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- [00:01]
Adam Ferrier
And I reckon there was a correlation between the number of people who said we're customer obsessed and the blandness of the brand they were working with.
- [00:08]
Unknown Host
Hey, everyone. Today we're chatting with advertising legend Adam Farrier about the importance of not listening to the customer. This is an interesting one. So buckle up and let's talk branding.
- [00:26]
Adam Ferrier
My name is Adam Ferrier. I'm a consumer psychologist and co founder of Thinkerbell. And yeah, that'll do.
- [00:36]
Unknown Host
I like it short and snappy. So your most recent book is called Stop listening to the customer. And that triggered me, and I guess it triggered a lot of other people because usually, like, we're used to hearing about be hyper obsessed about your customer and the customer is what marketing is about. Like, maybe explain to us a bit like what led you to this path and maybe this statement of the book.
- [01:04]
Adam Ferrier
Yeah, so the statement grew on me as I do a lot of public speaking and I go in and I have to hear about what that organization does. And I get given the organization's values. And every single time I went into these organizations, I'll say, you know, customer obsession is a key value of ours. And at first I heard, yeah, sure, really? You're really customer obsessed. Would you operate like this if you were customer obsessed? And then I heard it over and over again and it just down. It started to sound really, really thin. And I reckon there was a correlation between the number of people who said we're customer obsessed and the blandness of a brand they were working with. And I hate the whole concept of human centered design, which I haven't liked for years because it makes things really efficient for the consumer. But there's no way to build your brand in that whole kind of methodology. And so there's a few different data points. I was thinking, oh, my God, the whole world is going a bit nutty thinking about the consumer and they're not thinking about their brand and what their brand stands for. And their brand contributes to the world enough. So the actual title of a book is Stop listening to the customer. Try hearing your brand instead. The try hair in your brand instead bit is written really small on the COVID because I just think you have to stop and actually listen to what your brand stands for more than what the customer voice is. And the customer voice in business is very, very loud at the moment. What your brand stands for is disappearing.
- [02:36]
Unknown Host
Yeah, that's very interesting. Do you have any thoughts about how that actually came to be, that this whole customer obsession, where did it came from at the first place?
- [02:48]
Adam Ferrier
Yeah. So It's a, that's a lovely question because when I started in advertising, we got used to get given the brand positioning as part of the brief and the brand artifacts and the toolkit on how to build the brand and all the, you know, the features and benefits and personality and tone and all of that kind of stuff was packaged up and given to us as a brief. Now, very often all of that stuff is saying, oh, we've got a brief, but we need to work all that kind of stuff out as well. And so I think the brand intelligence of businesses and how they've structured their brands has decreased. And I think they've decreased at the same time as their level of customer insights and their consumer insights division has grown. And we can now measure everything about the consumer. And we've got, you know, we have data lakes and we massive kind of systems and processes dedicated to understanding the customer and the customer journey and customer journey mapping and customer obsession, all this kind of stuff. And so I see the knowledge of a customer going up as the knowledge of our brand, what our brand stands for. I'm trying to do these two inverse relationships with my hands is going down. So that to me is at least a inverse correlation, if not a causation.
- [04:09]
Unknown Host
Interesting. Like, I think there, there's, like, we're. What's interesting to me is that you, you said, like, we should be listening more to our brand instead of our customer. Like what a lot of people, I think intuitively would say. But yeah, but your brand is all about your customer. Some people even say, like, your brand is what your customer says it is. You know, it's the gut feeling about your brand. There's a lot of these feelings, fancy definitions floating around. Like, how would you respond to that point? Is it not like a circle, circular argument?
- [04:43]
Adam Ferrier
Yeah, I think a strong brand always marries what customers want with what we make. And if those two things overlap and not too many other people are doing them, we should have a successful business. But I think the power imbalance or the balance between those two things has gotten out of whack. So people like Mark Ritson speak a lot about market orientation and making sure that the whole business is orientated towards the market and what they have to, who they're communicating to or who they're creating products and services to. And I subscribe to that. I think you have to understand your customer. I think you have to understand what people's needs and wants are. But that's only one part of a pie. The other really important part of a pie is Understanding what you're good at, understanding your competencies, understanding how you behave in the world, understanding what value you're adding to the world, and understanding the history of your brand and the rituals of your brand and when your brand's good and when your brand's not good and all of that kind of stuff. And that to me just needs so much more focus rather than what consumers might want. What consumers might want can only take you so far as well, because the wants and needs of consumers only really exist at a category level. So the wants and needs for the consumer don't necessarily match to your brand. So people want a new car, they don't necessarily want a Volvo. And so their needs are at a category level. They're thirsty, they want to drink. They don't necessarily at that stage want a specific brand of drink. So you have to meet the needs of a consumer at the category level. But how your brand plays in that category is kind of up to the brand. You know, it should be up to your brand, not necessarily up to the consumer. So the more you meet the consumer needs, the kind of, the more you're meeting the, the drivers of the category or the category entry point. So the more you're going to be eventually like everybody else, because the consumer just needs the category. They do not need your particular brand.
- [07:06]
Unknown Host
I'm also curious a bit about like the mechanic. Like why do you think it is that companies that are so obsessed with, with like customer insights and like, as you said, tailoring to their needs, like, what does that lead to? And like, how is, how is that happening? Like that mechanic. It sounds weird because intuitively you would think that in some way you would end up with a differentiated brand if you're really thinking about customer needs. But as you said, like they're on a category level. But what are some of the mechanics happening here that make these brands so generic?
- [07:43]
Adam Ferrier
So there's so many, so many ways to ask that question. But the, the example I like to use is an example something like Apple, which is, you know, I like to think of. Apple and Ikea are the two least consumer centric brands in the world. They both make things very difficult for the consumer and they both fail to meet expectations spectacularly over and over and over again. So, you know, Apple has kind of weird payment systems. It's got this kind of weird ecosystem ecosystem that kind of sucks you in and doesn't let you go extreme inbuilt obsolescence and all that kind of stuff. Ikea, you know, it's hard to get to. You have to travel around a long maze to buy it, and you have to flat. You know, you have to flat pack and put it back in your home, get it home, build it up again, and all this kind of stuff. And there's reasons why they do all of those kind of things, but they're not necessarily thinking, oh, we've got to make things as hard as possible for the consumer here, or whatever it is. They've both got their own ways of operating and their own systems and mechanics of how they want to build their own brands and build their own businesses and build value for the consumer. And I think they're both coming from strong, visionary leaders who are able to systematize and codify what those brands stand for and how those brands and those companies act into the marketplace. And so anybody who has worked with Ikea or with Apple knows that they had very, very tight, controlled ways those brands operate. And then those brands are able to deliver those, deliver that to the consumer and offer the consumer immense value. But it's not by listening to the customer and trying to understand their needs first and then going, oh, okay, we'll meet that need and that need and that need, because that will then make those two businesses like everybody else. So why doesn't it? I think it happens because the lack of brand infrastructure falls away in large organizations. The discipline required to maintain a brand positioning the key kind of constructs of what a brand's about, the symbols, the science, the rituals of how to communicate that brand internally. I think all of our stuff disappears over time without really strong brand leadership. We'd like to think of our key stakeholder being the board or the CEO are the chief brand officer. They're the ones who control the whole company. Therefore, the brands are too valuable to be left just to the marketing department. The whole organization needs to get what the brand's about and how they contribute it. Um, yeah, so that. So maybe there's a few clues in that.
- [10:34]
Unknown Host
Like, maybe because I want to definitely go back to brand leadership. I think there's some really interesting things to unpack there. But just to zoom in a bit more on the part where it's like, okay, we're starting to work on a brand. It's whether it's in house or you're. You're working at an agency, you want to get informed about the customer. Like, maybe what is the wrong way to do it? Like, like how not to do it. And then maybe also, how should customers inform a brand strategy?
- [11:06]
Adam Ferrier
I think what you need to do is understand I think you need to be informed by the market, the dynamics of the market. You need to be informed by kind of the macro trends and where, where the market's moving towards. And I think you've got to understand and have a really good understanding of your category and what category you're attempting to play in and where the adjacent kind of areas of growth are. I also think you then need to understand the rules of the category and how that category grows. And then once you understand all of that, then I think that's where I'd spend my time. So not, not expecting the consumer to help me understand my brand, but helping, helping me understand getting the consumer to help me. I understand the category that I'm operating. Then once I understand all of that, I'm then free to think about my own brand. What are my competencies, what can I do and what can I push out there that makes, that'll make a difference.
- [12:16]
Unknown Host
So things like, let's say, focus groups or interviews, that sort of stuff. Do you think that's like. Because in your book you describe some issues with talking to the customer about your brand. Like what is wrong with that in the first place?
- [12:33]
Adam Ferrier
So as a psychologist, so when I was a psychologist, we used to, I think the same rules apply for actually understanding a human what they need. I think the same kind of rules apply. We used to try to look at what the science tells us first of all, so kind of look at what are the kind of the things that science tells us, how they behave and so go back to the fundamental studies and things about how humans really operate and how they really make decisions. So behavioural economics has done a really good job there and social and clinical psychology have done a pretty good job of codifying that as well. Then once I think you understand what's kind of been proven over and over and over again to be true about consumers, then as much as possible we'll try to get observational data. So try not to ask people stuff. Then we'll ask people who either live with the person or who are an expert matter. So we might ask if it's speaking to a man, we might ask is his partner. If we're speaking to a drink of beer, we might ask the barman, but we just try to ask, do kind of collateral interviews around the subject and try to ask them. And then as a person of last resort to ask about why they do the things they do. We'll ask the consumer. But again, when we're asking the consumer about things, we try to keep it as close to context as possible. So we might ask them in a shop what they think of a shop. They should be able to tell you or why if they bought something, we might ask them there and then why they just bought something. So somebody, I don't know who it was, but somebody once said the only thing, focus groups are only good for designing. When you're designing focus group rooms, so you can get eight people in a room and you can ask them, hey, what do you think of this focus group room? And they'll be able to give you really accurate information. They'll be able to tell you what the lighting's like, what the food's like, what the other people are like, what the moderators like. They'll be able to kind of wax quite lyrical on that context. But ask them what they ate for dinner last night and why or what kind of car they intend to buy in a year's time, they have no idea. So that's, that's the kind of the triage of information, if you like.
- [14:53]
Unknown Host
Very interesting. I love that. Find them where they are and mostly talk to people that know the category, understand it well, avoid talking to them.
- [15:02]
Adam Ferrier
Avoid asking them about themselves. First of all, go to the science, go to the big studies, then go to the collateral interviews. And then if you ask them, then just keep it contextually relevant to the moment.
- [15:13]
Unknown Host
I talked about it in the last podcast with, with another person, Austin Frankie, about brand strategy and he mentioned this, this interesting perspective where he said like, basically brand strategy in most cases, especially in, in like branding, brand design world is actually quite irrelevant. Or he, he would just say it's bullshit. And what's interesting to me, I think there's never been more strategy and more written about strategy and more talked about strategy and how to research and talk to your customers. And at the same time it seems like creativity in a way is in decline. Like there's some proof points there. Do you think strategy is somehow working against creativity?
- [16:00]
Adam Ferrier
Oh my God, you're now going into the really unsaid areas of our industry. So there's two answers I have to that. Number one is I wonder whether being called a strategist is hampering the strategic process because then in some ways is slowing everything down and making everything complex. So if you have a, let's just say you have a designer and a project manager managing a project and it's a line of that person's in one, that person can help to solve a problem, make it come to life. As soon as you outsource strategy to somebody Else independent of that project, then they've got another kind of communications point which may just slow the whole thing down. So I often worry about the role of strategy in terms of. In terms of building a brand. And that's not something I vocalized particularly well in that moment and nor have I ever really vocalized it before. But it's a thought I have a lot. So I'm just riffing off your. Your question there a little bit. But then the other, the other thing in terms of brand strategy, I reckon it's very, very hard to reposition anything. It's quite easy to position a brand which normally means just understanding what your brand is and doubling down on it or getting tight on it again. And that, that to me is. I don't know if that's strategy, but I just call that brand positioning. And that to me feels like the hardest job to do for big organizations. It's just going back to understanding what your brand's about. Trying to take that brand and move it into a different direction or somewhere else I think is very, very, very, very difficult to do. And so almost I don't want to call out as bullshit because I get paid to be that person and so I don't want to do myself out of a job. But I do worry sometimes that that thing is happening.
- [18:08]
Unknown Host
I think it's like, what's really interesting there to me is, as you said, like how we call it. Like, there's a lot of, like in advertising, there's people like brand planners, there's creatives. I don't recall who said it, but like any, any person in Create creative business should be inherently strategic. And I think that's where you're right. Like maybe because we're making this whole job and discipline out of it, separated from creativity that we're, we're throwing away some of the magic that happens in that like alchemy. I don't know.
- [18:40]
Adam Ferrier
Yeah. If, if you let me just give my. The agency a small plug. We're called Thinkerbell and we just have thinkers and tinkers. And thinkers are people who think about things and think of the people who are more creative. And you partner somebody who thinks I'm going to have to say strategically about something, creatively about something. Put those two people together, then you should have something more or less right at the end of it. They might need a squat around them to help make or create or build stuff or solve particular niches to the problem. But we do try to cut out as much of the layers and as much, much of a bullshit, as much of a silo as possible.
- [19:21]
Unknown Host
Like you talked earlier about, like, brand leadership. And I think, I guess as an agency, you often come to brand. Like brands come to you and they want to work with you, they want to, like, help you, put them in the marketplace, be very creative, etc. Etc. But how do you do it? When or is it even possible to do it with brands where, like you said, maybe brand leadership is kind of disappeared because it's become too big and it's basically living somewhere with a person in the marketing department that needs to talk about a brand. How do you manage that sort of situation? And how do you get everyone back on board if possible?
- [20:04]
Adam Ferrier
So we have a phrase which is BX before X before cx. Basically get the brand experience right? Understand what the brand experience is for everybody. Make sure all your. All the employees understand that brand experience. And then once you got that right, then we can worry about understanding the consumer. When we look at the brand experience, we're trying to build up the right artifacts and bits of storytelling to be able to tell that brand. We try to make sure we don't just have a brand book and a brand and everyone understands what the brand stands for. We kind of make it really, really that everybody in the organization knows what their role is in helping to build that brand. So it's not important for the chief investment officer or the chief technology officer or chief sales officer and their team. It's not important just for them to understand what the brand stands for. They need to know what their job needs to do in order to contribute to that brand's growth in that brand's way. And so I think that's the most important point, is not trying to disseminate what the brand stands for, but you're trying to make sure everybody understands what their role is in building that particular brand. That's the most fundamental point. And then after that, it's a shitload of workshopping.
- [21:31]
Unknown Host
Shitload of workshopping. I like that.
- [21:34]
Adam Ferrier
I wish I wouldn't say these comments at the end of something decent and then kind of undermine everything I've just said with something ridiculous.
- [21:44]
Unknown Host
But it's a psychology thing. It's the. The peak end rule.
- [21:47]
Adam Ferrier
Well, it's not. It's the opposite of a peak and rule. People remember, is he just a shitload of workshops? It's like, crap. And now I'm gonna have to double down. What I said before. People. When the people are just getting organizations galvanized around a brand, they honestly don't spend enough Time thinking about what do all the different departments need to do and how do they need to act differently in order to build the brand, not just understand what it stands for. And it's a bit like using passive advertising. You can, you know, if you tell people internally what it's about, they go, yeah, yeah, cool, great. You got your brand sorted, you got your brand, you got your brand line or your brand positioning sorted. Great. We're using the color yellow, gray. It has to be more involved in that, where they have to know exactly what to do and how their KPIs change or whatever it needs to be in order to build the brand.
- [22:40]
Unknown Host
Maybe just a little bit about positioning because I think like that's again, this word, like where it's been. There's a lot of discussion on what it means. And like some people see it as this, like very differentiated positioning where you're really defining your onlyness, your uniqueness in the market. And there's of course this discussion with distinctiveness, which is more about just you being you. What's your take? What is a, what is a good positioning? Like, what does that look like?
- [23:09]
Adam Ferrier
It's a good question. And it's only, I think it has to be category specific and specific to that brand. So if it does the job it needs to do for that business, then I think it's a good brand positioning. So you have your business strategy, you have your consumer. Everything else in the middle is brand strategy. All of that brand strategy should be rolled up in some form of positioning statement or central organizing thought or something like that. That has to build value to the people who work within that organization. And it has to build value to the people who buy that or engage with that particular service. I would look at it, I would forget about the differentiation and distinctiveness thing. I think ideally it does as much both as possible and so it's as differentiated as possible. But it might have to play by the rules of the category. So if you're an old school bank, you might still have to act like an old school bank. Or else if you're something completely different, people will start to leave you in drones. So I don't believe that zig when everyone else is zagging. I think if you do that, you'll go broke. I think you need to zig within the zag. So you need to understand the rules of your category. But I think so I think B is distinctive. But I also think if you can create a category of one, then and it can be the only category in the consumer's Mind, then that's really, that's where I got taught. That's where the real gold lies. Right. So Amazon, Uber, Twitter, when it started, you know, they become, at least for a while, they have temporary monopolies and they are the only place to go in the consumer's mind, you know, Ikea for flat pack furniture maybe, still maybe kind of operates a bit like that. And so I do. So that to me is hardcore differentiation, which is being the only choice for a category. And I like that as an ambition for the brands we work with. So I would sum it up as being a rallying cry for both internally and externally and as distinctive and differentiated as possible, you know? Yeah. And then, and then the only app, then the other thing is having a good sense of time frames. Are you talking about trying to build, Are you trying to position this for 3, 5, 10, 100 years? I think it's an important conversation as well.
- [25:43]
Unknown Host
I love that scorecard. Like, does it rally people internally, externally, does it go for distinctiveness and differentiation? I think that's a, It's a powerful way of looking at, like, is this positioning really solid? I really like that.
- [25:58]
Adam Ferrier
Yes. And just to be a little bit of a brand name, I would actually take distinctiveness out of positioning completely. Okay. I don't think distinctiveness has anything to do with positioning. I think it's a rallying cry in a. In a kind of as differentiated and true way as possible. But then distinctiveness comes into how that, how that brand then presents itself to the world. So I think it's slightly different.
- [26:22]
Unknown Host
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. It's more of a result of if you do that well, if you take that positioning, you'll probably end up being distinctive and then make sure that you do it in the right way.
- [26:32]
Adam Ferrier
No, no, sorry.
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Unknown Host
No, no, no. That's why we're.
- [26:36]
Adam Ferrier
Here's my differentiated brand. And everyone loves it internally and externally. And the brand is, we are the happiest company in the world. It's not very good, but that's it. Then I think we are the happiest company in the world. Has to be as distinctive as possible. And in order to do that, then you have to go through your kind of your brand design process, your holistic brand design process, whatever that might be, to make the happiest brand in the world come to life in a distinctive way. And then you have to apply that through the organization. Does that make sense? So distinctiveness comes a heartbeat after understanding your positioning.
- [27:18]
Unknown Host
Yeah, totally makes sense. Maybe like if you have any brands just off the cuff like, brands right now that you're looking at that are doing this stuff really well. Positioning, distinctiveness, standing out, brand led.
- [27:34]
Adam Ferrier
So what I have to do at the moment, when you ask me that question is I have to think of all the brands and I have to think of my clients, and I have to kind of. So it's kind of. Then I have to think about. Can't use Australian ones because you're a global. You've got a global audience. So what I end up doing is coming back to Bloody Oatley and. And Liquid Death and, you know, and the kind of the. The ones that everyone.
- [27:57]
Unknown Host
The new classics.
- [27:59]
Adam Ferrier
Yeah, yeah, that's right. The ones that everyone's familiar with. But. But I heard. I heard that Oatley Reese. I heard that Oatley, when they start, when they reposition themselves, created their internal marketing department, was called the organization of Mind Control. And that. That gave them a sense of power to push that right through the organization and then into all of our. Into all of our comms and everything. I kind of like that thought that they've got such a strong, clear point of view on the world and that comes to life in everything they do. Wonderfully. So, you know, I like that.
- [28:40]
Unknown Host
Yeah, that's great. I mean, obviously, I think a lot of people definitely look at Oatly and Liquid Death and they're very impressed by it. Like, what. What is actually more interesting to me is what you also, like, get to in the book is, like, it's not a marketing department there that is able to create such a brand. It's really like it. Like, even in Liquid Death, the guys that started, they're basically like some kind of, I think, advertising guys that just wanted to have a lot of fun and, like, create a very entertaining brand. And that's the only reason I think it's possible for this type of brand to exist. But, like, I'm wondering, have you seen brands that are, like, quite big and where maybe brand is definitely not like, in the boardroom that are able to shift still? Or is that like a lost cause?
- [29:36]
Adam Ferrier
Oh, no, I think, like, I think look at what Unilever with Ogilvy have done on brands like Dub over the years. You know, that's an incredibly big, incredibly mainstream brand with an incredibly strong, clear point of view. You know, the whole concept of real beauty is an enduring cry that I'm sure internally is rallying and consumers kind of buy to buy into it. Really strong distinctiveness in the category acts as a foundation to doing really good spikes of really interesting Globally relevant, creative piece of work. So I think something like that is, you know, and before, before that whole thing happened, Dove was just a, you know, like a moisturizing soap and just hanging around there. And so I think there's a few, there's a few examples like that. There's loads of examples like that, that, that are starting to happen, but they just take a bit of time and a bit of discipline. I think the other one in the back in the liquid death thing is a sunscreen brand now called Vacation, which is doing very, very well in America. And that's created. You know, there's a guy called Locke who's one of the, one of the founders of that. And they don't spend a cent on advertising. And it's all through innovative product design and innovative smells and innovative. And then they've got this. So that's cool. But then they've got this kind of nice imagery wrapped around it. And somebody once said to me that they would never invest in a company that had a marketing department because as soon as you've got a marketing department, you're communicating that you don't get that marketing has to be company wide. And I do find that concept really fascinating because then the buck has to stop with the CEO or the board and they have to get it. And if I don't have a CMO on the board or somebody who's responsible for championing the brand at a board level, then the CEO better be championed. You know, by the time you get to the cmo, you possibly want one person to down to go the funnel. Yeah. So anyway, so sorry, the reason why I say that, because we're talking about liquid debt and all these little brands, we then take something like Dove. I bet you every board member at Unilever understands the Dove brand and what the Dove brand does to the world. And even as Unilever has shifted completely out of purpose, you know, the positioning of Dove, the real beauty, positioning is still there. Whether the purpose is in fashion or not doesn't really matter because everyone's very, very clear on the positioning of what Dove stands for.
- [32:29]
Unknown Host
I love that. I love that concept of like the marketing department at least. Like in a philosophical way. It shouldn't really exist. Like everybody's doing it. I think that's, that's very powerful.
- [32:41]
Adam Ferrier
Yeah. But then step at least to an interesting conversation. It's not my world, but how do you structure an organization? What's marketing's role within an organization where the whole brand or the whole organization has to get brand so how does marketing work across the entire organization rather than just be siloed to a department? That would be a really interesting thing to structure and have a look at.
- [33:04]
Unknown Host
Yeah, for sure. And I guess again it comes back to if it's carried by leadership or if they really believe in it. I think it kind of trickles down in a way, but it's very hard as let's say a middle level or just like a brand manager in a small company to. Actually, I heard this a lot. Like I talk with a lot of people, they're like, yeah, I see all these inspiring brands. It's really cool. Steph and Tinkerbel makes these awesome campaigns. But like, how can I, in my 50 or 100 FTE company, like convince stakeholders to do something with brand and not be obsessed about like performance marketing and sales? Like, what would you say is a first step there or something people can do to get this thinking on board? No, no, there aren't like it's, let's say it's like a small marketing team, like three, five people, and they're mostly doing either performance marketing or help sales teams to succeed at their job of selling. But usually a lot of these people like want to do more with the brand. They believe they should do more, but they just can't because there's no time or money for it.
- [34:16]
Adam Ferrier
I would just, I'll be asking the question, do we all have a clear point of view on what this brand is? So strategy is one decision that saves a thousand or something, isn't it one decision that saves 10,000 decisions. So if you find yourself having conversations saying, well, is this on brand or is this on brand? Or if you have find yourself saying, I'm not sure you know what to do here or how to act in this situation, then it probably is a function of not having a tight enough coherent understanding between all of you on what the brand stands for and what your role is in building it. So if you do find yourself having those conversations more than once a day or once a week or whatever, I would be escalating that conversation to the CMO saying, you know, we don't have a consistent coherent point of view on what our brand stands for and we need to spend half a day sorting that out. So let's just spend, let's just get together, spend half a day sorting it out. The best we can do in that time is we've done it right, I've now got our clear brand, meaning we understand our brand codes, what it stands for, we understand how we're going to act. So now let's start doing that and just start the process off in the most small, nimble way you possibly can. But it needs to be a consensus driven point of view on what the brand stands for, ideally with one person in charge.
- [35:43]
Unknown Host
Yeah, really interesting. I think that brings us full circle to like, you know, listen to your brand instead of obsessing over the customer. Maybe one last final question, like what's your, what's your next book about, Adam? If you have any, if you can write one more, what would it be about?
- [36:01]
Adam Ferrier
So I do like this kind of concept of, you know, so Thinkerbell has thinkers and thinkers, our propositions, Measured Magic. We start each week with Measured Monday. We end each week with magic hour. We have the Institute of Measured Magic is our internal training program. We have a pot of gold for ideas. We have mind expansion for people who want an extra week off if they promise to expand their mind. Colorways is complementary contradictions. So we have an incredibly well created brand and I'm really, really proud of that because we're in control of it. And so we got to create exactly how we want. And it's. And it is, and it's good. It's really. We get it. So I would like to, if I do write another book, it'll be how to create a creative company and it'll be trying to how to. How to construct a company that's got creativity at its core. Whether you're selling resin tabletops or garbage bags or you know, food coloring, whatever it is, I can't think of anything normal to say that. But no matter what you're selling, I think, you know, I think most people kind of would like to be in a creatively driven organization or that's the way I see the world. And so I'd like to help kind of codify that a bit more.
- [37:19]
Unknown Host
I really like that. And like, I think what's especially interesting, what I really like about Tinkerbell and like, it's really almost like it's a big word, but you create this small like universe and it really has consequences. Like you actually have all of these things, how you name them, how you look at them, how you call your people, how you call certain moments of measurement and magic. And I think that's, that's really powerful because it almost forces people to be confronted and think about the brand on a daily basis, which is a lot harder if the deck is living somewhere on a Google Drive and it's just a name and a fancy slogan on the website. So I really like that.
- [37:59]
Adam Ferrier
I've never heard it described like that, but it kind of is in your face all the time, so it forces you to have an opinion about it and it forces you to react off it. And that's kind of nice, I think. But maybe it's funny. I don't know.
- [38:13]
Unknown Host
Anyways, Adam, thanks so much for being on the show. If people want to get in touch or reach out or have any questions, where can they go?
- [38:21]
Adam Ferrier
They can read the book. They can go to my LinkedIn page, which is Adam Ferrier. They can see me on X, which is adamferrier. Or they can email or write a letter. Write me a letter. That would be good.
- [38:39]
Unknown Host
That's good. Great. Thanks so much for being on the show, Adam.
- [38:45]
Adam Ferrier
God bless.