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- [00:01]
Ari
Hey, this is Ari. I'm happy to bring you a bonus episode of Mark Texture's new podcast, the Brand Forum. The Brand Forum is a new podcast that will come out every other week and is hosted by Jeremy Bloom and Josh Palau. And they go deep on matters that really matter to brands. I hope you enjoy this episode and please go subscribe to the Brand Forum wherever you listen to podcasts.
- [00:32]
Jeremy Bloom
Welcome to the Brand Forum. I am Jeremy Bloom, joined by my co host, Josh Palau. We are so excited for our next guest, Erica Lamro. Kano. Erica. So Erica is a seasoned marketer with over 20 years of experience across brand media, agency, ad tech, and then brand again. She's collaborated with some of the world's most iconic brands in sectors like cpg, finance, retail, and tech. Currently, Erica leverages her media expertise at workday where she drives full funnel performance to enhance brand favorability. Ooh. Fuel pipeline growth. Ooh. And tackle everything in between. All while mastering the art of doing more with less and getting it done yesterday. I love that. When not living and breathing modern marketing, Erica's a dedicated mom to two teenage girls, a passionate girl Scout leader, a full time soccer chauffeur, and an aspiring winemaker. She's also my longtime friend. Erica, we're so excited to have you here.
- [01:33]
Erica Lamro
I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
- [01:36]
Jeremy Bloom
Thanks for letting us read your bio. That was just so much fun.
- [01:39]
Erica Lamro
We read it fantastically.
- [01:40]
Jeremy Bloom
I had to. I mean, I could have done some fun quips, but it's just more fun reading your writing and then just adding some sound effects to it and having Josh smirk throughout the entire time. That's what makes this pod, this podcast, love it. So we're going to kick it off having two marketers and just sitting here listening to you two wax poetic as, as we go through some questions. Josh, why don't you kick it off just in terms of jumping right into it.
- [02:10]
Josh Palau
And yes, usually the smirk. Smirk has to be high factor on my end. So I try, I try to bring that as much as I can. So it's funny because we talked a little bit earlier and so like the genesis of this thing is this podcast is having a focus more on the brand marketers while understanding like it's like the idea of the little catchphrase we came up with is sort of like, how do you build a brand in an ad tech driven world? And so like, not to start with the hardest of questions, but I think that's it. We always like to know, like, how do you Think about developing that compelling brand story in this increasingly automated world.
- [02:42]
Erica Lamro
I think that's something that we're all challenged with right now. But ad tech is not a performance only thing, right? I mean, there is ad tech for brand. And you, if you're a brand marketer that isn't neck deep in ad tech, then you're missing something. I went from early, early days at Clorox cpg where we were so data starved, right? When was the last time you went to a CPG website to buy a CPG product? Right? You go to the store, you go somewhere like you weren't coming to us. We didn't have any site data to tell you anything. So it really was all about branding. And we had to be smart brand marketers who knew how to find the consumer in the moment when they were interested and get them to take an action that we couldn't necessarily see. And that's when behind the scenes ad tech had to step in to help us piece together that story and hopefully find revenue at the end of the day. Now I'm more on the B2B side where we have so much data and we will die on that data if there's not brand marketers back there saying, hey, don't forget about, like you have to fill that top of funnel. And I think everyone understands that. And part of being a good ad tech person today is bringing those technologies to the table for your brand that will help you prove the value of brand marketing. Like a big one, of course, that everyone's talking about is attention and how we can use attention and beyond just viewability to prove that someone saw this and it mattered down funnel.
- [04:03]
Josh Palau
I think it's like adding to that. It's like you talked about the B2B Focus and then the CPG Focus. How do you view brand and performance? Because I have very, very opinions on this thing. And I'm always intrigued by people who have played in both spaces what their thoughts are.
- [04:19]
Jeremy Bloom
I love this question. Thank you for asking.
- [04:21]
Erica Lamro
Yeah. It is still shockingly a chasm in between oftentimes brand and performance marketing. And that's where I'm finding kind of the most passion today in my career, is figuring that piece out in the B2B space. We live and die by the 95.5rule. We know that 95% of our audience is not ready or willing to talk to us yet. And so that's where we need brands to support that 95%. And that's kind of fun, right? We get to go be creative marketers that Break through the noise to make sure that that 95% is being kept warm. So when the time is right, they can become that 5% that we're going to talk to with like the most lead gen driving pipe. Highly targeted performance, performance marketing. Everything in between is, I still think, where we haven't figured it all out yet. Education, reputation consideration. How do we get them from the top of funnel to the bottom of the funnel? You know, are we. When is the. When is the right time? Who is the right person and what is the content that we're showing there to make that connection?
- [05:24]
Jeremy Bloom
So, Erica, help us understand, though, just how do you ensure that your brand remains authentic throughout that chasm? So when you are. When you've got the top of the funnel, when you've got the lower funnel and you've got that 95.5percentage, obviously there's. You're always working with 100%. In this day and age, it's a very automated world. When we think through the human emotion that is attached to whether it's a company like Clorox, whether it's a company like Workday, whether it is other brands that you've been a part of or that you've worked on. Help us just understand, like, what your thought process of just how to make brands stay authentic in this truly digitally autonomous world. Yeah, yeah.
- [06:12]
Erica Lamro
There's so much noise, right. And the super bowl is an interesting one because talk about one moment when you can break through the noise and, and, and get everybody. 99.9% of them as a B2B marketer, don't buy my product at the end of the day, but at least everyone knows my brand. But that, I mean, talk about spray and pray. I need to make sure that I'm doing something to then get those people that I actually want to have engaged with my brand, understand who I am and what I do. It's that chasm, the education layer for us today. I think a lot of that authenticity comes through storytelling and us not talking about ourselves, having other people talk about us in a way that adds validity to our message. So we can have a fun, punchy super bowl ad workday. Had one two years ago. That was fantastic.
- [06:56]
Josh Palau
Yeah, I remember that one. It was good.
- [06:58]
Erica Lamro
Yeah. We're rock stars. We're the rock stars of business.
- [07:00]
Jeremy Bloom
And with Ozzy, I remember it. Yep.
- [07:03]
Erica Lamro
Yeah. And Billy Idol's on LinkedIn, guys. You can go. You can go. He. He's. He's mad about everyone calling themselves rock stars, but he's on LinkedIn talking about it. But what does that mean to a CFO who's trying to figure out the right financial management software for his company? Well, you know, as long as we are top of mind, when that moment comes, he can go do the research or she can go do the research to find out more. And hopefully not want to necessarily come to workday to find out more, but go to those trusted resources where our brand lives authentically and he can hear other people talk about us. So brand is a lot more about storytelling and that storytelling is from people that are already our customers, that love us and that want to talk about us. And so we rely heavily on those partnerships and our partner network to tell that authentic brand story as we move down from Aussie to like the real nuts and bolts of what our product is and why you should be interested in it.
- [08:00]
Josh Palau
Yeah, that was a great ad. I think it's also funny because there becomes some like category of people that are your consumer for this, especially on the workday front that were like, that were Billy Idol fans growing up. I think you have to pick a nice. You have to probably look at like you said you had all this data looking at like, okay, what's our target audience? Let's map that to 80s rock people. And like that. It's a pretty wide number where Rockstar.
- [08:22]
Erica Lamro
2.0 that came out this year went younger. Billie is still in it, but we had Travis Barker and Gwen Stefani, which is a little bit of a different generation as C suites get younger. Right. And so there absolutely is that audience research to understand who resonates. There were definitely some gen zers in our office that were like, who's that, you know, watching? And I'm like, it doesn't matter. You don't need to know. As long as my audience it resonates with, then we're good.
- [08:48]
Sam Mark
Thanks for joining us on our very first episode of Comscore's Dishing with Divas. I'm Sam Mark. This week I've got Rachel Gans, managing director at comscore and we're here to talk eggflation. So Rachel, eggflation is cracking our budgets. Do you have any advice on how to activate in this market to make the most of your dollar?
- [09:09]
Rachel Gans
Thanks, Sam. Things are certainly spicy out there during times of economic uncertainty. We really recommend the best practice of making your media dollars work for you. And there's really two ways to do this. One is that advertisers should lean more into programmatic and let the programmatic efficiency drive more cost efficient outcomes. And this is Especially true with ctv. The second is to let more cost effective audience targeting tactics take center stage. Comscore's ID free predictive audiences are a great examp where you're maintaining the performance but doing so at a more cost effective manner by leveraging wonderful technologies like contextual.
- [09:52]
Sam Mark
So through programmatic channels and strategic audience investment, you can slice the budget and not the flavor. And that was this week's dish with comscore's data divas. Thank you.
- [10:03]
Jeremy Bloom
So what are the biggest challenges that you face just with your job, with your role when wearing your marketer marketing hat? You've been on the, you've been top of funnel, even bottom of the funnel. You've been everywhere, just with today's landscape, just when you're brand building. Help us understand, help our audience understand. For those that are on the vendor side, the account management side, the customer success, client services side, agencies listening, you have done many, have worn so many different hats.
- [10:32]
Erica Lamro
I mean the measurement thread is always going to be key. And still there's so many missing pieces in telling a full funnel story and attributing credit appropriately across the funnel for brand builders. So that when it gets to end of quarter or end of fiscal and we are chasing our numbers, especially if you're reporting to the street and all of a sudden all strategy gets thrown out the window and we just need to hit our numbers. Like there's a reality of I may be giving up brand dollars to meet pipeline goals. And I think many of the people that I've run, most people that I've run across in my career are smart enough to know that that's not the right thing to do. But there's a reality where sometimes we just have to do that and sometimes you just have to make numbers. And it's incredibly frustrating. And it kind of results in some of these tense conversations at companies like, why are we doing this? Why did I just spend a year negotiating this? Why is this getting thrown out the window? Well, there's sometimes business realities that as marketers don't make sense to us that just kind of get in the way. And so a big part of my job is being like the internal evangelist to say like, cool, I get it, I'm playing along. But remember, next quarter when things are, when we have a little room to breathe, we're going to put money back into these things because everyone comes together and hold hands and understands that we're building a brand here. And we know the importance of feeding that funnel.
- [11:52]
Josh Palau
You know, how often did they let you put the money back, Just curious.
- [11:56]
Erica Lamro
Depends on how far in advance, depends on how long the planning cycle is. Right. And you know, I'm not that important, guys. I don't often get to come in the room and be like, I demand my budget back. But I do think people, I mean, most marketers that I've worked with are smart and they know, and they know that even if we haven't told them exactly how each dollar invested in brand campaign is going to influence ROI down funnel, they believe that there is a direct connection. You know, and obviously I hope people smarter than me are behind the scenes making that causal relationship between brand Lyft and roi.
- [12:27]
Josh Palau
Yeah, I think, by the way, when you were mentioning Jeremy, like the audience, I think for the, again, the sellers of the world, the account people of the world, it's a really interesting part, what you described, which is so I've done a few in housing projects and we tend to take people from agencies and people that hadn't worked on brand side, especially not in that same capacity. And the conversation I have, like, I have a set of speeches I always give, but the biggest one is, is we're going to make some decisions that might not make sense to you. Like you're going to, you're going to look at a campaign, you're going to say, hey, that's returning a $2 ROI, but you're telling me to pause it or you want me to spend more money on a product, you know, in the consumer health world that that's actually making less money for us. Like, I'm so confused and go through that whole point of like educating them on if you understand our business, you understand why we have to do this somewhat irrational thing because there's, there's a street, there's shareholder value, there's also ensuring that we're, we're prepared for the next quarter. So I think it's, I think that's the part that gets missed in some of these conversations. And I think what I always tried to help our partners with is helping them understand some of those dynamics. But it was, it was probably the most jarring thing when I first went client side from agency side of like, wait, why would, why do we do that? That doesn't make any sense. And then I would learn how profitable a product was or why we had to do this for some other business reason. And it was like, oh, there's so much more than just a simple, like, did that click turn into a conversion?
- [13:45]
Jeremy Bloom
So right there, Josh, that is the balance of business, business intelligence and emotional Intelligence. So call it BI and EQ coming together and being able to communicate that to your partners. So that's the importance of partnership. And so we've talked about this in past episodes. When you're working with collaboratively with amazing partners, you're able to have those transparent convers conversations because you're in it for the long haul. Those of us that have been in this industry for a long time, we're in it for the long haul. So Erica, with that, when you think about just what's taking place in our industry, when you think about AI, all the ML advancements, the generative AI advancements, how is it transforming the ways that brands connect with their audiences? This isn't relevant specific to the brand that you're on, just in general across the board. Love to hear your two cents as a marketer.
- [14:37]
Erica Lamro
Yeah, I don't know yet. Right. I still see so much AI.
- [14:42]
Josh Palau
I mean, I'm so glad somebody said that.
- [14:45]
Jeremy Bloom
Big high five.
- [14:46]
Erica Lamro
Does anyone? I use it, right. I use it to help make my day easier as a marketer. You know, when I need to like write something or do something. We are leveraging it as a tool to make our lives easier, faster. And then I think the end goal should be to be able to get the, the right message in front of the right consumer quicker and more often and to help build that authenticity. But AI, as soon as you get it wrong, you get it so wrong and then you've broken all of that trust. Like you see someone who's clearly an AI generated image and you're like, oh, this is all fake. And then you start all over again. Like we still have so long to go before we can really as marketers, I think leverage AI to its full extent to help us have more authentic or more personalized conversations with our consumers. That said, we have integrated AI into the product that we're selling. In my current job, you know, to, to. To really be a differentiator. So there's kind of my marketing hat and how I'm using it to make my life easier and hopefully connect with my consumers better. And then there's actually what I'm selling to those consumers that will hopefully make their lives easier as well. So it's real and you can't ignore it. And I can't put my head in the sand. I just haven't seen the value beyond kind of the day to day things that are easier because I can leverage AI here and there. So yeah, I mean, I'm curious to watch it. Going back to our point around like you still have to report to the street and I may make decisions that don't make sense to you. AI isn't necessarily going to solve that problem for me. Right. Like, I still am going to have to be explaining to my agency team that, like, we're going to do this thing that goes against all of the machine learning, that goes against all of the media best practices, because I need to deliver X. And so that human intelligence piece obviously is going to remain key.
- [16:32]
Josh Palau
Yeah. And I think we never really talked about, with other people we've met with about how they're using AI as part of the differentiator. Because what I find where this, like another interesting aspect of where you sit is, by the way, as a, as a consumer at multiple companies of workday, it's great. And it, and I think there's a, there's something about. But I, but I have no say so in what we use. So. So, but I think the, I think what you're, what you're building in there and the story you're sharing me, it's, I feel like it's like, but I'm calling my HR teams less, I'm asking less questions. And so I feel like there's, there's the value of that AI piece that's got nothing to do with the brand storytelling. But if you, but if it's a part of that unique proposition, I think that's what drives it through to the people who do make these final decisions. And that's what I find kind of interesting in those, in those spaces.
- [17:16]
Erica Lamro
It's hard as a brand marketer to break through when everyone's talking about it. It's almost, you know, because at the brand level, when you're not understanding the nuances of how AI is driving our platform. And I'm, and I'm up here just saying, like, fueled by AI, I mean, so is everybody else. What does that mean? Like, how do you, how do you break through to actually help the consumer understand what does differentiate the product? And again, we're in the chasm of how do we get you from I'm aware of it, to oh, I understand how this is going to make my life easier. And then into the pipe.
- [17:47]
Jeremy Bloom
Erica, when you're not fueled by AI, what fuels. Erica Lamoro, help us understand some of your passions outside of, of Martech, ad Tech Media, SaaS and what we do for a living. Tell us more about just winemaking, perhaps.
- [18:04]
Erica Lamro
Yeah. Wine and Girl Scout cookies. Yeah. I've had such a weird career path. I've met such Amazing people like Jeremy. We've known each other for a few years now. And I landed, you know, I started kind of weird E Comm and went small agency and then went to cpg, brand side, and then ended up at ad tech and then big agency. And now here I am back on the brand side. And I've run into so many interesting people throughout that process. I've had two kids, learned what it's like to, to be a mom, a working mom, and how to prioritize, you know, my life outside of. Of work. Now I still feel like. Like when I was at Clorox, I felt like I was the youngest person at Clorox. And now I'm pretty much the oldest person anywhere I go. And I don't know where that happened, but I find myself oftentimes talking to, you know, the younger people on my teens about how this is just marketing. Nobody dies. It doesn't mean it's not important. It just means that it's okay to take risks. It's okay to have a life outside of work. It's okay to make mistakes because you learn from them. You know, all the things that we've heard. But it's hard when you're 24 and you make a mistake and you're feels like your life is over. And I'm like, you're fine. I have a soccer game to get to. So, like, you know, we'll deal with this tomorrow. And trying to, to create those balances. So, yes, I, I love my daughters. I love leading their Girl Scout troops. I think building tomorrow's women leaders is incredibly important. It's a lot more than selling cookies, though. I will have cookies for sale. Actually, tomorrow we're getting, we're picking up our order. So for those Bay Area people, I'm coming for you. But now my, my older daughter's in high school, and she's talking about, you know, earning her gold award and putting it on her college applications, which is terrifying, but also incre. Incredibly, I think, inspiring. You know, they're tackling big challenges. She hosted a cybersecurity workshop for teen girls for her silver award. And so bringing some of my work expertise and work connections into Girl Scouts has been fun. And again, it's a lot more than cookies. And then when I was in the depths of COVID despair, waiting to figure out my next move career wise and trying to homeschool my kids, I decided to do something for me and went back to school and earned my winemaking certificate at UC Davis, which for those on the west coast know that like that's the wine school. And I had to take like organic chemistry as a 40 year old woman who hadn't been to school in a few years. And I was really proud of myself. So I'm a winemaker without a winery. I can tell you all about the chemistry and the viticulture and anything you want to talk about. Wine related. Comes in handy at work events because I, they always hand me the wine list and you know, in water there is bacteria and in wine there is wisdom.
- [20:51]
Josh Palau
My gosh. I was going to try and pull like a last question, but I don't know. We can.
- [20:55]
Jeremy Bloom
No, let's, let's end on that.
- [20:57]
Erica Lamro
And I already have a bottle in the fridge.
- [21:00]
Jeremy Bloom
Amazing.
- [21:02]
Erica Lamro
I love what I do for work and I love the people that I work with and I love being able to go have a glass of wine with them.
- [21:08]
Jeremy Bloom
You are such a smart and talented wise soul. We appreciate you being here, being one of our earliest guests. That's one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on. Thank you, Erica.
- [21:19]
Erica Lamro
Thank you for doing this. I can't wait to, to see what comes next.
- [21:23]
Jeremy Bloom
Thank you. Thank you. All right, thanks, Josh. Thanks, Erica. Thanks everybody for watching and listening until the next episode of the Brand Forum by.