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Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Zara Easton, brand marketing manager at LinkedIn, on how to create creative campaigns:

Shaheen Samavati 0:12
Hi everyone. I’m Shaheen from The Content Mix and I’m excited to be here with Zara Easton, who’s brand marketing manager for LinkedIn. She has a decade of marketing experience, previously working with brands like Grazia and Virgin. Thanks so much for joining us, Zara.

Zara Easton 0:27
Thank you. I’m really excited to be here and chat with you today.

Shaheen Samavati 0:31
Yeah, I’m excited too. So let’s jump right into it. So you’re fairly new at LinkedIn and a lot’s changed since you started. What’s it been like the first year on the job there?

Zara Easton 0:40
It’s been a real whirlwind of a year, I guess, for everyone. I was lucky to have a couple of months at the beginning of 2020 in the office and then I went straight to working from home. I feel really lucky to work for a really incredible company. I’ve started a new journey in a great company. Yeah, it’s a time where the role of the brand has been really, really important as well. It’s been great to be able to work on a few strong campaigns this year for LinkedIn, too. So yeah, it’s kept me busy during this time as well, which I think has been a blessing.

Shaheen Samavati 1:15
Absolutely. So can you tell us a bit about what your day-to-day is like as brand marketing manager? What are your responsibilities, what are the kinds of campaigns that you’re involved in?

Zara Easton 1:25
Yeah, so my role is split, probably about 30% strategy and brand planning, then about, 70% hands-on projects, which are normally developing campaigns. It really depends, my day-to-day, on the projects that I’m working on. So I think that can vary from media planning, working with agencies on creatives, working with internal teams on creative ideas as well. It’s great and I really love brand, especially when working for brands that I’m just really, really passionate for.

Shaheen Samavati 2:02
Awesome. So where do your campaigns run? What kind of campaigns are they?

Zara Easton 2:06
A mixture really, so we’ll run hero above the line campaigns. So we run on TV sometimes and that will be executed across the full media mix depending on what’s right for the environment. On the flip side, we also work on more social first campaigns which will just run across all the classic social channels and paid social as well. I guess this year things have changed a little bit. So where we would have explored more things like out of home and print, we’ve dialed that down a lot just because there isn’t the same media consumption.

Shaheen Samavati 2:06
Right. We should mention that LinkedIn is based in the US, but you’re based in the London office and you’re focused on campaigns for the UK market. Is that right?

Zara Easton 2:53
Yes, so it’s UK mainly at the moment. My overall team looks at EMEA, so that does change. But this year, the focus has been on the UK.

Shaheen Samavati 3:04
Okay. So how do the campaign’s differ in the UK versus in the US?

Zara Easton 3:08
I think they all come from the same place and the same strategic thought. LinkedIn has 700 million members globally so it’s a big brand, we all try and come from the same place. In our campaigns we have localized thinking, so it will really depend on what’s happening and particularly at the moment jobs and professional lives change a lot. So it can differ by market, mainly just towards what’s happening and making sure we’re staying attuned to what’s happening within the country.

Shaheen Samavati 3:45
So I saw your recent article where you talked about the campaign you recently did “We’ll work it out, together.” Can you tell us about how the idea originated for that one, and what it was like filming it during lockdown?

Zara Easton 3:58
So we started planning that back in April or May time. It was really our first response to what was happening in the world mainly for professionals where things have changed so much. Whether it was just suddenly working digitally 100% from home or if you were now looking for a job and the whole process is now virtual, like virtual interviews, everything was a bit weird and different. So it was our real first response to professionals to basically demonstrate how this whole thing has changed, but there’s people who are working out together. That’s actually what we saw on the platform. So we just saw countless examples of people using it in a totally different way and people just really coming together to help and show you support, whether that was helping old colleagues find a new job, or giving people advice on how to use the time to upskill. So we just really wanted the whole campaign to reflect that but also be very attuned to the fact that we don’t actually know what’s going on. It’s a crazy time and things are really changing. On your second point, filming during lockdown was a challenge. I think it was a new learning one. We really wanted to get the campaign out quickly so we wanted to make sure that we were doing things in a really speedy way but also just making sure it was really safe as well. So we ended up taking a really different route, which I’ve never experienced before, where we worked with directors of photography, who basically filmed their people within their family or social bubbles, who were all LinkedIn members. So that process took a little while, but we made sure that we filmed within their homes, so no one from the brand side or agency side was actually there. It was just the director of photography filming their family. So it was a really great experience actually but it was kind of unknown, a bit daunting.

Shaheen Samavati 5:55
That’s interesting, so people actually filmed it in their own homes. So each segment was filmed by a different videographer.

Zara Easton 6:03
Yeah, exactly. There was three members featured so we had to make sure that the style was the same and that there was some consistency. So yeah, it was three different people filming across three days. It was a weird and wonderful thing to do, actually.

Shaheen Samavati 6:22
Yeah, that’s super interesting. We’ll definitely put the link to the campaign in the blog post so people can see the context. Could you tell us more about the behind the scenes and what goes into creating a campaign and what your approach is from start to finish in the creative process?

Zara Easton 6:39
Yeah. I mean, always we start with the strategic grounding and just really understanding the problem and the audience we’re trying to speak to. This will vary whether we work with an agency or if we run the creative process in house, which I’ve done both of. Usually it then forms into a really tight brief, we want to be super clear of what we’re doing. So for example, one of my campaigns that I worked on to begin with at LinkedIn was a campaign called The Frontline and that was literally something we turned around in March, as soon as that famous announcement happened in the UK, I’m sure the same for other markets, where we were told just to stay at home. So we quickly wanted to help and we created a campaign all around frontline workers basically calling out for people to help fill these frontline roles that we really needed urgently filling. So for example, that campaign, I guess the brief was really just to show how we’re supporting during that time, then we worked alongside an agency just to look at different ideas. I think our main priority for that was to find an emotional hook and show how people were helping each other. I think the LinkedIn brand was quite unique to do that because we could see that on the platform as well. Alongside that process, you’re always making sure that people internally are brought along the way. LinkedIn is a big company, so that’s another key part of the role. So we had the problem, worked on the creative idea and we then work with a media agency just to look at all the different channels. This one in particular was mainly socially driven and we had some print executions as well. That’s an example of how we would work this year. I think we always follow a pretty similar format, but this time it was really condensed down because we wanted to get something out quickly, in order to make it feel unique and also to be helpful.

Shaheen Samavati 8:44
Yeah and be timely and relevant, right?

Zara Easton 8:46
Yeah, exactly.

Shaheen Samavati 8:47
You want to speak about current events, right?

Zara Easton 8:50
Yeah, definitely.

Shaheen Samavati 8:51
I think you really hit the mark on the emotional hook because for me, watching both of those campaigns, you just feel this sense of camaraderie and it’s a bit of a tear jerker.

Zara Easton 9:08
Yeah. I think it was really authentic as well and I think that’s always a risk. You never know how that’s going to come across, so it’s something we really try to strike the right balance with.

Shaheen Samavati 9:20
Yeah. I feel like you think about LinkedIn as a really practical tool, but when you’re watching the working it out one, it’s actually about community and helping each other. It was really interesting making that connection when it’s something I personally use every day, I hadn’t thought about it that way before.

Zara Easton 9:38
Yeah, that’s good.

Shaheen Samavati 9:42
So, in terms of the creative ideas part, where did the idea for example for “working it out” originate?

Zara Easton 9:49
Yeah. So I think the main point for us was just really finding an idea to show, I think it came from the insight that things are changing and people do want to come together to help. I think it was those two observations that we were like, right this needs to speak to that. I think we also wanted to be really inclusive and make sure people, whether you’re looking for a job or if you’re just trying to survive in the one you’re in, they’re actually both quite hard to do at the moment. Although I really appreciate that looking for a job is a really hard and stressful process. So the idea really just came from those two insights, with our agency we saw a few ideas come through, and just straight away we all knew that that was the right one, again, because some points were made about it being really inclusive and just really reflecting what was happening. I think to your point earlier, you want to make sure you’re really timely, you want to make sure you’re getting that message out quickly. I think even now, that message is dated, I wouldn’t say we’ve worked it out completely but things have changed a lot now so that message to people probably wouldn’t be as relevant. We’re like, we know things have changed, we have started to work it out and there’s more things to focus on.

Shaheen Samavati 11:15
Yeah. Going back to my initial question about this year, the past year and how everything has evolved. I guess going into the job, your idea for what you would be doing probably changed a lot, right? So how did you adapt your brand strategy and what do you think about the future? How can you adapt for the next steps after the pandemic?

Zara Easton 11:40
It’s definitely different. I remember at the beginning of the year, I was thinking of planning for this time, or like for September. You usually have the grace when you’re planning big campaigns of like six months. So I would say naively that no one knew what was gonna happen. We were just planning and we would plan for a long time. I think the main thing that has changed, because I think the principles are all the same in terms of really understanding your audience, really being in tune in the environment. But the main thing is that everything changes so quickly. So you can’t really at the moment plan for a long period of time, I don’t think. I think you can hope for the best and pencil things in, but things change and you want to be so relevant that you can’t plan really far in advance. So I would say the main thing and the main ways now that we can plan forward and other marketing leaders can plan forward is just to make sure that you’re really adaptable and making sure that planning processes can be built in a shorter period of time. That does not make it easier for people doing it because it’s really condensed down and there’s a lot of work that goes into it. Then I think it also comes down to the balance of appreciating that things won’t always be perfection, because you don’t have the time to do that. You can do your best job to make it a great campaign and a great idea but if you take too long you miss out on the party. I think in answer to your original question, I didn’t expect to be working on so much this year, which is great as in different campaigns. I think we’ve been so lucky that we’ve had the opportunity to have different messages and speak to different things this year.

Shaheen Samavati 13:17
There’s been a lot to talk about, no?

Zara Easton 13:19
Yeah there’s been a lot to talk about and there’s a lot of support that people actually really need. I think they’ve looked to LinkedIn for that, so that’s been great to work on stuff. But also obvious challenges personally, where you want to be meeting the people you work with properly and be working with them. So I think everyone who started a new job this year probably feels like it’s a bit strange, mainly getting to know people virtually. But it’s a positive thing as well.

Shaheen Samavati 13:46
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you can speak to that but I imagine all the social networks are seeing more activity than usual right now, with people spending more time at home and not being able to connect in person.

Zara Easton 13:56
Yeah, exactly. It’s the same across social platforms, it’s the same for TV. People are watching TV more, which people always thought would slowly decline but I think there’s been some changes and some are for the positive.

Shaheen Samavati 14:15
Yeah, are there any other campaigns you wanted to highlight or any that you’re particularly proud of, either at LinkedIn or earlier in your career?

Zara Easton 14:24
Yeah, the main one that sticks out in my mind is when I was working with Virgin and that was on one of my first big campaigns. It was a campaign called “Live a Little” and it was all around a vampire. There’s a vampire character and it was just very different, it was just a really fun territory to play with. I think when you work on your first big campaign, it’s just such a nice feeling to see it all out there in the world, especially when people really enjoy it. I think the audience just really warmed to the character and just found it really humorous and funny. That was just amazing to see and I really love the Virgin brand. It’s 50 years old this this year and it operates across multiple industries, but it’s just a really fun irreverent brand. It was a great campaign to work on, using a vampire is obviously a complete fictional character so it was a really fun territory to play with.

Shaheen Samavati 15:27
Yeah, definitely. This was like around Halloween or something?

Zara Easton 15:30
Yeah, we did an activation around Halloween, but we actually ran it throughout the year and people loved it.

Shaheen Samavati 15:38
Very cool. We’ll have to stick a link in the blog about that one, too. So talking about your previous experiences, could you tell us more about your background and how you first got into marketing?

Zara Easton 15:52
Yeah, of course. In the early stages, just when I’d finished school and college, I felt I never applied myself as much as I should have at school and college. So I felt a little bit lost and not sure whether to go to university. So I took a year and ended up getting a job in a magazine publishers which was called MMC. I absolutely thrived there and loved it, I saw a professional world and I really enjoyed the creative side. After a year, that really boosted me to go to university. So I went to Bath Spa (Univeristy) in the UK and studied business management and film. Again, I just really, for the first time, loved studying, loved the business context. I found entrepreneurial modules within the university, but also projects for me to work on. I actually had a similar idea to LinkedIn when I was at university that I ran for a competition, which was all around QR codes on business cards. So I think even back then LinkedIn was on my mind. So after university, I really loved it and when you finish university, you are very pressured to find a job and move into you next step. I actually ended up getting a job back in the magazine world within trade marketing, and that’s where I was working for Heat magazine and Grazia which I always loved. They’re UK mainly brands, Grazia is in other countries as well. I’ve always loved those brands so I was super excited to go back there but I think what I found, even in the three years that I had as a break, the industry had changed a lot and print was really declining at that time. I learnt so much and it was great but it changed so much and it’s quite a tough industry to develop in. So then I was starting to find an interest in more of the tech world anyway. So I just transitioned into the tech industry, and started to work more within a brand team, which was great. I just really started to build myself up there, most recently I worked with Virgin on a digital brand and I just really love brand, because you get more of a holistic view of everything versus one piece of the puzzle. When I was working in trade marketing, that was part of a brand team, but you have more of a specific role. I really love brand because you develop more in strategy, and you understand the long term elements.

Shaheen Samavati 18:42
Could you define trade marketing?

Zara Easton 18:45
Yes. It’s probably quite an old phrase now, but it was more working with the publisher, and marketing teams, just to market publications. So it was still a very marketing focused role, whether that was campaigns, it varies with channels, but you really focus with the retailers to market it as well. So all our big stores in the UK, you would make sure they’re running like the right market, even in the stores, but then you’d also run social campaigns and more tactical campaigns as well. But you’re really focused on making sure the publications getting the most presence out there. So it’s still a marketing role, but it’s quite a specific piece of the puzzle.

Shaheen Samavati 19:36
Yeah, so it’s like marketing the magazine itself. I know there’s also marketing roles about working with clients and promoting them within the magazine.

Zara Easton 19:44
Yeah, so it’s different to that. Still marketing the magazine, but you’re really focused on the numbers and making sure that there’s real presence out there for the magazines, which obviously can be quite challenging because print has declined a lot.

Shaheen Samavati 20:04
Yeah. So I was curious how did you get your foot in the door at a magazine before even starting university?

Zara Easton 20:11
Well, I was only 17 or 18 at the time and I just remember I applied for the role. I think I was abit of an eager beaver and I was just really excited. It was a junior role but I went in entry level and worked really hard. I think I was just really lucky that I found something and really loved it. It definitely helped me because then I had that experience straight when I came out of university.

Shaheen Samavati 20:43
Yeah, it sounds like that would definitely put you ahead.

Zara Easton 20:46
Yeah which I never really thought about. If I could go back, I think I would have planned things more, but I didn’t. I think I sort of fell into a few things but it really was serendipitous, because it helped me find my way. So I’m really pleased how it turned out.

Shaheen Samavati 21:05
Yeah, absolutely. That’s interesting how those really early experiences can have such an impact on the whole trajectory of a career.

Zara Easton 21:11
Yeah, definitely.

Shaheen Samavati 21:14
Also, LinkedIn as a company for a lot of people, it’s like a dream employer. So I’m curious, how did you get your foot in the door there as well?

Zara Easton 21:25
As I kind of mentioned earlier, it was always a brand that I had my eye on, even in the early days. It was always on my radar but in the London office there’s only 300 people. So I was aware of that and I thought roles within my area would become few and far between. When I was thinking of starting a new opportunity and challenge I actually saw the role advertised on LinkedIn and applied, and I was just so delighted when I heard back and could go through the whole process. I’ve always loved the actual product of LinkedIn, I think it’s so smart and there’s so much potential with it still, which is great. That’s pretty much it really.I feel like it’s kind of a boring story, because I just generally applied for it on the platform but it was something that I was really aware of, it was on my list of top 10 companies that I would want to work for. So it was great and I’ve just been delighted to have the role there.

Shaheen Samavati 22:30
That’s interesting that cold applying on LinkedIn can actually work.

Zara Easton 22:35
I think one thing I would say on that is it’s such a great feature because you can just hit easy apply, which is really nice. I think job hunting is a really long process for everyone. I do really appreciate that at the moment, this was a year ago, the jobs market is really competitive at the moment. So I understand that things sound really easy but at the moment, it is tough. So yeah, different experience at the moment I think.

Shaheen Samavati 23:03
Yeah. So speaking of LinkedIn features, do you have any tips for people using LinkedIn, especially people who have been affected now during the crisis looking for opportunities?

Zara Easton 23:14
I’ve got a few. So I think, firstly, I’m very lucky because this week I actually completed something called “Rock Your LinkedIn Profile” training. It’s a service that LinkedIn offers where they run workshops with different businesses and charities to help people really master a LinkedIn profile. The main advice I would have firstly is to make sure that you have a completed profile. That sounds really obvious but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t have that. So making sure your profile is really up to date, all the sections are up to date, make sure you match it to your CV and you want to make sure that you’ve reflected your experience from your CV on your profile. So even if it’s just a couple of bullet points for each of your roles, you want to make it really easy for recruiters to go into your profile and understand what you’re about without having to reach out. So I would really encourage that, and encourage telling your story through your profile as well. Make sure that whatever you want to focus on and what you want to be known for, that’s really clear. From your headline to your bio, to the experience that you have and just tell that story in a nice, human way. Secondly, some challenges that people have is just make sure they have a strong network. I think my main advice for that would be making sure that you start with people that you know, so really get back in touch with people, whether that’s older people from school to people who you used to work with and just start building that network and engaging with people again, because I think you never know where that’s going to take you. I think people do really want to help each other. So starting to build your network that way. I would also say if you’re going to speak to people that you don’t know and connect with people that you don’t know, it’s always advised to leave a message within the request because people are much more likely to accept that request if you send a personalised message because they’ll understand why they want to connect with you. I think growing your network is really important. Then the last piece of advice, particularly for job seekers, would be to use the open to work feature. So I don’t know if you’ve seen that already but yeah, people are using it all across the platform and it’s had huge uptake. I think it just really highlights that people, one if they’ve been affected recently, but also just that they are looking for a new job. So it’s super easy. I would also on top of that, advise that people share a post to their community. So not only do you have open to work, but maybe tell a personal story to your network to say what’s happened and what you’re looking for. Opportunities to be vulnerable as well is great, because people do want to help. So that wasn’t a short answer but they’re the things I would really recommend.

Shaheen Samavati 26:04
Yeah, those are great tips. I’ve seen people doing a lot of what you’re saying, especially that thing about saying what they’re looking for. I’ve seen huge engagement on those kinds of posts when they’re done well, you have to not only say help me but also like what you can do and what you bring to the table, right?

Zara Easton 26:23
Yeah, absolutely.

Shaheen Samavati 26:26
Let’s go into the the recommendations, some more of your reccomendations. So what’s your favorite app at the moment?

Zara Easton 26:33
So my favorite app is Couch to 5K. I say that lightly because I’m not a runner and I do find it hard to run. But I’ve just finished my nine weeks of Couch to 5K and now I can do a 5K run. So I actually feel like I’m quite achievement orientated so the app has really helped me to just track my progress and do it. That really helps you in your professional life as well. When you’re doing exercise and you’re getting out in the fresh air, it’s really helped me.

Shaheen Samavati 27:04
Yeah, it sounds like a great thing to do during these times, lockdown times, to stay active. Do you recommend any professional group or publication?

Zara Easton 27:16
Yes, so my favorite group/publication is an organisation called Amazing If which is run by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis and they’ve recently written a book called The Squiggly Career. Amazing If offers a fantastic Instagram channel and loads of tips and there’s a podcast. The Squiggly Career is a book they’ve written this year really showing how you can pivot your careers and the skills you need along the way. So I would highly recommend both of those.

Shaheen Samavati 27:52
Okay, excellent, great recommendation. Then I just wanted to ask you about a source of inspiration or a professional role model?

Zara Easton 28:00
Yes, so my source of inspiration is a friend and she’s also a product entrepreneur, and her name is Jessica Ratcliffe, and she’s branded as The Ideas Coach. She really focuses on finding your mission and basically finding steps to get there. So she’s running a fantastic course at the moment called Unleash Your Extraordinary, which I’ve just done. The reason why she’s so inspirational is because she was diagnosed with a life threatening illness which she continued to live through, but that was her awakening to basically change. She was working for corporate product companies and she then just flipped that to say, Well, I’m going to start helping people unleash their full potential. So she’s very inspirational and I love her podcast and all her content on Instagram is great as well.

Shaheen Samavati 29:00
Is the podcast the same name?

Zara Easton 29:02
So the podcast is called The Ideas Coach podcast at the moemnt.

Shaheen Samavati 29:08
Cool, I’ll definitely check that out. Do you have any productivity tips, a hack that you use?

Zara Easton 29:13
So one of my productivity tips, which I actually learned through the Unleash Your Extraordinary course, is quite obvious, but it’s helped me so much. It’s just calendar blocking, but to be really specific. So sometimes it will be, I’ve got these five tasks that are quite monotonous, but I need to get done, how do I bundle those together and block that out of my calendar and just make sure I turn off everything else so I focus on getting that done. It could also be I’m going to block out an hour at lunchtime just to go for a walk or do like a walking talk with a friend or a colleague. So yeah, I just find having that sort of structure really helps me because otherwise I feel like I just get lost in my emails and what’s happening and I don’t take time to do loads of other stuff which is on the list.

Shaheen Samavati 29:59
Yeah. I can definitely relate to that, really planning the time helps.

Zara Easton 30:05
Yeah. Exactly.

Shaheen Samavati 30:06
Well, we’re reaching the end of the interview so I just wanted to ask if you have any final parting advice or takeaways for other marketers in Europe?

Zara Easton 30:14
Well, from a brand perspective, even chatting today and just reflecting on old and new experiences, the campaign process has really changed. It’s evolved and I really can’t see this stopping anytime soon. So I think we need to get comfortable with the fact that especially for the next year or two, we’ll be working to shorter periods and there will be a higher turnover of content. So I think that’s one point to embrace, but make sure you’re kind to yourself and give yourself breaks, because that can be quite full on. I think from a development perspective, some of the recommendations that I just gave and what I’ve noticed recently is that people and organisations are really supporting personal development more. I think the trend is already there but it’s being really embraced now, you can change your career, you can have multiple careers and one that is actually changing now. So I think it’s really important for us to really embrace that and enjoy that. You can go and learn that new skill and you could change careers. So yeah, I think it’s being embraced, I think those those references I gave in the recommendations really support all of those things. So definitely check those out if that’s of interest.

Shaheen Samavati 31:32
Absolutely. So, well, thank you so much Zara for being on the podcast today.

Zara Easton 31:37
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It was great to chat to you.

Shaheen Samavati 31:41
Yeah, you as well and thanks to everybody for listening in. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out TheContentMix.com and keep tuning in to podcasts for daily interviews with content experts. See you next time. Bye Zara.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai