Teresa Shiang, Senior Director of Strategy at Ogilvy, leads the Social team in New York; a team of social strategy, content, performance and data & analytics experts in the social space. Having been one of the first team members of Social@Ogilvy, she has cutting edge knowledge and experience with leveraging social media for engaging brand experiences.
In what ways are you leveraging new platforms and technologies to engage and resonate with the digital-native nature of Generation Z and younger consumers? Further, what channels and formats are you prioritizing and how are you adapting your content for these platforms?
When I think about the social strategies we were planning 4-5 years ago, I would see the same handful of platforms being put forward for our clients – with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn at the core of most social plans. In the last couple years, we’ve seen a big shift in the expansion of social platforms being considered by our clients and a splintering of audiences choosing to spend their time on newer platforms where they can find communities of likeminded people.
We’re also starting to find that the best brands and campaigns leverage their understanding of their consumers to build more niche and personalized experiences. Every year, we’re only seeing more and more brands move away from marketing to the mean and instead, doing a lot of audience research and trend-spotting to understand the inherent behaviors of certain consumer sets. The more niche, the better!
So, as we’re putting plans together for our clients, we’re looking beyond the usual “bread and butter channels” to build unique experiences on platforms like TikTok, Twitch, Discord and Whatsapp that also stay true to the overarching campaign concept and goals. We also find that audiences exhibit completely different behaviors depending on where they are, so we look to build unique experiences and campaigns for the same client on each platform.
How are you tailoring your messaging to align with the values and interests of modern consumers, and how does this differ from your approach with previous generations?
In our social team at Ogilvy, we constantly talk about how the modern consumer’s “BS meter” continues to grow and how they are truly holding brands accountable to walk the walk. It’s becoming more critical for us to work with our clients to identify what brand values and beliefs they can fully pay off on and then map how this can show up in the social media space.
And beyond that, since we’re helping our clients meet their audiences where they are in these niche spaces where they spend their time, we have to help our clients adopt the conversation styles and language codes that feel most natural on each platform. This can show up beyond just the literal verbal tone of voice but also how they are showing up visually and auditorily on each channel.
What role does culture, sustainability and social responsibility play in your brand's communications strategy for engaging with younger demographics?
One thing we always look to do for each of our clients is to take their overarching brand positioning and values around culture, sustainability and social responsibility and build social messaging and proof points, so that we can use social media as a regular consumer touchpoint – to show consumer stories, partnerships and brand acts that demonstrate how they are living these values every day.
However, it is not enough for brands to hit on these as messaging points; they must infuse these beliefs into everything they do, be it social campaigns and evergreen content, the types of influencers they work with and the types of partnerships and brand acts they are planning.
In what ways are do you utilize user-generated content and interactive experiences to connect with younger consumers on a more personal level?
For most of our clients, including Samsung’s Monitors Business, which is geared towards a gaming audience, we continue to find that UGC is one of the best-performing types of content. This pushed us to consider our social content strategy in how we’re partnering with the biggest brand advocates to work and reward them as creators to produce content for the brand, in additional to agency-created assets.
We’re also seeing a growth in popularity of interactive experiences on newer channels. In the last couple of years, we have launched campaigns and communities on channels like Minecraft and Discord. On Minecraft, the Ogilvy social team created a gaming experience for Merck, where Gen A and their parents could learn about the periodic table of elements. Our team also runs a very active Discord channel for vitaminwater, providing a space for younger consumers to interact with the brand and conduct surprise and delight opportunities.
'Periodic Odyssey' Merck | Ogilvy
'Periodic Odyssey' case study
Can you share any examples of successful campaigns or collaborations with young influencers, organizations, or platforms that have helped shape your brand's communication approach for Generation Z and beyond?
Like the examples I gave above, the biggest takeaways for successfully engaging Gen Z and emerging consumers that we have our eyes on are:
1. Expanding the channel mix to reach our clients’ key consumers by doing a deep dive on their behaviors, habits, interests and where they are spending their time and how they are doing so on each channel.
2. Adopt the right language codes, visual and audio elements for each channel. This should also come to life in the form of a strong UGC and creator strategy.
3. Use social as a key channel for brands to “walk the walk” to showcase their brand positioning and values around culture, sustainability, and social responsibility.