Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Debora Mondella, head of global marketing at Aztec Events:

Carlota Pico 0:13
Hi, everyone I got about that Pico from the content mix. And I’m excited to be here today with Deborah montella, who is head of global marketing at athletic events services, and has over nine years of experience in marketing and communications. Welcome, Deborah. And thank you so much for joining us today on the content mix.

Unknown Speaker 0:33
Hi, Carla, thank you for having me here.

Carlota Pico 0:35
It’s our pleasure. Well, Deborah, let’s jump straight into the interview. To give our audience a little bit of context. I’d love to learn a little bit about your background bit about your company and also how you got into your current role. Yeah, of course.

Debora Mondella 0:49
So as I can then services as are an international company and specialize in creative and technical event production. So to help And then professionals in both exhibition and corporate sector create immersive brand experience to their audience. So, the company delivers hundreds of events for important London venues like sports venues, exhibitions and business venues like floors, critic, critic downs, business Design Center, London Excel and of course the corporate clients. In 2018. We have opened a brand in Barcelona, due to the rise in demand in the southern Europe for our services. I’m coming back to your question. My career in international brand marketing and has started in Italy when I worked as a marketing and sales executive in export department, so had the opportunity to be exposed to the international office. Against since the very start of my career, and after a few years, I have decided to move to Dubai. And as I received a new job opportunity, and of course, this involves a rebranding exercise and Ula will launch and in general website optimization, exhibitions and high profile conferences involved. So, it was quite exciting experience. And I have there have been promoted just after a few months for as a brand marketing manager for the success achieved with a branding exercise in terms of brand positioning and company reputation. And then, I mean, it has been a great experience for short one that has really impacted in general my career afterwards and will My passion towards international branding. And indeed, I came to London where I actually am where my experience in SEO, website optimization lead generations and international branding. Were key for my role has of marketing for brands and digital for an international education franchise where I’ve been working for almost four years

Carlota Pico 3:30
now. Okay, well, excellent. You said two key markets that are amongst my favorite ones. Actually, I’m a big fan of the UAE I actually worked on a promotional campaign for the Emirate of Sharjah, but I was based in Dubai during that time and that was published in China’s economic observer and mainstream media channel in China and Italy. I mean, who’s not a fan of Italy, right. Going back to the BI I’m very much looking forward to see what will happen with exp 2020 so we’ll have to see how Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 4:07
indeed,

Carlota Pico 4:07
we’ll get into how the pandemic has been affecting worldwide events later on into our interview. But to begin with, I want to still stick to your LinkedIn profile. So I was on your LinkedIn profile. And I saw that your background is in content marketing, in education and also in the franchising sector, which you briefly touched upon in your introduction. But I do want to learn about the major lessons that you learned about content marketing or the education sector and separately for the franchising business. So for example, sector nuances things to keep in mind stuff like that.

Unknown Speaker 4:42
Absolutely.

Debora Mondella 4:43
Well, during this experience, I was responsible for global digital and brand strategy of the company. I lead the full omni channel strategy in terms of SEO, website development, email campaigns, global campaigns, and of course, Another important aspect where the hour was responsible to be like the brand guardian for all the brands of the company. So to ensure that not only we, of course build successful brands, but also to ensure that all the franchisees were, which were like around 40 or wild, where compliance with our with our brands. And of course, I mean, one of the major lessons that you get to learn when working, franchising, and in general, in a way, also in the education sector because, as a franchisor, you launch many global campaigns, we’re here to support your your partners, but at the same time you also launch your global campaigns to for lead generation and to of course, attract new investors. So, in this sense, you really have to switch on from B to B to B to C. really quickly. So, in terms of specifically in terms of b2c campaigns, I have realized how important it is not only to be creative with your message for our for lead generation, but also how effective this should be in every country. And we are not talking only about the translation challenges and of course, cultural aspects. But also you represent, of course, an education company in general and you have to make sure everything is compliant with a local culture laws, policies and things like that. So

Unknown Speaker 6:41
there’s a

Debora Mondella 6:41
quote from one of my favorite philosopher with the sign. This said, the limits of my language are the limits of my words. And this is, I believe, doesn’t only applies to translation and content strategy, but in general I believe one lesson is you, you really need to be able to have a dialogue and interaction with the other countries meeting and understanding the world before targeting them. Because sometimes then if you are off way, then it’s too late to adjust your messages, because you get to dig deep in terms of content strategy with each partner, because you create a marketing plan, as I say for as a global company, but then discuss and review the marketing plan of each partner to ensure if fully reflects the local strategy and objectives. And as objectives and targets change for each country, then the content marketing change too, and to some degree, the audience as well.

Carlota Pico 7:52
So in terms of targeting international countries, you are relying primarily on your partners to understand local cultures or where you are also working with local agencies to help you communicate with local audiences.

Debora Mondella 8:05
It really depended on the of course, on the internal workforce because we you really have to rely on great professional who are data and can give you insights on the on the culture and on, on the different kinds of dialogue and that you can establish. So, it three it really depends on on the country and how close you are with in terms of either cultural language with that country.

Carlota Pico 8:34
Okay, and now moving on to what you do today, what led you to move into the event industry and also to transition to London?

Debora Mondella 8:44
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I have realized how much I enjoyed the full spectrum of marketing mix. And I also started to work in b2b to see helping shape products and create campaigns not only for potential investors, but also for final customers, which in this case were students. But I was also really keen to work in our fast paced environment where I could focus a bit more on b2b to see even closer, where you start looking at consumer behavior a bit more, in the sense so, and also in general events. It’s something that you really need to be versatile and ready to switch on. It’s a really fast paced environment and dynamic one. So I was really excited to get into it. The experience that I gained over the years in in different sector as giving me the skills to see the bigger picture, in terms of Oregon’s market and most of all, business impact.

Carlota Pico 9:56
Okay, very interesting. I’m a big fan of events, also within The content mix. We also host in person events at our office in Madrid. And Shaheen, who’s our CEO and myself as head of business development, we’re both leading in person events and I love how dynamic they are and how much how much energy is put into every event that we host in person. Obviously, our events are much smaller than yours because they’re internal events for our audience here in Madrid.

Debora Mondella 10:28
Amazing. And yeah, indeed, I think it’s, it’s something that you really have a team that breath culture to be successful because it’s really important for us that everyone in the team feels that dark vibe, you know,

Carlota Pico 10:45
definitely now it’s a little bit difficult to host in person events because obviously, of the pandemic of the worldwide health crisis. So I do want to talk about the rise of webinars and also digital events. What did you company do to adapt overnight to the health crisis.

Debora Mondella 11:04
And I would say, as Tech has reacted pretty quickly to this by launching new products, like live streaming services are the very beginning of the pandemic, which is a service we usually do for clients during corporate events or exhibition at the keynote theatres. But in that case, we decided to package this in a way that can be used for b2b as well as b2c audience with social distancing measures, of course, and as soon as other majors have been lifted, we could also lose our green screen, backdrop studio and our physical studio in our parents is, which is going really well and we’ve learned like a couple of weeks ago, and we already had some clients, streaming live streaming from them. So in a way, I think that as thick as react as reacted pretty quickly to that challenge and we also recently launched our audio visual masterclass to help professional grade in massive events by sharing, hopefully meaningful knowledge and insights about audio visual. So in another sense, we we also created some kind of educational content for, for our audience to make sure they do better decision about their events and help with that. Certainly the whole event industry as being one of the most highly affected as you said. But we have also shown our resilience and consistency and creativity and keep supporting clients by delivering high quality brand experiences, also

Unknown Speaker 12:53
digitally

Debora Mondella 12:55
during this time and in different forums. And of course, we We hope we can come back to the live events stronger than our as soon as it will be possible to do so.

Carlota Pico 13:07
I think we all hope for the same thing. We all hope that the new normal will be a safe normal for everybody to be able to engage in live events and also in their everyday lives in person. I do want to talk a little bit about webinars. companies around the world have taken their events in person to events online and marketeers worldwide have also been using webinars as a tool to engage with their audience and also to attract leads to their brands, which means that competition online is more fierce than ever. So taking into consideration the Creative Services that aspect offers to his clients, along with your expertise in creative project management. What can a brand do to make their webinar online Have that really stand out

Debora Mondella 14:04
I think has stuck has a great team in terms of put a head of corporate events team and account and project management before everywhere events. So, this will be bespoke according to the objectives that the company has for specific events. With regard to the advice that I can give, in general, I ensure, I mean, in order to ensure that brands stand out, and I believe companies should treat the brand, like a real person, I mean, it has to be noted and they have to be honest with it. Only promise where you can deliver and the more genuine it is, the more the audience will appreciate. So, we totally I mean, you can hear a lot about authenticity when it’s down to branding, but when you are consistent with your message leads And breed your premise. It is easier to well position your brand in every chapter and platform, including virtual events in specific events be irrelevant, transparent. And most of all, say what is relevant to say, Can I wait because we kept receiving invitation for webinars and virtual events in general and which was great because it really helped helped us to keep us busy. But on the other side, I believe not all of them have left memorable experiences that lasted for more than a week, for example. And this is not because the content was not interesting in itself, but mainly because I believe it we didn’t probably feel really engaged with the mission of the brand or we didn’t feel that we belong to wait until the purpose so Brad I believe needs to be probably needed to bold their choices to impress now, where they can really have a voice where they can stand up for something. And so from a branding perspective about all events turns out when I when I believe he provokes positive emotional reaction, and I mean small things can make a big difference when it comes to emotion. So, with more live events, you you really can rely on on content because all people are of course, you cannot really rely on the presence or on you know, and and really networking by that you had so i think is by promoting positive emotional reaction is something that can help to have lasting memories with your friends.

Unknown Speaker 17:00
Keep the content always relevant.

Debora Mondella 17:02
Create a sense of belonging, share meaningful knowledge, inspired your audience with thought provoking questions, not just only answers,

Carlota Pico 17:12
okay, I’d like to put some of that talk into walk, which means that I’d like practical examples of real life campaigns from brands that you really admire. So some brands that inspire you to do better to Excel to really push the envelope in terms of being bold and being human.

Debora Mondella 17:36
Yeah, I believe in general. For example, I’ve recently read a book about it’s called business for punks. It is from one of the co founder of view dogs, which is the beer business is one of the words Ernie work business and this really inspired inspired me It is inspiring because this is a it’s definitely a bold kind of message by the company and they have created many different campaigns, sometimes not necessarily, you have to start and enter different kinds of activities to Robert tension, for example, during him here in the UK during the pandemic, instead of them doing campaigns not only related to the beer, but they’ve also traded their whole support by doing themselves hand sanitizer. So I believe this is a bold kind of action, that in a way is almost equal to all all kinds of events because it just leave you with a source of inspiration, a source of something that the company has done, beyond saying what he would have done. So I think That’s the kind of example I’m probably looking for.

Carlota Pico 19:03
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more Deborah, right now, people really want to see brands that resonate with their values. And we can see this trend across social media right now, for example, on Facebook and Instagram, loads of brands are deciding to pull their advertisement from these two social media channels because of them not sharing the same values that Facebook and Instagram do at this moment. And Zuckerberg right now is trying to combat some of the hate speech that is so prominent on Facebook and Instagram. But let’s move into HubSpot. Because HubSpot CEO had something very enlightening to say about good content. And what he said was that what separates good content from great content is a willingness to take risks and push the envelope. So that’s his definition on what separates good contracts. Some great content basically being bold. It’s pushing the envelope. It’s taking risks, and it’s following up your words with tangible actions. So taking it to a brand marketing level, which is something that we’ve already been speaking about, I do want to zoom further into that topic and ask you what separates good brand marketing from great brand marketing?

Debora Mondella 20:25
That’s a great question. Thank you for asking. Um, branding has certainly evolved over the years. And I was reading on a recent article in marketing week magazine, that from a recent research, it looks like consumer priorities are also changing as a result of COVID-19. According to the survey, before the pandemic responders main priorities when per tasing were quality, price and brand. Now they’re mostly focused on availability price and quality. This is interesting as brand doesn’t seem to be a priority at the moment. On the other hand, I believe now more than half a branded is the message. A brand is great when grows organically from the inside out. So when the internal policies are consistent with the external messages, you cannot really hide. That might. So I probably say that a great branding is when there is a great company culture. So if you do that, well, you you’ve done half of the job because your employees and stakeholders become your best

Unknown Speaker 21:45
brand ambassador.

Unknown Speaker 21:49
Yeah, so people want to buy

Debora Mondella 21:52
something that makes them feel good and justify their buying in a way Most of this case, most of the cases, this buying can be a statement, which could be political, ideological or simply aligned with their values. So they need a story, but they also need a sense of belonging. So this is I think, what a

Unknown Speaker 22:19
great branding is.

Carlota Pico 22:21
That’s so interesting about how it’s changed to availability during COVID-19, as well, because I guess consumers what they want is products that are delivered fast on time and that are reliable.

Unknown Speaker 22:33
Absolutely, yeah, it

Debora Mondella 22:34
was, I was really impressed by by this because, definitely, I mean, of course, the priorities change in crime during crisis and in this situation, but I would have thought in general brand is something that you trust. so in this situation of crisis, you instinctively look for something in trust. But of course, there are other elements in this situation. Which is of course economic crisis and things like that. So, absolutely price and availability take a major step in that sense.

Carlota Pico 23:08
Very interesting. Well, thank you so much for sharing those insights with us ever. Okay, we are moving into the rapid fire set of questions which are basically your recommendations to our audience. To get this section started off, I’d like to ask you about your source of inspiration. So for example, an influencer or a role model.

Debora Mondella 23:27
Yeah, I mean, being a multi channel marketing, I like having differences of inspiration. This can be reading articles from, as I say, marketing week or behavioral scientists, which gives great insight into the latest research, including consumer behavior and statistics. Another great inspiration are podcasts from Korea, for example, which collects Of course, all the best articles in the wars who have a different perspective. I also follow NATO Patel when I want to hear about SEO updates, or Katie King, when I want to be updated on recent developments on marketing from AI and data science perspective, and in general I’m an analytical person so However, I’m left handed, so I have to come up with with my creative flair. And so I’m keen about creativity is in all forms and our exhibition in general and things like that. And I also painted in my free time. So different sources of inspiration, I think, for a marketer is really important to have different perspectives in your daily life, especially if you work internationally. And yeah, I think probably these are one recommendation that I can give.

Carlota Pico 24:50
Okay, I really like your behavioral tip. I think as marketeers it’s so important to understand the behavior of potential consumers clients. cetera. definitely agree with that. And you’ll put up Neil Patel who doesn’t follow him back there, right. I think that’s an influencer that has affected all of us throughout her career coming out a book or publication that you’d like to recommend to our audience. I know in one of your previous responses, you already mentioned the book that you’re quite a big fan of, but what about a publication? a

Unknown Speaker 25:25
publication, I mean, I don’t have

Debora Mondella 25:26
any one in particular to recommend, but it’s definitely important to stay updated with different kinds of services, not only the things that you like, because when you have one thing you like, you tend to follow that. But then, in general, you might use a new perspective in to feed your market their mindset, so yeah, absolutely. And of course, that the book that I’ve already mentioned, from business for punks, I definitely recommend For other marketing because I, I have or I used to have a quite structured education in marketing and business for my degree. But after reading this book, it completely revolutionized my vision on how startup is able to really succeed in such a fast growing environment. And this links to where we were discussing before. So, I mean, now it’s time for brands to leave their mission full.

Carlota Pico 26:30
Very interesting. I would also add to follow the news. As a former journalist I’m big on on watching the news and also consuming news across the internet. Some of my favorite channels are, for example, CNN, which I think plenty of our viewers would agree on. But I also consume local news because it helps me to understand local audience. So following what’s happening across the world, according to what you’re doing, at the moment, I think is extremely valuable for marketeers in order to understand their local consumers and clients. Yeah. What about since you’re in the event industry, I have to ask you what about an event or also a hashtag, I guess, that you’d like to recommend to our audience?

Debora Mondella 27:18
Yeah, indeed, events I highly recommend. Well, I definitely recommend festival marketing, which happens every year for a two day show in London and gathers high level marketers that are able to inspire, discuss the workshop and hopefully, create a future together. And it’s also fantastic and inspire Vayner I love it. It’s tobacco docks in London. And I am most of all asterik is usually the official audio visual partner for this show. So you might find that in a way or in another,

Carlota Pico 27:56
Okay, excellent. Nice shout out to astec as well. Okay. That was Deborah rhondella, a head of global marketing for athletic events services as a reminder to our audience, aspects supplies out of visual, tactical and Creative Services to corporate events and world leading exhibitions throughout Europe. Deborah, thank you so much for joining us on the content makes, it was a pleasure to talk with you and to learn about your journey.

Unknown Speaker 28:23
Thank you for law. My pleasure.

Carlota Pico 28:25
And to everyone listening to us today, thank you so much for joining us on the content mix. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out the content mix. We’ll be releasing interviews just like this one. So keep on tuning in. Thanks again and see you next time. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai