One-on-one engagement with apps is the future of marketing

It’s inevitable. Apps like Messenger are about to change the landscape of marketing to become more one-on-one when it comes to customer engagement.

WIRED Contributor, Jakob Schiller sits down with Eric Toda, Head of Marketing for Hill City, a Gap Inc. brand to discuss how it is starting to happen now in his company.

SCHILLER: I'm meeting with Eric Toda, the head of marketing for Hill City, which is new digital, direct to consumer men's wear brand.

As an inventive thinker, Eric is definitely not one to shy away from new marketing trends.  What's up Eric, how are you doing?

TODA: Good how are you?

SCHILLER: Good, tell me a little about yourself and tell me about Hill City, your new brand.

TODA: Yes, Hill City is a new, Gap, Inc. brand that's focused on men's active lifestyle. Where we started we just wanted to make the best versions of the clothes we love.

There's a lot of great men's apparel companies but who's serving your entire lifestyle?  And taking today's technology that you find in active wear, that comfort, that breathe-ability, and putting it in your favorite pair of chinos. Putting it in your favorite T-shirt and your favorite jackets.

SCHILLER: So you look good, you feel good, you go down the street to San Francisco or you go climb Mt. Tam, whatever you want to do, get up and go.

TODA: Exactly.

SCHILLER: I love that.

TODA: We have an enormous community of people that continues to grow and wanting to be a part of the brand. Of wear testers, and of people that just love what we stand for.

SCHILLER: And so light bulb goes off, you get incredible feedback, you want to scale the program. How do you do that in this sort of modern, marketing world.

TODA: We could have done it in a really scrappy, but time consuming way, with a 20 person team to go stand on a street corner to say, “Who wants to be a wear tester?” But, we looked at a bunch of different methods that exist today. If you get a red dot on your email, and a red dot on a text, what do you answer first?

SCHILLER: Text.

TODA: Text.

TODA: All day long. It's easier, it's more lightweight, more conversational, more human.

SCHILLER: Right.

TODA: So we started looking at automation via Messenger. How are we going to bring this to life in a way that is cool and different than they have ever seen. 

But it’s so easy to navigate.

You're able to scale this to anyone wherever they are, any time of the day, but it's also happening in a format that you are used to.

To build it on an existing platform that people are already using that already has the reach, very easy, lightweight to press that button, no brainer.

SCHILLER: So, it's automated and is there machine learning?

TODA: There is machine learning in the background, there's also natural language processing so you can say things to us that doesn't feel like you are talking to a robot.

SCHILLER: And so you might not have the power people-wise to be doing all those sort of transactional interactions but they end up creating real communication between the brand and the people.

TODA: Exactly. Send us a message. Literally the blue button up top. Send us a message. Blue button, you click it, and you will start to see the magic happen. It will start prepopulating everything that you need to get started with Hill City.

SCHILLER: Cool, and then so it's just like a tap. Like you literally can choose from options.

TODA: Exactly. It's all one tap, swipes. Instead of a website where you're navigating it through some prepopulated layout,  you are choosing where to go next. One of the key insights of us on using Messenger is we don't  have a storefront and with a storefront you are able to build a very human to human connection every time someone comes in.

How did you like that jacket? I remember you bought those pants last time.

Did it fit?

What if you were able to take that experience to any single person that wants to interact with your brand, but right in the palm of their hands?

SCHILLER: And what is that sort of one thing that Messenger does so well?

TODA: Well it allows whoever is interacting with Messenger to dictate where they want to go. They can see how rich the experience is.

SCHILLER: You have essentially reimagined what Messenger could be.

TODA: What we wanted to do was not create another channel to sell to them.

SCHILLER: Right.

TODA: What it should do is give them a sense of equal say in where this brand is going.

03:22

SCHILLER: So how is Messenger going to lead the future of your marketing and marketing in general?

TODA: We believe the future of marketing is one to one.  And it has to be that way for building a community. Because not every community member is the same.

SCHILLER: Right.

TODA: Messaging effeminately plays a huge role in that.

SCHILLER: Smarter and better overall.

Yep. Eric, thanks for coming by, it's incredible to see the way the brand has grown and innovated in such a short period of time, so thanks for coming.

TODA: Thanks for the conversation man. 

This interview is based on the transcripts of  the video How Apps like Messenger are Changing the Future of Marketing produced by WIRED Brand Lab and Messenger Business. PHOTO CREDIT: WIRED Videos