← The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#784: Monday.com Global Creative Director Robbie Ferrara on clarifying the benefits of AI
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- [00:01]
A
The agile brand. Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and martech platforms as we explore marketing, technology, AI, e commerce, and whatever's next for the omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And now onto the show. What if the biggest risk in deploying AI isn't the technology itself, but how your team is able to understand its most significant benefits? Agility requires more than just adapting your technology stack. It demands a flexible brand narrative and a creative approach that can evolve with customer sentiment and cultural shifts. This is particularly true when tackling a topic as hyped and misunderstood as artificial intelligence. Today we're going to talk about what it takes to break the mold of traditional B2B marketing, particularly in the age of AI. We're going to explore how brands can move beyond feature focused messaging to create genuine emotional resonance and build a brand that feels both innovative and human. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Robby Ferrara, Global creative director@Monday.com, robbie, welcome to the show.
- [01:54]
B
Hey Greg, thanks so much for the invite.
- [01:57]
A
Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. Before we dive in though, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your role@Monday.com and also for listeners that might not be as familiar, tell us a little bit about the platform.
- [02:08]
B
So my name's Robbie. I'm the Global creative director@Monday.com based in London. For those that don't know much about Monday, we are kind of global software company that transform how businesses work from kind of work management to service to product development to sales. And at the moment we are positioning ourselves because we believe that we are the best AI for work.
- [02:31]
A
Love it. Well, yeah, let's, let's dive in here and want to start from the strategic aspect of this. And you know, as I mentioned in the intro, talking about more human centered B2B and B2B. Marketing has historically been defined by, you know, features, by logical thinking, by roi. Your work seems to challenge that in, in some ways. So, you know, from a strategic standpoint, why is it so critical for a B2B brand like Monday.com to prioritize emotional connection and cultural relevance?
- [03:05]
B
It's a great question, Greg. And it's something when you kind of take a step out the bubble and you question it and you go, why is that? Why? Why when you hear the word B2B or SaaS, do you suddenly feel that you have to go into convention of talking like bankers and it's navy blue and it's kind of very logical and rational and it's something like, I don't know, I look back maybe 15 years ago that was the case. Right. But I think now with the kind of media landscape we have, you know, from digital and social platforms, I think almost every advertiser now is a B2C. And so you kind of really have to work hard to break out and to get people's attention. But we've been guilty of it. When I joined, we did an audit of our own work and our competitors, and you realize that there is very much a kind of logical thread to it and it all becomes a little bit white noise. And there's that great saying, that great quote that gets misinterpreted to a load of different people, but the definition of madness is repeating the same thing and expecting different results.
- [04:05]
A
Right, right.
- [04:06]
B
And it became apparent, though Monday has never been conventional, it's a non conventional brand that's created a whole new category of work management software. And so in the very ethos of the brand, it felt like there was a role there for us to stand out and do something differently. But yeah, I think why do we do it strategically, I think because it's true to who we are. But I also think there's an added bonus of it gives us greater breakers, stand out, greater impact. And so we did a little bit of work. We looked at some kind of research around our kind of core, positioning our core strengths. And there's a very emotional differentiator. Right. Our core, which most brands don't have the luxury of having, which is, is that a number of aspects of our intuitive and easy software, it ladders up to being a product that people love to use. And we hear this from testimonials and we hear this from our customers verbatim. And so that kind of really informed the strategy around leaning into an emotional messaging.
- [05:05]
A
Yeah, yeah. And so Monday Did a recent campaign and I love the name of it. So it's AI had the time of my life and you know, it's great. You know, it looks at things, you know, not from that what you're set, not from that tech first perspective, but from a human centered one. You know, what was the core strategic insight that led you to address the hype as well as the anxiety around AI rather than just capabilities?
- [05:38]
B
I think we, we're building out from our very first campaign in Q1 that really kind of launched the strategy of the first web platform people love to use. And in that we lent into an insight that I think really resonated and I'm a big believer in insights like I think you find out a human truth that travels. It doesn't matter where you are in the world. You, you, you kind of, you react to it because you've lived it. And I think in the first campaign we lent into that feeling of having to adopt a new piece of software. And, you know, it's just a burden for many people who work in businesses who are just trying to get through the day and having to adopt and use a new piece of software. And we went into that and we were blown away by the reaction we got. People were literally coming out, going out of their way to tell us, you know, how much they loved it. So for this particular commercial where we went into that, it felt pertinent again to really speak to what we felt we were seeing, which is that there was a lot of AI overwhelm around Q3. We could feel it. There was a lot of brands screaming AI. I think there's a lot of social media campaigns we've seen where you could drive down the highway of San Francisco about seeing a billboard using the word AI. But I think there's so much overwhelm. But we're all feeling kind of underwhelmed by actually what the uses of AI are. You know, I think we all have all seen that spate on LinkedIn of people sharing kind of toy versions of themselves, right? And we're all kind of sitting there going, is it, Is this. What is this? What this is? Is this like this? The legacy of AI is going to be us making toy versions of ourselves. So I think, you know, we're on one hand we're being screamed at by that AI. On the other hand, none of us are really seeing tangible benefits. And so I think our software is intuitive, easy to use, and it leads to rapid adoption. And so I think our point of view on the world is Whatever comes next, AI or the next technology, it's going to be adopted. And so I feel like we had a legacy and a reason to actually speak to that. And in doing it quite a carefree way, showing people and interact with Monday sidekicks AI platform whilst Alarma sang AI, I've had time of life. It felt right. It felt. Felt right for our brand.
- [07:50]
A
Yeah, yeah. So one of the interesting things is, you know, you're. You're global creative director at, @Monday.com, which is a platform that enables creatives and marketers and many others to do their work, but you're also managing teams that are doing creative work. So, you know, there's. There's a couple levels at play here. Building a global campaign of this scale in house is a massive undertaking. What are some of the key processes or team structures that you've put in place@Monday.com that allow your creative team to move with speed and agility without sacrificing quality?
- [08:26]
B
I think it's a really personal question for the time because more and more now, marketing isn't a kind of on and off. I've started my career and you deliver a campaign per quarter now, marketing is always on and we've seen how fractured the media landscape is. There is like it's constantly creating evergreen toolkits. So it's a great question. And, you know, when I joined Monday over a year ago, I realized very quickly that it moves at speed. You know, like most tech companies, it moves so quickly and we had to find mechanisms that allowed us to move as fast. And we're constantly tinkering to find that. But I think the most important one is autonomy, giving the teams, the individuals, the autonomy to move and make decisions quickly. We're working over three time zones. We have three different offices connecting creatives across all three. And so we need to find ways that there is complete trust between those teams to kind of make the decisions, pass the work forward and for everyone to kind of build on it. I think, though, beyond the operations, one of the biggest mechanisms is the hiring process and trying to find those modern creative thinkers now that are at peace with ambiguity and aren't scared of ambiguity, but see it as an opportunity. And, you know, it's sometimes I've known many great creatives that they kind of need to have all of the answers, but I think more and more now you've got to deal with only having 70% of the information in front of you. So I think the hiring process is one of the most important. I think trying to find that peer to peer flat structure that allows them to have that autonomy and ability to make key decisions on the work. But it's, it's a definitely a very much more dynamic time for creative thinkers and doers.
- [10:08]
A
Yeah, yeah, well, and I think that's, you know, the campaign, you know, mentioned as well. And we'll have to link to some things in the, in the show notes as well. You know, compared to the previous points about B2B marketing, kind of feeling the same and very, let's call it risk averse, for lack of a better term. You know, this campaign, you know, it takes some creative risks and you know, how do you test and validate something, you know, a bold idea that you know, may or may not resonate globally? Obviously this, this one worked very well, but, you know, how do you test and validate a global campaign that, that may take a risk or two?
- [10:49]
B
It's a think a really insightful question because I started my career working for a number of traditional brands that would go for a lot of conventional testing, you know, pre testing and post testing. Yeah, the past, like May, you know, before Monday, I spent six years at Amazon and two years at Prime Video. They all classify themselves as the disruptor brand, very bold. And did some light testing Monday. I'd say it's probably the most fearless company I've worked for. They have that kind of forever beta mindset of a tech company. Fail, fail, fast, test and learn. And so there's very little testing that goes into our work and I think we see everything as just an opportunity to kind of see and learn from it. But that said, I would say that the core of the kind of, you know, the two big campaigns we've done this year, they didn't feel risky to us, I think because they came from a core product truth, which is that we create a platform that's intuitive, is need to use, which results in people loving it and adopting it. And I think the llamas, again, just some context there, like a part of our product offering is a llama farm widget where you can follow your work projects as little llamas. And if you get all your projects ticked off as done, they have a little party and we also have a llama mansion, which again is incredible. You can be an avatar of a llama. So I think somewhere between the product truth and this kind of the llamas being called to our product, it never felt a giant risk for us. But it's been interesting because I think within the bubble of Monday, it never felt A big risk. But when I speak to others outside, they've all been blown away about how far we've pushed it. Which is quite pleasing to hear.
- [12:32]
A
You know, from a, from a measurement standpoint I'm sure, you know, there's campaign measurements that are, that are fairly standard and you know, from the, that are similar to others. But when we're talking about emotional resonance and making people feel something, you know, because again, whether it's humor, whether it's emotional, other types of emotional resonance, there's, that's beyond, you know, account signups and renewals and stuff like that. All very important. But you know, how do you measure success of a campaign like this?
- [13:02]
B
It's really hard, isn't it? I think of, you know, there's, it's the age old modern thing of trying to measure that top of Funnel, right. Has always been kind of a conundrum for many marketers, many CMOs in the industry. And we know that it can drive like core sales. And so I think, you know, we, the past year we've been looking at kind of our Nielsen brand awareness metrics, trying to make sure that actually aided awareness, non aided awareness and tracking per country. We've been looking at kind of Google searches and search histories and seeing how that's building up. And it was for us when we launched the first campaign and we did the COVID of the Rihanna song, what really blew us away was that people were going out of their way from watching the video and then tweeting us, leaving comments, comments because I think it resonated so much. So I think we really, I felt, we knew like we felt it, we felt it the first campaign. With the second campaign, again, we're starting to see incremental gains in the awareness across our kind of key markets. But yeah, also just the bottom of Funnel, always looking for those engagement numbers, seeing how long people are tracking with the pieces and just overall holistically trying to get a picture.
- [14:13]
A
Yeah, yeah, but I mean it is, it is a remarkable thing to get people talking. I mean, you know, thinking about your competitors, I won't name names but you know, it's, there's not a lot of people talking in that way about at least some of them, let's just say in an emotional and a positive way. So, and as a, as a differentiator. So I think, you know, to your point, there's, there's some, maybe some intangible, you know, there's certainly tangible, tangible benefits there, but there's some intangible that you know, just might translate down the road, right.
- [14:45]
B
100. And I think we know, we're so humbled when we see people's reactions to it. We are all humans who want to laugh and cry and have that feeling of being the first person to share something within the friendship group. And so, you know, it's funny how subconsciously the moment you think B2B, you think you have to be logical. And it goes against everything we know. So, I mean, we've seen so many benefits to utilizing the llama as a kind of distinctive brand asset. It's allowed us connectivity across all of our channels. It's allowed consistency across all of our touch points. We've even started creating kind of little plushy llamas, and people physically go out of their way to try and get them at our sales conventions and our other meetings. So, you know, it's interesting when you can bring emotional resonance to your advertising because actually that you. You feel something for a lot longer than you think it.
- [15:39]
A
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And, you know, talking a little bit about, you know, you're. As a global creative director, I want to talk a little bit about, you know, AI's impact on the creative process. And certainly, you know, we've seen rapid adoption and rollouts of AI. And I mean, some of it may just be kind of slideware or whatever, but there's AI in everything right now. Let's just, let's face it, you know, how do you see the role of the human, human creative director evolving? What becomes more important for leaders like yourself to focus on when admittedly, machines are going to handle a lot of components of execution?
- [16:20]
B
It's a great question. And at the moment, I feel like the benefit of the moment of AI is it's speeding up our ability to get to a proof of concept. It's just breathing up liability internally to get to a kind of execution level where for the first time ever, we can start to feel something. How is this work going to feel? How's it going to make you feel? How does it look? And so from that bit, I'm really excited. I think looking forward, you know, one of the best bits about creativity is sometimes the accidents that happen on the way, the things that happen when you stood there with actors and the camera and the bright idea that somebody might have on the day. I think we've just got to try and find ways in the future, even if we end up creating our assets within AI of actually trying to bake in those magical moments of magic that happen by accident, because I think sometimes that's where you get them. But at the moment, I think the creative industries are benefiting from AI. I think it's allowing us to get closer to kind of how something might breathe and look and feel. And you know, it's interesting, I think, that I personally use four or five different AI tools in my work every day. I've yet to see them be able to do that lateral jump of. What you need in this advert is a singing llama doing a bad pun of a Brianna song. I'm sure it'll get there, but I think maybe that, to answer your question, it's going to be about making sure we kind of add those layers of those lateral jumps that I think only humans can do. Kind of going a B D like taking that jump where you know you don't expect it. And I think some of the most iconic campaigns globally are those the idea of a geico, the meerkat for an insurance company. You know, there's those little moments where I think only a strange human brain can get you there.
- [18:16]
A
Yeah, yeah, well, and I mean that, that brings us back to that authentic and authentic relationships and emotional residents. Certainly Monday is doing some unique things here. What do you see as the next frontier for brands building authentic customer relationships? And you know, what is technology and what is human's role in all of that?
- [18:43]
B
Broad question, Greg.
- [18:44]
A
Yeah, sorry, that was too big.
- [18:48]
B
I, I think in the moment, I personally kind of see so much opportunity, but it can be overwhelming. And I think brands, especially in the SaaS B2B market, we've kind of got to be kind of human orientated and reassuring and take them on that journey and show them the possibilities. And I think, I fear at the moment there's so many people screaming about what AI can do do, but none of it feels tangible and none of it feels real. And I think we're seeing that at the moment. I read this great Gartner report very recently about the AI adoption gap. And at the moment adoption isn't actually matching innovation. And you can see the curve of innovation and you can see the curve of adoption. And to be honest, it doesn't matter what innovation's out there unless it's being adopted and used. And so the best AI is the one that people use every day, the one that people actually adopt. Because I think that's what some senior leaders are feeling right now is that they're feeling that fear adopting the wrong thing or the thing that is going to end up being old in two days. Yeah, and it might. And at the moment it's hard to commit and you're seeing from a creative perspective, there's so many great pieces of software, but the next day something better comes out. So I think our kind of whole philosophy is, is that if you've got a centralized piece of software like Monday.com as intuitive and easy to use and people genuinely love it and you see it rapidly adopted, it doesn't kind of matter what comes next because you're going to be covered because it's going to be integral to it. And so I think that's kind of given us a unique point of view in the world where at the moment I think everyone else is screaming about what they can do, but there's a slight mistrust because you don't know if actually it's going to be around tomorrow.
- [20:38]
A
Yeah, I mean, case in point. I was giving a talk last week on, you know, I talk about AI and marketing quite a bit and, and, you know, talk with teams about it and I made a. They asked some question about some very specific platform and I was like, well, you know, back in the day this was blah, blah, blah. But back in the day was three months ago what I was referring to. So, yes, the, the timescale has changed. Right.
- [21:02]
B
Yeah. It's funny, isn't it, because we've. The innovation is amazing and breathtaking, but at the same time that the pace of innovation is scary because what do you commit to? You know, and so I think that's kind of where I feel like. So maybe to answer your good question, I think it's about trust.
- [21:20]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I think brands have to fit. You've got to give people that reassurance. Actually, you know, with Monday.com they're covered, they can be protected if it's, you know, if their teams are using it, they're going to have the best AI built in seamlessly. So I think it's all about that trust and that faith and I think that kind of probably steers back to our original strategy of an emotion rather than logical.
- [21:41]
A
Yeah, I love it. Well, a couple, couple last things as we wrap up here. If we were having this interview one year from now, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about?
- [21:52]
B
Oh, that's a great question. But I think at the moment, I think what we're foreseeing is a lot of experimentation with AI and I think we're going to have to, in a year's time, we're going to start talking about very tangible implementation and actually what it's doing. And I think, you know, we're starting to see it slowly, I think, but on scale how AI is being utilized in kind of marketing campaigns. And I think, you know, it won't be long until we're there where we're seeing mass, mass brands using it in very tangible and real ways which like, you know, we're all experimenting in that place. And I think at the moment we're very much in a hybrid mindset. In 12 months time it might be that when less hybrid and more 100%. But let's see, there's days where I believe that some of the tools we use in the implementation of creating our marketing is close and there's days where it feels miles away.
- [22:42]
A
Yeah.
- [22:43]
B
I don't know how it feels for you, but there's, you know. Yeah, yeah.
- [22:48]
A
Love it. Well, Robbie, thanks so much for joining today. Last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
- [22:58]
B
I think creatives are very intuitive beasts. I think we feel a lot of stuff before we think it and there's lots of little micro decisions made. But I've spent a number of years working for Amazon and Jeff Bezos used to have this rule that he would speak to over all hands, which is the 70% rule, which is nowadays senior leaders need to be making decisions around 70%, but if you wait to 100%, it's already too late. I would argue, especially in my time at Amazon, that we rarely got 70% right and sometimes we're dealing more 40, 50. But I think the modern creative thinker, the modern creative doer, becoming more adapt at dealing with ambiguity and the ability of not having all the facts but having an intuition and going roughly in the right direction and accepting that other parts will follow. Because I think, you know, just the way that media landscapes have changed now waiting for that beautiful perfect brief with all the details in is a thing of the past and we all have to just kind of move at speed with the intuition, knowing that we'll work it out as we go.
- [24:01]
A
Yeah. Love it. Well, again I'd like to thank Robbie Ferrara, global creative director@Monday.com for joining the show. You can learn more about Robbie and Monday.com by following the links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the Agile brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagilebrand.com that's theagile brand.com and contact me. If you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.greggkilstrom.com. that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile. The agile brand.