Tag: Brand Awareness

How Monster’s CMO is Revitalizing the Brand

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One of the more refreshing trends in marketing is the grand “mea culpa” in which a brand apologizes for past shortcomings and offers a renewed commitment to quality/integrity. Wells Fargo’s recent “re-established in 2018” campaign is one striking example. Another comes from Domino’s a few years back when they admitted their pizza was poor and relaunched with a better tasting product. This approach takes guts but really resonates especially when the pledge to be ‘better” comes with demonstrable actions. Which brings us to this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite in which Jonathan Beamer, CMO of Monster, admits that the online jobs site had “coasted” for a while and explains how they are renewing their commitment to job-seeker success.

What is so interesting in this case is that though Monster had coasted after dominating the job search market for most of the dot-com era, the brand still enjoyed high awareness and what Beamer calls “latent favorability.” Having this strong baseline to build from, Beamer expected that the combination of product improvements and increased advertising would help revitalize the brand. And though Beamer describes Monster’s revitalization as “a work in progress,” the brand is already seeing increases in site traffic and customer activity. Not coincidentally, Monster is back on TV providing further proof that this medium is far from dead as digital pundits declared 10 years ago!

Listen here for inspiration on how you might revitalize your brand. 

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What You’ll Learn

There’s great power behind a brand that people are familiar with and trust

There’s one core truth behind Monster that has allowed their brand to survive across decades, and that is that people are always searching for fulfilling work. Since 1999 Monster has connected people and job opportunities, and Jonathan explains that it’s paying attention to small details that makes Monster stand out from the masses.

He explains the powerful concept of “latent favorability,” when people remember your brand fondly even after having not used the company’s services for a period of time. Monster has values attached to the brand that goes beyond the product it provides, and that’s where the company’s power lies.

These 4 tips will help you refresh a stagnant brand

Jonathan’s marketing team at Monster has been faced with the challenge of refreshing a company message that has existed for nearly 20 years. In his conversation with Drew, Jonathan explains 4 main tips that have helped guide his team through the process of refreshing a stagnant brand. Here they are.

  1. Be the voice of the customer (in Monster’s case, understanding both an employee on the hunt for a new job and a recruiter looking for top talent)
  2. Have a close partnership with the product/service development team
  3. Understand the simple decisions made throughout a customer’s purchase journey
  4. Be consistent with the tools you choose to use

Learn how to track brand awareness for greater marketing success

Having data on your brand, its level of awareness within your target market, and your digital followers is essential, but you have to know how to aggregate and analyze that data. Jonathan explains that you should not get hung up on the questions to ask when conducting brand awareness surveys or sending out evaluation tools. At the end of the day, the tools you use to track brand awareness matter less than the overall feedback it provides to you and your team. Jonathan also recommends that you also utilize your historical data and keep the big picture in mind when doing brand tracking. For even more insights on how to track brand awareness effectively, be sure to listen.

Timeline

  • [0:28] Drew introduces Jonathan to the Renegade Thinkers Unite show
  • [3:38] Jonathan’s Renegade Rapid Fire segment
  • [17:06] The importance of factfullness in the world around you
  • [19:50] What Jonathan’s excited about as the CMO of Monster
  • [24:07] This is what happened when Monster stopped investing in marketing
  • [30:14] Fixing fundamental aspects of the Monster brand
  • [35:37] Keep these ideas in mind when doing brand tracking
  • [40:51] There’s a strong bond between quality products and justifying marketing efforts
  • [43:32] Content is huge in Monster’s marketing strategy
  • [48:15] Jonathan’s top 3 pieces of advice for new CMOs

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The Ups and Downs of Xerox’s Universal Awareness and Shifting Your Brand Perception

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The ultimate dream for marketers is universal awareness – the point in time when your brand becomes synonymous with a noun. Having your brand become a verb is an even better case scenario (think, “I’ll Venmo you the money!” or “I’ll Google it.”) This extremely high level of brand awareness can create issues though when your brand perception becomes “stuck” in this one-way thinking.

On this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite, the CMO of Xerox, Toni Clayton-Hine, joins Drew for a conversation about how Xerox is embracing the new connectivity trend and how it is breaking through old brand perceptions to stay relevant in the 21st century.

Toni shares with Drew the story behind Xerox’s latest marketing initiative, Set the Page Free, and how Xerox is striving to be at the forefront of the intersection between digital and physical workspaces. They also discuss the pros and cons of such a risky marketing project and Toni’s top “do’s and don’ts” for current CMOs.

Join Drew and Toni for this engaging conversation – you won’t want to miss a single minute. Click here to listen now.

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Xerox’s latest Set the Page Free project and how they “marketed the marketing” so effectively

When faced with seemingly cemented brand perceptions, Xerox came up with a creative and big-picture marketing campaign: Set the Page Free. With 14 world-famous writers and creative minds in collaboration, Xerox told the story of the modern workplace – and the entire project was produced using Xerox technology. The end result were podcasts, videos, and a final free download book. After creating the piece, Toni and her team had to answer the question, “who is going to consume this content?” Drew asks Toni about how they “marketed the marketing campaign” so effectively and she explains that they really leveraged the celebrity collaborators and their social channels. For the full story behind the project, don’t miss this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

What does brand storytelling mean to Xerox in the 21st century?

Shifting Xerox’s brand perceptions became a balance of using the company’s history to their advantage, while still demonstrating to their customers that they are about more than just copying and faxing physical documents. The Set the Page Free project helped Xerox transition from the realm of a 1990s office verb into a frontrunner of 21st-century workplace technology. This engaging act of brand storytelling allowed the company to show the outcome of using their technology, not just the inputs. Since Xerox is a B2B technology company, Toni’s goal is to ensure Xerox is seen as fresh, relevant, and understanding of their different types of customers. To hear more of Toni’s marketing initiatives at Xerox that are continually shaping their brand perspectives, be sure to listen to the full audio.

The biggest lessons Toni has learned since joining Xerox and why taking marketing risks can be beneficial

While developing Set the Page Free, Toni explained that she often struggled with the desire to control every aspect of the project and subsequent brand awareness surveys. But when Drew asks her about the biggest lessons she learned while working on the project, Toni explains that Xerox had to take a risk in order to shift how people think about the company – and taking that risk also meant dealing with unpredictable variables. She also learned the importance of being more directive in her approach to help customers understand how to bring their Xerox technology tools to life. To hear Toni’s top “do’s and don’ts” for other CMOs, don’t miss this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite.

What You’ll Learn

  • [0:30] Why does brand awareness matter when you’re trying to sell a product or service?
  • [3:15] Drew introduces his guest for this episode, Toni Clayton, CMO of Xerox
  • [4:52] The main strategy behind Xerox’s marketing
  • [9:31] The benefit of working with creators who deliver extraordinary content
  • [12:58] Once you’ve created the excellent content, you have to “market the marketing”
  • [15:47] Toni explains how she had the courage to approach her CEO with this big, untestable idea
  • [18:30] What does storytelling meaning to Toni and Xerox?
  • [23:29] How Xerox is currently demonstrating their broader platform and usability
  • [26:48] Combatting the loss of reach associated with using digital marketing tactics
  • [30:19] How Xerox is showing customers new ways to use their products
  • [32:11] The biggest lesson Toni has learned in her career with Xerox
  • [37:03] One “do” and one “don’t” for CMOs as a result of Toni’s experience with Xerox

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