NDA’s Marketing the Marketers series talks to the marketing and comms leaders behind the success of our leading companies. Next up is Nick Crowe, Director of Marketing, EMEA at Vistar Media.
What exactly does your job entail?
My job involves really getting to grips with what the region needs from an industry presence and positioning point of view, as well as supporting general business growth. We’re enjoying huge momentum at the moment and it’s important to understand all of the regional opportunities (and risks!) from a marketing perspective.
It’s a new function / role for the business, so there’s lots to do both strategically and tactically. It’s the classic case of getting the top-down strategic view and putting solid plans and foundational processes in place, while also taking care of the operational day-to-day and ensuring that the logo is front of mind with our biggest audiences. Always a balance!
What campaign or piece of marketing/communications are you most proud of in your career and why?
A Domino’s case study I worked on a few years ago at GumGum. I’d joined GumGum via their acquisition of Playground XYZ, and they were just beginning to weave together their attention and context products.
The campaign was the first that applied both pieces of technologically in conjunction, so, when the salespeople on the account (shoutout Jess and Oliver) suggested the client might be ‘open to exploring an award entry’, I saw an opportunity to turn what could have been just another templated one-pager a cohesive, flagship proof of efficacy campaign; a vehicle on which this new ‘fusion’ of products could be more effectively marketed.
On the surface, that likely just seems like by-the-book marketing but, for whatever reason, I really had to push to give the project the bandwidth it required. It was one of those projects where I was almost told not to work on it – I certainly wasn’t told to work on it – but I just plugged away.
It was well over six months of work to formulate the project into its final approved state. The amount of stakeholders involved, plus the complexities of two businesses and their technologies coming together made it a slog at points. We managed to get an exclusive briefing with Digiday, with representatives from both Domino’s and their media agency (Havas) joining, leading to a dedicated piece of coverage.
It won awards, got great press coverage more widely, and we amplified it with a range of content. GumGum ended up using it as their flagship case study for a good while afterwards. It was a huge piece of work that proved what was possible and delivered tangible business benefits.
What is the biggest challenge in your sector and how is your company helping to address it?
As with any rapidly growing sector, challenges are aplenty and the industry has been quick to identify and begin addressing them. The biggest, in my opinion, is that whilst programmatic out-of-home (OOH) has effectively ‘democratised’ the channel, it remains relatively complex in many ways.
Specs, restrictions, let alone the myriad screen sizes…it can all be overwhelming and make OOH still feel inaccessible. In the short term, it rests on the agencies and tech providers, like Vistar, to educate our clients and guide them through the process. In the long term, I think we need to look to a greater degree of standardisation across the industry. That’s a conversation that’s picking up steam, driven predominantly by the media owners.
Vistar Media is the home of out-of-home, so we’re working to facilitate the growth of this fantastic channel alongside our partners on all sides. On the demand side, we’re ensuring any brand can easily use this massively impactful canvas via our technology. On the supply side, we’re giving media owners, and others, the tools to more readily make digital OOH available so their addressable audience becomes much bigger, beyond just media agencies or clients.
What is the biggest opportunity in your sector and how is your company helping to make the most of it?
The big opportunity is that OOH is now, essentially, available to anyone who wants to use it, so the winners will be those that facilitate that demand. In my opinion, OOH is the most impactful and romantic medium in advertising. It’s romantic because whenever you see ads shared on social, by celebrities or us regular folk, nine out of ten examples are OOH.
You don’t stop and take a photo of someone else’s phone when there’s an ad on it, but you do with these huge outdoor billboards.
You often see people filming really creative executions and 3D video ads too, it’s that sense of being in the moment and in a specific environment. Iconic placements like Times Square and Piccadilly Circus have that romanticism. The environment and context have both tangible and intangible qualities that help OOH stand apart from other channels.
Big companies often send their teams out to watch their ad play for the first time. There’s a certain sense of camaraderie and pride to seeing your execution or your business / project showcased on a huge outdoor screen viewed by thousands of people.
How important, and why, are the following in helping you promote your company: The press, Events, Your company’s owned media
The press: It’s incredibly valuable. Some companies don’t believe they need to be in the press and see it as hard work.
Having those relationships and regularly being mentioned, even when it’s not a story about your company but your spokespeople commenting on trends, helps build that profile to show you know what you’re talking about. It’s not always a trackable metric, but it creates that aura of a company being credible, expert and experienced enough to be asked to comment.
Events: Events are huge, both from an owned and sponsored sense. Everyone knows after COVID the value of being face-to-face with your audience – whether peers, clients or prospects – can’t be underestimated. Yes, our business operates digitally, but having those face-to-face opportunities to showcase what you do in a physical sense is hugely valuable.
Your company’s owned media: We’re in advertising and technology, if we didn’t believe in our own media, if we didn’t use it or believe in our own environment and industry, what would be the point?
Ultimately, I think there should be a mix of everything. I believe in solid brand marketing where your brand is presented consistently, regularly and to a high level, in as many spheres as possible. This builds the reputation and presence of ‘we know what we’re talking about.’
Everyone in the Vistar Media marketing team does a fantastic job of leveraging all of these channels to generate the best possible impact and build a strong presence for the company.
