Episode 248 / Marie Casimir Fallon / Bimbo Bakeries USA / Senior Director of Media, Analytics and Content
Why AI Is Still a Shiny New Object in Content Creation
Marie Casimir Fallon has had an impressive 20+ year career in marketing and media. She is currently a Senior Director at Bimbo Bakeries USA, where she leads teams focused on media, analytics, and content. Throughout her career, Marie has worked for large consumer packaged goods and pharmaceutical companies on both the agency and client sides. She emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning, citing her own experience with continuous education and teaching.
AI & Content Gains
Marie is excited about artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential applications, focusing on the positives it can bring to data driven marketing. She sees opportunities for AI to maximise content development for brands with modest budgets: "I see some really amazing opportunities...when you have brands that have have modest budgets, for example, they can really benefit from having the capabilities of… being able to create additional content for various platforms." Marie is focused on understanding how brands can leverage AI "to understand what content has resonated well with audiences, and creating more of that."
Data-Driven Marketing Strategies
As a leader in media, analytics, and content, Marie understands the importance of working with the right data. She emphasises the need to "analyse data and gain insights into [consumers’] buying habits, preferences and behaviour." For example, analysing data beyond the obvious helped Marie uncover why a competitor's products were outselling theirs to the Hispanic customer segment.
How do you succeed at this? Start with a really good brief that asks the right questions and ensure you collaborate with the right experts across teams.
Don’t Forget the Human Element
While excited by AI's potential, Marie acknowledges concerns about removing humanity from creative work. She argues that "you still need very much a human element." As Marie says, "if you let the model sort of like run free, without having human intervention in the beginning and in the end, you could have things like hate hate speech going around." Marie advocates for humans to provide prompts and filter AI-generated content.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Marie Fallon 0:00
If you can't inspire a team or encourage people to collaborate with you, what's the point? Truly what's the point? I do believe wholeheartedly in the African proverb that says if you want to go fast, go alone. And if you want to go far go together
Tom Ollerton 0:19
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 had the pleasure and the privilege of speaking to one of our industry's leaders, and this week is no different I am on call with Marie Casimir Fallon who is senior director of media analytics and content at bimbo bakeries USA. So Marie, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do. Could you give us a bit of background?
Marie Fallon 0:48
Absolutely. First off, Tom, thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited for this conversation. So, as you said, I'm currently a senior director at bimbo bakeries USA. But I've been working as a marketing and media executive for over 20 years now. And I really, really love my job. My focus has primarily been on advertising and specifically media planning. But in the past few years, my role has expanded to include the three verticals that you talked about media as well as analytics and content. Now, my company for those of you who aren't familiar with it, we make some very yummy stuff, like little bites, Sara Lee bread and Thomas's English muffins. Just to dive a little bit deeper into what my teams do, because media can mean a lot to different people. But my team basically, they help lead the strategic media planning with our agency partner on an analytics perspective, we do some in house testing, but we also help facilitate marketing mix modeling and agile testing, agile measurement rather and then from content, we're actually talking about content development or creative development. Now prior to joining Bimbo, I had the privilege of working with some pretty large companies, and across various different industries. So I've worked in consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications. I've worked on both the agency and the client side. So in those roles, I've had the good fortune of being able to develop some high profile media strategies, and negotiate some pretty big investments on behalf of the clients or on behalf of my company.
Tom Ollerton 2:23
So in that impressive career, that varied career, what would you say has been the best investment of your own time, energy or money in your own career?
Marie Fallon 2:34
Wow, that's, it's a great question. And it's really tough. To narrow it down to just one thing. First off, lifelong learning for me is key. Right? I was lucky enough to attend some amazing business schools. So I went to New York University. And I also attended Villanova. But I soon realized it really wasn't enough, even actually, after I went to New York University, I was very reluctant to go back to school to get my MBA, because I was like, I went to a great school. But I've realized that it's, it's continuous learning. And for a lot of people, they probably do realize it as well. But it's more than just reading trade journals and attending conferences, and reading books, sometimes it actually does meaning going back to school. And for example, I've taken courses specifically on agile marketing and data analytics most recently. I've also found that teaching has helped me learn even more, I have actually been blessed enough to be an adjunct professor at both Temple University in Syracuse. And that's forced me to stay on my toes, if you will, because you have to be able to answer students questions. Now. Secondly, building relationships, I think, is a huge investment that you can make in your career. It's really critical. And it's not always easy. And I say this as somebody who early on in my career, maybe I didn't understand the value of building relationships, right? So you can have the best ideas in the world. And trust me, sometimes I think my ideas are, in fact, the best in the world. But if you can't inspire a team, or encourage people to collaborate with you, what's the point? Truly, what's the point? And so I do believe wholeheartedly in the African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone. And if you want to go far go together. Now the final thing, the final investment, if you will, is one that I think I've really come to realize most recently as being very important to me, and that's investing in your relationships that you have personally, you know, with my family, and myself, too. Now, when I was starting out my career, it was often go go go. And I have some interesting stories about like, how I'd be on vacations and calling into the office. And honestly at the junior level of my career, there was nothing that I was working on that was so critical that I needed to call in from vacation. But in the past year, I lost someone very near and dear to me, a first cousin who I grew up with, he was like my brother. And as cliche as it sounds, Yes, tomorrow isn't promised. So I'm doing my best right now to spend more quality time with, you know, my family, my husband and my two kids, and my extended family, my in laws, my parents if you will. And I'm making sure to take care of myself. Because I know that when I'm feeling my very best, I'm able to lead and inspire my team better. And when I'm feeling my very best, I'm a better mom, a better wife, a better daughter. So those are things that I would say that are the best investments of my time energy, if you will, and that helped my career.
Tom Ollerton 5:44
Thank you for such a broad response to that question and your vulnerability and talking about your loss. Obviously very sorry to hear you've gone through that. And it's really admirable the way that you're refocusing on all of the things that are important to you. And we were chatting before the show that you're also as a scout leader, or Scoutmaster, what was that?
Marie Fallon 6:03
I am, I'm a Girl Scout troop leader. I've been doing it for four years. My daughter is the one who really got me involved in it. She wanted to be a Girl Scout, I was never a Girl Scout. And we had gone to a meeting. And it was we, you know, I saw, okay, this is what she wants to do fine. And we realized that maybe that wasn't the best fit for her. Right. And she still wanted to do it. And so then I went on to a larger discussion, I reached out actually to the Girl Scout organization. And they told me that they had like, sort of like an open house for people who are interested. And I went to the meeting, and they asked people in the room, like who would be interested in volunteering your time, you know, for a Girl Scout troop. And I said, Well, you know, I would be interested in doing so just, you know, I don't know how much time per week it would be. And there was another woman in our circle who raised her hand. And as luck would have it, they decided, Okay, you two are now the troop leaders. So I wasn't planning on doing this. But here we were, me and my co troop leader a little over four years ago, and we made a nice go of it, if you will, because when we had our first meeting, there were four girls. And then a few weeks later, the pandemic hit. And this is actually one of my proudest achievements, Tom. Within a year, we went from four girls to having like 17 Girls, a new troop, not something I had planned, but I've actually gotten so much better because of it. You know, I feel that because I'm volunteering outside of work, I have a different perspective that I can bring to work.
Tom Ollerton 7:44
Absolutely. And lifelong learning, right? Put yourself in a position of discomfort to learn to be a better person all the way through that, then yeah, inspiring story. But we do have to get back on to data driven marketing, unfortunately, unfortunately. So what is your best bit of advice for people to become a better data driven marketer? What's the one thing you think they should do?
Marie Fallon 8:08
If I had to select one thing? First, let's start by defining data driven marketing, because it can be very broad, right? It can encompass a wide range of topics, if you will. So for me, if I had to put it simply, data driven marketing is about a marketing strategy that can leverage insights, that can help you make better decisions about targeting your customers. And as a data driven marketer, I think that maximizing strategies to target those consumers at the right times in the right message is good. But really, you need to analyze that data and gain insights into their buying habits, preferences and behavior for it and you have to dig deeper. For example, what are they buying? And if you know they're buying your category, but not your product, why is that? So it's not enough to just look at the surface level. And you have to constantly keep looking at the data. It's an iterative process. So if it's okay, Tom, I'd like to give you an example. But a few years ago, I was working on a piece of business where we knew that the Hispanic customer was buying our competitor's products, but they weren't buying ours. And we were trying to understand why that was. And after doing a little bit of digging, we realized, okay, maybe the messaging was part of it. But the other thing, too, is I'm a media planner at heart. That's where I started my career. The media consumption habits, maybe we didn't have it all right. And then the marketing infrastructure like did we have the right systems in place when people were calling and asking questions about the product? Do we have the right printed materials? Do we have the right website, all of that really stems from understanding the data and what it's telling you about your customers. In this case, we were able to learn more about the Hispanic customer. And we were able to drive additional penetration for the brand.
Tom Ollerton 9:58
And so how do you advise people to set themselves up for that kind of thinking? Like you're coming from content and media, you know, you wear your kind of your three hats and insights. So that's quite unusual in that in that set up. So normally it's different teams or different people that do that you're in I think, a relatively unusual position of uniting those kind of three areas, what would be the advice that you would pass on to people who are trying to make those three work? Those three things work together well?
Marie Fallon 10:28
It's a good question. Because I am in a unique position in that, like I am leading the three teams, and not everyone's going to be in that position. But one of the things that I spoke to earlier was about the importance of building relationships. And I think what's good about that, too, is collaboration. The reason you want to build relationships is to foster better collaboration. So one of the things that I try to make sure that we do and like I don't lead consumer insights, for example, but I want to make sure that my team is involved and has a seat at the table to understand what the brand trackers are telling us, and how that will potentially inform the media plans. When we're doing a readout for the marketing mix modeling reports, I want to make sure that my content people understand which tactics are performing best, so that when they're developing content, if you will, they understand, okay, these platforms perform better for this particular audience. And that's why the content I'm developing has to be bespoke to particular platform. So I do think that making sure that all the key individuals are collaborating together is important, but also sifting through the data and understanding what's important and what isn't important, because there is a lot of noise there. And so you need to be able to work with individuals that will help you craft the right story.
Tom Ollerton 11:47
And so how do you work out signal from noise?
Marie Fallon 11:52
Well, honestly, sometimes it starts with a really good brief and asking the right questions upfront, and understanding who your consumer is. So understanding where are they shopping? Where, you know, understanding why they're buying the specific products, understanding, okay, not just the demographics, but the psychographics. So for example, if I have a product where I know that moms aren't buying my product, and they're telling me it's because maybe there's too much sugar in it, then does that mean I have to develop a new product. Or does that mean that I have to market the product differently. So I think part of it starts with having an excellent brief to help guide you and sift through it. And sometimes, it might take an individual who's looking for a specific thing too.
Tom Ollerton 12:48
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So we're now going to move on to your shiny new object, which is AI and content. So why have you chosen this as your shiny new object and help the audience understand what you mean by AI and content? Because they will understand both of those words to a degree but combined, what do they mean to you? And what are you excited about?
Marie Fallon 13:43
Well, when I think about the true sense of shiny object, right, it's like, what is that thing that you're so focused on that sometimes you lose sight of other things? And right now, I'm genuinely very excited about all things artificial intelligence or AI. I think when you first hear about it, oftentimes people get a little leery, right? Because there are a lot of ethical concerns. You hear about deep fakes, you hear about the negative things that AI can potentially do. But more and more, I'm starting to hear about all of the positive things as well. And I was recently surprised to read in a study from the World Federation of Advertisers or the WFA that 50% of marketers are now using AI to help them come up with ideas for their content. Right. And the other thing is, like I recently attended a conference, where a lot of the talks were focused on AI. And so I found myself just in a rabbit hole of just reading anything I can get my hands on, related to the topic. And as you can imagine, yes, it could benefit all three of the verticals that I lead, but specifically as it relates to content, I see some really amazing opportunities, right? When you have brands that have have modest budgets, for example, they can really benefit from having the capabilities of having somebody like, you know, being able to create additional content for various platforms, or being able to understand what content has resonated well with audiences, and creating more of that. So I think that's the magic of AI that a lot of people probably see as well. So that's why it's my new shiny object is trying to understand how can we leverage it and maximize the content that we're developing?
Tom Ollerton 15:30
And so let's get down to it in terms of data driven marketing, right? So you see the positive stories, as well as the negative ethical concerns but how do you see brands with smaller budgets using AI within a data driven marketing approach?
Marie Fallon 15:47
I think what AI can help us uncover is, what is the content that is working well for our brands, and then replicating that content or building off of it? I think the other thing too, is you can use the AI to help you generate additional ideas. Sometimes you're limited, right? We have brands sometimes, that maybe they can only create social media posts a couple times a year, because they don't have the bandwidth or the budgets to engage with an agency more frequently, right. And so this is an area where you could develop multiple blog posts. I think the AI could also potentially help us sort out some of the UGC that would work best for our brands too.
Tom Ollerton 16:32
So where do you sit on the quality and human element? Because sure, you can automate, use AI to produce volume, like you're using tools that anyone could get access to free, like during this podcast, they could start putting out content, but where do you sit on the idea that unless some human craft has gone into it, then you're not really marketing, you're not really advertising, because you're the inside function is to empathize, to put yourself in the shoes of the customer, and then relay that to the creative teams. Right? So if you're just removing that completely aren't you removing the humanity and what advertising supposed to do?
Marie Fallon 17:08
It's a great question Tom. And I actually don't think I think there are people who are afraid that AI may take jobs, I actually don't think that's the case at all. I think that in the beginning, you'll probably have some people who are highly skilled in the beginning of the process, and at the end of the process, one providing the correct prompts. And at the end, actually going through and filtering that data and making sure that it does provide that empathy and that human element that you're looking for, otherwise, I'm concerned personally, that everything's going to kind of sign the same, right? I think you still need very much a human element, I think what it does help us do is become much more efficient in the process. And it helps us come up with ideas that perhaps we wouldn't have been able to come up with. So I think it can be very helpful for brainstorming. But you raise a really good point. And it's, I think that when you My concern is that if you let the model sort of like run free, without having human intervention in the beginning, and in the end, you could have things like hate hate speech going around. You know, I think that when I was recently at a conference, and I thought this was such a great example, like when you think about terms that you can put together, like let's say you have a prompt, and you say you're looking for a physician, the models might come up with a male physician, right. But maybe that's not what you're looking for, maybe we're actually looking for a female physician. And so I think we need to be mindful that we all have to, there are biases out there that the AI will be picking up on, and there'll be replicating that too. And that's not necessarily what we want. And so the human element, I think, it's still very critical.
Tom Ollerton 18:56
Anyone we're working with coming up soon, where the prompt is a physician, then they're gonna get booted out very quickly, because that's not a very good prompt is it. But I take your point I'm being trite, you've said a couple of times, which is exciting to me, said it can help us come up with ideas that we could not have come up with. So do you have an example of that, or whether that's your work or someone else's? Because that is really the thing that is new, I think with generative AI is coming up with a concept that was different, or that you couldn't have come up with before because I think with AI, and automation, what you can do is, like, yes, you can save time and money, but then so can everyone else, it's a zero sum game, but using it to come up with ideas that you can is very different and really exciting to me. So I'm curious to hear more about that thought.
Marie Fallon 19:42
Yeah, it's actually it's a great question. Personally, and this is probably a small example. But I was asked to put together a presentation on retail media measurement. And I had some ideas in terms of like what I wanted to cover, and it's a really interesting area because the retailers are still trying to understand what we as clients want. And we as clients are trying to understand how to best measure the space. And I had an outline in my head of what I wanted to cover. And I was able to work with a tool and develop what I thought was a very robust outline. And it was really interesting, because I'm mindful of the fact that I, clearly I wasn't the only person who was working on a similar project, because how else would I be able to come up with a brand new idea? And that was, that enabled me to structure a presentation that I felt added more than I was able to do on my own? I think there are other projects too, where I think that we could leverage the AI, whether it's with taxonomy, for example, or search engine optimization, and understanding, okay, these are the key search terms that we have, right, but like, based on how we see them performing, how can we then expand that list and go a little bit deeper than what we had originally considered?
Tom Ollerton 21:12
And so how do you get better at writing these prompts from a data driven marketing perspective, right. So as you say, come up with an image of birth position, not a particularly great prompt, but in the world of data driven marketing, some of the examples that you gave, whether it's like, you know, brighten a presentation, or coming up with different ideas for search terms, what in your experience, are those prompts or other uses of tools within prompts to help you get a better result?
Marie Fallon 21:41
I do think that the metrics are incredibly important. So in the case of search engine optimization, it would I think you would need to understand how, specifically how the, the words are performing against the KPIs right? In the case of taxonomy. And I think, understanding creative executions, how they're performing within the taxonomy, I think that would help you in terms of, okay, we know these executions performed well. So moving forward, this is the kind of stuff that we want to create more of, or the stuff that we want to expand on. So what I'm trying to say is that the KPIs become critically important. And you need to be able to feed that in along with not just the content, but so that the model understands what you're trying to do.
Tom Ollerton 22:30
Oh, that's a really interesting point, because I'm forever just trying to work out the words. And I never thought though, well, the KPIs would change everything. So that thanks for pointing out my mistakes in that area. And it's been a fascinating podcast. And unfortunately, we've got to leave it there. But I really appreciate you sharing all of your views on the topic. And I love talking about automation. And creativity, obviously serves once again, to talk more about this where it's a good place to get in touch. And what makes a message that you will actually reply to?
Marie Fallon 23:01
Thank you for that question. I think the best place to reach me honestly, is LinkedIn, I have found that platform to be a great way to reach out to people. I think, if somebody is going to reach out to me, obviously, please be very descriptive in the headline. And I think that if you can just let me know what you're reaching out about, in terms of, you know, is there a specific topic? Is there a request? That would be fantastic. I've found the platform to be very beneficial to me. And I like to return a favor when people reach out and talk to people as well.
Tom Ollerton 23:36
All right, thank you so much for your time.
Marie Fallon 23:38
Thank you.
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