Social media, creators and the 'twin pace' brand

0:08Hello and welcome to the WALK podcast. I'm Biprorshee Das, India Editor at WALK and I'm absolutely delighted that I'll be hosting this particular episode where we are discussing the PACE Principle 2.0, the latest chapter in WALK's ongoing research into marketing effectiveness in Asia. Now allow me to jog your memory a bit. At the heart of the pace principle is that simple but powerful idea that brands grow by operating at two paces simultaneously. The first is a short-term sprint when you use performance marketing and activation to drive immediate results. The second is a long-distance pace or investing in brand building to create lasting memory, preference and future demand.

0:53We've said this before. We'll remind again that the argument isn't at all that the marketer should choose one over the other, but that sustainable growth comes from balancing both paces. Now, in our latest report, that's the Pace Principle 2.0, the conversation moves into one of the biggest shifts shaping marketing today, the rise of social-first and creator-led marketing. The question it asks is, what does it take to sustain growth in a world increasingly driven by algorithms, creators, and continuous content? Now to explore that, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome the report's authors, Rika Fekunder, Managing Editor, APAC at Walk, and Robert Britton, Independent Marketing Effectiveness Consultant.

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2:22Now, hi, Erika and Rob. Welcome to the podcast. How have you been? Hey, Bipro. To be honest, pretty tired trying to run the race finishing this report, but I'm really excited to be here to talk about it. Hey, Bipro. I'm super excited to be here too. So yeah, really looking forward to talking about the report today. Absolutely. And I can't wait to begin. So without much ado, let's start. Now, the report opens with the statement that social is one pace, but scale needs two. Rika, could you unpack what you mean by the social sprint and how it fits within the broader pace principle framework? Fairpro, before I define what a social sprint is, I want to take a step back and kind of reflect on what we've tried to achieve from the first and the second.

3:06And one thing has become really clear to me, which is that mindset matters. If you're only focused on short-term sprints, you'll see every new tool and media channel as a lever for instant results. And obviously right now everyone's talking about social and creator marketing as that shiny new toy. But the thing is, is that we are at risk of repeating that same mistake in a new form. We already see it happening in how we brief for and talk about why social and creator marketing are important. It excels at fast-paced, reactive, and culturally immediate. it. How many of us here feel like we're constantly chasing the next trend, churning out more and more content and like running on that treadmill?

3:46I don't know about you, but I just feel tired even just saying that. But we know that the fundamentals of balancing short and long-term marketing stay true. The race for growth does not change. There's still that long distance pace. And Rob and I really use this filter to interrogate how social and creative marketing can help us win in the long term as well, focusing on not just what it does well, which is what a lot of the hype will talk about, but also really understanding what are its limits and how can we complement our strategies to give us the best race for growth. Taking this forward, I'm going to ask that lots of money now is being spent on social and creators.

4:22Now, one of the risks that you've outlined in the report is that virality is an outcome, not a strategy. I absolutely love that because this is such a provocative idea in an era where let's make it go viral has become such a familiar brief. Now, what's the danger in treating virality as the strategy? Rika? I know that this is a podcast, which means that you can't see me eye rolling right now, but I will eye roll every time I hear or see this phrase being used. And to be honest, I think every marketer or agency person has probably heard this phrase sometime in their career. Virality is an outcome of a strategy, not the strategy itself.

5:02And the thing is, it's an unpredictable outcome to hinge your whole growth strategy on. And I want to talk about two risks involved in this. The first one is something we're more familiar with, which is when we use virality and divorce it from commercial metrics and relying on things like engagement alone. I came back from Cannes about a month ago, and a lot of research has come out that actually fundamentally debunks that engagement has nothing to do with brand impact and business impact. But now let's talk about that second risk, which is something that's not talked about enough, which is that it is an unpredictable outcome.

5:39Virality depends on factors a brand can influence but cannot fully control. I mean, think about it. It's the algorithm, whether the idea genuinely resonates with your audience. These are things that you cannot hedge your whole strategy on, which is why I keep banging on about this every time I talk about it. Virality is not a strategy, it's an unpredictable outcome. So what can we do to complement that bet for growth? Right. Thank you so much, Rika. Rob, I want to ask you, what does the data say about how we should think about social and creative strategy to scale instead? Now, one of the more nuanced arguments that you make is the distinction between emotional strategy and social strategy.

6:22Clearly, they cannot be spoken about interchangeably. They're doing very different jobs. Now, can you explain that distinction? Yeah, sure. And it's a really important one when we're talking about social and emotional, or when we're talking about advertising strategy, basically. So when we take a step back and look at it, often when we talk about social, what people automatically defer to is thinking about social media platforms. Whereas in this report, when we talk about social in this context, we're talking about what is it you want the campaign to do? So what is the creative approach that you're taking?

6:59So when we talk about a social strategy, what we talk about really is about participation. So the thing that you are trying to get people to do as a result of seeing the campaign is participate in it. So whether that's recording their own content or taking some kind of action within it. Whereas when we talk about emotional strategy, that's quite different. So an emotional strategy is one way you're wanting to make people feel something. And so that's quite a different outcome. You know, it's a little bit more passive. It's quite a different way of working, but you're not trying to actually get people to necessarily participate in the campaign.

7:34Now, nothing is ever kind of as black and white as that, right? So when you talk about a social strategy, I mean, of course, you're going to want people to feel something when you do it. But really what you're talking about is the primary effect. The primary effect that you're looking for within that is the fact that you want people to participate in the campaign. You want them to play a role in it. And that distinction is really, really important. So going back to that thing of what is it that we want people to do as a result of seeing this and being very clear about the distinction for that.

8:06And as we'll see as we talk through this today, that's a really important point for people to consider and to think about clearly before they go into other phases. Thanks so much, Rob. That's a very, very important point that you bring up. And I'm glad to share that, you know, it's something that is being discussed. I can vouch for it. It's being discussed in my market as well. And not too long ago, I was discussing something similar with a peer in the industry. Rika, do you have anything to add to what Rob shared? I just want to really emphasize the definitions that Rob was talking about. So we talked about social strategy as being that creative strategy that is all about getting people to share your, you know, your campaign, your brand and whatnot.

8:47And our data shows that it is most effective when it's targeted. Emotional, and again, a social strategy can be emotional, but as Rob talked about, it's about the effect. But an emotional strategy is something that is, you know, targeted to more broad audiences, more of the category buyers. And if you think about what I said earlier about virality is not a strategy for growth because, you know, you might be only reaching a certain segment of your audience organically or intentionally. But when you do an emotional strategy, which is all about targeting broad audiences, you are making sure you're consistently exposing your brand to the rest of the category buyers.

9:28I think really understanding that nuance will have a very big impact on how you think about your strategy moving forward. Right. Thank you so much for that, Rika. But let's specifically talk about how this impacts the bottom line. The report says that the broad emotional strategies are 2.1 times more effective than social overall, and it delivers more than double on short-term effects, merely four times on long-term. But what does this tell us about the constraints of social strategy and the danger of solely relying on it to grow? Yeah, it's a good question, and it's one that Rika started to hint at in her point just beforehand.

10:10So social strategies, one of the key things to understand about them is they are inherently restrained. Because with social strategies, so you're trying to get people to participate. And so you want to talk about something which they find interesting. And the thing with that, with different groups, is that only a certain amount of people find a certain amount of things interesting. So you're always going to be talking to a relatively narrow segment. And so when we back out and we say, well, what does that mean in terms of effects? It means that, well, it's great when it's targeted, but it doesn't travel because it can only actually really be relevant to, you know, a subset of people within the category that you're going to be talking to.

10:53And that's why we see such a difference in terms of the overall levels of effects when you're going out to a broad audience. Because emotional campaigns, they do travel. You know, because they're trying to make people feel something, the common thread that can be used for that can travel much more broadly. And it engages a much wider part of the category audience as well. So that's why we see so much stronger effects, you know, longer and deeper effects. whereas with social strategies they are they're inherently contained by the very fact that you want people to participate and only so many people are going to participate because it's only going to be relevant to a certain amount of people and so that's why it's really important to think about what you're trying to do you know if you're trying to go to a broad audience if you want to go to a broad audience but you're going with a social strategy then you're mismatching the two so understanding who it is that you're after, how broad or how segmented do we want to go, that is a really important first decision that people need to make before they start to think about a creative strategy, whether it's emotional or social.

12:01Because ultimately, that choice, if you like, around the target market is going to really help determine what an effective choice can be in terms of the type of creative approach you want to take. All right. Now, Rika, how does this logic impact how brands use creators in their marketing strategy? Building on what Rob said, which is essentially that the targeting determines the effect. Your objective should be the first decision in your many decisions you're going to make about a campaign or a platform that you're trying to launch into the market. So how does this impact creators specifically, which is a very tangible use case for people reading this report?

12:43I've been in so many panels and talks where there's that endless debate. Oh, are celebrity influencers better? Are nano influencers better? That's not the question that we should be asking. We should be asking what type of celebrity is most effective in delivering the certain type of results that you want. if you want to go niche and targeted, actually the most effective choice is to go for micro creators and influencers. And our data shows this as well. Highly effective social campaigns are 1.5 times more likely to use them. But if you want to go for a mass audience and kind of reach more of the category buyers at once, then it makes more sense to use a well-known celebrity who has more cultural appeal across multiple niches.

13:27So again, this either or kind of discussion that we're always having also applies to creator marketing. It's not either or it's both. You just need to understand what your objectives are and the effects that you're trying to drive. Yes, Rob, you already got something. Yeah. And I think that to build on that, I mean, it just goes to show that the first principles still apply. So when we talk about this, when we talk about the original pace principle, it's why it's so important to sequence decisions that you're making when you're planning. And so to Rika's point, and it was a really slick thing, really powerful one around what's better, you You know, should he go micro or should he go celebrity?

14:02We need to talk about key opinion leaders or influencers. Well, the answer is it depends. It depends on what you're doing. It depends on the audience that you're after and the creative approach that you're going for. And so you actually can't answer that question as to which one is better because the answer is it depends. And it depends on those first two questions. If you answer those first two questions, the answer is obvious. And that's what we see very much within this report. So just to reemphasize what Rika was saying, when you're looking to go after a targeted kind of segment, if you like, with a social strategy, then people who are really looked at by that community, you know, these smaller micro-influencers, they're really, really powerful in that space because, you know, they appeal to a relatively niche, smaller audience.

14:48Whereas if you want to use a celebrity influencer, well, that appeal is much more broader. They're known by lots of people. Lots of people like them. Lots of people follow them. So if you're after a broad market, that works really well. Should you take a celebrity into a niche target segment? Well, to be honest, they're probably not going to be as relevant to that segment as these ones that they listen to on a much more regular basis. So, again, it's kind of like don't let the tail wag the dog. You've got to start off by understanding what is it that we're trying to do and then follow that trail of logic through.

15:21And the data is abundantly clear when we look at it in that respect. Right. Don't let the tail wag the dog. I remember that. And I can also promise you that one thing I really want to do is get a couple of T-shirts made. One that says it's never either or or. And the other one would say it depends. To me, that's the crux of all the Pace Principle content that we've been putting out.

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16:28Moving on, I also want to ask that the report introduces what you call the three ceilings of social. Now, without giving away every detail, could you walk us through those ceilings and explain why they matter for marketers trying to achieve sustained growth? Before I answer what the three ceilings are, I'm going to tell you the origin of this because it came from the fantastic data that Rob analyzed. Earlier, he said that we should not conflate social with social media. And that is formed the basis of that first ceiling, which is the platform ceiling. But after mulling it over for a while and talking to people, I realized that there's more than one ceiling.

17:07There are actually three ceilings. And the way that I want people to use the ceiling framework is to understand the shift that we need to make. So I talked about that first ceiling, which is the platform ceiling, which is constrained by the algorithm. And unfortunately, this is where a lot of brands get stuck. You're pandering to the algorithm, you're churning content, and that content will have a short shelf life unless you boost it with paid. The next level is what we call the cultural ceiling. And this is something that many people are familiar with as well. This is constrained by a moment or a trend.

17:41So for example, recently, everyone's been talking about the World Cup or Ken Lions in our world. At that moment, everyone's talking about it, but at some point, that moment is going to move on. And then yet, what's the next thing that you need to go to? And now the third ceiling is called the self-sustaining ceiling. And this is the holy grail that all marketers should aspire for, because this is when creators and communities talk about your brand without being constantly prompted. But the thing is, this cannot be bought. It has to be earned, not in a moment, but over time. And one of the case studies that really exemplifies that third ceiling is the Vaseline verified work, which has won so many awards, you know, at Cannes and beyond.

18:27And I spoke to Samega Rao, who's the executive strategy director at Ogilvy. And I asked her about, you know, the work in relation to that ceiling and particularly also the role of paid. Right. Because we have to talk about the role of paid as well. And I love her quote and I need to read it out. Paid cannot manufacture cultural load bearing quality. It just turns the volume up on whatever is there. If what is there is thin, louder is simply a more expensive failure. So again, if you want to just buy the reach, but not have that resonance, you're going to be stuck on that first level. But to get to the third, you really need to earn it because we're talking about creators here.

19:07We're talking about communities like they can smell inauthentic BS a mile away and you need to make sure that you earn their trust over time. Thank you for that, Rika. And now, Rob, one of the key data points was that correct alignment of target market and creative strategy can improve campaign effectiveness by up to 70%. Now, to do that, you argue that we need to stop jumping straight to execution, whether that's choosing a platform, briefing creators or chasing the next trend. Now, why do you think this has become such a common trap? I mean, can you share some examples of what that alignment looks like in practice?

19:46Yeah, sure. So that's a really important statistic, right? The first one that you talked about there about the correct alignment of target markets and creative strategy can improve campaign effectiveness by up to 70%. That is huge. It's not a trivial difference that comes from there. And so that's why we talk about the fact that we really shouldn't be jumping to execution. Now, the thing is, obviously, speed is often of the essence. You know, within businesses, there's a lot of internal pressures. And I was talking with a friend about this a little while ago in a different kind of context. And his point, I think, is very, very relevant here, which is if you do the thinking up front, then you can move quickly.

20:27You can react. You can be in the moment. And you can do all the things that you need to do in order to create something or, you know, if you like, capture a moment that is suddenly there. but you need to have done the thinking beforehand. And really that is my main argument within this paper is the fact that you need to really carefully consider your target markets and your creative strategy first. If you have those two locked in, then it gives you the opportunity that, okay, we know how that we can execute about this so we can take advantage of things that might change in the environment or opportunities that come along.

21:01But you have to do that thinking first. And to be honest, that thinking is hard. it's the stuff that people don't see it's kind of it's the magic that gets sprinkled in the background that no one has any idea about so you know when people say wow that was a massive success it's generally the fact that there was a damn slight whole load of really hard thinking that went into it beforehand that suddenly made it this overnight success so you know it tends to come from that rigor and you know just that effort that goes in beforehand you know it's not luck It's actually, it's really good judgment. And so what I'd encourage everyone to do is to really focus on doing that part first.

21:41So spend the time to do that, which then means that when you're forced into situations where you might need to execute quickly, or there's some kind of cultural moment or opportunity that's coming along, you know, because that is how you've done the thinking beforehand. So you know how you're going to capture that and how you're going to take that forwards. Rika, you wanted to add something? Just to build on what Rob is saying, that we're not arguing that you should not act fast. Agility is definitely a core thing that brands and marketers need to do because a lot of things are changing. The thing is, is that those who have really deeply thought about what their brand stands for and what their brand doesn't stand for can make those fast decisions about, oh, what creator should I use?

22:26You know, what trend should I jump on? But in service of what is good for the brand and what is good on the bottom line. If we don't spend enough time thinking about that, then that execution will fall flat. And one of my favorite lines from the first report, I know we're talking about the second one, but since evangelizing this since last year, the point that we try to make is that strong brands don't just move faster. They move further. They move further because they really are investing in their brand equity along the way and making sure everything they do ladders up coherently into what the brand stands for in the eyes of their customers.

23:03Right. You know, forewarned is forearmed. Now, the report argues that not all social content is trying to do the same job. Can you explain the different roles those social archetypes play and how marketers should really be thinking about creating for each? This is just one best practice out of many that you can find in the report. And this comes from Simon Harwood, who's from Billion Dollar Boy. And when I first approached him on this brief, my problem that I was trying to unpack with him is that in social media and content strategy, the term of, you know, always on content, always on campaign, you know, has become commonplace.

23:44And like I said earlier in the podcast, that's really tiring. You know, we're churning so much more content with little impact. And there's a lot of statistics that have come out recently that prove that churn and burn approach doesn't really work. So I'm like, okay, if we're going to move away from this always on mindset, what are three other ways to think about it. The first, which is maybe an evolution of the always on, which is more of always relevant because always on me just sounds like you're just blasting content all the time, but always relevant goes back to what Rob was saying earlier.

24:17When you're a lot more intentional about the places that you're showing up, why you're showing up, what you should put there. So always relevant is an evolution of that. The other one, which is called test and learn. I know I ranted a lot about virality earlier, but where virality is useful is that it becomes a signal of what is working, you know, in a small little experiment that you do. And then you get that signal and you have the data and the judgment, then that's your moment to kind of like, oh my gosh, can we turn this into something bigger? Can we boost it with paid media? And, you know, that again, kind of mitigates some of that risk that you might have in spending your money in certain places or certain creators and certain ideas.

24:59And the third one is about social first integrated. And a lot of people talk about how it's kind of hard to get from a big idea and bring it down to social, but it's a lot easier to go from something that works on social and kind of amplify it up. So if you've tested something, oh, wow, great signals that this is working. How again, can you integrate it into other touch points in the ecosystem out of home, retail media and whatnot? And we do have a fantastic chart in the report that kind of shows how that all links together. So Social First Integrated is the last one. Right. Thank you, Rika. And that really leads me to this very, very important question that if the objective isn't simply engagement or virality, how should marketers think about measuring success across both the short and long term?

25:49OK, so I'm going to start by referencing our first report with this. So when we looked at measurement in our first report, there was one insight that was just so blindingly obvious that I think Rik and I are probably just going to keep on talking about it almost forever. And that is the fact that, you know, just in terms of the duration that you use to measure your campaign, because the simple thing is, is that, you know, campaigns continue working after you've finished being in market, after you've finished executing it. And we saw really, really clearly in that first report that that measurement period has a huge effect on that.

26:29So if you're only measuring just the time that you're in market and then you cut off your measurement, you're missing a huge amount of effect. And so you're literally shortchanging yourself. So the first principle is, is regardless of how long the campaign is, is to make sure that your measurement period extends significantly longer than the end of the campaign. And when I talk about significantly longer, you should be going for at least another three months. after you finish, because you will find it continues to have an effect through that point. So the other thing that you asked about is, you know, if the objective isn't just engagement or virality or whatever, how should we be measuring these campaigns?

27:06Well, part of it is what you shouldn't be measuring. And, you know, it's data that we collect, but it's got nothing to do with campaign effectiveness. And that is engagement metrics. So it's things like impressions, it's things like clicks, it's things like video completion rates, all these sorts of things. They might provide an indicator as well. Do we think that the campaign is going to work? But they're not in effect. They show nothing about what the campaign has actually done from the business. And so really, you need to be looking at a couple of things. You need to be looking at some business metrics.

27:37And obviously, revenue is one that we go to. However, you're in that boat with plenty of other departments. So it's not only marketing that's on the hook for delivering revenue. But there's other parts of the way that demand flows through a business that you can look for. So, you know, for example, if you own your distribution point, you can be looking at the amount of people coming into your stores, or you can be looking at the amount of search interest that's coming towards your brand. Because if you're winning in market, if you're winning in memory, you'd expect those metrics to change. Also, I'm always a huge fan of brand health tracking metrics.

28:09They are the least understood, but most useful thing that people generally ignore. They just get a large deck and then they just put it in the drawer whenever it debriefed. And so things like brand consideration, really, really important. Key metrics around how people perceive the brand, these sorts of things. Because if someone's going to do something, it's a shift in memory that happens first. So the more that you can measure that, the more that you can start to string these different things together. So try and go away from the metrics that the platforms give you. Yet they're academically interesting.

28:44They move around a lot, but actually they're not showing you anything of any real value. Just to build on that, we are discounting, but we're also not discounting platform metrics. They are useful, as what I said earlier, is a signal of what is working, in-flight optimization. That's what we call fast measurement. But we need to complement that with longer measurement, which is all the things that Rob was talking about. Right. And what I absolutely love about this conversation and the reports is that you cannot look at just one of them. I love the fact that both of you keep referencing to the original PACE principle.

29:18So you have to sit with both. And like the T-shirt says, it's not either or. Finally, if you're speaking directly to a CMO or marketing leader who's about to read this report, what's the biggest mindset shift you'd hope it inspires? And if listeners remember just one idea from Pace Principle 2.0 after today's conversation, what would you want that to be? So the main thing that I would say is don't jump to execution. So when you're looking at anything, just don't jump to the end. Don't jump to the fun bit at the end around how are we going to use? What are we going to use? Do the hard thinking beforehand.

29:57If there's one warning I can give to everyone is that do not treat social and creator marketing as a silo. If social helps you create some momentum and create demand, then you need to create an ecosystem of other touch points that will help you amplify it and capture that demand. The answer or response is not always more content, more content, more content or another campaign per se. You have to build that ecosystem and understand the role of yes creators in social media and helping to amplify that message. And I'm going to cheat and say another thing that you should take from this report is the social ceiling framework.

30:32work. We have a lot of great data points there, but I think the framework really outlines the shift that we need to make as marketers to make that social and creator spend a lot more effective for our business. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Rika and Robert. Listeners, I really, really hope that this conversation and Pace Principle 2.0 helps you broaden your thoughts about this beast that we call social. Rika, Rob, thank you both for joining us today and for taking us through the thinking behind the PACE Principle 2.0. If today's conversation has sparked your interest, I would encourage you to check out the full report on WALK where you'll find the evidence, case studies and practical guidance we've only been able to touch on today.

31:15There's also a sample report for non-subscribers. You can check that out and well, if you find that interesting, you know what to do. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening.

31:30We'll be right back.