The Big Impression

On the latest episode of The Big Impression podcast, Samsung’s Allison Stransky discusses the company’s new AI-focused campaign, “Your Home Speaks You.” She explains the importance of conveying how Samsung’s AI-powered home-automation features benefit the consumer. 

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today we're joined by Allison Stransky, Chief Marketing Officer at Samsung Electronics America. She's led brand strategy at global companies like Google and L'Oreal, and now drive Samsung's vision for the connected home.

Damian Fowler (00:24):

Allison's here to talk about Samsung's new campaign Your Home Speaks You launched in June. The campaign highlights the joy of a home that feels more personal, showing how Samsung's connected products and Galaxy AI come together in everyday moments. Think a washer dryer that finishes a load in 68 minutes or a fridge that tells you to order some more cheese.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:47):

I love that idea. It's an omnichannel campaign built on real consumer insights about what homeowners actually need and how connected tech can save time, reduce stress, and make life a little easier.

Damian Fowler (01:01):

So let's get into it.

Ilyse Liffreing (01:08):

So Alison, the campaign Your Home speaks to you. It really redefines the home, not just as a space but as a feeling. And for the first time, it actually connects all of Samsung's various products into one overall story where anybody can pair these devices throughout the home together. Can you discuss the campaign and then how you translated that vision into the creative?

Allison Stransky (01:31):

Absolutely. So the initial insight behind your home speaks you is that we are all unique individuals and so are our homes, but also our homes are unique reflection of ourselves. And this actually went back to a campaign that we launched in 2024, but in 25 we took a really exciting evolution, which as you said was the first time we made a wide reaching video, digital video campaign featuring multiple Samsung products working together because we wanted to really convey to consumers who know consumers who don't know how much more you can get out of the Samsung ecosystem when you connect it all through smart things and what is also net new, how Galaxy AI takes those benefits really to the next level. So we are firm believers in how incredible our products are and how amazing they can all be when they work together, but we needed to translate that into something really tangible and relatable.

(02:38):

So that's where it came to life. In this campaign we featured four different hero products, the two TVs, combo washer dryer and the Bespoke fridge in sequence with a number of mobile products because that is where a lot of the real benefits of the interoperability can start to happen and then looked for real emotional insights to drive the storyline. So to turn that idea into a campaign, it all starts with the data. So we wanted to start by understanding the features and the benefits that our consumers like the most about our products and how our products work together. And then we took that data and turned them into insights. So to give you an example of how that worked, I'll start with the bespoke combo washer dryer. This is a new product that we launched in 2025. It does a wash in a dry all in one cycle in 68 minutes.

(03:38):

So this is the fastest combo washer dryer on the market, which is great. Fast speed is a great benefit, but when you connect to smart things and you start working with all of your devices together, you can really take your efficiency to the next level through things like notifications. But the human insight that comes into play is imagine that you are coming home and have to get ready for a date and you find that your dog is sitting on the clothes that you laid out for your date and your now brief tells you you have to be out the door in 75 minutes. Well, Samsung saves the day or the date night with the combo washer dryer and the sequence of notifications so you can get ready to go. And that's how really we thought about the whole campaign of bringing it together is it started with a product, it's made better by smart things in ai, but it's really a data-driven human insight that takes the whole thing and brings it to life.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:34):

Oh yeah, that's really cool. I know it took me two and a half hours to do laundry the other night.

Damian Fowler (04:39):

That's way too long.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:41):

And your own research has found that 76% of households already own at least one SAM product and then 27% have three or more. So how did those data insights actually help you shape the campaign?

Allison Stransky (04:56):

Well, that is data that we're really proud of. We are so proud to be in 76% of households, but then when you look at the drop off, between 76% have at least one Samsung product and 27% have three or more. We really believe in the benefits that are unlocked when all of our products are working together. So in theory, only 27% of households are realizing this state that we know can be possible. So it is one of the things that has driven this is like it is important for you to unlock all of the features and all of the capabilities of whether it's your appliance, your TV or your phone. They really are better together. So that was one of the drivers behind this campaign. Another one of the drivers is we launched Galaxy AI in 2024 and now we've been over this hurdle of there is strong awareness of Galaxy AI and AI in general of what it is and what it can do, but we need to help consumers along on this journey of seeing all the benefits that AI can unlock.

(06:01):

So we talk about Galaxy AI as being your true AI companion. And what we mean by that is we've moved beyond automation and it's now personalized predictive, anticipating your needs and offering you meaningful personal insights. And that's something else that we want to start telling the story of because that's the thing that's going to get you to say, oh my gosh, my phone can do so much more and now enter smart things. My phone and my fridge or my phone and my TV can help me start building this really amazing connected lifestyle that's going to help me insert the benefit that isn't relevant to you. Is it save time? Is it have a better movie watching experience? There's so many things that this can enable that. That was, it was those things that added up to really inspiring us to create this campaign.

Damian Fowler (06:53):

I'm really interested to hear a little bit more about the style and the tone of the aesthetic of this campaign, how it aligns this futuristic vision with very human insight.

Allison Stransky (07:03):

We always think not just about the tech itself but the design. So it really goes back to the product and how we represent our products because it is not just about having this functional high tech TV, refrigerator, et cetera, but we want them to be designed forward and fit them beautifully into your house. So that's our baseline philosophy as it came to this campaign. We want to represent how beautiful and designed for the products are, but also Samsung, the brand as a whole. So we are joyful, colorful, open, inclusive as a brand. And so to get that feeling and to bring that to life, we worked with an amazing team. Crispin was our creative partner and Mathy was our director duo partner who really brought that vision to life. So Crispin was not new for us. We have been working with them since 2024, and so they really get and feel our brand.

(08:05):

But Mathy is a creative team that we and the Crispin team have really admired and wanted to have an opportunity to work with because we felt like they really get it, they get Samsung, they get what they're trying to do and then they bring their own incredible spin to it. So two of the things that I loved about them, and I will say they all this team really surpassed expectations. One was their approach to color. Like I said, we are a design forward colorful brand and they really captured a very modern look and feel. But then secondly, they have an incredible attention to detail that I hope our viewers pick up on when they watch the spots and see all these tiny little things that came together. One of my favorite examples of that was in our neo QLED eight K TV spot. The storyline was that this couple is obsessed with westerns and they want to have the most immersive TV western viewing experience, but their whole house is designed like Western fans and there's all this little attention to detail in tiny hats and cowboy boots that they strategically placed everywhere in the spot.

(09:20):

And when we saw it come to life, we just, like I said, it surpassed our expectations and we know we picked the right team.

Damian Fowler (09:31):

Allison, I'd really love to ask you a little bit more about the actual media buying strategy behind the campaign. Can you elaborate?

Allison Stransky (09:37):

Absolutely. So it's really special to work at this brand. A lot of CMOs have a lot of love for their brand. I've had love for Samsung before I worked here, so I feel fortunate to have this seat and everything that we create is so it's thought out from the product perspective, from the communication perspective, from the media buying perspective because we want to make sure, one, you understand what we are trying to do. Two, we reach the right people. Something else that is unique about working in a brand that has touched this many households is one of the reasons we've done that is we have so many products and part of that is getting the right message to the right person at the right time. Because if you're going back to school and you're in college shopping mode, I have really relevant phones and laptops and tablets that are going to monitors that will enhance your back to school experience.

(10:40):

I don't want to serve you a refrigerator ad at that time. And so that's where end to end, every detail needs to be thought out because even the targeting needs to get the right spot to the right people. As I talked a little bit about, this is year two of the campaign in the first year we created stories and vignettes around Are you a workout from Home Maven? Are you a home chef? And when I saw the corporate, the boss lady served to me, I was like, this is all working. The media is working out is the one that I've also been served.

Ilyse Liffreing (11:16):

Yeah, it seems to me like it's a truly omnichannel kind of strategy as well, and that kind of fits in with the overall smart things theme in a sense.

Allison Stransky (11:25):

It does. I appreciate that connection because smart things is one of the things that's really special about the Smart Things app is that it is an open ecosystem. It works with everything that is built on the matter platform. So it's not just for Samsung products. And not only is that in line with our value system of openness and inclusion, but that helps our consumers and smart things app users reach another level of benefits and impact. And what I mean by that is health is a big area, for example, that we focus on and sleep within health is critical, but part of your sleeping environment is are your shades open or closed? How well lit or not well lit is your bedroom. And we want smart things to be part of making that perfect sleeping environment. But we don't make lights, we don't make curtains, but we are very happy that you can connect smart lights and smart curtains to your smart things app and with Samsung products create this holistic environment where you can sleep better or wake up better. And it's all a part of our vision of Look, we want to add value to your life. We want to be a very useful, helpful brand.

Ilyse Liffreing (12:39):

And on that note, let's dive into some of the insights a little bit because you mentioned you wanted to make a smart things ecosystem feel more intuitive and easy to access. So what were some of those signals or behavior changes that you're watching for to see if this message lands?

Allison Stransky (12:54):

It starts with the KPIs. So we are looking to understand is registration smart things registration increasing? Because the very first step is hook up a product, begin to use the app, start to see what you can get out of that. But from there we want to see that multi-device accounts are also growing because if you have multiple devices connected now I'm starting to get an indication that you are seeing more benefits than, look, you can use your phone as a remote control to turn your TV on and off. That's great. I actually do that a lot in my house. But the sleep benefits, the health benefits, the full ecosystem really gets better when there are multiple products. So the first indication is sign up and start using it. The second is how many products are on there because now I know that you're starting to get a little bit more engaged and we're looking at signals outside of smart things usage as well.

(13:52):

So for example, only a few weeks into this campaign running, we saw a 55% increase in smart things searches versus year ago. And that was really exciting to us because that means there's a lot of curiosity around the app and what the app can do. And concurrently we had created a set of assets that we're calling smart things 1 0 1 and they are a series of literally 101 videos that were designed to be very SEO forward and answer questions that we either know people are asking or we believe people are asking about the app. So we've created this process whereby you see the campaign, if you're not familiar with smart things, you might go, oh, what is this? Let me learn some more. And now when you go out there, there's a ton more video to take you on your own personal journey that starts with what is smart things all the way down to, okay, I get it, I'm hooked up. How can I create this? My refrigerator helps me, meal plan experience. It's a number of signals and behavior changes that we're looking at along the way.

Damian Fowler (14:58):

It makes sense that there's an educational component to this campaign that runs alongside it because I'm curious, when people hear your home speaks to you, they may say, well, what does that mean? What does it mean to me? I mean maybe this tech is even intimidating to some people.

Allison Stransky (15:12):

Yeah, I think it is fair that this is not second nature to us yet. We are fascinated by each generation of new people who are born are going to be much more tech native than the generation before them. But right now our consumers are really, you're kind of in the millennial and exes are buying a lot of the houses that the appliances are speaking to. Zs are buying phones and certainly TVs but not as many of them are homeowners. So we do think it's really important that we make that journey as seamless and easy as possible because once a lot of the benefits are literally set it and forget it and you can go and continue on your life, but we want to make sure end to end you are supported in your journey. So even outside of this campaign, we are piloting a lot of things whereby our service line people, you can call in and get tech support to set up smart things or we foresee a future state where you can set it up, you can have somebody come in and set it up in your home so that it is all that much easier and ready to go.

Damian Fowler (16:25):

Now you talk about it. I do think maybe this is a generational thing as well. I suppose if people aren't homeowners serving them, an ad for a fridge may not be that relevant. So you must see an interesting breakdown across generational demographics.

Allison Stransky (16:39):

We do it is there's a wide range of to be in 76% of households, we have a lot of wide range of consumers too. We also have ranges within our products. We have, not all of our refrigerators have screens, but we sure do love the ones that do. But what we found is through a wide portfolio mix, so many people can see the benefits that they're looking for out of our products. And then it's really our responsibility to make our marketing work harder, to make our media dollars more impactful to and our agency partners as well to get the right content to the right people at the right time

Damian Fowler (17:22):

On the right phone.

Ilyse Liffreing (17:24):

Yeah, that is very interesting because people are using even search and AI chatbots for their questions and how to get those answers. So I think it's a great strategy. But looking at the big picture now, how do you see AI continuing to evolve the role that Samsung plays in people's homes?

Allison Stransky (17:42):

We really believe that AI is going to continue to be more prevalent, more ubiquitous, more important all of our lives. So AI is not new and we've been innovating in AI for more than 10 years. But what has changed is a lot of the LLMs and the media and a lot of this honestly just talking about it have put these benefits and the power of it on consumer's minds. So now we're in the early stages of, okay, the benefits are here. Let's start with helping you understand what Galaxy AI is and then how AI can make a difference on your refrigerator and your tv. And we are seeing this journey, and to be honest, AI is moving so fast that we could be there in a year, we could be there in three. We don't really know how ready consumers are going to be to jump in with us on all of these things, but the innovation roadmap is there and the communication roadmap is there to say, all right, we know it's going to be here and what we know, it's here to stay.

(18:44):

Let's just take you on this journey. Let's start with the features and the benefits that you have seen the most value in. So for example, a lot of people are using things like circle to search and photo editing capabilities because that is really valuable, but also on the fun side of adoption. So we've worked those into our campaigns. Another one that as an example from this particular smart things campaign in the Frame Pro spot, we showcase for the first time the frame has always been our art tv. Normally we're showing how you can put Van Gogh on your wall because the insight behind the frame is that your TV shouldn't be a black box when you're not using it. Well now it can display family art, meaning photos that you've taken and edited to take that guy in the background out that you wished wasn't in there. And you can see all of this come to life, but this is still the early stages of what the AI journey is about. It's going to be become even more automated and assistive as we get into this stage of multimodality all of your devices and apps connecting and doing more things for you. But we feel it's our responsibility to help you understand what that looks like, not just how it works, but what's the end benefit to you. And then you'll be excited to come along with us on that journey.

Ilyse Liffreing (20:02):

Now what about outside of the home? Do you envision a future where the smart things ecosystem even extends maybe in the cars travel or public spaces, maybe even as part of a new innovation roadmap?

Allison Stransky (20:15):

Yes, we would. It does exist a little bit today and we'd be so excited to see even more so we did just recently launch Smart Things Pro, which is an enterprise solution for smart things. So right now business owners can see a lot of benefits like controlling whole hotels. One of our favorite examples that we shared at CES this year was that smart things pro can control your cruise ship. Not a lot of us are in market to buy cruise ships, but showing the power of what it can do and how it exists is really exciting. And I think we envision a world where smart things pro from a business outside of the home perspective can connect to smart things on your device and on your app. And we foresee a roadmap of when you show up at a hotel, you can have your room set to the temperature you like, which not just makes it for a more comfortable experience for you, but could help a whole hotel be more sustainable by not blasting the air conditioning for everybody who doesn't want it to be 62 degrees or whatever it feels like it's set at through smart things.

(21:22):

And Hyundai, your EV can be your whole house generator. So there's cool stuff in the works that we are working on getting the news out there to our consumers because there's just so many benefits. We also kind have to start by thinking about the bigger ones, which back to this campaign, the things that people want every day are make my life easier, help me save time, help me make my home more enjoyable with my family.

Damian Fowler (21:51):

Do you think that there's any way that this campaign can help move the needle in the direction of broader acceptance of say, AI and automation?

Allison Stransky (22:00):

I think it's going to play a part in that we have so much within Samsung that we are talking about in the AI space that I think Samsung as a whole is a massive contributor to shifting the AI conversation. So fortunately there are some partners out there like Chat, GP, GT and Meta are also continuing the narrative and bringing up total awareness. So we're very excited for the more AI conversation that happens, the more interest and curiosity there is in AI benefits. And then we are here with on-device AI on our smartphones and televisions and appliances, our responsibility when you come now you know what AI is. Now our responsibility is to help you see the benefit that you can get from not just individual Samsung products but how they all work together. And I think we are at this really exciting tipping point for not just tech companies but consumer companies everywhere to help all consumers say, look, we're moving into the AI generation. It's here to stay. We're going to do it together. You find the AI solutions that are right for you. And that's how I think we'll all come along on this journey.

Damian Fowler (23:14):

I just want to know, can I ask my fridge to tell me when I need to order some new cheese?

Allison Stransky (23:18):

Cheese? I would prioritize cheese too.

Damian Fowler (23:21):

Okay. We've got some quickfire questions now that EIS is going to kick off.

Ilyse Liffreing (23:25):

Okay. Yes. So Alison, what's your favorite scene or moment from the new campaign that you believe best captures the heart of your homes beaks you?

Allison Stransky (23:35):

So in each of our four spots, there's a moment where our hero just makes this look like I've got this. So my dog is sitting on my day clothes, I've got this, my kids can't agree on dinner. I've got this. And that's the part that I think that captures because whether it comes from the surprise of dog on clothes or I got tackle dinner every single night, I think that's a very real moment that people go through every single day and you get that own personal little rush of like, you got this covered. But on a personal level, it is, I do really love the fridge spot where dad is cooking dinner for two kids because we laugh about this at home because every single night my husband is cooking dinner for our kids. And so that one for me is like a little slice of life, but there's a moment of confidence where you're in control. And that's what I think really encapsulates the spirit of this campaign.

Damian Fowler (24:37):

What's one feature of the Samsung Smart things ecosystem that you personally can't live without?

Allison Stransky (24:43):

So I am personally obsessed with all the innovation we have in this health space and sleep in particular because we know most Americans report they don't get enough sleep, but I am definitely part of that set as for mentioned to kids. So what I'm really excited about is the capabilities of your wearables to track how you are sleeping, connects that to your personal temperature in the middle of the night and auto adjust your thermostat accordingly to bring the temperature up or down depending upon what you need. So I will be completely honest, my full house is not fully smart thermostat enabled yet, but this is the one on my wishlist that I'm like, I need this because I am a wearable and health tracker enthusiast.

Ilyse Liffreing (25:33):

Okay, here's the next one. Which consumer insights helped you the most in developing this campaign?

Allison Stransky (25:40):

So when it comes to this campaign, we were looking for insights that I guess I'll say weren't so surprising as they were relatable. So I'm not sure that I can say from this campaign, but on the consumer insight that surprises me the most is that I'm not kidding and I'm not being facetious. People report saying they would rather live without their left hand than their mobile phone. I know that our phones are important, but I will say that is surprising because that is to report that that is a level of, I don't know if it's dependency or love, but either way that reminds me that we make a really special product that people really, really value in their lives. And I think that is just wild when they say it like that.

Damian Fowler (26:27):

Well, we did live without them a long time ago, so. Well, I did. I'm Gen X. Is there a brand campaign inside or outside tech that you think is nailing emotional storytelling right now?

Allison Stransky (26:39):

So it's not exactly a new spot. They've been doing it for a little while, but I loving Volvo and they released a spot, I believe it was last year, towards the end of the year for the New Ex 90 where it is a beautiful story of a couple has just found out that they are pregnant and they flash forward and they see their whole lives unfold. And then there's a moment where Volvo is critical in their safety features of making sure that this all happens. And I'm going to give you just enough tease because I think people should go look up this spot. This is a piece of art in video advertising. And I still get chills when I think about it. So that's one in particular that's really good. But then they've taken a lot of other moments with dad and daughter learning to drive together. And so many of these other things that I think cars can be emotional because they're related to safety. They also are so integral to your life. They enable you to get places to do things. So I think there's a lot of deep emotion in the auto category, but when you say emotion, that is the first one that comes to mind as I still get chills thinking about how beautiful that spot is.

Damian Fowler (28:02):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (28:04):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Damian Fowler (28:11):

And remember

Allison Stransky (28:12):

The consumer insight that surprises me the most is that I'm not kidding, and I'm not being facetious. People report saying they would rather live without their left hand than their mobile phone.

Damian Fowler (28:23):

I'm Damian

Ilyse Liffreing (28:24):

And I'm Ilyse, and

Damian Fowler (28:25):

We'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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On the latest episode of The Big Impression, Nestlé’s Antonia Farquhar talks about striking unexpected partnerships, like KitKat with Formula One, to keep the 90-year-old chocolate brand fresh. It’s part of a larger strategy to connect with new audiences through live cultural moments. 

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today we're spotlighting one of the most ambitious shifts happening in brand marketing, Nestle's global push to redefine performance in a world where reach, relevance and streaming. Now go hand in hand.

Damian Fowler (00:21):

Our guest is Antonia Farquhar, global head of Media and partnerships at Nestle. Antonia has been at the forefront of Nestle's pivot towards connected TV and long-term brand building across categories, continents, and campaigns.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:35):

From Formula One to Gen Z coffee drinkers, she's helping Nestle rethink what media performance really means in a CTV first world and how brands can use new tools and data to close the loop between awareness and action.

Damian Fowler (00:50):

Let's get into it.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:52):

Antonia. So I understand that you guys are sponsoring Kit Kat's Formula One. I'm very curious to learn more about that.

Antonia Farquhar (01:03):

Yeah, one of the reasons that the Kit Kat team put that sponsorship together was to really, they've got an existing brand strategy, have a break, have a Kit Kat, right?

Damian Fowler (01:14):

Everybody loves that.

Antonia Farquhar (01:14):

Which is decades and decades old. I think it's way over 75 years old, that consistency of brand message is there and it's really part of the foundations of that brand. But the break is more important than ever in a busy world that we all live in today. And so it was really putting the brand at the heart of also everybody needs a break. How can we capitalize on that? And F1 has gone from being very much, I think known as a petrol head sports, to really bringing in different audiences, so younger, more diverse across the genders and it's global and Kit Kat is a major global brand of ours. So it was an excellent opportunity to really bring together the brand and I guess wouldn't have been an expected place. And then to capitalize on that, on giving people a better break as well.

Ilyse Liffreing (02:08):

Can you give me a little bit of background about why sports and why Formula One?

Antonia Farquhar (02:15):

I think for me, sports is one of the last truly appointment of view. Live viewing. You do not want to miss the race. You do not want to miss the final, you do not. There's so many of those moments now where it is also, people are talking about it, who won, how's the lineup, where is it? Et cetera. So it's part of cultural conversations and really the opportunity for our brands is to connect into what's happening, making sure we are injecting our brands with freshness and bringing in that new conversations. And I think sponsorship like the F1, and we also did Coffee Mate and the Super Bowl early this year, again, to really capitalize on where's the real excitement happening and how do we inject our brands in a distinct way. Obviously being true to their brand codes to new and different audiences,

Damian Fowler (03:13):

A thought a 30,000 foot view, you look across the landscaping like, well, these are the moments where we need to show up

Antonia Farquhar (03:20):

For sure. I mean, one of the role within the team is to really inspire and provoke and drive that distinctiveness for our brands. We are privileged to have a lot of huge global brands, but we're also over 150 years old as a company. So it's how do you inject that freshness? How do you stand out in a increasingly fragmented media landscape? So I think this is where we want brands to really lean in and as I said, it is holding on what is your brand territory? Where is that strategic foundations that hold true and need to be consistent, but how do you punch and become a little bit more maybe unexpected? Unexpected places is clearly one of the themes that I'm seeing in the industry lately that it drives that attention.

Damian Fowler (04:20):

When you talk about unexpected places. Could you say a bit more about that?

Antonia Farquhar (04:26):

I mean, we all know we are living in a very attention. Yeah, the second you wake up the phones, the amount of apps on your phones, it's increasingly hard and I think it'll continue to get harder to really drive connectivity to brands with people. And so I think doing something a little bit different and perhaps wouldn't, it's not predictable for that brand to be in that particular place or speaking in a different environment. I think that's an opportunity going forward. And I think when you look at a lot of the award-winning work globally this year, that's one theme that I really see coming through and I kind of love it. It's bringing a bit of fresh, it's bringing an edge, and I think it's pushing people and brand experiences to a different level to where they were before. So

Ilyse Liffreing (05:18):

Yeah,

Antonia Farquhar (05:19):

I'm enjoying

Ilyse Liffreing (05:19):

It and it's fun.

Antonia Farquhar (05:20):

Exactly. It's fun. And I feel like it's almost, there's different areas where different brands have different tone of voice, and so it's working out really what is that? And then perhaps tapping into a community really engaged in a particular community and how can you link your brand and derive some insights from that behavior to speak in that way.

Ilyse Liffreing (05:45):

Certainly. Now, I know you were talking about using sports to tap into that audience around appointment tv. Are there other channels that you guys are particularly leaned into at this time? Are there ones that you're experimenting with? How is that going?

Antonia Farquhar (06:03):

Yeah, so I think the more you know about marketing science, and I'm quite a nerd when it comes to marketing science, but the more channels you are in, the higher your effectiveness of course. So again, it's about how do we do fewer, bigger, better campaigns.

(06:21):

And media activations to really get that consistent cut through. But in terms of channels, when you look at where the growth is at the moment, retail, digital media is growing at an increasingly fast rate year on year. But connected TV is another one that I am really excited to discover the future of that particular medium. I mean, even in the last few years, the amount of ads that we serve on connected TV devices is more than doubled. The adoption rate is huge and it's from where you'd expect the more advanced markets where most of the streaming services for the US and the uk, but also in markets like India, the Philippines, Australia, the viewing habits are really shifting. I think COVID drove that acceleration and we all spent a lot more time at home and people probably spent money on better TVs because there wasn't as much to do outside. And so yeah, that's one I'm excited about.

Ilyse Liffreing (07:29):

And I would imagine for a brand like Nestle that the intersection of CTV and retail media and e-commerce is really exciting now that you can practically shop through your TV too.

Antonia Farquhar (07:43):

Yes. Yeah, it is. I think it's a great opportunity. I love the fact that that medium is back in the living room but advanced and it's now how do you make sure you are able to do a brand building experience and build an emotional connection, but also give people the prompt to buy perhaps through a QR code or through the retailer websites. And obviously the audiences piece is super attractive as well when you're really trying to nudge people to close the sale. So yeah, I think it's very exciting. It's amazing.

Damian Fowler (08:23):

I was interested in what you said just then about fewer, bigger, better, which is easy to say, but perhaps not easy to execute. What kind of mindset shifts were needed to get your teams to rally behind that concept and how does it kind of show up?

Antonia Farquhar (08:41):

Yeah, fewer, bigger, better is a phrase I feel like I say every single day in the office. We started on a journey a few years ago and it's all about the focus. So focusing on the brands, ensuring they're well fed with the right amount of investment because we know that's one of the key factors of marketing effectiveness. But so from where do we invest, how many briefs, et cetera, but actually also through to our agency partners as well. So we've done a big transformation across lots of parts of the globe to really consolidate our agency model, which has been a mindset shift to your point around if we scale and standardize, then we free up more time and brainpower to really create outstanding media activations and planning. And so we are in the transformation area of that at the moment. But yeah, it's bringing a lot of great benefits, good talent, better work, and a more we can scale faster. We are a huge organization. We operate in 188 markets, and so therefore scaling information and driving that best practice is going to go so much faster through the consolidation.

Ilyse Liffreing (10:13):

When it comes to CTV, are there specific brands that Nestle owns that kind of fit that target audience a little better?

Antonia Farquhar (10:24):

I think it's a great question. I think it fits a lot of our brands, but to your point, it depends on where that behavior is happening. Often it can be younger audiences, but we are seeing it growing to really, really broad audiences as well. And especially the move we've had in the industry from really subscription to the ad model piece allows that larger access as well. What I also am interested in this space is the type of content as well. So there's obviously a huge diversity in terms of super high production and Netflix style content all the way through to the UGC or that type of content as well. So again, going back to the point earlier about different audiences and their interests, to me that brings a really thoughtful opportunity about are there different types of content that makes sense for different brands, to your point, versus doing a one size fits all. So I think that's super interesting as we see the, well, the more and more content that comes out and the consumption increase as well.

Damian Fowler (11:37):

And what's also interesting I guess, is the global differences. I mean, I know the APAC market is very mobile first and different markets, more mature markets like the US CTV is strong. I wonder from your perspective, where do you see the big growth opportunities around the world from a media perspective?

Antonia Farquhar (12:02):

Like you say in Asia, we see huge growth of shopping online. It's seamless and you can really go from discovering a product to buying it within 10 seconds. And so that is challenging some of the norms about the amount of time but that people need. So yeah, again, it depends on the category and the purchase cycle there, but I think that's a great opportunity. Things like WhatsApp I think will be increasingly utilized by brands as a way, a more seamless way of connecting with shoppers as well. But I think social retail media and connected TV are the three areas that we really focus on, but then the important ask within that is how do we do it in a way that is quality, culturally relevant with the right context, so we are able to cut through in an effective way.

Damian Fowler (13:07):

So you're working closely with different agencies in each of those distinct markets.

Antonia Farquhar (13:12):

Yeah, exactly. To find the right opportunity and what are the local opportunities there too. Are

Damian Fowler (13:20):

There any surprises from your point of view? And I just want to say I grew up in York and it was the home of Roundtree Macintosh, which where Kit Kat started. And then over the years we've seen Kit Kat show up in different places, like in Japan, I think there's a version with green tea or green. So that's an interesting kind of way

Ilyse Liffreing (13:41):

A lot to collect them from around the world.

Damian Fowler (13:43):

And I think it is remarkable how the brand sort of KitKat brand has scaled across the world, but it's still kind true to that chocolate bar that I knew in York when I used to wake up. You could smell the cocoa. So are you kind of thinking about things like that?

Antonia Farquhar (14:02):

I think for me and with the brand team, it's about staying true to those foundations. Have a break, have a kick at, and that core bar that you grew up smelling,

(14:16):

But how can you flex into those local regions and opportunities, flavors tastes? And I think that's exciting opportunity. And obviously Japan, in fact, yesterday someone was saying about how they flew to Japan to buy the different types of KitKats. Clearly a lot of people get excited about that, but we also have factories all over the world. So it allows us to diversify and able to deliver to some of the nature, some of the local taste preferences. But for me it's about staying core to that brand really, because the foundation behind the piece. But yeah, you can also have fun with it with different flavor rotations too. Yeah.

Ilyse Liffreing (15:04):

Is there any advice that you would give marketers looking to make the same shift as you guys are doing from short term return on investment to long-term brand building?

Damian Fowler (15:16):

Fewer, bigger, better, right? Fewer, bigger better. Is that what you say?

Antonia Farquhar (15:19):

A rally cry. I'm going to have it on a T-shirt. Exactly. But no, you should sell those too. Exactly. So I think it's about focus, right? And it's about really focusing on where are the areas of the greatest opportunity. I'm also a big believer in having data points at hand. So whenever we are challenged around some of the decisions that we are aiming to drive across the business, having that the audience has actually grown by 50, 60, 70 or whatever percent, and it's no longer just teams, it's a very broad audience and our products are super broad and it allows us to connect with people daily, weekly. Again, it's that consistent piece that I think is really attractive there.

Damian Fowler (16:12):

What are you obsessed with figuring out right now?

Antonia Farquhar (16:16):

So many, many things at the moment. I just thinking about the conversation that we were having about quality of media and connected tv, I would love more understanding on the impact of ad loads. As I said, it does vary hugely across the different providers from six minutes an hour to, I dunno, probably 35 minutes an hour. And again, I'm a big believer and you get what you pay for. So if it is a higher cost, then the effectiveness is hopefully and likely higher. But again, proving the house I think would be really interesting as well and what effect, what it has on the effectiveness of that.

Ilyse Liffreing (16:59):

Yeah. So what would you say is missing from the CTV marketplace as it stands today?

Antonia Farquhar (17:04):

I would love more unification to manage, this is a very technical media answer, but to manage reach and frequency more consistently. I think that's been a bit of a downfall of the growth of things like BVO and CTV was that ability to effectively manage and not feel like you're wasting or annoying people with too many ads. So the unification of that across many devices would be my dream to be able to do. And it was never possible to unlock on linear TV for very obvious reasons, but as we are in a much more digitized world, it does feel possible. I'm not sure we'll get there. But yeah, any unification that a lot of the DSPs offer to me, they're incredibly valuable to ensure we're being more efficient and effective with our investment.

Ilyse Liffreing (17:59):

Very cool. Now I actually do have a follow up to what you said before about effective reach and cost. Do you feel like there, do you feel like most marketers still have the mindset that they want to buy in at the cheapest they can, no matter the effectiveness?

Antonia Farquhar (18:21):

Or is that changing? Do you think it's changing? I think it is changing. I do. I'm a believer that the more great effective research and the more case studies and that sort of part you read, it's not about that to me. These are soft metrics in terms of did the campaign deliver what you signed for on your media plan? But really we are here to drive business and brands and whether it's cross between equity and sales and category growth. So to me, you have to come back to, is it driving business results, making sure you're able to measure and manage those effectively because yeah, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it and you can't go back and say, well, we reached this many people, but did they convert? Did they do anything? Did they feel differently about your brands? These are the questions I'm really interested to answer.

Damian Fowler (19:15):

I guess final question, what's one of your favorite Nestle ad campaigns? Past or present?

Antonia Farquhar (19:21):

This is a tough question to answer because as my role is global, the brands are equal. I have to say some of my favorite, or I think it's timeless, is the George Clooney and espresso pieces as well. The art direction there I always think is beautiful. And I'm a big Nespresso fan, I have to say from a personal perspective. And also in Australia and New Zealand and Asia, there's a brand called Milo, and that is all about sport being a great way of bringing together people to learn and play and have fun. And they've done some fantastic ads throughout the time, really showing that resilience and the grit as well that it comes to what sport can teach you to do. So that's some of my favorite ads that we've done.

Damian Fowler (20:29):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (20:31):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by love and caliber, and our associate producer is

Antonia Farquhar (20:37):

Sydney Cairns.

Damian Fowler (20:38):

And remember,

Antonia Farquhar (20:39):

Yeah, fewer, bigger, better is a phrase I feel like I say every single day.

Damian Fowler (20:43):

I'm Damian

Antonia Farquhar (20:44):

And I'm Ilyse,

Damian Fowler (20:45):

And we'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

Connected TV is no longer just a buzzword in the ad world — it’s where the industry is being reinvented. Audiences aren’t just watching differently; they’re shopping, engaging, and co-viewing in ways that open new creative doors for brands. And sitting at the intersection of entertainment and advertising is Roku, a company that’s helping marketers meet these shifts head-on.

In this episode of The Big Impression, Roku’s VP of advertising, marketing & measurement, Sarah Harms, explains why the company is uniquely positioned as a publisher and an operating system.

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today we're talking about how streaming and connected TV are transforming not just how we watch, but how brands connect with audiences.

Damian Fowler (00:17):

Our guest is Sarah Harms vice president of advertising, marketing and measurement at Roku. She leads the strategy behind Roku's advertising business, helping brands tap into streaming's growing audience while building smarter measurement tools along the way.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:32):

Before Roku, Sarah built her expertise across both the buy and sell sides of the industry with leadership roles at Microsoft XR and wpp giving her a unique perspective on how ad tech data and storytelling all come together on Connected tv.

Damian Fowler (00:49):

We'll talk about how Roku's helping brands of all scientists meet new viewer behaviors, build more effective campaigns, and push the creative boundaries of what's possible on CTV.

Ilyse Liffreing (01:00):

So let's get into it.

Damian Fowler (01:03):

So Sarah Roku is in a pretty unique spot right now, right? Between entertainment and ads with this latest brand or measurement move, what got it started? Was there an insight or audience need that really stood out to you?

Sarah Harms (01:17):

Yeah, so in my role I run ad marketing and measurement. So much of my job is us as a marketer, so marketing roku's, advertising proposition, but also in support of our marketers. And so that makes my job very fun. And so a lot of this conversation today, I'm going to go back and forth between my job as a marketer, but also my job in B2B advertising of driving marketers results on our platform. Something that's really fun about Roku is that we're a publisher, but we're also the largest operating system in the us. We see consumers come through our front door to get to the content they know and love and care about. And so that gives us a really rich canvas for supporting some of our marketers initiatives. And so for example, the Super Bowl was very fun for us, whether it was using our platform to drive traffic to Tuby or to build really fun brand experiences on our canvases.

(02:13):

So we had, when Sally met Hellman's and we had Hellman's and Roku City and we had the Super Bowl ad and a really lovely zone destination to drive shopping and drive purchases of Hellman's mayonnaise, which you really wouldn't expect from a television advertising experience. And so I think that was a fun one from us in supportive marketers. And then a whole part of my job is making sure our advertisers really know about the Roku experience. And so while it's B2B, it would be silly not to address them in a B2C capacity because our marketers could also be customers, the need to understand the value of the Roku experience even if they don't have a television

Damian Fowler (02:53):

From ro. Once you realize your customers could be businesses, consumers, or both, how did that shift your strategy? Did it change the way you approach things?

Sarah Harms (03:01):

I think it's just strategic use of our resources and a strategic use of our messaging. We certainly think the Roku experience as an operating system is delightful and easy and intuitive. We talk about how your mother-in-law can set it up herself as the example we always use. And so we certainly want our advertising customers to know that too because it really is a beautiful, elegant experience for advertising as well, for watching content.

Ilyse Liffreing (03:28):

So you've got such a big range of advertisers from big Fortune five hundreds to D two C brands to B2B. How do you build campaigns or measurements that flex for either of them but still stay true to your own approach?

Sarah Harms (03:44):

Great. So I'll address that as a speaking to the advertising community part of my job, we certainly are on a journey to evolve our strategy to be more flexible and meet our customers where they want us to be, whether it being in their buying platforms of choice or providing optionality to a D two C customer by giving them a very lightweight, intuitive self-service platform like Roku Ads Manager. And so I think a lot of it from a measurement standpoint is doing some education. I think some of the questions were ground around CTV is still somewhat new, but I don't know if it's new, but it's certainly new in the eyes of performance. And so it's a lot of education about how we can enable customers to drive true outcomes using connected television. And so whether it's ad manager or unique measurement integrations, shoppable formats, we really try to address all of that

Ilyse Liffreing (04:36):

Now. Streaming's completely changed how people watch from binging to co-viewing and basically everything in between. How do cultural or data trends help shape what you're doing on the platform?

Sarah Harms (04:48):

Yeah, I mean it's been so interesting to see it change even since the pandemic. I think for a long time CTV was synonymous with SVOD or subscription video on demand. We're very much seen that is not the case anymore. A majority of our households are using some form of A VOD, we're advertising video on demand. And so that trend coupled with live sports coming into CTV and streaming, it's really just driven a whole new slew of opportunities for advertising. And so off the back of that, that's more addressable, more accountable television because it is connected television. And so that's been fun from a education standpoint, it's been fun from a how do we enable our platform to address that and also how do we educate our customers from a measurement standpoint.

Damian Fowler (05:37):

So what's the ad experience like on Roku? You mentioned CTV and it sounds like there's a pretty wide mix of formats. Can you break that down a little more?

Sarah Harms (05:46):

I'd love to because I think that's again, where my role as a B2B marketer, it's of course helpful to inform our clients about our experiences then they might not have a Roku device or television. And so we think about our business in really two core buckets. We have the Roku experiences, which is our beautiful ui, so native home screen units, they're customized, they're elegant, and we have some of our more kind of viral experiences like Roku City, which is fun and delightful. We're now doing brand integrations there. But then on the other side, we're also a very scaled publisher. So the Roku channel continues to climb Nielsen's Gauge in terms of total TV content time. And so that is allowing us to be a very kind of open interoperable, performant publisher as well with standard video that's available programmatically. It's available with unique measurement integrations, and that's really our ecosystem being an interoperable partner in the space.

Ilyse Liffreing (06:43):

Roku City is that fun, animated screensaver, very purple that a lot of people see on their TVs. Can you tell us a little bit about it and the kinds of brands you're partnering with there?

Sarah Harms (06:54):

Yeah, so this has just been something really fun that's taken off. So Roku City is our interactive screensaver and people love it. I don't know if you see it every day, but it's cute, it's fun, it grabs your attention. We see that it's tweeted about every 12 minutes, so it is a viral experience and so much so that really our advertisers challenged us to think about it differently. And so now we have really a variety of advertisers coming into Roku City. So I gave the Hellman's example. We had Taylor Swift in Roku City. And so it's really just a fun, unique, totally differentiated advertising experience, but we tie it all to the rest of our assets.

Damian Fowler (07:36):

I heard somebody say this morning, performance media is kind of the baseline. Now with that in mind, how do you think about measuring engagement across all these different touch points that we've been talking about?

Sarah Harms (07:46):

Yeah, I mean, so much of my job on the measurement side of the house is education. And I think the challenge is that performance is in the eye of the beholder and CTV is still bought via a very different group of personas from a legacy television buyer all the way to someone that had been in social API partners and dipping their toe into CTV. And so performance is required, but it's really a matter of educating them on what that means to them and supporting them in their efforts. But what's great about CTV is its big beautiful television, but with all the addressability and accountability of digital.

Damian Fowler (08:23):

And on that point though, what is it that linear TV buyers still don't quite get about CTV?

Sarah Harms (08:29):

I think it's the ecosystem aspect of it all. I think television in the past was measured by a couple companies with a couple KPIs or just reach. And so I think this is where CTV has really unlocked really turnkey, always on easy to optimize measurement. That's very exciting.

Ilyse Liffreing (08:48):

So one thing we like to do on the show is pull our takeaways from the big campaigns. Are there any KPIs or success stories from the campaigns running on Roku that stand out to you?

Sarah Harms (09:00):

Yeah, so I think what's been fun is we see that we have opportunities for really kind of all verticals. Obviously Roku is born out of the media and entertainment industry, but we've expanded there. And so we really do have kind of a playbook for each vertical, but auto specifically comes to mind, which is a really exciting one. You don't really think of performance and auto on tv, but we've built kind of beautiful experiences like showrooms where you can configure cars, sign up for test drives. And so I think we've really changed the narrative there in terms of driving actions for that vertical all in a very big, beautiful, elegant canvas.

Damian Fowler (09:37):

Are there any other kind of surprises from your takeaways in terms of like, oh, that's popping. I never expected that.

Sarah Harms (09:44):

So for me, I don't carry a wallet. My phone is my wallet. And I think if you told me that five years ago, I would've never believed you. Similarly, I don't think anyone thought they'd be shopping with their television. That happens every day on our platform, and I think it's because of clients testing with us, but also it comes back to us as an operating system. And really our remote, it's a few buttons. It's really easy. We have a direct relationship with our customers from a billing perspective. And so the same way Apple Pay is just so easy now you can shop from your tv, which again seems insane, but maybe we'll be here in a couple years and we'll see so much direct shopping from televisions.

Ilyse Liffreing (10:23):

What about the interest from B2B brands? It just feels like that sector is really exploding across all categories, but CTV particularly.

Sarah Harms (10:33):

Yeah, I mean so much of my job as a B2B marketer is a lot of education and a lot of really, so much of our reframing away from being a walled garden to more of an open collaborative partner. And so much of it is doing, we talked in the press about our change away from doing a big new front event. We did more kind of small customized dinners instead just to make sure there is a very direct touch point, but also specifically cater to each client's needs. And so I think that's been more of our approach of making sure we do pointed conversations to address the nuances and needs of each customer.

Ilyse Liffreing (11:12):

And how was that new approach for you this year? I know a lot of brands are doing things a bit differently at the fronts. How did it go on your side?

Sarah Harms (11:21):

I think for us it's knowing the value of us as the operating system and having great content, but not being these content giants that have millions and millions and millions of dollars to spend on content. And so they should do a big show for us. We drive traffic to the big show. And so I think it was more about, yes, of course, talking about our amazing content and brand integrations there, but also acknowledging the integrations that each customer wanted, the platforms each customer wanted, and what we're doing for each of them in a really kind of catered way versus such a one to many message.

Damian Fowler (11:57):

You mentioned content earlier. Are you seeing any particular trends now? Anything that's really driving interest from certain categories or marketers?

Sarah Harms (12:06):

So we have our Roku originals, and we do very well in kind of holiday and home as you can expect, but I think this year in Cannes, you won't be in a meeting like this without talking about sports. And so we have sports rights, yes, but again, the value of the operating system, we've built sports zones to help make sport discoverable and findable. I always use the example of my husband's great Uncle Joe, diehard Yankees fan, can't find a Yankees game because it might be on four different places in five days. And so how can Roku as an operating system help in that regard? And so I think Roku is invested a ton in our infrastructure of driving curation of sports, but also we're very invested in what we call challenger sports, so National women's soccer league volleyball, stuff like that where they have really these die hard fan bases and they just want to find it. We're the destination to help them.

Damian Fowler (13:01):

We keep hearing it's not just about mass reach anymore, it's really about how well the audience, and the better you understand them, the better this whole thing works for both the platform and the advertiser. How do you see that playing out right now?

Sarah Harms (13:13):

Yeah, and they're loyal. They're diehard. They're big spenders sometimes. And so you want to kind of associate with yourself with such a kind of amazing, loyal fan base that's just so passionate about the sport.

Ilyse Liffreing (13:26):

So we have some quick questions for you now. So first of all, you've led both creative and analytical teams. What is one timeless truth about great advertising that cuts across both sides?

Sarah Harms (13:41):

First of all, it's a very fun aspect of my job having both kind of the marketing team and the measurement and analytics team. Two very different personas, but brilliant in their own ways. And so much of my focus since being here is making sure they're working together versus kind of two ships in the night with their own functions because we certainly have such amazing data, so we should use that to speak to the marketplace in a smart way. And so I think that's been really fun. I think they're getting to know the other side of the house and the creative thinkers versus the analytical thinkers like me pushing them to work together has been very fun. And I think with that in mind, a data informed approach is key. And so that's what really drew me to Roku was that opportunity of just this amazing data set that we have that we can use to optimize, but also to tell our story in a more elegant way.

Damian Fowler (14:33):

Now since you joined Roku, is there a favorite data point or piece of feedback that's really stuck with you?

Sarah Harms (14:38):

Yeah, well, I think what's interesting about my job is I should have been informing people like myself about the value of Roku. Before the process started of being recruited, I had a pretty antiquated view, the Roku advertising offering. So that's something that in getting here and in going through that process I learned so much more. I think my favorite might be that any given month, we see a user come through our front door about 25 days a month. And so that is an advertising opportunity to message our amazing footprint. But we see that on average an individual app is seven, maybe eight times a month. And so if you think about that, the reach potential, but also just the consumer habit of using our devices and seeing the messaging from our brands, I think is so compelling and something that really we're massive as it relates to our OS and footprint. And so we've designed these beautiful experiences to really account for that.

Ilyse Liffreing (15:36):

Now, Roku really helped pioneer the modern CTV ad experience. Is there a moment that's made you step back and think, wow, look how far the medium and your team really has come?

Sarah Harms (15:49):

I think the fact that the Super Bowl was really such a success story for streaming, I think we never thought the Super Bowl would be at that level, but it was streamed and it really streamable and really without a hitch, I think we've seen some live streaming events and there were some issues. I thought it was very well done. We were happy to support it. We drove some amazing traffic to Tubi. And so I just think 10 years ago, we never thought that would be the case. And so that's just been a fun thing to think about that and the Olympics and the Olympic zone that we built, just really elegant experiences and just changing television has been fun.

Damian Fowler (16:32):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (16:35):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Damian Fowler (16:41):

And remember,

Sarah Harms (16:43):

A data informed approach is key. And so that's what really drew me to Roku.

Damian Fowler (16:47):

I'm Damian, and I'm we'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

Cookies are out, context is in. People Inc.’s Jonathan Roberts joins The Big Impression to talk about how America’s biggest publisher is using AI to reinvent contextual advertising with real-time intent.

From Game of Thrones maps to the open web, Roberts believes content is king in the AI economy.

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler, and welcome to this edition of The Big Impression. Today we're looking at how publishers are using AI to reinvent contextual advertising and why it's becoming an important and powerful alternative to identity-based targeting. My guest is Jonathan Roberts, chief Innovation Officer at People Inc. America's largest publisher, formerly known as Meredith. He's leading the charge with decipher an AI platform that helps advertisers reach audiences based on real time intent across all of People Inc. Site and the Open Web. We're going to break down how it works, what it means for advertisers in a privacy first world and why Jonathan's side hustle. Creating maps for Game of Thrones has something for teachers about building smarter ad tech. So let's get into it. One note, this episode was recorded before the company changed its name. After the Meredith merger, you had some challenges getting the business going again. What made you realize that sort of rethinking targeting with decipher could be the way to go?

Jonathan Roberts (01:17):

We had a really strong belief and always have had a strong belief in the power of great content and also great content that helps people do things. Notably and Meredith are both in the olden times, you would call them service journalism. They help people do things, they inspire people. It's not news, it's not sports. If you go to Better Homes and Gardens to understand how to refresh your living room for spring, you're going to go into purchase a lot of stuff for your living room. If you're planting seeds for a great garden, you're also going to buy garden furniture. If you're going to health.com, you're there because you're managing a condition. If you're going to all recipes, you're shopping for dinner. These are all places where the publisher and the content is a critical path on the purchase to doing something like an economically valuable something. And so putting these two businesses together to build the largest publisher in the US and one of the largest in the world was a real privilege. All combinations are hard. When we acquired Meredith, it is a big, big business. We became the largest print publisher overnight.

(02:23):

What we see now, because we've been growing strongly for many, many quarters, and that growth is continuing, we're public. You can see our numbers, the performance is there, the premium is there, and you can always sell anything once. The trick is will people renew when they come back? And now we're in a world where our advertising revenue, which is the majority of our digital revenue, is stable and growing, deeply reliable and just really large. And we underpin that with decipher. Decipher simply is a belief that what you're reading right now tells a lot more about who you are and what you are going to do than a cookie signal, which is two days late and not relevant. What you did yesterday is less relevant to what you need to do than what you're doing right now. And so using content as a real time predictive signal is very, very performant. It's a hundred percent addressable, right? Everyone's reading content when we target to, they're on our content and we guaranteed it would outperform cookies, and we run a huge amount of ad revenue and we've never had to pay it in a guarantee.

Damian Fowler (03:34):

It's interesting that you're talking about contextual, but you're talking about contextual in real time, which seems to be the difference. I mean, because some people hear contextually, they go, oh, well, that's what you used to do, place an ad next to a piece of content in the garden supplement or the lifestyle supplement, but this is different.

Jonathan Roberts (03:53):

Yes. Yeah. I mean, ensemble say it's 2001 called and once it's at Targeting strategy back, but all things are new again, and I think they're newly fresh and newly relevant, newly accurate because it can do things now that we were never able to do before. So one of the huge strengths of Meredith as a platform is because we own People magazine, we dominate entertainment, we have better homes and gardens and spruce, we really cover home. We have all recipes. We literally have all the recipes plus cereal, seeds plus food and wine. So we cover food. We also do tech, travel, finance and health, and you could run those as a hazard brands, and they're all great in their own, but there's no network effect. What we discovered was because I know we have a pet site and we also have real simple, and we know that if you are getting a puppy or you have an aging dog, which we know from the pet site, we know you massively over index for interest in cleaning products and cleaning ideas on real simple, right?

Damian Fowler (04:55):

Yeah.

Jonathan Roberts (04:55):

This doesn't seem like a shocking conclusion to have, but the fact that we have both tells us both, which also means that if you take a health site where we're helping people with their chronic conditions, we can see all the signals of exactly what help you need with your diet. Huge overlaps. So we have all the recipe content and we know exactly how that cross correlates with chronic conditions. We also know how those health conditions correlate into skincare because we have Brody, which deals with makeup and beauty, but also all the skincare conditions and finance, right? Health is a financial situation as much as it is a health situation, particularly in the us. And so by tying these together, because most of these situations are whole lifestyle questions, we can understand that if you're thinking about planning a cruise in the Mediterranean, you're a good target for Vanguard to market mutual funds to. Whereas if we didn't have both investipedia and travel leisure, we couldn't do that. And so there's nothing on that cruise page, on the page in the words that allows you to do keyword targeting for mutual funds.

(05:55):

But we're using the fact that we know that cruise is a predictor of a mutual fund purchase so that we can actually market to anyone in market per cruise. We know they've got disposable income, they're likely low risk, long-term buy andhold investors with value investing needs. And we know that because we have these assets now, we have about 1500 different topics that we track across all of DDM across 1.5 million articles, tens of millions of visits a day, billions a year. If you just look at the possible correlations between any of those taxonomies that's over a million, or if we go a level deeper, over a hundred million connected data points, you can score. We've scored all of them with billions of visits, and so we have that full map of all consumers.

Damian Fowler (06:42):

I wanted to ask you, of course, and you always get this question I'm sure, but you have a pretty unusual background for ad tech theoretical physics as you mentioned, and researcher at CERN and Mapmaker as well for Game of Thrones, but this isn't standard publisher experience, but how did all that scientific background play into the way you approached building this innovation?

Jonathan Roberts (07:03):

Yeah, I think when I first joined the company, which was a long time ago now, and one of the original bits of this company was about.com, one of the internet oh 0.1 OG sites, and there was daily data on human interest going back to January 1st, 2000 across over a thousand different topics. And in that case, tens of millions of articles. And the team said, is this useful? Is there anything here that's interesting? I was like, oh my god, you don't know what you've got because if you treat as a physicist coming in, I looked at this and was like, this is a, it's like a telescope recording all of human interest. Each piece of content is like a single pixel of your telescope. And so if somebody comes and visit, you're like, oh, I'm recording the interest of this person in this topic, and you've got this incredibly fine grained understanding of the world because you've got all these people coming to us telling us what they want every day.

(08:05):

If I'm a classic news publisher, I look at my data and I find out what headlines I broke, I look at my data and I learn more about my own editorial strategy than I do about the world. We do not as much tell the world what to think about. The world tells us what they care about. And so that if you treat that as just a pure experimental framework where this incredible lens into an understanding of the world, lots of things are very stable. Many questions that people ask, they always ask, but you understand why do they ask them today? What's causing the to what are the correlations between what they are understanding around our finance business through the financial crash, our health business, I ran directly through COVID. So you see this kind of real time change of the world reacting to big shocks and it allows you to predict what comes next, right? Data's lovely, but unless you can do something with it, it's useless.

Damian Fowler (08:59):

It's interesting to hear you talk about that consistency, the sort of predictability in some ways of, I guess intense signals or should we just say human behavior, but now we've got AI further, deeper into the mix.

Jonathan Roberts (09:13):

So we were the first US publisher to do a deal with open ai, and that comes in three parts. They paid for training on our content. They also agreed within the contract to source and cite our content when it was used. And the third part, the particularly interesting part, is co-development of new things. So we've been involved with them as they've been building out their search product. They've been involved with us as we've been evolving decipher, one of the pieces of decipher is saying, can I understand which content is related to which other content? And in old fashioned pre AI days when it was just machine learning and natural language processing, you would just look at words and word occurrence and important words, and you'd correlate them that way. With ai, you go from the word to the concept to the reasoning behind it to a latent understanding of these kind of deeper, deeper connections.

(10:09):

And so when we changed over literally like, is this content related to that content? Is this article similar in what it's treating to that article? If they didn't use the same words but they were talking about the same topic, the previous system would've missed it. This system gets deeper. It's like, oh, this is the same concept. This is the same user need. These are the same intentions. And so when we overhauled this kind of multimillion point to point connection calculation, we drastically changed about 30% of those connections and significantly improved them, gives a much reacher, much deeper understanding of our content. What we've also done is said, and this is a year thing that we launched it at the beginning of the year, we have decipher, which runs on site. We launched Decipher Plus Inventively named right? I like it. We debated Max or Max Plus, but we went with Plus.

(10:59):

And what this says is we understand the user intent on our sites. We know when somebody's reading content, we have a very strong predictor model of what that person's going to need to do next. And we said, well, we're not the only people with intent driven content and intent driven audiences. So we know that if you're reading about newborn health topics, you are three and a half times more likely than average to be in market for a stroller. We're not the only people that write about newborn health. So we can find the individual pages on the rest of the web that do talk about newborn health, and we can unlock that very strong prediction that this purchase intent there. And so then we can have a premium service that buy those ads and delivers that value to our clients. Now we do that mapping and we've indexed hundreds of premium domains with opening eyes vector, embedding architecture to build that logic.

Damian Fowler (11:56):

That's fascinating. So in lots of ways, you're helping other publishers beyond your owned and operated properties.

Jonathan Roberts (12:02):

We believed that there was a premium in publishing that hadn't been tapped. We proved that to be true. Our numbers support it. We bet 2.7 billion on that bet, and it worked. So we really put our money where our mouth is. We know there's a premium outside of our walls that isn't being unlocked, and we have an information advantage so we can bring more premium to the publishers who have that quality content.

Damian Fowler (12:24):

I've got lots of questions about that, but one of them is, alright. I guess the first one is why have publishers been so slow out of the starting blocks to get this right when on the media buying side you have all of this ad tech that's going on, DSPs, et cetera.

Jonathan Roberts (12:42):

I think partly it's because publishers have always been a participant in the ad tech market off to one side. I put this back to the original sin of Ad Tech, which is coming in and saying, don't worry about it, publishers, we know your audience better than you ever will. That wasn't true then, and it's not true today, but Ad Tech pivoted the market to that position and that meant the publishers were dependent upon ad Tech's understanding of their audience. Now, if you've got a cookie-based understanding of an audience, how does a publisher make that cookie-based audience more valuable? Well, they don't because you're valuing the cookie, not the real time signal. And there is no such thing as cookie targeting. It's all retargeting. All the cookie signal is yesterday Signal. It's only what they did before they came to your site, dead star like or something, right? The publisher definitionally isn't influencing the value of that cookie. So an ad tech is valuing the cookie. The only thing the publisher can do to make more money is add scale, which is either generate clickbait because that's the cheapest way to get audience scale or run more ads on the page.

(13:57):

Cookies as a currency for advertising and targeting is the reason we currently have the internet We deserve, not the internet we want because the incentive is to cheap scale. If instead you can prove that the content is driving the value, the content is driving the decision and the content is driving the outcome, then you invest in more premium content. If you're a publisher, the second world is the one you want. But we had a 20 year distraction from understanding the value of content. And we're only now coming back to, I think one thing I'm very really happy to see is since we launched a cipher two years ago, there are now multiple publishers coming out with similarly inspired targeting architecture or ideas about how to reach quality, which is just a sign that the market has moved, right? Or the market moving and retargeting still works. Cookies are good currency, they do drive performance. If they didn't, it would never worked in the first place. But the ability to understand and classify premium content at web scale, which is what decipher Plus is a map for all intent across the entire open web is the thing that's required for quality content to be competitive with cookies as targeting mechanism and to beat it at

Damian Fowler (15:15):

Scale. You mentioned how this helps you reach all these third party sites beyond your properties. How do you ensure that there's still quality in the, there's quality content that match the kind of signals that makes decipher work?

Jonathan Roberts (15:32):

Tell me, not all content on the internet is beautiful, clean and wonderful. Not all

Damian Fowler (15:36):

Premium is it?

Jonathan Roberts (15:36):

I know there's a lot of made for arbitrage out there. Look, we, we've been a publisher for a long time. We've acquired a lot of publishers over the years, and every time we have bought a publisher, we have had to clean up the content because cheap content for scale is a siren call of publishing. Like, oh, I can get these eyeballs cheaper. Oh, wonderful. I know I just do that. And everyone gives it on some level to that, right? So we have consistently cleaned up content libraries every time we've acquired publishers. Look at the very beginning about had maybe 10 to 15 million euros. By the time we launched these artists and these individual vertical sites were down to 250,000 pages of content. It was a bigger business and it was a better business. The other side is the actual ad layout has to be good,

Damian Fowler (16:29):

But

Jonathan Roberts (16:29):

Every time we've picked up a publisher, we've removed ads from the site. Increase, yeah, experience quality,

Damian Fowler (16:33):

Right?

Jonathan Roberts (16:36):

Because we've audited multiple publishers for the cleanup, we have an incredibly detailed understanding of what quality content is. We have lots of, this is our special skill as a publisher. We can go into a publisher, identify the content and see what's good.

Damian Fowler (16:54):

Is that part of your pitch as it were, to people who advertisers?

Jonathan Roberts (16:58):

We work lots of advertisers. We're a huge part of the advertising market because we cover all the verticals. We have endemics in every space. If you're trying to do targeting based on identity, we have tens of millions of people a day. It'll work. You will find them with us, we reach the entire country every month. We are a platform scale publisher. So at no point do we saying don't do that, obviously do that, right? But what we're saying is there's a whole bunch of people who you can't identify, either they don't have cookies or IDs or because the useful data doesn't exist yet. It's not attached to those IDs. So incremental, supplementary and additional to reach the people in the moment with a hundred percent addressability, full national reach, complete privacy compliance, just the content, total brand safety. And we will put these two things side by side and we will guarantee that the decipher targeting will outperform the cookie targeting, which isn't say don't do cookie targeting, obviously do it. It works, it's successful. This is incremental and also will outperform. And then it just depends on the client, right? Some people want brand lift and brand consideration. They want big flashy things. We run People Magazine, we host the Grammy after party. We can do all the things you need from a large partner more than just media, but also we can get you right down to, for some partners with big deals, we guarantee incremental roas,

Damian Fowler (18:26):

Actual

Jonathan Roberts (18:26):

In-store sales, incremental lift.

Damian Fowler (18:29):

So let's talk about roas. What's driving advertisers to lean in so heavily?

Jonathan Roberts (18:34):

Well, I think everybody's seen this over the last couple of years. In a high interest or environment, the CMOs getting asked, what's the return on my ad spend? So whereas previously you might've just been able to do a big flashy execution or activation. Now everybody wants some level of that media spend to be attributable to lift to dollars, to return to performance, because every single person who comes through our sites is going to do something after they come. We're never the last stop in that journey, and we don't sell you those garden seeds. We do not sell you the diabetes medication directly. We are going to have to hand you off to a partner who is going to be the place you take the economic action. So we are in the path to purchase for every single purchase on Earth.

(19:19):

And what we've proven with decipher is not only that we can be in that pathway and put the message in the path of that person who is going to make a decision, has not made one yet. But when we put the messaging in front of it of that person at the time, it changes their decisions, which is why it's not just roas, which could just be handing out coupons in the line to the pizza store. It's incremental to us, if you did not do this, you would have made less money. When you do this, you'll make more money. And having got to a point where we've now got multiple large campaigns, both for online action and brick and mortar stores that prove that when we advertise the person at this moment, they change their decision and they make their brand more money. Turns out that's not the hardest conversation to have with marketers. Truly, truly, if you catch people at the right moment, you will change their mind.

Damian Fowler (20:10):

They'll happily go back to their CFO and say, look at this. This is working

Jonathan Roberts (20:15):

No controversially at can. During the festival of advertising that we have as a publisher, we may be the most confident to say, you know what? Advertising works.

Damian Fowler (20:27):

You recently brought in a dedicated president to lead

Jonathan Roberts (20:30):

Decipher,

Damian Fowler (20:30):

Right? So how does that help you take what started out as this in-house innovation that you've been working on and turn it into something even bigger?

Jonathan Roberts (20:39):

Yeah, I think my background is physics. I was a theoretical physicist for a decade. Theoretical physicists have some good and bad traits. A good trait is a belief that everything can be solved. Because my previous job was wake up in the morning and figure out how the universe began and like, well, today I'll figure it out. And nobody else has, right? There's a level of, let's call it intellectual confidence or arrogance in that approach. How hard can it be? The answer is very, but it also means you're a little bit of a diante, right? You're coming like, oh, it's ad tech. How hard can it be? And the just vary, right? So there's a benefit. I mean, I've done a lot of work in ad tech over the last couple of years. Jim Lawson, our president of Decipher, ran a publicly listed DSP, right? He was a public company, CEO, he knows this stuff inside a and back to front, Lindsay Van Kirk on the Cipher team launched the ADN Nexus, DSP, Patrick McCarthy, who runs all of our open web and a lot of our trade desk partnerships and the execution of all of the ways we connect into the entire ecosystem.

(21:38):

Ran product for AppNexus. Sam Selgin on the data science team wrote that Nexus bitter. I've got a good idea where we're going with this and where we should go with this and the direction we should be pointed in. But we have seasoned multi-decade experience pros doing the work because if you don't, you can have a good idea and bad execution, then you didn't do anything. Unless you can execute to the highest level, it won't actually work. And so we've had to bring in, I'm very glad we have brought in and love having them on the team. These people who can really take the beginnings of what we have and really take this to the scale that needs to be. Decipher. Plus is a framework for understanding user intent at Webscale and getting performance for our clients and unlocking a premium at Webscale. That is a huge project to go after and pull off. We have so many case studies proving that it will work, but we have a long way to go between where we are and where this thing naturally gets to. And that takes a lot of people with a lot of professional skills to go to.

Damian Fowler (22:43):

What's one thing right now that you're obsessed with figuring out

Jonathan Roberts (22:46):

To take a complete left turn, but it is the topic up and down the Cosette this summer. There isn't currently any viable model for information economy in an AI future. There's lots of ideas of what it would be, but there isn't a subtle marketplace for this. We've got a very big two-sided marketplace for information. It's called Google and search. That's obviously changing. We haven't got to a point to understand what that future is. But if AI is powered by chips, power and content, if you're a chip investor, you're in a good place. If you're investing energy, you're in a good place of the three picks and shovels investments, content is probably the most undervalued at the moment. Lots of people are starting to realize that and building under the hood what that could look like. How that evolves in the next year is going to really determine what kind of information gets created because markets align to their incentives. If you build the marketplace well, you're going to end up with great content, great journalism, great creativity. If you build it wrong, you're going to have a bunch of cheap slop getting flooded the marketplace. And we are not going to fund great journalism. So that's at a moment in time where that future is getting determined and we have a very strong set of opinions on the publishing side, what that should look like. And I am very keen to make sure it gets done. You sound

Damian Fowler (24:17):

Optimistic.

Jonathan Roberts (24:19):

A year ago, the VCs and the technologists believed if you just slammed enough information into an AI system, you'd never need content ever again. And that the brain itself was the moat. Then deep seek proved that the brain wasn't a moat. That reasoning is a commodity because we found out that China could do it cheaper and faster, and we were shocked, shocked that China could do it cheaper and faster. And then the open source community rebuilt deep to in 48 hours, which was the real killer. So if reasoning is a commodity, which it is now, then content is king, right? Because reasoning on its own is free, but if you're grounding it in quality content, your answer's better. But the market dynamics have not caught up to that reality. But that is the reality. So I am optimistic that content goes back to our premium position in this. Now we just have to do all the boring stuff of figuring out what a viable marketplace looks like, how people get paid, all of this, all the hard work, but there's now a future model to align to.

Damian Fowler (25:23):

I love that. Alright, I've got to ask you this question. It's the last one, but I was going to ask it. You spent time building maps, visualizing data, and I've looked at your site, it's brilliant. Is there anything from that side of your creativity that helped you think differently about building say something like decipher?

Jonathan Roberts (25:42):

Yeah. So I think it won't surprise anyone to find out that I'm a massive nerd, right? I used to play d and d, I still do. We have my old high school group still convenes on Sunday afternoons, and we play d and d over Discord. Fantasy maps have been an obsession of mine for a long time. I did the fantasy maps of Game of Thrones. I'm George r Martin's cartographer. I published the book Lands of Ice and Fire with him. Maps are infographics. A map is a way of taking a complex system that you cannot visualize and bringing it to a world in which you can reason about it. I spent a lot of my life taking complex systems that nobody can visualize and building models and frameworks that help people reason about 'em and make decisions in a shared way. At this moment, as you're walking up and down the cosette, there is no map for the future. Nobody has a map, nobody has a plan. Not Google, not Microsoft, not Amazon, not our friends at OpenAI. Nobody knows what's coming. And so even just getting, but lots of people have ideas and opinions and thoughts and directions. So taking all that input and rationalize again to like, okay, if we lay it out like this, what breaks? Being able to logically reason about those virtual scenario. It is exactly the same process, that mental model as Matt.

Damian Fowler (27:12):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression. This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by loving caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns. And remember,

Jonathan Roberts (27:22):

We do not as much tell the world what to think about. The world tells us what they care about. Data's lovely, but unless you do something with it, it's useless.

Damian Fowler (27:31):

I'm Damian, and we'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

Spotify’s Brian Berner joins The Big Impression to talk about how brands are looking for speed, flexibility and smarter ways to connect with audiences. 

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship was still only a fresh rumor in 2023, when State Farm brought together Travis’ mother, Donna Kelce, and Jake from State Farm at an NFL game.

On a new episode of The Big Impression, State Farm’s Patty Morris dives into how the company quickly capitalized on the opportunity despite being risk-averse. 

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing,

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today we're diving into one of the most buzzworthy brand moments in recent memory when Jake from State Farm crashed the Taylor Swift NFL multiverse in a way only he could.

Damian Fowler (00:20):

Our guest is Patty Morris, head of brand at State Farm. Patty and her team turned a viral cultural moment into a strategic marketing win from the sidelines of an NFL game to the front lines of CTV social and beyond.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:34):

We're talking about that famous seat swap with Mama Kelsey, and then digging into why Jake keeps showing up in all the right places and how State Farm is rewriting the playbook on building a culturally fluent brand.

Damian Fowler (00:47):

So let's get into it. We're going to go back to the fall of 2023 when Taylor Swift shows up at a chiefs game and sits next to Mama Kelsey and days later, Jake from State Farm's. In that seat, could you take us behind the scenes and how the idea came together so quickly?

Patty Morris (01:07):

Okay. Well first let me just back us up a little bit. Okay. State Farm is 103 year old, brand 103, so we have certain ways of doing things,

Ilyse Liffreing (01:19):

A lot of legacy there right?

Patty Morris (01:19):

Yes. A lot of legacy we, I think, have been successful as marketers and done a lot of great things over the decades, but we have a way of doing things and you can imagine we're an insurance company, we're risk averse, all of those things. I would just say knowing that context, how do you get from that to an agency calling you on a Friday night and saying, we have this big idea and we think you need to execute it, and it's in about 40 hours. And also it's on probably one of the biggest stages there is, and you say yes to that of course, but how do you get from A to BI think is your question. How did you make that happen? And I would just say a couple of things. One, you have to set the right conditions so that you are part of the cultural Lex Conna in a way that those opportunities come to you. And I think we had done that over time with Jake from State Farm, being really methodical about that and getting him out there in a way that people want to see him and in a way that is a best representation of our brand and allows us to be in cultural places that we otherwise couldn't without that physical brand asset.

Damian Fowler (02:30):

I mean, everyone obviously wanted to be part of that moment, and it's interesting that you bring up the fact that State Farm is risk averse, and yet you made it in it into that moment. Why was your connection to the Kelsey family and Jake's cultural capital so critical to making it land?

Patty Morris (02:47):

Yeah, I mean, I think the other context in the background around a moment like that is we've spent a long time over a decade really working to be endemic in the football landscape. Whether it was our longstanding campaign with Aaron Rogers and now Patrick Mahomes, we had brought Travis Kelsey into our football creative for the season and he was part of that work. If you remember, the Mahomes and Otto commercial was the best bundle in the league.

Damian Fowler (03:15):

Oh yeah, yeah, I do remember.

Patty Morris (03:16):

So we had all of those things working together, plus all the work we had done to make Jake from State Farm who he is, and you get this lightning moment where you have the right to be there because you have Jake and people love him, and he's a physical manifestation of an intangible product that you can put in these environments. We've built a brand that's endemic in football and is recognized in that space and just I think hats off to the creative mindset at maximum effort for calling us and saying, we think this could be a really great joyful cultural moment. And not many people could go sit in that seat next to Mama Kelsey the week after, but we think fans will love this and risk averse or not. When you hear an idea like that and you are able to put your brand in a position like that, you say yes. And if there's anybody that understands maximizing a cultural moment and doing it in the right way, I think it's maximum effort. So you trust them in that moment to do that with you. And man, we did it very quickly.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:23):

Very cool. Yeah, no, I know. I was just going to say it was very fast. The timing was impeccable.

Patty Morris (04:30):

Yeah, I think a week later it wouldn't have

Ilyse Liffreing (04:32):

Landed. No,

Patty Morris (04:33):

I agree. It had to be that weekend and just the next cultural beat right after that, and I think it really surprised people and added value to what they were seeing and during the game and just a really joyful way.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:46):

How quickly did it come together after the idea came into,

Patty Morris (04:50):

They called us on a Friday night and after a long week, a busy week said, Hey, we have this idea, but we have to make it happen on Sunday, or we don't think it'll work. And we said, we agree, but oh my gosh, how are we going to make this happen by Sunday? And so of course their next call is Jake from State Farm, are you busy? Can you be there? Can you get to New York overnight? Basically. And the actor that plays Jake, Kevin Miles is such a great partner,

(05:21):

He gets that call and says, what's the idea? And we tell him and he is like, well, we have to do it, we have to do that. We think so too. And he's like, then yes, I'll get there. I'll be there. So Friday night to, I can't remember what time the game was on Sunday, but wow, it was very fast and we're not used to moving that fast. That was an effort for us, but a really important moment. And I think in tipping point where we started to build some muscle around being able to capitalize on those kind of moments.

Ilyse Liffreing (05:50):

How long would you say campaigns usually take to come together to

Patty Morris (05:54):

Prepare

Ilyse Liffreing (05:54):

A little bit?

Patty Morris (05:55):

It depends, right? It depends. Sometimes you plan something out and you're building something big. You do that really methodically and strategically, and it takes a while. Sometimes you're doing something that is a smaller scale and you can do that faster. But these types of things are really, we call 'em lightning in a bottle moment when it has to be, the specific parameters have to be exactly right. The stars have to align, and you have to be able to do that quickly. And so we try to work with our teams to be doing the long-term things, but also have the capacity to be able to turn and burn on a great idea when we see it. And I think that's why we've been able to hop into these cultural moments and punch above our weight as a brand because they're not paid moments, they're cultural moments that get a lot of earned attention, and that can be really powerful. Very cool.

Damian Fowler (06:44):

So beyond that moment, then you've got that, you capture that lining moment, then what do you do and how do you make it, you channel the cultural impact of that moment across the different channels going forward to maximize it?

Patty Morris (07:00):

First thing you do is celebrate, right? You took a risk and it landed and it paid off. And it's important to celebrate that because it can be really scary, right? I'm sure we've got this really precious, iconic brand in our hands. We've got this really precious asset in Jake from State Farm that we've worked so hard to build. And you take a risk like that. I think it's just important to celebrate when you make the right decisions and you're able to do it quickly. But we talk a lot about an equation that we have at State Farm, and it's a shift that we've made. We of course care about how many impressions we get. We of course care about our cost pers, right? All the things that we marketers have to care about and do care about. We try to focus on putting things through a lens, especially things like this through the lens of reach times engagement equals attention.

(07:50):

So when you get this sort of lightning moment, it's just a cultural moment that everybody's already paying attention to and you sort of are able to insert yourself into it. We have a lot of great partners that we work with, media partners, and we endemic in that football space. We knew everybody was going to look at that moment. We didn't really have to do a lot. We just had to put Jake from State Farm in the seat and everybody's attention turned to it, and it created its own 360 moment in its own way. And so the earned potential you get from that, the attention, that attention metric, syndicated headlines, engagement in social, everybody talking about it on replays and highlights, it's priceless. It's priceless. So I would say a lot of things, we have to work really hard to spread it across channels and make it 360. This was really just a matter of setting up the moment and then letting it do its thing.

Ilyse Liffreing (08:46):

How do you think about where Jake will show up next?

Patty Morris (08:50):

We actually try to be really disciplined about this. He is that physical manifestation of the promise that we sell in insurance and the relationship that we sell. And so I think the first criteria is, is it authentic to the brand and how we want him to show up, and is it demonstrating relationship and connection in the right way, and is it true to our values wherever he's going to show up? The reality also is he is one human being, so we have to manage his calendar appropriately. And Jake's a busy guy, very busy guy. He is an influencer in his own right. He's got 1.4 million followers on TikTok. The TikTok job alone is a lot. So we're pretty choiceful about where and when he shows up. So it's got to be the right fit. It's got to be an opportunity for us to really demonstrate that physical connection and we got to work it into the calendar. Yeah,

Ilyse Liffreing (09:45):

That's funny. So I would love to then now dig into some of your takeaways from that campaign. Were there any results, like reactions that you saw from the mom and Kelsey moment maybe in terms of brand lift or broader cultural impact?

Patty Morris (10:01):

Yeah, I mean, I think part of what has catapulted this branded asset into the cultural space in a way that just honestly, it's hard to measure. So of course we look at individual campaign metrics. Do we see brand lift in the body of commercial work that we put out? But in a case like this, it's harder to measure. So I think we mentioned the earned and the billions of impressions that created the engagement and the chatter online and all of that. But it's really all of those metrics combined with some of the intangibles. It's like when it comes to Jake from State Farm or our brand, we're constantly testing those assets for familiarity. So recognition and relevance, and we do it two or three times a year. And so we can see where he plots on that compared to our competitors and compared to our rest of our assets, we've got six, seven really important assets that are really familiar and we've worked really hard to build. Most brands are happy and lucky to have one or two. We've got seven of them.

Damian Fowler (11:04):

So

Patty Morris (11:05):

That's a metric that we look at too, to say is what we're doing collectively and in cases like the Mama Kelsey moment, pushing those assets into higher recognition and higher relevance and uniqueness for our brand. And those are the metrics that we're looking at.

Damian Fowler (11:22):

I also want to ask you, what did you learn about your audience after the appearance and the way they engaged with Jake in that moment?

Patty Morris (11:31):

It's such a phenomenon to me that this character can be in a lot of different cultural places and be accepted. So we didn't know if you go sit him next to Mama Kelsey after a Taylor Swift moment, people are going to love it or they're going to hate it. It's not one of those things that maybe no one will notice and we'll just see. It's a big swing.

(11:57):

So I think we learned from fans that he is welcome in those cultural moments, and so that got us to have a little more confidence routes around some of the decisions we've made since then. So when you see him at Bravocon, you see him at TwitchCon, you see him at Coachella, and we do an exclusive drop with Travis Scott. And the reaction to him in those places, whether it's online and in social and how people comment and engage about it or in real life, is actually overwhelming. So many people will come up to us or we'll approach Jake, who are my kids love you. My kids won't stop talking about you. And even young kids, Jake from State Farm, they want their picture with him. So I think we've learned over time that he does have this universal appeal, and he's welcome. He's loved in these places, and so you're able to add value to people's experiences and to some of this context in a way that you just wouldn't expect from an insurance company.

Ilyse Liffreing (12:55):

So Jake obviously has become much more than a spokesperson. He's a TV personality at this point, and he's a spokes influencer as well.

Damian Fowler (13:05):

Spokes spoke.

Ilyse Liffreing (13:07):

Spoke.

Damian Fowler (13:08):

I

Ilyse Liffreing (13:08):

Liked it. Okay. Say that three times. We need to redo this.

Damian Fowler (13:11):

No, no, it was good. I think it was good, the interaction. That was good.

Ilyse Liffreing (13:14):

Okay. The spoke flu? Yes. If you'll, I think you coined that perhaps. Maybe we did. Maybe we did maybe. But he has permission to show up anywhere, basically. How did you build that kind of brand equity?

Patty Morris (13:30):

I think it's a thousand little things over a long period of time. Original Jake from State Farm, that commercial was in 2011, right? So you've got a long history of equity in 2019. We recast that role and we're very specific about how we wanted to bring that to life. So I think it's been many things over a long period of time. But also I would say especially in some of these more recent cultural things, we test in small places. We test smaller things, we build competence, and then we try the next thing and you can see the reception to it. And I would say the other thing that stands out to people are his clothes. So red and khaki and his kind of uniform that he wears has also become pretty recognizable, and people talk about that a lot. And we take a lot of care in how he dresses and how he shows up.

(14:23):

So naturally we talk a little bit about apparel and fashion places and could he be accepted in that area and we can connect with a totally different audience that otherwise again, would not be connecting with insurance maybe. And so we test into small places. You wouldn't say, let's have Jake show up at the Met Gala right out of the gate you would say, where can we try a couple of places? So we work with gq, we send him to Vogue World and just see how does it go? He does a whole behind the scenes content series around it. He shows up there and fans loved it. They're so excited for him. They feel like he's their friend and they're just excited to see how he's moving through the world and everybody's cheering for him, rooting for him. I think you try in small places and you test in small places, you build confidence so that you can say yes to the big swings and you can just kind of know in your gut when that's right.

Damian Fowler (15:15):

Are you able to connect that recognition, that brand equity to business outcomes? I know people say, oh, there's Jake, in terms of actual business impact.

Patty Morris (15:25):

Yeah, of course. We're looking at brand awareness, especially with younger audiences. And like I said, Jake is universally loved. We're working hard to make sure we're relatable and relevant with younger audiences, especially in these big cultural moments. And we see our awareness scores being at the top of our category. We see our consideration scores and the trend of improvement over the last five, six years as we've really put Jake forward in this way and become really consistent about it. And there's also sort of the offline pieces of that, and you look at how people are talking about him online and the conversation and the performance on his TikTok and the brand lift that comes from that. So absolutely, we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think it had profound business value. And I think we cracked the code a little bit on how to do it in a way that isn't a caricature or a mascot. It's this in-between version of it can really have a personal connection with consumers either digitally or commercially or in real life. And I think that's special about it.

Damian Fowler (16:28):

We're talking about maximizing impact, especially around new channels. Are there any that you are looking at in particular? Like CTV?

Patty Morris (16:35):

Yeah, in CTV streaming, just the collapsing of the funnel is how we talk about it. Where in a lot of these streaming environments, you're really able to pull people through an experience in a way that you couldn't before. So the connected piece of that, the data that surrounds that and how you actually make that work from a customer experience perspective in a way that can pull people through, not just from seeing your ad, but actually considering you and able to take an action in that moment is really exciting. So we are experimenting with a lot of different things and a lot of different partners. We did some really great work last year with Amazon and Thursday night football. So that to me is a super exciting area and one that I think marketers are going to be able to show results from in a way that we just haven't before, all across the funnel, which is super exciting.

Ilyse Liffreing (17:27):

It's hard for a lot of brands, especially legacy brands, to be so nimble and quick with their brand spokesperson. What would you say to marketers who are hesitant to take those kind of risks?

Patty Morris (17:40):

I would say know the places where you have to be vigilant about your brand and know the places where you can turn over your pen a little bit. And I think that's especially true just with the rise of creators and creators and influencers as a very important media channel. We've been talking about that a lot this week here and can around how brands work with creators and the partnership that you have to have because it can feel really uncomfortable as a brand to turn over your very precious thing to creators, but they know their audiences best

Ilyse Liffreing (18:16):

And

Patty Morris (18:16):

They know what's going to work. And so it can feel scary, but you kind of have to turn over the reins a little bit and let them work and create with your brand in a way that's going to be relevant to consumers and their audiences. And so I think that is true in this context as well.

Damian Fowler (18:32):

To pull off a move like this, a brand has to move fast. And I'm curious just to hear from inside as it were, what structures or ways of working at State Farm made you capable first off of pulling something like this off, and then maybe what have you learned from it as a company?

Patty Morris (18:47):

Yeah, again, being 103, it's hard. We've got set ways of working and we have legal and compliance teams, and those are very real parameters that as a marketer you have to pay attention to. But culture waits for no one. Culture just keeps on moving. And if you really are going to capitalize on these moments as they happen, you have to be nimble in new ways. And I think it's just have the discussions, get on the phone, talk through it, is it the right thing at the right time? And is it worth taking some calculated risk because the benefit to the brand and the business is going to be strong enough to outweigh the risk. And there's no way you can do that or know that without just rolling up your sleeves and hashing through it with your team and making the best decisions you can for your brand.

(19:31):

And if you get it right, it can be a gold mine. If you get it wrong, it can really be hard. So I think that it is difficult and it's stressful, but for us, mama Kelsey moment was probably a tipping point where we said we have to recognize and be able to act quickly and nimbly when that makes sense. Not all the time that would be chaos, but when it makes sense and do it in a way that's going to be acceptable to our organization and feel good about that, but also in a way that is going to allow us not just to react to moments, but be moment makers. So I think we've moved on from that moment to do that in different spaces, and it's been great for the brand. That's

Ilyse Liffreing (20:11):

Wonderful. That was great. Now we have some rapid fire questions for

Patty Morris (20:14):

You. Okay. Okay.

Ilyse Liffreing (20:17):

So first one is a question that is a popular one for this podcast. What are you obsessed with figuring out right now?

Patty Morris (20:26):

Oh, so many obsessions. My biggest one right now is organic search and really just understanding how that's going to move and change with AI and generative AI and what that means for brands and how you need to show up. That landscape is changing and it's so critical to adapt to what really is consumer behavior, adapting to the consumer behavior in a way that is going to make sure we're showing up in the right places in the right ways. And it's probably one of the biggest places that I can see right now that is changing rapidly and significantly. So we're really working hard to make sure we're on top of that.

Ilyse Liffreing (21:04):

Yeah. On that note, are there other ways you are already using AI or experimenting with that?

Patty Morris (21:10):

Yeah, I mean, it's such an exciting time to be a marketer and also a little bit unsettling. And so I think like many others, we're experimenting in certain places. We've been using AI through certain things for a while, but there are other areas where we're really just experimenting. So probably the biggest is content scaling. How do you responsibly use AI to create content at scale and do that in the right way, in a compliant way? Because the unlock there is just exponential connection with consumers and personalized connection with consumers, and it has the potential to free up capacity of teams and agencies to do other things, more things, different things, which is really exciting, but we're also very focused on doing that responsibly.

Ilyse Liffreing (21:59):

Would you use it with Jake since the schedule is so packed?

Patty Morris (22:04):

That's a good question. No, not yet. Not yet. Jake. The beauty of Jake is he's a real person, and that's one of the core tenets of what we all love about him. I think we'll keep it that way for now. That's a good answer.

Damian Fowler (22:18):

Okay. So next, what's missing from the market from your point of view?

Patty Morris (22:24):

This week has been so interesting and inspirational. For me personally, and this might be a little bit weird, but my biggest takeaway from this week is making sure we're asking ourselves what are we trying to make people feel? I think as a marketer, you can just get really wrapped up in a lot of quantity over quality, and if there's anything we see here in can, it is definitely quality work from all over the world, and it's actually quite humbling and inspiring at the same time. My big takeaway and what I think might be missing is making sure we're trying to make people feel something about our brand. It's the most powerful thing you could do, I think, to move someone towards your products. And I think the balance of let's get everything done and let's get everything out there with are we making something of quality that's really going to create a consumer emotion and connect is something I'll be taking back to my team and something that I think is missing from the market.

Ilyse Liffreing (23:27):

Amazing. If Jake from State Farm could pop up anywhere next with zero constraints, where would you send him?

Patty Morris (23:35):

I would send him to my family reunion. So they will stop asking to meet Jake from State Farm. I get the question all the time, and yeah, everybody wants to meet Jake, which I love. Or you know what? Maybe I would send her to the future so he could tell us how all this is going to

Ilyse Liffreing (23:54):

Shake

Patty Morris (23:54):

Out. That'd be pretty cool. Very cool. That'd be awesome.

Damian Fowler (24:00):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (24:03):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Damian Fowler (24:09):

And remember,

Patty Morris (24:11):

Reach times engagement equals attention. Culture waits for no one.

Damian Fowler (24:16):

I'm Damian and

(24:18):

We'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

In this episode of The Big Impression, Kelly breaks down how Diageo is turning tequila into a global cultural force. One standout example: a six-city collaboration with DJ and fashion icon Peggy Gou that combined out-of-home, merch drops, pop-up events and hyperlocal storytelling.

From a Hong Kong hot pot party to a Milan piazza activation, every detail was designed to blur the line between brand and experience. 

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:08):

Today we're talking about how one of the fastest growing categories in the spirits industry, tequila and mezcal, is being shaped by culture, identity, and global consumer trends.

Damian Fowler (00:20):

Our guest is Sophie Kelly, SVP of Global Tequila and Mezcal Categories. At Diageo, she's leading the strategy behind some of the world's most iconic tequila brands, helping Diageo navigate its growth, changing cultural expectations, and the new ways consumers connect with celebration.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:39):

We'll talk about how Diageo is bouncing global scale with local storytelling, and in short, how tequila has become a cultural force beyond just the shot glass.

Damian Fowler (00:50):

So let's get into it.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:51):

Diageo is no stranger to bold campaigns and really intersecting in today's culture. How does your latest work in the tequila and mezcal category continue that legacy? And with your latest campaigns, what was one core story or rather insight that you're trying to bring to life?

Sophie Kelly (01:13):

Our moment of consumption is normally when people are out socializing, trying to have the best times of their lives or celebrate a major moment in their life. So think birthdays, weddings,

Ilyse Liffreing (01:25):

Or even here at

Sophie Kelly (01:26):

Can, even here at can, right festivals. So what is really important for us as we build our brands and think about how we go to market is that we are creating experiences for consumers to participate in. I think some of my favorite stuff across the category is on Don Julio. I mean, we launched a brand new product, 1942 Manys, which was a 50 ml supposed to allow people to access the luxury of 1942 at a better price point in a fun format. And we did that in the Oscars, right? But the most recent one, which I just adore and am still obsessed with and is still going, would be our cultural global collaboration with Peggy Goo. She is a number one DJ globally. She's also an icon in the fashion world, and she creates a load of fashion jewelry. We discovered her in Southeast Asia and she was a massive fan of 1942.

(02:32):

As marketers, we just started to ride along with her and gift her and be a part of her experience. So we approached her and said, any interest in creating a 1942 special limited edition with us? And she was blown away. She was like, yes, but can I design the product? Can I design the experience? Can it be global? Can it travel? Can it be teased? We said yes to all of the above. So we started off in Miami where we had an intimate party, but that intimate party probably had influences at it that had over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. So we started to tease the collaboration, which was called the 1942 goo. And that's a really important element because we changed the logo of 1942 to be 1942 goo. We teased the campaign with outdoor and these events and we went from Miami to New York, to London to Milan and then to Seoul and then to Hong Kong. New York had a pop-up souvenir store in a car park. When we went to Milan, we did it in a piazza. When we went to London, we did it differently. When we were in Hong Kong, we did a hot pot pop-up. One of the most special parts of the experience was in Seoul, right in her home neighborhood and right next to where she was going to perform. And that was already up six weeks before it came. So we are teasing the drum roll in and the desire for people to be a part of this limited experience.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:12):

Now, I know you're talking a lot about out of home, but what were some of the other marketing channels that you leaned into for this campaign?

Sophie Kelly (04:18):

Everything in the popup was consumable or was collectible. So whether it was the key chains, whether it was the hats, whether it was her specifically designed scars, consumers could collect it, they could create content on it and they could share it broader. So then what started to happen was they were creating their own content. She was creating her own content and influencers within her sphere were creating their own content. And then there was the tease that we were moving to a new city. So that was creating a hype in that. So when you think about channel mix, it was digital, it was static, it was experiences, real life experiences, and most importantly, actions doing something, not just talking about it and then providing people with beautiful little artifacts that they could collect from the experiences to participate and create around.

Damian Fowler (05:18):

We want to get to what your takeaways are in a minute, but before that, I want to ask you, it is interesting when you watch the kind of trajectory of different spirits, it seems like tequila's having a serious moment right now. I mean, for example, in New York, just the other week I ordered a mezcal Negroni, it was

Sophie Kelly (05:39):

Amazing. 800 new craft brands have been launched into tequila in the last, I dunno, two years.

Ilyse Liffreing (05:47):

Wow, that is a lot.

Sophie Kelly (05:47):

So we are seeing a boom in tequila in the same way we saw in North American whiskeys in bourbon in the last five, six years and as a global business unit that I represent. So you are running the gamut of understanding the benefit of the experience of tequila, which is high-end tequilas that are incredibly versatile, that are suitable for multiple occasions and multiple drinks in a culture like the US to teaching people that tequila is no longer that bad shot you had in college. How do you educate? How do you train, how do you get these drinks into culture so that people choose them? Well, you got to have strong brands. You got to have the love of the bartender and the on-premise and you create the biggest rituals there beyond anywhere else, and they travel into the home and then you've got to pick up how consumers are interacting, right? So I'll give you a fun one. For example, we were in the ski fields and we observed that people were taking hot chocolates in shot glasses and then they were tipping the mini that I gave you, the 1942 mini into the top of the shot glass, and that was a serve. So we took that and we scaled it across the ski resorts, right? So from simple mixed drinks to sipping age liquids to fun novel rituals in clubs is how you really fuel what's going on.

Damian Fowler (07:19):

In terms of takeaways, do you have any kind of data points that show the growth and interest in this category?

Sophie Kelly (07:26):

It's the fastest growing spirits segment in the category right now and is forecasted to be that way for the next five years. So if you've got spirits running at about three or 4%, you've got tequila running at about six to 11%, which is kind of amazing. It's also very specific on its development. So if you look at the US, it's more developed. You look at Mexico, it's very developed and the rest of the world it's between five and 15% penetration. Give you a fun fact like whiskey and vodka is up around 36, 42 depending on the market. Yeah, too many people associated tequila with college shots. That is not the experience of tequila. It is playing across high energy. It's in the club, it's with the VIPs, it's with the celebrities, but it's also playing in casual connect moments and simple mixed drinks. So you're able to get into cocktail culture as well as simple mixed drinks. So I think that's a lot of the key to the growth we're seeing and just the versatility and the taste profiles.

Damian Fowler (08:36):

Now that the campaign's out there, you did hit on some of these obviously, but are there key signals and metrics that you look to on your dashboard? As it were,

Sophie Kelly (08:45):

Our consumers had watched over 190 days of content. We got up to 9 billion impressions, which is pretty extraordinary. And what I'd say is lots of chat about AI and is it going to take over. I think the beautiful combination of cultural collaboration with talent, the right kind of elements in the experience to create talkability and then utilizing tech from a generate insights about the communities and how we're going to combine them and what they need in the experience to also distribution, right? Taking the influencer content, taking the bartender content, taking the experience content and amplifying that out to further bigger audience was critical on distribution.

Ilyse Liffreing (09:34):

Sophie, can you tell me whether there is a market or a moment that delivered the most surprising engagement or maybe taught you something new out of this whole campaign?

Sophie Kelly (09:46):

One of the most surprising stats was just how many hours of content our consumers consumed on the campaign because it was so engaging, right? The other thing I'd say is as she traveled, she went into global duty free, she signed bottles, she met consumers, and that exploded as well. So I think one of the surprising things for us was this relationship started in Singapore and then we cultivated it and then we were able to scale it globally, but also make it extremely local to that market.

Ilyse Liffreing (10:30):

So Sophie, from your perspective, and here's your big impression here, how are those broader cultural shifts really influencing the way Diageo approaches brand building in the tequila and mescal space?

Sophie Kelly (10:46):

You must create experiences that allow what we like to talk about, which is accessible luxury for people to engage in. So when you think about this, we created the baby mini Peggy Goo bottles, which are 50 ml bottles, and you can access the taste of the experience. I mean, I think formatting is a really simple way of doing it. I think inviting people in to experiences at multiple layers and letting them access a world that they may have sought was out of reach is super important when you're creating experiences. And then I think giving them little artifacts from that to carry through that represent that something special that represents the experience they were able to engage in. I

Damian Fowler (11:36):

Want to ask you, this is a very important question. What new drinks around tequila are available now? Are you seeing pop up?

Sophie Kelly (11:43):

I think you said it, the Negroni, the espresso martini. We're even doing old fashions with tequila, and that is a real result of, versus people thinking about tequila as just blanco or mixed in a margarita. We have this huge explosion in aged tequilas, which are really sourcing from whiskey moments and rituals as well as kind of the versatility of tequila.

Ilyse Liffreing (12:14):

So Sophie, you've worked across several iconic brands. What's one lesson about cultural storytelling that stayed consistent throughout your career?

Sophie Kelly (12:22):

Work with people who love your brand. Listen to what's happening with your brand and culture, and then add to that, enhance the experience. Don't interrupt it and don't make it up and don't play where you don't have a right to play. Is there a

Ilyse Liffreing (12:37):

Non Spirits brand that you admire right now for the way it connects with people emotionally or culturally?

Sophie Kelly (12:45):

Labubu. Have you seen these things? Oh yes. Yeah, they are little kind of monster icons that everybody is hanging off their bags. I just love it.

Damian Fowler (12:53):

A final question I think is what's your favorite drink?

Sophie Kelly (13:00):

You know what? I am a Don Julio or a Casamigos Reposado on rocks with a slice of orange. I love my 1942, but so they're mine.

Damian Fowler (13:16):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (13:18):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Damian Fowler (13:25):

And remember,

Sophie Kelly (13:27):

Work with people who love your brand. Listen to what's happening with your branding culture, and then add to that, enhance the experience. Don't interrupt it and don't make it up and don't play where you don't have a right to play.

Damian Fowler (13:41):

I'm Damian and I'm Ilyse, and we'll

Sophie Kelly (13:43):

See you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

In this episode of The Big Impression, we’re joined by James Rothwell, managing director of brand marketing at Kinective Media. Rothwell walks us through what’s changed since launch — from major brand partnerships and custom content integrations to a headline-making alliance with JetBlue. With over 110 million traveler profiles and 63 million MileagePlus members, Kinective is fast becoming one of the most compelling new players in commerce media.

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing.

Damian Fowler (00:02):

And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):

Today we're checking back in on one of the boldest moves in airline media, connected media by United Airlines as they've redefined what's possible in the world of Traveler Media Networks.

Damian Fowler (00:22):

Our guest is James Rothwell, managing director of brand marketing at Connective Media. James and his team are helping United leverage the power of 110 million traveler profiles, create new opportunities for brands across the entire customer journey.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:38):

We actually spoke with Connective on this podcast just last year and just a week after they launched. A lot has happened since then from major brand partnerships to rapid innovation in tech content and measurement, and today we're catching up on what's new. So let's get into it.

Damian Fowler (00:57):

So James, this time last year, United had just launched Connective Media. It was June, 2024 at CAN, and it was the first airline media network. Could you walk us through what's happened since then? How has the network grown? How has it attracted brand campaigns and how is it working?

James Rothwell (01:20):

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you Damian, for having me on. This is great to be here. We just celebrated our first birthday, which is a wonderful thing. We're engaging with so many different types of brands who are interested in reaching a premium traveler audience. We've seen some success in most of the key verticals that you would imagine, and then some surprising ones too. And obviously it's a slam dunk for a travel brand or a destination brand, but those non-endemic brands, the non-endemic advertisers who are trying to reach travelers, no matter where they are in their journey or even in between journeys, we're finding really interesting use cases, really interesting targeting options and ways for them to be able to reach them across all of our screens. And on,

Damian Fowler (02:08):

Let's get into it a little further. Can you give us some examples? And you mentioned non endemics as well, but maybe we could start with the endemics and then move on to the non endemics.

James Rothwell (02:17):

No, absolutely. I think travel as a category is a growth sector right now. I think ever since the pandemic, people have been looking to explore the world and get out of the, I mean, they were cooped up for quite a while there, and so travel's never been more popular. Like any industry, you've got to break through the noise and the options that you have out there. Right? World's a big place.

(02:43):

Luckily we fly to a lot of different places. We have over 330 different destinations. One really interesting case study that we've just completed was with the Cayman Islands tourist board, and they were looking to drive passengers travelers to the Cayman Islands, and they worked with us across all of our media, and we were able to do closed loop attribution based on the bookings that were then made to those destinations. So for us, measurement and measurability is incredibly strong in the travel sector and the travel space. We were able to see basically with Cayman Islands, that 9,000 bookings came from exposure to the ads that ran across email, across our club lounges and in our entertainment seat back screens on the planes. So we were able to drive awareness, intent, and then conversion, and we were able to track that and they saw a 13 times return on an ad spend against that campaign. We were incredibly happy with that. They were incredibly happy with that. We obviously made some travelers very happy to go enjoy the wonderful blues ocean around the Cayman Islands.

Damian Fowler (03:58):

Yeah, there's something nice when you see that on screen. You're

James Rothwell (04:01):

Like that, I'm going to go there. Yeah, that looks nice. That one sells itself. It

Ilyse Liffreing (04:05):

Does. So you mentioned non-endemic brands too. That's really interesting.

James Rothwell (04:09):

Yeah, I mean, we're all travelers, right? We all got on a plane to be here in Cannes. It doesn't define us, but certainly it helps to give context and potentially insights around who we are as individuals and what we like to spend our money on where we like to spend our time. And so that translates into a really interesting audience segment for different brands. So we've had a lot of luck and a lot of success with luxury brands who want to reach, especially front of plane individuals. B2B brands has been a real boon for us as well. Business decision makers, they're looking to find those individuals and we can find 'em on the planes in the clubs and through different digital channels as well. And so that's been a really interesting sector that we've been able to really capitalize on, and I think they've been able to see some significant growth on that. And we work with, for example, JIRA, which is an Atlassian product, and they did a full omnichannel activation with us and they saw some fantastic results there.

Ilyse Liffreing (05:16):

Very cool. Could you describe that a little bit more, how, I guess you worked almost in a custom way, it sounds like With Jira

James Rothwell (05:26):

For that one was very custom. In fact, they had their own branding moment and wanted to use some of that branding and creativity and plug it into the inflight entertainment screen. So we created a custom channel for them with curated content behind it, which then obviously gave them a branding moment and an opportunity to drive their messaging with more engagement. So that was a very custom moment, but also an opportunity for us to do very targeted work to find the right audience members throughout the journey.

Ilyse Liffreing (05:56):

We spoke with Mike Petre on this podcast just about a year ago, A week after you guys

James Rothwell (06:02):

Launched. That's right.

Ilyse Liffreing (06:03):

It seems that you're moving fast and obviously moving on to things like custom solutions and everything like that. What else is new in the past 12 months

James Rothwell (06:12):

Where to start? We've been bringing on a significant amount of partners, not only on the technical side, but also on the content side. So most recently we did a deal with Spotify. We're very excited about that partnership. Again, from a content perspective and an engagement perspective, that gives us a whole new set of ways and deeper engagement from people while they're on the planes. It's also an opportunity for a loyalty aspect of that as well. And we'll talk a little bit about how Mileage Plus comes into our overall offering, but if you sign up for Spotify Premium, there's a Mileage Plus component to that. We are the first airline to offer audio books and video podcasts within our planes. There's a lot going on in the loyalty space. We are working with many partners to be effectively integrated into our loyalty program with that will also be a media component as well. So this marriage of loyalty and media together is been a real, it's been very successful in terms of not only helping to drive awareness of those campaigns and those opportunities for Mileage plus members to convert, but also to drive media value for those individual brands. So Vivid Seats is another recent partner of ours where we are able to give mileage plus members the opportunity to earn miles as they buy tickets to entertainment. But you can imagine a world where for those types of companies, we know where those individuals are going to

(07:41):

At those destinations. Those companies know how many seats are available at a particular location. Can we match that data and make really customized targeted advertising campaigns to say, okay, we see you're going to Vegas, here are some seats available when you get there. So that opportunity of matching data with our partners from a targeted perspective and then a loyalty perspective is really limitless in terms of what the opportunity is there.

Damian Fowler (08:08):

Let me just ask you, partnerships like this seem hugely valuable in this space. What else are you seeing?

James Rothwell (08:15):

One of the partnerships that we're super excited about is a very recent announcement with JetBlue. We will be working with JetBlue in a number of different ways. Again, loyalty will be a component of that where we are able to, a JetBlue customer can use United Miles to fly on JetBlue and vice versa. There will be a component that will extend to airport and gate availability down the road. There's a commerce play part as part of that where JetBlue will be powering commerce for us for ancillary products like hotels, cruises, cars, et cetera. And then where it's very exciting for the Connected Media group is that we will be effectively selling JetBlue audiences under the connected media roof that will sit alongside our United Media and United audiences. So the combination of that obviously is a scaled audience across different geographies where JetBlue is stronger in the northeast where we are not as strong. So very kind of complimentary in terms of the audience. And that obviously from an advertiser perspective is great because that's more scale. It's one less phone call to make in a world where there's 280 different media networks that kind of consolidation or rather that opportunity to create an airline audience at scale. We think there's massive opportunity there, and we're talking to a number of other airlines about that opportunity.

Damian Fowler (09:36):

And when you talk about at scale, you've got 63 million mileage plus members, so that's a

James Rothwell (09:42):

Serious, yeah. And 174 passengers over the year. I think JetBlue is around 40, so

Damian Fowler (09:49):

74 million. Yeah.

James Rothwell (09:50):

Yeah, 174 million. And then you add 40 million of JetBlue you're getting up there in terms of hundreds of millions of audience members that we can now get in front of. That's a serious proposition.

Ilyse Liffreing (10:00):

Yeah, it's a great partnership really in a lot of ways. Almost a surprising one too, because you guys are competitors but are also helping each other out in ways. And

James Rothwell (10:13):

Again, it's a very complimentary partnership. I think they're strong in places where we don't have the same coverage. And so it works from that perspective. At the airline level, I think what's most interesting for me is we think we might be the first commerce media player to bring a, I wouldn't even call 'em competitor. I would call 'em a pier,

(10:35):

A pier into the garden. And this is not a walled garden. This is an anti-Wall garden straight. We've built this technology stack purpose built for the airline. We've built it so others don't have to. And we think by bringing more individuals and more airlines into this world, and it could extend to travel partners more broadly than just airlines, we think all boats will rise. I should probably say planes will fly, but we think there's value in, again, creating scale, creating efficiency for buyers, and ultimately sort of making the whole thing a little bit more streamlined.

Damian Fowler (11:14):

Yeah, yeah. We like that idea that especially when we look at advertisers and media buyers, the idea that everyone benefits from partnerships like this, so it's not like we're it locking you out. That idea of opening up, it's the value prop for media buys is huge.

James Rothwell (11:35):

Yeah, it's very new. So we're still figuring out all of the logistics. It'll start on the back seat screens and offsite, how we merge those and deduplicate those audiences through technology partners like LiveRamp is still being figured out, but we're very excited about the proposition and we'll start selling offsite later in the year. And then moving on to Seatback screens in 2026.

Damian Fowler (12:01):

Now, you did mention some metrics here, but we're just going to press you a little further on that. One of the virtues of Connected Media networks is that ability to tie back purchases to customers and some of the campaigns or partnerships you've mentioned. How is that working? What kind of visibility do you have?

James Rothwell (12:20):

So we work with a number of different measurement partners, Kantar di nata. We've just started working with Adelaide, which is an attention based measuring partner. And recent tests on that is looking pretty good. You can imagine we do have people literally strapped in by their seat belts and the screen is right in front of them. So the viewability is pretty strong, the attention is very strong too. So we're able to prove, obviously, that as an extension of television, whether you call that a CTV or digital out-of-home screen, it's a very compelling proposition for a brand, and it's an opportunity for them to tell stories on a pretty dynamic canvas. But yeah, we work with a number of different measurement partners. We continue to expand those partners because we believe that while we can choose ones that we think are good, that's not always going to be everyone's first choice. And so we want to be able to create flexibility and brands and agencies to bring their own partners to the table. And so over time, we'll integrate more and more of those partners so that again, measurability and measurement is enabled for all in the ways that they want.

Ilyse Liffreing (13:29):

Very cool. You were talking about how connective is offering omnichannel measurement. Are there any surprises that came out of that analysis so far?

James Rothwell (13:41):

Yeah, I think some of the insights that I've been most intrigued by have been around what I call the traveler mindset, this idea that individuals may act a little differently when they're in the middle of their journey. And a couple of reasons for that hypothesis. I think if you think about maybe you are a business traveler, your company's paying for your flight, your hotel, probably a little bit of your food if not all, while you're gone. I think people think they've got a little extra change in their pocket. Maybe they'll feel a little bit more open to advertising, open to brands being part of that journey and maybe even convinced that they should go out and actually spend some money on that brand. Obviously there's always the opportunity for those people who've got their sunglasses and making that a purchase in the airport, but I think it goes beyond that. What was really intriguing though for me was we did some analysis around business travelers and noticed that business travelers are actually more likely to respond to advertising than leisure travelers, which for me was a little counterintuitive because I thought business travelers might tune that out given how frequent they are. They're more likely to be frequent flyers, right?

(14:54):

But I think they may be a little bit more attuned to the environment they're in as opposed to maybe a leisure traveler or AER traveler who's going with their family and they're having to look after the kids. They're a little distracted, or maybe they're zoning out because they can't wait to get to the beach or back home, but the business traveler is a little bit more tuned in. And so I think that's why we've seen so much success with B2B brands because of that insight and that response.

Ilyse Liffreing (15:24):

And to me, it does sound like there's B2B brands are having kind of a moments, and I think this is across all categories, but it sounds like you're seeing that too, that B2B brands are even driven to the plane beer.

James Rothwell (15:40):

Yeah, I think in general, B2B marketing as digital has matured, B2B marketing looks a lot like B2C marketing. There's not a huge amount of difference. And brands, there are business brands that really invest a significant amount of money in that brand. And you don't have to look too far from across the sports world to see how many brands are investing in high profile sporting events and wanting to reach influencers and business decision makers. I think we have a great audience for that. So I think we are another choice for brands to be able to engage with them.

Damian Fowler (16:14):

Quick question here. On that note, do you have any brand partnerships with sports teams

James Rothwell (16:18):

At the United level? We do. We work with a number of different teams across the nation, obviously usually associated a lot more aligned with our hubs where we have a lot more exposure. And so yeah, lots of different professional sports teams. And then obviously when it comes to things like NCAA tournaments, we do a lot of fun marketing around that. If your team unexpectedly goes all the way, you're going to have to hop on a plane, well, we can figure we help you out with that, or you can cancel your flight and don't worry about it. We will take care of you if your team crashes out.

Damian Fowler (16:55):

Moving on here, to zoom out a little bit and look at the landscape, the big picture, as it were from, should we say 30,000 feet? Let's do it. Terrible. I love it. You wouldn't believe how many plane analogy Canal. Get the pun every, I'm sure you can every day. Lemme ask you for your favorite plane analogy at the end of

James Rothwell (17:10):

Something,

Damian Fowler (17:11):

But you've likened connectives personalization to Netflix's style recommendation engine, but with rich signals as more brands enter the traveler media space, and we don't necessarily have to name them, what do you see as United's distinct advantage?

James Rothwell (17:28):

I'm going to highlight another partnership here because I think it will illuminate the audience on where this is going. So we announced our partnership with starlink recently, and we are scaling starlink out across the fleet. That will take some time because we have to take those planes out of rotation, install the hardware, but we did a recent test and got hardcore gamers and hardcore streamers, and we were doing shopping and testing it, and they were literally trying to break it and they couldn't break it. And it was absolutely flawless super fast. That is a game changer because now you can do everything on the ground at 30,000 feet. And there's been a lot of questions about, does that mean we're going to have to take Zoom calls on the planes? And the good news is no, I think you can listen, but I don't think you can talk. So that's kind of the rule there. But yeah, we had people FaceTiming with their moms on that flight, but the reason I bring that up is because that is going to effectively create a whole world of hyper-personalization that just wasn't possible before. The technology that again exists at zero feet will be at 30,000 feet. And so you think about what that means from an advertising perspective, every screen becomes addressable. We can do programmatic delivery against those

Speaker 4 (18:53):

Screens

James Rothwell (18:54):

And we can create shoppable moments, brand integrations. It unlocks a huge amount of content opportunities as well. Now you can stream live sports, you can stream anything you want on the ground in the air. So that's where I think we already have an advantage in that we have an amazing audience, an omnichannel offering and hours of attention. We're going to supercharge that attention with incredible content and amazing brand integration opportunities and advertising opportunities.

Damian Fowler (19:25):

We have these rapid fire hot seat questions. You're not strapped in or anything, sorry. Terrible. Another airline analogy. This is one we like to ask. What is it that you are obsessed with figuring out right now about the marketplace you're in?

James Rothwell (19:40):

I'm obsessed with, I think just continuing to find out more about the audience that we get to engage with every day. I have the pleasure of not only being head of marketing for Connected Media, but I also mileage Plus. And so I'm curious every day about how I can understand more about our loyal customers, how we can enrich their experiences with us and enrich their lives more broadly. Because again, it doesn't stop with the journey from others. How do we engage with them in authentic and compelling ways in a very noisy media marketplace, but also try and get them to continue to think about Mileage Plus and the airline on a more regular basis, not just when they have to travel.

Ilyse Liffreing (20:29):

Yeah. What would you say is missing from the market and needs to be solved?

James Rothwell (20:37):

What's missing from the market? I don't think it's missing. It just needs to continue to evolve, and that's measurement. I think no one's cracked the code. It feels like every time we get close, the move a little bit, and as more and more first party data driven networks crop up, it becomes more and more relevant for us to solve the attribution game. And I think even when I understood retail media networks to be the answer to all of that because of closed loop attribution, my understanding is that is still not figured out. That's not still solved. And if retailers who operate at that lower end of the funnel and point of sale haven't figured it out, then that's challenging for the industry because we've got a long way to go still.

Damian Fowler (21:21):

You mentioned you had a favorite. Do you have any favorite airline? Do you have any favorite airline analogies or even jokes?

James Rothwell (21:29):

I try to avoid the jokes because that's a tricky one. No, I think a lot of what I talked about today, we were excited to announce it. We're still building, so I would say we're still building the plane while we're flying it.

Damian Fowler (21:42):

That's a good one. Yeah.

Ilyse Liffreing (21:42):

Yeah, we use that one all the time.

Damian Fowler (21:46):

In the business, it works very well.

Ilyse Liffreing (21:48):

Bad worlds, I would say.

Damian Fowler (21:54):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Ilyse Liffreing (21:56):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

James Rothwell (22:03):

And remember, we did some analysis around business travelers and noticed that business travelers are actually more likely to respond to advertising than leisure travelers.

Damian Fowler (22:15):

I'm Damian. And I'm Ilyse. And we'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

This week, we’re talking to Ryu Yokoi, chief media and marketing capabilities officer for North America at Unilever, about Dove’s “Hot Seats” campaign — a bold, culture-hacking activation that shows up where the sweat is real and the stakes are surprisingly high. 

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler, and welcome to this edition of The Big Impression. Today we are talking about how Unilever is breaking taboos, opening up new kinds of conversations and connecting with consumers in some unexpected places. Our guest is Ryu Yokoi Chief Media and Marketing Capabilities Officer for North America at Unilever. We're going to dive into DO'S Hot Seats campaign. It's a bold effort to normalize conversations around full body freshness and engage people across both digital and real world spaces. We'll be talking about how this campaign's activating across concerts, social, retail, and digital platforms. So let's get into it.

Ryu Yokoi (00:46):

It always starts with understanding our audience and also try to make our products really relevant and desirable in that context. And so the hot seats are originated from social listening within the community. And in particular, one of our, actually her name's Dana Pucci, who leads our PR and influencer work on Dove for North America is a big Charlie XCX fan. And she noted that the Incredible Sweat tour, which was driving and kind of owning the culture last summer in the brat summer, that was

(01:21):

Unfortunately the Sweat tour smelled not great. And it turned out that Charlie and Troy Sivan were going to be performing in Los Angeles the week before the launch of our new whole body deodorant. We kind did a takeover putting our product in the bathrooms. We sent in creators to sort of experience what a show is like when you can make sweats smell great. And the results were kind of magic because we got just unbelievable. The UVC on this and the Delight with folks attending a concert that actually smelled great was really fascinating, just fantastic response. And that week we had a really great launch of the product, first hitting the digital shells on Amazon and doing great.

Damian Fowler (02:02):

That sounded like a very fast activation for a campaign.

Ryu Yokoi (02:06):

It happened literally within 10 days.

Damian Fowler (02:08):

What was the war room like for that 10 days? How did you strategize to get that done?

Ryu Yokoi (02:14):

We always emphasize we want to build worlds instead of chasing moments. So when you have an idea of what you're trying to build with the brand, how you show up, then it becomes a lot easier.

Damian Fowler (02:25):

And tell me a little bit about the tone. I mean, one of you mentioned the humor element of it. Why is that real talk, that humor so key to Dove campaigns?

Ryu Yokoi (02:34):

Well, I think there's a real authenticity that the brand has earned. We say, oh, it's an authentic, it's only authentic if people believe it. The brand is really comfortable in its own skin. We have a sharp understanding. I think that goes beyond a positioning statement to really understanding what this brand stands for, how it shows up in real life, what it would be like if you were to meet it and still be consistent in our building of that brand means to people.

Damian Fowler (03:00):

Yeah, I mean, I've got to say I live in New York and I've noticed the campaign on the New York, out of digital, out of home subway screens and it just totally cuts through and I noticed it. And of course you're standing on a New York City platform in terrible heat, humidity, and everyone's sweating. It's like a perfect placement.

Ryu Yokoi (03:19):

Well, I would say the subway work you've seen is really telegraphing that benefit, right? If you're blessed to be next to somebody who's wearing dove on the subway, then wow, this is a good ride. We've sponsored Charlie's spring tour and we're also showing up at other festivals like Lollapalooza, which have just provide another canvas for us to tell the story.

Damian Fowler (03:38):

Is it a case that once the campaign's out there in the wild, it builds its own momentum? Or are you actively trying to find new events, new points of pop culture? Kind of.

Ryu Yokoi (03:47):

That's exactly what we're trying to find, right, is we understand that if we're able to actually become part of the discourse, we're not just broadcasting ourselves in, but actively playing a role and helping people. And we had a similar case where the first weekend of Coachella people were again, lamenting unfortunately didn't smell great, and in this case somebody not us posted saying, well, I wish Dov would come and help here. We really had a lot of fun with it. We flew a plane over Coachella the second week saying, the cavalry's coming help is on the way we hear you need.

Damian Fowler (04:24):

That's good.

Ryu Yokoi (04:25):

Some help. And we're going to be there. We lined up folks around the entrances so that folks could kind of get freshen up on the way into the show or get freshened up, and more than a thousand people took advantage of that.

Damian Fowler (04:35):

Now, I wanted to ask you about some of the key signals or early reads on the campaign. I'm sure you're paying close attention as you evaluate the impact. What do you look for on your dashboard, as it were?

Ryu Yokoi (04:47):

Right. So I think first and foremost, you're right. Measurement is the most important

Damian Fowler (04:54):

Thing.

Ryu Yokoi (04:54):

But first and foremost, we did this the week before we were launching the product. So the first signal was did we turn well? And we

Damian Fowler (05:02):

Did.

Ryu Yokoi (05:02):

And the ramp on the product was really terrific. But I think to your point, it's really important no matter what the channel that you're playing in, what are the leading indicators that we can correlate with performance? In this case, it was one where things happened so quickly and we knew there was literally nothing else happening when we did this, and so we were able to isolate that way.

Damian Fowler (05:23):

Are there other channels that you are kind of thinking about or could be targeted for the campaign?

Ryu Yokoi (05:31):

In principle, I want to be able to capture signal everywhere. For me it's just around understanding where are people discussing whatever it is that we're trying to get into the discussion on and being authentic there. So for us, Reddit is a channel we haven't used as much in the past. Certainly now I find it increasingly of relevance for us. So we're trying to build up a skillset there,

Damian Fowler (05:55):

Especially

Ryu Yokoi (05:55):

Given how important it is with ais. Right.

Damian Fowler (05:58):

What about audio? Is that

Ryu Yokoi (06:00):

Podcast? Absolutely podcast. So

(06:03):

I would say, again, this was highly before it became something that we were rolling out in real life. Oh my goodness, the word is spectator events. Before it became something we were doing in real life as spectator events, it was a highly music driven campaign because we had decided to reboot this classic hip hop song from a few decades ago. And so it was already sort of music oriented and had played that way. But yeah, so for us it's exactly to your point. If we're talking about something that we're doing that's focusing on music or spectators, obviously audio is going to have relevance. Where are Charlie's fans actually discussing this? It turned out it was happening on Reddit. We go there, where are they discussing their experience at the concerts? We were seeing a lot of chatter on TikTok around that. And so we moved there. So we try to be nimble and agile and really be where the discourse is happening.

Damian Fowler (07:07):

So we're going to zoom out a little bit and just look at the big picture of the landscape beyond the campaign. But as you think about where culture is heading, whether it's wellness, inclusivity, or body confidence, what does the campaign kind of tell us about where Unilever wants to go with its brands or its kind of messaging wants to put out into the marketplace?

Ryu Yokoi (07:27):

We're all about building desire for our brands at scale. So we want to engage with communities wherever they are. It's about having a deep understanding of who our shopper is, what is driving desire for them, who influences them, and how we can really engage with them and create a discourse where we can try to move towards many to many communication.

Damian Fowler (07:49):

One of the big challenges for Marcus is balancing the long-term brand building with the short-term sales results. And do you think that there's a tension there right now in a marketplace that's very much dialed into performance?

Ryu Yokoi (08:01):

Listen, I think that it's really important that you have the right measurement in place and that you can understand both the short-term and long-term effects of the investments that you're making. That's something we really pride ourselves on. We want to be the most outcome oriented advertiser in the marketplace. But the other thing I would say is that more and more data signals and shopability are making it so the funnel is collapsing and we're nearing places when it comes to QR or having true shopability in stream where even executions that in the past would've been considered the most upper funnel can actually drive a transaction in that moment. And I think a future of that's really exciting.

Damian Fowler (08:40):

So finally, we're going to get into some of these hot seat rapid fire questions here.

Ryu Yokoi (08:44):

Okay,

Damian Fowler (08:44):

So you ready?

Ryu Yokoi (08:45):

Yes, let's go.

Damian Fowler (08:46):

Alright. What's one thing you're obsessed with figuring out right now?

Ryu Yokoi (08:50):

We've been talking about how much we've built out resources in this area and all of the interconnections that the data allows us to make. That implies campaigns that become more and more complex and much more complicated to just flight even. And so one of the things that I'm obsessed with is how we simplify that. There's so much change happening to accommodate all of this stuff. So really my big focus right now is on how we make working in this digital landscape easier for everybody involved in it because the amount of choices that we have and the richest is never ending. And so just making that more sustainable.

Damian Fowler (09:32):

I love that. That's a great answer. What's missing from the media and marketing marketplace that you'd like to see?

Ryu Yokoi (09:39):

From a Unilever standpoint, we have a few direct to consumer brands that are able to sort of track the media journey all the way through to conversion, but in the bulk of what we sell in traditional, fast moving goods are moving through retail. So what's missing is some way to penetrate that clean from a data standpoint so that those of us brands that aren't doing DTC can have that all the way through. We manage that well today with leading indicators and fast signals, but there's I think even more richness out there for us if we're able to correct that.

Damian Fowler (10:15):

To bring this kind of full circle outside of CPG, is there a brand that you think is doing a great job connecting with culture right now?

Ryu Yokoi (10:22):

Yeah, so I would name two. One that we really admire is Lego. I just see the way that they have both made their products, both a vehicle for other brands to build their worlds while also building incredible worlds for themselves. So they've become kind of this almost currency within the way that so many other brands are trying to build their IP in the world. So whether it's like a Formula One drop a Star Wars drop a Harry Potter drop, these things each have so much hype around them and they've learned while doing that so that they're able to propel their own ip, which is really impressive to me. So the other, I would say we had a fantastic opportunity to work with this year as crumble cookie. They were dove soaps, deodorant, lotions that were fragranced inspired by crumble flavors. And so in partnering then we were able to build off of that and make our soaps, our body washes, our deodorants, one of the drops of the winter. We struggled to keep it on shelf. So I'm a big admirer of the work that they've done too.

Damian Fowler (11:27):

That sounds cool. And then final, final question here. So in Unilever kind of portfolio of brands Dove Ben and, and the goal has always been to spark conversations, that's how we started this conversation. I guess I'm wondering if you could share a moment that reminded you of the importance of that brand led cultural impact that you can have.

Ryu Yokoi (11:51):

Oh wow. There's so many, but I'll give Dove so that we can show the other side of the coin because we've been talking about a campaign as I was saying, that shows a more playful side, the humorous side of the brand, but one of the areas the brand has focused over the past few years, and we just celebrated 20 years of the Dove Self-Esteem program, and Dove is one of the leading providers of self-esteem education in the world. I think actually we give the most annually self-esteem workshops. And one of the areas we focused recently is body confidence in sport. And so we partnered with Nike a few years ago to do research on the topic of young women in sport. And what we discovered along with them was that young women as they reach their teen years, are dropping out of sports at an alarming rate relative to guys.

(12:41):

And the chief reason is body confidence is feeling comfortable in your own skin wearing the kinds of outfits that you're wearing when you're playing sports. And so we set out to, together with Nike, actually develop a curriculum for coaches, which is the Body Confidence Sport curriculum that literally teaches coaches how to talk to young women about their bodies in ways that are positive and not discouraging. And so we've now been leveraging almost Trojan Horse, our participation across the big game. Our role as a sponsor of March Madness, we activated it last year with em, Navarro at the US Open really across major sports temples. We've just signed our first kit sponsorship of Gotham FC in the New York, New Jersey area of the Women's Professional Soccer League. And we're partnering with them also where they have a program called Keep Her in the Game. That's all around keeping young women in the New York, New Jersey area, staying, playing soccer. And so all of this focused again on trying to create a platform where we can talk about this and encourage people to go and learn about this curriculum. And the most encouraging thing. A really long-winded answer to your question,

Damian Fowler (13:58):

That's great.

Ryu Yokoi (13:58):

What struck me was we were looking back at the research and our spots in the big game have generated really good discourse the past couple of years. Really positive response from folks who've been inspired, not just by the ads themselves, but also I think this year we were one of maybe only a handful of brands that delivered a purpose message in the game. The really encouraging is the group with whom it resonated the most was Girl Dads, right?

Damian Fowler (14:26):

Yeah.

Ryu Yokoi (14:26):

The very guys who are probably coaching on the weekend who probably need to know more about how to speak to these young women and keep them comfortable and inspired playing. So it's stuff like that that makes me see all the time. As I was saying earlier, for us it's around how can we show up, how can we add value? How can we actually help the community? And when we do that, then we build trust and then we can have different kinds of dialogues with people and they really know who we are.

Damian Fowler (14:54):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression. This show is produced by Molten Heart. Our theme is by Loving Caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns. And remember,

Ryu Yokoi (15:03):

I think there's a real authenticity that the brand has earned. We say, oh, it's an authentic, it's only authentic if people believe it.

Damian Fowler (15:12):

I'm Damian, and we'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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

B2B marketing has long been stuck with a somewhat boring reputation: rational, buttoned-up and forgettable. Tim Hoppin is on a mission to change that. As chief brand and creative officer at SAP, he’s helping one of the world’s largest software companies embrace big creative swings — and prove that business buyers are humans too.

Episode Transcript

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

Damian Fowler (00:00):

I'm Damian Fowler.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:02):

And I'm Ilyse Liffreing. And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.

(00:09):

You might be wondering, wait, what? Isn't this The Current Podcast? I'm here to listen to brand marketers talk about the highs and lows of their brand campaign. I know I am. Well, rest assured, we've just had a little bit of a brand refresh. We're now the big impression, and

Damian Fowler (00:27):

That's official shout out to our creative team for the new name, which I really love actually.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:32):

So without further ado, let's kick off this new season with a great guest.

Damian Fowler (00:39):

And today we are delighted to be joined by Tim Hoppin, the chief brand and creative officer at SAP.

Ilyse Liffreing (00:45):

Now, SAP makes software that helps big companies run everything from payroll to supply chains, all in one integrated system. It was recently hailed by brand Z as a 23rd most valuable brand on the planet.

Damian Fowler (01:00):

And no doubt, some of that's thanks to Tim. He's a brand builder who spearheaded the tech company's recent B2B campaign, unstoppable, which was shortlisted at this year's Cannes Lion, and that's where we sat down with him. So we're going to start out with this sort of philosophical frame. Ryan, you have said that a brand must influence everything a company makes, says and does. Could you explain that philosophy a little bit?

Tim Hoppin (01:29):

Yeah, sure. I think a lot of people even just kind of reduce it down to branding, like the colors and things like that and maybe the expression a little bit. But the way I think about a brand transmits meaning to people, and it does that through lots of different formats. So when I say what a brand is, what you make, you're actually affecting the service or the product that you're actually delivering to the world. So my classic example is Harley Davidson. Those motorcycles don't use plastic and they do that very specifically because they want the brand to be expressed a certain way in products. And then when I say a brand is what a company says, that's your marketing, your communication, and then what you do is your activations, your choices on what kind of companies you're going to invest in and so on and so forth. But it's all three.

Ilyse Liffreing (02:25):

Yeah. Can you walk us through your recent SAP campaign, which I believe is called Unstoppable?

Tim Hoppin (02:31):

The campaign was built to communicate a new way we're going to market with our products, which is bringing together all the different parts of the software that we make. We tie together, we call it the SAP Business suite, and we're dramatizing it with sort of metaphors that bring it to life. For instance, sometimes if you're in business and you're in charge of something, like being head of it could feel like you're literally underwater. So we recreated what literally happens when the entire office goes underwater. So we filmed the entire office submerged underwater, and people are trying to go about their business. And of course at the end we introduced our product, which kind of drains it and gets things back to normal. And another example, sometimes when you're trying to innovate, it's like an uphill battle. So you start off and the entire building tilts on its side and we kind of go in this metaphor world where the COO is trying to march up a hill and things are coming at her and she's trying to dodge it. So they're all metaphors that we can kind of associate, but they're also very real stories. Every one of 'em is based on an actual customer story.

Ilyse Liffreing (03:47):

Very fun. What would you say are the key consumer business insights behind this campaign?

Tim Hoppin (03:54):

Yes, because purely B2B, our research is a little bit, you have to be more precise in getting those insights. So a lot of it has to do with doing interviews because there's not like a survey you're going to send out to a bunch of CFOs or CEOs and they're going to respond. They're pretty busy people. But we can do other things like get some individual interviews. We do quant studies as well as well, but it's easier to get real insights when you actually talk to real people. So more like anthropology research, I'd say, than sort of traditional marketing broad surveys.

Ilyse Liffreing (04:35):

Some people might say that emotional storytelling and B2B business campaigns are almost like a oxymoron of sorts. Is that at a conundrum would you say,

Tim Hoppin (04:51):

How many times have you seen a piece of content that's using just stock imagery talking about functional stuff and you just ignore it? And so there's this perception that that's what everybody wants and does. We are seeing a renaissance in B2B where emotional, strong, insight-driven work is what works. And so I think you're going to see more and more of that as people realize that it actually is more effective.

Damian Fowler (05:22):

It's interesting to me that the B2B is being put out on what you might consider consuming channels. I'm just curious to hear your take on why that was important and basically how did you activate this campaign and where did you want to put it?

Tim Hoppin (05:38):

Yeah, so our media team and working with their agency took the brief that we're trying to do two things. We're trying to both lead people that are maybe in market ready to buy, lead them into our ecosystem and get in touch with our salespeople. But we also recognize that SAP as a 50 plus year old company has some perceptions out there and we need to constantly reeducate the marketplace about who we are, what we stand for, and then also present ourselves to the next generation. 71% of all B2B buyers are either millennials or Gen Z, 71%.

Damian Fowler (06:20):

Wow, that's a amount.

Tim Hoppin (06:22):

Yeah, it's a lot. So to become and stay relevant, even as the world's largest enterprise software company, you can't rest on your laurels. So some of those media tactics, like being in airports or some television buys in very targeted ways is designed to get broad enough reach so that we can get people familiar with us and start to understand what we stand for so that when they're ready to buy, they're not just hearing about us for the first time. And then of course we're looking at the real data, what's happening out there? Happy to say that all of our creative work has got five stars, or hybrid is the highest you can get the system one, we're beating every industry benchmark. And then in market, the performance that we're seeing in the market is also way above all of our benchmarks. So we're excited because as we like to say, if creative doesn't work, it's not working.

Ilyse Liffreing (07:14):

Was there an insight that you say you took away?

Tim Hoppin (07:18):

I had a strong hypothesis that there would be some disruption just from visually the way the campaign is presented, especially the films. I think the thing that's really surprised me as we did our research, what a chord. It's striking with people. There's one comment that came through just from the qual study that we did where people were saying, you finally get me. Not only is the content visually arresting, but emotionally resonant, people really feel seen. And to your comment earlier about like, Hey, B2B is seen as traditional and there's such a, I'd say a traditional and sort of safe approach to just use business people doing businessy things and boats and cars moving fast and satellites flying by the camera and putting a logo at the

Ilyse Liffreing (08:14):

End. I've seen that one. Yeah.

Tim Hoppin (08:15):

Yeah, I've made that one unfortunately. But to really take this risk and tell interesting stories that are based on real human insights and have emotion and are disruptive and have the very people that we're trying to reach go, thank you, thank you for seeing us, telling us a story that's different. I have this saying, if you want to be disruptive, you actually have to disrupt. And so there's also sort of a hungered SAP, we have to reinvent ourselves. We are in our product and our go-to market. And so the brand platform that we created over the last three years, now this is the next level, is taking the campaign higher. So I think we're on this momentum of transformation, and so it just felt natural to do it. And the way we're investing the does part's also coming true, frankly, the way we're investing in AI and kind of transforming what's possible from a 50 plus year old company. It's exciting.

Ilyse Liffreing (09:12):

Let's talk a little bit about ai.

Tim Hoppin (09:14):

Yeah, sure.

Ilyse Liffreing (09:15):

On that note, how are you guys investing in AI and what do you foresee

(09:16):

Damian Fowler (09:23):

Creation play? Yeah, as a creative person, do you feel threatened by it or

Tim Hoppin (09:26):

Not at all.

Damian Fowler (09:29):

Jump on your question. That is the question.

Tim Hoppin (09:31):

Yeah, it's the question of the week. Big question. It's come up so much. Actually, I was talking about this the other day.

Ilyse Liffreing (09:35):

You're probably tired of people talking about it.

Tim Hoppin (09:38):

No, I actually think what's been really refreshing is two things, always the first part of your question, which is as a company, we are basically transforming into a data and AI company. I think pretty much anybody who's going to survive has to do that. So we've made software for 50 years, but what all the companies that run on our platforms, it's the data that's the most valuable part, of course. And so the AI that we've developed is allowing people to run their businesses completely different ways. So we're investing in that as a creative person.

(10:14):

We're also starting to experiment with ai, for instance, trying to understand how people might react to our messages. I don't think that AI is going to replace creatives, but I think creatives are going to have to change. So you're going to have to act more like a director than a executor. I remember when I started in the business a few years ago, 25 ish, I remember the people who were still laying down typography by hand and everything. Every piece of printed material was proofed. The proofs would come into the agency and people were looking at it. And so all those people's jobs changed. And that's all this is. Human creativity will not and cannot be replicated, but it will require us to get better at being creative and know how to use these new tools.

Ilyse Liffreing (11:10):

Yeah, that's a great answer. We've transformed so much in 25 years. It's kind of baffling

Damian Fowler (11:18):

Completely. Yeah.

Ilyse Liffreing (11:19):

So you're an agency guy. It does seem that B2B is getting better. Is it because of all these agency folks moving in? How?

Tim Hoppin (11:30):

Yeah, I think so. We're seeing, look, the agency world has changed and is contracting in some ways and it's really tough, but also it's creating opportunities for those same creative talents to move. And so it becomes a, I'd say rebalancing. I remember early in my career if you worked in a in-house agency, it was sort of looked down on like you're just not good enough for a real creative job, which was totally mean and not nice. But that was the perception. And now it's completely not that Some of the best work that's being produced is coming from in-house agencies. So you're seeing a migration from, and frankly, it's caused by clients. So clients are reducing what they're willing to pay agencies, which puts economic pressure on the agencies and they have to downsize. And then those great talented people need to pay their mortgage and put their kids through college and they're coming in house. And so my team is almost exclusively on my creative group, our exag agency people. And that's what I am too. And so that actually makes us better clients so we can work with our agencies and we know how to work with them and who they are, and sometimes we even know them from past lives. So it just makes the work better all around.

Ilyse Liffreing (12:52):

Is there anything in the creative realm that you're looking at or data about creativity that you think brands should co-op for B2B campaigns?

Tim Hoppin (13:05):

Yeah, I absolutely, interestingly, as we've seen this sort of spike in the AI chatter and everybody talking about it and sort of wringing their hands about what it's going to do for our jobs, there's been sort of a pushback in a really healthy way where people are saying, actually no humanity and really putting AI in its place, which is, it's just another tool. Yes, it's going to disrupt jobs. That is a true statement 100%, but it's not going to replace human creativity. And so as I said before, that reality is getting people back to what's important, which is storytelling, human storytelling, creativity, finding those interesting combinations that only humans can do. And that's where you're starting to see that come to life in B2B marketing is that, I said it earlier, I think it's a bit of a renaissance and a not cheesy way.

Ilyse Liffreing (14:05):

We have some last minute Rapid, rapid and fire, fire.

Tim Hoppin (14:08):

And this is your home

Damian Fowler (14:08):

Stretch. Oh yeah, stretch. Stretch. Is there anything, Tim, that you're obsessed with figuring out right now?

Tim Hoppin (14:17):

Yeah, how to keep getting better. It's like I love seeing what people can do and I want to use new tools and new solutions. And so I'm trying to figure out where's all this AI stuff going to go and where's it going to be helpful? And how do you avoid the pit of generic communications that is a real threat from ai?

Ilyse Liffreing (14:44):

Did you have a favorite Cannes moment that made you stop and say, wow?

Tim Hoppin (14:49):

Yeah, I was in line for a session and there was a group of young lions, and this one kid, he had to be maybe 18, maybe 19, he still has his braces on, and he was so excited, so excited to be there and to go in. And I've been really worried that our industry doesn't have the next generation coming up. And I saw this kid and I was just so relieved that this kid was as excited about the start of his career as I was when I started. I mean, I would fall asleep with award animals to learn how to do this stuff better and that you could feel the energy from this kid. It was awesome.

Damian Fowler (15:39):

I'm so happy that a lot of students come to Cannes.

Ilyse Liffreing (15:43):

It is great. It fills your heart. Yeah, it does. It does.

Damian Fowler (15:48):

Last one.

Ilyse Liffreing (15:49):

So who beyond SAP, who else is doing B2B brand work very well in your view?

Tim Hoppin (15:56):

Well, GoDaddy won the Grand Prix for, I thought, a really fun piece of work, and it's targeted to small business, so I think you can be a little bit more courageous than sometimes we get to, but I just loved it for its wackiness and just audacious. And then also the way that they really just kind of carried across different mediums. The thing that was the best about it was they're trying to make the case for starting a small business, and they literally did that with a celebrity. It was brilliant.

Ilyse Liffreing (16:41):

And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.

Damian Fowler (16:44):

This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by Love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.

Tim Hoppin (16:50):

And remember, 71% of all B2B buyers are either millennials or Gen Z.

Damian Fowler (16:57):

I'm Damian. And I'm Ilyse,

Tim Hoppin (16:59):

And we'll see you next time.

Dive into more insights and inspiration from leaders in ad tech: https://www.thecurrent.com/

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