Before social media display ads and AI, marketing consisted of print ads and billboards. Today, digital marketing has become so much more. In this week’s episode, Jenn and Kalli were joined by Jocelin Schultz, Director & Head of Media and Digital Capabilities at Kenvue, and who has led a voice to a variety of digital marketing campaigns for notable brands such as Johnson and Johnson, Unilever, Charles Schwab, and more. Join us as we dissect the fundamentals and trends of the digital marketing landscape.
imPRessions Season 2 Episode #4 Transcript
Kalli: Hey, Jenn. So in our call the other day with one of our clients, we were talking about this really cool hair tool that she found online. Jenn, were you able to find it?
Jenn: No, I wasn’t.
Kalli: I think we just have to find the name of it and just speak it into the air. Yeah, and I’m sure an ad will pop right up.
Jenn: Well, it is a little creepy how you have a conversation with somebody, and it could be a completely casual, innocent thing. And all of a sudden, I run this this, run this with Nick all the time. My husband. I’ll be telling him something about work, one of our clients, and lo and behold, he’ll be getting ads for their services. So, we kind of have this running joke that he always knows what I’m working on because Instagram or TikTok tells them.
Kalli: That’s very true. I’ve seen the same thing myself. Even on the TV ads. You know, we watch a lot of YouTube in my house because that’s where Peppa Pig is. And, uh, it’ll be like Peppa Pig. And then whatever the client had a call with that day. That’s the ad. So it’s really interesting to see how digital marketing has really changed and really targets very differently than they did in the past.
Jenn: Do we feel those targeted ads are helpful, or are they creepy?
Kalli: It depends on your mood. Because it is creepy when it’s your client and helpful when it’s something you forgot to order.
Jenn: That’s true, a good point. Well, I think today’s conversation is going to kind of dive a little bit more into this. Jocelyn Schultz, who’s joining us in a little bit, is fantastic. She is a digital marketing connoisseur. She has worked for some of the top brands in the consumer packaging goods market. So I think you’re really going to enjoy what we talked about today.
Jenn: From the early days of banner ads and pop-ups to the sophisticated data-driven strategies of today, digital marketing has undergone a remarkable transformation. Social media, AI, and even the usage of smartphones have all played an integral role in its evolution. In today’s episode, we’ll be covering the fundamentals and ever-changing landscape of digital marketing with Jocelin Schultz, director and head of media and digital capabilities at Kenvue, who has led her voice at Johnson and Johnson, Unilever, Charles Schwab, and more. Hi, Jocelin, thanks for joining us today.
Jocelin: Hi, Thanks for having me.
Jenn: Of course. So I want to dive right into this because I, I really love this topic because I feel digital marketing itself has really, really changed and evolved through the years. Do you recall any pivotal moments or technological advancements that have begun to shape the evolution of digital marketing?
Jocelin: Yeah, I mean, maybe that’s the only thing we talk about because there’s a lot. But, um, I think some of the big ones are around social media. You know, the fact that it exists, but then also how it’s evolved, another one that I think has changed rapidly in the past few years is around programmatic and the whole ecosystem around programmatic, the rise of retail media as an actual media world, that’s probably one of the newer ones. And then the word of the moment around artificial intelligence and machine learning, I think those are all playing a really uniquely different role. And I think social media was probably one of the first ones that, you know, we’re much more mature in that space. But, you know, every year, we get new social media platforms that come up. And so, you know, we’ve got to evolve as marketers to play in those spaces. But I think those are probably four of the biggest areas that I think have driven the most change. So if you look at how did you did marketing five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago, you know, wildly different in this space.
Kalli: It’s so true. You’re 100% right. And I agree with you. You know, and especially with social media, it’s come up. And it was one of the first things and it constantly is changing. And, you know, all these other digital marketing strategies keep changing. But how has the consumer behavior changed over time. And do you think that like that the digital marketing has adapted to these shifts?
Jocelin: It’s a good question. It’s definitely changed. I think probably, in short, the one word I would use is control. You know, it’s really interesting. I work in CPG marketing, and the historical access to your buyers would be through a retailer. Now, you know, I can have direct one-on-one relationships with consumers. I still sell all my stuff through a Walmart or Target, but I also can talk to my consumers directly, so there’s less gatekeeping between a brand and its consumers. But that then means the consumer has a lot more power through digital channels and social media. They’re much more informed. Consumers themselves are much more informed. They’re more empowered. They have more information online. You know, they can question whatever they want to question and find answers. They can get behind things in a really big way. And, you know, we’ve seen many, many issues as well where, you know, brands get taken back, you know, from how consumers have behaved or responded to things they do. So, you know, I don’t have to wait till I get home and then forget something. I can just look something up right away. I can stand in a store. And I actually did this the other day. This is a little embarrassing, but I was in a Walmart. I was looking at something, and I was like, oh, and I literally looked on the shelf for the ratings, but I was standing in a physical store, so then I had to pull out my phone and actually look up between a few different products. What was the better, product based on ratings and reviews? So I think, you know, between social media, between just the knowledge sharing that consumers have, the access people have to knowledge has changed drastically. And I think as a marketer, that means we have to behave differently. And how we shop has changed and will continue to change. I don’t know if you guys have, but I’ve certainly bought very random, unheard-of things off of my Instagram at two in the morning.
Jenn: Oh my god.
Jocelin: Right. So TikTok and Pinterest and these guys, they’re finding more ways to make inspirational shopping is what I’ll call it. Make that even easier and at your fingertips. So I see a cute thing on my Pinterest board, and now I just have to poke some stuff in. It’s at my door. So I think that all of that is kind of coming together, and it’s flattening. There’s no more funnel. I can buy, and I can learn all in the same instance now.
Jenn: Yeah, that happened yesterday. Kalli and I actually had a call with a client, and, you know, she came on, and I was like, your hair looks fantastic. And she starts telling us how she saw this ad on TikTok for this, like, special hairbrush. And she bought it.
Kalli: Yeah. And then of course, I was like, let me find what this hashtag is because I need it to.
Jenn: Yep. I mean, we’ve all been there. So I hear you on that. And I think it’s a really great point about how consumers have a lot more power today, especially in terms of. Social media and brands kind of have to listen now. Yeah, they didn’t have to in the past. The outcry wasn’t a thing. Right. Social media has changed that all, which is exciting. Annoying. There are a lot of different components to it, I’m sure. Especially, you know, Jocelin, as you work in CPG. You know more than anybody how it can be very frustrating from a brand perspective. But outside of social media, there are a lot of emerging trends. I mentioned it in the intro. You know, I even smartphones it you know, exactly right. Like you were just saying, you’re standing in the middle of a Walmart, and you’re able to look something up on your phone so easily. How do you see these trends shaping the future of digital marketing? More so than they have been, especially? I would love to hear your thoughts on that. And how do you think businesses should prepare for it?
Jocelin: Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts. I think kind of a few things because I want to spend some time in the AI conversation, but I think there’s some other components that are important to be mindful of how the industry is evolving. I think one of them is around how we partner with our agencies is going to change. I spent a lot of time in my current role, reshaping our entire setup with our agency to be more nimble, to be able to move faster, and to help us be more innovative and iterative in our planning. It’ll come back to, you know, the role of AI and machine learning in the mix of some of the things that some of the things that used to be very manual can now be automated. And so how do we then free up the time collectively between us and our partners to then get smarter and move faster and plan for that accordingly? So I think that’s one area is, you know, for agencies and clients alike to think about how to work differently because certainly the classic model of just. Planning, buying like that, that sort of gone away, often driven by things like AI and machine learning in the mix and bidding strategies and all that good stuff in the media space. It sort of forces it faster now. And I think that the teams that can come together and find a way to work better together is going to make a big difference. Another one I touched on earlier is around that seamless shopping journey. There is no more classic marketing funnel. Brands need to have really good digital shelves. They need to have really good storytelling. They really need to have the pulse on how people are responding to what they’re putting out there in the environment. So, you know, if a brand puts out an ad through social media or anything, pay attention to the chatter that’s out there. Sometimes, it’s fine, and there’s not much chatter, and that’s fine. Sometimes you put something out there, and people start saying, I don’t know where to find that. How come nobody’s found that brush? You know, you talked about the brush. How do I help my friends find the brush? And if the brand is listening and paying attention to what people are saying, then they can then come out quickly with a campaign that tells people, you know, their next claim could be bought online or, you know, here’s where you buy it or go, you know, exclusively at target. But I think you need to hear your consumers faster. And there’s all the technology in the world behind the ability to do that. Now. I think the other one is around sustainability, which doesn’t tend to come up in the world of media very much, but I think is going to start to become more of a talking point as well as ethical practices in general, which is a lot louder these days around privacy and all those things. So I say all those ones kind of ahead of the artificial intelligence and machine learning, because that is all driven by data, ethical practices especially, and all the laws that are coming. We have to pay very careful attention to privacy. We have to be very clear on what are people opting in for? What are we doing with people’s data? Do we need all this data? And then once we have it and we have it correctly, how are we using it? And is it fuelling machines to help us get insights better as it helping us find our consumers better? You know, how are we going to find our consumers in the future when we can’t just track them through through cookies? We’ve got to build data at scale and have the right models that help us leverage it the best and the smartest and the most ethical way possible.
Kalli: Oh, I am so glad you brought this up because the role of data and analytics has evolved so much, and it really does have a huge implication on how brands should be listening. So, my question is, how do we use this data and analytics? Once they have all these things, how is it implemented in strategy development?
Jocelin: I think it’s in a few places because data is big and can mean a lot of things. So I think data and analytics definitely help marketers get the insights into consumer behavior and preferences. And I would call that almost kind of the original version of data, right, that we grew up using. You know, I, you know, what does Nielsen say my people are doing? But it also helps us from a performance perspective. So is my marketing working? Is there is it effective? I think in that it can help brands deliver a personalized experience. So if I have data signals that tell me that you’re on, I’m going to make something really silly up. But if I have a data signal that says, you know, this person every morning wakes up and there I can use the sensors on their phone to know that they’re on a morning jog. I’m going to serve them up something more exercise related from a creative perspective. Then if somebody else, they, you know, they pick up their phone at 10:00 at night, they’re probably just doomscrolling. So maybe we should serve them up something that’s more appropriate in that environment. So I think that there’s a lot of signals out there, and it can do everything from measuring the effectiveness of your campaign to exactly what you want to serve people, to give them the better experience that hopefully makes your ad more effective in the end. And then on top of all that, from a performance perspective, and one of the things we’ve spent a lot of time recently is, is building out robust models and frameworks and KPIs that can help drive ROI so that we’re all looking at the same stuff from a performance perspective and understanding when and what decisions we make off of that.
Jenn: I want to talk a little bit more detail about social media, because a lot of people say, oh, you know, how is social media evolved? We all kind of know the obvious ways that social media has evolved marketing. We get it. You know, we’re not Myspace anymore. Shout out to Myspace, though. I mean, what a gem. But I just want to know: do you have anything that’s not obvious to say about how you think social media has influenced the landscape of digital marketing?
Jocelin: I mean, yes. It gives brands the ability to connect with consumers on a more personal level. You can build relationships and foster loyalty. I think what is obvious, but I think it is easy to forget, is that each of the different platforms does bring something unique to the table, and how you, as a consumer, spend your time on TikTok is different than what you’re doing on Facebook. And you’re going to these platforms for different reasons. And Snapchat plays a different role than Pinterest does and everybody’s life. And I think that’s obvious when I say it, but it gets forgotten so quickly when brands start building their campaigns out, you know, and they and they end up getting something very simple and they say, let’s I need a social campaign. And they kind of come up with one concept and then deploy it across all the channels, like for like, and it’s not going to be as effective or impactful as it could be. You could still have very, and you should still have very much the same creative idea. But how that comes to life on TikTok, you know, maybe you should have some music and some dancing, whereas on an Instagram you probably just need your packed shot and a really cute thing in the background versus Facebook, you’re going to put something a little bit different, and then you’re on YouTube and you’ve got a cute little entertaining bumper that maybe is closer to your TikTok ad, but probably feels very different than what you ran on Instagram. So understanding the role of each of the platforms is critically important for social because it is, you know, you’ve got what is it? What’s the latest statistic? You have one second or something like that to stop a thumb.
Jenn: Oh, God. Is that what it is?
I think if that, maybe. So, I think it gets less and less.
Kalli: Yeah. I was gonna say it’s a second sounds pretty long.
Jocelin: And you know, and you have to be realistic to as an advertiser that nobody’s gonna read these claims that you just spent, you know, six months of your life getting the perfect words on. They’re going to see your packed shot, and they’re going to see the colors, and then that’s all they’re going to see. So, you know, do really well there and be consistent and spend the time where people really will dive in a bit more on the other platforms and get your stories across in that way.
Jenn: It’s so true. You can’t have the same strategy for every channel because it’s different. We try to tell this to our clients because, you know, our agency does social media as well, and we have clients that will have sort of the same strategy across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, aka X, which I never call it X, and I refuse to…but you can’t because it’s a different audience and it has a different offering. So it’s very that’s a really great point to make. It’s so important to differentiate the channels.
Kalli: So, kind of shifting a little bit from social media here, but not too much. I mean, one of the major things to consider with social media is that majority of how we access it as consumers is through mobile technology. So can you just tell us a little bit more about your thoughts on the impact of mobile technology?
Jocelin: I mean, we used to have it as a mandate and it was almost embarrassing, but I feel like you could we’re still not done putting it on as mobile first. Mobile-first. Mobile-first. I never want to see an agency show me something on a computer screen. I need to see it on my phone because that’s how everybody’s going to see it. And it’s great if it works on a phone. Hopefully, it works when it’s bigger, but I think people forget that, and we get all our presentations from all our agencies, and they might show you a picture of it on a screen. Oh, here it is on the phone. But I really want them to just send it to me and let me look at it on the phone. I think it is because it is how everybody’s going to do things. And yes, when we’re trying to avoid work, we might see it on a desktop, but outside of that, it’s on the phone now. I think it allows for a few other things. So when you know, if you know that and you plan for that, then there’s some other fun you get to have. You know, I mentioned the idea of, you know, there’s companies and partners out there that will pay attention to, you know, the movement. I forget what it’s called. Is it a gyroscope or whatever it’s called inside the phone. But there’s a lot of companies out there that are leveraging that. So they know the movement of you and will help advertisers serve up different things. Location based marketing gets a heck of a lot easier on a phone because it knows where you are. So, you know, I think it’s a little intrusive personally, if somebody’s pinging me as I walk into the grocery store to tell me to buy, you know, candy or something, but you can and, and I think that there’s something kind of fun and cool for the advertisers and the marketers that get that text. Marketing is becoming a really personally annoying add to the mix of channels out there. I don’t know how many sheets I need to buy. I probably am not supposed to say that on a podcast. You know, I think some of the industries are learning their way into when and where is texting more appropriate than others, but I think, you know, the mobile world opens up new channels and new communication streams that I think we’re watching brands and industries learn, you know, how and where to use some of that.
But just knowing that, you know, from a content perspective, get it right for the right size and in the right place. And remember that, um, nobody’s going to again, back to the thumb stuffing. Nobody’s going to read something that is size 0.4 font at the end of the day, because that’s what fits into the tiny little window on somebody’s Samsung phone or something. So think bigger, think simpler, and then, you know, take advantage of some of the fun that’s unique to a mobile device.
Jenn: I love that. That’s a great point. But I want to ask you where where’s the line with privacy with that? You know, like you said, it’s your phone that knows where you are. We have targeted ads based on the location, based on things that we say and conversation, which is like… the creepiest thing to me. It’s so weird. My husband is like, “I get at your clients ads all the time just because you’re working from home and you’re on a call, and now I’m getting targeted ads.”
Kalli: I’ve got the best, creepiest one. So I previously worked for an agency that was based in the UK. A lot of my co-workers were from the UK and they were talking about some type of health product. Like something that you would get if you had a cold, but it was only in the UK. Like you, I’ve never even heard of it. It was like some really strange name, and they mentioned it literally one day, in maybe a five-minute conversation. They talked about it. Can I tell you for six months, I got targeted ads from like the product selling and on Amazon, on my phone? At first, I was like, what is this? What? And then I remembered. I showed it to my coworkers, and they were like, oh yeah…And then they ended up all ordering it because they didn’t realize they could get it. But it was so odd because it was like, this has nothing to do with even a conversation I was having.
Jocelin: That is wild, but it happens all the time. I think it’s a fair question on where is the line between creepy and not.
Jenn: Yeah, because do you think it interferes with consumer trust at all? Like I can see the convenience side of getting a targeted ad or something like that. But yeah. What are your thoughts as somebody who is so immersed in the digital marketing world, like what are your thoughts on that?
Jocelin: I mean, for me, I don’t want to creep people out. That doesn’t help. It doesn’t help me at all. But I think consumers are getting more used to some of the creepiness. So I think I don’t need to be out in front being the one that’s testing the waters on it. You know, I think what I, what I want to do as an advertiser is minimize waste, right? I don’t want to show you an ad you’re not going to be interested in. And I also don’t want to show you an ad that you’d be interested in in a creepy time or place. And so I think the industry will evolve a bit. I think the privacy rules are going to make some significant changes that will limit it anyway. I certainly don’t sit in conversations to say, let’s make sure we’ve got the Siri plan in place. Like that doesn’t come up. So I think it’s a happenstance of the industry that I agree can be creepy. I think we’re seeing you’ve seen it scaled back a bit on social. It used to be really bad. I’ve noticed it simplify. I think the Metas of the world have figured out how to start to limit some of it, and I think it’s on the platforms honestly, to help manage for this. I can manage for reach and frequency all day to the best of our ability that the partners will let us. I like to stay on the brand-safe, the less creepy version of it; I think not all advertisers do. And so I think that’s where you start, especially kind of some of the startups where, you know, they just want to get out there and sell and there’s some great opportunities then then they’ll go for that. But I agree that, you know, I try to plant my Christmas list. I’ve seen those memes. So I’ll go by my husband’s phone and, you know, mention massage, massage, massage, and hopefully, he gets the hint in his phone.
Jenn: I love that meme. It’s so funny. It’s like therapy. I want my husband to get targeted ads for therapy. It just cracks me up. Well, there’s so much to digital marketing. We’ve barely scratched the surface, but this was a really amazing conversation. The evolution of digital marketing is truly an ongoing journey. I think that this conversation has been a great reminder to us and hopefully our listeners, to continuously adapt to the trends of the industry. I think it’s important to stay curious, stay informed, and never stop exploring new ways to connect with your audience. So, thank you so much for your insight, Jocelin. We really appreciate your time today.
Jocelin: Thank you guys. This was fun.
Jenn: Thanks again to our wonderful listeners for joining us. Check for new episodes every other Wednesday. Follow us on social media. And as always, drop us a line or topic ideas at imPRessions@pollackgroup.com. Until next time.
