Teads’ Post

Transcript

Welcome to Talks with teets I'm Natalie Bastion, Teeds global CMO and we are live at Camp Lions 2024 with a beautiful backdrop here on the teeds yacht and I'm joined today with Brittany from United. Welcome Brittany. Thank you so much and thank you so much for having me I mean beautiful view here and and the food that I just ate delicious. Thank you so much love it Yeah. It's not a bad place to connect to absolutely connecting catch up. So one of the things that can obviously one of the central themes is around creativity in the art of storytelling and and featuring. Some of the world's largest brands and the beautiful work that they've done, but you can have the most beautiful story and if it's not placed and connected with the right consumer, then it won't be heard. Absolutely. What are ways that United is ensuring that they're beautiful stories are being heard and are relevant and effective with your customers? Absolutely. Well, one of the things we've done a lot of work around over the past year or two has been how do we just really clean up our data? I think for a long time there was a lot of concern within United that if we were to use our first party data, then maybe we wouldn't be doing it in a. Safeway and protecting our customer safety is of the utmost importance. United Airlines and I think what we've been able to do over the past years is clean all that data up and ensure we're putting all the right precautions in place to make sure it's 100% privacy compliant. So since the start of this year, we've been able to leverage that first party data to just get much smarter with who our customer is, right, Instead of using third party attributes that maybe every other airline can leverage, like how do we ensure that we're using the right data all around the United travelers because they're probably quite different from some of our competitors. Absolutely, and that's one thing. When you think about the data that you share with your with, with as a United customer, you really want the airline to know you, to understand you because it just makes that experience that, that much better. And to be able to apply that to kind of reinforce and continue that loyalty is, is, is that much more important as well. So when you think about it, I mean, some of the work that we've done together as leveraged your first party data and apply it across our premium inventory and, and, and media, but it's really about the context. That you, if we already know the consumer, the context of where that story is being told is what makes it effective. But then you also have to think about the efficiency of it too, because they're all challenged, right? Absolutely. I mean, I think we're, we are always pushed to be more effective, be more efficient and, and not always given, you know, more people and more money to do so. So it's really important that we work with partners that help ensure that we can be more efficient and more effective. And I think you just mentioned the context mean context is so important to the United, it's important to every brand, but I think, you know, we are especially cautious. Of areas like news, they, they love to talk about airlines a lot. So we want to make sure that we're around the right sort of content that can be travel content. But honestly, we always love to push ourselves out of that content space. So it's really just about balancing that audience with that contextual relevance and ensuring that it is brand safe and feels quality, right. The last thing we want to do is work with the partner to feel like we just kind of are. Lifting above the content and it doesn't feel like it's really ingrained there. Yeah, it's all about the personalization. News is a unique one because not all news is created for sure equal. At teens, obviously we're very much about funding quality journalism. And so understand it goes kind of a level like a lever lower level deeper to make sure that the right type of headlines the right type of context is is where your ads being served in order for it to be you know safe in the safe in the eyes of United because it could be. Quote safe, but it's not relevant and it will be less effective. Exactly. No, that's totally right. And I think we need the ability to be to change that. What is safe today might be different in a few months, right. I think the to ensure that we have the right teams in place that are constantly managing our team in partnership with our agency and us. I think it it makes us feel much more good, but much good, much better about where our content is and just where it's being placed to ensure it's in the right place and that we're doing right by the brand. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, obviously with the with the cookie deprecation. You mean or starting and yeah, we'll continue, we'll see. Yeah, right. The power first party data has never become more important. And what you just recently announced with the Travelers program is only going to help kind of future proof your ability to keep connecting and understanding and identifying the consumers. How does how does that program work? Yeah, absolutely. So I think while we feel really confident about our data, we also feel that other people can use our data as well and and be able to leverage that. So I think how we're doing it is really in two ways so. We've really worked to scrub this data, come up with about 105 million unique ideas that is all around our Mileage Plus emails of folks that may not be a part of Mileage Plus. And we've been able to do that in two ways. So one is on platform. So that's things like our in flight entertainment, our gate screens, our club screens, our Hemispheres magazine. That's that is on the digital side as well, but it's also off platform. So we've been working with a partner to ensure that if you want to leverage the data you do have to go through. Created it's fully privacy compliant, but you are able to use that traveler data to reach consumers across the web, which is really valuable to folks because I think we feel strongly that, you know, within our seven hubs, they're really quality places for a lot of brands and people to meet, right. These audiences are New York, San Francisco, DC, LA, Chicago, Denver, Houston. We really span the gamut from a diverse perspective, but also just valuable audiences for lots of brands to meet. Yeah. And you know it's interesting when you think about. When you put yourself in into the consumer seat or the flight, you know, the the flyer, the way that you're engaged with that screen right in front of you versus kind of the mindset you're at in the lounge, it's it brings unique opportunity of how you leverage and how you connect through storytelling. Bringing this up for sure. And I think, you know, people say that they don't want to be advertised to or they don't want their data collected, but the reality is we would all rather have an ad that is relevant to us, right? The last thing we want is something that feels like it's not speaking to us or it's not learning on us or we've already purchased. Now you're still retargeting. 17 times, right? So how do we ensure that we are reaching those right people? And I think it's going to benefit the consumer at the end of the day, the way that you know, this isn't, it's not new for United to do advertising, right? For a long time you've been on the airplane and you've been watching content and there was an ad that popped up. But generally speaking is probably very similar ads in that entire experience because maybe they were a partner of ours. It wasn't done in a dynamic way like it's going to be done now. So that's really the biggest difference too is not only are we changing the way you can purchase it or changing the product. It's no longer going to be sort of this different experience from your living room. How do you bring that living room experience to the airplane, right? Do you log in in the future on your screen into your mileage plus account automatically connects to what you were watching maybe on Netflix or Apple, right? How do we make sure that you're able to do what is good for you as the consumer? And I think we're really in a place that united where, you know, we, we're, we're giving back to the customer. We're investing in the customer, both from a technology standpoint and a growth in, in our network as well as really in the products that you have. Once you actually get on the plane and fly with us. Yeah. You're really extending the living room in the sky. Yeah. You know, being able, you know, especially people that travel quite a bit like us, right. We're like, it makes, it makes leaving home that much easier. If you already still connected, you kind of can pick up where you left off and it doesn't feel like you're leaving home. I mean, think back to the world's not that long ago, which I know could have some nostalgia to it. When you went to the hotel room and you paid $10 or something for your rented movie. I remember being excited about that, you know? But that no longer exists, right? You stay in your hotel. Now and you connect to whatever you want to watch or maybe you watch the linear TV that happens to be on, but it's not that experience. And I think that's really what it is, is how do we, how do we make it the experience that everyone knows and loves? And how do we allow ourselves to innovate constantly? The product that it was before had to, you know, be updated once a month. And it was sort of older technology. Now we're investing in technology that's like the ones that we have in the palms of our hands on a daily basis. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm personally, I'm very excited about. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I can't wait to hear. About the next like a travel update or travel deal that I get because that you know where I went and you know where I wanna go. And it just helps that that consumer experience and and ultimately build that bring that loyalty and hopefully we tell you about a new place you haven't heard of right. Like we we know you've been to Hawaii. Maybe you'd like Sanarita. Absolutely sign me up. Totally awesome, Brittany. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you all for tuning in.