After several years in the industry, advertising jargon has become a big part of Brevo’s culture and day-to-day work environment. To help creatives who are new to the game, we’ve come up with a breakdown of some of the most used words, acronyms, and phrases in Creative Marketing. Read more below!
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A short and sweet expression of approval, G2G means your work is “good to go!”
“Let me know if these are G2G!”
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A “Key Visual” or graphic that contains artistic elements and treatment that should be used repeatedly and consistently across brand or campaign materials.
“You may add KV options 1 and 2 to the client presentation.”
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Advertising aimed at a wide audience. Think: radio, billboards, TV, magazines.
“So what will the ATL deliverables be?”
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Advertising aimed at a small, targeted audience. Think: email, direct mail, brochures, flyers.
“They want us to focus on BTL executions for this campaign.”
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Typically a one-line directive, a CTA or “Call to action” urges viewers, readers, or listeners to fulfill a specific action: shop now, click here, read more, etc.
“Minor revision: kindly change the CTA to Shop Now!”
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A standalone web page that people “land on” after clicking an ad, so they can act upon an ad’s CTA or proposition.
“Our ad’s landing page is the brand’s e-commerce website.”
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Together, UI and UX outline a user’s interaction with and overall experience of a website, app, or software. UI refers to “User Interface” while UX means “User Experience.
“Have we conducted UI testing yet? We launch tomorrow.”
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A USP or “Unique Selling Proposition” is a product or service’s distinguishing benefit that drives buyers to choose it over competitor brands and offerings.
“Volvo’s primary USP is they’re the safest cars in the market.”
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The various media used to support a marketing campaign, from digital adverts to printed material. Marketing collateral collectively promotes specific products, services, or brand messaging.
“Let’s start putting together collaterals for the upcoming pitch.”
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A common or recurring problem that target customers are facing in their respective customer journeys, and that advertising professionals try to solve!
“Have you identified the target market’s pain points in their everyday lives?”
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Images, videos, text, or audio posted online by a brand’s end users. UGC or “User-Generated Content” highlights authentic experiences with a product or service, encouraging others to try, buy, or subscribe too.
“Can we use UGC for our posts?”
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The process of generating “leads” or potential customers who are showing interest in your products or services. An engaging lead gen ad or campaign can help a company collect valuable contact details for future business use.
“We’ll start running lead gen campaigns next week.”
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When a company sells its products or services to other businesses or vendors, we call it B2B or “Business to Business.” Likewise, we call companies who serve everyday consumers B2C or “Business to Consumer.”
“They don’t want to limit themselves to B2C. They’re expanding to B2B relationships as well.”
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Otherwise known as “Electronic Direct Mail,” an EDM is digital marketing collateral that promotes products or announcements directly via email.
“All EDMs were sent back for revisions.”
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When potential customers become actual buyers, or the act of responding to an ad’s CTA.
“What’s the average conversion rate for this ad?”
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QA or “Quality Assurance” is a screening process ad agencies enforce to ensure all its outgoing material or finished work meets client and company standards.
“Make sure to QA everything before you send it to the client for approval.”
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KPIs or “Key Performance Indicators” are statistics ad agencies keep track of to determine the success of a marketing campaign. e.g. profit margin, client retention, customer satisfaction, etc.
“Let’s determine our KPIs this month.”
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At Brevo, we believe in nurturing young talent. In fact, a handful of our current team members began their careers working for us as interns! This includes Driggs, a young creative who first joined the team last July as an art intern and is currently our newest full-time graphic designer.
We spoke with Driggs about the various lessons he gathered from his internship, and how it has informed and enriched his first job post-university. Read his story below!
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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I was looking for some agencies with internship openings since I wanted to gain experience as a graphic designer. Mainly: I wanted to make sure that this was a career path that I actually wanted to pursue. Compared to the other agencies that were offering internships, Brevo stood out the most to me as it had something that others didn’t: it looked fun. Everywhere else felt like a boring job with mundane activities, while Brevo designed their internship like a creative bootcamp. With this, I decided to take a leap of faith and join Brevo.
Although I was just an intern, I loved how I was already treated like a fellow coworker. I wasn’t excluded from company meetings or brainstorm activities—I was actually pushed to even state and contribute my ideas. I felt really welcomed, and that made me want to work even more with Brevo.
Initially, I was a bit overwhelmed with managing my time and internship tasks. I usually critique myself a lot when I’m designing a piece, and that makes me take longer in accomplishing my tasks. Working with Brevo taught me that there has to be a balance between quality and time. As much as I’d like to spend time making a poster look “perfect,” I have to remember that I’m working with other people who will also be affected by the time I send my work. It taught me to be less of a perfectionist by considering the time of others.
By early November last year, a month after my graduation, I was set on finding a job as a graphic designer but I didn’t know where to start. Since my internship ended, I decided that I wanted to work with Brevo again. I already knew that I liked the people and their workflow, so I thought working with them would be ideal. Thankfully, Aaron from accounts reached out to me and asked if I was interested in being a full-time graphic designer. I happily accepted the offer.
Compared to when I was just interning, I love designing now knowing that what I do carries more weight. As a full-time graphic designer, I realize how I’m no longer an intern looking for experience. I love that what I do helps both Brevo and our clients grow even more as companies.
It’s only been less than a year since my internship, but Brevo's already changed a lot. In fact, a few of my coworkers were promoted! It makes me feel excited knowing that I’m working in a company that constantly changes and makes it a point to continually grow.
Follow Driggs on Instagram.
And just in case you missed it, check out PART 1 and PART 2 of our Brevo ex-intern interview series!
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Looking to start off your career the exciting way? Consider interning for us—just send your resume and portfolio to [email protected]o now!
A visual brand identity is all of the imagery, colors, logos and typography that expresses who a brand is and differentiates it from all the others.
In other words, a visual brand identity describes everything customers can physically see, including the logo, brand colors, packaging and the environment where it is found, such as a store shelf or social media accounts.
So what is a visual brand identity for? In short:
However, while creating a visual brand identity is an important task, many new businesses tend to breeze too quickly through this process.
They assign a designer, complete some revisions, collect the PDF files and call it a day. But what is visual brand identity, really? And how can creating a relatable and authentic design help communicate what your brand really stands for?
First off, let's pose a question: Would you consider purchasing from a company that is not consistent with its branding? The likely answer: No -- and you didn’t even realize.
To achieve that strong subliminal effect, a visual brand identity must maintain consistency: Your brand marketing must be glued together by your logo, colors, typography, and even in the types of platforms where customers can find you.
As a brand, you might have complex ideas and messaging that would be tough to convey in simple text. This is where visual brand identities come in handy. A specific color invokes a certain feeling; similarly, other visual elements hit certain right emotional chords.
Tangible elements such as logo, fonts, and colors are the building blocks of your brand identity. Your audience will recognize you from these unique choices. They will associate several actions and emotions with it — be it the choice of your colors, logo, fonts, or anything else.
For example, the two circles, one red and one orange, might remind you of Mastercard quickly rather than the name itself.
This is the power of a well designed visual brand identity.
Your brand is the entire boundary of your business; it includes your messaging in every manner.
Brand also depicts the personality, tone, and everything your company stands for.
This is different from the visual depiction of a brand; this is, a logo.
A logo is a graphical icon that identifies your brand. Although it seems a very frivolous thing to stress upon, it's a significant part of your brand story that largely contributes to your visual brand identity.
Thus, visual brand identity is how the entire brand story is communicated in a way that is physically seen by your customer. This includes every marketing collateral, product, and online presence that signifies a single cohesive strategy.
To build a solid and impactful brand, you need to align every piece of the visual identity, starting from font type and logo.
A visual brand identity combines everything from your brand's messaging to positioning. It all takes place with a well-defined brand strategy and carefully crafted design elements.
A visual brand identity should include the following elements.
Colors are used to signify your brand and its personality.
It is advised to use three colors at max with carefully structured hues and shades. However, you cannot use any color based on your liking. Using the correct colors for your brand can generate relevant and powerful emotions in the viewer’s mind.
The journey of color palette begins with a logo, but then those colors will be in every marketing collateral of your brand. Keep in mind that you don’t have to go with trends; instead, align with your brand mission and its purpose.
Images are the most sensitive part of the visual brand identity, and they act as the living visual narrative of your brand.
Thus, you must create images that best represent your brand and target audience.
People relate to images, and if your images contradict your brand’s message, your audience won’t trust you. Images also evoke emotions and humanize your brand, which will help you to gain the trust of your customers.
A brand creates a logo to speak to its market and leave a long-lasting impression on the audience’s mind.
It is one of the core functions of visual brand identity because having a logo gives your brand a face.
However, a logo must also be adaptable. This is why you’ll likely create more than one logo, each adapted to living in different environments, such as your Facebook account, a brochure, a PDF presentation and other places.
Your brand assets include business cards, letterheads, social media covers, and other avatars. They are used to maintain consistency with your brand in every manner, as well as help in recognizing the brand right away.
Typography means the style and shape of the font you would use in your branding.
There are thousands of fonts, but instead of going for anything you like, you need to see which type best suits your audience.
Sometimes you will need to use more than two fonts, but each one should serve a different purpose.
Branding means being consistent, and for the same purposes you need to prepare other marketing collateral, such as banners, posters, and hoardings, to fit nicely into the visual identity you’ve created.
The elements of your visual identity are aligned with your brand's photography, product design, stationery, packaging, merchandise, and other collateral for your prospects, customers, and the team.
The brand identity is the starting point of everything.
So you need to start by creating visuals to express your identity, and then things will come together once you know what your brand is all about.
But this doesn't mean that you have to look over every teeny tiny aspect of your branding right from the beginning. You as a brand will keep growing and evolve with time. In your initial days, you need to figure out all the basics that go into the process of visual brand identity.
Those basics include your mission statement, values, statement for your customers, buyer personas, and your communication style.
Are you familiar with graphics and the way they communicate? To create an impact with visuals, you need to understand their language. Graphic design is also known as visual communication for this reason.
The way you implement all of the above six design elements will decide if all of them are appropriate for you or not. Because not every brand is the same, even if two brands with the same industry won’t have the same branding colors and messaging.
Some colors will invoke excitement, while others will invoke a feeling of trust and sensibility. It all comes down to the brand’s messaging and goals.
Graphics are all about communicating visually, but then stories are an integral part of the same.
For example, the Domino’s logo with two rectangle boxes was intended to make one think of pizza boxes. The three dots signify the initial three outlets bought by owner Tom Monaghan.
Just like this, you can also sum up the entire story of your brand in some colors, fonts, and logos. Good stories are told seamlessly, and before you know it, you are already engaging your audience.
The process of creating a visual brand identity is going to evolve in many ways as your brand grows.
But you need to make sure that every element of your identity doesn’t look like a distinct part but as one. This is why you need to have well-written brand guidelines to escape from any potential inconsistent choices.
Often consistency is misunderstood with repetition. You don’t want to sound obvious every time and have your audience guess every move without any effort. That’s just boring and lazy.
Instead, always look for ways to blend your brand image with the new contrast that goes with the brand effortlessly.
Creating a memorable brand is essential but at the same time, making it different is also just as important.
This is the need of the hour in this era where your competitors can have overlapping purposes and target audiences.
Before a person makes a purchase he/she needs to understand your brand, its values, and way of operation. The rationale here is simple: people don't just shop for products, they shop with emotions.
How would you communicate the personality of your brand to the ideal customer? You cannot expect that person to read a 2-page long vision and mission statement just to purchase a single product.
A visual brand identity helps you to convey your message succinctly. For this reason, it should be designed cohesively to communicate your company's overall message and goals.
An excellent visual brand identity sets you apart from your fellow competitors, and you want that. This is especially true if your company has entered a saturated market, but you wish to show that you are different nonetheless.
So, how will your audience figure that out? Visual brand identity will do the talking for you and let your customers know that this company is different. If differentiation is your aim, you can consider adding more vibrant colors and a logo that tells your tale in a way that sticks out of the crowd.
Creating a visual brand identity ensures that your brand gets highlighted in every marketing collateral in the best possible manner, which creates awareness among customers. You want more people to come across your brand and this way, it creates a long-lasting impression on their minds.
If you are a new brand in the industry you can face fierce competition and among such established brands you need an X factor to stand out. A visual brand identity helps you in generating awareness among the people who never came across your brand.
Swiggit is an alcohol delivery service based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It serves a vast selection of whiskey, beer, wine, and other premium spirits with the promise of delivering to your doorstep in as fast as 60 minutes.
Being a quirky start-up, they asked Brevo to come up with a fun and exuberant name, logo, and a verbal brand strategy to position the company as a trendy alcohol delivery service. Brevo was tasked with fitting this identity for both HNWI and the upwardly mobile Malaysian middle class.
Brevo conducted group interviews with the client to assess and determine the brand's look, feel, and message. The result was to be warm, spirited, fun, and accessible – with a touch of sophistication.
At this point, the company had no name, so it was down to us to craft something that captured the brand's personality and tone.
After finalizing the name, we proceeded to craft the logo, applying it to specific touchpoints relevant to the brand. It needed to be recognizable in large and small applications.
The brand had to be as warm and smooth as the liquor they sold. We concurrently developed Swiggit's TOV and messaging, focusing on the playfulness, speed, depth of inventory, and customer-centricity of the brand.
Swiggit went from literally zero to 100+ sales a day in its first month of operations. The premium yet accessible brand resonated with buyers, suppliers, multiple bars, and liquor distribution channels, opening up their vaults for Swiggit to tap into.
Thanks to optimal branding, the company was able to earn customers' trust and loyalty, helping Swiggit quickly deliver on its promise of great alcohol delivered by a fun and fast brand.
Visual brand identity is a tool that is underestimated by many, but it holds a lot of power in creating an invincible brand. With a strong visual brand identity you can ensure that your messaging is right and not misunderstood by your audience.
However, creating an entire visual brand identity or changing it can be a lot of work for any brand. So we at Brevo are here to help you with the process and, if you want better results just like our clients did, then contact us.
It’s no secret that today using social media content for businesses is a well-proven sales and awareness-generation strategy.
With 4.55 billion social media users across the globe, businesses can leverage platforms to target -- in great precision -- their current and potential audiences.
In particular, there are 3 reasons why businesses share social media content: to educate, entertain or inform, all of which in turn lead to greater brand awareness, engagement, and sales.
Today, businesses follow a certain process: First, they seek to gain social approval by creating social media content. Approval of other businesses they admire, approval of potential customers and/or influence over both. This influence then gets them recognized as leaders, which helps facilitate sales and growth.
For example, a tropical real estate business sharing a post titled ‘the benefits of living by the ocean’ aims to educate its audience, motivating them to take action -- and hopefully bring some visitors into their sales funnel.
Despite the plethora of social media platforms, there is a manner of using each to grow your social media standing as a business. Twitter, for example, is a microblogging platform best used to connect directly with people, ask them questions, share their tweets and send them direct messages. It is best used to share short updates, snappy remarks and single-line stories.
LinkedIn is best used to generate B2B leads by connecting with other business professionals and engaging with their posts. Facebook is a large and versatile platform with pinpointed audience targeting, almost a 'must have' for any company today, really. Instagram is an audio-visual platform to share content that is best represented visually.
Depending on where your audience is, here are five time-tested strategies to generate social media content that gets shared, as well as 10 quick tips for your next social media business campaign:
Whether it's a story about how you decided to launch your startup, what made you choose your company colors, or the story of your first hire -- your stories help you stand out.
People can copy your ideas, your business plans and even your marketing strategy, but they can’t copy your story.
AirBnB is a brand that leverages the experiences its customers have at AirBnB properties in the form of stories. Airbnb shares host videos on Instagram, property videos on LinkedIn, and in February of 2021, it launched a TV ad campaign (also available on YouTube) called ‘Made Possible by Hosts’. This campaign ran across streaming services as well and aired clippings of AirBnB host properties with personal elements like guest experiences with the family puppy, or home pools with a nostalgia-inducing song in the background.
Emil Efram, the founder of Neo4j, a software company, tells the heartwarming story of when he saw a stranger on a public train sporting a ‘Neo4j’ sticker on his laptop, when the company was in its nascent stages and how that was a moment of victory for the whole organization.
Personal stories don’t pertain solely to written or verbal narratives anymore either. The famous image of Jeff Bezos sitting in a garage with ‘amazon.com’ scrawled across a sheet hanging on his wall -- is an origin story in itself.
Encourage the people in your business to also share their stories on social media platforms. This will amplify your efforts to grow your social media reach by creating multiple voices that are relevant to your brand yet authentic and independent.
Whether shared across LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media channel, personal stories have the power to make people relate. Whether you’re a business serving other businesses or you’re a business serving customers, ultimately it is other human beings you are talking to. If they relate with your journeys, your struggles, your wins, your brand will resonate with them and they will grow your social media by sharing your stories.
Episodic content is content that is part of a series or linked to a bigger overall vision. While episodic content leverages storytelling as one of its key values, it also does a lot more like create anticipation, consistency, and dependability.
The big benefit of episodic content is that social media platforms and search engines reward consistency. If valuable and inter-related content is shared regularly by you as a business, social media platforms put it across your audience’s feeds repeatedly.
In 2012, Nestle’s maggi, an instant noodle product, created a campaign for it’s Indian audience titled ‘Me and Meri Maggi’ (translated to ‘Me and My Maggi’). Nestle shared a personal story in each episode of Me and Meri Maggi. There were stories of people dressing up as Maggi for fancy dress shows, people eating Maggi with their hands tied behind their backs as part of a competition, and even soldiers eating Maggi while safeguarding borders.
In September 2021, Bumble, a dating app, launched a campaign with Tik-Tok, the popular audio-visual social media platform, called ‘Date with Better Answers’. In this episodic campaign it shared episodes of popular social media creators, going on dates with each other. As these people asked each other questions about their lifestyle, they referenced Tik-Tok videos about their hobbies and daily struggles.
In 2020, when Cred, a credit-card payment fintech, launched its app, it created episodic content called ‘Not Everyone Gets It’ to grow its social media standing. It released short videos with famous people like Anil Kapoor, an Oscar nominee, auditioning for the Cred ad but being dismissed from consideration. These videos were popularly shared across social media platforms because people enjoyed seeing their idols being humanized. Repeatedly.
Episodic social media content for businesses gets forwarded because it has a plot line, a theme, and characters -- all the fixings for a great story and a viral social media share.
Series social media content is episodic content that builds up to a story. Unlike episodes, which can exist independently, series have elements that come together to form a cohesive story.
This not only makes the previous content shareable, it also builds up keenness for the next bit of the puzzle: creating a virtuous cycle of sharing.
The reason series content is powerful for businesses is because series create anticipation and people want other people to know what they are anticipating. They talk about it with their friends, they tweet about it on Twitter and post countdowns on their Instagram stories in anticipation of the next part of a series.
Repurposing content means altering the tone, the delivery or the graphics in the content to deliver it across different social media platforms. Businesses that have a decent social media standing on one platform might not have to work too hard to create it on another platform if they can effectively repurpose their well-performing content.
In the case of Twitter, short, snappy 100-word captions work well. For LinkedIn, a value-adding experience-based case study works well. For Instagram, creative and fun short videos (or reels) work well for businesses.
Brevo Case Study - Toys R Us: Using the same messages across different channels.
The Pet Pawer
A pet brand that sells dog mats, educates its Instagram audience about different dog breeds through informative posts that it repurposes across Instagram and Facebook.
Let's say you’re a real estate business and have a top-performing blog titled ‘How to choose the perfect home for your family in 6 simple steps.’
Effectively repurposing this blog post to grow your social media standing would look like this:
Roundup content is content that pulls together the top lists, tools, tactics, strategies in any genre.
For example, ‘The Top 10 Finance Business Blogs of September 2021’ or ‘6 Exercise headphones that won’t fall off on your Run’ or ‘8 Instagram Videos that Blew up the Internet in January 2021’.
People are drawn to roundups because roundups provide a lot of information in one place. Since you have already done the research and analysis, it saves readers time they would have otherwise spent on scanning the internet for the pros and cons for each of these products or pieces.
An important added social media sharing benefit of a roundup post: You can ask the participants within your round-up blog to share the post when it goes live.
Shareable social media content for business, be it on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok, has one thing in common -- it connects with its audience and finds a way to make them engage.
Whether this engagement is through polls, shares, or reviews straight to your inbox, it is the key resource to creating valuable content. If you give people value, they will reciprocate with engagement.
Social media video services are no longer an add-on luxury, but rather a default tool essential to boosting engagement and conversions with your company’s digital audiences, whether they live on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or another platform.
According to a 2021 study conducted by Animoto, 93% of marketers say they have landed a new customer due to their video on social media.
Unfortunately, many of these successes aren’t sustained across diverse audiences, which live on the diverse platforms that make up the social media world. This digital diversity is why many companies fail to see consistent ROI growth from their social media videos.
We get it: social media video production is not a piece of cake. It is easy to get stuck at ideation or tangled up in the many moving parts that high-quality video production requires.
As a brand, you need to ensure that whatever videos you produce maintain that sweet spot between promoting your products or services, all while empathizing with your target market.
At Brevo, we produce social media videos that empathize with your brand and customers by using well-planned visual marketing strategies designed to boost your ROI.
Your video marketing is an integral part of your overall marketing strategy; it gives a face, voice and, most importantly, emits emotions.We’ll ensure that your audience gets the right message.
Drop us a line and get the reel deal with Brevo's social media video services.
We live in a time of information overload. This makes punching through the social media noise even harder.
It can then seem like producing high-quality, relatable videos that make your brand stand out can seem unachievable. But in reality, it can still be done with creative storytelling, time-tested video production techniques and old-fashioned market intuition.
This is one of the most qualifying advantages of working with Brevo; we don't just produce videos, but rather specialize in planning out creative storylines with matching messaging and animated images to best tell the story of your brand.
Our team of creative video marketers is experienced with helping companies create social media videos that gain visibility and increase conversions. Here are some examples below.
Brevo is a creative agency that helps brands scale their social media game with unique social media videos produced with a love of storytelling.
On each social media platform, your company has only 3 seconds to capture the attention of your target audience. Those that fail to stop users from scrolling in the first 3 seconds fail to capture their attention; it’s that simple.
This is why Brevo creates short, information-packed videos with colorful animations that not only gets users to stop scrolling, but also boosts interactions with your call-to-actions.
While a person is on social media, their thumb is constantly scrolling through videos and other content. A brand’s video only succeeds if it is able to stop that thumb from scrolling further. Your company can only do that by having an enticing thumbnail that speaks directly to your audience right from first glance.
This is exactly what we did for Traveloka, an Indonesia-based travel company that provides airline ticketing services.
Their video thumbnail included still images from live action videos and animation, along with some text.
Because many people watch social media videos with the sound off, it's important to include text in the beginning of the video -- ensuring that this text gets its enticing, on-brand message across.
We also created animated GIF thumbnails for FWD, an insurance company, as a tool to compel viewers enough to click and watch the video, which happened.
Check out what other clients say about our social media video services.
“Brevo has provided fantastic service and execution for FWD Life Insurance Corporation. We decided to work with them on a retainer engagement as they are they are easy to work with and they care for their clients. They deliver exactly what we were looking for - an all-of-the-above communications and creatives with eye and sensibility.”
Miles Sarmiento
Product Marketing Communications Manager, FWD
“The BDO leasing video is great! Thank you.”
Robert Lapid
President, BDO Leasing and Finance
“We started by going to Brevo with an idea, they helped turn this idea into a fully fledgeling business. Brevo has been a joy to work with and we couldn’t have done it without them.”
Jordan Fack
VP of Sales, AirAsiaRedTix
Social media offers something for everyone, a reflection of the diversity of the real world. This includes demand for videos, which is why almost every social media platform now has its own short-form video feature to promote videos to their audiences.
Instagram has Reels, Snapchat has Spotlight, Facebook has short videos, YouTube has shorts, and TikTok is itself a short video platform.
To best communicate with audiences on these platforms, your social media video will have to be created with the unique built-in audiences that each platform attracts in mind.
Instagram's popularity has rapidly increased in past years, with the platform now boasting 1.074 billion active users.
In 2021, Instagram confirmed that it is no longer just a photo-sharing platform, clearly stating that they are now forming their brand around rewarding video content.
The key now is trying to figure out how Instagram videos can reward your company.
Instagram video production requires an understanding that people on Instagram appreciate more candid videos, be it IGTVs, reels, or stories. If you think your salesy video will get you more sales and eyeballs on this platform, you are wrong.
As a general rule of thumb, people on Instagram like to watch relatable, fun, and non-salesy videos. However, if you are creating a sponsored video, it naturally communicates that your end goal is to sell, in which case you need to have a video that pushes towards a call-to-action in the most fun and creative way possible for your Instagram audience.
Drop us a line and get the reel deal with Brevo's social media video services.
Facebook is a platform that has evolved from being a photo sharing platform into a dynamic digital stage with a ton of features.
Today, Facebook is so diverse that if you run an ad-campaign solely on personal preference, you’ll barely see any results.
However, Facebook’s diverse database of users also allows for incredible reach for your videos: you can broadcast to only 20-year-old males within a specific zip code, as well as to older generations in different career profiles.
Your Facebook audience wants to see videos that are relevant just to them. Because this platform is very crowded with a lot of videos and ads, people are (unfortunately) already bombarded with irrelevant videos (and misinformation) and will scroll through anything that doesn’t particularly relate to them.
At Brevo, we help you in ideating and copywriting a video that will target a unique buyer persona on the Facebook platform. By narrowing down your buyer personas, we can optimize better interaction on Facebook by speaking to a specific audience.
Drop us a line and get the reel deal with Brevo's social media video services.
LinkedIn is a B2B social media platform, and it is boosting video content now more than ever.
Although LinkedIn has been experiencing a rise in engagement and visibility with video content, it remains a very challenging B2B medium to operate on due to built-in, high-level professionalism this audience expects.
This doesn’t mean your brand has to be strictly formal. You can still publish videos that use a light and fun tone, but it is a delicate line to walk to achieve what can be considered the correct voice for the LinkedIn channel.
This is why it helps to hire professional video producers to create LinkedIn videos.
Brevo is fun-- but also knows how to maintain the channel’s correct tone.
Some of the types of videos that really work well on LinkedIn are:
Let’s make LinkedIn work for your brand in a fun and light manner.
Drop us a line and get the reel deal with Brevo's social media video services.
YouTube is the largest video platform in the world. But with increasing saturation, you’ll need to think of how you can do better than your competitor to stick out through the noise.
YouTube audiences are hungry for unique content, for sure, but they are also searching for content that is relevant to them. As a part of Google, YouTube essentially works as a video search engine (in fact, it is the second-largest search engine in the world), making SEO an important part of YouTube video production.
This platform has immense potential to help you draw in relevant audiences through video search, making it an integral part of content marketing campaigns.
Brevo can help by aligning your audience with high-volume video keyword search terms, pushing your viewers down a content marketing funnel.
Drop us a line and get the reel deal with Brevo's social media video services.
Social media offers an ocean of opportunities for businesses, but your brand needs to know how to communicate on different platforms to maximize results.
Brevo has experience helping a diverse range of companies -- both large and small -- boost their social media reach and visibility with our social media video services.
You don't have to be Spielberg. Just leave the video production to us, and we’ll ensure your visual message gets your social audience’s attention.
Need something like this? Work with us [email protected]
Every business needs a brand messaging strategy in order to create a consistent brand image in the minds of its customers.
In essence, your brand image is what comes to the mind of the consumer when they hear about and/or interact with your business.
Here, it’s important to make a major, business-saving distinction before we go any further: What ultimately matters is not what you think of your business, but what consumers think about it.
Thus, the best way to ensure that your brand image aligns with your perception of your brand is to deploy a uniform brand messaging strategy across every talking point with consumers.
This, at its very heart, is a marketing message strategy that starts with two do-or-die tasks:
Failing to know how your brand communicates to solve problems is not an option.
“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business,” said Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Magazine. If you take Forbes advice, then developing a comprehensive brand message strategy is a prerequisite task for every successful company, whether B2B or B2C.
The absence of a branding message strategy in the world of advertising leaves your company out naked in the cold.
"If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you,” said David Brier, CEO of Fubu, a famed retail clothing brand.
On the reverse side, companies that do take active steps to develop a brand message can increase revenue by 33%, a study by LucidPress found out.
In this article, we’ll explore the 8 elements of a successful brand messaging strategy, including:
At the end of this article, you’ll be able to define and deploy your brand messaging in such a way that your brand perception and the consumers’ perception will align.
The first and primary element of a successful brand messaging strategy is a clear and precise understanding of your target audience and ideal customer personas (ICP).
“The most important thing to remember is you must know your audience,” said Lewis Howes, author of The School of Greatness.
Before you can create a brand image that matches your brand perception, you must first understand the people that will be interacting with your business.
Your brand messaging does not need to resonate with everyone in the universe. In fact, it shouldn’t!
“If no one hates it, no one really loves it,” according to Jessica Walsh, co-founder of Sagmeisiter and Walsh, a NYC-based design firm.
Therefore, your first task is to gain clarity about your target audience.
For an existing business, the best way to proceed is to use the insights you already have. These include:
In addition, you can (and should) also conduct customer interviews to supplement the analytical information you have from the three sources above. During an interview with your current customers, try to understand
Such information will help you understand the rational and emotional components of your audience’s buying decision.
If your business is new, however, you will have to depend on brainstorming about your target audience and doing competitor research. Look at your competitors’ social media accounts and website to get all the information you can about your target audience.
Once you understand your target audience, consider if you can divide them into segments based on demography (age, gender, education, location, income), psychography (personality, values, attitudes, interests, lifestyles) and behaviour (purchasing and spending habits).
For example, a financial advisor that serves professionals in Malaysia can have a different segment for young professionals who have low income and another for older professionals with high income and a house. He can also have different segments for professionals in healthcare and another for those in tech, depending on the factors he believes will make them interact differently from each other.
After this, you will create an ideal customer persona (ICP) for every segment to define what a member of each segment is like.
A customer persona is a fictional representation of an ideal member of a customer segment (or a target audience if you don’t have customer segments).
A typical customer persona will include information like the name, age, location, language, spending habits, interests, challenges and pain points, goals, interests, and the buyer journey of an ideal customer.
Take a look at the below examples to get a better idea of what a customer persona should include.
A detailed understanding of your ICP is essential to your brand messaging.
First, you need to know the challenges and pain points of your ICP before you can communicate the message that appeals to them emotionally and make them “fall in love” with your brand. Consumers love brands that ‘get’ them and know their challenges and pain points.
Secondly, you need to know where your ICP lives online and the way they speak and describe their challenges.
Practice social listening once you discover where your ICP spends most of their time. Listen to how your ICP talks (the tone) and what they are saying -- how they are describing themselves and their problems and their beliefs, habits, values, passions, and goals.
This element of your marketing message strategy is rightly the longest because businesses today rise and fall on how well they understand their audience. Those who launch successful, viral, and contagious brands and product/service offerings are those who have spent enough time trying to understand who their customers really are.
The second element in a successful brand marketing strategy is defining your brand promise.
Now that you know the challenges and pain points of your ICP as well as their goals, how does your brand help them overcome their challenges and pain points so they can achieve their goals?
In essence, what’s your brand promise?
Gary Fox defines brand promise as the “value or experience a company’s customers can expect to receive every single time they interact with that company.”
How do you define your brand promise?
First, make a list of the goals of your ICP and rank them from the most important to the least important.
Second, identify the top pain points that prevent your ICP from achieving their most important goals. Now, rank those pain points from the most painful to the least painful.
Third, consider what your brand does best to solve the most painful and urgent pain point of your ICP and lead them to achieve their most important goal.
That is your brand promise.
Moreover, your brand promise should be stated in a way that is simple, credible (believable), unique, memorable, and inspiring.
Below are the brand promises of some brands from the Gary Fox blog:
There is, however, a big hurdle to overcome once your promise is crafted.
Many consumers today don’t trust companies. Research by Gallup shows that only 50% of consumers expect a brand to fulfil their brand promise.
Therefore, when your ICP sees your brand promise, they are likely not confident at first that you will deliver.
This is why reasons to believe (RTBs) are important.
Basically, RTBs are the answers you give to the doubt that your ICP has about your ability to deliver on your promise.
“Your RTB could be anything from your experience in the field, to proven results and testimonials, to products backed by extensive research or science,” said Amanda Paull, Head of Marketing, Certified Languages International, an interpreter and translator company for healthcare providers.
“Your customer is skeptical because they’ve heard the promises before. Their clarion call is: Prove it to me.”
For a new business, your RTBs can be the experience and achievements of your founder pending the time you establish yourself in the industry.
Amanda has a very helpful 7-part system you can use to define your RTBs:
RTBs is one of the elements of message strategy that many brands tend to ignore.
But in a world where customers are naturally skeptical about businesses fulfilling their promises, it has become an invaluable step to crafting a successful brand messaging strategy (to say the least).
Many businesses in your niche will make the same brand promise as you. If you promise low prices, they will do the same.
What then should you do?
The solution is not to jettison your brand promise but to say it in a way that differentiates you from other brands. And this is where brand positioning comes in.
While a brand promise can be more generic, a brand positioning must be very specific to you -- almost impossible for your competitors to copy.
Simply put, your brand positioning is the unique way you help your ICP achieve their most important goal by overcoming the most painful challenge.
Before your brand positioning can be successful, you must do thorough competitor research.
Sujan Patel, co-founder of Mailshake, an email marketing software company, identifies five ways to position your brand (among others):
Before you even think of communicating with your ICP, ensure you have nailed your brand promise, RTBs, and brand positioning.
Now it is time to begin thinking about a company narrative. That is, your brand story -- one of the most difficult and important parts of a brand messaging strategy today.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make but about the stories you tell,” said Seth Godin, Founder and CEO of Do You Zoom, a research company in New York.
Therefore, instead of communicating your brand messaging merely in a string of prosaic sentences, your company will need to craft a story around it, bringing your brand promise, RTBs, and brand positioning to the fore.
For example, in the About Us section of the BeardBrand website, there is a story that details the pain points that led to the founding of the company. There are anecdotes that highlight how the founders grew frustrated with existing products and how they decided to make something that will solve those frustrations.
Warby Parker also tells the story of frustration with traditional products and how they channeled it to produce something better. Grado Labs does the same.
Stories are trans-ICP (useful for every ICP). Humans love stories because they resonate with us. We put ourselves in the plot and empathise with the experience of the characters. Stories call forth our deepest emotions. When your ICP can connect with your brand emotionally, you have won. Stories can help you do that.
What led you to start your business? Which specific reasons align with your ICP pain points and challenges? What is the story behind your current brand promise and positioning? What did you overcome along the way to creating this business?
Weaving all of these into a cohesive brand story can be a game-changer.
Another way you can do this is by replacing yourself with the customer. Instead of you being the hero of the story, make your ICP the hero. Create an historical or fictional story where your ICP is the hero and your brand the supporting character that helped your ICP overcome the hurdles to achieving their goal.
Apple, Land Rover, and Disney have done this type of customer-centric brand storytelling in recent times.
Any of these two approaches will work well.
In addition to knowing your story, consumers want to know the values that drive your business. Therefore, another element of a marketing message strategy is brand pillars -- also known as core values.
Having core values that align with your customers’ values is good for business.
Research by Customer Thermometer shows that 13% of customers would pay up to 50% more for your offerings if they believe that your business makes a positive world impact. 89% of shoppers stay loyal to brands that share their values and 43% of customers spend more money on brands they are loyal to, according to Fundera.
“Your culture is your brand,” said Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos.
Your brand pillars are the core values that guide your operations as you seek to deliver on your brand promise and positioning. Like brand positioning, your brand pillars must be specific to your company.
Don’t just copy the core values of another company. Ensure that your core values match the expectations of your ICP.
One of Google’s core values is, “Democracy on the web works.” This speaks to their brand promise and positioning. Another core value is that, “You can be serious without a suit,” which speaks to their young audience.
A core value of American Express is, “We support our communities by backing and promoting small businesses.” In a world where there are concerns about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), they show that their values align with their ICP.
Coca-Cola believes in “Diversity: As inclusive as our brands.”
Notice that companies’ core values are now beyond “integrity, team work, loyalty, accountability” and the other vague big concepts we are used to hearing ad nauseum.
Now, companies are taking a stand on social issues that affect their ICP. In fact, 64% of consumers around the world said they would buy from a brand or boycott it based on its position on social or political issues, according to research by PwC.
Brand pillars and core values must go beyond the regular cliches and speak to the heart of your ICP.
SEMRush defines tone of voice as “how your brand chooses to communicate with your audience, including the choice of words, communication style and emotional tone.”
The elements of message strategy we have considered focus on what you say to your ICP. Tone of voice focuses on how you speak to your ICP.
Remember that when defining your ICP, one of the critical elements is knowing where they congregate online and how they speak. This is where that data is useful.
You want to ensure that your tone of voice when communicating your brand message matches with the expectations of your ICP.
According to SEMRush, there are four key choices to make:
Once you have decided on the tone of voice that fits your brand and aligns with your ICP’s expectations, you will have to create a brand voice chart that includes the Do’s and Don'ts of your communication.
You will also include specific vocabulary and grammar rules that delineate how your tone of voice should work when communicating with your ICP.
At this stage of your brand messaging strategy, you already know what your brand message is and how to communicate it (tone of voice).
The next step is to identify some message strategy examples by looking at where your brand messaging will appear.
It’s essential to repeat that your brand message must be consistent throughout all these channels. Of course, you won’t repeat the same words throughout.
However, the message behind the words must be consistent throughout.
The purpose of the tagline or slogan is to communicate your brand message in a few, catchy, memorable, and impactful words.
AirBnb’s tagline is “belong anywhere,” a simple and memorable description of a company whose brand promise is to help people find accomodations whenever and wherever they travel. The tagline of Apple, a company whose brand positioning is innovation and creativity, is “think different.” There is an alignment between the brand message and the tagline.
Your elevator pitch is a short 15-second to 30-second description of what your company is all about. This is the place to tell a short version of your brand story through the company-led or the customer-led approach.
Hubspot has 12 great examples of elevator pitches using both approaches. Below is an example of the company-led approach:
And then the customer-led approach:
Your mission and vision statement are one-sentence or two-sentence descriptions of your brand promise and positioning and what you hope to achieve with that promise.
The mission statement of Tesla, whose brand positioning is its innovation and creativity, is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Amazon also infused its brand positioning in its mission statement: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”
The vision statement must also be consistent with the mission statement. Tesla’s vision is “to create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world's transition to electric vehicles.” The brand positioning is evident again.
It’s the same with Amazon: “Our vision is to be earth's most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”
When writing your blog posts, your tone of voice and style guidelines are very important. Every blog must communicate your brand message with careful adherence to your brand’s voice.
Tone of voice guidelines are also extremely important with social media posts. Every social media platform differs in terms of the expectations of the users. LinkedIn is a more professional platform compared to Facebook and Twitter which are more personal and fun.
It’s essential you understand which of the social media platforms your ICP prefers and the tone of voice that is popular on that platform. The way you speak to an ICP on Twitter will be different from the one of LinkedIn or Pinterest.
One way to use your message strategy in advertising is to create brochures that communicate your marketing message strategy simply and quickly.
Whatever product or service you are promoting with a brochure, you must not forget your brand message. With a brochure, your verbal and visual brand strategy must align, communicating the same message.
A corporate narrative is a story about your brand promise (what you do), brand pillars (core values), and vision (future plans). The three aspects must communicate the same message. Most especially, your future plans must line up with your vision statement.
The corporate pitch presentation (or pitch deck) is a visual representation of your brand story in slides. They are important in meetings with partners, co-founders, and potential investors.
This is a good opportunity to tell your brand story in a way that combines visual and verbal brand messaging. The key is to tell your brand story and get your audience (partners or co-founders or potential investors) rationally and emotionally connected to your brand.
Another way to use your message strategy in advertising is through direct mails.
Direct mails are similar to brochures. Whatever product or service you are promoting, ensure you communicate your brand message with a consistent tone of voice. Also, the visual and verbal message strategy must blend.
For EDMs, ensure that every email you send aligns with your tone of voice and that whatever product or service you sell represents your brand.
You can also communicate your brand messaging through advertising, whether on Search or Social. Search ads on Google, Bing and other search engines are designed to match user intent. You display your ads to reach people who are already searching for something relating to your brand and products. Therefore, you need to know the keywords the searchers will use and create ads that match the queries.
On the other hand, social media ads focus more on targeting people with certain demographic and psychographic features that are relevant to your business. These people will see your ads even though they had no intention to see them. You must quickly identify their pain points in the language they understand and form an emotional connection that will get them to click.
Aside from search and social ads, you can also use display ads on websites and mobile apps. Like social ads, display ads must quickly connect emotionally with viewers by communicating their pain points in a language and tone of voice they understand.
Adapt your brand message to the platform and the type of ads you are using.
While all the above examples have focused on the use of your brand messaging in marketing and advertising, your brand message is also essential to other non-advertising communications.
In addition to reporting your performance for the past year, the annual and sustainability report can be an opportunity to re-emphasise your brand identity to all stakeholders, communicate future plans to better achieve your brand promise, and reiterate your brand pillars.
Your tone of voice should also reflect your brand identity. Consistency is key!
Internal communication is where your brand pillars must shine forth most. Remember again that your culture is your brand, according to Tony Hsieh.
Therefore, your memos, among other internal communications, must seek to build and reiterate a culture that reflects your brand pillars.
Similarly, your internal communications must show consistency in your tone of voice.
Your public relations communications must also put your brand message at the center-stage with the same tone of voice and commitment to your brand pillars.
Consistently communicating your brand message through these various means will ensure that the consumers’ perception of your brand aligns with your perception of your own brand.
Such consistent presentation of a brand has been shown to increase revenue by 33%, according to Lucidpress. This is not surprising since 90% of consumers now expect a consistent brand experience across all channels/platforms, according to Crowd Spring.
In other words, consistently communicating your brand message is now both beneficial and compulsory. And if Steven Forbes is right that money spent on your brand is the most important investment, you should be willing to go all the way to achieve this consistency.
Brevo is a creative marketing agency that can helps brands create and deploy successful brand messaging strategies. Contact us if you need help creating a successful brand marketing strategy.
Need something like this? Work with us [email protected]
Belo Medical Group knew what it was doing when it recruited the very de rigeur advertising agency Gigil Group to develop their latest campaign. Known for its viral attention-grabbing video ads that more closely resemble arthouse shorts, the leading aesthetic clinic knew that whatever Gigil came up with would elicit strong reactions. And elicit strong reactions they did—except of course, as we all know, for all the wrong reasons.
As soon as it was posted on Belo’s social media accounts on August 10, the #PandemicEffect commercial was universally panned online. Many felt the ad was in poor taste, as the real #PandemicEffect was less about failing to feel beautiful and more on losing jobs and loved ones. Others denounced the ad’s decision to uphold outdated beauty standards and portraying women with plus-sized bodies and body hair as ugly.
In response, Belo quickly deleted the video ad in less than 24 hours. Still, the damage has been done. The overwhelmingly revolted reaction to the commercial brings about a learning opportunity: not just for the creative team involved but for all of us marketing and advertising professionals. What does the #PandemicEffect snafu teach us about effective marketing strategy and how to carefully craft a campaign message?
The science backs it up: studies find that ads that evoke pleasant feelings consistently resonate with consumers more than negative, neutral, or information-based commercials do. In fact, positive-based messaging can strike a chord in consumers and is most likely to translate into positive beliefs and attitudes towards the brand. It may be tempting to go for scare-tacting messaging in order to elicit a strong reaction, but positive ads in the long term are still the best ploy for a brand to strengthen and maintain its relevance.
Times and cultural norms have changed, and the way people talk about beauty nowadays has become more inclusive and empowering as opposed to the oppressive standards of yore. The Belo ad might have benefitted from lengthy focus group discussions or even social listening, at least just to get a handle on how their desired customers discuss beauty online.
A great example of a campaign that had a perfect handle on how women feel about beauty is Dove’s 2013 “Real Beauty Sketches” digital ad. The company ran with an empowering message on how women are more beautiful than they perceive themselves, and the results speak for themselves: the ad won the Titanium Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and achieved 4.6 billion media impressions. But more important is the campaign’s lasting impact on the brand: nowadays, when people think of Dove the brand, they equate it to inclusive beauty that empowers and encourages.
How would you have improved Belo’s #PandemicEffect video ad? Chime in the comments below!
Your very first internship doesn’t have to just be a college requirement—it can also serve as an exciting avenue to learn and (if you play your cards right) even land your first job! We spoke to two former Brevo interns (now happily employed at the agency) on how their first internship opened their eyes and impacted their career paths.
And just in case you missed it, catch PART 1 of our Brevo ex-intern testimonials here!
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I’ll be honest: when I applied for an internship, Brevo was the only company who responded to my application LOL! I was hoping to intern for a small promising company that wasn’t too far from my college dorm. I didn’t want to intern for a really big agency because I heard about how cutthroat they could be.
Second: I hate a lengthy commute. I will absolutely get lost in Manila’s streets if I interned for a company that’s far away! Finally, Brevo’s Jobstreet profile said that most of their employees were young—inside, I was like “YES, MY PEOPLE!”
Brevo replied to my application really quickly. I remember getting a response three days later, and going through my interview on Friday. The following week, I started my internship.
It was a really new experience to me, having to work with people I don't know in a place I'm not familiar with. Thankfully, Brevo welcomed me and helped me get settled quickly and comfortably. It was also super chill—I never had to work overtime, and everyone was really helpful whenever I needed guidance.
Looking back, I didn’t really face any big challenges in my internship! Oh, except for one thing: THE ELEVATOR. Our old office building had extremely long lines in the morning, so I had to leave for work like an hour earlier. Queuing for the elevator sometimes took me more than 20 minutes (!!!), so I learned to pack my own lunch with me or have it delivered so I didn’t have to deal with the insane lines.
After my internship ended, Imran said he’d keep a seat warm for me, so I started working as a full-time graphic designer a month after graduating. I liked how, pretty quickly, I’ve established good friendships with my Brevo co-workers. I liked that I didn’t have to start all over again when I started working for realz. Most of all, I’m glad that Brevo cultivated a work space for me where I can truly be myself.
Brevo has grown in a lot of ways since I joined three years ago. We moved to a bigger office space that fits us all, we won more clients, welcomed more team members, and drank more booze! But one thing that hasn’t changed is Brevo’s strength—still thriving despite the pandemic. We always manage to make things work out.
Follow Carissa on Instagram!
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Back in my college days, I was looking for an advertising agency where I can apply as an intern. I asked my friends if they know any agencies with art intern openings, and Carissa told me about Brevo. So I submitted my portfolio and sent it out.
I soon saw how Brevo prioritized a proper work-life balance and how it fostered a chill work environment. My co-workers helped me grow as a designer, but we still managed to have a lot of fun. We watched movies after office hours, went drinking at the end of the day, and even raced around in office chairs! It was nice, and I loved every part of it.
Before, I used to struggle with my own creative process. I sometimes got stuck at the beginning. Thankfully, my co-designers shared their own creative processes and what they’d do to overcome their creative block. They’d guide me with the things I get stuck at, giving me a new insight of how I can come up with better ideas.
I really did like my Brevo internship experience. I learned so much from the other designers, so I wanted to stay here in Brevo and continue growing. On the last day of my internship, Imran asked me if I wanted to be a full-time graphic designer after my graduation. I gladly accepted. It’s been three years and I still continue to grow in Brevo as a designer and enjoy the fun!
Follow Gio on Instagram!
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Looking to start off your career the exciting way? Consider interning for us—just send your resume and portfolio to [email protected]o now!
Newsflash: an internship is so much more than just a university requirement! For many, it’s your first taste of how the real world works. Out you go under the comfortable confines of school and org work, and in you venture into the hustle and bustle of real-life work. It’s an exciting opportunity to put the concepts and ideas you’ve learned in class into practice, as well as to network and make meaningful professional connections along the way.
Also up for grabs in the internship sweepstakes: your first post-college job? If you play your cards right, then you’ve got it! Need convincing? We speak with four Brevo interns-turned-employees about their first internships and how it has enriched their current flourishing careers.
The following interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
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Back in June 2019, I was looking for an internship to fulfill my college requirements. Thankfully, my brother used to be co-workers with Brevo’s senior designer Gab, who shared an open call for graphic design and copy interns. This caught my brother’s attention, and not so long after, I applied.
I consider Brevo to be my introduction into the world of advertising. Before my internship, I had zero knowledge about writing copy. Most of my experience with writing had to do with making thought pieces for Young STAR or feature articles for The GUIDON. I wanted to expand my horizons and try something new.
Previously, I heard a lot of bad things about agency life, especially regarding the workload, the hours, and the horrible clients. I’m happy to say these were things I never experienced in Brevo! I saw it for myself how this agency valued proper work hours as much as they valued having fun.
This is what I loved most about my internship experience: it changed my perception of agency life and taught me a lot about what an ideal agency can be. Moreover, I loved being exposed to a group of hardworking, extremely creative, and crazy fun people!
I did face a few challenges in my internship, especially when it came to getting into the copywriter mindset. Coming in, I barely had any idea on how to write proper copy. This made me feel incompetent and a bit like an impostor at times, but I kept reminding myself that I chose to intern in Brevo to learn and hone this specific skill.
What really helped me overcome these feelings were Brevo’s Bootcamps, a series of short-but-fun tasks that really challenged me to think outside the box. Apart from that, everyone in the office was so accommodating and inspirational, and all this really helped me become the copywriter I am today.
I remember Bettina, one of my supervisors, told me that Brevo wanted to recruit me as part of the team as soon as I graduate, and I kept that in mind. After grieving my last few days of school (and my youth), I shot my shot and DM’d Carissa on Instagram to ask if there were any job openings.
A month later, I had my interview with (Brevo’s CEO) Imran, which honestly felt more like a catch-up than a job interview. Lo and behold, by August I spent my days on my desk writing copy for a leading cake company. The rest was history!
If we’re talking numbers, quite a lot has changed in Brevo since I’ve joined as an intern. I’m happy to see new faces and new talents in the team, even if it’s just through my computer screen. I’m very proud of the agency’s efforts to expand and still maintain the same warm company culture from my intern. Most especially, years later, I still love seeing my concepts and copy come to life once our artists apply their magic.
Follow Toots on Instagram!
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During my junior year as a Computer Science undergrad, I was looking for a company to intern in for my practicum semester. My best friend, a previous Brevo intern, recommended the agency to me and said many nice things about their work culture. Although they didn’t really have any openings for tech-related positions, I took a chance and sent in my resume.
After my first interview with Imran, I could tell that Brevo was different from the other companies I interviewed for. During our meeting, we talked about not just the value I could bring to the Brevo team, but also what value this internship would bring me.
Thanks to the pandemic, I had to complete my internship from home. Admittedly, I was pretty disappointed at first. But after getting to know the Brevo team through my laptop screen and countless Skype messages, I felt right at home. I loved how everyone was very welcoming and fun, proving that the warm work culture I heard so much about existed beyond the four walls of a physical office.
I did face a few challenges as an intern. As I haven’t met any of my coworkers in person, I found it challenging to coordinate with everyone for my daily tasks. At the time, Brevo didn’t have a resident web developer, so I was hesitant in asking anyone for help for the longest time. Eventually though, I fell in love with learning on my own pace and terms, which made me comfortable enough to talk to my co-workers and ask how I could help them too.
Towards the end of my internship, I saw that my load for the next semester was pretty light and that I’d have an ample amount of free time. So I took my chance and asked Imran if they were open to hiring me as a part-time web developer for the next few months. Although they generally didn't hire part-timers, he told me it was something he and my other supervisors were already considering! And that’s how I got my first real job.
It didn’t take much convincing for me to believe each Brevo team member had their own unique and charming quirks. The cherry on top is really how easily we seem to work together even during the new normal. I fell in love with the company’s innate system of collaboration during the lockdown, and how they provided clients with well-thought-out, top-tier creative work. I was stuck in a technical mindset care of my course, so being surrounded with all this creativity while I practiced web dev is incredibly refreshing.
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Looking for an unforgettable creativity-filled first internship? Shoot your shot and send your resume and portfolio to [email protected]o now!