Episode 271 / Zyania Orozco Sanchez / Ex-OPPO / Senior Brand Marketing Manager
What Tech Marketers Can Learn From the Luxury Sector
In the latest episode of the Shiny New Object podcast, Zyania Orozco, former Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Oppo in LATAM, explores the intersection of luxury marketing and technology.
Having worked in various industries and cultures, from Japanese companies to French luxury brands, Zyania discovered different problem-solving approaches and ways of thinking. But it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that she reassessed her goals, invested in her passions, and pursued a digital transformation management diploma.
One of the key insights Zyania shared was the importance of embracing mistakes and the ability to adapt quickly - a principle she believes luxury brands can learn from the tech industry. "If you're only looking for excellence and to do everything perfect from the beginning and to never make mistakes, then it's going to be very difficult to learn," she explained.
Zyania’s Shiny New Object is luxury marketing in technology - specifically, the learnings that brands in the tech space can take from high-end fashion and beauty. She highlighted the importance of personalised customer experiences, impeccable customer service, and measured touchpoints throughout the customer journey.
By applying these luxury principles to tech, brands can foster stronger brand loyalty and engagement. For technology marketers looking to incorporate luxury vibes into their work, Zyania advised focusing on the details and personalisation of the customer experience. She emphasised the need for well-trained employees who can provide both technical and service-oriented support, as well as exploring innovative ways to interact with customers, such as through gaming, AI, music, and podcasts.
Listen to more of her insights and top data driven marketing tips in the full podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Zyania Orozco 0:00
If you're only looking for excellence and to do everything perfect from the beginning and to never make mistakes, then it's going to be very difficult to learn.
Speaker 1 0:14
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Tom Ollerton 0:41
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And this is a weekly podcast about the future of data driven marketing. I'm here in Mexico City. Just finished a rainstorm. I'm in a lovely, nice, warm office here at oppo. I'm invited here by the team, so thanks so much for having me, guys. But I'm here with Zyania Orozco, and Zyania is the senior brand marketing manager here at oppo in LATAM. So Zyania, can you just tell the audience a bit about who you are and what you do?
Zyania Orozco 1:27
Yes, first of all, thank you for having me. Tom I'm very excited about this experience, and I hope you have a blast here in Mexico City. A little bit about myself. I've been working in marketing roles for almost 10 years now, I started my career as a marketing intern in AstraZeneca, and I've had the opportunity to work in several industries and with several cultures as well. And I think that's something that I really love about my career and about marketing, that it has given me the chance to learn about different cultures, to learn about different ways to work and to solve problems. I've worked in Panasonic, with Japanese company, with Japanese teams. I worked in LVMH with French brands, luxury brands and different culture, cultural teams, multicultural teams as well. And now I'm working at oppo with Chinese team based in Mexico City, but we also work with HQ in China. So it has this career has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of people, to meet very different ways of thinking, but for but mainly different ways to solve and to attend problems in a person and in a professional way.
Tom Ollerton 2:41
So what new belief or behavior has improved your work life in the last five years?
Zyania Orozco 2:50
Definitely, I think 2020. Was a shift year in my in my personal and in my professional life, mainly for the pandemic, I started a job on February of that year, and we went to lockdown for COVID on March. So I think that year really helped me to do a shift in a personal and in a professional way. The cataclys change was definitely the pandemic, but it made me like reassess my goals, personally and professionally, professional, professionally, as I mentioned. And this reflection led me to search for a more like, disciplined, perseverant and consistent way of living, and to have like, a healthier way to assess my personal and professional life. This led me to invest time and money in to my passions, not only into my professional life. Since I was working at home, I discovered that I am that I am an introvert, so that I need to spend time doing things that I love, other than just working. And this led me to invest in this, and also to invest in my education to continue learning. I'm an avid learner, so I invested in two different diplomas that helped me professionally, but the main one was that I invested in a digital transformation management diploma, and I thought that this was only going to be used in a pro in my professional life, and no, this also helped me a lot in my personal life. At the same time that I was do facing this like personal transformation, I had to let digital transformation in my in my position. I was a marketing manager for a luxury distributor in Mexico. And the team that I had, that I had the privilege to work with, was mainly like an analog team generation, so they were very resistant to changes. Yes, they weren't doing any marketing plans based on data. Not at all. They were based on, like, some historical data, maybe, but mainly just, I think, like, just what they thought it would work, and trying and making mistakes, but not, not really based on data. So we hired some, like data scientists, but we didn't have any data to manage at the beginning. Everything was on paper. So I had to let like, this very profound process of automation to creating, from scratch, a database. And then once we had, like, very clean and precise data that we could gather from our customers, then we started, like, developing very specific campaigns and projects that could lead us, in one or two years to launch our own e commerce site. Because these brands were sold through stores and stores were closed. So we had to save those brands, and not only save them, but continue growing them. But we didn't have any any data to work with, so I had to let this very profound transformation in several areas of the company, not just marketing, and once we started working with this, with this type of process and also upskilling the employees, they felt very empowered into into being involved in this type of processes and not being so resistant to the changes that this was going to involve, this led us to having very good results in terms of sales, in terms of reach, in terms of having a direct communication and then building like brand community and brand loyalty for for these specific campaigns and projects and and at the same time, as I mentioned, this was being being. At the same time I had, like this very personal transformation as well. And I learned that for these type of changes, you have to be very persistent and very consistent, and that if in your personal life and in your marketing life, you apply these every day, like these very small, small goals and a small process and small improvements every day, then it will lead to big results, but you have to be very consistent.
Tom Ollerton 7:53
So what is your best bit of advice to someone who wants to become a better data driven marketer?
Zyania Orozco 8:00
I think, first of all, I think that I have several advices, but the main one would be, first, never forget that all the marketing campaigns and all the marketing projects, projects that you will be managing or working with are designed to reach people, and in those terms you haven't you need to always remember that all the data that you that you can have and that you can manage is based on people's behaviors. I think that what I've seen lately is that usually, sometimes we're so focused in our in the office and into developing the most innovative strategy, that you forget that you're basing everything on people's behavior. And once you remember that, and like you always, put your customer on the center of your decisions, then it will be, I think it will be more successful if you never forget that.
Tom Ollerton 9:07
Which is lovely, lovely advice. Everything you do, never forget your design. You're designing a thing to reach actual people. So your shiny new object is luxury marketing in technology, right? Sounds really interesting. You've had your you've had your experience in luxury, and now you're in tech. So how do those worlds collide, and why have you chosen that as your shiny new object?
Zyania Orozco 9:35
I think that since I've had the pleasure to work in luxury. In the luxury industry, I learned a lot of their best practices. And yes, of course, tech companies work very differently, but there are some things that they that they collide in. And I think that there are something some principles that if you apply from luxury marketing into technology, then the results would be better. Some of them, I think it would be if you do some very profound research and that you have in technology companies, you usually have a lot of data that you can work with. But I think that linked into profession luxury marketing, you can use this data to do very personalized customer experiences.
Tom Ollerton 10:39
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For me, the similarity between luxury marketing and tech marketing is that they're both very high consideration purchases, right? You know, we're not talking about buying some detergent here or toilet paper or chocolate bar even, like I'm going to spend upwards of whatever money on buying a new device or a new luxury item, be that a car, handbag, shoes or whatever. So, so what... help me understand that better? So, what are the main things that you've brought across from luxury into technology that you found really useful?
Zyania Orozco 11:53
Well, first of all, like, like I mentioned, creating this very personalized customer experiences. Because, as you mentioned, this is not a product that you will buy every every week or every month, so the experience that you get buying this product is something that you're not going to forget, because then the next time that you're going to purchase is going to be in some maybe some years, right? Other, other, other, other things that I found that could be very helpful is to have like this, very impeccable customer service, because in terms of luxury, in terms in terms of tech, the product that you buy, you're going to interact with it for a long time, and you will need the best customer service afterwards, because this also includes the customer experience that you get. So I think that's something that we cannot never forget, neither in luxury nor in tech.
Tom Ollerton 12:52
And so what do you think luxury should be learning from technology marketing that it's not currently doing?
Zyania Orozco 13:00
I think one of the things that they could learn is that, I remember that working in luxury, we were always told to be to always try to find excellence. And I think excellence doesn't give you space to make mistakes. And in technology, you have this the space to make mistakes, because you take very fast decisions, and you can readapt the projects very quickly, because you have the chance to make make mistakes, and then readapt, and then that's the way, I think, that you can be led to innovation. Otherwise, if you're only looking for excellence and to do everything perfect from the beginning and to never make mistakes, then it's going to be very difficult to learn.
Tom Ollerton 13:45
So the mistake is to never make mistakes.
Zyania Orozco 13:50
Yeah.
Tom Ollerton 13:51
I remember I had a meeting years so so long ago, and it was in a fancy restaurant in Mayfair in London, and I worked for a social media agency called we are social in London. We had a meeting with Chanel, and we sort of, we made our presentation. We said, This is what social and this is 15 years ago, something like that, we did this whole presentation, and they were like, nodded and smiled in all the right places. And then the end of the meeting, we closed the laptop, and they said, We will never do social media. We are Chanel. There you go. Don't think that actually transpired, because they're very much on social media now.
So in terms of luxury marketing in technology, if a marketer is listening to this podcast and they're thinking, right, okay, I work at a technology brand, and I want to bring some luxury vibes to this work, where's the best place to start?
Zyania Orozco 14:57
Oh, that's a very good question. Question, like, if they're already in a technology company, that's the question like, how to apply this, first of all, I think, to try to check all the touch points that the client will get into into their customer journey, and to see that this all, that these touch points are very based in details, like you have to pay attention to those details, to those touch points that are that they are very personalized, that the experience is really measured, that the employees that have contact with the customer are well trained, not only for the technical parts, but also for the service that they offer. Like the whole customer journey has to be really measured, as I said, not only from the from the beginning of the project planning, but through all the journey, through all the touch points, through all the customer service that you offer afterwards and then, I think that's the way that you can get brand loyalty. Because for Tech, I think brand loyalty is super hard, because they are always new products, new technologies, new AI, new and new features every, every single day. I think so that if the client gets like this different and very unique experience. I think that's going to build brand loyalty and maybe some brand like brand community as well. I think tech customers not only want to buy the product and never interact with the brand again. I think now there are a lot of ways that brands can interact with their customers, through gaming, through AI different features, through music, through podcasts, through a lot of things. So I think that's something that that you can focus on.
Tom Ollerton 17:00
So unfortunately, we've come to the end of the podcast now. And if someone wants to come and talk to you marketing in tech, where would you like them to get in touch with you, and what makes a message that you will actually reply to?
Zyania Orozco 17:13
I think the easiest way would be through LinkedIn. And of course, if they mentioned something about the shiny new object that will be something that will call my attention. Yes.
Tom Ollerton 17:24
So thank you so much for your time. It's been so fun to come to this office and meet you both today as a double header today, but Zyania, that was great fun. Thank you so much.
Zyania Orozco 17:34
Thank you so much, Tom.
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