Suffering from marketer’s block? Try making a parody.

Take what’s trending, spin it to reflect your brand, and your next campaign will get people sharing.

That’s one of the things we’re talking about with MoEngage’s Head of Content & Organic Growth, Shana Haynie. Together, we take a look at Matomo's Googleheimer Countdown ad, and chat about making a parody, capitalizing on industry trends, and following up with your audience after launching a new campaign.

About our guest, Shana Haynie

Shana Haynie is Head of Content and Organic Growth at customer engagement platform MoEngage. She has over 11 years of marketing experience, and five as a people manager. She joined MoEngage in November 2023, and was hired to scale organic growth for MoEngage's North America (US) region through SEO and content marketing best practices. Prior to MoEngage, Shana served as Head of Content for Unit21. She has also led Demand Gen for Hearst Bay Area and Inbound Marketing for Moves The Needle. In 2014, she co-founded a social media marketing agency, Vulpine Interactive.

About MoEngage

MoEngage is an insights-led customer engagement platform for the customer-obsessed marketers and product owners. We help you delight your customers and retain them for longer. With MoEngage you can analyze customer behavior and engage them with personalized communication across the web, mobile, and email. MoEngage is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration, and personalization - in one dashboard From Fortune 500 enterprises such as Deutsche Telekom, Samsung, and Ally to mobile-first brands such as Flipkart, OLA, and bigbasket - MoEngage has helped amplify customer engagement for all. Product managers and growth marketers can use MoEngage to provide a personalized experience throughout the customer lifecycle stages – from onboarding to retention to growth. What makes MoEngage different, is a full-stack solution consisting of powerful customer analytics, AI-powered customer journey orchestration and personalization capabilities - in one dashboard.

About Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown Ad

The ad was created by B2B boutique ad agency Umault for Matomo, which is a competitor to Google Analytics. And their thinking was “If you’re going to compete against Google, you have to go big.”

Umault had created an ad that was a Last of Us parody about Google Analytics 4, and Matomo asked for something similar. What’s interesting is that because Umault was working on the ad before Oppenheimer came out, they were banking on the movie being a blockbuster hit. (Oppenheimer being the movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb.)

The ad, called “Googleheimer Countdown,” got over 1 million views in a week. And customers were praising and selling Matomo to viewers in the comments. Matomo then followed the release of the ad with a strong distribution strategy. They responded to comments, reshared and reposted viewer posts. They also paid a media agency to amplify the ad.

Umault says that their Matomo ad is appealing to viewers because they prioritize entertainment first, and marketing second. They said, “This is what happens when you make a hit video people actually want to watch.”

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown Ad:

• Create a parody. Parodying already-popular content provides context to your viewers as well as scaffolding for your story. So it’s a lighter lift for you and more likely to resonate for them. Ian says, “The audience has to do so little lifting because it's a parody. You're using infrastructure that's already there, you're using a story that's already there. None of us have even seen Oppenheimer, but you know the story and you're in on the joke. And that's why parody works so well. It’s such a winning strategy.”
• Capitalize on industry trends. Timing is everything with this kind of campaign. Tune into industry sentiment and create content that reflects that tone. Shana says, “Trend jacking has been proven to work really well. And do it in such a way that is geared towards the favorability of your organization, just like Matomo was able to capitalize on the fact that all of a sudden, all of these people are freaking out about their analytics, and that's what they offer. It's just a genius way to be able to kind of move your marketing in a direction that's going to be successful. And it's already built in.” ‍
• Implement a followup strategy after campaign launch. Make a plan once a campaign is launched to engage with your audience. Respond to their comments and feedback as they consume the campaign. Shana says, “You have to think about how you're going to follow up on your campaign. Make sure that you have the monetization strategy baked in there. Otherwise all those impressions aren't going to amount to anything for your brand. I like the idea that [Matomo] had people on deck to respond to comments and are really engaging with the people who are engaging back. I think that's a really great way to insert yourself into those conversations so it's not just like, ‘Here's a piece of content. It's great. Okay, next.’”

*”Virtually anything can really be translated into meaningful content. When it's considered in the realm of business, this idea is really freeing and you can sense that the limits of what constitutes content are only confined by the creativity and the intentions that you bring. This philosophy empowers people to create more dynamic and explorative content with the significance placed on impact rather than just thinking about what it should be.” - Shana Haynie

*”It's crucial to think about what the practicalities of your content marketing are. So you're still responsible for driving tangible results. But everything needs to be balanced. It's art and science, understanding your audience's needs and the engagement metrics and all the business goals that go behind that. I think when you can distill those two things down, that's the basis for how I like to think about content strategy.” - Shana Haynie

Links

See Matomo’s Googleheimer Countdown ad

Connect with Shana on LinkedIn

Learn more about MoEngage

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com.

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK.

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.