How Can Brands Make Sense of the Multi-Channel Future?

It’s easy to get lost in the digital jungle. That’s true for those of us who can’t resist five more minutes of scrolling, and it’s equally applicable to brands trying to emit a clear signal and slice through the noise. 

Of course, we all want to be where the party is. Nearly one and a half billion people regularly open up TikTok. Two billion fire up YouTube each month. And just shy of three billion of us still spend time scrolling through a Facebook feed. To (almost) reference one of 2022’s best movies, everyone is everywhere all at once.

To put those numbers into perspective, this year’s Super Bowl audience - the traditional darling of advertisers looking to set the cultural agenda - was estimated at 208 million on TV. Not shabby, but a drop in the ocean compared to Instagram’s user base (over one billion per day). 

So, in order to capture the most eyeballs, brands need to be on every channel possible right? Not necessarily. To find out how brands can navigate their way through the aforementioned digital jungle, LBB sat down with Mint’s creative director Laura Rothstein. 

LBB> Laura, over the past decade or so we’ve seen a huge proliferation of online channels and platforms. In broad brushstrokes, what kind of impact do you think that has had on the ways brands communicate? 

Laura> Listen, it’s great to have a multitude of ways to reach your audience, especially in places they’re already active and hanging out. But, we all know trying to be all things to all people makes you wobbly on who you actually are at the core. It’s the same for brands. If you’re thirsty for everyone everywhere, your essence gets diluted. You see brands losing the plot a bit - that reactive social post that didn’t land, or official TikTok channels that are dead zones. 

That said, overreaching and recalibrating is part of the game. It would be boring otherwise.

LBB> And do you expect to see even more platforms popping up in the months and years ahead? 

Laura> Oh yeah. Chaos and opportunity go hand-in-hand, and there’s no excitement without a little fear of the unknown. There will be new frontiers to explore, and sometimes you’re going to be wandering and get lost. But again - and I love to belabour a metaphor - if you strip down to the fundamentals of who you are as a brand and use it as a guiding light, it becomes a more fruitful, effective exploration. 

And I don’t think this is a trend, by the way. This has been the nature of the industry as long as I’ve been in it.

LBB> In your view, does every brand need to be across every media channel? If not, how can a brand work out which platforms are relevant and which aren’t?

Laura> Brands should absolutely be selective about where they show up. To my mind it’s not brain surgery. Who do you want to talk to? And where are those people right this minute. On TikTok? Listening to the radio in the car? If the target audience in the brief is men and women 18-55, you’re not really talking to anyone. You're banking on a scattershot approach, hoping it hits something and watering down everything in the meantime - strategy, idea, execution. 

LBB> I understand that, at Mint, you guys consider quality content to be the best way of making an impression no matter what channel or platform a brand is using. So, what’s the secret to making sure you are creating great content across multiple platforms? 

Laura> Back to the top - the first stop is asking ‘what’s core to the brand’? Not just its values, but the actual role it plays in people’s lives. You need to live and breathe your audience. The power of content is not in a bunch of ad people thinking up something they think is cool, and then doing their darndest to convince everyone else. Creative should be inspired by your audience, and born from a legitimate respect and understanding of what matters to them, how they actually live and then reflect what they actually care about. That’s key to great content, across any channel.

LBB> Finally, the metaverse could be (according to some) the biggest change in the media landscape since the dawn of social media. What’s your take on that, and what kind of things should a brand be doing in preparation? 

Laura> The metaverse is a cool space and a guaranteed headline, but there still isn’t mass awareness or understanding of how it works. It’s not like turning on the TV or picking up your phone - the accessibility isn’t there, and so the audience isn’t there. 

Yes, the appetite for this kind of digital space exists - peer to peer platforms like Minecraft have had people jazzed forever -  but until the metaverse is widely adopted I think predicting how it can solve actual business problems is TBD. Right now, it’s a niche playground for brands to play in. And I think brands can prepare for it’s potential popularity by doing exactly that - dipping the toe, having fun, and experimenting.