THE STOPS THAT
MADE ME ME
DIRECTOR MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
2023
Pallas Kliniken, Switzerland
#TEAMLEAD #STRATEGY #MARKETINGBUDGET
TEAM LEAD
SOCIAL MEDIA
2020
Swatch, Switzerland
#TEAMLEAD #SOCIAL #CONTENT #INFLUENCER #JOURNEYS
HEAD OF DIGITAL MARKETING
2017-2018
Villiger Cigars, Switzerland
#BRANFACELIFT #RELAUNCH #SEOSTRATEGY #CONTENT #INSIGHTS
COMMUNITY MANAGER
2013-2016
DemoSCOPE, Switzerland
#COMMUNITY #EMAIL #UX
#INSIGHTS #BRANDING
Article on UX impact on conversion
TEAM LEAD COMMUNITY MGMT.
2008-2011
All Global (Kantar Health), UK
INDEPENDENT ENTREPRENEUR
2024
Pink Buffalo Studios, International
Offering counsel in the areas of creative marketing and digital strategy through access to independent experts.
HEAD OF DIGITAL
2020 - 2022
Weber Shandwick (IPG), Switzerland
Connecting the dots between digital PR
and marketing for a variety of brands
and across industries. Designing journeys that build meaningful brand experience.
HEAD OF DIGITAL MARKETING
2019-2020
Carl F. Bucherer, Switzerland
#TEAMLEAD #CONTENT #SOCIAL #UX #WEB #FILMING #PERFORMANCE
CREATIVE FREELANCER
2016-2017
Jazz It Up, Switzerland
#STORYTELLING #GRAPHICDESIGN #BRANDING #CONTENT
ACCOUNT MANAGER
2012-2013
Vision Critical, UK
#CREATIVE #BRANDING #INSIGHTS #CONTENT #EMAIL #B2C
#B2B #COMMUNITY #CRM #EMAIL
#UX #USERPROFILING
LATEST NEWS +
OWN OBSERVATIONS
How a French retailer tells us to be normal and I refuse to do that
Celio, the leading men’s ready-to-wear retailer in France for 30 years, has been on a path of recovery and protecting its 8% market share by embracing what started as a campaign slogan and ended up at the core of a reinvented brand identity. In an effort to appeal to their broad clientele, they designed the new motto 'Be Normal' to be said in one breath alongside their brand name. It is a brave move considering the possible interpretations of that phrase. While it's admirable to recognise the average Joe (or should I say Jean?) by appealing to his everyday lifestyle and needs, it's something quite different to encourage or expect of your customers that they 'be normal' or 'act normal'. They surely also do not need reminding of the category they may fall under in internal marketing meetings on audience segmentation.
The damage is not as much in what Celio says trying to explain their brand statement (you could ask yourself if a good motto would even require that) as much as it is in the unsaid, in what is implied by 'Be Normal'. It seems to me the brand has forgotten the first rule of branding, customer engagement and, quite frankly, the power of words - if you express a personality and emotion, you will get the same in return. How would you feel if a person you met on the street told you to be or act normal? I know I wouldn't feel great hearing that. My first question would be 'Why? What's wrong with me?' or 'Am I not being normal?' or 'Why is normal so great? Do you want me to settle for average or socially accepted?'. Let's face it, there is a lot wrong with the emotional load of such phrase. In an era of encouragement, unlocking potential and finding the good in the person next to you despite any superficial divisions, Celio finds itself in a bubble of what I can only hope to be a linguistic mishap.
Ironically, Celio's very own brand values and vision provide better wording than a blunt call to remain 'normal'. Interestingly, the most common adjective found on their brand site is actually 'Proud'. Often used in the context of 'Everyday Life' it already forms a better brief for a less alienating slogan. Instead of asking their customers to be 'normal' - which in English language can be a synonym for typical, average, traditional or orderly, Celio's PR team would do a better job entertaining phrases like 'Be Your Everyday Self', 'Proudly Yourself' or 'You Do You'.
On verra, as the French say.
Trying times welding together PR with digital
The pandemic saw marketing budgets plummet in both 2020 and 2021, reaching their lowest level in the history of Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey. At the same time, digital advertising spending continued to grow significantly. Between the two dynamics, PR budgets would often get the bigger blow, the extent of which tends to be in inverse proportion to the digitalisation of a brand's PR efforts. The more digital channels are incorporated in PR tactics, the bigger role they play in starting a customer journey online, the more likely it is to survive cuts and benefit from a broader digital spend.
Over the past year, I have spent a fair amount of time putting typical PR tactics on the path of customer journeys and, by doing so, watching PR and marketing teams come together to build a whole brand experience.
Gymshark is opening its first flagship store
Gymshark, one of the online world’s biggest fitness apparel brands, is often brought as an example of a perfect online-only marketing model that saw the business expand into 180 countries and turn over hundreds of millions of dollars in a single year. A business that virtually breathes social media and influencer marketing is now looking for a more tangible experience. Gymshark's chief brand officer Noel Mack named a few reasons as to why opening a flagship store in Regent Street, London, makes sense in his eyes: physcial is more tangible, not everyone is completely okay with shopping online and it would instil trust walking down the street and seeing Gymshark neighbour the likes of Apple and Burberry. Bricks and mortar is the only thing they want to have in common with those brands though. The store will be designed to be an 'experiential' space rather than focus on selling products.
Augment your data with AI-based solutions
AI and machine learning can be found in every step of the customer journey. We see them help us reach audiences through programmatic, content curation or voice search. They help us target, retarget and talk to customers (chatbots). In a time of users’ growing concerns about data protection, digital publishers and brands can use artificial intelligence to helpe balance their moentisation strategies and users' expectations of a personalised experience with the impact certain industry changes had on data management (i.e. GDPR, Google's 3rd-party cookies announcement). AI solutions allow to leverage first- and zero-party customer data to facilitate real-time targeting even in a cookie-free environment. It also offers so called data clean rooms aggregating seed data from the advertiser with the publisher's data.
Looking for uniqueness in B2B branding
Research shows that nearly 6 in 10 buyers are unable to identify the brand that’s being advertised making incorrectly attributed ads a source of waste in B2B marketing. Looking for distinctive brand assets to build memorable experiences in a long-time marketing strategy is in line with the findings and recommendations of the go-to platform for B2B audiences, LinkedIn. To-the-point messaging in short-term campaigns would still be the preferred choice. While they still fit in the bottom of the funnel, the really effective B2B marketing will come from creative and emotional ads driving recall. Similarly to what you would normally expect from consumer brands, memorable B2B campaigns will, too, be driven by storytelling, characters, and memory-building creative devices. As such, they will help build an audience and not just continue to convert the same customers.
WORK WORTH BRAGGING ABOUT
#RELAUNCH #SEO #CREATIVE #INSIGHTS
Digital makeover for a traditional
cigar brand
For a Swiss cigar maker, I have managed the biggest website relaunch and facelift the brand had ever undergone. Starting with market and user research, developing a new narrative and SEO-driven content strategy, new visual world, coupled with replatforming and a CRM system rollout.
#B2BMARKETING #CREATIVE #VIDEO #USERJOURNEY
Creative story to captivate engineers
A unique way to keep a leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment relevant and top of mind amogst the quarrying workforce. A creative short film series designed to build audiences and generate business opportunities.
#CONSUMERRESEARCH #UX #PRODUCTMKTG #CREATIVE
Switzerland's first Christmas consumer study
Who hasn't seen shoppers behaviour reports ahead of Christmas? Consumer and market analysis during holiday shopping season were lacking a comprehensive approach in Switzerland. I have initiated and launched the Swiss Christmas Study adding a new product to the research agency's portfolio.
