{"id":15499,"date":"2026-03-17T13:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ad1lu9pexv-staging.wpdns.site\/video-library\/the-digital-edge-s2-ep-4-how-marketers-win-the-attention-economy-with-cricuts-stephanie-firth\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T13:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:50:08","slug":"the-digital-edge-s2-ep-4-how-marketers-win-the-attention-economy-with-cricuts-stephanie-firth","status":"publish","type":"video-library","link":"https:\/\/incubeta.com\/my\/video-library\/the-digital-edge-s2-ep-4-how-marketers-win-the-attention-economy-with-cricuts-stephanie-firth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Digital Edge S2 Ep.4 | How Marketers Win the Attention Economy with Cricut\u2019s Stephanie Firth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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In this episode of The Digital Edge<\/em>, host Mark Reed-Edwards chats with Stephanie Firth, Senior International Digital Marketing Manager at Cricut, about how marketing is evolving from a click-driven model to one centred on attention. Managing a category-creating brand across 11 international markets, Stephanie explains how marketers can guide algorithms with the right data and creative while still relying on human insight to build meaningful brand connections. The conversation explores how AI is helping teams scale creative, test faster, and adapt to the realities of the \u00e2\u0080\u009cinfinite scroll\u00e2\u0080\u009d – while also highlighting the continued value of storytelling, brand understanding, and smarter measurement beyond last-click attribution. The result is a practical perspective on how marketers can balance efficiency, experimentation, and human creativity to drive sustainable growth in an increasingly automated landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the Full Transcript Here<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: This is the Digital Edge from Incubeta. I’m Mark Reed Edwards. This podcast is about how you can balance technology and humanity. How, as AI eats the world, you can integrate efficiency with empathy. We’ll talk with leaders from Incubeta and across the industry as we traverse the digital edge into tomorrow’s world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining me today is Stephanie Firth, Senior International Digital Marketing Manager at Cricut. Based in Utah, the company makes the smart electronic cutting machine, and Stephanie is here to tell us all about that, her role, and how she’s approaching marketing in the AI age. Stephanie, welcome to the Digital Edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Hi. Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: It’s great to have you here. Can you tell me about Cricut and your role in the organization?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Yeah. Cricut is essentially a printer, but for crafting. So instead of printing ink, it cuts and creates designs using our app, Design Space. So you can cut materials like vinyl, paper, fabric, and make personalized T-shirts or personalized bags and things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lead the digital marketing team for international. We are primarily focusing on Europe, but we are across the globe. A big focus for us at the moment is building brand awareness outside of the US. We are a US-based company that has launched in international markets and helping people understand who we are, what the product does. The marketing has to really focus on education, demonstrations, and inspirational content to show people absolutely everything they can make because there is a lot you can do on it. And that is very hard to get across in a 30-second ad that people realistically only watch about three seconds of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a lot of our marketing really focuses on experimenting across new platforms, primarily focused on a video-first approach. And creative is really at the forefront of everything that we do, in terms of our marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: We’re in interesting times, aren’t we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: We are, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: And tech and AI have fundamentally changed the marketing landscape. And change can be fun, but it can be accompanied by challenges. What are some of the challenges you’re facing? And of course, what are some of the opportunities you’ve seen?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: I think what makes marketing particularly interesting right now and the landscape is that we’ve really shifted from a click-based economy to an attention-based economy. I see a lot of marketers having to change the way they’re thinking about creative, measurement, audiences to find ways to capture someone’s attention in an increasingly algorithm-driven marketing landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think that is one of the biggest challenges we’re seeing, where my role is very much less and less around manually optimizing campaigns and focusing on things like click-through rate. And actually it’s more about guiding the algorithm with the right data and the right creatives so that the platforms are optimizing the delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It means that we are very much guiding a machine as opposed to looking at how we can manually optimize. And obviously that does create quite a few challenges. So obviously the pace of change has sped up exponentially. And the algorithms reward fresh creative a lot more. So you do find yourself having to create much higher volumes of content than you used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And creative fatigue can become a very big challenge very quickly if you’re not set up operationally for that. Which obviously again, it does lead you onto the bigger opportunities so you can use AI to help increase the amount of content that you’re creating. There are also more sophisticated tools to help us optimize spend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially when you’re looking at formats like Google Performance Max and Demand Generation, for example. And what we are predominantly finding is that AI is helping us scale up our creative much more efficiently. So whilst we do still create and produce entirely new campaigns every time, we will use AI to generate multiple variations of those ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it helps us test a lot quicker than we were to see what’s resonating well with audiences. And especially as the platforms evolve constantly and the algorithms start to shift, being able to move budget quickly, being able to scale up our creative quickly is allowing us to keep up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: So you can create a campaign, create some creative, and then do almost countless variations of that creative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Exactly. Yeah. And especially with our product, because there are so many projects you can make, we are moving towards more of an influencer-based content strategy. Influencers not only are incredibly creative in terms of the content they produce, but they can scale it up a lot quicker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So where we were working with an in-house creative team, influencers can create a huge amount of video in a very short space of time, and they are very good at focusing on the different projects you can make. So we can use AI to almost slice different projects together to show the breadth of what the machine can do, for example. It’s also particularly helpful when you’re running promos. Before we would struggle to keep up with creating for every promo. And what we can do now is use AI to change the background, or change the text, or change the overlays on it, or even use product detail page content directly from our website and pull that across to the platforms. And AI can create an ad just through your product feed. You know, it really helps us. I’d say we are in a very different place, creative-wise, to where we were a year ago, and it has all been because of AI, rather than having to drastically change our processes or scale up our budgets to allow more with creative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: And you’re on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Yes. So we are experimenting with larger format video channels. So we run traditional TV ads. We are running video on demand connected TV ads. So we have been on Netflix for about six months in UK, France, and Germany. We have doubled down on our YouTube strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we are spending a lot more in YouTube because it’s a platform that really helps us with those longer format videos to drive the education with our content and really provide those visual demonstrations. And from a social perspective, we are on the Meta channels, we are on Pinterest, which is a big one for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people use Pinterest to research what they should be making for, say, Easter tablescapes, and we want to be there. And we are on TikTok. And we are experimenting with platforms like Snapchat in France and the Nordics. And Reddit is a new channel for us that we are currently experimenting on as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: You hear a lot about Reddit almost as something people weren’t even thinking of, but it’s a huge social channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: It really is. Yeah. And I think it allows you to be a part of the conversation as well. A lot of people do talk about “What’s the best cutting machine?” And people are discussing, “Cricut is good for this.” We can use that to mine and harvest those conversations and we can use AI to spin up ads to answer those questions and direct them to the right place on either our website or on our YouTube channel to better answer those questions for people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: That’s a lot though, isn’t it? There’s a lot of platforms you gotta think about. You’re spinning a lot of plates, as they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: We are across 11 different markets at the moment. It’s not just the different platforms, it is the different cultures, it’s the different languages. Snapchat is very big in the Nordics. It’s not so big in the UK. I should caveat that with the target market that we are going after. Snapchat is big in the UK if you’re going after a younger demographic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could take the same ad and put it in the UK, France, and Germany, and it’s going to underperform in at least two markets. And that’s one thing we are really learning is the different nuances of our content, how we speak to the different countries, target markets, and also what projects resonate with them as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s another area that AI is helping us. Because it’s presenting a big opportunity to allow us to learn faster. It’s allowing us to experiment more with the creative. Whereas before we would have to start with a creative brief, go back and forth on the different concepts and signing things off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And realistically, from start to finish, that can take a very long time. Using our existing creative, AI is allowing us to turn around a whole creative suite of assets within about two weeks. And we are really reaping the benefits of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: So when you get a moment and you step back from things, what do you think about the state of our industry at the moment with all these challenges and opportunities you’re facing?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: I think we are at a very fascinating point in time. I think AI is changing how marketing works at pretty much every stage. From that kind of planning and production of content all the way through to optimizing and measurement. And whilst it’s allowing marketers to move faster and experiment more, which obviously is incredibly exciting, I think it’s very easy to forget that there are people behind the technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So whilst AI can generate creative assets, brand concepts, even campaign ideas, it is inevitably going to change how teams work and how content’s produced, but it can’t replace that human understanding of brands, culture, emotion. Especially at Cricut, people are very emotionally connected to the brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s very much a sharing culture. People will create a project, they want to share it with the world, they’ll put it on our Design Space app and different people can make it. We have a Facebook community that is incredibly strong. And you can’t replace that with AI. The best marketing really does come from the people who deeply understand the audience, what makes the brand meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So whilst I see it changing the role of marketers, I think the future will belong to the people that know how to combine everything. So technology, data, and human creativity. I definitely see AI making marketing more efficient, but I think great brands will still be built on human insight and the creativity that comes from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: I’d like to drill down a little bit more on some of the biggest changes in the way you think about and approach marketing. You’ve alluded to them, but I’d love to drill down a bit further into that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: The biggest shift for me is feeding the algorithms with what they need, essentially. So I think we are shifting from what we talk about internally as a click-based model to an attention-driving model. So whereas five years ago, I would set my budgets out for the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst they could change, there were no significant changes between the budgets in terms of what creative I would put up or what channels I was going after. And I would measure everything on click-through rate. Am I bringing people through to the website?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are they spending a long time on the site? Is conversion rate going up? Whereas now it’s about cutting through the noise and holding onto someone’s attention for more than a few seconds because that is becoming harder and harder to do. Attention today is one of the scarcest resources that consumers have and can give a brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So success for us is determined by: Have we captured and held that person’s attention? Are they viewing the video? Are they watching the video past 50%? Are we getting people to land on the site and stay and spend time engaging with our content? Because those signals tell me if those people are genuinely connecting with the brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I’d say that’s probably the biggest shift for me is that way of thinking: that it isn’t just about the metrics and it is about are we cutting through the noise in what is a very busy landscape at the moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: It’s a lot about the brand, isn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth: It is, and I think if you don’t have a strong presence and you don’t stand for anything, then cutting through is just so difficult. And I think what we are working on at the moment is: what is that brand identity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sell machines, but ultimately we are a platform company. Cricut is about connection. We connect people. It’s about sharing, it’s about creating personalized moments for everyone in your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the human emotion as part of that and conveying that in your content as quickly as you possibly can, because you really do have about three seconds to capture someone’s attention and hold them there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We call ourselves a category creator because we are not a fashion retail brand where you can buy a white T-shirt at 10 different retailers. We are pretty much the only one doing what we do. But it’s about educating people on what is possible with the platform and not just a sum of the products that we sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: It’s interesting. You created this market space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Yeah, we did. And it was born out of scrapbooking in the US. So it was about: how do we help people get better and quicker at what they’re doing? It’s our 20-year anniversary this year. That’s still very much at the core of what we are trying to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And whilst I would say 20 years ago, we were very much for the core crafter, so someone that it was very much a hobby that they, that was almost what they did outside of work. What we are looking to do now is speak to the person in that kind of wider circle of: reduce your screen time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crafting is the best way of doing that. It’s incredibly calming. It’s a way to relax your nervous system, etc., etc. And it’s about talking to those people that are more in the concentric circle of crafting. So they may be arty. They like creating personalized presents for their mom or they like personalizing their kids’ birthday party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s about making sure that people understand that if you are arty and like personalizing and enjoy hosting, we can help you to facilitate that kind of lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: So I want to talk a little more about AI: how you utilize it, where you utilize it, and how have your partners helped along the way?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: The biggest area we utilize AI is in our content. Especially as we want to test multiple creative variations across the different platforms that we are on, because the creative does work better if you have TikTok-specific creative and Meta-specific creative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has allowed us to test different hooks, different visuals, different messaging, and the performance differences across markets can be huge. So a big part of our strategy now is making sure that we are producing more creative variations, learning quickly from what resonates. And AI has helped us transform that process and has allowed us to generate and test variations much more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because we are a very creative brand, we do have to be careful in how we use it. So our plan is never to completely replace the incredible creators and makers who are part of our ecosystem, but it is about how we scale up across international markets. Another area we use it for is AI-supported translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we will have a video created in Spain, for example, that’s performing incredibly well. We will then take that video, translate it and test in different markets to see: is that style of video, is that content of the video working well in other markets? So it’s helped us ramp up localization much faster than before, which means we can launch multiple campaigns across multiple markets. And our agency partners have played a big role in that as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they’ve helped us understand where AI can genuinely improve efficiency, especially when it comes to creative. So adding in overlays, the different hooks, and things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are funneling more budget into Performance Max and Demand Gen. And again, you need creative for those channels. Our agency has been fundamental in helping us understand what’s needed, where, what the creative should look like, and helping us understand what AI tools are at our disposal to help ramp up that content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: So we’ve talked about this a little bit: marketing has changed so much in a short time. In the last three or four years, it’s changed more than in the many decades that I’ve been in marketing. How has your perception of wins also changed in that time period?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: It really is about, as a category creator, am I holding someone’s attention long enough to tell them who we are, what we are doing, and what they can do with it, and making sure I am conveying the message that it is for someone like you. That is all becoming much harder and harder to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when you think about traditional TV formats, which you can’t skip them, but I’m on my phone while I’m watching TV or I’m out of the room making a cup of tea. We are utilizing pause ads in our Netflix campaigns in order to understand: are we getting higher attention from those pause ads versus the video ad that we’ve just played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pause ads are obviously a lot harder to actually convey what we want to convey because it’s not a video-first format, but it at least gets our brand out there and recognizable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do still look at the traditional KPIs, click-through rate and things. But how I measure am I doing my job properly is how many people are seeing my content, how many people are engaging in it, and who is watching it, and how much time they are spending engaging with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if those signals are going up, that’s how I know I’m doing a good job in terms of growing brand awareness, helping drive category understanding, and watching for signals that genuinely tell us if people are connecting with the brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: Look ahead to 2026 and think beyond that, into ’27, ’28. You seem to have rethought measurement and your audience, but what advice do you give to marketers who are facing the same issue? Should we rethink measurement or audience?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Yeah, I really think you need to rethink both. We are seeing our roles shift. About five years ago, I would’ve said our roles were predominantly about optimizing campaigns, making sure that we had the right campaign on the right channel, saying the right message. Whereas now it is about guiding the algorithms with the right data, audiences, and creative, and almost letting them do the work for you, as long as you are giving them enough to be able to learn from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a measurement perspective, it’s been talked about for a long time in the industry, but moving away from a purely last-click measurement is now more important than ever, especially when we are not just a D2C brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have retail partners, we have Amazon, and we have our D2C channels. So I don’t see D2C as one sum of the parts. My job is a success if I’m selling more machines. I don’t just look at D2C, for example, as a measure of success. And I think looking more at incrementality, attribution modeling, to better understand the real impact of those upper-funnel channels like video and social, but also to understand, are you moving the needle across all of your channels?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t think we are in a place anymore where you can just look at channels in isolation. It is a brand and retailer strategy that you need to work towards and not a channel-focused one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then on the audience side, I think algorithms are incredibly good at showing your content to the people who are very likely going to engage with your content. And what I mean by that is you are in danger of essentially running into becoming too efficient in your marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I think if you’re looking at the traditional efficiency metrics or optimization KPIs, you can have a great ROAS on your content, but that’s not where the growth is going to come from. The growth is going to come from reaching those new people and it’s about how you cut through to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for us as a category creator brand, it’s incredibly important, and it is a big part of my role, to grow awareness of the brand in new channels, find new people that will not have heard of us before, educating them on what’s possible. And the real growth comes when every channel – your retail partners, your D2C channel, and your Amazon channel – are working together with all of your marketing channels. So not looking at brand and retail partnerships as separate, but really thinking of them as a sum of one part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think a good example of this shift is how we have been experimenting with more premium video environments. So we ran ads on The Great British Bake Off, for example, in September and October. We have been experimenting with Netflix and different OTT channels and it’s really interesting. You can very quickly see the impact from those channels. It has grown our retargeting pools, we’ve seen a spike in traffic to the website, and it hasn’t necessarily immediately converted into sales, but it has helped us through moving to an attribution model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We now know how long it takes from having never heard of Cricut before to purchasing a Cricut machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what that has allowed us to do is understand who we need to reach at what point in their conversion journey. So if I know that I’ve got a sales event coming up in October, for example, I need to start filling the funnel and reaching new audiences six months before that in order to allow us to fill the funnel in time for having true success in that sales event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I think the success in the future of marketing and marketing campaigns is that true balance between optimizing your performance, yes, and everything we do does still have to drive an ROI, but the growth is going to come from true audience expansion and education. And when you’re building a category, when you’re building a brand, marketing isn’t just about convincing people to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s about helping them understand why it matters in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: That really leads into my next question about balancing efficiency – that’s what you get with tech and AI – and the need for brand authenticity and human oversight, for want of a better word, and that brand authenticity seems to be at the very heart of everything you do.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: It really does. At the end of the day, you won’t buy a Cricut machine because it’s on sale. You really have to understand why you want one. So we know that price isn’t the most important thing. Obviously, giving a good price to our customers is incredibly important, but if you’ve never heard of a Cricut machine, you won’t buy it just because it’s got 20% off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Efficiency, whilst it is incredibly powerful, from our perspective, we do handle it very carefully. I can’t focus purely on efficiency or short-term conversion metrics because if I risk going after and optimizing only for those kind of easier conversions, I will completely miss the bigger picture, which is ultimately that growth comes for us from reaching those new audiences and building brand and category demand, and not just harvesting existing demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I Google “Cricut” and I find our D2C website, I may well go into Hobbycraft in the UK and be part of a product demonstration and ask the sales representative a lot of questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I might then go to Reddit and see what they’re saying about Cricut on there. And then I might ultimately purchase on Amazon because the proposition in terms of I’ve got Amazon Prime and they can give me same-day delivery or whatever reason. It’s really about growing those audiences so that they will convert on a channel rather than harvesting existing demand, shifting demand from one channel to the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So whilst technology is incredibly important in helping us optimize campaigns, I think that human oversight is still essential, especially when, as I said before, the algorithms are so good at finding people that will engage with your content when actually you do require that human oversight to understand: where else can we tell that brand story? Where else can we strategically reach people that wouldn’t necessarily show an interest within our category, but if we show them the right video, it will spark their interest and their creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: It’s a real web that you weave, isn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: It is, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: That someone could see a video on TikTok, go to Reddit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: And I think we moved away from a linear conversion story a long time ago, but I think now, more than ever, you have multiple opportunities at one time to reach someone. So as I say, I’ll be watching Netflix whilst I’m on my phone, whilst I’m chatting away to my partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m really doing three things at once and all of those moments, again, it’s really harnessing how you capture their attention to cut through the noise of that web of everywhere you can reach a consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We split our budget so that we always have a testing pot, so we will put 20% of all of our budget towards tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They could be successful or not successful, but we are constantly learning. A colleague of mine said we are moving away from being a vibes-based company to really being driven by data. Because we are testing so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: But it really puts to bed the old idea of the funnel, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: It really does. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: The funnel is a linear thing. You get leads and they go into the funnel. You give them different levels of content and then they buy something and it’s all about the attribution of that sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s amorphous in your world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: I think it was Google – they called it the infinite scroll. I think that’s a really clever way of thinking about it. It’s really taking a kind of more visual-oriented approach to allow users to, it really is, it’s a very Black Mirror, but to almost endlessly scroll through, finding inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it’s about triggering your memory as well, because you could see an ad on TV and then it’s how you follow that consumer. So is your retargeting set up properly? Are you targeting the right people with the right messaging? I don’t think we can move away from the funnel as a concept. I still think you become aware of a brand, you start researching a brand, and then you ultimately convert. But I think you can go back and forth across that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you could research a brand. You still have to see what we call awareness content that is inspiring you, is reminding you of the types of projects that you make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas research is more around, this is the machine. Find the machine you want. Find the machine that’s best for you and the best projects that you can make. We still have to run our awareness ads in what we call our research campaigns to encourage people to: you still need to see that inspiration, you still need to cut through the noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s thinking about it as more of an ecosystem rather than individual channels. Because you can be on TikTok, you can be on Instagram the next second. You could be checking your emails the second after that. Our smartphones have completely shifted the way we shop as consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think AI is the next change in that way of purchasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: It’s fascinating and it could lead to endless episodes of The Digital Edge, looking into all the different permutations of how people buy things. I think it’s really interesting and I could talk to you for hours, but I do have one last question. The name of this podcast is The Digital Edge, so I always like to ask people, what is it that gives you and your team the digital edge in your work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: That’s a great question. I would say for us it’s about combining data, creativity, and speed of execution. So whilst we are trying to be more data-driven with how we allocate budgets, evaluate performance, as a team, we never want to forget that great marketing really does start with great creative, great storytelling, and adapting that across our multiple European markets means we are constantly learning what works culturally, creatively, in different regions and making sure we are applying those learnings as quickly as possible across the markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another advantage we have, and it’s really a testament to Cricut as a company, they’re ahead of their time in the sense of this, but allowing us as a marketing team to think about the ecosystem rather than individual channels. So the senior leadership really understand that our digital activity supports moving the tide of Cricut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re not necessarily held to a ROAS on our awareness marketing, for example, we are held to things like view-through rate and that allows our digital activity to support both our D2C business, but also our retail partners. So we are always looking at brand metrics alongside performance and working together with our retail partners in order to drive growth of Cricut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as I said, we are very focused on testing and learning. So whether that’s new platforms like Reddit or Snapchat, whether that’s new creative formats or new audience strategies, we are always evolving to make sure that we’re going alongside the market as much as possible. In the modern marketing landscape, I don’t think the winners are always the brands that have the biggest budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think they’re the brands that learn the fastest. Especially in the UK, we are seeing almost challenger brands coming in because paid social allows you to very quickly spin up an ad and get your name out there. And they can be nimble and agile because they are smaller companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it’s all about making sure that you’re focusing on the right stuff, embracing experimentation across platforms and technologies. Never lose sight of creativity. So especially as the platforms become more automated, more algorithm-driven, creative is going to be the biggest lever that we as marketers can fully control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then don’t just focus on optimization, but focus on audience growth. I think the algorithms, as I said, are very good at helping you reach people that are most likely to engage with your content and convert. But finding those new audiences and creating that new demand is where the real brand growth is going to come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: That’s a great way to wrap up this episode of The Digital Edge. Stephanie, thanks for joining me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephanie Firth<\/strong>: Thank you very much for having me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Reed-Edwards<\/strong>: I think we got a great glimpse into life on the AI front lines for an international brand that’s looking across the landscape and seizing opportunities wherever they come. Think of the sheer breadth of the programs Stephanie shared. It’s amazing to learn from a marketing trailblazer. Thanks for being here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m Mark Reed Edwards. Join me on The Digital Edge next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speakers:<\/strong> Host: Mark Reed-Edwards; Guest: Stephanie Firth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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