Effective brand-building with Grace Kite

Summary

Let’s Talk Branding: Effective Brand-Building with Grace Kite

Episode Information:

• Title: Effective Brand-Building with Grace Kite
• Host: The Brand-Building Podcast by Stef Hamerlinck
• Guest: Professor Grace Kite, Founder of Magic Numbers
• Release Date: September 22, 2024

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of "Let's Talk Branding," host Stef Hamerlinck engages in a deep conversation with Professor Grace Kite, the founder of Magic Numbers and Magic Works. Grace is a renowned expert in econometrics and marketing effectiveness, bringing valuable perspectives on how data-driven strategies can enhance brand-building efforts. The discussion aims to demystify econometrics and provide practical advice for marketers seeking to measure and improve their campaigns' effectiveness.

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Defining Marketing Effectiveness

Grace Kite kicks off the conversation by addressing the fundamental question: What does it mean for marketing to be effective?

Grace Kite [00:48]: “Effectiveness really means that it does that whatever it was you set out, that happens afterwards.”

She elaborates that marketing effectiveness hinges on achieving predefined objectives, which can range from raising brand awareness and enhancing knowledge to driving sales and increasing profits. Grace highlights the importance of setting clear communications, behavior, and commercial objectives at the outset to effectively measure success.

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Understanding Econometrics in Marketing

The discussion transitions to econometrics, with Grace explaining its pivotal role in assessing marketing effectiveness.

Grace Kite [02:07]: “At its heart, Econometrics is using data to understand effectiveness. So did it work or not?”

Grace describes econometrics as the gold standard for analyzing the impact of marketing activities. Unlike simple comparative analyses that might overlook concurrent factors (e.g., competitor actions or seasonal trends), econometrics employs advanced statistical methods to isolate the true effect of marketing efforts. This ensures a more accurate and nuanced understanding of what drives business outcomes.

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Scaling Econometrics for Small and Mid-sized Businesses

Stef inquires about the practicality of econometrics for businesses of varying sizes, particularly medium and small brands.

Grace Kite [04:29]: “If you're selling candles and you do Facebook ads, you're going to be able to see that when you put a Facebook ad on, you sell more candles.”

Grace explains that while very small businesses with straightforward marketing activities might manage without complex econometric analyses, growing businesses that diversify their marketing channels benefit significantly from econometrics. As marketing strategies become more layered—incorporating multiple platforms like paid search, radio, and online ads—econometrics becomes essential for disentangling the effects of each channel and optimizing overall marketing performance.

Grace Kite [06:43]: “You don't have to be huge. ...and they've come on to do econometrics with us and it's been brilliant and they're going on to bigger and better things because of it.”

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Evolution of Marketing Channels and Their Effectiveness

The conversation shifts to the evolution of marketing channels over the past decade and their varying effectiveness.

Grace Kite [09:13]: “The capabilities of marketing to be able to do that in a... in an effective way have massively, massively changed and massively, massively improved.”

Grace argues that while fundamental marketing channels like TV and radio still operate similarly, online advertising has revolutionized the marketer's toolkit. Digital platforms offer precise targeting, real-time analytics, and cost-effective strategies that enhance the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. This shift has empowered marketers to reach the right audiences at the right times with tailored messages, significantly improving return on investment (ROI).

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Brand Building in the Digital Age

Stef probes into the challenges of brand building amid the rise of digital and social media, questioning whether the focus on conversion-oriented media has impacted long-term brand development.

Grace Kite [09:48]: “You need them to be primed when they see that conversion oriented ad. And that's what brand building really does.”

Grace emphasizes that brand building remains crucial, especially in the digital era where performance marketing tools are prevalent. Effective brand building creates a foundational awareness and consideration that performance marketing can then leverage to drive conversions. She highlights the necessity of maintaining a balanced marketing mix that integrates both brand and performance strategies to ensure sustained growth and brand loyalty.

Grace Kite [11:17]: “The challenge for future marketers... is how to stitch together lots and lots of little exposures on lots and lots of different places into something that adds up to a brand experience.”

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Creativity in Advertising and AI’s Role

The role of creativity in advertising is explored, particularly in relation to the explosion of digital channels and the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Grace Kite [16:02]: “The best thing that you can do to supercharge your campaign is to improve the creative.”

Grace underscores the critical importance of creative excellence in capturing and retaining audience attention in a fragmented media landscape. She cites studies indicating that superior creative content can dramatically enhance campaign effectiveness. The discussion also touches on AI's potential to assist marketers by automating routine creative tasks, enabling human creatives to focus on high-level ideation and strategic development.

Grace Kite [18:55]: “AI might be able to be the thing that tailors it to lots and lots of different spaces and produces a million executions.”

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Budget Planning for the New Year

As the episode nears its conclusion, Grace offers practical advice on planning and budgeting for the upcoming year.

Grace Kite [19:32]: “Spend 5 to 10% of revenue. And that's quite a good starting point if you've got a completely blank page.”

Grace discusses various budgeting strategies, noting that approaches vary widely across organizations. She highlights common methods, such as performance-based budgeting in e-commerce and ratio-based budgeting where CFOs require a specific return on investment (ROI). Grace emphasizes the importance of aligning budget planning with business objectives and having the flexibility to adapt strategies based on performance data.

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Balancing Campaign Presence and Consistency

Stef asks about maintaining a consistent presence versus launching intermittent campaigns, especially in a multi-channel environment.

Grace Kite [23:10]: “Having a consistent presence works better than being kind of off then on, then off then on.”

Grace advises marketers to maintain a steady presence across channels to build and sustain brand recognition. Consistency in both presence and creative messaging ensures that each interaction reinforces the brand, creating a cohesive and memorable experience for the audience. She recommends developing a strong, adaptable creative idea that can be consistently refined and applied across various platforms.

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Common Mistakes in Brand Campaigns

Grace identifies frequent mistakes marketers make in brand campaigns, providing actionable insights to avoid them.

Grace Kite [24:46]: “People try to over explain what their product is... Other hand... wasting that kind of initial bit at the beginning of the ad by not getting to the point.”

Common errors include over-explaining the product, leading to cluttered and ineffective messaging, and failing to capture attention quickly, which results in wasted ad space. Grace emphasizes the importance of clear, concise, and engaging content that resonates with the target audience without unnecessary complexity.

Grace Kite [26:38]: “A really good agency wouldn't do. But you do see it particularly for E-commerce brands.”

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Getting Started with Econometrics: Resources and Advice

For marketers interested in delving deeper into econometrics, Grace provides valuable resources and recommendations.

Grace Kite [28:47]: “Magic Numbers created a report which is a kind of how to guide for people who are considering econometrics.”

Grace mentions that Magic Numbers offers comprehensive guides and courses, such as Scaling Up Works and DataWorks, designed to equip marketers with the skills needed to effectively utilize data and econometric techniques. She encourages listeners to reach out via LinkedIn for access to these resources and to explore Magic Works Training for more structured learning opportunities.

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Stef thanking Grace for her valuable insights, reinforcing the importance of data-driven strategies and creative excellence in effective brand-building.

Grace Kite [30:25]: “Massive pleasure.”

Grace reiterates her commitment to supporting marketers through educational resources and courses, ensuring that listeners have the tools they need to enhance their brand-building efforts through econometrics and data analytics.

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the conversation between Stef Hamerlinck and Grace Kite, highlighting key discussions on marketing effectiveness, the role of econometrics, creative strategies, and practical budgeting advice. Notable quotes with timestamps provide additional depth, making the summary both informative and engaging for those who haven’t listened to the episode.

Transcript

[A]

At its heart, Econometrics is using data to understand effectiveness. So did it work or not?

[B]

Hey, everyone. In this episode, we're talking with Professor Grace Kite, founder of Magic Numbers and a specialist when it comes to econometrics and effectiveness. So buckle up and let's Talk Branding.

[A]

I'm Dr. Grace Coite. I'm the founder of Magic Numbers and Magic Works. And together those two bring people friendly analytics, practical training to help marketers drive growth.

[B]

Love that. I know you talk a lot about effectiveness in marketing, but maybe like, I always like to zoom out a bit in the beginning, like, what does it even mean to be effective?

[A]

It means that the marketing that you're doing and your advertising in particular is. Does what it sets out to do. And that could be a range of different things. I guess the word effectiveness started to be bought into the vernacular by the IPA with their effectiveness awards. And actually when you write one of those awards papers, it's going on at the moment, actually. The shortlist has just come out and there's going to be a load of lovely awards dished out in October. So kind of top of mind for probably some of your listeners. But the guidance is to set out a range of objectives at the beginning, like communications objective, a behavior objective and a commercial objective. And those can be all kinds of things, from awareness to knowledge of a certain positioning or, you know, and then on the commercial side, it can be sales, so growth, or it could be profits, which sometimes that's a different decision, a different choice. It could be that you're quite a patient marketer and actually all you're really after at this point is awareness and consideration. So there's a range of different things that it could mean. And effectiveness really means that it does that whatever it was you set out, that happens afterwards.

[B]

Yeah. And I think it brings us a bit like, because obviously everything that has to do with measuring effects of advertising and brand building and all of this stuff gets into the weeds of what is called econometrics sometimes. Like, I. I think it's a very interesting field, but to be honest, like, every time I start going into rabbit hole, I'm like, no, it's too deep. I'm getting out again. Like, can you explain us in layman terms what, what this is about and like, what we need to know?

[A]

So at its heart, Econometrics is using data to understand effectiveness. So did it work or not? And Econometrics is the gold standard of that type of adventure. I guess we think of it as a fun adventure at Magic numbers. And the reason why it's the gold standard is because a lot of the times when you think, did it work? You put two things alongside one another. You put the activity, the advertising that you did, and then the outcome that you want. And you go, well, I'll do these things. When, when this changed, did this change? And that's fine, and that's a good, good, good thing to do. And everybody should be doing that with their campaigns. But the trouble is that sometimes when you do do that, what you find is that the outcome you're interested in doesn't look on the surface like it's changed that much. And perhaps it's because something else happened at the same time. So, you know, you did an amazing TV campaign and everyone loved it, but at the same time, your competitor did a price promo and you don't know whether the TV had a really good effect, but the price promo offset it, or whether actually the TV didn't work at all. And what Econometrics does is not only put alongside each other the activity you did, the outcome you want, but also all the other things that are going on at the same time. And it just uses numbers to crunch all of that. Untangle it.

[B]

Like how, at what scale should you start considering, like bringing in the experts of this field of. I don't know, I guess in big organizations you can do this in house. But I'm wondering mostly from like a perspective of medium or small brands, is it, is it realistic to think about this or not worth the effort?

[A]

Even so, I mean, actually if you're a really, really small brand or a really, really small business, you know, you probably don't need to untangle that much stuff because you're simple, your business probably quite simple. So if you're kind of somebody who's started a business, you're selling candles and you do Facebook ads, you're going to be able to see that when you put a Facebook ads on, you sell more the candles. Right. And it's not rocket science, but you know, at some point where actually you're, you've got a kind of. And I'm thinking of an online business here. But typically what happens as online business grows is you then stack on top of the Facebook ads that work well, some paid search and some, maybe you go on the radio and you put some posters in a particular area. And actually at that point you then go, well, I can see sales have gone up, but I don't know which did which. And actually the world's changed. I've got A competitor. Now the, the. There's some seasonality to, to unpick and at that point where your marketing budgets got a bit bigger and you've got a stack that you do need to untangle, that's when it's really worth it. And I'll tell you a story about a lovely business that we've been working with at Magic Numbers recently. They sell ski holidays and they've got this really cool. It's such a cool algorithm. You can put in the week you want to go and it'll tell you where the snow is going to be, where the best snow is, and book your holiday all in one.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Fabulous. Yeah, they're so cool. They're tidy and they're, they're. They're in that moment where actually it's suddenly become worth doing, doing econometrics. And we met them through our Scaling Up Works course, which is designed for people that are at that, that, that moment in your life of a business, but maybe not ready for analytics or don't budget and, and that, that course does actually give you quite a lot of what you need to know. But that's how we met id. And then they've come on to do econometrics with us at Magic Numbers and it's been a. It's been brilliant and they've got so much out of it and they're going on to bigger and better things because of it. So you don't have to be huge.

[B]

Hmm, interesting. Yeah. Because I think that's often like, I think it's what you say about, like, you have to look at what you want to achieve and then, like, make the right relations and make sure you have all the context. It's not always about expensive brand tracking or fancy analytics. It's more about understanding what you want to achieve and how you do that, maybe. Because I think when we are talking about effectiveness, very often it's about channels. There's like, you know, you need to go on that channel and you need to do that or you need to go away from that channel. Like, TV is often mentioned in these discussions, social media, ads, all of this. Like, what have you seen in terms of, like, evolution going, let's say, from 10 years to today, like, what has changed there in terms of effectiveness of channels?

[A]

Yeah, so I said, that's a really good question. I saw a question like this on LinkedIn the other day where somebody had said, oh, nothing's really changed. You know, the fundamentals are all the same, people are still the same. And actually the world hasn't really moved on that much in the last 20 years. And to some extent that's kind of true. You know, major channels sort of work in the same way. You either sit forward or you sit back. You're either, you know, interested in wanting to spend time with a story or you're kind of scrolling through it, you know, something so you only see a flash of the ad or driving past it in your car so you only see the flash of an ad. And so those things are much the same. But to say that nothing much has changed over that period is just for me, flat out wrong. Like loads of things have changed. But I think the most important one is that the, you know, online advertising has brought us a new set of tools which allow you to do direct marketing, to get a response straight away, to reach the right people who are in market at the right time with a good message, interrupt their purchase journey. The capabilities of marketing to be able to do that in a, in a cheap way, in a, in a effective way have massively, massively changed and massively, massively improved. And to kind of deny that that has improved things for marketers is kind of wrong for my money.

[B]

Interesting. And like, I think on the one hand, like there is also, at least from, from what I've seen and what I've read, like with this rise of digital media, there's also been a lot of discussion about maybe we forgot how to build brand at scale because you know, the type of media that you put out there is very conversion oriented often, not always, but that's at least what we've seen at scale. So how do you feel about like brand building in this era of digital social media?

[A]

So it's still super, super important because, and this is something that we sort of go into in the scaling artworks course because it's all about what's the right mix of brand and performance. You do need to have both if you sell online and the two things do work together. And the thing to know is that the performance marketing tools that have come out, that search and social tools that are really good at conversion, they don't work unless there's some people to be converted, right? Those people have got to be at least vaguely warm to, to buying from you because a search or social ads kind of by its nature isn't really going to convince anyone. It's kind of text ads on a search screen or if it's a social ad like it's people are going to spend seconds with it. And for that, for that reason you need them to be primed when they see that conversion oriented ad. And that's what brand building really does. But I do think brand building has to be different in this era.

[B]

Like is it the case that because we, let's say TV is losing some weight here for big brands, how do you think in the future they will be able to still like build brand at scale? Because it's not easy in a very splintered landscape.

[A]

Yeah, and it's true. And I think, I think this is actually a very, very worrying thing for marketing that TV isn't able to do what it used to do at the scale it used to be able to do it. And you know, I've looked at the data on Bob for this recently and you used to always be able to say, oh yeah, 16-34s don't watch TV that much anymore, but you can get them on Bvoid but everybody else is still there. And even that isn't true. Now if you look at the, you know, my parents age group are watching Netflix and you can see that involved that the linear watching, the linear viewing for even those age groups is declining quite rapidly. And at the same time, as you say, a whole stack of new channels is available that can be used in lots of different ways. I think it's something that we as a, as an industry, as a marketing industry have to accept. You know, there's no going back. There's no sort of saying if only we could make funnier ads on tv, we could go back to how things used to be. It just that isn't the way it's going to be. Like the nostalgia isn't helping anyone. And I think that how we have to accept that there are lots and lots of different channels and to accept but to remember that there are synergies between channels and that has been proven. Media plans that use sort of five channels work better on an ROI basis than media plans that only use one or two. And so with those synergies and with lots and lots of media channels at our disposal, the challenge for brand building in the future is, is how to stitch together lots and lots of little exposures on lots and lots of different places into something that adds up to a brand experience. And that I think is the challenge that future marketers will have to be able to tackle to do brand building and therefore successful marketing.

[B]

Well, yeah, it's interesting. I saw this stat yesterday where it said like YouTube is, has overthrown Netflix in terms of like audience and watch time, which is interesting. And I have a question related to that. Like I, I think what I've seen on YouTube, the channels that are really growing the fastest are often like people that are very creative, very entertaining and in a way that's like what has worked on TV as well and what we've seen in some effectiveness studies on like, ads. How, how do you look at the role of like creativity in advertising linked to this?

[A]

Yeah, and I think that's, I think that's a really good point because in this kind of modern world that we're in where you know, people aren't watching a TV program and there's this only two other channels, so it's a program that they, they really want to watch and they'll wait for the second half of it so they will sit through the adverts and watch a 30 second ad. When we're not in that, that world anymore, we have to be, we have to work harder as, as marketers to have advertising that people want to spend time with and to have brands that people want to have spend time with. So if you need lots of little exposures that work together, you need something that is consistent and so matching luggage. Branding really matters across all those platforms. So the creative challenge is as much about branding as it is about advertising. And with advertising itself, with the content that goes into it, it just needs to be something that people want to spend time with. So being entertaining, being doing the right thing for the platform that you're on. So don't try and make something that's really long if it's a, if you're on TikTok and you know, a range of different things that work for different people on different platforms. So creative really, really, really does matter. And you know, I saw a study recently that said the best thing that you can do to supercharge your campaign is to improve the creative so you can get you, you know, there was a ranking that someone called Dyson did and he went back through lots and lots of research saying of all the times when something's changed in all of the case studies that are out there, what's the improvement in effectiveness that's been seen? Creative changing from something that's not so good to something that's great has the biggest, biggest multiplier on effectiveness of all.

[B]

The things he considered interesting. And like, I'm wondering whether that's something you have seen as well as you're like doing a lot of research, working with companies. Personally, like, I think an interesting shift is like a lot of more companies are starting to develop like creativity capacity in house because they're able to ship faster, do more like. I don't know if you have a point of view on this, but do you see there an evolution there as well with like the amount of channels and the amount of time it takes to produce these things that there is going to be a shift towards more in house creativity or is that just maybe my pov because I'm very close to a specific context.

[A]

Yeah, I. You're right to say that the volume of executions that are needed has gone up massively. Like so you've got to tailor your campaign to lots and lots of different spaces in lots of different ways and make it matching and make it compelling and all of those kind of things. So I mean you're probably closer to this than I am, but I would make. So maybe I can ask you a question about it. Sure. What, what, what do you think about the idea that, you know, it will. It will always be human's job to come up with the campaign idea, but actually AI might be able to be the thing that tailors it to lots and lots of different spaces and produces a million executions. What's your thoughts on that?

[B]

I think it might be the case that indeed Gen AI will at least enable people that maybe have strong ideas, a good sense of taste to go a lot further than what we do today. Because you're able to Maybe generate video, 3D audio, imagery based on what you think is right for the brand. So in a way, and then indeed like if that is dynamic and able to easily adapt to formats, we might be able to skip some like some vendors in there. I think that's definitely gonna happen. I already see it today in my work, like how I'm using Genai. It's not like it's everywhere and it's easy to use and you still need to put in a lot of work and a lot of thought and creativity and craft. But there is definitely something happening there for me.

[A]

Brilliant. I've heard the same thing in other places and my hope is that it will enable really creative people like yourself to be relieved of kind of some of the drudgery of creating loads and loads of different kind of permutations of the same thing and allow more time for humans to really focus on the bit that only humans can do, you know, coming up, fantastic ideas and beautiful things.

[B]

Yeah, maybe to turn the tables a bit. Like we're coming around to like September, October, almost end of the year. Like I think a lot of marketers are in this phase where they're looking back, but also starting to look ahead to the new year. Like, what advice do you have for people to start planning budgeting for a new year of marketing? How do you look back? I know this is a very broad question, but I'm curious to at least your point of view on it.

[A]

It's really interesting because I've had a bit of a journey on this point and it is the right time of year. We're starting to see spiders in the garden. So marketing people are starting to think about next year's, know next year's budget. That's the moment when it starts to happen.

[B]

It's good that you say that. I was, I saw a lot of spiders, but now I will have the reflex.

[A]

That's it. Yeah. Spiders budgeting. Poor spiders, there they are making their webs, completely unaware of their significance in world marketing. But yeah, I guess I've had a little bit of a journey on it because I started my career obviously doing econometrics. And there's technical, analytical ways of saying what happened in the past, what was the cost of that, what was the benefit of that? And therefore what sort of things should we put on the plan next year and what sort of things should we leave off the plan next year? And I guess that is one way of going about it. Another way of going about it is to get a rule of thumb. And you know, there are. I kind of recently did a really good review of all of the evidence on what's the right rule of thumb if you want to maximize ROI and that there is a sort of spend 5 to 10% of revenue. And that's quite a good starting point if you've got a completely blank page. Also this year I've been doing some interviews with CFOs and I've been really surprised to hear how CFOs think budgeting. And it's very different in very different organizations. And it's, there's, there's just a range. So a lot of E commerce businesses go, you know, as long as I'm getting a roas, the budget is, the budget is, is infinite. We can spend as much as we want as long as the dashboards tell us that's paying back. So there's no budget. Then there's other, other CFOs that say it's too hard to track marketing budget through to sales. So we'll just stick with the same number that we always do and that people do that. That's another way of doing it. And you know, other CFOs still, and probably this is the majority go I just need a payback of some ratio. I need to kind of, I need to be comfortable that it, it's going to, you know, bring back double what I spend or something like that. And it'll be a really loose ratio and then they'll trust their CMO to get on with providing that. So, you know, it's really, it's really interesting actually. There's lots of different ways that people set their budgets and the analytical kind of nerdy way that I started with is only one of those and it's not even probably the main one.

[B]

Yeah, and I like what I find interesting in this exercise is like looking back at like campaigns that you have done over the year and then analyzing whether it's time to scale them up or maybe kill them or maybe maintain them as they are. And that exercise in combination with like always finding a balance of like, are we on enough throughout the year at the right channels. I think that's a, that's for me it's a very interesting challenge. And I'm wondering your take on like in general looking at how much to be, you know, making noise, how, how frequently to be making campaigns versus the, the reach and the, the amount of noise you make per campaign. Like what is in your opinion, like a good balance to strike.

[A]

So I mean generally the evidence shows that if you can afford it, having a consistent presence works better than being kind of off then on, then off then on. And that's just kind of the way the numbers sort of stack up on a, in a general case. And the thing I would add to that is that you can be consistent in your creative idea. So get a good one and then really stick to it and really bet on it over a number of years. That is also something that always works out well because you can really refine that idea and that way of doing things over time and it will bed into people's minds and you know, customers don't get bored as bored as quickly as marketers do. So I would say that those are probably two really key things to kind.

[B]

Of bear in mind, like going back to brand campaigns. And I mean we talk a lot about brand building. I do at least. And it's this, you know, abstract concept. I think we all know that somewhat it means like we're looking at long term impact, emotional awareness. There's a lot of things linked to that. And I'm wondering if you have seen like some common mistakes that marketers make when like coming up with, with these types of campaigns. Like is there a thing that you See, coming back all the time, it's a leg. No, no, that's, that's.

[A]

I mean, yeah, I think people try to over explain what their product is and you know, I, I do a lot of, I do a lot of speaking at various conferences and things and you know, I, I can do that as well because I've got, I've got quite nerdy material and I try to make sure my audience gets it. So I do explain and I got some, some speaker coaching and my speaker coach said to me, look, you don't need to explain every single chart as much as you're doing because people aren't stupid. They get it. And I think that can happen in, in, in, in, in advertising as well. And I think the other thing is that, you know, so on one hand there's over explaining and then the other hand there's kind of wasting, you know, wasting that kind of initial bit at the beginning of the ad by not getting to the point or not getting to something catchy quickly enough. So that's another one that can happen. So I mean, I evaluated an ad many years ago and I won't tell you who it's for, but it was, they were selling garden furniture and the ad opened with two men standing in a forest looking at a compass. And the, the idea was don't spend your weekend in a forest getting lost with a compass. Spend it in your garden on our nice garden furniture. But you know, first of all, garden furniture nearly always bought by women. Right? You know, yeah, the, the two men lost in a forest looking at compasses. It's just, and, and that, you know, you said about kind of advertising and marketing being done in house. I think that's the sort of thing that a really good agency wouldn't do. But you do see it particularly for E commerce brands.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I think indeed, like you see it very often, especially in like B2B. It's even worse where like the advertising is really like something only people in the company would probably get, which is of course not the right way to look at it. Like maybe you have some ideas there as well. Like when thinking about the ads and the messaging that goes into them, what type of like research or insights are you looking for to drive that, that creative?

[A]

Yes, I mean, I guess I, I'm probably not the biggest, biggest expert on, on how to get creative. Right. And I would hold my hand up and say there is a certain part of it that's just a little bit of magic that comes from people. And you know, the epic ads that I've seen and evaluated and seen fantastic response to, like, for example, we have Yorkshire Tea as a client and their, their proper campaign with lucky generals is just fantastic. But that, that idea to go, you know, we'll, we'll get people who are famous and massively overqualified and give them jobs in, in the Yorkshire thq, which will make everyone realize that the tea's fantastic. But that idea, that leap of creativity, I just don't think there's any recipe for that.

[B]

Yeah, I totally agree. It's just, and I like that about, like, what Rory Sutherland often talks about. It's very alchemic almost how these things happen. And there is indeed no straight formula for it. You just have to try these things. Maybe like trying to wrap it up. But I, I would like to know, like, I think a lot of people are interested in understanding econometrics a bit better, but like, if you're a marketer or brand strategist or somebody listening to this podcast, even a founder or whatever, like, where. What is the, the starting point? Like, where. What would you recommend reading or doing to get a better understanding of this field?

[A]

So I actually think this is a really important area that there needs to be some stuff for people to be able to refer to and get into, which is not too technical and not too nerdy. And I have tried a little bit to kind of fill that gap. So there is. We Magic Numbers with War created a report which is a kind of how to guide for people who are considering econometrics. It sort of tells you what it does, but more than that, it tells you how to, how to commission it, how to get it right when you need it, how to make the business case and all those kinds of things. And if any of your listeners reach out to me on LinkedIn, I will send it to you free. So it's normally behind the warfare, but friends of mine can be free.

[B]

That's cool.

[A]

And the other thing just to say is that we offer these two courses. There's two in October. I mentioned the Scaling Upworks course to you earlier. The other One is called DataWorks. And it's really for what, what marketing people need to know about data. How to make a killer chart, how to make a stat that people remember as a rule of thumb. And how to not be misled, how to ask good questions and answer them with data. And also how, how and when to commission analytics. So if you rather, you know, join a kind of live course with other people learning the same thing, that that's there in October as well. And your listeners could check out Magicworks Training, which is our website.

[B]

Amazing. We'll put that all in the show notes, of course. Thank you so much, Grace, for coming on. This was fun.

[A]

Massive pleasure.