Asier García of VMLY&R: ‘We’ve rolled out a viral worldwide campaign for Wendy’s where video was the main feature’
4 mins read
June 27, 2022
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Asier García is the Head of Integration & Content Experience at VMLY&R Spain, which is a marketing and communications agency, working all the specialized areas related with Brand and Customer experience including social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting. Asier is an experienced Head of Integration with a demonstrated history of working in marketing. He’s very skilled in creating new digital strategies for agencies, but he also focuses on the user experience, project management and business operations in marketing for teams and business development.
Whisbi is a Live Commerce platform that provides services like Live Video Shopping, Virtual Selling, Live Broadcasting and more. We help brands achieve 100% of their web revenue potential through online sales conversations powered by video. In this series ‘Whisbi Talks’ we’re inviting experts of the Live Engagement world to share their experiences and knowledge with us around these topics. Please read on!
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you give a brief introduction about yourself?
About 20 years ago I started working in digital and technology agencies. I’ve been transforming creative agencies ever since. Especially the ones that have never touched or haven’t been involved in all the details regarding the digital and technology space from a strategy perspective – I’ve been doing this at four different agencies so far. I showed them all the digital capabilities and it started in Leo Burnett, then I continued this in LOLA Mullenlowe, after I joined 14 Agency as a digital consultant and then I started working at VMLY&R in Spain about three years ago. VMLY&R was a joint venture between VML, which was a creative consultancy coming from technology and digital from the States and Y&R was a brand strategy creative agency. Joining these forces VMLY&R was in need of transforming the two offices in Spain that were located in Madrid and Barcelona. So I joined in and started building what currently is VMLY&R: a grand customer experience agency with all round capabilities. We’re working from brand experience to customer experience. I’m the Head of Integration of all the capabilities that are needed in each of the projects we’re managing within this agency. But besides that I’m also the Head of Content Experience because I’ve been following this road from the beginning and right now I’m taking on a dual role.
What’s the campaign you did that stuck with you most in relation to video?
In the last year the most impressive campaign is definitely Wendy’s. It’s interesting not only because of the content but also because of the evolution we made within this project. We made sure the whole social community had a role. The final content is a video but the activation behind that created content was major teamwork. So many people were involved in this. We built it so much bigger and it became a worldwide campaign. It was amazing to see how the fans of Wendy’s were involved, how we challenged the community and how we attacked the other restaurants regarding fresh meat – which is Wendy’s KPI. They became trending when Facebook changed their name in Meta and Wendy’s changed their name in Meat. It’s a brand activation with a movement for the community and video played a big factor in this. Another great campaign is Magnum, that my old partners at LOLA established. I love what they have been doing for them, they’re treating it like it’s another culture and experience. Magnum is constantly triggering the community: they’re little by little sending different messages out to stay top of mind. All the content that they are delivering from the video perspective is very impressive.
Do you know any pain points about user engagement on the current enterprise websites?
The real problem is to identify who the person is you are leading to your website. So in short: the problem is more on the customer journey you build with the precise touchpoints to target the exact people you want to reach. This can come from different channels like organic, advertisements, external communication, activations etcetera. Of course you need to optimize your website with the obvious rules as to how people want to buy online. Easy navigation, don’t overcomplicate the customer journey, clear product overviews – those are the basics. But if you’re not really reaching the people who are going to buy your products, you’re lost – it all starts there.
Can you tell me some brands rocking the user engagement now in this field?
From my point of view Nike is the best brand. They’re doing very well in terms of communication but their content and e-commerce is outstanding. They are only producing engaging content to activate people – they do this globally when relevant or locally. Apart from that, they’re selling an experience of building your product – and customers can find it only on the website of Nike in my opinion.
How do you see Live Shopping evolving in the next 5 years?
I think it has already evolved a lot. It’s kind of the same principle like you would watch home shopping tv channels back in the days from The States. Nowadays the platform is so much more modern but I think it will become more reactive. It could also be an add-on to existing platforms but it depends on the products and the price of the products you’re selling. We’re changing and evolving the old way of selling through new channels like Live Video Shopping and this will continue to expand. It’s reducing the time customers spend to find products they want to purchase, because they can do it from the comfort of their homes.
Do clients from VMLY&R request video more now than a few years ago?
Yes, definitely. The pandemic has changed the minds of consumers a lot. The video consumption is higher than three years ago and 90% of the content we are creating is video related. Therefore, we’re fully focused on video. All the data we have about video consumption is always going up. We’re the ones advising clients to use video, when it’s relevant obviously. For example Zespri, the kiwi brand, wanted brand relevance. With only an image it’s very hard to show that, but with video demonstrations on how to consume kiwis in different ways – it’s more activating. We as an agency need to figure out why the consumer is going to dedicate more than three seconds to this brand. That ‘why’ is where we see which kind of content we need to produce in order to get the attention of potential buyers. Video is helping out a lot.
Where do you get your inspiration for your content?
We start by asking our network if they have faced similar challenges. Also, the creative side of our agency constantly follows a lot of blogs, vlogs, talks and anything else related to the subject we need to know more about. Our tech department is in contact with trend watchers to know what’s coming so we can advise our clients about where the future is headed regarding specific topics. We want to be one step ahead of the crowd – it’s our differentiation point. That’s how we position ourselves and video will continue to play a big part of that.
