Episode 175 / Jo Crawford / Pandora / Global Vice President Owned Digital and Orchestration
Podcast: Bringing Big Corporate Brands Closer to Consumers with Community Marketing
Jo Crawford is the Global Vice President, Owned Digital and Orchestration at Pandora, where she is working to develop the brand’s presence in communities and learn from influencer marketing and smaller brands how to get closer to the consumer. Her Shiny New Object is therefore community marketing, which she feels bigger brands have lost the opportunity for.
Smaller businesses or influencer brands rely on community marketing to create a name for themselves with small budgets. At the other end of the spectrum, big corporate brands have made the consumer experience too frictionless, according to Jo.
Rather than focusing on making a quick and easy shopping experience available to people, to the detriment of them really thinking about why they’ve chosen Pandora in the first place, Jo aims to develop community marketing as a “place where fans and customers of the brand can connect with each other.”
This doesn’t come easily and big brands like Pandora have to first understand what they stand for and what their deeper mission is. Then they can choose those communities they want to get closer to, rewarding user content, making them part of the brand universe as well.
While focusing on “superfans” and niche communities is a great approach at the micro level, however, Jo is aware that the mainstream consumers also need to be engaged and enticed by a big brand’s marketing. This means brands need to avoid being too niche.
Is the metaverse naturally the space to do this? Although Jo admits that is one aspect of marketing she still feels like she hasn’t got her head around, it could very well be the destination of her community marketing efforts.
Learn more top marketing tips from Jo, hear about the worst marketing advice she’s ever received, and her views on the future of community marketing, on the latest podcast episode here.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Jo Crawford 0:00
We've made experimenting boring. We test everything we love. We are a very, very data driven company, almost to the extreme. Everything's A/B tested, everything is put through that it just, it becomes boring.
Tom Ollerton 0:18
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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 have the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders, and this week is no different. I'm on a call with Jo Crawford, who is global vice president owned digital and orchestration at Pandora up north. I think Jo is on holiday in Crete. So the audio might not be perfect. But hopefully this will sound good enough to be what I think will be a fascinating discussion. So Jo, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, could you give the audience a bit of a background?
Jo Crawford 1:24
Yeah, of course. Hi. Thanks for having me. And I love how modern we're doing this at different ends of the country or continent should I say? And so yeah, I am the, as you said, global vice president of owned digital and orchestration, which means a lot of different things. I started out my career actually wanting to work in movies. So I went to university, and I did my degree in creative industries. And then from that went into buying, which was not very creative. And I spent a long five years just working in Excel. So very promptly, left that and went into marketing, where I felt like I could start to tell those stories in the end and be a little bit more creative. Again, I made my first step into insurance marketing, which, you know, not the sexiest, not the funnest, but I learned a lot there. And it was when roles, not to give away my age, but you know, 10 years ago, your marketing role was very broad, I did SEO, I did CPC, I did display, I did email, I did print, which unsurprisingly, for people in the coal insurance was very big one. And after that, I moved down to London. And that's kind of where I discovered CRM, and you know, spent the next kind of five years doing that for a host of companies. And for a startup, Secret Escapes, which was very, again, quite broad, kind of got involved in everything, as you do with startups, to luxury fashion at Mr. Porter where you know, it's a pure player, you're working with some of the best talent in the industry. And they're moving fast, because they can because they're if you're a player, to Ralph Lauren, which was a big, big brand, and big corporate base, and my first experience of that sort of side of things, and then I ended up at Pandora with the most confusing job title in the world.
Tom Ollerton 3:16
So that's a really nice mix of careers. I'd love to hear the fact that you were in the movies, and then got an Excel based job was hilarious. In that period in that career, what's the bad advice? What are those bad recommendations, things that you just don't think should be out there in? In the industry?
jo c 3:34
Yeah, there's one actually. And it comes up quite a lot. And a lot of people see it and different variations, but it's all it always means the same thing, which is essentially "stay in your lane", you know, don't worry about that look at your effect, be a specialist in your thing, or just stay where you are, and I think that's terrible advice. I think customers we know, are shopping with us across a myriad of channels. Everything's interlinked. You know, we're all spending weeks and weeks trying to create a cohesive, 360 campaign. And actually, if you just spoke to the person next to you and sort of found out or what do you do with that? Oh, that's kinda cool. It's much better. And also, I used to hear it as well, from a team perspective. You know, I would have a couple of teams when we'd be leaving promptly at 5pm every day and the other team that working late and I was like, oh, wouldn't it be nice if they knew that they did. And they would be like, you need a hand or we get involved in it. And then like, you see, when you start to move up, it helps to have a broader understanding and know what everybody else does. So that's one that I hear quite often that always annoys me.
Tom Ollerton 4:38
What's the downside of that? Like, if you stay in your lane, what, what's the worst that can happen?
Jo Crawford 4:43
I think from a customer perspective, you end up with a completely broken journey. Where you know, someone's like super talented, they're doing amazing data driven marketing campaigns, and they're, they're really hammering you with this message on paid social and then you go on the website, you see something completely different. You get an email that they see something completely different. From a customer perspective, I think it creates a very strange journey. And then from a personal perspective, I think when you then if you if you decide to move on in your career, and you went to a broader role, you've suddenly got a whole host of stuff to learn that you have no idea about it. I mean, at least if you have a little bit of a sort of fringe knowledge, you're like, Alright, okay, kinda know how that works. Yeah, I think that's kind of my two things with it. I don't think it builds you for success.
Tom Ollerton 5:30
So assuming you haven't stayed in your lane at work, clearly you haven't. You've worked right across the board. What's the bit of marketing that you're weakest on that you're most scared of that you wish knew more about?
Jo Crawford 5:42
Honestly, at the moment, the metaverse, I keep Googling, and I'm like, I'm like, What is this thing? Like at one point, I was like, is it owned by myself? And it's like, it's not owned by myself. Again. He's wrote a book. And he coined the term rabbit and I was like Jesus!. So that at the moment does make me a little bit nervous because people are coming at me going, you should be in the metaverse. Then I'm really awkward. I'm like, we already are probably doing four things in the metaverse. We just didn't call it that. So yeah, that at the moment is kind of giving me some holiday reading.
Tom Ollerton 6:10
I'm so glad you say that. I just feel like a grumpy old man moaning about the metaverse, but um, you know, like, on Thursday, last week, I went to see a virtual reality thing at the Barbican. That's how East London I am! And it was amazing: you put your phone headset on a bad battery pack and all the rest of it and do you have sort of big like rabbit head basically, but you can wear dresses and outfits by Chanel. And then you sort of like walk through this whole kind of experience and that's the metaverse but that's as old as the hills really, as you say and I think that many people who listen this podcast regularly will be sick of me saying this but meta or Facebook, have just put a ring around all of these technologies and gone, that's the metaverse and everyone's got really excited about it. So innovation directors the world over are doing decks on the metaverse, but it already exists.
Jo Crawford 6:58
Yeah, exactly.
Tom Ollerton 6:59
Well, look, I'll get you back on the podcast next year with your talk about your successful award winning metaverse. So apart from not getting distracted by the metaverse, what is your marketing top tip? What is the that bit of advice that you find yourself sharing most often?
Jo Crawford 7:15
It's terrible, right? I cannot remember who said it, I think it was my marketing director at Mr Porter. And he said, why? He would just always whenever you present the data, and he would just he was always quick copy with it with all your stuff. But why? Why are you Why do you want to do this? Why does the customer care about this? Why is this interesting? And I think it's good because like you see things like the metaverse, for example, or, you know, whatever the shiny new things coming up, if it's not relevant to your customer, you don't think it's interesting? Why bother? And so I think that's always quite an essential check, actually.
Tom Ollerton 7:50
You know that really reminds me of my three and a half year old daughter, she's right in that stage. She's going why. So, okay, and so how do you apply the why question to your work? Do you ask yourself that? Or do you just like have a sort of poster on the wall that says why? And you point to it every time your team try and pitch you something like is it something you're rigorous about? Or is it something you just have in the back of your mind?
Jo Crawford 8:13
I think I'm quite rigorous about it. If I'm sitting in a, let's say, a more senior meeting where we're coming up with a new campaign line, or we're looking at the TV advert for Valentine's Day next year, and they're talking about the story I will ask in the room. So why are we doing this? What's the research? What do we think? And it's not meant to be provocative, quite often, there's a very good answer, and it's all right. Okay, cool. Well, that makes sense. And you're like, oh, great, okay. But also helps me understand it, because then my job is to take that amazing brand message and put it into a go to market message. And if I understand why, and then I'm better at doing it. And then when it comes to my team, there's always a wrong answer. Something's like your team need to work on something exciting. And some things you know, again, my digital projects will relate to, which is cool. That's why I'm doing it. It's cool. And I'm like, okay, cool. Let's try it. We have time or space in it. Let's give it a go. Because if we just constantly work against we've got a trading lineup, it's the Bible that we do everything by and sometimes if you live and breathe that too much, we lose innovation, and we lose inspiration. And you know, people struggle. So I do it both ways. But generally, there's never really a bad answer. I just kind of want to know. I suppose the bad answer is "I don't know."
Tom Ollerton 9:30
Well, it's interesting. You've touched on a theme that has come up in this podcast a bit, which is kind of hard to hear, actually, given my sort of past roles is that innovation is used as a way of entertaining like different people in a business as opposed to actually looking for a solution to the problem like oh, well, you know, we'll do an 8020 10 split on that. We'll do that. We'll have a tiny little innovation budget of 2% where we just do some cool stuff, because if you're with all due respect, just cranking out Like, you know, emails every day, then if you're not experimenting with something, then it kind of gets a bit boring and this... brands sometimes need a way of retaining staff and talent by doing something interesting, as opposed to wanting to actually use innovation to solve a problem. So I'm just curious to get your view on that as an approach, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
Jo Crawford 10:19
No, no, I think you've got kind of the wrong end of the second, this sense of I actually think it's unique to the role I'm in at the moment, we've made experimenting boring. We test everything we love, we are a very, very data driven company, almost to the extreme that everything's A/B tested, everything is put through that it just, it becomes boring. And so I think it's more actually allowing yourself out of that and allowing yourself not just to focus on the conversion rate of an offer, you increase this by 1.2%. Because if you're doing that every single day, that becomes the sort of mundane, whereas it used to be that that was the challenging and fun stuff.
Tom Ollerton 11:00
Right. So innovation is like, a way of kind of re inspiring yourself to try harder. Is that what you're saying?
Jo Crawford 11:07
No, I think it's just thinking outside the mold. We think we're innovating when we do testing. And it's like, well, that's not really innovation. That's just improving what we do. So what is true innovation, what's the next step? Yeah.
Tom Ollerton 11:19
So maybe it is going into the metaverse, Jo.
Jo Crawford 11:23
Exactly. I feel like I'm talking myself into it.
Tom Ollerton 11:32
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 the 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.
Right, so we are at the halfway stage now. So we are going to talk about your shiny new object. And so do you want to tell us what your shiny new object is? And why you've chosen it?
Jo Crawford 12:23
Yes, I do feel like I'm going to have to defend this one. So I've chosen community marketing as my shiny object. And I think it ties back to that whole data driven piece. When you're looking at new startups, and especially all these influencer brands. They're born out of community, and it's why they have such an affinity. That's why they have such an amazing customer base. And actually, I think a lot of our big corporate companies, we were so fortunate to have big budgets and amazing media plans. We've kind of lost that sort of how do we create a community? How do we actually go back to the desire for the product or the brand affinity? And so I've kind of got that as my shiny new object at the moment, because I'm looking at it and going, what should we be doing here? And how do we do this? And then, again I am talking myself into the bloody metaverse, you know, as an online community, the metaverse who knows. But it's a thing that we think a lot of brands have missed, we became too frictionless to get them through the funnel, get them to the checkout, and then they're off. And actually, we forget, why do they want to shop with us? What is it about Pandora that speaks to them that makes them feel: Oh, yeah, that's why I buy with them.
Tom Ollerton 13:39
So can we just go back to some basics on community marketing? So can you just give us an overview of what exactly you define as community marketing for your business?
Jo Crawford 13:48
I mean, I couldn't possibly do it in the podcast, because I have a 140 slide deck.
Tom Ollerton 13:53
What is the what is the summary slide?
Jo Crawford 13:59
So in summary slides, which I think are about five, basically see, the relevant tech market series we live in, I've swapped Excel for PowerPoint, that's essentially what's happened. And so what we're defining at the moment is a space where fans of the brand and customers of the brands can connect with each other. And then it's, it's the conversation topics that we're focusing on, because we don't want to build. I don't want to build an online community on the website, like build it, and they will come they're having their conversations wherever they're having their conversations. But what do we want to stand for? What do we want to end to that community as you associate Pandora with that, and that's kind of what we're starting to explore at the moment more of what is our community standing for?
Tom Ollerton 14:44
Could you give me an example of some community marketing that you look up to, a brand who you think are funny?
Jo Crawford 14:53
I think Glossier are a fantastic example and they were born out of a blog. So you know, she started Into the gloss I think it was called. And then at that point, she started asking her followers, you know, should I do makeup or skincare? Like, what are you guys thinking? And they come back and were like, yeah, of course you should. And she's kept that blog aspect of it. So she's obviously got, you know, very successful business now where she's selling in pop up stores and Instagram, but she still has the blog where, if she's thinking of a new product she'll go and ask and say I'm doing this. What do you think? I think something like that is what is what I certainly aspire to.
Tom Ollerton 15:31
And why do you think it's so important to you guys now, because I thought was really, really nice, the way you talked about your big exciting media budgets and everything that that buys you. But then you also, while I picked up on that kind of tension, or maybe a threat or a challenge from kind of smaller, more nimble community based brands, like how does a large corporate become niche and Community Focused? That seems like those are two different things, how are you approaching that challenge?
Jo Crawford 15:59
We're trying to pick it out by segments, because I think that it's to your point, if we try and do it, for every single customer, we're never going to do it, you know, we are the largest jewelry company in the world. So we try to create that community. I mean, that's a, that's a bigger thing. We're trying to do it with niche segments within our consumer base, we're also a gifting brand. So you know, there's dealing with so much community out there. But when we have an amazing community of really, really engaged customers, they are writing blogs, they are doing YouTube video reviews, they have boxes and boxes of Pandora bracelets full of charms, and they can tell you the story behind every single charm. But it's all organic, which is amazing. But we want to really help drive that and reward those people and also make them feel like they're part of something as well. So we're doing it for a smaller segment, which is how we're going to try and compete with these smaller, independent brands that are coming out with it born naturally in their DNA.
Tom Ollerton 16:56
And so what are the skills that you need as a business to do that well? Because I get the strategy, I get the theory, that all makes total sense. But when you're looking to upskill your team or grow your team, what are those traits, skills, knowledge that you need in order to make this work?
Jo Crawford 17:13
Yeah, so we're working on it across three departments, actually. So it's my department, owned digital, but then I'm working super closely with consumer insights and brands. And I think that's the two skill sets, we need to really make sure are we tapping into something that people care about. So asking the why, why is this interesting to our customers or our fan base? And then it's the brand aspects of really defining ourselves? Who are we when we what's the word association we want people to have with Pandora. So I think more branding and more consumer insights, if we can upscale that constantly in what we're doing on community, I think we'll do something really great.
Tom Ollerton 17:49
So before I set up Automated Creative I used to work with We are Social. And it was kind of so interesting seeing and this is God's getting on for about 10 years ago, when I joined there, and community marketing was very central to what they did you know, this is kind of before like Facebook really, kind of leaned in paid, essentially on mobile and stuff. And there was this sense that people in a community were a bit weird, like, you know, we used to run the Marmite community and you know, and people who would like, who have Balmer's and Strongbow tattoos and stuff? And you're like, oh, yeah, they're the community. They're talking about us. But isn't there a danger that you're talking to like a crazy niche? With all due respect to the people in that niche? And how does, how are you seeing that influence the profitable mainstream, they may not care about it that much, but will ultimately drive the bulk of your sales?
Jo Crawford 18:41
I think that's where you find the right topic. If I want to just talk to them about charms, I'm going to find that superfan who, you know, is obsessed with our brand, but potentially, you know, as the 1%. Whereas we're trying to think these broader topics that, you know, potentially don't even have anything to do with Pandora product, but it's who we are as a brand. And I think that's hopefully how we'll avoid going into those those superfan areas because it you're absolutely right. If you tested stuff on the top 1% of our customer base, they'll say every idea we come up with is amazing, amazing. Everything. Just keep doing more of what you're doing. You're not really getting the information that you want there.
Tom Ollerton 19:19
So how do you protect yourself against this?
Jo Crawford 19:21
I think it's having a broad grip involved. So like I say, we're working across the three departments, it seems checking it and then we're just going to have to test and learn. I think that's the other thing that corporates struggle with compared to smaller brands is we'll make 150 page deck. I'll present it to the CEO, then we'll do some focus groups and two years later we'll launch a community strategy. I think we kind of just need to start throwing some stuff out there and seeing is that taking off as that going the way we wanted to. Is it falling flat, do they think it's boring and it's a stupid topic? I think we just need to feel, but get stuff out there.
Tom Ollerton 19:58
So where do you see this space going, like community marketing? Like, what's it gonna look like in a year or three years? Is it gonna be pretty much the same, same psychology but different platforms? How are you seeing it evolving?
Jo Crawford 20:09
Now someone's going to monetize it, someone probably already has, where it's going to be, you can be part of the community, and you'll earn points. And you can, in fact, I do know there's a company that does that already. So I think it will become very smart and very targeted and almost start to replace affiliates and different things within paid social. Because everybody wants a piece of it. And everybody looks at the new, the new brands, and you're like, oh, how do we do that? So someone, somewhere is already creating a tool to help us to effectively monetize it.
Tom Ollerton 20:40
So tell me how you think it will replace affiliates. That's really interesting.
Jo Crawford 20:44
At the moment, you pay affiliates, anywhere between what 6 and 12%. And where it's good affiliates, that's essentially working with your community, or, you know, bloggers, different things. And then the other side of affiliate system approach called websites. I think, if you're doing community outreach in a smarter way, you can hopefully start to wean out of affiliates. And we know of these high commissions or the discount tactics, and to having a brand advocacy program, where you get those guys to push your message for you is at least my aspiration.
Tom Ollerton 21:21
So unfortunately, we're coming to the end of the podcast now. And what I always do at the end of the podcast is ask how you would like people to get in touch with you. And what makes a really good outreach message to get a response from you?
Jo Crawford 21:34
So I think the the best way, and probably the worst way is LinkedIn. But I get so many messages on LinkedIn. So if you want a good outreach, like put "podcast" at the start if you can, and hopefully I'll see it and I'm like, Okay, I'll read this one. Sell me something. Yeah, I think that's a good step.
Tom Ollerton 21:53
Look, thanks so much for that. And I will see you in the metaverse in some community marketing extravaganza in next couple of years. Jo, thanks so much for your time.
Jo Crawford 22:03
Thanks very much.
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