Jess Gaedeke (00:00)
Hi everybody, it's Jess here with your Dig Inspiration episode. Today I am sitting down with Dig's VP of Marketing and Brand Strategy, Meagan Healy, and we are gonna wrap about the episode that just launched with Kunal Meta at DSM Firmenich So have a listen in.

Jess Gaedeke (00:16)
Hey Megan, thanks for joining me on this Dig Inspiration episode.

Meagan Healey (00:20)
Hello, so happy to be here.

Jess Gaedeke (00:21)
So you heard the episode with Kunal, who shared

Meagan Healey (00:25)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Gaedeke (00:26)
a lot of perspective around brand. And so I was like, who better to chat with than than you, of course?

Meagan Healey (00:30)
Ha ha.

Jess Gaedeke (00:31)
and one of the things he talked about, I'm super curious your point of view. So he talked about how important consistency was and how consistency just brings such strength to brands over time. At the same time, I'm curious from your point of view, there's a lot of pressure to chase these like new platforms, new formats, right?

how do you balance the line between consistency and experimentation? Like have you had to hold the line on something at Dig that you really felt it was tempting to chase, but you had to hold strong?

Meagan Healey (01:00)
Yeah, I think it's it's really interesting. And this interview was fascinating and came at such a a cool time because I have been on my own journey of better understanding brand and brand strategy. I actually just did an mini MBA this year on brand

planning. And I think that the challenge that Kunal talked about is the challenge between sort of brand and marketing. Like I like to think about

marketing as the execution and the tactics and sort of how you can innovate within the parameters of that defined set of brand associations, brand positioning. So when you think about the things that you want to hold you want to drive consistency around, it really is those elements of your brand, like the associations and the codes and things like that. And that can be really, really tricky.

When I mean we obviously function within a B2B environment, but I would imagine that this is across any sort of environment that you work in in marketing and brand, things are changing so fast and they don't seem to be slowing down, particularly for us when we think about how AI is amplifying what is possible for our buyers. So one of the places that I've been tempted to chase the shiny new thing a lot.

is with conferences. So we do a ton of conferences for for dig. And because we have a great feedback loop internally of sort of like what worked with our positioning, where did we want to lean in? where do we need to pivot or consider sort of switching things up? It can be really tempting from even like a visual brand perspective as well as a positioning perspective to like try new things and seed new things. But really what

I want and what my team wants is to make sure that people that are walking the floor, like our core buyers, that they recognize us as dig. So how do we drive that consistency? And I think that that that idea of consistency, it sounds boring, but it's about figuring out how you take the things that you stand for. and I guess chase after the shiny new thing in the way you execute. So if one of your associations is that you

are disruptive thinkers or you embrace technology, like how do you make sure that that stands true in your creative or in your positioning, but that you're able to maybe approach it in a new way because of what you're able to do with if I use the conference example, like booth design these days. Like maybe you can do something really cool and flashy that draws attention to the right things. So yeah, I think it's about

Thinking about brand as you know, what needs to stay consistent and thinking about marketing as the way that you can go after those shiny new things and try new tactics. but I fully agree with Kunal on the consistency is what drives strong brands.

Jess Gaedeke (03:39)
Yeah. And the other thing that, you know, he talked about what it allows you to do is to take bigger swings, right? So really lean in, place, you know, money on a bigger bet, that kind of thing. So I'm curious, like, where has having those strong brand guidelines, the things that are your North Star and you want to be consistent about, where has that made you and the team like enabled you to act bolder?

Meagan Healey (04:02)
Yeah. mean it's very connected to the first question, right? And I think we've definitely been on a journey with this at Dig. Like when I joined way, way back when. I think we were at a size or scale where we all sort of intuitively knew what we stood for as a brand. And so building that like scaffolding or building the foundations or guidelines for

our brand and what it is we stand for is something that I've been working on the last five, six years. I think that it kind of goes back to this idea of, you know, when you need to be scrappy, it can make you more innovative or it can make you having those those guidelines or those boundaries allows you to or forces you, I guess, to be more creative. So a good example is

We were able to go really bold with this. We did we basically produced like a an office style, like the show, The Office sitcom, like an office style hackathon. So we took something that like what we really required was a little bit of extra budget to try something completely different to drive the right associations with who we wanted to be seen for as a brand. Or when we think about like in-person events.

We might not have the largest budgets in the world, but what we do have is creative thinking. So how do we come up with an experience for our clients that is going to be memorable as opposed to, you know, perhaps just glitzy or very fancy?

I think having boundaries or having sort of firm guidelines to be consistent does allow you to take bigger swings because it forces you to refocus on kind of what matters or what the the purpose of what you're doing is. And ultimately I think that means that you you don't have to be quite so cautious.

Jess Gaedeke (05:48)
Yeah. And big swings don't always have to mean big investment. They can just be like a really cool experiment like the hackathon was. And, you know, I know we have plenty of others in the plan for next year. So stay tuned.

I think a marketer's job, especially a marketing leader's job, is really difficult. So I just want to give you a moment of empathy. I see you. And I'm

Meagan Healey (06:09)
Mm-hmm.

Jess Gaedeke (06:09)
I'm just wanna love to hear from you. Like, what's a brand decision that you've made here at Dig that you were genuinely nervous about? you weren't really sure where it was gonna land, and you know, what did you learn from that? And how are you doing? How are you doing with that decision?

Meagan Healey (06:23)
Okay, well, luckily I'm doing very good with my decision. But I mean, I think a lot of what I've done, at least at Dig or LED, is you know, hearing from senior leaders or the ELT of sort of where we want to go as a business and what's important, and then thinking about how we translate that essentially into something that makes sense for the market. So

Something I was really genuinely nervous about was renaming our platform. So upside very much still exists, as in the functionality of upside is is still alive and well within our platform, but we'd acquired new technology capabilities, we'd built a lot of new technology capabilities, and we were moving forwards as a business. So I needed to get a sense of what

A new name for that platform might look like given where we wanted to go in the future. And I also wanted to make sure that we were really intentional about what that name was. So I didn't know how it was going to land with clients when I was talking to them. because a lot of our clients have been leveraging our technology for some time. and I didn't know necessarily how to ask those questions. I know we we've got a team of researchers at Dig that definitely supported me in terms of.

How to run naming research, that I wasn't, you know, the the most skilled at doing that right out of the gate. So it was a learning curve for me to figure out, you know, how do you name something? How do you make sure that you can, I guess, stand behind your decisions on something that's can oftentimes feel as subjective as naming. And what I learned was that every marketer who's listening to this will agree. We spend so much time talking to ourselves within marketing and

not enough time talking to the people that change is going to impact. So in speaking with clients, yeah, it felt really scary to change the name of a platform, but really what they valued was the experience and the capabilities of our platform and the experience of working with our company overall. So we ended up going with Dig One. we ended up really leaning into sort of

Core name, our heritage, as Dig. and that's gone incredibly well. And the story absolutely makes sense. So super happy about that. But I think what I learned is getting that client feedback and trying to step outside of kind of the world that I live in every day, of thinking about naming from a client-centric perspective was was the right call.

Jess Gaedeke (08:40)
Are you keeping a tally of everywhere you've had to replace upside with dig one? 'Cause that would be an interesting statistic to share back. I'm trying I'm trying as much as possible to trigger you during this conversation.

Meagan Healey (08:47)
how dare you bring that up? How dare you? yeah.

Honestly, I think it's AI has been really helpful with that, especially when we think about our our like owned properties. So our website, like AI will allow us now to switch copy across the entirety of our website in one fell swoop if we need to. So that's been helpful. But yes, when it comes to like

sales assets or PDFs that are all custom made by our talented humans. Sometimes they'll open something and be like, when was this last used? So yeah,

Jess Gaedeke (09:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Meagan Healey (09:23)
no tally, but

it hurts.

Jess Gaedeke (09:24)
Ongoing. Yeah. Ongoing.

Fair enough.

I think you know, Megan, one of my favorite questions that I ask guests is about the brand that they would date and the brand that they would marry. And, you know, it's interesting because everyone's answer is a little bit different, but it's all feel like they're the flavor of, well, there's this brand that is great for short term that might be super, super fun, but maybe not as I don't know, long term and serious versus

The brand I picked to marry really needs to have different qualities that again, I can sort of stand the test of time. so it made me think about Dig as a brand. so using that same lens, where do you think we are on the brand you would date, brand you would marry spectrum? And like, where should we be? I kind of think this question is worth like an hour long conversation, but you're gonna have

Meagan Healey (10:06)
Yeah.

Jess Gaedeke (10:06)
to keep it short.

Meagan Healey (10:07)
That's hard. I love this question so much. It's in my like personal life, I often ask people which flavor of ice cream they think I am, or I'll tell them which flavor of ice cream I think they are. So I totally understand the way that your brain works.

when I think about our different clients. So people who've worked with us for a long time, it's hard for me to say that we wouldn't be a brand that they would marry, right? Like when you think about a services business like ours, so much of it is about like true partnership. Maybe not marriage, but true partnership and working through their strategy together and figuring out how we support. But when I think about the brand that we're building in the market, I do think.

That we might be in like a dating phase. Cause I think when you think about like early stage love, or you think about like how exciting dating can be, if we if we're looking at it in a positive space, because I know dating is is tough out there. But I think it's like things are in the middle of happening. There's something exciting, brewing, you're trying to like capture the excitement, I guess, of of what that's becoming.

before it becomes this like solid, stable thing. And I think a lot of what we're doing at Dig is like sort of relentlessly reinventing what best practices look like. And we're talking about even like disrupting our own best practices to figure out what's best for our clients. So I do think that we might be more in like a dating phase right now when it comes to the market view of who we are. But when I think about the people who've worked with us for a long time, I definitely think we're marriage material.

Jess Gaedeke (11:36)
Yeah. So my answer to this is gonna be a total cheat. Okay. But I'm gonna say that we're both because we hear all the time that clients love working with Dig, that we were fun, that we are entertaining, right? That we're like people you want to hang out with.

Meagan Healey (11:52)
Yeah.

Jess Gaedeke (11:53)
And we do that at events all the time, right? We're always kind of treating our clients hopefully to to VIP experiences and things like that. So there's definitely a dating vibe, but we're also very reliable.

We give very predictive answers. Like they value so much the ways that we actually contribute to their growth. So it's almost like we're the same brand that can take you out on the town and show you a fabulous night, but still show up at 8 a.m. and get the job done. Like I truly do think that Dig is in a very unique point where we straddle those two things. So I'm cheating and I'm gonna say both.

Meagan Healey (12:26)
It's what's that movie with Ryan Gosling and Steve Corell, where Steve Corell says to his wife, like you're both sexy and cute all at the same time. That's what what you just said reminded me of. Because

Jess Gaedeke (12:39)
See you.

Meagan Healey (12:40)
sexy and cute. We're like the sexy dating side, and we're like the cute, stable marriage material side.

That's what it reminded

Jess Gaedeke (12:46)
yeah, yeah.

Meagan Healey (12:47)
me of.

Jess Gaedeke (12:47)
Yeah, that totally makes sense. And I didn't get that cultural reference, so shame

Meagan Healey (12:51)
Ha ha

Jess Gaedeke (12:52)
on me. And we'll talk to Kevin Hare, who's obsessed with Ryan Gosling, and I'm sure he can break that whole scene down for me. So this new question I've been asking folks is how they would describe their role two years ago and their role today. And Kunal said

It went from being a simplifier to the voice of the company. So I'm curious, if you had to pick one word for what your role has been over the last two years and one word for what it's becoming, what would those be?

Meagan Healey (13:16)
I approached this question through the lens of brand. So just thinking about like brand specifically, I think over the last couple of years, I've had the opportunity to really step up and start to think about the importance of brand and what our brand is. and that's been really cool, but I would say the word would be translator. So I kind of referenced it before, sort of translating.

executive leadership's sort of like growth strategy and vision and and figuring out what that means for brand. And I I think as I as I gain more experience and as I move into more of a senior role, I think about it more as like the architect. So I guess just more involved in like what is that growth that we're looking to to reach towards as a company.

And how do I begin to sort of architect our brand around it? So I guess it's more like input oriented the last couple of years and then a more sort of active role in defining where we go next.

Jess Gaedeke (14:09)
love that. I love that answer. and I think it's very true. So you, Megan, for joining me on this dig inspiration episode. It

Meagan Healey (14:14)
Of course.

Jess Gaedeke (14:15)
was great to unpack Kunal's conversation and also get some of your unique perspectives. So thank you, ma'am.

Meagan Healey (14:20)
Thank you. Talk to you soon.