Cheetah Takes Aim at ‘Creepy Marketing Tactics’ with Comic Relief

Everyone knows that the martech landscape is getting complex, and the demise of the cookie is causing more confusion for marketers than ever before. At the same time, B2B marketers are finding it more difficult than ever to be heard above all the ‘noise’ and ‘hype.’

Meanwhile, the pandemic has created extra difficulties for marketers to reach and engage with consumers, with a 2021 Green Hat & Australian Marketing Institute report stating over 90% of marketers were challenged due to the pandemic, with impacts to budgets, people and activity. 

One organisation, Cheetah Digital is unleashing a fresh, humorous approach to conversations around the post-cookie world, with the creation of ‘Dennis’ the ‘creepy marketer.’

Ahead of the company’s flagship Signals21 event, Cheetah Digital engaged Wayne Knight, best known for his role as the snoopy ‘Newman’ from Seinfeld to play the hilarious, snoopy ‘Dennis’ whose hand gets ‘caught in the cookie jar.’

In the in-house created campaign, Wayne appears in a series of short, snappy YouTube clips as Dennis being sneaky and snooping on customers, being the human embodiment of cookies. You even see Dennis 'cookie himself', snoop on customers, being told to 'build relationships with customers', and have a martech meltdown. 

The campaign creatively “humanises the technical process behind the scenes of cookie tracking,” says Tim Glomb, VP of content and data at Cheetah Digital.

Cheetah Digital created the campaign after it ran a survey polling over 5,000 global respondents that found 70% of consumers don’t trust social media with their data due to privacy issues, with 37% deleting cookies from their web browser.

Making martech fun

This fun and lighthearted campaign follows on from a 2020 campaign Cheetah Digital ran for their Signals event, where the martech company partnered with rockstar Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe and his wife Brittany Furlan-Lee. The husband and wife duo emceed the event and were also featured in a series of comedic promotional videos in the lead up to the event.

“Tommy Lee knows nothing about technology but he's sold over 100 million records - everyone knows he's the bad boy of rock,” Glomb explains. “Brittany Furlan-Lee was named one of the most influential people on the internet by Time Magazine and had the highest Vine follower count of any female on the platform.”

"She's hysterical and tech-savvy while Tommy is a fish out of water, but he’s a great sport about it. Having them in our Signals 2020 promotional content is unexpected, incredibly funny and certainly not your typical B2B virtual event. This is not a series of "Business 2 Boring" Zoom meetings. Far from it.”

"We had so much success with Tommy Lee from Motley Crue emceeing our Signals 2020 event in September last year. We wanted to up the ante and Wayne Knight was the perfect fit for our cookie-fiend 'Dennis'," Billy Loizou, VP go-to-market APAC at Cheetah Digital adds.

The new era of creative martech campaigns

Rashmi Vittal, CMO at Conversica in an On24 report says it is critical marketers add more creative flair, especially during these unprecedented times. 

"Think creatively, think outside of the box and consider new ways that people, processes and solutions can help you — because it doesn’t have to go back to business as usual. There are ways that you can adapt to this new normal," she says. 

Deloitte claims the art and science of delivering relevant content relies partly on the creative direction of marketers, and largely on data-driven insights—understanding your customer, keeping track of what’s trending, and having the real-time delivery capability to craft relevant customer messaging. 

According to Billy Loizou, VP go-to-market APAC at Cheetah Digital, the importance of being ahead of the curve when it comes to making martech accessible and relatable is critical in today’s complex and content saturated B2B environment. 

"Engaging in the martech space is harder and more competitive than ever, and we’re constantly forced to think outside of the usual EDM, social post and webinar," Loizou says. "Many Australians have been forced to work from home due to the ongoing pandemic, which means they are tired of looking at the same screen and the same stale, stagnant B2B marketing messaging.”

“This means martech vendors need to be more creative and make more effort to engage customers in new and exciting ways. That’s why ahead of Signals, Cheetah Digital decided to go a more 'Super Bowl Sunday' route and have a bit of fun with our messaging. It’s great to be able to do something different and ‘think outside the cookie jar’ to enliven conversations and debate around the future of marketing beyond the cookie.”

Signals21 starts October 6 and runs until November 4th 2021. To find out more or register your interest click here.