Barbie’s Success

Released in July 2023, the Barbie movie is all anyone can talk about. The film has smashed box office predictions, showcasing it’s not just meme-worthy but a fully-fledged hit, reaching $155 million opening weekend.

One of the reasons the new Barbie film’s marketing campaign has been such a success is its creative approach to repositioning the way we see Barbie. Rather than just utilising traditional print and media advertising, Barbie’s innovative marketing strategy gained vital earned media coverage around the world. Some of these marketing ideas included:

• Utilising Airbnb listings where people could rent a Barbie house
• Dual brand promotion with brands like Crocs and Zara
• Making Google search results sparkle when Googling Barbie
• Ensuring actors like Margot Robbie dressed like her Barbie character on press tours sparking nostalgia and media coverage

This out-of-the-box thinking has proved to be an effective method of marketing, capturing the attention of everyone, whether they are a fan of Barbie or not.

While blockbuster films have more leeway and an easier time of executing creative marketing strategies, it highlights a crucial aspect of marketing – audiences want to be entertained and engaged. Instead of relying on traditional advertising channels, the campaign has used a variety of innovative tactics alongside more traditional marketing approaches, such as product partnerships, social media campaigns, and experiential marketing.

What can financial marketers learn?

By taking inspiration from the Barbie campaign, your finance brand can inject creativity into its marketing efforts and in the process broaden the brand’s image or interactions with your targeted audience.

Understanding your target audience (and those who aren’t)

Another reason why the Barbie movie’s marketing campaign has been such a success is its deep understanding of its target audience. However, the Barbie marketing machine went one step further and utilised effective strategies to capture the attention of those who, until now, thought they had no interest in Barbie.

By tapping into nostalgia, resonating with the audience, and creating pop culture moments like Margot Robbie’s Barbie Premiere looks, this campaign appeals to Barbie fans, the disinterested, and the detractors alike. Additionally, while Barbie marketing was everywhere, it wasn’t the same repeated campaigns, graphics or ideas, meaning content was seen as original, interesting and engaging.

What can financial marketers learn?

Finance brands can adopt a similar approach by identifying the different segments within their target market and tailoring their marketing messages to resonate with each group.

For example, for older Millennials Barbie tapped into their sense of nostalgia of early childhood, whereas for Barbie detractors the feminist lens of the billboard campaigns and slogan of ‘She’s everything. He’s just Ken’ helps to reintroduce the doll and remove the negative stigma surrounding it. Using these examples as inspiration, understanding the motivations, preferences, and pain points of your clients will enable you to create more compelling and relatable campaigns.

While content marketing should be tailored to those you want to attract, thinking outside the box and creating quality content can engage those who aren’t currently in this segment. Creating engaging content that’s original and taps into the zeitgeist can expand your audience and generate leads.

Breaking the Barbie mold

One of the first trailers for Barbie was a unique take on the 2001 A Space Odyssey, where viewers watched little girls in a desert rage and smash dolls against rocks. The scene was so far removed from what you would expect of a Barbie movie trailer it instantly captured the attention of fans and non-fans.

What can financial marketers learn?
Expect the unexpected is a major lesson of Barbie’s marketing strategy. By flipping the script and showcasing scenes and content you wouldn’t expect, it entices audiences to find out more. Consider how your finance brand can break free from the normally ‘rigid’ nature of financial content marketing in fun and creative ways, to set yourself apart from the competition and gain new and engaged audiences.

Multi-platform promotion at its finest

One of the key strengths of the Barbie marketing campaign is its multi-platform promotion. This approach has truly brought the Barbie world to life and ensured audiences were talking about it months before its release. This was achieved by not only utilising the well-trodden channel mix of social, print, television and traditional advertising but also incorporating real-life Barbie experiences such as the Airbnb house and through actors’ clothing choices during press and event coverage.

What can financial marketers learn?

Finance brands can learn from this approach by leveraging various channels to amplify their message and reach a wider audience. By repurposing and atomising content, you can ensure maximum exposure across different platforms. This strategy allows you to deliver a consistent brand message while tailoring the content format to suit the preferences and consumption habits of your target audience.

Mix traditional advertising, like print and billboards, with online content marketing in your campaigns to bring your brand front of mind. Ensure content remains different across platforms, engaging and suited to your audience to ensure engagement remains high.

Take risks

What a lot of viewers have come away thinking is how much the team got away with when it came to the Barbie brand. The storyline heavily makes fun of Mattel executives and plays on the idea of a team of men being in control of what’s commonly seen as a girl’s doll.

What can financial marketers learn?

It’s clear Mattel took a risk with the film and its marketing, however, it’s their ability to make fun of themselves that’s helped this movie succeed. By not taking themselves too seriously and having fun with the brand and marketing – in a calculated way – it’s allowed a whole new audience to form a connection with the product. In a global report by Oracle, it was found 91% of people prefer brands to be funny and 72% would choose a brand that uses humor over the competition.

Barbie’s Collaborations

Barbie’s movie marketing campaign has partnered with a variety of brands, such as Mattel, Xbox, Airbnb, and Nyx Cosmetics. These partnerships have helped to reach a wider audience and generate excitement for the film.

What can financial marketers learn?
Finance brands can follow suit by partnering with other brands that share their target audience. Utilising partnerships to extend brand voice and awareness can be an effective method of gaining a broader organic reach.

But what about B2B brands?

While the Barbie marketing campaign primarily targets B2C consumers, its underlying principles are equally relevant to B2B brands.

By adopting a customer-centric approach and creating engaging content that cuts through to your B2B clients, your finance brand can strengthen its relationships, increase brand loyalty, and generate more business opportunities.

Final thoughts

The Barbie film marketing campaign serves as an unexpected case study for finance brands, offering valuable insights into innovative marketing strategies that can be applied to both B2C and B2B contexts.

Just like Barbie’s evolution and adaptation, finance brands have the opportunity to break from the traditional marketing mold and play around with their marketing approach to potentially engage new audiences and drive results.

The post Barbie’s Marketing Makeover: Lessons for Finance Brands appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The success of Drive to Survive

Four seasons after Drive to Survive first launched and Formula 1 has never been more popular. In fact, new data from Nielsen shows fan interest in F1 racing has increased from 44.9 million in 2019, to 49.2 million in 2021. The success of Drive to Survive hinges on its ability to tell a good story that shows the background behind the elusive Formula 1 drivers. From the rivalries between each driver to when (spoiler alert) Lewis Hamilton lost the world championship after seven consecutive years to Max Verstappen, each episode and series has a distinct storyline. Much like a fictional tv show, Drive to Survive creates authentic connections between the drivers and the audience. It’s this connection that your finance brand should be aiming for when producing your marketing content.

Producing high-quality and value-driven video content that engages consumers could be your finance brand’s competitive edge. In fact, 74% of marketers say video has a better return on investment than static imagery. So, what lessons can your finance brand take away from Drive to Survive’s success?

• Data – Before its creation, Formula 1 spent a lot of time and resources investigating its audience to find out exactly what they wanted. They discovered fans wanted to become closer to the sport, hence the creation of not only Drive to Survive but the building of drivers’ personal social media profiles and the creation of the F1 app where blog posts, race content, and live streams are housed. Before you launch a new video content strategy, do your research and understand what your audience wants from your content.
• Human connection – Drive to Survive is action-packed, but funnily enough not really about the ins and outs of the sport. Its focus is on the drivers and the team’s goals. Making your content focused on telling a human story that focuses on more than just a product or service will garner greater engagement and audience connection.
• Create content with a purpose – Be purposeful in the content you create. Drive to Survive’s purpose wasn’t to make money from the show but to tell such a good story it draws viewers into the sport and converts them into fans.
• Be creative – Drive to Survive has been so successful for Formula 1 as it’s such a creative concept that doesn’t replicate the same run-of-the-mill ideas other sports have already done.

Omnichannel marketing approach

Piggybacking off the success of the Netflix show, teams like McLaren and Red Bull Racing have formed their own YouTube channels with vlog-style content and humorous Q and As. The success of Drive to Survive isn’t exclusively from just the show, but also the social media content all the teams and drivers have created. Taking an omnichannel marketing approach has only strengthened their fans and viewership.

Creating just one awesome video isn’t enough. Re-purposing content, utilising an always-on content marketing approach and strengthening your entire social media strategy will support your video content and maintain an interested audience. For example, if you create an innovative YouTube video that’s 10-minutes long, consider re-purposing the content into bite-sized videos perfect for your Instagram or X.

Creating a great video or story shouldn’t be the final step in your content strategy.

Finance brands doing video content differently

It’s not easy to create a unique video content idea but it can reap great rewards.

American Express collaborated with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim to create the 40-minute documentary, Spent: Looking for Change. The documentary tells the story of everyday Americans that are struggling with basic financial challenges. It has been watched over 2 million times and received over 11,000 likes.

Barclay’s has taken a different approach, by instead creating a mini-series called ‘Moneyverse Matchmaking’. This series aims to encourage open and honest communication about money between partners. The videos are of people on first dates as they chat about their money habits and past relationships.

Key take aways from Drive to Survive

Strong video content has the ability to build trust and convert leads into loyal customers – the success of Drive to Survive is a testament to that. In fact, 52% of marketers say video helps them build trust with potential customers and 49% of marketers say it helps them engage their audience.

To nail your video content marketing strategy, get creative and tell a good story.

The post What Drive to Survive can teach finance brands appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Gamification

Gamifying the user experience isn’t about making your digital platforms feel like playing an Xbox. Instead, gamifying the user experience is about making the platform fun, engaging and interactive. Ways to gamify the user experience could include:

• Leaderboards
• Points
• Missions and objectives
• Sounds and illustrations
• Avatars
• Performance markers
• Rankings
• Progress bars
• Story elements

Adding game elements into your digital platforms should incentivise users and make them feel rewarded for utilising your services. By making your digital platforms interactive and engaging, your finance brand can gain a competitive edge and maintain an interested audience. In fact, using gamification can help a company increase customer interactions by 40%.

Universally accessible content

An inclusive design is the cornerstone of universally accessible content. With around 15% of the globe living with a disability and 1 billion people having English as a second language, your finance brand’s digital platforms must cater to everyone’s unique needs. Some inclusive design practices your finance brand can incorporate include:

• Text-to-speech
• Translated digital experiences
• Plain language
• Not utilising colours to signify actions
• Large buttons that are distinctive and operate logically
• Readable fonts that can be magnified

Just like how universal accessibility has helped Wordle become so successful, an inclusive design can help your finance brand foster strong consumer connections. In fact, new research has revealed inclusive design can expand customer reach fourfold, highlighting how catering to the needs of every customer can improve brand loyalty and customer acquisition.

Automated always-on content program

The best aspect about Wordle is each day fans can return to the website to access a fresh, new secret word to solve. Your finance brand’s content should be similar. You should employ an automated always-on content program to successfully nurture leads and funnel clients through the customer acquisition tunnel.

An always-on content program has no end-date. Instead, an always-on content program provides your finance brand with an ongoing presence across multiple distribution channels. Your content should take the form of a variety of different mediums such as short and long form articles, infographics, videos, podcasts and any other content your target audience is interested in.

Automating your always-on content program can be a game changer for your finance brand by making it easier to get your content across to audiences seamlessly. In fact, 80% of marketers report an increase in leads due to automation and 76% of marketers see a positive ROI within a year.

The secrets of Wordle

While Wordle is very different to your finance brands content strategy, there are several core elements you can learn to improve. From gamifying your user experience to ensuring universal accessibility, it’s important you place your consumers needs at the forefront of your content strategy.

The post What Wordle can teach finance brands appeared first on Financial Marketer.

By transforming that idea into a blockbuster content campaign, you can send it to all four corners of the Internet—and snag thousands of new followers in the process. 

Here, we step outside of the financial content marketing world for a minute, to study a 2021 blockbuster campaign which has earned tens of millions of hits: The Friends: Reunion. 

Executed across multiple channels and in multiple formats, the techniques applied in this campaign could work for nearly any finance content marketing idea—whether you’re launching a new app,  getting creative with your annual reports or simply planning to content for an always-on content strategy. 

Blockbuster finance content on YouTube

HBO Max, the US streaming service which aired Friends: The Reunion on May 27 (and is also home to all 236 original episodes), hooked viewers with stacks of video content leading up to, during and following the launch. 

This content ranged from the official trailer (which has had more than 19 million hits) to a pre-show digital red carpet (which featured guest stars and games) to clever plays on the much-used yet ever-effective listicle. 

See, for example, ‘Monica’s nine tips for cleaning‘, comprised of snippets from the original series, accompanied by subheadings. 

Social media

The Friends: The Reunion content campaign used social media in almost every way imaginable. This began with the seeding of possibilities way back in September 2019, when four members of the Friends cast shared the same photo accompanied by the same cryptic message on Instagram: ‘Celebrating a Thursday night 25 years ago …’

Since then, the campaign has featured flashbacks featuring classic moments of the series; giveaways and competitions; a 360-degree Central Perk background available in Messenger, enabling fans to immerse themselves in the world of Friends; a stack of merch (including Matthew Perry’s own collection); reveals of celebrity guests to appear on the show; and more.

One of the most powerful impacts of this multifaceted use of social media is that it’s inspired numerous brands and influencers to make related content, thereby maximising organic growth. 

quote]One of the most powerful impacts of this multifaceted use of social media is it’s inspired numerous brands and influencers to make related content, maximising organic growth.[/quote]

See, for example, Cadbury’s ad for its new Silk chocolate, and this collection of Friends-inspired merch created (and shared) by various brands. What’s more, two days before Friends: The Reunion aired, the show was mentioned more than 42,000 times on X.

Traditional media

In addition to focusing on new media, Friends: The Reunion campaign also maximised the potential of traditional media.

In the lead-up to launch, cast members discussed the show with Deadline, Entertainment Weekly, People and many other big titles. Plus, numerous media outlets have run Friends-inspired articles (beyond the usual interviews and reviews), from this opinion piece on the ABC website about why Friends still resonates, to this extensive guide on the Harper’s Bazaar website, to this moral lesson on the Guardian website.

Ready to create your own blockbuster campaign? Get in touch.

The post What Friends: The Reunion can teach finance content marketers appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Anyway, that’s what we often hear at the heady and enthusiastic beginning of a content program – and with careful planning and brilliant execution that’s what we sometimes see come to market.

However, let me pass on a cautionary tale of how we’ve also seen it play out from the beginning when the content program was gonna rock like Jagger and Bowie and have them dancing in the street but ended up a total shred sounding more like this – oh dear. (You should watch that BTW – it’s worth it!!)

So where does it all go wrong? Generally at the beginning and snowballs from there.

1. Strategy

This may seem like a no-brainer but we’ve walked into content projects before where no formal strategy exists and it’s chaotic at best with content ideas being thrown against the wall to see what sticks – which is not much.

Get all of your key stakeholders, internal execution team, and external advisers in a room and thrash out the key issues to get everybody aligned and clear on what needs to be done – making sure you’re putting the needs of your audience, not the business first. Make sure this is documented so it can permeate the organisation and simply because it’s easy to get sidetracked over time and the strategy pulls people back together.

2. Destination

“We’ll just publish the content on our website and that will be fine” is sometimes what we hear for where content is going to be housed. 

What is often meant by this is the business will use its existing webpage templates to dump articles somewhere on the website or spray the content in various places.

This often looks boring and is a poor user experience which ultimately means the content isn’t valued by the intended audience.

Take time to work out the journey path your audience will need to understand and trust your brand and understand the relevance of your offer to them. 

Also look at the interface design to make sure it gives polish to your content display and presents it in a dynamic style that attracts and holds attention. When looking at interface design, user experience (UX) is key to how people will digest the content and is critical if you want your website to convert customers. 

Also key for any content destination is a mobile first design as not only do significant portions of the audience view content on-the-go by but key search engines like Google index mobile sitemaps over desktop, so it’s necessary for good search engine optimisation (SEO).

3. Content production

When it’s time for rubber to hit the road and for content to be produced some of the things I’ve heard as to where it will come from include, “there’s some stuff on the intranet we can use”, “we can get our grad (graduate) to knock out some articles” or “just run our press releases and ads”.

Anything on an intranet just sounds dusty and boring while leaving the portrayal of your brand’s reputation to a first year graduate will get compliance in a lather. And while press releases and ads work fine as they are – don’t try to pass them off as content.

It’s actually important to think about the frequency and format of your content. For example, can the organisation source two quality pieces of content per week and publish these to deadline without fail?

It’s also key to look at the mix of your content and where it will be sourced. Does the business have teams already producing analytical papers or market research? Does the business have content gaps on topics needing to be authored by external experts?

To ensure the ongoing content stream doesn’t get stuck on a hamster wheel, mix up the publication of short and long-form editorial. Weave in serialised podcasts on relevant issues and invest in video to convey high value themes. Back all of this up with strong visuals, interactive charting to make the numbers more dynamic and infographics to explain complex issues in a simple way.

4. Content optimisation

Once you’re comfortable there’s a quality stream of content being published on a regular basis through a great content destination it’s important to look at how you can optimise the content to make sure its SEO is excellent and maximising audience traffic flow from organic search.

Key to this is reviewing your content analytics for insights you can action on-page. It’s also important to use strong imagery and avoid bland overly stock images. Make sure all headlines have been optimised for readability and SEO purposes and ensure all body copy has likewise been reviewed so it’s digestible and SEO optimised.

5. Social distribution

The concept of build it and they will just come doesn’t work in content marketing. If your organisation invests in content and takes the time to produce it then you need to actively distribute it externally to the environments where your clients, customers and audience naturally gravitate. All of this of course needs to be guided by a clear distribution strategy. 

Social channel distribution will be skewed by whether the finance brand is largely B2B or B2C driven and by geographic region.

It’s important to have an always-on and consistent organic posting schedule and as your follower databases and audience grows you’ll need to consider community management such as responding to all comments, redirecting people with inquiries or how to manage complaints. 

Beyond the content created by the business it can help to humanise the brand by introducing ambassadors who can comment on issues and distribute the brand’s content across their own channels. Brand ambassadors can be internal spokespeople such as key executives or they can be external individuals or influencers who have credibility with your key audiences.

Key to the success of social distribution is using the analytics tools of the social platforms to segment and target messaging and content to high value audiences to ensure your content is being seen.

It’s also important to create an overarching media plan so you can understand how your distribution budget is being spent, where and when. The metrics you get back from your media plan can then inform how you optimise future campaigns and provide a benchmark to measure against.

6. Measurement

Successful and sophisticated content marketers centralise, monitor and respond to the data collected right across the content program from content destination benchmark reporting and analytics goal tracking to social media metrics and cost analytics.

By tracking these key data sources you’ll understand how your content is performing with your intended audience, what it’s costing to produce and distribute and whether you’re getting a return on investment with wider brand awareness or active gains in client and customer acquisition.

Lastly, if you follow these six key components you’ll avoid your content marketing program ending up a total shred. We follow these principles for The Financial Marketer and while we may not be a Jagger or Bowie we’d be pretty happy for our publication to be considered a vibing cat – you have to love the internet!!  

Learn more about what we do at The Dubs. 

The post Rock star content program or total shred? appeared first on Financial Marketer.

We look at how to make the most of your finance content marketing budget, regardless of whether you’re a financial marketer for a big bank or a marketing head at a boutique asset management firm. 

Finance content marketing budget tip #1: Remember everything is content

The first step in making the most of your finance content marketing budget is looking within. Every finance brand, simply through daily business functions, generates a wealth of content—from data analytics and research reports, to expert commentary and in-house events. Most of which has the potential to be transformed into customer-friendly finance content. 

For inspiration, study US-based business valuation consultancy firm Brand Finance’s Global 500 whitepaper, which turns existing data into a narrative-driven piece of content that ranks the most powerful brands in the world. 

Also worth a look are Deutsche Bank’s case studies, which turn the bank’s achievements into engaging blog posts, and Australian fintech Up Bank’s app release notes, which are, surprisingly, among its most popular content.

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Finance content marketing budget tip #2: Transform blockbuster and long-form content

To get the most out of blockbuster and long-form finance content, slice it, dice it and re-use it. A single, well-written, well-researched feature can be transformed into a myriad of blog posts, listicles, localised content, videos, social media posts and data visualisation. As LinkedIn’s Jon Lombardo told the Financial Marketer podcast, when used wisely, one trend report can provide enough content for 365 days of the year. 

Take, for example, venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report, which is a smash hit every year. It’s packed with hundreds of slides containing facts, insights and trends, any of which is meaty enough to form the basis of a financial content marketing piece—or several. 

Finance content marketing budget tip #3: Make the most of your people

Customers and clients are one of the most untapped resources in finance content marketing. User-generated content is not only extremely budget-friendly, it can also lend authenticity, credibility and spontaneity to your finance content marketing campaigns. Plus, inviting customers to share content gives you an opportunity to find out how they are thinking, feeling and communicating.

There are plenty of ways to gather user-generated content—from running contests, such as American financial planning app Mint’s #mymintmoment photo competition, to hosting interactive webinars that invite questions, to meeting customers at real-life events, just as the UK’s Scottish Widows life insurance and pension fund did on its Taking on Your Future Together tour.

And don’t forget your staff. Staff-generated content is a cost-effective way of celebrating achievements, demonstrating advocacy, sharing thought leadership and sharing company culture and values with your audience. There are even tools that can help make employee advocacy a simple and compliant-friendly exercise. 

As experts in finance content marketing, The Dubs can help make sure your finance content marketing budget achieves the greatest impact, get in touch. 

The post How to maximise your finance content marketing budget appeared first on Financial Marketer.

And it’s not just the story that commands attention. It’s also the commentary, analysis, opinions, tweets and posts.

So, if you’ve been pumping out content that’s brilliant but gets ignored, it could be time for a new angle – a newsworthy angle. Jump on what’s relevant – what’s already playing on people’s minds – and make it relevant to your brand. Or, go a step further, and report breaking news of your own.

Here, we take a look at two international finance brands that have been leveraging the news for content marketing success. Let their work act as inspiration for newsworthy content of your own.

A newsroom of one’s own: ANZ Bluenotes (Australia)

When the Australian New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) decided to add news to its content strategy, it went all the way. Rather than merely responding to existing media outlets, ANZ created a newsroom – and an online publication to go with it: Bluenotes. At the helm as Managing Editor is veteran finance journo Andrew Cornell.

Since being founded in 2014, Bluenotes has won multiple international awards. And, in 2017, Cornell won Best Editorial Comment in the StateStreet Institutional Press Awards, Asia Pacific, becoming the first corporate newsperson to win a journalism prize.

The publication has a tight focus: economics, business, finance, tech, leadership, management, sustainability and workplace diversity. Plus, there’s a section devoted to ANZ news. Most stories take their inspiration from current events, offering deep analysis, fresh angles or advice. One feature, for example, examines the impact of the US-China Trade War on Australia, while another delves into the potential of Facebook’s Libra currency on the global payments system.

News meets corporate initiatives: Barclays (UK)

Barclays, a multinational based in London, uses current events as a springboard for content that responds to news, while showcasing the bank’s initiatives. This smart approach attracts attention through relevancy. And, once this attention is in the bag, promotes brand awareness, values and loyalty.

Unrestricted to finance and business, the news ranges from arts, culture, travel and sport to tech, medicine and politics. For example, when London’s Donmar Warehouse announced Michael Longhurst as its new artistic director, Barclay seized on an opportunity, with a long-form profile that delved into the bank’s 11-year history as the theatre’s principal sponsor.

The strategy extends to press releases that contain breaking news. Barclay conducts original research, which it then shares with media outlets. For example, in an independent study, Barclay found that for small business owners the most common time to come up with a new idea is between 2am and 3am. And, in collaboration with YouGov, the bank discovered that 69% of Brits believe women’s football should have the same profile as men’s.

So, where does this leave you? Whether you’re a big company with the resources to break big stories or a small business with your ear to the ground, there’s a way to inject newsworthy content into your strategy.

The post A newsworthy angle for your content strategy appeared first on Financial Marketer.

A venture capitalist and tech analyst from Portland Indiana, Mary Meeker was working at Morgan Stanley when in 1995, she and colleague Chris DePuy published the first Internet Trends Report. It “instantly secured her reputation as the Nostradamus of technology,” according to Wired magazine.

In 2010 she left her managing director role at Morgan Stanley to become a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, departing there in September 2018 to spin off her own investment firm Bond Capital, all the while publishing the yearly report. This year she delivered the report in her usual rapid-fire style at Code Conference.

The earned media triggered by the report is phenomenal. A Google search of the 2019 slideshow turns up close to 17 pages of results. Follow-up articles have appeared on news sites, in business and investment mags, in tech and marketing blogs, in education, and fashion and beauty blogs, no less.

From whence does the enormous power of this humble slidedeck emanate?

A Google search of the 2019 slideshow turns up close to 17 pages of results.

Mary Meeker brings expertise to the fore

In our interview with LinkedIn’s Jon Lombardo and Peter Weinberg, the pair identified Meeker’s Internet Trends Report as one of the classic content “franchises” in finance – to use an idea borrowed from Hollywood. Except where Hollywood does entertainment blockbusters, Meeker does expertise – backed by tremendous credibility.

In her early years as a Wall Street analyst, she specialised in covering the personal computer and consumer software industries – from Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Adobe, Intuit, Electronic Arts, AOL, Netscape, Yahoo!, Amazon.com and VeriSign to eBay, Google and Alibaba.

She was lead manager for the initial public offering of Netscape Communications; and in 2004, served as research analyst when Morgan Stanley was lead manager for the initial public offering of Google. Ranked #8 in “The Top 100 Venture Capitalists” in 2019, Meeker also made The Midas List: Top Tech Investors 2019 – at number 8.

Getting the picture? She’s a visionary and a committed believer in the opportunities inherent in the Internet since earliest days.

Doing one thing well

So the expertise is unparalleled, but that’s not all she’s got. Meeker has restraint.

She could go all out and present 10 different content things a year, but instead she does one amazing thing in her own way. Much like Marvel pumps out its mega-successful, high-budget superhero films a few times a year, and Disney refines and reimagines its much-loved characters and stories, Meeker publishes her Internet Report.

And it rises above the noise and breaks through, like blockbusters often do.

Packaging up insights in new ways

One thing she’s not doing is basing it on her own research. As Lombardo and Weinberg point out, most of the report is based on third-party insights. What she does is package them up in a more interesting way, in effect becoming the de facto source of those insights. She’s “popularising ideas that aren’t well known” as they put it.

Things don’t need to be new to be of value. She, in fact, adds value to existing information through her own perspectives and ability to make connections.

That’s how she makes it essential reading for Silicon Valley. And how she’s built her own brand – the myth, along the way.

Lo-fi presentation to a fault

Meeker does not mince her words. There is no slick copywriting here. She uses shortcuts and abbreviations throughout the slides and expects everyone to understand them. She incorrectly uses ‘&’ instead of ‘and’ about 1,000 times.

There is no sophisticated graphic design. In fact, a French presentation designer, Emiland De Cubber, found her slides so “rough and busy” he visually reimagined her 2014 PowerPoint. His version with its subtle colours and visual hierarchy is certainly smoother and less busy.

Come to think of it, Meeker could really go to town on her report. It could be a graphically-rich PDF, or an interactive web presentation.

But there is great authenticity in the way she does it. You get the impression that she’s a no-nonsense, no-frills kind of person, whose time is better spent reading and passing insights onto clients than prettying up her presentations. The substance here is more important than the form. And that, apparently, is of great appeal to many.

Having confidence in your readers

While the Bond logo is at the head of the report, there are no self-serving paras in the report, trying to subtly work in a plug for the firm. The closest you get to a mention is the Thanks page at the start and the Disclaimer on the last slide.

Instead, the quality of Meeker’s insights reinforces her long standing expertise (and vice versa), which in turn reflects on her brand and her firm. She has the confidence that people will make this link.

If more brands mined their expertise to publish real insights and had the confidence their audience could put two and two together, financial content marketing would be a different beast.

Related articles

• Blockbuster marketing: what Disney can teach finance brands
• Blockbuster marketing: swap entertainment for expertise

The post Why Mary Meeker’s yearly report is a blockbuster hit appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Read part one of the interview here if you haven’t already – Blockbuster marketing: what Disney can teach finance brands.

How does an essentially non-creative, risk-averse industry like banking apply Hollywood principles to its content?

JL: A lot of the B2B examples we see – SalesForce, for example, does the State of Marketing every year, the State of Sales, the State of Customer Service; you have Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report – the idea is you borrow the franchise formula from Hollywood, but when you actually go to market with it, in the world of B2B and B2C it’s a little bit different.

Rather than entertainment like Hollywood, it’s expertise.

Do you need to have original insights to do blockbuster marketing well?

PW: If you look at Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report, very few of the things are original insights; a lot of it is third-party insights… There’s a misplaced understanding that everything you say has to be completely different from what everyone else is saying. I think it’s more about packaging up those insights in a more interesting way than others so you become the de facto source of those insights. So you’re popularising ideas that aren’t well known.

There’s a misplaced understanding that everything you say has to be completely different from what everyone else is saying.

JL: It doesn’t have to be a new idea, it just has to be a new idea for your audience. So if you find an idea that you’re compelled by, that’s very interesting and you reach your audience first with that idea, it’s a new idea to them.

It’s about: is it relevant to me? Is it helpful to me? Can I act on it? In general, the entire marketing, advertising, communications industry has what we call the “originality delusion” – the need for new ideas and new insights and new platforms. There’s very little evidence to support that’s where your audience is, especially with financial services, or that’s an effective place to go and market.

How does LinkedIn bring insights and data to help with blockbuster marketing?

PW: As an example, one of our first blockbuster clients is a healthcare provider. What we told them is really three things.

Broadly speaking, what are people interested in on the platform, what are professional audiences interested in? You start with very broad insights to deliver broadly relevant creative, and in this case, it turned out industry trends was the most popular type of content, i.e., what’s going on in my industry, what ideas can I use today to have a competitive edge.

So we decided to do a healthcare trends report. Then we drilled a little deeper to find out, ok, within the world of healthcare trends, there’s a lot you could potentially talk about – what trends should we focus on?

We essentially did a data analysis of what healthcare topics are popular on our platform, and it wasn’t sheer popularity, it was also engagement. Not just what are people talking about the most, but what was generating the most interest. And then we started to prioritise what wasn’t being talked about as frequently but was generating a lot of engagement on the platform.

We started with macro insight trends, and micro insights and we even started to look at specific articles within those trend sub-categories to figure out what the creative should really look like.

And that to us is a data-driven model of how you produce thought leadership. Look at companies like Amazon. When they decide what content to invest in, they’ll crunch the data and they’ll say ok, the most popular book we sell is Lord of the Rings, so we’re going to greenlight an enormous amount of money to bring Lord of the Rings to television.

JL: Netflix is the exact same way. Most people know this story but they looked at the data, and saw that people like Kevin Spacey, (who is now persona non grata, but was not at the time); people like the 80s show House of Cards; and they like shows that have big-name directors attached, so they got David Fincher.

You take three insights then you make a bet on those insights as being a way to take old insights and produce new creative. That’s how creative should work; it should be: here’s an old thing that we know works, that gives us the confidence to make a big bet. That was the second thing Netflix ever made and they wrote a $100M cheque to make it.

That’s how creative should work; it should be: here’s an old thing that we know works, that gives us the confidence to make a big bet.

Why does blockbuster marketing make sense in the financial sector?

PW: Our earliest clients to adopt blockbuster marketing were financial services, and one of the reasons why is running a brand newsroom is incredibly difficult in a highly-regulated industry – you can drive yourself insane running every micro piece of content through the legal department. So if you get one big piece of content, you can put it through the ringer, make sure it’s legally approved and then you can market that for an entire year so.

JL: In general, when we go in and talk to financial services companies they always apologise for how far behind the curve they are in marketing, but I would argue that’s a huge advantage. I think real-time marketing makes zero sense: companies spend a ton of money putting out Tweets that only last for three to six hours; if you look at the cost of production it’s an astronomical number.

We always talk about – you want all-time marketing which is what franchises are; not real-time marketing. Real-time marketing, if you do the math, is extraordinarily expensive. All-time marketing is an extraordinary advantage and opportunity for financial institutions.

PW: By being behind, they’re actually ahead.

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First things first, why blockbuster marketing?

PW: When marketers try to do something, they should just look at who does things better than anyone else. In the case of content, marketers are trying to produce high-quality content and trying to make money producing content, and the natural question is – who makes the most money producing content?

Ironically everyone’s looking at newspapers and trying to replicate the newspaper model but the people who are really making a killing in the entertainment and publishing space are not newspapers, they’re Hollywood studios or companies like Disney. So, that kinda tells you where to dig.

Where do you think financial brands (retail or institutional) commonly fall down in your experience?

PW: If you break blockbuster down into three things, it’s about making a very big bet on a small number of things, it’s about doing the same thing every single year, and it’s about doing that in as many formats and channels as you can possibly do it in. I think with financial services as with any marketers, they usually don’t do any of those three things.

First… people are scared to make big bets – there’s a misconception that making these small little bets in a million different places will somehow be safer than making big bets and it’s the opposite. What happens is the little things never rise above the noise and never break through.

Our industry is obsessed with creative fatigue; we fetishise new things, so the idea of doing the same thing every single year is like heresy to most marketers. People generally get paid to produce new stuff, or to make a splash by introducing new stuff; there’s no incentive for continuity, and for accessibility. There’s so much channel fragmentation – everyone thinks they need to design completely bespoke things for every little channel.

There’s also the idea of personalisation, which is trying to micro-target specific people with tiny micro pieces of content, and theoretically that’s supposed to deliver higher relevance. What happens is it delivers lower relevance because the data that feeds it in the first place wasn’t that good. It’s much easier to try to be broadly relevant to a huge number of people than micro relevant to a specific individual.

So basically a lot of trends in the industry are incentivising people not to do blockbuster, whether it’s real-time marketing or personalisation or hyper targeting. Everyone is telling people to do the opposite.

But isn’t the Hollywood model difficult too? Aren’t there lots of flops?

PW: I think there’s a misunderstanding of where the risk lies with this content. Even when you talk about Hollywood, a lot of people say, ok – but what about the movie John Carter, which was an enormous flop for Disney. Then they start to focus on the flops and they say: they make these big bets, sometimes they work sometimes they don’t. It’s not necessarily a model that works.

But honestly, you just need to look at the data and what you’ll see is that Hollywood ran essentially an AB test 10 years ago, where some executives decided to bet huge on a very few number of assets, and other people – because they had no idea what was gonna work, decided to diversify and make a lot of small bets on a lot of things. And what happened is, the blockbuster model – making huge bets, just absolutely crushed the other model to the extent it almost doesn’t exist any more. That’s why you keep seeing the same movies made every single year, which people bemoan but that’s what’s proven to be profitable.

There are flops, but the hits end up making up so much money that the flops essentially don’t matter.

What’s really risky is not making big bets; making small bets is essentially guaranteeing failure. And marketers need to start to understand that.

What’s really risky is not making big bets; making small bets is essentially guaranteeing failure. And marketers need to start to understand that.

Yes, maybe it’s less of an upfront commitment to be writing a lot of little articles all the time and running a brand newsroom, but when you realise that essentially none of that stuff is ever going to break through, it’s a far, far riskier model.

JL: Marketing has been a huge flop, it continues to be a flop because I would argue, whatever the strategy marketing uses today, if you basically choose the opposite strategy you’d be right. And that’s the truth about marketing.

PW: Something is fundamentally broken; all you need to do is look at what everyone is doing to get these suboptimal results, and to Jon’s point, figure out, ok, what could you do which is essentially the opposite of this, or extremely different and that leads you to blockbusters essentially or lots of different strategies that just take the opposite side of the consensus of opinion in marketing.

What about distribution?

JL: Franchises are important but you have to pair them with great distribution. Too many people spend too much money on creative and not enough money on distribution. That needs to be in a better balance.

People don’t want to spend money and if no-one tells them they have to spend money, that “it’s all free on the internet” you know, that’s just garbage, it’s just not true.

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