Tag Archives: coronavirus

CMO Minjae Ormes with the Scoop on Making a Visible Difference

June 4, 2020business, diversity, Episodesadvertising, b2b, branding, business, CMO, coronavirus, COVID-19, diversity, E.B. Moss, immigrant, insider interviews, marketing, media, Minjae Ormes, mossappeal, podcast, television, Verizon, Visible, YouTubeE.B. Moss

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My work is creating content that drives change. Mostly for businesses. But I have always shared my perspective through content: journalism, blogs, podcasts — even just journaling. I had to balance the “best practices” of regularity in my podcast publishing schedule, with bigger things in mind. The crisis in America. I only had Tuesday available to record for this week, which was #BlackOutTuesday. And, on top of that, today – the Thursday I publish – is also the memorial for a martyr to racism, George Floyd.

If you – as most listeners to this podcast – work in media, marketing or advertising, chances are you know of Minjae Ormes. Most recently global head of partnerships for YouTube, and for the past couple of years chief marketing officer of disruptive phone service from Verizon, Visible. She personally has been visible for her innovative, and appropriately “disruptive” approaches to marketing the new service, but more recently she’s been seen in various trades and on panels describing how they’ve embraced broadcast TV campaigns for the first time. That said, Minjae is also widely respected as a mentor to women in business, and a role model as leader.

E.B. and Minjae Ormes after our first interview in 2019

Her thoughtful comments – both in this interview as well as in sharing more of her personal journey the first time I interviewed her in March of 2019 — on learning to adapt to new cultures and countries are as insightful as her marketing approaches are. So, since she made the time for me on her actual birthday this week, we made sure to discuss not just her shift from event marketing to mass media, etc., but — like in my last episode with Sree Sreenivasan — the absolute need to embrace empathy in our professional and personal paths.

I think you’ll get her tone from this quote: “How do we first and foremost create the kinds of experiences that people expect now across the industry? Just the simplicity, the seamlessness, but also the humanity with which you show up as a brand and a business.”
She also explains their pandemic pivot: “going into April, our traffic and some of the KPIs were actually picking right back up, which told us that phone services are one of those things that people rely on, no matter what happens, if not more so now. It’s been an interesting exercise, both in listening, but also… as all of us as marketers can’t really do create a production the way we used to it created spaces for us to think about what’s old is new and new is old again, and different ways to ultimately listen to consumers and what they’re telling us implicitly and explicitly for us to follow their lead.”
Another visible difference in Minjae’s approach? Making a difference in people’s lives. Literally. Hear her description of their pro-social campaign, #VisibleActsofKindness, and the story of one customer that moved her most, plus how they supported volunteers forced to immediately return from Peace Corps volunteering.

A final note, while Visible’s difference is that it has no brick and mortar locations, many of its parent company retail stores were looted and stripped bare during protests this week. Verizon also just donated $10 million to social justice organizations, including the Urban League and NAACP. So to honor the legacy of necessary change that we will hopefully learn from the death of Floyd, I am publishing on his memorial date so these words might inspire some to consider how they listen, and how they market to all people, with respect.

What Is It Like to Be a Girl of Color?

These middle school girls in Brooklyn are speaking up about being a girl of color in America.

Posted by Global Citizen on Tuesday, June 2, 2020

The Scoop from Sree on Good Talks, Listening and Journalistic Integrity

May 28, 2020business, Episodes, Uncategorizedb2b, branding, business, Calvin and Hobbes, CNBC, coronavirus, COVID-19, Digital Media, E.B. Moss, Facebook, insider interviews, livestreaming, marketing, media, Metropolitan Museum, mossappeal, New York Times, NY Times, podcasting, podcasts, radio, Readalong, Roopa, social media, Sree, Sree Sreenivasn, Stonybrook, tech stack, zoomE.B. Moss

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As we crave connection during these isolating times, Sree Sreenivasan has stepped up to bring people around the world together, sometimes several times a day. While almost 80 straight days in a row of recording his Global COVID-19 show drove his family to furlough him from his own home during livestreaming hours, this social and digital media expert, known by many as “@Sree”, has an expanded family of connections that faithfully gather round for a dose of positivity.

And every Sunday, they tune-in again for his New York Times “readalong,” now five years running, with his own scintillating and scholarly guests perusing the paper and op-eds alongside him. So, that’s 80 days in a row and literally twice on Sunday. Did I mention his 21 years of conducting Social Media Weekend gatherings to educate on the latest tools and tactics? How about his frequent appearances on radio, or CNBC as a tech-expert?

Hear why this the former chief digital officer for The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now focused on the art of generous content both altruistically and, candidly, as a business development vehicle for his digital marketing and virtual event business. Less generous, perhaps, in his opinion of social ISSUES, Sree’s stories – from adjusting to new countries and his quirky love of comic strip Calvin and Hobbes to how he adopted new communication tactics to connect people through every crisis of the past two decades – are equally passionate. The throughline is also his ardent belief in journalistic integrity, veracity and humanism.

We joke about how his livestreams and social sharing are the perfect outlet for a man who likes to talk, but with Sree, people want to listen. He’s learned the art of that, too.

Listen to the inaugural Marshall Loeb visiting professor at Stonybrook University, and former Columbia University journalism professor, Sree Sreenivasan, and you’ll hear why.

We also discuss:

His humble and sometimes humiliating path to acculturating to America
The evolution and promise of his Global COVID-19 Show
How reading the New York Times out loud on Facebook Live become bigger than he could have imagined
How he competes with – or defers to his wife, Roopa
How that love for Calvin and Hobbes has played a role in his life

Global Branding Meets Customer-Focused Creative – Dell Technologies’ Rachael Henke

May 6, 2020Episodesadvertising, b2b, branding, business, coronavirus, CTV, dell, dell technologies, E.B. Moss, Entercom, insider interviews, marketing, measurement, media, MediaCom, OTT, podcasting, PodFerence, rachael henke, research, techE.B. Moss

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Rachael Henke’s short title is just “brand” at Dell Technologies. Her formal title is long, but it’s a big job, for a big company: Director of Global Brand Advertising Content and Customer Engagement Storytelling. That means, per Henke, “everything we do is to elevate the brand.” While most everyone has heard of “Dell,” her job is to ensure everyone knows the larger entity – created from the merger with EMC some three years ago — is actually “Dell Technologies” and that it’s gone from primarily computers to being “an end to end essential technology partner”.

While computers are, as Henke says, “still a very critical part of our business, we really want to focus [on the] B2B space, showing how we’re driving innovation and emerging technologies across areas like cloud storage and AI.” For Henke, that means that while being part of the brand team for a 150,000-person global company is impressive enough, she’s also, necessarily, a woman who can use “hyperconverged infrastructure solutions” in a sentence. But it’s still a human-oriented brand, evidenced from top-down actions like Michael Dell donating $100 million dollars to pro social initiatives during our current COVID-19 crisis. So, in Episode 6 of Insider Interviews, Henke explains how her team approaches brand storytelling – turning complicated offerings into human-oriented content. Here’s a topline of our conversation, edited for clarity:

“Every day is different”: Henke’s days involve “conversations about what products are going to launch… and how that will turn into the vision where we’re going… a lot of conversations around messaging and with customers to understand how our technology gets used.”

Applying Those Conversations To Content: Like TV spots that take the figurative (“is your business going in circles?”) and make it literal, like spokesperson/actor Jeffrey Wright going in circles and upstairs and coming back to the starting point, their B2B brand campaigns aim to showcase how they deliver on solutions, what’s innovative, “and connecting that solution to work for sales teams, too…And If there’s a consumer campaign that works really well, it provides lift to our business side as well.”

That applies to small business as well: One example is working with ad agency MediaCom and audio company Entercom to create a virtual podcast conference, The PodFerence, to spotlight podcasts on relevant topics for customers.

Rinse and Repeat: Henke names brands and marketers she “keeps an eye on” and describes her own goals to balance creative and data: “One of the challenges that any brand marketer has is how the heck do you measure brand advertising, because you’re not necessarily tied to a click, a call, a transactional sale. So we do a lot of measurement …and also make sure we’re not just looking at data in a silo [but working together with other divisions.]”

The Media and Marketing for Tomorrow: Will one of the world’s largest tech companies continue to put budget in linear? Henke is bullish on balancing linear and digital, especially when it comes to now on paused live sports. “It’s really timely to ask that because we are a PGA sponsor and have Dell Technologies Match Play which was supposed to take place in March. But I still feel like sponsorships will still be something strong and that we will continue because let’s face it, people want sports more than ever.” We’re looking at continuing with linear, but figuring out where are people still watching? I think CTV and On Demand will absolutely be part of that mix as well.

For the future? “We truly believe that because of what has happened globally companies are looking at how they digitally transform in a way that makes sense, but also in a practical way. …We want to make sure that our brand is there to be that partner for our customers as they need to make changes because the world will be different.

Balance and Togetherness: Balance – between divisions as well as between work and home – is a continuous theme for Henke. Her bio describes her home life as including one horse-loving child and one gaming-loving child. But she acknowledges, “I don’t know how we all do it. In a moment of vulnerability I’ll just say every day is a challenge. One of the things that I have to harp on myself about is self-care, especially when you work from home”. So, this tech brand expert also relies on tech to remind her to get out and exercise…. “and making sure that I have those moments where I can go and retreat and think and take a step back. I don’t get every day perfect, with two kids running around, but I always have to try to reset with myself.”

And Henke seems to be succeeding.

The Scoop from Shelly Palmer on WFH Tech and Keeping Connected

April 1, 2020Episodesb2b, business, CNN, collaboration, coronavirus, COVID-19, E.B. Moss, Google Suite, insider interviews, LinkedIn, marketing, PGX, podcasting, podcasts, Ross Martin, shelly palmer, tech, tech stack, voice, westwood one, WFH, zoomE.B. Moss

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One of the smarter ideas I’ve had recently was to invite the even smarter Shelly Palmer to guest on this episode of the Insider Interviews podcast. I had an ulterior motive: I’d been challenged by my work-from-home (WFH) tech set up and he is the go-to guy for keeping us all on point.

Palmer, of CNN, CNBC, Fox 5 NY contributor fame, advises companies on their “digital transformation” and was also a LinkedIn Top Voice in Technology. And I needed help. Our conversation went from scientific explanations to fun anecdotes about his own podcast on the Westwood One network, Think About This with Shelly Palmer and Ross Martin, to the topic of his most recent interactive online chat, hosted on his new tech-focused social network, PGX: what a post-Corona Virus society might look like. Palmer is not shy about airing strong opinions without much prompting.

You’ll hear thoughts, recommendations and advice on:

On Choosing One Tech Tool Over Another: (“In some cases, it’s just personal preference. In others it has to do technologically with where you are and what you’re trying to do.” He uses Zoom for meet-ups with 150 or so attendees and Webinar Jam for one-to-many.)

On Adapting to Technology: (“People have been accepting of technical glitches that they never would have before… like when smartphones [drove] vertical video. It’s been fascinating to see how fast people are willing to adopt bad lighting, camera angles, and bad hair. It’s fantastic because the most important thing is that we figure out how to be social animals in a time when COVID-19 is forcing us to be less social.”

On Using A Personal Tech Stack More Personally: (“If you’re working for a bigger corporation, they’ll likely dictate the VPN and office suite you’re going to use. [A good choice] for small collaborative companies is Google Suite and have Slack running to interact with clients without having to send email. But a lot of clients are using Microsoft Teams. But when you’re working totally by yourself right now, the most important thing you can do, I think, is send an email or a text message to everybody you know in the world — and find out how they’re doing.”)

On AI (replacing for journalists?!), and “Truthiness” in media, and if we will continue to Zoom like crazy?: That you’ll have to listen to the podcast for. Bonus: you’ll learn which recording platform I picked too.

And visit shellypalmer.com for his very robust list of resources for your own WFH tech set up. Whether or not it involves a podcast.

I think you’ll get her tone from this quote: “How do we first and foremost create the kinds of experiences that people expect now across the industry? Just the simplicity, the seamlessness, but also the humanity with which you show up as a brand and a business.”