The Power of
Pro-Sumer.
An agency dedicated to the power of pro-sumer, we laud those brands’ mastering the art and combined influence of the two, equally essential audiences. Encapsulating this vision from the very start, ghd is a brand who has led the pro-sumer charge for over a decade. A true pioneer propelled by likeminded people and process – ghd Australia/NZ Managing Director, Ludovic Dellazzeri, the perfect example.
Here, we chat with Dellazzeri on marketing pre and post pandemic, the importance of people and a likeminded, digital-focused agency partner.
MDV:What value has the MDIVISION agency provided to ghd’s ongoing brand needs?
MDivision has been a great support in bringing our strategy to life. We have been working with the team to build upon our global campaigns, creating localised content with our Creative Artist team directed to educate and inspire both our professional and consumer communities.
MDV: How would you describe MDIVISION as a brand partner?
LD: MDivision share our passion for quality, professionalism, and most importantly our love for the hair industry. This shines through in the work they produce. They understand what really matters to our stylists and consumer communities, and this is how we’re able to develop and deliver such creative, engaging content together. Logistically, they take the stress out of production and make the journey fun along the way – and it’s these shared company values that makes working with them such a pleasure.
MDV: Tell us a bit about ghd’s marketing vision – what is your current strategy in bringing the professional industry to the consumer world?
LD: ghd is a professional consumer brand and has been since inception. As such bringing the industry to the consumer world is at the core of fulfilling our vision. For that our products are created and engineered in our Cambridge research centre to deliver the best tools for hairdressers to use every day, combining the respect of hair health with technologn to provide consumers the most efficient tools to style their hair every day. Today with a multi-product portfolio, we use all communication channels – working with our artistic partners to ensure that professional advocacy (via education and inspiration) drive consumers into salons to experience what stylist expertise combined with our tools delivers: a good hair day
MDV: Has there been significant change on how ghd markets since the onset of the pandemic, locally and globally?
LD: Like most we identified very early on that everyone migrated their attention to online due to the confinement taking place in many countries. We recognized digital and social resources were going to be vital to ensure we were connecting with our clients during this time and staying relevant. Within weeks we created a virtual education programme armed with hundreds of assets – video content available through our 24/7 portal ghdworld to support our salon partners. In parallel towards the consumer we used ghd’s high brand awareness to accelerate the process of awareness, consideration and conversion exposing even more the professional usage of our tools via education, how to, by partnering with our artist team and creating relevant content.
MDV: Where do you think the trends of digital marketing are heading?
LD: It’s an ever changing and adapting area. However I think the main trends we’re going to see in Australia in the digital space are:
· Chat bots will become more prevalent as a community management tool. We experimented in this space for the launch our Helios hairdryer and it proved to be something our audience enjoyed engaging with.
· Marketing in messaging apps is increasing and will be more of a way to capture purchase intent.
· SEO is changing to be more about user experience therefore diversified content to optimise conversion rate will be king. Google is moving towards giving more preference to in-depth, accurate, current content that is closely aligned with user intent.
· Last but not least, social media and influencer marketing. It’s an active market that day-by-day grows and shifts and it’s where most industries are investing in and seeing growth.
Note that whilst digital trends will continue to evolve quickly, I do believe that to be truly relevant, online will require offline more than ever. Excellence in experiential execution in brick and mortar will accelerate providing new environments with new services linked to education/tuition, as online cannot provide this human touch to its full extent. A great opportunity for us and our partners.
MDV: Any advice for professional hair brands in the current climate re: the next phase of marketing?
LD: The traditional marketing mix has changed for good but the fundamentals remain, it is about engaging with and listening to your consumers. The times that we are living are just the onset of fundamental human behavioural changes, a real societal tectonic plate movement. The best advice: Keep engaging with your consumers and if you’re not sure, ask your community what sort of content they’d like from you, and take on board their feedback. By listening, adapting and striving for constant improvement your audience sees this and doing so builds a bond within your community. Ultimately, we are all in this together, and we want to uplift each other with the work we create.
MDV: Digital and marketing is changing so rapidly, how do you and your team stay up to date/ahead of the curve?
LD: We have established form the onset of the pandemic a digital task force, marketing/education/social/technical. As such our source of information and attention has multiplied on these topics, subsequently allowing us to keep up in an ever-evolving landscape of platforms whilst finding new recipes for success.
Added to that we work closely with both our global internal experts and local agency partners to implement ongoing training and development, testing, learning and ensuring we are following industry best practice across all platforms.
MDV: Has the changing landscape affected the way you fill your marketing team (ie: required skillsets)?
LD: Our team itself has not changed, but the need for digital expertise and skillsets is definitely on the increase and so we’ve supported our current team to learn more in their areas and let them test and learn new strategies that fit the landscape.
MDV: Are there any key differences in ghd marketing today versus pre pandemic?
LD: As a brand we are continually looking at ways to evolve our processes and ways of working. Digitalisation is a key part of that. The pandemic has accelerated that process, giving us an opportunity to experiment more with digitalisation, new ways of working and ways to reach our professional and consumer audiences. Collaboration and transparency across all marketing and sales team members with various levels of expertise has been a key part in driving the new norm. This has allowed us to hit the ground running from the get go, where we have embraced change, adapted and implemented improvements to stay ahead. Today our field team is a true relay of our marketing digital strategy engaging and teaching our customer how to use and benefit from our resources.
MDV: In a world where digital is so prevalent, how does ghd cut through the noise to create valuable pieces of content for ample engagement?
LD: We do this in two main ways. By being really targeted with who we talk to, and by ensuring the messages we deliver are relevant to their needs at that time. We are lucky to have an amazing premium brand that has attitude and generosity, a brand that matters, a love brand. We ensure that this remains at the core of our communication and that we engage with artist, influencers, co-labs expressing these values.
MDV: How important is building a digital community to your ongoing marketing strategy?
LD: It is essential. Online provides a medium for people to express themselves and share with who they feel comfortable with and who they trust. A community for a brand is by essence just that: a family of digital friends that want to engage about matters that they share interest in. For us sharing what we stand for and merging our offline and online community is core to everything that we do in providing women with a good hair day.
One last thought: The events that we have and are still living have merged and blended online and offline into one big channel. Wherever or whatever you do the key is still the same – it is about providing a winning customer experience.