September 27, 2023 • 29 mins
Join us for a very special episode of Partners in Possibility. Special guests Kristin Wozniak, SVP of Customer Success at Plus Company, and Andrew Rusk, VP Marketing at Coast Capital Savings explore how AI is revolutionizing marketing, accelerating content creation, and allowing marketers to focus on what truly matters - quantifying and measuring brand impact. Plus, get an exclusive sneak peek into Plus Company's game-changing innovation - AIOS, the intelligent all-in-one system for marketing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
And frankly, how do we also understand what we can
let go of measuring because we can understand what's wheel
and what's not and where investment and cost makes sense
versus where it doesn't. Like, as a client, I'm just
not able to accept some of the billings that we
would have even five or ten years ago because we
are seeing both internally from Plus Company but other partners
just getting more efficient at it.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
In an ever changing world. That's all about stained connected,
building connections and seeing where the next collaboration takes a
marketing campaign from an initial brief to the follow through.
What paths are going to make a campaign success more
than a possibility? Hi, I'm Brett marchand CEO of Plus Company.
This is partner's and possibility. As the digital landscape continues
(00:54):
to expand, obtaining crucial data from niche markets becomes progressively
costly and challenging. In the pursuit of maximizing rich on
marketing investment or ROAMY, marketers focus their efforts on crafting
campaigns that not only meet consumer needs and expectations, but
also generate profit margins. In this episode, Kristin Wosniak, SVP
(01:14):
of Customer Success at Plus Company, and Andrew Rusk, VP
Marketing at Cost Capital Savings delve into the pivotal role
played by AI in the quest to maximize ROMY. Together,
we discuss how AI accelerates the content creation process, affording
marketers more time and resources to concentrate on quantifying and
measuring the brand's impact. Will also provide an exclusive sneak
(01:36):
peek into Plus companies groundbreaking innovation AOS. This remarkable tool
seamlessly connects all touch points in your marketing strategy, continuously
monitors creative performance, and empowers your business to thrive in
the digital age. Stay tuned to discover how AOS can
unlock what's possible in your marketing endeavors at Redefine Success. Andrew,
(02:02):
maybe I start with you. You're a marketer. You've actually
interestingly been on both sides, both the agency side and
the marketing side. Maybe talk a little bit about the
challenges as a marketer that you face and that marketers
in general face when it comes to figuring out, you know,
how do you spend your budget? How do you figure
(02:24):
out what's working and what's not working and why that's important?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Thanks Bat, one of the largest challenges that my team
and I have always had is making sure that we're
grounding our strategies and our business in outcomes and outcomes
that ladder up to the board scorecards of the businesses
that we are driving. So starting with the board, KPIs,
how do we make sure we understand measurement frameworks down
(02:48):
from there in terms of what are the key drivers
that we need to activate and pull in order to
help our businesses grow. And as you get further down
into the business understanding and being able to measure the
effect that becomes fuzzier and harder. And so as we
can get better on media measurement, that of course allows
us to make better calls in terms of having having
(03:10):
better outcomes at the bottom, so that we can have
better conversations as we figure out where to prioritize investments
at the top of the organization.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And do you do post analysis on campaigns or ongoing
analysis to figure out you know.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Oh, absolutely, analytics and data is a core part is
a core part of a business. So within within my team,
we have an analytics and measurement and insights team and function,
and not only that, but we also tie that that
data into the larger data lake that we run as
an organization in order to make sure that we are
combining the insights that we are able to glean from
(03:43):
our marketing communication strategies to inform larger insights on what
is working versus not right.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I presume that one of the one of the challenges,
because it's true for every brand and every marketer, is
how do you allocate and or put priority in and
building the Coast Capital brand, you know, in order to
welcome people into the into the brand of the community
that's Coast Capital. But then also how do you allocate
to actually drive conversion and outcomes as you say, you know,
(04:12):
to get people to sign up for a new account
and or get a credit card or get a mortgage
with you. It's great, but everything should be driving outcomes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Brat and I think that one of the challenges in
the media industry we've had is not having the confidence,
not having the talent oftentimes both on the client side
as well as on the agency side, and not having
the data in order to advocate for the role that
(04:41):
advertising has at creating margin. Right when we get right
down to the role that as brand builders we all serve,
this isn't about selling products. It is about creating brands
and experiences and margin creation that can help consumers fulfill
needs and experiences. And you work with lots of clients
that do that in the private sector in order for
(05:03):
the outcomes to just be making money. But we also
do that in terms of thinking about what the social
purpose ends are as one of Canada's largest B corps
and so like us, thinking about how those pieces connect
is critical in court to our business because I think
that too often one we just we don't understand the
basics of marketing effectiveness and marketing science in order to
(05:26):
build those cases internally where this isn't something that can
just live with a department and an agency or a
specialist on a team. The foundations need to be part
of our practice as as marketers as an industry in
terms of like level setting and upskilling on the talents
that like, if my CEO is asking me to defend
the business case, I can't be talking about bullshit like
(05:49):
share of heart or brand love as opposed to the
outcomes that I'm driving and how the work that I'm
building is contributing to contributors of preference and choice that
is driving my P and L.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, well you could probably talk about those things, but
you might not be the VP of marketing for much longer,
which is always the challenge. Speaking of measurement tools, Kristin,
how do you think this the evolution of the digital
landscape is impacting how these models are being used, because
I know you're doing this work with clients every day.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I mean a lot. I think there's I mean, there's
a number of things that have happened in the measurement
space in the last couple of years that impact it.
But I want to take I think a step back
to set something up to explain wh where I'm going,
which is fundamentally right now in the world we live in,
especially when it comes to everything with marketing, if you
can't measure it, it very rarely gets priority status whatever
(06:44):
it is. So whether it's something like regions, you know,
measurement right now in Canada especially prioritizes national and then
if you get to provincial level, you get BC Ontario,
and when you get in BC in Ontario you get
Toronto and Vancouver. That's it, you know, And fundamentally the
city level, a lot of measurement lives at Vancouver, Toronto,
(07:04):
autowaf here, Lucky Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal. That's it, and apparently
in the times don't matter at all. And the reason
for that, of course, is a lot of these smaller
regions are twenty thousand, thirty thousand, one hundred thousand people.
You know, having any kind of measurement in those markets
is incredibly expensive and the ROI on that investment isn't
there for people who run measurement programs. So, you know, Andrew,
(07:25):
we talk a lot about local news, we talk a
lot about, you know, supporting the regionality of Canada. Measurement
doesn't exist in that way, which makes it really, really
really hard. And that goes for a collection of different things.
It goes for regionality, it goes for EDI, it goes
for TV and offline channels, which I'll come back to.
It goes to brand versus performance. It's way easier to
(07:46):
measure the impact of performance or lower funnel media than
upper funnel media, and so all of these things kind
of get the short shrift when it comes to what
we prioritize and where we put our dollars, because if
you can measure it, it's way easier to just putting
your dollars behind it. I would say one of the
things that's happened is especially with you know, our Google
(08:06):
and Meta and our Apple friends across the board, they
control so much of the digital data, and that digital
data informs so much of the measurement and the modeling
and whatnot. So over time, everything that they're running is
prioritizing their inventory and their channels. And it's not a
malicious thing. That's just that's the data that they have,
(08:29):
and they use it and they share it. So I
know you're asking about the digital evolution, but for me,
the biggest thing is just that as the digital world
continues to become bigger and bigger and bigger, and actually
that conversation even between analog and digital is like, what's
digital versus analog anymore? Anyway? You know, it's every The
priority continues to be consistently always how do we use
(08:53):
digital more effectively? And that's the thing that's the biggest
impact for me. I mean, even there's obviously a million
different ways to talk about it, but that's the thing
that comes up consistently. It has been for the last
ten fifteen years, and it's just getting course.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, and we talk a lot about bias and brand protection,
et cetera. I mean, let's be honest, these massive digital
media players are biased towards spending on their platforms, right, so.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Weird, right, I'm always shocked at how often giving more
money to platforms is going to solve all of my
business problems. As we look at the power of AI
over the course of the last six months in terms
of what's going to offer in terms of processing and
synthesizing the patterns and the correlations and different sets of data,
I think we're just at the beginning of this incredible
(09:38):
time of saying how is their incredible efficiency and how
we measure? How is their incredible integration as how we
measure and frankly, how do we also understand what we
can let go of measuring because we can understand what's
real and what's not and where investment and cost makes
sense versus where it doesn't. And I think that as
we do that and we look to the other op
(10:00):
these where AI will accelerate pace in terms of you
think about content production and creative asset production as well
more from a production side, how does that open up
additional time for us to return as an industry to
what we we have always been about, which is about
being able to measure and quantify the impact of brand
(10:21):
on business.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
The other interesting thing about AI, especially for a brand
and a company like Coast Capital, is as it gets
more powerful, you know, one of the powers of AI
can should be sometime in the future also helping consumers
make decisions to choose you over you know, one of
your competitors.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I think AI in helping to help consumers choose preferences
makes makes a lot of It has so much opportunity
as a social purpose company and the corporate we look
at AI as a much larger opportunity though, because if
you look at open ai as a company, as a
camp profit company that is ultimately designed in this world
(11:01):
of if artificial general intelligence is able to deliver on
the promises that it might be able to deliver, what
does that mean to work? What does that mean to
dignity of contribution in society? And what's fascinating is the
way that open ai is structured is as a count
(11:21):
profit in order to theoretically be able to start fueling
a conversation on universal basic income if that technology is successful.
So as a social purpose BCREP. In the banking industry,
we care very very deeply about how that integration connects.
And one of my largest concerns Brett, and one of
the places where I think the Plus Company and Coast
(11:43):
and other clients that we're working on is making sure
that we are advocating that Canada becomes a country where
we are known for the things that come out of
our heads, not just the things that come out of
the ground. How we make sure that AI is an
ignition and a fuel for both and for Canadian businesses
and industries. It's so much deeper than saying is my
(12:05):
digital media working. And I think that there's a real
opportunity as we realize efficiencies in a lot of the
places that have been core to the traditional p and
ls of the agency model, where like, as a client,
I'm just not able to accept some of the billings
that we would have even five or ten years ago
because we are seeing both internally from Plus Company but
(12:27):
other partners just getting more efficient at it. How do
we find those opportunities to reset our ambition on what
brants can accomplish together into the future. Sorry, that was
a bit of a brant.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
No no no here here. I agree that's an interesting
pivot point to talk about the consumer. I think and
tracking customer journey, understanding customer preference, understanding you know, how
they go about their purchase journey. I think is one
of the really interesting futures that I think are our
(13:02):
industry and marketers are going to go in. What are
some of the biggest hurdles that taking a consumer journey
approach to marketing advertising, products and brands versus the sort
of MMM top down or you know, less touch multi
touch attribution up approach.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I think the first thing is comfort and familiarity. We've
developed a collection of approaches to measurement and thinking that
are very much ingrained in the way we work now.
And I'd say the number one conversation I have when
it comes to to AI or even just changing or
improving or introducing a new form of measurement is hold on,
(13:44):
But I don't, like, I haven't seen this before. So
one of the things is just fear. And a lot
of KPIs and OKRs are based on the measurement systems
that work, so it's like, hold on, you want us
to talk now about a consumer journey in a different way.
But I've anchored all of my objectives on this, and
you know, my budget depends on this. My bonus depends
(14:04):
on this, right, and that's something that the digital world
did for sure. Is and this is something that I'm
incredibly passionate about. Is it equated a digital ID with
a human being. And your device ID is not you.
It's a representation of you or some of the things
that you do. But humans are far more than their
web activity. Humans are full of biases and contradictions, They're unpredictable,
(14:29):
they make illogical choices all the time, and so the
measurement that we have in place right now as an
industry doesn't really allow for that. And even when we
get away from MTA or Last Touch and then you
move into the MMM world, which is meant to be
a little bit more cohesive and more representative in theory,
the assumptions that go along with an MMM, the people
(14:51):
based assumptions are kind of crummy things like it assumes
that people react, that every person reacts the same way
to a channel, so we're all going to react the
same way to TV. It assumes that the channel will
always operate the same way, so TV will always have
this effectiveness in this efficiency, and then it also assumes
that that will never change, so you know, all three
of us are going to react to TV in this way,
(15:13):
and we're going to always continue to react to TV
in this way. So that's also not how people operate.
So I think one of the real beauties of moving
towards AI and a true consumer journey is to actually
start to honor the nuances that make us people and
integrate into the way that brands that can actually connect
(15:33):
with people. Because the way in which we're working now
creates homogeneity and personas and it, you know, can reinforce stereotypes.
It doesn't allow for all of those things that actually
make us us. So looking more at the consumer journey,
I think in a way where we actually start with
the person first, and a real, actual, for real person first,
(15:55):
not the other ways we've talked about in the past,
will allow us to start to explore and connect with
different people in the ways is actually meaningful and get
away from this, you know, an environment that feels very stale,
I think, and that's our that's our role. A colleague
of mine talks about, you know, media agencies are in
(16:16):
fact agency of media, and when I think of it
that way, we have a huge responsibility here in terms
of the content messaging that goes out into the world.
We can do better, and we should and looking at
people is a real easy way to start at sor right.
That's my Ran Andrew.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
we'll talk more about the four quadrant strategy that Coast
Capital utilizes to modernize their business through a technology first lens.
Welcome back to Partners and Possibility. I'm Brett marshaanpital quadrant
(17:00):
strategy is there internal guide that anchors the facilitation of
the end to end delivery of member needs during the
consumer journey. Let's listen in.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So, when we built our five year strategy in Trenting, Trenty,
we built our strategy around consumer journeys and understand the
consumer needs that we wanted to experience and fulfill upon.
And really we viewed this as us extending our spirit
as a cooperative and what that means into the twenty
first century in terms of if we've always been in
(17:34):
the business of empathizing and understanding the needs of the
unserved and the under met, then how how do we
do that moving the forward forward in terms of like
modernizing our business from a technology first lens into the
future and so what we did is we actually categorized
our entire business into four different quaduins that we use
(17:54):
as we frame everything that we do internally, manage, save, plan,
and are and of course there's series of products and
experiences that help fulfill those needs that are around that.
But then from there we've actually built out core journeys
and anchor points that help facilitate those journeys along as
well in terms of how that how that continues to work.
(18:17):
So we look at journeys in terms of end to
end delivery of a member need, and then within that
we look at the fulfillment of it in terms of
how we deliver that from an employee and a member experience.
And then within that we look at how we execute
on digital pushes and pulls and messages and integrations and
(18:38):
like moments of magic as well in terms of how
we can complement and help nudge those journeys along. And
while we do, we do two things in that process.
We of course have the teams that empathize and with
the needs of the consumers and the employees to map
those journeys in terms of mapping what those digital experiences
(18:58):
and touch points look like. And we have salesforce teams
internally that help us execute those and we work with
Cassette in order to help execute that from a media
perspective as well. But the the the other piece that
as as as marketers and communicators in the org, we've
also helped to drive is saying, how do we help
facilitate that change internally in terms of what that orientation
(19:22):
can do and what that orientation can do in order
to improve the efficiency of how the organization is running,
How how that transition can improve engagement within our teams
as well as of course, how how that that transition
can help our members that we are serving as well.
I think that too often we get really really focused
(19:42):
on the members without allocating sufficient time or even credit
to ourselves in terms of what we can do and
need to do if we want to drive more holistic
business outcomes and end to end as marketers.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
You know, the power of AI is that you could
create a customer journey for every single member and in
every single perspective member, right, you know, without violating PII
and personal data and privacy for every single person that
that's currently a member of Coast Capital and or you
think could be a perspective member of Coast Capital. How
(20:19):
would how would a I create, you know, fill in
those gaps.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
That's a big question. I think there's lots of ways.
I mean, one of the ways that we're doing it
right now is using synthetic data. Think about this is
the example I always use. Right, you're probably tired of
me hearing of me saying it, but like, think of
the most complicated game of sim City you've ever seen. Right,
You take you know, thirty six million little sims and
put them across Canada or close to four hundred million
(20:45):
in the States, you know, and those little sims you've
trained to operate and think, to do all the things
that your population would do. And now suddenly there's not me,
I'm not in this data set, but there's someone who
looks a lot like me in this data set who
does what I do. And that's how we can start
to bring together all these different data sets and create
(21:06):
populations using AI. You know, the medical industry, for example,
relies heavily on synthetic data because they can create data
sets essentially that mimic and track, say, spreads of diseases
or how different people might respond to different types of
medications or vaccines, so they'll use it, for example, a
lot in things like children's medicine, because you don't want
(21:26):
to be doing those experiments necessarily on kids, but you
need to have a good set of how these types
of medications might work. And that's what synthetic data is
good for. So it has applications all over the place
in the marketing world. Like you said, Brett, you know
it's not just about Coast. Understanding Coast, you can then
layer in receptivity to other brands. You could lay in
overall political leanings if you wanted to reactions, to sustainability,
(21:51):
to a whole bunch of different stuff to help you
then truly understand your consumer base, your audiences, and you know,
just people in general.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Andrew, I know you're you're working with Christian and with
both our plus intelligence, but also what we call Project
Catalyst or the brand name of the product, which is
called Aos to actually doce new synthetic data to create
customer journeys and understand, you know, what decisions to make
based on the predictive abilities of that platform. I know
(22:22):
it's early days for you working with this, but what
what do you see? What's its pros and cons for
you as a marketer, where do you where do you
see it's opportunities.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I am so excited about the journey that we are
going on with with with with AI, with plus Company,
And I'm excited for a couple of different reasons. The
first one is I've been so impressed with the ability
to match the agility and the drive that we are
trying to create within our organization in terms of looking
at how there are partnerships and integrations across agencies, in
(22:55):
terms of saying, how do we how do we get
to a you know, a tea coast where we are
taking the best expertise across the network and really making
sure that we're getting sharp on the problem statements and
the solutions that we're having. And AI is and this
tool is going to be the critical component to being
(23:15):
able to drive the value realization of all of those
different components, including from the perspective of cost some of
those investments in values where the URI on values has
not always been as measurable as would be ideal ins
of in terms of some of those pieces. So the
agility and the integration is super exciting.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I genuinely think that one of the powers of platforms
like AOS and generative AI and how it predicts and
helps marketers make decisions, but also how it makes helps
customers make decisions. Is that actually companies that are doing
the right things for the world and for our community
(24:00):
are actually going to do better. Let me ask you, Kristin,
do you see other cmos and or brands or companies
as forward thinking as Coast and Andrew around these things?
Who else do you look at and say, you know
they're doing to go to job?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
There are some things that it feels like you can't measure,
but you still do them because you know they're the
right thing to do, like kind of in your gut.
You know a company that does a lot of that.
I mean, everyone talks about Patagonia as being the definition
obviously of doing things the right way, you know, But
my guess is there's not a lot of like the
you know, they did things like close theirs doors over
(24:37):
Boxing Day week to give their staff a break. There
wasn't a business case for that, but my guess as
it turned out to be a very good business move
for them, right, And so I think there's a lot
of challenges with I have this conversation a lot with
a lot of people. A lot of people want to
make movements in that direction. A lot of those people
don't have the authority or capability to make a big
(25:00):
move in the way say that Patagonia does. They have people,
they are accountable to a different level of the organization,
and that I find is where so many of the
conversations can die because they want to do it, and
they're so afraid that if they make choices that potentially
lean into net zero solutions or whatever it might be,
(25:21):
that if it hurts the bottom line. You know, they're
the ones accountable. So it's always like I will do
this as long as I know it doesn't hurt business results. Okay,
challenge accepted, you know, and now we have a solution
to that with well again within aos and our catalyst system.
You know, this is where you can talk about optimizing
(25:43):
towards KPIs like your business results because we know we're
still living in a world where the bottom line matters.
But okay, how do I ensure business results while doing
it in the most carbon friendly way, their carbon neutral way?
So it's not an either or, it's this has to
be the first thing, because my business falls apart, I
got nothing to do here, but okay, and now I'm
(26:04):
going to optimize sustainability. At the same time, that is
going to change the entire conversation around what we're able
to do, because even if it's not perfect, meaning it's
not a totally carbon neutral media plan or approach, it
will be better than what it was before. And if
everyone makes improvements that way, we'll go in that direction.
(26:26):
So again, it's all a little bit of bravery though,
and I think there's lots of excitement, engagement, eagerness to
have a lot of these conversations. It's really hard to
be the first one to do it. And this is
where Andrew, I think that does put you in a
type of different category of going all right, I'm in
let's do this. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, and as companies like Coast Capital, as you become
more successful, Andrew, it's also good because more revenue for
Coast Capital will mean more spending in community and in
responsible media, et cetera. So there's a you know, there's
a flywheel effect in this, right.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It needs to start at the top as well, where
especially with AI and measurement, we've Kelvin our CEO has
been a real champion of saying, what would it look
like if we thought of Coast as a technology company
that was granted in the values of a cooperative as
opposed to a cooperative that has to use technology. And
if you take a values based lens on tech and
(27:28):
then say how can that help fulfill needs for under
unmanked Canadians, It gets really interesting quickly in terms of
how that pivot has helped unlock innovation that you just
haven't seen in the cooperative movement over the last couple
of decades. And with AI, I think we've been just
so lucky in order to have a CEO that has
(27:50):
been vocal and bullish on the technology, and so over
the last six months we've had board EXCO SLT and
ORG wide education sessions with McKinsey at academic institutions and
other resources in we've already integrated it into our internal
comms where we use AI within our workflows as teams,
(28:12):
and I think most importantly, we've been really really focused
on saying how do we empower our teams to test
and leverage the technology really with three focuses innovation, value,
realization as well as social purpose and in terms of
finding that combination between them where it's not just innovation
for innovation's sake, it's how is that actually driving a
(28:34):
bottom line benefit, that is having a triple bottom line
impact connected to the purpose, where and if we can
make that happen.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Thank you for your time, for your insights. Thank you
for being a great partner in Possibility. By the way,
I think your willingness and vision around how AI and
AOS can help both Coast Capital but also the world
around us is really inspirational and I for one have
been joined this conversation and look forward to many many
(29:02):
successes in the future.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Thanks Brad, it's been great.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Thank you for listening to Partners and Possibility. I hope
you enjoyed my conversation with Kristen Bosniak, s VP of
Customer Success at Plus Company and Andrew Rusk, VP Marketing
at Cost Capital Savings on how AI can not only
power ROAMI but also help companies see consumers beyond their
digital identity, as well as our overview of AOS, the
(29:28):
newest Plus company intelligent all in one system for marketing.
In the weeks ahead, we'll continue our conversation about the
future of AI and marketing with a renowned digital economy expert.
Be sure to tune in next week for part one
of our conversation with the best selling author, professor and
chief data scientists Abby Goldfard
And frankly, how do we also understand what we can
let go of measuring because we can understand what's wheel
and what's not and where investment and cost makes sense
versus where it doesn't. Like, as a client, I'm just
not able to accept some of the billings that we
would have even five or ten years ago because we
are seeing both internally from Plus Company but other partners
just getting more efficient at it.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
In an ever changing world. That's all about stained connected,
building connections and seeing where the next collaboration takes a
marketing campaign from an initial brief to the follow through.
What paths are going to make a campaign success more
than a possibility? Hi, I'm Brett marchand CEO of Plus Company.
This is partner's and possibility. As the digital landscape continues
(00:54):
to expand, obtaining crucial data from niche markets becomes progressively
costly and challenging. In the pursuit of maximizing rich on
marketing investment or ROAMY, marketers focus their efforts on crafting
campaigns that not only meet consumer needs and expectations, but
also generate profit margins. In this episode, Kristin Wosniak, SVP
(01:14):
of Customer Success at Plus Company, and Andrew Rusk, VP
Marketing at Cost Capital Savings delve into the pivotal role
played by AI in the quest to maximize ROMY. Together,
we discuss how AI accelerates the content creation process, affording
marketers more time and resources to concentrate on quantifying and
measuring the brand's impact. Will also provide an exclusive sneak
(01:36):
peek into Plus companies groundbreaking innovation AOS. This remarkable tool
seamlessly connects all touch points in your marketing strategy, continuously
monitors creative performance, and empowers your business to thrive in
the digital age. Stay tuned to discover how AOS can
unlock what's possible in your marketing endeavors at Redefine Success. Andrew,
(02:02):
maybe I start with you. You're a marketer. You've actually
interestingly been on both sides, both the agency side and
the marketing side. Maybe talk a little bit about the
challenges as a marketer that you face and that marketers
in general face when it comes to figuring out, you know,
how do you spend your budget? How do you figure
(02:24):
out what's working and what's not working and why that's important?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Thanks Bat, one of the largest challenges that my team
and I have always had is making sure that we're
grounding our strategies and our business in outcomes and outcomes
that ladder up to the board scorecards of the businesses
that we are driving. So starting with the board, KPIs,
how do we make sure we understand measurement frameworks down
(02:48):
from there in terms of what are the key drivers
that we need to activate and pull in order to
help our businesses grow. And as you get further down
into the business understanding and being able to measure the
effect that becomes fuzzier and harder. And so as we
can get better on media measurement, that of course allows
us to make better calls in terms of having having
(03:10):
better outcomes at the bottom, so that we can have
better conversations as we figure out where to prioritize investments
at the top of the organization.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And do you do post analysis on campaigns or ongoing
analysis to figure out you know.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Oh, absolutely, analytics and data is a core part is
a core part of a business. So within within my team,
we have an analytics and measurement and insights team and function,
and not only that, but we also tie that that
data into the larger data lake that we run as
an organization in order to make sure that we are
combining the insights that we are able to glean from
(03:43):
our marketing communication strategies to inform larger insights on what
is working versus not right.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And I presume that one of the one of the challenges,
because it's true for every brand and every marketer, is
how do you allocate and or put priority in and
building the Coast Capital brand, you know, in order to
welcome people into the into the brand of the community
that's Coast Capital. But then also how do you allocate
to actually drive conversion and outcomes as you say, you know,
(04:12):
to get people to sign up for a new account
and or get a credit card or get a mortgage
with you. It's great, but everything should be driving outcomes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Brat and I think that one of the challenges in
the media industry we've had is not having the confidence,
not having the talent oftentimes both on the client side
as well as on the agency side, and not having
the data in order to advocate for the role that
(04:41):
advertising has at creating margin. Right when we get right
down to the role that as brand builders we all serve,
this isn't about selling products. It is about creating brands
and experiences and margin creation that can help consumers fulfill
needs and experiences. And you work with lots of clients
that do that in the private sector in order for
(05:03):
the outcomes to just be making money. But we also
do that in terms of thinking about what the social
purpose ends are as one of Canada's largest B corps
and so like us, thinking about how those pieces connect
is critical in court to our business because I think
that too often one we just we don't understand the
basics of marketing effectiveness and marketing science in order to
(05:26):
build those cases internally where this isn't something that can
just live with a department and an agency or a
specialist on a team. The foundations need to be part
of our practice as as marketers as an industry in
terms of like level setting and upskilling on the talents
that like, if my CEO is asking me to defend
the business case, I can't be talking about bullshit like
(05:49):
share of heart or brand love as opposed to the
outcomes that I'm driving and how the work that I'm
building is contributing to contributors of preference and choice that
is driving my P and L.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, well you could probably talk about those things, but
you might not be the VP of marketing for much longer,
which is always the challenge. Speaking of measurement tools, Kristin,
how do you think this the evolution of the digital
landscape is impacting how these models are being used, because
I know you're doing this work with clients every day.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I mean a lot. I think there's I mean, there's
a number of things that have happened in the measurement
space in the last couple of years that impact it.
But I want to take I think a step back
to set something up to explain wh where I'm going,
which is fundamentally right now in the world we live in,
especially when it comes to everything with marketing, if you
can't measure it, it very rarely gets priority status whatever
(06:44):
it is. So whether it's something like regions, you know,
measurement right now in Canada especially prioritizes national and then
if you get to provincial level, you get BC Ontario,
and when you get in BC in Ontario you get
Toronto and Vancouver. That's it, you know, And fundamentally the
city level, a lot of measurement lives at Vancouver, Toronto,
(07:04):
autowaf here, Lucky Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal. That's it, and apparently
in the times don't matter at all. And the reason
for that, of course, is a lot of these smaller
regions are twenty thousand, thirty thousand, one hundred thousand people.
You know, having any kind of measurement in those markets
is incredibly expensive and the ROI on that investment isn't
there for people who run measurement programs. So, you know, Andrew,
(07:25):
we talk a lot about local news, we talk a
lot about, you know, supporting the regionality of Canada. Measurement
doesn't exist in that way, which makes it really, really
really hard. And that goes for a collection of different things.
It goes for regionality, it goes for EDI, it goes
for TV and offline channels, which I'll come back to.
It goes to brand versus performance. It's way easier to
(07:46):
measure the impact of performance or lower funnel media than
upper funnel media, and so all of these things kind
of get the short shrift when it comes to what
we prioritize and where we put our dollars, because if
you can measure it, it's way easier to just putting
your dollars behind it. I would say one of the
things that's happened is especially with you know, our Google
(08:06):
and Meta and our Apple friends across the board, they
control so much of the digital data, and that digital
data informs so much of the measurement and the modeling
and whatnot. So over time, everything that they're running is
prioritizing their inventory and their channels. And it's not a
malicious thing. That's just that's the data that they have,
(08:29):
and they use it and they share it. So I
know you're asking about the digital evolution, but for me,
the biggest thing is just that as the digital world
continues to become bigger and bigger and bigger, and actually
that conversation even between analog and digital is like, what's
digital versus analog anymore? Anyway? You know, it's every The
priority continues to be consistently always how do we use
(08:53):
digital more effectively? And that's the thing that's the biggest
impact for me. I mean, even there's obviously a million
different ways to talk about it, but that's the thing
that comes up consistently. It has been for the last
ten fifteen years, and it's just getting course.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, and we talk a lot about bias and brand protection,
et cetera. I mean, let's be honest, these massive digital
media players are biased towards spending on their platforms, right, so.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Weird, right, I'm always shocked at how often giving more
money to platforms is going to solve all of my
business problems. As we look at the power of AI
over the course of the last six months in terms
of what's going to offer in terms of processing and
synthesizing the patterns and the correlations and different sets of data,
I think we're just at the beginning of this incredible
(09:38):
time of saying how is their incredible efficiency and how
we measure? How is their incredible integration as how we
measure and frankly, how do we also understand what we
can let go of measuring because we can understand what's
real and what's not and where investment and cost makes
sense versus where it doesn't. And I think that as
we do that and we look to the other op
(10:00):
these where AI will accelerate pace in terms of you
think about content production and creative asset production as well
more from a production side, how does that open up
additional time for us to return as an industry to
what we we have always been about, which is about
being able to measure and quantify the impact of brand
(10:21):
on business.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
The other interesting thing about AI, especially for a brand
and a company like Coast Capital, is as it gets
more powerful, you know, one of the powers of AI
can should be sometime in the future also helping consumers
make decisions to choose you over you know, one of
your competitors.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I think AI in helping to help consumers choose preferences
makes makes a lot of It has so much opportunity
as a social purpose company and the corporate we look
at AI as a much larger opportunity though, because if
you look at open ai as a company, as a
camp profit company that is ultimately designed in this world
(11:01):
of if artificial general intelligence is able to deliver on
the promises that it might be able to deliver, what
does that mean to work? What does that mean to
dignity of contribution in society? And what's fascinating is the
way that open ai is structured is as a count
(11:21):
profit in order to theoretically be able to start fueling
a conversation on universal basic income if that technology is successful.
So as a social purpose BCREP. In the banking industry,
we care very very deeply about how that integration connects.
And one of my largest concerns Brett, and one of
the places where I think the Plus Company and Coast
(11:43):
and other clients that we're working on is making sure
that we are advocating that Canada becomes a country where
we are known for the things that come out of
our heads, not just the things that come out of
the ground. How we make sure that AI is an
ignition and a fuel for both and for Canadian businesses
and industries. It's so much deeper than saying is my
(12:05):
digital media working. And I think that there's a real
opportunity as we realize efficiencies in a lot of the
places that have been core to the traditional p and
ls of the agency model, where like, as a client,
I'm just not able to accept some of the billings
that we would have even five or ten years ago
because we are seeing both internally from Plus Company but
(12:27):
other partners just getting more efficient at it. How do
we find those opportunities to reset our ambition on what
brants can accomplish together into the future. Sorry, that was
a bit of a brant.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
No no no here here. I agree that's an interesting
pivot point to talk about the consumer. I think and
tracking customer journey, understanding customer preference, understanding you know, how
they go about their purchase journey. I think is one
of the really interesting futures that I think are our
(13:02):
industry and marketers are going to go in. What are
some of the biggest hurdles that taking a consumer journey
approach to marketing advertising, products and brands versus the sort
of MMM top down or you know, less touch multi
touch attribution up approach.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I think the first thing is comfort and familiarity. We've
developed a collection of approaches to measurement and thinking that
are very much ingrained in the way we work now.
And I'd say the number one conversation I have when
it comes to to AI or even just changing or
improving or introducing a new form of measurement is hold on,
(13:44):
But I don't, like, I haven't seen this before. So
one of the things is just fear. And a lot
of KPIs and OKRs are based on the measurement systems
that work, so it's like, hold on, you want us
to talk now about a consumer journey in a different way.
But I've anchored all of my objectives on this, and
you know, my budget depends on this. My bonus depends
(14:04):
on this, right, and that's something that the digital world
did for sure. Is and this is something that I'm
incredibly passionate about. Is it equated a digital ID with
a human being. And your device ID is not you.
It's a representation of you or some of the things
that you do. But humans are far more than their
web activity. Humans are full of biases and contradictions, They're unpredictable,
(14:29):
they make illogical choices all the time, and so the
measurement that we have in place right now as an
industry doesn't really allow for that. And even when we
get away from MTA or Last Touch and then you
move into the MMM world, which is meant to be
a little bit more cohesive and more representative in theory,
the assumptions that go along with an MMM, the people
(14:51):
based assumptions are kind of crummy things like it assumes
that people react, that every person reacts the same way
to a channel, so we're all going to react the
same way to TV. It assumes that the channel will
always operate the same way, so TV will always have
this effectiveness in this efficiency, and then it also assumes
that that will never change, so you know, all three
of us are going to react to TV in this way,
(15:13):
and we're going to always continue to react to TV
in this way. So that's also not how people operate.
So I think one of the real beauties of moving
towards AI and a true consumer journey is to actually
start to honor the nuances that make us people and
integrate into the way that brands that can actually connect
(15:33):
with people. Because the way in which we're working now
creates homogeneity and personas and it, you know, can reinforce stereotypes.
It doesn't allow for all of those things that actually
make us us. So looking more at the consumer journey,
I think in a way where we actually start with
the person first, and a real, actual, for real person first,
(15:55):
not the other ways we've talked about in the past,
will allow us to start to explore and connect with
different people in the ways is actually meaningful and get
away from this, you know, an environment that feels very stale,
I think, and that's our that's our role. A colleague
of mine talks about, you know, media agencies are in
(16:16):
fact agency of media, and when I think of it
that way, we have a huge responsibility here in terms
of the content messaging that goes out into the world.
We can do better, and we should and looking at
people is a real easy way to start at sor right.
That's my Ran Andrew.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
we'll talk more about the four quadrant strategy that Coast
Capital utilizes to modernize their business through a technology first lens.
Welcome back to Partners and Possibility. I'm Brett marshaanpital quadrant
(17:00):
strategy is there internal guide that anchors the facilitation of
the end to end delivery of member needs during the
consumer journey. Let's listen in.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So, when we built our five year strategy in Trenting, Trenty,
we built our strategy around consumer journeys and understand the
consumer needs that we wanted to experience and fulfill upon.
And really we viewed this as us extending our spirit
as a cooperative and what that means into the twenty
first century in terms of if we've always been in
(17:34):
the business of empathizing and understanding the needs of the
unserved and the under met, then how how do we
do that moving the forward forward in terms of like
modernizing our business from a technology first lens into the
future and so what we did is we actually categorized
our entire business into four different quaduins that we use
(17:54):
as we frame everything that we do internally, manage, save, plan,
and are and of course there's series of products and
experiences that help fulfill those needs that are around that.
But then from there we've actually built out core journeys
and anchor points that help facilitate those journeys along as
well in terms of how that how that continues to work.
(18:17):
So we look at journeys in terms of end to
end delivery of a member need, and then within that
we look at the fulfillment of it in terms of
how we deliver that from an employee and a member experience.
And then within that we look at how we execute
on digital pushes and pulls and messages and integrations and
(18:38):
like moments of magic as well in terms of how
we can complement and help nudge those journeys along. And
while we do, we do two things in that process.
We of course have the teams that empathize and with
the needs of the consumers and the employees to map
those journeys in terms of mapping what those digital experiences
(18:58):
and touch points look like. And we have salesforce teams
internally that help us execute those and we work with
Cassette in order to help execute that from a media
perspective as well. But the the the other piece that
as as as marketers and communicators in the org, we've
also helped to drive is saying, how do we help
facilitate that change internally in terms of what that orientation
(19:22):
can do and what that orientation can do in order
to improve the efficiency of how the organization is running,
How how that transition can improve engagement within our teams
as well as of course, how how that that transition
can help our members that we are serving as well.
I think that too often we get really really focused
(19:42):
on the members without allocating sufficient time or even credit
to ourselves in terms of what we can do and
need to do if we want to drive more holistic
business outcomes and end to end as marketers.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
You know, the power of AI is that you could
create a customer journey for every single member and in
every single perspective member, right, you know, without violating PII
and personal data and privacy for every single person that
that's currently a member of Coast Capital and or you
think could be a perspective member of Coast Capital. How
(20:19):
would how would a I create, you know, fill in
those gaps.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
That's a big question. I think there's lots of ways.
I mean, one of the ways that we're doing it
right now is using synthetic data. Think about this is
the example I always use. Right, you're probably tired of
me hearing of me saying it, but like, think of
the most complicated game of sim City you've ever seen. Right,
You take you know, thirty six million little sims and
put them across Canada or close to four hundred million
(20:45):
in the States, you know, and those little sims you've
trained to operate and think, to do all the things
that your population would do. And now suddenly there's not me,
I'm not in this data set, but there's someone who
looks a lot like me in this data set who
does what I do. And that's how we can start
to bring together all these different data sets and create
(21:06):
populations using AI. You know, the medical industry, for example,
relies heavily on synthetic data because they can create data
sets essentially that mimic and track, say, spreads of diseases
or how different people might respond to different types of
medications or vaccines, so they'll use it, for example, a
lot in things like children's medicine, because you don't want
(21:26):
to be doing those experiments necessarily on kids, but you
need to have a good set of how these types
of medications might work. And that's what synthetic data is
good for. So it has applications all over the place
in the marketing world. Like you said, Brett, you know
it's not just about Coast. Understanding Coast, you can then
layer in receptivity to other brands. You could lay in
overall political leanings if you wanted to reactions, to sustainability,
(21:51):
to a whole bunch of different stuff to help you
then truly understand your consumer base, your audiences, and you know,
just people in general.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Andrew, I know you're you're working with Christian and with
both our plus intelligence, but also what we call Project
Catalyst or the brand name of the product, which is
called Aos to actually doce new synthetic data to create
customer journeys and understand, you know, what decisions to make
based on the predictive abilities of that platform. I know
(22:22):
it's early days for you working with this, but what
what do you see? What's its pros and cons for
you as a marketer, where do you where do you
see it's opportunities.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
I am so excited about the journey that we are
going on with with with with AI, with plus Company,
And I'm excited for a couple of different reasons. The
first one is I've been so impressed with the ability
to match the agility and the drive that we are
trying to create within our organization in terms of looking
at how there are partnerships and integrations across agencies, in
(22:55):
terms of saying, how do we how do we get
to a you know, a tea coast where we are
taking the best expertise across the network and really making
sure that we're getting sharp on the problem statements and
the solutions that we're having. And AI is and this
tool is going to be the critical component to being
(23:15):
able to drive the value realization of all of those
different components, including from the perspective of cost some of
those investments in values where the URI on values has
not always been as measurable as would be ideal ins
of in terms of some of those pieces. So the
agility and the integration is super exciting.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I genuinely think that one of the powers of platforms
like AOS and generative AI and how it predicts and
helps marketers make decisions, but also how it makes helps
customers make decisions. Is that actually companies that are doing
the right things for the world and for our community
(24:00):
are actually going to do better. Let me ask you, Kristin,
do you see other cmos and or brands or companies
as forward thinking as Coast and Andrew around these things?
Who else do you look at and say, you know
they're doing to go to job?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
There are some things that it feels like you can't measure,
but you still do them because you know they're the
right thing to do, like kind of in your gut.
You know a company that does a lot of that.
I mean, everyone talks about Patagonia as being the definition
obviously of doing things the right way, you know, But
my guess is there's not a lot of like the
you know, they did things like close theirs doors over
(24:37):
Boxing Day week to give their staff a break. There
wasn't a business case for that, but my guess as
it turned out to be a very good business move
for them, right, And so I think there's a lot
of challenges with I have this conversation a lot with
a lot of people. A lot of people want to
make movements in that direction. A lot of those people
don't have the authority or capability to make a big
(25:00):
move in the way say that Patagonia does. They have people,
they are accountable to a different level of the organization,
and that I find is where so many of the
conversations can die because they want to do it, and
they're so afraid that if they make choices that potentially
lean into net zero solutions or whatever it might be,
(25:21):
that if it hurts the bottom line. You know, they're
the ones accountable. So it's always like I will do
this as long as I know it doesn't hurt business results. Okay,
challenge accepted, you know, and now we have a solution
to that with well again within aos and our catalyst system.
You know, this is where you can talk about optimizing
(25:43):
towards KPIs like your business results because we know we're
still living in a world where the bottom line matters.
But okay, how do I ensure business results while doing
it in the most carbon friendly way, their carbon neutral way?
So it's not an either or, it's this has to
be the first thing, because my business falls apart, I
got nothing to do here, but okay, and now I'm
(26:04):
going to optimize sustainability. At the same time, that is
going to change the entire conversation around what we're able
to do, because even if it's not perfect, meaning it's
not a totally carbon neutral media plan or approach, it
will be better than what it was before. And if
everyone makes improvements that way, we'll go in that direction.
(26:26):
So again, it's all a little bit of bravery though,
and I think there's lots of excitement, engagement, eagerness to
have a lot of these conversations. It's really hard to
be the first one to do it. And this is
where Andrew, I think that does put you in a
type of different category of going all right, I'm in
let's do this. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, and as companies like Coast Capital, as you become
more successful, Andrew, it's also good because more revenue for
Coast Capital will mean more spending in community and in
responsible media, et cetera. So there's a you know, there's
a flywheel effect in this, right.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
It needs to start at the top as well, where
especially with AI and measurement, we've Kelvin our CEO has
been a real champion of saying, what would it look
like if we thought of Coast as a technology company
that was granted in the values of a cooperative as
opposed to a cooperative that has to use technology. And
if you take a values based lens on tech and
(27:28):
then say how can that help fulfill needs for under
unmanked Canadians, It gets really interesting quickly in terms of
how that pivot has helped unlock innovation that you just
haven't seen in the cooperative movement over the last couple
of decades. And with AI, I think we've been just
so lucky in order to have a CEO that has
(27:50):
been vocal and bullish on the technology, and so over
the last six months we've had board EXCO SLT and
ORG wide education sessions with McKinsey at academic institutions and
other resources in we've already integrated it into our internal
comms where we use AI within our workflows as teams,
(28:12):
and I think most importantly, we've been really really focused
on saying how do we empower our teams to test
and leverage the technology really with three focuses innovation, value,
realization as well as social purpose and in terms of
finding that combination between them where it's not just innovation
for innovation's sake, it's how is that actually driving a
(28:34):
bottom line benefit, that is having a triple bottom line
impact connected to the purpose, where and if we can
make that happen.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Thank you for your time, for your insights. Thank you
for being a great partner in Possibility. By the way,
I think your willingness and vision around how AI and
AOS can help both Coast Capital but also the world
around us is really inspirational and I for one have
been joined this conversation and look forward to many many
(29:02):
successes in the future.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Thanks Brad, it's been great.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Thank you for listening to Partners and Possibility. I hope
you enjoyed my conversation with Kristen Bosniak, s VP of
Customer Success at Plus Company and Andrew Rusk, VP Marketing
at Cost Capital Savings on how AI can not only
power ROAMI but also help companies see consumers beyond their
digital identity, as well as our overview of AOS, the
(29:28):
newest Plus company intelligent all in one system for marketing.
In the weeks ahead, we'll continue our conversation about the
future of AI and marketing with a renowned digital economy expert.
Be sure to tune in next week for part one
of our conversation with the best selling author, professor and
chief data scientists Abby Goldfard
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