Branded content: A combination of art and science
Keynote talks are always fun to attend as you can learn from the best! Branded content in partnership with the data and insights are always in the discussion table as sports and eCommerce businesses focus on achieving all their targets. The panel consisted of Senior executives from Bacardi, Adobe and O2 with a market capitalization of 175B dollars and with a huge amount of access in data with a huge responsibility on how to use this amount of data.
Let’s give some context about it:
“As technology continues to evolve and develop at a rapid pace so as the role of the modern marketing changes. Drive by data insights and how to improve a better understanding of customer engagement as the lights are becoming a bit blurred. Job descriptions change as we try to find what is the role of the modern marketer”
According to McKinsey, data gives you the potential to transform how companies organize, how operates, how they manage their talents and create value. In order to become the norm, CEOs and other top executives must be able clearly to articulate its purpose and then try to translate them into action. Not only in the analytics departments but throughout the whole organization where the insight will drive business.
According to the executive of Adobe, he mentioned that when he joined it was mostly about the creative and now it has become more about the science and the numbers. To Adobe, data is the way to understand the impact and the engagement of the work that they have been doing with partners and customers and refine their strategy. He highlighted that the key to success in any organization comes from the management’s decision to work with data. It is a change in management that would benefit the whole organization. In the past, there used to be a shortage of data but today there are plenty of them and is about the focus on driving the insights and what is the story behind all this data. It is the key to make better decisions.
In the case of Bacardi, it was always in the heart of the company and how the boardroom was and is making the decisions. I phrase that has stumbled in my mind is the following “The data is the dollars”. As it was explained, all businesses are financially driven which means where the dollars go. But those dollars are only there because of consumers. Because it is the moments that matter to the people by enjoying drinking responsibly. Those are the data that as a company they look now.
An interesting example is the initiative “Go behind the bar”, where on the 4th of February every year which is the Founder’s Day, all company employees go to the bars and talk to consumers and bartenders. These are small data with huge impact as she explains that aggregates up to the story which gives them the competitive advantage to understand why the financial data moves to the way they interpret. It is a great example of rich data.
It is not a matter of vanity metrics, it is about knowing 3–4 important data to understand your customer, otherwise, it becomes overwhelming. Dollar tracking is part of marketing results however driving the revenue for a company does not mean that a company treats its data properly.
In the telecommunications sector, it is a similar situation and all start with a hypothesis. Since shared data is a big part of those companies, it is a core of the business in the telecommunications sector, and every product that is put out from the businesses is coming from analyzing all these data. Success is based only when you add value to your customer. Their aim is to give the customers what they want as in the sector there is not a big percentage of loyalty. This industry is all about what content and when you will provide it to the customers and which channels you will use to solve queries such as solving a problem or getting an upgrade in their contract.
Moving forward to the discussion, all of them touch the topic of regulations and the question was: what is the impact that regulations have when it comes to interpreting the data?
Technology and especially social media have been a great enabler for socially responsible drinking. The example that has thrown in the conversation was that who likes to have pictures of himself/herself being sloppy on social media. Obviously, the answer is no one. As a result, people are more mindful about their consumption which obviously is something visible and trackable. Of course, as she said that does not mean that people drink less. In fact, following the numbers, even though that Gen Z is a generation that few of them are drinking spirits, the volume that they are drinking is like the volume of Millennial’s generation. Both generations have linked their behavior with the moments they share, and it is all that matters to the brands. A great example that she shared was that a lot of times they are looking for collages of Instagram pictures because what people posts tells you more. In addition to that, when the brand is invited with a hashtag or a tag, it is a success as it shows to a company that is right on track with interpreting data carefully.
What is the value exchange and how both sides can be benefited?
Using CRM marketing automation, it is very easy to unsubscribe if you do not want to receive relevant information or you believe that a company does not serve your needs. All three panelists agreed that the key to any action by any business is to offer value. You need to build trust and relevancy with your customers. A great example of that is the AI features in the retail industry where basically it scans you and based on a set of data from previous purchases you can have some relevant suggestions. As it was mentioned is not about having facial recognition or gain access to the private data, it is about knowing your preference buying habits in the specific example.
What was highlighted on this topic is that both Millennials and Gen Z do no expect regulations from the government to define privacy, they expect the brand to be responsible for their privacy by trusting the brands. Consumers are happy to share their information if they get out of the brand the expected value. An example of this is the healthcare system where people share their information willing cause they believe in talking a diagnosis about their health. A brand must not only serve branded content but be able to understand what customers receive as a branded experience and the company’s position.
Who is responsible for data management?
Everyone is responsible due to the GDPR regulations. Trust is the element that businesses need to earn hard from the customers. Bear in mind that how many teams in the last years we have heard about data bridging. Companies need to have a better relationship with data management teams or companies, be transparent and always raise immediately any issue and in some cases withdraw content from channels. Marketing is part of this process and companies need to understand how to use these data to see the differences and protect privacy. A great example that was given is about how Bacardi has realized a shift from bars to restaurants when it comes to dating. However, what was impressive was that these data were not interpreted by the marketers but from data scientists proving that as marketers we still have work to do. As mentioned personally identified data information must be protected and misuse, even unintentionally, must have financial penalties as they currently are done. However, there is a lot of space between personal and share data that companies can use to push targeted content.
There are no best practices all the panel agreed. First by far is to know and understand your customer. If you are a brand such a Bacardi, each brand in the portfolio has something unique as Bacardi’s VP stated.
“Don’t let the data slow you down, let them drive and accelerate your success”.
Nowadays, all companies try more and more to share their successes. So, what if you fail do you share them with the customers? Of course, nobody wants to share them, but this perspective has started to slightly change. In the technology sector, it is mostly about how customers use the products and services. As the sector is moving from brick and block selling to cloud selling a subscription, companies are closer to the products.
It is widely known that creative and marketing teams have not caught with what technology has provided. There is a lot of processes to be done starting from the organizational structure as many companies still have CMOs, VPs, etc. which all of them are doing a small part. Instead, it should be a dynamic collaboration. So, is that failing fast term an excuse for not having a long-term strategy? It should not be, the story of your brand Is the vital aspect must define your strategy. That said all brands want to sell in the short term, and that should be the driven content mostly by data, but the long-term content should be the brand message and its purpose.
Having data-driven insight is there any single figure barrier you face as organizations? Yes, of course, it is how you turn those insights into great storytelling. A lot of companies start to turn away from specialist marketers to more generalist marketers because it is not about the shine tools so how a person can handle the data and how that person interprets the data to a great story.
Closing that article, I would like to mention a phrase that stayed to my mind after this keynote:
“Technology is an enabler, data can bring creativity to the table however people are the barrier!”
Data is the new oil as they but to me is how the people interpret, use them and what you will do from a creative perspective!
Thank you for the read and happy to know your thoughts!
