Experience

A brand is the sum total of everything a company does and how the world perceives it. Knowing your brand position and attributes and applying them consistently across all aspects of the business will drive brand recognition.

I’ve gotten in countless arguments about the power of branding. People often think that you need heavy investment to support the brand but it’s more about connection and relatability. You have to create value across all touch-points not only in your advertising. Without a solid connection with a brand that solves a problem, consumers go chasing the lowest price or biggest discount. And great brands don’t signal just externally to their customers, they signal internally to their employees too. Company culture drives brand and vice versa.

Strategy

Marketing strategy is how a brand can help users achieve their goals in a way that’s consistent with a business objective. That’s why it should always start with user needs. Objective, clearly articulated strategies are at the heart of most successful campaigns.

A clearly defined, data supported marketing strategy should not change - often. Its a reflection of your company values and the audience that’s most likely to benefit from them.

Complexity is the enemy of execution. Too many things can go wrong (see below), especially if your team is not clear on why they are activating specific channels, what they should measure, why those are the KPIs and how they support the overall strategy.

Marketing

The way people consume media is constantly in flux, so we must adapt quickly. I like to focus on creating value to users. That means starting with an understanding of the users’ journey, their habit loops and how you can supplement those loops.

There are a multitude of channels available and I’ve done work in pretty much all of them. Having a - singular - clear objective, 1 or 2 KPIs (not 4 or 5) that support it and the ability to measure and iterate on implementation is imperative to success.

In a world where data is abundant, there is significant work to be done in defining which variables you want to impact and how volatile they can be to forces outside your control.

There’s no silver bullet and almost nothing ever goes according to plan. It’s the collection of cohesive actions across multiple points in the user journey, analyzed and optimized over time that’s going to bring you results. It’s up to us to identify the channel delivering the most ROI and scale up accordingly.

Creative, Production and budget

I cut my teeth in digital production early in my career. Working on VW digital and then Best Buy interactive, I was quickly drawn to the production side of the business. I had some great mentors and learned a lot about how to get things done, on time, and in the most efficient way possible. I even started my own digital production company as a side hustle for a while. I used to say that projects live and die by the competency of our producers.

In Brazil, working closer with the founding creative leadership I really started to get a much bigger appreciation for the creative process and strategy. I saw them as sounding boards and collaborators; sparring partners for inspiration and ideas. In LA during the build of our ta.co project our production was top notch, but it was the creative that really shined and my admiration for it too.

All throughout my career in advertising I have relied heavily on my production and creative partners and I’m fortunate to have been a part of some stellar teams that have created some amazing work.

CRM and Retention

CRM helps businesses deepen the relationship with their customers, drives loyalty and retention. Despite all new technologies and different touch-points, a good CRM strategy is as effective as ever. Customer loyalty and retention are both qualities that affect a company's revenue, and a cohesive CRM strategy that takes advantage of existing organic loops and enhances it with manufactured or environmental loops can result in increased profits and better retention.