The Big Impression

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.

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Activision Blizzard's Jonathan Stringfield on how advertisers can attach themselves to gamers' loyalty to specific franchises and how to find community in gaming. 

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're delighted to talk with Jonathan Stringfield, VP of Global Business Research and Marketing at Activision Blizzard.

DAMIAN (00:17):

Activision Blizzard made headlines in October. Microsoft closed its $69 billion deal with the gaming company, the home of legendary games like Candy Crush, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Activision says it's ready for the next chapter as part of the Microsoft family,

ILYSE (00:34):

As well as being a VP at the company. Jonathan is also the author of Get In the Game, an Essential Guide for Marketers and Execs who want to integrate their brands with Modern Games and eSports published in 2022 by Wiley.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (00:53):

Sure. Well, so first of all, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to, uh, to be here today. Um, and, and again, I think the book is realistically a reflection of where we are in the greater marketing agency as it pertains to gaming, that I think there's been a lot of opportunities that have existed over the years. Um, certainly the marketplace has matured in recent years, but overall the level of investment in gaming is considerably lower relative to I think the amount that the fans are investing in it, the extent to which that this is consuming a greater amount of their time. And that on the whole, there's a lot of questions from marketers in terms of what's the right way to integrate and realistically no good resources in terms of how do we start to get folks to understand what is ostensibly not just a a form of entertainment. It's a new way in which people are increasingly interacting with media more generally. So the book was in some ways kind of a starter, what I was hoping to be a bit of a foundational educational piece to really kind of advance this conversation forward in the broader marketing industry. Yeah,

DAMIAN (01:51):

There's definitely intense interest and I've noticed even in the last 12 months it's picked up incredibly. Can you give us a sense of the scale now of gaming worldwide to sort of establish that, that context? Yeah,

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (02:05):

For sure. I mean, you know, I think the latest estimates are the total gaming population will be about three and a half billion by next year. So somewhere between a third and a half of the population on the planet plays games, right. Substantial. Right. So, you know, I, I think that alone is, you know, kind of one of these light bulb moments for folks that, you know, when we think about what it means to play a video game more generally, again, you kind of get that classic view of like someone with a controller or maybe at a PC or what have you. But realistically, one of the biggest segments of gaming fans out there is, is mobile. Right? And since everyone has, or virtually everyone has a mobile device globally that can handle games like Candy Crush, what we found is that the surface area for people that enjoy games is just that much bigger. So, you know, when you look at the stats and see that, you know, conceivably the revenue that's attributed to gaming dwarfs things like film, movies, music, or what have you, it's because of the scale of the industry first and foremost in terms of how many fans have proliferated certainly in the last decade or so.

DAMIAN (03:06):

Yeah. What's interesting is people have certain preconceptions about gamers and gamers have changed over the years. I remember when I was coming about, I had an Atari 800 and I used to play Frogger. I don't really consider myself a gamer anymore, but could you give us a little insight in terms of who are gamers?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (03:25):

Yeah, so even the term gamer is kind of interesting in so far that it already kind of attributes a label that then kind of sparks preconceptions that are mine, right? So, you know, if we take a step back, we don't talk about, you know, folks that are watching movies as cinephiles per se, right? Or folks that are really into music with, with very specific terms. So in that world, even just thinking about gamers themselves, that kind of just entails someone who has or really kind of pulls some degree of identity from it, which is certainly the case. There are folks that like readily identify as a gamer and are, you know, very into it. And one of these, you know, spend multiple, multiple hours and lots of investment in the ecosystem and so on and so forth. But then there's just as many, actually many more folks who don't necessarily consider themselves a gamer, but they definitely play video games, right?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (04:11):

And a lot of it is on mobile phones, but then some of these same folks do on consoles and PC and what have you. And one of the biggest trends we'll continue to see in the gaming industry broadly is that we're really looking at a world where we're trying to make sure that the experiences that we provide can be accessed on virtually any device. So I think by that metric, what we'll find is that the, the, the definition is gonna continue to expand. So going back to your question, like who is a gamer? I mean, it, again, it's it's a little bit hokey and we say it a lot, but it is kind of everyone to a certain degree. And it's just, it is the different ways that folks are entering what is an ecosystem, not just an individual channel that kind of differentiates them.

DAMIAN (04:50):

Yeah. So it's not a sort of niche thing and the, the definition of gamer has here, the two maybe been a sort of niche thing, but what you're saying is it's definitely not that.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (04:59):

And, and, and I think there's no better example than what's been happening in recent years, right? So that even that concept of a gamer kind of implies that this is a different group of folks. This is an abnormal group of people that is doing something other folks do, don't or don't do. And again, that's just not the case. Right? And again, look at things like the extent to which you see gaming IP in major movies, television shows. I think there's some, last I counted, 40 or 50 individual projects for TV or movie being developed from game IP right now.

ILYSE (05:29):

Wow, that's a lot. .

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (05:30):

It's a lot. And, and the, the other thing, and, and again, it's good now. So like there, there is this world where, you know, if you think about, you know, how games have been portrayed in movies like maybe in the early nineties, like wasn't that great, right? Mm-hmm. and like kind of left a bad taste in people's mouth, not just folks that weren't fans of the games, but candidly even the fans of the game. And that's really changed in recent years. And I think, again, we could talk a lot about why that happened and partially it's, you know, Hollywood, I think taking the stories in these games more seriously, but then also understanding that there's a big established fandom here. And if they want to bring this experience to a different screen, they need to resonate with that. So what that means in general is that it's just becoming not something that's an offset of culture. It's popular culture. And I think what we'll see in coming years is that already it's the case with even generations as young. And I'm definitely throwing up air quotes 'cause I'm in this generation as millennials, they spend most of their time gaming relative to other forms of media. And I don't think the marketing world has caught up with that fact.

ILYSE (06:28):

Do you happen to have a favorite gaming movie?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (06:30):

My favorite gaming movie? Oh, I mean, you know, honestly, at this point I do have a lot of heart for the old ones from the nineties just because, you know, that's what I grew up with was were those, and, and for me it was just so cool to kind of see them even be represented on screen like that. So like the original Super Mario Brothers movie and Street Fighter and things like that, like all really cool projects. I think the one that really kind of spoke to me personally, um, and again, it feels like this is gonna be like a bit of a pitch for the company, and I promise you it isn't is actually the Warcraft movie Uhhuh

ILYSE (07:01):

.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (07:01):

Because at that point, by the time that movie came out, I'd been playing Warcraft for a decade at least. And again, I'm not alone that that's a very common behavior you've seen. So again, think about Super Mario Brothers, any of these other movies, you know, folks are coming to this with the intention and with the knowledge that they've been engrossed in those worlds for 10 years, 20 years, some times, 30 years, they're gonna have expectations in terms of how that's portrayed in that media. Yeah.

ILYSE (07:25):

And you know, you mentioned it's very much like a family kind of affair. Um, one of the most interesting insights we saw on your site is that actually like one in five gamers are actually made up of women with children. So would you say mom's got game ?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (07:40):

Mom definitely has game and, and parents have game and, and you know, it it's, it, there's, I think again, with that whole concept of how gaming is increasingly encroaching upon modern culture is that you now have folks that grew up gaming, and again, I'm, I'm definitely in this vanguard who have basically been playing video games their entire life, have kept up with the hobby throughout, and now we have homes and mortgages and kids and a bad hip and things like that. Like we are the principal shoppers in the household, and then we share that with our children, right? Like, and again, it's like anything else you think about how like, sports team, fandom, proliferates, that doesn't happen in abstract. Like kids don't come outta the womb being, you know, rooting for the Cubs or something like that. It's because of a shared connection with their, with their family. Same thing here. So both of my kids, they are big time gaming fans. And again, probably a lot of my influence on that, but even now I have one that's off to college and we can still hang out, right? Because we can hang out in virtual worlds. And again, I think there's something powerful about that.

ILYSE (08:37):

Activision has some of the world's most iconic, most played games, candy Crush, call of Duty, world of Warcraft. I know myself, I'm a big Candy Crush player. I play it every day on the subway. , can you give us a sense of how and why these games prove so compelling?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (08:54):

I mean, I I, I think there, there's a couple things we could look at, right? So on the one hand, almost all of the, like the games you just mentioned have been around for decades, right? So just as it stands now they're popular because there's been something about them that has kind of hooked someone into that. And again, whether it's like really novel and interesting mechanics, like Candy Crush, whether it's something like social connectivity from a game like World of Warcraft, whether they're just really interested in the story of the world, like something like Diablo, there's been something within those games that speaks to folks, right? And it speaks to 'em in such a way that, you know, again, when you think about media in general that we get engrossed in, that we come fans in, it's something that we develop a lot of affinity for.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (09:34):

And what's different, I think for something like a video game is that, you know, you're not just watching a protagonist in many cases, you are the protagonist. You are I impacting and have agency within that world. So the extent to which that you can form connectivity with that media, it's gonna be so much greater. And then again, you layer on other fans that are participating with it, your connection with them. And you know, you'll hear their stories about people that've been playing World of War crap that made lifelong friends, they met their wife, they got married through the game, they got married in the game. Even , like that's, you know, kind of speaks to how powerful this can be for folks that this is where they find common ground to talk with others about their passions. Would

DAMIAN (10:08):

That getting married in a game, uh, would that constitute a premium gaming experience?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (10:14):

? I would certainly think they think so. Right? And, and you know, and again, there, there's something to be said about like, you know, it, it's one of these things where folks will literally get married in the real world and then have a ceremony in the game, and like they buy each other rings or exchange items or whatnot. And, and you know, again, I think it's easy to kind of sit back and be like, wow, that's kind of weird. Like, but if that is the basis of your relationship, if you met your partner and participated and had adventures and shared stories with them for 10 years, 15 years, then yeah, it's meaningful. And, and, and again, I think these are the types of connections that folks are not quite in tuned with yet. But it speaks to again, how much this type of media tends to affect its fandom

DAMIAN (10:57):

From, from a marketing point of view, the what does it mean to have a premium access to premium gaming experiences? And what kind of research do you do around this to define that concept?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (11:09):

I mean, I think the, first of all, I think we can take the step back that like premium is by far the most abused word in all of advertising, right? Like straight up, right? And again, I, I think that it's hard to find like hard and fast rules in terms of what does or does not constitute it. But in my mind, what I think will, will always tend to be the case is like, you'll see that on the one hand it's these games that have large followings and they have large followings for different reasons. Again, whether it's engagement, the mechanics, the story, social connections, or what have you. And realistically, one of the parts that I find most satisfying about my job is that, you know, these are household names, right? Like even if you don't really play video games, you have heard of Call of Duty, you have heard of Warcraft, you have heard of Candy Crush.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (11:48):

So there is definitely a qualitative and quantitative difference for games of that type relative to, to others where there might be experience. And again, that isn't to say that there's, you know, a big differentiation or that like folks shouldn't explore all kinds of places within the, in the gaming environment. But I think it is important to understand that, particularly in these premium experiences, one, a lot of love and care goes in on the development side. And then two, the fans have a lot of love and care for those environments as well. So what we've found in terms of research that we've done, both as it pertains to how our, um, you know, our players think about these experiences or what have you, is that they realistically see that brands when integrated into these titles that are kind of like the more household name premium games, they start to associate the same type of feelings that they have for the game to the brand, which is again, almost entirely the point, right? Like they're try like the, the, the high bar I think for brands is to kind of be able to participate in some of that equity and have it shine on their brand. And we try to facilitate that in a way that's both efficacious for brands, but then again also works well with the expectations of our fans in the game environment.

ILYSE (12:56):

How do you make it possible for brands to actually engage with like, active users of the game? I know there's so much, so many possibilities these days compared to like even a decade ago mm-hmm. .

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (13:07):

See? And yet I think, so you, you hit on an important PO point that there have been opportunities in games almost since games existed. There was some form of advertising. The issue was that back in the day, it was tough and it wasn't super flexible and it, it just wasn't how marketers liked to buy things, right? It was basically you had to be hard coded into the game experience and you lived there kind of in perpetuity. And that's not really how media buyers think. So the big shift that's happened over say, we'll say the last 10 years, but I think we, we could quibble over like, you know, what the exact dates are is that internet connectivity on these games, you know, programmatic, um, technology things have made it a lot more turnkey. So as it stands now in the ecosystem, there's kind of two polarities in terms of opportunities, again, speaking at a very, very high level.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (13:52):

On the one hand you have integrated marketing. So this, these are the things that you see that are like the concerts, these in-depth integrations, you know, you know, Humvees and games like Call of Duty, things of that nature that really kind of speak to customized builds within the game environment. On the other hand, you have a lot of programmatic media opportunities that even occur in games like Candy Crush or what have you that are video spots and what have you, that we tie into the game environment again, in a way that kind of fits with the mechanics. And that's kind of more or less the, the high level answer to your question is that we really take a lot of time to understand, one, the design intent of our developers. And again, we are fundamentally a game company. So we work hand in hand with our developers to figure out where are the opportune places where brands can integrate, not just in a way that's not obtrusive with our players, but optimally in a way that can enhance the play experience. And whether that's providing them a reward or integrating a brand in a way that actually like increases the realism or the immersion of the actual, you know, game environment. That's kinda the bar we try to set.

ILYSE (14:51):

That's awesome. Uh, could you give us a few like, examples of brands that you guys have worked with in that kind of environment and way?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (14:58):

I mean, I think, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll stop short of calling out any specific brand aside, but we'll note that I think one of the big misconceptions about gaming is that has to be like endemic brands. That is definitely not the case, right? So we see everything from C P G to restaurants to anything in between. And actually we did do a case study with, um, Prada recently where they were put their, one of their fragrances product candy within Candy Crush, right? Which, you know, kind of makes sense that there's already like some degree of continuity between the two. And interestingly for Product Candy, it is a fragrance that has existed for a while. So it's not a new extension. It had been out on market, but then they wanted to kind of reinvigorate it, they integrated a candy crush. We did like an interactive game for players to like, you look and search for the fragrance on there, and then it linked to their site where they could pull out a sample and they went through all their samples almost instantly, right? So it's something that like, because it resonated that well with the game, it's something that, you know, the fans were really attracted to and I think really drove great results for Product Handy in that case.

DAMIAN (15:58):

I wanted to ask you, you know, where I wanted to ask you, what does your research tell you about where people are playing these games? I know there's a split between mobile and console gaming.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (16:07):

Yeah, so I mean, what you'll find is that, you know, again, I think when we were talking earlier about how the overall gaming market has expanded, you know, the vast majority of game activity happens on mobile. And again, as a game publisher, we paid attention to that. So it's not only that we have, you know, titles like Candy Crush, which have ostensibly been mobile since mobile gaming was, was a possibility. We're also bringing a lot of our other franchises to mobile environments. So Call of Duty mobile is a great example. Diablo Immortal. We really wanna take all these franchises that were historically console specific and bring them to mobile environments. Now, what's gonna be I think really interesting is that gaming is increasingly going to be a hobby that is divorced from gaming devices. And by that what I mean is through cloud technologies, through increasing speeds on mobile, what we'll find is that virtually anywhere that there's a screen that's smart, there's probably gonna be an opportunity to play a game. And that's where I think we'll continue to see kind of the, the overall rise of the ecosystem. And so far that the easier it is for folks to access these experiences, the more opportunities it gets to build that audience. So I think what you'll find is that, you know, some of the biggest franchises won't just be relegated consular pc, they'll continue to go more mobile, but then eventually they're just gonna go to any screen that has an internet connection. I think that'll be a really interesting shift for the industry. Yeah,

DAMIAN (17:24):

I see. Yeah.

ILYSE (17:26):

Cool. You know, Activision asserts that gaming drives community authenticity and engagement. How would you say that's possible and why does it matter to potential advertisers?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (17:37):

I mean, it really gets back to that point of fandom. It's, you know, something that we, we've been talking a lot about that, you know, fans, you know, fandoms are created around shared love of a form of media, and again, be a sports team could be anything, right? But in this case, it is indeed some of these game titles. And on the one hand you have a group of folks that are substantively interested in a given form of media in this, in this case a game. Many of them with social features in them, right? So like World of Warcraft, call of Duty, these are all social games. You speak with your teammates, right? Like people are getting married and what have you through these games, but even those that don't actually have social con connectivity built in Candy Crush is a great example. There's still a huge fandom of Candy Crush fans that go to like web forums to talk about strategies in Candy Crush.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (18:22):

So they will go and find their community no matter what. And again, that I think speaks to the power of it. So that's, you know, the, the opportunity for advertisers is that, you know, fandoms are powerful, right? When someone has that degree of connectivity to media, when it's effective on that level, right, with an a, it can be effective with an e for advertisers. And I think the concern is that because of the intense love that, you know, game players have for games, that can actually be a little scary for advertisers. They believe if they integrate in a way that, you know, well, one, they believe they're not welcome in general, but then two, if they don't integrate in a very specific way, that's gonna kind of go sideways on them. And again, I think there is something to be said that there are ways that you can integrate in gaming that are not gonna be super fan forward and therefore problematic. But if you find a way to integrate that is fan forward that does kind of fit with the needs and expectations of the fans, it can be super effective for advertisers for that reason of the level of affinity that the game players have for the experience.

DAMIAN (19:24):

It seems like gaming is driving a, a, a big shift in entertainment habits and, and is is not siloed anymore as just a gaming thing over here, you know, a a movie experience over here. It's, it's kind of, uh, crossing, I don't know what's the word? Uh,

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (19:39):

Transmedia might be one of the words, right? Yeah. Like where it's multiple stories talked about through multiple forms of media. Yeah.

DAMIAN (19:45):

And, and you know, on that point, how, what does this mean for, for marketers? Do they understand how entertainment habits are actually changing? Are they, are they there yet? Is there, is there more that they need to know?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (19:57):

I mean, I, I think there's still learning to be done. And, you know, when I go out and I speak about gaming, my, the general point that I want advertisers to walk away with is that even if you aren't bought into the idea of gaming, per se, what you can be bought into is the fact that media in general is becoming more interactive. And gaming is obviously at the forefront of interactive media. And I think advertisers are very good at and understand even down to the psychology of how people think about movies or watch shows, or even Peru's social media less so I think at this time about things like interactivity, it's a different set of psychologies, right? It is a different way in which someone's mind is literally tuned into the media. And I think we're still kinda at the early stages of that.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (20:43):

And, and you know, I think there I am, I'm encouraged that it has become a broader conversation. I think, you know, when things like the metaverse and whatnot were very hot, that was basically a reflection of that, right? Because everything that the metaverse was that we were talking about, you know, about a year ago and that are no longer really talking about it was basically just gave me experiences, but it was the right idea, right? That oh wow, there's all these people, they're in these online interactive spaces. How should I think about that? And again, maybe wrong focus at that point, but it was the right question.

DAMIAN (21:13):

Hmm. And one of the things I you are very interested in is, is measuring attention and attention metrics. How does that work in the context of gaming and why is it so significant? Have we caught up yet? Have marketers caught up with the way we should be looking at how people are paying attention in these new forms of media?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (21:30):

I mean, you know, it is certainly the case that you will be hard pressed to find a single marketer out there that is happy with their measurement period. And, and again, to be clear, that's not a problem necessarily with the measurement companies. That's just kind of the nature of how measurement works with advertising, not the least of which. And again, I think apropos adver or to attention specifically is that the focus and conversation around attention in my mind just really signals that we are dissatisfied with the metrics that we have today. Fundamentally, most of the media that we're buying on is through the same metrics and lenses that we use circa 1970, right? It's reach and frequency, which is great, it has its purposes. Obviously advertising is a scale game. We need to make sure that we have enough people that see a message, but we're less sure about whether it mattered to them or whether they saw it.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (22:19):

Because again, recall that, you know, reach is an opportunity to see not whether someone saw it. So on the one hand, I think attention is becoming a broader conversation, one because I think we, there is more focus on not just the breadth, but the depth of these potential interactions and how folks are consuming media. But then also because in worlds where more media's consumed interactively reach and frequency just might not cut it. Now again, it's an interesting conversation, but much like the general dissatisfaction around measurement more generally, we're pretty far away from a standardized definition. I think it's a, it's an active and interesting conversation that's going on, but in my mind, regardless, almost regardless of what definition we'd land on, is something that I think needs to happen because otherwise we're still gonna be stuck in the same reach frequency mode of buying that we kind of used to buy linear TV several decades ago.

DAMIAN (23:11):

I mean, one of the challenges, uh, I guess one of the needs for this idea of attention metrics is to be able to measure results in different channels. And it's not apples to oranges, it's apple want. The, the need is to kind of a me have an apples to apples measurement, right? And that doesn't necessarily exist yet. And I'm wondering about, you know, when it comes to gaming future integrations across different channels, how do you see that? I mean, playing out,

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (23:38):

So gaming is one of the big challenges that I think we have as a, as certainly as a gaming publisher, but then also the broader marketing world has about thinking about gaming in general is that, you know, if we think about social, right, you're looking at degrees of apps and ev all these apps are different, but fundamentally, if you're focusing on one, like it's an app, and, and again, that's not to say that's not very complicated what have you, but like it's a technology, gaming is an ecosystem, right? So even if you were to go and have someone sit in this chair and ask them, oh, are are you doing anything in gaming? They'll say, oh yeah, yeah, I am. And if you ask them what are they doing, you're gonna get a lot of different answers, right? Like, maybe it's Twitch, maybe it's eSports, maybe it's mobile games, maybe it's some spots and dots and you know, console titles or what have you.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (24:22):

Huge degree of diversity. So on the one hand, when we've been thinking about measurement, we want it to be applicable to every experience that an advertiser can have in our ecosystem. And the more that we can build our platform to essentially get some degree of equivalence, whether it's across any number of touchpoint within the ecosystem, the better, broader industry, cross platform measurement is a conversation that's been going on as long as I've been doing ad measurement. That's a long time. Um, and, and again, I think we're a pretty far ways away if we're being honest with ourselves. Again, even if we take gaming to a side and don't even think about that just in general media, we're pretty far ways away. But I am encouraged by things like attention, because what we can agree on is things like reach and frequency, right? Like we might have some disagreement about when, where, and how and how do we wanna like measure things like fraud and delivery and what have you. But we all kind of know what it means and we can all kind of compare it across them. What attention needs to do is get to that point. And when it gets to that point, then it becomes a currency, then it becomes useful. And then I think it becomes super meaningful that not only are we understanding the scale of the potential execution, but again also how much it affected us, which in my mind is super important for interactive media like gaming.

ILYSE (25:32):

Now you mentioned you foresee basically anything with a screen being an area or an opportunity for someone to game. And it's true that like gaming is making its way into like a bunch of different channels. Even like Netflix now has games, for instance. It's crazy. Um, how do you see like other like, forms of new technology from AI to Metaverse technologies further expand the potential like real estate for gaming and opportunities to reach gamers?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (26:01):

So if we, if we tick through the buzzwords real quick, right? So like on on, on the one hand, ai, super popular conversation going on, AI's been used in gaming for years, right? So like, and, and again, like we could get a little bit wonky and just talk about, eh, it's for the most part just machine learning and stats and things we've been doing for a while. But, you know, again, even things like procedural generation, what have you, that's been part and parcel to gaming for a long time. So on the one hand, you know, there's something to be said about game developers have experienced with that, but we, you know, continue to lean into these new worlds because again, it creates a lot of power in terms of how we can make experiences on a more scaled basis. As a general note, when I, again, one of these kind of truisms that I give folks is that when they want to think about or really see what kind of the future of the media landscape is, you do wanna look to gaming for these types of things, right?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (26:48):

So again, ai, it's kind of been a part of gaming for quite some time. Vr, same deal, right? Like, so for the most part, most of the more popular experiences we have in VR are generally games. But then on the other hand, if you look at the percentage of people on platforms like steam, which is a very popular, um, platform for PC gaming, the install base of VR headsets is about 2%. It usually waffles between one or 2%. So again, you would kind of already know that the market for VR hasn't really developed even then just looking at how gamers are oriented towards it. And metaverse, you know, again, there, it was very much a double-edged blood blade type of conversation that on the one hand I was really excited that people were starting to think about online immersive, interactive environments. On the other hand, they were just talking about gaming, but calling it something else, right?

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (27:40):

And I think there has been a little bit of correction, like yes, there are grander plans or grand plans in terms of building something more generalized like a metaverse, but realistically all of our best practice for it and all the techno technology platforms that exist right now are gaming. So on the one hand, like there's a lot to be said about all these types of things with within the gaming ecosystem, but on the other, you know, a a again, I think it's important for marketers to understand not just because of the opportunity within gaming today, because there are many, but also it's a really good lens to kind of judge some of these new emerging trends through in terms of how it's worked in the gaming ecosystem. Mm-hmm. ,

ILYSE (28:17):

You know, one area of gaming that is continuing to grow I feel like is that of like e-commerce and shopping through games. Um, you can buy, you know, skins, you can buy elements to build out your characters these days. Just curious about, I guess your outlook on that and how you see growth in that when it comes to e-commerce.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (28:39):

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, the, the, on the one hand there's something to be said that in general when you look at things like buying skins, even advertisements in games, things of that nature, this is all coming from the fact that the games industry wants to move with the economy of the world in such a way that like we want everyone to play our games and ultimately we just wanna transact with folks in a way that makes sense for them, right? So in some games, some experiences, no one wants to pay anything and maybe they're happy to watch an ad and that's okay. And others they wanna pay 60 or $70 upfront and that's okay too. And then in a third maybe they're buying certain, you know, skins and what have you. And again, that's fine. Like what all of these potential activations allow us to do is just again, be flexible in terms of how we can transact with customers to again, make sure that we're reaching virtually everyone.

JONATHAN STRINGFIELD (29:23):

So on the one hand, I think that's gonna continue to be important not just for the game industry, but also the flexibility that we gain give to game developers. For brands specifically, one, obviously that provides a lot of opportunities because things like advertisements and integration with skins and integrated marketing like we talked about before, like that can all be weaved into there. And then even certain environments being set up as commerce platforms in and of themselves. Like if it's something that makes sense for the game environment, like yeah, right? Like, you know, imagine, again, I'm gonna kind of make this up, but 10 years ago you didn't buy anything online, right? But then it kind of became something that was novel and then it became something that you did a little bit more. And now I buy near everything online, right? Like I like, it's almost weird when I go to a store. I think we could start to see that in gaming, right? The more that we start to use these technologies and become normalized in our everyday practice, then that is something that we'll use for a wider variety of use cases from socialization, whether it be the Metaverse to shopping.

DAMIAN (30:24):

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

ILYSE (30:30):

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

DAMIAN (30:38):

And remember, I'm Damien.

ILYSE (30:47):

And I'm Elise.

DAMIAN (30:48):

And we'll see you next time. And

ILYSE (30:50):

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.

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State Farm’s Head of Marketing, Alyson Griffin, breaks down making the company’s iconic jingle a bigger deal next year and diving more into retail media.

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler: (00:01)

I'm Damien Fowler. And

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:02)

I'm EIS Lfr. And

Damian Fowler: (00:03)

Welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:10)

This week we're delighted to talk with Allison Griffin, the head of marketing for State Farm.

Damian Fowler: (00:15)

State Farm Insurance Group has been around for more than a hundred years, but thanks to its high profile marketing campaigns, it remains a household name in the us. Over the years, companies had many entertaining creative campaigns, and the latest of course features the affable character of Jake from State Farm, who was present at a certain NFL game that made headlines in 2023. And

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:36)

We'll get to that with more than 25 years of experience leading teams at top Tech brands. Allison became head of marketing for the Iconic brand in May, 2021. She has a motto which goes like this, always curious, always learning, always happy to share my insights.

Alyson Griffin: (00:59)

State Farm is a 100 year old brand. You know, we've gotta try to figure out how to remain relevant, not only to our current big tried and true customer base of all. I'm pointing at myself, I know we're on a podcast, the Gen Xers of the world and older, but also that next generation. And one of the ways we do that is through life stages. And of course, every marketer knows you have to be relevant to the target that you're going after. Look, people don't think about insurance at all, ever. Maybe , if I could say, with a big smile on my face. So we've gotta think about, you know, your first apartment or your first car, or having a baby or buying a home, or those life stages matter because they matter to the person that they're happening to. They're big events. And for us, dissecting who the target is, what stage they're in, and how, you know, what do they care about? That has started to shape our media strategy. It started to shape how we think about capturing current demand, generating future demand, and retention and loyalty for our customer base.

Ilyse Liffreing: (02:05)

Now there's a lot of strategy, obviously behind your marketing campaigns. For instance, when you're selling auto or life insurance, there's a product for sale. But the genius of your campaigns is that you don't really talk about the product like it's there. Obviously you're selling it, but it's not, you know, in your face. This is auto life insurance. Um, what is the concept you are marketing exactly, would you say? And how does that vary, I guess, based on the demographic?

Alyson Griffin: (02:33)

Yeah, so it's different than, you know, if you hold up your phone or something, it's different than a product that somebody needs to understand how much it costs. How long is the battery life? I'm sort of making this up, this is different. The, the insurance, what we're selling is in part the policy, but it's also in part a relationship with the agent. We have almost 20,000 agents across the United States who are independent contractors, you know, not State Farm employees, and they're running small businesses and trying to be meaningful and are meaningful in the communities where they live and work and offer basically advice services, et cetera. So for us, from a national campaign perspective, we've gotta make sure the brand is strong and branding is not product advertising. We need to make sure that our assets are known and appreciated. And asset is Jake from State Farm that you already mentioned, but also our jingle or even just the words like a good neighbor State Farm is there. And so we dial up and dial down each of those assets in real life or in the virtual world, depending on the life stage. The person that we're targeting, do they know us or not? Are we trying to bind a policy today or not? And that's, you know, the mix with which we're trying to buy media and showing up in places where these current and potential customers are. It's

Damian Fowler: (03:54)

Interesting to hear you talk about big national campaigns and that that awareness that you drive and done it so successfully over the years. And, and the latest iteration of course is is Jake from State Farm, that character, what, why has he proved such a strong character in campaigns?

Alyson Griffin: (04:09)

He started out over 10 years ago as Jake, a real State Farm employee, and it was back when we were putting agents and employees in our ads. And you may recall the original campaign where it's a middle of the night phone call and the husband is talking on the phone, the wife comes downstairs, who are you talking to? And it's Jake from State Farm. And the question is, what are you wearing? And he says, uh, khakis, . So we got a lot of play out of that for many, many, many years. But that was of real employees, not an actor, doesn't, he has a job and a family and a life and isn't a trained actor. So fast forward to about 2019, um, maybe 2018, the company was looking to say, Hey, we have some equity in the, in the asset or the one word, I'll call it Jake from State Farm, all one word.

Alyson Griffin: (04:56)

And you know, how do we dial that up and make that asset work harder and be more meaningful for, for us, because we thought it could be the personification of what it means to be a good neighbor. And we're very fortunate, he is thought of as a real person, and he's not a cartoon or a caricature. He's really Jake from State Farm, he's a guy, he's doing good neighbor stuff, he's got a TikTok account just like regular influencer or regular person would. And for us, making him bring to life the values of what it means to help more people in more ways and to be that good neighbor in the country, uh, really mattered to us. And so we put a lot of effort into making that a cultural icon. Yeah,

Damian Fowler: (05:43)

I mean he really has cut through and he's a very competitive world i, I gather so, and State Farm is very much present in the culture and um, one of the ways that you've done this so successfully is leaning into major sporting personalities, um, over the last several years, uh, including a campaign featuring,

Alyson Griffin: (06:03)

Uh,

Damian Fowler: (06:03)

Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey for instance.

Alyson Griffin: (06:06)

What's

Damian Fowler: (06:07)

The playbook there when you, when it comes to partnering with sports stars?

Alyson Griffin: (06:11)

We've been in sports for a very long time and it's important to us because it's tied to real passion. It's one of the last bastions of eyeballs all watching the same event at the same time. Right? Live television doesn't much exist anymore. If you're watching a Netflix episode and I'm watching one, we might not be at the same spot at the same time, for example. But live sports, you get people who are engaged across generations and, and a lot of viewership also don't forget from an advertising perspective, there's also highlights the replays, et cetera. So for us, sports has been long something we've leaned into and the advertising we realized performs better when, if you're not an endemic brand to sports, and we are not. And so for us, aligning our brand with brand ambassadors who match our values and are at the top of their game, showed us that we could cut through. So we have football, you know, Patrick Mahomes, you mentioned Travis Kelsey, he was with us this current football season. Um, and Coach Reed, you know, in football spots and Chris Paul and other NBA players in basketball spots. We have women for women's sports, et cetera. So the idea is if we match the passion and a relevant player and create a spot that leans into endemically where the ad is showing, it just performs much better.

Damian Fowler: (07:31)

Hmm, that's interesting.

Ilyse Liffreing: (07:33)

Now, speaking of sport and Travis Kelsey, let's talk about that viral moment that was created when Jake from State Farm was spotted chatting with who else? The Donna, Kelsey,

Alyson Griffin: (07:43)

Travis

Ilyse Liffreing: (07:44)

Kelsey's mom, of course in the NFL Suite.

Alyson Griffin: (07:47)

What

Ilyse Liffreing: (07:47)

Kind of reaction did you get from this, like viral moments and seeing all the elements come together? Can you walk us through how you kind of seized the moment?

Alyson Griffin: (07:55)

Yeah, that was really interesting. So the week before, we know that Travis Kelsey had a special guest in the box with his mom, and that was Taylor Swift. So I like to say we acted swiftly, . And within a week, um, we were able to place Jake from State Farm at Jason Kelsey's game, the Eagles. And we didn't want, you know, Jason, Kelsey's mom not to have a superstar celebrity sit with her. Uh, I say with a big smile on my face, . And it was great. We, we did have to act really fast. We that came together in less than 48 hours and, and for us capturing a cultural moment, and again, we have this asset that looks like and acts like and feels like a real human being. Jake from State Farm, so he could show up in the stands sitting with Mama Ma Otto, I'll call her as a nod to Travis Kelsey playing Mahomes and Mato in our current ads. Um, but with Donna Kelsey and, and him sitting there, you know, he sits, uh, courtside at NBA Allstar games, he shows up at Bravo con Twitch Con, right? Like, so Jake shows up in the world. And, and so the magic of saying we could really capitalize on this quickly and the fact that all the stars aligned and it came together was really, really fun for us.

Ilyse Liffreing: (09:12)

What does like a viral moment like that though mean for your brand? Because I know you talked about being like culturally resonant brand in insurance

Alyson Griffin: (09:21)

And

Ilyse Liffreing: (09:21)

This would seem like a perfect example of

Alyson Griffin: (09:24)

Doing

Ilyse Liffreing: (09:24)

Just that

Alyson Griffin: (09:25)

For us. Um, being culturally relevant matters. And it's not that any brand tries to be if you try too hard and for us, it's not that we're trying too hard, it's Hey, Jake would be there and we thought that we would be true to who we are. He shows up in those kinds of, um, situations regularly. And so let's just try it. And it wasn't because we were trying to be culturally iconic, it was because it just fit.

Damian Fowler: (09:55)

I mean, I wonder how do you measure something like that? I know it is a viral moment and it goes big, but do you see kind of the results of that?

Alyson Griffin: (10:02)

Yes. You can't pick a viral moment, right? It goes viral because it goes viral. And, and so then all of the, you know, there's the regular stuff you would think the reach, the syndication, the press, the chatter on, you know, X and other social media platforms of course were part of it. Engagement hashtags. That was all obvious. But what we were super excited about is a company EDO does measurement around search volume and correlating the exact second that Jake from State Farm was on camera to search volume was astonishing. Astonishing. And the results of all six of those spots increased in awareness by 15 times because of the viral moment. So it was like something that you wouldn't know, that you can't test and you don't get the opportunity to learn from very often, right? 'cause those don't happen very often. But we saw meaningful increase and value from a very innocent, just let's put Jake from State Farm next to Donna Kelsey.

Damian Fowler: (11:12)

I know you are exploring other channels as well to reach, you mentioned Gen X and Gen Z, the Gen Z audience, which is obviously

Alyson Griffin: (11:19)

Gonna

Damian Fowler: (11:20)

Be looking for insurance too. Um, in particular your gamer hood challenge, which launched last year, and I'm interested to talk about gaming and eSports and why is that an important part of your playbook?

Alyson Griffin: (11:31)

I'm fairly new to State Farm. I've been at State Farm for two and a half years, but I spent almost 30 years in the tech industry. And I say that to say gaming. I was at Hewlett-Packard and Intel for most of my career, and they're endemic to gaming. And so I had a lot of experience in the gaming world when I stepped in the door at State Farm, the insurance category other than maybe a logo sponsorship on a gamer or a game that's pretty much all the insurance industry was doing. And I was like, look, if we can, because the audience mattered these gamers, not eSports teams, but a casual fun gamers, much bigger universe. And we thought if we could tap in for generating future demand, again, these are not people who are buying policies today, but to get and show up at the place they already are with, um, an interest that they already have.

Alyson Griffin: (12:23)

It's very similar to the playbook of sports, but this is a different kind of audience and showing up for them in gaming. And so we created our own intellectual property around a gaming competition. It's run two years in a row now in the month of June for five episode, five weekly episodes and have gamers competing. And we've got Jake from State Farm in there, our assets and we loosely tie insurable moments. So think the gamers have to cope with distractions and still try to win. And some of the distractions are pipes in the house will burst or um, some of them went on a little road trip and they got a flat tire, right? So just loose and fun. We're not selling anything, we're not trying to shove anything down the throats, but to watch these, I'll call them insurable moments, hinder the forward progress of a gamer in a fun, interesting way. And the gamers had a lot of fun with, it was a really cool experience, uh, for us. And it's done quite well. That's

Damian Fowler: (13:21)

Interesting. It goes back to your sort of ways of reaching customers at these different life stages and you're very nuanced about it and, and kind of smart the way you, you're doing it.

Alyson Griffin: (13:31)

Well, exactly where they are on Twitch and YouTube, right? Mm-Hmm. from a gaming perspective. So be where they are, don't make them come to me. Mm-Hmm. , they're not gonna go seeking out an insurance brand. I better go be there. Mm-Hmm. with something fun, interesting and different. And that's what we attempted to do.

Damian Fowler: (13:45)

I also noticed that you had created some Pinterest pins aimed at educating viewers around why they should get life insurance.

Alyson Griffin: (13:53)

Can

Damian Fowler: (13:53)

You talk a little bit about that campaign as well?

Alyson Griffin: (13:55)

Yeah. That's another life stage, right? So these media partners of ours are great because we wanna lean in and be, I'm gonna call it, I've never used this before, but endemic to the partner, right? Mm-Hmm. . So a Pinterest board. Mm-Hmm. . And if you can notice what somebody is doing, whether they're redecorating a room, like looks like, oh, this person might be remodeling their bathroom, or oh, this person might be having a baby, or oh, this person might be buying a new house or cars or whatever. Pinterest is such a great, uh, media outlet for passion points. And we thought, well, these are life moments. And as we talked about at the top of the podcast, these life moments, um, are a way in for us to meet a person where they are and not just say, get a quote for auto insurance, but to go offer them up something that's contextually relevant to what they're doing. And because Pinterest is what Pinterest is, we're able to do that in a meaningful way. Now when it

Ilyse Liffreing: (14:51)

Comes to more like big TV buys and like maybe CTV buys, do you think like holistically about campaigns and connect those big TV buys with like more performance driven plays? Oh,

Alyson Griffin: (15:05)

A hundred percent. So State Farm, you know, is a prolific advertiser, right? Our category demands that. And television was the way, let's say, I don't even know, it's probably wasn't that long ago if I really stopped to think about it. The world's moving so fast.

Ilyse Liffreing: (15:18)

It is, it is.

Alyson Griffin: (15:20)

Goes quickly, but we know that digital matters and so do the, the media partners. They know that, um, digital and the even live shows that get streamed for the week after, they know that they can target that there's a lot of value that they can sell to advertisers for that long tail of their own, even a live experience. So we know that we need to do both. We still are big advertisers in live tv, mostly sports, but also working with the media partners who are putting really great content online and targeting. And that data matters so much and we're working more and more and more with partners to figure out how do we catch the right person at the right time with the right message, um, that's contextually relevant and that helps us be relevant to the person at the time that they need it.

Damian Fowler: (16:13)

Retail data is really come into its own, should we say, and especially for non-endemic brands, again, inside that ecosystem. How has that made a difference? Um, you know, in the last two years,

Alyson Griffin: (16:24)

A lot, it's funny, and I can say this out loud because Home Depot themselves said it, we're the first non-endemic partner of Home Depot, and we're partnering with them not only for their stores and the environment, they have a lot of small businesses as their customers, as well as home ownership, right? Mm-Hmm. and Car Repair and Home and Auto, yeah. Um, and so we are partnering with the Home Depot who knows very deeply about who their customers are and what matters from a data sharing perspective. And, uh, we think there's nowhere to go but up on that. Of course, we do it with media partners, of course. Uh, Disney being a very big one, right? Just because of all of their properties. It, it's on both levels is my point. So a big media partner that knows their audience, but someone like Home Depot or Walmart, those are really important to us so that we can continue to offer the best message to these customers and around things like small business or home improvement or auto care that matters to us. We sell those products.

Ilyse Liffreing: (17:25)

How are you thinking about 2024? Do you think you can actually like build upon this year's viral moments,

Alyson Griffin: (17:32)

? Yeah, I mean, we hope so, right? So Jake from State Farm isn't going anywhere, but we are going to dial up, you'll start seeing, um, more around our jingle. So I'm not saying our jingle is not known like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. I won't sing it here,

Ilyse Liffreing: (17:46)

, although I'll

Alyson Griffin: (17:47)

Tell you, I'll give you a little fun fact That Jingle was written in 1971 by none other than Barry Manalow.

Ilyse Liffreing: (17:53)

No, really?

Damian Fowler: (17:54)

Yes. Does Barry get royalties?

Alyson Griffin: (17:55)

I don't know. , , probably , but we, you know, it's known and there's a lot of TikTok. You can go out and look at our, look at that jingle and see a lot of people playing with the content. We wanna kind of kick that into high gear again and, um, not only talk about Jake from State Farm, but have some fun playing with our jingles. So the notion of being a good neighbor and being there for people is one part of it. But the actual notes, the song of it is another.

Damian Fowler: (18:25)

And that's it for the current podcast. We'll be back next week with our guest, Jonathan Stringfield, the VP of Global Research and Marketing at Activision Blizzard

Jonathan Stringfield:

Gaming is increasingly going to be a hobby that is divorced from gaming devices virtually anywhere that there is a screen that's smart, there's probably gonna be an opportunity to play a game. 

Ilyse Liffreing: (19:02)

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 Loving Caliber. The current team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce.

Damian Fowler: (19:31)

And remember,

Ilyse Liffreing: (18:30)

The current podcast is produced by Wondered Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. The current team includes Chris Ley and Cat Feste.

Damian Fowler: (18:38)

And remember,

Alyson Griffin: (18:39)

We've gotta make sure the brand is strong and branding is not product advertising. We need to make sure that our assets are known and appreciated.

Damian Fowler: (18:49)

I'm Damien

Ilyse Liffreing: (18:50)

And I'm Elise.

Damian Fowler: (18:51)

And that's it for season seven of the current podcast. We'll be back soon for a new season with more great conversations with the world's leading marketers. And if you like what you hear, subscribe, and please 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. We'll see you soon.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The NFL’s Marissa Solis on the Taylor Swift effect, expanding globally, and the powerful messaging coming for the Super Bowl.

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. And

Damian Fowler: (00:03)

Welcome to this edition of The Current podcast.

Ilyse Liffreing: (00:10)

This week we're delighted to talk with Marissa Solis, the SVP of Global and Consumer Marketing for the NFL

Damian Fowler: (00:17)

In 2021, the NFL recruited Marissa after almost two decades As a marketing leader with PepsiCo, it was an opportunity to influence the league's almost 400 million sports fans around the world.

Marissa Solis: (00:32)

It's an incredible feeling when the NFL calls and especially with an opportunity to influence the messaging and the marketing of such an incredible platform with so much potential. You know, it's something, an opportunity I can pass up.

Damian Fowler: (00:45)

I mean, there's no doubt about it that the NFL is one of the most dominant cultural forces in the world. So let's start right there. And we obviously have to start with the NFL's, which recent pop culture boost from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, which is must be a consumer marketer's dream in a way. Could you talk to us about that moment and the opportunity for you as a marketer?

Marissa Solis: (01:05)

It means a lot when things like this happen and it goes so viral, it just goes to show that the NFL is at the peak of, you know, entertainment. I have to tell you, none of us knew this was not planned. This was not anything that was orchestrated. We had sort of heard the rumors about Travis, you know, going to her concert and then inviting her to the game. But we really didn't know. We didn't know she was gonna show up at the game. And so when it all happened, I mean the power of social media, right within 10 seconds this thing went viral. And for us, you know, we have a social media and influencer arm within the league that are ready at the go when anything happens. So we were able to capitalize and have some fun with the fans. Uh, we created some 1 0 1 football videos for Swifties that had never seen the game before on how you play. But think about all of the NFL fans that don't know who Taylor Swift is. So we also were able to do a little bit of education to some of our NFL fans about who she is. So it's actually been a cultural education for a lot of people and we've had a lot of fun with it. Yeah,

Ilyse Liffreing: (02:10)

Thank you for clearing that up because I think a lot of rumors circulating was like, oh, the NF L's behind it, they know this happened. Had no idea they a plan

Marissa Solis: (02:17)

Idea. No idea. But I, I think, you know, it's a really good lesson for marketers. Mm-hmm. Culture happens at the speed of light and you just have to be ready. You know, we like to say or think we create culture, but culture is organic and embedded culture just happens and we just happen to be ready at the moment, right? Yeah.

Damian Fowler: (02:37)

There's no doubt that the Super Bowl is the high point of the year. Curious, are you gonna be using some of these immovable cultural forces like Taylor Swift and Kelsey in your Super Bowl messaging?

Marissa Solis: (02:47)

You know, we always leveraged the Super Bowl to do some powerful messaging around the joy of the sport, but also how the sport transcends. So last year the message was all around the power of women and what women bring to the sport. And now we're in the Olympics. So you're gonna see some powerful messaging about what the league means to culture. It will be a very powerful message.

Ilyse Liffreing: (03:10)

On that note, do you have like a favorite Super Bowl ad?

Marissa Solis: (03:13)

I did not even know you were gonna ask me that by the way. But I have to say, and it's very ironic, my favorite Super Bowl out of all times was actually created by Tim Ellis, who's my boss. He was not at the NFL at the time, he was at Volkswagen and it's the Darth Vader spot. You know, I don't know if you know where the, where the little boy he's playing Darth Vader and at the end the dad turns on the car and he's like, oh my God, I love, love that spot. And when I interviewed with Tim that was like the first thing I

Damian Fowler: (03:44)

Wanted to just pivot a little bit. I saw an interview in the Hollywood reporter with uh, the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was headlined Hollywood's MVP. And in that piece he talks about how the NFL has embraced streaming, which you know is a topic we talk about a lot. And he was quoted as saying

Marissa Solis: (04:00)

The

Damian Fowler: (04:01)

Technology's changing, the platforms are changing, the economy is changing and we have to be ahead of that strategy at all times so that we are where our fans are and on the platforms they want to be on. Can you talk to us a little bit about the challenge

Marissa Solis: (04:12)

And

Damian Fowler: (04:13)

Opportunity of these streaming platforms that he's talking about

Marissa Solis: (04:17)

Really more of an opportunity. It really becomes about, like he said, being where our fans are and we know particularly Gen Z, they're not necessarily watching linear tv. They're not spending three and a half hours, you know, watching a game. And so that's why platforms like Google and YouTube and having Sunday ticket on there opens up an incredible way to distribute our content. Also it opens up the power of the creator economy for us because we can leverage a lot of YouTube's creators to create content to attract this audience. You think about all of the different things we've been able to do with that YouTube partnership, every club has a YouTube channel. We have our Spanish language NFL channel. So we've been able to do a lot with Google and YouTube. We also have our Thursday night football partnership with Amazon. So for the first time ever, this is the second year that a Thursday night a big platform game is completely streamed. We're now commanding on average 13 million viewers a week on a streaming platform. That's massive. I don't know if you guys know this, but this will be the first year in history that we create a Black Friday game on Amazon. So first time ever there's a Friday NFL game, it's on Amazon Prime but it's going to be free. So it's not behind the paywall. Anybody can join, anybody can stream it. So we think it's gonna be huge.

Damian Fowler: (05:38)

That's gonna be huge. Yeah. Wow. Another huge cultural force. Another

Marissa Solis: (05:42)

Huge cultural force. So now you have a Black Friday game, you know, it's a new watching occasion.

Ilyse Liffreing: (05:47)

What do you think overall about like streaming and live sports coming together and just captivating like whole new audiences? I know with the brand like the NFL, which everybody knows, it's kind of can be hard to like strike a balance between embracing like new preferences and habits of like younger consumers while also then maintaining the authenticity and tradition of a brand as like iconic as the NFL.

Marissa Solis: (06:12)

Yeah, of course. And it, it is the right balance and the beautiful thing is when you look at linear tv, even though you know you start to see some audiences leave linear, we still command the biggest audiences on linear, right? We just had our largest game ever on Sunday night with 28 million viewers. Now some of that may have been the Travis and Taylor Swift effect, but we're still commanding audiences on linear. However, when you look at the opportunity to do streaming, like I said, direct to consumer, we just launched our direct to consumer platform, NFL plus. And so you can also stream games on your mobile, you can look at statistics, you can look at lifestyle and stories, uh, of the players and really get much more involved in the game than just watching, you know, the traditional three hour game. There's a lot more there to, to see and learn about.

Ilyse Liffreing: (07:04)

Now part of your remit is to help diversify the marketing for the NFL or as you put it so nicely, future-proof the brand. I have read that 60% of the NFL audience is white and over 35 the America of the future however will be very young and multicultural. So how do you approach this challenge?

Marissa Solis: (07:23)

I think that stat that you read is probably about two years old and interestingly enough, that was one of the reasons I came to the NFL. In order for us to stay relevant in the future, we have to reflect the audiences that we serve. And as the world gets more multicultural as Gen Z and Jen A as they kind of come into being, we really have to embrace them and bring 'em in. So part of our strategy is to keep the fan base we have, but a big part of our strategy is to extend to those new audiences. So that includes, you know, gen Z and younger audiences, but also multicultural audiences, our Latino audience, our African American and Asian audience, our L-G-B-T-Q community. Like we really need to embrace them and bring them in to engage with a sport in a new way.

Damian Fowler: (08:11)

Can I just ask, how specifically do you try to engage those different communities?

Marissa Solis: (08:16)

Yeah, I think it's about meeting them where they are, both from a channel perspective, right? How they're watching, but also understanding how they engage with the game. They all engage with the game very, very differently. You know, our Latino audience is an example. The way they watch, the way they celebrate, the way they tailgate is very, very different. They bring in their traditions and so we wanna celebrate that. We've been doing a lot this year to really highlight Latino players 'cause people don't even realize we have 51 Latino players on the roster playing and each one of them has a very unique and different story. So you know, whether it's Fred Warner from the 49 ERs ERs who's a Mexican descent or young Colombian player, you know, who just got drafted in the league Rodriguez who plays for the Patriots. It's all about kind of bringing to life in a very different way to these audiences, uh, the game. And

Ilyse Liffreing: (09:09)

One of those audiences is women too. And the NFL has made a big effort towards getting more women involved in the game, both as staff and then as fans. What are some ways you're trying to connect your marketing to women?

Marissa Solis: (09:21)

Yeah, I think women, you know, are big part of our fan base. Almost 47% of our fan base are women. We have the highest women fan base percent of any league in the country and women love football, right? So it really is about engaging them in the game in a unique way, recognizing not just how they engage and watch the game, but also how they participate. I don't think people realize we have so many women champion players, right? Both flag football but also tackle. I just heard that there was the first ever high school girl that just got a scholarship to play tackle to be the kicker for a college team. So more and more women are participating, they're becoming coaches, trainers, scouts, you know, executives. So it's a great way to kind of see that level of participation. And of course, you know, we have to get back to Taylor and the swifty effect capturing this fan base, right? The swifties as you call them and really having the opportunity to educate them, bring them in, bring kind of that cultural fandom, the lifestyle, whether it's the music, the fashion, the food, all of those things are part of the NFL and part of the sport. So it just makes it richer and and more relevant.

Ilyse Liffreing: (10:37)

Do you see that Taylor Swift effect, if you will, kind of more as like a flash in the pan or do you think they'll have like a last engagement? Especially with women?

Marissa Solis: (10:45)

What I think is important for us is that we have a moment in time where swifties, as we call 'em, are paying attention. And so this is our moment to capture them and bring 'em into the sport so that they engage ongoing. Whether the Taylor Swift effect last or doesn't last, we wanna keep that fan base and we'll do so by again being culturally relevant, bringing in their life, their music, their fashion, the way they really wanna engage the game.

Damian Fowler: (11:13)

The NFL really is a cultural force and a lot of brands look to the NFL as sort of a beacon for sports across the media landscape. You know, I'm wondering how, you know, you approach distribution and partnerships in your marketing and what brands can learn from how you approach it.

Marissa Solis: (11:28)

I mean, again, it's really about being where the fans are. So every partnership matters, right? And we take every partnership very seriously. And so whether it's a partnership that has a lot of reach so that we reach a massive audience or maybe it's a partnership that will reach somebody different, whether it's in another country or a segment of, you know, the fan base that we haven't reached before. We have a very nascent platform right now as an example called Mundo, NFL. It is a podcast based platform and again, it's reaching a completely new audience and may not be as broad based as, you know, a Google or a YouTube, but it's still important for us 'cause we're reaching that fan base. So it's a balance of reach, very, very targeted, but just making sure that we are offering the content and distributing it out there to, you know, every corner of the fan base as I call it.

Damian Fowler: (12:22)

What kind of market research do you do to stay ahead of where fans are moving and the kind of things that they want to engage with and how that is evolving? Yeah,

Marissa Solis: (12:29)

We're very, very engaged in research 24 7, 3, 6 5. The very basic, you know, we do keep a pulse on how the league is doing with fans. We know perception, uh, we measure certain attributes, you know, are we inclusive, are we fun, are we engaging? And we measure them across all those audiences. And that is ongoing, right? In terms of culture, I wish I could tell you the, the formula, there really isn't one. It really is about having a very engaged team. As I mentioned, we have an incredible social and influencer team led by Ian Trombetta, which I gotta give them a shout out. They are incredible. They're in the culture and they hear things and they observe and they do a lot of social listening. And when something like Taylor Swift showing up to the game happens, even though we didn't know about it, they're on it immediately. And I think that's, that's where the success comes from. Where

Damian Fowler: (13:22)

Do you find inspiration in, in what's going on in the larger culture?

Marissa Solis: (13:26)

We like the balance of timeless and timely. You've gotta keep these timeless essence about you that creates your brand, but you also have to be really timely, right? I'll also say what inspires me at our brands with purpose, because we aren't just about the game, we transcend the game. We're such a big platform, we wanna make an impact to communities everywhere and we bring people together. We can uplift, you know, underserved communities. So when I see brands like Patagonia doing things, they aren't for necessarily for the profit of it, they're for the good of the community and the world. Those things inspire me as well.

Damian Fowler: (14:04)

You have a great deal of responsibility. It's one of the most powerful brands. Do you feel that sense of responsibility

Marissa Solis: (14:09)

Every single day? There's so many eyes on the league, anything that happens is talked about. We don't control the players, we don't control. When Taylor shows up to a stadium, we, we don't control it. It is an incredible sense of responsibility to try to at least shape the culture so that, you know, the message is a positive one and we make a positive impact, not a negative impact. So that, that's a tough one. Now,

Ilyse Liffreing: (14:36)

Earlier this year you announced that NFL expanded its global markets program. Can you tell us a bit about that and then what the marketing opportunity looks like internationally for American football?

Marissa Solis: (14:48)

Super exciting. This is probably one of the things I'm most excited about, about the league. You know, arguably we're the biggest sports and entertainment entity in the us. Not so much in the world. When you look and see the power of FIFA and, and the power of Formula One, like we want to the number one sports and entertainment entity in the world. Now we've expanded, we have 21 of our clubs have signed international rights in all sorts of countries. So everywhere from Ireland, Africa, you know, Brazil, uh, Spain. And so in the very, very near future, you're gonna start to see more and more international games, more and more of our clubs playing in the global arena. And of course, I I have to mention the Olympics, right? We are now in the Olympics for LA 28, which we'll see, you know, both men and women participating in our sport for the first time across the world. I

Damian Fowler: (15:46)

Read that you were, you studied to be, uh, an an ambassador.

Marissa Solis: (15:50)

I did, I did.

Damian Fowler: (15:51)

So this is an interesting, you know, turn of events for you.

Marissa Solis: (15:54)

It is, um, it's very ironic in very much a way. I feel like an, I'm an ambassador to the fan base and different communities. So it's been fun. Yeah,

Damian Fowler: (16:03)

I mean the NFL in a way it's a state unto itself.

Marissa Solis: (16:06)

You could say that. Yes, .

Ilyse Liffreing: (16:07)

Now the NFL is arguably the most sought after brand to partner and align advertising with, but it's also very seasonal. So how do you maintain engagement and relevance in the off season?

Marissa Solis: (16:18)

You know, it's funny you say that. It's absolutely not seasonal. We are 365 year round. I actually saw that come to life this year. We just got statistics back during the quote unquote off season in the month of June. We had over 200 million hours of content consumed. We were, I think the third league. And that's without any games or anything like that. So I think annually the stat is we're 45% of the sports conversation and only 2% of the games played in the us. That's a US number. And it's incredible, right? Because in the off season people are talking about the free agents who's gonna sign on what team, and then you get content like the quarterback series on Netflix. And now we've got partnerships with like, we have a partnership with Skydance to create stories and movies. Then you come have back together Saturday and training camps and then you have the preseason. So there actually really isn't an an off season anymore. I'm

Ilyse Liffreing: (17:18)

Sure that's changing with streaming too. 'cause you can just go

Marissa Solis: (17:21)

On content. Content is king, right? Content everywhere.

Ilyse Liffreing: (17:58)

One final question. In your view, what does the NFL look like in 2030?

Marissa Solis: (18:05)

I mean, I think, you know, the vision is that we are the pinnacle of entertainment around the world. And so that means amazing live sports, unpredictable seasons, right? Just like we have today. The game played in every country, and not just professionally on tv, but every country participating in the game of flag football, more Olympics, Netflix, or in the movie theaters, or much more storytelling around the incredible stories that this league represents. More diversity in the game, more diversity in the front office, in the coaching staff. So all, all good things, hopefully lots of impact.

Damian Fowler: (18:49)

And that's it for the current podcast. We'll be taking a break next week to celebrate Thanksgiving here in the us. But we'll be back at the end of the month with our guest, Jonathan Stringfield, the VP of Global Research and Marketing at Activision Blizzard

Jonathan Stringfield:

Gaming is increasingly going to be a hobby that is divorced from gaming devices virtually anywhere that there is a screen that's smart, there's probably gonna be an opportunity to play a game. 

Ilyse Liffreing: (19:02)

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 Loving Caliber. The current team includes Chris Brooklier and Kat Vesce.

Damian Fowler: (19:31)

And remember,

Marissa Solis: (19:32)

We aren't just about the game. We transcend the game. We're such a big platform. We wanna make an impact to communities everywhere.

Damian Fowler: (19:39)

I'm Damian

Ilyse Liffreing: (19:40)

And I'm Ilyse.

Damian Fowler: (19:41)

And we'll see you next time.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Zillow’s Beverly Jackson on simplifying the housebuying process through its marketing, and why working at the company has special importance for her as a Black woman.

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 Beverly Jackson, the VP of Brand and Product Marketing at Real Estate Company Zillow with

Damian: (00:17)

Over 212 million average monthly users is the country's number one real estate app and a website. In fact, Zillow is becoming a housing super app designed to help people find the home of their dreams.

Ilyse: (00:31)

Beverly is an award-winning marketer with two decades of experience managing global campaign for companies, including the Recording Academy where she delivered record breaking social engagement for the 54th Grammy Awards, Yahoo, MGM Resorts International and at Twitter before it became X.

Damian: (00:50)

We started by asking her about this impressive career journey

Beverly: (00:58)

As I still like to think that I am always sort of new and fresh faced to digital marketing 'cause I tend to be a digital first storyteller and a digital first brand person. I always think about two things. What is the brand looking to achieve and how are we thinking about growing? And then I think about how does that connect to culture? And so whether it was the Grammys or Yahoo or MG M resource as a hospitality brand or a sports betting band or something like Twitter, it's always about what is the connection to the customer? Is it digital first? How does it play in transforming or growing the brand or the business or its role or impact. Share a voice, share a wallet in the industry vertical. And then the connection to culture. I think it's very important how a brand connects to its customers through culture is such a powerful way to tell brand stories. That was important for all the work that I've done previous and it's certainly the way I think about my role here at Zillow.

Ilyse: (01:58)

Would you say that was basically the opportunity that Zillow kind of created for you that was so compelling on your end?

Beverly: (02:06)

The idea that Zillow helps consumers more and more consumers get home and that's what we're sort of working towards. There's not a, not a bigger brand moment in a consumer's life than sort of helping them to figure out what home means. 'cause it's such a personal experience and, and with Zillow sort of being the destination for the real estate industry, it's a beacon for all consumers. And it's sort of getting them from that idea of like idea dreaming about what home they want to actually getting into a home. So the brand is transforming, it's culturally relevant, it's significant to a specific population and to others it makes so much sense to me. So like when we think about like millennial, the millennial consumers, it was not an opportunity that I could easily ignore or walk away from.

Damian: (02:52)

Now Beverly, I wanna ask you, you know, buying a home has always kind of been a complex process. To what extent would you say that the tech has speeded things up or maybe simplified that whole process?

Beverly: (03:02)

The idea is that buying a house, especially your first house is gnarly. Like it's so intense, it's so intense, it's so many moving parts, it's so confusing. But then we have this large generation of sort of digital first consumers that expect consumer tech to be a utility. The tech has to be easy and it has to demystify the complicated process. It has to serve the customer's needs to their ultimate goal, but it has to meet them where they are. Zillow as a consumer tech company, as a financial tech company, as a real estate company is making it easier, which is why we're so well situated for this idea of a housing super app where a consumer, regardless of where they are in the process, can come into the Zillow ecosystem and find a way to answer the questions that they need and help guide themselves through the process. 'cause the goal is not just to help them search for a great home or to talk to real estate agents before they find the perfect agent for them, but you've gotta tour a lot of houses. The housing super app concept in addition to financing and figuring out what you can afford and then financing it and then closing the deal, signing all the papers and actually getting into your home. Zillow is ideally situated to do that.

Damian: (04:22)

Just to break that down a little bit further, you know there are other property search engines out there, but Zillow goes above and beyond that. What is the differentiating factor at Zillow? And you mentioned some of those just now

Beverly: (04:34)

Customers are a north star without question. So the idea of customers being the driving force behind what we do and how we serve information back to them, meeting them where they are, offering them real tangible tools, techniques, information and solutions that meet their needs. And then also our partners having access to some of the best real estate agents in the business. The people who are the best of Zillow.

Ilyse: (05:02)

Now, how would you say like home buying reflects what's going on overall in society? I know right now for instance, interest rates are really high. It's, it's pretty expensive to buy a home. The data must, you know, really tell a story of what's going on overall in the US and around the world. How does Zillow tap into basically that culture too of like home buying?

Beverly: (05:24)

I think for me, this goes back to sort of the origins of Zillow. What Rich Barton our founder wanted to do was make sure that information was available to everyone. That there was transparency in how the listings were available, who could see them, how, how much a house was being sold for or how much a house was worth. Using transparency and information and access to information to empower consumers to help them better understand what we're doing and to help actually create a seamless, frictionless system for them to get home. I think that's the magic combination that is important to consumers. Whether interest rates are 2.2% or whether they're 8%, unfortunately

Ilyse: (06:12)

Now with all that going on is now the right time to buy?

Beverly: (06:17)

I think now is the right time for the right consumers. We have so many economists and data scientists on staff and they're always looking to monitor the markets to understand what product offerings are right and get that information back out to our customers so that customers are empowered and they can decide for themselves. And then when you partner them with a great agent and you can help get them the best financing for their situations, it becomes more likely that more people will find it the right time for them.

Damian: (06:52)

I'm curious, you know, there must be some interesting insights into what people want, you know, weird homes, homes with bowling alleys, I think you've talked about. Could you talk a little bit about what the data tells you and why it's fundamental in a way to the way you market? Zillow,

Beverly: (07:07)

Our latest consumer housing trends report shows that half of the buyers are doing it for the very first time. They need lots of information. And so it's about creating product and information for them. But we also know that the median home buyer in the US are partnered or married. They have at least some college education and they're most likely to buy a home in the southern part of the United States. So making sure that we have the right information and the right tools for those consumers wildly important. But we also know that half of those people have kids under the age, age of 18 and most of them are under the age of five, which means that they need room for those families. And so we have a sense of like the kinds of homes that are going to come up in their search and creating personalized options and search options for them is important. There are no homes with bowling alleys in New York currently on the site that I'm aware of, you know, , but, but I think that there are some bowling alley homes out there.

Damian: (08:10)

You mentioned your brand campaign. Could you talk about the concept behind the latest one?

Beverly: (08:16)

It was really a lot of fun for the team at Zillow to lean into this idea that Zillow is a verb and that people are always Zillow and they're on the spot. I mean people spend, I think it's close to like 40 minutes on the app and on the website dreaming and being aspirational. And so the idea was how could we in a fun way, in a disruptive manner, use culture and culturally significant moment to connect people to their dreams and help it become a reality. And so the campaign spends a lot of time of breaking through barriers and noise for consumers about, they're not alone. It's super complicated, it's a complex experience, but Zillow can actually help you do all of these things that you need. And what you can count on us for is finding a weird home with a bowling alley or a wall of uh, , a fish tank and a wall.

Beverly: (09:14)

But it's also that you're gonna need to figure out what you can afford. You're gonna need to get pre-qualified. You're gonna need to get approved. You need to be able to, on your schedule, find an opportunity to tour the home, um, without having to talk to 15 people when you wanna be able to do it, when you wanna be able to do it. And so bringing that all together and that was making this a digital first storytelling experience and that's how the campaign came to life. Like there's lots of big iconic, thoughtful moments about changing the way consumers think about the concept of Zillow, but also presenting them with a suite of end-to-end solutions. Breaking that up and making it accessible to them. And then I think the piece that I'm super excited about that I was most excited about, about the campaign is how we're showing up in culture in unexpected places. And whether it's the NBA finals or in a movie premiere or through partnerships or your favorite podcast, but it's going where our customers are and having a conversation with them in a way that's meaningful to them. But it breaks through and it sort of disrupts the expectations of who we are and what they want from us.

Damian: (10:32)

I wanted to ask you off the back of that, you know, about the channels that you're exploring. 'cause clearly, you know, the customers are everywhere from connected TV to social media, to retail media even. So how do you think about those channels as a marketer? And a second part of that is, you know, who are you reaching? Who is your target audience?

Beverly: (10:52)

This campaign was really targeted at first time home buyers, right? And for them we think about that as a very millennial centric audience. And so we know that millennials are multicultural. We know that they're rooted in purpose. We know that they're mobile, so we know lots of things about millennials. We want it to be in places where those consumers were, right. And so we thought about connected television, we thought about uh, podcasts, we thought about movie premieres, we thought about sports as culture drivers and music as culture drivers. The other thing that's important to this as a concept is not just being national, but being local. I think people were super surprised to see us show up in a big way in a lot of our important local markets. Because remember, home buying and the real estate market is a national concept, right? And technology makes it accessible to everyone, which is Rich's first sort of democratizing information and making it accessible to everyone.

Beverly: (11:50)

But buying a home is a neighborhood experience. It's a local experience. People move street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood from one dog park to one school district to another. And that's very much a local experience. And so having the content and the creative and the storytelling go from top of funnel awareness to transaction and conversion at the bottom of funnel, and then having it go from national to local to neighborhood where your agent who knows the most about your community can help get you home. That was a really unexpected part of the campaign, I think for most people to see Zillow show up.

Damian: (12:30)

I also wanted to ask you, as you look across the United States, is there a prime buying season for real estate? And the reason I ask that is because I was looking around the Tri-state area and people were saying, oh, all the houses come on the market in May because people wanna move out of the area once their kids graduate high school and suddenly there's a surge of houses on the market. I wanted to find out if this is anecdotal or whether this is a reality, you know, in other words, , is there a moment in the year when real estate kind of booms?

Beverly: (13:02)

I think it's not completely anecdotal. There are definitely buying seasons. Um, no one, I'm from Chicago originally. No one wants to move in December. I think. Um, it's the idea of, uh, being in a walkup and having to carry down, uh, a very heavy dresser or an awkward sofa seems, um, not ideal. And if you live in Phoenix, you probably don't wanna move when it's 120 degrees, but people move when it's appropriate for their lives. There is definitely a buying season. And that's why for us, this campaign work that we're doing was so important. That's why it's really important that this work be bold, that it stand out, that it interrupt, that it disrupt so that people see it and know that Zillow is there to help them. And so we've, we've taken every step that we can take to make the cyclical nature of home buying as easy as possible.

Ilyse: (13:57)

Now let's end by putting, uh, this spotlight back on you a little bit. Um, you put purpose at the center of everything you do. Um, how does this role basically align with your values?

Beverly: (14:09)

The idea and the very promise of Zillow as a brand to help get more and more consumers home resonated with me at a very deep and meaningful level. Like we do great work, we have access to great data. We're a leading iconic bespoke brand. But as a woman of color and for someone who knows the importance and the significance of home ownership as a way to create generational wealth, as a place to feel safe, as a place to build something significant and rewarding for your life, you want that to be free of discrimination. You wanna have access to the homes that best meet your needs. That's in the core of who Zillow is. It's in their DNA. And so for me it was so personally significant and in addition to that, it was really important for me to want to be a part of evolving this brand.

Beverly: (15:04)

And I couldn't be more honored and more humbled by the opportunity to lead this brand and to lean into our brand promise. I love the idea of using consumer tech to help make it easy for people. I'm excited about the role that evolving Tech will help. The idea of building a housing Super app and creating an end-to-end connected experience for consumers that need access to information, couldn't be more excited to be a part of that. Um, it is the honor of a lifetime, quite frankly, for somebody like me who lives in a purpose-based marketing environment.

Damian: (15:43)

And that's it for the current podcast. Stay tuned because next time we'll be speaking with Marissa Solis, the SVP of Global and Consumer Marketing for the NFL.

Ilyse: (15:53)

It's a really good lesson for marketers. Culture happens at the speed of light and you just have to be ready. You know, we like to say or think we create culture, but culture is organic and embedded. Culture just happens and we just happen to be ready at the moment. The current podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by love and caliber. And the current team includes Chris Leyer and Catie. And remember,

Beverly: (16:20)

It's going where our customers are and having a conversation with them in a way that's meaningful to them. But it breaks through and it sort of disrupts the expectations of who we are and what they want from us.

Damian: (16:35)

I'm Damien and

Ilyse: (16:37)

I'm my lease. And

Damian: (16:38)

We'll see you soon.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

VML CEO Jon Cook on how the agency came up with Wendy’s now iconic social media presence, the innovations he hopes to see in the streaming ad space and commerce on Instagram.

Episode Transcript

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

Ilyse: (00:01)

I'm Ilyse Liffreing. And

Damian: (00:02)

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse: (00:03)

And welcome to this edition of the current podcast.

Damian: (00:10)

This week we sit down with John Cook, the newly minted global CEO of VML.

Ilyse: (00:16)

VML is the new name for what is now one of the world's biggest creative companies. It's the result of WPPs merger of two of its creative agencies, Wunderman Thompson, and VMLY and R. The new company will employ 30,000 people in 64 markets.

Damian: (00:34)

WPP says, the merger is about simplifying business and unlocking scale for its clients, which includes blue chip companies like Colgate, Palm Olive, Dell Ford, Microsoft, Nestle, and Coca-Cola.

Ilyse: (00:45)

John Cook joined the agency back in 1996 when it only had 30 employees, which back then was just called VMLA full circle moment. He starts by telling us about the significance of the merger announced in October.

Damian: (01:00)

And one note, the first part of this podcast was recorded live at advertising week, New York. So John's audio changes a few minutes into the podcast.

Jon: (01:11)

I think it represents a reaction to, um, to several things, a reaction for holding companies like WPP to be simpler and easier to access. These are, these are two great companies within WPP, but they're two big companies. And that that can create confusion or complexity in within WPP. I think we've always simplified that well, but this takes that to the next level. This is a radical move in terms of simplicity. So I think it represents the thirst that marketers have for a simpler holding company landscape. A simpler WPP absolutely does that. It represents, I think, I think a statement about where the future of marketing is going. That a lot of people are pursuing you on one level. You've got consultants, you know, big consultancies pursuing creativity and trying, they're trying to acquire it, hire it, build it, and, and all having various levels success with that.

Jon: (01:57)

This represents a move to have the scale of some of the biggest consultancies, but with a creativity that I think a lot of them are really trying to have. We will have that right from the beginning. It represents, uh, a statement about where a lot of advertising agencies who are trying to stay relevant are going, meaning a lot of advertising are fantastic creative organizations, but they're all grappling with how do I add commerce, CRM, loyalty, technology, data. We have all that. When you put these two things together, what what I hope, and I think what we hope is that we are jumping right to that place where ad agencies and consultants are both trying to go from two different directions. We go there right now from the jump globally with, uh, two companies that already know each other really well, and it's a lot easier to say.

Damian: (02:38)

And so in, in, in effect, it's driven by the changing economics of advertising.

Jon: (02:43)

Yes, I think I I don't think it's solely driven by the change, the economics of advertising. I think there are economic advantages to being simpler. 'cause you can, you can be more efficient in, in how you deliver your, your agency. You can be, you know, and you can offer a lot. But I think it's, I think it's more driven by a fusion that marketers are looking for, not to speak for all marketers, but I think they struggle with how do I get brand storytelling and the the stories I wanna tell my by brand? How do I get that closer and closer to my product, the customer experience? And if I've got that right as a marketer, how do I then put that closer to the way people buy my product or transact or make a commitment to me as a brand? We're not perfect, and it won't be perfect right off the bat, but we have a really good chance to be the agency that can unite brand experience, customer experience, and commerce. Those three things aren't in our ingredients because they're fun or because we like those words, they're in our ingredients because that's the trilogy that marketers are looking for to, this is the absolute answer. For some people

Damian: (03:41)

May be a little bit

Jon: (03:42)

Sad about saying

Damian: (03:43)

Goodbye to some of those famous, famous names.

Jon: (03:45)

Like,

Damian: (03:46)

Why

Jon: (03:46)

And not

Damian: (03:46)

What, what do you say to those people?

Jon: (03:48)

I'm obviously in the camp of believing that evolution and simplicity is necessary to, to, to kind of go forward, but I have a ton of, um, respect and empathy for the fact. There's a lot of, uh, big brands that have built this to this place that we, that we are in now. And I think all you can do as a leader is just do two things. You can respect the heritage. It's not just heritage for heritage sake, heritage of capability. There is greatness in all those companies. It still exists in each of those companies in the, in the new company. As much as we're gonna respect that heritage and, and, and use all those ingredients to build our capability, at some point we have to make it about the future. So it's about informing the future with, with all that heritage. So it's, it's not just heritage for heritage sake, it's heritage to inform a, a future. And that's a responsibility we have to, um, you know, you know, in any company, but certainly an agency, you're trying to create a future for people to do what they want to do, and you have to make decisions about what gives you the best chance to do that and do that powerfully. And this does that.

Ilyse: (04:47)

Now, we, as both previous journalism majors find this really interesting that you actually started your career as a journalism major at the University of Missouri in 1993. In 2018, you delivered even the commencement address at the School of Graduation Ceremony. So I'd love to know what words of wisdom you shared about like what journalism really meant to you and maybe how it has even like shaped you as a marketer. Uh,

Jon: (05:14)

I had worked at Disney World for a while, and I remember some of, some of the advice I gave was, you know, you're, you're journalists and it's all about facts and, and, um, you know, this story, but it said, never lose in, in all the story and all the facts. You know, never lose the ability to add some pixie dust to things. Uh, especially those of you who are going into strategic communications. The meaning that, you know, we should be the exciting part of someone's day and, and the, and never lose the idea of what Disney World does, which is they exceed these already crazy high expectations. And what can you do in your career to bring your own pixie dust to every situation? So any interaction with you or your brand has that pixie dust. And I think journalism today, it's, it's even more critical to have a little bit of a brand and to have a, an expectation that a journalist has a, has a point of view and has a brand and, and, uh, like it or not. That's, that's, that's critical.

Ilyse: (06:02)

Beyond that, do you have like a guiding like set of principles that you adhere to maybe even keeps you up at night?

Jon: (06:11)

It's pretty easy, which is just show up and follow up. It's served me well. The gravity of how you show up and how you follow up changes through the years. But it, in your early in your career, it might just be, Hey, be at meetings, be present, be in the office and follow up. Be the one who you people count on to when you're in a meeting, something happens as you become the, you know, like ACEO of a company. Your show up is more than just being there. Your show up is presence and, and bringing gravitas and bringing trust to a situation, you know, and I think we all can use the positions we have to, to show up and follow up at different levels, but show up and follow up and just keep that advice going.

Damian: (06:45)

What's interesting about your role as a, as a creative person is that interactivity, and you mentioned you were with the world's biggest brands, including Coca-Cola, Colgate Palm, olive Ford, Microsoft, the US Navy even, and, and Wendy's, you know, can you tell us a little bit more about what makes for a winning brand campaign? You know, obviously that pixie dust is, is part of it,

Jon: (07:07)

This will sound cliche, but finding that cultural resonance, the cultural relevance, the cultural interaction point that that makes a campaign go from being an announcement or a set of awareness to something that someone can participate in. And I don't just mean content co-creation, but I mean something that enters, enters people's lives and, and becomes part of them and or makes them feel something and take an action. Wendy's is a, is a long time great client, we've worked for 'em for 10 years and Wendy's was always kind of an old fashioned, maybe your grandfather or grandmother's brand, and we said, let's give Wendy a voice. Let's give her some sass invented this idea of, of how much sass Wendy would have, would be different by medium and by channel, but she would always be a little sassy to the point where then online when and on social media, Wendy would start to, to roast people.

Jon: (07:52)

Meaning kind of take take aim at somebody and not in a, not in a mean hearted way, but this idea of roasting someone. I say all that to say that it became as elaborate as we invented a, a national roast day holiday where then now every brand or a lot of brands around the world then on that day write Wendy and say, roast me. You know, so it might be Aflac saying, Hey, Wendy's roast me, and then Wendy, our, our Twitter will come back with a picture of a, you know, a cooked duck to add to that, that we are, Wendy's is a person, Wendy's is a, there's a name in the name. So we would be remiss not to have some personality, and then we'd be double remiss not to have personality that had some zing to it. So then you establish, okay, here's a place that can be believable. And I think it was also kind of a position that allowed Wendy's to be ageless. You don't know if Wendy's what age she is really, and we could, we could attach a personality that could kind of flex be a little more, a little more SaaS on Twitter, a little friendlier Wendy on Pinterest and everything in between. And it gave us a lot of flexibility. So yeah, it was, it was coming, there was an opportunity space in the market and we just totally filled it and we stayed with it for a decade.

Damian: (08:55)

How do you sort of like know when you've got your finger on something, how do you stay there? How do you stay relevant? How do you keep up with what's going on in the culture?

Jon: (09:05)

Oftentimes there's a, there's an interaction with a brand that's unintended or emerges organically. The more brave or the more aware brands are, are tapping into that. You see some of the work for Ford right now in the US is all about being from America and doubling down on America, but the level of volume that they were seeing online, the level of volume they're seeing and the passion out there, that's, that's something we need to not just respond to in social, but but double down into. And I think it's a good example of listening and, and, and kind of taking the cue from the way people are interacting with a brand.

Ilyse: (09:36)

Um, and obviously you've been in this career for like three decades now. To what extent has the nature of digital media changed anything for, for instance, I know creativity is definitely still premium, but there's such a different cadence to the ad calendar these days. Um, could you talk a little bit about that?

Jon: (09:56)

Spending time with a brand, entertaining yourself, educating yourself and shopping have all come together into one paradigm for each of us, no matter how the platforms evolve? That's what's the most exciting thing to me. And it's, it's actually how we're trying to build the agency. Because if you think about your own behavior, let's just take Instagram for example. You're, you know, you're, you're going to Instagram probably to entertain yourself. You end up buying something whether you need it or not. You're, you're gonna buy something you've educated your best self about a brand you didn't know. And you've gone deep on a whole new cultural thing that came into your life. You just went there to, to kind of kill time. And I think 20 years ago, my advertising moments were my ad moments, my shopping was my shopping. And I just love, I mean I I I'm sure you both experience this, it's, it's all coming together.

Ilyse: (10:36)

Why is following consumer behavior in this way connected to building a relevant agency? I know your tagline is all about like connected brands.

Jon: (10:46)

If you follow that trend, the idea of those things converging, you would build your agency completely different. And so a couple years ago we invested heavily in something that's not in a lot of ad agencies. This is just one example, but deep, deep global commerce and shopping capabilities. And so I, I hope we're doing it the right way, but that investment in an agency, an ad agency is uncommon. The reason we did it is the answer to your question, which was, if the way we're telling a brand story or inviting people to experience a brand is gonna quickly meet the ability, if we do our job on that, we're gonna have somebody wanting to make a commitment to that brand by buying something, joining something subscribing to something. And it's amazing, it took this long for people to realize that if you do a good enough job in your brand communications, you're going to have somebody who wants to, to take an action. So as agencies, I think we should be building in that, that capability. Other agencies may look at a different way, but if it's a quest for relevance, I don't think you can be a relevant agency without the ability to both tell the story and then complete the task of of, of being able to transact.

Ilyse: (11:48)

What about when it comes to like, streaming and like connected tv? How are you guys looking at that channel?

Jon: (11:54)

One way that we're really hoping happens is that those channels get way more advanced than they are right now about the way that advertising could be present. So Netflix, you know, would, would now sell a, an advertising model where you can pay a premium amount of money to have advertisement as the advertising agency or the story creators. Where I think we're lacking and we would like to see the biggest progress there is being way more creative with the formats you're able to to, to do. So I, I'm hoping as streamers get more and more into advertising, they're not just plopping 32nd TV formats on the front of, you know, a show you might watch on Netflix or just interrupting it four times throughout the hour for 62nd TV spots. There will be a huge miss. I do think a lot of 'em are going that direction first because it's just the nature of what's easy and convenient. But there will be a streaming platform that will break that up and allow brands to tell stories in a unique way and, and create entertainment on their platforms that lives next to that will be the, the platform that I will love. And that's what we're keeping our eye out for.

Ilyse: (12:52)

What about, um, when it comes to like shoppable ad formats on streaming, do you feel like there's a future there? I know it's kind of seems to be gaining some speed.

Jon: (13:01)

I was watching Billions the other day of shows, you know, I dunno if you watch billions or not, but you can actually go in and then see everything. 'cause you know, you liked that show for the, the glamor of all the, the clothes and the, you know, the, the cool settings and then you can kind of go in and see what everything costs that particular character and you're not able to then go buy it yet, but that next step would be able to go buy it or find out. And a lot of the stuff on there is pretty dreamy in terms of price, but as you could do that for things that pro that cost any amount and actually go see what everybody's wearing, this, this exists, it's just not mainstream yet. But I I love that idea. I think it's to where you're, where you're taking that question. I love the, the future there.

Damian: (13:36)

I'm wondering if there are any themes in advertising that sort of are changing with the culture and the digital culture too. I mean, we've had an important shift, you know, recently with brands marketing with Purpose. I'm kind of very interested in that relationship, you know, the underlying zeitgeist in a way and how that finds its way into ads. Is there anything that you've noticed that we could, we could put our finger on and say that's very now

Jon: (13:59)

Advertising agencies or brands? The word storyteller gets thrown out really liberally, you know, like it's, it's such a sexy word and it sounds really cool, but often I look at the work of our industry and including our own agency sometimes, and you're not really telling stories sometimes we're not living up to the sexiness of that word. The better brands are starting to, to truly tell story. I mean literally tell stories by creating content and creating entertainment and creating that right balance between, um, being entertained and, and getting across brand principles. And when you do that, you create something entertaining enough to hold a consumer's attention, then you've kind of earned the right to be as purposeful as you're, as you're describing the trend, you almost have to earn your right as a brand to talk about your purpose by creating a, a forum of something gripping and entertaining or, or compelling to then put that purpose through. Because I think purpose without that comes off a little preachy, uh, a little self-serving or a lot self-serving.

Damian: (14:55)

I I saw a new Kantar study recently that highlighted the importance of humor in advertising and said that after several years of super serious heartfelt purpose-driven ads, humor is making sort of welcome return. How and wise humor such an important brand building tool.

Jon: (15:09)

I mean, candidly, I, I, first of all, I miss humor. I think that notion is correct. I don't think it's coming back fast enough though. I think the, the industry advertising industry has so many award shows and so many award platforms, and I, I love that it's a chance to get your work out there, creates great work, creates great community, creates great awareness of the great work that agencies are doing. But some of it has gotten a little bit to the point where the best way to grip a, a jury or to grip somebody judging work is to do something that makes you cry or that makes you feel, uh, like you're saving the world. And so the work tends to go that way. It's really powerful, but that just, it just doesn't lend itself to any humor. It's the, the everybody taking themselves so seriously trying to create work that, that saves the world. I'm all for saving the world, but can we have some fun while we're talking about that? And I think, I think award shows in general, I'm not, not talking about anyone in particular need to do a better job of rewarding humor.

Ilyse: (16:05)

In 2022, you had a near death experience and as you told Adweek, you called it a story of either angels or coincidences. Can you tell us what happened and how it changed you?

Jon: (16:20)

Really healthy heart, really healthy, um, generally speaking and was running one night and, and basically died for eight or nine minutes without a pulse, uh, because of, um, a real freak show arrhythmia that I'd had for two weeks without knowing it. Just real, nothing hereditary or genetic about me. Just an odd thing, a very rare thing that happens to me. I was running at seven 30 at night on the street where there's not many people, but that particular moment, um, among other people, a uh, cardio doctor drove by. Like, like I told Adweek in that story you're talking about, if you had to write up who would drive by when you were dead with a heart thing, who would you want to drive by? Literally the exact description of who I'd want was this, um, cardio doctor who was, by the way, was coming home two hours early that particular night to see his brother who was in town and happened to be driving by still in his scrubs.

Jon: (17:09)

It's, it's just awesome that he, that he did that. The coincidence or the angel thing, somewhere in between all that was this guy stopping and not only, not only stopping somebody who stopped and used the skills that they possess, because what I've learned since it's one thing to know CPR, but there's a whole other level of then the bravery that it takes to notice somebody down to go use that CPR you've probably actually never used in your entire life. Put your hands on somebody's chest, crush their sternum, put your mouth on their mouth. It all sounds really good in the textbook. It all sounds good in the class, but somebody actually has to go do that. And then because somebody did that, you know, I'm still here.

Ilyse: (17:44)

How would you say though, that it has like, changed your life since that incident?

Jon: (17:49)

If you think about any friendship family member you have, if you just stop right now and thought, what was my last interaction with all them, you know, would it, would it be the right place with every relationship that was important to you? It's probably not, it's probably a fight with this person, probably a, a Matt experience with this person. Probably maybe a, I love you to, to this person, but it would be a mixed bag. Not to be too dramatic, but it really makes you think, man, what if I did die right there that, you know, and my daughter, my third daughter hadn't seen her in two months, or one of my daughters I saw the week before and had the best weekend we've ever had, you know, and everything in between makes me really think every now and I do take a quick inventory about where I am with every relationship and, you know, may maybe it forces you to say something that you wouldn't normally say in a good way or appreciate somebody a little bit more. I have determined it's way more fun to be alive than dead. That's my other takeaway, .

Ilyse: (18:37)

And that's it for the current podcast. Stay tuned because next time we'll be speaking with Beverly Jackson, the VP of Brand and product marketing at Zillow,

Speaker 4: (18:48)

Going where our customers are and having a conversation with them in a way that's meaningful to them breaks through and it sort of disrupts the expectations of who we are and what they want from us. The current

Damian: (19:02)

Podcast is produced by Wonder Media Network. Our theme is by loving caliber. And the current podcast team includes Chris Brookley and Kat Vessey.

Ilyse: (19:09)

And remember,

Jon: (19:10)

Never lose in, in all the story and all the facts, you know, never lose the ability to add some pixie dust.

Ilyse: (19:16)

I'm Ilyse. And

Damian: (19:17)

I'm Damian and

Ilyse: (19:18)

We'll see you next time.

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