Is the cord-cutting dream dead? We have to ask as it feels streaming content is only getting more expensive and more complicated – the exact inverse of the original streaming promise!

Join the team as they celebrate the efficiency of repurposing content, and question why it is that KitKat are releasing adverts about remembering your password. They also put imposter syndrome on notice – after all, why should you question if you’re any good in a world where Google Analytics 4 exists. On that point, why DOES everybody hate Google’s latest web analytics service?

[00:00] Introductions

[01:20] The beauty of repurposing content

[07:30] Consumers are overwhelmed by streaming choices

[13:26] Take a break: KitKat wants you to remember your password

[20:19] Imposter syndrome in marketing

[26:55] Everyone hates GA4

[32:49] Wrap-up

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Even though the entire premise of the advert doesn't make sense, as long as you're relating it back to something that people can identify with, I think this makes things memorable and people's minds.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Brew Digital podcast. We're here with the Brew Digital team to discuss some of the top topics for around the marketing industry right now. We sent around a survey within the team and picked out the things that we want to talk about this month. We'll be taking five minutes per topic to dig into the team's knowledge and try and find some actionable insights for you to take away with you. I'm Hayden, and this is the Marketers of the Universal Podcast. Today. We're here with Michele Ross and Nasha from our paid media team, we've got Debbie here from our social media team, we've got Mark from our email team, jason from our SEO team and Rich, who is the head of digital marketing services. Let's get on with a podcast. Our first topic today is around repurposing content. We're looking at how you can turn a single piece of content into loads of little ones. I'm going to start with you, debbie. Do you have an example, either from something you've done for Brew Digital or for a company that you're working with as a client, where you've seen them effectively repurpose their big bits of content?

Speaker 3: 1:47

Here at Brew we actually do actively repurpose our content. For instance, a long form case study can we pull out codes there that can turn into single post testimonials that we can share on our social, or can we turn them into carousel that can then share on LinkedIn? My favorite brand that does this very well is actually Red Bull. A lot of what goes on under social media are basically repurposed videos from competitions, from challenges and so on. Those 30s to 60 second cuts that they have is just gold for them. It's also a really good way to engage the community and to encourage them to take their own Red Bull challenge as well.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Just an add-on question to that Do you think that repurposing content is only useful for social media, or can it be useful for SEO, paid or email as well?

Speaker 4: 2:41

Beyond digital marketing, which is obviously the kind of the main thing we talk about, you can see the value of repurposing, even in things like TV adverts. You'll see the funky brand like John Lewis is the best example. They'll do a three, four minute epic Christmas advert and then they'll repurpose it. It's like 30 second snippets and screech odds for digital and your carousels for social and everything. It's not just limited to digital marketing. I think the repurposing of content and across the board will benefit to people.

Speaker 5: 3:10

It's really good if you've created a piece of content. It could be a video, it could be an article, it could be a podcast. Taking snippets from that and using it across the channels is awesome because you get all that power back. You can read a snippet, for example on Facebook, maybe a paragraph from that piece of content, and then a read more link that goes back to your website. And that link back and that traffic that you gain to your website is really powerful. Chopping it up and using it across the channels is definitely good from an SEO perspective.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Thank you, jason Nashid. Do you want to add something on the page front?

Speaker 6: 3:46

I think that repurposing content is the most efficient, time cost saving way of maximizing the value of our content. By repackaging existing content into different formats, as what has been mentioned by Debbie and also Jason, tailoring it across different platforms and even segments and staying updated, you can definitely extend a lifespan and impact of your content marketing stream, especially.

Speaker 2: 4:15

Nice, rich, I can see that you've got a point to make as well.

Speaker 7: 4:19

Haring on from what Nashid just said. In terms of efficiency, I think a lot of the time people kind of are writing articles and then trying to reinvent the well each time. When we're utilizing long form piece of content, we can then break that down across channels so we can cut it into snippets for social, we can create visualizations, infographics, that sort of thing. It doesn't have to stick to one specific form of content. A written article can turn into a visual piece, it could turn into an audio piece, it could turn into a video piece. So from an idea point of view, creating lots of different forms of content across different medias is also beneficial.

Speaker 2: 5:01

How can someone listening get inspiration for the big bits of content that they need to repurpose? Nashid, go ahead.

Speaker 6: 5:09

I would say the easiest way is to start by analyzing your existing content that you have. I would say the first step is to identify pieces that have performed well in terms of engagement traffic conversion. That is a good start In a B2B tech industry. For example. If you've ungated along ebook piece, some people might not want to read the whole thing, so we can definitely take bits and pieces out of it, turn it into a webinar or podcast topic. Even more digestible formats like infographics or videos, like what Rich has been shown.

Speaker 7: 5:46

I think, look at the competition and look at the trends with this podcast ourselves. We have that period of research time to set the topics for each monthly call. The team then go off and do their independent research to come back with a valid opinion. We can then, using this as an example, tape the content that we record on this podcast session and then we can turn it into social snippets, we can turn it into blog articles, we can turn it into audio clips. So from one kind of hour-long recording session we get multiple things which we are taking from industry trends, competitors, interesting campaigns that we see, and that's all kind of building the content for this.

Speaker 3: 6:30

Yeah, I think it all boils down again to what is the goal that you're trying to achieve. In order for you to first plan out how are you going to repurpose this content from this big campaign that you're doing, you need to be very clear what you're trying to achieve and from there, you'll also be able to assess what are the right channels, whether that is a digital channel or an offline channel, and, with that said, you can basically then get creative in terms of like okay, how can I break this piece down and make it more relevant for each channel, also considering what makes sense for that channel, meaning to say, okay, you are not going to post something that is 30 seconds on YouTube, when an YouTube algorithm prefers the user to be watching for a longer period of time within the platform of YouTube, whereas on Twitter or perhaps TikTok even better, this short form videos makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2: 7:30

Now topic number two is slightly outside of the realm of marketing. We've got a piece of data here from an NPR and Ipsos study of around 1000 Americans in 2022. That piece of data says 69% of Americans feel there are too many streaming services, 65% worry that their favorite content is going to be pulled and 58% are overwhelmed by the amount of content. Time to choose something to watch has increased 41% since 2019 to 10 minutes. Now we probably look at things from a B2B point of view in this podcast and this stat is more looking at personal use of time, but ultimately we're targeting humans, not businesses. So what impact do you think these streaming changes could have on marketing in a B2B environment? I'm going to go over to Mark to kick things off.

Speaker 4: 8:28

Firstly, to give a shout out to Tom. I know he can't actually get on an awful lot right now, but it was him that came up with this research as part of a piece for the drum network, so don't forget to look for us on the drum as well. Very valuable source for marketing information. But for the B2B study, the main thing we can take in this is there is a lot of choice out of this. It's kind of reminiscent of the tech stacks almost where we, as consumers, we're looking at Netflix, we're looking at Hulu, we're looking at Apple TV, whatever. As businesses, we're looking at a CRM system, a finance system, an optimizing engine, a tag manager. There are dozens and dozens of things that a good business in big air quotes needs to be successful now, and there's just more and more things and in more and more people in those spaces and just that fight for attention is a drain on everybody. So I think that's the real analogy we can take from the research is that we need to be careful to not try and fight in a cluttered space and work out where we can actually provide value, as opposed to just where we can provide an alternative.

Speaker 2: 9:27

Thanks, Mark Rich. Can you add anything onto that?

Speaker 7: 9:30

We've actually started to make things over complicated and if we take the streaming services as an example, before we had a bit of a monopoly. You had Sky and Virgin, but you didn't really have much choice. Obviously, you have multiple channels on those platforms, but Sky and Virgin were you two companies that you would go to in order to consume your TV. Now we've got Netflix, amazon, apple TV, multiple different places where you can consume from. We're making it far more complicated for people to make a choice. That's very similar to B2B marketing, especially in software and technology. In the digital marketing landscape, we're probably guilty of it ourselves. How many tools and platforms are there available to us? How many social media platforms are there available for people to go on? We talk about a lot Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter but there's so many more. It's such a vast industry of platforms.

Speaker 2: 10:27

Ultimately, you People are scrolling through adverts when they're on the streaming services, just like people are seeing in their social media feed. There is such a short amount of time for someone to get the message across in an ad for online or even on a streaming service. What lessons can we take from how streaming service markets a series of film?

Speaker 5: 10:50

This kind of matches into the previous topic as well, with repurposing, so consolidating, little informational bits about that article which are useful and then spreading around social media and just having a sentence and a link back for the full article. I think that's a really good way for for the digital age is just have snippets. If you're interested, then is the full whack.

Speaker 3: 11:18

I also feel like if we want to take some lessons from you know the streaming services, they really go into your life like make the shows a bit, take it out of the screen and bring it to real life relevancy. If you think about the next, the new season of Casa de Pabelle was coming out. There were lots of activations at end the streets and there were lots of also a tick tocks of social media. So it's not just on screen or on your Netflix where you can know that the new series is coming, but you could also feel it in real life.

Speaker 2: 11:52

We look back at, the Barbie movie is the great example of that. That wasn't just existing in the space of cinema, it's all of those surrounding bits of marketing, that kind of build up your knowledge of that film. I guess, if we link that to branding for B2B, how can a brand use digital marketing to build up their brand in order to make sure that they are noticed when it comes to a consumer making a decision?

Speaker 4: 12:22

Mark for the program perspective, I guess, is where they hang out, so the values and just in what they need, but making sure you give it to them in the right place as well. So some other Barbie movie? Ok, where was everywhere? You couldn't get away from it. But for specific B2B it might be that actually you're looking to target developers, in which case go to Stack Overflow, for example. Or you're looking to see your makers. You might go to by the reddit if it's secretly young, funky industry. Looking at where you put your content is just as important as what you're putting out, to make sure you're getting that real relevancy.

Speaker 2: 12:53

And just because we're running out of time, what could someone who's listening learn from this stat, and how could they apply what we've spoken about to their marketing? What's one thing they could go away and do.

Speaker 4: 13:06

Is this time a little bit, or spread that last one's work. Do your research, work out what your best content is, where the sources of the traffic status come from, and then make sure you're applying good, relevant content that provides value in those places, in those formats.

Speaker 2: 13:27

This month we are looking at Kit Kat and their twist on their take a break advert for forgotten passwords. If you've not seen the advert, a night approaches, a castle is asked for their password, hasn't got it auto saved and can't remember it. They have a Kit Kat, they take that break and suddenly their password comes right back to the past. Go and watch it. You can find it easily on YouTube. What is it about this campaign that stood out to you?

Speaker 8: 13:55

Michele, what triggered my mind was seeing at the cinema, and not about new Samsung phone, where they bought displacement at cinema, which I guess it's pretty expensive to spend a minute 30 not to talk about their phone but how secure their phone it is. And when I saw this Kit Kat, what I connected is this concept of in the modern age, we need to be more secure and protected. And then you have the new twist on the instead of the. Have a break to get Kit Kat. It's just take a break, be safe and everything will be fine.

Speaker 2: 14:34

Ross, I can see that your head just popped up as a little R on my screen, I have been exposed to the ads.

Speaker 1: 14:43

I think it's quite interesting that people have identified this one as one that they've liked, because the actual premise of the advert doesn't really make much sense. The idea of just taking a break and suddenly your password might come back to you I don't find that particularly relatable. But I think the fact that is just around kind of forgotten passwords, which is somewhat we've all been, even though the entire premise of the advert doesn't make sense, as long as you're related to the advert, as long as you're relating it back to something that people can identify with, I think this makes things memorable and people's minds.

Speaker 4: 15:14

I would defend the premise of the advert. She takes the Kit Kat chills out as a cat with a horse and remembers it's the horse's name is the password, but it's the emotions that come with it. I think that we kind of resonate. So it's the frustration of I can't remember this is really annoying and then the relief of I'll think God, I can get into the thing. I need to happen to go through a million rounds of resets, and I think that's the real resonance of it, the fact that kind of taps into those emotions that everyone is going to have experienced.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Debbie go ahead.

Speaker 3: 15:42

To me, what stood out for this advert was that they chose a woman of color at the ninth. That's new and it's definitely jumping on the bandwagon of, you know, woman empowerment will happen dimmethildis recently as well. How much technology plays in our life right now Also is a very good telling point of how, of why it is the center of this ad as well.

Speaker 2: 16:11

And as simple as it is, that is a story that probably ninety five percent of the world where we use tech has experienced, if you haven't been your some kind of terminator but Jason, I can see you've got points and a.

Speaker 5: 16:23

Now highlighting the digital age that we're in, there's a lot of messaging, a lot of ads, a lot of stuff to do. It's very, yeah, touching on the emotional level of you just need to ignore everything. I have a break which I think I'm, yeah, communicates with a lot of people on the moment, so I think it's great, great company.

Speaker 2: 16:44

I'm gonna move us on a little bit. The slogan take a break is pretty well known, is synonymous with Nestle in the kick at brand. Do you think that this campaign, this adverb, works without that semantic knowledge of take a break as a slogan rich, I can see you shaking your head.

Speaker 7: 17:03

Kick cat so synonymous with that tagline. I think I read up earlier that they actually coined that tagline in nineteen, fifty, eight. They are A prime example of brand building, which then enables their storytelling further down the line, if you were to just introduce this now as a brand new thing. So I take a break from technology frustrations. Without that longevity behind that slogan, I don't think it resonates as much. But because kick at can play so much of that in so many different rounds and they can use it to address Certain societal issues, one being the fact that we are bombarded with so much messaging and technology on a day to day basis that actually we should just take a step back and and and brief what I'm maybe hearing there and maybe I'm being a bit harsh Is actually, unless you've got a really strong brand like kick cat, you can really learn anything from this campaign.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Is there anything that someone who has a you know, a small, normal brands like most of us do, what can they learn from a campaign like this?

Speaker 7: 18:13

but for me it's about having that kind of firm brand, ifos and belief and seeing that through everything that you do, you can create that as a brand from scratch. Why see a lot of brands in these days? Is Jumping around, moving the key message in moving the goalposts? Oh, it's been two years. We're bored, we're gonna have a rebrand, we're gonna do this, that in the other. The key learning here is to stand by what you believe is is called your brother Debbie. What, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 3: 18:45

having the pulse of what's happening in the culture, what's happening in politically, society and so on. Having technology be so much involved in our lives, and that's quite a that's a cultural insight, right, and I think that that's something that the brands can definitely take advantage of. A good example of this was when there was an advert for the extinction of Twitter when it turned into X, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, worldwide wildlife fund was the one who did that, and I think that's a very good way of jumping into something that is a trending topic right now mentioning world wildlife fund there reminded me of when they rebranded and forced WF to become WWE.

Speaker 2: 19:34

How confusing it was when I was searching for my wrestling content and I just got hit with pandas. Nassia, can you tie this up for?

Speaker 6: 19:43

us in. A successful marketing campaign can definitely go beyond just promoting a product or service, your marketing efforts or ads. It should create a meaningful connection with your audience. I feel like creating a marketing campaign like it can be a clever way to engage with our own consumers. Speaking from a B2B perspective doesn't matter what sort of services you offer. There's always a few common frustrations or problems people experience in their daily lives.

Speaker 2: 20:19

Onto our third marketing topic for today, and this one. This is one that really strikes close to the bone for me imposter syndrome in marketing. To kick this off, can I have a show of hands? Who has suffered with imposter syndrome at work before? I can pretty much see 90% of people's hats Keeping this off with a bit of an interesting question. But do you think we're qualified to talk about this or any of the stuff we're talking about on this podcast?

Speaker 5: 20:50

I would say yes. Yeah, jason, do you want to expand on that? Because it's never evolving. Industry digital age, young people are more interceptable. It's old, old ways of doing things can't work now. From 10 years ago, this is the way you need to do it. It doesn't work now. Things can change any year's time. You need people that are innovative.

Speaker 2: 21:14

Mark, can you add to that?

Speaker 4: 21:16

please. Yeah, I'll bring my own commentary self and say I don't think we are qualified to talk about it, especially for the imposter syndrome specifically. None of us are meant away with pressure or support of course we're not but what we can do is talk about our own experiences with it and I think that's just as valuable. Half the time, people need to know they're not alone. Translating that across to kind of a business case, as Jason said, yeah, things are always tanking, but there is still always a core of things that there are best practices and need following. You will need a process for this thing. I think that's where it's quite useful to have experts. Still, and why you probably want to employ a marketing agency is you want experts in those fields to help guide you and help you with your innovation and to help guide you along those paths.

Speaker 2: 21:57

I'm going to move us on to experience. Does anyone have an example of where imposter syndrome is affected? You in your career in marketing, rich, go ahead.

Speaker 7: 22:07

Before I joined Brew I had my own agency for six years and I was doing things the way I thought I should do them and never kind of question myself. At that point it was like I got to this point, I'm doing well, I'm successful. When I started to exit from that business and I got the job at Brew, I did suddenly start getting quite anxious about joining an agency that was a lot bigger than mine. I had four permanent staff. I was moving to an agency that had 40 plus staff and just the digital marketing team were bigger than my previous company Coming into this agency. All of a sudden I started to question a lot of things that I'd done myself in my own agency and whether or not was I actually successful in what I had done before, because now I'm moving somewhere that's a lot bigger and turns out a lot more money in is a lot higher head count when I come into this team, especially in the position as head of digital marketing. Am I going to come in and just be shown up by lots of people that are underneath me? That was a very real thing for me for the first couple of months.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Thank you, Rich, for sharing that. That's Rich, who is our head of digital marketing service, in a pretty senior position within Brew. It happens from everyone from junior all the way up to senior, which is quite impactful to hear. Debbie, do you want to share your experience with us as well?

Speaker 3: 23:37

Before entering Brew, I came from higher education, our audience mainly being Gen Z. If you can imagine going into Brew Digital slash, the Adaptivist group it was really a fish out of the water moment. From one day to the next, I was talking to developers and engineers and analysts and we are talking about ITSM, devops and things that just went above my head. It was a very real moment of what have I done and is this the social media work that I would like to do? It took me a long time. I couldn't have done it without having a great team, but also a supportive manager at that time. It's also just constant learning and a constant reminding to ourselves that there is something that you can offer.

Speaker 2: 24:28

Yeah, so many valid points there. I think it can manifest in so many different ways. I've experienced it when people have come in who are in similar roles to me. There's sometimes times where I'm about to go on to a one-to-one as a line manager and I'm like I have no qualifications or ability to know what to do in this one-to-one line management situation. Does anyone have any ways of combating imposter syndrome that they use day to day? Michele?

Speaker 8: 24:58

I have to admit that I've learned about this syndrome fairly recently. I can't say I fully understand it. We do have something like this in Southern Europe and I think it's called humbleness. It's just a sort of common sense where you always try to get the better version of yourself. So I do have a different point of view of this one. Probably I'm affected from. I just don't call it syndrome. When I feel in that way, what I do is just trying to get better, learn more. I'm reading articles about it, reading blogs, so just never stop learning.

Speaker 4: 25:38

For imposter syndrome. The issue is you can be as skilled and as highly trained and as amazing at your job as you can possibly be. It's just that feeling of inadequacy that goes with it. So learning and training, making yourself better, trying to improve your own self-worth brilliant For mine. My wife made me a box just full of little bits of paper with all just little positive comments about me on it. So there's things that she likes and just if you're feeling like I'm not enough that day, that's why I can go and look at and remind myself to someone else I have any.

Speaker 2: 26:12

Yeah, I think that's so impactful and I think there's probably ways that you can kind of create that box of love yourself as well. When you get that compliment that you don't know how to take, just say thank you, screenshot it and put it in a folder and then when you're having those days where you're like I am no good at what I do, go look at that folder and see all those times that someone's told you that you are good at what you do. Sometimes we don't hear enough that we are very good at our jobs, but the lucky hit is there has been a meeting somewhere over Zoom or in person where someone has spoken about how Shit hot you are at your job, and you should try and remember. We're gonna finish it things off this month on our final topic, which is Everyone hates GA4. Why does everyone hate GA4? What's wrong with it?

Speaker 5: 27:07

Jason, I'm gonna start with you. Ga4 was the force for impact of new Google Analytics, so they did give awareness on it before it came into place, but still has annoyed absolutely everybody. Through myself, I've managed to find my way and get what I need out of it, but explaining it to Clients and companies that have been using it for years and years, why is this button not here? How do I find this data has been quite a nightmare, as I'm sure, which will tell you. The main thing is all the data is there. You just need to learn how to use the tool, which might sound a bit harsh, but that's the way it is and Google is boss, so we'll deal with it.

Speaker 7: 27:51

I think we were always discussing this the other day with a Client and I've done a few migrations and a few different Setups. Now Ultimately, like Jason said, the data is still there. It's just visualized in a slightly different way, and I started to think about this with a crime. I think the main issue at play here is that people just don't like change. Universe analytics has been the source of truth for people's tracking For the past however many years that was it. Those numbers were Were exactly what they were measuring when GA4 came along. And, let's be fair, google have done this to improve things for people. They haven't done this to be a pain in the arse or to make things more difficult for people tracking. What they have done is created a better version of analytics that has taken the flaws and the issues that Universal had and improved upon them and made it better.

Speaker 2: 28:48

Ross, I know you had your hand up earlier. Is that something you have an opinion on?

Speaker 1: 28:52

where you view GA4 completely depends on how you've been exposed to an universal analytics. I think for anyone that hasn't had experience and it's just kind of jumping on GA4 now, it's probably an easier tool to pick up. It's simpler, there are less kind of rabbit holes you can go down. I think. Certainly for me, where my frustration lies is it took me years to get up to terms with the universe analytics, slowly working at the courage to try and let you use it and pulling Reports and things like this. And just as I felt I'd kind of got hold on it and mastered it, they pulled the rug out and given us this completely new platform which is similar but a lot of the kind of functionalities as rich mentioned you can't do anymore, but it is slightly more intuitive. So it is just about Getting the necessary training and diving in and just kind of having a play around with it, because it is still a very useful tool.

Speaker 7: 29:42

We now need to look at GA4 and forget that historical data and embrace the change because it's going to improve things. Where we're at at the moment, it's just that element of, oh, I don't like this. This dashboard it's not the same. I'm gonna have to change the way I work, but when we actually look at you know what this is actually going to make things easier for me, better for me in the long run. And then we, I think we'll start, we'll get past this phase and, let's be fair, ga4 has been around. It actually soft launch in July 2019. This is not a new platform. It's just the fact that nobody wanted to move and they left it right to the last minute when Google went right. If we leave this and don't set a cut of date, no one's kind of migrate to this new platform. So therefore, this is the end July, say, first of July 2023. Get over to the new platform.

Speaker 2: 30:34

So it sounds like the problem really is in people not embracing the new technology and Getting kind of stuck in their ways. Ultimately, it's not going to go away, right? Is there anything else that someone could go away and go? Do you know what? Maybe Google Analytics isn't for me. Is there anything that's potentially a better fit? And McKellie, go ahead. I.

Speaker 8: 30:57

Think the real option is do you have money to pay a legal platform that gives you the same data that GA4 provides? One of the main reason why the universal moved to GA4 it's because of its violation of GDPR and If we look at Europe only, I think there are five or six countries where actually GA4 has been declared illegal. You do have other Platform that they can provide you the same data, but with a hundred percent, 100% respecting the leader, the European laws. I've spoken with clients that they used Something called Matomo mix panel or Adobe analytics all this platform from their use. They basically gives you what analytics has. The only problem is they can cost up to 80,000 pound per year. So we can complain as much as we want, but as far as analytics Google Analytics for is given us for free.

Speaker 5: 32:04

I Agree with McKellie's comments there as well. There's nothing really that can be Google's offering or free. There are options. I think the second best is Adobe experience manager. I think it's called now. Well, I think as a source of truth.

Speaker 2: 32:23

Yeah, GA is the one to be honest, from the sounds that it sounds like, unless you've got dollar dollar, just stop complaining. You know there are online tutorials, documentation and community forums loads of resources around GA4. Go and learn the platform. It's not going away. It's the best possible option and that's the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for the whole team, for all of their opinions, for going away and doing the research as well. It's always a delight to be able to talk about so many Great topics. Make sure to go and check out our past episodes. Subscribe on whatever platform you use to listen to your podcasts and we'll see you on the next one. I've been Hayden and this has been the marketers of the universe podcast. You.