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- [00:00]
Fergus
So Brent Smart is CMO of Telstra. It is sort of the AT&T of Australia. Big used to be government owned, now it's privately run. And Brent was brought in to rebrand it, reposition it. He has done a phenomenal job. He's a former agency guy. He worked at Colenso BBDO. He also worked as CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi here in the US in New York City. Brilliant stuff. The work that he's done in the better. On a better network. You may have heard this. I can't imagine you wouldn't have. It's phenomenal work and it won. It can this year and I can't imagine it's not going to win a bunch of Effie's coming out of the Effie Awards this coming year in Australia. And really exciting stuff. He's got a great point of view. And I think that one of my favorite questions, one of my favorite quotes coming out of it was if you want to change how people feel about your brand, change how the brand feels. It's a simple line, but it's incredibly powerful. Too many times when we sort of try to update brands, we're still sticking to brand identity guidelines, we're still sticking to the past. He did a very clean break and reintroduced a whole new identity for this brand. And the work is incredibly powerful in its simplicity and it's been incredibly effective, which of course is the most important factor. The campaign. Better for a better network. They did 26, 15 second spots and they did. They did that primarily because it was for the Olympics and they were able to insert fresh work over the two week period of the Olympics rather than doing the same spot again and again and again. So they were very conscious of what was happening. The work is done by a brilliant agency that we're going to be hearing, I'm sure an awful lot more about. The name is Bear meets Eagle on Fire. That's the agency name, Bear meets Eagle on Fire. The guy behind it all is Michael Walker. Walker out of. He was previously at Widening Kennedy in London. He's now down in Australia. Terrific creative talent and I would love to have Micah on the show. Micah, if you're listening or watching this show, please do come and talk to me. It will be a real pleasure to have you on the show. So one housekeeping thing before we get started. We are back on the road this fall for the live tour. We're going to be in New York City September 10th and we are going to be at Mischief's office in Brooklyn. Then we go on to Dallas, a TRG agency. September, September 18th, we're in LA. October 2nd at Anomaly. We are then going to be in Dublin, then going from Dublin into London. We're going to be at Mother's office in London. In November, we're going to be back in Chicago for High Dive. We're going to be doing our holiday ad special again. If you are in Chicago, you've got to go to it. Last year it was amazing. We're going to do it again with our friends at High Dive and then we're going to be going hopefully to Austin and also to San Francisco, but that will probably be in the new year. I want to thank our sponsors for this live tour, our brilliant friends at Tracksuit for being a huge supporter of the show, and of course, the AFIs, which were the official podcast partner of the Effies. So great to have them along for the ride. If you'd like to be a partner and a sponsor of the live tour, you can find the sponsor deck on our website under the About Us tab. And it's probably going to be in the live tour section too. You can check it out. So tickets will go on sale for. I think it's going to go on sale next Monday. So what would that be? That would be roughly the 25th, 26th of July for the new York show at Mischief. So look for that. Anyway, here is my conversation with Brent Smart. He is CMO of Telstra. The work is phenomenal and it's an intriguing and interesting conversation. Enjoy. So it's a great pleasure to have this guy on the show. We're gonna be talking about his background, about the work that he's been involved in, and about the fact that he missed our show in Sydney, which I cannot forgive you for that. So you must have been on location somewhere exotic on the other side of the world, because otherwise there was no excuse.
- [04:18]
Brent Smart
Well, hi, Fergus. And I'm a big fan of the show and thanks for having me on. And yes, I didn't make your Sydney live recording. I wasn't anywhere exotic. I think I probably had a school thing on or something, you know, really romantic like that. But anyway, apologies.
- [04:34]
Fergus
I had no. I had no idea you were still in school.
- [04:38]
Brent Smart
Three kids and they keep me very busy.
- [04:41]
Fergus
I get it. I totally get it. Yeah, we. We had it. We had a great show over at the. @ WPP's Ogilvy office, so it was great. But you've spent a lot of time on the agency side. Tell us about that experience. And then what was it like to transition over to client side? And what could you take with you? And what could you not? Let's talk a minute or two about that.
- [05:05]
Brent Smart
Yeah, well, look, I was. I was very blessed. I had a fantastic agency career. I did work at Clenzo in New Zealand. I ended up in the States. And I was lucky enough to be CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, which. Look, for a kid from the suburbs of Melbourne, it was a bit of a dream come true. You know, I'd be working in New York and working at such a storied agency like Saatchi. And during my whole career in agencies, I just love the work. I love the people who made the work. My wife's an art director. I've always just sort of loved everything about creating the work, and I was good at selling it. That was sort of my superpower, if you will. And what's interesting, I think about it is as I reflect now on what. What is it from my agency experience that makes me decent at my job now as a cmo? I think it's that ability to influence. Because in agencies, you don't have the budget, you don't have the decision rights. All you're doing is trying to convince someone else to buy the work. And I think the thing I've learned is the hardest bit. Look, it's really hard to stare at a blank sheet of paper and come up with an idea. And I have nothing but respect for people who do that. But it's also hard, maybe even harder, getting that idea through an organization. And you really need someone in there who is going to protect the work, but also who can influence and who can really sort of navigate the organization and really get people to come along the journey. And I think that is the skill you learn in agencies. And I think it is such a powerful skill set inside organizations. And I see that as my number one job, is to protect work within the organization. And that's why I wanted to become a cmo. I thought I just spent so many years handing ideas over to someone else, and inevitably some clients would get them through, but a lot wouldn't. And so I thought, well, what if I could do that job? Maybe I could get more great work through.
- [07:13]
Fergus
But what is it that you know about how to influence somebody that makes you really great at it? There's a psychology behind that. I've got to think.
- [07:23]
Brent Smart
Yeah, look, there is. I think part of it is it all comes down to trust, right? It's all about trust. You need to build trust. And people need to look you in the eye and when they say, is this going to work? You need to have the confidence to say, yes, I think it will. And I believe in this idea. I think trust is big. I think conviction is massive. I think you've got to be real conviction behind the work. I think if you don't believe, no one else is gonna. So it's really important to have conviction. And I think the other thing which I've learned is you need patience. So. So I often think we expect things to work right away. I often think that, you know, we, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go down the brand building journey, it's gonna take time. So it's this interesting mix. I think of lots of conviction and passion, but also patience to sort of calm people down and say, look, just let it work, it's going to work. So I think that's an interesting mix, right? Having that equal.
- [08:24]
Fergus
Be patient with the work that's in market or patient to sell it in.
- [08:29]
Brent Smart
Both. Both, I think. I think there's nothing worse than putting a gun to someone's head and say, we have to approve this today because, you know, we're going to market. I think it's a journey and I think you've got to take people along that journey. And you know, if, if the first time you're having the conversation about a piece of work is when you walk in the room with that bit of work, I don't think you're giving that bit of work the best possible chance to, you know, to live. I mean, you know, it should be a series of conversations and you build up to it. And by the time you're walking with that bit of work, people are like, oh yeah, that makes total sense because that's the narrative that we've been talking about. And so I think, you know, it's patience in the buildup, it's definitely patience in the making. Like you need time to craft things well. And I think that's super important. I'm a massive fan of craft. And then the third thing is you need patience when it's in market 100%, like you cannot panic, you cannot change things because you're not getting the first week sales that you want. You know, you've got to be patient and you got to be calm and you got to keep everyone else patient. I think that's a really important part of the role.
- [09:32]
Fergus
You know, one of the things that's pretty clear is that you must have been hired by somebody who really recognized the Power of marketing. And who brought a guy like you in because you've got a lot of skills and you've brought with you some people that are on the leading edge of creativity. So what was this? A CEO who really recognized that marketing was needed? Was it somebody in the C suite? How, how did it come about?
- [09:58]
Brent Smart
Well, I think I always say to people when, when you're interviewing for a job, like I'm always interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me. Right. And I think I make it very clear what I will bring if you hire me. I'm not your typical corporate cmo. I'm not going to be safe when it comes to the work. I'm going to bring creativity into the organization. But here's why I think that's a really important thing is I always say, here's why I'm going to bring creativity to the brand. And that is because we've got all the evidence we need that more creative is more effective. Luckily, this is my second CMO role and luckily in the last one I had a good track record that I'd sort of transformed a brand and delivered some commercial success. So I always frame it in that. And I think for me the creativity, it's not about sort of vanity and winning awards and being the rock star, them or any of that stuff. It's a really good commercial decision. The best commercial decision you can make as a marketer is to do great work. So I think that's the important thing. The conversation is always I will bring creativity, but I bring creativity in order to deliver commercially for the business. And that's my belief and that's what I'll bring. And so I'm only going to get hired by a CEO or a company that wants that if they want safe. I think in the interview process it's pretty clear that I'm not bringing that. So I think that's really important to position, to position yourself, you know, I mean like to really clearly position yourself when you're going into a job I think is really important.
- [11:26]
Fergus
So is Big Telco the same for you guys in Australia as it is here? Meaning over here? It's, it's, you know, it's dominated by one or two big brands. Neither of those big brands over here like Verizon or AT&T are known for doing sort of leading edge work. I can't imagine that those companies would ever do the work that you're doing. Maybe they aspire to that, maybe their CMOs aspired to it. I just don't see it happening. Why was such a large Telstra brand willing to do work like this?
- [12:03]
Brent Smart
Well, I think it is similar to answer the first part of your question and you know, we're a bit like Verizon. We've got this fantastic network and it is an absolute incredible asset for our business. And you know, traditionally we talked a lot about the network. When I took this job, Fergus, someone said to me, you'll never get fired for making a good network at Telstra. That was the advice a guy coming in, right? So the network is the best in the market and, and we've spent billions on our network. So we do have a competitive advantage when it comes to the product, which is super important. And I think that makes it somewhat easier. Although it's never easy to make good work, but it makes it somewhat easier if you can start with that truth. Right. It's a better network, I think that has. And some of our best work has been about that.
- [12:54]
Fergus
But you're the big brand in the category, right?
- [12:58]
Brent Smart
You're the market leader. Yeah, we're the market leader and where also the most premium brand in the market because of our great network. Right. Like you pay more for that. But the interesting thing that makes it slightly more complicated and nuanced is we were government owned. So for a long time we were the government. Right. And Australia's a big place. It's got a lot of sparse geography. It's a hard place to connect Australia. And so it used to be very much part of the government's mandate to do that. When we privatized we brought a lot of the baggage sort of with the brand of being a government owned company which as anyone who's dealt with the government knows, customer service isn't exactly. No, government is Amazon. Right. Customer service isn't sort of a top priority. So there's a lot of baggage around the brand from what we used to be, not what we are. And the business has really invested in improving that customer service. We've got like record NPS at the moment and you know, lowest ever complaints and all that sort of stuff. But I think the issue was externally people weren't feeling that our customers were, but non customers weren't. Right. Because only customers feel the good cx.
- [14:17]
Fergus
Was it rebranded when the privatized or no?
- [14:20]
Brent Smart
Yes. No, no, it went from Telecom to Telstra. So it did rebrand the. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kept the towel a bit but yeah, but like a lot of non customers hadn't felt those sort of CX improvements that we'd been making and that's where there was a real reputational challenge for Telstra. So, like a massive gap between our reputation with customers and non customers. I've never seen a gap, like a 15 point gap, like massive gaps and so long way of answering your question. There was a reputational challenge and like any, you know, A, our category isn't loved, right, telcos aren't loved. But B, this sort of, this old government owned telco certainly wasn't loved by many people in Australia. And so there was a reputational challenge that needed to be addressed. So, and very much the work is trying to answer that. So my, my sort of favorite sound bite is if you want to change how people feel about the brand, change how the brand feels. And so there was a real need to, to, to work on that and change that. And that is why we've been able to do the sort of work that we've been doing. And it's absolutely changing how people feel about the brand. And most importantly, Fergus, it's changing how people feel about the brand. I think that's often overlooked by marketers, especially if you're in any service business that's delivering any sort of experience to a customer, if you can, who work for the brand, feel proud to represent the brand, they're going to deliver a way better experience. And it's just a really powerful thing though. I think, you know, I certainly take pretty seriously as a cmo and I think more marketers should think, should think like that.
- [16:02]
Fergus
So when you come in, I think close to three years ago. Yeah. What do you, what do you have to do? I've got to imagine that you're spending the first months learning and trying to understand the role of marketing and what marketing, how marketing can help the business. Or was it fast tracked for more than that?
- [16:21]
Brent Smart
Well, I sort of like to get momentum pretty quickly. I think one of the dangers when you come into a big CMO role, you know, everyone's expecting you to make an impact and make change happen. And I think what I've seen, you know, CMOs do is they come in, they learn which you need to do. There's no doubt you need to learn what's going on inside the business. And they do a big strategic sort of piece and they sort of sort out the brand positioning and then they do a big brand campaign, they're ready to reload, launch a new brand and you've lost two years, you know. Yeah, and so my, my thing is always like, find a quick win, find something that's sort of pretty obvious that you can get on with sort of straight away and, and, and, and get, do, do a bit of work. Because, Because I think by making a bit of work and putting out to the world, you learn two things. You learn how much stretch is there in this brand. Like, like, like how much can I sort of stretch the voice and how much can I play with it creatively. But you also learn a lot about your team and your agency by making something together. So. So I always try and do something sort of out of the gates pretty quickly and I try.
- [17:27]
Fergus
What would be an example of that would be something that's more. Say again, Christmas ad.
- [17:32]
Brent Smart
So we're a big retail category. It's when we sell the most phones. For me, it was a pretty obvious thing. Let's make a Christmas ad. You don't need to have your strategy and positioning sort of completely sorted out to work out, but, you know, Christmas is about connecting and we're a company that does connection, you know what I mean? You can get, you can get to a good break pretty quickly around Christmas and I think you can do an ad that has some real emotional power, which is good if you're trying to move from being more of a rational kind of brand to emotional brands. A really good moment when you can sort of shift that pretty quickly. And the important thing is it delivers commercially because, like, it's the important retail time. So if you can nail that event, you also get some commercial runs on the board and the channel are loving it and, you know, so. But for me, that's like a really obvious quick win. You just come in and do that and, and, you know, you don't have to have your whole brand positioning sorted out to work out how to make a good Christmas ad or we. We're also a big football sponsor here, so we, we created a great football sponsorship ad to leverage the sponsorship. So, you know, there's, there's always some things I think you can get on with and, and sort of make and put out into the world. And the great thing then is you get feedback too, right? Like the best. I think the best research is to make something and see how people react to it, as opposed to doing lots of sort of creative testing and all that sort of stuff. I just think that's a waste of time. So, yeah, again, I'm sort of rambling, but to answer your question, momentum, I think, super important for any cmo. Right. And so I always want to make something pretty quickly, but then you also want to be doing the learning, of course. And so what we did pretty early on, which was really powerful was we did an ethnographic study. So I had all this data saying, you know, reputational data and brand tracking data. I mean, I had so much data, as you can imagine, you know, big telco heaps of data drowning data. But we did this fantastic ethnographic study where we went and spent a couple of days with customers and non customers and the non customers that are really important people to spend time with for us reputationally. And you know, we spent time in their homes in the. Went to pub with them, went down the Sporting Club. We just sort of hung out in their environment for a couple days. And this. We got these incredible drawings back. So we asked them to draw the brand, right? And it's just so interesting where you can have packs and packs of data, but like the old adage, right, like a picture tells a thousand words. I mean, these drawings just got under the surface of what the brand really sort of, sort of meant. And anyway, there were three things that came back from these ethos. One was the most common drawing. People people would. Would draw was a white guy in a suit. So, yeah, what was the question?
- [20:11]
Fergus
What was the question? It was literally paint the brand. Draw the brand.
- [20:14]
Brent Smart
Draw the brand, yeah. How the brand. But trying, I'm trying to be around how the brand makes you feel as well. So trying to get the emotional sort of, you know, emotional feeling around the brand. So one was white guy in a suit. We got heaps of white guys in a suit. That was the most common theme, right? So like you're traditional, you're boring. Any corporate. This was kind of, you know, conservative. Yeah, all that, all the stuff that you don't want to be. And then the second one was we got Monopoly man, cash registers, bags of money. You know, you care about profit. You know, you're very. You're more about the cash than you are about the customers. And then the third one, which was really, really, we had the most visceral sort of reaction to, was it was. It was two stick figures. There's a little stick figure and there's a big stick figure. And the big stick figure is pointing down at the little stick figure. Just said bully drawings. And so that became the. From. Right, that's. That's where the brand is now. We have to change this personality and the way people are feeling about the brand. And that was a really powerful thing to be able to show that to people. Again, going back to the point about influencing and taking stakeholders on the journey, that was more powerful to show that to people. This is really sticky.
- [21:32]
Fergus
The stick figures. How did you interpret bully out of that? Where did that.
- [21:36]
Brent Smart
Where did it come from? They wrote the word bully under it. Like it was literally.
- [21:39]
Fergus
So somebody had written that and what were they trying to say? That you guys are a big, big business talking down to little us.
- [21:47]
Brent Smart
Exactly. Like market leader. Market leader. You know, and, and you know, there's a bit of. Because, because we have this brain network. It does work in places in Australia where we're the only choice. Like, because we. Because our network is. Is much bigger. So, you know, once you get out of the sort of metro cities, there's a bit of a feeling in. In sort of regional Australia that, that, you know, we. There's not a lot of choice and yet you sort of have to be with Telstra and it becomes a bit of a sort of grudge thing and a bit of a, you know, so, so there's a bit of that going on as well. But anyway, the, the. Those three pictures, I just put them up my wall and that became the sort of guiding light, if you like. Okay, we have to change the brand so we don't feel like this anymore. And, and it really became, you know, how do we make this brand feel different? And I think that's important too. So I think, I don't know, I think a lot of people spend so much time on the, on the. What we're going to say. Right. But I think the how you say it is. Is pretty cool and, and, and you know, personality and really sort of defining a brand voice. And we spent a lot of time on that and really just wanted to turn up in a very different. In a. In a surprising way that would drive a bit of reappraisal. So yeah, that was sort of the thinking behind how we've reinvented the brand.
- [23:08]
Fergus
So you went ahead and I think you, you hired. I gotta get this. It's Bear meets Eagle on Fire. That's the name of the agency and it's a great guy called Michael Walker.
- [23:19]
Brent Smart
Yeah.
- [23:20]
Fergus
Who we tried to get to our Sydney show also, but he wouldn't even return my emails. I heard he's incredibly creative guy. He worked at Wieden and Kennedy in the past. One of the most creative people in Australia is what I heard many people say. Was he involved in those conversations? The shaping of the brand, the brand personality? Because I agree with you. The how. The.
- [23:44]
Brent Smart
How.
- [23:45]
Fergus
The importance of how do you. Is so evident in this work because of its tone, because of its style, because of its completely untraditional ways of telling stories and expressing stories. They're film more than advertising in their sensibility. Right. How do you, how do you think about it?
- [24:06]
Brent Smart
Yeah, well, look, Micah is, he's an extraordinary talent. We're very lucky. He has an Aussie wife and therefore lives here in Australia because he's a, he's a, you know, he's a world class talent as you said. Worked at Widen for many years, fell in London. He's, he's, he's incredible. And, and Micah brings two things to the brand. I mean, he, he, he was instrumental in, you know, really coming up with this voice for the brand and he has a sort of very, he's got very strong views on, on, on our voice and, and how we, how, how we need to sort of talk, which is so important. But the other thing he brings, he brings unbelievable craft. I mean he's, he. I've never worked with anyone who is as obsessed with craft and as good at craft as Micah.
- [24:49]
Fergus
So how does he describe the voice? How would he, how would he describe how the voice should be?
- [24:54]
Brent Smart
Yeah, because I hate nothing more than those, you know, we've all seen them statements that say, you know, confident, optimistic, warm. All these sort of words that are so like, well, terrible. Yeah, we've got it, we've got some, we've got some really wonderful personality statements that we spent quite a bit of time on. Like we want to be ambitious in our, ambitious in our ideas, but humble in our voice. I think you can see that in a lot of the work and, and the way it's coming through. But my favorite is feel the craft of the human hand is one of our personality traits. And we think that in our category there's distinctiveness in being really well crafted, particularly if we're the premium brand. I think it's really important. I think, Johnny, I've said recently that people can sense when care's gone into making things. I really believe that. And so there's importance for us if we want to be premium, that we need a level of craft. But I think there's something going on the world right now where, you know, all this AI content is starting to take over and I think a lot of it is all kind of looks and feels the same. So the idea that taking the time to craft something and feeling the humanity in that work, I do think it's going to become more and more important and help brands really sort of stand out. And so that's a big part of it. The craft is a really big part of how we Think about the work and we take it really seriously. And. But. But Micah has really been instrumental in that. The important thing too, on just on the agency model quickly is I think what's hard when you're a big client, like. And, you know, for Australian, you know, by American stands, we're not that big, but we're big for Australia. And, you know, we do, I don't know, 600 briefs a year. So it's a lot of work and it's very retail category. So there's a lot of very fast retail stuff that we gotta be doing. And. And I think the temptation is, well, I need a big agency that can sort of keep up with our madness, you know, because we're so big and fast and, you know, but I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to sort of make that trade off. I really wanted a small, independent, very creative agency as our lead agency. So normally, you know, Ben McTeaguel on fire, they're probably about 20 people. You know, like, Micah keeps it very sort of small and he's very. He handpicks everyone that works there. And. And normally, like a client like us would crush an agency like that. But I really wanted them to be the lead creative agency in market, to be our lead creative. And so what we do, we built a model where we've put scaffolding around Bami's Eagle on Fire. And the TWA network provides that scaffolding and they provide strategic thinking and they provide the delivery system that enables us to be able to run at the pace we need to run at, run at the scale we need to run at. But absolutely have Mica leading the creative. And then because TWA and OMD are both, you know, part of Omnicom, OMD's our media agency. We've been able to integrate creative and media, you know, really tightly. And so we've got this really lovely partnership between BMET Qualifier, TBWA and OMD where they're working in a really integrated way on our business. And I've kind of got the best of both worlds. I've got a small independent that's super creative, but I've also got the delivery system I need from a network agency. And it works really, really well. They play really well together and they've created a really lovely culture and it's working really well.
- [28:16]
Fergus
So let's talk about wherever we go.
- [28:18]
Brent Smart
Yeah.
- [28:19]
Fergus
So what did you want wherever you go? To represent.
- [28:23]
Brent Smart
Yeah.
- [28:24]
Fergus
What's the thinking behind it?
- [28:25]
Brent Smart
Yeah, it's always. I think it's Always really hard when you're trying to, you know, sum up any being complicated brand and business, you know, in a pithy strap line, you know, like, that's pretty hard to do. And so, so, but what we really want to do was like, we've done a lot of work on the. How we're really establishing a. A clear personality and strong voice, but we, but we really want to make sure we also had a clear positioning that could be a really sort of enduring platform for us. And our, you know, I know purpose gets a really bad rap at the moment, but. But our purpose at Telstra and our CEO and our leadership really believe in this purpose is to build a connected future so everyone can thrive. Right? That's our purpose. And, you know, it's a great purpose, but it sounds like McKinsey wrote it. So I was really keen to sort of come up with some way of articulating what we believe in as a company. And I think the really important thing for me in that purpose is it's really optimistic. It's about a really positive future. And I think at the moment in the world, we just need a bit of that optimism, you know. So what I love about Wherever we Go is it's really optimistic about the future and that wherever we go, we go together. Partnerships also inherent in it. If you go back to those, those drawings I talked about earlier, you know, the idea that we're. We're partnering with our customers and we're standing with our customers and, and that, you know, they're more important than us. Like, that's a big shift for, for us as a company. So. So the we in Wherever we Go is really important. That's about partnership with our customers. So it felt like, you know, a really, a really powerful statement that sort of got to the purpose of our company. Talked about the fact that, you know, we really are about partnership with our customers. But most importantly, it didn't feel like a corporate strap line. I always say it sounds like Dr. Seuss wrote it. Like it's got a. It's got real whimsy to it. And as a creative platform, you know, it's really enabled us to do some interesting work because. Because it is, you know, it's pretty open. You know, there's a lot you can do under Wherever we go. It's interesting when we, we did some business work recently, so, you know, we really focus on getting the consumer brand, you know, launched any market first. Then we sort of thought about, okay, how do we bring this to life in the business segment? And it's just, it's so perfect for business and enterprise. Wherever we go, wherever your business goes, you know, it's a really fantastic.
- [30:44]
Fergus
The beauty of it is that it's not, it's implicit, it's not literal. The problem is that so many of these big brands, they want it to be literally what's communicated, but you don't lean in on that, man. It's very implicit and very whimsical. I mean, for example, did you launch with Boy and the. And the Bird or, or what?
- [31:02]
Brent Smart
No, so that came, that came later. So, so as I said earlier, like I was doing things like Christmas ads and footy ads and stuff, you know, when I first got to Telstra. But the first bit of work that, that Micah and and plus six one did for us was our Better on a Better Network campaign, which is the, the stop motion. I call them our spokes critters.
- [31:26]
Fergus
But this is in May of 2020.
- [31:30]
Brent Smart
Yeah, that's right, yeah. May last year. And timed really well for the Olympics. So I think, you know, big brands need to do things that only big brands can do. And sponsoring the Olympics is definitely one of those things. So we bought an Olympics media package. And the thing about the Olympics is, you know, obviously I watch it with my kids and stuff, but by day five, I'm so sick of the big bank ad and the big insurance ad that just plays over and over and over. It's always sort of a big corporate 62nd, you know, kind of thing. So we want to do the opposite. So we thought let's make a bunch of little 15s that just keep turning up during the Olympics and they, each time they sort of surprise you and oh, there's another one. So we made 26, which was pretty ambitious. And, and it's a really simple idea. It's, let's just show all the places around Australia where our network is better and deliberately choose places that are outside of the cities and are out in the, you know, out in the regional areas because that is our strength. Only our network works out there. But that then opened up this really interesting, you know, idea of, well, let's get the little critters that live in those, those, those places to be the spokesperson for the network. Like, it's kind of interesting because they don't use the technology. And so we had the idea and they're very simple scripts. But then the really brilliant thing again, I talked earlier about, you know, Micah's obsession with craft. We worked with Wes Anderson's animation director.
- [32:55]
Fergus
I was thinking that that's the spirit of it. I could describe for people this, these spots are all animated.
- [33:02]
Brent Smart
Yeah, they're all stop motion. They're stop motion animation. So, you know, that's where, you know, you, you move the arm, you move the leg, you move the mouth, you know, each, you move it through. That took seven months to make. It was incredibly painstaking to make all 26. And, but, but we, we basically got Wes Anderson's animation director, a guy called Tobias Fourakers. I mean, he sounds like Wes Anderson's animation director, Tobias Four anchor. But Micah paired him with Jeff Lowe, who's a pretty well known comedy director out of the States. And it was that combination of beautiful craft and animation, but also comedy in the sort of dialogue and the delivery and they just turned out so brilliant. Flinders island is better on a better mobile network.
- [33:47]
Fergus
Oops.
- [33:50]
Brent Smart
Oh, that's bad.
- [33:52]
Fergus
I'm okay.
- [33:52]
Brent Smart
He's okay. Wagga Wagga's better on a better mobile network. You could say it's better. Better.
- [34:02]
Fergus
My little joke. Because Logger.
- [34:04]
Brent Smart
Logger and better.
- [34:07]
Fergus
Never mind.
- [34:08]
Brent Smart
Tambo is better on a better mobile network. Yeah, it's.
- [34:18]
Fergus
Virgil.
- [34:21]
Brent Smart
Virgil. Restraint is really important.
- [34:25]
Fergus
Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah.
- [34:26]
Brent Smart
And I think that most markets ask, what can I add in? And I always try and ask, what can I take out? I think, I think reducing it down to its simplest form is really important. My way I think about the work is I want a really simple idea that leaves room for craft. If you can get the idea really simple, then there's lots of room for the craft to really sort of kick in and make it quite extraordinary and amazing. But, but in the end they say our network's better. I mean, what else do you need to say? Like, they are very sort of straight actually in terms of what they deliver, but I think, I don't know, it's an interesting one. I do think that that's where you need to be very protective of the work. It would have been easy to fuck those up and add a lot of stuff in and make them complicated and, you know, we were very vigil, vigilant on. No, no, they need to be very pure and they need to be very simple. I think it comes from. I love out of Home. I'm a massive fan of out of Home. Out of Home. I'd say the backbone of our brand building is out of Home. And I think if you can distill it right down to a great poster, I think there's an important discipline in that. I see a lot of terrible out of Home. But when you see good out of Home, like shot on iPhone, you know, like really great at home, I think there's a discipline and a restraint and.
- [35:48]
Fergus
Tell me about that conceptual. Because the traditional thing to do, which I would have loved to have seen done too, is that you take the, the, the creative concepts of the, the films, the 15 second films, and you take that into out of Home. But you guys didn't. You went with, you went with sort of a graphic, you went with the sort of graphic representation of, of the line without any connection at all to the work. What was the thinking behind that?
- [36:12]
Brent Smart
Well, my thinking is do what's fit for the platform. Like, like, just because it's a good film, it's not going to make it great out of home, I don't think. I think, and I do think we've got quite slavish with consistency and I don't know, I think that's matching luggage, man. I just think it doesn't make for great, great out of home, I think, I think it's better to sort of go, okay, we've got, here's the, here's the core idea. What's the best way to bring it to life, you know, in this channel? And what's the best way to bring life in this channel? So we, we, we actually try and avoid doing matching luggage. We rarely do it. And we, we like to think more about what's the, what's the most powerful at home execution that talks about network that we can run at the same time as this really great network film. And so I look and I, I get some criticism for that. Like, I do have people say that I'm not. Our work isn't consistent enough and it should be more consistent. But I think it's got a really consistent voice, a really clear voice. And I think that, you know, it works as a whole, it works in aggregate. I don't think you need to worry too much personally about everything matching. And also, I like to also leave a bit of room for the consumer to, you know, if you're going to put it out of home up, it's going to be up for, you know, weeks, months, then what's the point of it being just, oh yeah, that's the TV campaign I saw. Like, there's no, it doesn't add anything to the consumer. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I want them to think a little bit and oh, that's interesting. And you know, I just think you got to leave a little bit of room for the consumer. Do a bit of work. Otherwise, I think it just becomes sort of very straight and very.
- [37:45]
Fergus
So let's talk about. Let's talk about another aspect of this now. I was, I was amazed to see that Dougal Wilson, who. Who is so famous for so many things, but for a lot of people in advertising, I think people think about him for. Is he. He was in John. A lot of the John Lewis work.
- [38:02]
Brent Smart
All the best. And famous John Lewis work was Doogle. Yeah.
- [38:05]
Fergus
And so he, he worked with you guys on this different initiative. Tell us about what you guys worked on together.
- [38:13]
Brent Smart
Yeah. And it was such a privilege. I've always wanted to make something with Dougal. So it was, it was amazing. We got Dougal Wilson down. He came down to Australia to make these spots. I mean, I'm pinching myself that we got in. He has, as his first out. He's made a long time. So he's been doing the Paddington. He did Paddington 3. So he's been busy making, you know, but anyway, we, we have this incredible long standing advertising spot where. Where basically we get the last spot in cinemas before the movie runs for one of the big cinema chains here in Australia. So literally, you've seen all the ads, seen all trailers. Cinema goes dark. Yeah. The movie's about to start and there's one spot that says, turn off your phone from Telstra. And we've had it for years and years and years. And before I worked at Telstra, when I first took the job, I remember sitting in the cinema with my kids because my kids love movies and I'll see in the cinema, my kids. And, and my son said to me, you need to make that Telstra add better. Okay. So like, I'm like, right, got it. Like, but it's such a beautiful. I mean, it's such a beautiful. It's a gift. What a gift, right? Like, what an awesome briefer, you know, pretty much. So Micah, you know, couldn't wait to get his hands on this brief and, and he came up this fantastic idea which is put your phone on silent films. So they're. They're silent films inspired from, you know, the, the silent film era, all in black and white, black and white. Like absolutely crazy attention to detail to make them look like silent films look. But. But with the benefit of modern cgi. So like all the sort of, if you like, effects they would have loved to have had back then. We've used to make these spots. Like there's a. One is set in a restaurant where a lady's been stood up. Her date doesn't turn up and suddenly the table jumps up and dances with her. And it's magical and beautiful. It looks like it's shot in the 20s, but it's got modern CGI to make the table just dance beautifully and magically. Another one's about a magnetic boy who has sort of these powers and he's brought into the military testing facility and I open up a sort of, you know, a briefcase of metal items that all fly towards him and stick to him. And it's pretty funny. And then there's one.
- [40:35]
Fergus
I've got to stop you there, because I love that one. So it looks like it's like it's all black and white. There's a bunch of military guys standing at one end of the room or up the hall and then on the other end of the hall is just this kid reading a comic book sitting in a chair. It's all black and white. Somebody comes on screen and opens up this case of metal objects. They all fly and they stick to him.
- [40:59]
Brent Smart
But the other thing too, this is where I think it's so important to understand the context within which you're running work, right? So we sponsor every film right in these cinemas and we're going to run these for like, you know, a year, two years, I don't know how long. So people are going to see these multiple times. If you go to the movies, you know, multiple times across the year, you're going to see these. So a, like make the story a bit interesting. So I get something. I might not get it the first time I watch it, but I'll really get it the second time. Like make them interesting because they're going to live for a long time. And also like what?
- [41:34]
Fergus
The airlines. The airlines. The problem, the problem is the airlines don't get what you got. They get the idea that they needed to create a unique safety video, but they forgot about the fact that, that it's horrible to watch it 15 times a month when you're a frequent flyer. So they gotta rotate different creative executions, which is what you guys did.
- [41:55]
Brent Smart
Yeah, totally. And so, and look, you're also, you're in a dark cinema. You're sitting there waiting to watch the movie. I mean, it's not like we're trying to sort of grab your attention in the living room while you're trying to do three other things. I mean, you've got a very captive audience and it's right before the movie starts. So I think we really wanted to, we wanted to kind of honor that, that, that beautiful context within which the work Runs. And so, yeah, it gave us an opportunity to, to, to do something really interesting. But look, it breaks all the rules. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's black and white. Our logo's in black and white. You know, that. What the, where's the role of the phone? It's not there. Like, you know, if you wanted to use all the kind of marketing science rules that you should use, you know, we broke all.
- [42:41]
Fergus
Yeah. You know, and then so what. So speaking of the marketing sciences, so you're, you're from a part of the world where a lot of it originates. Ehrenberg Bass is down there, Ritson's down there, James Herman is down there. And it's one of the strongest parts of the world for the marketing sciences. What, what is useful about the sciences for you as a cmo? Is there parts of it where you feel you have to break the rules? Do you see them as liberation or do you see them as handcuffing you in some way or risking handcuffing you?
- [43:16]
Brent Smart
Well, first thing is I don't call them marketing science. I call it marketing effectiveness. And that might sound semantic, but for me it's important. It's not science and we're kidding ourselves. We think it's science, but I think there are some fantastic effectiveness principles that I absolutely use religiously when I think about how I plan and, and how I budget and those really important strategic decisions that we're making as marketers. I mean, 60 40. I'm a disciple of 60 40, you know, future Demand. James. I work with James at Colenzo, he's a good friend of mine. And, and you know, I think Future demand is the most powerful way to explain brand building to non marketers.
- [43:57]
Fergus
Yeah, it is brilliant.
- [43:58]
Brent Smart
It's so brilliant. And I think he's got a, he's.
- [44:01]
Fergus
Got another book coming out which builds on it all. I think next year it's coming out.
- [44:05]
Brent Smart
And it's, it' really great, which is exciting.
- [44:07]
Fergus
Takes it to a new level. Next.
- [44:10]
Brent Smart
And we did some work with James when I, when I was first at Telstra. He, he, he helped us quite a lot with, with how we thought about creative excellence, which is another thing I'm pretty passionate about. But anyway, James is great. But, but so, so, so these principles I think are super important and I think the, the way, and the way we budget, I think are the most strategic things obviously we do in marketing. And I think you've got to base that on sound effectiveness principles. Not to mention my whole reason for being Creative is based on the fact that it's more effective. Right? That is the whole reason that I push for creativity. So I tend to think about more as effectiveness versus science. There's no doubt that, that, you know, some people are applying them like a science with very rigid sort of rules. And I think the one that I think gets. Gets misused the most is distinctive assets. Because I think a lot of people forget the word distinctive. That's right there in that, in, in that, you know, because just because you use it all the time, that doesn't make it distinctive. That's just repetitive assets. That's not distinctive assets. I think you make something that is really distinctive and really stands out and is really different and then people will remember it and talk about it and that's a distinctive asset. And again, I think people get confused with repetitive assets. I think they get confused with consistent assets. No, make them distinctive. That's the job. I think that's the most important thing we can do as marketers is be distinctive. I think for me, if you come back to the core job I'm trying to do at Telstra, I'm trying to drive reappraisal with a bunch of non customers who don't like us very much. So if I turn up in a really consistent expected why all the time, that's not going to move them to think differently about us at all. They're just. It's going to be wall, it's going to be wallpaper. So we got to drive reappraisal. We got a surprise. You know, we got to really make people feel that it's. That we're a different brand than we were before. And so that's what's at the heart of, you know, our creative strategy and the way we turn up.
- [46:21]
Fergus
So how, how do you feel about what you've achieved so far? Do. Are you seeing those sort of brand KPIs going in the direction you want to see? Is the business seeing any advantage so far? Because it's been what it's been. It's been a year and a half since 2024 was the May 2024.
- [46:38]
Brent Smart
The work that +/6 1 is what we call our agency model with Bear and TWA and all that. We call it plus six one which is the dialing code from Australia, by the way. But plus six one since they've been on board, that's, that's been 18 months and that's when we've really been, you know, creating this great body of work. That's, that's really moving the brand forward so we, we can, we can see a big difference in our brand metrics over that time. I'm really, what I'm really proud of is, is I really like brand strength as a, as a metric which, which brand finance measure, because it's an aggregate of brand equity and you can compare it to other big brands and, you know, it's external and pretty robust.
- [47:18]
Fergus
And so our brand strength, what is that? What is brand strength? What are the components of brand strength?
- [47:23]
Brent Smart
Yeah, so brand finance, right? They do all the value, they do all the brand value stuff, which, which is great because, you know, a brand valuation is accounting and it, you know, and financial people like it and you can show the value of the brand. But so much of brand value is caught up in the revenue and the size of the business, right? So like Telstra, we're a really big business down here in Australia, so we're the third most valuable brand in Australia. But I like brand strength, which is their other metric, because that's about the equity in the brand. That's not about how big your revenue is or how big. It's about how strong the fundamentals of the brand are. Like how much appeal have you got? Credibility. Do customers believe that you deliver a good experience and all the sort of stuff that matters and they aggregate it into a score so you can sort of compare it to where you were and to others. So I really like the simplicity of one score. I really like the fact that it's about brand equity and love that I can, you know, benchmark against other brands. So what's, what's, what's really great for us is our brand strength's gone up 2.9 points in the last, you know, since we're doing all this work, our category's gone down negative 1.5, right? So the rest of the telcos have gone down minus 1.5. We've gone up plus 2.9.
- [48:34]
Fergus
And we are now the 2.9 points on a base of what?
- [48:38]
Brent Smart
On an index. On an index. I can't remember the exact. Off the top, we went from 82 to 85 or something. But, but what's really amazing is we're the fourth strongest telco brand in the world according to this brand strength index, which is pretty amazing for a, you know, we're from brand from Little Australia, so that's, that's, that's pretty cool. So we're sort of defying the, the category when it comes to, you know, the other brands in the category where we're Sort of outperforming those. And, you know, it is, is. It's not lost on me that, that you don't have a. You don't have much of an advantage as a telco. You're not loved like, you know, some of the other brands out there. So you do start with a little bit of a. A reputational disadvantage, I'd say, as a telco. So, so that's been great to see that move in the, in the brand strength. And then the really, really positive thing is, is we are actually seeing brand be a multiplier for performance. So, you know, we did a lot of performance marketing when I first arrived. 80% of what we did was performance marketing when I first arrived. So we're a long way away from 60, 40. And so we've changed the shape of that. And as we've invested more in brand, our rois, and we measure them on net connection revenue, so that's acquisition, bringing in new customers. Our ROIs have gone up 75%. So spend more on brand. The performance marketing works better, which is, you know, really, really great to be able to prove that out.
- [50:10]
Fergus
Well, man, it has been a treat to talk with you. Thank you for, for coming on here and giving us an hour of your time. It's Brent Smart, CMO at Telstra. He's in Australia. And do you actually live in Bondi beach, or is that just on your LinkedIn profile? I visited there when I was down there.
- [50:27]
Brent Smart
I do, I do live in Bondi, but I'm, I'm. I. Disappointingly, I'm up the hill. I'm not right on the beach, but I do live in Bondi. It's a great part of the world and I'm very fortunate to live there.
- [50:36]
Fergus
Yeah, it's beautiful. Really beautiful place. If I live there, I'd want to be up on the hill. Too far, too close to the water and all that craziness. For those who haven't been there, it's kind of like Venice beach in, in Australia. It's a pretty cool experience.
- [50:50]
Brent Smart
Less muscles with less muscles. Yeah.
- [50:52]
Fergus
Thanks, man. It was, it was great talking with you. We really appreciate it and we'll, we'll, we'll get back to you soon with what comes up next for you guys.
- [51:00]
Brent Smart
Guys. Thank you, Fergus. I'm a big fan of the show. It's been great to be on and awesome talking to you.
- [51:05]
Fergus
Cheers. Thanks so much. And we'll see everybody on the next episode.