Laura Jastram (00:00)
That's something that a lot of brands are getting wrong, is they're just putting so much focus into the campaign.

Cole Heilborn (00:07)
Do you feel like educational based content optimizes for trust in an easier way, or a more efficient way than something emotionally compelling?

Laura Jastram (00:19)
You kinda gotta do both though too, right? A good piece of educational content like should have an emotional element to it because there should be like a personality to this content that makes consumers stick around. Simply like grab attention, keep attention and have that that payoffs. It is kind of surprising to me that some brands still see social in its infancy when you can

Purchase on social. Again, connect to consumers and stay top of mind so that you can close purchase when consumers are ready to buy.

Cole Heilborn (00:53)
On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industry experts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works. If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry, this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers. Laura, welcome to the Backcountry Marketing Podcast. It's good to see you. We are here on, I don't could you call this day one or day point five of the hike expo? Day zero, fair enough.

Laura Jastram (01:09)
Thank you.

Day zero.

Setup day.

Cole Heilborn (01:19)
Yeah, setup day. So for those of you who are watching the show on YouTube, you will see a somewhat empty background behind us over the next two days. We'll see it fill up. ⁓ but we're here in Colorado and I was just telling you, we have done maybe seven episodes in person out of the two hundred and twenty plus. So the fact that you're 3D right now is ⁓ I this is gonna be fine.

Laura Jastram (01:41)
I feel so honored. ⁓

Cole Heilborn (01:43)
So Laura,

we're be talking about the value of social media. And obviously that's a pretty abstract ⁓ kind of place to start. But I think there's so many things we can talk about, especially given your background as the former head of social at Columbia. Can you kind of just give us like a thesis on why is social valuable today?

Laura Jastram (02:05)
I mean, social is so valuable today because that's where consumers are spending so much of their time. I feel like it used to be so delineated between this age demographic is spending time here and this one there on this platform, but I feel like gone are those days. Everyone is everywhere. And so

And and not everyone's in the consumer shopping mindset all the time. So in order to stay in front of consumers and provide value to them when they're not shopping, I feel like social is the place to do that. Really to build your brand, connect with customers. There's so many ways to use it these days too. So I feel like it really is important to put effort in. And I don't think that means putting effort into every single platform out there, but really understanding

where you can create like for what platform you can create content, like where can you put forward that effort and then concentrating those the effort on those platforms.

Cole Heilborn (03:06)
So what's interesting and you were you were sharing this with me when we were doing an intro call a week ago. You were saying like social it's such an integral role. However, in the outdoor industry there are still so many brands that either don't have social teams or their social is delegated to an intern or a very junior person and social is almost treated like this afterthought and you're not the first person that's noted this, Marin who connected us.

⁓ has said a very similar thing. It's like social is still has this perception of being. Well, how would you describe it? How do people what is the perception of social?

Laura Jastram (03:44)
I think to you mentioned it being an afterthought or just not as important. And I think for some people and some brands it can be intimidating too. You know, if you have stretched resources, it can feel really insurmountable to have a presence on social media. But I think that's needs to be something that we don't talk about anymore. Like it's possible for brands, no matter what size, to put forward

your brand to connect with your consumers on social. And I think it is unfortunate how many brands I think you would be surprised by that do have, you know, one social person who's having to do everything or someone whose job is social plus something else. And it is kind of surprising to me that some brands still see social in its infancy when you can purchase on social, again connect to consumers

get real feedback, provide value for your consumers, and stay top of mind so that you can close purchase when consumers are ready to buy.

Cole Heilborn (04:47)
So you two hours ago you've wrapped up ⁓ a presentation for the event here, and your whole thesis was building a durable audience through a creator ecosystem via social and relying less on the typical campaign model that you know, the annual brand campaign or the the two season campaign that the industry often falls within. Can we talk about campaigns and can we talk about

how you feel about them, ⁓ because I have a lot of opinions and I and and no, but a lot of it isn't grounded in the inner workings of a big company like you have experience with. So tell me how you feel about campaigns. ⁓ and and I guess the second part of that question is there's a huge opportunity with social when you consider what campaigns can't do very well. And can you share more about that?

Laura Jastram (05:41)
Yeah. I mean I I do think that campaigns are still very important, but I think that's something that a lot of brands are getting wrong is they're just putting so much focus into the campaign. So again, you you just I was talking about this earlier, you have these moments in time where you're activating influencers, you're activating creators, you're showing up in that way on social and then you go dark again until the next one. And I feel like all that momentum you were starting to build just stop.

And the algorithm isn't serving the content as much anymore, and you really don't have a lot of value to show. But when you're executing campaigns in tandem with really having this ecosystem of creators that are partnered with your brand long term, you're making content with regularly, that helps boost the performance of campaigns too. So I think that's something that

a lot of brands are getting wrong is just going after those campaign moments and not thinking about who can be those long-term partners with the brand. And on top of that, how they're going to have content always on and having touch points with consumers regularly on social.

Cole Heilborn (06:53)
So can I share with you my thoughts and then I want to hear you either, you know, pick it apart or or share what you think. So I I'm not anti campaign by any means, but my my observation about the industry is that we are fortunate to work in an industry where our customers, when they're not outside, they're thinking about being outside. Therefore, the attention is already they're already looking for content from the outdoors. And I mean that's why we have

you know, all the creators that exist out there producing great content, there's a huge appetite for it. I one, I think brands sometimes abuse that assumption of attention and don't create content that's of value. But the second part of that is we have this opportunity to create like value led entertainment or education or whatever, like anything that the audience wants to actually click on and watch. We have this ability to do it because they're looking

For hiking content or rock climbing content when they're not hiking or climbing. That's that's a huge opportunity that pick any other industry and like they don't have that luxury. ⁓ and then they have to find creative ways to show up in a campaign and interrupt your attention. And so that's like my whole rub with this campaign model. It's like, like you said, we're gonna show up in spikes, we're gonna interrupt your time, we're not really gonna give you any value, but there's so much more that there's so much

You know what I'm saying? Like there's so much more out there that could be done.

Laura Jastram (08:23)
Yeah. I I mean the hope is that you are delivering value in those campaigns moments. Yeah, theoretically. And I think that goes into having trust in those partners that you're working with. I think I definitely learned this during my time at Columbia, you know, years ago when we would work with influencers and, you know, make sure you say this, make sure you're showing the product in that way. And

that really wasn't delivering value to consumers 'cause then we were being too prescriptive about how this content should show up to followers who aren't our followers. So I think when you're really vetting and having auditions basically with influencers, you can put more trust into the content they're creating that these larger campaign moments that that partner is going to make content that does provide value to their followers. Because I agree a lot of it can just be

throwaway and not value driven. I still I don't know if this is an archaic word, but I still like the word edutainment when we're talking about content because I feel like it's it's in the name and it's so simple. Like content should be educational and entertaining. And when you talk about educational, it doesn't have to always be so hard hitting, but that speaks to the fact that there needs to be some value in it, some takeaway for the consumer. And it has to straight up be entertaining because otherwise you're going to get scrolled past.

in the feeds. So I think like thinking about is this edutainment type of content is a good barometer to make sure that we're not just putting slop out there in the feeds.

Cole Heilborn (09:57)
When you were brought in to Columbia, how did you get brought in and what were you what was your initial objective, ⁓ joining the company?

Laura Jastram (10:06)
Yeah. I got brought in ⁓ to help build actually d just to build the own social and influencer practice. So own social sat with the paid media team and there was an opportunity, like that is too much for one channel to be all of those things. So there was was an opportunity to really consider our presence on own social and then how are we working with influencers? Because it really was the infancy days of partnering with influencers.

And when I was first brought in, it was very much the content was Little People Big World, we were calling it, where it was like sweeping outdoor landscapes and you have someone at the top of the ridge and maybe they were in Columbia and you know, maybe they're not. So it was a lot of like pretty picture content and this was well past the era where pretty picture content was the popular thing on Instagram. So we definitely had some catching up to do.

And so it was my job to really consider how are we putting forward the brand on social. And this was with, you know, not a lot of brand direction at the time as well. ⁓ you know, Gert Boyle had recently passed away when before I was brought in, and there was a little like, who are we speaking to? What does the brand stand for? So I took that as an opportunity to build out my team and work with that team to understand like what do people want to see?

from Columbia and from outdoor brands in general on social. And that was kind of our North Star in how we were considering building out content and what partners we were working with too.

Cole Heilborn (11:43)
And did you just start trying to to answer that question, did you do a bunch of research? Did you just start testing and creating and then analysing a mix of the both?

Laura Jastram (11:52)
Yeah, it was a lot of testing and analyzing, really putting out content that we thought was right as a team. Like it felt social first, it felt reflective of the brand. It was, you know, talking about new products and technology, and then just seeing how consumers were responding. And I feel like we were getting ideas in a lot of different places too. Like I'll never forget we activated around International Women's Day, which was a big brand moment. So it was a

pretty big machine in that moment. But there were a couple of speakers that we had partnered with and someone who was talking about ⁓ plus size clothing in the outdoor industry. And there were a lot of commenters talking about how, you know, they need help finding plus size clothing, especially for cold weather product. And so that actually generated a whole ⁓ can influencer campaign that we activated.

spotlighting the great amount of plus size and extended size clothing that Columbia has to offer. So we kind of got ideas from everywhere and then would just see how it performed and then decide if it's something that we wanted to do again. And that was like filling in the gaps between these marketing moments too. I would say in the first few years of my time at Columbia it was very much following the marketing calendar.

But finding those opportunities where we could fly under the radar and do our own thing that felt social friendly, that felt social first, and a lot of times was resonating with consumers and wasn't like a big marketing moment.

Cole Heilborn (13:26)
By big marketing moment you mean like a overly polished brand campaign?

Laura Jastram (13:31)
Yeah, like a new technology launch or a new product launch. But, you know, it's mental health awareness month. What can we do about this? You know, looking for those moments where again we could kind of fly under the radar because executives weren't really focused on social at that point and start to have the brand show up in a different way to make it more socially relevant. Because I think too, if you looked at Columbia at that time too, this was gosh, when did I start?

tw twenty twenty. So if you looked in in twenty twenty at the brand and the follower count compared to brands like North Face and Patagonia, it was seemingly very far behind. And now we know, you know, follower count doesn't matter as much anymore these days, but there was a lot of catching up to do. So those first few years it was really about trying to put forward a social first practice.

Cole Heilborn (14:22)
So I can only imagine you step into this with, as you said, little brand direction and you're trying to figure out how do we turn this how do we turn these social channels into something that's relevant and and interesting. And I would assume there was a lot of moments where you were like, What on earth do we do? Was like what what

Laura Jastram (14:42)
Where

are we gonna get content? Or do we really have to post about this? And

Cole Heilborn (14:47)
Yeah. So like what was a what was a framework or like a guiding North Star for you and your team that you would use as you were trying to figure that out? 'Cause I think like that's gotta be really hard to do. And I see folks like c when we work with clients, the feedback we get is sometimes is like, we feel like everything has to end up on social, even if it isn't like that comes from the higher up. ⁓ how do you navigate what ends up on social and what do we even begin to think about what ends up on social? Like

Laura Jastram (15:15)
Yeah, good question. I think, you know, there wasn't a lot of basically everything did end up needing to be posted on social. I think there wasn't a lot of conversation about, you know, being able to say no to things. I think there was less of that in the beginning. And then because the channel was so new, there wasn't value really

From it yet. So when you talk about my later years at Columbia, it was a different story. But in the beginning, it was, okay, we know this has to be posted on social. What what sort of change can we affect with that? And I think one specific example is really trying to get smarter about getting social first content and especially like internal conversations about that.

We started developing decks like educating the creatives and the production teams about what social first content looks like, what do people want to see. And that was going back to my agency days where a lot of times that was my role is educating creatives internally about where social is, what you can do on these platforms, and again, like what content is resonating with followers and just consumers in general. So we like took it back to one one.

Let's talk about social content. Let's bring in the apps too. Let's bring in the vendors. Let's bring in TikTok. Let's bring in Instagram. So many presentations of like this is the type of content you should be making as a brand to have it show up social first and be value driven. So education layer was extremely important in those first few years.

Cole Heilborn (16:54)
If you had to provide a simple framework for a social team, ⁓ when trying to decide like what do we produce, what do we put out there, what what would you give them if you could give them something to kinda keep in the back of their mind?

Laura Jastram (17:08)
Yeah. I mean, we've been talking about it, but make sure that there is a takeaway for the person who's looking at the content, whether they're watching it or it's a photo. I think you need to even if it is talking about a new product, like that could be the value takeaway. But then and also making sure that it's social first too. So I mean simply like grab attention, keep attention and have that that payoff. So I already talked about the payoff, but

How are you grabbing attention in the feed? Like you can't just guarantee that people are going to look at your content. So grabbing that attention and then keeping attention throughout too. So if it is a video, like what are the interesting moments where you're keeping people tuned in? And then finally, like what is that value takeaway? And I think that's something that you can coach to whoever you're partnering with. Like if your team is not making the content or you have to partner with

someone else in your marketing organization, like that's a simple framework that you can start to educate them on so that you're getting back content that's gonna work on own social.

Cole Heilborn (18:16)
It's

really easy to say provide value in these channels. What does that even how do you define what value what is the threshold from when a piece of content is unvaluable to when it becomes valuable?

Laura Jastram (18:28)
⁓ that's an interesting way of thinking about it. I I mean, I would kind of like reframe that. I feel like value does seem like a big word, and it doesn't have to be so big. Value could be a laugh in content, like provide something funny. But I think where consumers just feel drained and feel like this content is not for me is when you're just pushing out messaging or pushing out an idea and there isn't anything.

for them. So again, like breaking down the word value, it can be detailed into, you know, taught like breaking down the technology and why it matters for you as a consumer. Or again, it can just be a moment of humor. It can be a simple tip. Like it doesn't have to be such a complicated, you know, really big piece of content. It can be small, but I think just having that as like a pressure test to make sure

This piece of content is not just us pushing something out. Like is there something for consumers to take away? And I think like that's that can be a scale. Can be something really small and it can be something really big, like an entire travel guide to XYZ locations.

Cole Heilborn (19:40)
Obviously there's like there's so many different types of pieces of content that a brand could create or produce and put out on social. What were some of the pieces or styles that would consistently work really hard ⁓ when you were at Columbia?

Laura Jastram (19:57)
Tight crops of footwear. That might be surprising, but gosh, in the over five years that I worked at Columbia, that was a no brainer. Something of like a great yeah, a great shoe. Okay. A great shoe and great photography of it. A nice tight crop of a cool looking shoe and in a great colorway often generated a lot of engagement. Yeah.

And that was often like likes and comments and things, sometimes shares and saves. But if you wanna talk about generating likes, tight crops of footwear.

Cole Heilborn (20:33)
So what's the insight there for people who are listening? Like why shoes?

Laura Jastram (20:38)
Well, I think I think like what the bigger picture is of it is like you're taking up a whole frame. So oftentimes like it's helpful to think about your phone. Like your phone is the canvas. So when your piece of content appears, what's the impression that consumers are getting? And a lot of times like face tight crops of faces work. Like if you're talking a lot of people are doing talk to camera these days and the way that they're framing themselves on camera can be really impactful.

Because it's very like disruptive when you're scrolling the feed. So I think that's where a tight crop of foot of footwear, it's like a tight shot, especially if it's an interesting colorway too, and there's like movement to it as well, that can be really disruptive and it fills the entire phone screen. So that's something that can help like get attention to.

Cole Heilborn (21:30)
Interesting. What's a type of piece of content that you would in in never in a thousand years publish?

Laura Jastram (21:38)
Not vertical video. Please, only vertical video. I feel like yes, you can make a case to put horizontal video if you're Yeah, but I feel like it's rare, you know?

Cole Heilborn (21:47)
You've seen some of it that works well though, right?

I

feel like satisfy. I've seen them do it and it works.

Laura Jastram (21:54)
Okay. Yeah. I feel like it's few and far between and I can't in good conscience say that you should be posting horizontal video for most brands. You really need to think about getting vertical done right and that should be table stakes these days. So

I'm not saying that I haven't had to post horizontal video, ⁓ but you know, every time I cringe when it's like this is all we have, okay, like we need to think differently about this next time.

Cole Heilborn (22:25)
Okay, good to know. Never send Laura a sixteen by nine image. Do you feel like people come to social for an escape or for depth?

Laura Jastram (22:39)
think unfortunately, because this is where it gets complicated, it's all things these days. I think we have our preferred platforms. You know, I don't think people are like monogamous with just one platform. I think we're going to different places. So I think people are going for research to some platforms. Sometimes they're in that mindset. Sometimes they are going for entertainment or, you know, to learn something new. So

Unfortunately, I think it is all things and that's where I think you do have to have content that like meets consumers where they are. But I think that's the great thing about platforms these days too, especially TikTok and YouTube was the leader in this and now Instagram, like it can be such a powerful search tool that your brand content can truly like intercept these

searches that consumers are looking for specific things and then you're getting a nice moment to deliver hopefully value driven content to that consumer.

Cole Heilborn (23:36)
So if you had if you had to look at three buckets of content, educational, visually appealing, whatever that means, it's you know, visually sticky and grabs your attention visually, or content that is emotionally compelling and resonates with a segment of your audience, if you had to guess which one of those three would would land harder. And add to your point about your speech earlier, ⁓ optimize for trust.

Laura Jastram (24:01)
Yeah, and optimizing for trust too. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot of that educational type of content is going to be hardworking. I think like it's all about scaling content too. I feel like, you know, depending upon the resources you have, it's helpful to like lean into one or two categories of content you can do really well.

before you think about expanding into other categories as well. I'm even thinking about like trend based content and like keeping up with like what like the trending sounds and actions are on social. Like that's something to get into to scale into when you feel like you've done your baseline content really well. So I think like getting that value driven content done well that is

like not just pushing out messaging to consumers, but you're you're really giving them something to save, share, like come back to, like that's gonna be really helpful and then you can scale from there.

Cole Heilborn (25:00)
Do you feel like educational based content is optimizes for trust in an easier way or a more efficient way than something emotionally compelling?

Laura Jastram (25:11)
It's kinda gotta do both though too, right? Like because a a good piece of educational content like should have an emotional element to it because there should be like a personality to this content that makes consumers stick around. That's why I feel like I n I don't love talking about just educational co like that's why I like the word edutainment because it's educational but it has that entertainment factor to it as well.

So it has a personality to it, it grabs consumers' attention, hopefully gets them sticking around. It shows you more of who the brand is, what they stand for, like giving consumers an opportunity to start to build trust or like a trust marker from like feeling a connection to your brand. Cause a lot of times, like especially in the outdoors industry, the logos and the brands that you're wearing tell a little bit about you and your personality. And so when

as a brand, you're showing up with a personality. Like it's kind of easy to show up without a personality, but when you're showing up with a personality, that gives something that gives consumers something to latch on to. So again, not everyone's in the shopping mindset all the time, but when you can like have that connected rate relationship with consumers, your brand is far more likely going to be considered and probably purchased when they're ready to buy their next rain jacket or hiking shoes.

Cole Heilborn (26:34)
Yeah, so you opened up another can of worms, personality as a brand on social. ⁓ Marin spoke to the quote unquote unhinged social media manager, you know, like the Wendy's account. In my ⁓ perspective, I feel like the one of the elements that contributes to the sea of sameness that we see is a lack of point of view, otherwise known as a personality. Another way to think of that is like, does your brand have a character and what is that character

caricature of your brand and then how do they show up in different situations. Can you tell me about personality, point of view, how important is that or not?

Laura Jastram (27:14)
I think it is important because I I think you touched on the key point. Like it's very easy, especially in the outdoor industry, for there to be this sea of sameness. So it is like what makes your brand different. Yes, you can get into product details and all of that, but

Cole Heilborn (27:28)
most of the time

aren't that different.

Laura Jastram (27:29)
Yes. That's true too. But also, yeah, it is again like this marker of why I would want to wear your brand compared to another brand because it says something about me in the best case, which means that your brand has like a point of view, it has a personality, it's known for something. And I feel like that can be really hard to develop, but I do feel like it's really critical work because especially when you

don't have that point of view or that personality and you're you might be thinking, well, I'm an outdoors brand. I can jump onto this trend and we have this perspective. A lot of times it's just going to fall flat because the space is so flooded that it's so much harder to break through. I feel like that was really a learning that we had at Columbia and my team is, you know, there isn't this monoculture on social with trends anymore. But there is like deep subculture and deep niche.

And there are the audiences for that. So when you deeply know like who your brand is, how you wanna show up, how you talk, it makes it easier to understand like what trends make sense for you. How can you like have fun and show your personality on social and start to break through because it should feel distinctive because it's ownable for just you?

Cole Heilborn (28:47)
I was writing down ideas as you were presenting 'cause I was thinking about I was thinking about, you know, like brand storytelling ⁓ type projects. Typically they're short to long form documentaries, you know, featuring ambassadors and athletes. And like I'd say like fifty percent of our business and like our capacity is focused on those types of projects. But I'm really and like something that we've been doing lately is helping with distribution and the campaigns around those types of content.

And you were talking about, you know, your your creator your creator ecosystem model. And I was like, and you were talking about the different phases. ⁓ and I was like, you could do the same thing for like brand storytelling projects. Like phase one or level one is the the hero asset. Level two is like all the supporting media that supports that asset. Maybe level three is then a whole bunch of creators.

who are contributing content within the same theme of that larger piece of content, but they're driving awareness to the film. They're to your point, as you brought up, they're building that trust, they're building that community, and they're bringing that to the brand and then bringing it back to the hero content. It seems like a really compelling campaign model for brand storytelling.

Laura Jastram (30:03)
Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, the ecosystem idea and like it can be translated to campaign as you were talking about. I feel like that gets me really energized because it can be so frustrating when you have a long form piece of content and all you kind of receive out of that, especially being someone who works in social, is cut downs. And I'm like, Well, ⁓ okay, a cutdown might help to drive to the long form, but where's like the bespoke?

content here like so that's where I feel like it's really important and I don't know that this is always happening in marketing departments because people are so focused on their channels but going back to that integrated model and if you have a campaign that's coming up where is that campaign intending to show up and what do we want it to do in these places.

Because the same piece of content that's made for social is likely not gonna work in store too. So if you understand where the distribution places are and what those channels need from content, you can come up with like that entire spider web working from that campaign idea that's gonna get the cut downs or the bespoke and the unique pieces of content that's gonna make that idea work hard like the campaign itself work harder. But that upfront planning

is often not happening. And so you end up downstream. Yeah, you have to start there with the integrated planning to begin with and really talking to channels like what's performing, what kind of content do I need? I'm sure production teams and producers out there are gonna talk about the budget costs with that. But that's where I think you can partner too. So you were talking about like okay, let's bring a creator in here to make a little bit more cost effective

elements of content that are gonna work on some of the channels. Like not for the T V or the OLV, like we'll go, you know, higher production on that, but to truly make it an integrated ecosystem that's working as hard as you can, like you need to have like the content pieces in place.

Cole Heilborn (32:02)
It seems like such one, it seems like such a more ⁓ I don't know, respectful thing to do as a brand, like design a campaign like this. It's like we're gonna we're gonna put our audience first. We're actually gonna consider them guests, we're gonna honor their time. It's not like the business case doesn't support that that also is valuable. I just it's gets me excited too. Like there's so much opportunity out there and all the different things you could do and it's like all audience led, it's all audience first.

Laura Jastram (32:31)
And it's a lot of like that it's being really thoughtful with the content you're creating too, because like I feel like that happens so often and it can be such a bummer when you create a really beautiful piece of content and you know a brand is really excited about it, but no one sees it. And I feel like that can often happen, like a piece of content falling flat, often because you're not thinking up front of like what audience this is trying to serve, where it's going to even show up, how it's going to be distributed.

But you've made the piece of content. So now, you know, channel leads are expected to distribute it. You know, I think that upfront work in those conversations can help make stronger content that's actually going to perform and be working really hard so you're showing payoff for your investment when you do that upfront planning.

Cole Heilborn (33:19)
Have you done any looking into the value of building an audience today, comparing the cost to do so, but the cost of not doing so? And the I guess within context of like the world of paid media and increased acquisition costs and what you talked about earlier, renting attention versus building an audience that inherently creates durability as a brand. Do you have any have you looked into that much?

Laura Jastram (33:48)
That's a really interesting topic. I feel like it would just be sort of anecdotally me thinking about it. Cause yes, I feel like I've been hearing this more and more, like on the performance side that the cost of customer acquisition is increasing. Cause there used to be like not necessarily pay to play, but like a math that went into it. If we're putting this much money into XYZ channel, we can expect to see this many customers. And I think we are like reaching that saturation point of that.

But to me that comes back to building brand trust. Like you wouldn't have to just go after consumers so much to bring them in for their one time purchase where the ecosystem Yeah. Then it's more of like a reminder and a nudge because you've built trust with them. With trust comes loyalty and repeat purchase. And so it wouldn't have to be so much investment to bring in new customers because you're working on retaining and growing the ones that you already have.

Cole Heilborn (34:46)
I'm like super bullish on this idea, on this concept. It seems like an absolute slam dunk. And there's a couple brands out there that are doing it really, really well. What's getting in the way from everyone else figuring this out?

Laura Jastram (35:00)
It's probably a lot of like integration and planning because I think it can be so easy to and to no one's fault. Like a lot of times marketing departments are stretched. They don't have enough resources. They have, you know, the priorities that are not only from ⁓ you know, campaign and marketing perspectives for their own channels that they need to execute. So there's a lot of a lot of things that they're balancing. So when it comes to these like

campaign moments or really connecting with other channels, it's hard to carve out that time. So I feel like I think it would be really helpful if most marketing departments had really like an integrated planning lead whose job it was to facilitate that communication, make sure that the channels were working together. I feel like a lot of times that ends up coming from a really strong agency partner, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but a strong agency partner who's

connected to so many elements of the business, they're often the ones that are recognizing the opportunities and connecting those dots because it's just marketing departments again being stretched, then not having the resources, finding it tough to think outside of their channel because of course they have a lot of things on their plate. But I think like s opening up that opportunity for those conversations to happen in the beginning between channels is going to be far more impactful.

Yeah, I think it is really like that lack of time and space for planning and then that working together or again the integration, that's gonna stretch budgets farther and make, you know, the activations that you're doing work harder too.

Cole Heilborn (36:39)
So your whole idea was, you know, bring creators in in a much more integrated way than influencers are historically brought in. Do you feel like bringing creators in in this model is akin to an athlete rostered team?

Laura Jastram (36:53)
I think it's different than an athlete roster. ⁓ I think you know, ⁓ I think that's a whole other route that I I don't want to open the can of worms. I know we have a limited time to talk about, but I think how brands use athletes and really true signed ambassadors is different than how you're talking than working with creators. So I think when you're working with creators, you're really building that bench and that you can go out to to have like that ongoing content.

for all the points in the consumer journey and to be at the ready to make bespoke content for your brand too and like the the needs of your brand. But I I do think that's different than how you engage athletes and ambassadors.

Cole Heilborn (37:35)
I see. So you your the title of your presentation was what building building?

Laura Jastram (37:41)
Stop renting attention, start building it. The case for creator ecosystem.

Cole Heilborn (37:45)
Yes. So how does working with creators stop renting attention? Is it are you referencing the the paid media side of it? Or 'cause I would look at that model and be like, well, the brand isn't the one that's producing the content. They don't own maybe they do own the content legally, but like it's not it's not inherently branded content, it's brand plus creator content. How do you what's your perspective on that and and this a concept of stop renting attention?

Laura Jastram (38:13)
Yeah, I think it's that point of building longer term partnerships. So it doesn't just feel like you're having these one off activations with influencers. And a lot of times these one off, you know, couple times of year campaigns could be a totally new group of influencers that you're working with every time. So to me that speaks to like we're renting attention to those followers and then goodbye, we're probably not talking to you again.

Whereas if you have these creators that you have these longer term partnerships with, you're constantly showing up in front of their followers and again like helping to build that brand trust and like those density metrics around brand trust. So more longer term as opposed to showing up here's a quick activation and we're never working with this person again. So we probably won't show up to these followers again.

Cole Heilborn (39:03)
So I've seen some brands take this model, but then their feed is entirely it's a hundred percent creator content. There's there's very little, if anything, from the brand itself. And then I have this question of like, Well, who is this brand? All I'm seeing are just partner posts between the creator and the brand. What's a good ratio?

Laura Jastram (39:23)
I

would avoid that. Yes. Yeah. I think a ratio maybe like 60-40, where you know, leaning a bit more into creator content because I just think it performs better. It's more authentic, like it feels really social first, but you do need to balance that brand content that does need to show up. But then, you know, you need to have those conversations and work with the teams making that content.

Make sure it's gonna be platform right and social first. But yeah, I I would say like sixty forty. So leaning a little bit more into creator because I that has stronger performance, but balancing with brand content too. Certainly that needs to happen. And I think it is important to even like zoom out and take a look at your your feed view, like how it's looking.

you know, at least every month to make sure that you have that balance and you're not leaning too heavily. Yes, like people are not being served content chron chronologically anymore, but I think that's just a helpful view to make sure that you're not leaning too much into brand content without having like more of that, social first, like authenticity driving content in your feed as well.

Cole Heilborn (40:33)
So the loudspeaker just turned on, you've been paged, you have to go ⁓ do a close c closing panel discussion. So ⁓ let's wrap up here so we can you can get out of here. Summarize it for us. What is the value of social? Then we'll cut.

Laura Jastram (40:47)
Yeah, value of social, it's an opportunity to connect with your consumers. Like they are there on social. So if you're not showing up as the brand, as your brand, you're leaving a lot on the table. So much as social is so much of people's lives these days. And I would even go so far to say in most marketing departments, whether people realize it or not, social sits at the center of a lot of activations. There's going to be a social execution.

on most things. So if you're not putting focus and thinking about how you can thoughtfully show up, then you're really minimizing the opportunity for your brand in that space.

Cole Heilborn (41:26)
Amazing. Laura, thanks for the time.

Laura Jastram (41:28)
Yeah, thank you. This was so fun. Yeah, I'm glad we could do that.

Cole Heilborn (41:30)
This was a lot of fun. ⁓

Laura Jastram (41:37)
⁓

I know I feel like we left a lot of spider webs, but good thought starters for people. Good things to noodle.

Cole Heilborn (41:44)
Thank you for the time. Yeah, thank you. Hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a review on Apple. And remember, as you're working on that next piece of creative, the difference between creative that works and doesn't work often comes down to the hard questions that you ask while you're shaping it.

Laura Jastram (41:47)
Thank you, you too.