STRATEGIES

July: The fancy AC unit you can’t get till next July

Here’s a brain teaser for you: You’re one of two employees at a brand that sells DTC air conditioners. The brand has 35,000 people on its waitlist for the units + can’t mail any of them until 2022. Oh, and also, 10% of your company’s yearly budget goes toward marketing and branding, and you’re in charge of spending it. 

That’s where July’s Head of Brand, Emily Simmons, finds herself today. 

• July is a DTC brand that transformed a pretty ugly product—AC units—into something a little more sleek and minimalist. 
• The company also claims they’re easier to install than competitors’, not to mention wi-fi-enabled.
• July’s product went beta in 2020. Since then, Simmons told Marketing Brew, July has grown its customer base fivefold, though she declined to share exact numbers. She told us “thousands” of July units are out in the wild, but right now, most people can only reserve one with a $50 deposit or sign up for its waitlist. 

While much of her role involves marketing a product that most people can’t get their hands on for months, July’s advertising strategy is largely focused on building excitement and awareness for the brand + encouraging customers to reserve a unit.

Simmons said July uses paid media to target two types of potential customers: those who are actually in the market for a new AC unit, and people the brand predicts might be interested in July’s aesthetic.

• July uses search terms and SEO to target people actively looking for new AC units in large cities, like NYC and Chicago, because they often have older buildings where central air conditioning is less common. 
• July also uses paid Instagram and Facebook ads to target design-oriented folks who might be willing to swap out their old AC unit for a new one. 

The social part: “About 50% of our users are those who already have an AC, but are so design-driven they're willing to upgrade,” she said. That means building lookalike audiences and targeting people who’ve shown an interest in brands that its customers also buy: think subscription fashion services like Rent the Runway or Scandinavian furniture brands.

“When we think of who the persona [for July] is, we ask, ‘What else are they shopping for?’ Are they buying Recess drinks? What are the other overlaps that we can state and set up so that we have our audience all carved out?” Simmons explained. 

So why market a product that you can’t deliver for a year? In Simmons’ words, it’s because each action a user takes as a result of July’s marketing moves them one step closer to conversion, or spending $50 to book a unit in advance. For example, “every five emails we collect become two checked-out customers,” she told us.

+1: Simmons said the majority of July’s marketing strategy—about 60 to 70 percent—is made up of organic efforts. 

Click here to read more about July’s organic marketing strategies.—PB

TV

Nielsen pauses accreditation

Accreditation? Never heard of her. That’s per Nielsen, which announced yesterday that it’s taking a “hiatus” from the Media Rating Council’s stamp of approval. 

Essentially, Nielsen will continue sharing its TV ratings—which broadcasters rely on—without the backing of the Media Rating Council (MRC), an org that audits media measurement companies and legitimizes their numbers.

Flashback: Nielsen’s decision is what Variety called an “eyebrow-raising maneuver” in an ongoing tit for tat between the ratings firm and broadcasters.

Ahead of upfronts, the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), a broadcast trade group representing the likes of NBC, CBS, and Disney, claimed the data Nielsen collected during the pandemic was bunk and TV viewership was undercounted.

• Nielsen later said it did in fact undercount audiences, blaming Covid-related issues.
• Last month, the VAB asked the MRC to kill Nielsen’s accreditation. 

The MRC had planned to vote on the matter yesterday, per The Wall Street Journal. But as VAB President and CEO Sean Cunningham said in a statement, “Nielsen has essentially announced ‘you can’t fire me, I quit.’”

Zoom out: Nielsen ratings are the currency traditional TV buys are based on. That probably won’t change anytime in the near term. But the willful loss of accreditation is one fewer gold star for the ratings giant.—RB

SPONSORED BY KLAVIYO

A Platform That Performs

GhostBed sells mattresses to help customers get a better, comfier night’s sleep. They were doing well, but as word of their comfiness helped them grow to new heights, they needed a marketing automation platform to help with that whole "scaling” thing.

Enter Klaviyo. With Klaviyo’s streamlined platform for email and SMS marketing, GhostBed was able to deliver a great customer experience and stay on top of their growth.

With Klaviyo, you can sleep soundly even without a GhostBed because all your marketing data is in one place. Not only that, but you can also seamlessly combine multichannel campaigns in whatever way is most effective. 

GhostBed is certainly resting easy—during the first two weeks of using Klaviyo, they earned $44,105 with an SMS welcome series. And since then, that series has driven an ROI of over 200x. 

Take a closer look at how GhostBed grew with Klaviyo.

MARKETING

Fun fun fun

There is good in this world. And there is humor in marketing, believe it or not. Or at least people making fun of the industry. On this muggy Friday afternoon, we highlight some of the more lighthearted news bits we’ve come across this week. 

Watch: This satirical, eight-minute film imagines a call between a director and creative as they brainstorm ideas for a commercial for “a collaboration between chicken nuggets and Bluetooth speakers.” Their call is...just about as ridiculous as the collab in question. 

• “There are some incredible agencies and directors pushing the envelope and who aren’t scared to shake things up,” director Eno Freedman Brodmann, who wrote and directed the film, told Ad Age. “Yet, after being on so many calls back-to-back and hearing the tornado of buzzwords and smoke, I was left with the idea for this film.”

Learn: Don’t know what PPC means? No one does! At least that’s the insight behind AdLingo, an online dictionary from junior creatives at FCB Inferno. It will break down 100+ industry-specific words and acronyms so you can sound smarter in meetings. 

• “Hopefully this is a fun way of debunking some of the impenetrable nonsense we sometimes speak,” Owen Lee, FCB Inferno’s chief creative officer, explained.

+1: Check out Stephen Colbert’s take on Elon Musk’s billboard in space, where the creature from the 1979 horror flick Alien sings the Kars4Kids jingle.—MS

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• The Trade Desk announced its Q2 earnings this week. Revenue is up 101% YoY, totaling $280 million. PubMatic and Integral Ad Science also saw healthy revenue leaps—88% and 55%, respectively.
• Publicis Groupe won Walmart’s US media account, previously managed by WPP’s Haworth.
• Dentsu updated its payment terms to 30 days (down from the standard 60–120 days) to help minority owned media businesses.
• Authentic Brands is buying Reebok from Adidas for $2.5 billion.

SPONSORED BY VALASSIS, A VERICAST BUSINESS

You’re in the people business. Regardless of what you’re selling or what you’re inventing, your business has to connect with people to succeed. And if you’re scratching your head about how to do that, you need to read the new report from Valassis, a Vericast business, titled The Cautious Return to a New Normal. In it, you’ll learn how to meet people where they are, how to create meaningful experiences, and how to deliver real value. Get the guide from Valassis here. 

FRENCH PRESS

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren't those.

Google: You can have 10 little tried-and-tested Google Ads copy tips, as a treat. 

Le ’gram: These 35 hacks are specifically for Instagram marketers. 

SEO: Check out this infographic from Google that compares search trends from 2006 to today. Fun fact: Project Runway was the most-searched TV show in ’06.

Deep dive: Which consumer shopping habits have endured through the pandemic, and which have changed? That kind of data is essential to the growth of your biz. Get all the insights here in Morning Consult’s latest deep dive into consumer trust.*

ICYMI

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• As the Great Resignation continues, agencies lose workers to brands
• Google announces changes to protect child privacy online
• Why Sephora sponsored The Cut’s beauty section

AD TECH COMPANY OR PASTA SHAPE?

There are a lot of questionably named companies in the murky marketing universe. So here’s a game: Two of these are real ad tech companies. Three are pasta shapes. Can you find them? Keep scrolling for answers.

1. Ditalini
2. Ogury
3. Rotelle
4. Bombora
5. Radiatori

AD TECH COMPANY OR PASTA SHAPE ANSWERS

This was harder than we thought. Though they sound delicious, Bombora and Ogury are not, in fact, pasta noodles. And now we’re starving.