67. How to evolve your offering to grow a service-based business | Gregory Nice + Jack Stanton

Summary

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Podcast Summary: James Reed: All About Business

Episode 67: How to Evolve Your Offering to Grow a Service-Based Business
Guests: Gregory Nice & Jack Stanton (Nice Productions)
Host: James Reed
Date: February 23, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives into how creative agency Nice Productions, co-founded by Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton, evolved from side-hustle filmmaking to a multi-channel creative agency serving global brands. James Reed draws out the lessons of resilience, adaptation, and partnership in the creative industry, focusing on practical steps for business growth, the realities of scaling, and the ongoing impact of technology like AI on creative services.

The conversation blends anecdotes, strategic advice, and candid reflections on what it means to succeed—and survive—in today's content-saturated market.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin Story: From Side Hustle to Agency

• Gregory’s Beginnings:
  • Started Nice Productions in 2011 as a registered business but properly launched in 2015/16 once Jack Stanton joined full time ([02:10–06:04]).
  • Gregory always had an entrepreneurial streak: “I had the secret tuck shop under my desk—I’d spend 50 quid and turn that into 200” ([03:09], Gregory).
  • Early work involved freelance gigs, music videos, startup content, and ads—balancing between career and creative ambitions.
• Partnership with Jack:
  • Jack and Gregory met at school at 13, collaborated from university holidays before formalizing their business ([06:20–07:02]).
  • Equal partners ("50/50 is it? All right" [07:10], James).

2. Brand Identity and Evolution

• Naming and Rebranding:
  • "Nice" is both Gregory's surname and an ethos: “We like it as an ethos as well, not just a name” ([08:48], Gregory).
  • Currently moving from “Nice Productions” to “Nice”—reflecting a broader service offering ([07:24, 08:07]).
• Culture & Client Experience:
  • Intentionally accessible, breaking down industry "stickiness" and pretension ([09:02–09:27]).

3. Expanding Offerings: Going Multichannel

• Catalyst for Growth:
  • Reed’s campaigns drove Nice Productions to expand from video/photography into multichannel projects covering radio, out-of-home, and social ([09:43–13:09]).
  • Learning by doing: “You also asked for radio, which to be completely honest, we’d never done before. Now it’s something that we offer to clients quite a lot” ([10:21], Gregory).
• Client-Led Adaptation:
  • Experience enables proactive client advice for expanding campaigns into new, more cost-effective channels: “Have you thought about an additional radio campaign?... We can support you in creating them” ([12:00], Gregory).

4. Collaboration & Division of Roles

• Workflow Dynamics:
  • Gregory: logistics, budget, set direction
  • Jack: creative direction, art direction, post-production, media delivery ([13:57–15:09]).
  • “Greg’s the brains, I’m the muscle. That’s pretty much it” ([13:57], Jack).
• Regulatory Hurdles:
  • Jack handles ad approvals (“Clearcast and all the other agencies...”) and discusses the relative freedom of social and print ([15:40–16:44]).

5. Standing Out in a Crowded Market

• Survival Through Adversity:
  • “Covid was a big killer of a lot of companies... We were really lucky, and I think one of our big skill sets is our post-production” ([18:24–19:17], Gregory).
  • Adapted by remixing existing footage, maintaining client content during tough times.

6. Impact of Technology & AI

• AI as Disruptor:
  • Writers’ strikes and AI reducing basic production work ([21:25–23:46]).
  • Real example: Offered a job to create AI digital doubles for execs—turned down as “you’re asking us to basically kill our own job” ([22:13–23:37], Gregory).
  • Both see the creative core as resilient to AI, but acknowledge entry-level and “basic talking heads” work is being commoditized ([23:46–27:09]).
• Quote [27:09], Jack:
  “If we were starting out now, that’s where the struggle would be because there isn’t that entry point first rung… businesses can make these smaller, cheaper things."

7. Case Study: Viral Marketing for Itzu

• The Willesden Raider Campaign:
  • Used meme culture and nostalgia in low-budget content to go viral (20+ million organic views) ([35:12–41:22]).
  • “It’s quite wild. It’s quite obscure. Somehow it hit some note.” ([37:40–37:48], James).
  • Success with virality as a differentiator for the agency, leading to conversations with new brands ([42:09–42:46]).

8. Changing Industry Barriers

• Democratization of Filmmaking:
  • From expensive film to Canon 5D, to smartphones and YouTube ([43:30–45:59]).
  • “If you want to get into making films and TV or advertising, just do it. Just take your phone, go and make a video with your friends.” ([47:05–47:25], Gregory).
• Implications:
  • Easier than ever for entrants, but harder to scale and to stand out.

9. Scaling, Clients, and Future Plans

• Repositioning for Growth:
  • Focusing on multichannel campaigns and moving up the client scale ([50:23–52:10]).
  • "Once you're at that point, you then have the scalability to take on more people in a new business role" ([51:01], Gregory).
• Networks Matter:
  • Landing Bentley thanks to a family connection (not “nepotism”—just connections), opening up further opportunities ([53:36–54:02]).
  • “Word of mouth is quite honestly 95% of our business” ([55:23–57:32], Gregory).
• Winning Business:
  • Leveraging viral successes (Itzu) for outbound and LinkedIn outreach.
  • Cold outreach less effective; existing relationships and referrals are key.

10. Creative Process & Partnership

• Generating Ideas:
  • Informal, iterative, collaborative ideation with shared docs, open to critique ([58:16–59:46]).
  • Value in partnerships: “There’s a sort of dynamism by being a partnership that you’d have missed out on” ([60:44–61:02], James).
• Growth Advice:
  • Find a complementary partner—creative and technical balance enhances execution and resilience ([61:06–61:21], Gregory).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Brand Name and Ethos

  • "We like it as an ethos as well. Not just the name… You should be nice to deal with.”
    — Gregory Nice [08:48]

• On Evolving Offerings

  • “Working with Reed was the first time we had multi-channel. It wasn’t just video and photography… You asked for radio, which to be completely honest we’d never done before. Now it’s something we offer quite a lot.”
    — Gregory Nice [09:43–10:21]

• Viral Campaign Insight

  • “It’s quite wild. It’s quite obscure. Somehow it hit some note.”
    — James Reed [37:40–37:48]

• On AI Threat

  • “We were basically being asked to kill our own job… so thank you, but no thank you.”
    — Gregory Nice [23:29–23:37]
  • “What AI does remind me of is in our earlier days we were to some degree having to outrun smaller businesses making content themselves on smartphones… The lower end stuff is being mopped up.”
    — Jack Stanton [26:04–27:09]

• Advice for Entrants

  • “If you want to get into making films and TV or advertising, just do it. Just take your phone, go and make a video with your friends… It’s even more democratized.”
    — Gregory Nice [47:05–47:25]

• On Partnership Dynamics

  • “Hands up who does what.”
    — James Reed [30:04]
  • “There’s a sort of dynamism by being a partnership that you’d have missed out on.”
    — James Reed [60:44]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:10] Gregory’s business beginnings and early hustle
• [06:20] Jack’s entry into Nice Productions and school friendship
• [08:07] Discussion of rebranding from “Nice Productions” to “Nice”
• [09:43] Major pivot to multichannel campaigns via Reed partnership
• [13:57] Division of creative and operational roles (brains & muscle)
• [18:24] Navigating challenges (Covid, industry contraction)
• [21:25] The ripple effect of the writers’ strike and AI on creative work
• [27:09] Lower entry barriers and changes in first-rung opportunities
• [35:12] Case study: Itzu’s viral “Willesden Raider” ad
• [43:30] The democratization of filmmaking
• [50:23] Discussing future plans & scaling (new hires, rebranding)
• [53:32] The role of relationships: landing Bentley, Intercontinental, Reed
• [55:23] Winning business: the power of referrals & viral leverage
• [58:16] Idea generation and creative partnership dynamic
• [61:21] Advice: the importance of choosing the right business partner
• [64:20] What gets them up on Mondays: new projects, gym routines
• [65:19] Five-year vision: scaling to 10+ employees, bigger campaigns

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Conclusion — Advice & Takeaways

• Adapt & Evolve: Don’t limit your agency—expand services, learn by doing, respond to client needs.
• Partnership is Key: Find someone who complements your strengths; two minds spark better creativity and resilience.
• Credibility via Clients: Major client relationships unlock further opportunities—sometimes via connections, always via delivery.
• Democratization: Filmmaking tech is more accessible, so the challenge is now about standing out and moving up, not just getting in.
• Be Proactive: Leverage every piece of work for new business, especially when going viral; referrals and reputation matter most.
• Creative Process: Keep it iterative, informal, and sparring—give ideas space, but pressure-test feasibility and execution.
• Stay Nice: Living up to the brand name—kindness, honesty, and accessibility are as important as the work itself.

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Where to Find More

• Nice Productions (soon: Nice) — [nice-productions.com] (check for rebranding updates)
• Contact via LinkedIn — For business inquiries, creative collaborations, or campaign examples.

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Endorsed by James Reed:

“Very happy to endorse you to anyone listening as a good partner… it’s been a pleasure working with you.”
[66:09], James Reed

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Every episode I sit down with different guests who bootstrapped companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. What does it take to turn a creative partnership into a successful agency? Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton, co founders of Nice Productions, a creative agency that's evolved from independent filmmaking into delivering major campaigns for global brands. Gregory is an award winning producer and director. Jack is creative director and visual artist. Together they'll share how they built a creative business from the ground up, how they scaled through major partnerships like Reed, and what it takes to balance art, technology and entrepreneurship in today's creative economy. Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome not one guest, but two. I have in the studio today with me, Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton from Nice Productions. Thank you both for coming in.

[B]

Thanks for having us.

[A]

Nice Productions is a London based creative agency that basically makes ads and other forms of communications. I know them well because they've done a lot of work for Reed in the past. So to declare that right up front and we'll be talking a bit about that in the, in the course of our conversation. But their work spans tv, digital radio, cinema, outdoor media and short form narratives. And I'm acutely aware that lots of young people especially want to get into sort of creative industries. You, Gregory, actually did that. You started this company in 2011. How did that happen? What was your sort of origin story?

[B]

Well, starting it in 2011 is when I registered the name Nice Productions, but I wouldn't say we actually launched properly until 2015, 2016 when Jack came on full time. Before that, I was working in film and TV as a production assistant all the way through to then being a production manager. By the time that I stopped doing it professionally and I was working on ads and I was working on TV shows, but at the same time, on the weekend, I was making content for startup brands and friends companies and music videos and everything else that you do when you're sort of a young filmmaker just starting out.

[A]

And so to be rude, how old Were you in 2011?

[B]

20.

[A]

So you were literally starting out in your working life?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You got a job?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

As an assistant.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

You'd also set up a company. I mean, I showed some Sort of imagination, I would say, say, I mean, side hustle.

[B]

Yeah. No, well, I'd always been that person who, throughout school, I had the secret tuck shop, like under my desk. Yeah. You know, I would go, I would go to Booker on the weekend before I went back to school with my dad and I'd. I'd spend 50 quid and turn that into 200. So I, I'd always wanted, I, I think I had always had that entrepreneurial spirit of wanting to do something and at the same time I was really into theater and very much into movies and I, and I always wanted to move into more of a creative space. And so when I finished university, it was kind of my career trajectory was sort of, because I did English, literally was become a lawyer or go into film and tv. And I knew that film and TV is what I wanted to do and so I did that. Yeah, for three or four years, working my way up.

[A]

Was your dad pleased you didn't become a lawyer or not?

[B]

He, honestly, he's, he is not something I, I think he loves film as well. So he was, he, he was quite positive that I was moving into something that he thought was pretty cool, to be honest.

[A]

It wasn't, it wasn't something imposed from your family, the law idea? No.

[B]

My grandfather was a lawyer and he was. I, I enjoyed talking with him and having arguments around the Christmas dinner, but. And I thought that was what. Something I wanted to do, but. But also my love, once I finished university, I decided that was something I wanted to pursue more. And at the same time, Jack was working as a video, was studying as a video artist and then working as a video artist. And so our skills there was just a good collaboration. And as I was saying, like, over on the weekends we were making other projects for other people and in the evening I was going to lots of startup events like Escape the City, Silicon Roundabout, and I was meeting startups because I was both a star.

[A]

This was in London.

[B]

This was in London, Yeah. And at the time the startup community was massive. I don't, I'm not so involved in it anymore. But that was a way to meet new brands. And who knew that video first content was the way to go, social first video was the way to go to build their brands. And so we were sort of at the forefront of, of that change in marketing of social media. Video first, you know, brands wanting to be out there online, and so we saw a niche. And after three or four years of both working full time and then also creating content in the evenings, weekends, whenever I had time, yeah. Come about 2015 and 16, I stopped working as a production manager and decided to pursue nice productions full time. Which also perfectly coincided with Jack finishing his university career and working as a video artist and coming on and working with us.

[A]

Well, that's a good segue to you, Jack. So you, you started out in visual arts and video as Gregory just described. So what, what attracted you to nice productions? Why did you decide that you were going to join Gregory? What happened?

[C]

Well, I mean, so I went to art school and mostly did video, some performance based stuff. So it was a skill that I developed but in a, you know, much more sort of open, creative sense. And I think it was maybe my second year onwards that we actually started working together in the holidays.

[B]

And also bear in mind Jack's a student and I was earning some money at this point. So it was a good way for him to earn some money on the weekend.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean it was a skill I could apply and obviously, I mean, working with an old friend. I mean, I'm not sure if we've actually said that. Greg and I have known each other for a very long time, since we were 13.

[A]

No, you haven't said that. That's going to be my next question. How did you meet? So you were your school friends or something?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So you were school friends and you got going and then you saw this. So you now partners. Is that how this is organized or.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Equal partners.

[C]

Yeah. 50.

[A]

50 is it?

[B]

Yeah. All right.

[A]

Okay, that's good.

[C]

So although it is, you know, nice productions, there's a, you know, bit of a sore spot there that it was,

[A]

well, company was started by you.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

So. And it's quite a good name.

[C]

It's an excellent name.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So yeah. And, and generally speaking, when you. I think it's memorable to clients as well. So we've had conversations about it in the past but ultimately we, we've always come back around to wanting to stick to it and we're having that conversation right now again because I don't know, sorry if you, if you already have this on the piece of paper in front of you. But we, we're now thinking about moving to moving away from nice productions and moving to nice and just being nice rather than nice productions because we have moved away from just being a video first production company to being a more full service creative agency over the last four or five years.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so we don't want to be specific to production.

[A]

So people use the word nice. A lot. And they go, nice, you know, so. But isn't that already sort of widely registered and applied in other business situations?

[B]

Yeah, but it's my. It's my name. So that allows you a lot of leeway in being able to use it, because in the way that, you know, like. Nice. The drug company.

[A]

The drug evaluation.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. I don't think they could sue me for using the word nice.

[A]

No, I don't think they could.

[B]

Because. Yeah, because it's my name.

[A]

Yeah, you should probably double down on that.

[B]

Yeah. Multi billion drug testing.

[A]

Grateful to your parents for giving you this name. Yeah, it's very memorable. It works. And especially in a space where you're trying to create. Cut through for people.

[B]

Exactly. And we like it as an ethos as well. Yeah, you know, not just. Not just.

[A]

You should be nice to deal with.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[C]

Right. And that is something we hear a lot.

[A]

A name to live up to it.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. What were you gonna say, Jack?

[C]

That is something we hear a lot. You know, I think especially in film production, you know, there is a bit of a. Kind of a culture of. What would you call it? Sort of.

[B]

It's just a bit sticky, isn't it?

[C]

A bit sticky. Bit kind of inaccessible. People like to play with all the kind of fancy GE gear and set up, like barriers between the people making the work and who they're working with, which has just never been something that we've done.

[A]

Right. In terms of thinking about changing the name, just tonight you're actually changing your sort of approach as well. I'm hearing sort of widening the number of possible business lines you might offer.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Talk me through that a bit. What. What's. What's in your mind?

[B]

Well, quite honestly, a big part of this comes down to our relationship with Reid, because prior to working with you, we were video and photography. So, you know, a lot of our campaigns were video with and then also with a sort of subsidiary of photography. So it'd be video first, then there might be a photography campaign to support it. But working with Reed was the first time that we actually had multi channel. So it wasn't just video and photography. You also asked for the photography to be out of home. So that is an extension of the photography part of the work that we were doing previously. But it is. There's much more involved in technically in deliverables and working with the media agencies and the media buyers, which was something we hadn't really done before. And then also you asked for radio, which to be completely Honest, we'd never done before. So we were very happy to learn how to do that. And now it's something that we offer to clients quite a lot and like online audio ads especially seem to be something that people are pushing towards more and more and a lot of the people we work for now are asking us to do Spotify ads for them, which is great because it's fun creatively and it's relatively cost effective for brands to do. For us to write a script and then to record a 30 second ad is not, is not the same as a TV ad which is a quarter million pounds. No, it's like. Or, and more, it's, it's, you know, a tenth of that easily.

[A]

I love radio for that reason.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

So this is interesting to me because, you know, we wanted a campaign that was multimedia, that would reach people in different ways depending on what they were doing. So radio, out of home video, tv, all of those are important channels as well, as well as social media. So you're in a sense adapting your business model to meet your customer halfway in terms of offering that service is what I'm hearing.

[B]

Yeah, I mean definitely, but it's, but it's also a bit of a chicken and egg situation is that I feel as though previously because we didn't have the experience of doing those things to doing the multi channel, it wasn't something that we would sort of actively push or promote but now that we have the experience of doing it, it's something that we can then actively promote. So you know, a brand previously might come to us and say we have this, you know, social media campaign that we want to put out across Instagram and YouTube and we want pre roll ads and. But we also want branded content with it photography. Great, that's absolutely something to do. But now when they come to us we can say have you had to think about an out of home campaign? Or if you think, have you thought about an additional radio campaign? Because you know you're already spending X amount of money on the video campaign which is the most expensive and the video and the photography which also can be expensive but less so. And, but then here are these other channels that are you thinking about because we can support you in creating them and in some ways they're the most cost effective of all the channels that you're talking about. So it'd be a shame not to be having that conversation with you. Just because you're coming to us because we're. Well, we were a video first social agency and now we're sort of a video. Video first creative agency, but trying to push and put. Trying to push all the other channels.

[A]

Yeah, I can see how that would have evolved from.

[B]

Yeah, but you know, Reid gave us the opportunity.

[A]

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[B]

And we're very grateful.

[A]

How do you divide this work up? It sounds like you have a good collaboration.

[C]

Greg's the brains, I'm the muscle. That's pretty much it.

[A]

What's that mean?

[C]

So, I mean, I'll walk you through it. So, you know, every project has like a cycle. So at first you've got to come up with an idea. You know, we're both across that, we figure that out together. Then once we've got the budget together, we go, you know, we enter into pre production and production. Greg is much more on top of the logistics, keeps an eye on the money, whereas I stay more on the creative when it comes to direction. On the day we are both. We're co directing, but Greg's a little more. If you looked around on set, you'd say that he's the director. He's a little better at barking orders at people. I might be by a monitor or working with whoever's actually.

[A]

So you're more the art director, are you?

[C]

Yeah, I'm officially creative director. Yeah. And then on the post end, that's where I take over more and oversee everything that comes in post.

[A]

So you mean post production and what is everything that comes in post? What are you talking about?

[C]

Editing, music, colour, all the sort of nitty gritty of deliverables, various formats.

[B]

Yeah. And you've also, you know, over the years have also become quite savvy in the media delivery side as well. Yeah, you, you, I think because you've, you've run most of the product post production side, then because you're creating the deliverables, you then also become the person who then has to communicate how those deliverables are put across all the channels, whether or not it's on social or on tv. Or radio, wherever it is. Jack's the one who's communicating with Clearcast and all the other agencies you have to speak to about, you know, getting permissions and sharing the scripts to make

[A]

sure that's a, that's a sort of area that people may be unaware of. But you have to get ads approved. Tell me about that. How does that work? You mentioned Clearcast again.

[B]

This is, this is Jack.

[A]

Okay, Jack.

[B]

Jack handles this for me.

[C]

Well, well, very simply, scripts have to be signed off that they don't contain anything that is problematic in any way. So you, you submit ahead of time, you get it checked in a kind of preliminary way, but then once you've actually produced the ad, that then has to get checked.

[A]

But this is.

[C]

You're talking about radio and radio and tv. Yeah.

[A]

But you could put a poster up pretty much without anyone checking it.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, that tends to sail through.

[A]

It's interesting, isn't it?

[C]

Which is strange, which is not something I've thought an awful lot about.

[B]

Social is also a bit of the Wild west as well. Like, I think it's still, you know, people do get pulled up by the ears of the ASA about their social media posts and like you sort of things that you have to say it's an ad if you're being paid for it, you know.

[A]

Oh yeah, these influences and stuff, they're meant to say that, but often they don't.

[B]

But. Yeah, exactly. They're meant to and they don't. And so they do get pulled up. But it is. Yeah. As I say, it's still months later

[A]

and no one knows they've been pulled.

[B]

Exactly. And then at that point the ad spend's already gone and it's already had its millions of views. And then.

[A]

So I was really bad at Latin at school, but I remember the words caveat, empty, buyer beware.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they still apply. And so, you know, if you're buying something, don't rely on the Advertising Standards Agency.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Need to be sure for yourself, I always think.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's good, I suppose, that these extra checks are in place. Sometimes they can be a bit frustrating when you want to use a bit of creative license, can't they, Jack?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I don't think we've ever had a problem with the creative. They tend to be quite lenient. But it might be on details like it's the T's and C's that we're often figuring out with Reid and that can get a little bit last minute sometimes to make sure all the boxes

[A]

are Ticked T's and C's terms and conditions.

[B]

Yeah, it's the same with, yeah, I mean it's sort of the same with all our clients. It's like they just get very sticky about. If you're, if you're saying that you're the biggest or the best and you're putting a number in or however you want to sort of push or promote your brand as in those sort of ways, then they, then they push back and say, how are you the biggest? How are you the best? And then you have to prove it or disprove it either way. And yeah, that can get a little bit complicated. So then you have to change the, the wordage to, to fit right the campaign.

[A]

So from your point of view as nice, nice productions, whichever it is. I mean this is a crowded space. So the. Lots of people making content, lots of people doing what you do. How do you stand out and how do you stay relevant?

[B]

I mean that honestly is the million dollar question right now and is something that Jack and I discuss pretty much all the time, especially as we're in a, what I would consider a growth period. Again, you know, it's been a nice gradual incline and we would obviously like it to incline further. But I honestly don't feel like I specifically have an answer because there are so many people doing it. But we've also seen a lot of other agencies drop off when we haven't and you know, it's been, it's not been the easiest period of time, I think across the board for any business to start and run a business in the UK from when we finish university to now, from, you know, the general global political climate that's happened in our lifetime, you know, and especially things like Covid. Covid was a big killer of a lot of companies and brands that worked in our space. They just, I guess didn't have the, the capital to survive that. And we were really lucky and I think, I think because we have really good relationships with lots of the companies we work with and I think one of our big skill sets is our post production. We were able to offer to a lot of our clients additional post production work so that they could keep, they needed content and obviously we've been shooting them for years. So we were able to remix and reevaluate what it was that we had to be able to put out new content in the world over that period of time. So we were still getting paid. But I know from other people in the world they really struggled and then post that there's been A big knock on effect in, in the content creation world from the film and a foot proper film and TV world where because of the writers strikes and the writers strikes in America that massively affected all the cast and crew who are working in the uk. So it kind of, it kind of had a knock on effect whereby the people who were working in, in TV and film and working in everyone just sort of had to scale down. So then there was a lot more people who will now who, let's say you were a cinematographer working in TV. TV's completely gone. So. So you're now reaching out to your network of commercial production companies like us and saying, do you have work? So now you have big name cinematographers who are happy to be doing social media content because there's no other work in that system. So it was kind of a knock on effect that then the bottom end of it was then falling away. But I think again we were just fortunate to be in the position that we have really good relationship with our clients and who we've worked with for years and years and years and people like you and some of the fashion brands we work with who you know, want to do two campaigns a year with us that we were able to survive that as well. We weren't knocked off the bottom by people coming down. So.

[A]

So this interesting, this writers strike you referred to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Started in America. I mean that was, that was a response to dangers of AI, wasn't it?

[B]

In part, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I mean I think these new technologies coming in.

[B]

Exactly, yeah. Which again is a disruption. Yeah. Is another, is another thing that I think has affected a lot of, a lot of companies in this space.

[A]

In what way?

[B]

Well, I mean, to be honest with you, even with us, we were recently approached to create some content for a quite a big, quite a big corporate with the senior management team where they wanted us to go in and they, they had basically created these scripts in relationship with an AI company to speak for 45 minutes. So the operation tell you this in case you get an idea to speak for 45 minutes. And then the AI company was basically promising that after you'd been filmed in this multi camera setup for 45 minutes, you would never have to speak on camera again. They could take that 45 minutes of footage and they could use it in perpetuity to make you say whatever you wanted to say. So you could just send them a script saying okay, let's say, I know for example, you speak a lot in the press and on TV about the current state of the employment. It's in the uk. So what they would say was, is you could do a weekly outreach of talking about the current economy, the current employments in the UK and you send us a script what you want. And they didn't actually tell me how quickly you'd get it back, but I imagine it was very quick. In half an hour they'd send you back a 5 minute video multi camera of you in essence talking about the current climate. And you could do that every week, every day. And they would just, I guess they charge a fee. Anyway, we turned this down because we were basically being asked to kill our own job. And yeah, I had to say to the agency that was asking us, I was like, you do know you're asking us to basically kill our own job. So thank you, but no thank you.

[A]

Do you think that's going to take off? I mean, would someone want to watch some sort of avatar rather than the actual person saying what they think?

[B]

I mean, that's been my feeling on AI in general in that I personally don't want to watch a film that was written, directed, filmed by an AI and I don't want to listen to music that was filmed and directed by AI sorry, recorded and directed by AI And I think my, this is, this is my general feeling on it is why I'm maybe less worried than other people who are in the industry in that I think that's probably the general population's feeling on it is that ultimately people won't want that. They, they want their relationship with the band that they, that they listen to. They want to go watch them live and they want to buy the merchandise and they, and they want to listen to it on Spotify and, and same with film and tv. I think people don't want to watch AI performers and they, they, they want the relationship that they, that they have from experiencing art visually. So yeah, I'm possibly less worried about it. But saying that when it comes to the, the, the example I just gave you where we, where we turned down the work, I think that that probably will happen. And so if you're a production company who's in that space making those type of ads, the corporate talking headspace, then I think I would be very worried. The thing is that we're not in that space. We're in a very creative space where it takes Jack and I days and days and days of script writing and idea generating and storyboard drawing and everything else to come up with what we think are good ideas that help brands put out their messaging. And I don't know if people have used AI creatively but it's just not good. Like you, rather lazily every now and again you'll ask ChatGPT to help pump up a script or you know, you're in a hurry so you just want it to support you in some capacity and it's no good. It doesn't get humorous, it doesn't get humour, it doesn't really get creativity and it doesn't help you generate ideas that are any used to, I think to a brand. That's my position. But maybe I'll if I could add

[C]

one thing to that, I think what AI does remind me of a little bit is in our earlier days we were to some degree having to outrun smaller businesses making content themselves on smartphones. And so you're, you're constantly trying to climb the ladder and get projects that require some real, you know, some real filmmaking. With AI now I think that's what's happening is. I think the idea that we should be scared about or worried about films made in their entirety with AI is maybe not so much the issue. It's more that the lower end stuff is being mopped up by small businesses or medium sized businesses who can now just produce. You know, you see them on Instagram, you can tell that the entire thing is AI generated. Maybe someone has dropped the logo on Photoshop or Illustrator or something. But if we were starting out now, that's where the struggle would be because there isn't that that sort of entry point first rung or it's not quite as easy to hop on because businesses can make these smaller, cheaper things.

[A]

Well that's happening to entry points right across the economy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Entry level jobs are affected in the same way because AI has been used to do those more simple tasks very effectively.

[C]

Exactly. And that's the problem is, and I

[A]

suppose the question is how far up the value chain will that ultimately go? Will it go all the way to the top and do my job? Your job? You know, the, the jobs of the creatives and the commissioners.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean will there be two computers sitting here talking to each other in 20 years time? Well, possibly. Will they do a better job? I don't know.

[B]

I mean as, as AI currently sits, I feel like it basically it is already two computers talking to each other and because they're not that good at it, it's getting worse. So any communication that it seems to be having with AI is like they're generating more errors and.

[A]

Right, and that's your experience.

[B]

That's what I'm that's my experience. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So you're not troubled by. In that way? Well, in a different way that it doesn't work very well.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But I mean, obviously, you know, we're at the. We're possibly at the forefront of it, but who knows? And, you know, it probably will only get better as time goes on, and that is a worry. But like, it's quite.

[A]

It's entirely possible it's been overhyped and the whole thing will come crashing down as some. Something that was sort of the Emperor's New Clothes.

[C]

There's one theory I quite like, which is that AI will break the Internet and that over the last 10 years or so. Well, there's a term. I'm not sure. The inshittification of the Internet is something that I think everyone experiences and the AI will actually hasten that and just make the Internet a place that no one wants to be anymore and maybe we'll all return back to reality. And I quite like that as an idea.

[A]

The inshitification.

[C]

That is an official term, by the way. I didn't just point out before.

[A]

No, but it's. I thought you were going to start going on about the singularity, but you didn't. Okay, the Internet, everyone, that's something that could be coming soon.

[C]

Well, it's. It's already happening.

[A]

You think it's already on.

[C]

AI might knock you on the head.

[A]

So someone needs to clean out the stables.

[C]

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

[A]

Where are you, Hercules? So, okay, so going forwards, Jack, from what I've heard so far, you do more of the sort of choreography, design.

[C]

Well, no, I want to be clear. Certainly, like, like Greg and I, when it comes to, you know, concepts and. And creativity, we're. We're very 5050 on that. But you particularly film projects.

[A]

I mean, we did a piece of music. You wrote it. I mean, you're being very nice to each other. Come on, let's get to the point. I mean, you can't do everything. Both of you. No, to be fair, I know it's called nice, but let's try and get some sort of clarity.

[B]

Hands up who does what.

[A]

I want to know.

[B]

To be fair, that campaign Jack wrote the theme music.

[A]

He did. I know that.

[B]

Sang the theme music.

[A]

He sang it to me.

[B]

He did everything. So. Yeah, but the initial ideation was very much collaborative, so what was the idea?

[A]

But, so this. This is our love. Monday's campaign. Mondays are working for me. You wrote a song. An Earworm, shall we call it? That has been quite widely played. That Lots of people know. But what was like, how did you get to that point from. I just probably said, I want to love Monday's ad.

[C]

Exactly. I mean, I think the, this is probably quite a good illustration of what often happens with projects, which is you talk to a client, they have a, a history of, you know, of their, their marketing and you're wanting to take from that, move it a step forwards. But you're also always playing a game between the two of us of, well, what do we want to do as filmmakers? You know, what would be fun for us and how can we make those two things overlap? And I mean, I remember, I think we were sat in a pub in London somewhere and we said, you know, how much fun would it be to do a big Technicolor style movie musical, you know, snippet for, For Love Mondays. And so you start there and then you kind of figure out, well, how can we, how can we make sure everyone's happy if we do this idea that we'd like to pursue so ends

[A]

up with a man jumping off a pink bus, sort of flash mob in Wembley somewhere.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Which is what I remember recording with you, which was great. I mean it was very interesting, that ad. I mean, I think the music. Great. I enjoyed the ad very much. It just went down badly on one program. Do you know what it was?

[B]

It was a darts.

[A]

It was the dance. Yeah. The people watching darts did not like that ad. I don't know why, but everyone else seemed to quite like it. But it was. There were a lot of angry comments on X, I think after the darts.

[C]

Well, this is where the media buying side is.

[A]

That was quite funny.

[B]

Well now, you know, playing or singing or dancing ad during darts.

[A]

So if anyone's doing a sort of cabaret style ad, don't put it on in the darts.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, play your standard Heineken and bet365 ads, you'll be fine.

[A]

Exactly, exactly. But overall it was a successful campaign for us. I'm very happy to share that. So people listening know it worked well.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But one of the things I liked about it was this multimedia aspect because it's very expensive putting ads on television. But if they're supported by out of home posters, you get much more value for your money. Really.

[C]

Well, we saw some out of home on the escalators on our way here. Yeah.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. Well, it was massive. Monday, just this week was the biggest day for job applicants in the year. So we tend to advertise at this time of year.

[B]

Oh, Very nice. Yeah.

[A]

So it's been a very busy week. So January and February, very busy for job applications.

[B]

It's a lot of fun that the ad still runs. Obviously, we have worked with a lot of the dancers that we worked with from the very beginning and we've reused them and taken their characters and given their characters new stories and new motivations across multiple campaigns for you now. And I regularly get WhatsApp messages from them saying, I'm on a massive billboard driving through Birmingham, you know, and I think that's very cool.

[A]

Well, good. I'm glad they like them.

[B]

Yeah, and I like it too.

[A]

So, I mean, part of our motivation was to give young people an opportunity in terms of making and performing in these ads because, you know, we want to help people progress in their jobs and careers as a business and that applies to the people who work with us as suppliers. So, you know, I was delighted that you were up for it and had the idea that you had. Yeah, the reasons I like you in the beginning is you weren't as expensive as the others because I still think

[B]

we're very cheap, James.

[A]

So, you know, you want to watch that because that's one of the problems with, with advertising or especially television.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, of course.

[A]

Expensive. I mean, the making of the ad and then the, the playing of it. Buying 30 seconds.

[B]

Yeah, of course. But I think, I think the thing that we probably excel at beyond TV is that as you say, because we're creating these multichannel ads for you, we're always thinking, okay, here's the, here's the expenditure, here's the spend. How much can we get from this? So, you know, where before maybe you'd only have a TV ad. Now we're thinking, okay, well, we have a TV ad, maybe we could have 30 seconds, but maybe we could have a 40 second cinema ad. And then we could also have the out of home and we could have social cut downs and we can have verticals for your phone. And we're already thinking about radio. So, you know, what used to be a huge spend just on a 30 second TV ad, we are now thinking a much smaller spend, but that we can push a lot further. And I think that's beneficial.

[A]

Well, there are many more channels now that people consume, so it makes more sense to do it that way. I suppose that's a big change in the market. So what else are you working on that you can talk about?

[C]

What can we talk about?

[B]

I mean, I think the big one for us right now is, I mean, we're recording this Just after Christmas. So this is a pre Christmas campaign, but we've been working with Itzu on a few campaigns which for us are the first time a organic campaign has gone what we consider sort of mega viral. So across the two campaigns that we shot for them towards the end of last year, they both achieved over 20 million organic views together. Together, yeah.

[A]

So what was going on?

[B]

Well, the, the one that. The, the big one and the one that probably most people will have seen because of how viral it did go was the Willesden Raider Christmas campaign.

[A]

I didn't see it, so describe it to me, please.

[B]

So it's an. So they. They're describing it as the anti Christmas ad. So ITU struggles with people wanting to go and eat dim sum and noodles pre Christmas and in January, it's not the sort of. No, exactly. People want their turkey and potatoes. They're not thinking about bao buns and chicken katsu. I don't know if they're dish, but let's say noodles and so it's not

[A]

a good time of year for Itzy.

[B]

So it's not a good time for Itzy. So that was the emphasis behind the ad. We'd already made an ad with the Willesden Raider, who is a gentleman who went viral Sort of 10 years ago for getting a bit silly at a football game, let's put it like that.

[A]

Willesden Raider. What football game? Who is the Wills?

[B]

Willesden is a very small football team, obviously, in North.

[A]

I know where Willesden is.

[B]

North East London. So it's a small Northwest.

[A]

London.

[B]

Northwest.

[A]

Sorry, yeah. It's near Harleston.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So Willesdon have a football team?

[B]

They have a small football team. I think they're in, you know, a Sunday league or like, you know, one of the smaller, smaller leagues. And I. So yeah, so he, he, he says some funny lines. You got no fans, you got lots of people know it. And also lots of people we were speaking to.

[A]

So you were aware of this before?

[B]

I actually wasn't and neither were Jack, like. Yeah.

[A]

So how did it come under your nose?

[B]

So we've been working with a data agency called Block Report and they basically generate for brands, these very heavily data led reports.

[A]

What you're saying, sort of blowing my mind. So you're trying to sell chicken Katsu in December and you're using a bloke from Willesden Football Club who used to shout abuse at the three opposing fans. Is that the concept?

[B]

Yeah, quite honestly, that was the concept. It's quite wild.

[A]

It's quite sort of. It's quite obscure.

[B]

Yeah, it. Really obscure.

[A]

Somehow it hit some note.

[C]

Well, it's speaking the language of the Internet. You know, it's meme culture. And in this case specifically, it's nostalgia meme culture. So, you know, this idea of organic candid moments with characterful individuals, you know, this has been around for 10, 15 years now and it's got its own history.

[A]

Okay, so organic candy moment with this individual. But what actually happens in this meme? Well, I mean, in the original meme, the one you made, what happens? Why did it go viral? I don't. Because I still can't see it in my mind.

[B]

I don't know why. I can't think that we have a specific reason when it viral, but it's kind of.

[C]

You mean the original one? We have to. I think we have to describe.

[A]

Jack. You have to describe it.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Okay, so.

[C]

So the original video, we're at a, you know, a low league football match and someone's winding someone else up. He became known as the Wealdstone Raider. But he was there sort of shouting relatively good natured abuse at the opposing team. And someone comes up to him, they're filming and his mate sort of prods him a bit and, you know, has a little chat. And the guy goes as if he's like, maybe gonna square up to have a fight with him. But he doesn't mean it. He's joking, but he's playing a part.

[B]

He's also five foot.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

He's a very small man.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

He's in on the joke, I think.

[B]

Plays to the humor of it.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he became like a beloved character. The idea was, okay, so his iconic line was, you want some? That then became, you want dim sum? And that. That was the inn. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Quite simply, it's, you want some, you want dim sum and that's the in. So then the Christmas.

[A]

So you then had to go and sell this idea to someone at Etsu?

[B]

No, it's a. Was already bought into the idea.

[A]

So they knew the line, you want some? Some dim sum?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So they just told you to go away and make it.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. So they. They gave us budgets to go away and make it. And then that went very viral. That did super well. And then pre Christmas they then wanted to do another ad. And so that, going back to what I was saying before, Itzu does very badly pre Christmas in terms, in comparison to the rest of the year. So they wanted to turn in they wanted to make an anti Christmas ad. Against the backdrop of John Lewis spending £5 million on an ad. They want to spend 0.001% of that to make a. To make a Christmas ad that had the same sort of messaging, but anti. And so, so this ad is basically the Willesden raider is trying to hand out dim sum pre Christmas, saying you want some, you want some dim sum. Handing out Christmas to a Christmas fair, a Christmas market. And yeah, I mean that's pretty much the whole ad. There's not much.

[A]

So if anyone wants to look at this as a sort of study in contemporary marketing that goes viral, where do they find this stuff?

[B]

On Itzu's Instagram.

[C]

Yeah. And TikTok.

[B]

And TikTok. Yeah. And you'll see that it's got hundreds of thousands of likes across the two.

[C]

And yeah, from a creative perspective, what was quite fun about it was the original ad. The objective was to imitate the original video as closely as possible. So even, you know, making the quality very bad, making sure the angles were right, the people walking in the background. The idea was that you might think you were watching the original artifacts and then to move away from that into a more clearly add space with the same character was a lot of fun.

[B]

And it didn't just get picked up by the general populace who seemed to apparently really connect with it. It also within, you know, the marketing community got really picked up as well and by other brands. Other brands seem to really like it and you know their. The retweet comment section below, it was all Greg's, Waitrose, et cetera, all commenting underneath it. Getting in on the gang that.

[A]

So that's good in a way for you. But they don't know who made it, they just know it's Itzu's. Yes, but how do you then use that as to your advantage as a. As nice the company?

[B]

Well, ultimately we then try if, if we see that interaction online with them, we will then try and approach their marketing company, the marketing.

[A]

So have you had any success with that subsequently?

[B]

We've had some good conversations. It hasn't so which honestly I'm kind of surprised by because the intersection between the person who runs the social media account who responds to a viral video to the marketing team within said company to then a cold email approach seems quite hard. But quite honestly, yeah, we've had some really good responses and from some relatively big brands they said, oh, that was you. That's great, let's have a conversation.

[A]

I mean I asked you earlier, how do you Stand out. I mean, if you can become known as the people who can make low budget ads that go viral, I'd have thought that's quite a good way to stand out. As a, as a person who buys commercials, I'd be interested in meeting people

[B]

who can do that 100% and hopefully that the adverts are sort of slightly charming and have like a fun edge to them that works.

[A]

So this is interesting to me for younger people who are thinking of doing this in the future. I mean, they can almost make these ads now with their phones for next to Nothing, can't they?

[B]

Yeah, 100.

[A]

And they perhaps should give it a go, which is sort of what you did, Gregory.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean I, I rode the same wave. I mean, I think ultimately that the, the slight difference to when I started. So I would say that there's sort of been that before. Before. So to give you the history of how we were able to get into this business and how the business has changed over the last 15 years, even though let's say actually, it's actually almost exactly two decades. So prior to 2005, the film industry was both film and commercial. Film was completely siloed because the technology was just so incredibly expensive. So you were either pre that filming on film or you were filming on Alexas and digital cameras, which were just astronomically expensive. So the process by which to hire them and have them on set, you needed cinematographers and cranes and et cetera and you needed assistance. It's a whole process. They needed lights, you know, they needed lights.

[A]

I think that was 20 years ago.

[B]

That was 20 years ago. And then what happened was, is the 5D came out, which was made by Canon and that democratized, democratized filmmaking in general because it was a five grand camera that created a very beautiful image that you could, that, you know, I mean, obviously five grand is still a lot of money, but it's not the

[A]

same as what you were just describing.

[B]

It's not the same as 150,000 plus a huge crew. So what happened then was, is that, you know, us in 2011, other cameras came out off the back of the 5D. That further democratize it. Like, you know, we're being filmed in here by a 7s, I think, which are made by Sony, which again I think are a couple of grand each. But they, they create a very lovely image and you could, you can shoot a film on that. You could, you can create short films, films, music videos, whatever it is you want to do. So, you know, you could save up A little bit of money, buy a camera, buy a lens, and you could call yourself a filmmaker, which is kind of what, when we were going to go back, that's what we were doing on the weekend. We bought relatively inexpensive camera cameras, we bought some cheap lights, and we made videos for social media and we made short films and we made music videos. And then what happened is, is that then you could then make films on your phone. And that was the next democratization of the whole thing. And like, obviously then video has just completely blown up. That everything's video now.

[A]

Well, YouTube's huge as well.

[B]

YouTube. YouTube is massive. Advertising on YouTube is massive. You know, obviously Google is basically the biggest marketing advertising company in the world. That's their main business model. And what. How that sort of affects us in some ways is that, yeah, it has further increased the democratization of filmmaking and allows young people just to go out and make films with their friends. You know, the thing is, is that Danny Boyle very famously shot the latest 28 Years later films on an iPhone. So you can shoot a Hollywood movie on a phone that you can get on a contract for, I don't know, 40 pounds a month. Obviously he had the whole crew and everything else to make it possible, but he still shot it on the iPhone. And then for him, it was because he shot the previous one on DV cams, which was the beginning of a bit of the democratization of filmmaking. But they just. The image quality wasn't very good, whereas the 5D's filmmaking quality was amazing. And then to now where your iPhone, film quality can be fantastic. And so my messages to people would be like, if you do want to get into making films and TV or advertising, just do it. Just take your phone, go and make a video with your friends. If you've got a friend who's, you know, it seems to me that, like, everyone wants to be the next gym shark. So they're making some hoodies, make some cool ads of the hoodies. You can shoot in slow motion on your phone. You can shoot in relatively poor light. You know, there's so much opportunity to make things and you can edit it in your phone. There's so much you can do there. So it's even more democratized. But for us as filmmakers, I think we've just got slightly lucky. As we were also saying earlier is like, we rode that 5D wave and we're able to start a business that has been able to supply both Jack and I with like, you know, a good living and like, creating work that we love. To make. And then we got that early. So then we were able to be a little bit above the iPhone. You know, phone filmmaking, part of the. Of the industry. So when people come to you now and, and you're then talking about the lower level work where people just are happy for an influencer to be shot on their phone, we. We sort of written risen above that beyond that again, which is great because I think if you were starting out now and you were expecting to be able to start a very successful marketing agency that primarily shot video, it probably is very hard because you are competing against other guys and girls coming out of university.

[A]

You need a good client, wouldn't you?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You need someone to say I'd like you to do this for me.

[B]

Exactly. And we got really lucky in that, you know, we had Reed and we have other agencies we work with and we have other brands that we work with. And you know, a big part of what we do is fashion and they.

[A]

The message for sort of businesses is to give young filmmakers a go. I mean, what's to lose actually?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean it's not gonna cost you a lot to make some of this.

[B]

No. And that's totally true.

[A]

There's a lot of places you can put it out there. And Itzu seemed to have done pretty well from doing this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What I imagine wasn't a huge budget.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So there's. So from. So the negative from your point of view is there aren't many barriers to entry to this business. But the positives for people think of getting going is it's definitely doable. There are challenges.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. And I think that's when I say we got lucky is we've kind of. We were kind of at the forefront twice in that I think it would be very hard to make a lot of money now. And obviously there are agencies who are coming through and have done very well. And I think especially the agencies that were very specifically influencer marketing led. A lot of those have sold over the last four or five years for tens, hundreds of millions off the back of using influencer marketing successfully. But I think less so. Production companies like ours who were sort of video first creative agencies because there are so many of them now that it's hard to then stand out. So you know, we just got very lucky to have relationships with.

[A]

Okay, so what's next for you guys?

[C]

That's a great question.

[B]

I mean, so we. So we're right in the middle of basically having a big rebrand from as we were saying, from nice productions to nice.

[A]

Because I mean, it doesn't sound that big.

[B]

No, I know. Well, it is for us. It is for us. It is big.

[A]

Rebrands go, what was it?

[C]

I mean, what a Repositioning.

[B]

Repositioning. Right.

[A]

So where does that take you?

[B]

Hopefully to the next level of the success that we want to be at, you know, but what, what is that? I mean, quite honestly, it's sort of two or three more reads focusing on customers. Yeah.

[A]

Who have multichannel requirements.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's, that's definitely, that's definitely the goal for us. You know, we have other friends in the industry who have taken, who've built businesses and taken them to that next level from us, which is, you know, basically for them is four or five reads scales. And then once you're at that point, you then have the scalability to take on more people in a new business role, which are obviously very vital because Jack and I don't really have that skill set. But we've actually taken on our first employee, Frankie, who's our new head of production. So she's been sorting us in a production role. But she's also a fantastic new businesswoman, so she's been doing great work for us, doing that. And then you can scale like, you know, we definitely need it. We definitely need a, probably a second full time editor because a lot of the time we just get too busy in all the other capacities. But cash flow wise, it's just hard for us to take on a full time employee when you're just not positive that, you know, especially for us, December, January, February.

[A]

Well, yeah, the income is intermittent, I suppose, because it depends when the project.

[B]

It's very cyclical and like we always know that December, January, February are just tough months. There's not that much going on. And then we know that August is completely dead. And I think if you, if you, if you, if you have the cash flow to start taking on employees, you just have to know that over those months it's not going to make you struggle and we're nearly there, you know, but for us it's just like a little bump and then we'll be safe and then it's an. But it's always been like that. I mean, you know, it was, for us, it was doing work for Bentley. That was the first bump for us because that gave us the kudos to. It was a chicken and egg situation where you couldn't work for big brands and you couldn't work for specifically like big luxury brands without having worked for a luxury brand. So getting to work with Bentley not only gave us the kudos to work with those brands, but it also seemed that it gave us kudos to work for other brands. Like for example, one of our big clients is the Intercontinental hotel chain and we've traveled around the world with them and done projects both here in London and across the world. And they're a fantastic client and we make, we love working for them and the work we make we really enjoy. But when we first met them, I don't think they would have spoken to us if we hadn't been already working for Bentley because prior to that we were working for small medium style.

[A]

So how did you get the Bentley gig?

[B]

Honestly? Nepotism. Jack's mum worked at the agency that.

[C]

Yeah, I had a connection to, to like a driving experiences agency. They used to call them like red letter days.

[A]

I don't think that's nepotism, that's just sort of context.

[B]

Yeah, no, of course, you know, exactly. I mean that's often the more you work in this industry as well, the more you realize that who you know is the biggest thing, the biggest part of the whole industry the most.

[A]

Asking people to introduce you to people.

[B]

Exactly, yeah. No, and it was, you know, they didn't have to take a chance on us. It's not as though, it's not as though they had to work with us just because we'd been introduced to them. No, of course not. We had a back catalogue of work that allowed them to trust us and they didn't have a huge budget because it was a new project for them. But it was also amazing for us because we got to fly out with a crew to Finland and we were filming the Arctic Circle and it was also probably for us the first time we worked on a project probably of that scale. So even though the budget wasn't amazing, again we probably over invested and took more people than we should. But the end product allowed us then to open more doors and probably even helped us meet you. And then from there we were able to scale up and then we able to meet Reed and then Reed was the next scale for us. So we went from being a video first social agency to then via Reed. We very much been able to massively push that. We're now a full service creative agency.

[A]

I mean it's clearly very important for your plans for the future to win more clients, to build your client base. You've mentioned that contacts are clearly helpful. What other techniques are you using or ideas are you deploying to help win clients? Gregory If I could ask you.

[B]

I mean it's the hardest part of any industry I think is, especially when you're sort of in the scaling phases to win new clients. But we, I think we use, we use all the current, current techniques available to us like from, from cold outreach, which generally speaking we don't think is particularly successful to, but to the. The most successful thing for us is ultimately is asking the clients that we already work with to introduce us and share our work with their wider network. And word of mouth is quite honestly 95% of our business, very small amount of it comes from SEO. You know, we get a few inquiries a year which turns into again a few jobs via just people. I'm not even sure what they'd be searching because I've never found our website online, but they do come across our desk. So you know that, that is something that we're probably going to look into, pushing more into the future. Yeah, LinkedIn proves to be a pretty, a pretty good place to be able to promote our work. So you know, for example, the Itzu campaign, we were able to use that to both approach brands and start conversations with other people because it, because of the virality of it, people were posting their own stories in their own stories about the work. So we were then able to jump on. So you know, a lot of people were sort of jumping onto the story in the way that was, worked well for us, where they were saying, look, you don't need to spend £5 million. Here's Itzu's latest campaign which has probably in some ways gone more viral than John Lewis has for like I said, 0.0000001% of the cost. People were posting messages in similar way and then we would jump in, hey, we were the guys who made that. If you would like to do similar work, get in touch. And that has been really quite successful for us. So you know there are, there are lots of other channels and, and to get new business these days, but nothing is better than word of mouth because

[A]

sounds like you, you, you really need to be on it though. You need to be super active and alive to making the most of opportunities as and when they arise.

[B]

100% super.

[A]

Because you're right, every business needs to be good at sales if it's going to succeed. And that like other question that's sort of in my mind is this creative process. I'm very interested in ideas, where they come from and how you develop ideas because ideas are so important again to every business, to innovation and to make a Good campaign. You're going to need good ideas. How do you. I don't like the phrase ideate. I think. I don't know where it comes from, but it's a sort of corporate speak, so we won't use that word. But how do you generate ideas and make sure that you get the best thinking creatively?

[C]

Well, I think, you know, we've now got 10 plus years of doing it together. So you might go away and have a few ideas, you know, by yourself and make a few notes and have a few, you know, things that you might ideally like to. Like to create, but then it's about sharing it between the two of us and, you know, maybe picking holes or, you know, strengthening things.

[A]

What is that process? I mean, how do you do that? You go into a office or do you go, what? What do you do?

[C]

It's not formalized at all, is it? I mean, it's. We've known each other a very long time.

[B]

Sometimes we do, we do think about formalizing it a bit more, but a lot of time it just.

[A]

So it's informal. I mean, I want to understand this because it's sort of important. Where do ideas come from? So yours is an informal process based on long period of knowing each other.

[B]

Yeah. And, you know, we'll create a shared doc where we will throw down ideas, however silly, however fun, however serious, depending on what the campaign is. And I think I sort of generate my best work sort of as I'm falling asleep or when I wake up first thing in the morning. I sort of, I do kind of have those creative epiphanies and I'll just get on the Google Doc and I'll. I'll throw down the idea, no matter how jumbled or gargled it is, and then message jack, like when you're up, have a look and.

[C]

Yeah, I'm always up later, apparently.

[A]

Sounds like it. Yeah. So you're. So you create as a repository for thoughts.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know, and it's not like that. Someone has an idea and you go, oh, that's not very good. It sounds to me that we are

[B]

quite mean to each other.

[A]

You are, but. But it sounds to me like you give enough space for the ideas to sort of be left and cogitate.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And you take ideas seriously because I think a lot of ideas get sort of killed off too early by people I've observed.

[C]

Well, you're trying to work out there's two main branches of whether or not something's interesting or captivating or fun or whatever. It is. And then whether or not you can pull it off, you know, so you've got to. You got to make sure you've got

[A]

both of those things, not the execution of the idea.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's definitely true a lot. And probably in our relationship, a lot of the time, one of us will throw down an idea and then the other will be like, okay, but are they gonna give us a million pounds? Because this is a million pound idea.

[A]

But this is a reason for having a partnership, I suppose.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because you wouldn't if it was. If you were. If you hadn't invited Jack to join you and Jack hadn't wanted to, you wouldn't have been able to do that on your own. Gregory.

[C]

Lost at sea.

[A]

Lost at sea. So you might. But you might have been in your own head, I suppose. But it's much more. There's a sort of dynamism by being a partnership that you'd have missed out on.

[B]

Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, we have a great working relationship and it works really well, so.

[A]

So someone who wants to make a similar journey or start a creative business in many ways, should be looking for the right partner to spar off, generate ideas with, and work with over a long period of time, because there are benefits arising from that. Would you agree?

[B]

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, from back in the day when I used to, you know, attend all these startup events, the conversation there was always about finding the right partner. In those spaces, it was all about finding the right technical partner. So if you were coming up, whatever it was, whatever the app was, if you were more of a creative ideas person, they were always talking about, find the right technical partner for you. And I think that's probably true of us, is that possibly I'm more of the technical partner and Jack's more of the creative partner. But together, my creative side complements both of our creative side, and my technical side probably complements Jack creative side more. So, like, between the two of us, we cover a lot of ground by having capabilities across the board, and that's

[C]

on the ideation side, but also all the way through. I mean, like on set or on location. Filmmaking is such a collaborative pursuit, and quite a large part of it is checking everyone else and making sure that problems have been spotted before they become problems. So whether it's something as simple as, well, in that last shot, he's looking left, so you better make sure that, you know, we do that or if it's something more interesting. But half the time you're just politely and, you know, quickly going, actually, no, so that's not right. We need to do this or we need to do that, so it goes all the way through.

[A]

So if people want to see your work or find out more about you, where should they go?

[B]

Nice Productions dot com. But imagine, surely, wait, because we're going to do a big website relaunch and then. Yeah, but obviously now go, go to nice-.com, but we are.

[A]

Have you got nice.com?

[B]

no, I wish. I think obviously you'll know this, but we looked at buying new website addresses and nice AI, I think, was £350,000.

[A]

Oh, that's much more expensive than. Read it.

[B]

I'm sure it was, yeah. Because obviously Nice is a bit more.

[A]

Your name is more desirable. You reckon?

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

All right, well, I'm glad.

[B]

But we do own Nice Dot Production and even though we are moving just to Nice, singularly, we're going to move to Nice Dot Productions as our. As our primary website.

[A]

But the most important thing is people know how to find you and they. And there's examples of your work there.

[B]

Yes, exactly. So Reed's on there, Bentley's on there, Intercontinentals on.

[A]

See what you do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, thank you both very much for coming in to talk to me this afternoon. I always end with the same two questions. I'm thinking I might ask one of you one and one of you the other. Or do you want to both answer? Both. Let's. Both of you can answer both. So the first question, which I ask all my guests, because at Reid, we love Mondays, you know, that is what gets you up on a Monday morning. And I'm going to start with you, Jack.

[C]

It's a lot easier to get up when we've got a fresh, juicy project, especially when you're at the beginning of it and there's all the potential and you're figuring out what you can do with this budget that someone's trusted you with. And like we were saying earlier, particularly with filmmaking, with marketing campaigns, it's this cycle and the earlier phase of it, when there's all that potential ahead, is probably the most exciting part for me.

[A]

That's what you like. What about you, Gregory? What gets you up on a Monday morning?

[B]

Quite honestly, I get off very early and go to the gym. That's what gets me up.

[A]

What's very early for you? Just so we know, just shutting off.

[B]

I tried to leave between 6 and 6:30. Right, yeah.

[A]

And then I was up doing a bit of training at 6:30, so yeah.

[B]

Good for you.

[A]

So the next question, and the last one is in my interview, but why you? Where do you see yourself in five years time? I'll ask you this first, Gregory.

[B]

In five years time, quite honestly, looking at other businesses who, you know, similar in size and scale, I would really like to be at the point where we had 10ish employees and we were making just bigger and better ads that people hear about and love.

[C]

And I'll be right by your side, Gregory.

[A]

So you want the same thing, do you?

[C]

Absolutely, of course.

[A]

That's good because you're a partnership. It'd be a problem if you didn't. You want the same. Well, that's fantastic. Well, I wish you every success and I hope you achieve that objective. I see no reason why you shouldn't. And it's very nice of you to come in and talk to me. And also thank you for making our commercials, which has been a pleasure working with you. I'm very happy to endorse you to anyone listening as a good partner. So thank you so much, very much.

[B]

Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

[A]

Thank you, Gregory. And thank you, Jack, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reed, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to learn more about Nice productions, Gregory Nice and Jack Stanton and their work on campaigns including Reed, you'll find all the links in the show notes. Thanks for listening and see you next time.