The is a conduit between companies looking for marketing talent and candidates seeking a career move. The group’s efforts include an annual job fair, the ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű Triangle job board and the Transitions Mastermind network. 

The was started in 2015 by chapter members Stan Phelps and Tricia Lucas as a way to give back to the community. The group is open to those searching for a job, companies seeking talent or brand awareness and employment agencies looking to network with standout marketing talent in the Triangle. 

“We started Transitions back in 2015 based on a simple question: ‘When is the chapter most helpful to current or prospective members?’” says Phelps, past president of ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű Triangle. “It’s when someone is in between roles or thinking about their next move. It was inspired by what former ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű Triangle President Karen Albritton initiated back in 2009 during the financial crisis. Starting the Transitions group in 2015 and holding the inaugural job fair in 2016 were steps toward adding value for our members.” 

Transitions Mastermind meetings are held monthly, are free to attend and feature a guest speaker who shares their knowledge on interviewing, rĂ©sumĂ©-building, using online resources effectively and more. Meetings were held in person prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, but Transitions Mastermind has successfully moved online via Zoom, reaching an average of 25 registered attendees each month. 

Lucas handed over operations of the Transitions Mastermind group to Hank Hoffmeier, vice president of employment services, in 2017. “The key for Transitions Mastermind is to find the most relevant and most useful content, delivered by an engaging, authoritative speaker,” Hoffmeier says. “We have a very talented group of marketing professionals who are very committed to their job search, and they come to Transitions looking for content they can use immediately.” 

Past Transitions Mastermind events have covered topics such as using LinkedIn effectively, building strong networks, how to connect and convert, and personal branding while transitioning roles. 

ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű Triangle also leverages its partnerships with area recruiting firms to provide valuable professional insight into the recruiting and hiring processes. Recruiter-partners have led Transitions sessions on how to best work with recruiters, partner with agencies, optimize personal LinkedIn profiles and work effectively with applicant tracking systems. In addition, Transitions Mastermind offers a well-attended annual rĂ©sumĂ© review board, led by its recruiter-partners and other HR professionals. 

Triangle’s Employment Services Group also hosts an annual job fair, where employers and job seekers connect and network over breakfast. At last year’s fair, the chapter hosted 12 top-tier Triangle employers and more than 90 professional marketing candidates. The job fair allows participating companies to be easily accessible to candidates, and each company can engage with attendees to showcase their organization and available positions.

Future Plans

The Employment Services Group is planning the next job fair, slated for later in the year. As a result of the COVID-19 shutdown, Transitions Mastermind had to move its regular monthly meeting online. “We have not seen a decrease in participation in Transitions due to COVID,” says Hoffmeier. “We’ve actually seen an increase in attendance. That may be because of more people working from home or, unfortunately, because of layoffs and closings. 
 Through COVID and beyond, Transitions will continue to support our members in transition, helping them to strengthen and improve the skills they’ll need to find their next job and for when they go back to work.”

Tips for Other Chapters

It’s vital to have chapter buy-in and support. That means getting a sense of what’s right for your chapter directly from the members you serve, then seeking buy-in from your board. Ensure everyone has a chance to be heard, because a program must have support to be successful. “Transitions was created as a way to give back to the community, assist our members in transition and help our employers find great talent—it’s a perfect match,” says ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű Triangle President-Elect Misty Wilson. “ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű Triangle has the best marketing candidates in the Triangle and some of the best employers in the world.” 

Here are some simple tips to make a similar initiative a success in any chapter: 

1. Develop a strong volunteer team to help you develop and facilitate programming. 
2. Find relevant content presented by engaging, authoritative speakers and invite them to speak. 
3. Schedule an appropriate place, arrange seating and audiovisual needs (when in-person events are safe again), or set up an online conference. 
4. Communicate to the members and community, promote via email, website and social media. 
5. Follow up with thank-you notes to your speaker and attendees and provide written or video content and resources, if available. 
6. Wash, rinse, repeat every month. 

Hoffmeier says Transitions is one of the few programs where success is measured by the number of people who don’t come back. “We encourage members to keep in touch, especially when they get a job, to provide a success story or maybe a video testimonial, and to pay it forward to other members in transition,” he says. 

Hoffmeier ends every Transitions Mastermind with the same closing statement: “I hope I don’t see you next month.”

The post ‘I Hope I Don’t See You Next Month’ appeared first on ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű.

In this new normal working from home, I’ve tried to make it feel as much like I’m starting my day as I used to in the past. That’s part of the challenge for a lot of folks: compartmentalizing. I try to replicate the work atmosphere as much as possible and create boundaries to not make it feel like I’m at home. 

I’ll start my day at around 7 or 8 a.m. and I don’t think about work quite yet. I like to start with taking in some of the external outputs from the world, whether that’s listening to a podcast or checking daily news updates from NPR, CNN, BBC to get a more global perspective. Starting your day with these external outputs is really important before getting into the bubble of your own company or own world, which tend to be too narrow. Sometimes I’ll also do a decent bit of cleaning—when your external space is cluttered or messy, it tends to have an impact on your headspace. 

Once I’m done with that part of my morning, I start with reviewing my running list of to-dos—I like to keep this list pretty short and prioritize the three most important tasks and visualize what needs to be done to make progress or check them off the list. One work-from-home tip I would emphasize is that I think it’s unwise to start your day with Slack [or other inter-office chat tool] or checking email. Personally, I think that puts you in a position where you’re reacting to messages that were sent or requests being made of you, versus being proactive and strategic about managing your time. Game-plan and reflect before accepting those inputs from other people.

What time do you wake up?

My alarm goes off at 7 a.m. Depending on how I’m doing on a given morning, it could be 7 on the dot or closer to 8 a.m.

What’s your typical breakfast?

I don’t actually eat breakfast—I’m an intermittent fasting guy.

What are some of your favorite news sources to read or listen to?

The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast, Vox Media’s “Pivot” podcast and the “Robinhood Snacks” podcast.

How do you wind down after the workday?

I like to exercise every day. I have a Peloton and a little gym environment with a yoga mat and some weights, and I’ll do various bodyweight exercises.

Illustration by Eugene Smith.

The post 15 Minutes of Your Time: Andrew Mok appeared first on ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű.

Respondents:

• , associate manager of marketing and media recruitment, Russell Tobin

• , recruitment consultant, Adaptive Digital

What are some key elements that can help my resume get noticed?

Jess Forman:

1. Measurable results. I see a ton of rĂ©sumĂ©s where people vaguely explain their job responsibilities and duties— similar to what you would see on a job description. Get specific and take things to the next level. For example, instead of “increased traffic to website and lowered customer acquisition cost,” you could say, “increased traffic by X% month over month and lowered customer acquisition costs by Y% in Z amount of time.” By doing this, you are proving that you had real, measurable results. 
2. Make multiple rĂ©sumĂ©s. I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all rĂ©sumĂ©, unless you only have one specific type of job you are applying to—but that’s not usually the case. It’s important to highlight your experiences that most closely relate to the role in which you are interested. It’s never OK to lie, but it is OK to describe in more detail your relevant skills to help prove you have the correct experience. 
3. Reach out on LinkedIn. If you’re simply applying to a role on a company’s website, closing your computer and calling it a day 
 you’re doing it wrong. If you want to stand out, you need to take advantage of LinkedIn. Connect with the hiring manager, send a quick note explaining the role you’re interested in and let them know you’re happy to send a copy of your rĂ©sumĂ© directly. If you’re too nervous to directly contact the hiring manager, you should never be afraid to reach out to one of the organization’s internal recruiters. 

Jennifer Youn-Grillo: When it comes to rĂ©sumĂ©s, less is more. Less means you’ve had to think about your experience and make deliberate decisions about what you’re leaving in. It forces you to focus on what your key contributions were to the roles you’ve held. For example, if you’re a marketing manager and you’ve listed a set of tasks, that’s not very compelling to a hiring manager. What would be compelling is how you’ve quantified the work in a tangible way. How many total subscribers did your newsletters or email and social media campaigns reach? If you can quantify your work, you’ve immediately positioned yourself to stand out from a sea of rĂ©sumĂ©s. The last points that come to mind are consistency and formatting. Simple things like proper alignment of start and end dates, companies and job titles, correct use of tenses and spell check will go a long way in helping your rĂ©sumĂ© get noticed. In short: simplicity, quantifiable results and attention to detail. 

How do the best candidates separate themselves from the pack? 

JY: I found that successful candidates are extremely clear about what they’re looking for in their career, honest about their non-negotiables and are excellent communicators. All of this usually comes across during the first prescreen call. Typically, a recruiter or a hiring manager will start with an opening question such as, “Could you give me a brief overview of your background and what you’re looking for next?” This comes across as a simple question but requires a well-thought-out answer. Successful candidates have spent some time thinking about their past roles—not in piecemeal but as part of a larger story about where they want to be in their career. Keeping your answers succinct shows the recruiter or hiring manager that you’ve distilled the important points. Most importantly, it shows that you’ve critically thought about how your experiences will contribute to the role. 

What do most recruiters prefer: a traditional résumé format or a creative one?

JF: A mix of both. You don’t want to go too crazy and make it look more like a school art project than a rĂ©sumĂ©, but it’s totally fine to show a bit of your creativity. As long as it’s easy to read and not too busy with pictures or logos, you’ll be OK.

JY: I prefer to see a traditional rĂ©sumĂ© because I find it easier to follow. However, it’s dependent on the roles you’re going after. If you’re applying for a designer or creative director role at a progressive, “outside-of-the-box” agency, having a creative rĂ©sumĂ© that highlights your strengths in a unique way can work to your advantage, assuming it’s executed well. What’s important is the content of your rĂ©sumĂ©. 

What skill or certification is in demand right now?

JF: One skillset that has been super hot over the past year—and throughout COVID-19—has been demand generation. Demand generation can be part of someone’s role, like a more general digital marketing manager, but we are finding that candidates are standing out if they only focus on it. 

JY: There’s a range of certifications being offered by Facebook and Google that could instantly give your rĂ©sumĂ© or profile a competitive boost. Having these certifications not only adds credibility but positions the candidate as an expert in their field within their network. As a digital marketing recruiter, seeing any of the following certifications on LinkedIn profiles is a plus: Facebook Blueprint-certified in media planning and media buying, Google Ads Display, Google Ads Search and Shopping Ads Search. As more companies move to the cloud, we’re also starting to see a demand for Amazon Web Services Certification.

I’m a seasoned marketing professional with 20-plus years of experience—how do I get an employer or recruiter to consider me for a role? I’m concerned my age will be a negative factor.

JF: This unfortunately is a big issue in our world, but I do believe that there are ways to present yourself that will help. The most important tip would be to keep your rĂ©sumĂ© to two pages or fewer. It’s overwhelming to receive a five-or six-page rĂ©sumé—you want to focus on recent roles. What you did 10 years ago may be relevant, but—frankly speaking—a recruiter or hiring manager is probably only going to lay their eyes on your rĂ©sumĂ© for 30 seconds to a minute. Describe in detail the past three to four jobs you had—anything beyond that, you can add a section for “other experience” and list each one as a bullet point. This way, instead of jumping to conclusions about age based on rĂ©sumĂ© length, a recruiter is focusing on your experience and skills. 

JY: There was a viral post not long ago that read, “If I do a job in 30 minutes, it’s because I spent 10 years learning how to do that in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes.” I bring this up because seasoned marketing professionals not only bring experience, but insights and efficiencies cultivated over years. That said, it’s important to be honest about the role you’re after and where you feel you can bring the most impact. Focus on the measurable change you’ve made. You could also consider dropping your graduation year. 

The first two roles of my career were my most relevant and longest-tenured—is it still recommended that I prioritize more recent positions on my rĂ©sumĂ©?

JY: Normally, hiring managers or recruiters do see time gaps as a flag, so I’d keep those on and emphasize your most relevant experiences. I’d also focus on crafting a cover letter that succinctly explains your position and specific contributions you were able to make in your most relevant roles. If your recent roles are not directly relevant, but still fall within the industry, you could also highlight your transferable skills.

The post Ask the Recruiter: Summer 2020 appeared first on ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű.

In an essay that appears in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Sonya A. Grier, marketing professor at American University, and David Crockett, marketing professor and Moore Research Fellow at the University of South Carolina, . Marketing News spoke with Grier and Crockett about how the marketplace contributes to racial oppression and how marketing scholars and practitioners can collaborate to track and analyze racial data that elicits change.

You write in your JMPP essay that “simply measuring the extent of racial disparity has proved needlessly challenging.” How has race been, as you noted in another article, an overlooked icon in the marketplace? 

Sonya A. Grier: There’s a couple of ways to think about that. One is the way race has been studied. In the literature, a lot of it talks about race as this individual variable that helps to show differences between groups. And that’s important because people may respond differently to ads that feature people who look like them, for example. However, that research doesn’t really incorporate the reality of race and racism and the way people experience race in the marketplace. It doesn’t necessarily incorporate either the personal and individual racism, interpersonal racism they face, nor does it incorporate structural racism, which are the systems and structures and patterns that are mutually reinforcing them and have an effect on the way people live—and in this case, people’s health or people’s lifestyles or their financial abilities. So that becomes really important to think about race beyond this narrow conceptualization as an individual difference variable.

David Crockett: From a data-gathering perspective, a lot of times what we have is a philosophical issue where sometimes the basic assumptions that some researchers make is that whatever you might learn by measuring or capturing race, you could learn by some other presumably more fundamental variable: income or education, etc. So people simply choose not to measure it because they think they could get more or better information from some other variable that they think is more fundamentally relevant.

A lot of times, particularly in the kind of work that Sonya does—she’s trying to collect data from public entities—there are public entities that have effectively refused to collect data on race for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that some of our governing bodies simply don’t want to know, they don’t want to measure racial disparities. Because once you know there’s a problem, then you are somewhat duty-bound to at least act like you’re trying to fix it. We’ve seen the same with COVID. Race is not the only place where this happens. This happens with a variety of social problems. There are folks who are committed to saying, “There’s nothing to see here, and so we’re not looking.” 

Watch Sarah Steimer’s full conversation with Sonya A. Grier and David Crockett about the connection between race in the marketplace and COVID-19

Can you dive into how marketing scholarship and data can be better used to fix the types of healthcare disparities the pandemic has highlighted?

SG: One of our key tools that we use is place and accessibility. For example, I read about drive-thru [COVID-19] testing in New Orleans back in April. When you look at the data, [it shows] that the hotspots were in predominantly African American areas where people didn’t have the same amount of cars. That drive-thru testing wasn’t going to help if you didn’t have a car. Therefore that kind of accessibility [and] location information data is used to inform the types of interventions. Once they discovered that, they were able to send in a mobile testing unit. But without that data, during that period when they had all this drive-thru testing, there were lots of people who were not able to be tested and who may have continued to spread the disease because they didn’t know. … It may have been because testing was not accessible to them. And that’s a key marketing component.

DC: The marketplace is not just the stage on which a variety of things play out, whether it’s about race or about gender, about social class or what-have-you. The marketplace is a social actor that, on the one hand, can perpetuate these systems of oppression, and on the other hand can challenge them— sometimes both at the same time, sometimes in ways where we can’t discern whether it’s perpetuating or challenging right now. Sometimes we have to let history unfold to give us the answer to those things. 

But what’s so critical about this moment is that the marketplace has become a central actor in this drama around race and COVID. We’ve been told for 40 years now that our system of governance that includes a capitalist economic system was the best of all possible worlds. And at the moment, not only has it not delivered healthcare very well, even to people who could afford it, much less people who can’t, it has not even delivered toilet paper very well, which is kind of the one thing that it should be able to do, right? What that says to me as a scholar is that we should be interrogating that. That should no longer simply be a piece of the background that we just assume away. We should bring the role of the marketplace to the fore as an object of study [and] investigation. How is its functioning contributing to racial oppression and other kinds of oppression? How is it contributing to counter hegemonic activity where people are issuing challenges to these systems of oppression? How is it operating there?

People of color have been disproportionately affected by the economic impact of sheltering in place as well. There are myriad reasons for this, but what are some of the most pressing areas of policy research that can be undertaken to help solve this issue or prevent it in the future? 

SG: One area I’ve been thinking a lot about is caregiving. I can’t actually think of one article in marketing about caregiving. And that is something that is very prevalent in the U.S. and around the world. It’s something that’s very gendered and very raced. It also has severe implications for this COVID pandemic. We see that even nursing homes are segregated, that people of color tend to live in more multigenerational households. This whole notion of “protect the elderly, keep them separate,” all these shelter-in-place notions that we would like to undertake can’t necessarily be done by everyone in the same way. Therefore, they might need different types of interventions.

But if we don’t have any research around that, then no one even thinks about it as an issue, much less begins to collect the data or discuss how we might develop interventions to address it.

DC: Race and ethnicity are a part of every subject. It’s not necessarily a separate thing that needs to be studied—though that sometimes is the case—but it is also part and parcel to the functioning of a variety of systems that on the surface appear as if they are non-racial, that they have no race or ethnicity in them. 

The basic functioning of having a capitalist model of healthcare delivery has implications for race, gender, ethnicity. Part of our job as scholars is to bring those things to the fore. Even if that’s not what you study, it’s to not be conclusion-selective at the outset and say that those things don’t matter. Even if it is to say, “A limitation is that my study does not address this set of issues. That might be something someone else needs to study.” That’s OK, everybody doesn’t need to study everything. But we are still fighting this first principles battle with respect to race and ethnicity that is worthy of study not just as a distinct subfield, but as part and parcel of everything that we are doing, whether it’s marketing, economics, [political science], whatever it is, it’s part of it. 

SG: The fact that these things are mutually reinforcing across different sectors and domains, that’s one of the areas that RIM (Race in the Marketplace Research Network) really has seized upon, is this notion that it’s not just the marketplace in terms of the commercial outlets that we see. There’s also health and education, and art and entertainment, that all have the same types of institutional and structural racism in them that has an impact on people’s everyday lives. 

I’m not just an academic. I might also go out to the movies and want to see certain types of stories. I might also want to go out at night to the nightclub, I want to get healthcare, all of these 
 pieces of my life come together. That’s what attracted me to marketing, is this whole notion that you can really study anything because everything to me is marketing, that it’s a part and parcel across all these domains. If we limit it to thinking about race in this really narrow way, then we limit people to be these uni-dimensional beings that they are not. 

There’s still a lot of work to be done, and scholarly research isn’t known to be the fastest. But there are policies that need to be enacted immediately or maybe companies that could use help, politicians who could use help. How can scholars step up right now versus needing years to complete research? 

SG: It’s not one or the other. The first step is awareness and acceptance. There’s still not as much emphasis on race. At this present moment we have a lot of emphasis on race—I hope it lasts because it provides an opportunity for people to expand the way they think about topics. 

I see it as an opportunity. For example, there’s an increased emphasis on intersectionality across disciplines, but in marketing as well. We could encourage just by asking the questions, [by] the collection of certain types of data. We could partner with nonprofit public or private organizations so that government agencies who don’t have deep segmentation information to understand where the hot spots are, don’t have the geo-fencing capabilities and data, would be able to do that through these partnerships. We see that lots of research now gets done through these multi-sector, multi-partner types of partnerships and that presents a big opportunity.

DC: There is this notion that there’s so much work to be done, there’s a massive amount that we need to know but don’t know—that’s absolutely true. I would argue that is true for every discipline in the field. That is a fundamental condition of academic life. That particular premise, though true, can often be marshaled in a way to demotivate scholarship in an area that really needs it. Of course, there is much work to be done, there’s a whole lot we don’t know. But I presume that’s why anyone gets into any academic discipline. We are here to answer your questions. 

The most immediate thing that needs to be done is structuring research questions and data sets that even begin to allow us to explore. If we can clear that hurdle, we might actually be able to do something. We’ve got a lot of smart people, a lot of people of goodwill who are interested in these issues. If we could just tackle this first principle, we might actually be able to do some good work. 

What can practitioners do with academics and the research they’re doing to put these changes or policies into practice? 

DC: I’m working with a small consortium of retailers, with a sociologist, doing work specifically on racial inequality, particularly racial bias and exclusionary treatment, at retail. These are folks who want to understand something about how to craft store policy, from hiring all the way through merchandising: who we hire, what they say, how products are positioned in the store. They’re trying to get all of that right because even if it’s just superficial, they recognize that the world is changing. This was going on before the current moment; they recognize that the world is changing, and they’ve got to get it right. If they’re trying to compete, that’s a dimension on which they can compete. 

Sometimes we mystify these relationships in a way that they don’t really need to be. This was not my initiative. This was an initiative of this small consortium: They reached out, they made those connections and a set of academics responded to them. We’ve had a great working relationship, looking at everything from trying to collect data, to measure what needs to be measured, all the way through how they do some of their product branding and how they lay out their stores. It’s not that complicated. The work is complicated, but the process by which we begin to connect with each other is not that complicated. 

SG: Those connections are really necessary to help inform policy research. 
 If you started with, “I want to have an impact on what the practice of a certain industry or the practice of certain types of companies in a certain industry,” then beginning with that in mind and making those connections at the start, trying to identify ways that you might share data, that you might be able to use some of their data, then you can help inform the development of their policy. 

We’ve seen a lot in the marketplace most recently with everyone standing in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and saying what they’re going to do. Well, they’re going to need third parties if they really want to have transparency to be able to monitor and evaluate if they are really doing what they’re doing. That’s a perfect role for some partnerships between consumer researchers and marketing researchers to be able to step right in with practitioners and say, “Let me help you evaluate and monitor all these things that you’ve said that you’re going to do.”

We have to think about journals. Do they have reviewers who understand this type of work? Transformative Consumer Research has also been taking the lead in terms of creating connections with nonprofits who address social issues. Bringing together all these institutional pieces will also be necessary. Because if you have lots of people submit articles and you have reviewers who don’t understand or don’t accept, or who don’t think this is important, then that research doesn’t go anywhere. 

This is a potentially transformative opportunity and time. And I hope that we can take it to move the field forward so that we can be at the forefront of helping to inform policy-relevant and corporate-relevant, and societally relevant research. 

The post COVID-19, Race and the Marketplace appeared first on ÂÜÀòÉçčÙÍű.

Screens dominate daily pandemic life, which means video has become one of the most reliable ways for brands to reach audiences. COVID-19 has encouraged marketers to find flexible and cost-effective ways to produce DIY videos for promotion, content and sales. In fact, video production house Wyzowl found that since quarantine first began in the U.S.

But the impact of video was evident even before the pandemic: Wyzowl also discovered that , with 80% of video marketers attributing the format to increased sales, while 87% say video has increased traffic to their website. They also report that consumers are twice as likely to share videos with friends than any other type of content.

“You can use videos to do anything you want,” says Carl Kwan, owner of the video marketing agency . “But unless you have a specific goal, you’re just doing a shotgun approach, which never really works.”

The creation of videos does not count as a strategy in and of itself. Here are ways that video can enable your marketing goals and tips for producing DIY content from home.

1. Types of Video

Before hitting record, determine what your goal is for the video. Your choice has implications on topic, editing and where it’s posted.

Need help to make your virtual meeting more reliable?
Check out to designing, presenting and participating in virtual meetings.

Direct Marketing

Ivana Taylor, publisher of , likens direct marketing pieces to having a conversation with your customers—except that it’s not happening in real time. Direct marketing videos should address frequently asked questions about your product or service in a way that replicates an in-person chat.

A video version of a buyer’s guide is a great direct marketing opportunity. It allows your brand to draw comparisons between your products and what your competitors offer, and such videos typically enjoy a longer shelf life. The content also lends itself to charts and other visual aids to break up the video.

Prioritize posting direct marketing videos to YouTube. The platform is owned by Google and functions as a search engine, which means your videos will be much easier to find.

If you’re producing videos designed to increase customer sales, aim for an “80% video”—hold back about 20% of the information to encourage potential customers to reach out for more.

Content Marketing

Content marketing on video can take the form of how-to videos, thought leadership, corporate culture pieces, case studies or product reviews.

The best content marketing strategies require an audit of what competitors are doing in the space. “The key with content marketing is [that it involves] constant comparison and improvement,” Taylor says. Deconstruct compelling video, explore what your competitors aren’t doing and refine previously scattershot efforts. 

Taylor says marketers will often supplement video content with written pieces, or vice versa. You should also think of your video content as you would an article, with a clear intro and divisions between sections. Viewers will more immediately become engaged with what you are saying.

Break up content marketing videos into multiple installments, each covering a different section of a larger topic. This division affords each idea you’re presenting with some breathing room and provides viewers with a reason to return to your video channel for the next installment—or to only tune in for what they need.

Content marketing videos aren’t just informational, they can also be an opportunity to show off your company’s culture. Video chat platforms such as Zoom are ideal for gathering employees and highlighting the goofier side of the team. “It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the stuff that’s going on right now, so any chance you have to show some people’s personality is really great for any company,” says Jessica Bonacci, digital video specialist at the digital marketing agency .

Paid Ads

Maximize your ROI by tailoring your content toward topics represented by relevant SEO keywords you can purchase. For example, a plumber could buy ads on Google that would appear in response to searches that include the words “clog” and “drain.” The ads could link to a video that explains whether you should unclog your own drain or call an expert. Visitors are likely to remain on a website if the content is relevant to what they were looking up.

The content of the video must mirror the content of the ad. If not, sites such as Facebook will block your ad from appearing. “If you say in an ad, ‘Lose 10 pounds in three days’ and you click on that ad, the page you see must have the headline, ‘Lose 10 pounds in three days,’” Taylor says.

2. Equipment

Modern smartphones have placed much of a video production studio in the palms of our hands, including a powerful, high-resolution camera. All that’s left is to make a few small upgrades to audio and lighting.

Microphone

Alex Winter, creative director at sales and marketing agency , says that it’s easy to forget about audio quality. But a small lavalier microphone can make a huge difference between crystal clear vocals and the incessant drone of an air conditioning unit. External mics capture audio up close, rather than relying on your phone or computer’s built-in microphone across the room.

Before springing for a new gadget, though, test the equipment you already have. Taylor once spent $300 on a new mic only to discover that her iPhone earbuds were capable of capturing quality audio.

Kwan has a simple trick for enhancing the look and sound of his videos using Apple’s earbuds: He tapes the microphone to the inside of his collar, then hides the rest of the cord under his shirt. “You can use very minimal amounts of equipment and still get maximum results,” he says.

Andrew Phan, CEO of , says the best audio comes from plugging a microphone into a device specifically designed for capturing voice. He recommends a Zoom H1, a high-quality recorder that allows marketers to adjust audio levels on the fly for pristine sound. However, he notes, these devices produce audio tracks only, which then need to be synched with your video during the editing process.

Camera

“Everybody will overrate the importance of buying a nice camera,” says , an independent video production consultant. “If you have an iPhone [or other smartphone], you can go as far as you want.” However, avoid the selfie side, as that camera is inferior to the one found on the back of your device.

If you insist on going a step up from your phone, purchase a nice lens; cameras are updated every few years, but it takes longer for lens technology to become outdated.

And beware the built-in webcam. “Having a good webcam is like putting on a suit and tie in the morning: It’s how you present your face to the world,” Stalman says. “The difference between the thing that’s attached to your computer and a real camera is night and day.”

Invest in a simple tripod or jury-rig your own solution to keep the camera steady. For a homespun look, consider vertically orienting the camera to resemble selfie footage.

Lighting

Lighting makes a noticeable impact on visual quality as well. Many content creators opt for a ring light—a halo affixed or next to the monitor—but Stalman cautions that “you might look like a beauty blogger.” Instead, consider using key lights, which are flat panels about the size of an iPad and are often used by video game streamers.

Standard table lamps cast a decent amount of light and can be used in a pinch. Phan recommends placing the lamp as close to your face as possible without pushing it into the shot itself. Set the lamp off to the side a little bit in front of you. “What it does is create a little shadow on your face, and it looks better than having a light blasted straight onto your face,” he says.

If your office basks in beautiful, natural sunlight (congratulations!), you may not need to purchase any additional lighting. Do avoid an overly shadowy visage by keeping the window in front of you, not behind, and ensure your desk isn’t cluttered with reflective tchotchkes.

3. Filming

Not everyone sparkles in front of the camera. Find someone who remains a stalwart at your organization and exhibits best practices when speaking to the audience: articulation, maintaining eye contact and going “big” with personality.

Casting

Behind-the-scenes videos allow customers to meet the people who run their favorite brands. Corral in-house brand representatives, magnetic members of upper management and other marketing folks to be your on-screen personalities—and set up recorded video calls between these spokespeople. “The end viewer 
 can really feel like they’re part of the conversation,” Winter says, adding that calls with fewer people work best. “Figure out a way to record it where the main screen is cycling between [speakers],” he says. “People tend to be more engaged versus having ‘The Brady Bunch’ pain of 50 people up at once.”

Thought leadership videos work best when a single person is on camera in front of a neutral backdrop. Studio B Films, a production company that has worked with brands such as Facebook and Adobe, recommends casting team members who have experience giving presentations that have been filmed.

Ideally, videos will feature colleagues who are likely to remain at the organization for more than a year. “People are going to associate this person with your company,” Stalman says. “And if they leave after a year, you’re not just training someone else up, you’re getting your audience used to a new face.”

Set up your technical team members for success. Brands that are marketing “high-involvement products”—computers or cars, for example, which are expensive and meant to last a long time—might want to invest in product demonstration videos. Taylor says such videos could be hosted by team members who may not be your biggest personalities but can directly address the technical aspects of the product.

Regardless of a company’s best on-screen talent, Taylor says small business videos should include the owner. “No one [else is] going to have [your] passion for the business, and all of that comes through on video,” she says. Other team members can certainly be featured as well, such as a front desk associate with whom customers are familiar.

If the person in your videos doesn’t feel like a good fit or they seem unnatural in front of the camera, replace them immediately with another team member who can cover the same topic. 

Action!

Resist the magnetic temptation of your face: We’re all guilty of spending entire Zoom conference calls ogling our own image in the corner of the screen, not other people or the camera itself. But it’s bad form when capturing video, so remember to look directly into the camera lens.

When working at MSNBC, Taylor received some advice on how to maintain a dynamic TV presence: “Be big.” Speak slowly and clearly and incorporate animated hand gestures where appropriate. “If you think you’re talking too slow, it’s just right,” Taylor says.

Maximize your time and energy by recording four or five videos in one sitting. Use tape to mark off exactly where you placed your camera and positioned your chair so future videos will have a continuous look and feel.

In general, you want to get as close to perfect when recording the video, rather than assuming you can clean up issues with lighting or sound in the editing process. “If [the footage] really can’t [be fixed], then don’t publish it,” Kwan says. “It’s better just to redo a video than to publish a bad one.”

4. Post-Production

A few small edits can transform a short video into a can’t-miss piece of content. Ensure the audio and visuals don’t overpower one another and recapture viewers’ attention by inserting a cutaway or two. Then, keep making videos; the process will get easier with time and results can take months to show themselves.

Editing

Editing is not as important as the content of the video itself, but a few flourishes will go a long way. Taylor recommends, at the very least, inserting your name and contact info as graphics on the lower third of the screen.

Editing software is easy to find. Apple enables users to edit video on their iPhones, and all Macs come equipped with iMovie. PC users can use free online programs such as Lightworks or download Movie Maker 10.

If using background music, adjust the levels so as not to drown out your voice. Kwan says the optimal volume for speaking is -6 decibels. “Your voice fluctuates, so sometimes you speak louder when you’re excited, and sometimes you’re a little bit calmer,” he says. “You give a little bit of room to have your voice fluctuate in volume.”

Set the music level to -20 or -22 decibels. “[Music is] not something that people need to really notice,” Kwan says. “They should be paying attention to you and what you’re saying.”

Include a few graphics or some B-roll footage—a term used to refer to supplemental or alternative footage—to cover up when you may have looked away from the camera or the shot went out of focus. Kwan breaks up his videos by inserting something visual every 15-20 seconds to interrupt the monotony of a single shot.

Verizon Media and Publicis Media found that , so you might want to add subtitles so as not to alienate folks who aren’t wearing headphones. Subtitles and a transcription are also good accessibility features.

Produce, Produce, Produce

Think of video content creation like farming: It takes days—sometimes weeks—of watering and care before even the smallest sprout breaks through the ground, but much has been happening below the surface. “You don’t water your seed for three days and go, ‘Where’s my sunflower?’” Taylor says.

Patience is a virtue: Stalman recommends committing to producing between 50-100 videos before deciding whether or not the project is worthy of attention. Taylor adds that marketers are unlikely to see meaningful results until after 18-24 months of regularly posting videos. “Acknowledge that this is a challenging space and it may take a while for you to conquer it, and you can make some mistakes on the way,” Stalman says.

If you aren’t seeing the results you expected from video, consider other factors that might have gotten in the way of success. If sales don’t skyrocket, for example, “They blame it on the video, but in actuality it could have been that your website may have crashed when people came to see it, or your sales process isn’t very good,” Kwan says. “Yes, the video can help, but you’ve got to make sure that everything else is in place as well.”

Post often enough that you remain on the minds of your viewers without overwhelming them with content. Kwan recommends posting one to three videos a week to get started in order to nurture a regular audience.

Where to Post

For most B2C businesses, YouTube is a great location for posting. But for B2B companies, LinkedIn is the best platform—especially for thought leadership videos.

For content marketing, consider using Vimeo or posting on your company’s website. Using these platforms means you won’t have to contend with YouTube’s algorithm that recommends or auto-plays other videos—which provides viewers with an easy excuse to exit.

Brands have started using Instagram to make sales, but Jessie LaMacchia, director of marketing and outreach at in Chicago, recommends focusing your Instagram efforts on building community. “I’m more interested in creating engaging content—then, the sales follow,” she says.

LaMacchia says the videos that do best on Instagram provide a sample of the services her company offers—in her case, classes in art, photography, ceramics and more. “We recently started hosting artist demos on Instagram Live, which made for tons of engagement with our community and brought in a lot of new followers,” she says. “These videos increase the value of continuing education by giving a taste of what you can expect from a longer-engagement class.”

While sound and video quality matter when producing a YouTube video or a piece that lives on your company’s homepage, go easy on yourself when creating content for Instagram, particularly Instagram stories. The vibe of this platform is far more casual, according to Stalman: “You can just hit record on your phone and let it go live.”

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Consumers often judge just-below prices, or prices that end in 99 cents, to be much lower than the closest round number—a tendency often referred to as “left-digit bias.” The practice of pricing items a few cents less than a round figure has been around for almost a century. Retailers set prices at, for instance, $2.99 instead of $3.00, expecting to benefit from consumers’ tendency to focus on prices’ left-most digits. But whether this practice is successful depends on the condition. Research conducted by Tatiana Sokolova, an assistant professor of marketing at Tilburg University; Satheesh Seenivasan, a senior lecturer at Monash University; and Manoj Thomas, an associate professor at Cornell University, . 

Sokolova and Thomas provided details on some of the most eye-catching data from their study. 

$2.00 >> $1.99

“Understanding whether and when just-below pricing will affect consumer choice has nontrivial financial consequences for consumer packaged goods companies,” Sokolova and Thomas explain. “For example, if a multibillion-dollar FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) company with a 9% net margin changes its product prices from $2.00 to $1.99, its margins decrease by 6%. Unless this drop in margins is offset by a sizeable increase in demand, just-below pricing can backfire and reduce a company’s profits by millions of dollars.”

Just-Below Pricing

This is more likely to work when consumers compare multiple prices side by side, rather than comparing a given price to one the customer remembered seeing. “This means, for example, that left-digit pricing will be more effective during promotions wherein people see the compared prices on the same tag and become more likely to make side-by-side price comparisons,” the authors say. 

$2.99 vs. $3.00

In one experiment, the researchers asked consumers to evaluate the price of Smucker’s jam, which was priced at $2.99 for half of the participants and at $3.00 for the other half. In addition, half the participants also saw the regular price of $4.00 next to the offer price as a reference point. The other half did not see the regular price. 

15% Lower

Participants perceived the $2.99 price to be 15% lower than the $3.00 price—but only in the test where participants were evaluating the offer prices alongside the $4.00 price. When the $2.99 price was evaluated alone, without the $4.00 reference, it was rated the same as the $3.00 price. 

$2.99 Rounded Up to $3.00
$4.00 vs. $2.99

“These results highlight a fundamental insight about when the human mind spontaneously rounds up numbers and when it does not,” Sokolova and Thomas say. “When a person evaluates $2.99 by itself, their mind spontaneously rounds it up to $3.00. But when they evaluate the difference between $4.00 and $2.99, their mind starts comparing the left-most digits even before it can round up the latter number.” 

Research found that just-below pricing is more likely to boost sales among light users of a category who have less-developed price knowledge and are therefore prone to compare the prices of products on the shelf. 

15,236

In 2007, data was gathered from 11 stores of a major Northeastern U.S. supermarket chain and included transactions by 2,000 households in three categories—peanut butter, ketchup and liquid dish detergent. After reviewing 15,236 choices made by consumers in the three categories, researchers found that consumer choice is more affected by prices’ left digits for heavy category users—defined as shoppers who buy frequently and spend a lot in a given category. 

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The world’s top leisure brands, such as CrossFit, PokĂ©mon Go and Tinder, have built empires by creating sticky journeys that keep customers as addicted as possible. Athletes don’t just work out at CrossFit, they’re obsessed with it. Gamers don’t just play PokĂ©mon Go for a little while, they’re hooked for hours on end. Singles on Tinder don’t just hunt for new partners, they’re addicted to the hunt itself. And from Netflix to Spotify to TikTok, a new generation of media companies has completely transformed the television, radio and video industry. Audiences are no longer willing to sit through formulaic shows such as NBC’s “Law & Order.” They want “Game of Thrones”-like drama—compelling, polarizing, hard-to-pull-away-from serials that shock, delight and frequently enrage their viewers. 

The secret to the success of these breakthrough leisure brands is creating an insanely “sticky” journey that defies all the usual hyperrational rules of marketing. It’s not about creating consistently good customer experiences, but about creating intentionally chaotic, maddening and unpredictable ones. It’s also not about making services convenient, easy or satisfying, but instead about making them challenging, suspenseful and thrilling. The resulting customer journeys are exhilarating. We call these journeys sticky to emphasize that customers can’t seem to pull away. At the heart of these sticky journeys is an “involvement spiral”—a roller coaster ride of intensely good and bad experiences that keep customers riveted. 

How Do These Leisure Brands Create Such Sticky Journeys?

The first step is providing customers with “rapid entry.” That means giving customers free, quick and easy access to the service as soon as they express interest, whether in person or online. These brands don’t bore customers with a lot of information or ask too many questions. And they don’t pressure customers to sign up for a monthly subscription—at least not at the beginning. Tinder does this first step particularly well. Unlike traditional matchmaking websites that begin with extensive compatibility questionnaires, the Tinder app asks customers for no more than their age, gender and distance preferences. Customers can also import their photos from Facebook, so they can dive into the Tinder dating pool immediately.

The second step is providing customers with “endless variation” along the user experience journey. Whether we’re talking about dating, gaming, working out or something else, the only way to keep customers excited is by creating unpredictable experiences. Companies create such endless variation using a trio of techniques: 

• Opening the service system to a massive number of service elements (e.g., the hundreds of possible exercises at CrossFit, virtual creatures in PokĂ©mon Go or user profiles on Tinder). 
• Making frequent additions, subtractions and changes to those elements. 
• Offering unique configurations of those elements at each service encounter. 

For instance, CrossFit changes workouts daily and makes them extraordinarily challenging. Drawing on various sports, fitness regimens and military drills, no two workouts are ever the same. Once customers are swept up in the endlessly varied customer journey, they are more eager to sign up for monthly memberships. 

The third step is sparking new customer journeys as soon as the current ones begin to run out of steam. Leisure brands recognize that all journeys come to an end. Even the most exciting adventures can become familiar, exhausting or boring after a while. Eventually, brands must offer their customers new journeys. For example, Nintendo, the parent company behind the “Animal Crossing” game franchise, has launched an entirely new generation of the game every few years. CrossFit coaches invite advanced athletes to Barbell Clubs and CrossFit competitions. And recently, Tinder launched offshoots such as Swipe Night, an event that matches users based on their responses to an interactive movie. 

Wondering how to get un-hooked? Some customers can keep their recreational addictions in check, but many others cannot. Maintaining daily self-discipline is just too difficult. For compulsive users, there’s only one answer: Cancel your subscription, delete the app and call a friend. 

Most customers won’t do that, and leisure brands are counting on it. 

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By Caglar Irmak, Mitchel R. Murdock and Vamsi K. Kanuri 

“,” Journal of Marketing Research, 47 (forthcoming in October 2020). 

In a nutshell: This research shows that political conservatives, but not liberals, increased their use of mobile phones in cars, purchased more unhealthy foods and viewed smoking e-cigarettes more favorably after laws were enacted prohibiting these activities. No such effects occurred when a nongovernment source issued a warning message or when the message from the government was framed as a notification versus a warning. 

Practitioner takeaways: Conservatives, who favor small government, react negatively to “warnings” but favorably to “notifications” from the government and when firms recommend activities. Liberals, who believe government exists to help people, comply similarly to warnings, notifications and firms’ recommendations.

By Edlira Shehu, Dominik Papies and Scott A. Neslin 

“,” Journal of Marketing Research, 47 (forthcoming in August 2020). 

In a nutshell: Shipping fees are a pain point for customers purchasing online, so it follows that free shipping promotions can lead to more sales. However, free shipping promotions increase product returns because they encourage consumers to make riskier purchases that are consequently more likely to be returned.

Practitioner takeaways: Managers should account for additional returns when they consider using free shipping promotions. Higher return rates can render a promotion unprofitable. Consider the product category and size of the shipping fee before diving into free shipping promotions. 

By Emily C. Tanner, Richard J. Vann and Elvira Kizilova 

“,” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 39 (April 2020). 

In a nutshell: Although physical access to healthcare is important, perceived health vulnerability and overall health also determine consumers’ access perceptions. When people distrust the health system, they perceive reduced access and increased vulnerability. Even people who are highly motivated to remain healthy perceive greater vulnerability when their overall health is low. 

Practitioner takeaways: Healthcare marketers are encouraged to take a holistic view of what “access” means. Addressing feelings of vulnerability is critical, even before addressing health motivation. Improving health motivation, rather than overcoming the negative effects of limited health access, may actually contribute to worse health outcomes if perceived vulnerability is not first addressed. 

By Thomas Allard, Lea H. Dunn and Katherine White 

“,” Journal of Marketing, 84 (July 2020). 

In a nutshell: Negative reviews, when perceived as unfair, can activate feelings of empathy toward firms that have been wronged. This empathy can motivate consumer responses such as paying higher purchase prices and reporting increased patronage intentions. 

Practitioner takeaways: Allow unfair negative reviews to remain on your website; they can motivate consumer empathy and generate supportive responses. Managers could even consider highlighting unfair negative reviews and strategically leveraging them. For example, the Drake Hotel in Toronto emphasizes unfair negative reviews from TripAdvisor as part of its marketing communications by turning complaints about its decor into unintended praise for its hip styling.

By Vasileios Davvetas, Adamantios Diamantopoulos and Lucy Liu 

“,” Journal of International Marketing, 28 (forthcoming in September 2020). 

In a nutshell: “Global equals better” has long been a marketing staple for brands aiming to capitalize on their global status. However, consumers don’t always respond positively to global brands, depending on the category. Regret anticipation can be a powerful motivator when they perceive a mismatch between the product and global brand status. 

Practitioner takeaways: Messaging that primes regret when not purchasing their brand can be effective. For example, consumers tend to see global bicycle brands as more trustworthy, so craft messaging that emphasizes the perils of making the wrong choice with a domestic brand.

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Reusable containers have become big brands: Ball jars, Baggu shopping totes and S’well water bottles, to name a few. But far fewer brands have bridged the gap between consumable products and reusable containers. At least, not since the milkman dropped off full bottles and picked up the empties.

There’s been a small but growing subset of consumers who are keenly interested in choosing sustainable products, but more average consumers are beginning to seek out items with a smaller environmental footprint. , 92% of more than 10,000 people surveyed said they believe the way we treat our planet now will have a large impact on the future, but 48% say that convenience takes priority even with the knowledge that they should care more about the environment through their purchasing habits. 

Big brands stepping into the field helps ease these shoppers into greener habits without expecting them to do much extra work. Plus, a known brand name brings assurance that the quality they’re accustomed to remains.

Reducing Guilt, Increasing Convenience

dove into the concept of how a reduction of guilt can drive consumer decision-making as it relates to sustainability. “We find that feelings of guilt and pride, activated by a single consumption episode, can regulate sustainable consumption by affecting consumers’ general perception of effectiveness,” the authors write. Their research, they concluded, could help with the development of sustainable marketing initiatives. 

“Consumers are feeling more and more guilty any time they put stuff in the landfill,” says Karen Page Winterich, marketing professor at Penn State University. But as the Getty research suggested, consumers struggle to overcome their need for convenience—despite their guilt. 

Some brands have decided to take matters into their own hands and offer reusable packaging. One notable and recent example is . The online store and delivery service allows consumers to create an account and fill their baskets with grocery products—namely big brands such as Clorox, Febreze and Seventh Generation. In addition to the products’ costs, customers pay a fully refundable deposit for each reusable package, between $2 and $5 per item. The products arrive via UPS to customers’ homes in a tote bag, which they then refill with the empty containers once done and schedule a pickup. 

Heather Crawford, vice president of marketing and e-commerce at Loop parent company TerraCycle, says Loop’s customer insights team found that consumers want to choose a more eco-friendly product when shopping, but they don’t want to have to go out of their way to do it. “People feel really guilty every time they throw something single use in the trash,” she says. “They can imagine it going to a landfill, they can imagine it’s not being recycled, but they don’t know what to do—and there’s not really anything that’s actually accessible or convenient, or fits into their lifestyle that they can easily integrate into their lives.” 

Loop’s convenience is in the products being delivered directly to customers’ doors in reusable containers, which they can then send right back to be refilled when done. There are also plans to roll out a partnership with Walgreens and Kroger to carry the reusable packages on store shelves to add another layer of convenience. Such ease of use may have also helped Loop boost its numbers in recent months during the pandemic: When it looked like the needle was bending back toward single-use, disposable products in response to COVID-19 concerns, Loop reported a sales surge. (The company didn’t disclose specific figures.) 

“If you can get the convenience factor right, you can really drive higher levels of adoption,” Crawford says. 

Reducing Trial and Error

Loop provides another layer of convenience for customers: offering the brands they already trust. The trend of reusable packaging has been led in large part by start-up firms, so consumers seeking a more sustainable option are also faced with having to test these relatively unknown players. 

Winterich points to the so-called sustainability liability, . The research showed that sustainability is often correlated with gentleness attributes, which can be a liability if a product is purchased for its strength-related features. For example, consumers may be dissuaded from buying a sustainable car shampoo because they want a strong product and may perceive the sustainable version to be too weak. A brand such as Clorox has the name recognition of making reliable products; packaging it in a reusable container only sweetens the deal for a consumer. 

“I might be a very brand-loyal Tide user, but yet I start to see there are other options with less waste, so I feel torn,” Winterich says. “If Tide can actually offer me that lower-waste, reusable version, then I get the best of both worlds. I keep that brand loyalty that I’ve had for years and I’m still able to reduce my waste.” 

It’s another way that brands working with Loop aren’t asking consumers to significantly shift their behaviors. When it comes to sustainability, Crawford says Americans consider it to be a matter of individual behaviors—versus parts of Europe, for example, where consumers expect the government and corporations to step up to the plate. In fact, when Loop entered the German market, it was competing with an already robust packaging return program in the country. 

“Americans are used to voting with their wallet for things that are important to them,” Crawford says. “We’re used to paying a small price premium for sustainability initiatives. And [Americans] don’t necessarily look to legislators or big businesses yet as leaders who will solve the problem. In many cases, it’s actually individuals who are adjusting their own budgets and their own spending patterns to buy from products and platforms that they believe in.” 

Lead From a Mission, Build Community, Show Impact

Brands with reusable packaging could partner with a service such as Loop—Crawford says the company tries to make the barrier for entry as low as possible—but the key to marketing any sustainable product is to remain purpose-driven to the core. 

“[Consumers] want to spend on products and causes that they believe in,” Crawford says. “It’s incredibly important that you give them a clear understanding of what the value or mission of your product is, beyond just its regular features and benefits.” 

In this sense, smaller start-ups sometimes gain the upper hand. As Winterich explains, environmentally conscious brands often go beyond reusable or otherwise sustainable packaging by using ingredients that are eco-friendly as well. Start-ups have also helped to make reusable containers trendy, which pushes both consumers and larger brands to try it and be at the forefront. 

And the more something becomes a trend, the more it appeals to consumers who enjoy a sense of community. 

“As we see more and more brands emerging that are really driven by activism, with true purpose and cause behind them, it’s really important for people to feel as though they’re part of something,” Crawford says. “When they can see their community engaging with a product, when they see people that they follow on social media, when they hear their friends talking about it, and when a company reflects back to them how many other consumers are adopting a product or trend, it makes them feel part of something.” 

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Goal

Verizon Media employees must be tired of video chat. The company’s Executive VP and Group CEO Guru Gowrappan runs a staff-wide remote Q&A every day, which means employees routinely find themselves sitting in front of their computers and passively absorbing information.

When the company concluded that it’d have to go remote with April’s in-person Build It event, a biannual showcase held in Sunnyvale, California, of new products and services launching across Verizon Media’s brands, it knew the last thing anyone wanted was yet another virtual session that resembles “Hollywood Squares.” But instead of the event looking like a game, what if it functioned like one? 

“A lot of the products that we launch are more back-end features and not necessarily something [anyone] can touch and feel the way other more consumer-facing products are,” says Allison Galloway, director of global events for Verizon Media. “The gamification is really to drive the learning and make sure that they get engaged and they understand, since it can be a little bit technical-heavy for the average employee.” 

In partnership with , an experiential agency with design and augmented reality capabilities, the team set about conceiving what that gamification could look like, and they had three weeks to do it. The first-ever Build It: Work From Home (WFH) had to capture the attention of 11,000 Verizon Media employees from around the globe and, because of time zone differences, be playable at any point. The event needed to remain educational but stray as far away from unenthusiastic video consumption as possible. 

Action

MVRK has gamified live events in the past but never within a mere three-week window. “The biggest challenge across the board was time,” says Steve Alexander, founder and chief experiential officer of MVRK. “We didn’t know how long we would be in this journey or what the outcome would be, even beyond quarantine, in this work-from-home lifestyle 
 but we knew we had to move fast.” 

In searching for a way to frame the experience, Alexander considered how Verizon Media and its brands have infiltrated the daily lives of so many consumers during COVID-19. 

“There was a story already unfolding before us: the journey of how Verizon [Media] is with you from when you wake up to when you go to sleep,” he says. “The game of Life jumped out at us immediately.” 

If you’re unfamiliar with the perennial classic, Life is a board game in which players, represented by Cribbage pegs, drive toy cars around a board and experience events that span the cradle to the grave. Players graduate from college, get married and maybe have kids of their own. 

The iteration used in Build It: WFH takes place on a virtual board that’s small enough to be viewed all on one screen and consists of 14 squares along a winding path. Participants moved their own peg person one square at a time, and at each point either a short, prerecorded video or a mini game would launch. The gamification ran the gamut from trivia questions after the videos to interactive ways to communicate new product features—whether they were spelled out in emoji-speak or viewed as animations on mobile devices in augmented reality. 

Verizon Media presented the new Build It format to its employees as a fun departure, rather than a pandemic necessity. “It was more like, ‘Hey everybody, we’re going to find you guys at your houses, can’t wait for you to check out this really awesome virtual experience that we’re creating for you, more in the coming weeks,’” Galloway says. “It was more [about] keeping it light.” 

On the day of the event, participants were welcomed by a live keynote from Gowrappan, given access to the game and allowed to complete it in their own time. Some finished all 14 modules in a single day—that’s 70 minutes of video, 42 activities and four full product demos—while others spaced them out across the five-day event. As they finished up, their scores from each game were tallied and posted to a global leaderboard that included employees at all levels of the organization. This nursed friendly competition among players and allowed the top 200 performers to earn prizes— little things to enhance their work-from-home setup. 

Results

More than 5,000 people joined the game—3,300 of whom logged in immediately on day one. The game page itself was viewed more than 206,000 times and hooked players for, on average, 32 minutes at a time. 

Galloway heard from employees at smaller office locations such as Omaha, Nebraska, who were excited to see their names up on the leaderboard with coworkers they may never otherwise interact with in other parts of the world. 

Alexander and MVRK will no longer have to scramble if future Verizon Media events, or those of other clients, are required to drastically pivot in a short time frame. Some of the technology they built can be repurposed for other projects. They set the game on a device-agnostic virtual platform that can be viewed just as easily on a mobile phone as a desktop and implemented features such as two-way video chat and the ability to host 3D environments that span a full 360 degrees. 

The success of Build It: WFH has convinced Galloway that future events, even if they’re allowed to be held in person, could benefit from some online gaming. 

“In a lot of ways, it really unified all of our employees,” Galloway says. “Our biggest takeaway was that even when we go back to normal, we really need to keep [elements of this event] in some capacity. [Future events] will be something of a hybrid, where there will be our live stage content—you can’t replace 
 the networking and that connectedness that people do feel there—but we will have a gamification component.”

Photos courtesy of Verizon Media.

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