Episode 260 / Monica Narvaez / OPPO / Digital Media Manager
Helping Talent Thrive & Boosting Content Creation
Monica Narvaez is the Digital Media Manager at OPPO, where she is supporting new talent and leveraging to improve content creation and data driven marketing. She’s also had a “fun” career, full of exciting connections and experiences.
Starting out as a graphic designer, Monica then studied gastronomy and became a chef. She combined these experiences to work in marketing for food and beverages brands like PepsiCo, before making the switch to technology.
Get Out of Your Silo
To break through in your marketing career, she believes you first need to break out of the natural silo that teams inadvertently create. Instead of just socialising with and learning from teammates, new starters need to speak to as many other teams as possible to truly understand how everyone works. This helps you do a better job, but also helps develop empathy. “No one wants to work with a b***h,” after all!
Leave Your Ego at the Door
To succeed in data driven marketing, you need to leave your ego at the door and be open to finding out new things about your customers and your products.
As Monica says, “we put customers in small boxes, but they change constantly, all the time, every day.”
A huge communication and consumer understanding gap exists across generations, too. We are simply not used to interact as much across age brackets as we are with our own cohorts. And yet, especially for OPPO, the challenge is to be able to speak to each generation - hence the need to stop nurturing pre-conceived ideas and to try and understand each other better.
Leverage Existing Talent
In line with this idea of crossing generational boundaries, who better to create excellent content than talented creators that may not be established yet? OPPO supports new talent they find through social media browsing, word of mouth, or referrals, through their Creators’ Lab.
Find out how this works in the full podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Monica Narvaez 0:00
We need to understand how the others work, so that our job is easier. And also we are all consumers and we are all users. If you understand the other one, you will start to understand how you need to make your work better.
Speaker 1 0:19
FUTR North America, a retail marketing and E commerce conference. Summit hybrid is taking place this fall at ETC venues, 360 Madison Avenue, New York City on September 5, 2024 if you care about the future of commerce, this is the place to be. Go to F, U, T, R dot today for more info.
Tom Ollerton 0:35
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 regular podcast about the future of data driven marketing. And this week is no different. I am in Mexico City in the middle of a thunderstorm, super high up in a building with the lovely Monica Narvaez, who is digital media manager at Oppo. And Monica, thank you so much for inviting me here to do this podcast, but there may be some people who are listening to this podcast who don't know who you are and what you do. Could you give us a bit of background?
Monica Narvaez 1:21
Of course, first of all, thank you for having me. Tom, this is really, really, really fun and exciting for me. Basically, I come from a graphic designer background, and the fun part here is, after graphic design, I also went to college to study gastronomy. I became a chef, and then I started working at the Creative Agency, handling mostly food and beverage in digital media, you know. So that background was really good for me, because I had both graphic design and the chef part, the gastronomy part, so I could do really, really nice content for our clients, you know. And then I jumped to PepsiCo, which is also food and beverages. So this was very fun as well. I had a lot of fun working there. And then I switched from fast consumer goods to technology, so that was a big change for me. And in the meantime, I had two master's degrees, you know, both in marketing and advertising and then digital marketing. So yeah, I've had a lot of fun in my career, and right now I'm very focused in the technology part.
Tom Ollerton 2:29
You don't sound very afraid of a challenge. Monica, so that is what a story. So in that career, what have you learned? What bit of advice would you give to a student who's trying to maybe follow in your footsteps? They're doing all the right things. You know, they're not useless. They've got the basics. But what advice would you give them to try and get ahead?
Monica Narvaez 2:51
Don't follow my steps. No, just kidding. Just kidding. Actually, learn once you get into your new first shiny job, learn as much as you can from all of the areas, no matter if you're right now in marketing, and then you go into finance or whichever area, just know how the other areas work. It will make your job much more easier. Also have empathy with the people in the other areas, because usually we have the the idea of finance. They only give me the money, but they always question me why, for example, and we don't know what's going on behind their processes. So we need to take that into consideration. I think that is very important that we usually don't talk to anyone else outside like our for example, in my area, which is marketing, we don't tend to talk to other people, like maybe in the after sales team or customer service, or maybe even, you know that the engineers, for example. So we need to understand how the others work, so that our job is easier. And also, we are all consumers and we are all users. If you understand the other one, you will start to understand how you need to make your work better. And also, I think the empathy. Remember, everyone is working the same as you, but they also have personal lives. Some may be sick. Some maybe have family that is ill, or they have issues, money issues, relationship issues, be kind. Always, always be kind. You don't know the battles the one in front of you is having right now.
Tom Ollerton 4:30
Yeah, it reminds me this automated creative client, Mars Petcare and Lindsay Barrett on stage said that be a delight to work with.
Monica Narvaez 4:40
That is the best phrase. Am I gonna make it a hashtag and a coffee mug or something. Because that is key. No one wants to work with, like a bitch or, you know, someone that isn't nice.
Tom Ollerton 4:55
It's very, very tricky.
So, yeah, I love that advice. Get around the business, understand what everyone does, so you can talk their language, be empathetic and understand that life's not easy for people, and make be a delight.
Monica Narvaez 5:12
Definitely.
Tom Ollerton 5:14
Don't be a bitch. Is I'm also going to take away from this podcast, so let's get technical, right? What advice would you give someone who wants to become a better data driven marketer?
Monica Narvaez 5:25
Obviously, I think, like the first thing is leave your ego at the door, because we always infer like, Okay, our target audience does this. It's a, b, c, d, and we put them in small boxes. But you know what? Users change constantly, all the time, every day, they're they're having birthdays, you know, my generation is like the late millennials, and we're already in our 40s, you know, and the newer generations like It amazes me now that we have baby boomers, millennials, Centennials, there's gonna come a time Gen Xers. Obviously I'm not forgetting them. For example, you Tom, but I think that the amount of people in different cohorts that are working together right now is impressive, like for me, watching someone in their first job, a 25 year old, for example, having to deal with a 50 year old that has no idea what the centennial is talking about. At first, it was very fun to see them interact. But then you need to in, to go into the interaction and say, like, Hey dudes, you're fighting already over something either of you don't understand, you know. So that kind of thing, for me is, is really important, because those are our consumers. We are consumers in the end, you know, so seeing those interactions...
Tom Ollerton 6:49
It's sort of a pet theory of mind that it's, it's one of the failures of education, really, where you're in a cohort with your year group, right? You know, when you start at 4, 5, 6, 7, what age you start here, and you go all the way through to university, and then you leave university, and you've only ever networked with your cohort, exactly, and then all of a sudden, you got to speak to like someone my age about the same project. And it's hard.
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 pitches 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 at www.madfestlondon.com.
We're gonna now get onto your shiny new object, which is OPPO's creators labs, yes, what is that? Why does that come about? How does it work?
Monica Narvaez 8:05
So a little bit of background here. I'm very much specialized. Pretty much all my career has been dedicated to content creation, whether it was starting, you know, from TVCs up to, you know, now, tiktoks and how tos and tutorials and fun, different things, all that kind of things that even, you know, formats have changed. You know, we we came from. Like, I have this anecdote that I know, like, for example, the first TV commercial was actually just a radio it was a Bulova logo, and it, it was, I think, like the US runs on Bulova time, you know, it was a radio on TV, and radio was very angry when they got, you know, turned away because we had the new shiny objectwhich was a television. So now digital, even though digital media has been here for so long. People still don't kind of understand it, and it's something I've encountered everywhere I've worked in. People still don't know how to create content effectively and for the target audience, in this case, creators lab, what we do is go search for raw material and raw talent from maybe users. Maybe they're still in college, or maybe we just found them, you know, browsing Instagram, but we like their photos, or we like their videos. We like their style, and they may not have that many followers, but we know that talent is there. For example, right now, OPPO is running a photography contest called Imagine if, and we have people all around the world participating, and their photos are so, so amazing. You know, like the talent is already there, we just need to give them that push, that. Nudge and make them feel good about what they do. Because usually, like, for example, I'm very much like, I do something. People say it's great, and I'm like, maybe it's not that great, you know, because you're telling me this because you're my friend or you're my family, you know. So some I'm very much into external validation, obviously. But in this case, like, for example, when we find someone who has an amazing ability to create content out of their cell phone, that is amazing. You know, I come from the old school where we still had to use Final Cut and After Effects and Photoshop and everything had to be done with a huge MacBook or something like that, you know. And in this case, right now, people are using, like, even the most basic of our phones, and they're creating amazing content. Why don't we leverage that talent that already exists for our benefit, you know. And obviously they get paid and they get feedback so that they can become better content creators. Who knows, in the future, they might become key opinion leaders in some matter, or whatever they like, you know, maybe it's lifestyle or music or even comedians, you know, but that talent needs to be pushed in order for it to thrive. And that is something I think, that sometimes even agencies like I love agencies, I've worked with a lot of them throughout maybe like 15 years of my life, but I feel like they see like the kid who is very young, and they know brands want to work with the kids, you know, with the Centennials, I'm calling the kids, sorry, the Centennials, and they want to exploit them, like, Hey, you're gonna get showcased in a brand. Uh huh. They still have bills to pay. They have they need to survive out of this as well, you know. And they sometimes, those agencies tend to take advantage of them, and that's why sometimes even, and even those agencies come back with us and say, Hey, I got you the creator you wanted, and we're gonna charge millions and millions of bucks or whatever for you to use them. And they don't get anything, you know. So here we handle them directly. We source them directly, and we pay them directly. We also give them the product. They can test it. They have it in their hands. They can use it. Some of them may even get to keep it, depending on the product we have and the amount of content they produced, you know. So I think it's a very good idea for brands to always push and if you see someone small with an amazing talent, help them grow. Make them your own brand ambassadors from the beginning. Don't wait for them to have a million followers and then try to get them for you. You know?
Tom Ollerton 13:04
So how, how do you find them? What is the process? Are you using a technology like, is it you just literally all doing it? How do you get the right content creator at the at the right level, at the right time?
Monica Narvaez 13:18
There's a really, obviously, a lot of hit and miss here. When it first started, we started sourcing them directly from colleges, for example. And then we started going to colleges and saying, Hey, we have this project. Would you like to join? And some people sent over their books, and we evaluated whether they matched what we needed or not. And, but that was a very small pool in the end, because there there are so many visits. You can go to colleges and do it without them having like, it's these dudes again, you know. So basically, we have a very young we have very young people working with us right now, like you mentioned. So usually what we do is, Hey, you come from, I don't know, communication or graphic design or photography, something like that. You should, you must have friends, you know, or friends of friends. Why don't you let them know that we have this, you know, and most of the creators we have had have been friends of friends, from the people who work at oppo, or people we saw browsing on Instagram, for example, because that happens too, you know, you see this photo that really calls out to you and say, Wow, who took who? Who took this? You know, and you go and see and it's just maybe your neighbor or your neighbor's kid or someone very normal, if you will. You know, I do think that everyone is special, but we're so used to being put down by the world that they don't see how wonderful their talent is, you know, so. So this makes me proud to have because we can tell them, you are awesome, and you can do this, and their content is displayed on our Instagram and our Facebook, you know, and we tag them and we let people know, like, hey, they created this, you know. And it's for me, it's like, Hey, be proud. You're out there already doing shit that when I was your age I wasn't doing, you know, probably because Instagram didn't even exist. But that's another issue. Anyways, I feel really proud of these new people doing these amazing things, you know. And so fast, sometimes I feel like I'm getting left behind, you know, and I need to catch up with them. That is why I find so so fresh and so so insightful to work with these new people, because I keep learning from them, and I'm proud to say that they learn from me too, hopefully.
Tom Ollerton 15:56
Well, look, I would love to keep on talking about this, but we're coming to the end of the podcast now, but it is so refreshing and exciting to hear your passion about this. I'll urge everyone on who's listening to this show to go and check out the work. And we'll share a link in the show notes. Everyone, everyone can experience your sourcing and nourishing of talent. Yeah, I'm actually quite, quite taken aback by with the force of will you're putting into this project. So thank you so much for for for sharing your experience with us. So So Monica, if someone wants to get in touch with you, where's the best place to do it and what makes a message that you will actually respond to?
Monica Narvaez 16:42
Definitely LinkedIn. I think that's the best place to start. Usually, if someone goes through my Facebook and tries to reach me through messenger, for example, I don't even open that, but I think LinkedIn is always a good way to start and just be yourself, be creative, be different, like I'm I'm a cosplayer, you know. So just be you. That's what makes us, us, you know.
Tom Ollerton 17:11
Monica, thank you so much for your time.
Monica Narvaez 17:12
Thank you so much. Tom.
Subscribe to the ‘Shiny New Object’ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud.