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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

In marketing, everything must work seamlessly or efficiency, speed and ROI all suffer. That's why Quad is obsessed with making sure your marketing machine runs smoothly with less friction and smarter integration. Better marketing is built on Quad. See how better gets done at quad.com/buildbetter.

(00:23):

Hey, gang, it's Monday, July 28th. Jeremy, Heidi, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Video Podcast, made possible by Quad. I'm Marcus, and today I'm joined by two people. Let's meet and we start with our Senior Director of Briefings. He lives in New York. We call him Jeremy Goldman.

Jeremy Goldman (00:38):

Hello Marcus, and Happy National Milk Chocolate Day.

Marcus Johnson (00:42):

Should have known this was coming, Heidi. Every time Jeremy's on, he surprises us with these non-holidays.

Jeremy Goldman (00:47):

It's real.

Heidi Waldusky (00:49):

I love it.

Jeremy Goldman (00:49):

Google it.

Marcus Johnson (00:49):

How are you spending your free time? What's it called? Chocolate Milk Day?

Jeremy Goldman (00:53):

Milk Chocolate Day.

Marcus Johnson (00:55):

Oh, okay. I'll take that. That's way better. But what kind though are we talking? Only Cadbury's is the right answer. Vice president of brand marketing at Quad is joining us, too. Living in New York as well. Heidi Waldusky. Welcome to the show.

Heidi Waldusky (01:08):

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (01:09):

Do you agree, Cadbury's? But not American Cadbury's?

Heidi Waldusky (01:12):

Yeah, I feel like Cadbury's is superior. Am I allowed to say that? But I feel like we can't forget a Hershey's.

Marcus Johnson (01:20):

English Cadbury's.

Heidi Waldusky (01:21):

You know what I mean?

Marcus Johnson (01:21):

Oh, Heidi.

Jeremy Goldman (01:21):

I'm sorry, but it's there.

Heidi Waldusky (01:22):

English Cadbury's is really great. Those eclairs are to die for.

Marcus Johnson (01:26):

We'll played, Jeremy. Heidi. That's okay. We'll try to pick it up from here. To get to know Heidi a bit better, we have our speed intro first, of course.

(01:39):

This is where we get to know our guests, our external guests a little better, and our internal guests a little better as well. Two questions. First one is just for Heidi. Heidi, what do you do in a sentence?

Heidi Waldusky (01:49):

Ooh, that's a good one. I help people fall in love with Quad. That's what I do.

Marcus Johnson (01:50):

That is good. I want to do that. I have to host the podcast. All right.

Heidi Waldusky (01:50):

It'll happen. It'll come.

Marcus Johnson (01:52):

It's probably better that I don't help people fall in love with Quad 'cause I don't know what Quad does as well as you do. So do you want to explain to folks what Quad does.

Heidi Waldusky (02:07):

You help people fall in love with your podcast? It's the same-

Marcus Johnson (02:14):

I try.

Heidi Waldusky (02:15):

It's the same thing, Behind the Numbers. Quad solves really big gnarly problems for marketers and makes their lives easier.

Marcus Johnson (02:22):

Very nice. Second question for both of you. We'll start with Heidi. This is the real question. What are your top three favorite Disney films of all time? I asked this and then realized Disney can mean anything. I kind of meant cartoon.

Heidi Waldusky (02:35):

Okay, good. Because I was like, I don't even know if I'm really that familiar with whole Disney catalog, 'cause there's Pixar in there and there's DreamWorks.

Marcus Johnson (02:42):

Yeah. It could have gone anywhere. Yeah. We've got Avengers, Star Wars.

Heidi Waldusky (02:45):

Okay. Top three animated films. I think for me, I don't have kids and my nephews were more like Lego kids, right? But if I think about animated films, for me, it's sort of what I loved and grew up with. So I loved Aladdin when it came out. I thought that was so revolutionary with Robin Williams. I was like, "Oh my God.' Love Kung Fu Panda. I love that movie.

Marcus Johnson (03:07):

Oh, curveball.

Heidi Waldusky (03:09):

I've watched it 78 million times. I don't think that was Disney.

Jeremy Goldman (03:10):

58 million, that's a lot.

Heidi Waldusky (03:10):

But Kung Fu Panda is-

Marcus Johnson (03:10):

That's okay.

Jeremy Goldman (03:10):

I thought that was Dreamworks. Okay.

Heidi Waldusky (03:16):

I think but we can't just say Disney 'cause I don't know.

Jeremy Goldman (03:18):

Okay, that's fair.

Heidi Waldusky (03:19):

Also, Disney owns everything now, so we don't... And then I really loved The Incredibles. I thought all three of those represent a shift in what an animated movie means. And I thought The Incredibles was really just so amazing and brilliant.

Marcus Johnson (03:34):

I watched the first one with my sister and then I accidentally watched the second one without her, and she didn't talk to me for a year. That's half of a true story. Jeremy, what'd you have for us?

Jeremy Goldman (03:42):

Snow White. I agree with The Incredibles, but I think the best one was the animated, not the recent one, Lilo & Stitch. It's really good.

Marcus Johnson (03:51):

It's a good one. Okay.

Heidi Waldusky (03:52):

It's lovely.

Marcus Johnson (03:53):

I've got completely different ones. I went Toy Story.

Heidi Waldusky (03:56):

Oh, nice.

Marcus Johnson (03:57):

Robin Hood.

Heidi Waldusky (03:58):

Nice.

Marcus Johnson (03:58):

Tell me you've seen Robin-

Jeremy Goldman (03:59):

I don't think I've seen that one.

Marcus Johnson (03:59):

With the little fox. It's so good. And The Sword in the Stone.

Heidi Waldusky (04:03):

I love The Sword in the Stone.

Jeremy Goldman (04:06):

That's actually a pretty good one. I feel like it's underrated.

Marcus Johnson (04:08):

It's a solid list. Yeah.

Jeremy Goldman (04:09):

Deep cut.

Heidi Waldusky (04:10):

Classic.

Jeremy Goldman (04:10):

No pun intended.

Heidi Waldusky (04:11):

That is a deep cut.

Marcus Johnson (04:12):

Anyway, today's real topic, The Missing Link in Omnichannel: Authentic Brand Storytelling. So, we're talking about authentic brand storytelling. So we'll start with the question about that. Makes sense.

(04:28):

Heidi, what does authentic storytelling look like in practice? And I picked Disney, which, was it a lifetime of stories? Is their slogan. Didn't even mean to do that. Well played, Marcus. But yes, authentic storytelling, not the Disney version. What do you think that looks like in practice?

Heidi Waldusky (04:46):

I think that's a really important qualifier at the end of your question. In practice, I think we all know what authentic storytelling should look like when it comes to brands, like what's really true for your brand. But I think in practice, it's about how are you behaving?

(05:02):

I think storytelling isn't so literal. I think sometimes people think, "What's my campaign? Or it's my mission video or it's my manifesto, or it's literally the words that I write," but it's also how are you behaving as a brand, because that's what consumers are picking up on the most.

Marcus Johnson (05:18):

Yeah. I liked as well that we'd spoken before this episode, and one of the things that was mentioned was that you should tell the same story no matter where it shows up, and I think a lot of people forget that. Talk to us a bit about how important that piece is.

Heidi Waldusky (05:38):

That's an incredibly important piece. I think consumers have incredible BS detectors. So if you're not being consistent with your story in multiple places, then they're not going to believe you. That's inauthentic. When you think about people, what makes someone authentic, it's because they're true to who they are in most situations that you see them in.

(05:58):

The same thing as with brands. If you're showing up and you're telling me one thing and you're behaving another way, even if it's just a few times, it starts to erode that trust. People don't sort of believe in what you're doing. And brands, it happens all of the time, where consumers will start to call you out. They love it. It's actually one of their favorite hobbies, is to call out brands.

(06:21):

So, I think that consistency is incredibly important, and it's really important for brands to make sure they're asking themselves, "What does this look like and feel like every time I'm interacting with my consumer, no matter how small the interaction is?"

Jeremy Goldman (06:34):

And there's obviously there's data, 'cause EMARKETER, we love data that supports this, that shows obviously if you keep on investing in the exact same attributes, then consumers get attracted to you. It's just something that naturally, if you think about it, you go on a first date, which I do not do for the last 19 years. So basically you say, "I know who I am," and you puff out your chest and you're very confident, and that's charismatic. That's the kind of thing that you need to do as a brand if you want to attract attention.

Marcus Johnson (07:15):

I guess it also feels like if you're telling a different story in multiple places, they might as well just be different companies, completely different stories, because the consumers aren't going to make the connection by themselves.

Heidi Waldusky (07:30):

And that's not to say you can't customize the story based on the channel that you're appearing in. You also don't want to be boring. You want to be curious and imaginative and all of these things. So you want to be able to tailor that story. Otherwise, that's inauthentic as well. You're like, "Oh my God, they just keep saying the same thing over and over again."

(07:49):

So you want to make sure you're bringing different layers to your storytelling. But that's really important, is just the consistency. And I think we're seeing today brands who have perhaps taken a little bit of misstep, and you see what happens when they do that.

Marcus Johnson (08:06):

Yeah. Heidi, Quad takes the position that storytelling, I think I agreed, storytelling done right turns customers into a community, and brands need to design experiences that make people part of the story. Any best in class examples jump out to you? What does bringing customers in and making them part of the story look like?

Heidi Waldusky (08:30):

I think that means a couple of different things. I think there are brands who do that literally, brands who make actual customers and testimonials and all of those different things part of their brand. I think there's a lot of, Chick-fil-A comes to mind, it's the center of their campaigns where they're bringing people in and they're telling real stories.

Marcus Johnson (08:50):

That's a good one.

Heidi Waldusky (08:51):

I think YNAB is a brand that I personally love. It's a smaller budgeting tool, and customers are at the center of everything that they do. That whole brand is built around responding to customer queries. They have a great Facebook page, so the customers really feed the brand.

(09:06):

But I think it's also things like Dick's Sporting Goods with their new House of Sport retail experiences. They believe, "Oh hey, in order to buy sports equipment, you probably want to try it out and play with it first."

Marcus Johnson (09:21):

Novel idea. Yeah.

Heidi Waldusky (09:22):

So, they've taken that responsibility on as a retailer and as a brand to say, "You know what? We're just going to make this happen." And I think we all remember Dick's back at back in the olden days, that's not what that brand was. So I think today they're really taking that step to do that.

(09:38):

And I think Delta is also a great example. I'm a Delta Stan. We're in New York, and I think there's a reason why they just spent a cojillion dollars essentially rebuilding LaGuardia, because it is an important embrace of bringing those customers in. It's that behavior of, "We're creating a really deep value exchange here. Thank you for being a customer. In return, here's all the things we're going to give you." And so you feel like you are part of that brand's story, even if it's not by literal testimonial.

Marcus Johnson (10:06):

It feels like a direct investment in the customers, especially that Delta One.

Heidi Waldusky (10:10):

Correct.

Jeremy Goldman (10:11):

By the way, those are great examples. And I think that to me, what I take from that is that there's so many different ways that you can do this. It's not like a, "You must do it in this exact way if you want to bring your customers in." There are plenty of brands also that, essentially from a social listening standpoint, and from a customer care standpoint, where they're constantly getting ideas and building those into the brand, and making people feel like, "That was my idea. Delta listened to me."

Heidi Waldusky (10:39):

Yes.

Jeremy Goldman (10:40):

And then you have a sense of investment on a personal level with that brand's success.

Heidi Waldusky (10:46):

Exactly. I've been thinking a lot about Nike lately. So Nike ran its first Superbowl commercial in, I don't know, 25 plus years earlier of this year. And I thought what was really interesting is the CMO came out and was talking to a lot of the trade pubs about, part of the reason that they did that, it was because they had gotten away from their brand storytelling, and it was showing in the stock price, it was showing in business performance. They sort of over indexed on performance marketing.

(11:12):

And she gave this a great quote, I think it was to Fast Company, which is like, "I want people to remember that we're in support of athletes, not just algorithms," which I thought was really key of when you... Because I guarantee you they were probably like, "We're Nike, we've spent decades building this brand. What's the deal? We can go a whole hog on digital marketing and performance marketing," but when you don't take the time to keep your foot on the gas a little bit, people became disconnected from the Nike story, sales start to suffer. And so now, they're getting back to their brand origins, which is a really interesting [inaudible 00:11:47].

Jeremy Goldman (11:47):

Marcus, I actually think that, curious what you think, but I think that this is a very important to happen at a time where we're talking during earnings season, and a lot of the results of tariffs and uncertainty are kind of coming in.

(12:00):

And I think there are a lot of people and agencies and brands I've spoken to who are maybe over indexing too much in performance and cutting some other things that are going to come back to bite them in the long term. So this is an important message, especially at a point in time like this.

Marcus Johnson (12:17):

Yeah. Yeah, you can't assume that people are just going to stick around because they have before. You've got to keep watering the plants. And I think about that with people who listen to the show. Just because you have a few people who start to listen to the show, doesn't mean you might not have some people who stop listening to the show.

(12:32):

And so it's always a net-net. How many customers did you keep and did you add? How many people are still listening and new listeners did you get? And I think that sometimes people forget that you have to make sure that people are reminded, especially today, reminded of what you stand for and your brand messaging.

Jeremy Goldman (12:54):

We need an omnichannel campaign for the podcast, Marcus. If Stuart, who leads the team is listening, I really think print out of home, the whole shebang. I'm pretty sure it works.

Heidi Waldusky (13:10):

I think it does, too.

Marcus Johnson (13:12):

Yeah, as long as it's not my face on a billboard. Although, our marketing budget, I've been told that our next event, which I will be at in September, The Future of Digital: 2026 and Beyond, I'll be there, and I was told that I have to wear a sandwich board. I kind of want to wear one, but I will be there walking around with a sandwich board, so if you see me come say hi.

(13:35):

We're talking about authenticity, and that word was a word that has made an appearance multiple times in your new research that you've done with The Harris Poll. And it was brought up on a number of fronts, but one of them was looking at the level of authenticity between print versus digital. Heidi, what did you guys find?

Heidi Waldusky (14:08):

So, the researchers really intended to get a pulse on where consumers are at today in terms of their omnichannel experience. We didn't ask them that little question, "What do you think about omnichannel experience?" That's no fun. But in terms of how they want to connect with brands and what they feel is authentic, how they feel about digital specifically. And what we're finding is I think digital, it's a very 2D experience. I think consumers know that it's a necessary part of their lives. I think we all agree it is a functional mandate. It has changed the way we live and communicate.

(14:41):

But I think what we're finding is, it's also there's something missing when it comes to digital in terms of this craving for in real life experiences. When we started asking specifically about different types of media, consumers started coming back and telling us, I think one of the great stats in there is 71% of the people surveyed feel that print is more authentic in terms of being able to connect with a brand than digital is.

(15:06):

We're not necessarily saying, "Do you hate digital?" That wasn't really the point, but it was about, "How are you connecting with brands? What sparks that interest? And I think some really interesting words popped in that, just besides that, "Print helps me feel more authentically connected to a brand." There were a lot of words like, "The online shopping experience is missing some of the magic that an in-store shopping experience is missing." They talked about wanting to be surprised a little bit more by brands via mail and things like that. And I thought that those were two really interesting words, magic and surprise. And it goes back to that desire to be delighted.

Jeremy Goldman (15:43):

There was one piece of data, Marcus, by the way, that I saw from your research that I really liked and I thought was very interesting, interest in print media and tactile experiences in general. So for print magazines, for instance, adults, 48% to have an interest. But for Gen Z and millennials, it's 63%.

(16:01):

And you see this in a lot of the data, where younger consumers who are going to consume for longer because they will live longer, they care more about print. In part, I think, because of digital saturation. There's just so much digital you're like, "Ah, an out-of-home billboard or a print ad." It's just a nice refreshing change of pace, based off of the way that we live these days.

Heidi Waldusky (16:26):

Agreed. And I think what was interesting about that when we saw the younger generations starting to come through, because I think maybe part of our concern was like, this is just going to be a bunch of boomer nostalgia, being like, "I love my catalogs."

(16:38):

But I think when we saw those younger generations really coming through, what it says to us is this isn't about nostalgia because these younger generations simply don't have the experiences to want to go back to the way something was.

(16:51):

But what they're telling us is, "I have a real psychological need as a human being for tactile experiences. And wow, this is really additive to my experience when I'm out in a retail environment or when things are happening."

(17:04):

Just look at the Amazon toy catalog. People love that thing. Love that thing. People get mad that they don't get it. I don't get it. I get mad. But I think it just goes to show it's all part of it., And that's what consumers are clamoring for. They're asking for brands to give it to them.

Marcus Johnson (17:18):

Yeah, we thought just because it was an old medium that people wouldn't want it. We kind of consigned print to the dust beneath of history maybe a bit prematurely, just because something new and shiny came along, but it still works. And I was reading a piece by Heather Rose Artushin in Psychology Today, and she was talking more about books, but she was talking about books in the sense of print versus digital eBooks.

(17:43):

And she was saying, there some research, comprehension is six to eight times better with physical books than e-readers. And then she went on to explain why that might be. She was saying that print is experienced in the body. She was saying obviously you're turning the pages, which is something that people reference a lot with books and wanting to read print books versus e-books.

(18:03):

But she was saying, you're also carrying the book, you're highlighting your favorite passages. You're positioning your body in a certain way when you're reading. And also, research is saying when you're turning the pages, we create an index in the brain that maps what we read visually to a particular page. So you're helping with information retention.

Jeremy Goldman (18:19):

We were talking a little bit about this before we started recording. By the way, Marcus, I hope you were reading the actual print magazine and not the website.

Marcus Johnson (18:27):

Maybe.

Jeremy Goldman (18:27):

So not to embarrass you, but the other key thing about this is that, yeah, I have clients that tell me all the time that they actually print out the PDFs of articles and reports and then highlight them, because it is better for their retention. And this is a known human phenomenon, so it makes perfect sense.

Heidi Waldusky (18:46):

It is. It's sort of my new fascination. I go on YouTube and I watch videos of people writing in notebooks. It sounds more fun than I actually... Or it is more fun than it sounds. But there are people who are online, online, on YouTube teaching you how to really use analog note-taking to your benefit to retain more information, to learn better, to stay more organized. It's been super fascinating.

Marcus Johnson (19:12):

Yeah. There's also a social component to it, which he was talking about in the piece, saying that you're perusing the shelves in a bookstore, you're asking your local librarian for recommendations, you're passing along a copy of your favorite book to a friend's, and she was saying digital bypasses opportunities for connection, which I thought was interesting.

Heidi Waldusky (19:30):

Yeah, there's a curiosity to it I think that is really important. I think if you think of the way we used to digest marketing, it's like, "I'm watching TV because I'm being entertained, and oh my God, a commercial comes on, and isn't that delightful? But my phone, that screen is serving many different purposes." It's not just entertainment, it's also utility. It's real function. Everything is on that thing. "Can my brain really separate between the types of experiences I'm having in order to receive the right message?" And I think that's what physical offers, and the smell of books.

Marcus Johnson (20:03):

Oh, that's the best part. Speaking about the physical, you had a line said, "Packaging isn't just packaging, it's a brand's handshake." Packaging, obviously very physical component of a company. Expand on this, if you would, Heidi.

Heidi Waldusky (20:23):

Packaging is really, again, that tactile form of experiencing a brand. It really is that representation of what a brand is. Very rarely are you making human contact with a brand. There's not a lot of ways that that's happening. But when I am experiencing the packaging, it's telling me a story. Going back to that storytelling thing. It's telling me a story about your brand. It's telling me how you want me to experience your brand. And it is quite literally that handshake, because you're holding it and it's a very important representation of who you are.

Jeremy Goldman (20:58):

And often a first impression. Right?

Heidi Waldusky (21:00):

After the first impression.

Jeremy Goldman (21:02):

Because you might be getting a product for the first time, and that a whole unboxing experience. There's a reason why those things have gone viral, even though they're digital videos and not print, boo, but they're talking about something that's tactile and physical. And I think that that should tell a lot of us how important it is to actually touch things.

(21:23):

And going back to the dating analogy, you're going to show up for a first date. You want to be in a nice outfit. You're not going to show up like a schlump, basically, a New Yorker word. You want to look very presentable, because if not, then you're setting the wrong tone for the whole entire experience.

Heidi Waldusky (21:45):

Yeah, it's like a cold clammy handshake instead of a nice warm one.

Marcus Johnson (21:50):

Yeah. Yeah, you want to bring that experience to life. And that's why this podcast got started, actually, was because we wanted to humanize the brand. We're a research company, so people interacted with us with a website, maybe a salesperson, and we wanted to be like, "There are a bunch of folks back here with brilliant minds and personalities and senses of humor, and we'd love for you to meet them and that to be your gateway, your doorway into the home of EMARKETER," so to speak.

(22:17):

So yeah, any way you can bring that to life, whether it's with packaging or really anything as that first impression, it really matters. Well, Heidi, to close out the episode, I want to circle back to the title of the episode which we were discussing, which was The Missing Link in Omnichannel. Tell us what that means to you and to Quad, and how you're thinking about that concept.

Heidi Waldusky (22:41):

I think the research is really a directive to brands to really go back and remap that customer journey. What does Omnichannel really mean to you? And I think what's so interesting about this research is consumers are telling us that they're in control of their omnichannel experience. They're actually seeking out these experiences. I think with the proliferation of digital over the last two decades, I think we've leaned so heavily into that, and it's just been very easy to target consumers, 24/7, all the time, as soon as they open their phone.

(23:09):

And I think what they're telling us is, "That's too much for me. I actually want less time with this device. Not in a bad way. And I'm asking brands to surprise me through the mail. I'm asking for better retail experiences. I'm asking for a blend of physical and digital." This isn't an either or, it's an and.

(23:27):

So I think for brands, that missing link essentially is perhaps you sort of ignoring what your customer wants. I think we've seen, amongst our own clients, that return maybe to physical media or testing some solutions, or to figure out what's happening at the household level where I can really make sure that I'm giving them the right thing.

(23:51):

So I think the missing link is really how brands define it, but I think it's also what the consumer is telling us, is that it's not as complete. And for brands who make it complete for me, I will happily stay connected and loyal to you. So I think it's really a good directive and something to listen to from a consumer behavior standpoint.

Marcus Johnson (24:12):

An excellent note to end on. The full report, the research we were citing, it's called The Return of Touch is the report, and the link is in the show notes if you want to get that free. That's all we have time for today's episode. Thank you so much to my guests for hanging out with me today. Thank you first to Heidi.

Heidi Waldusky (24:29):

Thank you so much. Thank you guys for having me. It's a ton of fun and I love Milk Chocolate Day. I love it. I'm going to go eat some English Cadbury's, yes, with that.

Marcus Johnson (24:36):

Yes, she's back. I knew you'd come around. Jeremy, thank you to, sir.

Jeremy Goldman (24:41):

As always. This is a high-touch experience.

Marcus Johnson (24:44):

We try. Thanks to the whole editing crew and to everyone for listening in to Behind the Numbers: an EMARKETER Video Podcast, made possible by Quad. Subscribe, if you would like, follow us if the mood takes you, and leave a rating and review if you can. Tune in Wednesday to hear our unofficial top eight most interesting retailers of the month list for July on our Reimagining Retail Show.