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Since starting Dotted Line in 2014, CEO Lauren Sweeney has learned countless lessons as she built the company into a mid-level marketing agency. She shares how finding A-player team members, sharpening her influence skills and reframing her relationship to failure have shaped her into the leader she is today.
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In her 25-plus-year career, Dotted Line Managing Director of Client Services Marci Schnur has led numerous large-scale campaigns and built lasting relationships with diverse clients. She reflects on her most significant learning experiences, her best and worst business decisions, and offers her insights for the industry’s current and future challenges.
Continue to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
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The 2022 Super Bowl featured two unexpected teams that reinvented themselves and evolved throughout the season to get to the big game. Similar to the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals, businesses looking to take advantage of the hype around this perennial celebration of broadcast advertising prowess approached this year a little differently, operating with a greater level of intentionality to make sure their message reached their target audience. And with the price for a :30 spot crescendoing this year at a cool $6.5 million, it’s no wonder big brands took the time to ensure they were leveraging their media dollars in the most strategic and effective ways.
Below, we have outlined some of the most prevalent themes and highlighted an ad or two that we feel did an exemplary job of following through on the execution of each.
Not Joining the Party
Sometimes the best move is not to play at all. That’s what Hyundai thought at least. Given timing uncertainty around whether the Ioniq 5 would be on the market in time for the game, the longtime Super Bowl advertiser opted to stretch beyond the edges of the nearly 4-hour telecast with several smart tactical moves. While it still produced two smart (and epic) spots – check out History of Evolution – with familiar brand spokesman Jason Bateman, it was able to leverage the NFL playoffs and consumer focus on ads during the big game to its advantage.
In the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the brand focused its media relations message about the decision to sit out, citing the need to balance its marketing priorities. Being based in Los Angeles (where the Super Bowl was held) and leveraging its existing sponsorships with both the NFL and SoFi Stadium, the brand opted for OOH (Out of Home) paired with a product placement on the ABC sitcom Black-ish.
Know Your Audience – Part I. Millennials
Although Gen Z commands much of the silver screen these days, there is still a fervor within the advertising world to engage with the juggernaut generation: millennials. No brand capitalized on that opportunity more than Expedia during the big game.
A core value of most millennials is valuing experiences over possessions or purchases, so in Expedia’s Stuff spot, they cast Ewan McGregor to speak specifically to this sentiment. Over the :60 piece, Ewan poses a philosophical question around consumerism and the impact of those items on our legacy…setting the brand up as the hero that can provide its audience with the things that matter.
In addition to speaking directly and effectively to their audience, Expedia also hit the nail on the head by capturing the anguish that many of their prospective clients may be feeling from not being able to travel freely during the pandemic, strengthening an already persuasive message.
Know Your Audience – Part II. Gen X
No, the Super Bowl advertisers haven’t forgotten about you, Gen Xers. In fact, this demographic was the main target in what most are viewing as the best ad of the 2022 Super Bowl. The spot that sits atop this throne is Dream House with Anna Kendrick and Barbie from Rocket Mortgage.
Just as Expedia tapped into a core value for many millennials, Rocket Mortgage crafted a message that struck the nostalgia chord for Generation X and also spoke to a relevant topic most in that demographic are familiar with: how gosh-darn-it to buy a house these days.
As USA Today commented, the brand left “no stone veneer uncovered,” attempting to solidify its top ad position from several angles. By casting Anna Kendrick as a celebrity spokesperson (and having her tweet consistently in the lead-up to and during the game) and pairing her charm with a comedic, yet realistic view of the current housing market, Rocket Mortgage was able to ring the pop culture gong in their :60 spot and keep them talking long after the game had ended. Another lead-up activity included an Easter egg listing on the Rocket Homes site, and then the brand brought it home at the end of its spot with a fixer-upper castle on the Homes sub brand.
Going Beyond
More so than in years past, advertisers focused on how to expand their messaging through third screen experiences. From omnichannel offers to in-app experiences and contests, brands wanted to leverage their audiences’ fractured attention spans to capture engagement in as many places as they could.
No Super Bowl advertiser did that better than Coinbase with their bouncing, multi-colored, screensaver-esque QR code. Also making a nostalgia play that harkened back to prestreaming DVD days, Coinbase’s low production spot (whose simplicity was shocking unto itself) paired the gamification of chasing the moving target with a contest tie-in. And other brands took notice…quickly and comedically playing off the messaging.
(Captain Morgan was one such brand that shortly after tweeted out a black screen with a floating Captain Morgan logo bouncing around and changing colors à la the Coinbase QR code.)
While not necessarily a fan favorite, Coinbase’s ad has drummed up a lot of excitement and their success is quantifiable. Curious internet sleuths quickly broke down just how successful the ad was in the first day since it aired.
Ad Cost: $14M
• 117,000,000 people watched the spot
500K new customers are worth a lot to Coinbase. But exactly how much?
According to their last quarterly report, the average customer generates $90 in revenue per year. If the customers who came from the Super Bowl spot are even 50% as valuable, then we can assume $45 of annual revenue from each. 500,000 new users x $45 = $22.5 million. That certainly covers the cost of the spot, and then some.
Creative Spotlight
In lieu of a fifth theme, we opted to highlight one of our Creative Director’s favorite spots from the Super Bowl, a throwback to his childhood, in Irish Spring’s Welcome to Irish Spring.
Over the decades Irish Spring, a very utilitarian consumer packaged good, has always been unabashedly over-the-top, even stereotypical, with its “Irishness” and laser focus on getting you clean and smelling fresh. Their first foray into Super Bowl advertising is no different. But they’ve taken it one step further. Along with their nod to the Emerald Isle and hyper focus on the importance of smelling fresh, they’ve added a cult, led by a white rabbit, that believes in ridding the world of all things smelly. The result is a twisted and funny touch of spring.
The Bottom Line
While Super Bowl spots are an opportunity for brands to briefly steal the spotlight from one of the nation’s most-watched annual broadcasts, smart advertisers are using the moment to extend beyond :30 or :60, attempting to form authentic connections with their most important audiences and sustain that electricity well past Sunday.
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Dotted Line’s leadership team has grown to include Managing Director of Client Services Marci Schnur and Creative Director Jason Anderson, while Emily Shane has been promoted to Strategy Director. They’re lending 60-plus years of combined marketing experience to help develop highly effective solutions for clients while bringing a clear vision and passion to the agency.
Continue to AdForum.
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Last year, Dotted Line began taking steps to expand beyond its business-to-business (B2B) marketing foothold and deepen its business-to-consumer (B2C) portfolio. And when Associate Creative Director Mitchell Jordan and I hopped aboard in January, we came equipped with ideas to help Dotted Line make a real name for itself in B2C.
One of our first steps was to demonstrate the agency’s knack for consumer-facing work by taking on several strategic pro bono projects. Mine and Mitchell’s partnership began several years before joining Dotted Line, where we worked on several grassroot creative campaigns, including an award-winning poster campaign for King of Pops, so that felt like a natural starting point. Beyond the obvious promotional incentive for the recipient, pro bono campaigns also offer creative marketers the opportunity to gain attention, attract clients and indulge in creative output that fuels the agency.
For our first pro bono creative campaign with Dotted Line, we pitched Scoop, a small-batch ice cream shop in The Fan of Richmond. (After a popsicle-based campaign, ice cream seemed like the logical next step). Dotted Line Account Director Christie Hach knew one of the shop’s employees, which helped us get our foot in the door. From there, we collaborated on, tinkered, went back to the drawing board several times and ultimately delivered a campaign as unique as their ice cream for the brand to feature on social media.
Scoop loved the final product and began sharing the new visuals online earlier this month. But beyond that success, our pro bono project was a real-world example of several of our agency’s key virtues. By exhibiting creative ingenuity, off-the-clock ambition and a bold embrace of fun, our Scoop campaign demonstrates the spirit of Dotted Line and hopefully gives other marketing professionals something to think about.
In-house innovation
While a contracted client would typically expect us to deliver a product that adheres to a set of previously established standards, our partnership with Scoop was a little different. We approached the company and said, “This is something we would like to do for you — money isn’t an object.” This less formal relationship allowed Mitchell and me to flex our creative muscles a little more and jump off from Scoop’s established visual identity to create something eye-catching and unique.
Since the shop first opened several years ago, its social media content has largely consisted of two-dimensional imagery, a pastel color scheme and close-up photography highlighting its frozen treats. This strategy has clearly been successful, earning the brand more than 12,000 Instagram followers and considerable levels of engagement.
But we wanted their images to take on a singular visual language of their own — not just for the sake of being different, but to parallel the uniqueness of many of Scoop’s culinary concoctions. (The menu features such flavor choices as “sweet corn and blackberry” and “strawberry-hibiscus sorbet.”) We opted to pair an eccentric visual sensibility with messaging that would promote Scoop ice cream as a rescue for hot weather — which turned out to be a fitting choice for this sweltering summer.
Our team eventually landed on visuals that blended photographs of Scoop ice cream with sunny outdoor landscapes as well as quirky, even psychedelic visual frills, topped off with punchy messages like “Treat the Heat.” Aside from photos of the Scoop product itself, everything in the frame was produced in-house, including photographs by Dotted Line Production Designer John DiJulio. This display of creativity is, we hope, a testament to our creative team’s range of skills and “let’s have some fun,” do-it-yourself spirit. But to see just how dedicated we were to the project, one must look beyond the final product.
Initiative, self-improvement and the extra mile
As our previous pro bono campaign earned us awards attention (including two Gold Cannonballs from the Advertising Club of Richmond) and inclusion in industry publications, Mitchell and I already knew that some of the most attention-worthy marketing work isn’t necessarily contracted. By taking on a creative side project to help put Dotted Line on the B2C map, we embodied the value of creating one’s own opportunities in the marketing space — even if those opportunities aren’t necessarily billable.
While we weren’t held to a concrete deadline (another plus of pro bono work), we wanted the campaign to come together by summer’s end so the weather-based messaging would remain effective. One early idea for the campaign involved engaging consumers in an online and in-store cups-versus-cones debate. Another involved close-ups of people eating ice cream while sporting face mask-shaped tan lines — which hit the cutting room floor when Virginia dialed back its COVID-19 mask mandates.
We could have gone with the first idea that came to mind, but a drive to refine the Scoop campaign to its best possible version kept Mitchell and me cranking. This ambition ultimately earned our product a spot in Scoop’s social media feed — and exemplified the extra-mile mentality that fuels all of Dotted Line’s output.
A feel for fun
While promoting Dotted Line and Scoop was our primary impetus, we were especially driven to take on the pro bono campaign because we simply enjoyed the work and the Scoop product. Passion projects with increased creative freedom serve as a reminder that — as Mitchell puts it — we marketers are “pretty lucky to do what we do for a living.” He and I also kept the rest of the Dotted Line staff up to speed on the creative campaign, and their enjoyment while watching the project unfold only motivated us further.
Even if it sounds paradoxical at first, having fun with creative marketing projects is a time commitment. It took us time to stretch our brains and stimulate our creative juices so that the product could embody the whimsy and spirit it was meant to evoke. You can’t come up with a graphic featuring an old-timey zeppelin, unicorn balloon animal, parrot and garden gnome all congregated around a cup of ice cream on the beach without having a good time.
Our creative team and the rest of the Dotted Line family bring innovation, ambition and enjoyment to every task — whether on or off the books. By employing these attitudes, creative marketers can both foster their own growth and deliver the most effective possible product for their client. If that’s the mentality you seek in your own marketing strategy, we’re here to create exponential impact for your business. Click here to contact us.
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In a piece featured in Richmond BizSense, Creative leaders Mitchell Jordan and Jason Anderson describe what it was like to start at Dotted Line as a creative team of two and how they continue to push the creative envelope. Read the article below.
https://richmondbizsense.com/2021/09/07/creative-qa-dotted-line-duo-goes-from-ndp-to-making-an-nft/
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A weekly connection for quick bits of motivation, new perspectives or an uplifting story that align with Dotted Line as an agency.
Before the start of the school year, I spent an intentional couple of days away with Dotted Line’s leadership team in the West Virginia mountains. We talked proactively about the health of our business, what’s coming up for our team in the next few years, and some current challenges. The good news is that the business is healthy and growing, and we have exciting opportunities on the horizon. Much of our conversation focused on the complexity facing our team right now. As a positive consequence of that growth, we’re aggressively staffing up, refining processes, and working hard to preserve our core, our mission and values – all at the same time.
I invest a lot of time speaking with and listening to other founders and business owners, learning the practices and tools that can enable our growth while making it as painless as possible for everyone involved. As I chatted with a friend recently, he mentioned a story about buffaloes and cows in Colorado.
For those that don’t know, Colorado is divided almost exactly in half by the Rocky Mountains. The western part of the state is the mountains, and the east part is the Plains. Because of this unique geography and landscape, this rare spot has both buffaloes and cows living together. As a storm builds from the west and spills over the Plains toward the wildlife, the cows and buffaloes respond very differently. In their lumbering way, the cows walk away from the storm, which prolongs how long they’re in the storm and maximizes the amount of pain, time, and frustration they experience from the wind and rain. The buffaloes take a different approach. They wait for the storm to roll over the ridge, and then turn and charge directly into the storm. By running into the storm, the buffaloes run straight through it, minimizing their pain, time, and frustration.
It’s the same storm, but their experience is wildly different.
In life, we will always have storms. At Dotted Line, we’re constantly trying new things. One thing I love about our culture is that we’re not afraid of complexity or storms. Maybe we have a struggle with a client. Or a difficult conversation with a team member. Or a new idea that could revolutionize how we do service but could be difficult to implement.
Procrastinating on a problem usually amplifies the pain. But when we address it head on, we’re more apt to act with greater intention. This week, I’m working hard to be mindful of which direction I’m running when faced with a storm. How can our team be like buffaloes and charging into a storm? And how can you and your team live that spirit?
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Lauren Sweeney was recently featured on The Leap podcast with host, Tim May, where she detailed the origin story of Dotted Line and the powerful metamorphosis of her mindset from being singularly goal oriented to being vision driven.
Listen to the full episode here.
A weekly connection for quick bits of motivation, new perspectives or an uplifting story that align with Dotted Line as an agency.
You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.
Charlie Jones
My daughter Savannah has become fixated on trying to help with chores around the house. I think it’s the act of watching my husband and I complete certain activities, and her trying to mimic them as part of her quest for independence. One of the chores that she has taken to is helping to water our plants every day. Our daughter has her small watering bucket, and each morning, she follows me outside to try to help me. This morning, she was growing frustrated because she kept trying to tip the bucket to water the plants, but she was forgetting to fill her bucket first with the water.
While this seems so obvious, I can see how it might not be for someone at her age. At Dotted Line, we talk a lot about the importance of personal growth and development. This interaction with my daughter this morning was a timely reminder, particularly amid the back-to-school season, the importance of filling our buckets to grow our abilities.
I’ve learned that growth, whether it be me as a person, or the plants in our front yard, just doesn’t happen. Developing my abilities is the best chance of becoming the person I was created to be. I must be intentional about it. In practicalities, it is asking myself…am I growing to be the leader Dotted Line needs in to be successful? This same thinking can be applied to all areas of our lives, professionally and personally.
What does growth look like? It’s developing the right attitude, learning your strengths, tapping into your passion, getting in touch with your purpose, developing your skills. And becoming a more effective and fulfilled individual starts with having a plan. For many years, I was intentional about working, reaching my goals, and being successful. The strategy was hard work. But working hard doesn’t guarantee success and hope isn’t a strategy.
I’ve learned that most people underestimate the importance of growth, and they get distracted. I know I have done that. As a result, I put growth on the back burner. Famous author and speaker, John Maxwell writes “If you want to reach your goals and fulfill your potential, become intentional about personal growth. It will change your life.”
This week I am thinking about what I am doing to fill my bucket so I can pour into others more effectively. It’s hard to build strength without growing my capacity to do and be more.
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By Kyra Newman
How many times have you scanned the aisles during a shopping trip to check out a new product featured on your favorite talk show? Or Googled an innovative startup after hearing its founder weigh in on your favorite news podcast? Or planned to stop by a food festival that a local events magazine plugged?
It’s no secret that the media influences public perception of brands—that’s why so many companies invest in media relations. Media outlets offer unparalleled reach when it comes to disseminating information to targeted, receptive audiences. What’s more, the public places considerable trust in the outlets they choose to follow, so a positive endorsement from a media outlet can lend invaluable credibility to a company and its offerings.
The real secret at the heart of media pitching lies in teasing out the most newsworthy, impactful brand stories and convincing a reputable outlet that whatever you’re plugging—be it a product, service or idea—is worth sharing with their audience. That’s where the art of crafting a media pitch comes in.
What is a media pitch?
To fully understand the role of a media pitch, it’s necessary to first understand the scope of media relations. Not to be confused with “public relations”—which broadly encompasses a company’s external outreach to any stakeholder—“media relations” hinges on outreach to a specific group of stakeholders: reporters and producers. Situated within the context of the fast-paced news cycle, a media pitch is any attempt to convince an outlet to cover your company.
Depending on your industry, resources and promotional goals, the angle of your pitch and the type of media coverage you achieve will vary. A bike-sharing startup might opt to pitch a highly visual story complete with graphics showcasing its new and improved bike-docking locations ahead of National Bike to Work Day, while an environmental nonprofit could offer up an interview with its lead scientist to assist a reporter in teasing out key points from a new, jargon-heavy piece of legislation.
While the content of a pitch depends on a brand’s specific strategy, nearly all successful pitches share a common format. They snag a reporter’s attention with a customized hook, clearly communicate how a brand story will benefit an outlet’s audience, provide any resources (such as product samples and expert interviews) necessary to bring the story to life, and specify a clear directive for the journalist to act on—all while keeping the message digestible and to-the-point.
Most pitching today starts via email, and journalists’ inboxes are flooded with dozens of requests each day. Reporters must sift through the clutter to pursue the most buzzworthy news items. So while the possibilities for companies to leverage media relations are endless, the success of a pitch ultimately hinges on communicating the brand story’s newsworthiness. But how does the media define a newsworthy story?
What journalists are looking for
More often than you’d think, clients make the mistake of pitching their company updates as “news.” But updates that are newsworthy internally—a sleek new website, the appointment of a new CFO—aren’t necessarily stories worth sharing externally. When reporters vet pitches for newsworthiness, they look for three key elements:
#1. Uniqueness
First and foremost, a story needs to be distinctive enough to merit the media’s attention. Launching a copycat product is hardly news, but unveiling a disruptive innovation? That’s much more likely to pique a reporter’s interest. If generating news coverage is essential to your promotional plan, define the points of difference that will break through everyday media clutter. From a never-before-seen feature to an outrageous event activation, pursuing a buzzworthy angle from the outset helps a brand story stand out during the media pitching process.
#2. Relevance
Even the most remarkable story risks falling through the cracks if a pitch doesn’t clearly motivate for its relevance. A generic mass email is destined for the spam folder—a reporter is much more likely to follow up on a thoughtful, tailored pitch that demonstrates familiarity with their outlet and applicability to their target audience. In crafting an initial message, spell out the connections that make your brand story worthy of publication or airtime. Whether plugging a groundbreaking packaging adhesive to a manufacturing trade journal or promoting an upcoming neighborhood wine festival to a local events blog, do your homework to ensure that your pitch resonates with the parties it needs to reach.
#3. Timeliness
Finally, when it comes to pitching a story, the adage about being in the right place at the right time holds true. Even the most unique, relevant stories might not make the news if the initial pitch hits a journalist’s desk too early or too late. And if a story is evergreen and could be covered at any time, a reporter will likely pass it up in favor of a more pressing, urgent piece. As you prepare to pitch your brand story, keep timing in mind. Maybe that entails strategically timing the launch of your pop-up restaurant to coincide with the annual restaurant week or fast-tracking a revolutionary redesign of your app so it’s ready in time for a blockbuster conference. Because the news cycle moves so quickly, time is of the essence in getting eyeballs on your brand story.
If developing your media relations sounds like a nuanced and time-intensive process, that’s because it is! Like any promotional initiative, effective pitching requires some legwork, and tapping an agency makes the process a bit easier. From expertise in pitch strategy and copywriting to extensive knowledge of the media ecosystem to long-standing connections with outlets and journalists, we’re here to help. Click here to reach out.