222 – Babba Rivera of BY BABBA – Knowing the Why

Brand marketing strategy... Babba (Canales) Rivera, Founder of BY BABBA (a brand marketing agency) joins - Pavan Bahl and special guest co-host Brianne Kimmel, GTM (Growth, Marketing Strategy, Audience & Industry) at Zendesk in front of a live audience at Sennheiser’s new San Francisco retail store at 278 Post Street. MouthMedia Network is powered by Sennheiser, The Future of Audio. In this episode: Rivera discusses her work with Uber and Away Luggage, as founder of the agency BY BABBA, a next-gen brand marketing agency, and about her new last name (personal brand) shared with her new husband How until recently marketing was focused on branding and product marketing, and the rise of performance marketing, particularly direct-to-consumer for tangible and digital brands The focus for brands on talking about their brand story of amazing company-building, hiring and treating employees well The balance between performance and brand marketing, how they should be separate budgets and efforts How marketing of features is not ideal as they are easy to copy, but the brand story is beyond functionality, brand is personality, and the impact of knowing the why No one-size-fits-all in marketing strategy Some brands rely on hitting functionality, and other brands (such as in fashion) have a lot of creative resources and talent within and have more competition What does performance marketing mean? Engaging with customers, asking questions, user-generated content that aligns with the message one is trying to achieve How big brands are doing it right, such as a lot of big brands are building innovation teams and incubators and accelerators Launching Uber (Black) in Sweden, and how they didn’t have focus on brand Brand plus performance marketing, user acquisition, easy to get traffic Early days for tech companies are all about hyper growth at expense of brand, Facebook vs. Instagram The early stage of Uber, looking at how the unfair advantage was private driver experience, built early adopters via first ride for free, and then later focusing on it being the same price as a taxi The number of collaborations with Away Luggage, choosing a direction with brand partnerships, especially with physical products, by leveraging more established brands Looking at how brands can benefit from Rivera’s toolkit, giving back to brand on a personal note offering intros to help solve problems, and how this has created friends in fashion industry as a result Strategies on starting a meeting with a specific result in mind, getting curious about high- level thoughts on things the other parties are doing Adding tech to help with storytelling and amplifying presence with Rag and Bone at a very integral moment Fashion Week: most people really excited are not invited, wanting to change that led to providing access to the Rag and Bone show to anyone without being an insider, with the goal being impressions and being a part of the conversation Understanding overall brand impressions and sentiment are important, tools understanding sarcasm, People need to engage with brands when they want, on the channel they want. When a startup feels traction, what kinds of systems to put in place for performance marketing to make decisions in a fluid way How a brand can look at quantifying customer interactions How in-store environment is shaping ecommerce, how both ends drive each other, and a validation point is to not underestimate how emotionally driven consumers are with something looking like a real store Micro vs. macro influencers, and where relationships fit into marketing, and deeper connections with female founders And how most desired clients are Millennial-centric direct to consumer brands