BrandKnew February 2021 by Brand Knew

Branding matters. Because branding matters.

Published by 02.21#100

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Dear Friends: It is the month of Valentine and we have tried our best to put together an issue that you would love. We reflect on the best marketing moments of 2020 that can inspire us in this new year. Continuing on the same lines, we do a crystal ball gazing into the trends that will dominate marketing in 2021. For brands wanting to engage meaningfully and longer with customers, offering convenience remains at the fulcrum. Understand better in this edition.Privacy and permission issues have raked up a lot of debate over the last couple of years and the current one being if our DNA data can be used to sell products. Know more in this issue. Netflix has championed customer experience and made it its biggest marketing ammunition. REED sorry read the feature here without much haste. The spirit of entrepreneurship is being kindled all over with job losses and downsizing becoming rampant in the last year. We take a peek at understanding how creatives can best start a new business of their own. As the saying goes, “ Ideas are aplenty, ideas without action are regrets “we offer some tips that will help you take your ideas off the ground in this edition. Email Subject Lines may not be getting the respect and attention it deserves, hence we thought of bringing it to the fore- Why CMOs should be understanding more about Email Subject Lines. ABM has been the flavor (of the never ending) season for a while now. Without being top down, we examine and share what Account Based Marketing is and what it is not. Being human is de rigueur for brands wanting to convey, connect and captivate heart and mind. A primer that capsules of how brands can be more human in their marketing and PR efforts is shared here. Business and brand owners in 2021 will need to understand a lot more and a lot different from what they were using/doing in the previous years. Decipher more of what will be required. There is ample more actionable intelligence to soak in and I leave it to you and your prudence to distill the essence. Thank you for tuning in.Till the next, my very best! And a Very Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Suresh Dinakaran @ISDGlobalDubai

@Brandknewmag

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Managing Editor: Suresh Dinakaran Creative Head/Director Operations: Pravin Ahir Magazine Concept & Design/ New Media Specialist: Mufaddal Joher Chief Strategy Director: Rishi Mohan Brand Engagement and Outreach Specialist: Anuva Madan Chief Country Man, India: Rohit Unni Brand Trends and Research Architect: Meeta Pendse Revenue Growth Architect: Ritu Dey Country Head, Australia: Norbert D’Souza Country Head, UK: Sagar Patil Performance Marketing Architect: Ryan Govindan Video Content Specialist: Vinayak Sivaprasad

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CONTENTS A Creative’s Guide To Starting A New Business For brands, convenience is non-negotiable Marketing Wrapped: Top Marketing Moments of 2020 Business Owners: What 2021 will require of us Trends that will dominate marketing in 2021 Account-based marketing: It’s not what you think it is Seven Ways to Show Up Human in Your PR and Marketing Efforts Effie analysis: How premium brands use marketing to survive recessions We Need a Better Algorithm ‘Ideas Are Nothing; Doing Is Everything’: 5 Tips For Getting Your Creative Project Off The Ground Customer Experience at Netflix: 6 lessons we can all learn from! What CMOs Need to Know About Email Subject Lines Should Your DNA Data Be Used to Sell Products? The CMO as therapist: Marketing chiefs take on more intimate workplace role in pandemic Opinion: From ‘Ok Boomer’ To ‘Ok Brand’—How To Align With Gen Z’s Social Conscience Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Could End Up Bankrupt for These Reasons, According to Specialist Effective channel strategies move people and grow brands It’s About Time: Six Tried-and-True Ways to Extract Content From Your SMEs Book, Line & Sinker

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A CREATIVE’S GUIDE TO STARTING A NEW BUSINESS By Kelly Bethke

Have an idea but don’t know where to start? Here’s a step-by-step guide.

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Thinking about crafting a new business with concern for the

Use symbols and draw pictures within the map if you’d like.

larger systems at play–all while considering your personal

Some people like to transfer their finished map to a “cleaner”

bandwidth and well-being–can feel pretty daunting. For this

digital version. This free tool called MindMup can help you

reason, I work with individuals and teams in their early days

build a mind map right in your browser.

to explore what forming a business can and will look like for them. For people who go to biz school, the steps to getting a business off the ground are laid out. For the rest, it can feel completely overwhelming, or worse, it can feel a little bit like selling out. The good news is that formalizing a business can actually be a highly creative–and even energizing– undertaking.

Brian Weller introduced me to “Massive Mind Mapping,” and I can’t tell you how much of a game changer this has been. I now use this method to take meeting notes, explore new ideas, and help others to develop their thoughts. It also allows your brain to remember so much more of what you’re exploring than if you simply take traditional notes. Mind mapping includes elements of Systems Thinking, which is sort

As a consultant specializing in business innovation and

of the old-school version of Design Thinking. If this piques

sustainability, I work with people every day who are looking to

your interest at all, check out Donella Meadows’s work.

turn their work or ideas into a functioning business. Although they’re all smart and experienced in their particular field,

Step 3: Make an empathy map

most of them need help mapping out the process, making a

As you consider who your business’s customers will be,

business plan, and kicking it all into action. Over the years,

making an empathy map will allow you to easily explore

my consulting work has revealed a pattern for the building

a potential customer’s experience from a sensory and

blocks of a successful business. If you’re considering starting

behavioral standpoint. Consider this process early market

a new venture or taking your work to the next level, but feel

research, and also a method to imagine how you might

unsure about the steps, I hope this guide will get you going.

thoughtfully connect with future clients or customers.

THE IDEATION PHASE

Once you’ve thoroughly fleshed out your business idea

Step 1: Answer a few key questions

through an empathy map and mind map, you still may find

As you think about getting a business idea off the ground,

“what now?” feeling, or a momentary lack of confidence.

considering a few specifics can help lead you through the ideation process. Make some space to write your early ideas down, and get started by answering these questions: 1. Who are you, and what will your business offer? You can

some gaps in your planning. This may give you sort of a This is normal. Really going for it and making your business official will give you a feeling of credibility, but on the flip side, it leaves you vulnerable to the fact that you won’t know everything right off the bat, and even to the possibility of

take this literally, or have a little fun with your answer to

failing.

this one.

Yep. Failure happens. People fail all the time, but when we

2. How are you different? Brainstorm all the ways your business offering will be distinct from others out there. 3. Are you filling a need, solving a problem, or creating something beautiful? Get clear on your offering. 4. Who are you selling to? Identifying your ideal client or customer is essential to planning the launch of a new business.

choose to see it as feedback for how we can improve or change, it really doesn’t sting so much. All the greats have failed. So go ahead and try for greatness, it’s worth failing for. CREATING A BUSINESS PLAN Step 1: Get clear on a few key points Once you’ve gone through the ideation phase for your

Keep working on your answers to the above questions until

business, drafting a business plan will help you sort out and

you feel good about them, because everything you write

get more specific on many aspects of your business idea.

down will help you in the following steps.

Here are a few key ideas to consider including in your

Step 2: Get all your ideas out with a mind map A helpful approach for the ideation phase is “mind mapping,” a free-flowing process for thinking through the bigger picture of your business. To make a mind map, you’ll start with your core business idea in the center of a large piece of

business plan (and, good news: Much of what you worked on in the ideation phase will be helpful here): • What do you do that people want to pay you for? What is your key asset? What is your advantage that will draw in customers?

paper, and then add branches exploring and connecting the

• How do you know that your product is fulfilling a need

various ideas and plans you have for your business–all by

or want? Some simple market research will help you

free association (i.e., don’t think too hard about it; instead,

answer this. Look at other people or companies who

just let everything flow out of your mind and onto the page).

offer something similar and take note of what seems to

attract their customers. • Who are your customers and where will you find them? What are their behaviors and activities? • Who are you up against and what can you learn from them? This will open up the opportunity for more market research. Keep an open mind as you learn from your competitors and imagine how you might improve upon their offering.

YouTube videos. Here’s a pretty good BMC walkthrough that includes a downloadable PDF. For those looking to build a nonprofit, this one’s for you. And, if you’d like to make a more illustrative BMC, here’s how. When I make a BMC, I like to make boxes in painter’s tape on a large wall or white board and use Post-it Notes to start. This makes it easy to pull things off, add them in other places, and get input from multiple people at once. Then, once I feel good about where everything stands, I type it up. The BMC

• What trends or upcoming changes might impact your

is never 100% “final,” because it’s meant to be an evolving

offering? It’s valuable to do some research and think

document that can be updated as your business grows or

about the long-term position of your service or product.

changes.

Try to be hypothetical and forward-thinking here.

As you work on your BMC, it’s always a good idea to invite

• What are the different paths you could take to find

others to contribute ideas to your draft. Get feedback from

customers? Think about all the ways you can reach a

people you respect, and from those with differing experiences

potential customer. This could be social media outreach,

and perspectives. It’s okay to have a few gaps or blanks here

markets, festivals, digital marketing, press, referrals, etc.

and there—that just lets you know which areas may need

• What financial relationship will you have with your customers? Do you want to sell your product in person, online, by subscription, or via barter, cash, or credit card? • How much should you charge? Again, do some market research to try and find out what your customers are generally willing to pay. Include your own costs and time (!) to roughly come up with how much you’ll need to charge to make enough money. You can’t keep doing the valuable work you do unless there is enough income or exchange to sustain your needs, and some of your wants. • Who will you work with to make this happen? Who can you bring on board to help you deliver your product or service? Do you need a partner or team? What can you do on your own, and what will you need to outsource or get some help with? • What will your business need to be uniquely good at in order to thrive? Are there any key offerings or approaches your business will need to make or take to ensure success? Do you have the skills and motivation to make this happen?

additional research, ideation, or attention as you move forward. If this one-page approach to writing a business plan seems too good to be true, trust me when I say that most people are familiar with and beginning to prefer the BMC. However, when I work with clients on a BMC, I do like them to hyperlink certain areas where more info may be valuable. This allows your reader a deeper dive if desired, without overloading them if they don’t need all the nitty-gritty detail. SURVEYING THE PLAYING FIELD Step 1: Make a SWOT chart To make a SWOT chart, divide a page of paper into four squares: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Fill it out, and see if this enhances or informs any part of your ideation or business plan phases. As you do this, the main objective is to get clear on areas where you can improve your plan. Again, ask others for input here. This process is meant to be collaborative, since more people’s perspectives will only strengthen your approach and awareness. We don’t always see every aspect of our

Most of the time when working with a client, we’ll have some

own impact on the world, and gaining insight from another

blanks when trying to answer all of the above questions.

person’s perception of what you do/make/have to offer can

When that happens, we reach out to friends and colleagues,

help as often as hinder, so take it at face value and then

or do a bit of research to get everything filled in.

move on to the next step.

Step 2: Make a “Business Model Canvas”

Step 2: Create a competitor analysis sheet

The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is literally a one-page

Now that you’re clear on the plan for your business (or

business plan. These days, the BMC has taken the place of

close to it), spend a little more time looking at what you’ll

the 100-page traditional business plan (which does offer a

offer, and how that compares to what others are offering. By

much more in-depth analysis, but also tends to put people to

researching the businesses that will be in competition with

sleep and is a real pain to write). It’s not to say that careful

yours, you’ll know what you’re up against.

consideration isn’t still at play in a one-page plan—rather, a super concise plan forces you to become extremely clear on your plan, and articulate it as such.

As you research other businesses, remember to keep an open mind. Always try to be as unbiased as possible, and consider the perspective of the patron/consumer (versus your

For more on how to make a BMC, simply Googling “business

own perspective), who may place a different value on certain

model canvas” will lead you to a thousand tutorials and

offerings of each business. Running through a mini SWOT

for each competing business will really help you familiarize

with. When I tackle this part, I like to imagine what words and

yourself with the other players in the space, and how each of

ideas feel foundational to the business’s existence. Once you

their offerings are slightly different.

have a list, group together similar words and narrow it down

The columns in your competitor analysis can vary, but some standard fields to compare are: • Product or service • Price • Location (both physical and point of sale) • Web presence • How long they’ve been around • Look/feel Your competitor analysis will showcase your qualities and help you speak to the uniqueness of your offering. It also helps an investor or someone interested in partnering with you to see who you are relative to the other players in the space. VISION, MISSION, AND VALUES Some people like to jump into articulating a business’s vision, mission, and values earlier in the process. I prefer to save it until right about now, since at this point you’ve

to between three and five core values. And, just like that, you have your values. DECIDING TO FORMALIZE YOUR BUSINESS, OR NOT Now that you’ve thought in-depth about your business idea, you’re left with two choices: go for it and formalize your business, or hang back. You can always offer services under your own name as a sole proprietor, and for this, while you do pay income taxes on any financial gain, you don’t need to register anything or apply for a license unless certain foods or beverages are sold directly to the public. Whichever route you decide to take, there are pros and cons to consider. The cons of getting started with your own formalized business include, well, ownership. Once you own a business, you also own all of the liabilities associated with it, and are accountable for everything that happens with it. Additionally, getting a new business off the ground takes hard work and long hours. It also may require venturing into unknown territory with regard to legal and financial requirements. It can be a lot of pressure, and it may take longer than you’d like to turn a profit.

had some time to expand on the various aspects of your

On the upside, when you own your own business, you are the

endeavor. I also switched up the order for considering these

boss. You set your own hours. It’s also easier to bill someone

three things based on a recommendation from Jane Baxter of

for your product or service when you have an EIN number

JBL Strategies. Considering your vision before your mission

(something you can only get when you’re registered as a

and your values will help you shoot the moon a little, and

business). Also, as a small-business entrepreneur you have

gives you space to dream about a future–and a sense of

the opportunity to take advantage of some nice tax perks.

impact–you can get really excited about.

You can write off many expenses like travel, food, phone

To create your vision statement, imagine how the world will be different in 5, 10, or 50 years if your business is successful in accomplishing its goals. In the same statement, try to

bills, portions of car payments/insurance, and more. And, certain businesses qualify for government incentives. Being a minority, veteran, or female-owned business are examples.

articulate why this vision matters. The youth entrepreneurship

Consider the pros and cons, take stock of all the information

nonprofit I work for has created this vision statement, based

you’ve gathered, and decide to formalize your business (or

on how its sees itself impacting the future: “Because life

not).

happens beyond the classroom, we envision a global culture of independent, resilient, and socially aware individuals who are invested in shaping the world.” To create your mission, craft a clean, clear statement about what you do. Great mission statements are short and to the point. It can take some time to distill your ideas into the right words, so share your drafts with others and keep tweaking until you feel you’ve clearly conveyed the offering of your

If you’re still on the fence, answer the below questions as you consider whether or not to go for it and make your business official: Will a formal business designation . . . • Increase your income? • Give you more credibility?

business in an authentic way.

• Legitimize your creativity?

I’ll use the same organization to provide an example of

• Help you from a tax perspective?

what a mission statement might sound like (this one could be shorter, but I’ll share it anyway): “Shaping the world by cultivating entrepreneurship to broaden youth perspective and enhance life skills through community connection and experience.” To articulate your business’s values, jot down a dozen qualities or attributes that are important to you and those you work

• Create an opportunity to take safer risks? • Make you eligible for more funding/grants? • Motivate you to get organized about your work? • Serve a need or fix a problem for your customers? • Help you segue out of a career that you don’t enjoy?

• Allow you to become more independent career-wise?

Financial modeling: It’s not so bad

• Allow others to more easily hire you (because you have

Here’s a secret I wish I knew years ago: “Financial Modeling”

an EIN, etc.)? • Enable you to legally hire—and potentially offer benefits to—employees? • Let you offer something better than or unique to what’s currently out there?

is nothing more than an educated guess about what your numbers will be based on the information you have at hand. Here are a couple of links to some pretty standard excel forms (A and B) that can help you model out your costs and income. Use these types of formulas as a loose guide to structure your planning, and tweak them to suit your needs.

Here are some of the implications of formalizing your

Here’s a step-by-step video guide to financial modeling,

business:

which may be helpful for visual learners.

• The act of formalizing your business will take some work,

In your financial model, include every expense you can

and some money. • There is also an ongoing fee to keep your LLC or corporation registered (this fee is usually incurred every one to two years, depending on the state you register with). • Will having to either “do it all” yourself or hire and train employees be more stress than benefit to you? • Is having to produce things in order to meet the demand for your offering going to work out well for you? At this point, if you’re still ready to move forward with formalizing your business, let’s go. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY The costs of getting your business formalized Whether you need licensing, permits, or an LLC to get your business going, it’ll require a little bit of money. For example, some food sales can fall under Cottage Law (meaning you won’t need a permit), but often, simple things like selling

possibly think of. There are always unexpected costs, such as: • Shipping costs • Transportation • Increase

rent,

utilities,

storage,

coworking

memberships, etc. • Higher food bills (buying convenience food because you’re busier than usual) • Higher prices when you can’t purchase in volume • Outsourcing for things you don’t do but need • Registrations for events, conferences, etc. • Employee benefits or perks to keep volunteers happy and engaged • On average, 6% to 10% of physical products for startups are lost or damaged (who knew!) • The list goes on . . .

coffee and even lemonade will require you to get a food-

As you work to list out your total costs, my advice is to create

related permit. Visit this site to see what kinds of permits or

one last column that multiplies your total cost numbers by

licenses you may need.

1.2. This will challenge you to aim for a 20% cushion (as you

Many people will officially launch their business by establishing an LLC. For an outline of what’s entailed in

plan how much income you need to generate to cover your costs), and accounts for some of those unknown factors.

forming an LLC, go here. You can register your business as

Now, I’ll be honest here: Excel spreadsheets can bring a spark

an LLC pretty painlessly online, or you can work with a CPA

of delight to the eyes of some, but that’s not me. I have to

(certified public accountant) to do it on your behalf. There

sit down with a really open mind and chip away at financial

are plenty of online sites that will do most of the work for you

models in 20-minute segments. It’s not fun for me. However,

for a fee of around $500-$600 dollars, and most lawyers or

it IS empowering and really valuable for me to have control

CPAs charge between $100-$300 per hour.

over my finances. So, I muddle through this stage–and it’s

If money is a real barrier to forming your own business, ask

worth it for all new businesses to at least give it a try, too.

a few accountants or CPAs if they are interested in a trade for

For more help with financial planning, read Lewis Weil’s

filing your LLC paperwork. If this sounds crazy, know that it’s

guide to financial planning for artists.

not! The CPA for the nonprofit I help run is an art lover, for example, and has been open to trading her time for artists’

GETTING EVEN MORE STRATEGIC AND OFFICIAL

work.

The pitch: It’s not just for finding investors

Overall, the formalization step is simple but trips up a lot of

A well-crafted business pitch tells potential partners,

people. Understanding what you need when you don’t know

customers, future employees, naysayers, and anyone else

what you don’t know can feel frustrating. If you feel stuck,

exactly what you’re up to. Crafting your pitch is a process that

call your local Small Business Association and ask for help in

challenges you to become succinctly clear and compelling

whatever area is holding you back.

about who you are, what you do, and why it matters. Can you

communicate this in a couple of sentences? Wordsmithing and really consciously constructing your pitch is invaluable.

Follow up on your plan Try to review and adjust your plan as you move forward. Just

As you edit, tweak, and further refine your pitch, ask more

like your BMC, this can be an evolving document that shifts

than one person to hit you up at random for your spiel. Be

as your progress and priorities shift. As you work toward

ready to fumble through and miss several elements for a

your goals, reflect and share the outcomes. Celebrate your

while. This one is bigger than it sounds–you’re distilling all the

successes and talk through the gaps or missed milestones.

information you want to share about you and your product or service while also fitting in why it matters to your potential

Plan time to work toward your strategic goals

customers, or to anyone else who you want to believe in you.

Building a business from the ground up can feel like a lot

So give yourself grace here and try out multiple versions until

(or even way too much) when daily life continues to happen,

it feels authentic.

so plan one day a week (or even a half day) to chip away

Getting the word out through marketing

at the action items detailed in your strategic plan. Make it a regular time when you don’t schedule any meetings, respond

Now that you’re “official” and have your pitch down, get

to emails, or even answer your phone, so you can get in the

ready to build or freshen up your marketing efforts. Marketing

habit of really focusing on progress.

is how you let new people know that your business exists, and entice them to consider using your service or buying your product. In short, marketing is how you build up an engaged audience and customer base for your business. As a starting point, you can read this creative person’s guide to thoughtful promotion. And, here are a couple of additional articles (A

I would love to put this entire section in all caps. Nearly everyone I work with (myself included) will insist that there just isn’t time for this, and that the big picture will have to wait because there are a hundred other pressing things to do each day. As the saying goes, don’t lose sight of the forest

and B).

for the trees. Being too caught up in the daily details of your

As you get going with a marketing plan, be sure to make use

toward your valuable and important goals, so carve out at

of those free trials out there. In-Design and other tools are great resources if money is tight and you want to try to design

work means you won’t be able to make strategic progress least one hour a week.

your own marketing. Most email services, e-commerce sites,

Work with a mentor to add some accountability

and others offer free trials, allowing you to play around

If you’re working on your business solo, find someone you

with different options before committing to any one specific marketing tool. Just remember to set a calendar reminder to cancel it in time, in case you don’t end up loving it. Developing a long-term strategic plan A strategic plan breaks down your business goals into bitesize pieces so that you’re able to take small, reasonable steps

can talk with for an hour or so each week to review your progress, bounce ideas off of, and keep you accountable. This person doesn’t need to be a business expert–it could be a friend, or even a family member. As long as you have someone to report your progress (or lack thereof) to, it’ll be a huge help.

toward achieving a long-term vision. There are many ways to

If you have a partner or team, start each strategic-plan work

go about this, and some people don’t worry about it until they

session by checking in on any action items from the last time

feel more established. However, I like to plant these strategic

you met. If something is blocking an action item from being

seeds early because setting goals and planning for how to

completed, take time to address it and come up with a plan

reach them will get you to where you hope and dream to be

for how to get unstuck.

in a reasonable timeframe. To start conceptualizing your strategic plan, pick three categories that feel most important for your business (examples might be community, funding, research and development, design, etc.) and figure out a reasonable goal for year one, year two, and year three. Then go ahead and shoot the moon a bit for your year-five goals. After you have a sense of your goals for each category, go back and write down everything you can think of that needs to happen in order for you to get there. • Name the tasks associated with each goal. • Assign each task to yourself, someone else you’ll be working with, or an expert you’ll need to hire. • Add anticipated completion dates if you can.

IN SUMMARY This guide is a rundown of the path that many successful businesses have taken. It’s true that you could go a different route and still be successful. Some attempts at starting a business will “fail,” but again, failure is just feedback. If you’re hitting a rut, go back and tweak your business using the tools and approaches in this guide, because iteration is the key to innovation. I spent many years on the other side of business (i.e., as an employee instead of a consultant), and often felt more like business was happening to me rather than me participating in the business world. Looking back, this was my reality because it was my mind-set. So get in there, take control, and play the game. There is room for everyone, and often the only way to figure it out is to jump in and try.

For brands, convenience is non-negotiable By Kristin Zhivago

Life is hard – so buying your brand should be as easy as possible, a new trend report on WARC indicates. Lowdown: OMD’s Signals 2021 covers a lot of the newly established norms now solidifying as the pandemic approaches its anniversary. But with so much life lived at home, the precept to make it easy stands out.

Other signs: Deloitte data finds that 41% of survey respondents would spend more for convenience. The adoption and penetration of contactless payments (even in the US).

Think back to March: Buying toilet roll is a key example. It’s necessary, so the most important thing is that it’s in stock near you; the second most important aspect is that it’s available where you’re shopping. These are well-trodden marketing ideas of physical availability (once you’ve done all the branding work of making your product mentally available, you want it to be widely available).

Ubiquitous home delivery, and comparisons with Amazon, mean that customers now expect fast delivery.

Take a look: The following graphic from McKinsey, and featured in OMD’s report, presents a snapshot from June. The conclusion: convenience and availability matter.

Bottom line: Brands should think about convenience in all its owned touchpoints and think about reducing the friction between media choices and points of sale.

Subscriptions for ever-necessary things – like loo roll – are on the rise. Social and streaming commerce, long popular in Asia, are growing in the west.

Marketing Wrapped: Top Marketing Moments of 2020

By Kate Stephani

There is no “new” way to say this, so we’re just going to say it: this year was a doozy. So much darkness, uncertainty and unrest overshadowed this year that it can be challenging to think of anything good that came from 2020. And worse, the memories of life before lockdown feel like another lifetime. This year has felt like three years in one, but has flown by all the same. Throughout history, marketers have found ways to shed light on even the darkest times and this year is a perfect example of that. When the world shut down, we relied on artists to bring us comfort, peace and motivation to keep going. 2020 has reaffirmed that marketing is truly an art form. Let’s take a trip down memory lane for a year many of us would rather forget as we relive some of the moments that kept us sane, thanks to our peers in marketing. Hyundai: “Smaht Pahk” Originally debuting during the 2020 Super Bowl, this Hyundai Sonata ad was easily one of the funniest and most memorable commercials to air that day. Complete with Chris Evans, John Krasinski, Rachel Dratch and more, this star-studded ad now fills us with the warm nostalgia of the “before times.” Burger King: The Moldy Whopper I know you’re probably thinking to yourself, “There’s no way

this happened this year,” but let me tell you: yes. Yes it did. This polarizing campaign had everyone buzzing back in midFebruary and is permanently burned into the minds of many. The public is still undecided on how effective this ad was, but one things for sure: it was memorable! DoorDash: #OpenForDelivery Corporate Twitter accounts never fail to impress their audience with their humor and creativity. About a week after lockdown, Bay Area-based food delivery service, DoorDash, started a Twitter thread of restaurants giving each other shoutouts about where delivery was available to order from…even if it wasn’t on DoorDash itself. For instance, Buffalo Wild Wings replied, “Yep! We are & we know @JimmyJohns is #OpenForDelivery too. Get a cookie with your order, you deserve it…” Businesses big and small were hit hard this year, and this selfless act of companies helping each other out shows how important leaning on each other for support was this year. Oreo: The Global Oreo Vault Bringing home AdWeek’s Readers’ Choice for the best ad this year, Oreo’s “Global Vault” campaign took viewers through doomsday prep “documentary” that felt a little too real this year. Except for one thing: instead of a deadly virus, it was an asteroid threatening human kind….and, more importantly, the survival of Oreos. A travesty. Now we can rest assured

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that if the world really does end, Oreos will indeed outlive us. Apple: The Whole Work-From-Home Thing With all the craziness that came with working from home this year, there were several experiences that seemed to be almost universal. Between awkward video calls, children screaming in the background (my dog is barking at me for attention as I write this), younger adults moving back with their parents and less tech-savvy employees struggling to figure out what to do, WFH came with an endless list of pros and cons. Apple took all of these mixed feelings and created a fantastic 7-minute ad campaign that seamlessly weaved in the comedic, inspiring and frustrating aspects of WFH with the ways Apple products would help you get your work done. Genius. Ocean Spray: Dreams Once upon a time, TikTok was an underrated app, presumed to be the “wannabe” second coming of Vine and doomed to the confines of preteens’ cellphones. Then quarantine hit. From record deals to viral dances, this app has been the catalyst for people of all ages to get their start, even securing a spot on CMO Council’s Top Brands Seeing an Upturn During the Downturn. “@420doggface208” is a prime example of the inexplicable power of Tiktok. With nearly 12 million likes, a 43-year-old song topping charts again and a sponsorship from Ocean Spray, this simple video of a man’s “morning

vibe” on a skateboard listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams was one of the most powerful marketing moments of 2020, if completely accidentally. Amazon: The Show Must Go On This powerful tear-jerker ad perfectly captures the emotions of lockdown life. Not only does Amazon convey the complexity of this time without a single spoken word, but they also demonstrate how passion and love always prevail, despite any roadblocks in the way. A big theme for 2020 has been the importance of community and family, which shows up in a unique way in this ad…a subtle reminder of what really matters when the world comes to a halt. Quarantine has inspired creativity in so many unexpected ways this year. For many, with isolation comes inspiration, and the emotional, hilarious, and unique ads that created this year speak to the unforseen impact of what these unprecedented times mean to us as humans. Regardless of your feelings on quarantine, one thing is for sure: no one will ever forget the year 2020. Kate serves as Senior Marketing Coordinator at the CMO Council where she drives the social media engagement strategy, content, and creative development for their Expert Views section and weekly newsletter, Required Reading. Kate also serves as Editor of Marketing Magnified and is the main point of contact for “Get to Know a CMO” interviews.

Business Owners: What 2021 will require of us By Kristin Zhivago

If you are a business owner, and especially if you are a small business owner, 2020 was a very challenging year. Even more so if you were in an industry directly affected by the pandemic. There is hope, though.

had a problem with one of the ad channels (we won’t go into detail, but let’s just say that it was something totally out of her control). But, we adjusted, moving on without that channel, and the leads kept coming in.

In fact, there is always hope if you are willing to “find it, face it, fix it,” which is one of our rules around here.

But then in December, just a few short weeks ago, she decided to invest in a retargeting campaign, which is where you advertise to people who have already visited your site. As you can see, she is now experiencing one of those lovely “hockey stick” situations. Oh, happy day.

As we move into 2021, the most important contributor to your success will be your willingness to change, coupled with your faith in your ability to succeed in spite of all challenges. Let’s look at one encouraging example. According to this article from Bloomberg, global tourism fell 72 percent in 2020, through October. You would think, then, that a small business owner selling luxury yacht cruises worldwide would be severely impacted. And you would be right. But this particular business owner, who happens to be a client of ours (and someone we admire greatly for her grit), didn’t take 2020 lying down. We worked hard together to find new opportunities, and she was willing to invest (a reasonable amount, which was fine with us) in new approaches that might work.

And remember, this is for a company that is in a market that has shrunk by 72 percent in 2020. I’m sharing all this to give you hope, and to help us realize what 2021 is going to require of us, so that we make it through successfully. What 2021 will require of business owners

This is site traffic. The dark blue line is 2020; the lighter blue line is 2019. You can see the impact of the pandemic in the February and March timeframe.

1. Grit. 2021, like 2020 before it, will require courage, persistence, self-discipline, bravery, and an intense focus. We will need to think very hard about what people want and how we can serve them, in these new circumstances. You will definitely have to make choices you haven’t made before; you will have to make decisions that feel more like a bet than a strong strategy; but at the same time, you will have to avoid mistakes.

Somewhere around the middle of March, we tuned into the Mindset of her customers using two words that summed up why they would even think of traveling during COVID. The result was a steady climb, continuing to move up until she

2. Parent-like leadership. I’ve often said that when the CEO gets a cold, the rest of the company gets pneumonia. As the leader of your team, no matter how small or large the team is, you set the tone. If everyone sees that you are moving

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forward courageously and confidently, they will also. My husband and I have been discussing the fact lately that good leadership is really the same as good parenting. You accept your role and take it seriously. You communicate goals and limits clearly. You are never petty or whiny. You are absolutely fair; there are no favorites. You have no hidden agendas; everyone knows what is expected of the team and each individual on the team. You praise in public and criticize in private. Most of all, you are someone who cares about every person, and you are not afraid to display that caring. 3. Careful attention to finances. Yes, as I said in #1, you will still be placing some bets—in new markets, new approaches, new tools, new people. But managing cash flow is one of the most pressing challenges every business owner faces. In uncertain times, it is even more important. I have come to appreciate the power of keeping funds in reserve, replenishing them during the up weeks and drawing from them carefully during the down weeks. If you are in a service business, pay very close attention to your payables. Know, every day, where you stand. Take action the minute a client gets behind. But the same applies to any type of business. Every day you should be watching your cash flow and profit margin, because one seemingly small financial glitch can grow into a bigger one almost overnight. 4. Intense awareness of your customers’ Mindset. Frankly, this is Business 101 for me because, as a revenue coach for years, I became convinced that the opposite is the number one reason that companies fail. The minute the business leader stops paying attention to the customer’s Mindset, and starts paying more attention to “everything else,” the company starts to slide. One of the reasons our luxury travel client is doing so well is because she talks to her clients every single day. She is totally in tune with their Mindset. We have the same benefit in our business. We know exactly what our clients want and what they’re trying to achieve, and it is a daily joint effort to meet those goals. But you can be in touch with your clients and still miss the important clues they are trying to send you. An unhappy client will seldom tell you why they are unhappy, or even if they are unhappy at all. All of us, as business owners, have carried on with a vendor without much protest, even after we have become disappointed and have started looking for a replacement. However, prior to the decision to leave, we often give the vendor polite hints. “I would have preferred that you delivered this sooner,” is that type of hint. That’s why we treat “tiny hints” as Big Red Flags around here. No matter how small, we focus on that issue intensely and make sure it is resolved. If there’s a way to fix it, we will find it. We also know that no problem ever gets smaller over time. Problems that are ignored always become worse over time—

and more difficult to fix. 5. Don’t give up; you can reinvent yourself. If you started a business, it was because you saw a problem you could solve, and you set about solving it. That means you can do it again. Just because the situation changes, doesn’t mean you can’t change with it. I’ve owned my own business for a long time, since we opened our doors in Silicon Valley years ago, and we have reinvented ourselves several times since then. The trick is to face the fact that the situation has changed, and to be willing to adjust, willing to make even radical changes. It’s so easy to become wedded to your business structure, to the point where you resist changing with your market. When I shut down our ad agency to become a “revenue coach,” we were at the peak of our earnings. But when the Mac emerged as a valuable graphics tool, I could see that the small jobs, the bread-and-butter jobs, were all going to go in-house. I shut down our agency, long before our competitors did. I invented my own “industry” (no one else called themselves a “revenue coach”—but there were zillions of sales and marketing consultants!). I was determined to do what I had always done: help CEOs and entrepreneurs increase their revenue. It was gutwrenching to walk away from the successful infrastructure we had created, but over time it became a very rewarding career. And again, several years ago, when I saw that too many business owners were struggling with digital marketing, the best answer was a digital marketing management company, which is what we have built. I’m not saying all this to brag; I’m saying all this to prove that it is possible. You can reinvent yourself. If you have started a business, you have grit. You have a sense of purpose and responsibility. You are a strong person who has overcome numerous challenges and who wants to succeed. You can do this. Don’t give up hope. Continue to look for opportunities where you can help others. Pay less attention to the naysayers and gloomy predictions and more attention to your customers and your staff. If you do this, you will be a bright light in the midst of a dark time. Others will be encouraged by your success and assume that they, too, will find a way through this. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” This is not the time to seek escape or to get discouraged. This is the time to stand up and start moving. This is the time to stand out because you didn’t give up. It’s an absolute opportunity to move forward while everyone else is frozen in fear. It’s the time to be your best and do your best, every single minute of every single day. That is what 2021 will require of us all. My wish for you is that you emerge from 2021 more successful than ever.

Trends that will dominate marketing in 2021 By Misbaah Mansuri

From purpose-driven marketing to solution-based approach rather than plain media buys, here are some trends industry watchers foresee for the year upon us To be sure, 2020 has been a roller coaster of unprecedented changes as the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc around the globe. It has been a year that marked widespread social unrest and polarizing political events. That said, if anything, 2020 has also proved a decisive year, transforming the landscape of retail and marketing towards relationship commerce, improved seamlessness, and local retail. However, as the world prepares for another year of uncertainty, companies everywhere are asking themselves what’s on the horizon for 2021. Decoding the same, industry watchers weigh in on marketing trends and themes that will dominate the space as we move ahead in the next year.

a few smart and savvy brands go in the opposite direction – there will be a trend of forming strong human connections and deeper relationships. In an uncertain world, consumers will seek ‘trust’ as the paramount currency to influence their decision making and brands that are able to build that by showing and working towards a higher purpose and meeting promised expectations will reap rewards. So, purpose-driven marketing with a strong one-on-one connect will be the way to go for leading brands. Nishant Kashikar, Country Manager (India & Gulf), Tourism Australia

Some of the key priorities that dominated marketing in 2020 include – a very strong focus on immediate ROI of marketing efforts, getting into an iterative process of launch/test – repeat or retreat with all campaigns to understand where the maximum efficiencies lie. From a consumer messaging focus perspective – there has been a clear shift towards education and information and away from hard sales and gimmicks.

Given the global adoption of social distancing norms in lieu of the pandemic, 2020 was witness to a massive shift in brand strategy and consumer outreach. Brands across sectors reallocated marketing spends and resources to devise fullfledged digital campaigns with minimal focus on outdoor or experiential advertising. In lieu of this, destination marketing too has had to reinvent itself and adapt to the changing pace of the current environment. With the lack of leisure travel and a heightened need for emergency travel taking precedence, international tourism and those destinations that relied on heavy tourist traffic, in particular, have taken to digitizing key experiences for tourists confined to their homes.

In 2021, we will see an acceleration of the digital migration across all consumer classes – everything from shopping to services will move online even more aggressively. In this digitally enabled virtual world, it is easy for Brands to get lost in the technology and focus on transactions, but we will see

In view of tourism, we can expect to see a broader array and wider offering of virtual opportunities arise from destination promoters to market those attractions and other activities popular with tourists to a larger and more global audience. With a presence among other consumer-centric sectors, AR

Edited excerpts below: Kashyap Vadapalli, Chief Business Head, Pepperfry

Marketing

Officer

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27 and VR will also become a highly utilized means to further market a destination to those who would prefer to defer their travel plans for an extended period of time. More marketers will invest in content marketing to diversify and adapt their product offering to be more attune and sensitive to the consumer’s changing sentiments and needs, which can help build a brand, drive demand, and facilitate conversions. Sumit Lakhani, CMO, Awfis The year 2020 has been a game-changer in every way, be it the shift in consumer preferences, re-alignment of business models, or pivot in marketing strategy, the rampant spread of the pandemic caused a drastic alteration in each aspect of our lives. The nationwide lockdown and social distancing norms led marketers to redevise their strategies in line with the new normal. Below are some key trends for marketers across industries: • Marketing moved from being a communication & support function to being at the core of various functions like strategy, analytics, product, technology and customer experience. They’re not being pulled in for the last mile of ‘GTM’ but also in the initial stages because at the moment they have the pulse of the market and the customers which is crucial for any innovation. • While the role of marketing was already evolving (CMO & CBO & CDO lines blurring), COVID has accelerated the whole process. • Brands across sectors invested heavily in online marketing activations as compared to prior years, where marketers seemed to prefer a resource split between traditional and online methods of marketing. • Information sharing emerged as a key trend within campaigns with the growing universal inclination of customers towards sanitization, hygiene and social distancing. Marketers who were able to remain transparent of their policies and processes whilst keeping the end consumers informed about how their brand will ensure maximal safety amidst these times emerged ahead of the curve • In line with the above several brands adopted influencer marketing and advocacy as a key medium of customer outreach to maintain authenticity whilst also building brand equity. In my opinion the year 2021 will also see a boost in regional content and campaigns, given the exponential growth of internet users in India and the immense potential of the country’s tier 2 and 3 markets. Sudipta Suri, National Marketing Director, Mirchi As for marketing trends, this unique year accelerated the growth of some trends much faster than the past trend line. One such trend was the advertisers’ need for customized solutions. Over the last few years, marketing spends were becoming more discerning, and the ‘one size fits all’ media advertising theory was giving way to an innovative customized

solution. This was an important shift that helped brands not only reach more elusive customers but also counter tighter marketing budgets. This trend has really accelerated in 2020. When budgets were completely clamped down, advertisers looked for customized solutions for their communication owing to two reasons- the first being that the client’s innovative offerings required innovative communication, and second, the consumer was not willing to spend, hence he needed to be reached in an innovative manner to convince him to spend. Another trend that is exponentially growing is the digital marketing industry. 2020 pushed all brands and advertisers to take a crash course in digital if they hadn’t already. In my opinion, 2021 is going to be all about recovery. Two marketing trends that I see for this year are- continued focus on the solution-based approach for marketing problems rather than plain media buys, and increased focus on digital marketing. Along with an increased focus on digital marketing, brands will also start asking about ROI. This would be pushed harder by traditional mediums like print and TV, which primarily talk about their reach to show their stronghold on the consumer. Anushree Pacheriwal, Co-founder, Gemius Design Studio “The pandemic has taught many things to every one of us, especially advertising and marketing professionals, learnings like ensuring the best results when people are not looking to spend, working towards a more personalised approach with brand’s communication, and most importantly, unlearning the old ways of understanding customer behaviour. During the pandemic, we saw a huge rise in nutraceutical products where people were looking for boosting their immunity and working towards their overall health. Overall, in Amazon sales alone for our clients, we have seen a 300%-500% growth in sales in comparison to the pre-pandemic period. In 2021, we are going to see a trend where people are making smart shopping decisions so it is going to be important for brands to communicate ideas that add value to people’s lives and not just focus on promotions. One word that describes 2021, positivity!” Vikash Pacheriwal, Co-founder, Raisin “2020 has been a roller-coaster. While we saw a lot of changes happening in our personal lives, businesses were another ball-game. The pandemic with all its challenges helped us in being more adaptable. One big learning that we as a business took from this year is the realisation that trust is more important than anything. The trust of employees, customers, and retailers is fundamental to any business. If not for the support of our team we wouldn’t have been able to cope with the rising demands, especially on the online front. We also saw plenty of new trends surging during the pandemic and only businesses who could cope with it survived during these pressing times. One such trend was the surge in online shopping, Raisin saw a 23% rise in its online sales during the pandemic.” Misbaah reports on advertising industry. Based in Mumbai, she interviews industry leaders in the creative, advertising and marketing space, reports news updates in the ad space. She drives the ‘Chillout’ section, and regularly reviews ad campaigns. In the past she has reported on mainline news, travel and lifestyle.

Account-based marketing: It’s not what you think it is By Michelle Thomas and Charles Baker

Digitas strategists Michelle Thomas and Charles Baker identify the seven areas to look for in a business-to-business account-based marketing request for proposal. Consider this: • 70% of business-to-business (B2B) companies plan to increase their account-based marketing (ABM) investment (DemandBase, 2019); • On average, ABM budgets are more than a third (36%) of digital marketing/advertising spend and are growing 9% annually (LinkedIn, A B2B Marketing Jumpstart to Account-Based Marketing, 2019); • 47% of B2B marketers use ABM to improve the efficiency of their marketing and boost return on investment (ROI) (LinkedIn, A B2B Marketing Jumpstart to Account-Based Marketing, 2019); and • 40% of B2B marketers still find it challenging to develop the right content for their target audience (LinkedIn, A B2B Marketing Jumpstart to Account-Based Marketing, 2019). ABM is not well understood Despite the hype, many companies are struggling to define what it means in the context of their business. It has often been described as a sales tactic, but the implications and responsibilities of ABM in fact reach way beyond sales. In fact, ABM is not really a sales function at all – it really is about strategic customer management and the creation of a

connected brand experience. Historically, brand marketing has been responsible for top-of-funnel awareness and sales responsible for bottom-of-funnel conversion. With ABM, there is an always-on customer-centric approach, requiring constant optimization and attention, which scales well beyond lead generation or sale conversion. Any capability within an organization who is responsible for building relationships with business customers, is part of ABM. According to Boston Consulting Group, there are three key types of ABM: • Strategic (tens of accounts) – creating and executing highly customized marketing plans for individual accounts through online and offline tactics; • Scaled (hundreds of accounts) – creating and executing lightly customized programs for segmented accounts with similar issues and needs, mostly through online tactics; and • Traditional (thousands of accounts) – using technology to tailor programmatic marketing campaigns to the remaining addressable market by refining targeting, analytics, and personalization within online tactics. The bulk of the requests for proposals (RFP) that we have seen recently focus primarily on traditional ABM, with very focused questions around media and lead generation. Agencies that excel at ABM have strong capabilities around connections planning – the integration of media and messaging to deliver strong audience experiences, which drive business ROI. In

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order to maximize your understanding of how well your prospective agency can serve your ABM needs, leverage the questions below to help guide your way. How does your agency use intent data and lookalike modeling to develop a holistic media strategy and connections plan, which serves audience needs based on their journey stage? Intent data from vendors like Bombora can give you insight into which products and services a list of B2B accounts is interested in. It helps you see which companies are in-market and which are not. When we run a B2B account list through intent filtering, we often see there are cold companies that are not currently in-market, and warm/hot companies that are actively researching the desired list of products and services. When responding to an ABM RFP, a strong agency will develop a connections strategy that has a unique media and connections plan for cold accounts vs warm/hot accounts. • Cold accounts will benefit from an upper funnel approach that talks about high level business benefits, to help nudge prospects in-market. • For warm/hot accounts that are already in-market, the media strategy should focus on channels and tactics that are best suited for delivering product advertising, thought leadership and case studies to boost understanding and confidence among prospects. In addition to 3rd party intent data, there is a treasure trove of learning points that you can gain from your existing

accounts. Analytics and business intelligence will uncover ways in which teams can activate insights to drive high value behaviors. Inquire about how agencies approach lookalike modeling to find accounts that mirror the behaviors and needs of existing accounts or predictive modeling to find accounts that have the best chance of converting (upsell or new). What’s the role of channels across programmatic display, online video, social and others? Based on the criteria above, the agency should deliver a clear channel strategy framework that outlines the role of each channel based on the audience segmentation and journey stage approach they recommend. Each channel should have clear messaging implications, reach and frequency forecasts, channel specific key performance indicators based on the role of the channel, and a point of view (POV) on how the channel supports the broader marketing and ROI goals. How could our ABM efforts influence direct mail and email marketing programs? Direct mail and email marketing are often neglected in ABM efforts – recipients are often from the same account lists that are used for digital account-based marketing, but digital efforts are not well orchestrated with email marketing or direct mail efforts. To drive stronger cross-channel integration and boost ROI, your agency partner could leverage intent data filtering to help focus high cost direct mail on warm/ hot accounts.

As your broader ABM efforts convert more cold accounts into warm/hot accounts, the direct mail delivery list will grow. This approach can help boost direct mail response rates by two times or more, while saving you money. The same approach can be applied to email, and there may be opportunities to further integrate channel and message sequencing across direct mail and email together. How should we think about audience roles and personas? Depending on the nature of the products and services you sell, there are various stakeholders within the target companies you want to market and sell to. As you RFP your agency partner, ask them for a POV on which stakeholders your ABM efforts should focus on and how that would impact creative messaging and media. When evaluating the response, look for a solution that is thoughtful but not overly complex – standing up advanced ABM programs often requires a multi-phases approach. In our experience, doing advanced message tailoring by role can often be a phase two or phase three effort. Be wary of any agency that promises the sky from day one. At a minimum, it is standard for any agency to look at audiences and personas through the lens of business decision maker roles versus IT decision makers, so look for that on the onset to make sure they have a POV on that foundational approach. Depending on your spend level and audience size, a uniform approach for phase one can be viable, but after evaluating the agency’s initial recommendations, consider asking for a multi-persona pilot test on LinkedIn or programmatic display during phase one or two, which can help infuse future phases with directional learning points on what content and messaging can resonate with those nuanced audiences. How should we think about industry verticals?

Moreover, it is important to see that they will not be taking a set-it-and-forget it approach. Many mid-market and enterprise accounts can take months or years to become customers depending on your sales cycles and industry dynamics. That means that some accounts could spend months on your ABM media targeting pool(s). Standard creative wear-out analysis can be done, but often it will tell you that new ads are not needed that frequently. However, you need to really think like an executive producer for a TV network or an editor for a top online publisher, your audience will pay more attention and come to look forward to your content line-up if you have something interesting and fresh to say on an ongoing basis. The agency you select should have an agile approach to content development and refreshes ABM audiences. Ideally, you will have an ongoing process where every two weeks you are updating one or two elements of your comms mix. It could be rotating a few new social ads with customer quotes or putting a new online video into programmatic distribution. What is important to see is that they have an agile, always-on approach to content development that will ensure your ABM audiences are being cared for. What technology is required to execute ABM? Technology is only effective in ABM when it activates the strategy from the media and connections plan. Be cautious of the agency who over emphasizes technology (or a single platform) as the silver bullet that will solve all ABM challenges and generate immediate leads and revenue. It helps to think of technology holistically in the form of a “blueprint” that spans data, intelligence, experiences and measurement. • Data is the heart, the lifeblood of all systems that fuels other systems (e.g. first party data, third party data), establishing the foundation for ABM activation.

To drive success in B2B, it’s important for a customer to have confidence that you understand their business and can therefore help them in ways a less knowledgeable party wouldn’t be able to – that is part of what can help you stand out as a partner, versus just another vendor. Designing ABM programs to speak to industry vertical needs can be highly effective.

• Intelligence is the brain, the systems that turn data (e.g. journey stage, behavioral signals) into useful insights to help orchestrate and activate ABM across channels.

But the question becomes, how and where do we talk about industry verticals in marketing, if at all? There are lots of good answers here and it really depends on your business.

• Measurement is the nervous system, the feedback mechanism for the effectiveness of ABM (e.g. attribution, ROI, business intelligence).

One good approach we have seen success with is to take a multi-industry approach for cold audiences, where your messaging shows impact across a broad range of industries. Then, when an account becomes warm/hot, you can put them into a specific industry audience pool for warm/hot accounts, where 70% of the messaging is around their product intent and other confidence boosters, and 30% of the messaging is around case studies and other content related to their industry. Again, there are many strong ways to structure a program, so look for a thoughtful response and the agency’s ability to articulate a few good options they can partner with you on to refine. What is your creative strategy, and how often should we produce new content and ads for ABM? Throughout all of this, it is really important to see that the agency is able to be agile and thoughtful on how to roll out messaging across their proposed media framework.

• Experiences are the hands, the systems that execute channel strategies (e.g. email, events, social selling) to drive ABM engagement across online and offline touchpoints.

A good agency will recommend conducting an audit to ensure that the strategies that are put in place can actually be executed. The last thing you want is for an agency to sell you on something that is unrealistic in execution. Conclusion As you embark on extending ABM responsibilities to an agency partner, these questions will help you see just how well the agency understands ABM. Beyond the key capabilities, look for cues on how well they tie together organizational needs, from sales to marketing to finance to operations, to drive strategic change and maturity. At the end of the day, ABM is a reflection of good relationship management practices that help drive investment decisions. Future growth will come down to how well you can activate your customer base, both prospective and existing, to drive behavioral change.

Seven Ways to Show Up Human in Your PR and Marketing Efforts By Bonnie Rothman

Are you telling stories that connect, or are you just marketing and promoting to your audience like an algorithm would? Amid the chaos all around us, we’re craving connection. So B2B marketers are well-served to heed the clarion call to market like their B2C cohorts and tell stories that evoke emotion and make their customers feel that they are being heard. There’s a pretty simple, well-known fact: People buy from people. Fully 58% of B2B marketers say they believe that humanizing their brand will lead to higher sales, according to a recent study by Allison+Partners. Wondering how to put that belief into practice? Simply show up as a human when communicating about your company. That goes for the language and tone you choose, as well as the messaging of your stories. It also means banishing phrases such as “leveraged this” or “leaned into that.” Or, going to the extreme, “accelerated the awareness of an iconic product.” Yikes! If you work in branding or marketing, we bet you’ve gotten used to those phrases and become tone deaf to how inhuman they sound. Get over the notion that you need to “sound professional.” That can lead to a string of buzzwords that make no one sound human. Grandiose language, longwinded sentences,

and academic embellishments are also not warm and fuzzy and do not connect on a personal level. As a reporter shared with us recently: “One of these days I will find the courage to tell marketers that they’ll actually be getting their messages out more effectively if they simply speak in clear, descriptive English.” Let’s look at Basecamp as an example. Its marketers use a style that matches the company’s mission: to make complicated stuff—such as project management—simpler. On the homepage, they address today’s reality of working remotely: “Before Basecamp: You’re wondering how you’ll quickly transition your team to remote work. People are stressed, work feels scattered, projects are slipping, and it’s tough to see + manage everything. After Basecamp: Soon you’ll be feeling like “hey, we got this”. Everything will be organized in one place, your team will be working together (even though they’re apart), you’ll be on top of things, and a sense of calm will set in.” Who wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief after reading that? After asset management company State Street launched the SHE fund (SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF) that tracks

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large-cap companies with a high proportion of women in executive and director positions, it used Fearless Girl—the statue of the little girl staring down the Wall Street bull— for a larger initiative: to ignite the conversation about the importance of gender diversity in corporate leadership. Within hours of its overnight secret placement, Fearless Girl had over 1 billion twitter impressions and ended up generating over 10 billion social, print, and digital media impressions over six continents. The SHE fund grew 8% to $315 million after the campaign; and, since 2017, of the 1,463 companies that were identified as not having a woman on their board, 789 have added a female director and 2 others have committed to adding one. The lesson is that marketers who can spark joy, connection, or laughter will be the most memorable, and they will have a tremendous advantage in bringing their customers along for the journey. So, where do you start?

Here are seven ideas: Find the hero in your company—even better, someone deep within your organization—who most resembles your customer. Revisit your founder story. A founder story can resonate with clients and prospects; it can provide emotional buy-in and offer a window into the soul of your company. It needs to connect with what you offer, to whom, and why you are different. Run storytelling workshops with a diverse group of team members to ensure that your company story will resonate. Celebrate your customers. Go beyond the case study. Share something silly that starts a conversation leading back to your brand. Identify enemies, obstacles, puzzles, and traps. Show how you help overcome them.

Be funny! Feature people! Borrow tropes from the movies and TV to get your point across. Crib from the tactics used by the best direct-to-consumer brands! Cross-pollinate!

Check jargon at the door. When you use jargon to describe who you are, or what you do, or how you work, or why your solution is better than your competitor’s, you wind up sounding like everyone else.

That’s all good advice, but making the pivot from product feature-fueled stories that begin and end with ROI to ones filled with human characters can be hard.

Humanizing your B2B marketing will result in more innovation and more empathy from your people. You’ll also have a heck of a lot more fun telling those stories along the way.

Effie analysis: How premium brands use marketing to survive recessions By Warc Staff

Economic turmoil is a certainty for 2021, as the pandemic disruption shows little sign of abating, but strong brands can overcome these barriers, according to a new collaborative report from EACA, Effie Awards Europe, and the Effectiveness Partnership released today. Why it matters: Recessions usually send businesses into defence mode, but radical cuts are a terrible way to do this. Premium brands grow from commanding higher prices, meaning that in recession they need to maintain a strong customer base from which to grow once good times return. Background: Recessions tend to hit discretionary spending, meaning that consumers trade down from premium brands to cheaper alternatives. This report, which WARC subscribers can access here, shows how smart growth strategy can help premium brands to defy grim predictions. Europe, where the case studies that inform the report come from, has seen more than its fair share of economic hardship between 2008-19. In 2008-9, it endured the global Great Recession; in 201113, Eurozone countries faced the sovereign debt crisis. Though the latter did not touch all European markets, like the UK, the continent experienced a contraction of growth if not full-blown recession. Definitions: • A recession is commonly defined as a period of two or more consecutive quarters of declining GDP. • A premium brand is defined here as charging >20% than the median price of the brand’s category but, unlike superpremium brands, commanding a mass audience. Premium brands enjoy a reputation for quality and high social cachet. Lessons: • Strong, desirable brands will remain desirable, but they

need to continue communicating. “Over the whole of the 2008-19 period our findings show campaigns for premium brands outperform those of non-premium brands in generating large business effects,” in recessionary times, however, these results tend to be even more pronounced. • Understand where your growth comes from. In economic growth periods, premium brands grow value by justifying higher prices to capture more of an expanding category. In recessions, however, premium brands need to shift to a balance between market share and volume. Maintaining mass sales is fundamental, even if margin suffers, because this is the foundation from which the brand will be able to raise prices when the good times return. • New users/customers are always important. “Growing penetration is the #1 marketing objective and effect for successful premium brands achieving large or very large business effects, in and out of recessions, as our data shows.” This said, award-winningly effective campaigns don’t try to be all things to all people, they define a clear target whose needs the brand can satisfy. • Product innovation is key to most successful premium brand campaigns. 64% of successful premium brand campaigns support new product launches in a recession; in non-recessionary periods, this is also the main objective of 54% of successful campaigns. • Emotion pays for premium brands in a recession. 44% of successful campaigns in a recession use an emotional approach to 33% in non-recessionary times. • High-reach broadcast channels are key. Thankfully, they are also cheaper in recessions, as brands cut discretionary ad spend. But successful campaigns tend to use mostly TV, with digital channels aiding in tandem.

CL E RMONT K . Y.

U. S .

MAY YOUR YEAR-END BONUS BE WORTHY OF YOUR EFFORT.

EVERY BIT EARNED

WE NEED A BETTER ALGORITHM By Tien Tzuo

In the late Nineties, Yahoo was the Internet. Technically it was a human-compiled directory of web sites, but it was essentially the home page of what was then a very new and exciting space. When I was looking around for a new job after business school, I discovered Salesforce on Yahoo. Here’s how it worked: If you had a web site, you submitted it to Yahoo, and if someone there thought it was worth including, they categorized it accordingly. The company hired librarians and book store employees to do this job. It was hailed as the most significant effort at organizing knowledge since Carolus Linnaeus invented the modern system of taxonomy. Then, of course, came Google. Google didn’t use people, it used math — or rather, it used math to formalize the collective intelligence of people. You typed in a subject, and its PageRank algorithm recommended a web site to you based on the number and quality of links to that web site. It was a brilliant algorithm. Google eventually left Yahoo in the dust. It grew enormously popular because it was simple and it worked. There was no public outcry about Google’s algorithm. No one accused it of making the world a worse place. There was no documentary decrying its evils, a “Social Dilemma” for its time.

“Google didn’t use people, it used math — or rather, it used math to formalize the collective intelligence of people. ” But then things took a turn for the worse. Social networks exploded in popularity, which was fine enough, but their algorithms had a very different goal: engagement. Suddenly the algorithmic priorities shifted away from authority and validation, towards hype and virality. Now, that was fine when people used Facebook to connect with old high school friends, or used Twitter to post about what they had for lunch. But it became extremely problematic when these platforms transformed into the primary source of news and information for millions of people.

“Suddenly the algorithmic priorities shifted away from authority and validation, towards hype and virality. ” Which brings us to the grim situation we find ourselves in today. In a recent Wall Street Journal article titled “Social

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Media Algorithms Rule the World. Good Luck Trying to Stop Them,” Joanna Stern writes that:

“People are shown things that appeal most to them, they click, they read, they watch, they fall into rabbit holes that reinforce their thoughts and ideas…They end up in their own personalized version of reality.” So what can we do about this? I have a few ideas. First, insert authority back into the algorithms. Stern suggests one option is that “the platforms get serious about deprioritizing the outrage, anger and conspiracy, and prioritizing the trustworthy, thoughtful and reputable—even if they know it means less engagement.” Your feed can’t just be simply what your network is sharing. Amassing a large following doesn’t make you by default an expert on anything. In the early days of Google, people were constantly trying to game the system by purchasing dozens of links to their websites; the algorithm eventually figured it out. Second, create more accountability. If the social media companies are indeed becoming a main source of “what’s going on in the world,” there needs to be consequences for spreading false information. We’re finally starting to see some of this happen now, but there needs to be way more investment in content moderation.

Third, fix the business model. Google works because its business model demands that user searches return relevant information. Again, this gives them an incentive to fight against people trying to game the system. The social media companies have no similar incentive. If anything, they make more money when people game the system by driving more engagement. That’s the problem with a business model that runs slot machine psychology and variable rewards. Social media will never be free of tribalism and anxiety. But getting rid of a business model that actually depends on tribalism and anxiety seems like a really good place to start. Prioritize authority. Create more accountability. Fix the business model. Then maybe social networks can go back to doing what they do best: connecting people.

“Social media will never be free of tribalism and anxiety. But getting rid of a business model that actually depends on tribalism and anxiety seems like a really good place to start. ” Tien currently serves as CEO of Zuora (NYSE:ZUO), a company he co-founded in 2007 and took public in 2018. Under Tien’s leadership, Zuora has emerged as the leading evangelist of the Subscription Economy -- the idea that all industries are shifting to a customer-centric, subscription-based business model.

‘Ideas Are Nothing; Doing Is Everything’: 5 Tips For Getting Your Creative Project Off The Ground By Lilly Smith

We’ve all heard the cliché “new year, new you.” But if you’re starting 2021 with the same job, same apartment, same routine, there’s a simple way to break the monotony: start to do some creative work on the side. That could mean sketching, designing your own graphics in Photoshop, starting a writing project, or picking up an instrument—whatever kind of creative project speaks to you. For Ji Lee, a creative director at Facebook and Instagram, these kinds of side projects are critical to staying creative and not getting burned out with corporate clients. He posts a few illustrations based on current events or his personal life each week on his Instagram account. For Lee, it’s also been beneficial for his mental health. “The act of doing something for me by me is hugely beneficial,” he says. “I’m taking care of myself.” Here, Lee explains how he’s made personal side projects a part of his routine—and how you can too. SIMPLIFY: IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIFE-CHANGING People tend to think of side projects as big undertakings, like writing a book, developing an app, or starting a business. But that’s the wrong tactic, according to Lee. Why put yourself under so much pressure? “My approach is a lot more simple than thinking about something that’s going to change your life or make you money,” he says. Rather, Lee approaches creative projects as a way to express his feelings about whatever’s happening in the world. To take the pressure down

a notch, he splits personal work into three categories: shortterm, midterm, and long-term. Short-term projects don’t take more than 30 minutes. For Lee, that usually means a sketch or graphic in Photoshop that he shares on Instagram. Midterm projects take a few months, like a short movie. Consider any big goals, like a book, long-term projects. By splitting up personal work into different categories, you mitigate the expectation that they have to be life changing. Sometimes it’s really just to have fun. DRAW INSPIRATION FROM ANYWHERE. THEN GIVE IT STRUCTURE When it comes to actually developing ideas, Lee has a few suggestions. First, draw inspiration from the world immediately around you. For Lee, that’s his surroundings, current events, and his family (he’s been spending a lot of time with his wife and young kids during quarantine). “One of the most important strategies to me is to constantly observe my thoughts,” he says, “and really hang on to the first idea I had and execute it.” No need to force something; just pay attention when you’re out and about. What do you notice? And when an idea strikes you, sketch it out or make some notes before you forget it. Second, apply some work principles: create a brief to come up with a more concrete concept. What’s the target audience? Project objective? Give yourself some guidelines for the

creative process. “A lot of people love to talk about ideas,” Lee says. “More often than not these ideas don’t turn into any action or tangible thing. I couldn’t put more emphasis that ideas are nothing in the end; doing is everything.” PUT NETFLIX ON PAUSE So how do you find the time? “That’s one of the things that I get asked a lot,” says Lee. But for him, it’s less about having a regimented schedule once he’s off the clock, as much as it’s about setting the aside time. Lee says making time for creative work requires the same discipline as going to the gym. It has to be prioritized over the first half of a game or the fourth episode of Bridgerton. As far as frequency, he says he makes about three short projects a week (though he says he thinks about concepts every day) and has bigger projects chugging along in the background at the same time. WANT TO MAKE THAT SIDE PROJECT INTO PAID GIGS? SHARE IT Maybe you’d like to use personal work to get freelance gigs. To start with, Lee says simply sharing your work can have a huge impact. Even if you’re self-conscious about the work, Lee says it’s an opportunity. Personal work showcases the power of storytelling in a way a client project can’t, he says.

“When you’re doing professional work, your main objective is to sell something. With personal projects, you’re not really trying to sell something. There’s a personal story behind that journey.” He’s found that people are interested in this because it’s more engaging; he’s even gotten job offers out of it. Lee saw this play out with what he says is one of the most important side projects he’s done: helping to renew his parent’s sense of purpose. Five years ago, Lee says his 78-year-old father was struggling with his health and depression. His father is an artist and his mother is a writer, so Lee recommended they start an Instagram account framed around letters to their grandkids. The account, called @ Drawingsformygrandchildren, has gone viral. And it changed their lives: launching a new career and giving newfound energy to the couple in their late 70s. They landed a book deal and is now financially independent when they weren’t before, Lee says. “These are examples of finding purpose for yourself and others around you that truly can have a difference,” he says. “I’d like to encourage people especially when working from home without interaction, depressing news, to turn negative energy into thinking about the purpose of your life and doing something positive.”

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Customer Experience at Netflix: 6 lessons we can all learn from! By Steven Van Belleghem

Netflix is one of my top favourite companies when it comes to customer experience. I visited them many times during our nexxworks Innovation Tours and was each time blown away by their approach. The company is pretty old by digital giant standards – it was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph – and first started out in the ‘atoms’ business

of mailing DVDs through the mail. So far, they have been able to reinvent themselves several times – evolving from a mailing service to a streaming service and then also starting their own in-house content offering – and I’m really curious what they will do in the coming years

to step up their game in an ever more vicious streaming war. For now, however, with 195 million subscribers through the third quarter of 2020 and an annual growth rate of 20% or higher over the last few years, the future still looks pretty bright. As they still are one of the absolute kings in frictionless, tailored and joyful customer experience, I wanted to inspire you with their most useful and successful practices. It’s easy to underestimate the importance of movies and series, but Netflix never made that mistake. They describe entertainment as a basic human need, which feels extra relevant in these pandemic and lockdown-filled times: Entertainment, like friendship, is a fundamental human need; it changes how we feel and gives us common ground. We want to entertain the world. If we succeed, there is more laughter, more empathy, and more joy. “We want to entertain the world”: how’s that for an ambitious mission? At the same time, the people at Netflix also realize on a deeper level that they sell ‘attention’ rather than entertainment. They know that they aren’t just competing with other streaming services— but rather with anything that takes consumers away from its services. That’s why its 2018 earnings report stated that “We compete with (and lose to) ‘Fortnite’ more than HBO.” This has tremendous repercussions on the customer experience as it means that Netlfix has to constantly battle for attention in a big red ocean and has no other choice but to offer absolute top quality experiences and products. That is why everyone at Netflix is not just focussed on the customer, but absolutely obsessed with them. Here’s how former Netflix VP of Product, Gibson Biddle, describes the difference: At Netflix, the customer is constantly under scrutiny: not just through analysing personal profile data to better recommend the right movies and series, but just as much through focus groups, usability sessions, one-on-ones and demographic or cancel surveys and then A/B testing the assumptions that flow out of these inputs. Netflix’ obsession goes a lot further than data, algorithms and fantastic personalization. Though the latter is obviously what sets them apart, as Reed Hastings describes it: “If the Starbucks secret is a smile when you get your latte, [Netflix’s secret] is that the Web site adapts to the individual’s taste.” They are in fact so serious about this that they call it “consumer science”: using a scientific methodology to form hypotheses, test them in order to build a culture of customer obsession and to discover what delights the customers. Consumer science is the driver behind their ultra-tailored experience and it’s also the reason why its inhouse content – like Black Mirror and The Queen’s Gambit – is so exceedingly popular. But it’s not just testing, data and algorithms that makes Netflix an absolute king of customer experience. They are one of the most human brands as well, with an exceptional customer service. One top of a wide range of self-help solutions in case of problems, English live support is available 24/7 (local from 8.00 till 23.00), through live chat or via phone. And each of the customer support members is fully trained to

focus on Joy instead of second guessing the customer. I love this personal example that Ian Hall writes about: “Last night I was passively watching (or more listening than anything) to Eco-Trip with my daughter while we fixed dinner. All of a sudden the sound gets all garbled. I figure the encoding is off and think nothing of it until this morning I receive the following email. Now THAT is customer service. Netflix knew I might be upset (or at least have noticed) the interruption and so, proactively, they allowed me to request a credit for a small amount of my bill. Now while 3% of my bill isn’t really going to add up, it makes me FEEL 100x better. And here I am gurgling over my feelings and the attention Netflix pays to their customers.” This is customer service done right: if something goes wrong, don’t wait for the customer to call to fix it. Fix it before that and make him/her feel good in doing so. Some of the best innovations come out of solving real problems. When Netflix started out as a movie rental service, Hastings was obsessed by “Making the movie experience so much better than the regular video rental that everyone wants to do it.” He went beyond positive CX, and offering ‘Joy’ and wanted to completely redefine the experience. For those who are too young to understand how video rental worked: you had to go to the store, find the right movie out of the hundreds of possibilities which could take ages and then there were the annoying late fees. Netflix offered lower prices with monthly subscriptions and got rid of late fees and you no longer had to go to the store (as they sent you the DVD via the mail). The first approach was not very ideal of course, so Netflix took a deep dive into the consumer journey and foresaw that instant-access entertainment – streaming – could easily solve all customer frustrations in the matter. And they have been chasing anger and frustration ever since to keep enhancing the experience. Last but not least, Netflix understands the competitive advantage of happiness, not just of its customers but of its employees as well. Though not all great customer experiences are rooted in great employee experiences (take Amazon warehouse workers, for instance), every great employee experience does rub off on the customer experience. Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings understands this better than anyone else: he and his colleagues think just as rigorously about people and culture as they do about digital streaming and content. They make sure that they hire the right – people “who will put the company’s interests first, who understand and support the desire for a high-performance workplace” – and then they empower them to make the most creative and impactful decisions, that will always trickle down to the customers. The Netflix culture manifesto states: “Our core philosophy is people over process. More specifically, we have great people working together as a dream team. With this approach, we are a more flexible, fun, stimulating, creative, collaborative and successful organization.” The latter has obviously just as much to do with employer branding in a raging talent war as with fostering creativity, innovation and continuously seeking better experiences for customers. Steven Van Belleghem is inspirator at B-Conversational. He is an inspirator, a coach and gives strategic advice to help companies better understand the world of conversations, social media and digital marketing. He is a former managing partner of the innovative research agency InSites Consulting.

What CMOs Need to Know About Email Subject Lines By Parry Malm

The CMO of 2021 has a lot on their shoulders. As the most senior marketer in every business right now, the task of the CMO has become taller than ever. The relationship between brand and consumer is shifting in new and unexpected ways, and the pressure to have all the answers in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape is being felt across the marketing world. The proliferation of digital marketing channels, already decades in the making, and the need to service all these marketing channels with effective, engaging content has kicked into high gear. But, in the race to maximize your brand’s presence on emerging digital marketing channels, it is crucial to ensure

that all fundamental bases are covered as effectively as possible. The old normal One of the greatest revelations in recent weeks has been the resurgence of humble email as the critical marketing channel in 2020. For marketers, the ‘old normal’ has made quite the impact and arguably is even more powerful than ever before. And yet, is the power of this channel even on the radar of most CMOs? Every consumer touchpoint is a branded moment. This immutable truth of marketing is just as true in the email inbox as it is anywhere. Email is your brand’s most direct pathway to the consciousness of its audience, free from interference/

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monetization by third parties and their individual agendas (which may not necessarily align with yours).

“Christmas” underperformed compared to those which didn’t in almost 50% of cases.

Over-delegation could destroy value

If your competitors are attempting to capitalize on this situation, there may be a competitive advantage in holding back and keeping your messaging on-brand and avoiding social change subject line copy altogether.

Relegating your brand’s email subject line copy to an afterthought or leaving it to junior members of your email marketing team could be a costly error and you potentially risk losing out on revenue and impacting campaign potential. The value of the email channel and subject line copy’s importance to success on this channel demand more. With global email open rates hovering somewhere around the 20% mark, ensuring that your brand’s subject line copy stands out from the crowd and engages your audience as effectively as possible will be crucial in the uncertain weeks and months to come. And, whether you know it or not, the humble (and oft overlooked) email subject line is the surest path to accomplishing that lofty and important goal. Trust the science Taking a science-based approach to your brand’s email subject line language is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s now a marketing imperative at the highest level. With that in mind, here are 5 science-based email subject line tips every CMO should take note of as 2021 begins… Anxiety-inducing marketing Brands have been using anxiety-inducing tactics/language to pressure consumers to buy for some time now. The experience of booking a flight/hotel online, for example, has in many cases become an exercise in anxiety and discomfort for consumers. Consumer data compiled by Phrasee and Vitreous world indicates that a full 68% of consumers in the UK and US would not buy from a company that targets negative emotions like stress and anxiety in its marketing. During a time of heightened sensitivity like the one we currently find ourselves in, avoiding such questionable tactics will likely become even more critical to audience engagement. Raising the bar on subject line copy As Warren Buffet once famously said, “If the reason for doing something is that everyone else is doing it, it’s not a good enough reason.” As the world’s inboxes fill up with issue-ofthe-day email subject line language, the question of whether to make this part of your brand’s subject line copy strategy is indeed an important one. The key question for brands: is this relevant? And. More importantly, will anyone care? I recently received an email from a restaurant in New York I ate at in 2011. The subject line read “It’s safe to eat here again”. Thing is, I live 4,000 miles away from that particular restaurant. Is this effective use of subject line copy? Building effective subject line copy isn’t about keywords. It’s about signaling that you’re making an offer based on a ubiquitous retail moment. In extensive split tests during the Black Friday and Christmas seasons on of 2019, for example, Phrasee found that email subject lines which included the words “Black Friday” and

The discounting race to the bottom Does discount-based email subject line copy work? In the short-term, it can (and often does). However, over time, such an approach devalues your brand and its products. If you constantly bombard your email audience with discountdriven email subject line copy, what message are you really sending? Why would any consumer pay full price for your products again? Length This might seem a trivial issue, but does an email subject line’s length have an appreciable impact on its performance? Despite the proliferation of blog posts outlining an “ideal” or “optimal” subject line length, actual data measured and tracked at scale suggests that it doesn’t. To focus on a subject line’s length is to focus on the wrong part of the problem. Getting your brand messaging right and identifying the language that has an impact on audience engagement – while a much tougher problem to solve – yields much more robust results. Tech Applying advanced technology to a problem as seemingly insignificant as the humble email subject line may seem like overkill. However, email subject lines consistently appear near the top of the list for consumers’ decisions about whether or not to open an email (second only to sender name). Ensuring that your email subject line copy is on-brand and effective has a deep effect on how your brand’s emails are perceived by your target audience. Send enough cheesy email subject line copy, and you’re likely to wind up with a customer who stops paying attention, or, worse still, relegates your emails to the dreaded spam folder. Why this should matter at CMO level The relationships between brands and their consumers have changed. Tech (like AI) can help you protect yours. Email subject lines may appear to be a small part of this, but they are important to the way your audience perceives your brand and its marketing. Re-engaging and focusing on the areas that deliver the biggest boost in email marketing performance and amplify your brand messaging will offer big dividends in 2021. Now is the time to re-evaluate your digital marketing strategies and re-engage with this underutilized but highly lucrative marketing channel. Parry Malm is the CEO and co-founder of Phrasee, which empowers brands with the most advanced AI-Powered Copywriting technology. Parry has been working with brands to optimize marketing results for almost 20 years.

Should Your DNA Data Be Used to Sell Products? By Wharton Staff

Sales of genetic testing kits have skyrocketed since they first appeared on the market in 2013. Now, more than 30 million people have taken these tests, adding a treasure trove of DNA information to enormous datasets that are already being tapped by tech-savvy businesses. Music streaming service Spotify offered curated playlists based on a listener’s DNA, for example, and AeroMexico advertised a “DNA Discounts” program on flights to Mexico for Americans who could prove Mexican ancestry through such a test.

Misuses in Marketing.” Recently published in the Journal of Marketing, the study is the first to examine how the availability of fine-grained genetic data is reshaping the field of marketing. In addition to exploring the ethical and legal challenges, the scholars offer a theoretical framework that incorporates genetic variables into existing consumer behavior theory.

The possibilities for using genetic information to market products and services seem as infinite as the genetic variation among human beings. But a groundbreaking study from Wharton warns marketers to proceed with caution. Serious ethical concerns about autonomy, privacy, discrimination and misinformation abound, and there are few laws that address these concerns.

Knowledge@Wharton: This is the first study that takes a look at how genetic data is influencing marketing. Why did you want to study this topic?

Wharton marketing assistant postdoctoral researcher Remi Wharton emeritus professor of of the paper, titled “Genetic

professor Gideon Nave, Daviet, and Jerry Wind, marketing, are the authors Data: Potential Uses and

Knowledge@Wharton asked Nave and Daviet some questions about the paper. Their answers appear below.

Gideon Nave: Over the past decade, there has been an exponential growth of the direct-to-consumer genetic testing market. This has led to accumulation of massive genetic databases by privately owned companies, such as 23andMe and Ancestry. These genetic datasets are commonly used in health care applications, such as informing consumers about genetic risks. However, we also noticed that marketing teams of several global firms started incorporating genetic

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data into marketing campaigns. For example, last year Spotify partnered with Ancestry and began to offer its users the ability to upload their data and create playlists that matched their genetic ancestry. AirBnB partnered with 23andMe to offer cultural trips and experiences that are tailored to one’s genetic heritage. Another prominent example is Aeromexico, which ran ads where they offered a discount matching one’s percentage of “Mexican DNA” (though we do not know for sure if such discounts were actually offered). So, the natural motivation for us was to evaluate what can actually be done with genetic data from a marketing standpoint. Remi Daviet: We then became increasingly concerned about the implications for consumers, and society as a whole, considering ethics and privacy issues. Genetic data is informative about virtually everything that characterizes you: from which diseases you’ll potentially develop while aging, to what flavor of ice cream you likely prefer. We wanted to also investigate this dimension and evaluate the potential threats. Knowledge@Wharton: Your paper discusses how marketers

may be able to use information mined from genetic data. Can you illustrate how can be done? Nave: The fundamental idea here is that marketing is about addressing the consumer’s needs. Different people have different needs, and genetics often plays a role in shaping these differences. For example, think of a high-quality pizza restaurant launching an online campaign in order to lure people to try their pizza. A good campaign would place the product in the center and highlight offerings that consumers may find particularly appealing. But people differ in their preferences: some like savory pizza toppings like anchovy; some enjoy spicy toppings like jalapenos; and others prefer sweet toppings like pineapple. Some consumers are also lactose-intolerant and look for pizza with lactose-free cheese. Some seek a gluten-free pizza. These different needs and preferences of consumers are, to some degree, related to genetically regulated biological processes that govern our sensory perception and metabolism. In such cases, the consumers’ genetic markup may be more informative about their needs than their demographics. The pizza restaurant could partner with a genetic-testing company, like Spotify and AirBnB did, and try to create a

genetically personalized promotion strategy and customized ads for each consumer. They may not even need an access to genetic data, and simply ask the genetic-testing company to run the campaign on their behalf, just like marketers use Facebook’s advertising platform without having access to each consumer’s data. Not long ago, this would have sounded like science fiction, but we are seeing companies that have already been doing similar things.

“People might not realize the amount of information their DNA contains and the potential consequences of leaving their data within the hands of for-profit companies.”–Remi Daviet

“Marketing is about addressing the consumer’s needs. Different people have different needs, and genetics often plays a role in shaping these differences.”–Gideon Nave

Daviet: The U.S. has a history of trying to regulate industries only once harm has been done and social pressure increases on politicians. Europe tends to be more proactive. In the U.S., we can see that the Federal Trade Commission only started last week to investigate how internet giants collect and use personal data, although those practices have been going on for years. Moreover, we are only looking at an investigation and have absolutely no guarantee that this will result in any regulatory changes. As industry actors have a lot more active lobbying power than consumers, it is unlikely that the U.S. will ever be a first mover in that field. We believe that genetic data should be considered as very personal and sensitive, like medical records or tax returns. Regulations that prevent retaining and sharing data would probably be beneficial in that sense. If genetic data is retained, it should be encrypted with specific security features. Finally, any data mining for commercial purposes should be individually accepted by the consumer, not as is currently done with a general blanket term, allowing its use for any “marketing and personalization purposes.” An optimal solution would be to have the data encrypted and processed on the consumer device, and never shared with private companies.

Knowledge@Wharton: What are the ethical concerns with using genetic data in marketing? Daviet: People might not realize the amount of information their DNA contains and the potential consequences of leaving their data within the hand of for-profit companies. Once a private company holds the data, they might be interested in monetizing it as much as possible, which includes selling it to other companies, and ultimately risk being detrimental to consumers. When people agree to share their genetic data, do they think thoroughly about all the potential consequences? Another issue is that your genome is not only informative about yourself, but also about your relatives who share part of their genome with you. These relatives might not have given their consent for you to share their data and have companies trying to monetize it. A subsequent risk is also a potential reinforcement of discriminations. For instance, a university might identify which genetic patterns are associated with higher performance among students and target similar individuals in their marketing campaigns with incentives to enroll, increasing further the gap between already advantaged students and the others. Nave: An additional serious concern is misinformation. People are, in general, fascinated with their genomes, and genetics is strongly associated with scientific discovery in their minds. Because of this, consumers might tend to believe that every recommendation that is based on their genetic data relies on solid scientific evidence, even when it is not explicitly stated. In reality, the science is often quite shaky, and even when it is not, the role of genetics in many cases is relatively small, compared to environmental factors. Over the past years we have witnessed the emergence of startups that allegedly tailor wine recommendations or help people find romantic partners based on their genetic markup. These applications are not based on solid science, and we are concerned that the average consumer might not realize that. Knowledge@Wharton: In the paper, you point out that there are very few laws in the United States to regulate the use of genetic data, especially when compared with the laws in Europe. Why is the U.S. lagging behind, and what kinds of laws or policies are needed?

Knowledge@Wharton: In the paper, you say that there are “gaps in the knowledge” on this subject and that further research is needed. What are those gaps, and what’s next for this research? Daviet: We all know that the advertising giants are accumulating data about your every action to predict what products you would buy, what services you would consume, and which ads you better respond to. The potential of genetic data for marketing depends on its capacity to improve predictions beyond these already existing data. While we know that genetic data is informative about virtually every human trait and behavior, we don’t know in which sectors, for which products, and by how much it is informative beyond existing data. Nave: We also don’t know how consumers will react to having their genetic data used for marketing purposes. Genetic research has many health-related applications, potential marketing uses being only one of them. For example, a recent study identified several genetic variants related to the chance of developing severe COVID-19 symptoms once the virus is contracted. Such discoveries could lead to development of new therapeutics and save lives. Eventually, scientific discoveries in this domain critically depend on people taking genetic tests and consenting to participate in research. If the consequence of using genetic data by marketers is that people would just stop taking genetic tests, this might backfire and we would all pay the price. We are currently investigating all these issues and expect to have new findings soon.

The CMO as therapist: Marketing chiefs take on more intimate workplace role in pandemic By Tony Case

The marketing chiefs of some of the best-known companies — from Mastercard to Celebrity Cruises — have employed novel approaches to keeping the troops happy and secure in these trying times, everything from inviting the family dog to Zoom calls to sending ice cream care packages. It’s all part of how they rethought and reasserted leadership during the pandemic. The role of CMO has evolved far beyond promoting and building the brand to include a more personal approach to the employer-employee relationship. Marketing chiefs this year faced the dual challenges of driving business during one of the worst global economic crises ever and reimagining the workplace to accommodate factors like social distancing and stay-at-home guidelines. On top of that: managing displaced, sometimes overburdened team members juggling home and work from the kitchen table. Amid Covid-19, social unrest and a growing strain on mental health, employees are looking to leaders far more than ever. “This has required us to play the role of both manager and counselor — listening before acting and, at times, offering support that’s both professional and personal,” said Alicia Tillman, global CMO of software maker SAP. Among Tillman’s

pandemic priorities is a weekly communique to her not only to provide business updates but to foster of closeness. Over time, the communications have more personal, ranging from her reflections on her vacation to pointers on well-being from SAP’s chief officer.

team — a sense become summer medical

Communicating to employees that their jobs were secure was job one for Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar at the outset of the pandemic. Though many executives, under intense revenue pressure, have let go of people, Rajamannar was not among them. It was news that, in a year full of bad news, he was relieved to share with his team. “One of the first tasks of a leader [in times like these] is to reach out and communicate, communicate, communicate,” he said. “Tell your employees what management is thinking about and where things stand — the good, the bad and the ugly.” To that end, Rajamannar instituted several policies aimed at enhancing work life. For example, meetings are not scheduled when staff is most likely focused on family or personal matters after 5 p.m. The CMO also started a book club, featuring

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self-help titles, such as those on persuasion tactics. Brad Nelson, CMO of Sotheby’s International Realty — whose team supports more than 23,000 agents in 72 countries — has also been focused on lending employees support and inspiration that mirrored the custom experiences the company provides clients. For example, this July 4th, his events team sent every employee a care package from the ice cream vendor Van Leeuwen. This holiday season, it partnered with a professional chef on a virtual cooking class for employees. Remote working has been a major factor in employees feeling less than grounded this year. As with so many other employers, the virtual office has become the norm in Nelson’s organization — something he expects will continue in some capacity postpandemic. He sees the physical workplace of the future as primarily a “collaboration space.” While there are benefits, remote working has its downsides, as Nelson sees it. “What we lose on Zoom is the feedback and relationship building,” he added. Martine Williamson, the newly appointed CMO of Revlon, agrees that the remote office leaves much to be desired. “There is some magic lost when teams cannot work together

in person,” she said. Yet there is no question the pandemic has forever changed the way we think about the physical workspace. “The key, as we work through our workplace-ofthe-future plans, will be agility and flexibility,” she said. Celebrity Cruises CMO Peter Giorgi also misses the social and collaborative aspects that come with being in the same room. To keep the troops connected and morale aloft, he has encouraged staff to bring their children, household pets, or anyone or anything else they’re passionate about to monthly departmental meetings. Time management was always a concern, but these times have amplified the matter. Who among us has not complained about the relentless stream of Zoom appointments? They take away any opportunity for spontaneous check-ins and catch-ups, said Giorgi. While technologies like Slack and Messenger have become important for staying connected to co-workers and bosses, Giorgi has put some limits on certain office communications — banning video calls on Friday afternoon, for example. By that point in the week, we’ve all had enough of Zoom, he said, and “a good, old-fashioned conference call feels like a vacation.”

OPINION: FROM ‘OK BOOMER’ TO ‘OK BRAND’— HOW TO ALIGN WITH GEN Z’S SOCIAL CONSCIENCE

By Mike Proulx

You may not recognize the name Peter Kuli, at first blush, but you definitely know his impact on pop culture. In October 2019, Kuli (a college sophomore) remixed a friend’s audio clips into a music track that he then uploaded to TikTok. The name of the song? “OK boomer.” His tweet about the song ignited a new trend and within a few weeks, tens of thousands of “OK boomer”-themed TikTok videos flooded

the Gen Z-dominated platform. Not long after, New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz published an article that catapulted “OK boomer” to the mainstream, codifying the point-of-view of a new generation. Gen Z has reached a boiling point over issues like racism, gender inequality, college debt, climate change and gun

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55 violence. “OK boomer” became, as Kuli called it, a “digital middle finger”—not against baby boomers en masse but against a perceived mindset of ignorance and inaction. Enter 2020. Gen Zers now have their digital middle fingers armed and ready to flip off brands who hold that same “Boomer” mindset. The events of the past year have deeply impacted Gen Z, a group that is coming of age at the intersection of a global pandemic, a reinvigorated Black Lives Matter movement, and a not-so-peaceful transition of presidential power. As part of a larger research effort on next-generation consumer behaviors, I interviewed a number of Gen Zers and asked about how the chaos of 2020 affected their relationships with brands. As 19-year-old Georgia native Rob Felton shared with me, “Every one of us is going through some sort of introspection right now. The pandemic has made me look at brands more seriously. I’ve started to care less about the products they sell and more about their message to consumers. Are they reflecting the emotions of the world? Do they care about being direct and honest with consumers, even if it’s uncomfortable?” The answers to these questions directly impact a brand’s bottom line. A recent retail consumer survey from Forrester (my employer) found that 55% of Gen Z indicated that a company’s social responsibility reputation either influences or highly influences their purchase behavior (compared to only 26% of boomers). As brands reflect on last week’s domestic terrorist attack on our nation’s Capitol building, many have taken swift and public action. But earning the devotion of Gen Z—a deeply purpose-led cohort—won’t happen with just a one-off CSR effort that some might say is too late. It requires brands to take deliberate, consistent and sustained actions to win and keep the business of the next generation of consumers. To do so, brands must: 1. Impact with influence Forrester’s data shows a 6 point year-over-year drop in Gen Zers who think it’s cool to be associated with a brand on social media (from 52% in 2019 to 46% in 2020). Despite the downtick, brands still wield a great deal of societal influence which Gen Z expects them to exert. Nineteen-year-old Zafi Smith from Massachusetts put it bluntly: “It is your job as a brand to come through right now because you have such a large impact on society. When a brand like Nike says, ‘This is what it is,’ that can go really, really far.” Like Nike, Procter & Gamble has been using its platform of influence to combat racial inequality through a series of short films. Its most recent one, titled “The Choice,” addresses what it means to be anti-racist. Content like this can make an impact particularly on Gen Zers who personify brands as influencers that can succumb to cancel culture when they’re not seen as stepping up to the plate. As 22-year-old Dominican Republic native, Joan Garcia questioned, “Do I really want to use a brand that does not care about what’s going on in society?” Influencing through provocative storytelling is just the tip of the spear when it comes to standing up for what’s right in the

eyes of Gen Zers, who believe words alone aren’t actions. 2. Act with action The past year particularly tested Gen Z’s B.S. meter and entered phrases like “purpose-washing” and “performative activism” into the common lexicon. Michael Pankowski, a junior at Harvard and founder of Gen Z consulting firm Crimson Connection, challenges brands to act beyond just content. “Every brand wants to get on the purpose train but so many of them are simply saying nice things but not doing anything,” he says, “If you want Gen Z’s trust as a brand, we need to see that you’re legitimately backing your words with actions.” But it’s critical that the actions a brand takes are seen as originating from the inside out. As Felton discerns brands’ responses to Black Lives Matter, he asks, “What is your brand doing behind the scenes? Are you hiring more people of color into your offices? Are you trying to reach out to communities that you haven’t been in touch with? Are you ensuring your marketing is inclusive from the start?” Jeff Fromm, a partner at Barkley and author of Marketing to Gen Z, punctuates this by saying, “In order to win with this generation, you better win inside to win outside, because if your employees say that your external comms are fake, you will get called out.” 3. Equalize with empathy Hulu’s Generation Stream report indicates that the most sought-after content experiences by Gen Zer’s are the ones that are helping them to cope. This applies to brands as well because, increasingly, Gen Z approaches brand transactions as an ROI exercise in empathy. As Felton says, “I’m now transacting with brands a lot less frivolously. I only want to give my money, attention and time to brands who care about me. I’ve become more cognizant that when I spend money on a product, I’m actually making an investment in a brand.” Brands who can truly empathize are also able to equalize. As Garcia put it, “I look for brands who are using their platforms to amplify those voices that are not being heard.” And Smith adds, “When I think of the pandemic, I think of everything that’s happened this year; I think about George Floyd. I’m no longer supporting brands that I’m not seeing take action for a more equitable future.” To lead the way with Gen Z consumers, brands must embrace the interconnectedness of profit and purpose. Patagonia, Allbirds, Ben & Jerry’s and Dove are just a few examples of successful brands that are seen by Gen Z as prioritizing humanity through their influence, action and empathy. In a way, they make standing up for what’s right look easy because “purpose” is hardwired into their DNA. Yet, most brands have much more work to do to become conscious companies that pass Gen Z’s sniff test. According to a recent Piper Sandler report, teen spending since the pandemic is at 15 year all-time low, while data from Spotify shows that 53% of Gen Zers are growing increasingly wary of big institutions. So, OK brand, how will you impact, act and equalize in 2021?

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Could End Up Bankrupt for These Reasons, According to Specialist By Entrepreneur Staff

Right now, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world thanks to Amazon , his leading online sales company. However, retail expert Doug Stephens predicts that the giant could fall over the next decade, even going bankrupt. On his Business of Fashion corporate page, Retail Prophet’s founder and advisor to some of the world’s most respected brands predicts “the end of Amazon.” “I think that in ten years Amazon is going to decline and these are just some of the reasons,” Stephens wrote. Amazon follows in Walmart’s footsteps One of the reasons for the possible bankruptcy of the online trading platform would be that it is following the same patterns as other companies. Stephens gives Walmart an example. “Between 1962 and the early 2000s, Walmart led the retail business, beating out dozens of competitors large and small. By 2010, Walmart had opened a staggering 4,393 stores, of which more than 3,000 opened after 1990, ” explains the expert. After suffering a big drop in sales in 2015, Walmart has failed to take off in online retail. “The decline of the once impenetrable giant has shown that even the most titanic companies can fall,” Stephens said. Amazon offers efficiency, but no shopping experience The specialist considers it dangerous that Bezos intends to maintain the same long-term operating model. “In our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that is going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want a wide selection, “ said the tycoon in

statements taken up by Business of Fashion. However, Stephens believes that people don’t just buy because they want the products as quickly as possible. They also want the full shopping experience : getting out of the house, touching the products, comparing them with each other, trying new things or getting inspired. In that sense, the disadvantage of Amazon is limited to online purchases. Focus on customer service will be lost When a company has a powerful leader like Jeff Bezos at the helm, it would hardly function without him. The expert predicts that, as Amazon continues its expansion, the figure of Bezos could dissipate or disappear. Then it would be possible that you lose your initial mission, which is customer satisfaction, to prioritize the optimization of processes based on figures and data. He also anticipates that the company will innovate less. “The energy, once directed to improving the business, will be depleted in simply working to maintain the organizational infrastructure ,” Stephens noted. See also: See why Jeff Bezos will increase his fortune thanks to the arrival of Airbnb to Wall Street Dough Stephens cites other reasons for Amazon’s potential downfall , such as the rumored toxic work environment and the migration of current partners to other, friendlier delivery platforms. The combination of these factors could cause Amazon to suffer losses over the next decade and be replaced by another similar company that offers better conditions for partners, workers and customers.

Effective channel strategies move people and grow brands By Chiara Manco

The WARC Media Awards’ Effective Channel Integration category rewards result-boosting comms architecture. While media-multiplier logic tells us that messages spanning multiple channels are likely to reach more people and grab more of their attention, some of the 2020 Media Awards winners went one step further. They showed that well-orchestrated channel integration has the power to engage consumers on a deeper level: empowering them, spurring them into action and even giving rise to movements. Band-Aid: siding with its consumers to create a movement Band-Aid’s effort to normalise wearing sneakers during job interviews was admired for being an unexpected take on the brand’s purpose, and earned it the Grand Prix. Through BBDO Japan, the plaster brand sided with Japanese students to fight the job-hunting dress code, which involved uncomfortable, painful leather shoes. Judge Sarah Baumann, Managing Director or VaynerMedia London, commented: “Many plaster brands would have gone: ‘Great, we have plenty of customers now!’, but they went for brand loyalty by keeping the interests of their audience at heart.” The campaign worked hard on a small budget thanks to a PR push and strategic placements, such as OOH in train stations frequented by job-hunters. Wanting to effect systemic change, Band-Aid also reached out to HR departments and partnered retail stores to make sneakers an acceptable choice of footwear for interviews. Band-Aid surpassed its KPI of achieving a 10% increase in sales, growing penetration among the youth and improving brand trust to boot.

Head & Shoulders: using humour to empower Gold winner Say it Proud, by MediaCom Indonesia for Head & Shoulders, saw the brand owning up to a weakness to empower its consumers and ultimately grow sales. The brand found Indonesians struggled to pronounce its name, and hence would not ask for it in shops for fear of embarrassing themselves. In line with its purpose of helping people be more confident, the brand endorsed all mispronunciations of its name. The breadth of channels stood out to judges: alongside TV and radio spots, Head & Shoulders also tweaked voice and Google searches to accept common mispronunciations. The cherry on top, however, was seen to be the production of more than 300 versions of shampoo bottles, featuring the alternative spelling of the brand’s name – not a small feat coming from a P&G brand. Sales grew by 20% as a result of the campaign, making Head & Shoulders the fastest-growing brand in the same small shops where it used to struggle. It bagged a Gold at the Media Awards, and was described by judge Gianluca Toccafondi, Global Integrated Media Manager at IKEA: “outstanding, both in terms of scale and cultural contextuality.” Help for Heroes: creating a new channel for a social cause Military charity Help for Heroes raised awareness of the plight of injured soldiers, mobilising a country to drive political change. Through McCann London, the charity wished to tackle the issue of the UK’s 40,000 injured army veterans struggling to rebuild post-military lives due to lack of support.

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To bring the cause to life, it created an installation featuring an army of 40,000 toy soldiers and promoted it through a hero film. Real veterans were chosen to tell their stories across social media and the toy soldiers modelled after them were made available in exchange for donations. More than a creative device carried across all touchpoints, the toy soldiers constituted a channel in themselves, content turned into media. Judge Karine Courtemanche, Chief Executive Officer, PHD and Touché, expressed this well when she commented: “I see the soldiers themselves as the message becoming the medium.” The Gold-winning campaign generated £187,181 in donations, 43% higher than the target, delivering ROI of 4.5:1. But beyond driving PR and donations, it also gave rise to conversations at a political level, leading stakeholders to review the medical discharge process to grant injured soldiers greater support. Passat: hooking consumers across touchpoints Volkswagen’s paper through PHD Media and Nord DDB earned it a Gold and the POE Special Award for the best integration of paid, owned and earned media. Described by some judges as “brilliantly cheeky”, the campaign got consumers devoting their full attention to every last piece of comms from the car manufacturer. To drive interest for its new Passat Alltrack model in Sweden, the brand launched a scavenger hunt that would lead participants to a remote showroom containing a single Passat as the prize. Clues to the showroom’s location were hidden in ads across search, OOH, TV, online video and print.

The paper was praised for its fresh approach to the giveaway mechanic. Judge Shann Biglione, Executive Vice President and Head of Strategy at Zenith USA, said: “I love it when brands take an old trick and execute it in a flawless way. The commitment to the execution and the lengths they went to integrate the idea were amazing.” The treasure hunt engaged 15,000 people, leading to 100,000 unique visits to the campaign site and a 60% increase in Instagram followers. The compelling giveaway naturally led people to take interest in the brand. One participant tweeted: “I barely knew what Volkswagen was before the competition but now you are the brand I know the most about.” This was reflected in brand metrics, with preference increasing by 11% and brand consideration by 23%. Beyond reach and attention Whether it was rallying people behind a cause, or hooking them with an immersive experience, these winners showed how smart channel integration can engage consumers beyond just grabbing their attention. Creating a sense of connection, other standout audience-moving papers brought communities together. Tesco adapted its communications during the first UK lockdown, and united a nation around the food they prepared for their loved ones. Still in the UK, the National Health Service launched a nurse recruitment drive by championing the rewarding nature of the job. Elsewhere, in Lebanon, NGO Donner Sang Compter rethought tradition to shine a spotlight on the importance of voluntary blood donations.

It’s About Time: Six Tried-and-True Ways to Extract Content From Your SMEs by Mindi Zissman

Content creation is one of those tasks organizational leaders must do but rarely find the time for. Time is our scarcest resource. We’re all guilty of shelving

Business School. As much as 72% of their work time is spent

work that isn’t a top priority, and that is precisely what makes

in meetings and 32% of their meetings last an hour (38% are

extracting content ideas from executives and internal experts

even longer).

a major challenge for nearly every marketing department.

In light of that, it’s difficult for CMOs and corporate content

Business leaders work 9.7 hours per weekday, on average,

teams to extract knowledge from internal experts, even when

and conduct business on 79% of weekend days and 70% of

they value your efforts—and it’s nearly impossible when they

vacation days, on average, according to research by Harvard

don’t!

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For years, I watched internal marketing teams struggle to develop high-quality, original content specific to their organization, written by their leaders and targeted for their customers. CMOs and content teams often resort to begging (“I’ll take you to lunch!”) or threats (“Our customers are desperate for direction!”) to publish even a single blog post. The result of such coercion looks something like this: The CEO, product manager, or EVP-level employee burns the midnight oil after they put their “real work” to rest, only to arrive at the CMO’s desk in the morning with pages and pages of incoherent, stream-of-consciousness prose. Sound familiar? With so much technology at our fingertips and better communication and transparency than ever, our marketing teams can and should do better. We can find a way to produce regular streams of high-quality content authored by internal-expert sources. Here are six tried-and-true ways to extract content from your executives and internal experts. 1. Abstract Day Depending on the size of your organization and the amount of content you need to generate, Abstract Day is one of the most effective methods at extracting content from your subject-matter experts (SMEs). Think of it as speed dating. Pick a day and schedule internal experts every 30 minutes. During their time slot, the experts come to a conference room—or jump onto a running Zoom meeting—to present a content idea they have or to make themselves available for an interview about their latest project, client issue/challenge, an industry first, or other relevant news item. During the conversation, gather the expert’s bestpractices, a timely hook, and any other information you need to eventually write the post or article. Repeat monthly, biannually, annually—whatever frequency makes best sense for your needs. Tip: The Abstract Day method is most successful when the result (the article abstract, blog, whitepaper) is emailed to the executive for approval prior to publishing. Give the SME full rights to make edits (via revision tracking, of course, so you can see them). Let SMEs know that ahead of time, when they sign up for Abstract Day, so there’s no apprehension. 2. Adaptive Reuse Take a PowerPoint from an SME’s sales or client presentation. Turn it into a post or article. Again, always send your content to the expert for approval. Ask for edits via revision tracking, and publish. 3. Already Scheduled Calls Chances are that your internal experts and executive team move from call to call all day with clients, potential clients, or even news or trade media. Jump on a call, or go with them to a presentation/sale where they’re likely presenting their best

client-facing content, and capture it! 4. Research Have a topic in mind? Do the necessary background research. Find out what your competitors have to say on the topic and send your SME a list of five pointed questions that highlight your organization’s take, best-practices, or unique tips. Schedule a call with the appropriate SME for just 15 minutes, then write the piece of content. 5. The Voice Note For that exec or expert who can’t be bothered by you or your team for even 15 minutes, suggest the voice note. (This idea comes from my friend John Bonini, director of marketing at Databox and author of the Some Good Content blog.) Send your SMEs an email with the same five pointed questions from Item No. 4 and ask that they record their answers while they’re on the train or in their car on the way to or from the office. Voila! You’ve got their original ideas—in their own words. 6. Writing Workshop Lunch & Learn For adventurous executives who want to write their own content but aren’t sure how, or if they need more direction, offer a 30-minute writing workshop and food (the latter is critical!). Have your freelance writers or internal content team give a crash course (use visuals to keep them awake) on how to write trade magazine articles or blog posts. Outline how 2021 content differs from a college paper (the last time many of them wrote something), and get them started on an outline for the post/article around their idea. Present examples of content your firm has published in the last year or two; outline each one’s success and ROI. Tip: I find the writing workshop most successful when it’s followed up with a 15-30-minute session in which the expert can share an outline with you or your team before the writing begins. That avoids having to painfully redirect executives after they’ve already put the time in to write—or you’re stuck with publishing something that makes you cringe. Like everything else in life, the tactics outlined in this article require time to take flight. Eventually, your executives and SMEs will get used to having the marketing team on calls, and they’ll remember Abstract Day fondly from the publicity it gave them the last time around. Who knows? Maybe you’ll eventually “teach” the leadership team to think like a marketer. OK, fine. That’s a little ambitious. Mindi Zissman is president of Zissman Media. A ghostwriter specializing in risk, insurance, and compliance, she has been helping B2B businesses write content for 16+ years.

Book,

Line

Branding: In Five and a Half Steps Hardcover – Illustrated, November 15, 2016 By Michael Johnson Michael Johnson is one of the world’s leading graphic designers and brand consultants. His studio, johnson banks, is responsible for the rebranding of many notable clients, including Virgin Atlantic, Think London, BFI, Christian Aid, and MORE TH>N, and he has garnered a plethora of awards in the process.

Lemon. How the advertising brain turned sour Paperback – October 15, 2019 By Orlando Wood Using a unique mix of neuroscience, cultural history and advertising research, the study shows how an increase in abstract, left-brain thinking has spread across business and popular culture and how this is undermining creativity and making advertising less effective. Crucially, it also provides practical advice to reverse this decline.

How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World by Jenni Romaniuk The first monograph, design manual, and manifesto by Michael Bierut, one of the world’s most renowned graphic designers—a career retrospective that showcases

Book of Branding - a guide to creating brand identity for startups and beyond By Radim Malinic

Sinker Give & Get Employer Branding: Repel the Many and Compel the Few with Impact, Purpose and Belonging By Bryan Adams Combining the expertise of employer brand industry leaders Charlotte Marshall and Bryan Adams, Give & Get Employer Branding redefines the concept of an employee value proposition entirely.

Pandemic, Inc.: 8 Trends Driving Business Growth and Success in the New Economy

By Patrick Schwerdtfeger This is a difficult time, that’s for sure, but it’s also a time of enormous opportunity. Entrepreneurs, small business owners, and selfemployed professionals need to leverage these 8 trends to thrive in tomorrow’s economy!

Identity Designed: The Definitive Guide to Visual Branding By Phil Rosenzweig Ideal for students of design, independent designers, and entrepreneurs who want to expand their understanding of effective design in business, Identity Designed is the definitive guide to visual branding.

Build Your Brand Mania: How to Transform Yourself Into an Authoritative Brand That Will Attract Your Ideal Customers By Matt Bertram

Book of Branding is an essential addition to the start-up toolkit, designed for entrepreneurs, founders, visual designers, brand creators and anyone seeking to decode the complicated world of brand identity.

The missing piece of internet marketing that almost all business owners miss is transforming themselves into an authoritative brand that attracts their ideal customers.

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No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing By Dan S. Kennedy

Magnetic Marketing: How To Attract A Flood Of New Customers That Pay, Stay, and Refer

Simply broadcasting a message to millions by social media accomplishes little for most businesses. Millionaire-maker Dan S. Kennedy and marketing strategist Kim Walsh Phillips are here to tell it like it is: If you’re not focusing on converting social media traffic into sales, you might as well set your money on fire.

By Dan S. Kennedy

Copywriting Secrets: How Everyone Can Use The Power Of Words To Get More Clicks, Sales and Profits . . . No Matter What You Sell Or Who You Sell It To!

Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers

By Jim Edwards

Master the evergreen traffic strategies to fill your website and funnels with your dream customers in this timeless book from the $100M entrepreneur and co-founder of the software company ClickFunnels.

Nobody is born knowing how to sell. But the truth is, you can learn how to sell more . . . a LOT more . . . when you discover the right words that make people buy.

MAGNETIC MARKETING® is a radical, dramatically different sea-change in the way new customers, clients, patients or prospects are attracted and in the way products, services, businesses and practices are advertised.

By Russell Brunson

Binge Worthy Branding: Build Customer Loyalty Using AI and Personalization Like Amazon, Netflix, and Starbucks

Be Our Guest (Revised and Updated Edition): Perfecting the Art of Customer Service (A Disney Institute Book)

By Sterling C McKinley

By The Disney Institute

Binge Worthy Branding reveals why innovation is important in business and how to build a brand strong enough to survive in this noisy and competition-driven economy.

Disney Institute specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

Brand Storytelling: Put Customers at the Heart of Your Brand Story

Branding and Marketing: Practical Step-by-Step Strategies on How to Build your Brand and Establish Brand Loyalty using Social Media Marketing to Gain ... Boost your Business

By Miri Rodriguez Written by the award-winning storyteller Miri Rodriguez at Microsoft, this actionable guide goes beyond content strategy and, instead, demonstrates how to leverage brand storytelling in the marketing mix to strengthen brand engagement and achieve long-term growth, with advice from brands like Expedia, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Adobe and Google.

By Gavin Turner If you want to discover how to build your brand like Apple and establish brand loyalty on social media for more sales, then keep reading…