Here is a transcript generated by Otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with VeraContent’s Kyler Canastra and Global Marketing Manager at Scotch & Soda Livia Gonçalves on how to reach regional audiences through local influencers and localized content:

Kyler Canastra 0:01
Hi everyone, I’m Kyler from The Content Mix and I’m excited to be here with Livia Gonçalves, Global Marketing Manager at Scotch and Soda. After working for years in marketing in her native Brazil, Livia set out to Europe to take her career to the next level. Based in the Netherlands, Livia’s passion for building brands in international environments has given her the opportunity to connect with different audiences all over the globe. In her day-to-day work, Livia leverages her interest in branding and her passion for creativity to solve problems and collaborate with her team. Welcome Livia. And thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Livia Gonçalves 0:36
Thanks for having me.

Kyler Canastra 0:37
So just to get the ball rolling. As I mentioned in your intro, you’re from Brazil. So where exactly in Brazil are you from?

Livia Gonçalves 0:44
I’m from Rio originally. And I’m half Brazilian and half Portuguese.

Kyler Canastra 0:49
That’s great. So you’ve always had an interest in coming to Europe? Or you’ve always had contact.

Livia Gonçalves 0:55
Yeah, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Before moving, I had been here a couple of times to visit my family in Portugal.

Kyler Canastra 1:03
That’s great. And then. So you’ve been in Europe for how long now?

Livia Gonçalves 1:08
Now, almost five years.

Kyler Canastra 1:09
That’s great. And I guess you were working in marketing before, right in Brazil. So then you came here and started working in the same sector? Have you found any big differences between the two markets?

Livia Gonçalves 1:20
Yeah. So now it has been 10 years that I work with marketing. And in Brazil, yeah, so basically, half of my professional life, I was in Brazil, half of it here in Europe. And the difference was that when I moved to the Netherlands, I started working in a big multinational brands, so at Crocs. And that was a big difference for me, because before I have worked with a smaller fashion brands, I had my own marketing consultancy company, so I was more working on a smaller company environment. And then at Crocs, I had the opportunity to travel around Europe for work, and then see how things were completely different, even in each country in Europe. So that’s, that was a very big difference.

Kyler Canastra 2:13
Yeah, I think a lot of times people forget just how diverse Europe is, you know, I think as I’m from the US, it’s like the same size. And Brazil is like the same size as Europe, and it’s just so many different countries within Europe that you have to really work on understanding how marketing works in each country with each audience.

Livia Gonçalves 2:30
Exactly. Yeah. And I would say that the same in the US, like, in Brazil, like the south of the country, where it’s completely different than the north and like Rio and Sao Paulo, even, which are very close by like, even the audience, their like targets, everything is completely different.

Kyler Canastra 2:49
So you really have to know how to navigate the waters, I guess. Yes, in that sense. And how did you get interested in marketing? Kind of how did you get involved?

Livia Gonçalves 2:57
Yeah, I think, well, like as many young students, I was quite a bit lost with the decision of my career for life. And I had a support of a coach to find out which were the skills that I had more strong and where I should go, and what should I do with that. And then I found that communication was something like really easy to me, like, they’re interested in getting to know different people and various topics. So then I end up in marketing and communication. And I remember like my first, very first day in university that we learned, while we had few examples of very well-known advertisings and I was just like, yeah, that’s it, you know? So it was, it was a perfect match, I would say,

Kyler Canastra 3:50
Yeah, you just found, you felt connected to it. No, or just.

Livia Gonçalves 3:53
Yeah, a sense of being.

Kyler Canastra 3:54
Because of the people or like, I feel like marketing has a really people-focused aspect to it. Is that why you found it interesting? Or?

Livia Gonçalves 4:03
Yeah, I found it interesting that it’s more or less like, why you are doing things and how to talk with your consumer and how you’re going to find them. And when you find them, how you’re going to be communicating and keep this communication going as well. So I think that’s something that is very interesting about marketing as well, that everything changes so fast. So even on the first year of university, like second year, things were already different. So you always need to be eager to find where the innovation is in the, in the market.

Kyler Canastra 4:40
Yeah, that’s refreshing in a way because a lot of jobs, I feel like, can be very stagnant. But at least in marketing, we have a lot of exposure, things change all the time, and especially this year, no, with the pandemic and everything, our whole, we had to shift kind of how we do marketing in general.

Livia Gonçalves 4:54
For sure, for sure. I think in the last year, even, like things change so fast. In a space of a year, like you see how many things change and how flexible we need to be right, because otherwise, like we are going to be behind. So I think, yeah, it’s a good example. Like with the pandemic, I remember the beginning, like March last year, when we were about to just work from home. And then we start having on a daily basis, the teams and zoom meetings. And in the beginning, it was so awkward, and how we’re going to do this? How we’re going to keep ourselves together? And how we are going to keep our team motivated? But yeah, it ends up that, I mean, we need to be flexible, and we found our way. And then the very beginning, like, yeah, what, what about the campaigns that we have planned? You know, what is going to happen?

Kyler Canastra 5:52
Right.

Livia Gonçalves 5:52
And then you need to change the campaigns in a week. So it was a lot of work and a lot of innovation as well like that need to be put in place in a time, I don’t know, in a week, in days, and I think the fast pace just followed the entire year. And now we are used to it, I think.

Kyler Canastra 6:15
Yeah, we haven’t slowed down one moment. We learned to become adaptable. I mean, I think we can associate a lot of negative things right with this past year. But I think there’s a lot of positives we can take out of it, too. And I think one of it is being flexible, like you said, and also being able to adapt and change and, you know, kind of take risk more than we would before.

Livia Gonçalves 6:35
Yes, indeed, because everything’s new. So you need to take the risk, right? You need to give it a shot. And yeah, put your energy on it. Yeah.

Kyler Canastra 6:46
Though, you said you worked at Crocs before and now you’re working at Scotch and Soda, which is also in the fashion world, I guess you could say. Are you interested in fashion? And kind of how did you get involved in the sector?

Livia Gonçalves 6:56
Yeah, so my first internship was in fashion at Sao Paulo Fashion Week. And then from there, I just went through marketing consultant fashion brand, and then to another fashion brand. And then I decided to do a course in London in fashion business. Oh, and, yeah, from there just build up. And when I came to Europe, I was, I ended up working at Crocs as well within the fashion industry. And yeah, I worked there for four years. I was responsible for wholesale marketing in the beginning for a few countries, and then PR and communications. And then Scoth and Soda approached me with a supercool challenge. The brand just relaunched the new logo and the new branding. And then it was a cool challenge. And I was up for it.

Kyler Canastra 8:41
That’s great.

Livia Gonçalves 8:43
Yeah, three months now.

Kyler Canastra 8:44
Yeah. So it’s really cool how you were able to combine your passion for fashion, something you were interested in, and also with marketing, and kind of, that kind of took you to where you are today, which is always great. I think it’s always inspiring to hear, you know, people who can combine their passions and make it into something that’s unique for them and something that’s special for their career. Yeah.

Livia Gonçalves 9:03
Yeah, indeed.

Kyler Canastra 9:04
And, so you have a lot of experience clearly. And it’s great. And I want to know a bit if you have an example about a campaign or a piece of content, and something to do with a marketing campaign that really worked well, in your experience and why?

Livia Gonçalves 9:18
Yeah, so I can give you an example of a project that we had at Crocs in 2019, which was a pop-up store in London at Boxpark Shoreditch. And it was very innovative. I mean, we haven’t done that before, like, it was something really like new for the brand. And we, the objective was to basically reach the young consumer and then drive brand awareness to this new target group. And we had a store for three months and every two weeks we had a different activation in store. So we had collaborations with artists, local designers, to literally bring some buzz around the brand. And of course, like involving PR, social, so it was really good project that involved a few different teams in the company, the merchandising, PR, wholesale, like lots of teams were working together to, of course, achieve the same objective in the end. So it’s a, it was really good and very well planned and really good results achieved in them. So that was a very cool project to be involved in.

Kyler Canastra 10:43
In terms of like, what are the channels you use to market that event? Like, how did you connect with the audiences for the work? Was it through social media? Was it through the influencers? You hired artists?

Livia Gonçalves 10:54
Yeah, through social media, for sure. Our own channels back then. And then we invited influencers, we invited media as well. So the PR agency was pretty much involved. And and then, of course, their own channels from each designer and artists that were collaborating with us back then.

Kyler Canastra 11:17
It seems like, I said in the intro too, that you’re really passionate about working on teams and collaborating, and it seems like that’s a fantastic example. You were working across departments, you were collaborating with a lot of different people in order to get your message across and spread the word about Crocs.

Livia Gonçalves 11:31
Yeah, exactly.

Kyler Canastra 11:32
That’s awesome. I guess, to kind of be the devil’s advocate and ask the more negative question. What do you think marketers are doing wrong nowadays? What are some things that you see in your experience that could be improved?

Livia Gonçalves 11:47
Yeah, I think sometimes marketeers tend to forget to regionalize their content. And I think that’s really, really important. If the brand wants to communicate, and be close to their audience, they need to really reach that audience, like there is no “global suits-all.” You really need to understand with whom you’re talking to. And maybe, let’s say nowadays, which is really easy and where we usually go to like influencer programs and influencer activations. An influencer, the reason why they are doing so well is because usually they are speaking with their own audience, like really regional. And that’s where sometimes we miss.

Kyler Canastra 12:37
Right, and how do you go about like finding influencers? For example, do you do research? Do you kind of poke around and see who would be the best fit for a campaign? What recommendations do you have for that?

Livia Gonçalves 12:50
I think it really, even within the same brand, you need to find the correct and the right fit influencer for each product or service that you’re communicating. So basically, if you have like, for example, one product to communicate, [you need to find] the right influencer to communicate a product. Even if you have a few influencers that you work with in your company, maybe there are different ones for different products that you’re going to communicate.

Kyler Canastra 13:22
And also you touched upon something I was going to bring up now as kind of the importance of globalization and how we need to embrace it nowadays. So you mentioned how, you know, when you really connected with the audience, maybe marketeers are now thinking that they can do things on a more global level without really focusing on each target market. And you said that it’s not right, or like, that’s not the right approach. So why do you think that? And how can we avoid doing, making that mistake?

Livia Gonçalves 13:48
Yeah, sure, I think, well, even if it’s a global brand, which we do have many nowadays. And then we can also like find information from all around the globe in a second. So I can, at this very moment, know what is happening in the US with any brand that I want to know. But what I mean about like “global doesn’t suit all” and you need to regionalize and localize your content, it’s basically because at the same time that global gives you this opportunity to see what is happening all around, it also gives you the opportunity to really niche and then communicate local with your target. And this way you’re going to be much more effective. So that’s why I see the need with globalization too, if you really want to be effective and effective, and really talk to the right audience, you really need to know them and go very close to them, because they are used to see everything happening at the same time. So how do you know if they are going to really be caught by your communication? Right.

Kyler Canastra 15:01
And I guess how have you approached that? Because you mentioned localization, for example, which is essential in content marketing nowadays, to have people that are able to localize content. I’m not sure if you had experience with that part of the field?

Livia Gonçalves 15:14
Yeah. So let’s say at Crocs, when I was working with PR agencies, we had, of course, like the same launch. And globally, we were following the same calendar to that launch that specific product, but working with different PR agencies in different countries in Europe, I was basically, we were aligning how we were going to communicate that same product in each country, because the way that each country was seeing that product was different. So that’s an example like, it was a launch, global launch at the same time, but in different ways of communicating it,

Kyler Canastra 15:56
For sure. And I guess, in your opinion, you say, you talked a lot about communication and something that it’s obviously we’re discussing now. But you think communication is key in marketing, especially nowadays. I’m curious to know why you think communication is key.

Livia Gonçalves 16:11
Yeah, I see communication is the base for any market here. Because if you know how to communicate with your audience, or if you know how to communicate within your team, for example, within your company, that’s the key. And then nowadays, everything became digital, and then how are you going to communicate, and then be a good communicator, via teams or via zoom? How it became even, I mean, a stronger skill, I would say, like a much needed skill, to make sure that you are communicating well with your team. And then you don’t have that face-to-face feeling which, of course, gives you the feel, the real human contact. Okay. Yeah. And, and then I mean, it’s difficult, right? To connect, much harder. And then if you know how to communicate, I mean, if you really use the communication as a base, it’s going to make everything easier for your, for your work life and for the way that you’re communicating your product or service,

Kyler Canastra 17:24
For sure. And like something you touched upon too, something that we’re all navigating around, is kind of working online, and kind of, you know, even leading teams, managing people, getting things done and staying motivated. Now, I want to know, in your experience, do you have any, like tips or strategies that you use to like lead a team or to, you know, be effective in your communication?

Livia Gonçalves 17:43
Yeah, I think it’s really important to connect, and to connect, by connecting, I mean, really getting to know your team and with whom you’re talking to. So really giving the time because sometimes you’re like, in a such a hurry that you don’t feel like, Oh, yeah, let’s just talk about business now. Like, Hey, how are you doing? Good. And then go directly to the, you know, to the topic. And I feel that if you know, and if you know how the other person is feeling at the moment, it’s going to be much easier to communicate, because you know, how you’re going to communicate at that time. So that’s what I usually try to do, I try to connect, like, as more as possible, get to know the person that I’m talking to. And, like now, I, of course, I joined Scott during COVID. So everything is digital. So I try to have like one morning coffees with my colleagues. And of course, I live in Amsterdam. So everyone is really close by. If you just walk at the park, I mean, you can keep distance, but at least you’re going to have a little bit of more feeling of the other person. So it’s going to be much easier to connect and work together.

Kyler Canastra 18:57
It’s so important. That’s something that even when we’re on lockdown here in Spain, because I’m based in Spain, it was, we did like, we made sure we had like a morning call just to have coffee and catch up. And you know, even though I knew my team very well at that point, and I’m fortunate that I was able to do this whole remote switch with knowing the people. But it was so essential just to check in and say, especially but you know, this past year was not easy for I don’t think a single person in the whole world. So everyone had their own, not only were we kind of fighting this whole, you know, fighting COVID, and kind of dealing with that, but everyone had their own personal battles they were going through and I think for me, and I think you work in an international team as well. It was hard. A lot of us were away from our families. And I think like what you said is really important in order to have a productive team and you really need to check in with them and make sure that they feel heard, right.

Livia Gonçalves 19:43
For sure. For sure.

Kyler Canastra 19:44
Yeah, it was a crazy year, but we got through it. And I think we’ve learned a lot about essentially communication on teams. And why, you know, I think we always focus in business, very much on communication, communicating our product and getting the word out about that but not really looking internally as well. I think we did a lot of internal reflection. And I think it’s going to be something that hopefully we can take the best moving forward as the world slowly opens up. I hope we open up soon.

Livia Gonçalves 20:06
Yeah, I think we really had to be innovative in the way that we were communicating, we were really accommodated, let’s say, yeah, in the way that we were doing marketing even, you know, so it was a really good shake in that sense of how you’re going to communicate from now on, you know.

Kyler Canastra 20:26
Exactly. How your messaging is going to be and how it, like we said in the beginning of the interview, how it’s gonna evolve all the time and in marketing, everything changes. It’s not constant. So it’s, this has definitely put us through a loop, right. And now we’re actually learning that we actually can be adaptable and flexible, while also giving our, you know, our teams more flexibility in the workplace, which is great. Now, you have great experience, and we learned so much about your past, and for someone that’s interested in, in marketing and has no experience, or maybe they haven’t, you know, just did an internship like you did in the fashion industry, that kind of kick started your career, what advice would you give to them? I guess, to get started in the world this time in marketing.

Livia Gonçalves 21:06
I think it’s like, don’t be afraid of failing, because there is a saying that says, if you’re not failing, you’re not aiming high enough. So I just feel that you can’t be afraid, I mean, just go try. And it’s going to be actually in the beginning of the career, but forever, you know, like, I still do that. Because if you’re not afraid, you’re going to find a way you’re going to learn somehow, if you fail or not. So.

Kyler Canastra 21:33
You have to learn to take risk, and not look back, kind of thing. Like you took a risk, you know, you moved to Europe. And so did I, from our home countries kind of left and kind of started our careers, or you were already halfway through your 10 years, but still kind of just shaking things up, as we said before, and I think that’s so import.

Livia Gonçalves 21:48
Yeah, be open for that, you know, be flexible. I mean, it’s never going to be under control. Like that’s what we learned from the past year. We don’t own anything.

Kyler Canastra 22:02
No, exactly. It’s it’s good to take risk. And know that mistakes are important. If you don’t make mistakes, you never learn and you never become a better professional, also even a person.

Livia Gonçalves 22:12
Indeed.

Kyler Canastra 22:13
Now speaking, you just gave us great advice. But now I want to learn a bit more about some recommendations that you use, or some suggestions that you have for productivity, or, for example, like do you have any daily habits that you attribute to your success? Like things that you do to you know, stay sane, or to keep yourself active? Stay productive?

Livia Gonçalves 22:31
Yeah. Well, mostly during COVID, I think, actually, what was good with COVID is that we have a little bit more of time, at least we don’t have the time that we used to do for commuting to work and all these things. So yeah, so I do meditate every morning. I do exercise every morning. Like it just like, sets the tone for the day, and also gives a little bit of literally headspace before you start your day. And I think since I started having my like morning routine, like really, everything that I do every morning, it really helps me to go throughout the day, like much easily. And I think it’s just like…

Kyler Canastra 23:18
I totally agree.

Livia Gonçalves 23:18
It gives you a different feeling during the day.

Kyler Canastra 23:21
It does. And I think it’s always great to like, take an effort, in my opinion, like to take that moment, whether it’s meditating or exercising, to do something for yourself, you’re starting the day off, especially if you’re like managing a team, you’re working with people and doing a lot of things, you know, for your team to be productive. And it’s always good to take that time for yourself to be like, okay, I can start my day and you know, respect my mental health and kind of get the day started on the right foot. So I totally agree.

Livia Gonçalves 23:45
Yeah, otherwise, otherwise, you’re just like, you wake up, have your breakfast, and then you sit in front of your computer. So what have you done for yourself? You know, it’s really good to do something for yourself.

Kyler Canastra 23:56
To get the day started, and it’s something that I guess we had a lot of time to fine tune right? In this past year of like, you know, okay, we want to have a good routine and something that you can do trial and error with. So that’s fantastic. Yeah. And do you have the professional role model? Because I know, you’re inspirational. I think a lot of people listen to this and be really inspired by your story, but are people that you’ve kind of met along the way or people that you’ve learned about through the internet or through books that really have inspired you to live your life to the fullest?

Livia Gonçalves 24:26
Yeah, there are a few, I think, and then the good thing about internet and I mean, being connected is that you find someone everyday if you want, some new inspiration model. But to mention like a very basic, let’s say basic, in a sense, like the base one for marketing is Simon Sinek. So he’s the author of the book, “Start With Why.” So in summary, he says that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. So it’s really finding that “why” you’re doing it, “why” you’re selling it. So basically, you can bring it to your own life, like personal life or professional life. So I think that’s a really good book that any marketer should read at some point in life. And there is the TED Talks, and a couple of videos from him, from him on internet,

Kyler Canastra 25:27
That’s fantastic. It’s always good to have like a source of inspiration, or a person that has a lot of books, you know, a lot of TED Talks, and you can kind of keep up with them. Or if they have a podcast and stuff like that. It’s always great to find motivation in other places to, to keep you going forward. And also, one thing I wanted to mention too, is that, and I forgot to mention it before, is that you started your own agency, I think it was marketing agency in Brazil. And I just kind of wanted to know how that experience was.

Livia Gonçalves 25:55
Good. So, my first job experience like my first, after my internships, that was in a marketing consultants company, for fashion brands. And I really, really enjoyed that. And the way that, that we could really see the brands and the companies in a very holistic approach. So basically, looking from the outside view, you know, and then really seeing where the dots could be connected in a better way and improve the processes. And that was something that really stayed with me. So after that, I joined a fashion brand, where I could basically, we weren’t just starting to build a marketing department and the e-commerce department. So I could, again, use that holistic view to connect the dots. And and then I decided I wanted to do that on my own as well, and then do it for other fashion brands. And so then I did for a while, and, and I really liked this idea. And nowadays, of course, working for big brands, I always try to see this, this bigger picture and see where can can those pieces be better connected? So I think this is something that really stayed with me from the experience when I had my own company.

Kyler Canastra 27:23
Yeah, I think it’s really fascinating. Because you said before, it’s it’s kind of we need to take, you know, take risk and try new things. And I feel like your career has been that… You’ve left your country, you started your own little, you know, you started your own initiative. And then you were working for different brands and kind of just touch and go and seeing what happens. And I think that’s what’s kind of led you to where you are today. I think that’s really, really inspiring. And a lot of people will find that interesting.

Livia Gonçalves 27:47
Yeah, I think connecting with people, like communicating, being curious. Yeah, it’s something that really, really inspires me. I mean, every people that you meet in a way, you’re going to learn something somehow.

Kyler Canastra 28:02
And as we come, we’re coming to the end of our interview, unfortunately, because it’s been a great conversation, but I just wanted to know if you have any, like final takeaways or piece of advice for our listeners, who are tuning in?

Livia Gonçalves 28:15
Yeah, I think. Yeah, I said already, like, don’t be afraid to fail, but not only but really be flexible and open. You know, because it’s so easy for us to just say, yeah, that’s how I do it. But you’re never gonna have the control of things. And so if you are open and flexible, the way that you’re going to see the changes are going to be different. So, exactly, I think we are still to see that things are still going to be changing all the time and not in our own control. So yeah, that’s my advice.

Kyler Canastra 28:50
Maybe the past year, we can consider it kind of as a wake up call, right to be like, Listen, life’s not always gonna be constant. So just be prepared for whatever comes your way and embrace it and kind of go with the flow. Yes. Well, and if any of our listeners wanted to get in touch with you or kind of connect with you or follow you, follow you as you continue with your career, is there any way they can get in touch?

Livia Gonçalves 29:10
Yes, well, my LinkedIn, you can find me there and I’m more than happy to connect, send me a message.

Kyler Canastra 29:19
So thank you so much, Livia, again, for coming on the show today and for sharing all your insights and sharing your story with us. And thanks, everyone for listening in. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out veracontent.com/mix and keep tuning into the podcast for more interviews with content experts. See you next time. Thanks again. Livia.

Livia Gonçalves 29:40
Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai