Transcript

Bennie F. Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for a very special episode of AMA’s Marketing / And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In today’s episode, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations of individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We’ll introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, but are exactly the ones you need to know.

Through our thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, we have a really special guest, Jocelyn Lo. Jocelyn is the Vice President of Brand and Communications for Seedtag. Seedtag is the creator of the Neurocontextual Advertising Program, built on neuroscience and driven by AI to decode real-time signals of interest, emotion, and intent. With this privacy-first intelligence, Seedtag turns context into meaningful connection and makes advertising more human, effective, and sustainable.

Before joining Seedtag, she worked at TripleLift as Associate Marketing Director. And throughout her career journey, has managed content creation, event manager, and influencer programs. We’re excited to have us join and talk about this very timely space of marketing, advertising, and innovation. Thank you, my friend, for joining us.

Jocelyn Lo

Thank you for having me.

Bennie

So one of the things that I’m always fascinated about is the gravity around our interests and our careers. So talk a bit about what gravity brought you to ad tech in general, in New York in particular.

Jocelyn 

I always ask myself that question because you talk about the interest piece. I think when I first started out in marketing, I was always like, I’m gonna go into like fashion marketing. I’m gonna go into, you know, consumer brands like on that end. And somehow coming out of, you know, college, I was like thinking to myself like, where do I really wanna be? I landed in tech. Products actually first and it was something that I never expected. It was really cool to kind of like take a step into more of the tech world. What really inspired me was actually when I went to CES a long time ago and I was coordinating all of our road shows for that when I was in consumer products. It was really inspiring to see how advanced tech could really get there, right? Like this was, I’m talking like years and years and years ago, I was looking at like robots happening and that was before like the era of AI and all that stuff and I was just so intrigued and learn what is going to become reality in tech versus things that are going to stay like you know concepts or ideas and from there, it kind of spiraled into moving into more things that are tech related. You know, it always made sense for me to kind of go into advertising because I do love creating advertising that speaks to people. And then more importantly, I love the merge of technology with it, right? So I kind of just…

Bennie

Right.

Jocelyn

I naturally pivoted that way. And the opportunity came up, I thought it was intriguing. You know, I’ve been very lucky to work for, you know, amazing ad tech companies out in this industry as a whole. But it was really truly the idea of technology that brought me into this. And I mean, the industry as a whole has evolved so much, you know, and it’s cool to see where we’re going now.

Bennie

Right. It’s so interesting to be on that kind of razor’s edge of the ad tech. And so many of us, we don’t see it until it’s fully adopted on the fatter part of the curve. So what is it like to transition from one new technology to a newer technology to a newer technology when the rest of your peers are still a generation behind?

Jocelyn

Yeah. Yeah. I would say that like for technology as a whole, you really have to stay up to date on it because a lot of the shifts that we’ve been experiencing just even as like humans, right? Like, for example, we talk about AI so much. There’s people out there who are big fans of it. There’s folks who want to fight it still and say like AI cannot be a part of my life. I think that when you’re looking at technology as a whole, sometimes it’s not about am I going to be using it or am I not going to be using it?

More, like you said, adapting it to how it works for you. And I think that’s super important, right? So I always think about that when it comes to technology. It’s like, we’re not building tech just to build tech. We’re building tech that’s actually going to be useful for other people. We think about the use cases. We think about how does this actually solve for things? And I think about that as well when it comes to application on my side for things that I do. I think that being ahead of the curve is great, but you need to also understand like, what does that really mean when it comes to like, your work, your industry, your company and all that stuff. And it’s amazing to see. Not only understanding the tech where it is now, but I kind of realized, even though in marketing, a lot of times people ask me, they’re like, a marketer, like, it’s great. You like to make things look nice. You like to tell a story, right? And that’s what you do. And I was like, yes. But there’s another part of that. Like, you want to be curious to learn more. And the more you learn. So I don’t have to go all the way deep in on the product side. I don’t always have to go all the way on the deep end of like technology. But it’s a personal interest of mine. And when I discovered wanting to learn more about those topics, even though it’s like a dotted line to my career, I found more success in that because I was able to tell a story that was complete. I was able to really think about.

Bennie

Right.

Jocelyn

If I understand this, how do I actually make it relatable on the marketing side to somebody who maybe doesn’t need to know these things, but I can like factor it in? So I love being curious about that stuff. And it’s, I’ve seen such success kind of just going into it more with like open eyes and like being willing to like accept these things as well.

Bennie

You know, it’s interesting, we talk and reading your bio, we talk about that nexus of innovation and advertising. So I’m gonna ask this a little refined question point on innovation, because oftentimes we say innovation writ large, but you’re in a space where you really get to see innovation as incremental progress, innovation as progression, and innovation as disruption. You know, what are your thoughts on kind of managing all those kind of characters of innovation?

Jocelyn

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think innovation, I think one thing we need to understand is innovation doesn’t need to be perfect. I think that’s what we have to be okay with. Because you talk about the disruption, you talk about all that stuff. I think people think innovation means that we’re going to create something net new that works perfectly. That’s super exciting. But the thing is that you can’t do that, right? Like you really have to think a little bit more about the idea of like, is innovation on the brink of changing something? Or is it on the brink of potentially curving how people have been operating? So for me, innovation as a whole, it’s tough because with innovation, there’s different tiers to it, right? Like what phase of innovation are we on? Innovation isn’t just a one step of something. Innovation as a whole is so much bigger. There’s different parts to innovation that we have to be able to be comfortable with. I also love the idea of like, understanding the fact that technology is built to be broken sometimes and we’re okay with that. We’re developing as we go. That’s the reality of innovation.

Innovation, we need to get people also on board to leverage and use, right? So the more like, you know, for example, like if I created something, I want you to come and use it. And I want you to tell me, I didn’t like that. It was not a good experience that you need to prove these things. That’s the true innovation. Because if I build something, and I just let it go free and like, say like, hey, great, like my work is done. That’s not innovation. You completed a technology product, the thing you released it, it’s great.

Bennie

Right. Right.

Jocelyn 

Innovation should be a continuation always and it should be at the forefront of what we’re thinking about when it comes to the next phase of that. What does that look like years from now? So to me, that’s kind of how I view it. Like it’s okay that it’s disruptive. It should be. It should be okay if people are like, I’m kind of comfortable leaning in on this and some people aren’t. I feel like that’s when true innovation actually happens.

Bennie

But it’s so true when we speak about it. And we talk about it from both the product and the org side. When you start to think about it from the marketing side, one of our challenges and responsibilities is to connect that story arc, is to connect that feature arc, right? Because when you do true disruptive innovation, sometimes you’re introducing something that’s new, new, right? And we don’t have the language or the experience to even connect that, and that’s where we come in on the marketing side.

Jocelyn

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, happens to me all the time. Sometimes I’m like, I’m lost for words on how to describe this without being so technical. Because I was like, I don’t understand this. How do I expect anyone who doesn’t work here to understand this, right? And that’s always been the challenge. And I think that’s actually when the best type of marketing happens. It’s not about using super advanced techie language that no one understands. Yes, it does make you look, you know, my goodness, we’re like the tech company, but then it’s like, no one understands what you’re actually doing. And like, does that actually make sense? Is a marketer actually doing their job? No, your whole goal is to bring that…

Bennie

Right. Right. 

Jocelyn

To a level where people can envision themselves using that innovation technology every single day in the most simplest form and understanding how to explain something complex. And I actually love that’s also one reason why it drew me to tech because I love being in a position where it is very challenging to explain things. But when you’re able to explain something to like, for example, like I use my mom, my dad as a pulse check. And I’m like, you guys aren’t in this industry. If I explain this to you, do you understand and could you actually repeat back to me what I do. There’s been times where I failed and my mom was like, can you do something with ads online? And I was like close but really broad. And then there’s time to explain it works.

Bennie

My goodness. So this is, so this has been a running sub theme the last couple of seasons of our podcast, our relationship as marketers with our parents and actually understanding what we do. The pulse has been everybody’s parents are proud of us. But we’ve only had like one parent who’s ever understood exactly what we do. So I love the fact that your relationship is your parents are there, but they’re also a kind of checkpoint. They’re a focus group and a survey. But I will ask you that question. Do mom and dad have any idea what you do?

Jocelyn

They do because I’ve definitely give them a slight paragraph script because they’re always like, I want to explain to my friends what you do because I’m so intrigued by it. I know you’re in some form of AI and I was like, yeah, know, like, are you like chat GPT? And I was like, close but not. And then they’ll ask me questions like, what does advertising tech mean? So like, I’ve actually used to work on like, a lot of our like learning modules for like my past companies, and my mom would actually take the time and watch our Academy videos and I was like, you are the sweetest person in the world. And one day I heard her actually like, rehearse and like say what I did. And I was like, that’s actually very accurate. And I was like, so impressed. But it’s really sweet. My parents like constantly asked me like, what is it exactly you do when I changed, you know, companies or I migrated into a new role, they always want to try to understand like what this means, you know, and it’s it’s nice because I always say like, if you understand my message,

Bennie

My goodness.

Jocelyn

Then I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job as like a marketer for something that’s very like hard to explain

Bennie

That’s really powerful. I think my mom understands what I do now that I’m CEO. She understands, she grasps the fullness of CEO. I think when I was Chief Strategy and Chief Marketing Officer, she didn’t know.

Jocelyn

Like what is that? Do you do something and like promoting? I feel like we should have a segment where we actually call our parents and be like, can you on record explain what I do?

Bennie

You know, we might do that. I love that idea, Jocelyn. I’m going to get together our past guests and we’re going to make this. Let’s plan on this. I’m nodding to my producers here so we can make that happen. That would be fun, you know, to engage in what we’re doing in this space. Now, when you think about kind of ad tech, we talk about the evolution of the technology itself, the evolution of the product offering, and that as a marketer talk a bit about how you actually deal with the evolution of a consumer. Because our expectations, I think about that when we’re building sites and engagement, over our expectations on what should happen and how it happens are very different from five, from 10, from 15 years ago.

Jocelyn

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you are completely correct on that. I always look at it this way. Consumers and the folks who are actually like engaging with this content, they’re the most important people. You can come up with any strategy you want to in reaching them. You can also come up with all these different campaigns. But at the end of the day, if you’re not resonating with the audience, it’s not gonna happen. Like I always mentioned that. And I feel like a part of like advertising that has kind of gone away and been a little bit lost is actually the idea of creating advertising that is for people. I right now, like a lot of how advertising has gone towards, it’s really just about like numbers. Like, are we reaching X amount of people? Great. That means it’s successful. Are we, you know, just getting a message out there and like, awesome, it’s happening.

It’s really competitive. Every brand now has like how many competitors out in space. Everyone’s thinking about how do I stand out? You’re also thinking a little bit about the idea of who am I reaching? That’s very, very important, right? You wanna reach people who actually would be interested in the stuff that you’re talking about. So looking at it as in like, I don’t want to look at Benny as Benny and I don’t wanna look at Jocelyn as Jocelyn, for example. There’s probably things about each of us that we… Wouldn’t know just based off of like looking at each other right and sometimes looking at those demographics online It helps to some degree just to have some base point of who you are But it is such a small little part of who we are that I feel like sometimes in advertising that gets lost and I feel like the part of advertising that’s really beautiful is actually really connecting on a message more emotional base level and Creating advertising that’s really built for humans. I think that’s something that the industry is kind of slowly moving back towards again now because we lost that over the last few years, I feel like 100%.

Bennie

Right, so true. You know, when we think about, you know, what we’ve lost and what’s needed, when you start to work with the team and you’re building your next-gen products, what’s the voice that you have as a marketing leader in that conversation?

Jocelyn

Yeah, so the voice is really important. think about a couple of things when it comes to like who is in that room with me, right? Even though I’m maybe leading something, the voice doesn’t always only come from me. You know, it’s really important to bring in many different perspectives, folks from different teams who operate differently than me, people who think about things that maybe I don’t think about. I also think a lot about, you know, who’s sitting in the room making those final decisions with me, right? Like, it’s great to have leadership in the room, but sometimes the best isn’t coming directly from the leader themselves. It’s about the team that we’ve created. So that’s really important to me, right? When coming up with the voice. I also think and ask a lot of questions. I always say like, let’s challenge things, right? So maybe there’s an idea that was brought to the table. We’re all like, this is a fantastic idea. We love this. Maybe it’s great, but could it be even stronger if we start kind of dissecting it a little bit more? Let’s ask questions, let’s add to it, you know, and I think that’s like the beautiful part about collaborating in that kind of sense as well, is that…

You can lead anything you want to know, and you can be a leader here. But sometimes as a leader, you’re really just only as strong as your team, as strong as the people in the room with you. And I feel like it’s such a great opportunity to to collaborate, build ideas, really think about like, how do we like exponentially grow what we’ve done so far? And I think that’s the part that always excites me. I don’t love it when the idea comes from me sometimes. I love hearing ideas from other people and I’m like, love that.

Let’s try to run with that. Let’s like think even bigger than that. Let’s do this with this. Like it’s just like a starting effect of like how can we pull on top of it? And like that’s what I live for as a leader myself is seeing other folks step in and really be successful. It makes me very happy to be able to be in a space like that.

Bennie

And that’s a really powerful and wonderful sentiment of a true leader, right? Because our role is to amplify, to find those ideas and to celebrate, accelerate and move any of the obstacles in it to making them better. To space it goes in. So we talked a little bit about your love of branding. So I’m gonna ask you in this moment. You know, I hope we’re not talking too much outside of school, but you’re in the process of working on a rebrand.

Jocelyn

Yes. I am.

Bennie

Without giving anything away, what precipitated your exploration of rebrand? And that’s one of those questions many of our listeners are always dealing with to do or not to do on a rebrand space in there. So what was the deciding point for you all to think about, OK, we should take a serious effort to refresh, reengage, and expand the brand?

Jocelyn

Yeah, so we kind of looked at it where and who we are. That’s what was really important. Last year we did a whole repositioning of who we are as a company. I was very fortunate in sitting in space where I got to lead that project with my manager as well on creating what does this new evolution of what we do, how we talk about ourselves looks. And once we landed on that, it was neuro contextual, like what you mentioned earlier, it’s really focused on that. A big part of neuro contextual was actually the idea of how are we connecting and bringing more opportunities for brands and agencies to truly reach humans, not an audience, not a person, because that’s how real it is, especially in a very tech operated world today that is all AI. That is like what we like. We’re like, how do you speak to that?

Bennie

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn

When that happened, it was very clear that with that evolution, the brand story from a visual standpoint did not match that anymore. You know, it became where we were looking at it. We’re like, when did our brand become so technology? You know, we were putting like all these things on there that really highlighted tech was really cool. But like I said, again, the best brands out there are the ones that make you feel something, right? Like, why do you decide to go with brand A versus brand B? Both products are good, both pricing of things are good. Sometimes it’s about why you connect with that brand, right? Like resonate with it. So that was a big part of the reason why I was looking at this and I was like, do I personally connect with this brand anymore? Or do I feel like this brand doesn’t really match the personality of who we are anymore? And that was answer that we had. And it was really cool because like our co-founder, our CEO, our like, know, the marketing folks all felt that. And so it just made sense to go into exploring what a rebrand looked like. I’m not gonna lie to you, Bennie, we first started with a, we’re gonna do a refresh. And then as we did a refresh, we were like, no, no, no, it’s a full on rebrand. This is not a refresh at all.

Bennie

Right. This is when you go in and like, I just need to paint one room. house. Yeah, it’s definitely a space in there. Because you know, you said the things that are driving you become true. I like the way that you’re able to sit there and say, nothing is sacred in here. Yes, we found her fresh and we’ve created it. But we’ve outgrown, you know, our outgrown, we’ve outgrown our startup close. Right?

Jocelyn

Yeah, yeah. And then you’re like, now I got to renovate the whole house. Yeah, that’s yeah, exactly. And we are now moving towards a brand that actually matches what we’re doing. And I think I couldn’t be happier than that, because I think to myself also, when you do branding, something that I think to our end is that at tech as a whole, yes, there’s a lot of like, we live in advertising, I always say this is like a running joke, we live in advertising, yet somehow we don’t do a lot of advertising for ourselves.

Bennie

Right, right.

Jocelyn

It’s funny because we help like brands, we help agencies. That’s something that we really wanted to do differently, which is like, if we’re going to be in advertising on our end, we should speak it, we should preach it, we should actually do it. Right. And so that’s where this brand also has like head from a direction. It’s very warm. It’s very human-esque. It’s very focused on not just showing the technology, but like telling the story of how this technology can make you better. And it’s actually interesting because I think a lot of AI companies are doing that now.

For example, like I love that, I think a lot of the AI companies first started with just showing like the platform and like highlighting that stuff. And they realized that wasn’t really resonating with anyone. Then they started adapting like videos and stories to say like, what does it look like when you actually use this platform? Are we helping you discover how to fix a car tire? Are we helping you figure out how to like find a recipe? Like that’s when I was like, see it’s clicking because you’re showing people how this actually impacts their lives every day versus just like.

Bennie

Right. Right.

Jocelyn

Hi, welcome to this platform. Please type your question in. Those are all things that we think about. And this brand is exactly that story. We don’t want to do that. We want to create a brand that just resonates.

Bennie

You it’s so true, you said recipe, and it immediately brings it front and center when you think about this. Often the technology is the bare bones of the recipe.

Jocelyn 

Yes, exactly.

Bennie

You know, one cup onions, one cup celery, know, okra, crab meat, you know, chicken. Those are the things that by themselves don’t have life and don’t have space. But really what I’m starting to build for you is a recipe for gumbo. So then when I talk about gumbo, there’s more meaning that goes into it. But it’s really never about gumbo. It’s about the experience of Vinnie and Jocelyn eating together, which then is about community. So each of those steps and the technology underneath it…

Jocelyn

Hmm. Exactly. Yeah.

Bennie

Is really not the story of what drives you in, not even the end product. It’s to your point, that human connection that’s on top of it. I understand gumbo through that, not through whether I put wet pepper or not, right?

Jocelyn 

Yeah, I love that. That was a great analogy, by the way. And also, Bennie, I feel like you have to make me gumbo now. Like that’s the requirement.

Bennie

I, you know, I, can, I will do it for you. I am not making any warranties that it’s authentic. It will be good, but I’m a marketing troublemaker like yourself. So I always remix things. So I don’t know if you know if it’s gumbo now, but it works. So, you know, when you think about

Jocelyn 

Okay, I’ll take it. I love it though.

Bennie

Demonstrating what’s that. I love also that you’ve anchored in on some language that’s yours and you block out. So how did you end up with neural contextual? With all the other languages that you let fall away and what you double down in, it’s interesting that that becomes the anchor for you and then you kind of expand a bit more and then expand a bit more. So what brought you to neural contextual?

Jocelyn 

So we were looking at neuro as a whole and we were saying, what is the one part of somebody? It didn’t matter necessarily like, you know, who you were face value wise. Like what is something that is like a true essence of you? And it’s actually your brain, right? So we think about that. So yes, there’s things that, you know, external factors that can change things and so on, but the brain at the end of the day is truly who you are, right? Like it’s something that’s really important. And one thing that we also understood was like from the science side of things that when you understand the brain, you’re understanding the deeper meaning of something for somebody. So that was kind of naturally where we were moving towards, right? Because for us, we built technology that thinks and mirrors how a brain actually works in somebody. So when we were thinking about what that meant, what does interest meant, what does intent meant mean, what does emotions of a human actually mean and how does that change when somebody interacts with advertising?

We immediately were like, you know what? This piece is neuro contextual, it feels very real. It feels like something you can do. You can understand. We’re also very like privacy first, like focus as a company, because like I mentioned, it’s not about the demographics. It’s not about face value. We are, we have so many complex layers to ourselves and advertising needs to speak to those things. Because if you’re going to target me and say like, Hey, like it looks like she likes fashion. Like let’s just give her all those things. You might not know that.

I also love a lot of other stuff that maybe you never assume that about me. So that’s like the beauty of like neuro contextual. We’re understanding those deeper layers about somebody without needing to know who they are. And that’s where the importance of neuro comes in because this is truly a great representation of how you operate, how you think, how things work. So that’s kind of how that terminology came about.

Bennie

Right. Right. Right. It’s a really sophisticated way of thinking about it. In a previous conversation, we had a creepiness threshold, which was the conversation around privacy. Like, when is it, when does knowing enough feel edifying and dynamic and wow, this is beneficial? And when is it just weird? Right? And kind of understanding that space and knowing that line for the space in the brands. Now, when you think about the brands that you’ve worked with and you are working in a B2B space, is there any tension between what you’re delivering for brands that are typically consumer versus brands that may play in a business to consumer, business to business space? Are you seeing any benefits or challenges?

Jocelyn 

I think what’s challenging is exactly what you mentioned is that consumers are changing constantly. Right? That’s like the biggest challenge that we have. You know, sometimes you look at these consumers and some consumers are like, I am a brand loyalist. I want to stick to a brand. There’s no way that I’m ever going to move off this brand, right? I’m guilty of a little bit of that myself. Like I, know, you’ll never get me off of like, certain things like, for example, like, I always will buy this soap or always buy this like, you paper towel, because it’s just like what I do, I don’t, it doesn’t matter if like, they’re charging me more money, or there’s another brand that comes out, for some reason, I’m a loyalist to here, and you cannot persuade me to go otherwise. And then there’s obviously moments to where like, there are, you know, like, for example, I think more about food based things, right? And like, that’s also where I think there’s a little bit more persuasion of like, hey, there’s new things coming out, people are caring more about health conscious things. There’s opportunities to convince people to potentially try something new. So that becomes really difficult because how do legacy brands get consumers to still want to use their stuff or try their things? Or is it that they’re going to be like, you know, these new brands that are emerging and rising? Like, I think about healthy sodas, that’s like a new thing. I mean, I grew up drinking like sugar filled sodas. There was no healthy sodas growing up. Now there’s like so many healthy, you know, probiotic soda that everyone’s indulging in. Like these are the challenges that we’re, you know, helping friends face. And it’s wild because every day is different, right? Like there’s something that comes out news wise that says this will impact this now. And everyone all of a is like, I’m not gonna buy that anymore. So, those are the biggest challenges that we face when helping like, you know, B2C companies and then B2B companies for me, like what’s really interesting is like I sit in B2B myself, like what you were mentioning. I think the biggest challenge we have is thinking about the fact that when you’re marketing, you’re not marketing to another business really, you’re marketing to the people behind the business. And yet, how a lot of the ways that we tell that story is still very like business driven. And it becomes almost a little like you can’t really tell the uniqueness of what you’re offering. So I always say like, even though we sit in B2B, I think about advertising strategy for us even as like a B2C. Because a lot of times, you remember you’re talking to real people, you’re not talking to the company, right? So like, that’s something that…

Bennie

Right. Right.

I feel like is always really challenging that you know, B2Bs are trying to solve. It’s a cool challenge to be in, but it’s sometimes about taking risk. I feel like the B2C companies take a lot of risk because they have like consumers they need to engage with like they’re about like buying products and stuff like that, which is really cool. But I think each industry faces different challenges and things that happen and every day is kind of different and that’s the the wild world of advertising.

Bennie

Right. So question, what do you wish that leaders in consumer marketing knew about this next generation of ad tech? As they start to engage, do you wish they knew?

Jocelyn 

I think what I wish they knew was that now consumers can be anywhere, like truly anywhere. The interaction that we have with a consumer needs to be strong in every place that you’re going to be in, right? Sometimes it’s about taking a little bit of risk and trying something new, understanding a little bit more of like, what is the behind the scenes of understanding who those consumers are, right? So like, it’s great that we’re thinking about what social media looks like? What does video look like? What does TV look like and all that stuff? You will probably engage with the consumers on all of those platforms. But at the end of the day, sometimes it’s a very different approach, right? Like you can’t just copy and paste everywhere.

The message sometimes needs to feel like a story that’s building. I think the other thing too on the ad tech side is that it’s great that we focus a lot on creative and I think creative is super important because like if you don’t have a creative that speaks to someone, you’re not going to catch their attention. But have you thought about the environment of where those creatives are going to live as well? Right? Like there’s a little bit of strength and understanding like, Hey, is this actually the right area where the interest lies and what are those things and should we be there?

It is there, does it make sense? And also thinking about like, is there also like extensions of those areas that could make sense from an interest point, right? So I think that’s the really cool part of advertising tech. It’s like, there’s ways to actually figure that out now, versus back then, it was very simple of like, I’m just gonna put us in this one place and call it a day. That’s disruptive. Now, I feel like people are not, I almost call it ad fatigue. People are so numb to advertising because you see like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them every day. I can’t even remember the last advertisement that was served to me. And to me, that’s sad because maybe there are ads that could be very useful. So really thinking about where are you showing up? When are you showing up and who are you showing up for? It’s not about the person, it’s really about the environment of where you’re showing up and does it resonate? Does it match? Does it work together? Because that’s the beauty of storytelling, right? It’s not like me seeing a random ad place on a random hoping that it sticks. I think that’s gonna be like something that wouldn’t work very well in the advertising world at all.

Bennie

Right. And now, the question is, have our playbooks become too formulaic? Right? To your point, if all the ads are different, but they’re all strategically the same, do we miss it all? I mean, that’s a great question. Like you’re being advertised and your awareness of the advertising has gone completely away.

Jocelyn

No! Exactly. That’s a very good book. There’s no playbook. I always tell people there’s no playbook for advertising. Like, yes, we can figure things out as we go. But this is an industry that’s living and breathing. Like you need to adapt as things move. It cannot be like a, we set these guidelines like… eight years ago and we’re gonna use those same principles, those same guidelines. I feel like just the way that people are and also how many brands are competing every single day, how complex marketing can be, I think there needs to be a lot of changes that happen organically and we don’t need to be scared of those changes. I think taking risks is really, really important. Viral marketing wasn’t a thing back then, social media marketing wasn’t a thing. Look at it now. There’s influencer marketing, there’s everything. So a lot of the stuff, it’s like the tipping point of it. Are we comfortable with that? And if we are, I feel like there could be a lot of success in trying new marketing tactics as well.

Bennie

So true, like success in trying the net new form, and I wonder how that fits in certain brands. There’s certain brands that give them space, that have earned or built that flexibility that they can take those risks. And others that are kind of tightly wound. I’ve worked on brands where the color palette, the name, everything is structured in stone, but yet you see programs in which they lean into your audience and it changes. I will name, our sweet sugary beverage for this one because it makes sense.

Last year, Coca-Cola won a Cannes Lion for this incredible campaign that went against everything you expect big brands to do. The insight that they built out was that in communities, outside of the big, boards, outside of the big media, that their suppliers and the mom and pops who were selling were in love with the brand and making their own advertising. It violated every rule in the Coca-Cola brand book, right? It was hand-painted signs on the outside of the store. Different colors, different spaces in there. But it all kind of spoke to this intense love and relationship with the brand. And the brilliance of the insight was people are embracing it and making their own instead of being the police, let’s free it up. And they became the platform.

Jocelyn 

That’s amazing.

Bennie

And it’s but you know, what’s really awesome is that, is that they got there naturally. You think about command and control of brands has been such a part of building that space and then freeing it up to, to empower. When you think about, you know, some of this really cool ad tech.

Are there ways that you can encourage smaller brands to be a part of this? You sometimes as we talk about these big conversations, I know I can hear my brand managers and leaders of smaller brands thinking that maybe it’s not for me. Maybe there’s not an on-ramp for me. But we know that these technologies are empowering and enabling our brands like never before. And a benefit of that is the access point. What advice would you give to the brands that aren’t the Fortune 50?

Jocelyn

Yes. Yeah, I think what’s great to think about like ad tech, especially like, you know, the companies that that I’ve been working for is that you kind of think of us almost like an extension of your team. I think the thing is, it’s like when you’re working for these like, you know, up and coming brands, folks who have smaller marketing teams, smaller advertising teams. It’s not about the fact that you don’t have the ideas. Sometimes it’s just the fact that you don’t have enough bandwidth to execute these things. So why not partner up with others like, you know, advertising tech, like companies who can provide these things to you, right? So like, we can help you with building actually like a strategy around like against your competitors, we can build you strategy around like, hey, I’m trying to like, change my perception, for example, of like my brand, and I want to be known for this, this and this, like, these are all things that if you find the right partner on they can provide you that Intel that probably would take you a very long time to discover on your own if you don’t have access to that technology, if you don’t have access to that ability to actually provide that, right? And sometimes it’s like just having a larger team or like folks who can do those things for you. And I’ve seen…really, really great success from that because a lot of times, like you said, maybe a company that’s not in the fortune 500, they’re like, we don’t really want to invest in these resources. We just kind of want to do, you know, this social media marketing or this kind of marketing. And we think it’s good enough. I think there’s a time and place for all types of marketing. And I think sometimes depending on what your goals are, there could be something you can accomplish over here versus maybe on these other platforms that you can’t. So I think that’s kind of the biggest call, right? Like why not?

Bennie

Right.

Jocelyn

Understand what is possible with these. Like, don’t just cut it out just because like, hey, I don’t think it makes sense for us. Why not reach out to a company to get to know what they can really offer you, hear them out, tell them your issues. I think the best thing I always tell myself is like, when working for companies like this, it’s not about us. It’s about what we offer, right? And how can we help marketers and advertisers actually accomplish what they’re looking for? Doesn’t matter how small the company is, how large a company is.

That’s the most important thing. So really, ad tech, know, a lot of the folks who are offering stuff, we are trying to figure out how we can help you accomplish your goals. It’s not about our goals. So I think that’s the one thing that’s really important from a viewpoint of like maybe that would help shift some of the perspective of like, could I work with a company like you guys?

Bennie

That’s powerful. So I’m going to end where we began to talk about gravity. So what advice does the seasoned marketing leader Jocelyn have for the young Jocelyn making the jump to ad tech in New York?

Jocelyn

Yeah. I would say just be curious, keep wanting to learn all the time. There’s going to be an endless amount of terminology, acronyms that you’re going to get used to because somehow we live in a world of just wanting to like do acronyms. You’re gonna get really tech heavy. You’re going to have moments where… you know, marketing does become challenging, you know, and it’s, it’s tough, but the most exciting thing for you is just really thinking about like, how do I put myself in a position that is challenging, but somehow I can come up with creative solutions, come up with ideas, not every idea is going to land, but the ones that do and you’re able to carry through and like see what that looks like. It’s the most rewarding feeling ever. Right. And I, that’s what I love about just being a marketer as a whole is that marketing is not easy by any means, you’re going to hear people being like, I think I can do marketing and you’re like, can you though? Everyone thinks they can do marketing, like, let’s be honest, but the reality of it is being a good marketer being a strong marketer that takes a lot.

And it’s really thinking to yourself also, what does marketing mean? The first thing you should ask yourself sitting in an industry like this is what I want to actually engage with that. Does that intrigue me? And if the answer is no, then you need to rethink what that marketing looks like. Because at the end of the day, I myself am a consumer, you know, even though I am the marketer. So I think it’s good to think from that perspective and kind of change that a little bit. And also, you don’t have to say yes to everything. Sometimes there are ideas that maybe there’s a better version of that idea that you can create. Maybe there’s ways that you can expand it. So you know best, and I feel like it’s something that you’re going to continue learning, but it’s one of the beauties of being a marketer in today’s world.

Bennie

What wonderfully powerful words to end our conversation on, my friend. Stay curious, be open, continue to grow, and have fun along the journey.

Jocelyn

Amazing. It’s fun, I promise you that, I’ll tell you that now.

Bennie

Well, excellent. So thank you all for joining us for this really powerfully curious episode of AMAs Marketing / And. Jocelyn, thank you for all the work in allowing us to have a better framework to think about ad tech both today and tomorrow, to think about our roles as privacy first professionals, and to challenge us as marketers and brand builders to build the next generation of ad tech. Thank you.