‘Without an emotional connection, you don’t have a brand,’ says author Ana Andjelic

The idea was never to go into marketing. I studied psychology, then I did a master’s in media studies, then a PhD in sociology: sociology of innovation and sociology of technology. I explored how innovation spreads in a society, how people adopt new trends and how influence spreads in a society – basically, how to organize a creative company or to ensure there is effective innovation in companies.

During my academic journey, I started working at AKQA and I was then doing my field research at Razorfish. That’s how it all started. It was all for my dissertation. And then I stayed at Razorfish for two years, working with their digital strategy team. It was at that time that YouTube had shown brands that they don’t need to make advertisements that interrupt content. Instead, brands could make content themselves.

At the same time, Facebook moved from being a social platform in academia to a social platform in the real world. Twitter was just starting. These early days were an unbelievably exciting time to be on the agency side, exploring new media and working in organizations that were not familiar with the technology but who had the strategy, structure and processes to move the discipline forward and shape marketing practice.

After Razorfish, I moved to Barbarian group, then Droga 5, which was more of a traditional agency at that time – it was principally making TV spots, billboards, print ads – and it still is one of the most creative agencies around. It was an unbelievable learning curve and a wonderful journey.

Next, I focused more on fashion, luxury and lifestyle verticals because I’ve always been interested how brands influence culture. That was the focus of my dissertation. It was about ‘modern branding.’ I had always been fascinated by how brands can be commercial and cultural entities at the same time. How do companies use brands to connect business with culture?

Fashion, luxury and lifestyle brands have outsized cultural influence. Their business models haven’t changed for decades, their technologies haven’t changed for decades, so I really wanted to explore this. So, when I was invited to move brand-side, it was the right move for me. On the brand side (as opposed to the agency side), you are more executional. You are totally focused on making ideas happen and you have to organize people to deliver on the ideas.

You have to set the vision and strategy and then execute on that vision with real human resources, budgets, technology and so on. So, for me, being brand-side is actually much more ‘real world’ oriented. Rather than just coming up with amazing ideas and amazing strategy, when you’re working for a brand, you have to keep reality in mind and then be completely business oriented: you have to make sure that everything you do delivers results.

What is your first memory of a marketing success that you were part of?

The biggest thing I’m proud of is the rebrand of Banana Republic and the business results that followed. We had very favorable media coverage – but that’s kind of later in my career.

In my personal journey, a big success was getting a PhD. Another big success was being put on the Forbes list as an emerging marketer in 2018: that was a wonderful recognition after eight months in a job.

In terms of other successes, the highest praise I can get is when people tell me how much they find my work useful for them. When I hear global marketing professionals, global brand professionals or strategists that they have been reading my newsletters and the newsletters have helped them with their work.

How important to you is creativity in great brand advertising?

I would not say creativity in brand advertising is important. I would say creativity in brand organizations overall is crucial. Having a creative approach to problem-solving, rather than just creative output and creative approach to problem-solving, is of huge value.

If you’re in merchandising, design, marketing or media, asking how you solve a problem or how you respond to current cultural trends in the most creative way is hugely important. You need creative responses to business and cultural challenges and also to the rollout plan of how you choose to use media.

How will your plan participate in culture? What cultural products will you create? To succeed today, you need to come up with collaborations and merge with brand codes, with graphic design and visual handwriting language, with events, with experiences, across all available retail channels. You need to find ways to make things better for your customers in the most creative way possible.

How do you rate the value of emotional connection with marketing campaigns?

A brand is an emotion attached to commodities. With this emotion attached, products cease to be commodities and then become symbols of an emotion. They can be symbols of joy, happiness, playfulness, achievement, success, knowledge, intelligence, taste – all sorts of things. Without the emotional connection, you don’t have a brand.

How do you decide between the plethora of marketing media choices available today? What’s your process?

I don’t look at it like that at all. Going back to creativity as an approach rather than as output, my approach would be: this is the problem that we’re trying to solve. This is the strategy we’re going use to solve it. And then, let’s see what tactics are best suited to tackle this challenge.

Sometimes that’s a TV spot, sometimes that’s a billboard that’s near the store, sometimes that’s a pop-up store, sometimes it’s just social media, sometimes is an event. Sometimes it’s all of that together, layered up in a way that delivers the result you need.

Think about it like this: how does the entertainment industry work? It is like assembling The Avengers: you bring together the best talent from different disciplines. That’s the model for brand organizations. Whether your goal is to build awareness in the new market, build your brand, reach a new customer group or increase average order value – you need to put merchandising together with product design, marketing, creative, media and finance in order to really deliver the best solution.

You put together a swat team from these disciplines and ensure that everyone who participates is the best at what they do – and if you do that, then the tactics are just really secondary in delivering those results.

What myth about marketing would you most like to bust?

I think that marketing is guilty of perpetuating its own myths. One myth is that there are only a few ways to do marketing. Marketing is a strategy of cultural influence. When we define marketing, marketers often define it very narrowly: we limit ourselves to advertising, PR, creative campaigns, promotion or discount sales.

If positioned correctly, marketing is the strategy of cultural influence. Seen this way, marketing becomes the business of creating cultural products where we see fascinating collaborations, merged experiences and events.

What advice would you give to your younger self if you could go back in time?

I don’t take advice and I don’t give advice. So, even if I gave advice to my younger self, my younger self wouldn’t listen. Overall, I would probably just say, ‘Take it easy.’ But at the same time, I wouldn’t be where I am if I were different. So, no advice.

How do you navigate the whitewater rapids of fast-moving technology and tech platforms in the modern day?

Obviously, you need to be familiar with new technology. One needs to understand what kind of cultural influence those technologies have and what kind of communications those technologies allow you to render. But, we shouldn’t chase technology. In and of itself, that will not deliver any results. A better approach is, ‘What is the problem? Why is this a problem? And how we can use technology to solve it?”

What question would you like to ask the next senior marketer that I interview?

How do they make money?

Your question from another senior marketer is, tell us about a marketing mistake you made and what you learned from it?

Firstly, I don’t think there is ever only one mistake, just as there is not only one good decision. It is a series of mistakes or a series of good decisions that then lead to good or bad outcomes. Secondly, we make mistakes every single day. We are human. Some of those mistakes have bigger implications and some of them have smaller implications.

You would never say, ‘OK, so I decided to go after this audience. That was a bad decision.’ That never happens because that's not the real world. In big brand marketing, there are always so many stakeholders in the room. Some of them have their own agendas and some of them have their own points of view. Decision-making is always a negotiation. No single individual is in charge. I’m not like a queen with my court. No one is listening to only me and doing exactly and only what I say.

Also, that doesn’t mean that I have never made a mistake. I make mistakes every single day. It’s just you really need to put these mistakes in the context of how organizations work in real life. I strongly believe that we are all doing the best we can.

Outside of business and marketing, what makes you tick?

I live in New York, so there are always a lot of things to do, a lot of art and a lot of design. But, to be honest, what really makes me tick is people: going out on the street and looking at what they wear, how they socialize, what they do, how they behave. That’s endlessly inspiring.

You have a much-anticipated book coming out.

My new book, Hitmakers: How Brands Influence Culture (Routledge), is available for pre-order on Amazon, and it is very much about how to do cultural programming, how to organize brands for ongoing cultural output. What are the cultural products? What are the categories? And how does the new media strategy work? How does media amplification work? And why is that the future of marketing?

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If there’s one thing you know about marketing, it is…

No one knows anything: everything is a hypothesis. You can have the best strategy and the best creative, but it is all in the execution. You need nimbleness, speed, being responsive – and these are not catchphrases. You need to be all of these different things. You need to do creative things, release them into a lot of different contexts, see what is getting traction and then use media to amplify it. By focusing on creative production and releasing a lot of ideas – one of those ideas is going to be big.

You might die tomorrow so make it worth your while. Worth Your While is an independent creative agency helping brands do spectacular stuff people like to talk about. wyw.agency.

Tim Healey is founder and curator of Little Grey Cells Club, the UK’s premier Senior Marketer meet-up.