← Uncensored CMO
Uncensored CMO
How YouTube built the creator economy and how brands are still missing out - Pedro Pina, YouTube
00:48:23
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone. Now, if you want to know the secret to more impactful creator ads, then this is good news. Stop obsessing over engagement rates and start pulling the three levers that really make a difference to your brand. Now, what are they? They are creative quality, creator fame, and brand fit. And they're revealed in a brand new report from WPP Media, System One and TikTok called the Creator Effectiveness Playbook. This is your guide to making fantastic creator advertising that works for your brand. Now, to get hold of it, all you have to do is go over to system1group.com and download the report today. All right, without further ado, let's go on with the show.
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B
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to uncensored CMO. This is recorded all the way from YouTube Creator Club in Cannes. I'm joined by the incredible Pedro pina. He runs YouTube for Europe.
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A
So I'm testing him out on all the things he knows about how to
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B
be a success on YouTube. What brands don't know about being successful? How to work with creators. And we've got a new report here from Little Dot Studios called the YouTube Confidence Gap, full of really interesting insight
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A
and information about how to win on YouTube.
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B
So if you want to be a success on YouTube, and most of you do, because I know that from the report, this is the episode for you. Now, one tip Pedro gave me this episode is get people to subscribe. So, ladies and gentlemen, here we go. Please hit the subscribe button and never miss an episode again. Thank you and let's go. Welcome to the show, Pedro.
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C
Thanks for having me. Delighted to be here.
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B
We've got to talk about this set, man, because this is like we are inside YouTube now.
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C
I know we built this for the first time at Cannes Lions because we wanted to bring to a physical space the evidence that creators are now becoming a major force in media. We have about 600 creators roaming through Cannes Lions. So we wanted to give them a home. We wanted to give them a physical home at Cannes Lions the same way we are giving them a home in the digital space. And this is a trend that has been becoming, is becoming bigger and bigger. Last year when we were here, we did not have this setup, and we had so many YouTubers reaching out to us saying, hey, where can we hang out? Can we have time to sit down? Can we have time to meet each other? Can we have time to meet advertisers? And we have the Google beach setup, which was amazing, but it was too expensive, too big, too dispersed. So we decided, okay, let's find A corner and give them a proper home. And we're delighted. It's the first year we're going to do this. It's going really well. I mean, this is day one and a half.
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B
Yeah.
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C
And so far is going great.
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B
And I've already seen lots of content out there.
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C
Yeah.
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B
This is the thing, of course, creators don't wait seven days to produce something. I know, it's like done in the next few minutes, isn't it?
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C
So like you, you're a YouTuber, you are producing content. Look at this.
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B
Exactly. I know. Well, this is a dream for me because, you know, me and producer James can turn up and use your studio. So.
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C
Okay, you need to leave now.
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B
Yes, now. How long have you been coming to Cannes? Because one of the interesting things about
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C
age me, aren't you? Yeah, I've been. I've been coming for about 20 years maybe. And Cannes has changed dramatically, has gone through phases. So when I started coming to Cannes, I was working on the advertising industry and it was all about the creative agencies. Creative agencies were the heroes of the place. They came here to just celebrate their creativity. It was all about winning lions and who won more lions and the ranking of lions and who got the best campaigns. And the best at a time was traditional media format led prizes. So it was the TV, the 60 seconds, the 30 seconds, and then the outdoor and then the radio and then. And then things evolved. But it was all about the creative, the cre, the creative directors, the creative teams and the best ideas. Then there was a second phase which was about media. And as digital exploded, it turned out that it was not anymore about interruption, your life with advertising, but it was all about media. So as the attention of consumers started diverting and changing, so did the beach and so did Cannes lions. So all of a sudden the media companies started arriving. You could see first the traditional media rising and then so the media agencies rising and then you could see the digital players arriving. So at that time, Facebook, today, Meta, then Google and many others started arriving and they became the talk of the town. And then the big question is, how are you present in the digital space? So how are you at Google or YouTube or at a time Facebook or Instagram? There was the heydays of that moment and then it diverted into a data craze. So I remember when it was all about data. So there was a phase where the accentures and the IBMs and the EY's and all this, the consulting companies were moving in and they were taking over the whole media space phase. That was at that phase. And funny enough, this is now a coming back home kind of moment. I feel with Back to Creativity, it turns out that you can have the best media strategy in the world. And you can and you do. Because today technology allows you to do that. So when you figure that out at the end, what matters is creativity. But now it comes from the hands of creators. So this is now the new phase. So it's back to creativity. But it comes back to Cannes lions through the hands and the eyes and the work of YouTubers and influencers, which really are now the new talk of the town. Hence this. So it's very funny how there's a cycle closing, I think, and it's really, really interesting.
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B
And the difference, you mentioned 600 creators. I just wonder how many people our paid creators on YouTube because you're creating an entire economy.
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C
We did. So we two, two years after we launched we came up with this crazy idea. At that time people were finding it bizarre, which was to revenue share our revenue with creators. We said, all right, well you clearly are producing. This is two years after launch. So we're talking about 20 years ago or 18 years ago in this case. We would say, okay, well you produce an amazing, amazing, you have a ton of audience, you're going to attract advertisers. And guess What? You keep 55% of what we make. And we, we with 45%. We pay our platform, the costs of global reach, the costs of technology readiness, cyber security, the whole nine yards. And you keep 55%. And this was a novel idea. And no one ever did this. And this, this by the way, this business model is a video by video kind of thing. It's not as if we keep the money and then we check it out and then we give you whatever we think you deserve. It was literally buy video that goes through your YouTube channel. So it started like that. And you know, 20 years later, here we are. We have distributed already $100 billion to creators around the world. We have about $3 million making money out of out on YouTube. And, and this is to a point where a lot of people make full living out of it. They pay their own salaries to their own teams, they build their own studios, they become their own enterprises to a point where they're having impact on the economies where they operate. So in fact we run pieces of research in lots of countries where we operate, where we actually can compute how much wealth is being created and impacted on local gdp, how much full time employment is being created by the creator economy. So it's a full blown new economy that was created out of, quite frankly, out of YouTube.
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B
And the crazy thing about that is anybody watching, listening this with a phone can do this. And also the revenue shares. Absolutely. I mean, I do it on my channel as well and it's a bit of a surprise. You get this sort of addicted revenue graph that comes in each month and
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C
like, oh, this is, we love this.
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B
Yeah, I know you get a little kick out of.
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C
What's that? You just described the mission of YouTube. Right. So what's amazing about YouTube is if you have something to say, you just need a camera. And the biggest barrier of entry into this industry is the courage to press that upload button. Because that, that takes, if you think about it, it takes a bit of like, I'm going to put this out. But the moment you go through that, then you have a global audience waiting for you. And if you're good at what you're saying and if you have something interesting, if you have an audience interested in what you have to say, the whole engine starts kicking in and it's just, it's just a beautiful story.
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B
I love that you said that because, you know, I'm probably one of the older creators on the platform, as in, I started doing this maybe seven years ago, so mid for.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And I had to get over that as well. It's not like, because I know I'm a bit older, I must be more confident. I'm like, will anyone listen? What if I say the wrong thing? Do I look good on camera? You know, it's like it's quite vain, but you start asking all these kind of questions, you know, what if it's not perfect? Yeah, but actually it's the imperfections, I think, and the authenticity that matter.
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C
That's right. The, the, the, the secret of YouTube is always and has always been authenticity. So I always say that the YouTube cemetery is full of YouTubers who came to YouTube to make money. If that's your purpose, if that's why you're here, you're not going to succeed. And the reason why is because the content you're going to create is not really authentic. You just want to do it for the money and your audience will pick it up in a heartbeat and they're not interested. So YouTube creators that are successful are the ones who have a point of view, they have a passion. They really, that that passion and that authenticity comes across which creates that bond of trust with their fans and with their audience, which is everlasting. So that's a community that they nurture and they grow over time. And, and they're there for the, for their fans and vice versa. And, and that is what makes their living sustainable. Their financial sustainability comes from the fact that they have this reliable, as you said, predictable relationship with their fandom, which monetizes really well and can keep on going. But you cannot ever fail your fans. So you need to keep true to your voice. And if you do that, you're fine.
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B
And consistency is important. Consistency, it's a key bit that people forget about.
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C
That's right.
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You know, showing up every day, consistently delivering what people.
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C
That's right.
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B
To you, who are the biggest creators currently on the platform that people might be surprised?
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C
I mean, if you look at it from a viewership standpoint. Well, first of all, I have to say the biggest ones, I'm not sure it matters because YouTube is so big, we have so many creators that even when you are a big creator, in the Context of, of 3 million, you can be as big as you want. But in the context of 3 million creators, it doesn't really matter. So our ecosystem doesn't rely on five names or three names or 15 names or 20 names. It's actually hundreds and thousands. It varies a lot per country as well. But again, it's very fragmented. And I believe that's a good thing now historically, because we've been around for a long time. There are, you know, stuff like by far the most viewed video is Baby Shark.
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B
Yes.
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C
Which everybody knows.
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B
Yeah, this is great.
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C
Do you want me to do a demo here?
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B
Oh, can you? Yeah, you got a shark colored top. Actually, you've arrived.
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C
So Baby Shark, gunman style. I mean, there are so many that became Susan Boyle. I mean, we have over and over again examples of that. But what really, really matters is that size has still to be proven to be the critical thing at G2B real, as a matter of fact.
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B
So if you were to choose between subscribers, views or engagement, which one would you pick?
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C
I would say views and watch time Subscribers. It's a interesting metric because it allows you to have a better relationship with your fans in the sense that they get notified every time you put a new. A new video. It became an interesting vanity metric, which is it gives you a sense of how people are committed to your channel. But the reality is we have plenty of evidence that people go to your channel and they don't necessarily subscribe this. In fact, if you listen to Stephen Bartlett from Diary of CEO, every time, every single episode, he asks, can you please subscribe to my channel? He asks for that. And the reason why I asked for that is because through that metrics it improves a lot the algorithm response to the fast. So they make sure that the fans are fed with the latest information about the YouTuber which is really important. But when it comes to engagement with your community, what really, really matters is views and watch time. Watch time is how much time people spend watching you. That determines pretty much their level of interest, depth of connection with you. It will determine the amount of inventory that is eventually served in your YouTube which allows for higher monetization. So time really, really matters.
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B
That's really interesting. So if you build watch time, you'll benefit from then being served to a bigger audience because it's a good. So it's like, it's almost like a flywheel effect.
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C
It really is. So it's the, it's the biggest now you have. So you have, you have leading indicators like engagements, comments, subscriptions are ways that are leading indicators that people are really leaning in and really interested in your, in your, in your channel views gives you a sense that people really want to know more. Watch time is the ultimate predictor of your success.
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B
Yeah, and maybe a tricky question, but how do you get the sort of organic versus paid balance right as a creator as well? Because obviously you can pay to achieve views. But then from what you've just said, you need to focus on great content, increasing watch time. So it's more about making sure the content to begin with is really good.
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C
It's 100% about making sure that your content. It's a, it's a pull strategy. You need to, you need to make sure that people really want to see it, they really look for you, they really want to watch you. It's not anymore. This is, this is something that I've been talking to a lot of legacy players who want to move to YouTube. You know, you need to move away from. I have something to say and I really put, I want to force it to put in front of someone which is really the legacy tradition. And it's more about create content that people really want to see. They really look for it on an ongoing basis. It's a loyalty game and that loyalty game has to do with the fact that people really, really want to see you. We will help our algorithm knows our audience so delivers to the audience what they want. But it's at the end of the day, it's about the quality of the content you produce and therefore the quality of the content you produce. It's a, it's the marriage between Number one, your passion, what you really want to say and how well you know your audience. So this is a conversation I have with a lot of YouTubers. Often they come to me and say, well, should I do shorts? I'm not sure. Or I'm like, do you know your audience? I mean, there's no. I get. One of the questions I get more often is, what does it take to have a successful YouTube channel?
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B
And.
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C
And the answer is very frustrating for most people because they expect a recipe. Do this. Exactly. And. And it's. It's not. It's. Do you know, do you know what you want to say?
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B
Yeah.
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C
And do you know your audience very, very well? Because if you do, you will know what kind of formats they want. You will know for how long they want you to talk about the things you talk about, and you will know how to deliver those. Do you have a voice? Have you found out your voice? And if you did, then you're going to be successful. Otherwise not.
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B
Isn't it interesting that in marketing, the most fundamental question is, do you understand your customer? It doesn't change, doesn't go away. It doesn't go away.
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C
Like, I know, I know.
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B
So you're absolutely right.
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C
Being customer centric, remember that. Yeah, I know. Put the customer at the center, which is the number one CMO thing. Like, oh, put a contract. But then do you really.
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B
It's a cm, isn't it? That's a gap between what you say and what you do. And actually, what I find interviews, I do. What marks really successful cmos is they found a way to remain very. I mean, Corey Marchisoto often quote on this. She's president of Elf Brands. She calls their strategy zero distance. Create zero distance between you and your customer and everything becomes easier. And then she adds that, reduce the time from insight to action. And I love that. And that. That is because also the further higher up in organization you go, the more distance gets created.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And your job is to reduce that distance.
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C
It's funny you said that, because if you think about it, that distance is zero for YouTube creators. Right. If you think about it, all YouTube creators, they spend an absurd amount of time daily, daily looking at the data from their videos. They. I usually say that YouTubers, their public Personas are beauty editors or I'm sorry, beauty influencers, or they are travel adventure guys, or they are mental health experts, or you name it. You know, we all know amazing YouTubers that we follow. When you shut down the camera and the lights, they are data scientists. They can play back to you what the data profile is for their YouTube channels, who's watching them, in which countries, for how long, in which formats, they know exactly which content works for each one of the formats, they know exactly how to shoot, what they need to shoot. And it's all data driven. It's not like hunch and intuition, it's all embedded in the data which they study religiously every day. Isn't that interesting? So that distance. So they are the ultimate CMOs, if you think about it. Oh, look at that. You know, it's, it's. They really are the ultimate CMOs. They understand intimately, through data, their audience and that's why they, they answer to them so well.
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B
To give you credit as well, YouTube Studio does make that accessible.
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C
That's right, doesn't it?
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B
That's right. You know, so I would behave.
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A
And now.
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C
Powered by AI, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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B
So, you know, new episode. So our episode will come out and within a couple of hours I'll be looking at, oh, how's the retention rate? Are views ahead of where they normally are? You know, and look, because you make the graphs very easy to digest and
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C
in the case of this episode, it's going to be a huge success, of course, Smashing success. Yeah, yeah, I can predict that already.
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B
We'll make sure of it.
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C
You have to do some paid media.
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B
There we go. We just have to make it more as interesting as we can. I wanted to ask you, YouTube, as a media, would you consider yourself to be a broadcaster competing with Netflix or competing with TikTok? Where do you see yourself? Because I find you sort of in the middle of things. You could be everything.
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C
It's good to be in the middle. I think we are a category on our own, if you think about it, because if you take a step back, you can watch incredible content from original YouTube creators, but you can find amazing TV and movies and full broadcast type what people call premium content. On YouTube, you can. You find live sports, but you can play games, you can do. You find massive gaming, you have trillions of views on Minecraft, you have, you have the biggest library of music, you have the biggest library of history, you have the biggest library of podcasts in the world. So what are we? We are also on long form, but you can find it on short form on feeds, you can find live transmissions all the time, you can find it on a tablet, but you can watch it on a big screen in your living room. What are we? My big question is, does it matter? I don't find the question particularly Useful because again, let's just be customer centric. What we really, really want is to deliver. Our mission is to make sure that you can find the content that you want anywhere, anytime, at any format, the moment you want to. I want to see this movie on my laptop while I'm in Cannes. You can. I want to see this clip from the Prime Minister yesterday. I find it on, on the YouTube feed. I want to see. You can find it in every format, any moment. Delivering this requires a lot of technology, delivers a lot of, you know, it requires a lot of investment. But we are single mindedly focused on that back to our founders at Google, you know, you know, follow the user. Everything else will, will just come after that. And, and, and we are single mindedly focused on that.
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B
The other thing I think you do in addition to those things is you're an incredible search engine for problems.
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C
So I know the boiler, the boiler doesn't work. I know. No, literally, I know, I know he doesn't have a boiler exactly.
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B
Like I've got this weird random boiler with a weird code I don't understand and I need to get it restarted.
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C
I know the stuff that doesn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't we all?
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B
Yeah, yeah. Or broken. You know, my bike's got a mechanical fault and I'm 25 miles from home and I need to fix it. It's got a weird kind of screw
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that needs to be well and now with AI, the best thing is you can actually do a video of it and you can actually pick up precisely the model, precisely the issue, and then get the answer. So it's amazing.
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B
And you mentioned YouTube shorts as well. How important is it if you're building your channel to also create content for shorts as well as longer form content?
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C
Yeah, it's back to what I told you before. It depends on what you want to say. What's your, what's your passion? What's your mission? Why do you have the YouTube channel that you have and what are you delivering and what does your audience want? We have creators which are huge on YouTube that started on shorts and moved to long form. We have YouTubers who started on long form and now moved entirely to shorts. We have creators who are multi format, so they produce all sorts of format. Some creators use shorts as a way to reach a wider audience, to bring them to long form. There are creators who almost have a double Persona. They produce content for long form for certain types of viewers and fans of them and they have a separate type of audience for their shorts. So again, what we want to do is to have a plethora of options for creating creators. We want, that's, that's why we, we like to call ourselves the home of creators. You come home and here you have the options to express your creativity and to feed your audience. You can make it all a mix of all the format for the same content. You produce different content, you have different audiences, same audience and you run them through your different formats and, and you build your own footprint depending on really your vision. We want to be the most creatively rewarding platform for creators financially too. But, but, and emotionally, because, emotionally, because you have a deep engagement with your audience. You have that trust and that continuity and their history. You know, if you want to see a creator getting really, really emotional is when they start talking about the people that have been following them for 10 years and they get very, very emotional. They're like companions in a journey, which is an incredible thing to do. So it's incredibly rewarding for them, em, financially because they give them a sustain, you know, sustainable living and then creatively because you have all these tools, this toolkit to express yourself and different people use them differently. So very long answer, the short answer, the short answer to shorts is it depends. Does it work for you? Certain creators came to me and said, well, I just refuse to go on shorts because I'm not that type of creator. Like, like, that's great. Amazing. Are you sure that your audience does not want you to go on shorts? Just, just checking. And we have tools on your studio to understand what your audience is doing outside of your YouTube channel. So if you find out that your audience is consuming a lot ofShorts on YouTube in a lot of other channels, I would argue that at least you should ask the question if there is, if there is not a format that you're missing, maybe you're not. I mean, I really know creators who refuse to shorts. By the way, I have the same creators on shorts that refuse to go on long form. They don't care, they don't want the investment. It's not how I express myself. I'm kind of a guy that does this in 15 seconds. Great. Good for you. There's space for everyone. And that's the beauty of YouTube.
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B
I mean, back to our original point of know your audience but also find your audience. Yeah, so I think that's the second part of the list is use the tools to find the audience. I'm going to use that tip, by the way, straight off.
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C
Well, and the other tip is experiment, which is what I always Say like sometimes creators come to me and ask the question as if this was a before and after, you know, fork in the road kind of thing. It's not. And I always answer, well, if you're not sure, have a go at it, just try it. What's the worst that can happen? I mean, it doesn't go well, People didn't engage, just shut it down. It doesn't really matter. There's no. As long as you keep your authentic voice. So don't betray your audience, it's fine, Just experiment. Maybe it goes well, maybe. I mean, some of them try life, they fail miserably, they go back, that's fine. So experiment.
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B
That's top advice. You're absolutely right. What you said earlier about the depth of engagement you can get as well. Always. Because when you're making content and putting it out, you don't often meet the people. And then when you come to somewhere like this and you actually meet the people that have been following you for years, it's something else.
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C
I know.
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B
And they know so much and they're, you know, and they paid attention to
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C
stuff that you were not thing and
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B
they're like, oh yeah, do you remember when you said this? And this happened. So it's quite amazing. Which is nice to have places like this where all that magic happens. I want to switch the conversation, talk a little bit more about CMOs and how they're approaching YouTube in terms of strategy and our amazing friends at Little Dot Studios. I'm going to do a little piece to camera here. Have just created the YouTube confidence gap here. So ladies and gentlemen, have a good look at this report. Go to Little Doctor Studios. Make sure you download the report here. It's beautifully done actually, I have to say because there are lots of reports in the world but this is absolutely beautifully done and very helpful. Some great stats as well. So big shout out to Little Dot Studios. Oh, by the way, I should give a bit of context this report. So I became a full time creator about four months ago. So I've been doing this.
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C
Congratulations.
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B
Thank you. So this is, I now pay myself, which is wild in part thanks to ad revenue. So thank you very much. And to kind of kick off my new era, we did our first live event. It's called Uncensored cmo. The calling, the idea being that, you know, marketing is a calling for people and this is going to be where you find your calling. And we did it in partnership with Liftot Studios. So the wonderful Camilla there approached me and said we'd love to do A live event. We produce all this content, we want to do it with a partner and we think you'd be great. And it was magical actually. And there's something about being together in person a bit like we are now, isn't it? It's just you can't replicate that feeling of being in the room. And then partway through we decided to do a YouTube survey. So we got everybody. So 375 people all filled in the survey at the same time. So these results are from that event and what we found is of that audience. Now this audience is very senior marketers and CMOs, so, you know, decision makers and so on, UK based data. But 82% of people said YouTube is a top priority for them. From a media perspective. Only 4% said they'd be highly confident. And we gave them a range of four. So on a scale of one to four, from zero confidence to high confidence, where would you be in your YouTube strategy? 4% went for the 4. Does that surprise you?
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C
First of all, celebrating the fact that 80% believe that YouTube, they're going to spend more time on YouTube. So that's good news. I'm happy about that, the 4%, because at least there's a level of self awareness which I think it's critical for change. Imagine if they felt they were really confident about doing it meant they were missing something because we see this on a day to day basis that they're missing it. I think the gap that you guys talk about there, it's a gap on strategy or it's a gap of understanding really what YouTube is all about. I think the part that they're missing and hence the lack of confidence is how powerful YouTube is to understand culture and to be part of culture, be part of the conversation. I think the reason why they want to continue to invest a lot on YouTube is they believe that YouTube is just a media force, is just a rich platform, which it is. But I think what their intuition is telling them is that they should understand this way more than just being a rich tool, that they should understand YouTube and work on YouTube in a way that is a bit more sophisticated by reducing that distance with the user. And what that means is understanding how YouTube is a critical cultural force in today's worlds. And in order to do that, you really, really need to understand creators. You need to understand that in a world where trust has been diminished around organizations, corporations, brands, institutions, fortunately or unfortunately, it's something that I worry about. Everyone worries about. People these days believe in other people. Mostly they just given up on, on institutions, organizations, and they are believing in people. So YouTubers are now playing this role of being the link of trust which binds communities together. And for brands to be successful, they need to get into that conversation. They need to get into that world in a more organic, natural, authentic way than simply through a corporate ad. So using YouTube as a platform for reach for your corporate ad is okay, but it's not what's going to crack. And I think that explains the difference between the 80% and the 4%.
- [31:54]
B
It does. In fact, some data that supports you. So 47% of those that said that were repurposing either a TV ad, there you are. Or a social ad. So despite the scale that you have with YouTube and the unique things you can do, they're coming at it from other places. 18% were creating content specifically for YouTube. So that's less than one in five.
- [32:19]
C
Well, if you think about it, it would be. The ridiculous way of describing that would be, okay, take your TV ad and put it on radio. Put it on radio? Yes. Like, would that work? Well, you can still hear a story and at the end of the day there's a call out for you, you know, to buy a brand. Okay, that's fine. Is it really well done for radio and purpose for radio? Not really. Or vice vers, the lack of confidence has to do with the fact that they don't really, really understand what it is to be part of a cultural force like YouTube.
- [32:57]
B
We asked in the report as well, what were the main barriers and Interestingly, budget was fourth, only 15%. The top two were strategy and in house expertise.
- [33:06]
C
There you are.
- [33:07]
B
So exactly understanding and having the knowledge and capability.
- [33:11]
C
What I would say to those CMOs though is why don't you look at your own media consumption? I suspect that your own personal media consumption is closer to your user than you think. When I started 15 years ago at Google, I spent a lot of time evangelizing just on doing digital investment. Can you please go on search? Can you Please start on YouTube way back when? And what I realized at that time was that the CMOs were already on. I mean, they would go on Google dozens of times during the day, they would go on YouTube all the time, not realizing that their habits were the habits that we were seeing around the world. And when they put on their job armor, they become a different people and they went back to traditional ways of doing investment which are at odds with consumer habits. So it's just fascinating. Gap. If we're talking about a gap, that is the gap There's a gap between who you are and what do you do or your job as a cmo. So my big challenge would be go back and put a camera on you for a day, watch your media consumption diet and see if it matches minimally with what your investment decisions.
- [34:31]
B
That's such a good idea. That'd be a really interesting study. We could do that, right? We could do this kind of week in the life of a cmo and we'll find a way of recording what they actually do, and then we'll do the what they say and what they do. We'll compare the two and we'll see the gap.
- [34:44]
A
That.
- [34:44]
B
That'd be quite entertaining. Wouldn't you get these videos.
- [34:46]
C
You call it a second edition of a Gap.
- [34:48]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [34:49]
C
2.0, you know, yeah.
- [34:52]
B
People confessing to the garden videos they watch or the kind of.
- [34:55]
C
But it is true, if you think about it.
- [34:56]
A
Yeah, because.
- [34:57]
B
Because almost any passion that you have, you can find a creator that is an expert in the thing that you're passionate about, which is amazing. Sticking with the theme of brands and creators, any advice for brands working with creators? Because, I mean, the amazing thing about being here in Cannes is one person with a camera can end up in Cannes here talking to the world's biggest advertisers. Before, you'd be dealing with media companies and you'd be dealing with massive network TV stations.
- [35:25]
C
Right.
- [35:26]
B
Whereas now you have these individual creators who've built their own business, suddenly have brand partnerships with some of the world's most exciting brands. I mean, thanks to you, you've kind of collapsed what would otherwise have been unfair kind of playing field of the kind of big business. So any advice on how, you know, those creators who probably are not, you know, they haven't grown up negotiating big contracts, have they? You know, how would. You know, how would brands work with creators best?
- [35:50]
C
So I. I'm not sure I have advice for creators. I have advice for brands because I want the creators to be themselves. The power of a creator is to be who they are. They have massive followings, they have huge audiences, and they bring with them the trust that they build with those audiences. And that is gold for brands. So the big challenge I have is for brands to come down and meet the creators, understand that each creator has a different voice, and that's okay. Each creator have a different Persona and develops content in a very, very different way. And what brands need to think about is how can I partner with creators in order to reach their audiences in an authentic manner? And how can I match what I have to say as a brand with the voice of creator? That matching is an exercise that needs to be done by the brands. The second thing the brands need to think about is calibrating their levels of control. The classic mistake a brand that does is, oh, I'm so excited to work with creators. And they give a heavily scripted expectation of what the content they want the creator to do for them, which typically ends up being either the creator leaving the plateau because they don't want to do it, or content that is not very good and that doesn't work. Leading then the brands to say, oh, this creator thing doesn't work well. In order to make it work, you really need to understand this medium very, very well and what that means. You have to relinquish part of your brand control so that it can adapt and morph into the voice of the creator in an authentic way. And the third thing I would say to the brands as well is get out of your vertical, get out of your industry thing, because it doesn't really matter. So I was having a conversation recently with the CMO for of a big insurance company and they were like, well, you know, we really want to lean in, but there are not a lot of creators specialized in insurance. I'm like, oh my God, there's no such thing. Of course, because like, exactly. So what really, really matters is that you can speak about insurance in an authentic way through the voices of creators who are in other fields of activity. So for instance, if you have a chef, you know, the whole kitchen can burn down one day. How a great, you know, if a chef has a great audience, how about him speaking about, by the way, you have a kitchen like mine. Typically creators that do food preparation, whatever they do in their own home, you can talk about, look, I, I need to protect this kitchen, I need to protect my house. They can talk about mortgages, they can talk about everybody, as you said, everybody has an insurance. So. So there's a lot of myth busting and case opening and creativity to be injected in the way brands are approaching creators.
- [38:59]
B
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I need to do a public service announcement on your point about knowing and doing, because obviously I experienced that as well. If you're a brand listening to this, please, please, please give your creators some space because what they do is they all come to you and say, we want to work with you because you're so authentic. You do this amazing content, you understand the audience.
- [39:17]
C
Am I going to Destroy your office? 15 points and script exactly, exactly. With the lawyer behind the camera saying, you know, checking. If you're saying, you know, everyone knows this, do it.
- [39:26]
B
Come on, come on, people. Honestly, top advice, sort it out. Not talking to anyone in particular, but anyway, now we talked a lot about authenticity being really key. What's the best way for brands to get that authenticity when they're working with creatives and any examples, you know, I,
- [39:43]
C
I, I, yeah, let me just give you a very good example. Let's go beauty. Because that's an easy example to understand. And I've given this example over and over again to CMOs across different industries. The beauty industry has for the longest time relied on top models to deliver their products. So here you are, I don't know, l', Oreal, launching a new moisturizer. You hire Cindy Crawford, gorgeous, amazing, walking down the aisle, looking a million dollars, and at the end says, look, I've used this moisturizer. This has been the story of l' Oreal and the story of moisturizers for the longest time. It worked for a while, but we're living in a world where there's a gap between the reality of the users or the consumers and what they're watching. Because what they realize is, hang on a minute, that is a multi million dollar model, who of course looks a million dollars, who of course looks gorgeous, who has a life that is mind trust you me, I just put my kids to bed, I'm tired, I don't look great in the morning, I have to go to the supermarket, drop off my kids, and God knows how I survive my day today. And I'm looking at this woman and say, hang on a minute. I don't, there's a, I sure this moisturizer seems to be good, but I, I'm not this person. And the next thing you know, you have beauty creators who all of a sudden are recording a video from their bedrooms which kind of look like mine in a house that, that could be mine. They're pretty and they're nice and they're gorgeous, but they look, they could be my friends. They are producing content around beauty routines and all of a sudden they're talking about that moisturizer. And my question to you is, who do I trust most? Do I trust a corporate ad where I have your gorgeous Cindy Crawford delivering that moisturizer, or do I trust a creator who I've been following for the longest time, who could be my gorgeous, nice friend who could live down the road from me and who's telling me that actually use that moisturizer? And really deliver the results. That difference is precisely the gap that is being closed right now by, by the best and most progressive brands. And l' Oreal as well as Unilever and many other advertisers are now moving significant. I'm not talking about shifts. I'm talking about 30s, 40, 50% of their media spending into creators precisely because of that. We have metrics that have shown that conversions, you have multiples of conversions from corporate ads to creator organic ads, they really, you know, drive shifts in awareness, consideration, for sure. And even purchase intention. Precisely. Un. You know, unsurprisingly, because I trust the creator that I've been following for the longest time, that that looks and sounds like someone who could be my friend and part of my life. And that is the secret behind it.
- [42:45]
B
Well, maybe to wrap up then, I'd love. Okay, maybe two questions in one though, what do you wish CMOs understood better? And then secondly, what would be the best piece of advice you've ever been given in your career?
- [42:59]
C
So I wish cmos had the humility to close the gap between their own media usage and their media decisions. Somehow they believe in this mythology that what they do in their private lives is foundationally different from how users behave, which can be a sign of arrogance because they treat consumers as a separate entity from themselves. And the bad news is they are users like everybody else. Consumers like everybody else. And chances are they have a media diet and a creative diet very, very similar to their users. So I would, I would strongly recommend them to challenge their own belief on their own on the, on the separation that I don't think it exists between what they do and what they users do. That would be my number one. And that brings a level of consciousness that would hopefully trigger the need to then close that gap of confidence that we were talking about. Yeah. And the best advice I've ever had in my career has always been stick to what you do well. Well, and make sure that what you do, that you love what you do. Because when you love what you do, then you don't really have a job, you're just enjoying the journey.
- [44:32]
B
I love that. That's top advice. And I think actually probably I've had a similar kind of journey to that. And when you stick at what you do, you get this compounding effect of it just builds and builds and builds. And then if you can surround yourself with the people that can do what you can't do, do you get an even bigger compounding effect as well?
- [44:53]
C
Well, if you think about some of the rock Stars did you admire great actors or actresses, Great directors? If you think about politicians from extreme left to extreme right and everyone in, in the middle, those that make it through are the ones that, number one, they really enjoy doing it and number two, they're really good at it. So find that middle point of find what you're very good at and make sure it's something you love. Because we're very good at doing a lot of things, but we don't really like it and we love doing a ton of things we're not very good at. So what are those things that you are really, really good at and you enjoy doing? And if you single mindedly focus on that, you, you'll make it.
- [45:37]
B
And the other thing to build on that, that I learned as well is you don't have to change it all the time because you think, oh, I've done this one thing, I must do something else.
- [45:45]
C
Exactly.
- [45:46]
B
Actually, people like you.
- [45:47]
C
That's exactly right.
- [45:48]
B
You for the thing.
- [45:49]
C
That's exactly right.
- [45:50]
B
Keep at it. You don't have to kind of reinvent it.
- [45:52]
C
Actually, you don't reinvent yourself at all. You're kind of the same.
- [45:56]
B
You double down on yourself.
- [45:57]
C
That's exactly. You polish. What you do is you polish that thing.
- [46:01]
B
Yeah. I found this with Scott Galloway, actually. So I see him, I think three times now in the podcast you have. And then. Yeah, and then I realized that he's saying the same thing.
- [46:09]
C
He really is.
- [46:09]
B
And I'm like, oh, right.
- [46:11]
C
But.
- [46:11]
B
But for some reason saying the same and that's a good thing is even more popular than it used.
- [46:14]
C
100%, son.
- [46:15]
B
And yeah, I chatted to him about it and he. Well, he said he's got 25 or 30 like things he believes to be true. And he said he practices the delivery so he really thinks about how it comes across. So he might go, the less sexy the industry, the greater your return on capital. And it's just like he's really thought about what he believes to be true on a topic that people care about. So he picks universal topics as well, like masculinity or unemployment.
- [46:49]
C
Right.
- [46:49]
A
Yeah.
- [46:50]
C
The boy.
- [46:50]
B
So he goes wise.
- [46:50]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:51]
B
And he perfects this sound bite. And then what you realize when you start consuming a lot of his content is you'll hear it many times. I know, but the weird thing is you still go, very good points. I know this point. Why am I saying very good point for the 15th?
- [47:05]
C
You're right. Every time I hear him, I always think, oh, here we go again. He's gonna say, you know, but it is true. He delivers it really well. He does.
- [47:13]
B
You know, and he gets paid ever more for doing it. So he's not wrong. He's. Yeah, he's proof that that exists. Yeah. Pedro, thank you, my friend.
- [47:20]
C
It's been great to be here.
- [47:22]
B
Really enjoyable conversation. Thank you for giving up your time. And thank you also for. And welcome to YouTube.
- [47:27]
C
We're delighted to have a YouTuber.
- [47:29]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [47:30]
C
In the YouTube Lounge. You deserve it.
- [47:32]
B
Thanks, man.
- [47:32]
C
Thank you.
- [47:34]
A
So I hope you enjoy that episode of Unseen Sense to CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now, by the way, I've got a new newsletter, so if you'd like to get my thoughts on the One Thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the One Thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast just launched, Uncensored Renegades, with the fabulous Corey Marchisoto. She is one of the world's best CMOs. She's an absolute rock star. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fix it. So check out that it's in your feed. Uncensored Renegades. And finally, I want to give a huge thank you to my sponsor, System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast, it would not happen without them. So big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time.