Hijacking Platforms to Connect with Customers - Wealthsimple's Kyle Shields

Organisations that focus on long term brand building can build meaningful ties with consumers, which ultimately lead to sales. For Kyle Shields, brand building isn't the opposite of driving performance - they go hand in hand, and can be especially effective when hijacking platforms or news with minimum spend.

Kyle is a creative at heart, but thinks creative and performance aren't mutually exclusive (as some marketers may believe). His top data driven marketing tip is to actually lead with the creative, bold ideas, start wide, use your gut, then let the data and testing drive your strategy subsequently.

He shares why marketers need to stop thinking of performance and creative separately, while finding a sweet spot where they complement each other. We then discuss his shiny new object - media hijacking. It may not be the newest thing to do, but brands like BMW, Duolingo, or IKEA show us how to seize a cultural moment, the news, or simply a platform like Google Maps to keep your brand front of mind. This may not result in an immediate sale, but it's the sort of content that will tip the scales in your brand's favour when consumers decide on their next purchase.

Hear more on the podcast.

The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.

Kyle Shields 0:00
It's all about like, starting wide, starting super creative, use your gut, and then, you know, let the data depict how it works, what was working and where to go next.

Speaker 0:14
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Tom Ollerton 0:47
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform, and this is a podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so I have the pleasure and the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders, and this week is no different. I'm on a call with Kyle Shields, who is growth creative lead art director at Wealthsimple. So Kyle, for anyone who doesn't know you, and what you do, can you give us a bit of background?

Kyle Shields 1:16
Absolutely, and thanks for having me on. Tom, yeah, I think, just to give the high level, I, you know, I'm a creative who spent about 10 years working in a more of a traditional advertising sense. So, you know, big 360, campaigns. And, you know, very creative, first, driven marketing. And then, you know, in the last two and a half years, I've, definitely, I've kind of dipped my toe into the gross marketing world. So joined some venture capital firms have been working with startups and now currently lead growth creative for Wealthsimple, a Canadian FinTech brand.

Tom Ollerton 1:51
So as a creative, are you just coming up with creative all the time? Or do you do you believe in marketing books you read up? Are you academic at all? Or do you just let it happen to you, or are you a investigator of people's writing?

Kyle Shields 2:05
Yeah, no, I do. I do a lot of reading, I think, and, you know, transparently, I think coming from a more creative first approach, I think I've been doing a tonne of learning in the last few years. I think, you know, trying to understand, you know, the, you know, the ins and outs of marketing and growth and again, like, how we can, you know, apply a creative more effectively, just to, kind of, like, affect a business's bottom line.

Tom Ollerton 2:31
And what book would you recommend most often?

Kyle Shields 2:33
It's funny, you ask. I think, you know, the book I always recommend would would be the tipping point, by Malcolm Gladwell. And you know, I think the reason is, is because it's not really a marketing book, but it's really changed the way I think about marketing. You know, it talks about those key ingredients of what drives adoption and behaviour change and that sort of rapid spread of ideas. And I think there's just a tonne of really strong parallels to developing, like, a really successful growth strategy or creative strategy. So yeah, I mean, it's super interesting read. It dives deep into, like, human behaviour and the catalysts that, you know, as we say today, like make things go viral.

Tom Ollerton 3:08
But if someone wasn't going to get around to reading that book, what would be the one thing that you would say, Look, you have to know this?

Kyle Shields 3:14
I think you know the the main takeaway for me that was super interesting about this book, without getting into all the details is there's sort of three key elements that really help an idea go viral, or kind of like, help an idea spread. You know, it's you have to engage people with vast audiences across different social groups. So think brand partnerships, content creators, celebrities. You need people that can help seed knowledge about your product or your service. So in our case, like platforms like Reddit or Twitter are super helpful. And then also, you know, you really need the people, like the sales, the salesman, but you know, those who can kind of like help sell the product. And these days, that's sometimes paid ads, it's sales reps, it's BDRs, there's a combination of these three elements, you know, working together that can kind of help ideas spread, like, super rapidly.

Tom Ollerton 4:06
What's your best bit of advice to become a better data driven marketer?

Kyle Shields 4:11
No, it's a good question. I think in my case, I come from a slightly different background, and I think a lot of you know data driven marker... data driven marketers with a majority of my career, you know, I was focused on what I call, like, vibes based advertising, you know, big you know, brand campaigns, TV, Billboard, you know. But these are all things that, like, aren't really measurable. And so I think, you know, now that I've stepped deeper into the data driven side of the world, it's given me a really different perspective on how to leverage data and so, you know, I think my advice to, you know, become a better data driven marketer would be to come up with ideas and testing hypotheses. You know, emotionally, you know, it's really okay to be subjective in that ideation stage, but then you have to evaluate and iterate on creative rationally through, like, a really objective lens. And so, you know what I mean by that is, like, you know, start with really strategic, insightful, human, creative, like, all that stuff. All that stuff still matters. And I think that's what you know, the advertising industry does really well. And so, you know, as you're kind of approaching new projects, you know, what I'd always say is, like, start wide, bring, you know, bring the vibes based people into the room, come up with wild ideas, think laterally, you know, explore human insights. You know, really at the end of the day, you want to start. You want to set a baseline for your creative that you know, with creativity of confidence in you know, iterating on something that wasn't going to work in the first place is often pretty pointless. So, you know, I would say, start, start, really subjective, start, really emotional. Come up with great stuff, but then be super objective with the results. You know, remove your emotion when the data comes in and trust it. So, like, what is working? Why is it working? I think the thing I always remind myself, it's like, you have to be comfortable killing your favourite idea. You know, be open to being wrong or making mistakes and learning from them. Because the beauty of clean data is like, over time, you know, you get a tonne of insights on what works objectively. And so every time you kick off your next campaign, you can spend less time and effort and money up front, you know, trying to, you know, come up with these big swings. So it's all about like, starting wide, starting super creative, use your gut, and then, you know, let the data depict how it works, what was working, and where to go next.

Tom Ollerton 6:24
So, like, we're going to go slightly off script here, because I want to ask you something, and feel free to turn down the question. But you come from a more traditional creative background, right? And in my experience of creative people, the performance end of things is not cool, right? It's like, it's just, it's that thing that has to exist, but with a funnel. It's just disgusting. But you've, you've crossed that divide, and what you're talking about there is like, you know, bringing the vibes of people in and looking at insight and coming up with a big emotional idea and then refining it over time with data, is like, completely where automated creative comes from as a business. But I'm, what I'm curious to know is what you would say to to your old non performance self to convince yourself that the performance growth world is more interesting than you might have thought.

Kyle Shields 7:08
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's like, what drives me right now? I'm, I always say that I'm, like, a data obsessed brand creative at heart, you know. And what I'm super interested is finding that sweet spot between brand and growth. I think, like you said, traditionally, these two, you know, these two verticals butt heads. You know, performance thinks brand is a waste of time and brand thinks performance is too tactical or less emotional. You know, my opinion is, I think they need to work hand in hand, and they can, they can, kind of supplement each other. So, you know, a brand that has a tonne of equity and a tonne of awareness is going to perform better and like a really tactical, you know, whatever digital media buy. So I think it's like you I think what I would say to them is we have to stop thinking of these things exclusively or as separate, and really think of it as like an ecosystem, and how they how they really not only compliment each other, but work really well together and work better when, when you're kind of paying attention to both.

Tom Ollerton 8:05
Yeah, so our Global had a strategy, Amy Wright always says that. She says, like a performance ad does a brand job. When a brand does a performance job, you can't control what people are going to do off the back of it, right? Your big emotional piece might be the thing that makes them go and convert. And equally, they may never have heard of your brand, and then they see a conversion ad and go, Well, that's my first interaction with that organisation. So we have, we have these definitions right to make it easier for us. But, you know, with all models, they they have a use, but they're all inaccurate ultimately.

Kyle Shields 8:34
Yeah, no, no, I think that's the future, right? Is, I think these two worlds are, you know, you're seeing it with some some agencies and some companies where, you know, those two worlds are starting to overlap a lot better or more frequently. And, you know, I really just, I think that, you know, we do need to break down this notion that they aren't, you know, or that they can't do both. And I think, you know, Tiktok and Tracksuit, I think, work together to come up with a pretty interesting, you know, Brand Lift study that was all about how performance and brand fuel each other. And so I think, you know, it's we're starting towards that, you know, down that road. I think, I honestly think it's the future in answer to your to your bigger question, what would I say to some of my old colleagues is, you know, it at the end of the day, what we're hired to do is to create work that, you know, promotes a brand. And so I think you can't, you can't, you know, you can't look at them exclusively. You kind of have to look at this whole picture. And sometimes it is that, you know, a paid ad on Facebook is the first touch point. And so if that isn't doing an adequate job of kind of like promoting the brand, and kind of promoting, you know, the equity in that brand. And you know, you know, you may be, you may be missing a big opportunity. And so again, I think my big thing is like, you know, measure things, understand them, but you know, also, don't abandon the creative that fuels conversations that you know, earns media. Like, you know, again, I think they I think they need to work better together. And we're starting to see that that that shift in the world, for sure, but definitely, definitely, some ways to go there.

Tom Ollerton 10:15
This episode of the shiny new object podcast is brought to you in partnership with madfest, whether it's live in London or streamed online to the global marketing community, you can always expect a distinctive and daring blend of fast paced content, startup innovation, pictures and unconventional entertainment from madfest events. You'll find me causing trouble on stage, recording live versions of this podcast and sharing a beer with the nicest and most influential people in marketing. Check it out www.madfestlondon.com.

Tom Ollerton 10:52
So we're now going to move on to your shiny new object, which is media hijacking. So what is that? Explain that to the audience? What do you mean by that? And why have you chosen it as your shiny new object?

Kyle Shields 11:05
Yeah, yeah, platform hacking, media hijacking. You know, I think for me, it's, it's the act of like, leveraging an unexpected, organic platform in an innovative way that drives growth. So, and, you know, I won't classify this as a new a new thing, necessarily. But you know what I found, you know, as I've worked across different businesses, like audiences are increasingly aware that they're being advertised to, and then they're less receptive when it feels, you know, too forced or it feels too tactical in some senses. So what I love about like, you know, looking at how can we hijack certain platforms, and I'll give some examples on that is that you can find creative and low cost ways to kind of grow your customers organically. And it's often overlooked, I think, like off the top of my head, brands like Duolingo, to be, liquid death, like they're all really they're leveraging this approach really effectively. And so, you know, I think I'll give an example of, you know, a best in class that I saw recently. This was just a few weeks ago, but, you know, BMW did this, did a campaign called I-jack, and it was such a smart idea. It was based on a really strategic insight. And so it was, think, the campaign took place in Dubai, and, you know, EV sales are booming there. But you know what? They did a study, and it's, it turned out, it's, like, pretty uncommon that people have access to a charging station. So while people are wanting to buy more EVs, you know, there's, there's this fear around, how do I charge it? Whereas, you know, where does it live? What happens when I'm at work. And so what they what they discovered was, you know, the first thing that consumers do when they're trying to buy an EV, you know, it's not researching cars in the traditional sense, you know, they're not looking at Pricing and Features. The first thing they do on the consumer journey is look up the nearest charging station. And so, you know, that's like a really, really interesting, you know, insight that they can kind of base this campaign off of. So, you know, rather than throwing millions of dollars that are really competitive upper funnel and try and like, compete in that world they want, they kind of took a step back and kind of got to users a little bit earlier. So what I love about this is, like, with only three cars and one iPhone, they took BMWs to every charging station in Dubai, I think it's like over 300 locations, and took photos of those cars charging there like they didn't try to stage it. They didn't want it to make it look like it was a big car campaign. What they then did was they uploaded these images to Google Maps. And so when users went looking around for local stations on Google, they saw BMWs, right? They saw a lot of BMWs, and so I think, you know, what this did was it not only kept BMW like, top of mind in this competitive market, but it also gave this impression that it was a popular car, like, built trust in the community. And, you know, it cost them $0 to do this, right. Like, I think when you when you look at it, the results were like, speak for themselves, they had millions of organic views on Google Maps, and they had a 400% increase in test drives. So, you know, I think the campaign earned like over $2 million in coverage again for something that, you know, took them a couple days with like one or two people, and, you know, almost zero overhead. So, you know, I think what, what I would take away from that is, you know, the path to purchase isn't always, like linear, you know, sometimes it's messy. Sometimes people are bouncing around, and so finding, like, really unexpected ways and innovative ways to kind of raise awareness by by just, you know, taking or twisting or hijacking a media platform like Google Maps, in this instance, can have a massive impact on your growth in sales and so, you know, I'm not suggesting that you don't run digital ads or you stop putting up TV commercials, but it's like finding some of these tools that can kind of help raise awareness and consumers in conjunction, or kind of like, you know, complementing the other work that you're doing.

Tom Ollerton 14:58
Do you have any other examples that have come inspired this to be your shiny new object?

Kyle Shields 15:04
Yeah, there was a few. I mean, this one almost feels very similar. I think North Face did a really great, a really great campaign a few years ago where they, they took over, you know, they tried to leverage Wikipedia in an unexpected way. So they were, you know, they climbed summits of famous mountains, they like, showed up at weird landmarks and essentially photographed people wearing North Face. So, you know, the important thing here is, like, it wasn't staged. It didn't look like a brand photo. But, you know, in the back of all these images, there was people wearing a North Face jacket. And, you know, because they were able to take, like, quality photos that were actually serving a nice purpose. You know, these were, these became sort of like the header images on the Wikipedia pages. So if you went to look up like Kilimanjaro, there'd be someone standing there on the cliff wearing a North Face jacket. Again. This was, you know, I think this campaign was probably likely a little more expensive from for travel and for photography, but, you know, the budget overall, there's like a $0 media budget buy and so again, like just finding different ways to get your product into especially like when you look at that upper funnel, kind of like awareness side of things, there's often, like, really interesting ways that you can kind of insert the brand in an unexpected way that, you know, obviously can help raise awareness. But also, just like, sometimes there's just like, sometimes, just like, puts a smile on someone's face, it it disarms people, like, makes them want to, like, reject it less, because it isn't, it isn't too salesy. It's it's not, you know, it's not super targeted, or it doesn't kind of feel like it's invasive. So I think there's lots of lots of ways that you know, you know, you can take a really, really smart strategy, a really good contextual placement, and sometimes all you need is, like an iPhone photo, and you can kind of see some really massive success there.

Tom Ollerton 16:52
So I love these campaigns, and let me... I haven't worked for an agency for a long time, and that kind of thing was just gold dust, right? You're always trying to land one of those. It was cheap. It worked really well. It was authentic. It drove all that stuff. And I'm full of envy of anyone who gets one of those away, because I certainly never have. Can you think of a brand that's done it twice? I mean, the BMW example is just so smart, but it's not like I know the other end of it would be something like Persil's dirt is good, right? Which was a strap line from probably 30 years ago. Maybe even more with the idea, as I understand it, is that it's good for kids to get messy, right? It's healthy for them. And we have the product that can clean up all the dirt, right? It's dead simple. And I think they've even got a dirt is good department now, it's so mad. Whereas that's a kind of repeatable thing, works in every market. You don't even have to think about it. Just makes sense, and they own it, and all the rest of it, you know, it's a repeatable mission. It's all like the Campaign for Real Beauty, you know, Dove and Unilever. You know, these are just kind of ongoing things, and I know it's very different, but I'm just trying to think, is there a brand who has done news jacking consistently well again and again them, or is it just tend to be sort of these kind of one off hits.

Kyle Shields 18:05
Yeah. I mean, I don't have any specific examples, but I think the North Star for me in this was, was Duolingo. So, you know, they, they've, you know, I was talking with some people that worked at that company. We had been doing some consulting at one time, and, you know, they completely turned off their their paid media spend because, you know, taking a different approach to Tiktok, which was, I mean, a massive risk at the time, was, was like there became their entire growth engine. So, you know, maybe it's not that they're repeating the same camp or, you know, using a different version of this tactic, but it's become like the platform that they've they've based their marketing off for the last few years. And what I mean by that is like, you know, they're, you know, they're not afraid to feel like a meme or to do something that's a little over the line. It's, you know, they're what they're doing constantly. Is like looking at cultural references and just trying to be more authentic, be more human, and it tends to relate really well with people. I think you can still advertise a product and feel like a friend rather than feel like a big brand. And, you know, IKEA does a lot of really, really great examples of that, like I remember going back a few years when that ever egg was taking over the world, that that photo of the egg was the most liked image on Instagram. You know, IKEA puts out these really simple, like, 24 hour turnaround social ads of like an egg cup. And, you know, you know, sort of like featuring that famous photo of the egg. And so, you know, IKEA is a great example of someone who can kind of, like, take these, like cultural moments, turn them around super, super fast, so that it still feels like relevant and timely. And, you know, again, it doesn't need this, like, massive budget, like that was just like an organic social post, and it ended up getting millions and millions of views and a lot of current media. And you know, when I mean the IKEA example specifically, like, part of what makes makes their approach so successful is, is the relationship that they have with their with their agencies and their clients, right? Like they, you know, they, I think, you know, at the time, I want to say in Canada, they were working with Leo Burnett. But you know, they had this relationship where they could pitch an idea, bring it all the way up the ladder, get approval, make it and put it out in like 48 hours. And so, you know, I find that the more you want to start doing these, like organic moments, these kind of, like platform hijacking moments like it does take a lot of trust. So, you know, trust between your internal teams, you know, your marketing and your business lines, it takes a lot of trust between, like, the client and an agency, you know, so depending on, like, what you know, where you work, and how your company is structured, you know, I think, like trusting creatives moving fast and just really keeping your eye on, like the pulse is, is really, like the best, you know, effective way to kind of, like, do that and on a repeated fashion.

Tom Ollerton 21:05
Let's go about the Duolingo, though you really got me thinking out like, I think Duolingo, the brand is because of its marketing, is more famous than its products.

Kyle Shields 21:21
Interesting. Yeah, it's true. But I think, you know, it's no different than you know MasterCard sponsoring sporting events. In my mind, I think, like, you know you kind of you reach this point where you don't need everybody to, like, go and adopt the product. You just need someone you know when they you know whatever point in their journey when they decide they need to learn Italian. You know, Duolingo is the first brand you know, the first name that comes to mind. And so, you know, I think, you know, stop. There's again. You need to do work that focuses on immediate conversion. But I think, like building those sort of like brand moments, can also increase conversion down the line. So it's not, like, immediately measurable, but, you know, they're able to, kind of, like, stay top of mind, so that, you know, you know, a few months ago when I decided I needed to get a little brush up on Italian, you know, that was the only brand that came to mind. And I think, you know, you see that with like MasterCard and some of the big car companies, you know, they're not trying to sell you a car today, but they do want you to consider them when it does come time to make that purchase or to make that, you know, because those are often like big consideration products, right?

Tom Ollerton 22:31
Unfortunately, we are at the end of the episode. I'd love to carry on talking about this stuff, because you can run it from a very different angle to most people doing this podcast. So I'm like, Oh, great. We get to talk about all this stuff, but I've run out of time. How annoying. Look. Anyone who wants to get in touch with you about anything we've talked about, where's good place and what makes a message that you're actually replying to?

Kyle Shields 22:51
Yeah. I mean, you can reach out on LinkedIn. You can find me, obviously, under Kyle Shields. And you know, I think if you're reaching out, you know, open with the hook. So I always say, you know, do you want to have a meeting? Do you want portfolio feedback? Do you, you know, I think you get a lot of, a lot of these very vague messages. And so, you know, I always, I always say, like, if you're reaching out to someone cold, just be clear. Make it easy to comprehend. Open with a strong hook. And you know you're not, not just for me personally, but you know you're much more likely to get a reply.

Tom Ollerton 23:29
Brilliant look. Thank you so much for your time. I've really enjoyed it.

Tom Ollerton 23:32
Perfect. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on.

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