Episode 204 / Jonathan Foan / OPPO / Head of Digital Marketing, Europe
How to Find Value in Overlooked Marketing Channels
As the Head of Digital, Europe, at OPPO, JJ Foan looks after all the phone company’s digital plans, working with different country teams and the HQ team in China. His career spans working in a pub, being a social media creative, and developing campaigns for Tesco. Today, he focuses on “Moneyball marketing” and told us why this is his Shiny New Object.
You don’t always see the value of overlooked channels or approaches in digital marketing. In fact, big brands focus so much on the “obvious” traditional KPIs that they may miss some great opportunities to build their reach.
This is what JJ calls Moneyball marketing, after the movie “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt. In the movie, the lead character has to adapt his scouting strategy to go after lower-cost baseball players when his budget is cut. However, he finds that choosing less popular and obviously effective players is a different way to acquire points and do well in the league.
We live in a time when budgets are being cut across the board, so the setup will be familiar to most digital marketing leaders. How do you continue to grow while spending less? JJ believes there is a method he’s calling “Moneyball marketing.”
First, start looking for different KPIs. Instead of only focusing, for example, on likes and engagement on social channels, look at what other metrics may be showing you brand growth. Second, ensure you have the right mix of people to be asking different questions from what everyone else is focusing on. Combine these approaches to get success.
In the case of OPPO, JJ explained how they’ve hired a junior member of the team that has a background in sports journalism, rather than sports marketing, to help increase the effectiveness of the brand’s sponsorship of the Champions League. As a journalist, what would he do to get coverage outside of the traditional channels? This starts a conversation that can lead to new creative avenues, and especially ideas that the competitors are probably not thinking about.
Find out more about how Moneyball marketing works, how JJ learnt top marketing tips while working in a pub, and why he’s happy that he was made redundant from his first “dream job,” on the latest episode of the podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative and this is a weekly podcast where I get to speak to really nice, clever smart people from the industry and try to understand what is their vision for the future. This week is no different. I'm on a call with JJ Foan, who is head of digital oppo Europe. JJ, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do. Can you give the audience a bit of a background?
Jonathan Foan 0:27
Hey, yeah, no problem. And thanks for having me, mate. So for those who don't know, which is probably everybody, I, my career weirdly started off similar to yours, Tom, to be honest. I started off in social agencies, started out as a pure social creative, and then slowly, just broadened and broadened, moved to a different agency working on a slightly more strategic role, before eventually moving client side where I spent a few years at Tesco heading up their content campaigns, of course, all of the content channels with looking at the mag, the website, as well as all of the social. And now I've recently taken on the role at Oppo heading up their digital plans across Europe working with all the different country teams and the HQ team in China.
Tom Ollerton 1:38
So how did you get from doing Tesco ads to the head of digital for a phone brand?
Jonathan Foan 1:46
That's a great question. So actually, interestingly, working somewhere like Tesco is very weirdly quite similar culture to working in a big agency, where because it's such a massive brand, and the digital and social teams are so big, that you end up working on a whole range of stuff and meeting a load of different people. And I was there, I was very lucky at the time I was at Tesco. When I joined just as the turnaround really kicked off. And they brought in a senior, a very, very good senior team from Unilever that came in, ran the comms for the business. And I managed to kind of ride that wave with them. And we got some really cool work out that I was really proud of, over a few years, and then ended up moving to Three to head up the social team at Three for a year and a half. Which actually was much more, the skill was much more transferable than I thought it would be. So then when Oppo came knocking, again, it was... Three was sort of the stepping stone through to working for Oppo.
Tom Ollerton 2:44
So it all sounds a bit too easy. So I'm assuming that there must have been some disaster at some point, some red faced facepalm... a horrible moment that you just thought the world was gonna swallow you up. But in retrospect, you were glad it happened. So could you tell us a bit about that moment?
Jonathan Foan 3:03
Yeah, sure. So when we last spoke, and you asked me this question, there's quite a few different moments I could have chosen, as anyone that's worked in social and the internet is probably aware of. But for me, the biggest one, really, if I'm being really honest, was when I had my first job in the industry, and actually got made redundant from the first agency I worked at, which is pretty massive. And it was at the time, it was my dream job. So I started as a junior creative at Karmarama, which back in the day was the place to be. And when you're down the pub with your mates, it was the coolest logo and name to drop an industry. So I was so chuffed with myself. But because of it, I was so... and I'm sure you probably see this a lot with the junior members in your team, so I'd be interested to get your opinion as well. But I was so focused on being perfect and living up to the the agency that as most junior people do, I kept making little mistakes, especially when I was on social putting content out for clients. And I got to the point where I was making so many little mistakes that rather than asking for help, I almost stuck my head in the sand, went for hustle culture, and just pumped out as much work as physically possible. And the harder I worked, obviously, the busier I got, the more plates I was spinning, the more mistakes I made, so that when the social part of the agency merged into the big group, and they restructured I'd almost kind of dug myself out of a job when really if I'd taken a step back and asked for help from the start, and found some mentors that could help me manage my career, I think it would have been a different conversation. But I guess for me anyway, it's a bit of a blessing in disguise because, one, I had to learn the hard way, which sometimes sticks a lot better than the easy way right? But also now I think I'm probably slightly easier. I find it easier to spot it in junior members of my teams. So when I've got junior members that are slipping up or getting caught up with trying to prove how much they can do or how perfect they can be, I try to sit down and work with them to help them to kind of step back and take a breather. I don't know if you've, I'm sure you must notice the same thing with some of the junior people coming through in your teams. Right?
Tom Ollerton 5:07
Of course. But I'm curious to know how you spot that. What are the kind of telltale signs and what tools and techniques do you use to help get those guys back on track?
Jonathan Foan 5:21
Yeah, to be honest, I think it was all the stuff I was doing, which is when you see people that are, because a lot of the people that are getting in in the first place are really bright, really sharp, and wouldn't normally make those sorts of mistakes. So a lot of it tends to be when you see people kind of like over promising and under delivering but at junior level, which is really difficult, because you want obviously, people very keen that want to get stuck in and do loads of stuff. So I think that's a, I think it's over promising on delivering is a big one. And I think the other one is when you catch people sticking head in the sand and saying everything's fine, and not asking for help when they probably should. So it's actually when you're, like encouraging teams during one to ones and meetings with more junior members to actually finding... carving the time out of your own diary to sit down and stop and ask them how they're actually doing and getting them to confirm they know what they should be working on, and giving the time to work with them on it. Which at the start is more time consuming. But I think the more more time I've invested in teams, the more they've been able to kind of give themselves a break. And the success has followed.
Tom Ollerton 6:31
Well, JJ you sound like a very wise man, it's really good to hear all these experiences and taking such a kind of humble and practical approach to management. That's, that's great to hear. So let's move on a little bit into straight up marketing advice. I always ask what is your top marketing tip? What is that golden nugget advice that you pass on to your, your highly performing teams that you've coached so beautifully?
Jonathan Foan 6:57
I like the way you make me, you're very complimentary. Thank you. Now, for me it was, funnily enough, the best piece of marketing advice was also the best piece of advice I got when I worked in a pub kitchen before I got into marketing, which was cook what you want to eat, not what you want to cook. And it's something that in our little ivory towers in marketing departments, we always forget, right. And it was a big one at Tesco, which Tesco were very, very good at because they got so much like data from obviously club card, but also their own channels to think about what types of content people actually want to consume and how you actually engage with real people, not marketing people that are trying to analyze real people. So the good example of Tesco which I still think it's quite funny to this day was when we were trying to plan food content across social and magazine and the web. Just obviously, like big budget food content. Every month, the agency would pitch us different new innovative, like trendy food trends that we could jump on. But actually in reality every month the top three performing pages on the website was always lasagna, spag bol, chili con carne. So as soon as we started thinking lasagna spag bol chili con carne, but actually, how do you find ways of making them more interesting? All of a sudden, all of the results across all of the channels skyrocketed. So I always try and have that in the back of my head.
Tom Ollerton 8:23
Cook what you want to eat, not what you want to cook.
Jonathan Foan 8:26
Yes.
Tom Ollerton 8:27
Really needs to go up on the wall, that's one of my favourite quotes on this podcast. So now we are gonna get mega serious. And we're gonna talk about your shiny new object, which is in your words, Moneyball marketing. So what is that?
Jonathan Foan 8:46
So I think it's probably not a shiny new object. It's kind of the opposite, I guess, which is not new, but pretty relevant, I'd say is, as an industry at the moment, not just in the UK, but I'd say across Europe, and globally. We're heading into a year when budgets are getting cut, and cut and cut, which is a reality for all of us. But at the same time, we know that the more the budget gets cut, the bigger long term impacts we have. So I was actually talking to Ryan, who's our new like, does all the media planning for the UK for Oppo. And he was obviously, they're now looking at budgets for the next year. Right. And we're having the same conversation, which is we know... I think it was a Thomson piece of research from a couple of years ago, where they looked at if you cut budget over one year it has up to a five year impact on like business performance. So actually, on one hand, we've got all of this budget, like globally, we're really looking at marketing budgets, but at the same time, we also know that everyone else is doing the same. So we still need to find a way of getting the same reach and the same cut through but with less money. Which was exactly the same thing that Brad Pitt had in the movie Moneyball, right? Are you still trying to win a world series, but with a lot less money than a lot of its competitors. So he was trying to look at the undervalued players. It's on Netflix at the moment, by the way, so I watched it last weekend, which is why this is Top of Mind. But it was trying to find the players that other teams are overlooking for whatever reason, whether they threw funny or were too old, too young, whatever. So we're trying to take the same approach to our planning, which is, if where can we find smart ways of reaching and connecting with our target audience in places that may not be shiny and new, that maybe some of our competitors aren't focusing on in the same way that we could. So actually, like, a good example, is when we're looking at our digital planning. Obviously, we know that there's tried and tested channels. And we obviously look at data first. But a layer on top of that is, when everyone else is focusing on the shiny new stuff, actually, are there other channels that people are undervaluing that we can still get really good results from? And if we can take that approach, I'm hoping that we can still get to where we need to over the next few years.
Tom Ollerton 11:10
So without wanting to get your spreadsheet out, how do you do that? Right? So I know, everyone's moving into TikTok, for argument's sake, are you going right? Well, let's look at print. Let's look at email. Let's look at fax marketing. I don't know like how are you comparing apples with apples? Like, where are you looking for this inspiration? And how are you making sure that just because everyone else isn't doing it, it's going to help you to hire that player that no one else wants to buy?
Jonathan Foan 11:42
That's a great question, isn't it? I don't know if there is a clean answer for it. But I think it always comes down to like getting the right people in the room in the first place. Because I think there's a lot of, I think we're all very guilty of following a blueprint and the way we think in marketing, because it's always tried and tested, especially in times like this when it's scarier when the demands are higher. So we're trying to think a lot about how we find the right agencies to work with also how we recruit the right people internally. So that there's people asking those questions in the first place.
Jonathan Foan 12:21
So a good example would be we are a Champions League sponsor. And it's one hell of an opportunity for us, it's great. But obviously, there is a blueprint for how to activate a sport sponsorship in digital and in your marketing channels, that will give you a blueprinted answer, which most people that have worked on that before. And you need that experience, obviously to deliver effectively. But on top of having those experienced people in the room that know how to execute that flawlessly, also trying to find different ways of thinking and bringing those people into the room. So for example, one of the juniors that we've just brought into our team is a specialist in sports journalism, not sports marketing. So as well as our core plan that we know will be effective, reaching in the channels that we know will work based on that blueprint, we've also got members of the team thinking, actually, if I was a, if I was a football journalist trying to get coverage in cut through outside of those traditional channels, how else can I approach this problem and trying to find a balance between the two. Hopefully, it will be our sweet spot. But again, ask me in 18 months how effective it's been.
Tom Ollerton 13:32
So in the film, it's been a while since I've watched it, but the moment that really landed for me was that I can't remember the name of the team, but they were buying big expensive players, whereas the data guy was saying, look, it's not about homeruns it's about bases, right? Yeah, loose understanding of baseball that if you get from base to base, eventually score a point, three for home run... sorry to any North American listeners on making a bad job of this. But that was a real moment for me. But he was saying no, it's not about homeruns they're overvalued, three points are overvalued. Actually this guy over here who's a bit old, always makes first base, you know, he just keeps on getting around and getting around. So his value to the team is almost as good as someone else's. Right. So there was a, there was a kind of hidden figure, there was a metric that man had, that no one else was looking at. So what is your version of that? In a marketing sense?
Jonathan Foan 14:29
Yeah, I think you summed it up better than I have to be honest. I think it's exactly that which is we have a very traditional structured KPI structure for most big campaigns. And for sports marketing, for example, we're always looking at reach and frequency of messaging. And it's not to say they're not important KPIs in the same way that home runs aren't important in baseball again, I probably am knowledgeable as you so sorry to anybody I'm offending. But for us, when we're looking at building long term brand, especially for a brand like the one I'm working for at the moment, when our awareness is lower than some of the big more traditional Western brands, actually how we consistently and effectively build that brand over a long period of time for us is way more valuable than short term saying how many views or likes something's got, which would then be an indicator with the brand. So for us, it's looking at how we think differently about that KPI framework. And starting really, from the real business challenge, as opposed to the marketing challenge, which I think a lot of us are quite guilty of slipping into, because it's easier to understand.
Tom Ollerton 15:44
So someone's listening to this, and they're like, right, I'm gonna get all across Moneyball marketing. Where do you start?
Jonathan Foan 15:53
So to be honest, I think it's just asking the same questions of our marketing plans, as they do in the film about their scouting, right, which is, what's the actual problem we're trying to solve? What are we actually trying to deliver for this business? If we like take take a step back from marketing into the wider business, what is the single metric that we're trying to shift? First and foremost, which for most big brands will be consistent, like growth? Right? And then the question is based on our model, how best can we measure how we're growing? And how we're doing that? And which metrics should we be looking at, and which metrics are other people not looking at that we should be looking at more. So I think a big part of that is, again, as I've said, getting the right people in the room working with the right agencies, but also getting close to the channels themselves. So we also have this, and appreciate this is coming from someone that works in digital with big enough budgets, that we get access to these people, but spending a lot of time in the room with Tiktok and Twitter and the guys at Meta and the guys at Google and challenging them on the way they measure effectively, and what different metrics they can offer to us to help us understand how we're doing that over a longer period of time.
Tom Ollerton 17:06
We're gonna have to wrap up shortly, but it does remind me of a podcast I heard I think it was Innocent. I think it was on the attention seekers podcast from performance marketing world, a very good podcast. And I think the guy was saying that their metric was... was it proposals? When someone said, innocent I want to marry you, it probably wasn't innocent. It might have been, it doesn't matter. But that was their like, unofficial metric, which was that yeah, like if people declared their love and to the point of To the Point of marriage, they sort of deemed that as as quite important. Another alternative one I heard, and this is from someone at an agency said that the way that they measure the success of their account, relationships is how many clients are on WhatsApp contact with. Yeah, that's quite nice, isn't it? This is their whole softer level of data that is beyond the KPI. But I could talk about it all day, as I'm sure you could, I'm frustrated that we have to leave it there. But we do. So JJ. If someone wanted to get in touch with you about Moneyball marketing, or working in a pub or getting fired from an agency, where is the best place to do that? And how would you like them to reach out to you?
Jonathan Foan 18:20
Probably on LinkedIn to be honest, but I mean, because I've worked in social for so many years, pretty much any of the socials, I'll be on.
Tom Ollerton 18:27
What makes a good message, what's going to make you reply to them.
Jonathan Foan 18:32
Same thing as the ones that I saw success with when I first started, which was someone that genuinely interested in, just wants to learn and want support. Because a lot of people genuinely want to help people get into the industry, and I'm very much one of those people. So anything I can do to help I'm in.
Tom Ollerton 18:50
What a lovely place to leave at. JJ, thanks so much for your time.
Jonathan Foan 18:55
Pleasure, thank you very much, mate.
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