Charl Bassil, Chief Brand Officer at BBC Studios, reveals how strategic marketing and creativity in marketing can transform not just campaigns, but entire organisations. Bassil was an international keynote speaker at the Nedbank IMC. Modern Marketing was a proud media partner.
How do we re-imagine brands in a world where there is so much noise?
Steal With Your Ears
There are so many people shouting at one another and vying for attention. The only thing you can do is stop and learn to listen. My father used to say to me ‘Steal with your ears’. We need to listen to our audiences, our colleagues and our stakeholders, but we need to listen with an empathy as if we’re listening to children. We need to listen with kindness and love because they are ultimately the people that we’re serving.
Rise Above The Noise
A really good friend of mine advised me to rise above the noise, to rise above every hype cycle, whether it’s the Metaverse or AI, whatever it might be. These things are important tools in our desire to connect with people. But let’s not forget what our primary purpose is: to connect with people.
Then understand and be firm on your true north, your personal true north and your brand’s true north. Jeff White said take the complicated and make it simple. And then Alistair Hewitt said take the simple and make it sexy. Those two things, if you combine them, are really, really powerful.
And this is where marketing is business. The BBC for instance is a complicated brand. Netflix is in entertainment. Spotify does music and, and audio. ESPN does sport. CNN does the news. The weather app on your phone gives you the weather, and Disney Junior gives you sort of entertainment for kids and some education.
Now, that full service offering comes from the BBC, so it’s a complicated product. But it should be a simple story. So what we’ve done at the BBC is narrowed it down to three roles. The first is no political and no commercial agenda. The second one is backing the best homegrown storytelling. So local is lekker. Even in the UK, tell the stories of the people, of the places of the culture of the UK and then finally, the third role is to bring people together. Those big and seminal moments, whether it’s the Coronation, a big football match or a news event.
The elections bring people together because the world is becoming increasingly polarised by algorithms and commercial agendas. So a public service’s role is to actually bring people together. The BBC is under threat as an institution. If you presume that you’re an iconic brand and that your legacy is going carry you into the future, you’re wrong. So I banned the word iconic in my teams and I said, ‘We have to start as if we’re a challenger – we have to have a challenger mindset.’
Combine Empathy And Data
Crucial to any turnaround or any transformation is making reality your friend. Reality is based on data and information. Use that data. But when you’re looking at the data, which is when you’re looking with your left brain, please use your right brain and bring some empathy into it. Because data on its own can be brutal and cold and hard, but we have a responsibility to our audience, our consumer and the people we serve. We have to bring that information and that understanding of them in an empathetic and storytelling way. That really brings them on the journey. So this is a combination of data and empathy. And if we bring that into the realm of the BBC public service, we’ve got a mission, a true north and clarity.
We’re a challenger brand, and there is obsession with growth in the digital space. We recognise that there’s a shift into the digital space obsession with growth. What I’ve been doing over the last 18 months has been introducing Brand Power by Kantar. It’s about salience, relevance and distinctiveness. It’s been my ‘in’ with an organisation that wasn’t talking about brand, it was talking about purpose. It was talking about storytelling, about content, but not about brand. And now we’re talking about brand because brand power is now in our corporate dashboard.
Make sure that the measures that drive your brands are on, that those corporate dashboards are in the boardrooms. The idea of then of transforming iconic brands is about reappraisal, and not reinvention. Too often we fuel our own egos thinking we’re going to reinvent a brand. The BBC’s been around for 100 years. We’re not reinventing something, we’re really just finding ways to get it reappraised.
Fresh Consistency
You have a consistent theme, a consistent brand, and you bring it to your audience in a fresh way that suits the zeitgeist and that really connects with consumers audiences and where they live. So it’s not about changing your story, it’s just about maybe changing some of the characters. Like James Bond, who became more open, less sexist – he’s right for the times. The villain probably became a bit more evil – unfortunately a sign of the times.
Balance Legacy With Innovation
Sometimes the temptation is to get into the innovation only and to ignore your legacy. Other times we get stuck in the past and don’t want to let go of certain things. We’ve got to balance those two things. The BBC has been innovating. It also recognises that things like iPlayer, BBC iPlayer were streaming, devices. Before Netflix, but we just didn’t brand it properly. We didn’t get it out there. So this idea of shifting our audiences into digital streaming is critical for the BBC. That’s innovation today. We’re innovating to make sure our products are matching the likes of Netflix and Spotify. You have to innovate fast and you have to try and get ahead of your competitors.
We also have to look at legacy, and that goes back to those three values of the brand I mentioned. This local is lekker in the UK is the story we’re telling about the BBC. not just making and producing films and, and, and television programmes in the uk. We’re actually made of those places.
Play The Long Game
It’s interesting being the South African voice in the room with everyone being quite negative about fragmentation, polarisation, the news cycle etc. But I tell them you won’t believe what we’ve been through in South Africa. Imagine that a rugby team can bring an entire nation together. Imagine the responsibility we have as a platform, as big as the BBC to do the same for the UK. That’s why we as brand builders and marketers in this business game have to play it for the long game.
So often people are looking the next quarter growth: are we making our numbers? Our job is to look up and look at the long-term, are we playing the long game? And that means it’s a game for team builders and collaborators. This is not a game for superheroes. It’s a collaboration between yourself within the business, but also with your consumers, your audience, and with your partners outside of the business.
One of the things I learnt is that culture eats strategy for breakfast. This is an inside job. You’ve got to bring your CFO and sales director on the journey. Because it’s the culture of the organisation that drives the brand and the brand is the organisation.
Be Brave, Be Kind And Believe
Say what you believe – you’ll be surprised how profoundly impactful you can be. And be brave to call out negative behaviour.
If people are stereotyping Africa or wherever else, be kind. The most crucial thing in the world today is to be kind to your audience, to your consumer. Be kind to your stakeholders, and mostly please be kind to yourselves. Kindness is going to be a unique selling point in the future. In a world of AI in a world of fast moving everything, kindness is what’s going to separate us from collapsing basically as a society.
Then finally, believe in yourselves. Believe in the impact that our industry has on shaping culture. We’re often sitting in trend reports trying to be part of culture, but don’t forget that we are shaping culture. The micro and big messages that we’re sending into society are the messages that they’re taking and adopting as culture. So believe that you can make a positive difference, with no cheap tricks. Believe that you are responsible for the future of our industry, and the future of our culture.
NEDBANK IMC CONFERENCE
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