A lot of clutter: Stephen Love

Given the competition in today’s financial markets, asset management and cryptocurrency firms need strong, data-driven media solutions to reach investors and advisors. For Stephen Love, a group director at Ptarmigan Media, that requires staying on top of critical areas such as consumer trends, competitors and technology trends. Love earned an international business degree from Harbert in 2012 and an MBA in 2013.

Transcript

Narrator:

Welcome to The Harbert College of Business podcast with your hosts, Sarah Gascon and Currie Dyess.

Today's guest is Stephan Love, Group Director at Ptarmigan Media, a financial services media investment firm in New York City. He holds a degree in international business and an MBA from Harbert.

Sarah Gascon:

Stephan Love, War Eagle and welcome to the show.

Stephan Love:

War Eagle. Thanks so much for having me.

Sarah:

It's so great to have you.

Currie Dyess:

Yeah, we're excited.

Sarah:

What inspired you to choose international business?

Stephan Love:

I think I've always had a love of traveling and interacting with different cultures and getting to really understand what is different and what differentiates all the different cultures from around the world. And so bringing that to business was really interesting for me because so much changes, like you look at one single company like Twitter and there's different business models in different countries. And so I really loved how different it was. And then the opportunity to be able to really dig in and work with people all around the world and be able to understand all the nuances and help businesses really be able to build upon that and be successful around the world.

Currie:

What are some of the key factors that allowed you to go from being an undergrad here at Auburn to the position that you're in now as the group director at Ptarmigan? Again, that's quite the leap in a pretty short period of time.

Stephan Love:

Yeah, it definitely is. But I think one of the things too is passion and making sure that I was very dedicated to what I wanted to do and understanding what it takes to get there. And so I've been very fortunate to have some really great mentors in my career. And my career path has been a little different though, it's not been a straight shot right up the line at a single company. I've been moving around from different agencies in New York, working across a variety of different brands and verticals. And each one of those offered a new opportunity for me to be able to diversify my skillset and make me more marketable as an individual to different companies. And so that's one of the things that I'm very focused on as I evaluate new opportunities for myself, is to see how this allowed me to stretch outside of my comfort zone and continue to grow.

And so starting out as an undergrad I wanted to get my MBA at Auburn because I felt that that would, coming out of school already, hopefully give me a step-up. And the MBA program there did a great job of really getting me in the ground, in the weeds of different programs and businesses and helping understand the case studies and how you can apply those things that you learned in undergrad to actual business scenarios. And I think that gave me a great segue into my internship, which started out at MEC in Atlanta. Thanks to Dr. Butler, who's still at Harbert College, who made that introduction to one of the senior partners in their office. And so with that, it was really just stepping up and learning all I could and absorbing everything I could and making the connections at the Atlanta office knowing that MEC at the time was part of GroupM, so the world's largest advertising company. And so from there it led me to a full-time job offer in New York. And then we can say the rest is history from there. It was just building up my career and taking different steps throughout the New York City ad landscape.

Sarah:

Tell us a little bit more about Ptarmigan Media and your role within the company.

Stephan Love:

Yeah. So we are one of the world's leading financial services specific media investment firms. So you can think of us as media agencies. So when you say the term ad agency, you usually have the creative side who focus on building the ads, and then you have the media agencies who are actually responsible for more of the business side, placing the ads and understanding the consumer better to understand which consumers are going to reach, how we're going to reach them, and what environments. And so we're responsible for doing all the big negotiations with Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, their ends across the board. CNBC, all the big publications.

And so my role at Ptarmigan is the group director. And so I oversee a team of 10 employees right now working across a number of different clients all on financial services category. And that's one of the things that separates us too. A lot of agencies have a variety of different verticals that they service, with us, we're very specific. We focus directly on Wall Street asset management, investment banking, and the crypto space. And so that allows our team to really be experts in the space and be able to really know it and be those consultants to the clients and help them understand what's going on in the market and how we can take their business challenges and find solutions through marketing.

Currie:

Wow, that's really incredible. And we are really interested in the crypto space. We'll come back to that in a second. But before you got to Ptarmigan, you had worked with some of the biggest brands in the world; globally recognized names, United and Dove. How different was it working on those ad campaigns, and what were some of the biggest challenges you faced making those transitions?

Stephan Love:

Yes. I think one of the biggest transitions was from United Airlines to Unilever. So United, I joined there to really help build their global marketing footprint. And so they're well recognized in the US, but as you're going into these different markets like New Zealand, you're competing against local carriers. And so really helping them understand the local market nuances that I've picked up, some of the strategies I've learned in my MBA and undergrad as well, getting into the markets and understanding what happened and how we can action those market insights and what can convince a consumer to choose United Airlines versus another local airline at they're more comfortable with. And so there it was all about building that awareness of the brand and getting people to know why should you switch from your local airline to United.

But then making that shift over to Unilever, Unilever's been around for 200 years. Everyone knows the Dove brand. And they consider themselves much more instead of just like a soap product, it's a beauty bar, it's not a soap bar. And so they've been around, they're one of the best in class marketers. So I felt like while I was trying to help them, they were also teaching me. They have so many best practices and things that we didn't have necessarily at United that we were looking to build out, Unilever had already had that and they were already a step ahead.

And so that allowed us ... Instead of building the foundation that I was at United, with Unilever it was about elevating that work and being able to be first to market and working with your Twitters and your Facebooks and Amazons in the world to how we can beta test new opportunities and be able to say, "Hey, here's something that we see in the market. The product hasn't been built yet. There's nothing that solves for this marketing challenge. Let's work together and find a way." Whether it's a new tactic or a new department, how can we continue to push the bar for advertising? And so that was something with Unilever that was really exciting and different than what you'd be able to do on some of the other brands.

Sarah:

Can you provide some examples of how you identify markets to launch your products and how different cultures affect your messaging?

Stephan Love:

Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's three different aspects of just determining which markets we want to go into. So one is consumer trends. We want to make sure that there is a desire for our products. It's always easier to go into a market if people already want your product. If not, then we need to go in and build that awareness for it. So that's something we take into account. Second is competitive. Are competitor's already there and what are they doing in the market? And how can we ... If we go into market, we want to make sure we break through. And there's a lot of clutter in the advertising space, and so we want to focus on ensuring that we have the right budgets and the right approach in our media strategy to be able to break through to reach this audience and get them to convert to our new product. And then lastly, it's more of the tech trends. And so using the example from Google with Stadia, their cloud-based gaming services, we wanted to make sure it was supported in the market. So we worked very closely with the product team to understand their global rollout and then to pair that with our marketing approach to make sure that as they continue to go into new markets, that we have a POV and we are well aware and aligned and ready to be able to promote that product.

The second part of your question was around messaging. And so my focus, more on the business side and strategy of marketing, we do work very closely with the creatives because they have the ideas and the different message they want to get across, but we then need to make sure that we have the right places to get that message into market and make it beneficial and get success ... Drive successful ROI for the clients. And so there's a lot of different strategies and structures they go through to vet their creatives. So they have local market teams on the ground, they do number of different panels and interviews with consumers on the ground to make sure that their messaging is going to break through. And we also run it through our teams like the creative agencies, their side, they have specialized market teams to make sure that the message ... If you create for Japan for example, there's no red flags, and it actually would be well received in that market.

Currie:

Let's switch gears just a little bit. And in the media, maybe in the last week or two, there's been some pretty controversial marketing campaigns, primarily Balenciaga. And my understanding, I could be wrong, my understanding is Balenciaga hired an ad firm or a marketing company to create this campaign and it did not go over well with a lot of consumers. Who is responsible for that? And from a business perspective, was that a bad idea? And why did they go with that? Who signed off on it? Why did they go with that versus something else? Who did they think they were targeting?

Stephan Love:

There's definitely a lot to unpack with them. And so every different nuance, there are so many different layers of approvals that ads have to go through before they actually make it to market. So I'm always surprised when I see things like this that actually happen. I was like, "So many different people had to sign off on this." At the end of the day, it's on the clients because it's their brand, so they have the final say over what goes into market. And I've read a number of different articles the last few days watching this evolve as to who is directly to blame. I know I think Balenciaga is now trying to blame their ad company, the production company saying, "Oh, we only were there to provide the supplies. We didn't actually have creative lens." So I wasn't there, I don't represent them, I don't really know.

Currie:

Right, right. You're right.

Stephan Love:

And also that's too ... That's more of like the creative side. Luckily with media we're much more the business strategy side, not focused on the messaging. But from my perspective just being within the industry, I think there were definitely numerous breakdowns, but I would say there were so many different layers of approval that had to have happened that they couldn't have been that caught off guard by the backlash.

I think one of the things too, everyone's so focused on going viral. And how do we get our brands to stand out? But the problem though is there's certain ways to do it that are creative that don't venture into inappropriate. And so I think that's one of the things that I would caution all the brands. And as we think like students and as we think about building our strategies, we want to make sure that we're doing it tastefully and that we are taking a conservative approach because brand safety at the end of the day is paramount for us. We service our brands, we want to help them, but they have to have that good reputation. And that's why so many ... I worked with the financial services industry and we focus on making sure our brand reputation is very strong for consumers. Because there's a lot of banks out there, there's a lot of asset management firms, there's a lot of crypto companies. And so you've seen from crypto as well in the past with their reputation of FTX crashing and how important that is for consumers and for the businesses themselves.

And so I think that was absolutely the wrong decision in the way to be able to go viral. But like I said, I don't represent either of them. So I don't know the inside story of what happened there, but there's so many layers of approval that it should have been caught before it ever made that public.

Currie:

So we have witnessed in recent months the apparent flop of Meta. And I always felt like Meta from the very beginning was just an advertisement tool to expand Facebook, or the parent company Meta's footprint. And that's really what they are is an ad company, right? That's where they make their money, right?

Stephan Love:

Exactly.

Currie:

When Meta rolled out, what were your thoughts on that? Is that, the virtual world, is that the future of advertising space?

Stephan Love:

Personally, I don't think so. I think it was one of those flashy objects that everyone quickly got behind. And I think you've seen that now reflected in Meta's stock price as they haven't actually been able to get as many people behind Mark Zuckerberg's vision as he expected. And so now they're having the layoffs and a lot of different other issues they're facing right now. But I think it teaches us a good lesson though about sticking to your business and knowing your business plan and how you see this evolving. And so starting out as the world's top social platform, that was great. The introduction of Instagram and how they could expand upon that is strong. But then you have other competitors who are always going to come into market, like TikTok, and how can you constantly evolve your product to be able to stay top of mind and stay fresh and relevant?

And so from my perspective, I think he was looking towards what's that next big thing out there. And that was, for him, the metaverse. And so I know a number of different brands ... I did the same thing with my former client, we were looking at how can we be one of the first into the metaverse. How can we make this happen? I know there's companies like iHeart who were trying to do virtual concerts in the metaverse and there's panels that we could see of ... Instead of everyone traveling to Salt Lake for a business conference, everyone can just log into the metaverse and pretend like they're in person and do that. I think that took off too because during COVID, everyone was in lockdown, everyone is thinking, "What does that virtual world look like? We'll never get back where we're going on the road all the time or in the office all the time."

And I think what we've seen over the last two years is people want to be with others, people want to have that connection and be able to be in a room with each other. And I think that always helps business as well. And so I think some of those consumer trends and feelings have led to the metaverse not necessarily taking off. It is ... Absolutely, there's a big expense to that. And I think it's one of those things where we need a couple companies to actually build it out and understand what the implications are for consumers because it's something that's not necessarily done overnight.

I think one of the things that was interesting too that I can tie back to this was QR codes. QR codes were almost dead before COVID. And now when you go to restaurants, at least here in New York, almost every restaurant now just has a QR code on your table that you scan. And so it's one of those things that while it wasn't necessarily a big to-do in the beginning, it came back. So how does the metaverse evolve? How does it work based on where we're at today? And what does that desire for the product? So I think there can absolutely be a role for it, but do I think the future of advertising is on that platform, that's where everything's going to? Not to the extent that I think Zuckerberg would like us to think.

Currie:

Well said.

Sarah:

What do you think is your biggest challenge that you're currently facing?

Stephan Love:

I think being in the financial services industry, the market is very volatile right now. And so it is absolutely paramount for us to stay on top of all the latest changes in the markets and being able to advise our clients, because we're basically consultants in the space. And clients look to us for help navigating these markets. So Ptarmigan has been around for a number of years, we've been through different business cycles, the good times and the bad times with our clients. And so right now it's looking to us to be that solid rational voice to say, "Here's how we're able to take what's happening in the markets and be able to use marketing to help the company out."

So for example, with the crypto space right now. So a number of my clients are in the crypto space and we know with the crypto winter that they've been in lately, it's difficult for them to be able to convince more people to invest. But there's absolutely still opportunities for that. And so I think for us, one of the things is then the educational aspect of it. And it's crypto, but it's also in asset management space as well. And financial advisors are really actively seeking information to be able to help their clients. Their clients are constantly calling up, they're worried, they're concerned, "What should I do?" And so by representing these asset management firms, we are able to help them provide that information that these financial advisors are seeking. And I think that's where you can really help build your brand preference and your reputation as being there for these advisors in their times of need. And I think that'll really go a long way because it helps them and their businesses. And the end result, hopefully it will help us as well.

And so I think that's been a big challenge across the board for companies, is how do we pivot during these times? We did the same thing on a former brand during COVID, what do we respond when the world shuts down? How do we respond? Here right now with the market volatility, how do we help? So I think that continues to be our biggest challenge is staying up to date on everything and helping advise our clients to preparing for now but also expecting for the future and how can we future proof our marketing solutions that we can stay on top of it and continue to drive solid results.

Currie:

What is it that gets you up in the morning? Why do you push so hard and have such a passion for what you do?

Stephan Love:

I think it goes back to why I chose international business and I think it was something that every day is different. Every day is a challenge. And I'm really interested in current events and the markets and all the different things that ... All the different factors that take into account. And so I really enjoy being able to be at the forefront of that. As we know, New York City is one of the financial capitals of the world, so being right in the middle of it all and being able to help drive and have those conversations with C-Suite leaders at all these very large and well-known asset management firms is really exciting for me. And so it's one of those things that I've always had that drive. And so that ability to be able to help and continue to help businesses solve their challenging solutions or challenging issues is really, really exciting for me.

Sarah:

Do you think that consumers are going to pull out of crypto based off of what will happen with FTX?

Stephan Love:

Personally, I think a few will, but not the majority. Because as we look at consumer trends, they want to be at the forefront. They see that there's risk involved, most consumers who invest in crypto are aware of that. But there's also big dividends if it does continue to take off to or at least get back to close to where it was. And so I think there will still be a space for it, but I think it will cause some larger corporations and consumers too to think twice before investing and making sure that they can really vet their plans. Because as we know, right now there's not much vetting that goes on with these companies. FTX was allowed to do crazy things, which then call led to their collapse.

And so I think it's interesting. That happens, which does hurt the industry, it puts a bad ... Puts the industry in a bad light. However, there's still a lot of really good players out there who play by the rules, who are very transparent with what they do. And so I think those players will continue to be there and to evolve. So I think it's something that it goes back to the educational aspect of it and being transparent with your consumers because you need to build that strong brand reputation for people to be willing to invest their hard on earned dollars into your investment portfolio.

Sarah:

Yeah, it'll be an interesting case study.

Currie:

Stephan, in your opinion, what is one of the most important personality traits that someone would need to possess or acquire to be as successful as you have been in their marketing career?

Stephan Love:

I think drive is definitely a very critical aspect of it because the marketing industry and the clients that we service are constantly evolving, as we spoke about earlier. And so having that drive to continue to stay up to date on all the trends, being able to be proactive with your clients. In my role, new business is very big for us as well because we want to continue to grow our business. And so having that drive to continue to outreach different clients and understand what they're doing right now and how I can help take ... And my firm can help take their marketing strategy to the next level. I think it also plays out into the tech space and how advertising different tactics and target and all that and data and analytics all continues to evolve. And having that drive to continue to seek out new information and being able to feed all of that into my mind and invest in my team, so then we can help continue to deliver solid strategies and insights to our clients.

Sarah:

Okay. A fun question for you. In your opinion, what is the greatest ad campaign you've ever seen or been a part of?

Stephan Love:

One of the greatest ones I've ever seen ... I really like "got milk?" because that was so simple, yet it stuck with everyone. And as we think about global strategy, it was something that translated so easily and to every different market around the world. And it didn't take much explaining or much background, it was just easily recognizable to this day. When you think about milk, that's one of the things that come to my mind. So I think they just knocked it out of the park with such a simple insight and yet years later is still proving out to be so successful for them.

Sarah:

That's a good one.

Currie:

Or, "diamonds are a woman's best friend".

Sarah:

Yeah.

Currie:

I mean everybody knows that one.

Stephan Love:

Exactly. And it's the taglines too and thinking about how you can take just an inanimate object but then bring it to life. And how to give it its own story and how you can create that association in your mind to a product. I think it's really interesting. It's one of those things that some of the people you meet in the creative industry are just ... I feel like their brain is just on a different level. And it's so interesting just sitting in the room and watching sometimes, copywriters, different strategists, just brainstorm. And that was something I really enjoyed about one of my previous roles was an integrated team, we got invited to that room and that brainstorm and be able to see them pitch ideas and that's just really interesting to watch. And I think it's one of the things that you don't necessarily get to see on the media side because we just see the spots when they're finished. But being actually able to go in the room and see behind the scenes how these things are developed from scratch has been really, really cool.

Currie:

What advice would you give to undergrads or possibly graduate students, young folks who are looking to follow a similar career path as you have?

Stephan Love:

Yeah. So I think internships are critical. And so as we're looking at hiring, everyone wants entry level candidates with experience. And the only way you're able to do that in college is through internships. So I think it's understanding what you want to do and being able to reach out and build your network to be able to make those connections happen that can get you in a place to be successful. And so one of the tips I've given people ... So let's say you want to work at Nike and their marketing campaigns, they're one of the most well known brands in the world, there's only a select few people who can actually work at Nike and it's very difficult to get into, but there's certain ways that you can do it. You can either get an internship with them, you can go work at an ad agency who represents them as a client, or you can go work with one of their competitors and be able to get that experience in the industry, so then it is transferrable skills.

And so I think it's about knowing where you want to go. And that's what I help students with a lot when I mentor them is helping them talk through the different options that are out there for them and understanding what's their north star, what do they want to get to. Because there's so many different ways now to be able to get to that. And so I think it's really different on a case by case scenario with students, but that's something that I always like to work with them on, is where do you want to go and let's talk about the different options. Because there's no one set path. It's not like it was years and years ago where you just joined a company, worked your way up through the ranks over 25 years. Now, people are much more flexible. There's now remote work, there's new opportunities for you all the time. If you just scroll through LinkedIn, people are always looking to hire. And so it's making sure that you're purposeful in your goals and that each step you take is purposeful to get you towards that north star that you want to achieve.

Sarah:

How could our students connect with you, be mentored by you, and follow your story?

Stephan Love:

Yeah. So the easiest way is just to look me up on LinkedIn. I am on there every day, so just shoot me a message on there. Follow me. So it's Stephan Love. I think my information will be on the podcast on the site as well. But feel free to just send me a note through there, more than happy to mentor and really help them guide through some of the topics we talked through today and how you can go from a student to working at some of the world's top ad agencies. Anyone can do it. If I can do it, anyone can do it. And so more than happy to help them through that journey.

But also too, if they have questions about the industry itself or financial services, more than happy to answer those questions. Because there's a lot to learn out there. And that was something that as a student I didn't really know much about. And the Harbert College of Business really helped me understand what an ad agency was, and then it was up to me to then go find out how do I get there. But it's one of those things too, if I can help students make that path a little easier, very excited to be able to do that.

Currie:

Steven, it's been an absolute pleasure. You are outstanding. There's so much information that our listeners are going to really love from this show.

Sarah:

Yeah. Thank you so much for your time.

Currie:

Thank you. War Eagle.

Sarah:

War Eagle.

Stephan Love:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. War Eagle.

Narrator:

Harbert, inspiring business.