August 13, 2021

A few weeks back, Tiffany & Co. got loud with a “Not Your Mother’s Tiffany” campaign, reinventing itself to a younger demo by throwing salt in their mothers’ eyes. It went how you think:

• The Internet flared up. 
• “Experts” called it edgy and modern. 
• Those who resemble mothers found it ageist and offensive. 

The frenzy calmed down just in time for the Olympic Games to roll into Tokyo and onto NBC!  Bring on the palette cleanser of spectacular feats and award-winning drama. 

You better also bring a map.

NBC aired the Games across two broadcast networks, six cable networks, a splattering of streaming platforms, and a Peacock in a branded network tree. They, too, sought to woo a younger audience, and they, too, fell on their face. 

The Guardian likened it to spraying American households with "televisual vomit."  Niiiice.

In defense of NBC and Tiffany & Co., growing your audience is hard. Why do so many of us stumble here while turning into jerks and bullies? Let’s get better.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls.

Now, the data supports Tiffany & Co. and NBC courting younger demos. But where does it fall on the new audiences you hope to reach? You could be launching into a new region or looking to grow a specific product. Before you free dive, stop and ask the question: does the data indicate an untapped opportunity?

Your first-party data and analytics may tell the tale. If not, surveys can be effective; focus grouping and one-on-one interviews are even better. Offer an incentive to attract participants, and ask questions designed to reveal their needs, motivations, and why they would or would not choose a product or service like yours. 

Then, turn the insight into developed personas to guide a more fine-tuned marketing approach. 

Change Your Tone. Not Your Message.

Developing relevance with a new audience doesn’t mean lighting your brand on fire and starting over. 

Do not insult your current audience to attract a new one. You’re not Tiffany & Co.

Do build a flexible brand. One that maintains your core values but allows you to adjust messaging to highlight benefits more aligned to new audiences and platforms. 

Tiffany & Co. is committed to championing hometown heroes, diversity & inclusion, and ensuring opportunities for women. This has always been a key part of its value prop and a message in which a younger audience would also find value.

So, create a modern, digital-first campaign around that. 

Seek out a collaboration with an influencer or like-minded organization who holds authority with those you’re trying to reach and create something together. Seems more effective than insulting my mother. 

Below are two campaigns from Colgate. The first one ran in the UK on Facebook.

They ran a different campaign on TikTok (below). Here, Colgate introduced a face filter and reached out to 100 influencers to help spread what they called the #SmileDayChallenge. This is what that sponsored content looked like:

These two campaigns convey the same idea at their core--they just use different strategies to do it. One targeted for a conventional digital audience, the other starting an influencer-driven TikTok trend.

Place Content Where & How They'll Consume It.

The Olympic Games were Must-See TV when I was growing up. The fold-out, color-coded TV Guide schedule was taped to our fridge; summer was planned around it. 

That’s changed. 

Now, we stream only the specific events we want to see and ignore the rest. Convenient for snacking on Olympic content but doesn’t hold us captive the way the Games once did.  

Streaming also doesn’t help consumers organically discover content. Remember when we became obsessed with curling during the 2014 Winter Olympics by stumbling on it? We couldn't get enough.

What’s the long-term ramification of this change? If 12-year-old Lisa hadn’t been glued to the Magnificent Seven, would she care today? 

How can we be sure our audience is finding, consuming, and, where possible, sharing content? If it’s the Olympics:  

Pre-Event

• Shift media buys away from one-and-done ads toward linear experiences.
• Feed me content packages that build up new events (Trampoline! Skateboarding!).
• Get me invested in the key players. Where were all the in-depth, polished athlete packages this year?  
• Engage casual sports fans by having familiar faces introduce whom they’ll meet at the Games.
• Let me subscribe to notifications to catch what I’m interested in. 
• Build a consolidated Event schedule that’s easy to access--whether I pin it to my desktop or load it on an app. 

During the Event

• Get me to opt-in to receive a text when Allyson Felix is about to run, or Caeleb is warming up in the pool, so I don’t miss it.
• Give me summaries and highlights via email. Make sure I can share them. 
• Buddy up sports content. If I subscribe to Soccer updates, tease Skateboarding. If I’m into Gymnastics, make sure I know about Trampoline. Recreate some of the discovery moments we’ve lost in this on-demand switch.

Post-Event

• Nurture athlete- and sport- interest. The Olympics are over, but how can I keep engaging? Where can I get more? What’s next for each sport and each athlete?
• Feed me the Coming Home As Champions stories. 😭

Researching your new audience will identify their media and content consumption habits, allowing you to create experiences just for them, where they're watching.

It also gives you a reason to collect a truckload of first-party data. 😎

Embrace Their Magic 

There’s something unique and magical about the people you’re going after--something that makes them worth the energy. Sprinkle some of that on your marketing.   

NBC has exclusive broadcasting rights to the Olympic Games. Good for them, but a bummer for the rest of us. It means even if you are gold medalist sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah and you post videos of your victorious 100- and 200-meter races, they'll take action against you. She doesn't have the rights to share her content, even though it was HER experience.  

NBC went after younger fans while ignoring what younger fans want--increased authenticity and access.

Bonkers, right? But we all do it. We declare we want to move into untapped territories and then speak to them by doing precisely what we’ve always done. 

NBC has the marketing power to access the latest in consumer data and behavior trends. They should be creating innovative experiences that look, feel, and sound like the people they’re trying to reach--not blocking their Instagram accounts.  

Make New Friends & Keep The Old

It's hard. We all want to reach new audiences, but we don’t have to do it at the expense of the audience we already have.

✔️ Confirm the opportunity is viable.

✔️ Adjust and mimic their tone.

✔️ Make your brand easy to consume.

✔️ Let them shape the new experience.

Do that and you'll discover your brand can hang out in more than one friend group. You won't even have to be a jerk about it. 

"I Was Over It"

Do you know Dan Dinsmore? He's the CEO and founder of Overit, and this week he was the featured guest on the Get Overit Podcast. Dan talked about turning his passion for music, data, and technology into the fuel to grow a 40-person creative agency. We're sure glad he did. Please give it a listen.

August 24: Exploring New Opportunities for Paid Marketing [webinar]

Catch Overit's Matt Smith and Devin Dinsmore dishing about dynamic ad formats and what it means for advertisers. You can still register to attend.

September 14: 2022 Healthcare Marketing Trends Report [whitepaper]

One of my favorite times of year is approaching--the release day of Smith & Jones' annual Healthcare Marketing Trends report. This time, our sister company has outlined the seven trends for healthcare marketing you need to know. Sign up to be the first person to receive the report and register for the webinar.