The Time of Novel Utility

March 24, 2020 by Taylor Wiegert in Strategy

In August of 2019, 181 CEOs committed to lead their companies to benefit all stakeholders—customers, employees, suppliers and communities, in addition to shareholders. These businesses determined, rightly, that investing in workers and communities was the only way they could ensure being successful over the long term.

The announcement was noteworthy. It was a big shift from businesses being fully committed to shareholders to making the commitment to invest in benefiting stakeholders to build their businesses’ value over the long-term and into the future.

Today and over the next year, that commitment will be put to the test.

Re-Embracing the Stakeholders

August 20, 2019 by Taylor Wiegert in Strategic Planning, Strategy

This week we received news that really shouldn’t be news. Around 180 business leaders convened to align on a philosophical shift when it comes to corporate purpose. The leaders aligned on a different perspective that emphasizes shareholders less and embraces stockholders, including employees, customers, society and investors, more.

Gen Z's Social Pursuit of Fame and Connection

July 25, 2019 by Taylor Wiegert in TikTok, Digital Strategy

TikTok has been the number one most downloaded app in Apple’s App Store for five consecutive quarters. After that, it’s YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. The short-form video sharing app has established itself as one of the biggest apps in the world, and what’s noteworthy is the apps that aren’t in the top 5: Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter…

The Same but Different In a Digital World

March 22, 2018 by Taylor Wiegert in Digital Strategy

Traditional media is dead. Sure advertisers can still place ads on TV and in print, but even those channels have become digital. TV’s taking cues from YouTube and introducing more targeted, programmatic buys. It’s no longer just placing a spot on a network in a TV show. It can be that, but advertisers can be more targeted with ads delivered to one household. A neighbor watching the same program at the same time may see something completely different.

This post isn’t about programmatic TV. This post is about everything, even traditional media, following new rules than in the past. It’s not enough for marketers to just think of standard digital channels (site, search, social, display) as the only areas a brand needs to have a digital mindset. Marketers have to adopt that mindset everywhere and across everything.

That means a shift. A shift in mindset, a shift in approach, a shift in how traditional channels can be approached untraditionally.

Cut Out the Middle to Focus Social Efforts on Big and Small Bets

February 07, 2018 by Taylor Wiegert in Strategy, Strategic Planning

Facebook rocked a lot of worlds a few weeks ago when it announced its latest News Feed algorithm update. The update focused the News Feed on delivering its users content from friends and family at the expense of content from publishers and brands. Facebook says it aims to nurture personal connections. Essentially, Facebook is going back to the roots.

For brands, little has changed. Facebook and social as a whole for the most part is a pay-to-play effort. The social side of social media is for friends and family. That’s what Facebook is giving back to users with this latest algorithm update. The media side is where brands a publishers come in. We have to treat these channels as media platforms we approach with compelling, creative assets that are deployed through a strategic media investment.

Opt-In Advertising

September 21, 2017 by Taylor Wiegert in Strategy

We live in an age of ad avoidance. What started with DVRs enabling consumers to skip commercials, continued with ‘Skip’ buttons after viewing ads for so long, evolved into premium entertainment subscriptions for commercial-free programming and ultimately became a behavior of installing ad blockers, has made people really, really good at avoiding ads.