Wondersauce

And just like that, we're nearly halfway through 2024. Here are a few lessons I’ve (re)learned this year so far. → When you're in the “ideas business,” sometimes, your first idea is the best idea. Especially in an increasingly AI-driven world, your human capital is everything. If you believe in the concept, don’t hesitate to go to bat for it. → Interviewing and hiring new people is fun. Incorporating new energy into a people-first business is one of the best ways to revitalize a culture and jumpstart positive vibes. → (Re)prioritize good old-fashioned client services and relationship building. Is anyone else having problems remaining on schedule when they have more than 1 IRL meeting in a single day? I've learned to embrace it and bake in extra time. Cheers to the long coffee, extended lunch, or engaging brainstorm! What have you (re)learned this year so far?

Retail is a good barometer for what the future holds for e-commerce. The last few years have been an experiential era. Brick-and-mortar stores, seemingly designed for instagram, became a destination beyond shopping itself. We’ve observed this trend cooling down. It doesn’t make sense for every brand and people don’t always want it. The brands that can really own “experience” have woven it into their DNA. It doesn’t feel forced. Peleton, for one, successfully draws their audience with an experiential component at their NYC flagship store. It’s not uncommon to see fans line up outside hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite instructor. While some brands have been banking on the in-store experience and shareability making them memorable, the opposite side of the spectrum, distinctly serving utility, has its own draw that is worth paying attention to. The experimental store concepts from Amazon, certainly, but also smaller service-based businesses, like dental, doctors, and personal care are prioritizing a different type of experience. One where utility and efficiency are what makes in-store shopping pleasant again. An interesting thought exercise is thinking about where your brand would fall on a hypothetical scale of experiential — utility. IKEA, for example, manages to blend an immersive shopping experience with a utilitarian edge, all in the same massive retail footprint. I’d argue they lean much heavier on the experience in-store, leading shoppers through rooms and ideas before you have the opportunity to make tangible selections and purchase. So, what does this have to do with e-commerce? A lot. AI has started to shake up web standards and we’re seeing a fundamental shift from grid-based design to something more fluid and immersive, introducing tons of opportunity from an experiential perspective. With the growing popularity of "command-based interfaces" and the available technology to truly deliver on the promise of personalization, we’re very excited about the possibilities for digital products that make shopping online both experiential and very functional. As we explore and prototype on this topic in our client work today, we’re continuously inspired by and learning from how customers are (or are not) engaging in-store. Our goal is to find that sweet spot for brands to serve up a memorable digital experience, but ultimately give customers exactly what they’re actually looking for.

Our team is at its best when it has the time to do its own thing, recharging and living life outside the office. That’s why Wondersauce offers Summer Fridays. With Memorial Day around the corner, we asked our team how they planned to spend their extra time off ☀️

Lower funnel, direct response, and optimizing your ROAS, CPA, etc., are important, but so are the basic tenets of Marketing and Advertising. You need to build a brand. At Wondersauce, we strongly advocate for brands to include media channels that allow them to tell a story. As I mentioned further when I spoke with Ad Age recently, over the last five years, brands have been so focused on direct response and lower-funnel conversion tactics that their marketing often lacks a brand story, making it even harder to stand out in such competitive platforms like Meta and Google. Thank you to Ashley Joseph at Ad Age Studio for including me in their latest round-up on "AMP SPOTLIGHT: Key Takeaways From TV Upfront 2024". Also featured are Jennifer Kohl, Guy Rancourt, Michelle Capasso, David Weiss, Adam Bergman, Sam Zises, Matthew Kramer, and Erica C. https://lnkd.in/dj6xRu6U

You want to deliver for people you care about. A successful agency + brand partnership comes down to 2 things: Trust and camaraderie. Often, the two are intertwined, but putting in the time upfront to set the day-to-day up for success will usually lead to trust and, in many cases, camaraderie or even… a real friendship. So, what’s the most important factor in accomplishing this? Follow-through. It's not just about making promises but ensuring they become reality. This commitment is crucial on both sides at all levels. If trust and camaraderie exist in your agency + brand partnership, I’d put it above any fancy processes, frameworks, or tools. That’s not to say it will always be easy; of course, it’s not. But, if the partnership truly feels like one team, it will make tackling the often fast timelines or any other problematic circumstances more achievable — as you’re genuinely doing it together. Partnership strength is my number 1 barometer for an account's overall health. If the partnership is strong, I can also trust that the work will be, too. This general theme can be adapted to collaboration between agencies as well, and it’s something Matt Statman stresses within Project Worldwide. He says... “You can’t work with people you don’t trust. And you don’t trust people you don’t know.” At the end of the day, whether it’s a collaboration between agencies or with clients, you want to deliver for people you care about. ✌️ #marketing #advertising #advertisingagency #brands

We operate assuming we won't have the ideal amount of time for strategy. Speed to market and quality are increasingly our client's top priorities, so we anticipate accelerating all aspects of our process. But as an agency tasked with creating and delivering, we can’t let SOWs or the nature of timelines eliminate the need for strategy, as it’s crucial to our success. We have gotten comfortable compartmentalizing the critical aspects of our strategy process into smaller chunks, allowing us to pick and choose what to deploy when and working with our broader teams to determine which are most important for each engagement. We also aim to deliver strategy work very early in our engagements (sometimes days), as our clients must see value in it immediately. We have found that once they do, they are more willing to extend that aspect of the process in future engagements. What are your favorite frameworks, work sessions, and tools for accelerated strategy?

“It’s a fad that will go away” "We're too big to advertise on there" “That audience doesn’t spend money” Ok, ok, these quotes aren’t from 2024... They’re from 10+ years ago from brands questioning the efficacy of advertising on social media. We are now seeing a lot of questions arise about CTV. Don't get me wrong, brands are very excited and ready to spend. And from what I can see coming out of #Upfronts, many new ad exciting products will hit the market (hello, Netflix and Amazon). Concerns around transparency, log-level data, pricing, and efficacy very much exist. These are incredibly minor and will sort themselves out. To me, this is a classic chicken and egg scenario. 🐔Marketers have become so comfortable with super-polished ad platforms like Meta (now that’s ironic) and Google. They want reassurances and guarantees before committing serious money (aka fancy reporting). This is the wrong way of approaching any new media channel for your brand, whether it’s CTV, audio, DOOH, or whatever else you might be diversifying into. From my perspective, the intrigue and opportunity around CTV is the element of chaos and ambiguity that still exists. 🥚If you remember, these same concerns existed 10 years ago with social advertising; those takes were very clearly wrong. The brands that were early to social won in a big way. They took the risk, and it paid off. When you look at CTV, whether buying directly from a publisher or going through a programmatic partner, it’s still very early. These products will mature and evolve, and by the time that happens, you will have missed your opportunity to get involved before the space is super, super crowded (it’s already getting there). These publishers and networks are battling for subscriber dollars. They are more worried about securing content deals, bundling their offerings, and keeping an interesting slate of original programming in front of their users. While the ad platform is a priority, it’s understandably lower on the list. Trust that it will get there. We have seen great results from our CTV buys and will continue to include this tactic in the majority of our media plans for the foreseeable future. What are you most excited to test?

It's a reality of our business that sometimes, you lose an account. It often has nothing to do with the work you deliver or the value you bring daily. The harsh reality is that sometimes it's entirely out of your hands, and your day-to-day clients aren't even consulted. They learn about the news downstream. Decisions and situations are more significant than your scope of work, and you're unfortunately, caught in the crossfire. When this happens at Wondersauce, we focus on making sure the transition to the new agency is as smooth as possible and ensure our final deliverables are buttoned up and as strong as they can be. In other words, we play the long game. More often than not, the client comes back. Those out-of-control decisions don’t go as planned, and your client partners advocate for you. They want you back. In our experience, not only does the work come back, but in many cases, the business grows both in scope and trust, and there's a newfound appreciation for the partnership. There's real power in the long game.

We redesigned and optimized GOLF.com to ultimately deliver a better experience to users on three core tenets: Simplicity. GOLF is home to a variety of content, from the latest gear to travel destinations and top-tier instructional videos. How we simplified the site: 1. We made each content category simple to find and easy to navigate.  2. We minimized page lengths to show a high volume of content at a glance.  3. We produced eye-catching, bite-sized content, enabling visitors to immerse further into their user journey. Intuitive Design. How we built an intuitive user experience:  1. Through a thoughtful hierarchy of information and a design system built with the user journey in mind, we made the site easy to understand and navigate for all users - from golf newbies to seasoned pros. 2. We seamlessly integrated e-commerce moments into the broader journey in a natural way that added to the overall experience. Innovation.  Driven by insights into user engagement with sports and journalism online, our innovative efforts are geared toward meeting users where they are. How we innovated:  1. In addition to all the items mentioned above, throughout the project, we consistently leveraged emerging technologies to evolve our tech stack. This enabled the site to withstand increasing traffic without affecting the front-end user experience.  2. We prioritized video and podcast content earlier within the site pages, based on the rise of video as a top method of content consumption. With May being National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, our strategic pivot of leaning even more into lifestyle coverage and fine-tuning how users can navigate across the site remains more timely than ever. GOLF continues to crank out volumes of lifestyle coverage across the site and it is now even easier for users to engage and dive into what’s available. For more on our work with GOLF check out: https://lnkd.in/eavMqU8X

Who remembers the iconic Derek Jeter flip play? This moment in sports has shaped my perspective on what successful management looks like. It’s the perfect example of anticipating the play’s development, not expecting things to go according to plan. “Doing my job,” Derek Jeter commented when asked about his mindset as the play unfolded. “My job is to watch the runner…” It’s that simple. As people driving projects and advising businesses, it's our job to recognize that adjustments are often essential for successful delivery.