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‘Real-Time Creativity,’ With Brandtech CEO David Jones
01:01:16
To say that David Jones, CEO and founder of The Brandtech Group, is bullish on generative AI would be an understatement. “Every single facet of marketing can be done better, faster and cheaper using technology and AI,” Jones says. “I’d rather...
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- [00:13]
Allison Schiff
Welcome to Ad Exchanger Talks, the podcast.
- [00:15]
David Jones
Devoted to examining the issues and trends in advertising and marketing technology that matter most to you. This podcast is sponsored by Data Axle where where actionable data fuels connections. For over 50 years, they've helped businesses turn information into insights, igniting meaningful relationships between companies and the people they serve. With cutting edge data solutions, AI and technology, they empower brands to engage their audiences in smarter, more personal ways. Learn more@dataaxle.com I'm Allison Schiff and you're listening to Changechanger Talks. Much thanks for giving us some of your precious time. We appreciate it. My guest this week is David Jones, CEO and founder of MarTech Holding Company, the BrandTech Group, and to say that he's bullish on generative AI would be quite an understatement. The BrandTech Group's tagline has always been and this has been true since before it was the BrandTech group it rebranded from Youm and Mr. Jones in 2022 is that it helps brands do their marketing better, faster and cheaper using the latest technology. In David's view, Generative AI is the quintessential example of using the latest technology to do just that, but not to replace jobs or make the human touch redundant. As he puts it in this episode, a lot of humans are getting a bit caught up in oh, but I'm special and Genai could never replace me. But that's not the point. The point is how much more effective and creative and better can you be at your job with Generative AI? Lots of good zingers to come, so keep on listening. But first, a quick plug for our next conference, and I invite you to snag your ticket. There's still time. Programmatic IO Innovate will take place May 19th through the 21st in sunny Las Vegas. We've been putting together a great lineup for you, including Can't Miss sessions on key areas where AI will catalyze change in marketing. We're also going to record a live episode of the Big Story, which should be a lot of fun. Visit our website to learn more and reserve your spot. Podcast listeners get 10% off as a thank you for listening, use code POD10 to get your discount. Hey David, welcome to the podcast.
- [02:37]
Allison Schiff
It is very good to be here.
- [02:40]
David Jones
So what is one thing about you that not a lot of other people already know? And I want something that hasn't appeared as a fun fact about you anywhere else before, or that I couldn't get from perusing your LinkedIn. The kind of thing that might come up after like two cocktails.
- [02:56]
Allison Schiff
Oh, you put some disclaimers in there as well. I was gonna trot out my usual rugby player, tennis coach, all that sort of stuff. Like, oh, I have a tattoo. Oh, that's, that's not, that's not widely known.
- [03:17]
David Jones
Are you in the mood to share more details or are we leaving it at that?
- [03:20]
Allison Schiff
I mean, I can share with you that the tattoo is my wife's name.
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David Jones
Oh.
- [03:26]
Allison Schiff
And I will probably not share with you where it is.
- [03:28]
David Jones
Fair enough. Leave something to the imagination. Well, we, we're more intimately associated now, as are you, with all of our listeners.
- [03:38]
Allison Schiff
Tmi. Tmi.
- [03:40]
David Jones
Well, we've spoken, you know, many times before. That's a new detail to me. But I'm pretty familiar with your background and how you came to create the BrandTech group, which used to be called you and Mr. Jones. But I want to take us down a little trip. Your career path. Down your career path for our listeners because you've done a lot of cool things and I want to make sure people know how we, how we got here. So in your, in your bio on the World Economic Forum website, I saw that it says you were the youngest global CEO in the history of advertising when you were the head of Havas and also HAVAS Worldwide, which is that, that's a fun fact too, although I like the tattoo one better. And then also the only British CEO of a French publicly traded company, so that's neat. And also the founder of a non profit organization called One Young World, which is a global platform and like community for young leaders. And you host this annual summit to address global challenges, things like sustainability and social inequality and gender equality and conflict resolution, like fostering positive change in the world, which is great. And we're going to talk more about that later. But I want to take us really far back down your career path. Like I want to know about life before being the global CEO of HAVAS Worldwide, which is the first job experience you listed on your LinkedIn. But I'm sure you did something before that.
- [05:04]
Allison Schiff
So I don't think LinkedIn existed before that. I was a Havas for 15 years. So if you kind of discount the, you know, petrol pump attendant, serving gas and gas stations as a teenager and selling ice creams. And my, I went, I did an internship. So I did the first ever European Union sponsored business degree which involved two years at business school in Germany and two years at business school in London. And as part of that you had to do internships. And I did an internship in Heidelberg ICI Pharmaceuticals in marketing, which was one of the most boring six months of my life. And then I did my second internship in advertising at what is now TBWA Manchester. And it was just the most remarkable experience at the time. I was massively into sport. I thought I'd probably either play rugby or tennis for a living. And I was heading off to the US to play in tennis tournaments. And you, you had to get an exact number of weeks in to be able to go into your final year. And the internship that I, I'd worked out fell through. And I was like a week away from heading off this tennis tournament and I was definitely going to go to. And I got a letter from the dean of the business school saying, I cannot believe you're heading off to a tennis tournament in America without having secur. So I thought, oh shit, I better get one. And I just phoned a whole bunch of ad agencies saying, hey, I'm the marketing director of Coca Cola. I'm doing a pitch. Can I speak to your CEO? 100% of the time I got to the CEO, like, not one person said, are you really so 100% success rate in getting through to the CEO? And then 50% of the time, when I kind of explained that I wasn't the market director of Coke, but I was a spotty student looking for an internship, they were like, you're a complete time waster. You never darken our door again. And 50% of the time they're like, okay, that's quite smart. I'm obviously not going to spend time with you, but talk to our head of hr. So all of that led to me landing an internship and I think it kind of set my career off on a pretty amazing path, all tied back to. And actually there's a thread through my career is about how languages can enable you to do things that you wouldn't have got to do otherwise. So there was a big pitch going on for Henkel, for Prit, which was a little Pritt stick glue from Henkel. And I spoke fluent German. And at the time, if you were a UK creative, anything European or international was viewed as like the worst possible thing you could do. But I was really excited about it and I ended up getting a crazy amount of responsibility. I presented age 21, alongside the CEO and the President, to the worldwide board of Henkel. I had all the scripts put into German, I presented them in the meeting, I supervised research groups, and we won. And I was due to head back to business school. And the president said to me, look, David, they don't know you're a student, they know that you turned up and presented alongside the president and CEO and we'd love you to carry on working with us. And I said, look, I'm obviously not going to sacrifice my final year of my degree, so as soon as exam time comes around, then I'm going to be doing exams full time. But I'm happy to work a couple of days a week. So they paid me a rather large amount of money to work two days a week, flying off to Dusseldorf to meet with Henckel's worldwide head of advertising, a guy by the name of Jochim Prince. And literally just having the time of my life. And I was 21 and I was like, oh my God, this is like a pretty cool career. In fact, one of the funniest meetings was one where the ad agency in Germany that I'd been using to to create all the work in German had never met me. And obviously we're talking about a world where, you know, Zoom didn't exist. Conference video conferencing wasn't a thing. And, you know, I went to meet them and what I realized is that they actually wanted to sell their agency and thought we might, you know, we might be the ones to buy it. And so I'm as a little 21 year old sitting in this meeting with 11 people as they're doing a huge sell on why we should be acquiring their company. So I say, yeah, I think that that was the start. And, you know, from then on, it's been a pretty wild and amazing series of incredible adventures.
- [09:20]
David Jones
Das east, very ballsy origin story.
- [09:23]
Allison Schiff
Oh, yeah.
- [09:26]
David Jones
Well, then we, we fast forward a bunch and it's around, I don't know, late 2014, early 2015, you raised 350 million bucks. You launch you and Mr. Jones a brand technology company that helps brands do their marketing better, faster and cheaper with technology. That that's the strap line. And then you rebranded as the BrandTech Group in 2022, which makes sense because you and Mr. Jones is very clever. But the Brandtech Group is a name that does align with what you guys actually do. But my question is, what do you guys actually do? Like, what does it mean in practical terms to be a marketing technology group that helps brands do their marketing better, faster and cheaper using the latest technologies? Make that real for me in a totally jargon free way.
- [10:11]
Allison Schiff
Sure. So I think it's fascinating to watch how when I said that back in 2015, no one had any idea what it meant. And today everyone goes, oh, I get that. Gen AI but at its most simplistic, we have built a group that has no legacy businesses, that doesn't do traditional advertising, that doesn't do traditional media, but literally set out to solve our clients biggest pain points using technology and help them do all of their marketing better, faster and cheaper using technology. So the most concrete example I can give you is, you know, pencil is our end to end generative AI platform. It has been making ads using generative AI since 2018 when most people hadn't yet worked out what generative AI was. It has made now over 2 million ads across 5,000 brands and has had $4 billion spent through the platform. I can unpack it of interest exactly what pencil is and does, but the most concrete example is in the last three months we have created 235,000 pieces of in market content using pencil and gen AI. And across those 235,000 pieces of content it's been created 62% faster, 55% cheaper and delivered a 40% better ROI. So that's kind of a very specific, concrete, tangible example, but across the board. So that's our pencil platform. Oliver is our in housing company because we believe that the best model to deliver tech enabled marketing and gen AI is in housing and they're the world's largest company that built in house content studios. So for example built and run the studio for Unilever. You know, collectively is our influencer business, one of the largest global influencer players. Similarly mo a big crater economy business. And again, you know, if you think about what the power has been over the last decade and we bought both of Those companies almost 10 years ago, you know, they've been incredibly high growth companies because of how the crater economy has grown and exploded. All of that's about to be put on gen steroids. I think it's interesting today that all of the brilliant work being done with generative AI is being done by creators and none of it's being done by ad agencies. It was pretty crazy. That wasn't a single example of great gen creativity in the super bowl this year. I mean how can that be a thing when you look at the amazing content that is being produced? We have a big data capability and build brand tech brains which are basically how do you set up an architect all of your data so that you can put all the data you have into any of the models that you you want to be using. And that's what we call a brand tech brain. But basically every single facet of marketing can be done better, faster and cheaper. Using technology and AI. And that was our vision back in 2015. I. I made no friends in the creative industry where when I said that, you know, there are obviously some brilliant creative humans, but there are a lot of very average ones. And I'd rather have a fast, efficient, a fast, efficient machine than a slow, grumpy creative with a big ego. So, yeah, so that's. I mean, I can unpack more if you'd like, but. But at the most simplistic level, it does what it says on the tin. We will help you do all of your marketing end to end, better, faster and cheaper using technology and AI.
- [13:48]
David Jones
I'm a grumpy creative with a big ego, but probably very cool glasses, of course.
- [13:53]
Allison Schiff
And a black suit.
- [13:54]
David Jones
And a black suit. Well, let's stick with pencil. Actually. I get what feels like a bazillion pitches from companies about their generative AI creative tools for advertising. And they all promise, like, instant magic. It's hard, but it's hard to tell them apart. They're all making these really big promises and I don't know what's real and I also don't really know what's commoditized. Right. I mean, so I would love if you could do a little of the unpacking and explain like, what makes pencil different. Like, no hype, just the facts and like how you compete in this sea of, of really sameness. And then maybe a few tips for me on how to tell when I get a pitch from a pencil like company to know whether it's legit or. Or whether it's questions I can ask to find that out.
- [14:49]
Allison Schiff
Sure. So I will answer the second part first and then go into pencil. But probably the easiest and fastest answer is it actually really exists and has done since 2018. But I'll give you two questions that I would ask anyone who shows you something that appears to be wonderful. And it's actually what we say to our clients and prospects. It's like, you should save them. That's amazing. Now, firstly, can I have a login now and can I publish content live to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram? And if they answer yes, then they have a platform. And if, if they answer no or we'll do it for you, then they have a bunch of people running around using different LLMs in the background, trying to create stuff which is not the same thing as a platform. So that's the first thing. It's literally just asked for a login and asked to be able. I mean, if you want, I'll give you a pencil login today and you can go play with, create content and, and, and do stuff yourself immediately. Secondly, I would also then say, okay, and can you put me in touch with five or six major global brands who have been working with you for the last two years and will basically say that this is fantastic and works and you're getting great results and again, you will. We won a big pitch recently in the UK and the, the clients sort of said, you know, everything you told us was brilliant. But the kind of the deciding thing was when we asked the other people to put us in touch with five clients and we asked you, your clients all came back and said, yeah, it's amazing, it's in market, it's better, it's faster, cheaper. We've been doing it for, you know, 18 months, two years. And their clients all said, we are hoping that in the future we might. And literally, you know, I was at the WFA Last week, global CMOs of L'Oreal and Danon on stage talking about Pencil. We did a big event with Google last month and you know, from Unilever to Diageo to Google to Oatly, I mean just people on stage, in public sharing very, very tangible, concrete case studies of this is real. And you know, the, if I, if I kind of switch gears and just explain a little bit about pencil. But those two questions should help you shake out the fakes. I mean, we have a couple of mantras internally. One is that case studies beat press releases. It's like press releases are super easy. I can tell you I'm spending 300 million on AI in the next 12 months. That's super easy. I can announce something, it's super easy. But actually genuinely being in market and we talk about Pencil is in market, not in theory, and has been since 2018. And obviously we've learned all of the lessons over the last, you know, almost seven years because of that. But the background depends on. So when we launched, we, we launched with AI as and machine generated content as one of our core founding verticals. And we started doing stuff like in 2016 when most people weren't even thinking about influencers. We did the world's first AI influencer chatbot for Kalani Hilliker and Covergo. We were then doing AI media planning with LC AI data with Crossing Minds. We invested in a company called AI Foundation. I went on the board in 2018, maybe 17, and they were building AI twins of people and built the AI mind twin of Deepak Chopra, which you can see an episode of Jimmy Kimmel, when that goes on. And the tech was really interesting back there, but it's just come on in leaps and bounds. And we were doing tons of stuff like that. And I was looking for a company that created ads end to end using generative AI. And there was only one in the world, Pencil. We had a great kind of meeting of the minds with Will and Sumuk, the Pencil founders, and they were doing SMB and doing it brilliantly. And the great thing about SAS technology is if you're doing SMB, it has to work because there aren't people running around who can solve if it doesn't. But I said, okay guys, we'd love you to join, but if you're going to join, our focus is enterprise. So we basically need to create the enterprise product, which is called Pencil Pro. And so very simply, there are three or four things that are totally unique about Pencil over and above the fact that it's real and it's in market and has lots of clients. But the first one is it aggregates all of the latest and greatest models. So from Google's VO2 to Adobe Firefly to Gemini to ChatGPT to Getty to, you name it, all of the models that we have greenlisted are in the Pencil platform and are aggregated. And if you're one of our clients, you sign one set of terms with us and you own copyright and everything that is created, you're indemnified. There's a no train policy with your data, but importantly, you can sign one set of terms with us. You don't need to have individual sets of terms with every single platform. The second really big difference is that it creates and generates, but it also predicts so that $4 billion of media that we spent through the platform. So Pencil connects, aggregates all those models, but then it directly connects into the ad accounts, you know, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever, you know, ad account, you can plug it directly in. And that means that we're able to see the data and how content is performing. But we then have that $4 billion data set trained on the SMB long tail that we can blend with that data and make it predictive. So you'll get a score as to whether we think it's going to perform in the top 25% of your AD account, the bottom 25, or it's new and untested and potentially worth trying. So that's a critical difference. It's predictive. And then I think the absolute quantity of in market case studies that it's done over time is just in a league of its own. It's not something is a crash test dummy or you're going to be learning on, you know, somebody else's out of someone else's mistakes. I mean it was original in 2018, the first client was Sephora and we were doing copy lines for E commerce for Sephora. But back in 2018, like 1 in 10,000 things it did were usable. Today it's 100% and it's absolutely remarkable the speed of, of of progress. So look, I can unpack a lot more about what is kind of, you know, totally unique and, and different. But I would say the fact that it aggregates all of the best models, the fact that it generates and predicts, the fact that it has got just vast amounts of proven in market case studies and as I started, you know, 235000 pieces of in market content over the last three months, 62% faster, 55 cheaper and 40 better ROI. And it is always better, faster and cheaper. And I think that's the most remarkable thing. I mean, for me there are three big differences about this technology than any we've seen before. The first one is the speed with which it's getting better. I mean stuff that last year, this time last year, stuff we thought was amazing, we now think is really, really basic and rudimentary. Secondly, the first versions of most technologies are usually not very good, whereas actually the first versions of most of the gen AI technologies are fantastic. They're already really good and they just get better and better. And thirdly, this is the first time we've ever had a technology that can think for itself. And I think a lot of humans are getting a bit caught up in the oh, but I'm special and Genai could never replace me. And that's not the point. The point is how much more effective and more creative and better can you be at your job with Generative AI?
- [22:39]
David Jones
Well, I am very special, but thank you. Well, we're going to take a quick break but I'm going to tease something that we'll talk about when we're back, which is a few points that came up in this really interesting piece, like an in depth business profile of you that I read that ran in the Sunday Times in early January. The headline line is very in your face, which I like. 2025 is the year AI will upend advertising. I'm going to make sure it does. So we'll talk about that a little bit. And I also want to talk about a comment that you make in that story about how 2025 is going to be a year when we see like every week a major brand putting out a TV commercial that they've created 100% using generative AI. And I don't think we've seen that really yet. So I want to talk and when we will. So stick with us. I'm Alison Schiff, Managing editor of Ad Exchanger and with me I have Andy Frawley, the CEO of Data Axle and I have a few questions for him about some burning issues. Hi Andy.
- [24:04]
Andy Frawley
Hello Alison. Thank you for having me.
- [24:06]
David Jones
So it's no secret that many businesses struggle with fragmented data spread across multiple platforms. This is something Ad Exchanger covers all the time and this leads to inconsistencies and inefficiencies. So how can organizations break down these silos and create a unified data foundation for better marketing and better business performance?
- [24:27]
Andy Frawley
It's a great question, Alison. This is one of the burning questions that the data acts what we see within our customer base. And while a lot of brands have made progress on linking legacy data together from their operational systems, what's happened over the last really five years is we've seen this massive new set of data that's being generated which is the exhaust of all the digital advertising platforms. And so linking all that data together with third party data with of the first party data really requires, requires an identity spine. Historically, brands have relied on third party identity graphs to do that work. The trend we're seeing is that brands would like to own that identity spine and so help build that identity out with third party data with first party data and have a spine that links the known to the unknown. Obviously in a highly compliant fashion.
- [25:21]
David Jones
Yes, always in a highly compliant fashion. That's very important. Well, marketers are shifting from vanity metrics to outcome driven strategies. How can brands use cross channel analytics and AI to ensure real business impact in a changing digital landscape?
- [25:42]
Andy Frawley
We certainly recommend to our clients to focus on business outcomes, whether that's new customers, more customers, more profitable customers, customers that stay longer and, and really move away from the vanity metrics of opens and clicks. So there's two important concepts when we, when we think about this. One is incrementality. You know, is the marketing effort creating incremental outcomes I. E. Sales and causality. Is it the, the marketing treatment that's actually causing the, the consumer to buy or act in a certain way and the, the crush. Analytic tools need to embrace both of those concepts. You know, the complication or challenge is somewhat back to the first Question. First, you have to be able to link a lot of data together. And second, there'll be, you know, places where you have sparse data, where you don't have complete data sets. And so we're also seeing people using Gen AI to help generate those customer journeys and, and have a, you know, analytically based view of what the media exposure is across multiple marketing treatments.
- [26:47]
David Jones
Down with data silos and down with vanity metrics.
- [26:50]
Andy Frawley
Absolutely.
- [26:51]
David Jones
Thanks for the insights, Andy. All right, we're back. And my first question is in reaction to that headline that I read before the break. 2025 is the year AI will upend advertising. I'm going to make sure it does. So what about advertising needs to be upended? And like the facetious answer is everything.
- [27:29]
Allison Schiff
I was going to say, you've got my answer. Everything.
- [27:33]
David Jones
But why does everything need to be blown up?
- [27:36]
Allison Schiff
So it's not so much that everything needs to be blown up necessarily, it's just that everything now can be blown up and the entire industry is still working to a muscle memory which doesn't understand just what is possible now. So I'm not sure if you've seen it. There's an amazing piece of content by the Door Brothers called ready for 2025 and I had them come over and do a fireside chat at the event we did with Google. And they're amazing. When you look at that piece of content, it was done in under one week by one person. And not only do I think it's one of the best pieces of content that I've seen full stop in the last 12, 18 months, but it's done 100% with gen AI and the background. The creator who made it has only been creating content for two and a half years. They got into using Gen AI because they actually were a filmmaker, wanted to make a film, didn't have the budget to make a film, so started playing around with the early text video models and you know, they weren't very good two and a half years ago, three years ago, and they are very good now. And suddenly you can do amazing things. And I think the, the thing, you know, what's the first thing that needs to be upended about advertising? It's like you can now do the most incredible content with generative AI. I can send you literally hundreds of examples of stuff that will prove anything that anyone says, oh, it can't do motion. Yes it can. Oh, it can't do this. Yes it can. And yet not a single ad in the super bowl was made using generative AI. And also Most of the ads in the super bowl were really average. So it's not like, oh my God, they were so brilliant. Look at what humans can do. It was an advertisement for actually, you should be using more, Jenny. And then conversely, every single day a creator puts out the most remarkably brilliant piece of content. So firstly and interesting, when we launched the company in 2015, I said, we'll never make TV commercials. I'm changing that. We will now because you can make them using generative AI. Then there's just a mindset about the whole area of creativity and how long, you know, creative takes and all of that. And it's like I'm a big believer in what I call real time creativity is there is no reason anymore to have a client give you a brief to go away, work for four weeks, come back, show something, get a bunch of comments, go away, work for two weeks, come back, you can now generate and create stuff, live in real time and discuss it. And one of the examples of this is we literally just created a toothpaste brand in six minutes. I did a, I created a brand in 59 minutes two years ago because I wanted to show just the breadth of what you could do with gen AI and everything from the name to the logo to the business plan to the press releases, the TikTok videos to, you name it. We did everything creating this brand called Project 59. Then we were doing like having creators create brands in 10 minutes and the toothpaste brand was done in six minutes and it's called Plaque Slayer. And if you look at the name, the variant, the logo, the pack design, the press release, the business plan, they're really very good, you know, they're as good as most humans could do. So I could go on, but you know, there's not a single thing that we do today as humans in marketing and advertising that we can already do better, faster and cheaper using AI and generative AI and it's just going to get better and better and better.
- [31:01]
David Jones
How do you ensure that there's not like a semi ness that starts to settle over everything? Because the creation of one toothpaste toothpaste brand, you know, in six minutes, like, wow, what if you wanted to make a whole bunch of different toothpaste brands and you wanted them all to be very different? I feel like if you tried that today there would be some kind of detectable ainis about it. And I asked, because I use perplexity, for example, to do basic research and there's a sameness to what's presented to me. The Information is good, but I can tell that Perplexity wrote it, you know.
- [31:41]
Allison Schiff
So I, I think that my first answer to you would be go look at a reel of banking ads, airline ads, car ads. They all look the same. So this, this is not necessarily a, a problem. This is a human problem. But I think the more serious and, you know, answer would be that is where the human in the loop becomes incredibly important is like almost to think that we're just going to ask AI models to come up with stuff and we're going to put that in market. Oh, and it's all going to look the same. The potential to create vastly different things because of Gen AI is way greater. So as long as you are using it correctly, you will be able to do things that are much more differentiated and different rather than, you know, sea of sameness. It's a bit like, you know, if you can, as an analogy, somebody walking versus someone jumping in a car, you can go to way more places in a car way quicker than you can walking. And what Gen AI allows you to do in the creative process is go to way more places. So, you know, there's a great quote about chess, which is it's the, the greatest waste of human intelligence you'll find outside an advertising agency. But the serious point behind the quote is 99.9% of what advertising agencies created every day went in the bin in the garbage. You know, and that thing about, well, you know, we wanted this script and the client didn't like it, so we had to make the crappy one that they liked. And it's like, well, we're now in a world where you can, you can make 10 films and show them and decide for real. And maybe when you see the finished films, you know, either you, as the agency will work out that actually the one you thought was the best one isn't, or the client will see that the one you like best was. So it's this incredible tool and I think there's too much of a, you know, well, you know, either you're an amazing human creative who would never ever use this terrible, cheap, nasty AI stuff, or you're somebody who passionately believes in AI because you don't care about creative quality and you think it's a race to the bottom for the cheapest, fastest, nastiest work that we can do at the bottom end of the funnel. And the truth is, the real magic is incredible human talent. Given the superpower of generative AI.
- [34:05]
David Jones
Well, given that you can make the most incredible content, to quote you, I Guess why aren't we seeing that more in the industry is that advertisers aren't totally, totally ready yet. Because it sounds like you're saying the technology is nearly ready or you can make some pretty incredible stuff. But I think the Coca Cola holiday ads were a bit meh.
- [34:27]
Allison Schiff
They were very meh. And that's the, that's the point is like, if you do bad stuff with it, the haters are there and they're going to like, whatever is done in AI, they're going to hate. But if you do bad stuff with AI, they're hating for the right reason. And I think, I think it's, it's, there's not one answer to that. It's a multifaceted problem. You have the first issue, which is, you know, the, the one that has been, you know, since the history of technology, the innovator's dilemma. If I'm an ad agency and I currently spend six months making a film and charge my client for that, and I can now do it in six days, oh gosh, what happens to my, what happens to my revenues? So that's why most of the big advertising agency groups are not a fan of this. Within that you also see, and this is exactly the same thing that played out with the Creator Economy. In fact, one of the reasons I created the Brand Tech group was what is one of Harvard Business School's best selling case studies called have us Change Faster. And it tells the story of me buying the world's first and largest crater economy company in 2010 and trying to use it to drive change throughout Havas. And in fact, the, the reason it's such a successful case study is it explains how hard change is and it says that basically despite my investors loving it and my clients thinking it was brilliant, most people who worked for me thought I was stupid because they like. But David, we've got this small, finite creative department. Our job is to sell them for a fortune to our clients. How can you possibly say everyone can create? And I'm like, well, because everyone is going to create. And obviously the fact that if I said to you today that influencers aren't a thing and how could you possibly work with people in the Creator Economy? You'd think I was a dinosaur. But that's what Everybody said in 2020, in 2010, and Gen AI is the new Creator Economy. You have lots of senior creatives thinking that, oh gosh, you couldn't possibly do that. It's terrible. And I'm a special creative. So that's what's going on in the industry side. Secondly, you've got the fact that the tools are just getting better and better. Like two years ago you probably couldn't have created a decent TV commercial with the then text to video models. Now you can do amazing stuff. So the technology just gets better and better. And what you can do today is so dramatically different than where we were two or three years ago. And then thirdly, there's lots of big companies working through the issues that come with this is can I own the copyright? How am I sure that I can own the copyright? How do I know I'm not going to be part of a class action lawsuit? You know, how do I know that I'm indemnified if, if we do, et cetera, et cetera. And again, without unpacking pencil, it, you know, won't allow you to prompt with brand names. It won't allow you to say, hey, make this ad look like, you know, Leo DiCaprio is in it. And you're seeing that play through. And, and so, you know, it is an inevitability. I will bet you that, you know, I think we did our last, well, we did one of our last podcasts together like five years ago. Yeah, I'll bet if we do on in five years that 100% of content is created using some or all generative AI. And I think the final point I would make is, you know, we are working with many of the world's biggest global advertisers at mass scale deploying generative AI content. They don't necessarily always want to shout about that because they think it's competitive advantage. And so I think, you know, there are, I would say the people who are often the best at it are kind of going, I'm not going to talk too much about this because as soon as I do my competitors, we'll be all over it.
- [37:56]
David Jones
And that's classic. Well, we just spent a lot of time talking about creative and I want to segue over to the impact of AI on media buying, which is already enormous and will continue to totally, you know, transform the way media buying is done in terms of personalization, targeting, real time optimization, more efficient creative production, also of course like advanced analytics, all of that. And just last week Jellyfish, which is part of the BrandTech group, made a very interesting announcement which was the launch of what you're calling an AI powered media in housing platform, which is like a consolidated proprietary platform that combines AI tools and agents, including a media ops agent that Jellyfish recently released. And it's all part of this one unified workflow. It sounds logical, it sounds fancy to offer an end to end thing where brands can tap into this full suite of tools. But I also feel like I just spewed a lot of jargon. So tell me what this thing is in your own simple terms and why it's cool.
- [39:01]
Allison Schiff
So basically what in essence does is it almost mimics the kind of role and decision making process of a junior level media buyer. So it can do a whole bunch of things like organizing campaign data, setting up reporting dashboards, adjusting budgets daily to avoid under or overspending. And it can do things that once took weeks to do and necessitated humans overseeing them. And it can do it with agents and we're seeing remarkable results. So, you know, basically looking at how we use agents across Google, Meta, Amazon, we're able to kind of cut campaign launch times by 65%. We're able to cut. It goes back to the point we're talking about better, faster, cheaper. And I think it sort of comes out, I mean it comes out of a couple of other things. We also said back at launch in 2015, you know, we talked about a belief you could do all marketing better, faster, cheaper, using technology and AI. But we also said we want to be the best in the world at helping our brands connect, our brand partners connect content, data and media in real time. And in fact, one of the slides that I had in my original deck that raised all that money was the New York Stock Exchange 40 years ago and the New York Stock exchange, you know, 2015, and you know, the 40 years ago version was tons of people running around with bits of paper, shouting and on phones. And the, you know, 2015 version was like a couple of like media sets and very few humans. And I think exactly the same thing is going to play out in the world of media and the world of marketing and advertising. I think we will be in a world where an enormous amount of, you know, content and certainly the mid and lower funnel content, there are no longer humans in the loop. The humans sit around it and set it up and off it goes. And it will create content, serve content, optimize content, and it will all be done by AI and generative AI. Now anyone who says that won't be the case, you know, we could never do that. Advertising and marketing is too special. I mean, money is quite important and you can imagine exactly the same conversations happening where people go, oh, but you, we couldn't possibly trust technology and computers to be doing all of this trading. I mean, it would be Impossible today to insert a human back into the share trading process. And anybody who suggested that would probably be marched out of the building. But I think the question you probably have in your head then is, oh my God, but isn't that then going to replace everybody and no one will have jobs? I think if you look at the finance industry as a parallel, there are more people making more money in the finance industry today than there were 20, 30, 40 years ago. And I, so I think there's actually no reason why it will be an eliminator of jobs. What will happen is people will just do different things. I mean, going back to that internship I was telling you about, yes, you know, the fun, exciting part was jumping on planes and flying to Germany to present storyboards. But like a hell of a lot of what I did was stand by a fax machine sending faxes and stand by a photocopier, you know, making photocopies. Those jobs, no one does that anymore, you know, yet there's pretty much the same number of people working in the ad industry. And then look at the 250 million people who are now making money in the crater economy. So, you know, I think everybody defaults to, oh my God, it will be devastating. And I can't remember who it was who said, you know, 10% of jobs will be eliminated, 100% will change. So it's, and this, you know, approach comes out of that. I mean, if you think about programmatic, you know, we now don't think anything of the fact that, you know, programmatic trading is a thing. But you can remember when people, people first started talking about that, don't be silly, that'll never be a thing. And so it's very similar is how do you know, we, we talk a lot about craft and commodity and things that are craft. You, you want absolutely the best humans on the planet doing that for you. And it's super high value add and really important things that are commodity. You want agents and AI doing that for you. And I think this is an example of how can we replace commodity with AI agents.
- [43:24]
David Jones
I mean, that's both a, I think realistic and optimistic view of where we're going. And maybe not all that optimistic. Like maybe it's just realistic.
- [43:34]
Allison Schiff
But I think you can't find a time in human history where we've had incredible tools and technology and they haven't been massive drivers of growth and employment. You know, in the 19, in the 19. So in the 1800s, over 90% of the population worked in farming or making food. Today it's less than 2%. If, if you're an alien who just arrived here and I told you that you would deduce that humans must be unemployed. Right? It's like, no, they're doing different things. And the best analogy I can probably give for it is human flight. If you imagine you and I are standing on a, on a hillside watching an early attempt at human flight, and somebody has got this kind of contraption that they managed to get off the ground for about 300ft before it plummets back. And I turn to you and I say, do you know 4 billion people will get in those and travel around the world every year before billion passengers. There'll be brand new jobs like air traffic controller and pilot and you know, those nice people at the airport who kind of check our passports or help us put our liquids in in little bags. The biggest luxury retail shopping centers in the world will be inside airports, which, by the way, are the things where those 4 billion people take off and land. And, you know, they'll be in the airports of Singapore and Dubai and London and Paris. And you'd kind of go, don't be stupid. And. And that's exactly what happened. And. Except that this time it's going to happen in 10 years, not 50 years.
- [45:04]
David Jones
Well, this is a good time, I think, to talk about One Young World, which I referenced during the first half of the episode. It's yous nonprofit. Cnn once called it the Young Davos, which I think is a pretty good summation. So I saw that one of the plenary topics at the summit that One Young World hosted in Montreal last year was to explore how humanity can make AI a force for good, but also addressing potential risks and ethical implications. Talk to me a little bit about that, like how you're addressing AI through One Young World and how young people are thinking about it both as a force for good, while also thinking about how to make sure it remains that way.
- [45:51]
Allison Schiff
Yeah, look, so, I mean, One Young World Kate Robertson and I created back in 2009, the mobile phone or the iPhone had just been launched and we were seeing that there was a, a generation of young leaders that was pretty unique and that they were the most connected, they were the most knowledgeable because of education through the Internet. But above all, they were kind of the most powerful generation of young leaders we'd ever seen because they understood better than anyone how to use digital and social media to drive change. And so the whole idea was, can we give them a bigger platform and, and just, you know, be a catalyst in Helping them get more done. And today we've impacted over 50 million lives. We give the largest grants every year to young leader initiatives under the global goals. We've got some pretty amazing stories. You know, one of our One Young World ambassadors who we gave a little $15,000 grant to and helped set on her way just got 20 million from Melinda Gates Foundation. So I could talk for hours about all the stories but and what we were looking to do in Montreal and we had a fantastic session with Joshua Bengio who is, is viewed as the, the godfather of AI, in conversation with Justin Trudeau. And Trudeau made a really interesting point about how, you know, and our one young world audience is kind of, it's young, it's, you know, 20 to 30 is sort of the core, the core age. And he said that you're the last non native AI generation in the way that my generation was the last kind of non social media. But look, obviously Gen AI comes and AI comes with both huge amounts of positive potential and lots of negative issues. So you know, everything from bias. And one of the tools we built at BrandTech is Bias Breaker, which will ensure that it builds diversity into all of the images that are being created. Because at the moment in most of the models if you say show me a CEO it will show you a white 50 something man. But you know, you have an enormous number of issues in and around AI and we think it's really important that we set out, you know, from day one looking at, well, how can we ensure that AI is a force for good, not a force for bad. Now let's not be naive. Every technology has been used through human history for both good and bad. You know, like dictators controlled countries with television, there's like you can't find a single technology where lots of people haven't done terrible things with it. But likewise, there's also some amazing things. I think the big difference and what I like about where we are in AI versus say where we were in social media is none of us actually saw the bad side of social media coming. You know, we kind of, oh wow, this is great. My mum can see, you know, my photos of me in Australia. Isn't that nice? We didn't realize that it was going to create, you know, big issues around, you know, anorexia and mental health and suicide and you know, changing elections and interference and all the kind of things that we now know that have been pretty, pretty terrible. I think the fact that we are having the conversations already about the potential negative side of AI is a really good thing. And so that's literally what we've been kind of focusing on in our work with One Young World is how do we ensure it is. Now clearly it has the potential to deliver an enormous amount of good in the world. I mean, one of the great things about it is it can democratize education and access to knowledge and learning. Not just because in one example of a One Young World ambassador, so she's basically working to translate core stuff into indigenous languages using AI so that people can have access to medical help who couldn't currently get it. Because all of the expertise in, you know, in whatever particular disease they were looking to find out about was not in a language that they could understand. You know, one of the most basic examples is, you know, it was quite a funny story a couple of years ago when someone said, it's outrageous. ChatGPT can write fantastic essays, application essays for universities. This is terrible. And it's like, yeah, because at the moment rich parents pay a fortune to have someone write theirs for their kid and people who have less money can't do that. Well, actually they can now. And I think you will see in a very similar way to the way mobile telephony started out being something kind of high end and privilege and became something that, you know, was really, really powerful in terms of how it democratized access to technology and learning and knowledge understanding. And I think you'll see generative AI play exactly the same role or, but notwithstanding, you know, there need to be some guide kind of guardrails and there are clearly issues that come with it. Although as we look at what humans are doing in the, in the world today, I often tell the story of, just to end on this point of sharks and cars. You know, everyone's scared of sharks. You know, people who are swimming in places that has never been a shark are scared of sharks. And yet every year only 20 people die in unprovoked shark attacks in the world. No one thinks twice about getting in their car to drive to the beach. So those people at the beach scared of the shark, got in their car and drove to the beach and no one thought, that's really dangerous. Yet over a million people die every year in car crashes. And the single most dangerous thing we all, all do, or most of us do on a daily basis is get into a car. And AI plays into all the fears of, oh my God, it's terrible, it's going to take over the world. And hey, it's, there's always a possibility it will and that we're the Dinosaurs and the AI is what, you know, succeeds us. But I think, you know, we, we will see and I can do very little about that. But in the meantime, what I think we can do is try and ensure that AI and, and just an overall technology approach is responsible.
- [51:53]
David Jones
Well, I'll say that if AI is going to take over the world, that makes me feel optimistic because at least the world will exist to be taken over. So there's that.
- [52:02]
Allison Schiff
We may not. One of Kumi Nye who was at the time, they had a Greenpeace at one young world, one year, he said, we don't need to save the planet. The planet's going to be fine. In fact, if we all disappear, the planet will be in better shape than it's ever been because we won't be polluting it and it will grow back. We're the ones we need to save. We need to save humanity, not the planet.
- [52:24]
David Jones
Well, I'm not sure how to segue from that into BrandTech's M&A strategy, but I did want to touch on that ever so briefly because by my count, and correct me if I'm wrong, you've bought 10 companies so far, right? We've talked about a few of them. So Oliver Pencil, Gravity Road, collectively mobile koi, acorn eye, 55mo film jellyfish and am I missing anything?
- [52:50]
Allison Schiff
You'd have to. You say Gravity Road.
- [52:52]
David Jones
Gravity Road is in there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what, what is the ethos though, like, what speaks to you when you're kicking the tires on a company? And are you kicking the tires on anything right now?
- [53:04]
Allison Schiff
Yeah. So look, what we did was both on the one hand very broad and also very specific. So we basically said we will only ever acquire companies that are high growth, that are tech or tech enabled, that solve a big problem that our clients have and that we can plug into our overall platform and belief that you can do all marketing better, faster and cheaper using technology and AI. And we also pick companies that we, we were convinced would be able to be turbocharged by the AI revolution. And you know, all of this is Googleable because it's quite interesting that everybody will tell you that they've been talking about AI forever. It's like, no, you haven't. There's this thing called Google and we can go and look and we can see when you talk, but if you even Google our launch back in 2015, we're talking about AI and machine generated content, what we're doing. And in fact, in, in March 2019, I did an interview with Forbes and they Said, well, like what's, you know, what's the next big thing in marketing? I said, it's going to be AI. Nobody fully understands just how unbelievable the change it's going to drive is. And that's why we're doing all the things we're doing. And so we've always looked at, you know, okay, creator economy, companies to the power of AI that's going to be brilliant in housing, to the power of, power of AI that's going to be amazing. So across the board and that's kind of how we've gone about it. And we've been very selective. We've looked at 1,900 and I think 35 companies at last count and we've made 10 acquisitions. We also did quite a bit of minority investing, which has also been extremely successful, but was also one of the ways that we stayed way ahead in the AI space. In fact, I originally met Pencil with a view to a minority investment. And it was in those conversations that we managed to convince them and convince Sequoia to sell so we could buy the company. But you know, we, we did very well out of Pinterest. We invested several years before their IPO when everyone was saying that would never be a thing. Niantic have been in the news talking about potentially their deal to sell Pokemon Go, which is still the most incredibly successful and lucrative franchise. And we were the first external check in to Niantic back in 2015. So yeah, so those are the two sides. One is M and A, where we buy, you know, the majority or 100% of companies. And the other side is minority investing, which is, you know, typically the opposite. We're looking at companies that they're invariably loss making but could, could become the next big thing and you know, touch wood so far we've had a lot of wins in that space. Space.
- [55:51]
David Jones
So time does fly when you're talking about artificial intelligence and the future of humanity. So this one is a question to bring us home. Just a hot take. As you know someone who's obviously very, very deeply steeped in all things agency, I got to ask, like, what's your take on Omnicom and ipg? Your completely unvarnished view, please.
- [56:17]
Allison Schiff
So look, I think it had to happen, you know, and you're going to see more consolidation. I mean, WPP under massive pressure. Havas now public, you know, not delivering great numbers. In fact, you know, publicist seems to be very much in a league of their own delivering but albeit single digit growth. We, you know, sort of, We've grown over 20% organically every year since launch. So but I think, I think it, you know, it makes no sense for their clients. It makes a lot of sense. If you're the CEOs of IPG and Omnicom, you now have a great story to tell the market for two years. You bought yourself two years. You know, it, it, there will obviously be a bunch of synergies. So in the short term they'll be able to save some money, probably make the numbers look good. And in the short term, you know, it is likely to be something that is helpful for them because no one's looking at them with the same scrutiny. They've kind of, you know, inverted commas, laid out their strategy to the, to the markets and as someone who's run a public listed company, knowing what you're going to be showing up every quarter talking about. So I think it will be two or three years before everyone realizes that it wasn't a great, a great idea after all. I think, you know, why isn't it a great idea for their clients? Very simply, do any of their clients need a bigger version of legacy? No. What their clients need if people who are obsessively looking at how do we help you do all of your marketing better, faster and cheaper using technology and generative AI and the entire focus of those two companies is now how do we put two giant businesses together? And you know, I always say, look, it's not that the holding companies don't understand what's going on in, in the gen AI world they do. It's just, you know, your ideal start point wouldn't be 120,000 people who have no idea about it. And that's what all the holding companies basically have. I mean there is a reason why, you know, since time began, big legacy businesses are the ones who kind of don't do well post the revolution. I mean, Kodak invented digital photography but managed to go out of business. Look at where Yahoo is today, look at where BlackBerry is today. Look at where Nokia is today. Look at where, you know, I could go on and on. So I think it's highly unlikely that the big Hulkos are going to be the ones who do well in the future. And being bigger in the old industry, creating the largest business in the world in yesterday's industry probably isn't a great strategy. But as I said, short term, the next year or two, certainly maybe even three will make a lot of sense in terms of the story they're telling the markets. But I don't think it makes any sense for their clients.
- [59:01]
David Jones
So what I'm hearing you say is that John Wren will eventually regret the tattoo of Philippe Krakowski's name that he has. And vice versa. Versa.
- [59:09]
Allison Schiff
I mean, I think Philippe's done a really, Philip's done a really great job and trousered a whole bunch of cash, so well done to him. And I think it's, I think it's interesting because the reason that the Omnicom publicist deal fell apart was that, you know, I think Omnicom thought they were doing a takeover and publicists thought they'd sold a merger. And when it became clear that actually, no, it's, it's a takeover, you know, it all fell apart. And so I think, you know, it's obvious since then that something like this was brewing, but I don't think it's the end of it. I think you're going to see, you know, what's going to happen to S4, who are setting new standards for how, how fast the company can decline. I mean, we can talk about WPP's -1 as not being great, but, you know, S4 was -11. How can you do that? So what's going to happen to them? You know, what stagwell going to be? Are they, are they a hunter or are they prey? Why did Havas go public? What's that all about and where does that play out? So I think it's going to be a super interesting, you know, sector. You know, can publicists maintain the very strong performance they've had in recent years? We're going to see all of that play out. But I think, you know, we, we very much subscribe to the theory, like, don't worry about, you know, other people. Be obsessive about your customers, deliver for them and, you know, you don't need to worry about all of the nonsense that other people are announcing.
- [60:30]
David Jones
Yeah, that's advice for life. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening. And a special thanks to our sponsor, Data Axle. Helping businesses create deeper, data driven connections with customers. Whether you're reaching new prospects or strengthening existing relationships, Data Axle delivers the insights and solutions to make every interaction more impactful. Explore more@dataaxle.com.