443: The Freelance Revolution with Shiri Hellmann, VP of Global Brand Communications at Fiverr

Summary

Marketing Today with Alan Hart — Episode 443 Summary

Title: The Freelance Revolution with Shiri Hellmann, VP of Global Brand Communications at Fiverr
Release Date: October 30, 2024
Guest: Shiri Hellmann, Vice President of Global Brand Communications at Fiverr

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In Episode 443 of Marketing Today with Alan Hart, host Alan Hart engages in a compelling conversation with Shiri Hellmann, the Vice President of Global Brand Communications at Fiverr. Shiri shares her extensive experience in brand building, e-commerce, and consumer goods across both B2B and B2C sectors. The discussion delves into the evolving landscape of freelancing, the impact of AI on the freelance industry, and Fiverr's strategic initiatives to capitalize on these trends.

1. Shiri Hellmann’s Journey to Fiverr

Shiri begins by recounting her unconventional path from being a high school birthday clown to becoming a senior executive at Fiverr. She highlights how early experiences in engaging tough audiences—like children—honed her storytelling and authenticity skills, which are crucial in marketing.

Shiri Hellmann [03:31]: "Kids are definitely the toughest audience you can find. You need to grab their attention fast... and you need to be authentic because they'll see right through you."

Shiri’s diverse career spans agency roles to leading marketing communications for Basic International in Israel, and later, spearheading global marketing for SodaStream in the US. Her transition to freelancing allowed her to leverage platforms like Fiverr, eventually leading to her current role.

2. The Rise of Freelancing in the US Workforce

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the burgeoning freelance workforce. Shiri references a Statista report predicting that by 2027, half of the US workforce will engage in freelance work in some capacity.

Shiri Hellmann [11:53]: "Fiverr can be looked at as this operating system for this movement and how this new world of freelancing will operate."

She discusses how Fiverr facilitates seamless connections between businesses and freelancers, making the platform indispensable as organizations increasingly adopt hybrid models combining full-time employees with freelance talent.

3. Impact of Return-to-Office Mandates

Addressing recent developments like Amazon’s return-to-office mandates, Shiri offers insights into how such policies might influence the freelance trend.

Shiri Hellmann [13:53]: "Being forced back to the office could actually push more people, especially Gen Z, towards freelancing because work-life balance is key."

She posits that flexibility remains a top priority for the emerging workforce, and rigid office policies may drive more professionals toward freelance opportunities that offer greater autonomy.

4. AI’s Role in the Freelance Economy

AI technology is reshaping various industries, and freelancing is no exception. Shiri elaborates on Fiverr’s position at the intersection of technology and human talent.

Shiri Hellmann [17:18]: "AI tools are almost elevating the average and showcase what true human talent is."

She explains that while AI can handle tasks like generating content or basic design, it often serves as a drafting tool. Human freelancers then refine and enhance these outputs, ensuring quality and creativity that AI alone cannot achieve.

5. Fiverr’s Collaborative Campaign with Martha Stewart

Highlighting Fiverr’s innovative marketing strategies, Shiri discusses the recent campaign featuring Martha Stewart as a freelance participant.

Shiri Hellmann [21:43]: "We wanted to convey that Fiverr can handle complex and large projects by showcasing how even icons like Martha Stewart utilize freelance talent."

The collaboration underscored Fiverr’s capability to support high-caliber projects and demonstrated the platform’s versatility in catering to diverse business needs.

6. Principles of Great Marketing

Drawing from her extensive career, Shiri shares her philosophy on effective marketing.

Shiri Hellmann [24:17]: "As a marketer, you first need to have fun when you're doing your job because marketing is a big job."

She emphasizes the importance of enjoying the creative process, building emotional connections, and maintaining authenticity to drive impactful and resonant marketing campaigns.

7. Personal Insights and Lessons Learned

Shiri reflects on personal experiences that have shaped her professional journey, particularly the influence of her family and embracing failures.

Shiri Hellmann [25:11]: "My family gave me the safety net and the expectation for independence and resilience, which helped me create my own path."

She underscores the value of trusting one’s instincts and continuously learning about diverse cultures and consumer behaviors to excel in marketing.

8. Future Trends and Advice for Marketers

Looking ahead, Shiri identifies key trends and offers advice for marketing professionals.

Shiri Hellmann [32:38]: "Understanding people is probably the essence of good marketing. This is something that you can never learn enough about."

She advises marketers to stay attuned to cultural nuances, leverage AI as a complementary tool, and prioritize authentic connections over fleeting trends like the Metaverse.

Conclusion

The episode concludes with Shiri highlighting the delicate balance marketers must maintain between leveraging technological advancements and staying grounded in human-centric approaches. Her insights provide valuable guidance for navigating the future of marketing in an increasingly freelance-driven economy.

Notable Quotes:

• Shiri Hellmann [03:31]: "You need to grab their attention fast... and you need to be authentic because they'll see right through you."
• Shiri Hellmann [11:53]: "Fiverr can be looked at as this operating system for this movement and how this new world of freelancing will operate."
• Shiri Hellmann [17:18]: "AI tools are almost elevating the average and showcase what true human talent is."
• Shiri Hellmann [24:17]: "As a marketer, you first need to have fun when you're doing your job because marketing is a big job."
• Shiri Hellmann [25:11]: "My family gave me the safety net and the expectation for independence and resilience, which helped me create my own path."
• Shiri Hellmann [32:38]: "Understanding people is probably the essence of good marketing. This is something that you can never learn enough about."

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This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of the freelance revolution, the symbiotic relationship between AI and human talent, and strategic marketing insights from a seasoned industry leader. Whether you're a marketer, freelancer, or business leader, Shiri Hellmann's experiences and perspectives provide actionable wisdom to navigate the dynamic landscape of modern marketing.

Transcript

[Shiri Hellman]

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for Career Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Shiri Hellman]

Half of it right. One of the things we want to do is create ads that don't suck. Embracing change creates great possibility.

[Alan Hart]

I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Today. Today on the show I've got Shiri Hellman, the VP of Global Brand Communications at Fiverr. Shiri has experience in brand building, E commerce and consumer goods, both in the B2B and B2C sectors. Before Fiverr, she was the US marketing lead for SodaStream. On the show today, we talk about her path to Fiverr. We also talk about the U.S. workforce and the move towards freelancing and the stat by statista that by 2027 half the US workforce is expected to be freelance in subcapacity. We talk about how Fiverr is capitalizing on that trend. We also talk about what it means around the impact of return to office mandates like the recent one from Amazon, as well as the impact of AI on the freelance industry. She has stats that says 63% of the freelancers on Fiverr are in some way using AI tools. We also talk about their recent campaign with none other than Martha Stewart as a freelance Fiverr participant and much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Shiri Hellman. Well Shiri, welcome to the show.

[Shiri Hellman]

Thank you Adam. Happy to be here.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah, no, I know it's the things we love to do is just to get to know you a little bit better at this outset of this. And I hear if I ever needed to hire a birthday clown that you might be someone I should speak to.

[Shiri Hellman]

Yes, I was a birthday clown. It actually started in high school when I did my sister's youngest sister's birthday party and it was such a hit that other parents started asking me to do their kids parties. And in college it became a great way to earn while studying. And honestly, I think it might have been my first taste of marketing because kids are definitely the toughest audience you can find.

[Alan Hart]

That's funny. That's funny. And I'm one of those kids. I liked clowns for the most part until that horror movie came out, which I'm blanking on the name of. Did you ever have kids that were scared of you?

[Shiri Hellman]

Not really because I was never wearing this classical clown outfit. But I think the experience of having a group of 30 kids and actually if you give me a room with 30 kids, I'll probably know their names in less than five minutes. I'll remember everybody because as I said, they're the toughest crowd. It's very hard to grab their attention. You need to grab their attention fast. You need to be a very great storyteller and most importantly and you need to be authentic because they'll see right through you when they tell you brutally, they will be brutally honest in telling you exactly what they think.

[Alan Hart]

I love that. All right, so from playing a birthday clown to now become the VP of Global Brand Communications at Fiverr, where did you get your professional start in business and marketing and how did you end up where you were?

[Shiri Hellman]

I don't know if it was intentional, but looking back at my journey, it was definitely very diverse across multiple industries, markets and even countries. I started at the agency side which there I gained a lot of love for the creative work and the strategy and that really helped me when I switched over to the client side and worked. I led the marketing communication for the largest telecom company in Israel called Basic International. And I promised myself to be a better client than what I used to have at the agency. And there working with, selling a lot of different services and leading the communication for the both B2B C and B2B services was something that was valuable in my Future role at SodaStream was working at a service company. Things like lifetime value and retention are key metrics. And when I moved to SodaStream as the head of marketing, Global Marketing Communication, it was my first what would be considered packaged good company. And it's true that Sodastream is a sparkling water maker that you buy off a retail shelf, but it's actually a razor blade model that it's great if you purchase it, but if you don't use it then it's pointless. So the way of thinking when it comes to services and software as a service helped me with brand strategy and storytelling when it comes to SodaStream, thinking of it as almost like bubbles as a service. And how do I drive people to ongoing behavior versus just buying? SodaStream was also my first global role. So it was the first time I experienced working with different markets over 42 countries. And I was amazed to see how this simple thing of water with bubbles is being perceived so differently in different markets. And I think the understanding of cultural differences and the value of local insights was another great thing that I could take to the future role I had as the VP marketing of SodaStream in the US. So right after SodaStream was acquired by PepsiCo, I was offered to relocate with my family, my three boys and my husband to the US and to run the marketing there. And I think working in a global world with markets like Japan for example, when you come from a western country, you immediately accept the fact that Japan has its own very unique culture and there will be a lot of things that you will not understand and you need to put a lot of trust and reliance on the local experts in the marketeers you're working with. And when moving to the US and doing marketing in the in the US market I realized that it's also true in this case, even though I come from Israel, which is a western country and very much influenced by the American culture, from entertainment to fashion to technology to everything. But I understood how much I don't understand and I understood how unique this culture is. And this understanding of culture differences from my global world really helped me. In the US I had the privilege of doing a first super bowl ad for so after seven years that Soda Steam was not doing the Super Bowl. So that was another great experience. And after really growing this brand in the us I came back to Israel and decided to take all my expertise and to start freelancing with startups and bootstrap companies in Israel. I'm sure you're aware that Israel there's a very large and developed ecosystem for startups. The US market is always the go to market and what they all need is someone with marketing expertise in this market. So I took everything I've learned and started helping. I was almost like CMO as a service, working with these companies, helping them with brand strategy with strategy, with research, with execution of different campaigns. And this is also when I started using Fiverr as being a freelance myself, I started using Fiverr for different services. I learned what scrappy really means, coming from PepsiCo and tens of millions of budget a year to companies that you need to learn how to make something out of nothing, to leverage the product you have for different deals in order to break through and also in order to keep the agility required to use Fiverr for different things. For market research, for design, UGC creators. And funny enough, my ex boss from SodaStream called me up, told me he's now the global CMO for Fiverr and asked me to join as a VP brand communication. And here I am.

[Alan Hart]

I love it. I love it. And what a small world it is.

[Shiri Hellman]

Very indoors.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah. I wonder if you could give me and listeners a little bit of an update on how to think about Fiverr.

[Shiri Hellman]

Fiverr was born to change the way the world works together by democratizing access to talent. Today, Fiverr is the largest marketplace in the world. We connect between freelancers and businesses around the world in over 160 countries in the simplest way possible. Any digital services you need, you can find on Fiverr. We have over 700 categories ranging from programming to 3D design, digital marketing, content creation, architecture, and we like to see ourselves as this Amazon of digital services. And with the evolution of Fiverr, we've also developed new capabilities that enable larger businesses to do more complex projects than you can imagine with the service of Fiverr Pro, which is our premium freelance solutions that we're tailoring everything the business need from team collaboration tools and project management. And this was also, by the way, the rationale to our latest campaign we did partnering with Martha Stewart.

[Alan Hart]

Love it. I love it. Mentioned even in your career you had a moment where you went freelance. And I think I saw a stat by Statista that by 2027, half of the US workforce is expected to be freelance in some capacity. And it seems like Fiverr is a big player in that. But how do you think about it and Fiverr's opportunity there?

[Shiri Hellman]

Absolutely. First of all, this is an amazing stat. The way I think I see Fiverr and we all do, is that Fiverr, you can look at Fiverr as this operating system for this movement and how this new world of freelancing will operate if you're today, if you're a business, you can find, brief and hire a freelancer in less than an hour. And if you're a freelancer, you can get exposed to potential clients at scale, right at the touch of a button. So I believe that in the next 10 years we will be integrated as part of every organization and every HR director. Everyone who manages people will have access to the best freelance people with the ideal skill for the job at hand. And we will start seeing this hybrid models of full time employees as well as ongoing freelance workforce which is already happening today, but it's less facilitated I would say. In fact, every year Fiverr releases its Freelance Economic Impact Report which is an in depth look at the freelancing workforce in the United States. And this year we found that three in 10 freelancers are going are doing their freelance work in addition to holding a permanent job. But more independent workers focus exclusively on freelancing. We saw a rise of almost 7% between 22 to 23 and it keeps trending. So it's definitely, it's. We're just waiting for it to happen.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah. Well, the other thing that's in the news lately is this impact of return to office. Things like Amazon recently just announced their push. Do you feel like this is a bigger drag on talent and freelancing in general or an opportunity?

[Shiri Hellman]

Honestly, I think it's the opposite. I think, look, being forced back to the office I think could actually push more people, especially Gen Zs, towards freelancing. Because for a lot of them, work life balance is key. And while working remote was never a catalyst to becoming a freelancer, I think that being forced back to the office could become a tipping point that makes freelancing more appealing. Especially with the growing demand for flexible hybrid and work setups that you hear from Gen Z. When I interview people, one of the things, main things people ask is do we need to go to the office how many days? And they would turn down a job if they see that it's not aligning with their needs.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah, no, it's one of those things. I think after the pandemic, those that have the capacity and the abilities to do digital service delivery, if you will. For lack of a better way to describe freelancing, the notion of being forced, I think that term that you just, that word you just used, forced back to the office, it's almost like repulsive even. Even to me, who I understand the office can help build culture. It can. Mentoring and apprenticeship type models can flourish. It still like repulses me to think that you're going to force me to do it.

[Shiri Hellman]

You have to though. Exactly. That's the reaction you get. But that's why I think this hybrid model is really good. You spend time at the office, you get what you can earn from spending time with people. But on the other hand, there's a certain sense of flexibility that it's really hard to let go of. I think we actually did a recent survey among marketing executives and asking specifically on return to office policies. And within the marketing sectors we actually saw an opposite trend. A decrease in the number of marketing executives that are enforcing strict return to office policies. So I think depends on the industry. I would say probably. But when it comes to our industry, I think the hybrid solution is probably the best.

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[Alan Hart]

The other thing that's you can hardly avoid today is this notion of AI. And what do you think has been the impact on AI on the freelance industry?

[Shiri Hellman]

AI, two words that encapsulate so much. Two letters. Sorry. It's amazing. I think obviously Fiverr is in this kind of like interjunction between technology and human talent and Fiverr because we are such a large marketplace and we have over 4,4 million users every month, we're almost this barometer for digital change or digital trends. Because when the second ChatGPT midjourney were launched, we already saw the impact it could have, both positive and negative within the marketplace. So it's true that it did impact negatively categories of translation and writing maybe. But at the same time it opened up a demand for new categories and new expertise and new skills. So you opened a Whole new category that is just titled AI Services because people are looking for other professionals that can help them leverage AI for many things in addition to that. I think AI, at least so far, doesn't really replace human talent because it's true that with these tools, me as a non professional, let's say, or non skilled in, I'll take the example of, I don't know, photography. Yes. So I can go in and I can generate a very beautiful photo with a great prompt. But if I'm not, since I don't have the talent and the experience of knowing exactly what to ask, which angle, where the sun is, what's the lighting, you still need the imagination, the curiosity, the uniqueness that human talent brings with it. So I think, at least so far, what the AI tools are doing is almost elevating the average. And we see the demand for human talent to take this to the next level and to upgrade the work. We actually see a behavior of people that use AI tools as almost a draft. They will create something and then they would come into fiverr and ask a professional to do something similar or to use this as base for different things, or someone that wrote a code for an app and then it comes to a Fiverr freelancer asking to design, develop the app for them. We definitely see different interesting trends and we just recently asked our community to understand how are they utilizing AI tools. And 50% of our freelance community are using AI tools mostly to boost their productivity, but also to enhance their proficiency and to learn new skills. So I think it's an amazing opportunity and so far I think it just elevates the average and showcase what true human talent is.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah, I love your term elevating the average. I think that's pretty appropriate. And the notion you highlighted as well, the AI is like a drafting tool. It's not the final product by any stretch, but it helps you get maybe a quicker start or envision something.

[Shiri Hellman]

Yeah. I can give you another example. Interesting that we see in the category for. There's two interesting categories. One is book publishing. Right. ChatGPT came out into the world and every person that always dreamed to be a writer is writing their books. So we see a rise in the book publishing category on fiverr of people looking for book editors and illustrators to publish their books. Another interesting behavior is within resume writing. I think in the beginning of time, which was what, two years ago when ChatGPT started, everybody could write their own resume really nicely with ChatGPT. But suddenly we see a movement of people going back to professionals and freelancers to write their resume because they don't want their resume to look like everyone else's. So there's, I think it's a fascinating world, the marketplace to understand and learn behaviors and trends.

[Alan Hart]

I love it. You mentioned Martha Stewart before. Let's talk about your latest brand campaign and what drove it and how did it come about?

[Shiri Hellman]

Yeah. So as I said, fiber today has the capability to facilitate very complex and large projects. And we wanted to convey this by showcasing how Martha Stewart, which is this icon of entrepreneurship right from home improvement and home goods and her cooking books and her media companies and lifestyle, everything she does, and showcasing how absurd it is to hire someone like her as an intern in your company, bringing coffee and that it's like using fiber just for the simple tasks and that you can do so much more and that sometimes great talent is right under your nose. So it was a great experience. She also, she herself, she uses her and her team using a lot of freelancers in a lot of the projects she does. So she loves the platform and she really likes the idea of what we're doing in the world for freelancers. And when we had our summer launch, our product launch, she also participated in the limited edition as a pro freelancer. But we enabled three lucky Fiverr users to spend one on one 30 minutes of a business consultation with Martha. And we also gave them Fiverr credits so they can use it to build their brands and their businesses. Yeah, I think it's a great partnership.

[Alan Hart]

That would be amazing. Just the notion of Martha as a Fiverr freelancer too is just funny to me. And the commercial is hilarious as well, especially the look on the woman's face. I think her name is Barbara.

[Shiri Hellman]

Yeah, she loved it. She's such a Persona, Martha Stewart. And she was so engaged and she cared about. She loved this joke. She really liked. She has such a great sense of humor and she really liked the way she was portrayed as an intern, how it's like an unexpected, surprising way for her to be showcased. So it was just amazing and lovely partner. Very authentic. I felt.

[Alan Hart]

I love it. Love it. I'm curious to get your thoughts. You've worked at some pretty storied brands. Fiverr is doing a great job, but SodaStream, I drink my bubbles every. And now it's part of the PepsiCo ecosystem. What do you believe makes great marketing?

[Shiri Hellman]

I don't want to sound too superficial in a way, but I think that you as a marketeer, you first need to have fun when you're doing your job because marketing is It's a big job. I think making an impact, improving people's lives, driving emotional connection, and spending your day in a creative environment is fun. It should be fun. And I think when you're enjoying your day and you're enjoying your work and you feel proud of what you do, then you definitely do a better job and you help. I think we have responsibility also to do a better job because we're impacting and influencing people's feeling and thoughts and opinions. I think we should be happy and proud in what we're doing.

[Alan Hart]

I love it. One of the things we like to do is get to know you even a little bit more on the show and curious if there's been an experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are today.

[Shiri Hellman]

A lot of experiences. But if I go back to what I think made me who I am today, I would say it's my family and my failures. I think I grew up in a very ordinary family. Four siblings. Nothing unique, I would say, but my parents did a really good job in giving us a constant feeling of having the safety net on one hand, but then an expectation for independence and being resilient and to create our own path. And this, I think, helped me gain this sense of capability that I can do everything that I want and not to be afraid to put myself in a situation that like to jump into the deep end and put myself into this in a situation where I. My only option is to learn how to swim. I think moving to the US Was such a thing. It was almost crazy to think that I can land in a market that I had. I don't know much about in terms of. And succeed. And I can tell you that at that time, the SodaStream brand was not so successful in the US and we had to turn around the business. So experiencing all of it was, I think, and being successful and going through the challenge of it, even though I did lose some hairs, is due to the way I was brought up. To toughen up and make it happen and find your way on your own.

[Alan Hart]

That's what a gift that your parents gave you.

[Shiri Hellman]

I did.

[Alan Hart]

That's amazing. What advice would you give your younger self if you were starting this journey all over again?

[Shiri Hellman]

I would give it to myself today, too. Which is. Which probably will never happen, is to listen to my own advice and trust my instinct. I do trust my instinct more today than I used to. I'm a very good at giving advice, really good advice, but I'm not always following my own advice. So I think this is Something I'm still working on and I got better, but I think it's. The work will never end.

[Alan Hart]

I love it. Is there a topic either you're trying to learn more about or you think marketers need to learn more about?

[Shiri Hellman]

I think understanding people is probably the essence of good marketing. And this is something that you can never learn enough about. So I always listen to a lot of books and podcasts that talk about economic behavior and how people make decisions. I dive into learning about different cultures and trends that are happening in different places all the time. I can, because I've learned how, as I said, something that makes sense to you and you're sure that everybody thinks the same. And even sometimes you realize that if you just look to a different direction, it's a different audience, it's just going to be a disaster. I actually have a nice, interesting story from my life at SodaStream. When I was working as a VP Marketing in the US the global team wanted to create a global campaign and they started in conversation with the German market. And in Germany, SodaStream is perceived as something that liberates you from the behavior of carrying bottles of sparkling water from and to the supermarket. They have this inherent behavior. They go every week, they buy crates of bottles, they take them home, they store it, they put it back. And having a sodium at home is just a hassle free. It's truly a feeling of liberation from this hassle. So the notion of liberation, they wanted to communicate that with him, that it liberates you. And when they checked it out with a focus group in the US it really irritated people because America is the land of the free. If no brand will promise me they're going to liberate me. I don't need a brand to liberate me do anything. I have my own freedom. So it was accepted so negatively in the US while so positively in Germany. So I think this is an extreme example, but I think the more you learn about people's behavior and their motivations, and this is something you can never learn enough, you'll probably become a better marketeer.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah, I love that story. I love that story. Are there any trends or subcultures that you follow or you think other people should take notice of?

[Shiri Hellman]

Very unoriginally, like everyone else, I'm also following many things AI but I think not just from learning about the new tools and capabilities. And every day there's something new. And I really like to experiment. I always try, I subscribe, I press. Yes. I'm not afraid to just click and see what happens to. So I'm very curious to see. But I think especially now working community of freelancers, I think the impact of AI on the human talent is something that we should all take notice in. And for example, when an AI company like Runway starts to collaborate with Hollywood on film production, it definitely raises a lot of questions about the future of human talent in this field. And how would it impact not just the creation process, but also things like copywriting and the legislations that haven't changed for years. But now there's a need to look at this whole world and industry differently. So this is something I definitely follow and like to be always ahead of the curve.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah, I know. Annette, it's interesting you say that there was a story, I think I'm going to get this wrong, but it was by one of the major publications in the us I want to say New York Times, but I may have that wrong. But it was. You could look and see if any of your content had ever been used by a natural language processing company. And I was just curious. So I typed in my podcast name not expecting to see anything and actually at least one of my episodes had been scraped up.

[Shiri Hellman]

Oh my God. Yeah. So you see. So you're gonna. Obviously this will evoke the expectation to be rewarded, right? I think it will end up happening because I think it's the same when I don't know if you remember the days before streaming music.

[Alan Hart]

Right, Right. Yeah.

[Shiri Hellman]

When Napster started and everything was pirate and people were abusing everybody else's music until it stopped by legislation. And now we're all feeling very comfortable to pay for the music we hear. Unless there's commercials.

[Alan Hart]

But yeah, that's very funny. Yeah. My worst nightmare is I wake up one day and there's my voice has been interpreted and there's somebody publishing episodes with my voice. That's the scariest scenario which is possible today.

[Shiri Hellman]

Is possible today.

[Alan Hart]

It's crazy.

[Shiri Hellman]

I wonder again if technology will also bring some sort of voice stamps or ways that you can't like definitely Captcha has lost his. Finished its career. But I think there will be new Captchas, new things that we'll have to confirm if it's a human on the other side.

[Alan Hart]

Yeah. Last question for you. What do you think is either the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?

[Shiri Hellman]

There's a book that was written I think over 10 years ago, I don't remember when, by Bub Hoffman, which titled Marketeers are from Mars, Consumers are from New Jersey. And I think this is a timeless title because it truly encapsulates the risk and also the opportunity for marketeers because we do have a tendency to live in our own bubble sometime and in our own ecosystem and risk focusing too much on our own ideas and maybe sometimes on extreme voices on social media and that might lead to campaigns or marketing initiatives that will miss the mark with the mainstream consumer. I think the Metaverse is a good example for that, that many brands over invested in Metaverse which just didn't resonate with the consumer at all. And so I think and also there was one of my bosses from the agency I remember used to say that when we as marketeers or advertisers are starting to get bored with our own messaging, only then is when the consumers are actually starting to listen and care about it. So I think this is always an opportunity and a risk. I think Netflix is doing a great job of the opposite of leveraging technology and AI tools to personalize their content, but still keeping a very simple interface and very ease of use, focused customers and very focused on the broader audience.

[Alan Hart]

I love it. And longtime listeners of the show will know Bob Hoffman because he's been on the show a couple a number of times actually. So we'll link to those in the show notes. But he is a great wake up call for marketers on many fronts.

[Shiri Hellman]

Yes, I agree.

[Alan Hart]

I love when I hear his name. Shiri, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all your wisdom with us today.

[Shiri Hellman]

Oh thank you. Thank you for having me.

[Alan Hart]

Hi, it's Alan again. Marketing Today was created and produced by me with post production support from Sam Robertson. If you're new to Marketing Today, please feel free to write us a review on itunes or your favorite listening platform. Don't forget to subscribe on marketingtodaypodcast.com Tell your friends and colleagues about the show. I love hearing from listeners. You can contact [e-mail] there. You'll also find quite complete show notes and links to what was discussed in the episode today and you can search our archives. I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Today.

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[Shiri Hellman]

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