's buying peanut butter, it's pretty likely that they might also be buying jelly. And and some of those are obvious, like the ones I just described, but some of them are maybe not as obvious. So cat and dog food customers are more likely to purchase coffee on Instacart than the average Instacart consumer, that that is not as obvious as peanut butter and jelly or customers who buy diapers are more likely to also purchase jerky and trail mix. So if you imagine, you know, being a marketer and having access to this data, it really helps you, number one with the targeting. And number two, just getting those kind of deeper insights that help you have those aha moments that might help you think about your consumer in a whole new way.

Ilyse: (09:28)

Now in 2022, you introduced display ads onto your platform. How important are these units really to those big CPG companies? And then how do these display units actually help the smaller brands compete with the larger ones?

Laura: (09:43)

Yeah, so display ads are a great way for brands looking to bring engaging, targeted creative content to consumers. And this really helps with driving brand awareness, new product introductions and inspiration while people are browsing those digital aisles. And so these kinds of top of funnel units, um, can be especially useful I think for emerging brands that might be less familiar to consumers or for new or emerging categories where there might be more education required. And then for larger brands, shoppable display units are a great way to showcase complimentary products across the portfolio and really help with that regimen building. And it does so all within one shoppable ad unit. And of course that's a adjacent to all of the other kinds of ad units that A CPG can purchase, like a sponsored product listing or pricing and promotional discount. So you can really tell a story and then provide incentives for consumers to convert and get that full closed loop measurement all at once.

Ilyse: (10:44)

This past advertising week, New York Instacart announced it would begin to work with brands to reach customers off platform for brands this can turn their Instacart approach into more of an omni-channel strategy, basically allowing them to reach Instacart's customers across channels like CTV and display. Can you describe the value in this arrangement for advertisers?

Laura: (11:08)

What we're really trying to do here is provide a way for our CPG advertisers to leverage our data across all their media buys. You know, it really helps us realize this vision of leveraging data to help our partners grow their businesses and doing so in a way that is even more flexible for them. And so they're able to layer their programmatic campaigns with exclusive Instacart data to build category based segments. Like for example, somebody who's bought their category but not their brand, somebody who's bought their brand lapsed brand purchasers or someone who's never purchased with their brand. And this kind of targeting as a marketer is of course so valuable. Um, and we're really excited to have this pilot live and to start looking at how we can continue to lean into this capability and really enable our partners to grow their businesses.

Damian: (12:04)

Now you recently announced that you'd be bundling, uh, NBCU streaming service peacock for Instacart plus subscribers. You've also partnered with Roku. So I'm wondering if you could talk about the natural synergies between Instacart and streaming platforms like that.

Laura: (12:19)

The customer we serve, we like to think of as the COO of their household. They're often someone who might be a, a busy parent or a busy individual who's got a lot going on. And oftentimes, you know, there are folks that really do enjoy, um, in that limited spare time they have. They can be streaming their favorite shows and getting their grocery shopping done at once. So it's a real win-win. And and it's also, you know, I think from an advertiser standpoint, exciting because again, with Roku, if you have somebody who's watching an ad and shopping on Instacart, again, you have that ability to really start to close the loop in terms of the incremental impact of those ads as, as evidenced through Instacart purchase data.

Damian: (13:01)

Could you say a little bit more about how that gap between CTV and shoppable ads is closing? I know we touched on that earlier in the conversation, but how has Instacart as a media platform really enabled this kind of connection?

Laura: (13:14)

You know, I think brands often struggle with attribution from top of funnel, and this is something of course, you know, even when we're going out with top of funnel, it's hard. It's, it's a harder measurement journey than, you know, click-based ads. Um, and so our closed loop measurement is able to offer that higher confidence in media buys. And so being able to actually measure the impact of off platform ads and see that born out in, in the data from Instacart and showing the incrementality of those ads has been really huge for our advertisers.

Damian: (13:53)

What would you say will be a good example of how that discovery at the top of a funnel and performance with shoppable ads kind of merged?

Laura: (14:00)

A great example of that was our partnership with AB InBev this year, um, in the lead up to the Super Bowl. And so we were able to partner with Michelob Ultra and they were the first partner to create an Instacart co-marketing campaign that leveraged this shoppable capability via a QR code. We were able to really support them in this full funnel campaign that was running across linear social C-T-V-O-T-T and making sure that for every time they were out there with a brand message, there was a clear path to conversion for that consumer. What is so exciting about that is that for us, we get to show up with a brand that people absolutely love and really have a, a strong use case for of course, um, beer and, and football as we all know, go very well together. Um, and for them there was the ability to drive consumers to purchase and to really, you know, go from watching an ad to being able to have that product delivered in as fast as 30 minutes.

Laura: (15:06)

That's actually really game changing and I'm so excited when I think about what we could do with that. And especially when you start to layer in other channels like CRM and social and the ability for that kind of concurrent consumption connected to an entertainment event, I think could be really game changing. And we're seeing this really starting to pay off. So in Q3, our advertising and other revenue was up 19% year over year, and this is really driven by stronger than anticipated advertiser spending. And when we think about next year, we're really excited to continue to show up in these key seasonal moments, whether that's cold and flu, football, spring cleaning, or Mother's Day.

Damian: (15:44)

That's interesting. Do you have any brand campaigns coming up in 2024 that you are able to talk about?

Laura: (15:51)

We are currently shooting a really great set of spots against the cold and flu season. Uh, it's funny because it's not the most glamorous time of year, so, you know, when we were initially talking about showing up with a campaign, I was a little bit like, oh, is this really how we wanna show up as a brand? But then when I thought about our value proposition, which is really taking care of that COO of the household, and these people are caregivers and we help them take care of themselves and their families. So we're excited to lean into that moment and hopefully tell some stories that really resonate with consumers and and with our brand partners.

Ilyse: (16:30)

How do you think about the evolving Instacart brand looking towards the future

Laura: (16:37)

From a brand identity standpoint? We've got an amazing foundation to build equity with from a brand storytelling standpoint. We've got an endless trove of stories to tell because every day in the life of a, of a busy household conductor is is full of those moments of trials and tribulations and moments where Instacart can really come in and, and help offer that care for that head of household. So I think that in the year ahead, we've got a great year ahead of us and a ton of momentum from a brand standpoint and only made stronger by the strength of our retailer and CPG brands when we show up together in the market.

Damian: (17:19)

And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned.

Ilyse: (17:25)

The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Ley and Cat Festi.

Damian: (17:34)

And remember, the

Laura: (17:35)

Really exciting piece for me is what does it look like when we move off platform and go to market together with a brand partner and really make their existing multi-channel campaigns shoppable regardless of what channel they're occurring on.

Damian: (17:50)

And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave as a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report, our weekly roundup of what's making news in digital media. I'm eis and I'm Damien and we'll see you next time.

BBDO created the iconic Snickers “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign. The agency’s President and CEO, Andrew Robertson, breaks down the power of humor.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse: (00:02)

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian: (00:04)

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse: (00:10)

This week we sit down with Andrew Robertson, who has been the president and CEO of BBDO Worldwide since 2004.

Damian: (00:19)

No doubt over his career, he's had a bird's eye view of creative trends in the ad industry. And last year he gave a keynote presentation in the Palai at Cannes Lions and why humor is one of the most effective tools in advertising.

Ilyse: (00:32)

And yet he pointed out that funny ads have been on the decline for 20 years. He reminded the crowd that having a laugh is also good for business.

Damian: (00:42)

Since that talk, Cannes Lions has added a humor category to its awards for 2024. Maybe we have Andrew Robertson to thank for that.

Ilyse: (00:58)

Before we start, we thought it might be a good idea to take a listen to some recent funny ads, starting with this one from T-Mobile starring Bradley Cooper. And of course his mom

Ad: (01:10)

Does T-Mobile really have a 5G

Ad: (01:12)

America's largest 5G network. Try it again. Oh

Ad: (01:15)

My God, you look like a flamingo in

Ad: (01:17)

This. Okay. The America's largest, largest five network network. How can I help you? Hi, how are you? , can I help you? You're

Ad: (01:26)

Making me crazy.

Damian: (01:27)

And here's a bit from Workday's. Big game spot titled Rockstar featuring. You guessed it. Real rock stars like Kiss Front man, Paul Stanley, Joan Jet, Billy Idol, and Ozzy Osborne.

Ad: (01:39)

Hey, corporate types. Well, you stop calling each other rock stars. You're

Ad: (01:42)

A rockstar. You are a rockstar.

Ad: (01:44)

Rock stars, please.

Ad: (01:46)

You know what it takes to be a rockstar. I've trashed. I rums in 43 countries. I was on the road since I was 16.

Ad: (01:53)

I've done my share of bad things. Also your share of bad things.

Damian: (01:57)

And finally, we are big fans of Liquid Death here at the current. Their latest dad takes a bold and unconventional approach to raise awareness about plastic waste on the planet. And it does this while making a smile and cringe all at the same time.

Ad: (02:12)

Thanks to our proprietary and somewhat pain-free surgical method, a sexier planet begins with a sexier you.

Ad: (02:22)

Now I'm practically oozing with beauty.

Damian: (02:26)

Thanks. Liquid death.

Ad: (02:28)

Now we can use old plastic bottles to enhance anything. And I mean anything.

Ilyse: (02:34)

Oh my gosh. Ouch. , that's a good one. Well, the good news is there's plenty more funny where that came from, but let's hear from Anju first.

Andrew: (02:44)

I gotta be honest. When I made the proposal in the presentation that there should be a line for humor, it was really only to get another joke into the presentation. Um, but that was really the only reason I did, did it. However, I'm really thrilled that they have gone ahead and done it. That was a turning point. I think it was a turning point in terms of the work that was getting awarded at Cannes. I think it was a turning point at, in terms of the work that was being entered. Um, and I think my, I think my presentation was just, you know, the right thing at the right time. It was something I wanted to get off my chest. And judging by the response from the audience and the feedback I got subsequently, it was something a lot of people wanted to hear at that moment.

Damian: (03:30)

Let's go back to your presentation a little bit. I I loved it. You kicked it off with this fantastic story about when you first learned that humor sells. I, I wonder if you wouldn't mind recapping a bit of that story.

Andrew: (03:43)

When I was, uh, a student, I had a number of kind of part-time gigs. And one of them was selling vax vacuum cleaners door to door. And for those who don't know, it was a very powerful vacuum cleaner developed by a dairy farmer who adapted one of his milking machines. And it was by far the best suction you could get out of a, out of a vacuum cleaner. But they were bright orange and they weighed like 90 pounds and cost 300. It was a difficult thing to sell. It was a difficult thing to carry, frankly, from door to door. But I learned, I learned a couple of things. One was that sometimes, um, when people believe that what they've got is good enough, you have to find a way to dramatize the fact that it isn't. And in the case of the vax vacuum cleaner, the thing that worked, the thing that could convert people was if I could show them that something they thought was really clean was in fact full of dirt and that vaxx could solve that for them.

Andrew: (04:38)

And by far the most compelling demo of that was to vacuum their bed, their mattress. 'cause everybody likes to think their mattress is really clean, but it, but with a vax vacuum, the mattress, and you just get all sorts of terrible stuff coming out of it. And if I could get to that demo nine times outta 10 people would spend the 300 pounds and, and buy the bright orange machine. So I used to like, I'd ring the doorbell and nine times outta 10, the door would be open by a woman. And I was standing on the doorstep and I would say, my name's Andrew Robertson. I'm presenting the Vxx Vacuum Company. Can we go up to your bedroom? And most of the time they laughed. Most of the time they laughed. And then once they'd laughed, we could then have a conversation where I'd say, well, I really do want to go up to your bedroom because I want to show you just how powerful this vacuum cleaner is. And, and most of the time it worked. But the point I learned was that, um, overcoming resistance to your cell is, is really important. And the best way to do that, the best way to disarm people and to make them like you, is to make them laugh.

Damian: (05:45)

You had some kantar research that showed a steady decline in the use of humor, not just the last five years, but over the last 20 years. What does the data show about why humor declined? I suppose?

Andrew: (05:56)

I mean, there could be a load of things. I think one of the, one of the big trends across that period has been the emergence of the importance of purpose, brand purpose. Um, and I think that that along with that has come, um, a belief and I, but it's a belief that I don't share that, uh, if you have a serious purpose, you should find a way of bringing it to life in a serious way. Um, and, and I think that may account for some of it. Uh, there's certainly, if you look at the data drops in the use of humor in advertising according to that Kantar data during the, um, global recession in 2008, 2009, and then again during the pandemic. And I, I think that is a result of people believing, you know, these are difficult times and people are having a really rough and we need to make sure we're not tone deaf and we need to, uh, we shouldn't do anything funny because it's, it's not appropriate. It's a logical thought process. It's just not true. And I think what happens is when you have those step changes like we had in 2008, 2009, the level drops and then it, and then it doesn't come back up again. Those I would say are the two most significant moments.

Ilyse: (07:15)

But do you see it coming back now?

Andrew: (07:17)

There's actually some pretty good data about what's happened in the last six months and how many more humorous ads are being tested. I'm hopeful that it can be revived.

Ilyse: (07:27)

That's great. I mean, I think everybody is down for a laugh these days. Um, but would you say it's also good for business?

Andrew: (07:34)

90% of people will say that, um, they're more likely to remember an ad that is funny. 80% of people say they're more likely to recommend a brand that is funny. 91% of people say they want brands to be funny. And 72% say they would choose a humorous brand over the competition. And that's all kind of claimed behavior. And it's not surprising if you think about the way we are as human beings, if you make people feel good and attach that feeling to your brand, that's an experience that're going to remember. And when your brand is next presented to them, that's what they're gonna draw on.

Ilyse: (08:12)

One of the reasons you say that people have an inhibition around humor is that it's not compatible with purpose-driven messaging. But you found that not to be the case.

Andrew: (08:23)

It's important for brands to have a meaningful and relevant purpose. The flaw in the logic in my view, is that necessarily that means that when you try to bring that purpose to life or talk about it or dramatize it, uh, you have to do so in a very serious way. You can have a really serious or really important cause or purpose. That doesn't mean you can't talk about it in a way that's going to, people are gonna find amusing. I I showed an example of, of President Obama. He was the president of the United States, pretty big job. Uh, his signature legislative achievement was the Affordable Care Act. And there was a, a website that was built by the government so that people could take advantage of this and it didn't work. And his way of dealing with it was not to do an earn speech about it. His way of dealing with it was to do a funny or die video. That was really, really funny. That's a great way to apologize. It's a great way to say I'm sorry. And when he did that, it was watched by, I think it was 40 or 50 million people. But, but the more important fact is that the number of people who went on the site went up by 40%.

Damian: (09:31)

I'm wondering, can we make the case that humor builds engagement no matter which channel it's on?

Andrew: (09:36)

You know, this fundamental point that if you can use creativity in whatever medium you're working in, whatever form you are working in to make people feel good and attach that feeling to your brand, you will sell more. A few years ago I was in LA and I was due to come back to New York and I got a text message from American Airlines. It's one of the best things I've ever seen, which is not a sentence I expected to say about a text message from American Airlines. But the text message said, you may want to pack an umbrella. We're expecting storms tomorrow. Flights will be delayed and some may be canceled. If you can, you should probably travel on another day. And all of the technology and data that's necessary to ensure that that bit of information, very, very relevant information got to me in the palm of my hand at the right time, right message, right time, all of that technology is great. But if it hadn't been written the way it was, instead of smiling and feeling good, I would probably have been angry. 'cause if it, if the same information was, you know, all caps, weather alert, uh, storms expected on East Coast delays, likely my reaction would've been completely different. I would've been angry instead of which I was smiling. I did get delayed. I then got diverted. I was sitting on the runway in, um, Dulles for, for three hours and I didn't get mad.

Ilyse: (11:07)

There's really an arc to it.

Andrew: (11:09)

Yeah, I mean, I, I would, I would challenge that assumption. I don't think it matters what medium you are consuming or probably what situation you are in. Maybe with a couple of extreme examples, if you can get somebody to laugh and feel good, they are going to thank you for it. That old expression of laughter being the best medicine there is, is true. That's true. If you can make people laugh, they will feel better and they will thank you for it. By, in our case, buying your brand, how you make people laugh, the topic, the content, the idea that you bring to life that creates this feeling, what you build that around is, has to be handled very sensitively. What I'm arguing is that no matter what state of mind people are in, if you can find a way to make them smile and laugh and feel good, they're gonna thank you for it with their business.

Ilyse: (12:06)

What would you say is the funniest campaigns that you've worked on?

Andrew: (12:10)

You are not you and you're hungry for. Snickers is a campaign that's that's rooted in making people laugh. Um, it's, you know, running in 83 countries, it's in its 13th year, it's been outrageously successful for the brand.

Damian: (12:24)

Is that a negotiation between, you know, you as the creative and, and the the client? Do you talk about the style, the content and whether it should be funny? Does that come up or is that sort of an organic process?

Andrew: (12:36)

The key to making something funny is you have to under, you have to understand the premise. And there are cases where that humor is generated around premises that people might understand, but just not like the fundamental point of if you can, if you can create a premise that people understand you have the launching pad for something that could be humorous. That's true everywhere. It's an organic process, it's an organic process. And if you have something that makes the client laugh, the client will laugh. Usually the same way as the audience will laugh if something's funny. It's funny. And getting people to recognize the value of it is sometimes a function of getting them to experience it. The bit that gets complicated is when people are arguing about whether something is funny or not, it takes ingenuity and creativity. And sometimes I think the bigger problem is, is not that people don't want to do something that is funny, it's that what they do isn't actually that funny.

Damian: (13:41)

Do you ever get to a point where , you know, you've got the final asset there and it's like, Hmm, it's just not that funny? Or does, does that ever happen? Or does it get that far?

Andrew: (13:49)

Yeah, it does. It, it does happen. And when you're testing the work, you're not testing, is it funny or not, you're testing whether the audience is going to engage with it, find it memorable, and it's going to make them feel something that makes them wanna buy your brand. The humor is the means to the end. It's not an end in itself, but yeah, it does, it does happen where somebody's like, ah, it's just not funny. Uh, or it's not funny enough. You know, there are writers' rooms working on, on Seth Meyer's jokes every night. I mean, there's 10 people sitting around a table trying to come up with something funny for him to say, 'cause he's gotta be funny for an hour. And that's a lot of jokes that you need. So it takes a lot of creative minds to come up with them. Fortunately, we don't have to fill an hour usually, but it's still, it's still harder than, it's still harder than anybody imagines. And if you doubt that for a second, just try and write something funny yourself. Just try and write even when you know the format, try and write a Snickers commercial. Try and try and write something funny for Snickers. It's, it's harder than anybody imagines.

Ilyse: (14:52)

Would you say there are some categories that lend themselves to humor more than others?

Andrew: (14:57)

I don't want to accept the principle that, that there are any categories in which it couldn't be used. I think companies and individuals may choose not to, but I, but I, I find it hard to believe that it, that it really couldn't be used.

Damian: (15:22)

And that's it for the current podcast. We'll be back next week with Jesse Poll, the head of brand and marketing for Major League Soccer.

Ilyse: (15:29)

The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Berkley and Cat

Damian: (15:37)

Fessy. And remember,

Andrew: (15:39)

If you can use creativity in whatever medium you're working in, whatever form you are working in to make people feel good and attach that feeling to your brand, you will sell more.

Damian: (15:53)

And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report as we round up the week's biggest marketing headlines from across the open internet. I'm Damien and

Ilyse: (16:05)

I'm Elise.

Damian: (16:06)

And we'll see you next time.

As the presidential race picks up momentum, The Current Podcast explores what a political campaigner and a CPG brand marketer can learn from each other. Kyle Yadon-Smith, (the head of digital for the National Republican Senatorial Committee), and Vinny Rinaldi, (the head of media and analytics for The Hershey Company), get candid about marketing politics and chocolate. 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler. Welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Damian Fowler: (00:10)

This week we are queuing up a great conversation between two advertisers who may not on first glance seem to have that much in common. We're joined by Vinnie Ranaldi, the head of media and analytics at the Hershey Company, and Kyle Yadon-Smith, the head of digital for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. That said, we thought it would be fascinating to hear what a big CPG brand like Hershey can learn from a major political advertiser like the NRSC. And since this is an election year, what better time to host this conversation. It's been said that every great political campaign rewrites the rules at the same time, CPG brands can now supercharge campaigns with retail data. With all that in mind, let's get to it. Both of you, of course, are focused on reaching those respective audiences, whether you call 'em consumers or voters. I'd love to hear from both of you, you know, on what you think you may have in common.

Kyle Smith: (01:09)

I was gonna joke, the uh, the biggest thing is, uh, we're both targeting, so we're women I think is our key marketplace. the cycle . Um, obviously that's not the only, uh, demographic that's gonna be key on the political landscape, but, uh, we're gonna be running ads in October and so we're gonna screw up your Halloween marketing. Thankfully you guys do not have a, uh, Georgia runoff this year, so it should be okay by Christmas. And uh, yeah, I think we're gonna be targeting a lot of the same consumers slash uh, voter demographics. So it's kind of, it's, it's interesting how that kind of plays out. Yeah,

Vinny Rinaldi: (01:36)

I would agree. I think there's more correlation. I think, you know, we're looking at the same content areas to show up in as a brand to sell chocolate as you guys are, to show up and influence somebody to devote one way or the other in those big environments. You know, a lot of how we look to show up is how do we drive seasonality in local markets at a certain store? So you're right in October, believe me, it's probably hot topic number one of like the lead up to our Super Bowl October 31st. There's a serious presidential election happening a week later. Yeah. So how much will that play a role when we're buying, you know, market-based ads? So it is an area, I wouldn't say of concern, but an area that we're certainly focused on of like how do we make sure we're showing up in the right markets during our most precious time of year, but being cognizant of some of the headwinds we might face based on what's happening in real time.

Damian Fowler: (02:28)

It's interesting, you know, you're sort of talking in a way about competition between say chocolate and political campaigns, but on the other hand there's a sort,

Kyle Smith: (02:35)

I think we would lose that one if you had to vote on one or the other. .

Damian Fowler: (02:39)

I mean, of course there's an alignment too. I mean maybe you guys can, you know, get together and cross-reference here.

Vinny Rinaldi: (02:45)

I mean, I joke as we look at all of the debates leading up to it and one of our products is popcorn. How do we show up and say, get your popcorn ready for all these new events that are happening. So can you bridge that gap and kind of work together? There's a lot of areas of, of

Kyle Smith: (02:58)

Interest. Politics is pop culture now, right? Yeah. Like I'll never forget, one of the funniest ads I saw was, I think it was Advil, they bought the promoted tweet on the first day of the debate in 2016 and it said, do you have a headache from this debate, you know, by Advil? And I thought that was kind of a fun way to play into it.

Damian Fowler: (03:12)

What's interesting to me is, you know, in looking at say any given political campaign, how the importance of being reactive in the moment kind of real time is so crucial, you know, for getting those swing voters out to either vote or just to nudge the needle a little bit. And I'm wondering, you know, if that idea of the sped up data-driven campaign is obviously influencing the way CPG brands like Hershey think about campaigns,

Vinny Rinaldi: (03:38)

I think we certainly use data-driven tactics in a very similar way. And you think back to the last, I guess it's 16 years since the 2008 election, which is crazy during that election when, when President Obama won, you know, it goes a little unnoticed of how he won the tactics he used, which were way ahead of his time in a lot of this, using the data, focusing on different demographic urban environments, getting those people to the polling centers, like we're trying to do the same thing during, whether it's a big season or to dry everyday occurrences, like how do you find those pockets of incremental opportunities to grow from the beast that's already there is very correlated to from when President Obama did it to President Trump doing it in 2016 and really becoming a more data-driven tactic on how you show up in those moments.

Kyle Smith: (04:26)

I mean, it's kind of funny, both Obama in 2012 and uh, president Trump in uh, 2016 both had a actually almost similar data strategy. They're both very digital heavy in from a percentage perspective for their time. And then of course nowadays we actually can't use that data on quite a few platforms. So data's extremely important in the political space. Obviously there's, uh, 60% of Americans over the age of 18 are gonna vote this cycle and a lot of those folks are gonna vote for the same party they've always voted for. And identifying people that, you know, swing back and forth is the key to winning, obviously. And that coalition changes every cycle. For us, it's leveraging the data to inform what that audience looks like so that we can make tactical data-driven decisions, even on platforms that don't let us use it directly of which, you know, is the bulk of the ecosystem at this point. It's

Vinny Rinaldi: (05:08)

An interesting point. Like we as a big massive consumer packaged goods brand that sells chocolate, has no first party data. We have to talk to everybody. Literally 98% of the um, US population eats candy mint or gum. So for us it's like how do you balance, you want scalability no matter what, but what are the right insights and data points that you utilize when you go to activation? Because if you're trying to find one-to-one in any second and or third party data partnerships in some platforms, not all, you're losing the findability due to some of the privacy regulations that are coming up. So if you don't own the data asset itself in a first party ecosystem, it's a lot harder to deliver that experience. And it's also a lot harder to collect first party data when you're a brand that everyone else sells your product. You're just driving demand through advertising and awareness and driving people to the store. But from a D two C perspective where a lot of that collection can happen, it's a little bit more of a challenge on our end to be able to sell chocolate and collect a data 0.0 for those people.

Damian Fowler: (06:08)

What's interesting to me about this is according to a study by the Trade Desk with Morning Consult during the 2022 midterms, 75% of all Americans surveyed who say they might vote in the midterms, say they know who they're gonna vote for. So I don't know from a political standpoint, do you market to those people or is marketing always at the margins? You know, are you always trying to reach out to that undecided voter? And I wonder if that carries over into CPG thinking as well.

Kyle Smith: (06:33)

I actually think this may be a space where things are more similar than they are different. You know, if you've bought Hershey Kisses every year for Christmas and you, your family's always done that and you always, you know, put that in the stalking, you're probably gonna continue to do it until something shifts or something changes. There's pretty high retention, right? In terms of Republicans from 2016 are very likely to be Republicans again, 2024. But things do change, you know, the people will always tell you, they say they know who they're gonna vote for today, but then there could be a new story that drops at some point next year that scrambles everything. You know, it changes people's opinions on issues, it changes how people think about things and we have to react very, very quickly to that and make sure that, you know, if the story's good for us, that everyone knows about it or if the story's bad for us, that we have our point of view out there to, to kind of counter what the information is. It's kind of hard to expect who those people are gonna be or what's gonna trigger that. So I think that kind of leads to the importance of talking to everyone and making sure that you kind of have a broad message out there. But we also know our folks that are, you know, Republican donors donate or vote in every single election that are probably on our team. So it's kind of just, uh, doing a little bit of both.

Vinny Rinaldi: (07:30)

Yeah, you look at Reese's Peanut butter cups, they have a 64% household penetration. I'm not sure there's any single brand out there that comes as close. So if you think about it, you, you're almost everywhere. So you're constantly speaking to everybody and hoping, you know, in those moments you're getting that incremental gain for a new household conversion and or, or repeat purchaser. So you do want to talk to both. You're also looking at probably one of the more impulsive categories in the world. Chocolate is a grab and go. You're at the counters, you're just grabbing, you don't plan it. So you always have to be, broadly speaking, making everyone aware of subtly nudging that reminder message to almost everybody.

Damian Fowler: (08:08)

Given that then, you know, does that mean a lot of your campaigns tend to be about, you know, just brand awareness kind of up there at the top of the funnel? And then how do you use channels to nudge the consumer? How, how does that work? ,

Vinny Rinaldi: (08:22)

In very basic theory, yes, we are a very big awareness brand messaging strategy to have fun. You know, we lean heavily on the voice of Will Arnett, which is the voice behind the Reese's commercials. So like, it is that probably where, but then you have, whether it's a limited edition or a seasonal environment or some other area where you wanna be a little bit more focused, where you would lean into some sort of targeting capability, whether it's a retail based target, third party, purchase based target. How do you use all those levers to take some of the spend and be focused while the majority of your base spend is reaching that broad awareness of the entire population?

Kyle Smith: (09:00)

Yeah, I think that's where, you know, I'm a little bit jealous of Hershey's and you have all this institutional brand ID and I'm, we're jealous of the starting point, especially, you know, I'm working on the, I'm working on senate campaigns this cycle. The NRC, we only have really two incumbents, meaning like people that are already senators running for reelection, again, Ted Cruz and uh, Rick Scott in Florida, they kind of have a really strong starting point they can focus on more, just reminding folks that kinda like you, I feel like you guys do every site or every year we're Hershey's, we're Reese's also. I'm jealous you get will learn that, but we're we're, we're Reese's what we are, et cetera. But then on our side we have a separate project of a lot of new candidates that no one's ever heard of that frankly haven't held elected office. And you have a year and you know, three or four months to make their name Id as close to a hundred percent with the voter base as you can. If uh, Trump were president it was 2020 and everyone kind of knows who these guys are. It is kind of more similar I think to the annual, uh, yeah, candy marketing. But this, this year it's uh, we have to start from scratch. It's like you guys introducing a new brand, I feel like, or a new skew of, uh, of, you know, Hershey's, Reese's, et cetera.

Vinny Rinaldi: (10:00)

We just launched uh, Reese's Caramel Cups and it is like launching a completely new thing even though it's part of the Reese's family. Yes, you're gonna have those loyalists try your new product, but can you attract new consumers into an already built brand because of a new introduction of caramel into a peanut butter cup? You have to find those new pockets of opportunity to not lose your base or not have them switch completely and keep that cycle growing with new consumers.

Damian Fowler: (10:26)

One of the things that's happened, uh, in the last couple of years, we talked about, you know, what happened in the last four years is the kind of rise of, there's much more inventory out there for streaming platforms, connected television, and that connecting the dots up with, you know, other channels. I wonder if you could both sort of talk me through a little bit of how that, the maturing as it were of CTV has changed the way you go to market and think about connecting up big awareness plays on CTV to, you know, lower down the funnel to more performance driven tactics.

Vinny Rinaldi: (10:56)

You know, as I go back to what I said earlier, the proliferation of content everywhere has certainly opened up the purview of how to show up, how to be everywhere. You know, for me, when I think about the connected TV landscape, what I love about it is the ability to buy prime time at any time. When you sit down at eight o'clock or nine o'clock or 12 o'clock or 3:00 PM it doesn't matter. You're accessing whatever content you wanna watch in that moment. So in my opinion, when you buy this way, you've got primetime moments at all times. That person is decided they're gonna sit down, they're gonna, you know, watch whatever it is that they wanna watch at that given moment.

Vinny Rinaldi: (11:47)

And that's your moment as a brand to show up and that's how we look at it. And then when you take that holistic approach to those primetime moments, how do you then use the controllability of technology to control, reach and frequency? So if I know that I'm talking to this person in 12 different platforms, well I don't want my frequency to be a 40 on one of 'em. I want to control that and keep extending reach. If I get enough reach, my household penetration should go up. If that goes up, my sales are going up, we're winning share, we're reaching more consumers, like that's our end goal. So being in as many homes as possible is actually impossible if you're buying on 40 different IOs or platforms. So then when you think about consolidation and the value of bringing somebody from an awareness building tactic and streaming or on the big screen all the way through a funnel and having that control allows me to unlock more business outcomes than any media measurement can give me.

Damian Fowler: (12:42)

I'm wondering if what the equivalent of business outcomes are in the political ad marketplace.

Kyle Smith: (12:48)

Um, well if we win.

Damian Fowler: (12:51)

I thought you were gonna say that. 

Kyle Smith: (12:52)

Yeah, I, I , I think, uh, I actually think this is where also uh, you know, the candy and CPG world in general is, it's pretty similar to political land is um, our outcomes also a little bit impulsive. I remember standing in line, you know, to vote for the DC City Council with a few of my coworkers before and we were all talking like, who are these people? , you know, it's like we don't know who anyone we're voting for. It's kind of funny. And then you kind of re look at 'em real quick. You remember like stuff you've heard or mailers you've gotten and you make a decision that you have one day to do that or one month to do that. And that's our moment. That's when you get your conversion. That's kind of how I'd compare the two there. I think from a high level perspective, we have the exact same problem in politics, especially with linear, where we have very high frequencies against some audiences sometimes.

Kyle Smith: (13:28)

And when you're talking to one group of people 70 times, you're, you have less money then to talk to the rest of the folks who may not be very heavy media consumers. So having an ever-present point of view across not just linear but also digital, I think that's something that our party especially is gonna try to get a lot better at this cycle. It, it's interesting to me that 20 12, 20 16, I think, and Vinny told me if this is wrong, I think the corporate world almost looked at politics and was like, wow, they're doing some really cool stuff. We have to figure out what they're doing. I think that's kind of taken a step back a little bit now that we've gotten into the, you know, we have to target older Americans 'cause older Americans are more likely to vote. And I think now as older Americans, habits have changed quite a bit from 2020 to 2024, it's forced both political parties to kind of adapt a little bit after frankly the corporate world has uh, to what the new landscape looks like.

Damian Fowler: (14:11)

You know, speaking of different audiences, are there different channels for different audiences? Kyle, when you said, you know, reaching older Americans or all older voters, I'm wondering if that's still like a linear play now or if that's completely, am I just stereotyping a whole demographic?

Kyle Smith: (14:26)

Yeah, well I watch Wheel of Fortune every other night, so I, I maybe I, maybe I'm breaking the demographic there. . Yeah, I, I think linear is still the utmost effective mass reach, uh, mechanism for folks 55 plus, especially broadcast. It's pretty easy to get over 75% reach across that audience, uh, with a couple of weeks of linear buys. What I will say though is even older users are starting to shift pretty substantially. Especially, you know, in the last couple of years when I used to do my YouTube pitches, I always told, told the story of my father-in-Law who is a huge Elon Musk fan and watches a lot of documentaries about him on YouTube. And I would walk down one day and he's like an hour or two of this documentary that some college kid put together about, about how he's making rockets or whatever. They do a penetration across all the different age groups. And I do think that we're gonna continue to see a shift away, especially from cable time spent on cable and towards the streaming services, whether it's YouTube or or more of the down funnel services

Vinny Rinaldi: (15:15)

As I stated earlier. You know, we reach everybody with a mouth. So every demographic needs to play a role in our media, both strategy spend, investment strategy, that's everything. Kyle, you kinda hit the nail on the head. It's what's happening between those environments is what's the shift what we're seeing. And I think the industry's seeing more and more, if you remove live news and sports from linear consumption, you're gonna see a drastic drop off in actual consumption habits. But you know, when you think about the purchase power right now, it shifted a little bit into the millennial group who are the bigger purchases, which is 71 million US people. We talk about Gen Z a lot. It's like, oh, they're the up and comers, they're people we have to talk to, but they're, you know, the people we don't have to spend that much time on, they're 68 million of them. So they're almost equivalent to a millennial generation. So we're gonna just wait for them to become purchasers. And I think that's a miss. So you've gotta show up in the moments or platforms that those consumption habits are happening by demo and then show up authentically to that audience so it's not, forget about one versus the other. It's how do you repeat the holistic picture across every platform and then deliver a communication strategy that resonates with those different audience groups. That's how we're working towards showing up across every platform.

Kyle Smith: (16:34)

And that's what's, that's so interesting to me. It's like the purchasing power in our world is a little bit different. You know, like in terms of voter people that actually vote, well one kids under the age of 18 cannot vote. So there's zero purchasing power. And I, I know that, I mean at least when I was in marketing school they, they taught us about how kids do have purchasing power, uh, when it comes to telling their parents

Vinny Rinaldi: (16:51)

They have influencing purchasing power

Kyle Smith: (16:54)

But in our world, you know, the, if you look at the millennial generation, you have a much higher voting percentage than it was 10 years ago. But it's still not anything close to 55 plus glad that we have the purchasing power in the millennial generation now though.

Vinny Rinaldi: (17:06)

I think it's that 13 to 18 group that's so key for us. As I said, the influencing power, everything, especially in our category, has become on demand. So I have the ability at 13 to use mom and dad's credit card tied to a DoorDash account and I'm gonna gain for the next five hours and I'm gonna order a bunch of things from seven 11 as we move into the future, five to 10 years from now, most of that generation will become now the voters but they don't wanna leave their house or they don't wanna go outta their way to go do something 'cause everything has come so easy to them by using a phone. How does the voter landscape change from either written ballots or in person to a truly secure ability to vote and get more buy-in into voting for a generation that is very used to just opening something up and hitting a button

Damian Fowler: (17:59)

We're throwing to the future here. Yeah, I mean Kyle, I dunno, what do you think, uh, do you think we're gonna get to that point?

Kyle Smith: (18:04)

I think Covid kind of changed the voting rules in a lot of states that make it easier to vote. I don't know if we'll ever get to the instant gratification level until, you know, maybe 50, a hundred years from now when we're voting on a blockchain and you get a vote coin and you spend it somewhere or something like that. So the convenience factor matters a lot and then it changes by state and almost by locality, right? If you live in a rural area and it's hard for you to get to the polling place 'cause it's a 10 mile drive versus it being half a mile down the street when you're dropping off your kids to school, that could make a difference as well. So it really just depends.

Vinny Rinaldi: (18:35)

I think that's really interesting because each state is adopting their own voter rules sounds very similar to each state adopting their own data privacy rules instead of thinking of a national basis and actually simplifying the ease for everyday people to utilize something. It's fascinating that we all continue to live by state, by state governed rules that are drastically different than just a national governing body to allow us to have a centralized ruling system to use, whether it's data privacy or voter rights. It's just, it's funny to watch that correlation between our two worlds.

Kyle Smith: (19:09)

Even sugar taxes, you know, some of the cities, I don't think it's gone after candy quite yet. True. But the uh, you know the Bloomberg rules around like the taxing soda and stuff and I think Philadelphia did it and then the sales increased outside of the Philadelphia like urban area like substantially for all those stores because you're able to get cheaper stuff. But that's interesting.

Damian Fowler: (19:26)

Kyle, you mentioned harder to reach audiences and I want to ask both of you, you know about that and how the programmatic marketplace makes it possible to reach those harder to reach audiences. I know at the top we joked about suburban housewives but you know, how granular can you get,

Kyle Smith: (19:43)

What is it 95% of people watch video whether it's linear or digital. So that does get you to a pretty high threshold the way I approach it. Like we have to deliver messages very quickly, right? So that's why I think you see political really lean into linear a lot 'cause you could get that mass reach in a day if you're buying the football games. Like if you're buying, you know, primetime on across all the all four networks and you have a presence there, you're gonna get to 50% reach pretty quickly. I think the hard part is honestly the other 50% on CTV and making sure that you're distributing that message to the person the one day a week they happen to be watching ad supported Hulu and they're not watching Netflix for example. That's where it gets more difficult. Having the centralized approach, making sure that you're maxing out the non-linear household reach if you're already buying a lot of linear is, is the hardest and most important thing that we have to do. We'll have maybe eight to 10 messages per candidate that we run and we want all eight to 10 of those messages to be seen by as many people as possible and we don't have as much time. I wish I had, you know, one or two month long campaigns that I could run behind these things to get that reach number, the incremental reach as high as we possibly can. But in reality it's, it's seven to 10 days. We just have to maximize that

Vinny Rinaldi: (20:46)

For Reeces. Again, reach everybody, everybody with a mouth, everybody wants to buy a Reeces, great. But then I go again down the portfolio, you've got variety brands in York peppermint patties, almond Joy, mounds. And so like how do you take those with much less spending power and find those pockets of opportunity? You know, for your, give you an example for York, one of the really cool unlocks we found was the snowbird effect sales actually increased 'cause York leans very heavily 55 plus really 65 plus and you see Northeast sales in the summer skew higher and then southeast sales skew higher in the winter and you're seeing the people as they move the consumer habits follow with them. So how do you heavy up in those markets during the seasons? So when you don't have a large bucket of money to go spend as a brand, you use data and insights in that way to be like really targeted hyper-focused on winning those key occasions for that consumer. Because again, at the end of the day you can only stretch a budget so far if you want to grow a business.

Damian Fowler: (21:51)

Fascinating that. So just to wrap it up, I guess I wanna ask each of you one question, you know the same question Kyle, what do you wish you could take from CPG land and Vinny, what do you wish you could take from political?

Kyle Smith: (22:03)

For me it'd be like two things. Like I think the permanence of the institutions. You know, you have the same kind of folks that'll work in marketing, the same agencies that run things for years, if not decades. Sometimes that makes it so that you have a lot of like earned experience and a lot of, you've gone through all this several times, you know what works, what, what doesn't. And I think kind of an informed approach every time politics is, you know, you have to start from the bottom and you build something up and then election day happens and that institution basically doesn't exist anymore and you have to start all over again for the next two years. So that'd be the first thing. And I think with that comes the advantages of being able to have more predictability. We don't have a ton of predictability in politics.

Kyle Smith: (22:37)

It's tough to know what my budget's gonna be. It's really tough for me to know what the news cycles are gonna look like next year without kind of that knowledge going in without knowing how much money you have, it makes it harder to do long-term planning. That's where I'm a little bit jealous of CPG land kind of wish, you know, knowing what your budget is a year and a half out I think would be awesome in our world if we were able to say that with certainty. But you know, it makes us scrappy and it makes it so that sometimes it's better than you expect and you get to have fun with it and sometimes it's a little bit worse and you just have to be smarter than the other guy.

Vinny Rinaldi: (23:02)

I would say almost the opposite in a way because I feel the marriage of branding and performance is so important to not separate the two, but to bring them together and the agility that the political landscape moves with is actually a blessing in disguise. Pricing aside the hyper target ability, the ability to show value really quickly is something that we lack because we don't own the end game. So like there, there's a part of that that's like, okay, well if you can be that hyper-focused and get a really quick outcome, how do you build that into a small percentage of your spending in the overall portfolio to be super agile, super hyper targeted, really focused on market analysis and then correlated to sales or in your case outcomes from an election. That to me is super exciting. It's something that we sometimes strive to do. You know, we used to have this motto that we're still trying to build out, but like, act like a CPG, think like a D to C, we don't own the end game, but how do you think really agile but come with the power of being a CPG. So I think what you bring to the table from a political landscape gives us just a little bit there to think about of like being super fast, nimble, and agile in a marketplace that changes so fast.

Damian Fowler: (24:17)

And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week. The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by loving caliber. The current podcast team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce. And remember,

Kyle Smith: (24:30)

If you're talking to one group of people 70 times, you have less money than to talk to the rest of the folks who may not be very heavy media consumers.

Vinny Rinaldi: (24:37)

Act like a CPG, think like a D to C.

Damian Fowler: (24:40)

And if you like what you hear, subscribe and leave a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report as we round up the week's biggest marketing headlines from across the open internet. I'm Damian and we'll see you next time.

Barbara Shipley, senior VP of brand integration at AARP, discusses on The Current Podcast the risk of perpetuating myths associated with older generations.  

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

DAMIAN (00:01):

I'm Damian Fowler.

ILYSE (00:02):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

DAMIAN (00:04):

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

ILYSE (00:10):

This week we sit down with Barbara Shipley, the senior Vice President of Brand integration at A A RP. The

DAMIAN (00:17):

A A RP is the nation's largest non-profit nonpartisan organization, which is in its own words, dedicated to empowering Americans 50 and older to live their best lives. It's taken great pains to assure people that it's not about silver haired grannies and granddads

ILYSE (00:33):

To be sure it's building on a tremendous legacy that started back in 1958. But as the perception of aging has changed in that time, so has the organization and its messaging. The A A RP is on a mission to debunk the myths about growing old. One of the ways it's doing this is by investing heavily in digital marketing in a world focused on youth. Barbara talks to us about what's unique about the A A RP demographic,

BARBARA SHIPLEY (01:04):

So we totally understand why people have a focus on Gen Z millennials. Um, let's be honest, there's definitely an obsession with youth, not just in this country, but all around the world. I think what's important for people to remember is not to put generations against each other, but to recognize where the customer base could be and potentially take age out of the equation for just a second, think about what your brand is, what your marketing, what your bottom line is, and then who makes the most sense? And in most cases, your marketing team, your brand team, your strategy team is going to zero in on people, 50 plus, they don't know it now, but if they open their mind to see where their customer is, I can almost guarantee it will include a huge proportion of the 50 plus because that's where the money is being spent. That's where the population growth is. Aging, is fueling growth in almost every market and segment.

ILYSE (02:22):

Just how big is that spending power, I guess, of that demographic? And then basically, how should brands think about this audience?

BARBARA SHIPLEY (02:30):

In the US alone, you've got 110 million people over 50, and the fastest growing audience is people over 85. So that is something to celebrate. Now, in a youth, and you could say youth obsessed, but in a youth focused environment, it's hard to pull people's attention over to the power of the 50 plus audience. But when we talk to brands and marketers in the industry and say, $8.6 trillion, they stop and listen, that's a lot, that contribution that the 50 plus in the US alone makes to the US economy each year.

ILYSE (03:15):

Now, the A A RP was founded 65 years ago in 1958. How has your organization changed to reflect the values and the needs of the demographic that you now serve?

BARBARA SHIPLEY (03:27):

The biggest way a A RP has changed is we are still extremely proud and focused of the, on the work that we do to help retired senior citizens, but that is not all we do. So if you think about an organization that is focused primarily on the 50 plus their families and their communities, how many 50-year-old people do you know that are retired right now or even thinking about retirement, they may be planning for it. I have to say I hope they are, because if you're not planning for it by the time you're 50, that's gonna be a challenge. But retirement could be 20 years away. And so A A RP has adapted it's content, it's programs, it's services, it's products, it's community outreach, it's volunteers to really address the way people are aging today, not just the way they aged when their parents or grandparents were going through their lives.

DAMIAN (04:26):

In addition to changing the programming that you have, um, how has the narrative changed in terms of your marketing, in terms of your campaigns? Now, I know you work with BBDO to create this new narrative. Could you address that a little bit? So

BARBARA SHIPLEY (04:39):

This longevity message that I was just talking about is really important and it, and it really became one of the big insights to this new narrative, as you say. So if you could spend or live half your life after 50, you want to make sure that your money, your health, and your happiness live as long as you do. It starts to capture in a really concrete way. Our role, the AARP's role, is as a wise friend and a fierce defender, we are uniquely equipped to help you make sure your money, health and happiness live as long as you do. And the reason why it works so well as a marketing campaign is because of what I call the rug pull at the end, which is in fact, the younger you are, the more you need A A RP. And that has stopping power and gets people's attention because it is not easy to make sure your money, health and happiness live as long as you do. But we are here to help you do that.

DAMIAN (05:44):

It's interesting here, you talk about this because that line in the sand of retirement, sort of mid sixties, uh, has always been there and as sort of as a sort of psychological threshold. And, and that's clearly changing, you know, not just in the United States, but everywhere around the world. And I know that one of the important focuses for you has been around the importance of work and not just work for people, you know, under 65. It's not about retirement anymore, is it?

BARBARA SHIPLEY (06:09):

So you're right, it's not about the traditional old book of retirement. So work has become one of the biggest areas for A A RP. And it, it, it's interesting when you see it at first, people can be a little bit surprised. Wait a minute, I thought you were about retirement. And very quickly they get to that moment where of course you're not just going to help me in my retirement years, you are going to help me in my working years as well. And we do have to be honest here, there's a lot of ageism in the workplace. There's age discrimination, which is even a more deeper legal issue. If you're over 50 and you need to work and you're outta work, it's a daunting task just to get an interview. So what we do is work with the environment that you're trying to succeed in, not just help you with your resume, which we do provide you a network, which we do connect you to a job board, which we do. But we are also communicating to the HR industry, hiring managers sectors, the creative industry to push and help people understand the power of the multi-generational workforce. There is so much power in the multi-generational workforce. The work is better, the experience is better, the culture is stronger, the learnings never end and it goes every which way. And that's why I'm so passionate about the multi-generational workforce, specifically in the creative industry and how powerful that can be for business outcomes for your clients and for the culture of your agency.

ILYSE (07:50):

Yeah, and definitely there is an ageism issue in America and not even to mention the marketing industry. Could you describe some of those like stereotypes and misperceptions that do show up in media and we, we still see,

BARBARA SHIPLEY (08:05):

On the one hand, if you're thinking about hiring an older person, a little bit different than you just asked, but if you're thinking about hiring an older person, the myth associated with that is they can't use technology. They're slow, they're always gonna call in sick. They're not really looking to work here for a long time. They're just marking time until they retire. False, false, false and false. This is a group of people who largely have accumulated so much experience and so much wisdom that they are going to right the ship when there is some kind of a crisis in the workplace, they are going to be the steady hand. They can be, um, a receptacle for learning, for teaching, for sharing. There are lots of things that people learn how to do. So there are some opportunities for learning, but let's create those opportunities so that we can get the benefits of people in the workplace.

BARBARA SHIPLEY (09:05):

In marketing. We still see brands, brands are really starting to get it right. I think there's a lot of reasons for that. We're gonna take some credit for that, but we won't take all that credit. I think part of it is because a lot of creative directors at your agencies, they're turning 50 and they want to be relevant. They know their life experience and their talent is relevant. And I think that's part of where the new narrative in a lot of these ads is coming from. They're also, I think, looking at the realities of aging. They're looking at the research, the data, and they're seeing that people are developing their own stories, their own timelines. pe half of people in America that are 65 to today are still working. So to tell a story in an ad of people in their sixties with sort of blank stares, fumbling around technology, doddering fools only vulnerable, wearing beige does not tell the story of how people are actually living their lives today.

BARBARA SHIPLEY (10:09):

Now watch an ad for a restaurant, the older people, I bet you are background, that's not how it actually is, but that's how the ad portrays it because the younger hipper people are in the front, they are your OCPs. So let's get it actually the way it is because the danger of perpetuating these myths is twofold. One, your prime audience that has all the spending power is feeling ignored or insulted by your brand. And two younger people who come in contact with your work fear aging, that's a societal problem. And I would ask you and all of your listeners to answer the question, what's the alternative to aging? Everybody wants to age their way, which is why our mission is to empower people to choose how they live as they age.

ILYSE (11:10):

Now, are there any specific tools that A A RP turns to, um, to kind of bust some of those myths around those stereotypes?

BARBARA SHIPLEY (11:19):

So that's a great question because the tools and the concrete, um, opportunities are the best way to educate and change the environment. And I am so proud of the work that we launched about five years ago in a very special partnership with Getty Images. We have introduced a signature collection on Getty images that has grown to tens of thousands of images called Disrupt Aging. And the goal of disrupt aging is to, through imagery tell the more current contemporary real and varied stories associated with how people age. You see multi-generational images, you see images of people at work, you see images of people at play. They are not overly photoshopped, they are not overly beautiful. They are very real and it makes a huge difference. And to me, one of the most exciting things that I didn't even anticipate when we built this is the search techniques that we have introduced.

BARBARA SHIPLEY (12:22):

Instead of agencies searching for old people on the beach, we now are shifting the, the search, which means the input is changing. And the models are also really shifting how we think about the imagery that captures today's realities of aging. So the Getty images work is pretty radical. And then we also have all of the data from the usage that shows us what people are gravitating to and what they need. So it can be a very responsive tool, but it isn't enough. We need more tools in our industry and I recognize that I grew up in this industry, I grew up in the agency world. I know what it's like. The big problem I have with where our industry is right now is stop making assumptions about me because you know one thing about me, which is my age, nobody wants that. So this is what we need to break ourselves out of and stop putting everything through an age lens, which may it sound funny coming from an organization that is about aging, but it's about the freedom to choose how you live as you age and not be put into a box or a category or segment because of one data point.

ILYSE (13:41):

Now there's no doubt a lot of brands are getting it wrong still, but are there any brands that are doing it right?

BARBARA SHIPLEY (13:48):

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll give you one example, which is Hyundai. And the story is taking the daughter to college and they're driving. So the Hyundai is the vehicle, and by the end of the ad you realize the daughter is dropping the father off at college, and you just have you, you're seized in this moment. I would say there's another narrative coming out of an interesting brand, which is indeed and uh, you see a story of, you know, the the sort of quintessential man carrying the box with stuff in it, which your mo your brain says to you, he's leaving the job, he's been fired, he's retiring. But what you realize by the end of the ad is he's a new hire and he's in his fifties and people couldn't be happier that he's there and he's happy that he's there and it's the new beginning instead of an ending. And that just captures everything about what this audience is actually going through. They aren't just nice stories, they're real

DAMIAN (14:49):

Speaking of perception. And I know that you have the A A RP magazine, which I understand is the world's largest circulation magazine, which has more than 47 million readers and across a broad age range, it goes back to that multi-generational approach that you've been talking about. You know, how does the magazine as it were, fit into the whole, you know, tapestry of everything that you're doing in terms of your marketing efforts and the perception

BARBARA SHIPLEY (15:13):

A A RP the magazine is one of the most exciting things we have. It's a lifestyle magazine uniquely focused on interests, needs, topics that the 50 plus, now that's a huge group of people, right? There is almost no such thing as a 50 plus segment. So we have a lot of elasticity in the A A RP magazine, you'll see a lot of health topics, you'll see a lot of sex topics, you'll see a lot of travel topics, friends, um, empty nest. There's so much that we are able to cover, but we do it with a really deaf hand. There's so much soul in the way we cover these topics and the way we do interviews with the a a-listers that really wanna be on the cover of the magazine. Um, over the years, uh, we've had actors, actresses, uh, musicians, uh, Michael J. Fox, lady Gaga, Henry Winkler was on the last issue. People don't throw it away, it's a keeper.

DAMIAN (16:16):

That is an interesting way of kind of gauging one's own aging in a way, in relation to these pop culture people that you've grown up with

BARBARA SHIPLEY (16:25):

Because these people are still relevant. That makes me still relevant. That makes you still relevant, not some memory of who we once were. This isn't just a group that likes nostalgia either. This is a group of taste makers. You are probably a taste maker. I'm gonna bet. And so you like new music, you like exploring new artists and a A RP sponsors a lot of music. We do a lot of virtual concerts. We do a lot of in-person concerts. We were a huge part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip hop. And I think that's why people recognize what we are bringing to the table. We don't just want to sit around and remember, but it's about where are we going

ILYSE (17:06):

Now, speaking about being like taste makers, A lot of people might be surprised to hear that you guys are so into social media. So curious about your approach there and and why it's an important platform to be on. Yeah,

BARBARA SHIPLEY (17:22):

We're very big on Facebook. Facebook is important to us, but so is TikTok. So is Instagram. I don't know anybody that really only lives on one social media platform. They go to different social media platforms for different things. And so we show up differently depending on where their mindset may be, their needs are. Our presence on TikTok is a little bit of an alter ego for a a RP. It's an opportunity for us to bring a, a different part of our personality to bear because that's what the users of TikTok are doing. Same thing with Instagram. We have really dedicated our presence on Instagram to capturing and telling and celebrating the story of Gen X in all its glory. It's all its craziness, all its forgottenness. You know, we used to call this the sandwich generation, right? You used to hear that phrase about people who are caring for aging parents and raising their young children, and they're sort of sandwiched in between.

BARBARA SHIPLEY (18:15):

We are concert goers and we are restaurant goers and we are travelers and we are caregivers. The average age of a caregiver is not a boomer or a Gen X, it's a millennial. And this is, this is a very big deal that people really need to recognize. And we are doing things that we never thought we would need to know how to do. And in many cases we need help. So there's, that's what I mean when I say that these are soulful stories. There is this isn't one dimensional or two dimensional. It's so multi-dimensional. And if people, marketers would just recognize that this 50 plus audience is basically giving everybody else a roadmap. Because what we are blazing, this is a trail, people will be going down basically if there's one message to leave here in terms of how our creative industry writ large reflects older segments, don't do it because it's charitable. Do it because it's good business. And oh, by the way, it's also a better way to engage with your audience and tell the truth versus be stuck in an old stereotype. This is a bottom line opportunity for agencies, brand managers to recognize who their audience is and engage them with their brand.

DAMIAN (19:44):

And that's it for the current podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned and if you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report as we round up the week's biggest marketing headlines from across the open internet.

ILYSE (19:59):

The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce.

DAMIAN (20:07):

And remember,

BARBARA SHIPLEY (20:08):

They don't know it now, but if they open their mind to see where their customer is, I can almost guarantee it will include a huge proportion of the 50 plus because that's where the money is being spent. That's where the population growth is. Aging is fueling growth in almost every market and segment.

DAMIAN (20:32):

I'm Damian.

ILYSE (20:32):

And I'm Ilyse,

DAMIAN (20:33):

And we'll see you next time.

Booking.com’s Chief Marketing Officer, Arjan Dijk, joins The Current Podcast to  touch on the post-pandemic travel boom and how data supports the company’s omnichannel strategy, saying that 30 percent of his marketing team are “hardcore data scientists.”

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler. Welcome to this edition of the current podcast. My co-host Ilyse Liffreing is away.

Damian: (00:10)

This week. I sit down with Arian, the senior Vice President and chief marketing officer for booking.com. Since it was founded in 1996 in Amsterdam, booking.com has grown from a small Dutch startup to one of the world's leading digital travel companies. The company's stated mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. Part of Booking Holdings inc. booking.com is a truly global company available in 43 languages. And with more than 28 million accommodations listed, Arian joined the company in 2019 and overseas marketing efforts worldwide. As such, he's responsible for all initiatives across the marketing funnel from brand social performance and innovation. We started by talking about this omnichannel approach.

Arjan: (01:03)

The role of marketing is to accelerate momentum. Uh, so you have to be very, very, very thoughtful where you invest and when you invest, because if there is no momentum in the market, it doesn't really make sense to really spend a lot of money and and convincing people to, to spend money. We look at more than 200 countries in the, in the world and we're really looking like, okay, what's going on in that country? Are we really sure we should weigh in or not? And especially during the pandemic, you can imagine this was kind of a daily, uh, monitoring, uh, because things moved very rapidly and you had, you had to deal with lockdowns and then suddenly demand would drop, uh, completely. And booking.com with my team, we've been able to manage through that in a very flexible mindset. And I think that flexible mindset is still helping us right now.

Arjan: (01:51)

'cause we're really looking very carefully like, oh, does this work? Oh, yes, it works. Let's invest a bit more. Invest a bit more. Okay, now it's enough. Now we go into other channels and I talk a lot about the role of different channels. So I personally always hate the difference between brand marketing, performance marketing. Uh, one of the key things when I started at the company almost five years ago is that, is that we would report separately on our performance marketing spend versus brand marketing spend. I'm like, you know what? Let's not do that anymore. Uh, it's the same money it should perform. And clearly when you work in what we call low intent channels, you have different objectives. Yeah. So low intent, our channels like pr, social media, general, TV advertising, all those kind of good things, but they drive awareness and consideration. They don't necessarily drive an immediate booking where we also work in other channels where it's more about immediate booking.

Damian: (02:44)

It's very interesting to hear you talk about looking at that data from all these different markets you are in. I mean, how do you stay on top of that? It sounds quite strategic and quite data-driven.

Arjan: (02:55)

We are very data-driven. I do think that anyone in marketing now nowadays needs to be data driven. And you know, you can imagine that I have a, a big marketing team, but I can assure you that probably 30% of them are kind of hardcore data scientists. And these are people who are day in, day out will look at effectiveness of our campaigns and then report back and say, Hey, we expect that actually this to happen. But it didn't. And sometimes results are very intuitive and sometimes results are not very intuitive. And I think being honest about that is very important.

Damian: (03:25)

In 2023, we had a little bit of a resurgence of optimism in the economy after 2022, and it seems that business travel is back in popularity. The summer of 2023 saw record numbers even from even before the pandemic. I'm wondering from your perspective, how has booking.com experienced this post pandemic travel surge? Is that predicted to continue?

Arjan: (03:47)

Yeah, so one of the great learnings I think from the pandemic is that people have just this amazing desire to travel. That's exactly what it is about. You know, like each of us, you know, you probably will agree, is that when it's holiday time, you're like, oh my God, this is amazing. I'm, I'm going away in a different environment. I'm experiencing different food, different people, uh, different weather, et cetera, et cetera. So the Pandemic was a huge confirmation of travel just being an enormous part of people's life. And of all the things that you experience in your, in your life, supposedly only 12% you actively remember. Uh, so, uh, from everything that you experience in your life. And the reality is that probably those trips you've made, those special trips, that wonderful Weekend to Paris or that amazing time in in Wyoming, those are the things that you remember. And I think travel plays really a, a big role. You could argue that the experiences almost are more valued than material, uh, possessions, uh, because what is better than a, a wonderful experience. So that was a huge confirmation of what we probably intrinsically already knew. But you see that especially after the pandemic, there was a thing, uh, called revenge Travel. You might remember that term. Other people were like, you know what? I don't care. I'm getting out of here.

Damian: (05:03)

I'm curious to get your perspective on how you're using that data. We've just talked about Antech, you know, to personalize that user experience and, and the way you kind of focus on the different types of travelers within your marketing efforts.

Arjan: (05:16)

What we try to do is make it easy for people to book, uh, with us, but then also book again. And we have a program called a Genius program that really makes it more interesting also for the more casual traveler to book with us. You know, when you stay with us a little bit more, you go up a level and there are actually three levels that you can, uh, can achieve. And that means you can get a little bit more benefit. I do think that the mindset around business travel has changed significantly after the pandemic. Uh, I look at myself before the pandemic, I would jump in a plane for a meeting of two, three hours. Now Aari will say, can I do this on a Zoom call

Damian: (05:49)

From the US perspective, I know you're the official partner of the Major League Baseball League here and um, latest campaign features Ken Griffey Jr. And last year the Brand Somewhere, anywhere campaign featured Melissa McCarthy, which debuted during the Super Bowl, which of course is nearly already sold out for 2024. I'm wondering, you know, how does booking.com pair sports lovers with what your overall strategy is? What do you, how do you think about that?

Arjan: (06:16)

I do think as a brand, it's incredibly important that you're part of the zeitgeist. Uh, and if you look at where people are spending their time and where their passions lie, sports play a huge role. I think the top 10, you know, most viewed television programs will all be sports. That's kind of the reality of today. And so that, that if you want to reach a mass audience that is engaged in an area that is very much in the zeitgeist, you cannot ignore sports anymore. Mass reach has become actually quite, quite difficult. And we really believe by being part of tournaments where people are really passionate about their sports will really show up. Well. The key aim in the US is also that people know us as, uh, a brand that's very good for outbound travel. Yeah. So if you want to travel outside of the us but we also want to really reiterate, hey, we're a brand that's also fantastic for domestic travel, and we have a little tag line is that says where, where there's how I said where, where there's baseball, there's booking has gone.

Damian: (07:13)

And then I guess, you know, you are align with different sports in different markets. Obviously Europe must be, we have to say the word soccer, but Europe is soccer, right?

Arjan: (07:21)

Yeah. So, uh, we're proud sponsors and we have been of ufa, which is a big deal, you know, live stops in Europe. Uh, so when, when the major games are on, you know, you can probably, uh, skate on, on, on a highway because you know, there is no traffic. But we also have done ICC crickets, which if you're not into cricket, you're like, what is this? But I can assure you there are more than a billion people passionately care about, uh, a cricket, especially in India, Australia, uh, South Africa, uh, the uk. Uh, so those are markets where cricket is immensely popular. We're also, were proud sponsors of the FIFA Women's World Cup. So I I was very happy with that. 'cause you see also that that sport is really increasing so dramatically and wonderful to be part of that.

Damian: (08:06)

And you mentioned how sports are being fragmented across streaming platforms. Does that complicate your efforts when it comes to marketing, or do you just have to be more tuned into that omni-channel approach that we were talking about?

Arjan: (08:19)

We really care also about the kind of communal moments. Yeah. So what are the times that you're sitting with your friends or family and you are watching together? And when you show up in those moments, we think it's really powerful. The strategy of showing up in more individual channels is more kind of a one-on-one approach, uh, where you are on your phone or you're on your computer or you're on your iPad watching something that interests specifically you. But being part of those kind of communal moments, we really care about that.

Damian: (08:50)

Booking.com is owned by Booking Holdings, which owns a host of other, uh, websites including priceline.com, a goda.com, kayak, cheap Flights, rental Cars, and OpenTable amongst others. I'm wondering, you know, what's the synergy like between the companies when it comes to marketing? Is, is the same data applied across all brands? We

Arjan: (09:11)

Operate quite independently, and that's on purpose. Uh, I'm a, I'm a strong believer in kind of healthy competition. Uh, so, so really keeping each other honest, being very focused on our very specific segments of the market. And with a goda price line have, we're addressing a more specific price conscious, uh, segment in the market. Booking at com is a little bit more for everyone. Kayak is clearly in a very specific industry. And the same for OpenTable. We meet every month. So I meet with the heads of marketing of, of every brand once a month, and we really talk through our marketing strategies and really, of course, try to learn from each other.

Damian: (09:45)

Are there any specific challenges or obstacles you, you've encountered when it comes to implementing this omnichannel strategy? What, what are your kind of main challenges?

Arjan: (09:55)

We have a slightly different model probably than most companies is that, uh, we have very strong relationships with a couple of key ad platforms and we do that direct. Uh, so we don't really have an intermediary, we don't have an agency, so we work directly with Meta, Facebook, Instagram, we work directly with YouTube and, and, and Google. And that approach has, in my perspective, big advantages. It also has clearly disadvantages that you have to staff up and you have to really understand, you know, how things work and you need to be able to manage the technology.

Damian: (10:27)

Booking.com operates in over 208 countries and you know, you're talking about strategies across all those different languages, cultures, regional preferences, and presumably, you know, economies are different as well in different parts of the world. How do you sort of manage all of that?

Arjan: (10:43)

The key thing to, to realize is that there's also a lot of commonality. And so, so you shouldn't underestimate that wherever you are in the world. We're kind of all human beings and we kind of all do the same things. And the joke I often make is that if you think of a romantic dinner, so imagine you are in Japan or you are in Columbia or you're in North America, romantic dinner is a romantic dinner. It generally involves two people. It generally involves some nice food and and drinks. And it generally involves a nice table with people seated. Uh, there, it generally doesn't involve loud music, it has kind of soft music. You could argue that of course a romantic dinner in Japan. It's very different to Columbia. But there are also lots of commonalities. And what we are trying to do is really focus on the kind of commonalities that were set up in our campaigns in the right way, from a measurement point of view, from a data point of view, from the way we go to market.

Arjan: (11:39)

And then suddenly we're, we're actually very effective in tailoring our language, our messages to someone in Japan versus Columbia. But the fundamentals are intrinsically the same. One key thing I really care about is truth telling that as a brand, you tell the truth about yourself. And I think a lot of brands actually go wrong there, that they claim to be something that they aren't. And it doesn't mean you need to be boring or non engaging, but you should be very clear about the position you have in people's lives. And the position we have in people's lives is, you know, what we're the best at just getting it out of the way. Book that kind of great place and 1, 2, 3, you are done. And that's the reason we're also using booking.com booking. Yeah. 'cause yeah, it's that kind of positive feeling of, hey, it's out of the way.

Damian: (12:22)

I read an interview with CEO Glenn Fogel in the FT actually talking about AI and how the company's preparing for the AI era. And he said something along the lines of AI can take the friction out of holiday planning. I'm wondering if that's a focus for you from the marketing seat that you are in.

Arjan: (12:40)

Generative AI clearly has many aspects. Uh, so, and Glenn is really talking about the traveler experience, really making sure we take the friction out of everything and that we more or less are able to predict much better what your next step would be based on, you know, on those models. I do think that in marketing specifically, there is probably also a huge productivity opportunity by using generative ai, be it in how we do our performance marketing, but also how we develop, uh, creatives. Uh, we're experimenting with AI generated videos that we're putting out on, on, on YouTube that are very tailored to very specific searches that people are doing on, on YouTube. I really focus with my team also on that kind of productivity side of it. Uh, can we really make, again, every dollar work a little bit harder using smart technology?

Damian: (13:32)

Are there any other emerging technologies or trends? Uh, I mean, one thought was the focus on sustainability, for instance, that will have an impact on future omnichannel marketing efforts.

Arjan: (13:43)

The interesting thing is that as any company in the world and especially a company in travel, sustainability is clearly something you have to just obsess about. It's something that is really important and I talk a lot about purpose. Uh, what is the purpose of, of our company? What is the purpose in in our marketing? And I really see sustainability as kind of, kind of foundational you would expect from any reputable company to really care about this and that we each contribute to, uh, helping improve sustainability in, in the world.

Damian: (14:19)

And that's it for the current podcast. We'll be back next week with Barbara Shipley, senior Vice President of Brand integration at A A RP. The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. A theme is by loving caliber. The current podcast team includes Chris Ley and Cat Bessie. And remember,

Arjan: (14:37)

One key thing I really care about is truth telling at that as a brand, you tell the truth about yourself. And I think a lot of brands actually go wrong there, that they claim to be something that they aren't. And it doesn't mean you need to be boring or non engaging, but you should be very clear about the position you have in people's lives.

Damian: (14:54)

And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave as a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report as we round up the week's biggest marketing headlines from across the open internet. I'm Damien and I'll see you next time.

Fresh off pandemic fame, Moderna wants consumers to know how it’s applying mRNA technology to reimagine health and wellness. Among other strategies, the company is leaning into sports and music to reach consumers when they’re likely to be most receptive. 

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Lieffring: (00:02)

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler: (00:03)

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse Lieffring: (00:10)

This week we sit down with Kate Cronin, the chief brand Officer for Moderna.

Damian Fowler: (00:15)

Moderna is a biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The focuses on MRNA therapies and vaccines against a wide range of illnesses including cancer, COVID-19 and the flu.

Ilyse Lieffring: (00:26)

Although the company was founded in 2010, it became a familiar brand name during the pandemic when it received full approval for its CVID 19 vaccine by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Damian Fowler: (00:38)

Since then, it's positioned itself to become a more commercial company and it's opening up direct to consumer marketing channels using digital messaging to reach healthcare providers and patients alike.

Kate Cronin: (00:53)

If you think about the healthcare landscape and where we are, we came out of a pandemic that changed everything. The pandemic turned every company into a healthcare company because companies were focused on the health and wellbeing of either their employees or their constituents or their customers. And that means hotels, airlines, travel, restaurants. It changed everything. And I think what happened is in a post pandemic world, people are laser focused on health and wellness. And looking at Moderna, we are leaning into that new focus on health and wellness and new understanding of health and wellness. And so as a company, we're leaning in on educating the world about our technology and what we believe we're going to do to change the future of healthcare.

Damian Fowler: (01:40)

And on that point, how has that impacted the way you go to market and the way you have rolled out marketing strategies? I understand it's a pretty big shift for the brand.

Kate Cronin: (01:50)

For the first 10 years of Moderna's life, we were an r and d company, so we focused on research and development. That means we studied products, the lab, and we did not have any products commercialized, so we never took a product to market. When Covid struck our CEO realized, hey, we have an opportunity with mRNA to see if our technology works against Covid. And the good news is it did. And so we are super proud of the fact that our first commercial product was for Covid, shot in the arms of billions of people around the world, literally prevented serious disease and hospitalization. And so that changed our company. And because the pandemic was the first time when people actually asked for a vaccine or knew their vaccine by name, you know, people would walk around and say, I, you know, I've got Pfizer or I got Moderna, or whatever it was.

Kate Cronin: (02:39)

And they were proud of the fact that they got the shot to prevent Covid. And so there was instant brand recognition. So Moderna was not a household name until the pandemic and suddenly became a global brand. Everybody knew the name Moderna and what everybody knew was Moderna was a company that manufactured a COVID-19 vaccine. What they didn't know is everything else that we were doing. And so I was hired in the middle of the pandemic to start educating around who is Moderna? What is our brand? What do we stand for? What's our identity and how do we reach consumers about the future of MRA technology and where we're going beyond covid. That's been the the focus. And that's not just for healthcare providers. People were getting it from pharmacists. They were not going to their doctors to get shots. So it was a very much of a consumer driven market. And because it was consumer driven, that's where I was leaning in on my focus on consumers and educating them about mRNA. So many people had it in their arms, did they know exactly what it did and why should they care? We started changing the dynamic in terms of how we reach our audiences.

Damian Fowler: (03:45)

Would you mind defining what mRNA is? I know it's in the name of the company, Moderna.

Kate Cronin: (03:51)

Interestingly, the agency that I worked at named Moderna, it's basically about mRNA. And mRNA is known as Messenger ribonucleic acid. And mRNA is a molecule that contains a set of instructions or a recipe, if you will, that direct cells to make a protein using the body's natural machinery to fight disease or prevent disease. And that's really what it is. It's a set of instructions and if you think about Moderna, the name, we came up with Moderna because it's modern, we believe we're gonna transform medicines, but it has RNA at the end. So it was very, it was a very nice play on modern and then RNA, so Moderna

Damian Fowler: (04:33)

A perfect brand name.

Kate Cronin: (04:35)

Yeah, yeah, it worked out. It worked out really well.

Ilyse Lieffring: (04:37)

Do you think Covid and Vaccine Awareness opened up new direct to consumer channels? Do you think it's good timing with immunization season?

Kate Cronin: (04:47)

So I think COVID definitely opened up new channels and here's why. People started to really care about vaccination in ways they never did before. During the pandemic, you weren't able to go out, you weren't able to see your friends, you weren't able to see your family. Getting the vaccine meant everything and getting the vaccine meant you were able to live your life again. And so you cared about that vaccine and you wanted to know who makes this vaccine. You wanted to know what's in this vaccine and why is it letting me get back to my life? How does it work? How does it all work? I mean, imagine, you know, pre pandemic when you would get your flu shot, people get the flu shot, it's great and you just know you're gonna prevent flu. In the pandemic world, you got your covid shot and it meant everything to you.

Kate Cronin: (05:29)

And so there became this loyalty to the brand that started. You know, you never knew who manufactured your flu shot, generally speaking, you just generically asked for a flu shot. But when Covid struck and you'd get your booster, you said, well, I got Moderna before, so now I want my Moderna booster. And you were loyal to Moderna, A fandom was created. How do we build on that? People who are fans wanna know like, how do I interact with this company? And you know, what's next? And when we launch a flu vaccine or a combination Covid flu vaccine, we want people to understand, oh, that's the company that brought me the Covid shot. I understand mRNA and I understand what I'm putting in my body. As you know, there was a lot of debate and discussion about these new vaccines and can they be trusted? And the reality is, if you understand the technology and that it's a set of instructions and it's teaching your body to fight, you understand that this new technology is effective and tolerable and there are, it was generated with safety in mind. As we move into new categories, it's the same methodology and it's not a new chemical entity, it's just a new set of instructions. And that's why we think it's important for people to understand it. So as we launch new products, they don't have to understand the intricacy, but the general gist of how it works,

Ilyse Lieffring: (06:41)

How would you say Moderna is going about fusing this education in with its marketing strategy?

Kate Cronin: (06:49)

So knowing that we want to reach folks and educate them, we lean in on this idea of education and entertainment, which I'm calling edutainment. People retain more when they're being entertained, I think. And so with that in mind, we're reaching people where they are. So instead of lecturing consumers about, you know, you need to get vaccinated, we spend more time engaging with them when they're at sporting events or when they're at concerts, reaching them when they're having fun and they're open to hearing more. So for example, at the US Open, we sponsored it two years in a row and as a sponsor we also have a booth and we're able to engage with consumers at the booth. They can download a QR code, they can sign the lens, which is something that champions do. And then they, we create a boomerang they can use on social media and then they can become part of the Moderna community where people are able to opt in and say, yeah, I wanna hear more from Moderna.

Kate Cronin: (07:43)

Same thing with the iHeart Music Festival. And we actually had wristbands where they could download a QR code, find out where they can get their vaccines, so go to vaccines.gov. And also Ryan Seacrest did some informational podcast stuff for us and he announced the concert and you know, announced this idea of stay healthy, stay up to date, get your vaccine, bringing this model in. We also looked at habits of consumers and there are people who are religious about getting their flu shot. Those are the people where you say, well if you're religious about getting your flu shot, how do we make sure you also get your covid shot? And the CDC says it's safe to get your flu and your covid shot at the same time in terms of compliance. It's easier to get that message and say while you're at the pharmacy getting your flu shot, get your covid shot and then you don't have to go back for another visit. And that increases compliance as well. The future for Covid is gonna be very similar to flu once a year, get your flu shot, get your covid shot, and then you don't have to get another one until the next year. That's for most people. I think for the highly immune compromise or the elderly, there might be a boost needed in the spring, but the current recommendation is once a year.

Damian Fowler: (08:45)

It's fascinating to hear you talk about, you know, using sports, using music celebrities, you know, to reach audiences. And I know that Moderna has taken this omnichannel approach using these very tailored messages. And I know your CCO talked about this as a priority. Could you talk a little bit more about that omnichannel approach across different digital channels is an effective way of reaching, I mean an audience of potential patients, I suppose is the way of putting it.

Kate Cronin: (09:10)

We're in a world where the channels where people get their information has exploded. 10 years ago we didn't have Instagram, TikTok, pharma traditionally would use DTC advertising. And so we look specifically at our audiences and where they are, where they get their information, including inline broadcast tv. I mean a lot of older people watch, you know, shows like CBS this morning. If you think about when I find myself watching CBS this morning, I've sort of realized I'm I'm, I've hit a certain age, but uh, , we also do media buys based on where we have sponsorships. So we did a whole thing with series of ads with ESPM where we did a changemaker campaign where we celebrated changemakers. So last year we celebrated Billie Jean King. This year we did creative that celebrated Arthur Ashe. Again, Moderna is really associating ourselves with change makers because we believe we are change makers in the healthcare industry, which is part of our platform.

Ilyse Lieffring: (10:33)

Now Moderna has to work directly with healthcare professionals. Would you say the same channels to reach consumers are also just as beneficial perhaps in reaching those healthcare professionals?

Kate Cronin: (10:44)

Healthcare professionals, they get a lot of their information through journals and studies. And I like to say the number one journal that physicians read is the Wall Street Journal. So we really push out our data and our clinical trial information through earned media and also specific to physicians. There are medical meetings and associations where they get their information, but we've been incredibly transparent as a company. When we get new data out, we issue a press release, we call top journalists, let them know. We offer up our executives and our doctors as spokespeople to share the information and spend more time with the journalists. This has been like this through the entire pandemic. And I think that's one thing about Moderna is we are incredibly open and transparent with everything in our data. And so I think earned media is the fastest way to get information out. Once you issue a press release, you're able to talk to the media directly and then folks trust the media and they're gonna give an unbiased objective story.

Ilyse Lieffring: (11:40)

Now I know during covid, like social media was full of disinformation regarding Covid and it was a challenge for any company. Do you feel that disinformation is still a big challenge?

Kate Cronin: (11:52)

Challenge As a company, we need to focus on what we do well, which is deliver the science and deliver the information and education around the science. We've struggled with disinformation about Moderna and about our executives and we look at that through the lens of what can we change and what should we change and what do we just need to leave alone because we're never gonna be able to change. We then focus on education. We also did some things with kind of debunking myths. We actually hired somebody to do some work with our employees on pre debunking myths versus facts and getting our ed, our employees educated on, here's some things you're gonna be hearing about on the internet or from friends and family and here are a set of facts that you can use to debunk some of the things that you might be hearing so that our employees are better armed with information and can be good ambassadors for the brand.

Damian Fowler: (12:43)

Now I guess, you know, other biotech companies must also be kind of lockstep with you in the sense of that myth or debunking or myth busting. But at the same time I'm wondering, you know, about the space and your sense of place in it. How do you think about the space?

Kate Cronin: (12:58)

So we are very different from a pharmaceutical company in that we are a platform technology company. So when you look at competitors, we don't really see pharma as competitors. We see ourselves as a unicorn because we are a platform technology company. An analogy would be Apple with the iOS system and Apple's iOS system is basically everything runs off of iOS and when you have a new app, it's off of the iOS. So it's updates to the iOS. We look at our mRNA platform the same way we have mRNA platform technology and whenever we have a new product, new vaccine, new therapy, it's basically like an updated app to the iOS system. So we take that iOS, we recode for a new product using mRNA, and then we tweak it based on the needs. So for example, we have a flu vaccine that we're studying. We had to tweak it because we're working off of one system and we're basically recoding the product. We were able to update it very quickly and study a newer version of it. And then that's the one that we're gonna be continuing to study and hopefully, you know, launch, it's very unusual 'cause when a pharma company has a product, it's a new chemical entity, they call it an NCE, they test it. If it fails, it's done, it's over, they have to start over again. We don't start over again. We can tweak and modify very quickly. So we have agility in a platform.

Damian Fowler: (14:20)

Yeah, that's a fascinating analogy. And at the same time, you know, you're creating these new products and you obviously have to give them brand names too. I know that the Covid vaccine isn't, isn't now Spike vax, right? For instance.

Kate Cronin: (14:32)

So it's an interesting conundrum. As I said earlier, the pandemic made Moderna a household name. So now we're out of the pandemic and we're an endemic market. An endemic market, you have to have a brand name, I wanted to name it Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. And they don't let you do that. They won't let you do that, you have to call it something. So the team came up with Spike Vax, but we couldn't just call it Spike Vax because no one's gonna know what Spike Vax is. So we call it Spike Vax by Moderna. If you think about consumer branding overall, there's this idea of a branded house or you have a house of brands. We are a combination of a hybrid of a branded house and a house of brands. So hybridizing it is making sure the company name is included because everyone knows our name and also attaching it to a product name. And then there are other ways to connect the dots in terms of the brand. So we have little M that shows up. And then just in terms of the architecture, the visual architecture works when you have different products that you're launching. 'cause we want people to know when they see it, they go, oh, that's a Moderna product. So Bio Moderna is very intentional in terms of how we brand

Ilyse Lieffring: (10:02)

Can you tell us a little bit about what the Spike Vax by Moderna campaign looks like?

Kate Cronin: (10:07)

Spike Vax by Moderna is our branded campaign and it's about all the things you do with your body. You know, you exercise that body, you provide nutrients to that body, you spike vax, that body. And so just normalizing what you do with your body. It's just like you wanna keep your body healthy and you wanna live your life and do all the things you do with that body. Spike vax, that body. We also say, you know, you flu shot that body spike vax, that body

Ilyse Lieffring: (15:36)

Now. What has aligned with kind of the rise of healthcare data and general consumer interest in their healthcare has also been the rise of retail media and data being that Moderna is going direct to consumer. How important is retail data to its vaccine marketing?

Kate Cronin: (15:54)

We look at data and analytics, that's something that drives everything that we do. If you think about Covid vaccines, we're able to look on a weekly basis and see how many people are getting shots in arms, where are they getting the shots? All the way from when it goes to the wholesaler to when it's shipped to the retail pharmacies. We have a good sense of the penetration of the market in terms of vaccination and we can see regionally attitudes as well. You know, where are people inclined to get a vaccine, where are they on the fence? And so we're able to target our efforts and educational efforts in markets where we think we can move the needle and where we can get people to understand the importance of going and getting their vaccine. We work closely also with the retailers, the CVSs and the Walgreens of the world who are working with us to educate and use their channels as well to make sure that when people are in the store, they are hearing information about staying up to date with their COVID-19 vaccine. So super important to have that information. It's also important to know where are their outbreaks of covid, how many outbreaks there are, what are the hospital, what are the weekly hospitalization rates? Because Covid continues to be quite serious. People are still getting sick unfortunately. And so we're monitoring that as well. And that informs a lot of our marketing efforts also.

Damian Fowler: (17:10)

Do you think there's still more work to be done in the sort of educating the consumer about the virus? I mean, I've heard people say, well I've had Covid or I've had my covid shot, so I therefore I have antibodies, I don't need to get a shot. I mean, how, how do you think about these different cohorts?

Kate Cronin: (17:26)

There's the people who, who are gonna go and get vaccinated. There're the folks who are hearing misinformation and saying, you know, I'm just not sure should I, I've already had COID. So those are the people we really need to lean in on because we need them to understand. We just need to do our part and educate people on that. And then there's the, the vaccine fatiguers. That's a new category. This is a new category based on covid. I mean, vaccine fatigue is not anti-Vax vaccine fatigue is someone who did the right thing. They went every time they got all their shots and they're tired of getting shots. They're tired of being told they need to get another vaccine. And those are folks who are, you know, they wanna do the right thing, but they're just, they're tired of it. The market has changed. It's a one shot, not a booster system anymore.

Kate Cronin: (18:10)

You get one shot just like flu and then you go back the next year. Them understanding that is important too. 'cause then they know that the vaccination plan is normalized. We've been focused on this idea of stay up to date, stay vaccinated. Our campaign is called No Time for 19, the Unbranded campaign. Get your flu shot, get your covid shot, stay healthy. And that's the focus. So we don't even mention spike vax and that's intentional because we are all about market growth in terms of get people vaccinated and a rising tide floats all boats. That's very different from a very branded campaign where you're leaning in on product attributes versus your competitors. In this particular case, we're more about getting people into the pharmacy and getting their vaccine. So that's our focus.

Damian Fowler: (19:05)

And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week, so stay tuned.

Ilyse Lieffring: (19:10)

And if you love this podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. While you're at it, check out our other show, the current report, our weekly roundup of what's happening in the world of digital media. The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce.

Damian Fowler: (19:29)

And remember,

Kate Cronin: (19:30)

Edutainment people retain more when they're being entertained. We're reaching people where they are. We spend more time engaging with them when they're at sporting events or when they're at concerts, reaching them when they're having fun and they're open to hearing more.

Damian Fowler: (19:44)

I'm Damian

Ilyse Lieffring: (19:45)

And I'm Ilyse,

Damian Fowler: (19:46)

And we'll see you next time.

As a 102-year-old brand, White Castle has become a niche part of culture, from the “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” movie to people getting married at the restaurant. Jamie Richardson, VP of marketing and public relations, discusses maintaining the White Castle brand as a pop culture icon.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

DAMIAN (00:01):

I'm Damian Fowler.

ILYSE (00:02):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. And

DAMIAN (00:04):

Welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

ILYSE (00:10):

This week we sit down with Jamie Richardson, VP of Marketing and Public Relations at White Castle, the 100 and 2-year-old brand that's been part of pop culture and a mainstay in American fast food since it was opened by founder Billy Ingram as a family business in 1921. It now operates around 342 US locations.

DAMIAN (00:32):

From the 2004 film, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle to making headlines for hosting weddings. White Castle manages to maintain its status as a pop culture icon while innovating in new areas like grocery and delivery.

JAMIE RICHARDSON (00:53):

Well, you know, when you work at White Castle, you get calls from all over the world, and one fine day somebody called their 800 line, and I had the opportunity to speak to this person and they said they were from Hollywood, and that there's this film about two likable underdogs who spent an evening of misadventure looking for White Castle. So we said, sure, send us the script. And then I remember taking the script home and taking a look at it, and they forgot to mention it was rated R for raunchy. So that was a little surprising. Um, but, uh, we had some good debate internally. And then I had the opportunity to talk to our CEO and third generation leader, uh, bill Ingram. I had the perfect pitch down. I was really ready to, to sell this big idea. I remember walking into Bill's office and panicking, and the first thing I blurted out was, it has sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Other than that, it's really good for us. And he kind of paused and looked up and said, what in the world are you talking about? And when I told him a little bit more, he, he looked and said, well, as long as it doesn't make fun of our team members, I'm fine with it. So that's how the greatest film that never won an Academy award. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, got green-lighted thanks to Bill Ingram. That's

ILYSE (01:59):

Great. It must have helped business. What would you say are other unique aspects of White Castle, whether it's like the menu, branding or history and how that contributes also to its ongoing presence in pop culture?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (02:12):

You know, I think for us it's about being relevant and being resonant and having a reverence from where we've been, but also at the same time connecting with consumers today where they are. So, um, certainly at the base of it all, it's about hot, tasty, affordable food. Just like our founder Billy Ingram imagined at the very beginning, he really believed every family should be able to have an affordable evening out. Um, and but beyond that, I think we've been able to be a part of people's, uh, memorable moments and, and that connects us emotionally beyond the physical properties of product and the utilitarian value of food. So keeps it fun and real.

ILYSE (02:44):

And do you guys have like a lot of traditions when it comes to that? It seems, um, it, it seems to play a big role at White Castle, actually. Your burgers have pretty much stayed consistent and then certain traditions have continued on, such as like people get married at White Castle, which is super fun. And then you have a Valentine's Day celebration now, I believe in its 32nd year. Why is it important to continue traditions that consumers know and love? You

JAMIE RICHARDSON (03:13):

Know, I think for White Castle, uh, as a family owned business that's been around for 102 years, our neighbors and friends are the people we serve every day in each of the communities we're in. So for us, uh, you know, around Valentine's Day, white Castle becomes love castle and people make reservations three months in advance to get that special seeding. And I think it's us not taking ourselves too seriously and having some fun with it and recognizing we, we exist to feed the souls of Craver generations everywhere.

DAMIAN (03:39):

Now, Jamie, you mentioned, uh, the word relevant, which obviously is key to any brand, you know, staying relevant and especially in the sector that you are in a competitive restaurant and fast food category. I'm wondering how White Castle has adapted to changing consumer taste and trends, um, whilst it's preserving this 102 year old iconic status.

JAMIE RICHARDSON (03:58):

I, I think for us it's about not being locked into something that we've done just because that's the way we've done it before. It's about meeting people where they are. And the best way to do that is ask good questions, listen intently, and then have that be the foundation for your actions. So, um, we're big believers in consumer research. We're big believers in getting out and talking to the team members and talking with our customers, whether that's on the retail side of our business where we sell, uh, sliders in the grocery store or in our restaurants at the Drive-through or in the dining room. So for us, it's really about listening. And that might sound a little cliche, but we actively lean into it and treat it as a discipline and part of who we are. Um, our vision is feed the souls of Craver generations everywhere. You can't do that if you don't know what people are hungry for. So that's a, a constant focus for us and, and we learn and grow because needs and desires change as time goes on.

DAMIAN (04:50):

You mentioned, uh, adding a grocery business, uh, as well as delivery options. Could you talk a little bit about how the consumer data or leaning into that consumer data played a role in that decision and adding that delivery option for White Castle?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (05:04):

Absolutely. I think we saw that especially as hot and tasty, affordable food became more available through delivery partnerships. It's something we leaned into early. So hey, we're small in the grand scheme of things on the restaurant side, you know, we're a regional player, we have 342 restaurants, so we're not monolithic, we're not global, but in each of our neighborhoods, we want to be a big part of everyone's, uh, opportunity for great food. So when delivery came along, we quickly, uh, were able to forge great partnerships with all the different delivery partners, and we found our customers loved it. It was just one more way to be able to experience the crave, and they told us again and again, um, that that was something they wanted available to 'em. So it's great to be there 24 7, like most of our restaurants are, uh, having another option in terms of how to enjoy the food just seemed to make sense to us and we're really happy we jumped in when we did and we're continuing to grow and build that side of the business.

DAMIAN (05:55):

And, and you mentioned market research. What are the types of consumer demographics that you research, uh, on that crave continuum?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (06:03):

You know, that's interesting. Uh, the Crave continuum is something we created, uh, or discovered is probably a better way to say it. So we created language around it, but it, and in many ways it is taking the traditional demographics and psychographics so many of us lean into as marketers and putting it into the super collider and, and smashing it to bits and starting over. So we've been able to build it really around behaviors. So it isn't purely just the demographics. Um, for us it's about understanding two key things in terms of people's relationship to White Castle, their fandom and how frequently they visit us, so, uh, or purchase in the grocery store. So from that lens, we're able to understand where people are at in the continuum from crave cautious at one end for those souls we haven't connected to yet, but we will someday to crave committed at the other end of the spectrum with crave curious and crave casual in between. So it's been a really rich way for us to explore messaging. It's been a really rich way for us to explore media with all of our different agency partners in terms of how to get the, the right messages to the right people at the right time.

ILYSE (07:06):

Speaking about what you call Cravers and the fandom around that, um, you've created really this whole culture around it. What is White Castle doing to continue to support and market this culture and why is it important for a brand to have such a culture anyway?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (07:23):

Well, I think purpose is what it all comes down to. So, uh, if you know why it exists, it makes it a lot more fun to invest your time and energy and talent, uh, towards creating something that's meant to last that's meaningful. And when, um, we discovered the strong emotional connection so many have with White Castle, we realized that that was gold. That you can, you can spend a lot of money, can come up with a lot of great ideas and things that look good on the chalkboard, but when you have something like that, that's such a great attribute to be able to connect with people in that way. So I think around that idea of craving, we understood there's language that unlocked how so many people felt. And um, as I mentioned earlier, that listening part really played a role in that. So we literally hired a trained psychologist to interview some of our biggest fans and over and over and over again, one word, um, you know, was, was echoed and it was, I get a certain craving for him, I crave 'em late at night, I crave 'em at breakfast. And, um, including one gentleman who told a story about taking white castles on an airplane, and then he named one of our competitors, I won't say their name, and he said, you never see anyone carrying that brand onto an airplane now, do you? right. People love White Castle. Is that right? That told us we were in the right direction.

DAMIAN (08:38):

You know, we talk about meeting people where they are and when it comes to this younger generation, often they're, you know, across social media. How are you kind of, uh, thinking about your campaigns across all these different platforms that young people, you know, are looking at exploring, even gaming? Are any of those channels places where White Castle campaigns are kind of prominent?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (08:56):

I think primarily it's, uh, the notion that we wanna be as distinctive and as individualistic as this next generation of consumers is going to be and already is. And so for us it's just knowing the, the place you're at. So don't try and make one size fits all, so don't try and take something that you posted on Facebook and turn it into a TikTok. Um, you know, do it in a way that meets, uh, the viewer's expectations that provides engagement and candidly entertainment, if you will. Uh, you know, having fun with it. We are just, um, in the midst of a really cool recipe contest where Adam Richmond, the food beast, is serving as one of the judges and, uh, encouraging people to have fun with the food. And it's not a selling message, it's an engagement message. And I think that part of it is really essential in terms of how you make those connections and make, make 'em authentic.

DAMIAN (09:45):

I like that distinction. It's not a selling message, it's an engagement message that, that's interesting. I

ILYSE (09:49):

Also know that White Castle locations and how those are run play a big factor in creating a good business. White Castle founder Billy Ingram said, I believe happy employees make happy customers. Can you talk a little bit about that?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (10:04):

So we are so fortunate as a family owned business to have so many of our 10,000 team members who are really, uh, in it for the long haul. In fact, more than one in four have been with White Castle 10 years or more. And among our general managers for the restaurants, the average tenure is 21 years. Uh, so I think a few people retired last year, so we had a turnover rate of 3%. But it's really, really cool to see that engagement and that focus to the point where for the third year in a row, we've been certified as a great place to work. We're the only fast food and food manufacturing business that's on that list. So it's really an honor and tough demanding circumstances to know we're there with our team members in lockstep to help satisfy the crave any way we can every single day of the year.

DAMIAN (10:46):

I wanna ask you a little bit about the kind of nostalgic feel that White Castle has kind of created and especially for different generations and how you think about the different generations when it comes to your marketing. Yeah,

JAMIE RICHARDSON (10:58):

I think for us it's really about constancy of purpose. So we, we don't run away from the word nostalgia, but rather than it being evocative of times past, we want it to be in present tense. We want it to be something where that emotional reward is just as present today, even if it takes slightly different form than it did earlier. A big part of that is the great value we provide in so many ways. In 1927, we were the first restaurant chain to say, Hey, what if you came in and picked up your food and took it home? So we were the first restaurant that we've ever found that was offering carryout, and we started doing that by selling 'em by the sack. So you could get each individual hamburger in its own little carton and a sack of 10 Togo. And later on that led to the Crave Case and then the Crave Crate, and then, uh, for a brief time the Crave Palette. But you know, it took us a little longer to make 7,000 Burgers than we thought. So that's no longer on the menu, but if you, if you call us, we'll take good care of you.

DAMIAN (11:52):

But you've also now launched a campaign called Micro Castle that promotes the idea that anyone with a microwave can have their White Castle at home thanks to the burgers in grocery stores. Could you talk a little bit how that came to be the strategy behind promoting buying sliders at grocery stores over the physical retail locations?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (12:10):

Absolutely. So it's so much fun because it's another great story about listening. So our third generation leader, uh, and CEO, bill Ingram visited every restaurant every year. And in one of his visits in a New York Castle, he saw a person like literally leaving with four acts of 10. So he just wandered over and said hello and said, oh, are you off to a party? Are you, he goes, oh, no, no, no, no, I put these in my freezer. And then Bill leaned in, so what do you do with them in your freezer? He said, oh, I've got a new appliance that I use to reheat 'em. It's called the Microwave Oven . And, uh, and so Bill thought, Hmm, you know, people are microwaving our sliders. Maybe we could sell 'em through the grocery store. And it's a fun story because I won't mention their names, but he approached three well-known global manufacturers and said, Hey, would you like to, we'll license this to you? And they all kinda laughed at him and said, no one will ever buy fast food from a grocery store. So thankfully he wasn't discouraged, but, but, uh, we did it ourselves. And so today we have three dedicated frozen food plants and that, uh, side of our business, our CPG business is 30% of our revenue, a bigger percent of our profit, and it's growing by leaps and bounds. We just, uh, doubled the size of our plant and vandalia to keep up and it's really fun that people can enjoy that flavor and taste. That's

ILYSE (13:20):

Awesome. With all that growth though, there's always some challenges going on, especially in the fast food business. What would you say are some of the, the main challenges that you run into?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (13:31):

I think there's some challenges that are universal. Um, you know, these days more than ever, everyone's trying to work through this moment in time. It's been a crazy four years as we all know, and I think there's still some kind of trying to understanding what's a new normal look like. Um, we've gone beyond supply shortages that seems to have sorted itself out. Labor shortage today isn't as bad as it was a year ago. Um, so many of us on the restaurant hospitality side of things face the same challenges on the CPG side of things. Uh, food costs and inflation are real and trying to maintain that value for consumers who are shopping is real for us. We have distinctive challenges because it's a, a strengthen and an opportunity and the strength is we're small and family owned. The opportunity is we compete against some of the world's biggest brands and being able to stay relevant means we can't spend as much money. We have to think more creatively and try new things and, and connect that way

ILYSE (14:31):

On that. Are there any emerging, like channels you're experimenting in or campaigns that you're trying out for the first time?

JAMIE RICHARDSON (14:38):

I think for us, um, finding new ways to connect with people and manage expectations is something that's so important because we think expectations are gonna continue to look for even faster service, even greater quality and even more accessibility. So our delivery partnerships are great. Our mobile app has continued to grow and we're involved in a major effort right now to revamp and, and relaunch our, our mobile app because we know, um, staying current there is essential to success. So, um, and then when it comes to campaign, we're constantly evolving and modifying and, uh, making the message even more informed and better connected. So with the Crave Continuum as the platform, um, that's something we're leaning into to talk to those different audiences in in ways that matter. We did a really fun local campaign that was what we call brand unified for our restaurants and our, our CPG business where, uh, roller skating, uh, is the place to be, you know, roller skating's back just like vinyl has been. And, uh, so we, we partnered with some, some skating centers and um, you know, fed a lot of people, a ton of sliders, but also had some fun social content that came out of that as well. So I think for us it's always trying new things and, and being open to the learning we get as we go.

DAMIAN (15:52):

You mentioned roller skating, which is interesting, which brings to mind, you know, other sports. I'm wondering what White Castle's relationship is to sports, uh, and live sports. Well,

JAMIE RICHARDSON (16:02):

We are a group of people who have a Super Bowl ambitions, but, uh, you know, much smaller budget. So we are so fortunate to have two great sports partnerships. Uh, one is with USA luge and so, uh, white Castle's the official sponsor of their search for, for luge athletes. Um, the athletes in luge are called sliders, so there's a nice fit there and we've been partners for six years now. Yeah, it's really fun. And uh, you know, we cheer on team USA every four years as they go off to the Olympics, but that's something we get to do fun along the way that encourages youth participation and helps them find the future Olympians as they go around the country. Um, and then just recently we announced a really fun partnership with Major League Pickleball and our local Columbus, Ohio team, which used to be called the Columbus Pickleball Club, has changed its name. They are now the Columbus Sliders and we are cheering them onto victory as they go. So, um, but pickleball is on the rise, and so we find that's a fun, affordable way for us to connect. And I'll tell you that the kids in America are discovering pickleball and it's gonna be big. So we try to catch a rising star whenever we can. And both those opportunities have been huge and a lot of fun for us.

DAMIAN (17:17):

And that's it for the current podcast. We'll be back next week, so stay tuned.

ILYSE (17:21):

The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce.

DAMIAN (17:31):

And remember, we

JAMIE RICHARDSON (17:32):

Don't run away from the word nostalgia, but rather than it being evocative of times past, we want it to be in present tense. We want it to be something where that emotional reward is just as present today, even if it takes slightly different form than it did earlier. A big part of that is the

DAMIAN (17:48):

Great value we provide. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review. Also tune into our other podcast, the current report, our weekly roundup of what's making news in digital media. I'm Damian.

ILYSE (18:01):

I'm Ilyse.

DAMIAN (18:01):

And we'll see you next time.

Weinstein shares why data and technology are crucial to Hilton’s customers’ experience, the creative philosophy for the hotel’s recent campaign with Paris Hilton, and marketing against home-sharing companies.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse: (00:02)

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. And

Damian: (00:03)

Welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse: (00:10)

This week we're delighted to talk with Mark Weinstein, the Chief Marketing Officer at Hilton.

Damian: (00:16)

Mark joined Hilton more than 13 years ago rising to become the CMO in 2020, where he now leads global marketing for the Hilton portfolio of over 7,300 hotels across 22 brands in 123 countries and territories

Ilyse: (00:32)

As travel surged. After all that pent up Wonderlust created during the pandemic, the hotel brand unveiled its biggest marketing push in six years. The campaign focuses on the quality of the travel experience with Hilton Brands. So Mark Hilton, of course, has its own loyalty program, the free Hilton Honors. How many Hilton guests currently take part in this program? What does it offer in terms of perks?

Mark: (01:02)

We have 165 million Hilton Honor members and growing. We're the fastest growing loyalty program in travel. And what we love about Hilton Honors, it allows us to get to know our guests to personalize the experience for them. And it also connects all 22 brands. 'cause what's interesting about our portfolio is each brand serves a travel need, budget and occasion. And you may transverse the brands for your different needs. And so Hilton Honors is that connective tissue, whether you're an infrequent traveler and Hilton Honors is a way to give you the best value for booking through hilton.com directly. So we get to know who you are, things like free wifi and points towards that free stay, a more elite member who can earn additional benefits like automated upgrades that we're delivering so you have even better stay or even that ability to dream for that once in a lifetime experience with our partners at McLaren, uh, F one Racing or Live Nation. Uh, and which you can of course further accelerate with things like our credit cards along the journey. So there's something for everyone, uh, along the Hilton Honors program. And of course, as you said, it's free to join, so you'd be crazy not to get that additional value.

Ilyse: (01:56)

Now how would you say like technology such as like your digital platforms and mobile app also play a role basically in enhancing the guest experience in order to foster like that loyalty and that wonderlust?

Mark: (02:09)

Yeah. The interesting thing about our technology, I would say it, it focuses in two different ways. All in service of that wonderlust. In some ways it's taking the friction outta travel so you can focus on doing what you're there to do, which is explore and find a great stay experience. So some of our innovations around digital key and the ability to choose your room in the app before you even get there, you know exactly what room you're gonna have. The ability to book confirm connecting rooms for parents. There's nothing more stressful than wondering if you're gonna get those rooms together. We actually are able to confirm it at time of booking. The ability to personalize the stay and choose things you want, the ability to message with the front desk, those are all friction removing items of the travel journey. They take away that interaction at the front desk where it's highly transactional.

Mark: (02:48)

That frees you up to then have a human conversation. Where do the locals like to eat? Where's the best place to get that Instagrammable rooftop bar shot, you know, as the sun's coming down. So that's one aspect of our technology is making the guest experience better, uh, and easier. On the other hand, putting the wonderlust back in. So you look at our social media abilities to connect with customers with the things they want to hear most about, to produce content and serve it up, whether it's on the interim TV with our connected room, digital TVs through the app itself or on our websites. The ability to let you personalize choices on Hilton Honors. What benefits you most wanna earn on that trip, or the ability to serve up what interesting experiences you might wanna use your honors points for. And so that Wonder Lust is enabled by both the simplifying the basics and really making it straightforward so we're always reliable and friendly to our guests. And then it also supercharging that, that sort of wonder lust that makes you wanna explore the planet.

Ilyse: (03:37)

How does like data then come into play from your loyalty program to tailor your marketing efforts and create those very unique experiences?

Mark: (03:46)

Data plays a critical role in everything we do for our customers. Whether that is for our less frequent travelers, trying to better get them the right content on initial stay. Like lots of people travel very infrequently and when they do, it's the trip of a lifetime. So we wanna make sure we use contextual clues from the data, where they came from, what they're engaging with to serve up the right hotel, the right products, the right experiences for that trip. Our Hilton honors members, our best customers who we know extremely well, we can be even more personalized. We can serve up the dream destinations they most want to go to. When you're looking at our website, you're seeing the kind of rooms you typically book, you know, 'cause we know you so well giving you add-on abilities. Things that we know you always add onto your trip are even easier at the fingertips.

Mark: (04:24)

So that, that's one aspect of it. Second aspect of it is product innovation. You know, the insights of our customers are telling us where we need to go next. They help us pick the next destinations. You know, we're opening about a hotel a day, they help us build new brands, places where we know our customers are looking for a great product, but maybe we don't have a category. And it becomes our design target, our muse for designing a new brand where we create partnerships, the products that we put in our hotels, the partners we affiliate with to build out that journey. So it's, it's both myopically used to, to give you a personalized experience in the moment itself, but also helping us innovate and build the pipeline of where we go next with who we go next and how we build out the brands.

Damian: (05:00)

Let's talk a bit about the actual marketing campaigns that you've launched. I know that last year you launched the biggest marketing push in six years. Um, it's the Hilton for the Stay platform. The tagline is, it matters where you stay. And that was a campaign, uh, created by TBWA Jet Day and that features Paris Hilton for the very first time, who's seen giving travel tips. Could you talk a little bit about that campaign and why you launched this big campaign last year? Coming

Mark: (05:26)

Outta the pandemic, it would be really easy to get into that sea of sameness, trpi that was out there. You had this desire to reconnect and of course that was an important message, but every company in travel was gonna say the same thing, is saying the same thing and has done so for, you know, decades that empty, you can picture it, that empty beach with a nobody on the beach chair and the clear blue ocean. You can't tell if it's a credit card, a hotel company, an airline, a travel agency, or anything in between. So we knew there was kinda the sea of sameness. There was a tendency to fall in that trope of re connectivity coming outta the pandemic. So we used that moment, uh, during the pandemic to both double down on our customer relationships, donate a million rooms to frontline medical responders, do all the things you do in that moment, but really look ahead to what the future would be.

Mark: (06:04)

And what we realized was we had never had a platform to tell our story consistently. And in a sea of sameness of this kind of eat, pray, love wonderlust of travel and people on goji berries and surfboards, that's not my travel experience most of the time. Why were we glorifying the destination but not the thing we provide in this travel experience? The stay itself. And we thought back to our founder, uh, Conrad Hilton over a hundred years ago said it was our job to fill the earth with the light and warmth, the hospitality. So we had this really unique purpose in the world, very different than everyone else, and yet a sea of sameness marketing, uh, environment. And what we realized was we were going from campaign to campaign, getting sick of it before anybody else even saw it, before it even wore in. We needed a platform, we needed our version of what we're gonna stand for.

Mark: (06:45)

And so as we looked with TBWA, the answer was there all along. It's the stay. It doesn't matter how you travel, it doesn't matter how you live your life. When you come to our hotel and you cross that transom, it just feels different when it's at Hilton and at the heart of every great trip is a great stay. And so the stay became that, that that glue. We then look for stories you could tell on top of it. Uh, it matters where you stay as our first campaign to tell that story. Bringing other influencers and creators in to help tell their authentic story. And who more authentic than the great-granddaughter of the founder of our company, Paris Hilton, who has lived her life literally in our hotels, you know, born and raised in in many of our hotels, traveled the world. So we try to find a lot of different ways in to tell that story all connected back to these 22 brands, how they're all part of Hilton and how ultimately were for this day,

Damian: (07:27)

How significant was it? Was the fact that you launched this across many different channels?

Mark: (07:32)

I mean, fir look, first of all, we wanna be where our customers are. I mean that, that's ultimately drives this conversation. And, and you know, just using linear as an example, you know, your go-to oftentimes as a classically trained marketer is to to be on tv. And of course we need to be there. There's some reach and frequency in the saliency that comes with that. But the reality is increasingly our customers are engaging with brands differently. Uh, and whether that's on social media or their favorite creators, our ability to give up control a bit, which is hard as a brand owner, right? As as a brand leader. And you realize very quickly we actually don't own the brand that customers do. Their perception becomes reality. Their reality becomes the brand. So we better meet them where they are. Podcasting and audio is a huge trend coming particularly accelerated outta the pandemic.

Mark: (08:09)

Uh, social media obviously has been, you know, a rocket ship. Uh, your ability to even functionally serve up search results. SEO is being generated by your ability to be indexable on, you know, YouTube and, and TikTok and other places. So it's, it's a no brainer to be with the customers are. And and what's amazing to me about marketing this great discipline we all get to do is that the fundamentals are the same, right? We're still telling great stories like we're doing for hundreds of years that is just so authentically human, but how we get to do it is rapidly changing it faster than any time in history. And so that's why we went omnichannel during

Damian: (08:40)

The pandemic of, of course people stopped traveling, they had to, and we saw a big surge of travel after that based on that wonderlust, that desire to get out of the house. According to the US Travel Association, total travel spending this year is still going up 4% over last year, year over year. Is that your perception? Is that your understanding travel demand is still very strong?

Mark: (09:01)

Yeah, look, coming, coming outta the crisis, I mean every single year of the last three years has been stronger than the previous. Uh, the reality is there's so much pent up demand and one or lost. I, I think there were some mechanic things like people had record levels of savings. But more importantly we had this golden age of travel going into the pandemic, you know, record levels of middle class all across the world, getting to experience travel for the first time that pause, but it didn't break during the pandemic. There was a very explainable reason, the pandemic to stop doing that. But the demand was still there. The desire was still there. And then it got accelerated when people realized how fragile freedom is, right? That at the end of the day, at any given time, your bucket list comes to a screeching halt. So why is it a bucket list?

Mark: (09:37)

Why is it not a tomorrow list? Why is it not a today list? Let's go out and do it. And then you started to see flexibility of working, right? This idea that I had to be on this calendar schedule where my kids had to get to back to school at a certain time or I needed back in the office, that dynamic changed as well. And so you have record amount of demand, you had a very acute moment where we all realized, my goodness, the thing I love to do could go away at any time. And then life became more flexible. It has led to record levels of travel all across the world. And our hotels are certainly seeing record levels of customers engaging with us.

Ilyse: (10:07)

So Hilton has a diverse portfolio, brands 22 to be precise. How does the marketing strategy then differ across these brands to cater to those like various travel segments?

Mark: (10:19)

It's a great question. Look, each brand has a design target, a ause that we use to design that and, and s sort an archetype that we're really focusing on. We build out that prototype of what it's gonna look like, feel like what brands are gonna appear in the hotel itself, what's the color palette, the look and feel, the logo, all those things that you'd expect us to do. And each brand has to win its category, right? All of 'em have, you know, great competitors that, that are offering options the same price point. So we gotta be differentiated. What's important for us though is that by Hilton or the name Hilton in the brand, which is in all 22 brands, is not a holding company. We're not a, we're not a sort of CPG company that just happens to own these brands and lets 'em all pure play, compete.

Mark: (10:55)

They all have a purposeful role in the journey. And so you may be at a Hilton resort, you know, having a great trip in Aruba and then suddenly you're at your kid's soccer game or you know, football match at a Hampton Inn somewhere in the world or you know, that you need to be in and then a Walter for story for your honeymoon. So you're transversing those brands by Hilton has to mean something by Hilton has to also be the connective tissue. And so it's this fun challenging balance of having 22 brands each with their own personality that commands premiums in their category, while also reminding customers that it matters that these are by Hilton and that you'll get the benefits of Hilton Honors and all the things we innovate and drive. Uh, along the journey.

Ilyse: (11:30)

Hilton recently conducted research into how different generations travel. What were like, the major takeaways from the research, for instance is like one generation travel more than the other.

Mark: (11:41)

You know, some trends you see are about where you are in your lifecycle, right? Obviously the older you get the the more you typically have more disposable income and time just definitionally. When you're younger, you're often in the early stage of your career, maybe your family's younger. So there, there's those dynamics. But we do look at each generation to see what's pervasive and what's what's there. The first was the focus on wellness. People are looking particularly for restorative sleep. Uh, when you looked at I think the lowest end of the, of the spectrum, you know, 55% of Gen Z were saying that's the primary purpose of their trip. All they up to 70% of, uh, boomers and and Gen X were saying the primary purpose of the trip was restorative sleep, right? So we take that responsibility very, very seriously that you need to be rested and relaxed when you come to our hotel.

Mark: (12:20)

Second trend we saw was a seamless digital experience, right? This ability to dream shop book, experience the entire, stay digitally and personalize that journey for you. And so as you look at our innovation agenda, whether that's putting your mind at ease when you book that, you've got a confirmed connecting room, whether that's knowing you can message the front desk, you know, how many times, uh, I know for me I'm in the room and I don't really wanna go back to the front desk. I don't really wanna call and bother them, but I could use more towels or I could use, uh, a beverage after the, the bars maybe close for the night to build a message to the front desk and have 'em respond back. That's pretty powerful. So how do we digitally engage with our customers all generations? You know, it may start with younger travelers, but I'm telling you that the boomers are just the same in terms of wanting the ease and access of a seamless digital booking experience and engaging experience.

Mark: (13:01)

The third is, uh, local experiences. So people go somewhere to do something typically. And so they want our hotels to help 'em connect with the neighborhoods. Where's the offbeat path? Yes, you'll see the big museum or the big, you know, sculpture in town or whatever it may be. But tell me what locals do. Where do they eat? Where do I go around here? And maybe some of that's in the hotel. Maybe we have a great, you know, Michelin star restaurant in the hotel and we can get you a reservation that you can otherwise have. So a third trend we saw was connecting with the local experience and not wanting a cookie cutter trip. Even. You know, you want a reliable hotel. And the last, and I mentioned this earlier, the dynamic of business travel has changed wildly. You know, as I think about my career and a lot of our consumers say the same thing, it was an interruption in your life.

Mark: (13:41)

It was, you know, I had my life at home and then I go do business travel and that's gonna stop my momentum at home. The flexibility we now all have to be virtual for an extra week. It allows us to extend a business trip into a personal trip. The ability to have your kids join you on the weekend. Suddenly now you can use that momentum of a business trip to be the catalyst for bringing your whole family along. 'cause the kids can miss a day of school or take a zoom class instead of having to be back in class. And so that journey has been blended. And so when we look at the trends across all generations, that ability to make it digitally and seamless for them is really important. The ability to be locally connected, that ability to ultimately blend the work in business, travel, uh, business and and leisure at the very top of it, the whole thing. Make sure that when you leave that hotel, you feel rested and restored. Whether that's mind, body or soul.

Damian: (14:22)

And in terms of your marketing calendar, your marketing cadence, you talk about all these many different streams you're looking at, how do you think about the rollout of campaigns?

Mark: (14:31)

A lot of markets have a natural pacing to them. There are, you know, there's golden week in China twice a year, right there, there's things that you lean into because that is a natural catalyst. We, despite all the flexibility I talked about earlier, we still in the US have big summer breaks. That's a big time to send people, you know, on holiday. But also watching customer cues, right? We were able to, a lot of the, the channels we talked about earlier are pool channels, not push channels. So as customers are engaging on video, on demand and they're watching programming about travel destinations or food destinations, let's, let's plug into that moment. Let's activate and trigger. We're watching social media all the time for moments to intercept. You know, we've got examples where there was a home sharing customer whose dad thought they booked a house for four.

Mark: (15:08)

It was a shed that was big enough for one person. They had two dogs and four kids. And it was crazy. We texted them and said, you know, we message 'em on Twitter and TikTok and got ahold of 'em and said, come to our hotel. Uh, we had one the other day who texted her at home sharing host and said, uh, we're at a toilet paper. Where do I find more? And they said, the supermarket. And we said, well that's crazy. Our hotel has come to our hotel, right? So you find these little human moments along the way. And so it takes the pressure outta marketing to some degree 'cause the customers are telling you when they want to hear about you. And we've got ready to go stories. The last example I would give is cultural tent poles. So we've got a long standing partnership with the Grammys.

Mark: (15:43)

Uh, we have a long history music. Uh, John Lennon wrote, imagine in the New York Hilton on a piece of stationary, had the bed in for peace at the Hilton in Amsterdam. Elvis did residencies. Freddie Mercury wrote a crazy little thing called Love in the Bathtub at the Hilton Frankert. Yeah. And so we belong in music, right? So Grammys becomes a big tent pole to tell our story. Formula one with McLaren and Lando Norris, uh, on a McLaren F one racing team. The big moment in the Vegas race will tell that story. So there, there are these moments where you can lean into culture, where the stay is really at the heart of what's possible and that just becomes an authentic way to connect with our customers.

Damian: (16:14)

I wanna ask you about sustainability and eco-conscious travel, which should become increasingly important. Can you talk about how Hilton incorporates those concepts and those initiatives into its marketing efforts to resonate with environmentally conscious travelers? This

Mark: (16:27)

Is very top of mind. We have a huge responsibility. We have over a million and you know, almost a million and a half rooms across the world. And the decisions we make can make or break products for distribution. And so one of the things we did on the product side is we moved to bulk amenities. This idea that you're not gonna have those tiny little bottles that get thrown out every stay. We've got refillable bottles that are safe and secure and sealed and everything else, but the real driver was environmental impact, right? We, we are big enough that our ability to use reusable bottles for water, the ability to use refillable bottles in the, in the bath amenities, that has a huge impact on our supply chain. And so first and foremost is that second we have the ability for companies that are keeping track of their impact.

Mark: (17:02)

Or, you know, even for conscious consumers, we're tracking all the energy uses at our hotels and we're giving recommendations to the hotels how to save energy based on consumer behaviors. We're able to turn down the thermostats when the guests leave the room. We're able to do the things that actually make a difference. On the marketing side, it, it's kind of a funny scenario. And that customers care more than ever, as as they should. They'll tell you in a focus group, they'll pay a premium or they want to hear about they, they really don't. They, they want to have a great trip, but they wanna know underneath that great trip, you're doing the right thing. And so we're not necessarily gonna always put it front and center and say, this is an eco-conscious trip, but we better have the proof points for you that you'll know that the trip you're having that not paying a premium, but paying what you already pay includes Hilton's commitment to doing that.

Mark: (17:41)

So that's really important. And on the marketing side, look, we have to look at sustainable sourcing of things. We have to look at who our supply chain is with what are we buying and who are we buying it from. We built these rooms, these hotel rooms on golf courses, uh, for, you know, big golf activations and they're fun and they're great for three days. We've donated a couple of those to local schools to use as play facilities, right? So are you thinking through the entire journey and then the tricky part to your question coming back to that is just how much do customers really want to hear that story versus just know intuitively and instinctively that your brand stands for it and it's committed and the dollars they're spending are being reinvested in their communities and being reinvested for the environmental impact.

Ilyse: (18:17)

What emerging trends or channels do you see as having the most significant impact on Hilton's marketing strategy in 2024?

Mark: (18:26)

I look back to where we are today versus when I studied marketing, uh, you know, a number of years ago in school, too many years ago in school. And, you know, the channels we're using most today didn't even exist. Literally did not exist. Social media was not even really a thing. Uh, and suddenly here it is our number one channel for a number of ways to connect with customers. And so we will rejoice in the fact that marketing is job is always and will continue to be great storytelling. And that's not going anywhere. That is the heart of what we do. What will change and continue to accelerate for us is how we do that more on social, right? More on streaming and video on demand. You know, as you start to pivot from, I think this year was the first year that consumers officially watch more video not on linear TV than than on linear tv.

Mark: (19:04)

That trend will continue and so we'll need to meet them where they are on streaming and video on demand and YouTube and other platforms. You'll see us show up in TikTok and Instagram and show up on the platforms where we can tell authentic, credible stories. I think the more fun part for us is giving away the keys to the castle a bit, right? So we're gonna be doing more with creators and letting them tell their authentic story about a Hilton's day. And while you might not always have all the brand controls you have, the authenticity outweighs the impact of losing a little bit of your ability to control for every sentence and every, you know, color that they use in in their work. And then lastly, we'll look for ways to activate, um, at big cultural tent pole moments, showing up in an activational way with experiential marketing to let customers truly experience what our brand stands for in the moments that matter most to them, reminding them that it matters where you stay and that Hilton is for this day.

Damian: (19:51)

That's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week. So stay tuned.

Ilyse: (19:56)

The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Leyer and Cat fei.

Damian: (20:05)

And remember, you

Mark: (20:07)

Realize very quickly we actually don't own the brand that customers do. Their perception becomes reality. Their reality becomes the brand. So we better meet them where they are.

Damian: (20:15)

I'm Damien and

Ilyse: (20:16)

I'm Aise

Damian: (20:17)

And we'll see you next time.

The chief marketing officer of the free ad-supported television (FAST) platform breaks down the maturation of the free-streaming space, Tubi going for an entire brand refresh, and growing the brand past its “teenage-acne phase.”

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

Damian Fowler: (00:01)

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:02)

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. 

Damian Fowler: (00:03)

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:10)

This week we sit down to talk with Nicole Parlapiano, the chief marketing officer of Tubi.

Damian Fowler: (00:16)

Nicole became the CMO in 2022, having honed her marketing experience at a number of high profile companies, including VaynerMedia, WeWork and Tinder. In 2023, she was named one of ad age's leading Women of the Year.

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:31)

Tubi had a breakout year in 2023, it surpassed 74 million monthly active users. 10 million of those came between February and September when the brand had its viral Super Bowl campaign.

Nicole Parlapiano: (00:47)

I mean it was a big moment. I think it's one of those lightning in a bottle I think when it really hit for me is when I saw a friend of mine who has kids in college sent me a TikTok and they were imitating the kids what it was like when the Tubi commercial came on. And I thought like, what a privilege and what an amazing impact that people are creating reaction videos because of what we did. And you know, if it's with the college kids on TikTok, then it's gonna go. It really showed how much like impact we had in that moment and for you know, a more of a challenger streaming brand. It was a big moment for the company and for the brand.

Damian Fowler: (01:28)

It certainly raises the bar right for, for next Super Bowl. For you , do you, are you, are you thinking oh we've gotta build on this and and do something even more?

Nicole Parlapiano: (01:37)

I literally basked in it for three days and then I was like Ooh, like this is definitely a hard thing to follow. And I think you can't put pressure on things like that. We are just obsessed with our viewers and obsessed with like surprising them. I think that happens in small ways every day on social. We're very accessible to our fans and our viewers. We respond to everybody. So really scaling that mass intimacy, you know, sending our biggest fans Tubi care packages and special things that they like. The bigger campaigns we've done since then are really similarly just looking at the moment we're in, really being considerate about who the audience is, who is the target audience and like how can we break through creatively in that moment on a small scale, on a big scale. Instead of letting the content lead us, we really let the viewer and the audience lead where we go. That takes the pressure off of what, what are we doing? What do we need to do? They tell us what we need to do if we're listening

Damian Fowler: (02:39)

So are your marketing campaigns sort of reacting to Yes. What your viewers are watching? Yes. Is that, could you talk a little bit about how you stay like in the moment stay relevant?

Nicole Parlapiano: (02:48)

Listen, like for things like Super Bowl you have to plan many months ahead, but we actually had a very condensed time. So even on our bigger campaigns we turned things within four months pretty quick. When we do Super Bowl in the future, I think that part of the magic is cutting it really close. I mean culture's just moving so fast at this point that if you make something 10 months out, like is it still gonna hit the right way? Like things are moving too fast. I wouldn't say it's completely reactionary, but I do over-Index on giving my team enough time to pay attention and listen versus follow a marketing calendar. I think if we're following a marketing calendar and we're so focused on the calendar dictating our lives, you're going to miss the things that are going on in culture and then you don't have the bandwidth to move when something happens. That's

Damian Fowler: (03:36)

Such invaluable insight.

Ilyse Liffreing: (03:38)

You know, speaking of trends, especially in the streaming space, Tubi is becoming somewhat of like a poster child for Fast channels or rather free ad supported TV platforms, especially after breaking into Nielsen's platform rankings in March. What do you think is driving the next evolution of growth for Fast?

Nicole Parlapiano: (03:56)

I think people are starting to get it with Fast. Probably two years ago when Fast there was a little bit of my expectation is that it's like an SVOD think now people are starting to realize that Fast just really plays a different role in your life and that it is more of a place to come when you're not sure what you wanna watch and you're looking to watch based on a mood or an occasion or a feeling. The growth in viewership is coming from just better consumer understanding of the role that fast plays and it's not necessarily like a replacement to SVOD, it's extremely complimentary. The large collection of titles we have really leans into a trend you’re seeing in media where there's just overall fragmentation. There's different pockets of the internet of people that are passionate about completely obscure things. And so us having a huge content library allows them to find those things and find them with depth.

Nicole Parlapiano: (04:53)

We can just tailor to many taste moods and communities that aren't necessarily reflected in mainstream Hollywood at scale. So not just a couple of titles that cater to that audience. We have 50 to a hundred. The second thing that's happening coming out of like just the golden era of TV and streaming and all this content that just came at everyone, it's a lot and there's a lot going on in the world globally and I think there's a lot of mental stress and there is just a trend that you see of people wanting to go back to watch TV from a different time. The nostalgia viewing is hitting an an important time in society right now. Ultimately over time I think we're gonna see a behavioral shift where people know to come to apps like to be first if they don't know what they wanna watch, we're your everyday constant as you cycle in and out of whatever subscription service you're on based on whatever big title they have.

Ilyse Liffreing: (05:49)

You noted to adage that we need to get back to a place of building brands. What are some of the ways you are continuing to build and articulate Tubi’s brand identity in 2024?

Nicole Parlapiano: (06:02)

I mean brands are fluid things. I think as a brand at Tubi, we are probably a teenager with like some acne. Like we're figuring out who we are, we don't know who we are yet, you know, we haven't taken the brand that we've shown the last year and really visually and verbally landed that across our entire product and customer and viewer experience. So we are looking at an entire brand refresh. It'll just more reflect I, I would say the exciting inviting and mischievous side of Tubi just to drive a little bit more consistency there across our surfaces. And then instead of campaigns and you know, the everyday social, I do think a lot about something I'll call brand acts, the behavioral moments that reinforce who we are that aren't in the format of a campaign. So I wanna do more of that next year. And I think the one thing I am really excited about is most of my job is like thinking about Tubi every day, but because we're ad supported, I love the breaks that I get to think about problems for our advertiser partners and how their brand can better show up and come to life within the Tubi platform.

Nicole Parlapiano: (07:12)

Integrating into different shows we might have or experiences.

Damian Fowler: (07:16)

I liked your word mischievous because it seems to characterize a lot of the work. Yeah. And speaking of that, you know you launched a new tagline, find Your Rabbit Hole, and that was in tandem with a cleverly associated rabbit AI product. I'm doing air quotes, . Could you walk us through this campaign, you know, and how you thread the needle between brand building and that product technology?

Nicole Parlapiano: (07:38)

I think with the product team, I mean we are just thick as thieves and we are constantly both thinking about what is a true about the viewer experience on Tubi and B, what else can we do to solve their problems? And so we had already briefed the campaign and then when we were going through an exercise together on how we would use OpenAI technology, the first thing we thought about was like helping people find these specific rabbit holes right now. Like the only algorithmic ways that other streamers are telling you what to watch is based on past behavior, but you don't really have a great way to search for something in a categorical semantic search way. So the campaign was sort of going and then when we landed that this was a problem we were gonna solve, I'm like wow, these beautifully go together because you can actually, through the rabbit AI search, you can find rom-coms with hot lifeguards in two seconds. Or you know, shows about, you know, drug cartels on the pickup. You can dictate that behavior with rabbit ai. So when we were launching, you always kind of run into that, well we need to launch the campaign by this time. And they're like, the feature's gonna be available at this time. And you know, sometimes you're not able to make those two things happen all at once all in the same day, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't do them. So we launched the campaign and then a few weeks later Rabbit AIGA AI came out.

Damian Fowler: (09:03)

I mean I read recently some data about the amount of time people spend searching shows to watch Ugh a lot. You know, like

Nicole Parlapiano: (09:10)

It's insane.

Ilyse Liffreing: (09:11)

I know. Firsthand .

Nicole Parlapiano: (09:12)

Yeah, right. And how many give up

Damian Fowler: (09:14)

And you, yeah, so this idea that you can actually hone in on exactly what you want, there's a sort of almost like a feeling. I mean I'm often look for British crime dramas for instance. Yeah. Or a period one like an Agatha Christie. Yeah. But it's very hard to do that in, you know, with a lot of search engines they don't always deliver those results. 

Nicole Parlapiano: (09:31)

No. And the categories are like you like reality tv. I think I can speak for all reality TV viewers. We are not one and the same. Like we are different cult fandoms and we like different things and I don't think anyone's really tapped into, you're just, we're kind of like blanket lump, summing all of these genres. And I think the data that we're getting from the search queries is very interesting because it uncovers some of these sub genres that we maybe wouldn't have thought to classify.

Damian Fowler: (09:57)

Speaking of innovation is anything that's really caught your eye in the present moment.

Nicole Parlapiano: (10:03)

So I can say one that's caught my wallet, which is all the social shopping products and um, I am currently waiting for my era style Josh Allen t-shirt to come from TikTok shop because they must have known that I'm a Buffalo Bes fan and a Taylor fan and they knew not to put Travis Kelce in front of me. They knew to put Josh Allen in front of me and I clicked to buy so fast. It was scary. Lo-fi creative is always on my mind and I don't mean just UGC creative, I think what you see with the younger generation in Gen Z, their creative tastes are so wildly different. I don't know if you guys follow the drumstick account on TikTok like the ice cream cone, but

Ilyse Liffreing: (10:46)

No, but I want to now

Nicole Parlapiano: (10:48)

You have to. Whoever's running this account is amazing. It's totally that generation's creative style. They've integrated the product but in a very funny way. So I watch that and I'm paying very close attention to where that's going because not in the near term but in the long term traditional ads as we know them will become less relevant and less prominent. They'll always play a role in things like Super Bowl, but I think for the younger generation they don't really wanna interact in that way. Thinking about when we transition that lo-fi creative to other mediums and have it work in a way is is something I think I spend a lot of time on

Ilyse Liffreing: (11:29)

Now, you've publicly mentioned your passion for coaching and developing young talent. What advice do you have for marketers, especially maybe young marketers looking for that level up?

Nicole Parlapiano: (11:41)

Well this could be a whole podcast. I was writing like so many things. I think be patient is one. I mean this industry is hard. It's not one that I started in, it's one that that I had a hard time breaking into. Whether you're trying to get a job at an agency and you don't have agency experience, you might have media agency experience, but none of the creative agencies want you 'cause you're not creative enough. Then when you're on the agency side, getting someone on the client side to hire you, there's so many different jumps. It's important to stay patient, it's important to stay hungry, it's important to stay humble. The industry is always moving and things might not work out one place. You know, you have to just keep it moving. So many people are not willing to take a step back to take a step forward and they stay stuck. Be very meticulous about what you're building for in your career and if you wanna take a step forward, you need to be prepared to take a step back sometimes, especially early in your career and say you're at an agency and you've been there for five years and you feel stuck, well guess what? You're not gonna get the same title on the client side. You're gonna have to take a step back to take a step forward, but you have to be willing to do that. Otherwise you're just gonna stay pretty stagnant.

Ilyse Liffreing: (12:49)

That's good advice. Yeah. Is there a marketer that you turn to for inspiration?

Nicole Parlapiano: (12:55)

I'm obsessed with Liquid Death and here's why. And I know everyone is, but here's why I'm obsessed with them. They came into a category much like us, where there's like the established players, the rules are there, you need to have X, Y, and Z celebrity endorsements. They came into an industry and they just completely did it their way and they built a cult following from everything that they do to like how they showed up at Super Bowl two years ago. No celebrities, just, just totally a funny, enjoyable ad to in social. When people complain about them the way they gracefully and elegantly address it and respond, I mean everything they do feels endemic to that brand. Feels right and they've had tremendous growth. So I, I haven't had a moment where I've seen something come from them and it didn't feel like right, but like so different and so interesting. They're one I watch a lot.

Damian Fowler: (13:48)

Yeah, they're amazing. We did a podcast with one of their lead marketers early on and we were laughing out loud at some of the things that they were doing and talk about mischievous

Ilyse Liffreing: (13:57)

And viral.

Damian Fowler: (13:58)

I just wanted to say, you mentioned something about funny and funny ads and like we're seeing a lot a return of these kind of mischievous or funny ads. Is that your experience, your observation that we're gonna get back to that a little bit more.

Nicole Parlapiano: (14:09)

I mean, don't you think we should like isn't our job as advertisers to make people like, you know, yes, you can make people cry if that's the thing, but like make people feel something like, I don't know, our ads that we have out now, they're just fun and they're just funny and they're enjoyable to watch. You know, when we're reviewing creative and you're thinking, God, it's only five seconds in, it should feel quick, it should be entertaining. Our job ultimately at the end of the day is to entertain and yes, land a message. But you can't land a message if you're not entertaining. Just not taking ourselves too seriously in these very heavy and in serious times is I think what people need and just being sensitive to that.

Damian Fowler: (14:54)

And that's it for this edition of the current podcast. We'll be back next week, so stay tuned

Ilyse Liffreing: (14:59)

And if you love this podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave a review while you're at it. Check out our other show, the current report, our weekly roundup of what's happening in the world of digital media. The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce.

Damian Fowler: (15:19)

And remember,

Nicole Parlapiano: (15:20)

Be very meticulous about what you're building for in your career and if you wanna take a step forward, you need to be prepared to take a step back sometimes, especially early in your career.

Damian Fowler: (15:29)

I'm Damian

Ilyse Liffreing: (15:30)

And I'm Ilyse

Damian Fowler: (15:31)

And we'll see you next time.