The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the broadcast calendar and traditional tent pole planning cycles for media and advertising. But the good thing is, with new challenges, come new solutions. Tiffany Coletti Kaiser, EVP of Marketing at Digital Remedy comments on the reinvention of today’s B2B and B2C relationships, as a result of the unprecedented challenges that COVID-19 has brought to the ad space in this chat with SalesTechStar. Catch the whole story:
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Can you tell us a little about yourself Tiffany…what are some of the biggest marketing lessons the new normal has been teaching you?
An agency-person by nature, my background has been focused on B2B and B2C brand building across most major sectors (auto, F&B, tech, finance, etc.). If there is anything we have learned from 2020: where efficiency may have once ruled the day—yielding long term commitments, it ultimately takes a backseat to the master of today: flexibility. As we evolve as an economy and a community of marketers, it has and will continue to become even more important to build flexibility into everything. Having worked closely with clients in a crisis management capacity—unfortunately, frequently—this moment is a good reminder to write playbooks that have the capacity to evolve. Never bet everything on black. Never assume everything will go to plan. Have a back-up to the back-up.
This includes diversification of messaging, channel opportunities, and creating contingency budgets. This is increasingly important because consumer habits shift in times of crisis. The ability to quickly engage with these new behaviors allows advertisers to maintain meaningful connections with existing customers, while building strategies to acquire new ones. If you can’t pivot, you can’t maintain or acquire new business.
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How has the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic changed how you and your team have redefined your sales process or marketing outreach for the rest of the year?
With the majority of in-person connection opportunities postponed or cancelled, we have really looked to support our sellers’ prospecting efforts by enhancing our product offering to fit the needs of the current climate. Interestingly, as budgets stalled out at the end of Q1, and campaigns were paused based on uncertainty, what we realized would be most helpful to the market and to our existing client base, was a self-serve product that afforded clients flexibility by allowing them to leverage the tools that Digital Remedy uses internally to plan, buy, report, and optimize campaigns. And so, AdReady+ was born. Communicating this offering to the market in this moment has been lightning in a bottle for our organization. As we progress through the end of 2020, we’ll focus on communicating the benefits of AdReady+, and encouraging interested parties—be that agencies or in-house teams—to demo the product. The product benefit, at its core, is flexibility.
As it relates to the sales process itself, we have moved to a more consultative process. We no longer live in a cookie cutter world. All businesses have been disrupted in their own ways; while categories, present trends, business goals (and expectations) have shifted. Our sellers have to be able to adapt to work with potential clients to solve for business pressures during both these times and for the long run.
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We’d love to hear about AdReady+, Digital Remedy’s new self-serve SaaS platform; what other plans or innovations does Digital Remedy have planned for the short term future?
AdReady+ is a full-service, ad tech platform designed with ease, flexibility, efficiency, and empowerment in mind, that allows for more intelligent media plans with more effective results for our clients. The platform guides users through each step of digital advertising campaign management, moving seamlessly from the initial RFP and planning stages to IO management, trafficking, insights, reporting, and optimization. The solution eliminates the stress of media planning and the daunting task of campaign reporting.
We continue to be excited about evolving the AdReady+ platform to include even more of our internal systems and protocols in the coming months. AdReady+ was born by connecting internal processes to create a seamless planning and reporting tool with built-in execution. And now, as we work to evolve the product, even at this young stage, we are excited about two things in the not-too-distant future: 1) increased team unification to allow client teams better visibility into total client campaign management creating even more efficiencies, and 2) added functionality of status updates, alerts, and notifications on key campaign moments and milestones.
How according to you will the programmatic ad tech space evolve over the years and what are some of the game changing abilities / capabilities that will become standardized in in these tools in the future?
An increasing number of media types have become available programmatically over recent years. As a result, limiting media plans to only one inventory source is not always the most effective strategy for advertisers. Different media types require different targeting technologies and data sets in order to execute campaigns and optimize performance most efficiently and effectively. However, managing and measuring numerous media sources can be overwhelming, and therefore, the evolving needs of the ad space are shifting towards more transparency, accuracy, efficiency, and faster results.
Digital Remedy offers a holistic view of campaigns using centralized reporting through our AdReady+ solutions. Our portfolio of innovative products provide clients with an always-on, one-stop-shop, full of all the necessary data to maximize their brand’s impact, and better understand their campaign performance.
As a marketing leader at a time of a global pandemic; what marketing fundamentals are helping you and your team ensure business continuity and growth during this downtime?
For us business continuity is about guaranteeing our clients access to the digital investment marketplace, 24/7/365. This has always been our standard operating procedure. One we have maintained without issue for 20 years, and namely all of 2020.
The great news for Digital Remedy and its client base is that we aren’t seeing downtime, we are seeing refocused energy on all things Digital, as it provides overnight insights and tremendous investment flexibility not based on the traditional calendar of upfronts or major tentpoles. Targeting technology, and our ability to pivot budgets without penalty to our clients or their clients, has really afforded our teams, clients, and their clients the ability to rise to this pandemic’s occasion, capitalizing on business goals with intelligent marketing spend that impacts the bottom line.
As a parting thought, how according to you should marketers in the tech / b2b segment focus on using out of the box techniques (and which) to cut through the noise despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic?
We don’t look at this pandemic as downtime. We look at it as a moment for marketers to refocus on successful outcomes for their business which means regearing campaigns to media opportunities that allow for success in this period of uncertainty. If “out of the box” is a shift away from media that doesn’t provide insights or instant learnings which can impact the rest of their business, then this is exactly the moment to do that… which will likely lead clients to exploring upping their digital marketing budgets, and focusing more on areas where they can execute campaigns programmatically. If B2B marketers have been focused on tentpole moments throughout the year to guide their messaging strategy, then this is also a good time to get more familiar with tactical efforts that can support their business regardless of seasonality or cornerstone moments. In doing so, our hope is that they will find success with less waste and overtime, less effort.
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Digital Remedy is a leader in data powered technology and services for marketers with a simple belief: create solutions that solve problems. Digital Remedy delivers advertisers, publishers, and agencies the innovation, technology, and customer service they need to make the most of their online advertising endeavors. From audience extension and targeting strategies, to campaign optimization and inventory monetization, Digital Remedy provides cross-channel efficiencies to solve any digital marketing challenge.
Tiffany has been conceiving and launching platform-agnostic, idea-centric marketing communications programs, platforms and products since her teens at global communications networks like Grey Worldwide, McCann Worldgroup and ambitious independent shops like Eleven Inc. and Translation. Most recently she’s partnered with brands, independent agencies and holding companies to create new operational strategies, business development plans, digital team connectivity and creative infiltration of traditional systems. As Managing Director of Translation she was responsible for overseeing national operations including business development, client leadership, operations, and finance. Having partnered with brands across many industries including auto, beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), CPG, finance, gaming, not-for-profit, retail, sports, travel, and technology, Tiffany has a knack for building future-facing operational structures and strategic positioning of internal agency teams to deliver on client business opportunities. These achievements earned her the distinction of AdAge “Woman to Watch” and the “Outstanding Achievement in Business” recognition by The Lab School, Washington, D.C., a merit she shared with Dannel Malloy, Governor of Connecticut. Tiffany is an avid supporter of education, sitting on the board of the Haan Foundation for Children and is a founding board member of Literate Nation. In addition, she maintains the title of Demoiselle of Grace with the Venerable Order of St. John, Knights Hospitaller, a global organization focused on community outreach and support of children and their families in need during times of poverty or illness. She resides in New York.
