← The Marketing Millennials
The Marketing Millennials
How to Scale TV That Actually Performs, with Meghan Shea, Sr. Director of Marketing at Bonafide Health
00:43:13
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Host
TV is back.
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And I don't mean the TV you grew up watching. I'm talking about TV as a performance channel, measurable, scalable, and finally accessible to
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brands of all sizes.
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I'm partnering with Atari to pull back the curtain on what it actually looks like to run TV like a modern marketer. We're talking linear streaming, ctv, all of it in one place. Here's how we're structuring this. We're going from zero to hero. Growth brands, testing TV for the first time. Mid market brands, scaping, scaling what's working, enterprise brands building full brand strategies and yes, super bowl campaigns. And then we're getting tactical on how you can plan and budget for TV in 2026. TV has always been a performance channel. Markets are just catching up to what's possible. And Atari is the platform making it happen. They give gross teams access to all of TV and let them evaluate it the same way they evaluate paid search or paid social. No black boxes, no guessing, just results you can tie back to your business. This is the TV series for markets who are done leaving this channel on the table, excited to dive in. If you haven't tuned in to episode one, make sure you give it a listen.
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Now.
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Here's our second episode with Bonafide Health.
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Daniel Murray
Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the BR marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the up.
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Host
We are back with another episode of the Market Millennials podcast today. I normally don't have two guests, but I have two guests in the podcast which is makes it even more fun to have a podcast with two guests. So I, I'll let them introduce themselves. But excited to talk. We're gonna talk all things tv. TV is exploding right now. Everybody's wondering how to do it, how to do it right. Megan crushes tv. So we're gonna talk TV today. So I'll let you two introduce yourselves.
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Megan Che
Yeah, my name's Megan Che. I lead growth marketing at Bonafide Health, which is a women's health company that was really built to solve problems that women have been told to ignore for a very long time, specifically, specifically around menopause and women's sexual health. I think what really makes us different is that everything we do here is science back clinically studied and hormone free and from a growth perspective, like our job is to really translate that science into trust and really meeting women where they are without talking down to them, but really educating them so that the brand feels credible and human. And I know this podcast is called Marketing Millennials, but for any aging millennials that are listening, perimenopause is knocking on our do. Go check us out.
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Host
I was actually listening to an good hang podcast with Amy Poehler and she was, she, she. Jennifer Lawrence was like scratching her ear and she's like, just so you know that the sign of perimenopause. And it was like, I did. I did not know that. So just, I thought it was hilarious. Listen. Because I listened to that like two days ago. So it was hilarious.
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Megan Che
Yeah, we don't have products that help with ear itch, but hot flashes and other things. We got you.
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Host
We'll hand it over.
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Romano Bottini
Cool. Yeah. Well, I'm Romano Bottini. I am a senior client development manager here at Tatari. If you didn't catch the first part of the series yet, Tatari helps brands and agencies buy and measure ads on TV that feel a lot more like digital. So we work across all inventory sets. Think streaming linear online video, whether that's something super highly targeted on CTV like retargeting or lookalike modeling, all the way up to things as big as the super bowl on NBC. The big difference is that we don't just run the media. We try to measure it against real business outcomes with an incremental focus. So anything from CAC and ROAS to reach and frequency.
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Host
Amazing. So we're going to go dive into TV today. But I want to. The first question I have is, so I know TV as an ad channel wasn't entirely new to you, Megan, but you changed how you used it. So what wasn't working for you in the early days with more sporadic TV test, and what finally pushed you to rethink your approach to tv?
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Megan Che
Yeah, so earlier on in our TV journey, we were working with a different agency. And honestly, the data was so fragmented, reporting was delayed, which was a nightmare. And we weren't really able to see the way that TV impacted, like, our marketing efforts as a whole. So when we switched over to Tatari, that really gave us the transparency and ultimately, like, the trackability that we needed to prove it out. When I say prove it out were a small company at the time. It's like talking to our CMO and talking to our CFO and really justifying that this deserves a place on the media plan, especially with linear. As I mentioned, we're a menopause company, so our core demographic is really 55 so while everyone's kind of talking about streaming and on that boat right now, we're there too, but linear is still a huge, huge priority for us.
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Romano Bottini
Yeah, I think Megan hit the nail on the head. Fragmentation is a huge story in TV right now. Like she mentioned, everyone's talking about streaming taking over, which is true, but the reality is like linear still makes up half of viewership when it comes to TV today, and even more when you look at ad supported viewership. And so when you start to think about like the picture, right, you've got audiences across linear streaming, you've got new publishers emerging and then other ones merging and it gets really complicated fast. So if you're trying to measure TV in different silos, it can just be like really, really difficult to understand what's actually driving results. And that's ultimately why having a single partner that can kind of give you access to all that and measure it all head to head is that much more important.
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Host
Just so people know, like, what were you doing before as like what. What did the process look like before to what is it now? Like, I know it was fragmented, but like what, what. How much of a struggle was it for you?
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Megan Che
Oh yeah. So I would say everything that we do when we were D2C only was very digital and we're in the age of like instant gratification. So we wanted those numbers. Now we're spending money. We want to see how it's doing for us. Were working with Tatari. We were on almost like a two week delay on getting that reporting and we work with Rockerbox as our MTA and it was a manual ingestion process. So not only was it a two week delay for us to get the data, it then took even longer to sort of get it into Rockerbox when we switched over and we have like Tatari's Pixel on our site. Everything is so seamless because they have that integration. So we're able to see with no delay, like what our CACs look like on pretty much a daily basis.
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Host
Yeah, I mean, I know my wife is in D2C and she would. And she runs digital for a beauty brand and she would be panicking if it took three to four weeks to get data. I would be panicking as a marketing on B2B. Like nothing should take two weeks to get data. That's just something especially as a marketer who's spending money. Every dollar counts. But. But I know you initially came into TV with performance marketing mindset, but what did performance TV and then I air quote that mean? To you at the start. And how has the definition of performance TV evolved over time?
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Megan Che
Yeah, so when we first started in our early days, like CAC was king. Right. If you wanted a spot on the roster, AKA the media plan, like you, you had a number that you had to hit. So that's how we used to see it. And when we were talking about performance tv, that was a very clear call to action with an offer driving the user to our website. Not only has our view on TV expanded, but we've expanded as a business. We're now Omnichannel, we're on Amazon, we're in Target. So we have to understand the halo really that's happening. And it's not just about the CPA, that Rockerbox or MMM is telling us that TV's driving. We're really looking how it's impacting other channels. So some of like the things that we're looking at is like how CAC is shifting on other channels, what sort of increase are we seeing in brand or semi branded search? What does that movement look like? And ultimately our mix shift. Right. It's not all coming to D2C anymore. A lot of our purchases are coming on Amazon and that's from the Halo from tv. We've also really worked our way up the funnel. So like I mentioned in the beginning, our creative was very direct response focused with a clear call to action and an offer. We've also slowly started building our way up into this rebrand where not only are we addressing symptom relief with one of our products, but we need to connect in women's brains. Like when they think about menopause, they're thinking about bonafide. So our creative strategy has shifted as well.
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Host
Yeah, I think I'm. I'll let Rama add to that. But I, I do think that digital does so much to increase all other channels. And digital doesn't get as much if you're like running D2C and you're like trying to grow every channel, because I know you can do targeted ads on Amazon, but then you're like halo effect of Amazon's going up and in stores. So I think that, I mean, that's also like the benefit of tv. You want people to think about when they're thinking about your product, when they're in store, when they're on Amazon, when they're on here, to just think about your name and the brand recognition. And also in the age of AI, where now people are like searching like best support for menopause, like best products you want Your name to be searched on the Internet a lot. So TV is a great way for that. But I asked Ramona to add on to this.
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Romano Bottini
No, I mean you guys both hit the nail on the head. I think this evolution or the story, something we hear a lot from scaling performance driven brands, right? Like TV in the early days is purely doctor play. It's CAC and ROAS and whatever core metrics you care about and that's it. But at least our philosophy is that TV's greatest strength historically has always been reach at scale. So there aren't many channels today where you can get 15 to 60 uninterrupted seconds of time to basically tell your brand story to millions of people without competing for someone's attention on Instagram feed or something like that. And so that type of brand building and impact, we see that that kind of show up well beyond a standard in platform cac. You've hit some of the key metric we've looked at. So things like higher click through rates on social, larger retargeting pool is branded searchlift and then like obviously impact to other sales channels as well. So I think Megan's team's doing a great job of trying to triangulate all that and understand what the impact of TV might be.
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Host
We hit on this a little bit, but a lot of times TV is also great for a strategy shift because you did shift from just being digitally native product to being on target. So I know you, we said at the beginning you really cared about Cat Cacao's King, but how does TV play a role when you deeply care about efficiency? But you also know that retail is a priority 100%.
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Megan Che
So I mean some may argue that we did it backwards, right? We expanded our physical availability before we expanded our mental availability. So that is really what we're focused on this year, right? We're on Amazon, we're in Target, um, we're there. But if people are walking by the shelves and they don't know us, it's going to be a really hard sell in Target. So we're really, really focused on expanding that mental availability and TV is there to help. I don't think that we're in the place right now. And if there's other smaller D2C brands that are looking to like dip their toe in, you're not going to go just from optimizing to CAC to buying on a region frequency scale. Right. So although we are moving our way up the funnel into a more like awareness focused top of funnel channel, we are still looking at some of these core metric, like the impact on branded search and how it's playing with our other channels to still justify that spend. Although it's like not completely direct response, but it becomes super important. And in many ways TV has almost become like what I'll call a legitimizer. I mean anybody can run ads on Meta. Like my neighbor is running ads for his painting business, like on Meta, but. Right. I feel like especially for our demographic, a little bit of older women, maybe millennials and younger, a little more marketing savvy. But TV has definitely been a legitimizer and super helpful as like a tool in our toolkit for driving at retail.
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Host
Also, I mean what, what's good is as a small test, like you know you have, you're in this store in Target, you want to see if store sales go up in Target, but also are they lifting D2C sales in a region so you can run like a test in a region to lift see if there's store in store purchases and D2C left in D2C sales in let's say a market that you're trying to grow in or you have. That's some things I know a lot of people do with like a new channel TV when they, they start doing regional buys.
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Megan Che
Definitely. I think there's always a trade off to that as well though, right. That media gets a little bit more expensive. So the learnings are always important, but they do come at a cost. So you got to make sure that you're planning those tests accordingly throughout the year.
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Host
Yeah, that's a good point too. I think that sometimes you have to go wide for pricing and let the creative win. I think that's super smart. Romana, what you want to add on to this part too?
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Romano Bottini
No, no, I think that's all relevant. Yeah, like Megan hit on this too. But especially on the linear side, pricing can be pretty pricey when you start to think about the operational and opportunity cost of running a test like that. I think CTV today is very, very easy. It's the minimal when it comes to like actual operational gains from doing that and like that's a learning that a brand wants. We're always in the camp of like doing other things and bringing your own measurement to the camp, to the, to the brand so that we can triangulate TV and that impact it in many different ways. So I think streaming is definitely an easier sell on that front. But yeah, overall like happy to do that for our brands.
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Host
And I know, I know we talked about that, that it's pretty expensive to do regional buys and stuff like that. But a lot of like mid market brands, not like truly huge and like big DDC brands like worry about like premium TV being out of reach. So what convinced you to test like higher profile placements like Wheel of Fortune, jeopardy. Or even CNN's New Year's Eve?
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Megan Che
Yeah, so I would say that we lean into these around key time. So Q5 when inventory is cheaper. I mean, who does not love a good bargain? I am a TJ Max Max Nista at heart. I love Designer for Less. So when these opportunities pop up. I know one of the things we were talking with our reps about was sort of like these fire sales and fire deals, making sure that we have a little bit of pocket of budget so that when we're planning our TV budget, we do have a little pocket that when these fire sales come up, we can really take advantage of them. So that's one. And just making sure that you're being smart in the time when you're buying them and sort of aligning them with tentpole moments. Q5 is one that's big for us because that leads right into Q1 when we're really leaning into wellness, but then also sort of accepting the reality that this might not convert or hit the same way that our regular buys do. So it's not just working in a silo on the growth team. It's like tapping our counterparts. So the E. Com team and the Lifecycle team and making sure that they're aligned with the buy, they know when it's airing, ready, they're ready to like capture that traffic and put them in the right flows and convert them downstream if needed.
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Host
Yeah, that's a good point because I think a lot of people don't set up the operations and the back end so they could do buys like this. Because if you, if you haven't set up things in the back end to be or have creative ready to go just in case a Q5 fire sale goes. And it's also perfect for a brand where people start thinking about things going into New Year and they're thinking about wellness. They're thinking about what should I get? I'm worried now, especially Millennials, we love a little A New Year's wellness.
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Megan Che
Yes.
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Host
Yeah. I think it's good that your team sets that up.
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Romano Bottini
Agreed.
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Host
Yeah.
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Romano Bottini
I mean, just for a little context, that stretch of Q5 is super advantageous for brands just like Bonafide that are resolution focused or just like health and wellness in general and like the operational side of it. What happens is basically there's a giant inventory surplus or, you know, it depends on the network and whatnot. But a lot of advertisers campaigns will ramp up like that. Q4 kind of seasonal demand dries out. And so, like, in short, you can see inventory come at like a significant discount. Right. So I think as an example, we had a few clients this year book things like college football playoff games at 50, 60% off the original asking price. And so if brands are looking to kind of capitalize on that, they can use Q5 to launch TV aggressively heading into Q1 and kind of build that reach quickly and create a lot of momentum heading into their peak seasonality.
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Host
Lucky. This is like a niche podcast, so people who are not a bunch of people are going to run to do Q5 ads this year. So, like, there's not a million. So that's a huge tip that I didn't know that it's a fireside sale, like for some of those premium spots in Q5. So I think that's so Megan. So if your price goes up, it's not my fault.
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Megan Che
During that, I let the cat out of the bag.
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Host
You also said that TV works best during key moments like Q1 or like seasonal pushes or launches. So how do you actually change your, your strategy during those periods?
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Megan Che
Yeah, so, I mean, as a wellness brand, like, definitely a heavier investment in Q1 makes sense for us. I know a lot of brands, you know, lean in, in Q4. That's when we tend to pull back a little bit. Like, Q1 is really like our super bowl moment. And then that also gives us, we could take more risks in Q1 because then that gives us more time to clot back throughout the year. We're also thinking about creative tweaks and seasonality. So unfortunately, like, obviously for a clothing brand, right, they're going to talk about bathing suits in the summer and coats in the winter. Well, for us, women tend to just deal with their hot flashes in the winter when it's like, I don't know, in New York, five degrees outside right now, and it's a little bit colder, so they'll deal with them. But we really lean into hot flashes in the summer, you know, when it's 90 degrees and we know that those can be unbearable. So it's really switching out our creative and getting strategic in that way. We also have used tv and this was definitely a learning moment for us for new product launches. So at the end of 2024, we launched a hot flash innovation, but we didn't end up getting support with tv and I would say overhead coverage for our media until the summertime, which I think was a miss because that's when it really started to pick up. But I think we could have gained momentum if we would have had TV in market a lot sooner. And we have a new innovation coming in the first half of this and you better believe that we have TV like ready to go as soon as that that product is launching. So that was a lesson learned for sure.
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Romano Bottini
Yeah.
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Host
I think people also forget that before you do something you need to like have drum beats before your product launch. You need a little bit of hey, we exist, we exist, we exist. Oh, here's our new launch. Like we exist, we exist. You don't need to like have super, but you need those little drum beats. And a lot of people put so much pressure on a launch that they do everything just on launch day and then it kind of is just this serotonin going down because you just like lost. Like it's either you win big or you lose big. But those drum beats help like get you pre prepared. Like even Black Friday where having drum beats leading up to Black Friday, it's better than having just everything go when it's super expensive on Black Friday to
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Megan Che
pay to play 100%. And I think that our, our product specific ads are those drumbeats. So we talked about before, like really connecting menopause and bonafide at the top of the funnel. I look at that as our always on. And then during the key times like new product launch, you'll hear a product drumbeat. Then over the summer you're going to hear more about hot flashes. And then those are kind of like our pulsing moments. But we want to make sure that that brand message is sort of always just, hey, don't forget about us, we're here.
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Host
Romano, what other brands? I know you work with health and wellness, but what other types of brands could use this strategy for product launches? Q1, Q5, what are you seeing in the TV space?
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Romano Bottini
Yeah, I would say it's pretty agnostic. I think just because the peak seasonality of Q4 is, the demand might not be there as much. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't use it to your advantage. I think for other brands, apparel or, I don't know, home goods, things like that, like it's a really good time to eventually kind of understand your audience and TV a little bit more. Right. So if you're seeing success with sports throughout the year and you're kind of just Dipping your toe in the water there, you can basically go in there and say, all right, like we're going to get take a big swing based off the data we have and understand if that's something we can drive forward, if something we want to pay the bigger price for down the road next year. So I think it's just a good time for brands to kind of like set up their testing long term and better understand what these kind of more technical moments can do for them overall as a business.
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Host
I also think you have to capitalize on moments where things are cost lower, where a lot of people wait and say, okay, I'll wait for my Q2 budget, I'll wait till my Q3 budget, it'll get cheaper in Q5 next year. And then they've missed out on serious moments in the year where CAC is lower or firestyle stale happens. And I could have done this drum beat or I could have spent. So like how do you think about like capitalizing on moments where like you could push CAC or like push a little bit more budget and instead of waiting it out, I feel like the
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Megan Che
thing I tell my team all the time is scared money don't make money. Like you gotta be, you gotta be willing to take risk and you gotta lean in. I will say if you're working for a smaller scrappier company, that's a lot easier. Right. As you start to evolve and get bigger, like, yeah, you have to work things up the chain. But as a culture in an organization, you need to be aligned on when to take risks and when to lean in. I think it's super, super important.
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Host
I think also, I mean, I'll go to another picture because we talked about a little bit how you had really bad tracking in the beginning and I think that, I think still a lot of brands are stuck with like one way to track things and they. And, and one way to track things normally leads to saying meta and Google are the best channels because it's like a walled garden, those channels and they're. If anybody knows like they like they're trying to make money and keep people on meta and Google. So how is your approach to multiple measurement strategies gained your confidence of TV as a channel?
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Megan Che
Yeah. So we use a triangulation approach. I think in our early days when we were just running on tv I mentioned we used MTA and we use Rockerbox. That's easy when you're just running on search, meta and just a few channels. But as we've really expanded, we needed to expand our measurement Portfolio as well. So we use MTA that's sort of like at the top of our triangle and then sort of at the bottom bases are platform data and our mmm. So those are the three numbers that we're triangulating against as we've moved to Omnichannel and we're working our way up the funnel in the channels that we're spending on this year. Our approach is to turn that triangle and we want MMM to really be at the top and really just use MTA and platform as sort of like a gut check and more for, like daily decisions, just because we don't get that MMM data as frequent. So that's really the three pieces that we're using. That has also really helped us gain confidence, I would say, specifically with Tatari and tv, because those MMM numbers are much more aligned with the platform data that we're seeing. It also allows us to take into account for the halo effect and Amazon. Right. Because if we're just looking at Amazon in a silo, that cat could look amazing. Whereas when you're working with an mmm, you can model that in and it will take credit from your meta spend, from your TV spend. That's really driving that growth on Amazon. So that's going to be key for us this year to rotate our triangle.
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Host
Yeah, that's a super good point because I think that sometimes you are running channels and then the halo effect are affecting other channels, but then you stop it for like digitally, because it's not working as well digitally or it wasn't working better. But like Amazon's going up and retail is going up and maybe digitally, like tax are a little higher and you're not giving credit to these ads or working overtime for these other channels as well. So I think that's a super good point. Romano, is this the best approach that you see people doing or, like, what are some other ways to like, measure TV effectively?
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Romano Bottini
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ways to do it. Nothing's no measurement solution's perfect. At the end of the day, you know, if it would, I think, think if we had that silver bullet, we would all be trillionaires. But the reality is we always encourage brands to bring other measurement solutions as well as using ours. So I think Tatari's platform measurement is really great about understanding the entry, campaign, decision making, network versus network, creative versus creative, things like that. But there's obviously more at play here. Like Megan's called out. And so whether it's mmm, MTA or Tatari platform, I think using A combination of those things and trying to understand how fluctuations in TV spend and those types of changes can impact the overall business. And that ultimately just gives brands more confidence to continue leading our learnings for more of the day to day.
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Megan Che
Also plug for your team, we're giving them access to these platforms as well. So it's like our team at Tatari is plugged into our recast and our rockerbox. They're not only helping us make buying decisions based off of this, the data that they're seeing, but they're also putting themselves in our shoes, in the world that we're living in and who we have to be accountable to and using those to help make decisions as well.
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Host
Yeah, that's super important to have a partner that has insight of what you are doing and not just spewing out industry benchmarks and this is what other people are doing. So I think that's super important. I also want to like, I know people have like this mindset that and again it's because they're like, it's. We have this like mindset of instantly running ads on Meta and instantly running ads. But like how has. Where was that moment when TV clearly proved that it was more than just like running an ad? What was that moment where it was actually driving the business forward?
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Megan Che
Yeah, I think for us there's a couple instances, but one that comes to mind for me is we really do mine a lot of our customer reviews and as we're trying to improve TV out, we read a review that kind of talked about, okay, I saw this ad on Meta and then I went to go talk to my doctor, like my ob GYN about this product. She confirmed it was great, but then I forgot about it and then I saw the ad on TV and then I bought it. So to me that was like TV being a legitimizer and also turned our thinking around that it was always okay, TVs brand awareness, TVs top of funnel, it's bringing new people in. But in that instance TV was actually the closer. So it can work in different segments. So to me that was pretty cool. So yeah, it's really not always just awareness and also it's not just running ads. We've really seen the impact when we're looking at the halo and Tatari has helped us measure that. You know, Amazon's a big player in the space, right. Like subscriptions I feel like are becoming people are especially in Q1.
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Host
Right.
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Megan Che
People are want to save money, they're a little more subscription diverse. You know, Amazon's easy. They got those easy returns and there's a huge, you know, halo from TV to Amazon. And just being able to help understand that and measure that, to see the real impact has been great for us. So it's not just running ads. You can actually see where it's driving
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Host
Amazon, just making it so much harder for people who just own digital. But it's still, but still it's like a great channel, but also like if your sole responsibility is increasing digital sales and like D2C sales, it's an LTV
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Megan Che
and owning that customer data, then you're just giving it to Amazon.
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Host
Yeah, it's a lovely channel, but also a hard channel to compete with because of shipping and all that good stuff.
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Romano Bottini
Yeah, yeah. The only thing I'd add there is like we've seen more and more of that as brands roll at Amazon just from the consumer angle. It's hard to beat at the end of the day. And so like more and more, the more and more you expand into Amazon and other retail channels like that, the more and more important it is to ensure that you're factoring that into all your channels, not just tv. But when you think about the journey for a customer on tv, right? Like someone sees your ad, searches you up on, on whatever their search engine might be, first thing that probably is going to pop up if you're advertising there, it's going to be their Amazon link. So something to be considerate of when you're launching TV and make sure that you're factoring it in.
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Megan Che
Just thinking about too like the creative and just using that as a lever, right? You know that she's going to see the ad and probably still go to Amazon. But what type of offer can you put on tv? Like how can you sweeten the deal so that when she is comparing the two, you know she goes where you want her to go.
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Host
Yeah, I know. I mean, I know because my wife owns digital. So they like there's like product specific, there's bundles that are like digitally native. There's. This product is not on Amazon. You have to be like very smart in ways of packaging things to make it better than Amazon. So that's super smart is like, like creative is the targeting but the offer. Like people don't test offer as much and I think offer is like super important too. Like drive that next behavior. Because there we talked about, like sometimes it's, it's a great way to just keep people top of mind and like have that like be the closer on whatever channel. But if you want Them to be a closer on the channel that you want to point them to, you might need to have a better offer for that channel. A couple more questions for you. I mean I know that a lot of like mid market brands who are feeling stuck that say like too big for tiny TV tests, but too small for like these big tent pole buys. What do you, what did you do to unlock TV as a, like a repeatable growth channel?
- [32:09]
Megan Che
Yeah. So I think for us it was really, you know, selling it in to, you know, our CFO and at the top, like at the top of the chain. One thing that I repeatedly kept on referencing was a study published by System 1, really leaning into this thing called the Doom Loop. Right. And I feel like if you're a DTC brand and you grow to 50, 75, 100 million, you're kind of like stuck in this sweet spot almost where you probably are running on the same channels as everybody else, maybe over optimizing and overspending in certain ones and kind of like afraid to take that next step. And it really does put you in that loop. Or if you're not growing awareness or like expanding that mental availability, you're gonna get stuck and you're gonna get crushed. And I really needed to kind of sell in not only brand awareness, but just working our way up the funnel with the media plan. Not as awareness, but as a multiplier. Right. This is a performance multiplier. And that's how I was thinking about it and selling it in. Because I think too if you're working at a smaller company and you're a smaller brand and somebody hears tv, they might get a little scared. We're not ready for that. But that's not true. So I really had to sell that piece in. And it was just getting that first test and proving it out that really helped it for us.
- [33:27]
Host
Yeah, that's like the age old issue is like you gotta hit a number right now. But I also have to hit a number in for like nine months or a year or two years. And sometimes if you're just stuck on like being so performance heavy and only on, on just like that the buyers, right now you are not educating the buyers who may have the problem, but they can't describe what the problem is. Like to say like they're getting hot but they don't know why they're getting hot. And then like they realize they have menopause but they don't know like what to do for menopause. And then now they're like, okay, I know, I Need something to control this because it's unbearable. And now I know you're the solution. I think there's, like, so many, like, levels to, like, problems that people. And if you only at the end of the curve or, like, you're. You're telling people that, hey, we're the solution to this one problem that you're having right now. Not like something that is happening and I don't know why it's happening. You. You're losing out on those potential buyers that could buy six months, a year, two years, five years from now, which
- [34:42]
Megan Che
is super important, especially if you're a supplement business like us. I know you said, I think you said your wife works in beauty. The amount of money that I drop on makeup without a thought is horrible. So hopefully my husband's not listening to this. But for a supplement and an ingestible and something that you're putting in your body, education is key. And just really that credibility and validity. Yeah, TV definitely helps with that. So that education piece is key for us, especially millennials.
- [35:13]
Host
I mean, we always want that, like, science back. Like, this is the best thing. The cleanest ingredients. Like, how's it gonna. And we need. We needed, like, data to prove it or an influencer to tell us.
- [35:26]
Megan Che
We need an influencer to tell us. I will tell you.
- [35:28]
Romano Bottini
Right.
- [35:29]
Megan Che
I feel like we need an influencer to tell us because science backed is basically honestly table stakes now.
- [35:35]
Host
Right.
- [35:35]
Megan Che
And if you have one ingredient in your supplement that's clinically studied, you can label it clinically studied. We clinically study our entire formulation. Right. But at the end of the day, does the consumer care about that when she's, like, scrolling through her feed and only has five seconds? No, she wants an influencer to tell
- [35:49]
Host
her, yeah, I use this for my menopause, basically, like, or I'm perimenopause and this is helping me. Or. Yeah, yeah, I. Science backed is table. Especially in that industry and even in, like, beauty. And a lot of, like, people want to know that it has clean ingredients, it has this, it has that. Like, you know, if you're trying to win a certain type of buyer.
- [36:14]
Megan Che
Yeah, I think too, just as we're talking about influencers, there's one point that I didn't hit on really around creative. If we. One thing that we're leaning into this year is that if we know something is working on social. Right. Like, people want to hear from influencers, women want to hear from other women. Don't overthink TV creative. It doesn't have to be this you know, $100,000 of, you know, cost going into it. We can really lean into some of this more UGC and like lo Fi buy creative and, and throw it up on TV and get a test and a learn really quick. So I would say keep it simple and really don't overthink the creative too much.
- [36:50]
Romano Bottini
Yeah. And to add to that, like, I think that's one of the biggest levers. Creative in general is like one of the biggest levers we've seen that can make TV work a little bit harder for your business and drive stronger response. And so I don't think necessarily like, like man called out was like, it's like the quality, quality of production. That's like super bowl level. That's important. It's really more the commitment to a creative iteration. So figuring out what works, testing, learning and iterating on whatever is resonating is the really important part. And so just essentially not treating creatives like a one and done asset because that ultimately can drive a lot of businesses that we've worked with to see performance levels go to new heights.
- [37:29]
Host
Yeah, I think, I mean people, the messaging is as important as the creative. And it doesn't matter what level of creative. The messaging is telling someone that we solving your problem and it hits on their problem and it's at the right time that they want the or they're thinking about it. It's gonna, it's gonna resonate. And especially like now where people now think like half dads are gonna be AI during the Super Bowl. Lo Fi Oak might actually be working in this age of AI.
- [38:03]
Megan Che
Are you guys taking bets on that one?
- [38:05]
Host
No, I know that, I know there is one ad that is supposed to be like, like they, like they flaunting that it's AI only. Like they only made the say ad with AI. But I, I wonder, I wonder how many TV ads are going to be AI only in the super bowl this year.
- [38:23]
Romano Bottini
I see more and more. I would, I would be surprised if it wasn't at least one or two.
- [38:27]
Host
Yeah. Lastly, I'd like to, I like to ask everybody in this podcast, what is a marketing hill you would die on?
- [38:38]
Megan Che
Oh my God. Do you want to go first, Roman? Well, I think, I mean this year it's going to be tv,
- [38:45]
Romano Bottini
TV related but like I, I'll die on this hill that I think tv, like some brands are more ready for TV than they think. Right. I think brands either kind of like, like we've called out already either think they need to swing for the fences and TVs is really expensive channel. It's going to cost them millions and more millions of dollars to get into. And I just don't think that's the reality today. Obviously like there's a time and a place for those things if with your business. But there's an easier like lower hanging fruit to start, right? We've had brands start with, you know, a few thousand bucks just starting with retargeting. We've had brands that do, you know, proper linear tests with 50 to 100k a month. And so I just think the reality is like if you're a business that's starting to see diminishing returns on, on social channels or kind of your core performance segments like I think there's reason to at least give TV a shot because it's not going to, I don't think it'll eat into your budget as big as some people think it might. So that's something that I'm always a big proponent of.
- [39:40]
Megan Che
I would say marketing hill I would die on is continuing and maybe this is just coming from a small D to C like are my grassroots but moving fast, right? Not being afraid to fail and taking risks. I'm a risk taker by nature but really leaning in when a cultural moment hits. I feel like there's the type of person who's kind of going to go and really ask everyone is this a good idea? Is this a good idea? Like we're all marketers and we have that gut instinct and you know something's going to hit like don't be afraid to advocate for yourself and continuing to lean in because it's the brands that are taking the risk, are being a part of the cultural moments and are sort of doing these things that you're maybe not going to see that immediate return on roi but really they're getting talked about and those are the ones that are going to be here in the long game. And if we just continue chipping away and playing by the rules, you're really not going to make a splash. And you look at groons, you look at all these other brands, they're making a splash right now. They're moving really fast.
- [40:42]
Host
I also think it goes to what you said earlier is your motto is scared money, don't make no money. And you have to be able to push at the right time and take that risky push even if it could fail because culture moments die off. CACs get higher, they're always going to get higher. That's how these platforms make their money. But if you, if you're good at pushing when you need to push or you found a good creative that works. You don't just take the your foot off the pedal because of next month or next year or you just go and push and see what works. So I agree. Any closing thoughts from you both? Like on where could people find you as well
- [41:31]
Megan Che
LinkedIn just Megan Shay yeah, reach out on LinkedIn if you have any questions. I love chatting in the New York area so I try to pop into the city at least like a couple times a quarter for meetups but I live in the suburbs now but if you ever want to chat, definitely reach out.
- [41:48]
Romano Bottini
Same here at LinkedIn Romanobottini or visit Tatara TV and I'll be sure to reach out. But yeah, always around at some of the trades conferences or whatnot. So if you see me around feel free to grab me and talk my ear off.
- [42:01]
Host
Thank you both for joining. And yeah, I think TV is having its moment. It's so hard to understand what's working, what's not working, who's doing it right, who's doing it wrong, if you should do it, if you should not, and what should you have in place to make sure it works. So I think this was a good conversation to understand how Megan's doing it to make it work for her brand. So thank you so much for everybody for listening and thank you to both for joining.
- [42:35]
Thanks.
- [42:35]
Romano Bottini
Thanks Daniel.
- [42:38]
Daniel Murray
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.