How Legacy Brands Evolve for Today’s Audiences

>> Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and others.

TRANSCRIPT:

DOUG: Valerie, can you start by sharing what IAC is?  

VALERIE: Sure. So, IAC is not necessarily a household name, but chances are you do know a lot of our portfolio companies. We’re a holding company and the birthplace of brands such as Expedia, Match, Tinder, Vimeo, Angie’s List, and a bunch of really well-known digital companies. We’re essentially a holding company or as we like to say, an anti-conglomerate, because really our whole model is to acquire companies at different stages of their lifecycle and then invest in them, grow in them, scale them, and really get them to the point where we can, you know, set them free to stand on their own as a publicly traded company. So, we’ve been doing that for over 30 years. We’ve created ten publicly traded companies and around $50 billion of shareholder value at this point, and we, you know, just keep going.  

DOUG: Yeah, that’s really fascinating. And from what I understand, and you’ve shared, what you’re doing now is different from how you started your career.  

VALERIE: Yeah. I mean, the main difference being I started my career, you know, in the late 90s, I’m totally dating myself, the Gato web, kind of at the end of that, basically the tail end and really with venture backed startups who had no marketing budgets and PR was really the way to get their stories told and to really accelerate their business and their funding. So, that required a certain skill set, obviously, moving into a publicly traded company and corporate communications in that context is very different, but what’s interesting is that a lot of the skills that I honed in those early days are very relevant. Our portfolio does include so many different kinds of companies, technologies, brands, and we do have a lot of emerging newer companies or more established brands that are pivoting to new audiences, those early sort of like startup and agency days. All of those skills are really relevant.  

DOUG: Yeah. So, what are some of the keys from a communications perspective when you’re trying to modernize sort of a well-known brand that people already think they understand everything about it?  

VALERIE: This is so core to kind of what we do at IAC all the time. And I always like to say, trying to make changes to a brand without first understanding it is just a recipe for disaster. I think the idea to modernize is really to just clearly express what the brand is in that moment in time, and how it should show up for its audiences. And so an example of this that’s just more recent is, you know, we acquired People magazine a few years ago as part of our acquisition of Meredith, and that included a ton of really iconic publications, Food and Wine, Travel and Leisure, Better Homes and Gardens, and People magazine, which is a brand that’s 50 years old. I mean, this is not, you know, a 10 or 15-year-old brand. This is a brand that, you know, potentially your grandparents know and has shown up for decades, in people’s homes, the grocery store, or the dentist’s office. And really, you know, had an incredible amount of trust, equity in telling stories about humans. I mean, what people do that’s really unusual is the fun, breaking celebrity news kind of married with telling stories about everyday people that doing exceptional things and doing it well over the course of time. And we discovered through some of the data that we had that we had done is that, you know, 92% of Americans were trusting People, saying that the trustworthiness of people’s reporting in journalism was, you know, either great to exceptional, which really, as we all know, is very unusual in this day and age. So, we knew all this, but yet, of course, you know, the business wasn’t growing. Now, obviously, the magazine is in secular decline, but the brand wasn’t reaching new audiences. The digital portion of the business was totally stagnant when other publishers were growing. And it was like, okay, how, how what are we doing wrong here? How do we take this incredible brand and this incredible product and make it make sense for this, the way consumers want to receive information today? So, it was really also about diving deep with our consumer and reorienting the business around digital. It was previously run as a magazine with a sort of digital bolt-on to it. We had to make it a digitally native operation, and that meant things like digital-only issues and TikTok-only covers, and not to be flashy or try to, but that’s what our audience wanted. That’s where the consumers were going.  

DOUG: I’m not going to try to claim that we’re a brand like People magazine, though, within our niche in PR and helping our clients get covered on TV. We are well known and are celebrating our 40th anniversary this year. You touch on some. What are some key ways and suggestions that you’ve mentioned or want to mention that might apply to brands like us or other brands that are maybe well known in their space, but how do they think about staying even more relevant and continuing to grow? We think of ourselves as a 40-year-old startup, but who knows if our customers are buying that?  

VALERIE: You really do have to pay attention and listen. And I think the other part of that is really understanding, again, getting to the truth of what your value is, not what you think it is, not what you’ve messaged it to be, but what you really are at your essence. Our chairman, Mr. Diller, you know, likes to say, and he said this in his book that came out this year, you know, one of his strengths is getting to the essence of what is really real. And I think once you really understand that, then it becomes much easier to figure out, okay, what do I have the right to do? What rights have I earned to show up in this place at this time with this story? I think the other thing, too, is your values may not be fluid, but your storytelling and your narrative have to be. Consumers have high expectations, the stakes are high, and they need context and they need continuity. And so I, I think those are all really important aspects. And the third thing I would say is this notion of being authentic, which is, of course, again, another word that a lot of people are throwing around, but I think the reality about authenticity is that it’s actually not easy because it requires you to really look in the mirror and understand who you are. And authenticity looks different based on who you are. What is a really real interpretation of how you talk about your brand that’s authentic to one person is not going to look the same for another. And I think as comms professionals in particular, just to talk about our profession, you know, I think about a lot, how do we encourage our executives to be the authentic version of themselves, and trying to tell a story? And how does all of our communications across all of our touchpoints really map to our story, but in an authentic way?  

DOUG: Yeah, I really like what you’re saying. And I think maybe in addition, if I’m getting it right, in addition to holding up the mirror to yourself, because of course we see ourselves one way, looking at the various mirrors that the people in our key publics are holding up to us. Like, what are they seeing now? You talk about having to adjust to consumer behavior changes, and what are some of the other ways that you do it? Can you also try to adjust consumer behavior, or are you really just a slave to what they’re thinking of, and you’ve got to adjust?  

VALERIE: Well, it’s a little bit of both. I mean, I think starting out, you’ve got to understand again, before you make any change to a strategy or even attempt to affect to influence someone’s behavior, you have to understand what’s actually happening, and you have to be a student of it and be curious innately, I think, in order to really understand it and not really have an ego about it. And I think some brands are just naturally good at that, and some corporate environments are naturally good at that, and others just aren’t.  

So, you as a class professional, I think, really have to know, kind of know the environment you’re working in and how much effect you’re going to be able to make.  

DOUG: Yeah, and the podcast PR gods are just messaging me in my ear, saying Doug, you haven’t asked about AI yet. So, what is the role that AI is playing, especially for these brands that have had such a core identity for so many years, who now need to evolve to meet the moment? Can AI play a role?  

VALERIE: AI can definitely play a role, and it should play a role, but I think the role that it plays is very different depending on who the brand is. And again, it’s really an enabler for an outcome that is really, I think, designed from a human perspective. I think one of the things that’s interesting. I mean, obviously, I like everybody else, and very much it’s, you know, on me to stay on top of emergent technology. What’s going on with AI, on with AI, the tools, testing them out. You know, also being very aware, you know, is AI going to take over my job? I know that’s something that comms professionals, we have to have eyes wide open. I think what’s interesting and very, I think aligned with the theme of this conversation is that the more attention and noise that we kind of have around AI, the more the value of real human voices and actual human experience comes to bear on the work that we do. And it’s a competitive advantage to be a real person. I mean, if you look back, if you’ve been doing this work for, you know, let’s just take with reporters, right? Dealing with journalists and working with journalists over the last ten, 15, 20 years, the relationships with people, whether it is your executives, your journalists partners, the power of those relationships are really what helped generate the outcomes, the business outcomes that you want and knowing your business, not just the list of facts, but understanding the nuances of your business, the nuances of your leadership, understanding the constraints on the journalist. Building a relationship with a journalist, being able to be empathetic to what’s going on with them, and, you know, just being a normal person. I mean, honestly, I find that those skills are more important now because of AI.  

DOUG: That’s really fascinating. We’re actually utilizing AI for our clients to really identify what are the queries the public is asking when they’re trying to get information, and then making sure the earned media that we create for them really matches and associates the brand with those queries to make them more discoverable. Of course, every moment there are all these changes going on, and it seems to be accelerating all the time. And you’ve touched on this, but as we wrap up, what hasn’t changed in the process of what we’re doing, what some of the thinking that’s still crucial and critical, even though there’s so much noise around all that’s different? 

VALERIE: In one area. And this is just in these early days of AI because, my God, we’re still just in the early days, you know, it can really accelerate and condense the timeline in your ability to fully master information, or to synthesize information or analyze information, but at the end of the day, you still have to do that, right? You still have to be the most knowledgeable person you know in the room when it comes to your product, how it works, and what your customers are experiencing when it comes to the competitive landscape. You still have to own that and know that, and there’s just no way that you know, that to me is going to change. And AI can be really helpful in your success in doing that, but it can’t replace it.  

DOUG: Great. Well, no one can clearly replace you for providing this kind of information to our viewers and listeners. 

VALERIE: There may be a Val bot coming up.  

DOUG: If there’s a Val bot coming up, we’ll have them on the show. Thanks so much for being with us.  

VALERIE: Thank you.