Shiny New Object

When it comes to branding, perception is reality according to our latest guest, Falak Jalil. We're also talking about the future of marketing and how brands can stay locally relevant to boost their customer engagement.  Listen to Falak's top marketing tips, her favourite books and her advice for brands to get closer to customers in this latest episode.

Audio content is seeing a renaissance, from using smart speakers and sound sanctuaries to help us sleep better or keep noise out, to creating unique and engaging podcast content that influences consumers’ attitudes towards brands on a regular basis. This is fuelling a change from interruptive advertising to immersive experiences, and it’s the subject of our latest podcast episode, too.   Our latest guest is Jim Mollica, the CMO of Bose Corporation and a self-confessed music geek. His Shiny New Object is the renaissance of audio and he shares with us how Bose are capitalising on it, and how he sees it influencing the future of marketing. Listen to Jim’s marketing tips, his advice for immersive content creation and some of his best career stories, in the latest episode.

How much of our daily activity and current goals are dictated by assumptions we’ve simply inherited or bought into? Do we need to all go to uni, get office jobs, be promoted, have a family etc.? Or can we challenge some - or several - of these societal and professional assumptions? Our guest on this week’s SNO, Tom Goodwin, Co-founder of ALL WE HAVE IS NOW and seasoned marketer has picked the art of challenging assumptions as his Shiny New Object. Listen to his views on how this will influence the future of marketing, as well as his best advice for new starters and his top marketing tips, in the latest episode.

We’ve heard about augmented reality and virtual reality, but what’s the next step in marketing communications? Jordan McDowell, Lead Communications Planning & Media Optimisation Manager for the Co-op, talks to us about extended reality in the latest episode of the Shiny New Object podcast. The “X” in “XR” stands for what we don’t know yet, as technology continually evolves and offers marketeers more exciting opportunities to communicate with customers and create a more useful and convenient way to access their favourite brands online. Should this be prioritised in favour of “the basics” and how does it all work together? Jordan explains his experience of XR at the Co-op and shares his best marketing tips, too.

As more ex-agency marketers work in-house and brands become more assertive in how they approach their marketing plans, what’s the future of marketing agencies? Should they niche down into highly-specialised offerings or should they approach a consultative selling strategy? Quinn O’Brien, Vice President, Global Marketing at Lenovo, discusses the changing role of agencies as his Shiny New Object in this episode. We analyse the future of marketing from an agency and in-house perspective, as well as go through Quinn’s best advice for marketing students and his views on what makes “wow” marketing. 

If lockdowns around the world have brought us one good thing, it’s the benefit of limitless collaboration as workers at all levels of organisations and from offices worldwide have been able to engage in virtual collaboration more than ever. Moreover, working remotely means that teams can literally work around the clock, as collaborators in a different time zone pick up where you leave off at the end of the day.   This is why Mark Brown, Marketing Director for Northern Europe at General Mills, has picked boundary-less collaboration as his Shiny New Object in the latest podcast episode.   Mark thinks we’ll inevitably bounce back to some form of office life, but that virtual engagement with teams from all levels and from all over the globe has accelerated the production of great marketing work and will be here to stay. 

As Digital Transformation Leader for Consumer / Healthcare / Pharma at Sanofi, Caitlyn Nguyen oversees the whole APAC market as well as China, Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa, using “everything digital” to bring value in marketing and sales while catering to customers’ needs. Her Shiny New Object is the future of connections in the time of Covid, specifically the need for increasing data-led empathy with consumers.

Working through the pandemic and experiencing challenges in a different way as brands and as people, we’ve become more open to the concept of vulnerability and to communicating our struggles. According to Michelle Webb, Commercial Director at the NFL, this is a valuable change in the way brands communicate with people and in the way we present ourselves to the industry and those around us.   Michelle’s Shiny New Object is showing vulnerability as a brand and as a person. On the latest episode of our podcast, we talk about how the Covid-19 pandemic has made it more important than ever to acknowledge vulnerability, but also to show what brands are doing to support their customers and fans during this time.

Our latest guest on the podcast is Paul Szumilewicz, Head of Agile, Global Marketing at HSBC. His Shiny New Object is diversity and he talks to us about how he’s changed his mentoring habits to ensure he speaks to people who are not a “mirror image” of himself on a regular basis.

When Google launched the Google Glass a few years ago, augmented reality glasses didn’t catch on in the B2C market. However, there could be a rich future for them in B2B, according to Monika Schulze, Head of Customer & Innovation Management at Zurich Insurance. On the latest episode of the podcast, Monika tells us why her Shiny New Object is AR glasses. Thanks to how they enable specialised workers to make the most of their on-site or practical work whilst still being connected to additional data and even video-conferencing, AR glasses can become an extremely useful tool. They do, however, need to improve from a technical and user experience perspective first.

Do you ever feel that brands are following a script that was laid out a couple of years ago and just rolling it out now? Adapting to our current reality and developing a more meaningful connection with consumers in the present situation are elements that, according to our guest on this week’s podcast, are missing from a lot of today’s ads.    Atilla Cansun is the CMO of Alliance Healthcare and his Shiny New Object is digital empathy - re-exploring the notion of empathy in the digital era. While brands do more of the same with their ads, they will get a mediocre response at best. However, getting close to what customers need to hear and see today is what will increase engagement and bring about positive results.   To find out more about Atilla’s approach to digital empathy, as well as his advice on chasing big ideas, listen to the podcast or read the write-up on MAD//Fest. And is there a brand you want to commend for speaking in line with our new reality? Let us know in the comments!

Talking to Oatly’s Creative Director, Michael Lee, is an exercise in thinking differently about marketing and the organisation of a marketing department. His Shiny New Object is very particular: inmates running the asylum, i.e. a marketing team that has full creative control and follows its own instincts.

When Pandora was faced with closing stores nationwide during the lockdowns related to Covid-19, it looked like a large number of customers who normally shop in-store would be lost during Q4 of 2020. However, resorting to augmented reality has helped them overcome this obstacle and actually convert more customers than before.   Our guest on the podcast this week is Jim Cruickshank, VP of Global Digital Development & Retail Technology at Pandora. His Shiny New Object is augmented reality in the retail space and we talk about his recent successful case study.   Jim also shares his advice for budding product managers and his top tips from his long experience in developing and managing successful innovations.    Check out Jim live at http://www.futr.today

In her role as Head of ManulifeMOVE, a behavioural insurance product that keeps customers active as part of their life insurance policy, Sushmita Munshi is always learning from testing and listening to the customer. Her Shiny New Object is behavioural insurance itself, a new way to engage with customers and understand their motivations and how to leverage them for better life habits.

Ashish Porwal, Head of Insights & Analytics at GSK South East Asia & Taiwan looks at data as onions that need to be peeled to get the right answer. This is why his Shiny New Object is to see through the glare of shiny new objects!

Tugce Aksoy is the Senior Global Brand Manager for Magnum Icecream at Unilever. She says she wasn’t “born a marketeer” but she combines her engineering degree with a passion for writing to harness practical and creative sides in her role. Her Shiny New Object is breaking bias with tech and marketing, specifically looking at how our ingrained stereotypes have driven marketing and product development and what we can do to change that.

As the VP of Marketing & Product at Hyundai Motor Europe, Andreas Hofmann has to “catch the taste of the European customer” and compete to find the best car for his mainstream customer segment. During the pandemic as well as in the face of increased digitalisation, his Shiny New Object has become the balance between physical and digital in the customer journey. As cars remain an emotional purchase, this is more difficult to find than it might first seem.

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK and all-around marketing legend, is our latest guest on the podcast. Talking about his early adoption of the internet and new technologies led us to explore the way in which his Shiny New Object can change the future of marketing: social norming of video calling can make a huge impact for businesses and change the way we approach clients, beyond just our meetings.

As the Senior Director and Category Head of P&G ISC Feminine Care, Chetna Soni oversees a team focused on marketing for feminine care products across the Indian subcontinent. Her work is closely interwoven with a campaign to keep girls in school in India, which links to her Shiny New Object: purpose-led brand building. Combining a vocation for being a force for good with a brand’s marketing work is key to driving societal changes, according to Chetna.

When picking up a product based on its advertising, have you ever considered what stereotypes it may perpetuate?   For Costa Coffee’s Global Head of Coffee Innovation Sandra Ferreira, the role that marketing plays in driving the inclusion agenda is crucial and forms her Shiny New Object.    From the language advertisers use, to the packaging or design of products, marketing can either play to societal assumptions and reinforce stereotypes, or serve to debunk those and drive a more inclusive mindset in society. In the longer term, if brands stick together in promoting inclusivity, this could alter the general societal attitudes to many current preconceptions.    To find out more about how brands can embrace inclusivity and follow our debate on marketing and diversity, listen to the podcast, or read the write-up on MAD//Fest.