Feeding the Marketing Beast in a Social First World

Image credit: Adem AY via Unsplash​

Meet The Beast.

The Beast is the global marketing operation of a large global brand. And it needs feeding.

This is generally done by a central team that ‘own’ the marketing strategy and work with an array of regions to co-ordinate a timely supply of initiatives, assets and tools. With the right diet, The Beast works hard to win brand love and growth across the world.

And for a long time feeding The Beast wasn’t that difficult.

The campaign idea would be fronted by a TV ad. You’d get a green light in testing (by, you know, doing what needs to be done to make the lights go green). Then make it. Make it nice and shiny. Shinier than anyone could do in the local market. Then cut it down. Maybe a few six seconds for these social media platforms. Then grab a few key visuals. Probably from the ad. And package that up and feed it to the regional and local marketing teams and say, ‘you’re welcome - see you in six months for the next meal!’.

Ok - I know that was never actually easy. I’ve been there myself. That story misses out the rigour of understanding your audience, of sharpening your positioning, the unique pain of Go To Market meetings, working the hallways to get support for investing in brand over the long term, managing the creative process and buy-in of internal stakeholders. But it was easy in as much as the model was relatively simple to understand and everyone knew how The Beast needed to be fed.

Today The Beast lives in a fragmented social-first world.

And now? Well…. The Beast exists in a social-first world and there are no free meals out there. Many global CMO’s talk about Build Global, Win Local and having to create in a way that supports the hand-to-hand combat of local activations, influencers and social brand building as much as the need for typical paid media assets.

That shifts the cadence of production, the formats, the quality demands of content…and it all continues to change in the battle for attention, a battle that leaves marketers struggling to turn top-level brand strategy into front-line brand consistency. Many campaigns look stretched.

One of our clients - Unilever - is committing to profound shifts in its marketing model. The industry took sharp notice of new CEO Fernando Fernandez’s commitment to spend 50% of its media budget on social channels and increase influencer marketing investment twentyfold. They are determined to do this whilst staying true to the key pillars of brand growth - reach, memorability, consistency.

So, what does that actually mean for the practical assets that have to be created? How do you go about feeding The Beast an enriched diet of social posts, TikTok’s and influencers? And how do you avoid falling into the trap of chasing fads on the feed or wasting all your money on an influencer that works in Spain but will fail in New York? And do you need an ad? How do you make it all make sense? Arrgghhhhhh…!

Give The Beast somewhere to play. Put it in a Storyworld.

It’s a wise move to step back and re-examine how a brand’s organising creative idea works. It has to be scalable enough to reach into new kinds of creative expression. But it also has to understand, first and foremost, how to involve a social-first audience. Not simply what it pumps at them, but how the story pulls them in and plays with them. This is where a Storyworld comes in.

Rather than a rigid set of ‘tone of voice’ words or key visuals or brand ‘guidelines’, the modern brand should be a storyworld with a narrative that is co-owned by marketers, creators and communities. It’s about designing big infectious stories that will blossom, not whither upon contact with the audience. Not disparate social media tactics, but long-term, meaningful social interactivity.

You’ll know when you do this right, because The Beast you’ve spent so much time and late nights trying to keep alive, well it starts talking back and giving suggestions as to what happens next.

Storyworlds can involve a plot, an emotion you want to evoke, narrative themes and recurring characters. It should be born from social - not so that it can only appear in that media - but that it has a strong foundation in the mediums and platforms that are most connected to its audience.

It also needs to respect - to use the estimable Tom Roach’s term - the “creative grammar” of each part of the ecosystem. The vibe and tone of TikTok is entertainment-first. The vibe and tone of Instagram is more Inspiration. YouTube might be more about Immersion.

Unleash The Beast - Operationalising your Storyworld

Now let’s talk deployment. We urge our clients to consider sinking their teeth into three different levels of story: Campaign, Content and Community. Each level has its own process, running simultaneously.

Campaign - every three-six months. Brand tentpole moments combining paid and organic media with strong social-first thinking. A senior approval review cycle and managed through a central brand team or, where appropriate, campaigns developed at a local/regional level that are a manifestation of the core Storyworld.

Content - every three-four weeks. Evergreen always-on native quality content. Utilising a smart production approach - content factories and digital twins to help drive efficiencies. Strong use of Distinctive Brand Assets and consistent themes - but nuanced for platforms, cultural moments and product stories. Frameworks developed at a Global/Central level but with options for regional or local creation/production (managed carefully!).

Community - Engagement with followers and creators, sourcing UGC, commenting, contributing native quality assets - GIFs, memes, text, simple visuals. This requires pre-approved legal guidance - dedicated teams per channel and short approval timelines. Creator and community playbooks originated by the central team - delivered by local market teams. Regular review cycle by the central team but not at the cost of speed or cultural impact.

All this should be run from Beast Control. A project management system by the central brand marketing team. The level of detail and oversight is obviously at the discretion of the brand team - but one way is to ensure there’s the ability to review community activities, approve content and manage campaigns in a timely manner.

With the right TLC, your very own Beast can flourish into a big healthy growth engine.

Thriving on a constant and varied diet to satisfy its multi-channel needs, your marketing operation can build the brand through a fluid and dynamic Storyworld, built around a compelling idea that pulls in social audiences and plays with them in a way that creates a flywheel of forward momentum for the brand. And it can help ensure you stay relevant and can live at the heart of culture. Operationalising this effectively from the center - working with the regions and local markets to manage the different cadence, quality and volume of assets in campaign, content and community activities is hard - but do it well and your Beast will be rambunctious and ready for the future.