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- [00:00]
Fergus O'Carroll
Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O' Carroll back here in Chicago. Today's episode is our live episode from Auckland, New Zealand. Those of you listening may have already heard our Live from Sydney show which happened the week prior to this one. It was brilliant to be in Auckland. If you've never been there, it does immediately feel like you have landed in a completely different space. Everything about it feels different. It reminded me of the very first time I came to America and landed in Los Angeles. And when I walked out of the doors of lax, I felt like I was in a completely different world. I had that same feeling when I landed in Auckland. So today's show we're going to be talking about New Zealand and sort of punching above your weight. So much great work is coming out of that country. We wanted to talk about it. So we brought together four of the strongest thinkers, strategic thinkers in that country. We have Lisa Devitt, Chief Strategy Officer of Dentsu, Rory Gallery, Chief Strategy Officer of the Special Group. Stevie Weber is CSO at Droga5 and Rob Campbell is CSO at Colenso BBDO. We have a number of topics that we talk about. We talk about the challenges that the industry now faces in New Zealand. We talk about New Zealand's cultural characteristics. We talk about what outside planners bring to the country and what it imparts on them. We talk about the and bad of consumer research through the eyes of these strategists. And we talk about the importance and the dangers of the marketing sciences because as many of you know, the marketing sciences, in the view of many, has been originating from this part of the world. In particular Australia with the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. Also down there is James Herman. Also down there is Mark Ritson. And so that part of the world has really been bubbling with a lot of this great knowled that is now spreading like a contagion across the world. That's not to leave out the great work of Binet and Field coming out of London, but it was an interesting topic to hear the points of view of these strategists based upon sort of marketing science as being one of the great exports coming out of that part of the world. Lastly, I wanted to thank our sponsors for the live tour, the EFFIES WARC and also Tracksuit, the affordable brand tracking system which is actually based in Auckland. That's where it started. It of course has got cities, added cities throughout the world right now. But it was great to see their offices and it was also great to visit with James Herman. His operation previously Unavailable is also based in Auckland, and so great to see everybody down there. We appreciate it, and thank you to Colenso BBDO for hosting us in their offices. I hope you enjoyed this. It's a great conversation with some of the greatest minds in strategy in Auckland. This is Auckland, New Zealand, live. Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O' Carroll in Auckland, New Zealand. Thank you and good night. It is brilliant to be here with the four of these guys who have agreed to participate in this. I've known Rory and Rob from the past, but had never met any of of these guys. We talked over Zoom in preparation for all of this, but I want to thank all four of you for agreeing to be here and for making me look good. So thank you for that. So, as you know, this show has been around for about four years. We've got about 250 episodes up, and it is very exciting that we've been able to build that archive of content. So this show, as well as our Sydney show, will be released in a couple of months, a couple of weeks, two weeks in the same week. So it's been a thrill for me to come down here, and I want to be serious for a second in that it was important for me to come down here because not enough people come down here to feature the work. You can talk about it from afar, but I wanted to come down here and be here live to meet everybody and to do the show from here and to have these folks be a part of it is one of the things we did in Sydney. I want to do it again here. Maybe I'll start with Rory on this is. I wanted to sort of take us back before we go forward. What has or who has sort of put New Zealand on the map when it comes to marketing and advertising? Are there heroes that everybody looks back to?
- [05:06]
Rory Gallery
Look, I think it's a brilliant question, and I sort of feel like this. There are lots of people who have made this ad industry very special and many people who are in the room, you know, I could name a long list. You know, James Ange, dt, you know, Sy Vickers, the people that are on stage at me, all the people that work at Special, of course. But for me, I guess one of the things that I've identified having spent sort of seven years working here now, is that it would be remiss of us to look at just the ad industry and say that's actually what shaped the work and not actually look to, I guess, the roots of the country, how it was formed. Because for Me, that's actually what makes it really special. So if I was just give you a few examples of that. There was some pretty marvelous wayfinders in the indigenous people of this country who were brave enough to travel an ocean that many others weren't capable of doing and were innovative enough to use a sort of, you know, star system to find their way around.
- [06:16]
Fergus O'Carroll
But were they in advertising?
- [06:19]
Rory Gallery
Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.
- [06:23]
Fergus O'Carroll
You've gone way back on me, man. Way back.
- [06:24]
Rory Gallery
I've gone way back. I've gone way back.
- [06:26]
Fergus O'Carroll
I was thinking like the 70s, something like that.
- [06:29]
Rob Campbell
He's talking about the 70s.
- [06:33]
Rory Gallery
You know, new Zealand was one of the first, was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. You know, had the first person in the world to climb Mount Everest along with one of the Sherpas. And I guess the reason I kind of raised this is that there's characteristics from all of those stories that I see day to day in the industry that I work in. You know, bravery, the sort of willingness to really want to be the first to do something, to put themselves out there to be super innovative. And for me, that's actually really shaped how New Zealanders show up every single day in their work. Pioneering to do what's right or pioneering to do what's right 100%. And I think that for me, I'm one of those people that I've got no doubt that the sort of the values and the characteristics that I was taught as a child are just as influential in terms of the way that I show up to work every day than the masters that I did in advertising. And I think it would be a mistake for us to not look back and kind of acknowledge where this nation has come from and not realize that that's really influen how we come and show up to work every day and want to do the best work in the world.
- [07:45]
Fergus O'Carroll
Lisa, what would you say in terms of agencies, in terms of individuals that have sort of created a foundation that a lot of other people now are building off of.
- [07:55]
Lisa Devitt
So I'm Mori so Ka Pai. That was amazing in terms of just a recognition of our indigenous way of being. But I think that sense of being navigators is pretty phenomenal. But it doesn't mean we haven't looked elsewhere for inspiration as well. I was incredibly lucky, very young age, which was a long time ago, working with Nick Worthington who came from UK and he worked with me at a place called Mojo. And his attitude towards life was see the good in Everything. And that meant that he could find an opportunity anywhere and turn it into magic. And that sense of that ethos, that ability to look forward, not backwards, to see possibilities where other people saw blackness, was an incredible opportunity that I had at a very young age to experience what great can look like in advertising as well.
- [08:47]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Rob, you obviously didn't grow up here, but you've been here for a while. What do you think in terms of what makes this sort of a market where there seems to be an outsized impact being made?
- [09:04]
Rob Campbell
That's a bloody good question.
- [09:06]
Fergus O'Carroll
That's all I ask. I always ask great questions, apparently.
- [09:11]
Rob Campbell
Well, I think what Lisa and Rory have said. Absolutely. When we moved here, we moved here in Covid. And I still remember there's been a number of things that have been incredibly moving to us. The first was my son's first day at school where everyone welcomed him with a song. And my wife and I were just crying the whole time. And it just looked. And he was fine with it. And it was just so. We looked like we had real issues. But also when we were let out of COVID and I always remember there was a lot cleaner who sang us a song to welcome us. And the point of that is that I think from a humane aspect, there is a welcoming in terms of the work, if I'm being quite honest, I think one of the aspects that really made this country, from a creative perspective, powerful was the lack of layers. The lack of layers in organizations where somebody could go, I just think, that's good, let's do it. And I have lived in double digits of countries, and while all of them have got successes, I think where New Zealand's had more success than others fundamentally was driven by less layers. Because every layer in an organization dilutes the potency of an idea. My concern is that as New Zealand turns more to Western organizational structures, the layers are diluting the potency. So I hope we can still live up to what the people before us, both within this industry and within this culture have led.
- [10:47]
Fergus O'Carroll
Stevie, any thoughts on that? In terms of why does the work. And I'm not suggesting that all the work that comes out of here is great work. It's not. There's as much crap coming out of here.
- [11:00]
Rob Campbell
That's a whole other show.
- [11:03]
Fergus O'Carroll
But as we were talking about with Simon earlier, it just seems that when good stuff comes out of here, it's really good stuff. And it's getting recognized even more and more over the last number of years. Is there a reason for that? Is there a Fight a spirit in the agencies that wants to sort of continue to push out. Is there something to prove almost that you're pushing out to do great work? Why that such. Why such big impact when it happens?
- [11:37]
Stevie Weber
I think there's always been an underdog kind of challenger mindset down here, but I think my answer's certainly nowhere near as profound or profound at all. In fact, I would say I think there's a few things. There's probably a few key ingredients that I've witnessed, again, not being a kiwi, but a unique sense of humour. And I say unique because I still actually don't know how to define it or articulate it. But I think there's something that is gravitating about that. I think having a really strong point of view on something. And historically, I think really good at tackling taboo subjects, not just tackling them, but being actually really good at just talking about them. And I think for the rest of the world that may have been in slightly more conservative mindsets at that time. That was quite impactful and I think it made a big difference then. I am not convinced that's still true, if I'm being really honest. I sort of think that was probably the norm 10 or 15 years ago and I didn't live here then, so I feel like a fraud being up here a little bit. But I lived in Asia and Australia and when I lived there, like New Zealand was the Mecca of advertising and every creative would give his bloody right arm to be here and working here. And I think that sentiment's worn off a little bit. Like there still might be a small hangover of that, but I'm not sure that that's still true.
- [13:05]
Fergus O'Carroll
And why? Why is it not true?
- [13:07]
Stevie Weber
Oh, I've got a list of reasons. Like I think we have developed a little bit of an over reliance on using research to validate creative ideas and executions and we've sort of marketing science has become super prolific and we default to that. And I think that's become a bit lazy. And also because a lot of the marketing science, it's not necessarily new stuff. So when everyone follows best practice or those principles, everything ends up looking pretty much the same. And I think if you. If you were to take. Again, this is very loose math, but New Zealand does like a top 10 ads every month. Favorite ads, New Zealand's favorite ads. And I think in the last sort of 24 months or so, a lot of those ads are exactly the same. Same brands, same sort of formula. And that's not to say they're bad, they're great, they're good advertising, they're effective, they're hardworking. But if we're using that as the barometer to sort of judge punching above our weight, I don't think that's the best reflection for that. And so I think something probably needs to shift in terms of. And I'm jumping ahead. There's a lot of background to all of this, but I think we might need to relook at how, or not even how, but why we're using research.
- [14:34]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Rory, one of the things is, if you guys were doing great work, were there clients that wanted great work, and therefore that's what led to it? And has that changed? Do you feel that there's a different approach now on the client side?
- [14:52]
Rory Gallery
Look, from my perspective, there's certain ingredients that lead to great work. And it was someone much smarter than me that once said, you gotta create the right conditions for great work. And every agency comes up with brilliant ideas every day. Any agency in New Zealand comes up with great ideas every day. There's a big difference between that and getting them made. And I sort of look back across my career and kind of think about what are the things that sort of led to really good work being made. And there's sort of two really defining factors. One is if the brand in question had a legacy of making really good work, it was much easier because there was an expectation on that brand. The other one is having an absolutely brilliant relationship with your client. And I kind of look to, I guess, most of the good work that I've been fortunate enough to be part enough in my career. It's very difficult to just have a good idea and expect that someone's going to buy it. If you haven't developed that relationship, created the right conditions, it's never going to happen. So for me, personally, look, I guess. And it's a little bit different because I came from London before I was here, and I was really exposed to that sort of heavy research environment. I knew how difficult, how difficult it can be. But I've kind of looked back on my last seven years, and I kind of felt slightly liberated, to be honest. Because, you know, the ideas have been good, the relationships have been great, and I've not necessarily been exposed to the same level of research that I have in the past. But that doesn't mean that it isn't really tricky for me.
- [16:31]
Rob Campbell
What I find actually offensive is the outsourcing of responsibility research works. If there's an acknowledgement that it is not the one size Fits all. Which is being promoted a lot as just do this. These are the rules to guarantee it. But it also needs people at all levels who understand what research means. When you don't have that, it ends up being a binary decision do I like it or do I not? I've been in those situations where but will it work? And they're just looking for the simple answer. So of course you want research is important. I actually don't think there's actually enough research in some areas that I actually think are important in addition to what's being done.
- [17:13]
Fergus O'Carroll
Like what? Like what?
- [17:15]
Rob Campbell
How people actually live, think and feel. Like fuck me. Honestly, it devastates me what I read as I mean to your point about humor, New Zealanders have humor. No offense everybody. So does every fucking nation, you know. But hey, we're all laughing but we've all seen that research which says New Zealand Kiwi humor. I go what is it then at least give me something. But we're in these convenient answers. So research has huge. I mean fuck, my life depends on it. But what it but if you use it as a crutch, if you're outsourcing it to a for profit organization to give you an answer, if you're using it to basically follow rules that are based on category norms and ignore like we're measuring everything and understanding nothing. And I had a client in the past who is insanely successful and his basic premise was if you're measuring everything, it means you don't know what you're doing. He goes, do you know what business in do you know what you actually who you're talking to? And do you know what you want to change? And I still think they're really important principles and quite often they get clouded out by a lot of other stuff. So yes, research, my God, we need it. We need good stuff. And there's a lot of good stuff in this country and around the world. But when you use it as a binary yes or no, then honestly I worry about the decisions we're making.
- [18:40]
Fergus O'Carroll
We'll be right back. Want always on brand metrics that deliver value to stakeholders. This episode is brought to you by Tracksuit, a beautiful, affordable and always on brand tracking tool that helps consumer marketers and agencies answer the question. Is what we're doing working? A not so secret fact is that companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for many modern brands whose budgets are under pressure. Tracksuit provides enterprise level brand tracking without the big price tag. Their in house research experts do the heav heavy lifting using best in class practices to craft and launch your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit is fast becoming the common language for marketers and agencies to measure and communicate the value of brand building. Check it out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit.com for over 55 years Effie has been the global authority on marketing effectiveness. They lead the way with the largest, most prestigious marketing effectiveness awards across 130 markets worldwide. And their coveted EFFIE index ranks the most effective brands, marketers and agencies globally. But FE is more than awards. They're dedicated to helping all marketers, from seasoned CMOs to those just getting started, understand what makes marketing effective by equipping them with the insights, tools and inspiration they need to succeed. Learn more@effie.org that's E F F. Now back to the show. So let's talk about coming up in other markets. So all of you I believe have worked outside of New Zealand? No, I thought you worked in Australia. No, no. Oh, okay. So three of the four of you have worked outside of the market. Like what have you brought to this market that this market didn't already have?
- [20:49]
Rob Campbell
Can you not ask them?
- [20:53]
Fergus O'Carroll
Do we need these people? Do you need these people?
- [20:58]
Stevie Weber
I suppose living in Jakarta and Singapore and I was fortunate enough to grow up in an international school. So I suppose the one thing that I have learnt that I think is a very good quality of anyone working anywhere is to just always be super open minded and make sure you're always embracing a diversity of perspective. So I never think it's. And that probably goes to the research thing as well is you never just want to almost ask your target audience something. I'm banging on about research. I love research by the way, just. But you almost sometimes also want to ask the outliers and try and get their perspective on a certain issue to really understand things from all angles. And I think having naturally grown up where there's different religions and different backgrounds and different cultures and all of that sort of stuff, it forces you just, it becomes second nature to do that. And so I think that's a really good thing to maybe bring to a smaller place.
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Fergus O'Carroll
Rob, how about for you?
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Rob Campbell
Well, I mean whatever you say, you're gonna sound like an egotistical prick, aren't you? So it's like let's however.
- [22:05]
Fergus O'Carroll
Well, you can start it off by.
- [22:07]
Rob Campbell
Saying people say people say I'm an egotistical rich. I think I've got quite an easy answer to it though. I Think when you come into a new market, you see everything with fresh eyes and you can identify the hypocrisy or the confusion or the mistakes. It doesn't mean you're always right, but it allows you. It's a bit. Rick Rubin always talks about listening like a. An informed fan, not a producer. So I think if you go into something with the desire that you want to contribute. As I said, I've lived in lots of places, lived in China for a long time. Let me tell you, if you're living in China, you know shit, if you've come from Nottingham. But I. I deeply love that country and I'm very grateful for every country that I've had the opportunity to live in. And part of that is making sure that you. You care about what's going on, but you can also question things. And that's why I always, wherever I've worked, I've always ensured I have mixed cultural teams because I want the confusion and the complexity and the challenges. It's got to be handled in the right way. But there's a lot of people who don't like someone who's from outside questioning anything. They think it. And again, it's intent. It's always about intent. But when I came here, and I think a lot of people, they look at New Zealand as basically having all their shit together to the rest of the world. They think this place is perfection. And we all know it isn't. We all know there's a lot of things that are not talked about. The level of suicide rate, nobody talks about it. Like there are fundamental aspects that are inconvenient to the cultural narrative. Well, like, fuck, I'm not going to talk about it. Not because I want to challenge anything. I want to try and understand it and see if there's a way we can help make it better. And I think, just like in England's. But please do not think that I'm. England is a shit place. I've never been so grateful to live in a country in my life.
- [24:11]
Fergus O'Carroll
But how, but how does that. How do we use that in marketing? Because we're in the business.
- [24:16]
Rob Campbell
Because. Because fundamentally there are topics of conversation, like in China. Okay, I'll give you an example. Because if I talk about New Zealand, it can make everyone prickly in that respect. No, no, no. It's a genuine thing. In China, nobody talks about sex ever. And that's a cultural thing. And I'm going, well, there's 1.4 billion people, so someone is having it and being able to start Asking some questions about it opened up conversations and contexts and textures that actually did allow work to happen. Had a fundamental impact on work I did for Nike on the thank you, mom campaign for P and G. Like, had fundamental aspects because people would say, you can't ask that question now. The beauty of being a foreigner who cares about something, not trying to be intellectually superior, they're the worst people. People will talk to you. Like, when I was in America and I was in. I do a lot in Ubers, and I would talk to the drivers about racism, and because I was English, they thought, oh, you wouldn't know this stuff. So they told me. That doesn't mean I was right. It just gave me context that I could take back. And that's why, you know, we are all fortunate with the people we've got. I love the people that are in my team now, who've been in my team, who will be in my team. But for me, it's about making sure it's not just about their intelligence. They've got to be smart, they've got to love creativity, but there's got to be a dialogue. And we call it banter. I mean, it's like it's a full contact sport, but it is the ability to challenge and question things, because in any culture, you do get used to stuff you do. That's why I think it is important to have different people or go overseas. My life and how I approach my job has been altered on a number of occasions by people, by companies, but fundamentally by countries.
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Fergus O'Carroll
So, Lisa, for you, do you buy this? Do you see the value in having that outside perspective? Do you feel that that outside perspective adds value and is lost?
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Lisa Devitt
I think it's not binary. I think it's that sense of living in the grey is always the space that's interesting. And I think there is something. Something about the privilege of living here and feeling proud of the place and finding the great things in it and celebrating that, which is also equally as interesting. It doesn't mean you can't have banter and dialogue and have a discursive conversation that can actually be really abrupt and quite harsh at times as well. But it's that sense of actually knowing the place is also quite different. You grow up and you feel the vibe of it, which is a dumb word, but it's a. It's a sense of the. The wairua, the spirit of the place. But that doesn't mean you can't take influence from other people and be open to it. And I think that's that sense of where research like the sense of being curious and open to understanding, to go out and to have conversations with people. I'm a woman who did a lot of work on beer and as a 21 year old going into focus groups deep down in the university towns to talk to young men about beer, they would just mansplain to me and it was great because I didn't know anything about beer, I didn't like it at all. But there's still that sense of being open to things which I don't think means that you. I think that sense of being curious doesn't mean that you are shut off to it. When you live here, you still need to be open to it and you invite other opinions in to have those conversations.
- [27:33]
Rob Campbell
If I suggested that if you were born here, that's a disadvantage, that's not what I meant because of course, I mean I remember my first week with Tea, I had asked t a question, she said something, she looked at me like why are you saying it like that? And I went, oh my God. I didn't. There's, of course there's value in it. But what I'm just saying is that quite often there is an attitude where anyone that's coming from overseas isn't adding something. Now that can be also true, don't get me wrong.
- [28:00]
Lisa Devitt
Possibly not in our industry.
- [28:02]
Rob Campbell
Well, you know, it depends. But it's. But what I do think is important is that's why I believe in a mixed team. You need people who understand the nuances of what it is like here and you need people who can question that so that we can start going are we just falling into what we've always done or is there a meaning for it? And that's why any monoculture I think is a dangerous aspect.
- [28:24]
Fergus O'Carroll
Go ahead, Stephen.
- [28:25]
Stevie Weber
I was just going to respond to something Rob, you said before about it feeling a little bit conservative in some ways, in some topics kind of off limits here. And, and as I was thinking about tonight, I sort of had a similar view where I'll lighten the mood a little bit. But not to belittle those other topics because I think they're massive issues and issues everywhere and need attention. But I do feel like New Zealand when we were talking about punching your weight 10, 15 years ago today, less so. And I was trying to understand maybe what one of those reasons reasons might be. And I kept coming back to this idea of culturally we do feel a little bit more conservative and I'm going to go out on a limb here but bear with me, I was thinking about reality tv and I'm a massive fan of reality tv. There's not a show that I haven't watched. I have watched it from all corners of the globe. You name like every country, much to my partner's dismay. But I've told him that it's research. So. But when I was kind of going, why is it that New Zealand reality TV is actually just really shit? Like, there's no drama, there's no fights, there's no making out. It's just very mild. And so I actually did a little bit, like I was trying to understand why. And I read something that might help this conversation, or at least it was insightful to me, which was it was from a producer of a reality show here. And she said the reason why they don't do so well here is for two reasons. Because Kiwi are again, generalization. And these aren't my words, but Kiwi are largely feel discomfort when there's conflict and discomfort with self expression. And I thought those were two really interesting things which led me down a whole nother rabbit hole of this idea of discomfort and feeling uncomfortable. And probably a big part of that would be the need to start trying to create more comfort around feeling uncomfortable and how you were talking about the conditions earlier. To create great work, you have to have uncomfortable conditions to create great work. How can you foster those environments where you are challenging each other and pushing each other to try different things or to think differently? And maybe if anything, coming from an outside perspective, although I don't think that's true of just having lived outside New Zealand, I think that's just a natural thing. Is how do you feel okay about pushing the boundaries but ensuring that you create a safe space to do that.
- [31:02]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Rory, what about the relationship between strategists and creatives here? Compared to other places you guys talked about, there's less layers. Is that the same way inside agencies? Because agencies can be incredibly dysfunctional. And the relationship with strategists and creatives is probably one of the most tense in many agencies. In most agencies, I'd even say, how does it work well here?
- [31:29]
Rory Gallery
I mean, coming from a fully functional agency, I probably find that a little bit hard to answer. I could be completely wrong about this, but I'm going to go out on a limb and kind of talk about my experience in London versus my experience here. So when I was in London, there was a stereotype associated with stratus, like to the point of why I even got hired, probably Amv and I had it said to me in other places that would interview me, they were quite down on the idea of having the classic sort of Oxbridge person. There was this sort of the Cardi. Cardigan planner. You know, you'd go into a room and someone would make a fucking Venn diagram joke. But I still do that here, by the way. But there was a whole bunch of sort of stereotypes that I think was associated with being a strategist. And it's not to say that I didn't have a very good relationship with creatives, but I do sort of feel like in general, there was a sort of. There was a divide between I'm a creative person and I'm a strategist or a planner, as they were called back then. And then I kind of came here, and I just don't know if that exists in the same way. It's not to say that you still don't have planners who wear their cardigans and do their Venn diagrams and do all that other stuff, but I remember once I was talking to Tony Bradbourne, who's one of the founders of Special, and I was kind of describing to him the stereotype of a strategist, and he kind of looked at me like he didn't know what I was talking about. And I guess I kind of had this realization. You know, he did work in London for a time. It's a little bit while ago now, but I kind of had this realization that he didn't view strategists that way. He viewed them as being a really useful resource to help ensure that we made better work. And I don't know if that exists in every agency, but that's kind of been my experience where, with the exception of the odd Venn diagram joke, I don't feel like I've had the same stereotype and divide lumped on me as I did in other countries.
- [33:41]
Fergus O'Carroll
But is there a type of strategist? Because I'll just imagine that there's probably some strategists that haven't fared well at Special. So I'm just curious, amongst the ones that have fared well, what's the common trait that works for them?
- [33:58]
Rory Gallery
Again, I've had 100% success rate, so. But I can speculate. I kind of feel like, you know, one of the questions that you asked previously was like, what have you bought as an outside perspective to New Zealand? And I guess for me, if I had answered that question, I would have actually given a different answer, which is, rather than what I bought in New Zealand, it's actually about the sort of kindred spirit that I feel like I.
- [34:26]
Fergus O'Carroll
Have here in New Zealand or in Tony. I'm serious, though, because that's, I think, a really important factor. Right.
- [34:36]
Rory Gallery
Yeah. I mean, certainly in the agency, you know, New Zealanders like to keep it simple. You know, they're a humble nation, despite the fact that they write in every creative brief about how humble they are.
- [34:51]
Fergus O'Carroll
That's what they said about the Irish, too, right?
- [34:53]
Rory Gallery
I know, I know, I know. But I feel like that there's a simplicity. People don't want stretchers to pontificate, write really long presentations. And it suits me and my style, and I guess that's kind of. I sort of feel like what's helped me go somewhat okay, here, which is the New Zealand style and way of doing things, is about brutal simplicity. Don't try and sound like the smartest person in the room. Just make sure that you make the work better and you've got ambition. And I think that works really well.
- [35:24]
Lisa Devitt
I think we're quite exposed here. We're small, and your reputation is everything. So if you're a dick, you get found out pretty quickly. So you've actually got to be nice. You've got to be interested in people. Not just the people on the street, but the people in your agency as well, because they're the people you have to form relationships with. And sometimes it's really hard, and you have to be able to have a tough conversation as well as an honest conversation and a vulnerable conversation, and a conversation you're like, I don't really know, and this is freaking me out, and you don't even like me that much. But I feel the same way, and let's figure it out together.
- [35:54]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah. Rob, it's interesting when I hear Rory talk and I'm thinking, I think about that role as being a pure play, creative strategist. And we're a practice that's got like 15 different labels. Is there a type of strategist, Rob, that works better here than you think others might?
- [36:15]
Rob Campbell
Well, I think that's down to the individual style of stuff, because I do believe that. Well, I have quite a different perspective from some of the other comments, because I don't think that New Zealand does like simple. I think culturally it likes simple. I think in terms of strategy, it actually likes lots of complexity, either to delay making a decision or to cover all bases.
- [36:41]
Fergus O'Carroll
What do you mean by that?
- [36:42]
Rob Campbell
What I mean is that strategy fundamentally is a simple job. And I think there's a lot of times where there are an enormous amount of decks written for no other reason than somebody needs it versus making something.
- [37:01]
Fergus O'Carroll
Which is a universal issue in practice. True.
- [37:03]
Rob Campbell
But there's a magazine here about the humble. You read the comments and it's sheer toxic toxicity. So I think there is an outward expression of living up to it, but when you can be anonymous, you see a lot of other aspects going on. So what sort of. I think the general standard of strategy here is phenomenal. I really do. Here in Australia, I have a real general level of strategy that's really good. Better than the uk, better than the us, from my personal experience. But what I did find interesting here, and part of it is, to Lisa's point, it is a small nation, everyone knows each other. And one of the things, I feel that part of the reason why people are so polite one is that of course people are lovely, but it's the risk of being seen as a dickhead if you just have a disagreement. I have no problems having a disagreement because I'm not doing it to be rude. I'm doing it for the best possible work from. Truth and transparency are the most vital components of any relationship, any journey to creativity. So when I came here, I saw a lot of brilliant strategists who can do the job, but I didn't see many people having a point of view, a philosophy, an approach. And part of that was because at some point, like, everyone in this room has probably worked at Colenso Special everywhere. You know, at some point, it's like the Magic Roundabout.
- [38:24]
Rory Gallery
And.
- [38:27]
Rob Campbell
I believe in a. I've come from places that has an identity in how it does planning. So I need to create, to Rory's point, the conditions to allow that. But who makes a good strategist is someone who is open to keep learning versus someone who's saying, this is what I do. That's what I would say.
- [38:46]
Fergus O'Carroll
So what have you learned from New Zealand strategists?
- [38:51]
Rob Campbell
Me personally?
- [38:52]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah.
- [38:52]
Rob Campbell
What I think is great about New Zealand strategists and I also need to give a shout out, just to your earlier question about the relationship with creatives and stuff, because ultimately I think it's about just being useful. I don't think there's a. If I had a planner at Wieden that said, oh, I'm not part of the process, said, but you're not useful, then That's. That's the problem. And shout out, Simon, are you Simon here? Because Si. Yeah, there he is. He's literally the nicest fucking man alive. And I should hate him because he's just so pure. But he's like. But what I love about PSY is that we can have a real conversation about the work, like a real conversation. He listens. If he disagrees, he's going to tell you. But it's a real. There is no insecurity about that. And that's a beautiful thing, that. And there are other people, people in this industry that can do that.
- [39:44]
Fergus O'Carroll
But first, a word from our sponsor. I'm delighted to have WARC as the sponsor of this series. WARC is the authority in marketing effectiveness. With warc, you gain the confidence to challenge the status quo, prove your business case, and fuel the innovation needed to take your marketing effectiveness to the next level. For nearly 40 years, work has helped customers around the world make more confident marketing decisions by giving them access to proprietary research, an extensive library of case studies and best practices, and robust data and inspiration. Who do the world's leading brands, agencies and media owners turn to when they want to make sure their plans are going to work? The answer is Warc. You can learn more@warc.com that is W A R C.com and now back to the show. So I wanted to switch topics and talk about the influence of behavioral sciences, marketing sciences. So we're here in Auckland, we're close to Ehrenberg Bass. You've got an awful lot of the leading thinking that's now influencing most major markets is coming out of here. We talked a little bit about it earlier, but what do you feel about that? What do you buy into? Do you welcome it? Is it becoming something, as I'm noticing in the US more and more where clients are talking about it now, they're expecting it now, it's becoming the accepted way of doing things. And there's good things and bad things associated with that. And some people are being way too dogmatic about it and other people are presenting it in ways where it's digestible and it's celebrating creativity. But tell me about how it affects the way you want to do business down here.
- [41:39]
Lisa Devitt
Can I just say, know the rules and then break them.
- [41:42]
Fergus O'Carroll
Tell us about that.
- [41:43]
Lisa Devitt
There is a sense of when you adhere to the rules, you become homogenous. It becomes really boring and it forgets about the creativity that also underpins things and creates breakthroughs and creates new ways of thinking, of thinking and being and doing. So know the rules, play in the rules, and then know when to break them. And play and still use creativity to see new things and do new things.
- [42:03]
Fergus O'Carroll
But why? Why break them if they're Proven to.
- [42:08]
Lisa Devitt
Be working for a while, and then it becomes boring. And then people stop paying attention and they wander off and do other things.
- [42:15]
Fergus O'Carroll
And I've heard that point of view, and I can see that. I can see that being a possibility. But is that the reality today or is that the risk?
- [42:25]
Rob Campbell
Sorry, I was just going to say again, like we said earlier, there's huge value in it, but we've come, gone, we've gone too far. It's like people can't move without all these different aspects. And if I see another organization where all I'm seeing is colors because we just need, hey, own a color. Own a color. Just own a color. Color, color, color. It's like, oh, my God. The reality is a lot of those systems are designed to make sure that you don't fail versus you could grow. I think they are more insurance policies than liberation. And what I really get frustrated at is the way that they are being reframed as a liberator of business when they're actually a very important, very valuable insurance policy to make sure you don't do completely stupid things. But we cannot confuse the two.
- [43:15]
Fergus O'Carroll
So how do you use them then?
- [43:17]
Rob Campbell
Well, I think, again, part of it is trust and transparency. There are things that give you real cues, clues, hints, hunches. There's lots of aspects of that. But when it is a blind adherence to it, and there are a lot of people doing that, because I think one of the other aspects that really is upsetting is that companies are outsourcing their training to these organizations. It's not the organization's fault who offer that training, but it's the companies who are going like. So you end up only learning one way. And that one way is someone that has a commercial interest in that. Again, there's real value. I'm not criticizing that because there's real importance in having that aspect.
- [43:56]
Fergus O'Carroll
Well, we are criticizing.
- [43:58]
Rob Campbell
No, no, no. I'm saying. I'm criticizing the blind adherence. I'm criticizing that somebody says this system works for literally every category, every market, every audience, all of the time.
- [44:08]
Stevie Weber
Anything else?
- [44:08]
Rob Campbell
Yeah. Am I criticizing that? I think their sales results will prove that because they'll. Then we're now measuring different aspects versus the fundamental thing. What are we trying to change? Are we trying to change something? And too often we're not. And so huge importance on it. Thank God we have that. But somewhere along the line, there was that situation where the ad industry started going, oh, we're not taken seriously at the boardroom table, so we've got to be like the boardroom. And my personal viewpoint is our value is being an informed outsider, not another insider. And so using that information to have understanding versus specific direction is the most powerful way. But when you lose that objectivity, then you end up where, quite frankly, we are. All categories are saying the same, using the same thing. I worked on Nike for a long, long time. I see so many brands, brands that have taglines with three words. This attitude of it's more than three words, it's wrong. Are you kidding me? Like the beers that reaches the parts of the beers can't reach is not the most natural tagline. And yet that grew a brand and meant so much. We've just got to fall out of this formulaic, codified view of saying that's what success is.
- [45:25]
Fergus O'Carroll
Well, I mean, the other side of that is we've got to be able to respond in ways that doesn't sort of disregard it, of course, but says it's not all that, it's that plus that. Right. And you know, and unfortunately, Steve, we're in an industry where you gotta have super thick skin because we're questioned every day, like, I don't know, another category, another industry where you are, you're questioned because you're not believed. We don't have the credibility and. But I wonder whether some of this science, bad word science, but we'll just use it anyway. But some of this science gives us more credibility in a boardroom than the other shit we've been trying to get credibility based on for the last 50 years.
- [46:13]
Stevie Weber
Well, I think it goes back to a lot of the things that we've been talking about, which is that.
- [46:17]
Fergus O'Carroll
Can you move that mic?
- [46:18]
Stevie Weber
Oh, sorry, yes. Is that it feels safe. And I think there's a couple different things there. So like obviously, obviously right now things are really uncertain in the world. The World Uncertainty Index is at its highest. Economics, politics, all of that sort of stuff. So people's natural response to that is to stick with what's familiar and what they know. And so that's where the market science kind of marketing science comes into play, which is we know these sort of formulas work. If you think about like the, the mere exposure effect, which is, you know, the more people see the same thing, the more they like it. And if you apply that theory to advertising, it's why we start to see very similar visual tropes, similar story arcs, kind of same cues in a lot of advertising, because it makes audiences and clients feel really safe. And so it's just much easier to turn to that, to Feel secure that you're going to be okay. And I think, Rob, exactly what you said before, that's not a winning position to be in. It's a survival position. It will help you survive, but it's not going to help you grow or win necessarily. And I think it's that. What is the plus to that? I think the other thing that's slightly a different topic, but when you think about, I think something that I've noticed in New Zealand lately is how we promote people, we accelerate people's promotions in the industry really quickly. A long time ago it would take you five years to move up one level. Now it's 12 months. And there's a lot of different reasons for that and a lot of them are perfectly valid. But I think when you're then putting somebody into a position who has decision making power but hasn't had the, the experience of failing, making work, making decisions and all of that sort of stuff, then they will default to something that they know on the path of least resistance. And often that is what has kind of been proven and right in front of them. So it becomes the default. And so I think there needs some work to be done.
- [48:26]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Rory, but keeping in mind that most of the work that is represented are underpinning a lot of this opinions and these studies and these suggestions is great work. It is great work that probably the work of many people on this stage is represented. It's not that it's an aggregation of all the shit and the great work. It's actually a study of the great work so it can't be discarded. It's not a rule, but it's not a bad rule. It's not a bad starting point.
- [49:01]
Rory Gallery
Right. Look, I mean, I generally feel quite positive about a lot of the work that's been done. It's given us some really great rules of thumb and I use them in presentations all the time. And I've got no problem admitting that. But I guess just a couple of things. Firstly, I've actually got a Master's of Science in advertising. This is true. I've not made this up. And I would be the first person to admit that advertising is not a science. The second thing is you made a really good point about the data set. It uses good work work quite often people think is worthy of winning awards. So what if you put all of this shit in it? And how would that sort of play out in terms of what the data looks like? So by and large I'm super positive about it. But if I just give one Example. So excess share of voice is something that is quite often, I guess, you know, pushed. And it makes logical sense. Don't ask me to explain it. I have to put the Ritson YouTube video on every time that I have to show it to a client. But in essence, it says, spend more money. Now, what I sort of feel like is when I present that to a client, and I've maybe been successful three times in my career where I've went into a client and said, hey, you, you should spend more money. You'll get more market share. What it says to a client is it's just totally divorced from the reality of what we do. It says that we're not confident in the creative work that we're presenting. It says that we don't believe in the power of our work. And I've had CEOs and CMOs say to me, but, Rory, why are you asking us to spend more money? I thought your work was supposed to be amazing, world class. Your name is special. So I guess, I guess for me, I really value some of the work they've done, But I also think that you need to sort of carefully pick and choose it, especially when you're going into battle every day into the reality of our industry, which some brilliant people like James have experienced and know the value of creativity, whereas others might not necessarily have had the same experience. And if I was to just end. The great David Abbott from Abbott, Mead and Vickers once said that shit that is delivered at the speed of light is still shit. And I think the same is true of spending a lot of money in media. Shit that has got a lot of money behind it is still shit. Advertising.
- [51:37]
Lisa Devitt
My favorite Esolve quote is that creativity is the multiplier of 11. So add creativity to it and suddenly you cheat. Excess share of 11 voice not through buying media, but through the sheer audacity of creativity.
- [51:51]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah, Yeah, I think that's been shown to be the reality too.
- [51:54]
Lisa Devitt
Love it.
- [51:54]
Rob Campbell
Rob, I was just going to say, I think the other aspect of this that we don't talk about is I don't think we build brands anymore. There's a lot of execute brands, but there's an old Indian proverb I heard where they talked about farmer and you plant seeds and you water them and you grow it and you cultivate them, and when they've reached a point that then you get your crop and you take them to sell. But nowadays we plant seeds and crop them like it's straight in nature. There's this thing called the edge effect, which is basically at the edges of ecosystems. Different things come together to create new things. It's why nature continues to evolve and companies don't. Because companies like control and nature doesn't. I just think somewhere along the line, you know, our quest of building brands needs to be about. Well, I think we need to understand what that means. I think we need to understand that it's a journey, not just one thing. We place so much pressure on everything. And I get the commercial realities thing. I'm not naive, but I also know.
- [52:53]
Fergus O'Carroll
That are you saying we mean in the agency side, the industry overall?
- [52:58]
Rob Campbell
I think the agency ends up being a reflection of what the client wants. It's a code, you independency, but you build a brand over a period of time. But there will be peaks and troughs. But if we only want surefi hits, what we end up with is just to it's good, not great. We spoke to this CMO of Telstra, he used to be the MD here. They're doing some amazing work. But what was interesting when I spoke to him him was I suddenly went, his aspiration is to be the cmo. And that sounds obvious, but I hadn't really thought about that because there's a lot of CMOs I've met throughout my career where their aspiration was to be the CEO and to be a CEO, that's about cost cutting, that's about efficiency, that's about optimization. And so ultimately, quite a lot of the time that's about removing the potential to guarantee certain elements that the job they really want has. But what I really liked about Brett, and we all have clients that follow a similar aspect, they want to be a cmo. They see the power of marketing, they see the magic of what they can be and they're the ones that will fight for a bigger vision versus just the next campaign. And that's why I say I think we're not building brands a lot of the time, we're executing them.
- [54:11]
Fergus O'Carroll
What does New Zealand need to be doing more of, agencies wise? What do we need to be doing more of?
- [54:18]
Stevie Weber
I read this article the other day that was called the Art and Science of Trash Talking. And I thought it was really interesting because it obviously there's a lot of stigma about it starting on a basketball court and whatnot, but basically it got to the point where it's really useful because you are going to push each other and challenge each other to get to something better. And I think that's true of both within our own agencies and with our clients. And they talk about the three rules of trash talking, how you make trash talking successful, which is you have to have like. It's like a little magical space, like a playground. There's different rules in a playground. The minute you exit the playground and you're in the classroom, different rules apply. So you have to make sure that you're all clear on the rules for which the trash talk happens. You have to be able to. Everyone has to opt in. If you're not opting in, it's bullying. So don't everyone make sure you're opting in. And then the third thing was you are inviting a response. And that immediately puts everyone on an even playing field because you're expected to be able to have this equal discussion. And I just thought there was something really nice about. There is a bit of competitiveness and a bit of edginess to kind of that. And I feel like that is something that I would like to see a little bit more of and really being able to push each other.
- [55:39]
Rob Campbell
I actually hope that we continue being paranoid because I think paranoia has driven our ability to go, yeah, we're gonna fucking, let's go for it. And that'd be the thing I'd like to change and the thing I'd love us to continue.
- [55:52]
Fergus O'Carroll
Why is there paranoia?
- [55:54]
Rob Campbell
We're on the other side of the planet. Like, our lesser neighbor often gets a lot of the praise. And where people want to go, like, there's a real. There is a sense of, are we good enough? We want to be good enough. There is the humbleness. There's all. But I think that paranoid. I'm saying it in a good way. It's launched cultural icons, it's launched new business. It can launch a lot more. But I think in our quest to be professional, we're missing the real secret ingredient here, which is beautiful paranoia.
- [56:30]
Fergus O'Carroll
So let's. We have microphones. Can one of you guys bring the wireless microphones or are they already out here? Oh, they are. Great. So raise your hand if you have a question, please. What's your name?
- [56:42]
Stevie Weber
Liam.
- [56:43]
Fergus O'Carroll
Good Irish name.
- [56:44]
Rob Campbell
Yes.
- [56:45]
Stevie Weber
It's the classic line. So, like most roles, you have a.
- [56:51]
Fergus O'Carroll
Very formal job description.
- [56:53]
Stevie Weber
So if you were to hire for.
- [56:55]
Fergus O'Carroll
Your role, what do you think is.
- [56:56]
Rob Campbell
One quality or trait that might be.
- [56:58]
Stevie Weber
Left out of the job description that.
- [57:01]
Rob Campbell
Is crucial to being a great strategist.
- [57:04]
Stevie Weber
That the general or the masses might not understand or know?
- [57:09]
Rob Campbell
Be interested. That's it. Interested.
- [57:14]
Fergus O'Carroll
Interested in what?
- [57:15]
Rob Campbell
Everything. Like, just be interested. Like, give a fuck. And it sounds like. But again, there's a Lot of very detailed job description. I understand that. But I still think you make the biggest difference when you really get into something. Yeah, be interested. It's like my mum, God bless her, she always said, be interested in what others are interested in. I grew up with that. And she would not, she still wouldn't understand what I did if she was alive like it's been. But she would be a better strategist than a lot of people because she was always interested in what others were interested in. And I think we often forget that what others are interested in bit and just, just want to understand it. That, that to me would be the biggest thing. We talk about curiosity as if only planners are curious. It's like, come on, give me a break. But being interested in what others are like actually listening. Yeah, that's, that's the best part of the job.
- [58:32]
Stevie Weber
Reality tv, well, that's what other people are doing too.
- [58:37]
Fergus O'Carroll
Right. So you can, you can do that. It's like goggle box. Another question here.
- [58:42]
Lisa Devitt
Hi, I'm Amy.
- [58:44]
Stevie Weber
I am in an ex suit and.
- [58:46]
Lisa Devitt
Have been challenged by planners or strategists, the likes of you that are sitting on the stage continually to find the insight.
- [58:55]
Stevie Weber
And I've been delighted to see recently.
- [58:58]
Lisa Devitt
A few big voices on the stage saying that an insight isn't necessarily the be all and end all to everything. And particularly now, trying to teach marketers to find an insight into something is incredibly hard. And I'd be interested to hear your perspective on how impactful an insight is into advertising.
- [59:22]
Fergus O'Carroll
I love this topic. We need Martin Weigel to be on this stage for this one.
- [59:28]
Rob Campbell
Martin, I'll never hear him say, stopped talking about that.
- [59:30]
Stevie Weber
So, yeah, I think it's. Sometimes it can be really important and unlock a big idea, sometimes it can be. Provide a tiny little nugget that can become a springboard for a whole nother thought. So I think it's always going to change. I think the definition of it always changes. I think instead of trying to define, and Lisa and I have kind of actually, funnily enough been talking about this recently. But in trying to. I don't think there's a single definition. I think we're fucking ourselves by trying to define it. But I think if you try and look for a few commonalities around what constitutes like a universal insight, a good universal insight is that it should be something that feels new. So that might be actually finding something new or it might be framing up an old thing in a new way or, or applying a new perspective to something. And I Think if somebody kind of looks at it and gets excited by it and they're not bored by it, then two thumbs up. That's.
- [60:30]
Lisa Devitt
Yeah, I think there's a difference between insight and being insightful. And I think so often we pursue the notion of there is an insight and it's magic and it exists somewhere out there, versus having this sense of being insightful, being interested, being curious, being empathetic, asking different questions, like leaning in a slightly different way, that can lead to something that is insightful. But the idea that it's always an insight that unlocks something. I don't think I've ever found an insight in my entire career.
- [60:59]
Rob Campbell
I love insights. I think. I think, no, no. I get quite angry at how the industry's just gone, oh, they're shit. The reality is, I think we don't.
- [61:08]
Rory Gallery
Know what they are.
- [61:09]
Rob Campbell
Often. I think this belief that there's one that unlocks everything is absolutely a misnomer. But I do think. I think why, rather than what is a starting point. But there'll be lots of things and you get to a cultural tension. But the idea that one can do everything is absolute bullshit. But I do expect people to have better answers than New Zealand's cultural trait is humor. Because some people, and I've read it in a book, says that's the insult of, like, no so valuable, but very hard to find things that are really good.
- [61:45]
Rory Gallery
I also have something to add, unsurprisingly. I think one of the mistakes that has been made in recent years is that people feel like an insight needs to be a consumer one as opposed to a product insight, or the way that people sort of interact or engage with the brand. And if I was to give you a couple of examples of that, there was the great Levi's drugstore campaign that I believe Nick Worthington created, where it's all about the sort of inside pocket of the denim Levi's that they're wearing. And in the end, you sort of have this realization that he's using it to store a condom. And that's not a consumer insight. That's actually about a celebration of the way someone uses that particular attribute of a product. Equally speaking, one of the great campaigns of all time, Guinness, good things come to those who wait. It's not born of a consumer insight. If anything, one of the fucking worst things about Guinness is the fact that you've got to wait for it. But what they did was they turned it into a celebration of what made the product unique. And it feels like to me, there's been way too much emphasis on kind of thinking that it can only be a consumer insight and not actually greater consideration about the fact it can come from the brand, the product, the way it's eaten, used, etc.
- [63:01]
Fergus O'Carroll
So we want to thank Lisa, Rob, Stevie and Rory for being here tonight. Thank you guys for being brilliant and for New Zealand being a wonderful country. I've been here just for a few days. I've been to some of the islands and it's been amazing. And it's a beautiful country. I'm really honored that everybody came out tonight. Thank you to Tracksuit, to the African fees, to Warrick for making this all possible. Thank you to Colenso Bbdo for hosting us. And we will see everybody on the next episode.