It’s a Monday in early September, and like a lot of guys in their late 20s, Kevin Bishop is coming off a weekend spent checking out a concert. In this case, it was Hot Wax Meltdown, a cover band which played at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto. For Bishop, losing himself in music is one of the best ways to come back recharged for his job as director of search performance at Reprise.
“When you’re at a show, you can’t do anything but focus on that,” he explains. “It just completely invades the space.”
In some respects, Bishop’s work is aimed at achieving a similar level of attention-grabbing effectiveness for brands of every kind. At Reprise, he not only oversees $50 million in search media investment for 63 leading Canadian brands; he acts as the subject matter expert for search marketing across IPG Mediabrands. That’s alongside leading a team of 22 people and relentlessly measuring everything they do.
“Search is a performance-based language that connects at a certain moment in time,” says Bishop, 28. “It’s all the cool parts of marketing in a tiny microcosm, but it’s also really visible. When you’re working in something like programmatic, you don’t necessarily see the touch point where your creative is landing. With search you see everything.”
Focusing on creative may seem unusual in a tech-focused area like search, but a big part of Bishop’s work has been establishing what he refers to as a user-first approach to copywriting. “Your arthritis symptoms 101 – Learn and Understand the Signs,” reads one search ad for a health-care client, appealing directly to those who are trying to self-diagnose on Google. “Amazing things occur when – you kick your smoke habit,” reads another, stealing some of the tactics of BuzzFeed and other publishers of viral content.
His efforts have been paying off: one project with Johnson & Johnson saw a click-through rate increase of 97%, while a recent series of beta tests with a group of other Google AdWords clients generated a 45% improvement.
“His approach is driving three times the industry average in terms of performance,” says Harvey Carroll, IPG Mediabrands’ Canadian CEO. “Kevin is focused on how our efforts on behalf of our Reprise clients actually impacts the end consumer.”
After graduating with an MFA — “I was about as financially successful as you might imagine,” he says smiling — Bishop joined Reprise in 2012 as a search strategist and has risen quickly (in a nod to Drake on his submission form, he notes “Started from the bottom, now I’m here, I suppose). Over that time, one of his key initiatives has been building a stronger partnership with Google to better define how measurement should be conducted across the 16 key categories he oversees.
“I like to get into the weeds,” he admits, such as looking beyond traditional views about strong click-through rates, which might be in the 6% mark, and thinking more deeply about what will really move the needle for a particular client. He also thinks a lot about his role as a leader. “No matter what you do, it has a halo effect. If you have a certain mindset, that will cascade down the team. I find I quote from Friday Night Lights a lot.”
This combination of analytical and people skills is what Carroll says he appreciates the most, because it leads to insights that help directly drive clients’ business
“Search is a living laboratory and the data we glean from search is immediate and invaluable,” he says. “[It] requires someone like Kevin who understands the needs of a wide range of stakeholders.”
IPG Mediabrands isn’t the only one paying attention. Two years ago, Bishop won out over 20 finalists to nab Google’s first Canadian Search Excellence Award. Those credentials help bolster his relationships with the clients he needs to educate – and it’s not just educating about technology and copy.
“There’s a lot of keeping up with the Joneses” among marketers today, he says. “There’s not enough owning and iterating what you’re already doing. Creativity and connection matters in search – what are you really doing if you’re not having that conversation with consumers?”
There are insights and anecdotes aplenty in our 30 Under 30 editorial package. To get the scoop on our finalists visit 30U30.ca and read full profiles of Canada’s next set of marketing leaders.
