Alright. Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Zoltick. I am the director of marketing at Storyblocks. Storyblocks is a stock media subscription service aimed at helping creators and bit and businesses create better video content faster than ever. We do this by offering an unlimited access to an exceptional stock library plug ins that integrate directly into your editing software, saving you time, and the best legal coverage in the business. So if you're interested in Storyblocks, head to Storyblocks.com. I'm joined today by Matt Whittington, who is the senior director of truly hard seltzer and the twenty twenty two ad age brand marketer of the year. Matt is an expert at leveraging, creativity and cultural connection through video to help brands shift their brand perception and drive revenue. Before working for Truly, he also worked on Sam Adams and was a key architect in the year cousin from Boston campaign which was very successful. It shifted a five year trend in declining beer sales in a very crowded craft beer segment. And also doubled the number of young drinkers for Sam Adams, as well as created a ton of online buzz. So Matt is an expert excited to have you here, Matt. Today, we're gonna talk a little bit about how to leverage video as an incredibly powerful tool to define your brand to understand when your brand and your audience might be misaligned and how to course correct that, as well as how to create smart creative, video creative that helps drive revenue. So before we begin a couple of ground rules, you can submit questions at any time through the Q and A tab. So if you have questions for Matt or myself, feel free to add them there. If there's any questions around Storyblocks, our team will try and answer them live as well. We won't answer questions until after the conversation we have. So we'll get to a q and a section at the end, but we'll try to get to as many of your questions as we can. And then lastly, a recording of today's webinar will be shared afterwards. So you can watch this on demand or, share it with your peers or coworkers. So, but thank you so much for being here live with us. And let's jump in. Our first topic we're gonna talk to today is determining if your brand and audience are misaligned. So I'll start a little bit broader than that though, Matt. Do you wanna just tell me a little bit about what you do and what your role is focused on at severe. Yeah. Sure. And, thanks for having me on Lauren. Hey, everybody. I'm Matt Whittington, senior director of truly heart seltzer. So I I get to do a bit of everything. I am responsible for truly positioning for, strategy, integrated communications, development, product strategy, you name it. I get to be a part of it. So, it really blends sort of the both the art and science of brand building. And, I love what I do, and that's been, you know, my whole career and brand has been spent in the food and beverage space, leading, challenger brands. It's a fun space to be in. Alright. So you were sort of charged with helping reverse this five year trend in declining sales. Where did your team start with diagnosing that problem? Yeah. Well, anytime you're working on a, you know, you're, going to embark on a brand renovation, I think making sure that you're getting the right diagnosis and the right problem is really important. So, we spent a lot of time upfront, in a really deep dive And the gold error was really for us to make sure that we understood and can articulate, you know, a really accurate view of the health of the brand, and a very honest view of the deficits that we just needed to take into consideration as we started to think about how we wanted to build the brand going forward in different strategies. So we spent a lot of time. It started with, you know, understanding the consumer, understanding the category, and our place in their minds as it related to those things. And, you know, it included also looking at where the brand had been in the past. So I think for, you know, any brand renovation where you're working on a brand that, you know, once had great cultural relevance, you're really also looking back in time to say, you know, where where we when we were most relevant, what, you know, equities did we build at the time and how of those equities changed, you know, over time and and where we are today. So started with that deep dive, I think really making sure you're asking the right questions and you're solving the right, deficits. It's just such a critical initial step to get right in any renovation effort. What are what are some of the factors that go into, creating this sort of misalignment or misperception between an audience and a brand? I mean, I think there are a bunch of reasons. You know, I I've thought a lot about this and we we talked about this before, but I I think it's you know, when when a brand is first started, and let's just say it grows into, you know, having cultural relevance, it's usually because there was a pretty distinct proposition and a really well defined point of view. And, you know, most of the time, sort of the loss of that relevance doesn't really happen overnight. It's it's sort of slow and it's gradual. And it can be, you know, it can be due to a number of factors Like, you could be focused on short term results and maybe you're focused more on, sort of the functional relevance of your brand and you're kind of losing sight of the social and cultural relevance. It just sort of erodes over time at those equities that you had spent, so much time doing in the beginning and the success that you would build. So think it ends up being sort of slow and gradual. It usually is because you've kind of misaligned your brand to culture and you've sort of missed the prevailing cultural codes that are starting to emerge just as time evolves. So that that for me, I think, is is in a lot of instances when you go from being a very strong brand to then sort of losing that edge, becoming more of a vanilla brand. It's it's usually because you've lost, like, the social and cultural relevance, of your brand. And it doesn't mean that you can't get it back. It just it starts with the awareness of you know, where has culture gone? How are we aligned to it or misaligned to it? And what's timeless and true about our brand that we can bring back into this new cultural context as a way to, you know, reconnect with our audience and drive relevance again. You talked a little bit about, you know, making sure you're starting with solving the right problem and and asking the right questions. Once you've sort of identified what the problem is that you're trying to solve, where what are sort of the first steps where do you begin and how do you get alignment as a team? Yeah. Well, how you get to those challenges, you know, first understanding your audience. And I and I think no matter what the situation, whether you're innovating a brand, it was once relevant and and now isn't, or you're working on a new brand, I mean, it really does the the two core things to figure out are, really understanding your audience and how they see you. Not how you think that they see you. Right. And then really understanding your brand. And it's about how do I make what needs can we most credibly serve? How do we make this brand, as relevant to this audience and as compelling to this audience today? As possible. And, you know, when you when you get into that, like, the the type of work and the types of things that you're doing to get to those types of insights, you know, our much more ethnographic work. It's going, you know, deeper. Usually, you know, observations or data alone is not gonna, you know, tell you who these people are at a human level, and it actually takes kind of going deep, talking to people who say, love you the most, document people who you're not for, you know, finding those tensions in the super fans and anti fans of your brand. Like, that's where you spend that initial time. So that you can really get to an actual insight that's meaningful, that can then lead to things like, you know, great creative briefs, great strategic briefs, and start to serve as a filter for decision making. So I, like, I can't stress enough how important this upfront piece is and really understanding what it is that you're solving for, because that's where then you can apply, you know, great strategic thinking, great creative thinking, and you can make an impact. But if but if you sort of miss that initial step, which is heavily audience consumer brand driven. You're just gonna be doing a lot of work you're put a lot of things out into the world that aren't sort of grounded in what you're trying to achieve as a brand. Let's hop into our next topic the power of video marketing to either define or redefine your brand. A lot of the campaign work that you've done and and just general framework that you've done for for in your orchard, for truly, for same items, has really centered around video. Why have you and your team chosen to leverage video in order to be a catalyst for shifting some of that brand perception. Yeah. Great question. And I think something that, advice or a question that was posed from a media perspective years ago that I've always found really helpful is what job are you hiring the medium to do. And for us, we were hiring that medium to do two things. One, we wanted to get attention. Like, we were fighting invisibility, indifference, you know, we've just sort of become of a vanilla. So one was we needed to get attention. And the second was we needed to connect with people emotionally. We didn't need to make them think. We needed to make them feel. So when you think about those two jobs, one, sort of get attention to, make people feel something. You know, it it then leads you then to say, okay. Well, what's the right medium? To solve this need. And for us, that was clearly video, when we think about driving affinity connecting with an audience, It would say that based on the jobs that we needed to do, that video was the right way, to think about that as kind of the centerpiece of our plan. So you have video. How did your team figure out what channels they wanted to leverage to reach the target audiences? Yeah. I mean, then it really became, you know, about our target audience and and where they were. And, you know, one of the things we thought about was if you think about, okay, we have an audience, we have a message, then what are the pipes to reach that audience with that message? And each of those pipes come with some nuances of creative best practice, whether it's, say, online video or social video, versus FEP streaming. You name it. But for us, we thought about it as where is our audience? How do we create the right message and deliver it optimized through, those channels to make sure that we engage them. And that's really what led us there. So it was very audience driven. It was just about figuring out how do we match, you know, the audience, the message, and then optimize through through channels. And based on where our audience was, I mean, you know, we're talking to a pretty broad audience of beer drinkers. You know, obviously, Everybody's on social. So social video was a big piece. But so was, online video and even TV, but we're we're important tools there. As well. So before going to market, did your team do any testing? And then once you were in market live with the content, what kind of testing and optimization was being done? Yeah. I mean, you know, pre, pre production post production testing, both, you know, qualitative and quantitative. And then there's, you know, ongoing measurement and and optimization. And I know we chatted about this, you know, a bit before, but I think as much as the testing was an important tool to make sure we were on the right track. Like, sort of the art and the science comes in. I mean, it helped in form our decision making. It didn't solely, you know, it wasn't like insert creative on the other side. We had a research readout score and select idea. I think there was, a bit of creative judgment in there too, especially for some of the, maybe, the bigger swings. But, yeah, for us, it was just a constant, you know, iterate learn, optimize, iterate learn optimize. We were in a loop where we started to really understand, you know, what type of content did our audience wanna see, what drove the highest engagement? How do we think about you know, fresh ways to to bring that to life, across different platforms, different channels. Yeah. It makes total sense. I think regardless of how much testing you do, the best content always, you you just never know a hundred percent. And some of the best content I feel like always gives you a little bit of, I think you said this anxiety before it goes out regardless of of how much testing has gotta do it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, anytime you're going to, take a bigger swing and, you know, take a bolder approach. If you're, you know, taking the bigger swing, like, you you do get that, like, nervous excitement. Before you put that idea out into the world. And if everything is is comfortable and that you're never getting that feeling, then you're you may not be you know, sort of pushing it far enough in in tonality or, sort of how big your idea is if it doesn't make you nervous every now and then. So But that's where, like, you know, between our team, and obviously behind all of this was, you know, Goodby Silverstein, who's amazing creative partners, but we felt like we were just one team when we took those swings, we took them together. And, you know, it's something that you've gotta get alignment on, and and everybody's gonna, you know, take the the leap of faith together. So Yep. So why do you think that the your cousin from Boston campaign resonated and and really worked to shift the perception of Sam Adams. I mean, I think he, I think he just demonstrates, you know, the power not only of creativity, but really understanding your brand. And I think, you know, when we looked at what made the brand relevant and sort of timeless, it was always this, like, fun loving, sort of rebellious brand with it, which is this really fun spirit. And we felt like he was, you know, the embodiment of what had always been true about the brand, and he was, you know, a beer lover at heart. And, you know, it just felt like a very distinctive ownable way to bring the brand and introduce it to new people, especially for, you know, the next generation of of drinkers. So, you know, I think he demonstrates, like, the power of a fluent brand device. And, you know, some, like, self awareness, self deprecating humor, you know, like, I think there's some self awareness in, how we how we brought him to life. And you could just tell that people enjoyed, you know, he was funny, power of humor is real, and, people just enjoyed seeing him. And I think, you know, anytime that you can, you know, introduce your brand to someone through humor, creativity, and just fun, which was something that, you know, sits at the heart of beer. I think that's what made him so effective. Throughout this campaign, the team has produced really strong, both paid in organic content. So how did you think about how those two areas play together? What did what did you kinda like learn from both? What was that? Well, I think he said it. Like, they they they play together. So you know, we thought about paid as a as the main way to introduce the brand to new drinkers and to bring it to people who are less familiar with the brand today. We thought about organic as a way to to build a community to engage our fans and to, you know, sort of bring them on the inside of things that we were doing. So for us, it was a balance, and that's where, you know, we always try to think about it as, you know, optimize each channel for what it does best. And for us in paid video, we thought did best as a way to sort of reintroduce the brand drive appraisal. But from an organic standpoint, just wanted to build a community of fun loving deer lovers. And, we wanted to make sure that they felt heard. We heard their voice. You know, we can think of several times where we brought back certain products because, our fans, you know, asked us to. And I think that's where we just really tried to build a community and a and a brand that, you know, people wanted to be part of. Yeah. Alright. We're gonna hop into our third topic, leveraging video marketing to drive revenue. A lot of times when, brands are experiencing either a revenue decline or a gap from projections, a lot of marketing teams will focus on sort of bottom of the funnel. So like search or, focused on CRO. With Sam, you really focused on top of funnel and and and the brand perception and brand awareness goals that your team had. Why did your team make that decision? Yeah. I mean, I I think we looked at it as sustained. Well, first of all, I mean, we're a challenger brand. Right? We're a much smaller brand in the in the world of beer. So we don't have the biggest budget, which is actually fun because it puts, a lot of emphasis on understanding your audience, being really creative and finding ways to engage them beyond just, you know, paying for it. When I think about the decision to focus on brand building, I think that's, like, the only way that you can really build sustained, brand value is through building these perceptions and investing in creating a brand that people wanna buy into before they just buy into your your products. And and, you know, they they do go hand in hand. It's, you know, it's not a hundred percent one and zero the other. But we tried to balance that, but we really wanted to invest in, you know, building a brand that had staying power that, we could sustain into the future for the next generation of of craft drinkers. And then that that led us to more long term decision making. And just to kind of, like, connect you know, this is pretty far down the process now to connect that back to the to the very beginning of where we started. Like, that was the mindset and the mentality that we took in, which was, you know, we're here to build a brand. We want to invest in building that brand. We need to understand our audience we need to understand what has always been true and incredible about this brand, and let's find ways to renovate it and make it relevant, to today. So it it is this like full cycle from that very first brand diagnosis to this sort of longer term. Okay. Now you've actually done the work. It's out there. And you continue investing in it. So, why do you think that brand perception, and brand relevance is so tied to revenue? I I just think, you know, depending on the category you're in, unless, unless you have incredibly superior functional product, that, you know, no one is even close to. In most products, in most categories, there's not that much differentiation. You know, it's it's you can be a high quality brand. There are a lot of high quality brands. There are a lot of creative brands. Like, I think building a strong brand is you know, there's more importance on that now than ever. And, you know, if you look at the most successful brands in any category, they have a very strong brand identity. Generally. And that's, not a coincidence. So, I think they go they go hand in hand, and I think you just have to balance you know, building your brand for the long term, you know, driving results for the near term, and you're always just doing your best, to try to strike the right balance. How do you feel like video played a role in that revenue shift in the the decline in sales and shifting to having growth there? Yeah. I I played a huge role. I mean, you know, when you think about, again, the jobs that we were trying to to do, we wanted to get people's attention. We wanted them to feel something connect to the brand. Video is a central part of that. You know, when I think about, the role of our campaign, you know, we wanted to see that we could start to sort of make it back into culture again and and just be part of the cultural conversation, which is you know, maybe a a a KPI that some people would overlook. But, you know, whether we were we had spoofed by S and L, we were, you know, talked about, you know, Jimmy Fallon, which about us on late night and things that we were doing. And I think those for us were just good signs that people were connecting with the creative work that we were putting out in the world that was getting attention it was talk worthy. It, you know, it was buzzworthy. And, you know, that that opens the door to be able to then engage you know, people on a on a deeper level. So I think there's just tremendous value video played in that role for us. And and you can see that Now if you think of other, you know, probably favorite brands in other categories, I think they are all leveraging video in, interesting and creative ways. To drive attention. I think, you know, liquid death does, an amazing job of that. I'm a big fan of watching what they create and and they leverage video heavily too. So you know, whether a big brand, a smaller brand, video is a is a powerful tool to to connect with your audience. If you if I force your hand a little bit, if you had to pick, like, a piece of creative or an engagement with a fan, like, one sort of core part of the your cousin from Boston campaign that really felt like it it was like that moment where you're like, oh, this is working. What would that be? Okay. I'll give you that one if I can add one other one that has nothing to do actually with him and was just, a great sort of brand social first idea. I'll I'll I'll give you two. So, the first one, you know, for me, I think some of the work we did around the Super Bowl is some of, my proudest work that I was a part of with, you know, the the team, on Sam and and our partners, it it could be. You know, we started to figure out what drove engagement with our character. And, we had a Super Bowl spot where he, took a job at Boston Dynamics who's a big, you know, innovative robotics company here in Boston. And, system one who measures advertising effectiveness had us as the most effective Super Bowl out of twenty twenty two, which was just a huge moment of pride for our team. And it broke through, and it was topical, and it was fun, and it was engaging. And, you know, it was exactly what you'd expect. He, you know, gets a job at Boston Dynamics and then bonds with robots partying and having some some beers. But I think just, you know, anytime that You know, again, we're a small brand. Right? So, like, we're not gonna buy everybody's attention. So the things that I'm proudest of are the times when we didn't have the biggest budget, but we had a great creative idea that people connected with. And I think that was probably a great example. I'll tell you just very quickly. Another one totally different had nothing to do with the cousin, but just had to do with the brand. Our, team on social and actually our consumer relations team got a call, about a woman named grandma Jean, And she was a a huge Sam Adams fan. Every day, she had, one Boston lager, like, out of her freezer. She liked it at a particular temperature. And it was, like, her ninety third birthday. And, we went all out for Gramma Jean. We actually created, Gramma Jean's own, Boston Logger. We did, like, custom bottle for her, her own custom case. And, you know, we sent her just like this amazing sort of birthday kit from the brand. And then we documented it and we're able to share it. And I think, you know, it's one person who, you know, we paid attention to. She's a big fan of the brand. We surprised her. We delighted her. She never expected it. It was such an amazing moment, and it was just part of us, building our community of fans where you know, the team did an amazing job of, like, listening, looking out for these types of things, and then just finding, like, really fun creative ways that are on the other end of the spectrum. Right? It's not it's not super bowl ad. This was this was us, you know, printing some things custom for her and and doing some some pretty scrappy things. As another way just to build that community and and advocacy. So and I got both ends of the spectrum of, like, pride in each of them for, you know, for for different reasons, but we're both, you know, very cool moments to be able to Yeah. Execute for our fans. I love that. Gramma Jean. Alright, we're gonna drop into jump into our fourth topic, which is maintaining brand perception, and what's next? But I wanna ask following up from what you just talked about. How how do you think about customers versus communities when it comes to the brands that you work on? Yeah. I I I think, you know, it is it is about communities for sure. And and I think we we always try to keep our core audience in mind, and how do we like rock that core audience, you know, on the regular. And it comes from listening and engaging them and, you know, bringing them in and making them a part of your of your brand. And truly, we just, brought back truly Rose. It was a style that existed years ago. It got discontinued, for various reasons. And then, our fans, like any post it'll be like, bring back Rosay. Bring back Rosay. So we're like, hey, if we're gonna build a community, you know, we're we're really listening to our fans and, we're advocating for them, then we should bring them back even if in a limited way, this product. So we just we just brought it back. We actually did a whole, out of home campaign with some of the, craziest, social media comments that our fans have made, and and just how far they would go to get truly Rose back we brought it back. It just drove great engagement. Our fans were thrilled. I think it just demonstrated that, you know, the team did an awesome job of of listening to our biggest fans and, you know, being able to bring that back for them was was a very cool moment. So we really do think about it as as community building. We think about it, you know, from a value standpoint too, you know, like partnerships, we look for a strong alignment in, you know, our brand values, the values of our of our fans and the values of that partner. And and when those things, align, then you've got, you know, an amazing partnership that makes sense. So we try to keep them, front and center and and see our job as being advocates for them, like, just inside the walls of our company. And as we're talking to partners, like, we really do try to make sure that, we're always advocating on behalf of our, our community. And and our goal is just day in day. I'll continue to grow that community and and bring people into a brand that they wanna be part of. Yeah. I mean, I've I've worked at storyblocks for about four years now. And truly, I think the most effective campaigns that we've done have all been driven by fan or audience, insights. You know, the the first one I'm thinking of is like we did this campaign called Reast, really an initiative called restock where we heard from our audience that, stock media in general was not diverse or representative enough of marginalized communities. And so we hired, creators from marginalized communities to create content to fill sort of the gaps in our library and make sure that we had content that was representative of everyone. And I I think truly that's one of the most successful campaigns, we've run, and it was just all based on audience. And even this year, we launched, like, DaVinci Resolve templates because we heard from our audience that they were using that tool a lot more. So I totally I love that. I think it's not just about creating a community. It's about listening to them and engaging with them and and really, you know, wrapping your product up for them in in a lot of ways. So clearly the the work that you've done has been really successful. And effective, how do you sustain, you know, that brand perception? We talked a little bit about, like, how those misalignments grow. How do you make sure that that doesn't happen, as as you, you know, go forward? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it's a challenge. Right? None of this is easy and and by the way, I don't have all the answers. And and I think the fun part about what we do is nobody does, you know, we're all just, trying to learn and and do the best. But if we keep the audience in mind, I think that's what keeps us you know, grounded every day and and the most likely to succeed. So I I think for us, you know, having, a very simple articulation of who work for and the needs that we serve for them and then how we, you know, do or do not approach serving those needs, is just very helpful and important. And everybody who, you know, we all, in any organization, like everybody is a brand builder. You know, we have, no matter the function, like, you all play a role in building a brand, and the clarity I found is just so critical, for everybody to understand who your audience is, what you do for them, what your brand does, how you show up in the world. And I think we have tried to, always have that great foundation. And, we try to really make sure that we bring the consumer into the room, bring the brand into the room, like, every single time we're having discussions about, you know, any, like, different actions because, you know, can I get going back to, like, focusing on the audience? You know, if you sort of skip that brand diagnosis or you do it as kind of like, oh, I think it's this and let's just kinda run with this creative approach, you're you're missing out on the strength that comes from that insight, your position really being able to drive, like, every action. Like, when I think about, you know, when we're at our best. It's because everything is, you know, laddering up to to the brand that we wanna be for our, for our audience. And, you know, it impacts everything from experiences, to promotions, to, product innovation, definitely to you know, media and and brand communication. So, I think it's that. And then it's just keeping your eyes open to what's going on in the world and just, like, being very realistic about what people are going through and trying to take that empathy and understanding, and not trying to, like, put too much, happiness and shine on it. Right? Like, the world can be a heavy place. And the ability to recognize that and look at your audience as, you know, not just like this happy persona on a page, but somebody that, you know, has a lot of stuff going on in their life, I think is just important. And if you can kinda just, like, keep the pulse on culture and have a really strong understanding of your brand, then I think you're just better equipped at being able to kinda navigate that landscape. So speaking of keeping the pulse on landscape. What are your predictions for what's next in the world of video marketing? Oh, great question. I so I I think content is going to become more important than ever. And I don't know if we're already at the point where content is even more important than channel, but I just think as we look to the future for the bar for getting somebody's attention, is just gonna continue to go higher and higher. And when you just think about, the next generations of, you know, drinkers, consumers who are and, like, coming up, just their scrutiny of, you know, the visual aesthetic of content creation. It it is just so much more innate that I think it just raises the bar. Like, your competition is not, the next closest brand. In your category. Like, your competition is like the billion things that people could see, any day that they're constantly bombarded with when it comes to video. So I think my prediction is is just that, strong brands will stand out. I think having a very clear brand identity, I think you you've already can see especially you know, almost with each generation. The brands that they are most favorable, favorable about are the ones that have the strongest brand identity. So think it puts, even more emphasis on knowing your audience, knowing your brand, and then anything you create and put out in the world, I just think that bar is gonna continue to go up and up. Every year. I saw this. I'm throwing you a little bit of purple, but I saw this question in the chat. People were talking about, their favorite brands. And since you're about the ones with the strongest identities. Do you have any specific ones that you'd call out? Of brands? Well, I'm okay. I mentioned I mentioned liquid death earlier. You know, I just think they do an incredible job. And, you know, there's there's so much, like, talk of, being bold and unapologetic, like, that gets thrown around, I think, a lot in our in our industry. And very few brands probably live up to that. And the ones that do, I think, probably come top of mind, like, the Patagonias of the world. Like, the the brands that have that strong identity, and are just like this is who we are. This is what we believe. For me, liquid death is is just such a brave and fun brand. And they have built an incredible community, of people who, you know, appreciate their reverence and, their creativity. Right. So to me, I think that they are always somebody that I look forward to seeing in my feed. Or to reading about whatever fun, creative idea that they that they're doing. And and they're just they're unconventional. And I think you know, you just continue to see brands that are bold enough to be unconventional in their categories are the ones that, you know, get their unfair, share of attention. Yeah. All of that. So a a lot of comments, from the in the chat as well about favorite flavors truly and, and Sam Adams, as a truly consumer, can you share a little bit more about what's next for the brand? Oh, yeah. So we've got I know we've got a lot of fun things planned. You know, first from a communication standpoint, we just an awesome new campaign, called keep it light. And, you know, it just really taps into how, our fans see the brand and see the role of our brand in their life. And, you know, we always felt like truly was this really fun creative brand and each, you know, message that you see from us from with Keep and Light has that fun creative twist. So that's out there now. It's been it's been really well received so far. We've got some really fun innovations coming too. We've always been this innovative category, brand in the in the seltzer category. But we found a way to bring even more newness in, in a way that our fans have appreciated. We have a rotating pack that changes every, you know, four months for bringing something new. So we just launched it, last week. It's called Getaway. Very cool going back to the community piece. Our fans actually help us name the styles in that in that pack. So you'll see, you know, tropic like it's hot, you know, mountain paradise, It's some really fun transportive names because I think, you know, after you get through the holidays, especially if you're, you know, in a cold weather climate, everybody's kinda, like, desperate to get away. I think this is, you know, you're gonna take your taste buds on the, on on a little travel experience through this pack. So that just launched, it's gonna be really fun. We've also got a couple new products rolling out at the start of the year that, we're really excited about and our fans, have loved every time we put it in front of them. So got a lot coming on the comm side. We got a lot coming on the product side. Right. That, you know, that, you know, I think the team's done a great job of just understanding our our fans and know, finding fun, creative ways to grant the light for them. Awesome. That's so exciting. I will ask you with my my always and my last question, before we hop into the Q and A, which is if you can leave the group with one piece of advice from today, what would it be? Okay. So the b b bold, you know, we talked about this before, and I said to to Lauren, like, you know, b bold is so cliche in marketing now, but but I think a really honest version of Be bold is is my advice. Like, when I think about, you know, any brands that are standing out, It it's it's being bold, but, like, all rooted in understanding your brand and your audience. So if you've done that work and then you really know who your fans are, and you really understand your brand. Then, yeah, be bold, invest in building your brand, be bold about how you do it, when I think about, you know, the things that really broke through and we're talk worthy, they are those things that, you know, made us maybe a little bit nervous, but it's worth it. And I think, you know, liquid Debt is a brand that's bold regularly. And then it just becomes the more you do it, the more comfortable you are operating that way, and the more it's what people expect. So You know, I think the real risk is if you sort of play it safe and you're like, hey, you know, it's gonna be a fastball down the middle on this one, I think the hidden risk in all of this is that you play it safe and you get ignored. And you've spent the money, you've spent your resources. Yep. And what you've gotten back is actually indifference. Like, very rarely I mean, it happens, but rarely is it, like, so strongly negative. I think the What happens most of the time is you put something out that isn't sort of breakthrough, and you've spent the money to just sort of have it, you know, drift away in the sea of all the other content that's that's out there. So, you know, rooted in a understanding of your consumer and and your brand. But as you bring it to life creatively, take the risk. It's worth it. I love that. Alright. We're we're gonna hop into the q and a before we do, a quick, PSA. Our next webinar is January seventeenth at one PM eastern. It's with Kaya, YuriF of the information. She's a creative economy reporter, and we're gonna be talking about how to grow your business with b to b influencer marketing. So very excited for that. If you wanna register or want to watch any of these other webinars or more, content from storyblocks, You can head to storyblocks dot com slash resources. That's where this one will be on demand as well, tomorrow. And then the rest of them are are there as well. But let's hop into the q and a. We got some great questions. Alright. And I'll try to get to as many of them as possible. There's a lot. The Jimmy Fallon example, this is from Olivia. Did you set out to get earned media? Did you involve the PR team in the creative process and decisions, or did it just happen as a result good creative. Yeah. Great question. The answer is both. In the Jimmy Fallon example, it was just organic. Like, spontaneously, we we didn't know And in that scenario, you just wanna react in a really fun, way for your fans, He was, I think that Kammo was something about Sam, came out with a new beer called, like, bittersweet tears. We had no idea he was gonna say that come up with that, but within a day, our team had, like, actually created, what that packaging would look like. And we had it just, like, out on social media and our fans thought it was really fun. And I think we even, printed some out and sent sent some to to Jimmy. So I think in those moments, you're just trying to capitalize on, you know, that organic dimension and try to make the most of it. But, yeah, I mean, we would we would always think about, like, how do we generate, you know, more buzz in an earned way. And our, you know, when I say that, like, it's it's one team, you know, when I who was around the table was was everybody. It's, you know, PR, it's creative team, it's brand team, it's everybody just operating as as one and thinking about what are, you know, fun and creative ways to tap into culture. In a way that, you know, is relevant and interesting to our to our audience. So there there were definitely moments where We did that, and then there were other moments where we were reacting to that happening. Like, an example where we did that was we were able to, back when, you know, like everybody was going out or space. It's probably, like, two years ago now. What a sentence? You know, all the above all the people go to Ford to go to outer space or go to outer space. And, some hops ended up making their way. Up into outer space. And we were able to to get our hands on them and partner with the people who did this, but we were like, what if we made a beer, you know, thinking about how do we bring, like, fun and interesting beers to, like, everybody. We're like, man, what if we got these hops and we just created a a beer and people got to actually taste a beer that was made with, space hops So we created this beer called Spacecraft. And that was like a, you know, we didn't make it we couldn't make a ton of x. There wasn't a lot, but that was a play where we made that with the intention of, you know, generating, you know, some PR and some some buzz, among our fans. So so there were there would be times where you know, we'd be focused on how do we create something, but a lot of it just became how do we react to and embrace sort of what's happening organically. Yeah. Alright. This is a question from Christina. I often struggle to determine who my audience actually is without being so broad. What are some of the tools or questions you ask yourself to help determine and pinpoint who your audience is? Yeah. Great question. I mean, I think the best thing to do if you've, you know, especially this is the beauty of having, community on social media or, you know, if if you're a brand that already exists, I think there's power in talking to the people who are already, you know, part of your brand, whether they're your followers or they're just users of your brand, like, go talk to them. And you can learn a lot in how they see you, what your meaning is to them today. And then you can figure out, is, you know, from a needs attitudes motivation standpoint. Like, is this a need we can serve more broadly? And how do we how do we do this for more people? Usually, there's always a truth in there that you know, may surprise you sometimes. Like, there's something already that maybe you haven't even been consciously aware of that you've put out there that has attracted somebody to your brand and you're serving a need. I think start start with the people who are already engaging with your brand, and you'll learn something that can inform them how you figure out, you know, new audiences to reach. I love that too. Alright, this question is from John. He's a filmmaker and is produced smaller market ads for local businesses and products products and services. What's the best strategy to break into creating content for larger brands? Great question. I think, you know, it depends on, like alright. The hard part, I think, is there's just so many people who are willing to help, and you do get, like, flooded with a lot of, whether it's emails, calls, LinkedIn messages. I think the ones that are probably the most effective, either already have an idea of that they wanna bring you in on, like a great creative idea will always usually grab someone's attention, or it's it's really just finding ways to to make personal connections. Like, I think, you know, brands will put r f, you know, RFPs out into the world when they're, you know, actively looking for help. But I find usually a great creative idea, that has the potential to grab someone's attention, could be an interesting way in. You know, it doesn't have to be fully fleshed up, but just something that demonstrates like, oh, wow, this person's really put some thought into this. And, I could see how this could really benefit our audience if we went in this direction. So you've gotta do a bit of kinda your own, guesswork, I guess, to do that. But if you're creatively oriented and you have a vision, I would say share the vision. Alright. So there's a couple questions around this. I'm gonna do my best to sort of, like, sustainably summarize them. One from Christina, one from Chuck, But, essentially, what they're asking is, if you're trying to convince either like a new client or when you're pitching yourself, to invest in video, Where are you finding some of, like, the statistics or kind of arguments you make to invest in video? Like, how how should they approach that in in their pitch? Yeah. I mean, they're, you know, well, let's see. Let me back up a little. I think if you're already pitching video, I think then you've already sort of determined going back to that whole jobs to be done piece. Right? Like, if you're if you're pitching video, it's because there's a job that you need video to do. So I think the more you can frame it up in the, you know, this is who, our brand is, is who our audience is. These are the jobs that we need to do. This is why video is the solution, to that. And then we know the power of I I think most people understand the power of, of video hopefully, but I I would frame it up within, the jobs to be done. And I think there's there's plenty of research out there, that shows the importance of video, the importance in overall marketing effectiveness of, like, content and channel. So I think there's there's more than enough building for, like, data and, you know, empirical evidence. I think it's all there. But I think it's just connecting it back to what is the brand trying to achieve? What are the biggest opportunities? Am I this video, the solution to those? Or an important part of the motion to those. Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna ask two more questions. This one is from Stavro. Can you talk more about how your team tactically tested for customer engagement and return on investment for the creative and video content you produced? Yeah. I mean, you know, in terms of tactical testing, you know, we we leverage, external partners. I mean, we work with system one. To help us, you know, both premium and post production testing. And then, you know, in industries where, you know, especially in consumer packaged goods, you know, whether it's beer or, other categories, you know, offline sales are a big part of sales. So that is sort of the, you know, connecting those dots and being able to tangibly tie, you know, advertising exposure to actual in store behavior is definitely something that a lot of people in the industry are trying to work on, but, you know, there are ways that we can actually with with pretty high confidence, know that somebody has either seen our creative or not, and whether they ultimately purchase the brand or not and and what they did per your post. So, there were ways where we would we would look at it that we felt confident, that we were moving the needle. And that and that's in terms of you know, sales, but we're also measuring those things in terms of, brand perceptions to of people who had, seen our, advertising verse, versus not. Were there any, specific tools or things that you did to to measure the the brown perception? I mean, again, work with research partners to, understand, you know, among those. And and some of it, you know, you have to also figure out sort of, like, correlation or causation of, like, you know, have you seen it because you're more familiar or familiar because you've seen it, but, yeah, we were able to to to utilize research partners to help us understand that. Alright. Last question. Someone's from Chuck. How would you approach, creating video for small local brands as opposed to brands that are more well known across the world. Yeah. Great question. We actually have we work with, something that I'm really proud to be associated with at Boston Bears, during the American dream program. So we help, small businesses to succeed through, you know, coaching and, you know, even through, through micro loans. And, I think the thing that I've learned, you know, that we've learned the most there is, you know, really, again, understanding who your audience is and and being distinctive, like, you have, the advantage there is that you're even that much closer to your core, consumer or your core audience. You know, there are different ways into that in terms of your, like, very local and hyper local relevance. And I think the brands that I've seen succeed the most, you know, in in the program and just in general as far as small local businesses, they've found really creative ways to, like, very authentically and organically engage the community. And they have been embraced by the community as as part of that. So I think it's still in some ways the same fundamentals apply, but I think that there's an opportunity if you really wanna, being green in a in a very authentic way to that community. Like, trying to think of some examples. But, you know, whether it's, you know, not just charity donations, but it's also just being really tapped into the local culture and what's you know, what's happening, and, you know, in, in LA. I know we have some LA friends on the line. I remember, there was, like, a cougar or something that was, like, roaming the streets of, LA. It was, like, p fifty two or p ninety two or something was this, like, Bobcat or Cooper's name, and, it was a very topical conversation. I know some brands there even tapped into that and made special products in support of that animal and things. So there were ways that they were giving back to the community that again, we're really tapping into, like, very locally what was happening. So so I think it's kind of kind of same principles, but just that even more like hyper local level. Hyper focused. Yeah. I love that. Alright. So those are all of our questions. Matt, thank you so much. I just wanted to thank everyone for joining. And, Matt, thank you for all the incredible insight. Just a reminder, please join us on January seventeenth at one for our next webinar around b to b influencer marketing. You can register at storyblocks dot com slash resources. And, thank you all so much. It was such a pleasure. Have a great holiday. Thanks for having me, Lauren. Thanks everybody. Bye, everyone.
