Leaders Perception Magazine is currently running an interview series called – Navigating the Dynamic Seas of Modern Marketing & Branding
Today, we had the opportunity to interview Victoria – Marketing expert @ Marketing and sales expert.
Welcome to today’s interview! We are thrilled to have Victoria Yu, a marketing and sales expert from Makingthatsale.com, joining us. Victoria is an on-ground marketing and branding expert with a passion for analyzing business strategies. She holds a BA in Business Administration with a focus on marketing from the Paul Merage School of Business. Victoria has been working as a business writer, providing informative guides to help new business owners develop their marketing and sales strategies.
In our conversation, Victoria shares her insights on the most significant shift she has observed in the marketing and branding landscape over the past year. She refers to it as “brand singularity,” where marketing content from different companies becomes indistinguishable. Victoria discusses the causes of this trend, including the rise of AI-generated content for big businesses and the homogeneity of marketing aesthetics for small businesses.
She also provides valuable advice on how businesses can adapt to this shift. For big businesses, Victoria suggests leveraging AI as a tool to enhance content creators rather than replacing them. By focusing on a brand’s unique values, missions, and artists, companies can develop authentic and compelling content that sets them apart. For small businesses, she recommends exploring video-form advertisements and incorporating contextual and aesthetic richness to differentiate their promotions.
Furthermore, Victoria addresses the challenge of balancing data and analytics with the creative aspects of marketing and branding in the era of data-driven marketing. She emphasizes the importance of understanding that good marketing content takes time, money, and understanding to produce, and that AI cannot replace the creative process. Instead, she advocates for using data to make smarter decisions about creative marketing efforts and directing creative talent towards producing the most appealing content to consumers.
Stay tuned for an insightful conversation with Victoria Yu as she shares her expertise on navigating the evolving marketing and branding landscape.
Interviewee Name: Victoria
Company: Marketing and sales expert
Victoria’s favourite quote: “I only exist within the warmth of your gaze.” — Ken, from the Barbie movie (2023). Now that was an on-brand masterpiece!
The Interview
Thank you so much for joining us today! Tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your backstory?
Victoria : Hello! Thank you so much for having me here today. I’m Victoria Yu, an on-ground marketing and branding expert who loves analyzing the business strategies of the companies around me.
I graduated from the Paul Merage School of Business with a BA in Business Administration and an emphasis in marketing. Since then, I’ve been working as a business writer for Makingthatsale.com, writing informative guides to help new business owners gain their footing and develop their first marketing and sales strategies.
What’s the most significant shift you’ve observed in the marketing and branding landscape in the last year, and how should businesses adapt to it?
Victoria : In the past year, the largest shift I’ve seen for both big businesses and small is a trend towards what I like to call brand singularity. In other words, marketing content from different companies are becoming indistinguishable from one another.
For big businesses, the cause is obvious: AI-generated marketing content. Though it’s true that AI-generated content is fast and easy for marketers to produce, it has a tendency to lack depth, substance, and finer detail that makes it comprehensive and appealing – the “soullessness” people mention when it comes to AI. Plus, with all brands using the same AI sources and producing the same style of content, it decreases the unique brand identity of each company.
However, even small, home-run businesses are falling into the brand singularity trend. When I see promotions for small businesses selling charms, plushies, and clothes on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, I have the same problems identifying the brand because their marketing aesthetics are too similar – they all use the same color palettes, themes, and photo composition. Though the art and design styles are distinguishable up close, their promotional compositions are not. This leads to the same issue of branding singularity that big businesses face, even without AI.
Now, how to solve this issue?
For big businesses with in-house marketers, the solution is simple: use AI as a tool to uplift your content creators rather than replace them. By leveraging the business’s unique values, missions, and artists, a brand can home in on its unique selling proposition and develop true pieces of art that contribute to its brand authenticity.
For small businesses marketing through social media, I’d actually recommend switching to video-form advertisements rather than staying stagnant with images. Especially with models for clothing brands! Though you might not think that backgrounds matter, they add a lot of contextual and aesthetic richness to your promotion, showing the consumer how the product might look in their own life. While any business can use the same font and color palette, it becomes much harder to copy someone’s room or yard, help build your brand identity. Home backgrounds also help viewers understand that they’re shopping from someone’s small, home-grown business.
Depending on your audience, you might even choose a completely anti-marketing advertising direction. The most memorable video ad I’ve seen in recent years was the official ad for a plushie from the popular game Deltarune. It looks and sounds like a fan-made video, and probably only cost $5 to make (the price the milk), but fans love it because it represents their own aggressively cuddly feelings towards the character.
From this, you can see that marketing doesn’t have to be expensive or professional-looking: all you need is to understand what your audience wants to see.
In the era of data-driven marketing, how do you balance the need for data and analytics with the creative aspects of marketing and branding?
Victoria : In the era of data-driven marketing, the hardest part for managers and marketers alike to reconcile is the fact that good, attention-grabbing marketing content takes time, money, and understanding to produce. There’s no way to cut corners about it, and no way to effectively mass-produce it with AI.
For example, did you know that though companies sent 50% more emails to potential customers during the Covid-19 shutdown, responses were 10% lower than pre-Covid levels? Though marketers might be excited to use generative AI and email automation to send more marketing emails than ever before, it’s obvious that marketing growth doesn’t follow a linear correlation.
Instead of trying to increase marketing results blindly through volume or cutting costs by letting go of creators, businesses can use data to make smarter decisions about their creative marketing and branding efforts. By using lead tracking technology to identify which types of ads produce the most ROI, businesses can direct their creative talent to produce more of the most appealing content to consumers. By using data to guide creativity, a business can market smarter, not harder.
Leaders Perception would like to thank Victoria and Marketing and sales expert for the time dedicated to completing this interview and sharing their valuable insights with our readers!
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