The Hustler's Digest StaffTraditionally, the most common spokespersons of marketing campaigns are celebrities or well-known personalities. They are the usual brand ambassadors who become the face and the voice of a brand to give a positive light and increase brand awareness and, eventually, sales. But in the past few years, there has been a decline in tapping celebrity endorsers to serve as the voice of a brand, and they are becoming less and less relevant in marketing campaigns. Many brands are now increasingly utilizing employees and customers as advocates. Companies are exploring using ordinary people to be the voice of their brands.
Over the years, the explosion of digital marketing is driving the concept of inclusivity. There are famous brands whose market shares are plummeting because they filed to embrace inclusivity. Brands are shifting how they market to customers by challenging the traditional portrayals of beauty, gender, and ethnicity. It gave birth to a new form of marketing.
Seasoned advertising consultant Athens Ramseyer said that marketers have the power to create campaigns that can shape people’s aspirations. Thus, it is essential to execute campaigns that paint a clear picture of the world by amplifying the universal human values such as love, family, safety, opportunity, or enduring struggles and overcoming obstacles.
Knowing Athens Ramseyer
Ramseyer is the founder of Sciential. It is a rapidly growing digital marketing agency that uses brain and behavior research in marketing, advertising, and sales to understand the buyology of the human mind better. The advertising guru has been in the industry for eight years now. He had managed more than 50 advertising accounts with an estimated advertising spending of over US$ 4 million.
Throughout his career, Ramseyer had collaborated with well-known personalities like American entrepreneur Jordan Belfort who dubbed as “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Dr. Garth Fisher, who is widely known as the aesthetics doctor of the Kardashians. He was instrumental in positioning Feminine Power, which is known as the most significant feminine movement on Facebook.
Ramseyer also teamed up with television host and icon Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Ford Director of Digital Marketing and Social Media Leo Livshetz for UnHide. UnHide, is a purpose-driven faux fur brand founded by DeGeneres and Livshetz that offers design-forward alternatives to fur for the fashion industry. Ramseyer helped DeGeneres and Livshetz in launching the new faux fur blanket brand in partnership with The Humane Society of The United States.
“We’ve included marketing into several of our campaigns and have seen tremendous results. The inspiration for this came from my aunt with down syndrome, Heather. I recently lost her, she had a rough life, half of her body was paralyzed her whole life and had to eat through a tube because a doctor made a mistake while taking out her tonsils. I grew up taking care of my aunt, and will always remember here as my golden ticket in Disneyland when I was a kid. Growing up with her as a sister really laid out the foundation for this morality. We ran a campaign with a down syndrome girl for Unhide out of my love and admiration for her loving memory and for everything that she taught me,” Ramseyer explained.
According to Ramseyer, his most celebrity-packed hit was the Real Estate Wealth Expo. The event featured an All-Star cast of resource speakers such as Sylvester Stalone, Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone, Sir Richard Branson, Gary Vaynerchuck, Alex Rodriguez, Vice President Al Gore, Jerry Jones, Robert Herjavec, Magic Johnson, Pitbull, Daymond John, among others. This A-List pack of successful entrepreneurs are a prime example of the level of clients he serves that come from all walks of the earth, coming together for one common goal, to help bring others up.
Inclusive Marketing Principles
Ramseyer and his team in Sciential have produced many inclusive marketing campaigns. He added that inclusive marketing is creating content that reflects the diverse communities that their clients serve. They elevate the different voices and role models that lessen cultural bias and showcasing respectful content.
“As marketers, it is our responsibility to relay brands’ messaging in a manner that can relate to individuals from all backgrounds, regardless of ethnicity, sexual orientation, race, age, religion, language, and others,” Ramseyer said. He added that inclusive marketing could raise the stories of people who belong to the disadvantaged and marginalized sector of society and let the world hear their voices to deepen connections of a brand with the customers and influence positive social change.
Studies have shown that 90% of buyers think that companies have a more significant responsibility than to earn a profit. They believe that businesses must help in improving the state of the world. Evidence suggests that brands promoting gender-balanced marketing are worth more than brands that do not. Unconventional ads that seek to change the stereotypes were deemed more enjoyable by consumers. With fierce competition, brands are looking for ways to build more reliable connections with their customers.
Athens has turned his focus on brands and businesses that actually help the world on a larger scale. “I’m here to make businesses money and spread impact. Instead of only being scientists, the best marketers are artists. They realize that whatever is being sold (a religion, a candidate, an app, a service) is being purchased because it creates an emotional want, not because it fills a simple need. Marketers win when they understand the common threads that all successful stories share.
Consumers care just as much about how something is said, as what is said. They care about the choice of media, the tone of voice, the words that are used – even the way things smell. When the story that’s told to the consumer doesn’t match the vernacular the consumer expects, weird things happen.”
Athens has recently partnered with John Thomas on yet another company, and this one is helping fight the coronavirus in a major way, called Blue Flame Medical. “We provide healthcare logistics and medical supply to give doctors, healthcare systems, governments, first responders and citizens the tools they need to fight Covid-19 with the industry’s broadest product selection from hundreds of suppliers. I’d say the company is in the top 10 in the world, and will be top 3 in a few months.”
