How brand can become your company’s greatest asset - Jonny Bauer

Summary

Uncensored CMO: How Brand Can Become Your Company’s Greatest Asset

Host: Jon Evans
Guest: Jonny Bauer (ex-Chief Strategy Officer, Droga5; former Blackstone; Founder, Fundamental Co)
Date: August 27, 2025

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Overview

This episode delves deep into how brand thinking can be a company’s most crucial asset—not just from a marketing or advertising perspective, but as a core driver of business value. Jon Evans interviews Jonny Bauer, whose career has encompassed influential roles at BBH, Droga5, and Blackstone, and now with his own venture, Fundamental Co. The conversation explores why strategists deserve a seat at the table, the evolution of brand thinking in private equity, and how to integrate brand strategy into the DNA of an organization for meaningful value creation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Often-Underappreciated Role of Brand Strategists

• Strategy vs. Creativity in Agencies ([01:43]–[02:35])

  • Jonny recalls how BBH uniquely valued strategists and gave them an equal seat alongside creatives, allowing strategy to inspire the work, not just post-rationalize it.
  • Quote: “They really had a seat at the table...not just used to sell work or to post-rationalize work.” — Jonny ([02:36])

• Cultural Differences in Strategic Planning ([03:11]–[04:04])

  • Strategy in advertising originated in Britain and was exported to the US, often dominated by expat Brits in New York.

Early Brand Innovation: Axe/Lynx and Shifting Emotional Territories

• Transforming Axe/Lynx ([04:09]–[08:50])
  • Jonny reflects on helping reposition Axe from a functional antiperspirant to a seduction tool for young men—an emotional territory that built a new category.
  • Innovative moves included the creation of entertainment properties: a TV series, a movie, a film festival, and more.
  • Quote: “If you put a different scent on it, you charge a dollar more for it and you reframe the benefit...as a seduction tool, essentially…” — Jonny ([06:54])
  • Extensive innovation pipeline emerged from honest, holistic insight into the emotional needs of consumers.

Droga5: The Rise of Strategy-First Creativity

• Building Droga5’s DNA ([09:43]–[13:37])

  • Jonny was recruited early at Droga5 and built the strategy department, with David Droga giving him power to shape it.
  • The agency’s philosophy: go beyond creative stunts—use deep strategic thinking to reduce reliance on luck and cultivate repeatable fame.
  • Quote: “We were trying to take the luck out of the fame.” — Jonny ([11:35])
  • Example: The fabled “Air Force One” viral campaign, which blurred reality and brought the notion of viral/earned media into sharp focus.

• Campaigns of Strategic Pride ([15:36]–[17:29])

  • Standout campaigns: Tourism Australia (Crocodile Dundee dupe), The New York Times (“Preserve Democracy”), Puma’s “After Hours Athlete”—all rooted in finding a differentiating category insight.
  • Quote: “At the time, they didn’t have the credentials to go after [elite] athletes…so we created a new category called the After Hours Athlete.” — Jonny ([16:47])

The Move to Private Equity: Brand as a Value Creation Engine

• Why Private Equity? ([18:08]–[21:08])

  • Jonny wanted to see if brand thinking could escape the “marketing silo” and inform wider business transformation.
  • Private equity provided “a radically different context” with receptive companies at inflection points after being acquired.
  • Quote: “Brand is...a set of ideas that you can truly organize a company around.” — Jonny ([18:49])
  • The PE shift: Moving from “efficiency-based” to “vision-based” value creation.
  • Quote: “What could this company’s next chapter be? What could it become over the course of this investment cycle?” — Jonny ([20:20])

• Integrating Brand Strategy Upstream ([24:02]–[25:31])

  • Bringing brand thinkers in early—rather than at the comms stage—aligns the business and clarifies decision-making across functions.
  • Alignment is the “biggest effect”—everyone knows what to do and how it’s measured.
  • Quote: “If we’re becoming this thing, this is your role in becoming it.” — Jonny ([25:26])

• Lessons Learned at Blackstone ([28:47]–[32:28])

  • Jonny learned to be more useful across many (non-consumer) business types—like infrastructure or data centers.
  • Quote: “Blackstone's portfolio is mostly not consumer...all these companies you don’t normally get access to or understanding from...” — Jonny ([29:59])
  • Brand can play a crucial role from acquisition diligence to “exit readiness.”

Bridging the Gap: Brand, Finance, and the C-Suite

• How Finance Sees Brand ([32:46]–[33:52])

  • Blackstone sees brand as central, both for itself and as a genuine differentiator for investments; brand foundations come before activation/advertising.

• Advice on Bringing Brand Strategy Upstream ([34:20]–[36:42])

  • Start by asking: Not “why do you exist?” but “What kind of company are you—and what do you want to be valued as?”
  • Transformational change can mean either “becoming bigger” or “becoming something else of higher value.”
  • Quote: “Know that the right kind of ideas can take you from one categorical placement into another of higher value.” — Jonny ([34:37])

• Senior Sponsorship and Cross-Functional Alignment ([36:42]–[38:32])

  • CEO-led mandates ensure brand is company-wide, not siloed; essential to have everyone use the same language and metrics.
  • Quote: “If the CEO is saying, you all need to care about this...he or she can make it a thing everyone needs to care about.” — Jonny ([37:19])

The Fundamental Co Approach

• From Blackstone to Fundamental Co ([40:14]–[41:17])

  • After proving the model at Blackstone, Jonny spun out Fundamental Co, keeping Blackstone as an anchor client but expanding to serve other PE and public companies.
  • They offer value creation strategy—the intersection of brand, business, and investment strategy.

• Process: Value Creation and Roadmapping ([41:29]–[43:27])

  • Work begins with strategic alignment—defining the brand’s potential with input from all major stakeholders.
  • Roadmapping prioritizes the fewest, highest-value actions to reach the desired repositioned state.

• Execution: Custom, Not Cookie-Cutter ([43:28]–[45:25])

  • No one-size-fits-all playbook. Fundamental Co assembles bespoke teams and external partners as needed for each transformation.
  • Core focus: Making sure the change is visible and understood, internally and externally (especially to potential buyers or investors).

Application & Case Studies

• Recent Projects ([47:23]–[51:31])
  • Working with several top PE firms and their portfolio companies across industries (Spanx, power grid, SaaS, private aviation, and more).
  • Public company examples: Delta, Visa, and notably CLEAR.
  • CLEAR: Reframed from “the airport queue jump company” to a “connected identity company” supporting frictionless verification across travel, healthcare, and more.
  • Olaplex: Transitioned from repair-focused haircare to a “foundational health and maintenance” company—inspiring everything from internal R&D to advertising briefs.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On early strategy’s seat at the table:
  “I was very attracted to so much work that BBH was doing...Then I understood that they were quite unique with, you know, giving strategy a real seat at the table to help inspire work...” — Jonny ([02:36])

• The power of reframing:
  “The thesis was if you put a different scent on it, you charge a dollar more...and you reframe the benefit...as a seduction tool, essentially...” — Jonny ([06:54])

• On reducing luck and repeating fame:
  “We were trying to like, take the luck out of the fame. And there was a lot of like, deep, deep thinking and understanding to inform the creative and help steer it...” — Jonny ([11:35])

• The centrality of alignment:
  “So the biggest effect that I think that this has is...around alignment and...togetherness. And it sounds so, so obvious, but...we call this process like purpose propagation.” — Jonny ([25:39])

• Brand as business transformation:
  “Brand is...a set of ideas that you can truly organize a company around.” — Jonny ([18:49]) “What happens if we brought brand much further upstream in the sequence of value creation?” — Jonny ([22:51])

• Categorical transformation:
  “The biggest lesson learned is: for a company to become more valuable, one way is for it to become bigger. Another way is for it to become something else that’s of higher value.” — Jonny ([35:00])

• Execution and change management:
  “People need to see it from very far away. And we're getting pretty good at thinking how to do that.” — Jonny ([45:18])

• Making change visible to investors:
  “The only people to signal the change to are potential new investors that need to understand the value that has been created.” — Jonny ([46:22])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:02] — Jonny’s early strategy training at BBH
• [04:09] — The Axe/Lynx reinvention and holistic brand thinking
• [09:43] — Building Droga5’s distinctive strategy-first culture
• [12:35] — The story behind the Air Force One viral campaign
• [15:36] — Standout, strategically-driven Droga5 campaigns
• [18:08] — Moving brand upstream in private equity at Blackstone
• [24:02] — The logic and benefits of integrating brand into business strategy
• [34:20] — How to move brand strategy upstream in your own organization
• [36:42] — The need for CEO/senior sponsorship
• [40:14] — Spinning Fundamental Co out of Blackstone
• [41:29] — The Fundamental Co process: value creation and roadmapping
• [47:23] — Real-life examples and application of the value creation model

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone is candid, practical, and both reflective and forward-thinking—true to the “Uncensored CMO” premise. Bauer demonstrates how marketers and strategists can (and should) think bigger about their impact—inspiring companies to move beyond seeing brand as a cost or a communications tool, and to see it as the architecture for business transformation and valuation.

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For practitioners:
If you’re a marketer, strategist, or business leader, this episode provides actionable insight into how to reposition the value of brand, get a seat at the big table, and rethink how your organization can create and capture value—whether in private equity or the broader business world.

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Transcript

[Jonny]

Foreign.

[John Evans]

Welcome back to the Uncensored cmo. Now something I'm really passionate about is demonstrating the value that marketing has on a company. Now I've worked in private equity in the past and in private equity they are razor sharp about creating value, creating growth and identifying the role that the brand has to play. Now my next guest is the person, perfect person to talk to us about this. He has been the chief strategy officer of Droga5 and he went from there to Blackstone, the world's biggest PE company. Now he really knows how to uncover value in an organization and he's now set up his own business called Fundamental Co to do just that for his clients. So I caught up with Jonny to find out about how marketing can better extract value in an organization. Here it is. Jonny, welcome to Uncensored cmo.

[Jonny]

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

[John Evans]

Now we share a bit of a common interest early in your career and we actually overlap for a while. But you sort of cut your teeth early as a strategist, didn't you at bbh?

[Jonny]

I did, yes. The Black Sheep crew. I had a really very lucky start to my career working with some very big strategy brains like Charles Wigley and Emma Cookson, David Terry and had an unusual amount of access to really senior people for someone in their early mid-20s at the time. And I'd spent a little bit of time in the London office and then they shipped me off to Singapore and then brought me over to New York where I was there for, in the New York office for another four years during a really, you know, period of, of growth of that part of the company.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

I often think that strategists never get the kind of credit they deserve because we celebrate the creative so much, don't we? We've got the awards and obviously everyone sees the creative, the client talks about the creative. But it's the work that happens, you know, in the run ups that that's often so important. Why is it we don't get the. I mean, I know BBH probably, you know, probably different in that respect, but why don't we celebrate the kind of strategy and thinking more?

[Jonny]

Yeah, I mean, I think there are a fair amount of like award schemes and systems and things like the FES and IPA where, you know, the effectiveness gets mostly conn connected with the strategy folks. But it's up to the creatives to, you know, translate the thinking into things that stop people in their tracks. And so, you know, it's. And I really, what I really liked about bbh, they kind of, I didn't really understand the strategy was a thing.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And I was very attracted to so much work that BBH was doing as a young Australian who was just into marketing and advertising. And a lot of the work that I liked, they were doing many of my favorite things. And then I understood that they were quite unique with, you know, giving strategy a real seat at the table to help inspire work rather than in some contexts, strategies used to sell work or to post rationalize work. And so, you know, they really had a seat at the table and so I like did everything I could to get in there and eventually they, they hired me.

[John Evans]

I think that's interesting because, yeah, you know, I'm British and I work with BBH over a similar period that you were there actually. But I don't think I realized until I kind of worked in the US and other markets latterly that strategy is quite a British thing. It's quite, you know, I think it's something that we kind of really kind of got behind. And I'm always amazed, like when it comes to New York about how many planners here are expat Brits themselves as well. We seem to have exported the idea.

[Jonny]

Yeah, I think that was true for a really long time. And yeah, the. There was, if you had a, an English accent, I mean, I think you got a little bit more of a listen when talking about strategy. I think that's evolved a lot now as strategy has taken so many different forms. But that idea of strategy from a traditional advertising context, I think that a lot of the thought leaders and people writing books were from the other side of the pond.

[John Evans]

It does seem that way, doesn't it? What are you most proud of from your BBH days?

[Jonny]

My BBH days, I. Let's think it's really going back a lot. I think the thing that I spent most of my time on was the Axe brand and taking it from one category of just body spray into shower and into hair and into shave. And it really became a very influential brand for young folks in a category that was very unsuspecting. And I think that I did have a hand in that work in the US and it was really lucky and proud to be doing that. We also took at the time Unilever packaged goods brand into channels that were really different for the time. So we made a movie, we made a TV series that ran on mtv and we did. We really pushed through into less traditional, more content creation channels, including making our own film festival that was supporting African American filmmakers. And you know, you really found a deodorant brand showing up in some very unexpected places and having a different level of cachet. So also, I spent a lot of time flogging whiskey in Asia with Johnnie Walker.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Wow.

[Jonny]

Which was definitely a memory. When I remember being in Seoul and was looking at the research screening for who was allowed in the focus group and I rang the research agency and I was like, I think that there's a mistake here. You're kind of like recruiting alcoholics to the group. It was like they were drinking like a bottle a week to be eligible in the group and they're like, it's just part of the culture. Like, that really is the level of seriousness that whisky has in entertaining. And it was a really eye opening, amazing experience. So I really am very, very fond of my time at bbh.

[John Evans]

I remember around the same time, actually, when I was at Britvik, I worked with PepsiCo in Korea. We were kind of collaborating on a thing. And I remember the CMO Simon at Britvik at the time saying to me, right, two things. You, John, get your business card translated into Korean and make sure you hand it over with both, you know, you know, about the same time and buy everybody a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.

[Jonny]

Right?

[John Evans]

And he was like, okay, so I think I spent a thousand pounds, like on. On Johnnie Walker. But it had exactly the desired effect. I mean, they couldn't have loved the gift more. So I've discovered the cultural power of Johnnie Walker in Korea.

[Jonny]

No, it was amazing. Yeah, yeah.

[John Evans]

I mean, going back to acts, Axe is links, isn't it, in the uk, I think.

[Jonny]

Right, right, yes.

[John Evans]

So everyone knows. I think that was a brand that I remember was. Was, you know, work was obviously great and, you know, talked about a lot, but that was one where the insight behind young men in particular was a key part of that strategy, wasn't it? And reframing how deodorant is. Is kind of understanding what role deodorant plays for young men was. Was quite a powerful part of that story, wasn't it?

[Jonny]

Yeah, it was. And it really, I mean, Axe and Lynx and, you know, Rexona are essentially the same product, but the thesis was if you put a different scent on it, you charge a dollar more for it and you reframe the benefit instead of the effect that it has on you physically from stopping you from sweating, but the effect that it has on women through the power of scent and have it repositioned as a. As a seduction tool, essentially, it created an entirely new category of body spray and created a different connection or relationship that young Guys would have with, you know, a personal care brand, it was just became a whole different, a whole different thing. Spawned so many different copycats and imitations and now there would be certainly certain components of that brand, but that would be canceled.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yes.

[Jonny]

You know, I, I was looking back at some of the, some of the work in the inside. It was definitely for a different time and a time where south park and subversion was, you know, the way to break into culture. But it, but it really, it was a great example for me to learn the role that strategy and brand could play beyond just informing what happened in the TV ad. So at that point the relationship with BBH and Unilever so deep that we were innovating around products and new sense and new, new categories, it wasn't just putting the advertising on, it was like, what's the concept behind this next variant holistically and how can that connect to, to every component of it? Which for me was like super exciting and, and the chance to go deeper and have the work be more foundational and more connected to just the teled. Although the tele ads ended up being amazing, of course. I mean I remember the creative teams in that period were like, they've all gone on to run or lead their own agencies.

[John Evans]

I remember the thing that struck me was it was a period where people understood the difference between a functional benefit and an emotional benefit. Because again, you can be about reducing sweat or make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex. There's a big, big difference between those things. And I think that's what links kind of tapped into you.

[Jonny]

They really, they were all about, you know, how does X product actually help you get the girl?

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

So how does smelling good get you the girl? How does good hair get you the girl? How does, you know, a clean shave get you? So they created this system that could just keep on tapping into different ways and you know, obviously and then the.

[John Evans]

Innovation pipeline that creates, as you just said there is just, it takes you in a whole different, you know, direction. The whole kind of system of products then emerges from that.

[Jonny]

Yeah, absolutely.

[John Evans]

So you had, you had your time at BBH and then you were in at the ground level with one of the, I guess one what became one of the world's most iconic creative agencies. Droga5.

[Jonny]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

How do you end up kind of ending up with David day one on that side.

[Jonny]

I was recruited by, you know, I was very happy at BBH and Droga was just starting and they had done a couple of quite stunt driven but very editorialized bits of Work that I found really engaging and thought were kind of at least changing my mind around what the potential of marketing could be and look like in this new kind of digital world. So Droga was founded the year after Facebook, in the year before Twitter, right in the middle of that. So there was no legacy belief around, you know, pre existing media channels. And some of the first bits of work were tapping into these new kind of consumer behaviors around media. And I just found the whole thing very compelling. And there were, it was like there were a table full of people. And David was like, we think, you know, you know, we want strategy to be, you know, part of this endeavor. And I was like, do you want strategy to be part of it or do you want to say that strategy is part of it? Because there's, you know, two very different discussions. And we went back and forth for a rest around a few months and he, he did say, listen, I'll like, let you build it the way that you want it and I'll let you have, you know, strategy have, you know, the right seat at the table. And he was true to his word and yeah, drove there Droga for plus 13 years where I, you know, it was a great company, a great culture changed, you know, again, the, the expectation of what kind of work marketing could contribute to a business. Yeah, yeah, it was just, it was a roller coaster. It was an amazing experience.

[John Evans]

I mean, David was on the show last year and I think you reminded me of the quote earlier about, you know, people came in the door for the creative, didn't they? But they, they stayed for the strategy and that was a key part of success.

[Jonny]

That was a generous thing that David would say, but it was. But I do really think strategy was very central to their process and the outcomes. And so, you know, no one, we got to recruit the best people that wanted strategy to have a seat at the table at the really, you know, sharp, buzzy creative shop. I think people were surprised, to David's point, like, they're doing this great creative. But then they came in and understood that there was, you know, it wasn't throwing spaghetti at all. You know, we were trying to like, take the luck out of the fame. And there was a lot of like, deep, deep thinking and understanding to inform the creative and help steer it even to through the channel mix and where it was showing up. We had a big communication strategy group that also had a seat at the table that you were thinking about the where at the same time you were thinking about the why and the what.

[John Evans]

Yeah, I mean, you're talking about the reason for joining, like, they're doing different things. Was that around the air was the Air Force One?

[Jonny]

Yes. So that was the first piece of work that Drogo ever did. And that was. I had nothing to do with it, but that was, you know, kind of invented this concept of viral marketing or reframed the idea of the necessity of spending a lot of money to create awareness, you know, of something. And so there was definitely, you know, something to that and digging to understand how and why they got to it and which. But, you know, they didn't keep making Air Force Ones for everyone else. But it was with that. That real questioning around, what do people actually want? What are people actually doing? Will people do that? How are the behaviors changing and how do you fit in with existing behaviors? Trying to, rather than get, you know, changing people's behaviors, it's really hard. So there was just a really, you know, enormous focus on understanding how the world was working now and how you could tap into to this new, like, digital landscape.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

I mean, it was wild that. That what they did, isn't it?

[Jonny]

You know, it was amazing, like, you.

[John Evans]

Know, stretch of imagination and daring. And I think. I think when I spoke to him about it, he was saying he had to understand what the Patriot act was because. Yeah, it was. It was pushing the boundaries that far.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Yes.

[Jonny]

Yes. Could have really gotten everyone into a lot of trouble.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

You know, and for those that are listening that haven't seen it, they kind of created a replica plane of Air Force One and defaced it. And the news was covering the story as if real Air Force One was defaced to the point where the White House went to check the plane. And that was, like, really widely documented. So I think if you had actually done that, you might have got into trouble. But the world, for a certain period of time, really thought that this brand had done that. And, you know, in graffiti culture, it is all about, you know, tagging the impossible. That's where the status comes from, from finding ways to tag things that are the hardest to get to. So it really worked well to build credibility with a youthful audience that was energized around graffiti.

[John Evans]

Definitely worth looking up. It's quite astonishing. And it does that brilliant thing of you're not quite sure if it's real or not. You're thinking, really?

[Jonny]

Yes.

[John Evans]

Is that actually happening? And then it's filmed in a way that kind of looks like it. Someone's just got their phone out their pocket, and it's grainy and it's sort of bumpy and that sort of thing. So it does it almost. It's. It's unprofessionally filmed on purpose to make.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

It feel like it could have been.

[Jonny]

Authentic and observational and someone's just, you know, filming this on the fly, which again, also was totally counter to the very glossy, high production value that were then dominating that, so.

[John Evans]

Exactly.

[Jonny]

It was a real. Yeah, left turn.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

Real demonstration of what could be. So as you look over 13 years, what are you. What's been the standout? I mean, maybe from a strategy point of view as well, what are the kind of campaigns or initiatives that really showed off the strategy from Droga.

[Jonny]

While we were at Droga. I mean, personally, maybe the biggest point of pride being Australian was tourism Australia.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

Work where we. It was again, another dupe, but telling the world that maybe there was a new Crocodile Dundee movie coming starring Hemsworth and the gang that transformed into a really effective advertising campaign for tourism Australia. Really proud of all the work done for the New York Times, which, you know, I spent a lot of time with at a time of uncertainty. And the brief from the client at that point was to preserve democracy and the role that the press plays in that preservation. Really prescient now. And also one of the earlier things was a reframing of Puma to create a new category that we branded the After Hours Athlete. At the time, they didn't have the credentials to go after the athletes in the right way until they got, you say, in Bolt a little bit later. But they had all of these, you know, sporty looking clothes that weren't that sporty. And we kind of like created a new category called, you know, the After Hours Athlete.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

Which, you know, really did a lot for their business at the time and was a very different looking and feeling bit of communication where, you know, all the competitors were talking about sport as war. You know, get up at 5 in the morning, work till you throw out and work out till you throw up. And Puma was like, sport should actually be something that you play. There should be joy in it. And it was a really refreshing perspective on that. Sport should still be fun. And again, that idea connected to new product, new experiences. They started making ping pong Pumbaa ping pong paddles and ping pong clubs. And that was a really nice, very long standing campaign.

[John Evans]

It was amazing actually in that category how much sportswear has become fashion and the amount of sportswear that's worn where there's no sport happening as well, it's very lifestyle, isn't it? I think you can see that kind of from Adidas and Puma and Nike, how much of their portfolio now effectively is kind of high street fashion rather.

[Jonny]

Than kind of ultra performance. Absolutely.

[John Evans]

So you did quite a pivot after the Drogo years, which I think is fascinating to about talk. Talk to you about, because you went from, you know, one of the most celebrated famous advertising agencies in the world to the biggest private equity company, Blackstone. How on earth did that came about? And what was the brief in hiring you?

[Jonny]

It came from a progression that did start at BBH and then, you know, become more true in Droger. And then there was a period where after Droga was acquired by Accenture, I was part of that, you know, integration and transition and was just the intent for brand thinking to be useful to more than just marketing folks and for brand thinking to be connected to just more than advertising.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And so at Droga, you know, and you know, even at bbh, we would come up with a lot of transformational ideas that might just get stuck in advertising. And that was a point of personal frustration to me.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

How can it bust out of just a marketing silo and be useful to everyone? And that, you know, I've always believed that brand isn't, you know, a logo or an identity or even an advertising campaign, but when it works its hardest and at its most integrated, brand is, is. Is a set of ideas that you can truly organize a company around.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

And so we had, we had kind of flirted with some of the expanding brand beyond. We definitely expanded beyond traditional advertising to non traditional marketing. But I wanted to take it further and see if it could be more foundational to the company itself.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And so, and we experimented also with, you know, Accenture and the technology. We started to. But I, I don't know, I wanted a different. I thought that in order to realize that, that ambition, I needed a radically different context. And so I thought that private equity was the right context because a, they're private companies.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

So they're. You, you. There are less hoops to jump through in order to take action. Right. Like they're, they're, you know, there's an owner.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And they're, they're not public. There's no public board or shareholders to answer to in that way. So that context is there. But most importantly, the, the timing is where they're most receptive to evolution. Because the companies just been bought.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

And that company will most likely be sold. And if you want to sell it for more than you bought it for it will probably have to evolve.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

Or become different.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

Otherwise you're selling the same thing. And there was a bigger shift in how private equity was thinking of value creation, where I think that, you know, for, you know, a number of years in the past, there was more of like an efficiency based approach to value creation. How do we make this company more valuable by making it leaner, more efficient, taking stuff out fat, maybe expanding globally, but the same kind of offer. And that playbook, I feel is being replaced by more of like a vision based approach to value creation where you're really thinking, how do we not make it just lean it? But what could this company's next chapter be? What could it become over the course of this investment cycle? And so I thought that that was really like the moment of receptivity.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right?

[Jonny]

You've got the control to make changes and you've got the need to change.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

And so when I spoke to my, my friends, you know, in finance, they were, you know, through my thesis and my, my, my ambition to affect greater parts of the company, it was unanimous of like, you need to go to Blackstone. And I was to a degree, like, what's Blackstone? Like, of course I knew, but I didn't really understand like the scale and the breadth and how many different kinds of businesses they have and how many portfolio companies they have of a different nature. And they were recommended to me as like being the highest integrity folks, like very high integrity, but also like always evolving and experimenting and rethinking the model. And so I approached them with a thesis around could brand take a different position of intentionality within your process of value creation for your portfolio companies? And they had just, you know, at the time got a new head of their portfolio operations that was looking to also, you know, make changes and additions to this group of operators that she oversaw and was thinking, I think like kind of thinking many of the same things. And you know, I think it was like 40 interviews later, you know, and lots of, you know, background checks. And, and this is all at the very beginning of COVID too, you know, going to meet a different organization to. But the thesis was really simple. Companies are required and there are a ton of different, you know, interventions to, you know, transform that company or to make it more valuable. And then very often, not just in Blackstone, but in the PE back context, the brand people are then brought in to say, like, you know, who are we? And the thesis was, what happens if we bought brand much further upstream in the sequence of value creation earlier and Translated, you know, an investment thesis into what we call or at fundamental co we call like value creation strategy, which is a set of ideas and tools and words and things and objectives that everyone can grab onto that connect these interventions and can be used as a filter to inform decision making. If we're going to become this thing that we're all agreed on and using exactly the same words, you know, it's not just about what we say in the advertising, but can potentially be connected to what we're making, who we're hiring. You know, do we need to buy another company, do we need to change capabilities? And then of course, once these, you know, transformations are happening in place, how are they branded, how do we communicate them and how do they then start to show up in the world? So it's a very long, you know, walk for ham sandwich there. But that like kind of explains like what I was trying to do and why I thought, you know, this context could be a good place to try out the theory.

[John Evans]

I mean the logic is super sound. I mean, I've always wondered why you've got these very smart strategists that typically sit in communication agencies and they usually receive a brief way down the line in terms of the strategy. And so rather than brand informing comms, brand should inform the company. And that's the distinction you're making there as well. And I think the best, you know, the best experience I've ever had is when I've actually brought the strategist into my, you know, upstream brand planning where we look at five year strap plans and annual plans, you know, then you get the benefit of that thinking and then, you know, all bets are off then in terms of where it could go.

[Jonny]

That's, that's, that's really true. But when you're brought in later, you don't know what the strategy needs to solve for. If you're not included or don't have understanding of all of those different components of the business, you're guessing and often second guessing. And so the strategy can't answer or be accountable to them if it's not included. So coming in earlier and having that understanding and being connected to parts of the business that you don't normally typically meet in an agency context just force you put pressure on you to deliver strategies that are more inclusive and that everyone within every part of the organization knows what to do with and knows what it means for their decision making and crucially know how it's measured.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

These are your KPIs. If we're becoming this Thing like this is your role in becoming it.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And, and, and bringing everyone together. So the biggest effect that I think that this has is, is, is around alignment.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Yeah, right.

[Jonny]

And, and, and you know, togetherness. And it sounds so, so obvious, but just bring, bring, find ways of, you know, we call this process like purpose propagation. After we come up with any strategy, we say we need to turn in on ourselves and make sure that. And often you have to evolve, you know, to a degree a little bit around how it's articulated to make sense for that, you know, part of the company, like, and you, but you got to work with them and sit with them until they're like, okay, I get what I need to do with this. And that takes time. Right. And patience. But from our experience is like really worth the investment.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

I mean, one of the things I learned, I had four years in private equity myself, which was a real wake up call actually for a couple of reasons. One is actually counter to maybe perception, actually I found that the PE company obsessed about brand because when they were valuing what they were buying and valuing what they could be selling, the research mattered a lot. I mean, the advice I got also it's interesting that they bring marketers in really early because they were going, we need people that understand the brand, that can solve the positioning, that can kind of get the design and start the innovation plan. So they absolutely obsessed about that. And I remember them saying to me, right, we want you to find the world's best design agency and strategy agency and do that. And their advice was that the teams that they put in place that get that work done, you know, that nail that first time are the ones that are successful because they really recognized that what they were going to sell on exit in a few years time was, would be a brand and they needed to kind of establish it. And in fact, I remember actually one of the things that I found really helpful is on day one, they got us together and said, write the investment memorandum for a potential buyer of the future. What would it say? And they kind of had four boxes and they said, what would it say about the brand? What would it say about the market? What it say about finance, what it say about operations and supply chain? So we kind of went through and said, you know, well, revenue will be 2x, profit will be forex, you know, margins will have doubled. You know, the brand would then be in these different kind of segments of the market. We'll have proven that it could stretch into here and go over there. And it created this real clarity and it was rather than, I think in marketing, we. We think in narrow senses in terms of our role. You know, immediately I was thinking about the whole business and, you know, how would I fund the sort of market I wanted to do? I need to earn the money before I spent it as a shareholder. I had to think about what's going to get the best return for me and us, because all our incentives were aligned, because we all won and lost based on the same metrics, whether we were the operations director, marketing director, or sales director kind of thing. So I certainly, I found the sort of purity of the approach really refreshing as it's real business. And I think I worked out, I probably spent no more than 10% of my time on marketing and the way that most people think about it as communicating to the consumer. And I found that kind of closeness to business really refreshing. But I'd love to know from, you know, I mean, I was in a boutique, kind of quite a small PE house, and Blackstone's obviously the biggest in the world. What do you learn in those, in those years from the team at Blackstone about how to kind of run successful business?

[Jonny]

Yeah, I mean, that was probably the most gratifying part of working at Blackstone. It was, you know, at my age, I really did start again and people didn't know what drug 5 was, so there was that anonymity coming in to just really be able to throw out what I thought I knew and rebuild a toolkit to be more useful to more stakeholders. And it was very humbling. But my learning curve was at 45 degrees and it was from the. And so I, I love that. And recruited a team of people to Blackstone that really wanted that opportunity too.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And you're also working on companies that are far, let's just call them, less sexy companies than some of the ones that we'd all been working on previously. So things like even JP Morgan Chase or the New York Times or LVMH or Hennessy, all these different kinds of companies. But I learned about these companies that are really shaping how the world works.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

So Blackstone's portfolio is mostly not consumer. They have a nice consumer practice, but they're the biggest owners of commercial real estate in the world. They invest in a lot of what would be called the infrastructure of the future. Things like data centers and technology, AI driven companies and infrastructure and processing companies and enterprise technology companies. And so all of these companies that you don't normally get access to or understanding from. So when you're coming in at this Kind of like at this altitude, through being part of who has ownership of them. I just feel like I unders. I was kind of embarrassed about the things that I didn't know.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And these industries that are so critical to how the world will continue to evolve and support some of the biggest changes in consumer. So it's not just around if Internet, if E commerce becomes a growing thing, it's the surrounding infrastructure that enables E commerce and those types of companies that are actually like really important and critical. And so just understanding the connectivity between those things probably sounds obvious to you, but it was like, oh, okay, I understand what's underpinning all of this work. So that was truly fascinating. And then it was also really, you know, understanding around how, you know, challenging and competitive it is to be chosen to be the acquirer of a company. Not all money is thought of equally, right. So what does it take to really be chosen to buy a company? What does it really take to straddle the balance between ownership and empowering a management team to operate that company? And then also what does it take to then exit a company? And so understanding the. So being really heavily involved in diligence is through to exit readiness and understanding the role that brand could play and giving brand ideas that can also help during an operating period. It just pushed me and the team to have things that can work in all of those contexts. So that was, you know, I know that's like a lot, but that was, you know, it was just like this wild, wild, wild time and so many, you know, revelations. And it was just really exciting.

[John Evans]

I mean, and there's often that kind of tension is there between finance and marketing, often feel like kind of opposites in a way. What's the kind of. I mean, again, Blackstone, one of the most successful financial companies in the world, what's their perception of marketing and what's kind of marketing perception of finance? And what can we learn from each other?

[Jonny]

I mean, I think Blackstone really believe in the power of brand, right? And as a differentiator and also as evidenced by, you know, they have a, you know, the reputation of them as a company is, you know, they are the, you know, like the Bentley or, you know, in their, you know, in their pieces. So the role of, you know, brand for them. But also, you know, really do believe in the role of brand to help create real value for companies and to be a connective idea and tissue that can, you know, align and unify. So and there's a difference between the kind of like upstream foundational Fundamentals of brand then connected to, you know, what we call, like, downstream activation. So things like advertising and marketing that, you know, different companies require different levels of that.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And so when done well and measured well, it's like, you know, it's very effective. But a lot of the kind of expanded definition of brand, of how, you know, we're talking about it now comes before any of that now.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And I think that they really believe in the centrality of that.

[John Evans]

Yeah, that's really, that's really powerful. How. So what advice would you give somebody, I think, listening to try and make that move to bring brand strategy upstream? Because I guess most marketers listing will be given their P and L, they'll have their tactics they're responsible for. But what you're doing is influencing how the company thinks about the brand and where the value can be unlocked. So how do you go about that process? How does that process work in terms of getting everyone to identify where the value is and how to get everyone on board with that?

[Jonny]

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is like, the questions that you're asking and the pressure that you're putting on the ideas to solve for which for us, start with like, not like, why do you exist? But like, what are you? Like, categorically, what kind of company are you? And what kind of company do you want to be valued at?

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And know that the right kind of ideas can take you from one categorical placement into another of higher value. And so that was, you know, the biggest, like, lesson learned is like, for a company to become more valuable. One way is for it to become bigger.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

Just grow. Another way is for it to become something else that's of higher value.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

So there's a lot of transformations where you can find the right set of ideas that can credibly, without squinting, help take a company to become, you know, to become a technology company from being a mechanical company, or to become an apparel company from being a shapewear company, or to be an energy transition company. Like, what can we really become? Yeah, you know, and, and, and asking the question of that altitude and then getting access to all of the stakeholders to understand a set of circumstances of. So, so what ideas don't live in, like, fantasy la la land, but what can we credibly become within the set of circumstances? So things like capabilities and timeline and appetite and bandwidth, you know, really play a factor into, like, what your idea should be. So it's not. So it's like, yes, we could become that in theory, but what does the reality really allow us to deliver. And I think it takes time going very deep with everyone within the company to understand what's really possible and what's not. So for it, for a transformation or an idea that will kind of connect with it. Fundamental co. Some of them might be you should become a whole different kind of company. Others at the other end are like, you should just rebrand or maybe it's a repositioning of what already exists, but most is something in between. And so really developing an understanding of what's possible and what does the team have the appetite, support to be able to go do is going to be the factor of people not biting off more than they can chew.

[John Evans]

And presumably for that to work, you need to get some pretty senior sponsorship, don't you?

[Jonny]

Yeah, it's just more of like it's bringing everyone together to agree this is what we're becoming and this is how we're prioritizing and sequencing how we're going to become it. And so it's not just like we want to become. This is, this is how we're going to become it or this is the shortest path we can take to become it.

[John Evans]

So would your normal customer be the CMO or the CEO? In most scenarios for us it's the.

[Jonny]

CEO, but we love CMOs, especially in these kinds of companies.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

And so sometimes in these companies that we're working with, I'm not talking about Blackstone anymore, I'm just talking about like any of these. When you're in industrials or, you know, infrastructure, there might even not, not even be a cmo. So I think it's important to have the CEO really believe in and be connected to the foundational ideas because, you know, everyone works for the CEO. So if the CEO is saying, you know, you all need to care about this, he, he or she can make it a thing that everyone needs to care about and has the influence to break down silos that will, you know, often appear as, you know, within you. Because I. We've all worked with so many different companies where the, let alone even different components of marketing are disconnected.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

You know, like in Unilever, you know, they've got the brand group and then the activate like they're, they're separate but then the marketing team from the product team and the technical, you know, they're, they're often in different buildings or in different cities. And so to have them all be connected to a mandate of this matters and we want to know your contribution and we want to know how this idea can work for you is really I, you know, I think important because.

[John Evans]

One of the things, one of the things I often say to people, like, if you don't work in a PE situation, most people don't.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[John Evans]

You need, you should imagine that you've just been taken over and imagine that in three years time you're going to be sold. What would you do? Because I think the thing I like about a PE is there's a moment in time where there's the business changes hands, often a new management team get in place and you've got to get to a certain outcome in a few years time, whatever, three, five, seven, whatever it is. And there's something kind of that really focuses the mind about that. Whereas if you're not in that situation or you're a public company just going through quarterly announcements all the time, you're kind of in this sort of like rabbit wheel, you know, hamster wheel, of just doing the same things all over again. And I think what I liked about PE is like, right, everyone together, we're the team, this is the business. We're going to go there and there's something like beautifully aligned about that, isn't it? Which is what I like about the model.

[Jonny]

Yeah. That's where I thought it was a good moment to be of, of real receptivity.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

Like, and, and you know, to going through this kind of thinking, like, where can this work get done? Yeah. Now we, we do work with like public companies that are asking us to take learnings from the private markets and connect them to the public market where it's still the same set of ideas and thinking. But they're asking, they're, they're, they're coming to us saying we want the, you know, the street is valuing us as a certain kind of company.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

How do we change the perception of how we're valued? Because we either want to become a different kind of company or we are a different kind of company, but the market's just not viewing us in that way.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

So what's an idea that can go from the inside out and radiate and telegraph our difference or tell us what to do to become more different if we're not different enough? If that makes sense.

[John Evans]

Yeah, completely. Now, just to explain people listening, because I think you hinted at this, so you were at Blackstone and then you took the idea and the model and even I think it's from the people. And then you did it, I think what you called a carve out, didn't you? Or you Carved out.

[Jonny]

That's investor speak. Yes. So I mean, technically it's. Carve out may not be the right word, but it's. But we were a group with inside Blackstone and now we are a completely independent company that is. Has no ownership from Blackstone, but Blackstone was our. And is our, you know, anchor client. So we still do a lot of work with them on a corporate Blackstone level and on a portfolio company level. But we're, you know, have the freedom and flexibility to, you know, expand our capabilities to be able to do more. And we now, you know, work with others too, to be able to grow our capabilities and make the idea more real by taking what we're doing into different forms of execution.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

And what's the process you go through when someone's kind of hiring? You say, we need to create value, we're starting from scratch. What's the kind of process you would go through to help them identify how they're going to unlock the value?

[Jonny]

We would get hired and then we would give them what we would call our, you know, ex. More. More expansive version of what brand strategy would be. So, so our, our strategy, like product, is called value creation strategy. And we think it lives at the intersection of brand strategy, business strategy, but also investment strategy.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

So we bring all of these different constituents together and define what does success like, what is the opportunity, what is the investment thesis? Like, why did you buy this company? Or what is your stake in this company? And understand what success looks like from them and translate that into our value creation strategy, which is a set of ideas, tools, strategies, thinking and frameworks that hopefully can bring everyone along and act as somewhat of a blueprint to make the thesis real, tangible and actionable for everyone. And then, and then once we've, you know, gone through that strategic alignment where we've, you know, hopefully aligned the, the sponsor, the investor and the. And the management team, we then do some like, road mapping, which is kind of. Okay, now we know what we. We've all agreed on, what we're becoming, how do we prioritize and sequence what execution we do to get there the fastest? Because you could reskin everything. It's not about like, what could you do, but what are the fewest things to get you to becoming that thing the fastest or by using these ideas to help you grow and then you start to action them. So it could be a new name, it could be a new identity, it could be a brief for product innovation, it could be a talent strategy of if we're going to become this kind of thing, we may need these kind of people. But again firstly we turn in on ourselves and make sure everyone is very, very clear. And then we start to, you know, manifest these ideas in whatever the right thing for that particular assignment is.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

Now given your background, you know, in the BBH and Dragon, do you then take ownership for some of the execution of that or do you hand off to other partners?

[Jonny]

Yeah, so we are a very kind of. For all of these kinds of assignments, it's very much not a one size fits all right. And so there's no real playbook of through every kind of, you know, transformation, you're going to need these things. In every case it'll be different. Yeah, we're building out, you know, a series of executional capabilities that are used most often a pretty amazing design group and what you would call a set of teams getting to like how the idea is expressed through different channels. We don't necessarily do all of the execution of those expressions. We don't have a team of 15 producers ready to make that super bowl spot that you don't need or that you don't, you might not necessarily need. So we're kind of like super agnostic around. Let's look at what the idea is and then let's look at what it makes most sense to connect the idea to. If we can do it, we'll do it. But if it's, if we can't, we'll bring in or connect to the right partner to be able to execute it. We don't start off with like trying to ask you if you want fries with that before you started because we don't know what you know, you'll really need. I mean sometimes there are assumptions like if there is a carve out, like if a company is being carved out of, we know they'll need a new name and identity because they'll be, they won't any longer be part of that company as we're defining like what role that new CO has and what is left of remain co. So we'll do work for but often we'll do the strategy and then go through that roadmapping of okay, if this is the real set of circumstances then it makes sense for you to do X, Y and Z. But we work with, with companies some, you know, don't have a cmo, sometimes don't even have a CEO.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

You're just working through to others that have like their own in house. 100 person creative agency.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

So we, we have to be like an octopus. We're like, if this is what's here, then this is how we make that work. But we are, you know, thinking through very cautiously around what executional capabilities, you know, we add that are needed most often, and design is definitely a core component of that. And also being able to translate the strategy into, like, rallying expressions that can really telegraph from far away the change that has happened within the company. Like, we're now. This. People need to see it from very far away. And we're getting pretty good at thinking how to do that.

[John Evans]

That's a really good point because often in businesses there is a big change. It doesn't always stick, does it? Because it doesn't come to life and then people sort of default back to what they had before. So I think implementing that change is quite a big operation, isn't it, to get a whole organization to change the way they think, the way they operate, where they view things, the way they.

[Jonny]

Turn up, and then who are the most important audiences to signal that change to? So it can be key customers or consumers. But a lot of the work is often to future investor audiences to say, if you're in the market for buying this kind of company, you should know that this company now sits within this category or is the kind of thing that you're. You might not have known that this company possesses, you know, these equities or these capabilities. And so, again, it's not like boiling the ocean, it's like very, like, precise targeting. And sometimes we've worked on stuff where the only people to signal the change to our potential new investors that need to understand the value that this. The value that has been created for this company over the time of its investment cycle.

[John Evans]

Now, I think you're a year, 18 months into fundamental cos. Yeah.

[Jonny]

Where are we now? We're in May, so. So a year and four months. Yeah.

[John Evans]

Oh, wow.

[Jonny]

Yeah.

[John Evans]

Great. Any. Any kind of examples you can share, early examples of brands you've worked on.

[Jonny]

Yeah, I mean, so we're working with, you know, we started off with just, you know, Blackstone and we're still working with them and very proud to be our founding client. We're working with, I think, like, five of the top 10 PE firms.

[John Evans]

Wow.

[Jonny]

On their portfolio of company. Not on their, like, master brand, but on a portfolio.

[John Evans]

They're not competitive with each other about.

[Jonny]

What if you work different categories. They're different categories within the. Within the portfolio company level. Like, you know, we work with Spanx, you know, which is a Blackstone company. I'm not going to go and work with Lululemon.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant 2]

Right.

[Jonny]

Like, yeah, we're not going to do that. But there are certain, you know, in the B2B context, sometimes working in a similar category is okay. But we, you know, we, we ask for the right permissions when. And we're doing that kind of work. So we're working on power grid companies, we're working on SOX companies, we're working on private aviation companies, we're working on revenue cycle management companies. We're working. And then on the public side, you know, we're working with companies like Delta and Visa. And a big one that we're pretty deep with is clear, you know, the passport. Yeah. So this is a really interesting one to talk about because people think of them as the jump the queue at the airline company, but they're actually. And they're actually so much more than that and should be valued as so much more than that. So when you go to the, the airport, they, they have like, far superior technology to help verify that you are you and then like, allow you through the gate to create a frictionless experience. But when you go to a hospital, they do the same thing to verify that you're you. But the implications are, okay, you need to go and get an mri or when you're at the, you know, the car rental place that, you know, they'll make sure that, you know, you can drive stick.

[Interviewer/Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Jonny]

Or can't drive stick. And so what, what they're actually are, is more of a connected identity company that will pull out the right version of you in that right context to deliver a frictionless experience. But most people, so we're giving them a set of ideas that not only envelop that connected sense of verification, but also act as a kind of like, blueprint for how they take that concept and make that even more true as they evolve as a business. So it's an idea of, like, redefining what we call the species of company they are and our value and making sure that everyone internally using precisely the same language to describe that, that it's very clearly connected to how they would evolve the experience. But mostly then making sure that the street really sees that they are this kind of company and should be valued in that kind of way. So, you know, we've just been part of the strategy of Olaplex, which is a hair care repair company that's going beyond repair of hair into more like foundational health of your hair and maintenance. So that became like a very different, you know, again, species of company. And, you know, we, we, you know, went through the process of even briefing the scientists to, you know, create the new product and technology that would reflect that evolution. Again, briefing everything from product to packaging to distribution. And then that's now started to make its way. We briefed an agency to translate that into some advertising, but it's a holistic company, like, transformation of being one kind of company to being valued as a different kind of company. And so if you've got like, you know, technology and kind of like shampoo and hair product, kind of very different kinds of companies that like have really taken this thinking to heart and allowed us to have access to really inform them throughout the experience.

[John Evans]

Yeah, I love it. I love how you bring the value upstream as well and then opening people's minds to what's possible for the brand, which is super exciting. Love to keep talking about this actually, because it's really fun to think about but to run out of time. But Johnny, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your background and insights.

[Jonny]

No, I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for having me on and, you know, really appreciate it.

[John Evans]

It's great to see you.

[Jonny]

Thank you, mate. Thanks so much.

[John Evans]

Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.