In this episode of Tame the Mobile Beast, Tom Butta discusses customer confidence and present-mindedness with Shama Hyder, CEO of Zen Media. Their conversation touches on a multitude of topics including how customer expectations continually rise due to leading brands, how organizations need to balance future planning with current opportunities, and the importance of strong leadership between agencies and internal teams.
In this episode of Tame the Mobile Beast, Tom Butta discusses customer confidence and present-mindedness with Shama Hyder, CEO of Zen Media. Their conversation touches on a multitude of topics including how customer expectations continually rise due to leading brands, how organizations need to balance future planning with current opportunities, and the importance of strong leadership between agencies and internal teams.
Shama Hyder kicks off the conversation by sharing the exciting news of Zen Media's acquisition of Sevans PR, marking a significant expansion on the West Coast. As a seasoned agency leader, Shama highlights the importance of strong leadership and cohesive teamwork between agencies and internal teams. She advocates for creating unique, co-created experiences that resonate with clients seeking innovative solutions.
With current customer expectations skyrocketing, Tom & Shama emphasize that all brands need to step it up, regardless of the industry they’re operating in. It doesn’t matter if your direct competitors are behind you because leading brands such as Apple, Amazon, and Uber are the ones setting the standards.
Shama views herself as a “now-ist” and explains that organizations are too often focused on innovations years away when they should be implementing today’s technology to beat their competitors. She shares her insights on harnessing AI to streamline workflows, but only after laying a solid foundation.
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Guest Quote
"Customer confidence is something that in the past was given, and then you had to lose it. And now it starts almost at zero or negative, and you have to prove that you have confidence and you are trustworthy." – Shama Hyder
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Time Stamps
00:46 Meet Shama Hyder and Zen Media
01:19 Zen Media's recent acquisition
02:30 Beast of the Week: Customer Confidence
04:06 The importance of perception and experience
07:37 Trust and transparency in branding
13:28 The role of technology and data
16:54 Balancing now and next in strategy
20:06 Insights on leadership and agency collaboration
25:54 The mobile consumer and future trends
29:07 Rapid Fire Questions
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Links
[00:00:00] Shama Hyder: You need to be grounded in the realities of what you have today. I just think people don't even realize, one, they don't realize all their things they have available, or two, they're not acting on it, but they're still so excited about what's next? How can we be present with what we have in front of us?
[00:00:18] Shama Hyder: So we are fully taking advantage of it. And we are being an integrity and honest with ourselves and our customers, so we don't lose that confidence.
[00:00:28] Voiceover: Welcome to Tame the Mobile Beast. Everything you need to capture customer value. Here's your host, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship, Tom Butta.
[00:00:44] Tom Butta: Welcome to Tame the Mobile Beast. I'm your host, Tom Butta, and today I'm joined by Shama Hyder, who is the founder and CEO of Zen Media. Zen Media is a digital marketing agency that expertly integrates content marketing, influencer relations, and [00:01:00] digital PR to elevate B2B and B2C brands In this rapidly evolving marketplace, we all work in.
[00:01:07] Tom Butta: Shama, welcome to the show. How are you today?
[00:01:09] Shama Hyder: Thank you, Tom. I am doing well. It's been a busy day.
[00:01:14] Tom Butta: I understand. I understand. So you've got some news to share?
[00:01:19] Shama Hyder: Yes. And I guess your podcast will be the first of time I officially talk about this since we just shared it today, and it went live, is that Zen Media.
[00:01:28] Shama Hyder: We acquired a company out of Las Vegas called Sevens pr. Which is my dear friend Sarah Evans PR firm, and I'm very excited about it because Sarah and I have worked together for over 10 years, and so we have a really good relationship. She's somebody I greatly admire, not just because she's smart and resourceful, but because I really like integrity in people and that is one of her core values.
[00:01:54] Shama Hyder: And so, uh, yeah, we're really excited. It also gives us another, you know, we're in Miami and [00:02:00] Dallas and Austin. We've got a pretty big. South Florida and Texas presence and now this gives us Las Vegas, which so many of our clients have events there, like Las Vegas I feel like the world revolves for, gets in Miami and somewhere or the other.
[00:02:13] Shama Hyder: So yeah. Yeah, really excited to now expand it and have this West Coast presence as well.
[00:02:18] Tom Butta: Well, congratulations and I wish you the best of luck with it. So before we talk even more about Zen Media and, and about you and your experience, I wanna kick off this conversation with. What we're calling our beast of the week.
[00:02:32] Tom Butta: So for those of you who don't know, a beast of the week in our mind is one of those big kind of hairy challenges that really cause people to get stuck. And it's big enough that it's usually, there's no simple answers. You really have to think it through and actually work through it in order to resolve it.
[00:02:54] Tom Butta: And the beast of the week that we'd like to talk about today is around customer confidence. So [00:03:00] talk about customer confidence. Shama, I know that's something that's near and dear to the work that you do.
[00:03:07] Shama Hyder: It is Tom, and you know, I, so in preparation for, for this, I've spent some time mulling around, right, this idea of customer confidence and trust, because you're right, it, you know, our world revolves around that.
[00:03:19] Shama Hyder: And I was thinking it's really a two party equation. Right. And kind of one step back is this idea that, you know, customer confidence in general is something that in the past I feel like was given and then you had to lose it. And now it's just, we are so skeptical, I think as a society, as professionals.
[00:03:38] Shama Hyder: That the, it starts almost like at zero or negative, and you have to bid all, you have to prove that you, you know, that you have that confidence and, and you, you are trustworthy. So
[00:03:49] Tom Butta: are you saying that humanity has become skeptical?
[00:03:52] Shama Hyder: Uh, well, you know, I think we and society in general, right? So there is this sort of.
[00:03:57] Shama Hyder: Broad strokes, [00:04:00] skepticism, and it's an all time low. All time low for media, for corporations, for, for everything. So I think about it in two ways. I think about one, which is a lot of where my world revolves, which is perception. Which is perception is reality, right? And so how do you proactively build that perception?
[00:04:20] Shama Hyder: So you are trusted. I mean, I think, you know, if you look at financial services, 'cause we work a lot in that sector, once that trust is gone, it all kinds of falls apart. And you think about Silicon Valley Bank, right? And SVB is now like, you know, they're really trying to re say we're here, they got bought out, whatnot.
[00:04:37] Shama Hyder: But you saw that, I mean, in real time where people lost. Confidence and overnight that organization, that brand, that business is, is dumb for. So I think, I mean, you know, again, that's the world I live in, is that perception. Perception is incredibly powerful in what, right? And so how much do we focus and say, get in front of it.
[00:04:58] Shama Hyder: So not just when there's a crisis, [00:05:00] but thinking about it. The other part where I think Tom, you play a lot is, is experience, right? Which is now I'm a customer now. That experience either builds confidence or corrodes confidence, and there's no neutral. So every interaction you have is either adding to that flavor, it's making you feel more secure in that interaction with that brand, or it is taking away your sense of confidence.
[00:05:24] Shama Hyder: So that's how I think about that based on sort of two different ways, the perception side and the experience side.
[00:05:31] Tom Butta: Yeah. Well, that's a really interesting way to think about. This challenge, if you will. So perception is something that has to be tightly managed. And there are organizations, right, that do a really good job of managing a brand's, in this case, the perception of a brand of managing the brand's profile and how they want the brand, how they would desire the brand to be perceived and that, so that's like probably in how you communicate and how you [00:06:00] reach people and how you touch people.
[00:06:01] Tom Butta: But then there's the. On the other side of it, which is from the customer side or the consumer side, it's how are people receiving that and how they're receiving those brand call them engagements or touch points or ways in which they're in these interactions. How they experience that is often. How they wind up feeling about the brand.
[00:06:24] Tom Butta: Right. And you talked about that idea in this, in the case of, in the case of financial services companies, you talk about how, you know, really we as marketers, you know, we're, we're trying to help the brands that we work with to convey the sense of trust. Right. And, but, but as you, you point out, that's something that has to be earned and people need to feel you, you use an interesting word, secure.
[00:06:49] Tom Butta: And their interactions with the brand is so that feeling of being secure probably will lead there. It's like, this is a laddering here. Right. Probably leads to
[00:06:58] Voiceover: mm-hmm.
[00:06:58] Tom Butta: Trust. [00:07:00] I like that idea of how things have really flipped and how almost trust or confidence in a brand was originally given until proved, proved otherwise.
[00:07:10] Tom Butta: Right. But now we're so jaded, frankly, and. Skeptical that that has to be earned. What are the kinds of things that brands need to do or that, you know, marketers need to do to help, you know, create a way in which you can get people to, to feel secure and feel more confident about the brand? What are the kinds of things you can do?
[00:07:34] Shama Hyder: I'll lands certain in a couple of ways. You know, I, I think. So there's a, there's a fallacy about trust and a lot of people will equate transparency with trust, and it's not at all because if you think about God is not transparent and yet, look how many around the world, believe, right? You, it's the probably like the least transparent of, of all faiths.
[00:07:56] Shama Hyder: And yet that, you know, it's kind of the, the basis of faith is not [00:08:00] necessarily transparency. And so I, I think a, there's been sort of a misunderstanding. In more recent times where a brand will say, oh, we need to be so transparent, and that's how create trust, it can be an element, right? Especially if you have a history of broken promises or something.
[00:08:13] Shama Hyder: But if you think about like your spouse, if your spouse every day at the end of the day says, let me check your phone, let me check your emails, and that's all I'm going to trust you. We would look at that and be like, that's actually not, that's the opposite, trusting me because you need verification and you need proof in order to trust me.
[00:08:32] Shama Hyder: And so I think it's, I, I don't, you know, I can think about brands in that way too, is yes, trust is so much greater than just how transparent can we be. It is about promises needed, promises kept, and these are not always literal promises. I will say. It's funny, I. Habits formed to maybe not even your own brand, but macro consumer habits.
[00:08:55] Shama Hyder: And so if you think about what are brands like Amazon and Apple and, and [00:09:00] these done for us is that they have raised an Uber, they have raised our expectations of what we, you know, like what I keynote. It's funny, Tom, I will ask audiences. I'll say, okay, I really need you to be honest with me. Tell me how many of you have literally said out loud.
[00:09:16] Shama Hyder: When your Amazon package says it's going to be delivered the next day or two days, and you know, and the audience giggles and chuckles because they know that, like, you know, there was a time where that the two day shipping or the next day shipping was amazing. And now quickly that has become our expedition.
[00:09:35] Tom Butta: The new standards
[00:09:36] Shama Hyder: the mean standard. But even whether your brand had something to do with it or not, it's, you know, and or I, and or I'll say something like, you know, how many of you. Have been upset when it says your Uber is seven minutes away and not two minutes away like you are grown accustomed to.
[00:09:53] Shama Hyder: Yeah, and again, it goes back to you had to chase down taxi cabs in the street. You had to call and wait, you know, at least 15, [00:10:00] 20 minutes if you were lucky for someone. So it's just funny to me that, you know, these grander consumer expectations have changed and so we all have to play into that. And for a while there I, and I still kind of hear it sometimes, and I think less so, is that B2B brands will be like, ah, no, but gosh, do you know how much better we are than our competitor?
[00:10:20] Shama Hyder: This guy still using the old, uh, you know, catalog, you know, the thick old thing that goes out. Like we actually have a website. And what I am quick to remind them is, but your audience, your customers, BWR B2C, they are not their expectation. Baseline is not created by looking at your competitors and saying, boy, these guys are so much better than those guys.
[00:10:44] Shama Hyder: You are in this ecosystem,
[00:10:46] Tom Butta: right?
[00:10:47] Shama Hyder: You cannot step out of, this is the ecosystem that you have to compete in. And you don't get to sort of pick and choose and say, well, we are comparing ourselves to our competitors,
[00:10:57] Tom Butta: right? We're
[00:10:57] Shama Hyder: learning our customers. Right? Like, what is their [00:11:00] range,
[00:11:00] Tom Butta: right? Yeah. So if you, if you, if you think about it, the standards are being set by really some of the most advanced companies out there, right?
[00:11:08] Tom Butta: The, the, yes. The standards of an experience. And those are continually. They're continually shifting in a way that's ideally better and better. And, and sure, you, you mentioned Amazon, and Amazon does an amazing job of being able to give people what they want and has set the expectations for, for so many businesses of when you get your product, how you can return your product.
[00:11:32] Tom Butta: And more and more, including, you know, really clear times is actually when you can get some really cool deals. And so now everyone, not just. Your competitors as you point out, but like everybody has to up their game because those are the lived experiences that we all as consumers have, period. Right? And so now how do we take that and apply it to the cleans of things we [00:12:00] can do for brands?
[00:12:01] Tom Butta: So, um, one of the things that was interesting in some of our earlier conversations was how you think about where things are going. And, you know, we talked about, uh, you know, what's your view on, you know, how things might shift? And you said, well, you know, I'm not, I don't think of myself as a futurist. I think of myself as a nist.
[00:12:22] Tom Butta: Can you talk more about that ethos?
[00:12:25] Shama Hyder: Yes. And, and Tom, I think you are at one of the few companies, that's actually a really good example of this, right? In the, in the tech space, in that. Look, I like looking at what's next, right? As much as the next guy. I like being able to say, here's what's coming down the pipeline.
[00:12:40] Shama Hyder: Here's what. 'cause as leaders, your job is to hold vision and is to create strategy. And you can, you know, the more informed you are, the better that's gonna be. So the more you know the ideally, right, translate it to. You are able to have a better vision to hold, to steer the ship as it needs to, knowing what's coming down the [00:13:00] pipeline, knowing what changes you need to be ready for and in depth.
[00:13:03] Tom Butta: Can you stop you there for a second? You said the more informed you are, the better you'll be. So like I. Gimme examples of what does it mean to be informed?
[00:13:12] Shama Hyder: Yeah. So
[00:13:13] Tom Butta: like with a capital I, right.
[00:13:15] Shama Hyder: For for sure. So, you know, for example, when I get so many times in I keynote, people will say, we wanna know where the puck is going.
[00:13:21] Shama Hyder: And that's like a general, and that's kind of, that's what they're saying is we're what we wanna know. How can we be better informed? If you think about it. And I tell them things like, look, AI is here to stay. Here's what you need to expect with ai. Here's generational differences. So that's a great one. If you understand how generations and generational expectations are changing, that's information.
[00:13:43] Shama Hyder: You can now take that information and make it into applied knowledge for your strategy. If you know like, Hey, you know, so many times they speak to industries that are like, we want talent. But if you know what Gen Z is looking for, but that's not where your industry is [00:14:00] or that's not where your company is, then you need to figure out a way to pivot if that is important to you, to be able to attract that next generation of talent, right?
[00:14:08] Shama Hyder: So that's what I mean by you have information and now you need to be able to apply it. Now, the now part comes from me saying, well, these are important trends so you understand what the future holds. But what I'm always fascinated by is, where's the puck right now? So it's important to go where the puck is going, but imagine if you're playing hockey and the puck is in front of you.
[00:14:27] Shama Hyder: Are you really gonna be like, where is it going next? No. Right. You should get the fuck in front of you and then think about where it's going, but you don't wanna miss the shot. And so I think sometimes people get sort of high on this idea of what the future holds, and it's so exciting, but they're not taking advantage of what's in front of them right now.
[00:14:50] Shama Hyder: And so, Tom, it makes me think of what you're doing with airship, right? Like. Companies should be thinking it like that technology is available today. That's not some mystery [00:15:00] technology available down the road. That's not something that you need to think about 10 years from now. But it's like, you know, it's, or this is the another example.
[00:15:08] Shama Hyder: People think about AI and they're like, oh, I'm so excited. We wanna do more with ai. Great. What is your data look like? You collect data? Well, no. Well then whatcha think do with it? Whatcha gonna, you need? Right? Like, you need this foundation to be able to work with. But data in itself is not very sexy. But ai, you know, that's cool.
[00:15:27] Shama Hyder: So that's kind of what I mean, like you need to have these fundamental things in place and the technology that's available now. Like, so I'm, I'm always amazed when I meet companies that are like, we're so excited about the future. And then you look at their website and it looks straight out of 2000. I would believe it or not, it's almost 25 years ago.
[00:15:46] Tom Butta: So if we tie it back to what we were talking about before, which is about, um, how you can create better experiences, and then you talk about this idea of capitalizing on things. Now, uh, while you're positioning yourself for the [00:16:00] future, call it, you cannot have, you know, your material that looks like, you know, it came from the year 2000, but it, it, it can't look like it came from the year 2030 either.
[00:16:13] Tom Butta: It can't be so far ahead of where you actually are, because people will suss that out in a heartbeat. They will. They will call you out and just say like, hang on, you promised it's called vaporware. You promised all of this stuff. You're saying all of this stuff. But what I'm experiencing, what I'm seeing, what I'm realizing is just so far from that, so that that actually is what creates.
[00:16:41] Tom Butta: It creates a lot of hesitation.
[00:16:43] Shama Hyder: What you are actually talking about, Tom goes back to the beginning of, of how we started, which is customer confidence,
[00:16:49] Voiceover: right?
[00:16:49] Shama Hyder: Right. And so it's like you don't wanna promise things that are not real and so new one. So very much, and this is what I'm saying it you, you need to be grounded in the realities of what you have [00:17:00] today.
[00:17:00] Shama Hyder: I just think people don't even realize. Either one, they don't realize all their things that they have available, or two, they're not acting on it, but they're still so excited about what's next, right? It's like a kid in a candy store and you're jumping from the one thing to next, but you're not even taking advantage of what.
[00:17:18] Shama Hyder: He's in front of you. And you know, I, I have two kids. I have a 5-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter. And I see that in them sometimes because they'll be so excited about what's next. I'm like, yes, but you wanted to play with your friend. Your friend is here, we're playing now. It's like, okay, but when's daddy coming home?
[00:17:31] Shama Hyder: When are we gonna dinner? And it's like even getting them to stay in the present. So we think there's something to be said about, you know, brand mindfulness, leadership mindfulness. And I don't mean this in the woo woo meditation sense. I mean this like. You know, personally, we think about that, right? How can I be present?
[00:17:48] Shama Hyder: I'm talking to Tom right now. How can I be fully present in this moment as we are connecting as this and, and respect and honor the audience. And that's what you're talking about too, which is at the brand [00:18:00] level, how can we be present with what we have in front of us? So we are fully taking advantage of it.
[00:18:06] Shama Hyder: And we are being an integrity and honest with ourselves and our customers, so we don't lose that confidence. And so much of this time comes down to like choosing short term over long term. Right?
[00:18:17] Tom Butta: Right. I think there is a, you know, a whole sort of strategic orientation around this idea of now and next.
[00:18:25] Tom Butta: You have to think about both. I, I've often, you know, talk about the idea that you're positioning Nice to go beyond the current state. It needs to be forward leaning, but not so far out there that you don't recognize who you are because you know, all of a sudden you're gonna already have leaned into what you were just projecting in the kind of near term ish.
[00:18:46] Tom Butta: Right. It still feels authentic and real.
[00:18:49] Shama Hyder: I think that might be the name of my next book is, is Forward Leaning Tom.
[00:18:55] Tom Butta: All right. Well, I just service marked it, so, um, I'm, uh,
[00:18:58] Shama Hyder: yeah, no, I, I [00:19:00] that's, it's, it's just, it's a great phrase and that's exactly it. You know, you wanna be forward thinking, but more than that, you wanna be forward leaning, but you also don't, we like, you don't wanna miss what's right in front of you.
[00:19:10] Tom Butta: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Well, um, you, uh, talked about an acquisition, uh, with your company. You know, maybe, maybe we can shift here and talk a little bit about, you know, your experiences as a founder and CEO and the clear conviction you have in how you're building really a, a, a a, a very successful business.
[00:19:32] Tom Butta: Can you maybe address a fundamental question when it comes to, you know, classic agencies, which is, you know, agencies clearly have a lot of opinions about what should be done. How do you think about translating those opinions into action? Because at the end of the day, the, the internal teams typically are the ones who are actually having to act on that.
[00:19:56] Tom Butta: How do you follow that through, or how do you participate in that as an [00:20:00] agency, quote unquote partner? I.
[00:20:02] Shama Hyder: Gosh, uh, that's a very thoughtful question, Tom. And so the way I think about it is so much of it stems from leadership, right? And so it's not rare when we go into a client where someone will say, not just do this for me, but take a look at my team and give me feedback.
[00:20:19] Shama Hyder: And that to me is like a real mark of respect. 'cause they're respecting an outside agency enough to say. You guys seem smart. You get it. You work with hundreds of companies where you know they have deep vertical expertise or really get that brand. They're like, how do these folks measure up against all these other folks that you see?
[00:20:37] Shama Hyder: Where do you feel like our, so, so much of our work is funny because Al's almost in like the marketing consulting realm, right? This idea of like being able to help our clients get stronger. Overall. And so it becomes less about who's on your team versus who's on our team and how can we work cohesively together to accomplish what [00:21:00] needs to be done.
[00:21:01] Shama Hyder: And I think this happens internally too. If you think about how much, and I think especially as companies get bigger, how much infighting there is for credit. You know? Oh no, no. Marketing brought this pipeline. No, this was sales. No, no, this was. At the end of the day, who suffers from that, right? The brand suffers, the customers suffer, and so I think you get what you incentivize.
[00:21:22] Shama Hyder: And so for me, what's been really true of 16 years of doing this across industries is it's so much less about what's someone's trying to do and accomplish, and who that leader is, and do they get it. And trust is something you build over time, right? Just like customer confidence. I mean, I don't think agencies are immune from that.
[00:21:42] Shama Hyder: In fact, I think we start always on a foot backward because I can't remember the last time I talked to someone who wasn't burned by an agency or had a bad experience with someone. And I always tell them, I'm like, you know what? This is like saying. I went to a restaurant one time and I had a bad meal, so go by golly, we're never going to eat out again.[00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Voiceover: Right,
[00:22:01] Shama Hyder: right. Which is not the, not the way to think about it. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, part of it is also as an agency thinking about who are ideal clients, and I have gotten. Again, this is part of privilege of as you get bigger and you're able to choose the work that you get, being able to say, listen, we are not for everyone.
[00:22:20] Voiceover: Yeah. If you
[00:22:21] Shama Hyder: don't want outside the box ideas, if you want these sort of traditional cookie cutter press releases, go find Like there's tons of people out there who run the campaign for you who will do this like. Work that you need. What we're looking to do is really kind of co-create these experiences, right?
[00:22:38] Shama Hyder: To be able to do these things that our clients, the ones that really resonate with what we're doing is like, no, I wanna do something different. We know there is a inherent element of risk involved in that, and they're good with that. They have their leadership support for that, and that's different. I mean, that's, that doesn't happen all the time, but when it does.
[00:22:57] Shama Hyder: Gosh, that is where I feel like the [00:23:00] best work comes from.
[00:23:01] Tom Butta: How do you just maybe one fine point on this, uh, how do you create a level of confidence with executive management to actually agree to work with your, your team?
[00:23:14] Shama Hyder: Yeah. So, you know, uh, I, it's, it's funny 'cause I think. Early days, this was more challenging.
[00:23:21] Shama Hyder: I think now so much of our work speaks for itself where they come in because someone's referred them or they saw a campaign we did. Right. So I think that's again, the beauty of the more you do your work speaks volumes. And so you attract people who are like, I wanna do something cool. I wanna do something different.
[00:23:36] Shama Hyder: And it seems like you guys think differently, which is cool and it's not for everyone. And I'm okay with that. I think when I was. Younger. When I first started, I spent a lot of time trying to convince people, convince leadership. Like this is, you know, like when social media first came out and I was like, we should do this social's great.
[00:23:55] Shama Hyder: And they looked at me like I was crazy. They were like, what? You know, this is the kid. My, you know this [00:24:00] thing, my kid uses this Facebook thing. Right, right, right. You know, the Facebook or Twitter is like a cartoonist. Like it just didn't get it. And so now I'm much more interested in pe like leadership that gets it.
[00:24:10] Shama Hyder: Like you get what you are. You know, you understand how the world works. You are not Pennywise pound foolish. You know, it was funny because I feel like one of the biggest challenges in marketing in general is that the last 20 years have been the outlier and not the norm. And so many people have mistaken that for the norm, meaning everything can be measured, everything, all, everything needs to be clicks and whatnot, but failing to see that one, that's not even how we.
[00:24:41] Shama Hyder: Engage with the world anymore, right? And rise of dark social and such. And I can definitely speak more to that. And two, the companies that sold us on all of this. Trillion dollar businesses like Google,
[00:24:55] Voiceover: right? This
[00:24:55] Shama Hyder: whole incentive was to, to prey on the sphere of, you know, [00:25:00] oh, we know that you want every bit of marketing measured because what if you're losing, right?
[00:25:05] Shama Hyder: Your budget and this part, that old quote that got totally, by the way, that's not even accurate, but the, the old maxim goes, you know, I know half my advertising is working or whatever, I just don't know which half. Right. Um, and so they were like, let's pre on this fear that marketers more like the boards and leaders feel like marketers are wasting money and if we can show them Right?
[00:25:29] Shama Hyder: And so, so many of these numbers are made up. We know this now. Yeah. So anyway, so I, I just find that kind of fascinating that they convinced us that these actual role value metrics were somehow vanity metrics. And now I think so many people are realizing and waking up and saying, oh wait, you know, this is how marketing has been since the beginning of time.
[00:25:49] Shama Hyder: Right. And the last 20 years were the anomaly, not the other way around.
[00:25:53] Tom Butta: Yeah. So one area I just wanna touch on, and that is the idea of the, um, quote unquote mobile [00:26:00] consumer, I mean. It's sort of interesting that we keep talking about mobile and how to think about the mobile consumer, but this is such a, this device is, is such a integral part to all of our lives.
[00:26:13] Tom Butta: You know, we're tethered, we're tethered to it. We spend in extraordinary amounts of time every day doing important and, and entertaining, you know, and other things, you know, on, on our phones. And how has that. Zeitgeist of, you know, the, the mobile phone, the quote unquote device, how has that factored into the, what you're seeing in the marketplace and how important the mobile consumer is?
[00:26:45] Shama Hyder: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny because even to say the mobile consumer feels kind of like a misnomer, doesn't it? Because which consumer is not a mobile consumer.
[00:26:54] Tom Butta: Oh, a hundred percent.
[00:26:55] Shama Hyder: Right. It's like say, you know, and so a while ago we did this, uh, white paper [00:27:00] on the connected consumer where we said the thing that goes beyond generations and all these divisions that we sort of have is the idea that we are all connected.
[00:27:08] Shama Hyder: And so it's the rise of this connected consumer. And so. Yeah, I mean, it's funny 'cause they feel like the mobile consumer is still, it's giving vibes of, again, early Tuesday, you know, but, but the truth is this is, this is the ecosystem, right? We, we are the fish swimming in the water going, where's the water?
[00:27:26] Shama Hyder: When you, when you're in it, you're surrounded by. And I do think, you know, I, I, so what I think, you know, this, this is a great example. What's next? Like, let's do the futurist now aspect in, in real life. The future is going to be agent to agent communication. My agent talks to your agent. Your agent talks to my agent, gets me the info I need.
[00:27:50] Shama Hyder: Right? So this, it makes, and there are companies and brands I'm talking to that are like, how do we do this? How do we do agent ai? How do we incorporate that [00:28:00] into workflows, whatnot. But then they haven't mastered this thing, the move the mold to your point dog. And it's like. We're still here, right? We, this, this device is still where we are and I'm, I'm holding up my mobile phone for this listening.
[00:28:17] Shama Hyder: And so it's, it's, that's the example of like, yes, but are you fully, if you have fully integrated, like if you have maximized the mobile opportunity, you have now armed the ability to be thinking about agent ai. But if you have not done that. How are you skipping? Like, right, right. So that's like, maybe you shouldn't be thinking about it, but what's the opportunity that you haven't even capitalized on?
[00:28:42] Shama Hyder: That's it right in front of you.
[00:28:44] Tom Butta: A hundred percent. Well, I think that's a great way to sort of close out this really, um, really provocative conversation. 'cause I think we've, we've thought about things, uh, talked about things strategically and we've talked about things practically. [00:29:00] And there's a lot of experience that that has been brought to bear.
[00:29:04] Tom Butta: Um, so I think this will be a great podcast for a bunch of people to listen to. So, um, so we're gonna move into the end of the, of the show and it's a bit of a rapid response kind of a section. So I'm gonna ask you, uh, two or three questions. So just, just real quick responses. So, um, in this one, okay, you're allowed to have.
[00:29:24] Tom Butta: Answer why you believe in it. Um, but I'm gonna ask you, uh, even though you're a nist, I am gonna ask you, what beast do you think needs to be tamed next?
[00:29:34] Shama Hyder: I would say the beast is this idea that the future is somehow holds more opportunities than this moment right now.
[00:29:45] Tom Butta: I love that somehow the future holds more opportunity than what's right in front of you right now.
[00:29:52] Tom Butta: Something not so deep. Um, is there an app that you simply can't live without? You know, it's not necessarily, um, a utility [00:30:00] app, you know, like a calendar or an alarm, but is there an app you simply can't live without?
[00:30:04] Shama Hyder: So I quite like Superhuman for my, it is for my email. Um, and I cannot stand the Google interface, the Gmail and Outlook.
[00:30:14] Shama Hyder: So yeah, that the, I would say Superhuman is sort of my favorite, um, app right now.
[00:30:19] Tom Butta: Cool. That's great. Are there any, I don't know, um, any things you've kind of got your eye on? You talked a little bit about agent to agent, um, communications, but anything else you have your your eye on? It could be cultural.
[00:30:32] Shama Hyder: Gosh, so, so many things. I would say, you know, in the context of this also future of customer experience, right? How do we go from this kind of very platform siloed approach to. What, what might be the era of cus true customer intelligence? So I'm fascinated in the pro, the promise of technology was that you would be able to get to treat each customer as the one, and we [00:31:00] are, we have got, we certainly have sub technology to be able to do that now, but I am really excited about a future where.
[00:31:11] Shama Hyder: It really gets that right. Like we, we have, the internet is much more custom fitted to us beyond apps, beyond browsers. I'm looking forward to that, that day.
[00:31:24] Tom Butta: Very cool. Well, uh, Shama, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. I've really enjoyed our conversation, and I thank you very much for your time.
[00:31:33] Shama Hyder: Thanks
[00:31:33] Voiceover: for having me, Tom.
[00:31:35] Tom Butta: You're welcome.
[00:31:38] Voiceover: Thank you for listening to Tame the Mobile Beast, brought to you by the team at Airship. Find out more about how you can help your brand deliver better, more personalized mobile experience@airship.com. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and rate the [00:32:00] show.