How Can GIFs Elevate Your Brand?

Ben
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Alix. Alix, welcome to the show.

Alix
Thank you for having me, Ben.

Ben
I love it, I love it. Well, before we dive in, maybe just share with us a little bit about your background, what you love about content and storytelling. Let us get to know you and then we're gonna dive into a really fun subject today.

Alix
Great. Yeah, I'm Alix. I've worked in content since back in 2010, I want to say. I started my career kind of in advertising and content, working for an agency that did infographics called Jest3. But we also did a lot of stent -y stuff, like the first four -square check -in in space with NASA. Did a lot of fun kind of like installations. From there, I was one of the early members of BuzzFeed. I was employee number 90.

So I was there in 2012 helping build the creative team there. So we were kind of one of the biggest companies doing branded content and really making that the bread and butter of what we're selling. Focusing, in my time there, we focused mostly on posts and quizzes and ultimately video and everything else that it became to be. And I was able to grow that business internationally, oversee creative. So a lot of my career was spent...

during those years training people on how to make brand new content, how to bring the fun spirit of the internet and making relatable content for brands. And then I'm giving you my full bio. Now I work at Giphy, which is what we're going to talk about today.

Storytelling with GIFs in Business

Ben
I love it. And, you know, this is why the background is so relevant. You know, we were just talking before we started recording Giphy is still my favorite Slack integration of all time. I think it's the coolest thing ever. I know my co-founder, when we first got Slack was like, okay, number one install. We got to have Giphy on the platform or else it's not true Slack. And so it's a lot of fun. But at least what we're talking about today is storytelling from a brand.

And particularly like how a GIF can actually aid in that. So what are your thoughts? Like I know it's been very personal communication for GIFs. How is that starting to transition into businesses and how do we start to think about it maybe a little bit differently?

Alix
Yeah, so one of the things that's interesting about Giphy is that we've had partnerships with businesses and media companies for quite a few years. Now we have a partnerships team that's kind of tasked with building those relationships and helping those brands and entertainment companies make sure that their gifts are optimized and are the best that they can be. And so now that we're working with brands in a more significant way, we've kind of re -stood up our ad business as of last year. And so that kind of unlocks more tools and more guarantees with impressions, viewability, takeovers and stuff like that. But the way that we advise brands and media companies that might want to use GIFs is really taking your story and picking it apart in its kind of emotional beats and its kind of uniqueness. So I always advise to have a couple of buckets. You want the emotional piece, so what?

How do you want people to feel about your brands? What do you want to evoke? And what do you want people to celebrate with your brand? So thinking about temples, this can be a Mother's Day or something really niche, you know, very simple like National Donut Day is an easy win for a donut brand. And then what makes your brand really unique? So if your brand's audience really loves fishing and the outdoors,

Let's align with what people talk about when they're talking about those topics. So just a little mix, emotion topics and temples.

Balancing Owned and Popular Content

Ben
I love that. I love that. So when you're thinking about logistically, you know, I want to use this, you know, almost form of storytelling in my advertising and how I communicate with customers. How do you weigh the balance of materials that are owned by the business, creating your own materials versus popular clips? How do you typically recommend businesses navigate those waters, especially with copyright?

Alix
So with copyright, we do advise that people create their own assets. I do think there's a lot of fun to be had by remixing and kind of paying homage to some of those famous gifts. This is a tactic that we did early on in our studios team at Giphy. I wish I could remember which brand, but there was a brand that came to us and they were working with football players from the NFL. And we reenacted the white guy blinking.

the thinking gift, all those really iconic gifts. When you think of reaction gifts, we had Peyton Manning and all those guys reenact those. And so that's a fun way to both put your talent first and foremost and make sure that people know that the brand is associated with these beloved figures, may they be athletes or musicians. And also kind of wink that you're part of Giphy, you know how it works and you know what people are looking for when they're looking to express themselves.

Successful Examples of GIF Storytelling

Ben
I love it. I love it. I know when we were talking beforehand, there's been some really cool examples of brands who have really embraced like this medium of storytelling. Any examples or anything that you've seen work really well for businesses that are really just trying to stand out and connect with people.

Alix
That's a really good question. I can think of a few off the top of my head. I think I'm thinking a lot about brands because that's what I work with predominantly, but we also have a lot of entertainment companies that come to us and that, you know, anybody that you can think of the big streaming platforms, the big studios, and they use Giphy a lot to kind of break down the big beats and kind of memorable quotes and get that into the world and into people's conversations for all their new releases, their TV shows.

And of course, another kind of common use for gifts is the iconic quotes from the 90s and the 2000s. I feel like millennials love gifts and Gen Z kids also love the 90s movies. So we see a lot of like Anchorman, Ways Ventura, et cetera. And sometimes studios will come to us to advertise the anniversaries of those movies. And that's a great way to kind of get people back into.

the environment and thinking about the story of the movie by just kind of seeding little moments from it. Yeah.

Increasing Shareability with GIFs

Ben
I love that. I love that. So if I'm a business and I'm looking into this form of storytelling and I want to embrace it, how does it like actually, you know, I've invested, I've built, I've kind of really embraced it. How does the shareability side of things change? It seems like GIFs naturally increase shareability and that's one of the benefits of using that over other mediums of content.

Alix
Yeah, GIFs are really unique because of where they're used. So they're used as that form of self -expression, which I think you said at the top, but they're used in messages or in comments. So really you have to think about like, what is this responding to or what is this saying kind of very directly? It kind of is almost sometimes challenging in its simplicity because you have to think about it as being a very straightforward kind of like one piece of the story at a time.

Simplicity in Storytelling

Ben
I love that. I love that. Yeah, no, and I like how you're talking about one piece of the story at a time. And I think that's a talent that marketers need to embrace because sometimes we try to tell too much. Even in school, we learned how do I take a book report and make it into as many words as possible? We're really like, we need to distill it into single emotions and moments with these individuals. And I think that's a powerful trait that you're talking about here.

Alix
Yeah, when you think about your marketing profiles, when you think about those kind of classic write -outs, it's like we're appealing to like Janet. She has two kids. She lives in one of the coastal cities. It's like, okay, kids is an area to focus on. You can make content around that. The coastal environments, her hobbies. She likes to relax with a cup of tea. All of that. Pick every one of those kind of bullet points apart and you can really build a full campaign that really can appeal to your customer in many different ways. And they can reach your brand through all those different avenues.

‍The Future of GIFs

Ben

I love that I love that. So you know I I personally I mean I’ve been sold on GIFs for a long time so anyone else listening I feel like there’s a lot you know enough material here saying this is a form of storytelling and art that I need to embrace as a business. Where is this industry going like what what is the future of gifts what does it look like and how do I kind of prepare myself to ride this wave because.

It seems to be a unique wave that just continues to build momentum the longer it’s been around, which is really unique.

Alix

Yeah, that’s a great question. I wish I could see the future. But for me personally, I think everyone should think about having their GIF strategy because it really is this unique form of self -expression that can make it really memorable. It can reach people through these time, it’s three to six seconds long through humor, through entertainment. It really makes conversations more dynamic. And I think that really makes brands more memorable.

So just thinking about that, thinking about stickers, which are also the other format that we host on Giphy, which are kind of those, they’re gifts without backgrounds. They’re used in this like ornamental sort of behavior where people stick them to adorn their stories. So you become kind of part of people’s assets that they share with their friends. So thinking about that, and we’ve seen over the years, I’ve been at Giphy for eight years, and as we’ve added different

partners, distribution partners. So we’re in dating apps, we’re in, of course, the meta properties, all the big messaging apps and TikTok and Snap. We’re also in the, like you said, Slack, we’re in workplace, workplace, sorry, workplace apps is the word I’m looking for. And we’ve seen kind of the, the behavior shift, we see a lot of good mornings, but welcome to the team is a big keyword now where it wasn’t before we had a lot of workplace.

integrations and I’d love to see kind of the future of Giphy and as we add more types of integrations as more apps are invented and people learn how to adapt the GIF behavior into those apps I’ll be excited to see kind of new conversations that pop up and trend on Giphy.

Giphy as a Search Engine

Ben

I love it. Something randomly you know that I was thinking about. Is Giphy you know considered a search engine and if I’m a business? How do I optimize for that search engine or should I even be thinking about that? How do you kind of consider that as a platform in the search engine?

Alix

Yeah, Giphy is the GIF search engine. So you’re exactly right. You have to think about keywords and kind of how you want people to discover your content and in which moments you want them to discover that content. So thinking about which conversations again, or associated with what events that are going on. We know if people are watching sports, they love to say, let’s go. So make sure that you have a GIF that is tagged with let’s go so that people can discover.

your brand while they’re watching sports. And one thing that we offer with Giphy ads is promoted search. So you can partner with us to pin your result to the first search result in the search engine and also in our trending feed. So that’s a way to get kind of guaranteed visibility and make sure that people are finding you in as soon as they open the search.

Onboarding and Collaboration

Ben

I love it. I love it. So what else comes along if a business reaches out and says, I want to engage, help me with my ads. What does that process look like? What does that onboarding look like? How do you work together? What would that be?

Alix

Right now we’re a direct sole business. So we’re sold in a CPM. It’s the RFPs. We, we, take in RFPs and work with our creative strategy team to put together proposals and really kind of flesh out what a full campaign looks like on Giphy. And, we would help with, we can help with content. We have a studios team and we can really help optimize for the conversations that are going on right now or what their consumer is looking for. So we do contextual targeting and we really can see.

what people are searching for in certain moments. Right now I’m working on a proposal that’s around, it’s for a beverage brand, but they wanna advertise in September to October. And I know in the middle of that is the first day of fall. And I know people love to celebrate the changing of the seasons, love to kind of relax into this cozy feeling of fall. So we’re kind of orienting the proposal towards that to make sure that they’re there and part of the conversation as it’s going on, the seasonality.

but also putting their brand first and foremost. So we’re also advising on keywords and content that meets the type of beverage that they are and that feeling that we want to bring in, which is like refreshing and relaxing.

Generative AI and GIFs

Ben

I love that idea for the campaign as well. I guess one final question again, these go by so quick. Generative AI is on so many people’s minds. How is that making an impact in GIFs in this format of storytelling? And I do apologize, I’m firmly in the GIF camp instead of GIF, but.

How does that impact, like, what do you see there? How is that impacting, you know, this form of storytelling and art?

Alix

First and foremost, we’re aligned. We also say gif. So no worries there, but we accept both. Both are correct. For AI, I think one thing that’s been really helpful for us in our processes and thinking about the future is using it for mocks. So thinking about kind of being able to test certain things like, do I want to find, do I want to make this?

beverage brand, for example, will we want to do this in a paper collage or cutout style? And it really helps us kind of like brainstorm in a more visual way and also helps us make the decks look really kind of polished and custom because we’re able to customize mocks using generative AI. So that’s the way we use it. In terms of for the gifts, I think that will be again for the future to see. I’m not sure yet.

Ben

I love it. I love it. And on that cliffhanger, I think that’s the perfect place to kind of close out the episode. Alix, thank you so much for the time. Thank you from the insights. If anyone wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?

Alix

Ooh, I think I’m the only Alix at Giphy, A -L -I -X, if you want to look me up on LinkedIn. That’s the best way to reach me.

Ben

I love it. I love it. Well again, thanks for the time today. Thanks for the insights. That was amazing. Appreciate it.

Alix

Thank you, Ben.

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