Enhancing your media strategy with creator collaborations
Vaideeswaran and Law next discussed the power of partnerships, including Shaq’s role as an ambassador for Papa Johns. “He’s also an investor. He’s a franchisee. He’s got his own pizza, the Shaq-a-Roni, that is on our menu and that is a beloved favorite,” explained Vaideeswaran. “The more we can integrate him, his voice, his humor, and his style into our work, that’s when we’ve actually seen the biggest success.”
Papa Johns plans to replicate that model with new partners—and they don’t necessarily need Shaq-level star power. “Depending on the moment, the consumer you’re targeting, and the relevancy of the product, you actually have the opportunity to look at both creators and celebrities in kind of the same vein,” Vaideeswaran said.
Just be sure the partnerships make sense for your brand and your audience, added Law. “Authenticity becomes of utmost importance. When you think about the creators who you work with, are they truly part of the brand story, the brand message, or do they just resonate with the consumer base? You have to find that right balance between the two,” he said.
One question to ask: Are they fans of the brand already? If so, you’ll have a bigger chance of success.
Serving up customized creative
Driving growth in the future of media requires new strategies. “You might start to have multiple versions of creative for the same product that each have a little bit of a different message and/or positioning to make sure that you’re targeted to the right consumer,” said Vaideeswaran. “It’s a pretty big change for us to start thinking about moving away from having one ad that’s out there to now having multiple messages, but all towards the same goal.”
Following that theme, each leader chose one word to sum up the future of media to close out the session. Vaideeswaran chose “attention.” “It’s going to get harder and harder to get people’s attention, and that’s going to require us to be even more relevant with our creative and our messaging,” he said.
For Law, it was “change.” “I think that there’s just going to be an inordinate amount of change, and we have to be ready to take that on.”