← Adtech Unfiltered
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- [00:07]
A
This is Nora Sear for adtech. Unfiltered modern marketers are under constant pressure to create more personalized, emotionally relevant experiences across an increasingly fragmented media landscape. In this episode, I'm joined by Nick Rebel, now the head of Marketing at Thermomix and formerly the VP of Digital Marketing at EOS Fitness, to discuss how brands can better leverage customer data segmentation and channel specific creative to drive growth. Nick and I also explore audience behavior across Meta, TikTok and Snapchat, the growing role of AI in creative optimization, and why experimentation has become essential for modern marketing teams. Let's jump into this episode with Nick now. You and I have chatted prior to this, but I'd love to get that 30,000 foot high level aerial view on your leadership roles as a brand marketer and marketer at large. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
- [00:59]
B
Yeah, I actually went to I've had such a weird like career trajectory really. I started my career at Creative Artist Agency in la, worked for the Osbornes, then went on to work for a film studio that no longer exists and then found my way working at Tesla and then from Tesla went to Fancy Sprinkles as VP of Marketing during the height of the global pandemic, which was the most interesting time to join a startup, and then found my way that I didn't really want to stay in Sugar or baking or working for E Comm and I wanted to go pursue something that I actually felt fulfilled in, which is fitness. I got recruited over to Beachbody, stayed there for three years and then when I was looking to move from LA to Dallas, I was on LinkedIn one night I applied to kind of like a vague LinkedIn posting for a health and wellness company. I was like oh, I'll throw my name in the ring. And sure, stars aligned. I met Shelpi, my boss, now the CMO for es. The yeah, my professional career as a brand marketer has kind of been in various different verticals, I guess, so to speak, but here I am now.
- [01:59]
A
Yeah, you've had experience across a broad swath of industries. You've shown up at interesting times in the history of those businesses. So I want to hear a little bit more of what it's like to show up and try to take the reins and make sense of things from a marketing standpoint. When you are coming into a new role, what does that look like for you? How do you take a look at existing assets, what the strategy is and where it is that you want to take it so that you can take on your Role as a marketing leader.
- [02:27]
B
Yeah, I think you have to become your own first prospect and to really start to look at all of your email campaigns, what you're putting out there. So like even when I was interviewing for eos, like I signed up for the email list, it's like a first touch point and then starting to see like, what am I receiving, what am I seeing on social, what am I seeing naturally come through from a paid media perspective, where can we fine tune? And then looking at performance data, okay, what is working? What's resonating? And just being a sponge and observing, listening to your team, like, what is working? What do they feel is like super strong? What are the channels that we could bolster to become stronger? And then what's the channels that we need to look at and say, okay, we have some serious work to do. How do we, you know, improve? I like to call it like a spit and polish method of like let's get them to a better place very quickly and then start getting learnings from that to help improve over time.
- [03:15]
A
When you're thinking about obviously some of what you described, it speaks to maybe some immediate challenges that are surrounding you that are observable. Then there's also long term growth strategy. How do you straddle the two? Thinking about what you need to immediately accomplish as a leader and then what you need to be thinking about for the road ahead.
- [03:33]
B
Yeah, I think you have to align it with like the business objectives at hand. What do you need to do for that one particular channel for it to be successful? But then how does that ladder up to the Overall like business KPIs? Like what at the end of the day are we striving to achieve? Is it to, you know, eos? We're really looking to increase our membership file but then also increase our retention. So it's looking under the hood and identifying like, what can we do to help ladder up what we're doing on the digital side to ensure that we're meeting the various business objectives that we have at hand to ensure growth long term.
- [04:05]
A
So Nick, I want to ask you a little bit about audience and insights. You were talking about how there's a lot of evaluation that needs to be done when you're stepping into an organization and when you're working in the fitness and wellness space, especially when you're inviting people to a physical gym, there's a lot of other places they could also go to. There is also opportunities that are virtual and at home. You've got data available. How do you analyze that Customer data to make sure that you are resonating with your existing customers or your would be customers in the most emotionally relevant way possible?
- [04:38]
B
Yeah, I think with our CDP we're able to kind of extract various segments and test into that test into messaging that's going to resonate with this particular cohort versus doing a one size fits all approach. And we've been able to see success with that at eos. Just being able to kind of really drill down into personalization, but then also ensure that our messaging, when we're looking at the KPIs that we have across of our various campaigns are actually being successful. Are we seeing stronger engagement? Are we seeing people do the various actions that we want them to take? Are they going into the gym and checking in? Are they signing up for a membership? Are they signing up for a seven day pass? Like what is the desired outcome is super important for us. It's what we look at every day, keep moving the needle forward. But for us it's really saying, okay, that didn't work. Can we try it this way? Oh, that worked actually better. Or this segment didn't necessarily resonate with that messaging. Let's try a different type of message that may be stronger for that audience.
- [05:32]
A
I also want to ask you about segmentation and how does segmentation play a role in how you speak to different customers that again are existing or potential gym members?
- [05:43]
B
Yeah, I think at eos we have so many different amenities we have set for which is like Content Creators Corner, we have our recovery amenities and sometimes it's looking at the way that we're speaking to a particular audience and saying okay, for our recovery amenities that might appeal to a older demographic in a certain manner, what are their problems that we're trying to solve for for a younger audience, what are their problems that we're solving for? How do we speak to them? Are we speaking to them in a cheeky, playful manner, our tone of voice? Or for the older audience, are we speaking to them in a more caring, empathetic, understanding manner? And when we've made those changes, we've seen stronger success.
- [06:21]
A
How do you stay on top of emerging signals and signals that are coming from your customers? Because I think that the relationship that people have with a gem and it can be incredibly strong or it can be really volatile where suddenly one day you're very motivated one week, one month and then it can trickle off and ultimately having people sign up and not stay consistent, that's not your desire as a brand in the wellness and fitness space. So how do you stay on top of capturing new signals as they evolve and emerge?
- [06:52]
B
I think what I love to do the most is like look at our Google reviews, but then also look at our organic social commentary, but also our paid commentary, especially on paid social media, seeing what people are saying about the brand, what's resonating, looking at where we're getting the most engagement, especially on organic social, like oh my gosh, like this reel featuring one of our new amenities is getting a lot more views. It's resonating with a larger audience. We're tapping into more non followers and followers even. How do we kind of push that forward and then from like emerging trends perspective, can we take that learning and apply it to our other channels? Maybe we need to pull that type of creative into paid. Maybe we need to think about it in terms of our email strategies, et cetera.
- [07:32]
A
You're this very thoughtful marketer as you've described, with all the data collection, the signal observation you've been doing for eos, how does that information translate and come over into your paid media efforts?
- [07:43]
B
Yeah, I think when we look at our paid media channels, especially like with Meta and Snapchat and TikTok, we're understanding that our audiences are not one in the same. Even with Meta, like audience skews a little bit older. With Snapchat and TikTok, they skew a bit younger. The creative resonates in a different manner and so we can't necessarily do a one size fits all approach. And as we kind of look in terms of the future for us, in terms of highlighting more of our amenities, what amenities and messaging resonates the most for a particular cohort On Meta, can we be more exact with who we're targeting? Can we kind of define more of like here's the audience that we want to go after rather than the 18 to 45 demographic. Can we be a bit more specific on who we want to go after? We know that we can create look alike audiences to those testing, to the people that we're trying to go after even more on Meta and Snapchat and TikTok and our various other media channels.
- [08:34]
A
And I also want to ask about the diversity within paid media specifically. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear. I'm curious about your initiatives from a programmatic standpoint. Programmatic can mean a lot of different things today. How do you see programmatic advertising playing an important role in building long term brand equity for, for eos?
- [08:55]
B
Yeah, I think it's as simple as you want to Keep showing up in the consumer's face when they're trying to make a decision and keep reminding them, like, hey, you were interested in Eos, or finding an ability to kind of get in front of them in a different manner or a different medium and understanding that not everyone's always constantly scrolling on social or searching for something. So kind of reminding them, nudging them that we're here, that we're. We're ready for you when you're ready for us.
- [09:19]
A
What has you excited for the path moving forward? When you're thinking about your pain media efforts or specific specifically or digital media or programmatic efforts, is there anything that you have deep curiosity around that you're going to be exploring in the months ahead?
- [09:33]
B
Yeah, I'm really excited about the advent of AI and bringing that more into the fold. We're looking at, like, a creative AI tool right now that's going to help us kind of really speed up efficiencies, but also identify, like, what's truly working, what can be the creative insights to help improve our ad performance. And I'm also just really excited. At EOS Fitness, we're able to kind of learn and grow. That's one of our core values. And kind of diving into new channels. In my past lives, we've been so focused on, like, what's been working and not necessarily having that ability to kind of test and learn and grow from there. And I think with this amazing opportunity, we're able to kind of see, like, okay, let's test on Reddit, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. And being able to kind of use it as an incubator to be like, all right, maybe if we change up the creative in the copy, maybe this time it will work. What can we do differently? And being able to kind of see, like, what channels could be our sleeper hits, what could kind of take us to the next level? What is something in terms of, like, activations that people are not thinking about or using? How do we get into a consumer's mindset before our competitor does? And where can we be innovative? I think there's so many different media channels and opportunities that weren't around even five, 10 years ago, and now it's like, the world is your oyster, like, pick and choose. And maybe this one thing that someone told you about that's coming down the pipeline, that everyone's like, eh, I'm gonna stick with what I know. My bread and butter could be the secret sauce that kind of gives you that win at the end of the day.
- [11:00]
A
I know that's what keeps you so energized about the marketing space is all the potential and where you can uncover something in Blue Ocean. So we'll keep an eye out on what's going on next at the eos.
- [11:11]
B
Thank you.
- [11:12]
A
Yeah, that wraps up this episode for Ad Tech Unfiltered. A big thank you to Nick Rebel, now head of Marketing at Thermomix and formerly VP of Digital Marketing at EOS Fitness, for sharing insights on audience segmentation, personalization, paid media strategy and the evolving role of AI in modern marketing. One of the big takeaways from this conversation has been that success increasingly depends on understanding audience behavior, testing continuously, and building messaging that resonates differently across platforms and customer segments. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to AdTech Unfiltered on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube so you never miss a conversation with leaders shaping the future of advertising, media and marketing. I'm Norna Se here for AdTech Unfiltered. Another episode coming out real soon.