Doug Downs (00:11):
To say Mary Wells Lawrence is an icon of the American marketing industry, is an understate, perhaps legend, or a paragon.
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Born in Ohio. She married and moved to New York in the early 1950s when she was still in her young twenties. By 1952, she was a fashion advertising manager for Macy's. She was bold and not afraid to stand out and be different when her marriage wasn't working. She got divorced. That was in the early fifties. Less than one in five marriages resulted in divorce at the time, so it took courage. She turned around and remarried the same man just a couple years later. That took courage too. Not afraid to stand out and be different. Lawrence then went to work for Jack Tinker and his new advertising group, Jack Tinker and Partners, although they became known on the street as Tinker's Thinkers, Lawrence's star in the advertising world began to shine. By 1966, she was ready to establish her own firm, and just a few years later, she was recognized as the highest paid executive in advertising. By the early 1970s, she was invited by US President Ford to represent business at an economic summit in dc. By the mid seventies, she had her first taste of advertising immortality with this campaign, you know all too well.
Alka Seltzer song (01:41):
Oh, what a relief it is.
Doug Downs (01:42):
Then another success with Midas, but it was her 1976 campaign for the state of New York that is probably the most famous today on stories and strategies to be a leader, it takes courage and resiliency. It takes integrity and never ending curiosity, and it takes adaptability and vision. How do marketing and communications leaders see the industry unfolding in 2024?
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My name is Doug Downs Music Off the top. I love New York. Composed by Steve Carmen. My guest this week is Linda Zein, joining today from Springfield, Massachusetts. Hi Linda.
Linda Zebian (02:58):
Hi Doug. How are you? Thanks for having me.
Doug Downs (03:00):
I'm good. Welcome. Welcome to the podcast. Springfield. So just north of Hartford and closer to Hartford than Boston and to the west of Boston. I've never been to Boston and I have not been to Springfield, but I have been to Hartford surprisingly. Okay.
Linda Zebian (03:15):
Yeah. Well there's an airport. There's an airport there. I'm outside of Springfield in a little suburb. I live across the street from our horse farm, so we're definitely not in a city here.
Doug Downs (03:26):
Oh, so nice. And when you look out the window, what's the scene that you see? Is it a white snowy setting or do you have the brown grass? What does it look like?
Linda Zebian (03:35):
It's a patchy snow rainy day. We got about a foot and now it's 50 degrees, so we're rolling with it. Yeah. Okay.
Doug Downs (03:45):
Linda, you are the senior director of communications and community at Muck Rack. You spent 10 years at the New York Times developing and executing communications strategies for the business side of the company, including growth, product and technology. You've also managed media relations for Consumer Reports Magazine, and you were named Top Woman in PR for leadership by Ragan Communications 2023 just last year. Congratulations on that.
Linda Zebian (04:11):
Oh, thank you. Thanks so much.
Doug Downs (04:14):
So late 2023, Muck Rack published the state of marketing and PR leadership report looking at how top marketing and PR leaders around the world really lots of us influence to the report, but it was a global report, how they view the industry, mainly the c-suite and the VP slash director level. One really interesting piece right off the top is that two thirds of respondents said that their job was both marketing and communications, which I know for some of the industry can or can't be a sore point that you can't marry the two. Well, we are marrying the two. Tell me a little bit about that, what they said, and as I understand, a bit of a heavier focus on the marketing side of things, if they're more calm leaders.
Linda Zebian (05:04):
Yeah, I think, right. It's all about attention. So between marketing and comms, we're sharing the same job. Our job is the same. We want to protect the brand. We want to drive awareness to the brand and we want to drive business with our brand. I think if you're looking at the demo of the folks who took our survey most fall into that kind of zero to a hundred a RRA year. So if you're looking at mid-size organizations, for the most part, you're going to have folks who are marketing and comms at the same time, because your workforce is smaller and your revenues are smaller. I think the higher you go on that scale, you're going to look at more bodies to utilize. And then you'll have more sort of identified marketing leader, comms leader who work really closely together
Doug Downs (05:57):
I get that, and those who are leading the marketing team. So three buckets of leader. You're a marketing leader, you're a public relations slash communications leader, or you're a marcomm leader. Those who say, well, I'm a marketing leader, they were the ones saying we might get more budget in 2024, but they were the only ones saying that.
Linda Zebian (06:21):
Yeah. Isn't that always the case for us communicators? It's always running so lean and you can't help but wonder what's the reason for that? And we didn't ask that question, but yeah, marketers are just getting all the budget, and so it's like, is it because they can prove direct line to business outcomes in the bottom line better than communicators can because we're sort of living in that dark funnel space? It's a good question to ask. Maybe we'll ask it next year to find out why that is.
Doug Downs (07:00):
It is interesting because today with digital marketing, digital ads, if I have a banner ad, well, this many people click through this, many people went to my website and this many people who went to my website from the ad clicked on the thing that I needed them to click on the website. So there's this cookie trail that's led for those of us in public relations and communications. There is quantitative analysis impressions, yes. Media placements. Yes. But it's so hard for us to show the qualitative benefits to it that this is the feeling that's changing toward our brand other than the surveys that, and those cost money. Exactly. We don't have budget because the budget's not going up. So it's like a never ending circle for us.
Linda Zebian (07:51):
Exactly. And how do you put a number on maintaining brand reputation or maintaining a share of voice in the press? It's difficult, but your brand value can go from a hundred to zero real fast in a crisis moment. So I think that's something all leaders in the C-suite need to remember is that your brand is as good as it is until it's not. And the moment it's threatened, you run the risk of really losing credibility market share, and then customers and revenue, they're one and the same. So just because you can't always put a quantitative number on it doesn't mean that it's valuable. And I think what we've learned, not only from this survey, but other surveys we've done on measurements in communications, there is no one single metric that communications folks use at this point. If anybody's going to come up with that one single metric, give me a call. I'd love to hear about it. But we find that most communications leaders use a number of metrics in conjunction with one another to tell their impact story, and it can work, but you definitely need more than one metric, such as number of stories placed, which to me is a little bit of a disappointing metric. We all use it, it's valuable, but on its own, it doesn't give you a complete picture of your efforts.
Doug Downs (09:25):
And from the survey, you did pull some metrics that leaders say they have a preference for. It seemed to focus on lead generation, web traffic, social media engagements. So more I like the funnel. So I would say those are kind of toward the top, the pay attention to me part of the funnel,
Linda Zebian (09:46):
And that's for the folks, the vast majority of our respondents who are a mix of both that marcom leader, they're looking at those as their top metrics. And it does shift significantly if you're looking at just a marketer or someone who identifies just as a communications or a public relations professional. So it's interesting for marketing leaders, it's lead gen sales was half, and then web traffic and then conversion rate for marketers. But then if you look at communications leaders, they're looking again at that number of stories placed key message pull through how much of your key message was regurgitated by an outlet and then reach an impression, again, a tricky one. A tricky one to know the impact of what impressions have on your business and then share a voice came in forth there. So everyone's looking at competition, that's for sure. Yeah.
Doug Downs (10:41):
Tell me about the audiences that respondents said they were going for. Is there more of a B2C flavor or B2B? Where are they at with the audiences?
Linda Zebian (10:50):
Yeah, so our audiences, we had about 30% who said they're both B2B and B2C, and then 40% were just B2B. So folks like me and then 27% direct to consumer B2C. So we have a nice healthy mix. Interesting that a third that catered to both audiences. I wonder who those folks are
Doug Downs (11:13):
That is, I mean, the survey wouldn't have pulled it out, but just some of your thoughts on that idea. Again, it's the marriage of we talk about mark calm leaders, and now we have another marriage of, well, we're going for both B2B and B2C. Those can be distinctly different strategies and channels.
Linda Zebian (11:31):
Yeah. It's interesting because the biggest cold war of both came from the technology industry, which to me, and if I'm thinking, okay, you're B2B and B2C and you work in tech, so what are you like a direct to consumer business that also sells to other businesses? We know those are hot market, right? All those Instagram brands, you will. So that could be it. They're selling to both.
Doug Downs (11:58):
And as I was going through the report, I was thinking about internal communications. It's the one functionality that is not led by marketing leaders. For sure. It should be led by comms at times. It's led by human resources. That's a whole other discussion. I really should do an episode on that. And we mentioned off the top budgets of forecast to go up for marketing, but for nobody else. I got the feeling internal comms, at least in the survey, is not getting the cred that maybe it sort of should.
Linda Zebian (12:38):
Yeah, and this is purely anecdotal. I think that a lot of the times communications folks are told once an organization gets to a certain size, so you're really good at communicating. How about you take on another audience? How about you take on our employees and just add it to the list of audiences? You've got your industry, you've got your press, you've got the public. You're going to look just tack it on the end. And I think that's a challenge when you're a smaller organization, you're not seeing mid-market brands hiring a head of internal communications. You've got your head of communications or your head of HR taking on that role to communicate to employees. And it's a full-time job for most folks. So it's disappointing.
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I think the silver lining is that at least almost 40% of organizations are giving internal comms to the comms team rather than the marketing team. I think marketers have a different lens that they're talking through. They may not be privy to the sensitivities of the audiences. And I think when internal communicators work hand in hand with the people team, that's when you're going to have the best results from an internal comms perspective. And internal comms is so important. Your employees are your biggest advocates. They're your champions. They're your first line of defense. Everybody has a platform. Now with social, you need to make sure that they are equipped, that they're close to your ethos and your mission. And then they know how to talk about your brand appropriately,
Doug Downs (14:21):
Your ambassadors. And it's so good that the survey pulled this out for me. I got a lot of really good uses from the survey. But on that internal comms piece, I love what you just said that maybe once the teams get bigger, that's when someone's carved out or a small team is carved out and they do internal comms. It almost, and sometimes I tend to live pie in the sky, but it almost seems to me like the smaller companies, because that brand ambassadorship and your strongest ambassador is going to be your employee and their family. It almost feels like internal comp should be even more of a focus when you're smaller as opposed to when you're larger. And I know the dollars don't necessarily make sense.
Linda Zebian (15:05):
Yeah, no, I think that you're absolutely right. I still think a lot of businesses are trying to, or still learning to understand the importance of internal communications in their employees as another channel. So I think we fought so hard from an external comms PR perspective to get a seat at the table. The internal communications person is a few steps behind climbing that same mountain.
Doug Downs (15:33):
Who is getting that seat at the table? You went into that in the survey.
Linda Zebian (15:38):
Yeah, I mean the marketers, they're getting that seat. And I think more and more you are seeing more CCOs being hired, being brands having kind of meltdown public meltdown moments. They happen so quickly and they're really hard to plan for. So I think definitely industry-wise, seeing a lot more focus on having a CCO be the right hand of their CEO building trust between CEOs and CCOs in a way that's different between trust between A CMO and A CEO. That's a lot of Cs. So I think that it's a intimate sort of trusting relationship that's developed between leadership and A CCO that yeah, your CMO is going to be delivering results for you. Your CMO is going to be out there marketing your brand, but who really that staunch defender of who you are and what you do it is your CCO. So I think more and more you're seeing CCOs rise and roles be created and businesses saying, Hey, we need this. Now we're at X level of revenue, X number of employees. We need this kind of person and this kind of counsel upright there with my lawyer. Right.
Doug Downs (17:07):
Okay. And to compliment that, let's talk about the chief marketing officer, the CMO role that is transforming, they're now expected to be accountable in part for revenue marketing, leadership, obviously customer retention. And to add to that, what role might artificial intelligence play in all that, the toy de jour?
Linda Zebian (17:30):
Yeah, I mean, I think AI's role in first CMO or CCO or in anybody that files down under them is to just increase your efficiencies. So using technology as a way to help you with time, boost your output so you can really have more time to focus on things that AI can't do, which is strategic planning. Exactly that human side of marketing and comps. And even what a lot of us spend a lot of time writing messaging, and as good as the generative AI tools are, you're not able to just stick it in the Chat GPT, copy and paste and shoot it out. I mean, that requires real human oversight and really aggressive review, and you can't get that from AI just yet. But there are other ways you can use it to save time. And that's how we certainly are looking at a SMA technology point of view over here at Muck Rack.
Doug Downs (18:44):
Yeah. I suppose until AI learns to scroll, my previous messages form the sentimentality that because it will at some point, it will just repeat. Scary. Yeah, it is scary. So tell me about the other studies that Muck Rack has got coming up, the other surveys that you're doing. What's the hopper for 2024?
Linda Zebian (19:04):
Oh, great. Yeah. So actually we just released right at the beginning of January, our second state of AI and PR report, which is so interesting because usually we do surveys every year in a regular cadence. But with AI moving so quickly, we put out a survey last March, March of 2023 asking folks are they using it? How do they feel about it? What makes them nervous? And then towards the fall, we were like, we think we should ask these questions again. And it was a hunch and we went with it and bam, I mean, generative AI use more than doubled among our profession in that time, and that's not surprising. Wow. Yeah, that's not surprising. So that was the big takeaway from that report, that report's available and all of these insights are available to everyone there. No charge. They're free. We also have one of our biggest reports of the stated journal that it will come out in this early spring.
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Folks love that report. I mean particularly just to understand what's going on with journalists, how they're feeling, what their biggest concerns are, how they're using social media with everything going on at X and how LinkedIn and TikTok are coming into the mix pretty aggressively for journalists, what does that mean for PR people? What does that mean for how we pitch? We ask them about what their pitch preferences are, how those preferences have changed and how they like to be pitched. So that perfect pitch comes out every year, and that's of really interesting insights for the media world. And then we have our annual state of pr, which is the same on the PR side. What are PR people facing? We do a survey on salaries. Also a very popular one. What should I be making? How many hours should I be working? Is this normal? How are folks utilizing technology, AI tech, and also general PR, tech and social media? All these tools are designed to get us that seat at the table or at least move in a direction towards it.
Doug Downs (21:16):
Perfect. I really appreciate your time today, Linda. Thank you for this.
Linda Zebian (21:21):
Thanks, Doug. I had a great time. Thanks for having me.
Doug Downs (21:25):
If you'd like to send a message to my guest, Linda Zebian, we've got contact information in the show notes. Stories and strategies is a co-production of JGR communications and stories and strategies podcasts. One thing we'd love for you to do is check out our YouTube channel and give us a follow the channels kind of new-ish in growth mode. But we have full episodes up there, audio only. So just kind of like this if you're listening on one of the podcast apps. And we do have some video clips as well from the interview. Lastly, do us a favor forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.