The Digital Marketing Toy Boxâ€“Lessons Learned from Hasbro SVP Victor Lee

June 01, 2016

Everything goes through stages an evolution of sorts. The Clickz conference brought us two days of incredible speakers, information, and connections. I saw a representative from Hasbro (the beloved game company) would be speaking at Clickz so it was time to listen as he imparted his wisdom upon us. Our speaker of the day was Victor Lee who is the Senior Vice President of Digital Marketing for Hasbro.

He talked to us all about the evolution we have seen through history in the way media and information are consumed. This process has not only increased in speed but in quantity without any slowing down in sight!

Victor Lee spoke of evolution, evolution of the way people consume information and media. Case in point, the evolution of music.

Music - First we had the vinyl record, then the 8 Track, a cassette tape, then cd player, now the iPod with downloaded music

Reading - Even reading went through an evolution from an inscribed stone, to a scroll, a book, and now the e-reader

Transportation - Transportation is also included. First we had the horse, then the bicycle, the car, and the airplane.

All of these evolutionary steps seen above took years to reach.

The long duration in between each step is seen until about the 1990's when everything started moving at a much quicker pace.

In 1935 Monopoly was introduced, 1952, Mr. Potato Head.

1991-AOL arrived.

From there we saw an explosion in internet media from Napster to Myspace to Instagram from Netflix to Hulu and the list goes on. Monopoly, the coveted classic board game we all recognize had its own evolution where just 3 years ago, the silver dog token was introduced. Look at what happened in just a span of 10 years:

2003 - LinkedIn
2004 - MySpace
2005 - Facebook
2006 - Twitter
2006 - Magazines go digital
2007 - iPhone
2009 - Whatsapp
2010 - Pinterest
2010 - Instagram
2011 - Snapchat

The point being: media is changing and evolving at arecord speed. If you want to maximize on the value of these incredibly well adapted media, it is important to understand trends and be ready for quick changes in digital.

What does this mean for the digital marketer?

We need to accept change and be prepared for it.

How do we accept change?

The Easy 3- Step Method to Accepting Change

Adoption - Be aware changes will come especially in the digital world. Embrace the fact changes come and start following them. The earlier the better!
Adaptation - Start thinking of how this new change will fit into your digital marketing strategies, revision the way you will send your marketing messages to fit this new media and deploy your messaging. Test and re-test to get it just right.
Anticipation - This one is very important. Now that you are well aware change will happen in the digital world (as we all are) and you are following those changes, adopting the right ones, now look at what will happen. You will begin anticipating changes, possibly before they happen. Your mind will open to see what could be coming next simply based on following what is happening currently.

Sometimes it's best to look at these steps in using examples.

The Video Process

YouTube's very first video was of a man at the zoo, aptly titled "Me at the Zoo."

This video was the catalyst to starting the grand presence of YouTube. Following this one video, more were added to where musical artists like Justin Bieber were discovered from their videos and the site is growing by leaps and bounds. Video is one of the top most effective media on the internet today.

Social Media Process

Back in 1999, Napster stepped on to the scene as a music sharing tool, and in a way, the first iteration of a social network. From there social grew to MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter where people increasingly looked to connect with one another.

Soon this included Pinterest and Instagram. With the quick adaption of the smartphone, social started going the way of the app favoring the mobile devices with apps like Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram and more. What will come next?

Closing Thoughts

The world is growing but increasingly becoming more and more connected. The steps outlined will really help you to be on top of the media evolution rather than a step behind. In today's digital arena, it is better to try and "fail forward" rather than regretting not trying at all, as Victor Lee from Hasbro told us.