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Uncensored CMO
The Power of Compound Creativity with Dom Dwight (Yorkshire Tea), Vickie Ridley (Lucky Generals) & Andrew Tindall (System1)
00:58:28
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- [00:07]
John Evans
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the uncensored cmo. Now, in this episode, we're going to be talking about compound creativity, how creativity compounds over time to make you more successful. We've got a brand new report coming out from System 1 in the IPA, author by Andrew Tindall. He's going to be joining me to talk about what that report tells us, what the data tells us about consistency of creative. And in a double bill in this episode, I'm also joined by Yorkshire Tea and their partner agency, Lucky Generals, who have been putting these principles to practice over many years and have been hugely successful as a result. So not only are we talking about the data, we're also talking about the practice. So go grab a tea, ideally Yorkshire Tea, sit back, relax and enjoy. Here it is. Andrew, welcome to the show.
- [00:47]
Andrew Tindall
Hi. Longtime listener, first time, first time caller. John.
- [00:51]
John Evans
It's not as if we've met each other.
- [00:53]
Andrew Tindall
No, no, no. You should have mentioned you have a podcast.
- [00:56]
John Evans
Yeah, I know, exactly. But you've been working busily over the last few months on this new report that's just recently launched called Compound Creativity. What was the idea behind that?
- [01:06]
Andrew Tindall
The idea is that marketers know that consistency is the right thing to do to grow a brand, but we don't really see much consistency do it. All the awards essentially reward new. The first thing that marketers do when they get a role is essentially look for what to change. But. But in our hearts, we know that consistency is the right thing to do. So IPA and System 1 really want to put some evidence together to champion consistency and keep on doing the right thing for longer.
- [01:36]
John Evans
Now, if I was to look back at our WhatsApp chats, the number one chat I think you and I have had these years. What the hell do we call it? How do you end up with Compound Creativity as a title?
- [01:46]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah, Two of those mums were the title. I think I'm obsessed with the right name and position of something will live or die by that. So we were obsessing over the title. So we started off with wanting to kind of leverage what you did with the cost of dough. Right. Loss aversion. We were dancing around like the cost of change. And then we started going on. I mean, the findings in the research really point to the idea of the magic of a campaign. So then we kind of was leaning into this idea of campaign power, which just lands around kind of semiotics and connotations, I think. So then we finally got to the idea of compound creativity, which is actually technically Lawrence Green from the IPA suggested it, which is a killer idea. And because in the research we found that consistency compounds creativity. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger and more effective every year. And it also points to the fact that you've got to have something special to start with. You know, if you start strong and then you compound it, you get stronger. It's not just about consistency over anything. You need to have that amazing idea to start with.
- [02:53]
John Evans
And talking about consistency, you can define consistency in different ways. And you came up with like the building blocks of consistency, didn't you? What are the things that make a campaign consistent?
- [03:04]
Andrew Tindall
So we got to three kind of building blocks. The first one you could call brand coherence, but I would call it solid creative foundations. So we're looking for brands that find an insight driven positioning, a creative idea with legs and an amazing creative team and stick to that for multiple years. So getting those building blocks, those foundations, right, and that being present across time, across assets, across platforms. So that's kind of our first one, those foundations. Our second is a unique one that you don't really hear people talk about much, but it's getting the culture of consistency, right? You hear so many brands now that have like 20, literally 20 agencies, an agency for each different platform, different markets and all this. But we need to put these ideas across platforms and across campaigns. So we were looking for the idea of teams working together to put these ideas into digital, into out of home and stuff like this. We also looked for the idea of ad life. So what is the average age of a campaign and assets? So how long do brands commit to putting those on air for? We look for evidence of what Orlando Wood named this one. So commitment to showmanship. Some brands dip their toes in entertainment, entertaining, advertising, and then that's it for female years. We'll go back to kind of shouting at people down the phone to give us some cash. But some brands manage to be consistently right brand and entertaining over a long period. And then a boring one. We looked at what I would call kind of creative efficiency, which is multiple versions of assets and also reusing assets across campaigns, sweating your campaigns harder. So that's kind of the second bucket we looked at. Does your marketing team have a culture of consistency? And the third bucket is what you would assume I'm talking about when I say consistency. It's execution, characters, assets, tone of voice, celebrities and soundtrack. How consistent is the execution across assets?
- [05:13]
John Evans
Now, how do you work out the business? Impactful this, as I understand it, you took the IPA data, you took the System one data and you're able to work out what the value of being consistent would be. So how did you work that out and what did it tell you?
- [05:24]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah, good question. So it's all the powerful research that you see, and the most convincing research is when you combine multiple data sets. So, first of all, we had to use System one and it's kind of where the idea came from in the very first place, is that to do this, you'd have to get every ad launched by these brands over a five year period. Luckily, I think it was you and John Kieran decided to start testing every UK and US TV ad. I think it was five years ago.
- [05:52]
John Evans
Yeah, yeah, about five years ago, we.
- [05:54]
Andrew Tindall
Took around 5,000 ads which have been tested on like 600,000 consumers with our test you ad stuff. And then we match Those brands to YouGov brand tracking data to get the brand strength, and then we matched those brands to the latest campaigns in the IPA databank to understand what effects in market these brands kind of drive. So we've got the creative quality, we've got the brand strength and we've got the actual brand and business effects. And then matching all that up, I think the best summary is that we got to this finding that we predict inconsistency will cost just the brands in our research, three and a half billion pounds over the next five years. So we worked out that because consistency lowers creative quality, these brands, and just in the Summit, just the 56 brands would have to spend an extra three and a half billion pounds to all grow at the same rate. Which really kind of should be sounding alarm bells, really, for brands. Yeah.
- [06:49]
John Evans
That's incredible, isn't it?
- [06:50]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah.
- [06:50]
John Evans
So what was the difference, let's say, in star rating, between those that were consistent and those that weren't consistent?
- [06:54]
Andrew Tindall
So we saw advertising from the most consistent brands get an average star rating of 3.3. We saw advertising from the least consistent brands get an average star rating of around two and a half. So it's effectively on average a whole star jump, so that you expect to be growing an extra percentage point in market share annually, assuming that same kind of media spend with that jump. But what's magic about it is that this gap gets bigger every year. So we saw the star rating for the least consistent brands, it remained incredibly stable because these brands were changing agency every year, changing idea, redoing their brand look and feel, and they were effectively starting again every year and they were just staying around two and a half year on year, whereas advertising from the most consistent brands, it was growing by a quarter star rating annually. So then when you, I mean, that's why we call it compound creativity. The gap between the most consistent and the least consistent brands gets bigger year on year. Then after a five year period, you literally see advertising work twice as hard from the most consistent brands than the least consistent brands because this gap just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
- [08:05]
John Evans
That's amazing, isn't it? And I think you also managed to revalidate something we had discovered a couple of years ago. Wear in versus wear out. So even with the same, I mean, you're talking about consistency in a broader sense, aren't you?
- [08:14]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:15]
John Evans
Even on the same assets over time, I think you were. Was it 0.7 or 0.8 star if you look at it over time as well.
- [08:22]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah. So I think you led that great research looking at wear out. We're looking at the same ads and how actually good advertising wears in, not wears out. We looked at a slightly different angle where we looked at how long a brand uses an ad for on average. And we saw that if brands use their, if a brand user ads longer, on average, they create higher creative quality. So we saw the brand that use ads the longest is actually a Yorkshire tea and they keep their ads on air around two years at a time. Whereas some brands in the study use their ads for 15 days at a time on average. So then you start to look at it and it becomes very obvious, right, if you're going to put an ad on air for two years at a time on average, you're going to try a little bit harder than if you're only gonna have it up for two weeks. So it's kind of a different way of looking at wear out. So wear out doesn't exist. But then brands that manage to create great advertising and use it for longer, they have more time to focus on creative quality and strategy and actually focus on effectiveness.
- [09:25]
John Evans
Yeah. And one of my, going back to our friend Orlando, one of my favorite inventions of his is the idea of the fluent device. Isn't it something that's ownable to your brands that appears everywhere you appear? And I think also your research showed that those that use fluent devices also saw a better result than those that didn't as well. So that's another, I think tactic that brands can lean into a fluent device.
- [09:46]
Andrew Tindall
A repeatable brand character that brings drama to advertising. It's not an easy win. So we actually saw that brands that use fluent devices in their first two years, their advertising on average performs worse than ads that don't use Fluent devices. But then after that three, four, five year period, you start to see these exponential gains as people fall in love with characters and ideas. The best example, I mean, we're filming this near Christmas. Well, advertising Christmas, Christmas is two most away, but advertising Christmas, advertising Christmas happens. Jesus, this is tiring. Kevin the carrot, right? In his first two years with Aldi, their average score was in the threes. And then we saw 4, 5, 5.9. And it's just got better and stronger and stronger as people fall in love with this, this character. And it starts to point to why we see consistency, driving effectiveness. And it's three main things we saw in that research. So, you know, there's this phrase that I think has been said on this podcast before, familiarity breeds contentment. So using the same ideas, platforms, characters, even ads, consumers start to like your advertising more and they want you to show up more. The second would be process influencing. If you're repeating the same messages and ideas again, you lower cognitive ease and people can understand your message more. And in a world where now marketers are kind of hooked on more lower attention media channels, where some very high reach media channels, you need to land your message in a few seconds really by lowering cognitive ease. And so people understand you, you create that idea, you can access these media channels. And that's why, you know, best practices often launch your 60 second hammer it and then actually what's the 22nd that you can extend your reach and frequency with because you've lowered that cognitive ease. And then the other kind of idea that we saw working here is from Ehrenberg Bass. You know, the world of memory encoding, it's a lot easier to refresh memory structures, the same ones than build, build new ones. So when we see brands hammering the same assets, ideas, ads, characters, they're refreshing the same memory structures and they're building all the things you expect. Awareness, salience, this kind of stuff and growing distinctiveness.
- [12:14]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah.
- [12:14]
John Evans
Now the other benefit, of course, working with the IPA is they their database gives us access to actual business effects as well, which is really fascinating. What did the business effect data show you about the brands that were being consistent?
- [12:27]
Andrew Tindall
Well, it's greens across the board really, John. We saw value share. Well, first of all, we saw business effects, brand effects grow. So we saw huge jumps in awareness, distinctiveness, salience, changing attitudes, brand images kind of stuff. And we saw then this beautifully ladder into the business effects. We saw value share grow, market share grow, and we saw consistent brands report double the very large profit gain in the IPA debt bank that's absolutely huge. And what I particularly love about that is we see all our data kind of lining up together. So at the top, what we talked about was the System one Creative scores predict ads working twice as hard. Then at the bottom we see double the profit gain. It's really nicely lining up. And then as I was presenting this, and then the first time at the IPA event, Les Burnett came over and he pointed out that one business effect that we didn't see shift was actually volume change. But if we're seeing value change and profit change and market share change, but not volume change, that points very heavily to price sensitivity. So consistent brands can charge more. And it's a great example that just won the Grand Prix for the IPA Effectiveness Awards this year was McCain's. This is great chart. I don't know if you're ever really stuck on a Sunday evening. You need to read something. Go and read the Grand Prix, McCain's IPA award and find this chart. It's got this annual year on year, what they could charge for a bag of chips. And it's going down and down and down and down because McCain's an incredibly consistent brand. So there's something going on with price sensitivity. And then what we didn't see consistency lead to. The IPA tracked two very interesting effects, which is arresting market share decline and breathing life into a stagnant market. So you know you're losing rapid market share or your market's completely stagnant. Consistency is not your friend. I mean, it's the Einstein quote. What was that Einstein quote?
- [14:32]
John Evans
It was our definition of madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome.
- [14:36]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah, there you go. If you've got a one star ad, if you haven't found that creative idea, if you've not got that amazing positioning, holding the wheel is not gonna help you.
- [14:43]
John Evans
Being consistently rubbish is not gonna help you.
- [14:46]
Andrew Tindall
Exactly. My favorite example from the kind of stagnant market is really toilet roll. Right. Like, who gives a crap? Is a good example of they came and shook up the entire market and then they've consistently done that. And look what they've done. They've eaten up market share.
- [15:01]
John Evans
They've done brilliantly.
- [15:02]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah.
- [15:02]
John Evans
And lastly, some good news for our agency friends about don't fire your agency as well. Isn't there some, some good, good supporting evidence for. Yeah, sticking with the right partners?
- [15:14]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah, no, completely. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like I've been paid off by the big, the big agency holdings. Because we found this really interesting finding that not only that, brands that change agency most over that five year period we saw them produce lower average creative quality star ratings. And which you could argue. Well actually you know, a brand side person might say well if an agency creates me better work, I'm not going to change. And that's what you find that finding. But actually we also looked at what I would call annual ad distinctiveness change. So the percentage of consumers that recall your brand correctly after seeing your advertising and we looked at how it changed over the five year period. Brands that change agencies most saw their ad distinctiveness decrease by around a percent every year. So after the five year period I'd argue that if 5% less of your consumers aren't linking advertising to your brand, you're wasting 5% of your media.
- [16:12]
John Evans
Totally.
- [16:13]
Andrew Tindall
And that really points to the power of building strong relationships with your creative teams so they can build knowledge and skills and execute long term plans. Because if we look at the brands that didn't change agencies over that five year period, we saw their AD distinctiveness increase by 3% annually. So more and more of the advertising was simply working harder.
- [16:35]
John Evans
So you could argue the gap gets bigger than if between those situations.
- [16:38]
Andrew Tindall
Exactly. Everything points to.
- [16:40]
John Evans
Yeah, now we're going to be talking about them in a second because Yorkshire Tier can be joining us in the second half of this episode but just run down the top most consistent advertisers and brands that you saw in the study.
- [16:49]
Andrew Tindall
The most consistent brand that we found was Great Western Railway which I love talking about because you know, in our world on our sat on LinkedIn all day you see a lot of people talk about the same brands and when System one tests every TV ad we find the boringly effectiveness gold in the haystack. Right. Like no one's talking about GWR the train brand, but they're literally maxed out across all the metrics. We looked at the second most consistent brand that we saw and the amount I go on about them, people assume I've been paid to talk about them. And it's nothing to do with the fact that I'm actually from Yorkshire, but it is Yorkshire Tea. The idea that one thing, a few things that Yorkshire Tea is incredibly good at is that this idea of where everything's done proper is the epitome of finding that insight driven positioning and bringing it to life with a creative idea of legs. And they've stuck to that and it's gold that just keeps on paying back. And we also see, you know, Diageo brands do quite well. Guinness is a very consistent brand across multiple metrics. And so is Gordon's. Gordon's. Their look and feel has not changed for a very long time. And then we also see Aldi do very well. Of course. Yeah, of course. Kevin the carrot is the epitome of some of the things we've talked about. We also see again, another kind of Boeing brand. Andrex. Andrex has been consistent for how many years now? Yeah, very impressive kind of FMCG brands.
- [18:19]
John Evans
Yeah, brilliant. But if anyone wants to get hold of it, there are lots of very nickable charts in the presentation, so presumably go to System One group website and Google Compound creativity. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to part two of this extra special episode of the uncensored CMO where we're talking about creative consistency. And we have in the building, ladies and gentlemen, two people that know a lot about creative consistency are Dom Dwight and Vicki Ridley from Lucky Generals and Yorkshire Tea. Welcome to the show.
- [18:48]
Dom Dwight
Thank you. Lovely to be here.
- [18:49]
Vicky Ridley
Thanks for having us.
- [18:50]
John Evans
So it's great just chatting to Andrew there about all the research on creative consistency and the impact it has on business. And what I love about having you two on is because you've been delivering this, you've been actually doing it. And congratulations, by the way, on coming second in the creative consistency table.
- [19:05]
Dom Dwight
Nearly there.
- [19:06]
John Evans
So well done on that.
- [19:07]
Dom Dwight
Thank you.
- [19:08]
Vicky Ridley
We'll get there.
- [19:09]
Andrew Tindall
Indeed.
- [19:09]
Vicky Ridley
Give us another tip.
- [19:10]
Andrew Tindall
What's something to go for?
- [19:10]
John Evans
Right, I know this is probably the only prize where you have to wait quite a long time to get it, as opposed to changing it every year for a can entry, but apart from this, of course, you also won the IPA gold, didn't you, recently?
- [19:22]
Dom Dwight
We did. Well done.
- [19:23]
Vicky Ridley
It's been a good few months.
- [19:24]
John Evans
It has, isn't it? So fantastic. Well, take us back to the start maybe. Dom, I'll start with you to introduce yourself. And you've been working on the brand for quite some time, so you've had some consistency yourself on the brand as well. Where did it start for you and how did you end up being in charge of the marketing?
- [19:38]
Vicky Ridley
Well, one of the things I'm conscious, like, I've been on your show before, John, so there's also like this aspect of the consistency of. What did I say when I was last on your show? So I joined the business. Betty's and Taylor's is the name of the group. It's a family owned business based in Yorkshire, so it's kind of essentially still an independent business. I joined them in 2008 as a copywriter and I'm not going to tell the Whole story, because it took up an hour of your podcast last time. But copywriter through social media, into digital, into creative, and then eventually as marketing director in 2016. 2016 was when we did a pitch which led to us working with lucky generals who we've been working with ever since. And then most recently, I moved out of the role of marketing director at the end of last year and I've moved into a new role, strategy and innovation director, which is throughout all of the sort of wonderful success and the celebration of Yorkshire Tea. I guess as a business, we've started to reflect on the flat, on the fact that we are very, very dependent on Yorkshire Tea. We need other irons in the fire for the next 10 years. So that's where I've started to focus. But I haven't left the building, I haven't left the business because I guess the consistency is born out of it being a nice business. I don't want to leave.
- [20:44]
John Evans
And I remember you saying as well when we talked last time that it's not just your role, but the management team itself has also been pretty much unchanged over the last 10 years as well.
- [20:52]
Vicky Ridley
Yes.
- [20:52]
John Evans
Which I think the consistency benefit is not just from marketing perspective, but business as well.
- [20:57]
Vicky Ridley
Absolutely.
- [20:58]
John Evans
So, Vicky, can I ask you, were you on the pitch team?
- [21:02]
Dom Dwight
I was, yeah. I was an account director back then in 2016 and so wasn't in the pitch room, but very much on the pitch team. And yeah, I've stayed on the business ever since. So Dom and I have been working together for eight years now and kind of grown up together a little bit, haven't we? We've changed roles together and sort of work together throughout that.
- [21:19]
John Evans
So, yeah, now I think I've just learned that I think you must have set a record for most number of ideas presented in a pitch.
- [21:25]
Dom Dwight
Yes. I don't actually think we played that one brilliantly. I mean, it paid off, but it probably wasn't our best pitch ever. I think we got so excited by the brand and by the idea that we came up with that we actually presented 17 scripts in one meeting, which was potentially a bit overwhelming for the guys there, but I guess showed the strength of the idea. But it was. It was a bit of a wild meeting, wasn't it? I don't think it was our best appearance, but it did the job.
- [21:50]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah. You won.
- [21:51]
John Evans
I do know something about Dom. He tends to only change his creative every couple of years. Credit to you, actually, because it came up in our research as being one of the reasons why you've Succeeded. Presumably you're still working through the 17 scripts.
- [22:01]
Dom Dwight
We are.
- [22:02]
John Evans
Is this why you're still here?
- [22:04]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah, yeah, to some extent. I mean, there are some where it was like, that was a great idea eight years ago, it's still a great idea now. I mean, there is something, I think, about those scripts, although they are sort of bespoke to Yorkshire Tea and the creative platform, each one of them is essentially just like a classic sitcom type joke. So they will, I think they will stand the test of time for a long time. So some of them can kind of stay in the fridge until we're ready to use them.
- [22:28]
John Evans
Like it, like it now listens to the show. Listen from all over the world. So if anyone that doesn't know about Yorkshire Tea and where it's from and the idea behind it. So you explain a bit about Yorkshire Tea and I'd love to know a bit about the. How you landed on the idea of doing things properly. Because I think for a British person that would be like, oh, yeah, that's so obvious and clever. But maybe for someone who doesn't. Not so familiar with Yorkshire. How did the idea come about?
- [22:50]
Dom Dwight
Well, we can't take full credit for sort of proper Yorkshire or lucky generals even, but we kind of got to the idea actually from going up to Yorkshire Tea HQ during the pitch process. So we all got sort of shepherds that are up there to get an immersion into the brand. And we've just. It came across so strongly when we were talking to absolutely everyone there as sort of this way of doing things at Yorkshire Tea. So shipping in hard water to test the tea against the absolute hardest conditions to make sure it's great, really, making sure that you have fantastic relationships with the farmers who are growing the tea and all these kind of amazing, amazing proof points, doing things proper. And we saw it sort of emblazoned on the wall, it was actually written on a wall in reception. We do things proper. And it just came through so strongly from absolutely everyone we talked to that we were like, there is something absolutely magic in this. So although it was something that was already existing and such a truth of the brand, we thought there is something magic, you know, there's still magic to be built into that and to make it sort of famous and culturally relevant. And I think that was going to be sort of the opportunity is how do you take something that is so ownable, so Yorkshire, you know, it's doing things proper, not doing things properly and attitude feels so Yorkshire and you know, of the place, but making sure that you aren't just going to wang on about these sort of rational proof points and how they make tea and how they treat people because it's kind of dull. So how do you take that attitude and then make it famous, which was, which was the really exciting bit and then something we hopefully have done pretty.
- [24:15]
Vicky Ridley
Well seem to have done. I mean, the other thing I'd add. So one of the things that I really respected about Lucky Generals in the pitch was that that notion of properness was part of our previous creative work. And while it was a different creative platform, I think one of the things that you guys did was spot that there was the kernel of truth. There were elements of the ad that were like another agency. You might have thought, we need to start from a fresh canvas because we want to have complete territorial control here and all those things. Whereas actually they didn't throw away the things that had actually already been building and gaining meaning and power over time, which I really liked because I think it's probably one of the other reasons for the longevity of this relationship is kind of just very low ego on all. Well, hopefully on all sides. Can't speak for myself.
- [25:03]
Dom Dwight
Yeah, there was definitely something in it and some magic to be. To be taken. I think where we added value is sort of this idea of Yorkshire Tea being where everything is done proper, so not only putting sort of a place around it, but where everything's done proper suddenly gives you so much fun to have there and sort of exaggerate it and really go to other, other places with it. So I think that was the slight unlock. But yeah, we definitely weren't chucking out everything you'd done so far because the brand was doing well. It just, we knew it could be sort of so, you know, rocket that success so much more. So that was the fun bit.
- [25:33]
John Evans
So you started with 17 ideas?
- [25:34]
Dom Dwight
Yes.
- [25:35]
John Evans
You've got a lovely platform where everything's done properly. I mean everything can take you anywhere.
- [25:39]
Andrew Tindall
Does it?
- [25:39]
John Evans
How do you then narrow down? Was the Kaiser Chiefs creative? Was that the first one you came up? What were the, what was the sequence in terms of.
- [25:46]
Dom Dwight
We started with three, didn't we? So the first, the launch was three ads in one, which was Kaiser Chiefs and then Parky, RIP Parky, but Parky doing the interviews and the Brownlee brothers, the triathlete doing sort of couriering around.
- [25:59]
Vicky Ridley
The Brownlee's had just had their real moment in the sun where a big, I think it might have been in South America. Johnny Brownlee had like pushed himself too hard, was nearly collapsing by the finish line. And Alistair gave up his chance in the top spot to run back and help his brother over the line. So they were famous in Yorkshire, but at that moment they suddenly became really famous globally. So it was kind of like a lovely moment to work with them.
- [26:21]
John Evans
You casually drop in, you know, Parkey, the Kaiser Chiefs and the Brownlee brothers. I'm guessing they don't come for free, even though they might be Yorkshire and big fans already. So how do you kind of convince the business to get behind a bold new idea? But also coupled with not exactly a cheap production to put on either. I mean, usage rights and all the rest of it, how do you kind of convince the business to get behind it?
- [26:45]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah, and. Well, I know it's a cliche, but the kind of Yorkshire thriftiness thing, it's. It doesn't come from nowhere. So there is, you know, we like to get value out of our money. And I, when I reflect on this, I kind of sometimes think, God, how did this work? Because I was a month into having become marketing director, just started to work with lucky generals and then my boss and some other pretty senior figures. I kind of needed to convince them that this new creative direction was the right way to go. And they were kind of up for the creative direction. But it was this whole use of celebrities, and they were two things that made people nervous. One was not the money, actually, it was about the use of celebrity itself, because any examples out there of celebrities being used tended to be quite gimmicky. Like the celebrity just like badged on top as a kind of layer to get attention. But I think the key thing about the use of celebrity in our work is just, it's so integral to the idea. Like, it doesn't work without there being a famous person. Because the joke is we're kind of almost treating them like they're not famous, they're just part of our team. And then the second thing, the money, I guess that was the leap of faith part. And maybe because it was an unproven idea that we found that we were able to get them in for slightly less money than later when it was a big established idea and everyone knows how big it is. I think perhaps because it was three, it was okay. Like, it was less dramatic later when we started to work with like really big a list celebs and it was just that one celeb and all that money was going on that one slab. I think some people would be a bit like, really? Is that how much you. You know, I've Got some bosses who are a bit like, is that really what they get paid for a day's work? It's not a day's work. It's the value of their image and their brand and all those things quantify, wouldn't it?
- [28:27]
John Evans
Like the. The cost of celebrity versus the impact it has on the campaign itself.
- [28:31]
Dom Dwight
Yeah, But I think it's not just, as Dom says, sort of using a celeb and paying for them to be sort of this ambassador that holds up the mug of tea, drinks it and says, mmm, delicious, and then you plaster their face absolutely everywhere. It's. We're using the celebrity to say something about the brand, you know, that properness attitude. So I think that's where they've paid back. Not only is it obviously giving us cut through and fame and people love those celebrities, but it's so helpful in landing what this brand is all about. And I think that's where we've seen so much sort of value in using him.
- [29:00]
Vicky Ridley
Definitely. And I think, I mean, it's interesting though, when you said that it'd be. It would be interesting to find out. And part of me thinks we should do that because there's something around the. The amount that you invest in the celebrity is partly a form of media because it's kind of maximizing the media because of the fame of that person, but it is also maximizing the creative because the joke works so much better if you've got somebody who's just the perfect choice for making that point. And then I guess the other weird part is I think we found with some celebrities, they wouldn't do it for free, but they would say yes, when to other brands they might say no. And that's to do with the way that the brand had behaved in the decades before that point. So, I mean, honestly, like, one of the weirdest moments in my life was seeing a message that Sir Patrick Stewart had put out that just talked about it being the honor of his life to be auctions he had. And I was kind of thinking, you've done some pretty big things. That feels crazy that he thinks that, but we'll take it.
- [29:59]
John Evans
But that's the genius of, like making it about Yorkshire and Yorkshire celebrities. I mean, I think my favorite one is Sean Bean. Just describe that for anyone that's listening that maybe hasn't seen it because it's beautifully acted as well, and the power is even in the accent and the actions he takes.
- [30:15]
Dom Dwight
Yes, we've got a whole host of sort of new starters about to start their new role@yorkshirethq and, you know, it's sort of shown that there's going to be an induction speech, a reduction training day. And in walks Sean Bean to the sort of surprise of everyone in that room. And then he goes on to give sort of a rousing induction speech about what, you know, the business is all about at Yorkshire tea and how they make a proper brew and, you know, go out there and do it for Yorkshire is the. Is the famous line. But he gets. He gets quite carried away in the. In the sort of Sean Bean standard way. And it's. It's pretty. It's a pretty funny little piece.
- [30:47]
John Evans
Brothers, sisters, today a great legacy rests upon on your shoulders, because here we.
- [30:55]
Vicky Ridley
Make more than just tea.
- [30:56]
John Evans
We make proper brews. Brews that bring a tear to your.
- [31:00]
Andrew Tindall
Eye and warmth to your soul.
- [31:02]
John Evans
So go out there and do it for each other, do it for yourselves.
- [31:07]
Vicky Ridley
But most of all, do it for Yorkshire.
- [31:11]
Dom Dwight
And then he reminds everyone what time the fire alarm is at the end, which is. Brings it back down to earth.
- [31:16]
Vicky Ridley
Oh, and the fire drills, Thursday at 3.
- [31:19]
John Evans
I mean, that's beautifully done, that bit, because he. He drops from his acting accent, his sort of big stage accent, into his local Yorkshire, you know, and that's always quite surprising with actors, isn't it? Because we're so used to seeing them in their acting Persona. And then you go, I never knew you had that accent. And it's got that element of surprise.
- [31:35]
Dom Dwight
It was amazing to watch him on the day, wasn't it? Because he was our first actor celebrity in the campaign. And just seeing him turn it on on the day was pretty. Pretty special to watch.
- [31:45]
Vicky Ridley
There was a bit. We always talk about it when we talk about the Sean Peen ad, but there was an extra line that wasn't originally gonna definitely be in the script, but we were like. We tried it out when we were experimenting later in the day and just there was one take where the way he delivered it, there was a break in his voice that had just so much emotion in it. I remember feeling like the hairs on the back of my neck and everything. And I remember looking at you and be like that. That's going in.
- [32:08]
John Evans
That is the magic of production. When you're on set, you just get these little bits of magic, don't you slip in. I looked at the system on database, actually, to see which one of all of them has scored the highest, and it's the 2017. The Kaiser cheeks. Actually, interestingly, 5.4 star and amazingly fluent. So 99% of people that Watch that ad. Knew it was Yorkshire Tea, which I thought was brilliant. So, I mean, that's one as well that brings music in. Of course, there's another lovely part of that, but describe that. Well, here we go, we'll go for round two, then. But describe that for anyone listening, because it's very. Also very cleverly done.
- [32:39]
Dom Dwight
So we're set in reception of hq. I think that's the thing, they're all in Yorkshire thq. So when we're talking about branding scores, it's so easy for us to get a hell of a lot of branding in there without it feeling forced or shoehorned. You know, we've got. We're in the building, but yeah. So we're at reception, the phone rings, receptionist answers, and obviously someone's asking for someone who works at Yorkshire Tea and they say, oh, he's busy talking to the farmers in Kenya, I'll put you on hold. And then as soon as she puts them on hold, sort of the Kaiser Chiefs start up and they're actually there live in the reception playing I Predict A Riot. But suddenly they're cut off because your chappies answered the phone and they don't even get to break into actual song yet. So it's. It's a really fun little piece where they get a little bit pissed off that they weren't able to play there.
- [33:21]
Vicky Ridley
Well, and I think that's a key part of it. So they're not actors, but I think actually Ricky's performance in that ad is great. And the bit where he just looks really excited that he's getting his chance to perform and then because it's only 20 seconds and the person gets put through and they have to stop. He just does such a good job of looking dejected.
- [33:38]
John Evans
Yeah, he does.
- [33:39]
Vicky Ridley
Which I love. But there's the thing that I think is fascinating about that, because, you know, I loved making that ad. But the truth is, later, when we made ads with really, really globally famous people, I always imagined they would be the highest performing ads. But on reflection, I sort of understand why the Kaiser Chiefs scores so well, because you've got the fame of the Kaiser Chiefs, but you've also got the fame of a song. And the thing about a song is, like a song can be famous without you quite remembering who the band is that made it, or even remembering the name of the song. You can just recommend, recognize the melody and stuff. So. And then the idea of the joke of the ad works, even if you only vaguely know that's a famous song by a band. So that must be the band.
- [34:17]
John Evans
Yeah.
- [34:18]
Vicky Ridley
But then the next bit, which is, I think is something that our friend Orlando would talk about is just the, the physical nature of the ad. I, I still love to this day watching it for that bit where the camera swings from the receptionist holding out the phone to the band playing. There's just this lovely sudden jerk of motion which I think is kind of arresting when you watch it. And I just remember laughing out loud when we did it in the first take completely. So it's got a lot of good elements.
- [34:43]
John Evans
I mean, we just did some research earlier in the year actually for Cannes called the Extraordinary Cost of Dahl. And we were looking at what is the antidote to Dahl. And one of the most powerful anecdotes to dial is surprise. And that's what it does. As you say, the camera pan is. You just got a very regular scene answering the phone and then it's like, oh, there's an internationally famous band. Just, just. And the way the camera sort of like brings you into the joke, as it were. And also I like the end, the way the sound doesn't just stop. It's sort of like you can really imagine it's an authentic.
- [35:13]
Vicky Ridley
And so like another thing about this. So it was really filmed in our headquarters. So that's our actual reception desk. The lady's not our actual receptionist. Just because there was some acting involved. We tend to, we do try and use real members of staff in our ads, but they tend to be in like the kind of roles where there's no speaking or no like big facial.
- [35:32]
Dom Dwight
Acting in some of it has been though.
- [35:33]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah, that's true, that's true. So where we can, we will. And then, you know, it's in our. So like Vicky says, it's really easy to do the branding because there's boxes of Yorkshire tea and branding everywhere anyway. I suppose the other thing though is it feels natural that there's branding everywhere because of the places we choose to set things. So you have this thing of like, we can tick a lot of the sort of boxes you need to tick when you're trying to do an ad really well without it feeling like we've had to bend reality to make it possible. And then I think that means from a viewer's experience point of view, none of it feels too heavy handed, despite the fact that sometimes if you watch an ad back and you look at how much branding was in an ad, you're like, how did we do that without thinking we've gone overboard.
- [36:14]
John Evans
Yeah. And you had that opening scene, don't you? Where it looks. I mean, look, I assume it's the kind of the signage outside the factory. I mean, looks like that anyway. That's authentic as well, is it?
- [36:22]
Vicky Ridley
That is real.
- [36:23]
John Evans
Yes, that is real. There you go. So all the bits. But you're right if the idea itself is kind of branded, because, you know, rather than we open on a beach in South Africa or something, we open in an industrial park. It's like, you know, where you are, which is amazing.
- [36:37]
Vicky Ridley
And I think there's something about one of the things where I think we end up being like, we can be a bit of a nag is this idea of, like, we need to see the tea. But the thing about the storylines is where they're set and the nature of the script means that there's usually an easy moment where you can have someone drinking tea. And I think that's the key, you know, is you don't want to break the script. So that, like, fitting the brand moments in has sort of made it feel contrived and awkward and weird. But you also don't want a script that's hilariously funny. But at the end of the ad, you say, what was that for?
- [37:08]
John Evans
Yeah, yeah. Well, even in the induction one, Sean Bean doesn't. There's that pause where he takes the scene and it's even the expression of like, he did. He did a good. That was a. Well scared. He was on point with that, wasn't he? And I mean, going back to our friend Orlando, I know he uses actually that scene in his. Or that clip in his book as well. Look out to talk. He calls it moltoia, but it's kind of movement and action and the way, you know, Sean pulls the sword out, or the pointer. Yeah, Meant to be the sword, but that's almost a reference back to his, you know, his roles.
- [37:41]
Dom Dwight
Funny that you said sword and pointer. That was a clear cast. Fun and games, wasn't it? How much can the pointer look like a sword before it's aggressive? So. Oh, all fun and games. Yeah.
- [37:50]
John Evans
Interesting, interesting.
- [37:51]
Vicky Ridley
Just on the right side of the pointer side of the scale, not the sword side.
- [37:54]
John Evans
I love how in every production there's always some unexpected bit of legal that you never knew. So it's always worth having the best lawyers in the process to help you out with these things. Now, we've been talking about, obviously, television advertising as well. How does the idea kind of manifest itself in different channels?
- [38:11]
Vicky Ridley
Do you know? To answer that, I'll go back a little bit. So I think there was a period pre working with Lucky Generals, where the truth is, throughout the whole journey of York City, TV has been the big lever. It's been the thing that's done almost all the work. I think, though, that if that's all we'd done, we'd be missing a little bit of magic that would have made sort of. There's something about Yorkshire tea where it's simultaneously like, conventional and. But doing conventional really, really well at the same time as doing unusual, unorthodox stuff that you wouldn't necessarily expect from a tea business or a family business in Yorkshire. And a lot of that used to play out on Social, which was like my domain in the early days, but I always found it really, really difficult to try and get those worlds to come together. So you'd end up with a really successful TV creative and then totally different tonally, stylistically, subject matter wise, social stuff. And then when we started working together, we've just been essentially looking at. Well, first thing, it's another example where I think what I really liked about Lucky's was recognizing in the Social a tone of voice and a sort of humor that could be leveraged more in the TV world. So already these two worlds are starting to speak to each other. And then I think over the years, we've gradually. We've done a number of things, actually, haven't we? I was thinking the one that kind of came to mind immediately was during the pandemic when we were kind of scrabbling around going, what do we do? And one of the things that these guys came up with was this script for the social distancing teapot. So this at the point when Britain was getting ready to go back to work for the first time and feeling really quite awkward about it, the joke was this teapot has got a 2 meter long spout so you can have tea without getting too close to each other. Which brought up all sorts of things of like, is this something we can joke about? But we felt like in joking about it, we were addressing something which is, we're all nervous about this, but if we, yeah, if we treat it correctly, we can diffuse the anxiety with humor. So that was a lovely one of our first stabs. I suppose what I'm getting at here is the bridge in the gap between the massive world of telly and then the kind of. The sort of quick. And I was gonna say quick and dirty, but maybe it's just like quick and cheap sort of world of social media and content in the middle. And then my absolute pride and Joy. The one that I think, like, for decades onwards, I'll look back on and be really proud that we did it, is pack your bags, which is a summer banger rave tune, where a young lad is essentially singing about the fact he's about to go on holiday to Ibiza with the lads and he's got to take his Yorkshire tea with him. Based on this insight that loads of Brits take tea on holiday. And I just look at that and think, what I love about it as well is I wasn't even involved in Pack your bags, but I feel like I did a lot of groundwork to make something like that possible. It's actually, you know, the folk in my team and Vicky's team that did it, but that was a really successful collaboration between us and it's a very sort of social friendly piece of work.
- [41:00]
Dom Dwight
Yeah, yeah. I think that's one thing is, although we've been so consistent in TV and in av, really, because those assets do go a lot of places online, but to not be so consistent where you think it's got to be matching luggage absolutely everywhere. Because I think if we started putting Sean Bean's face on posters and in print and all those kind of things, it does become that sort of brand ambassador role, which is really not the use of celebrity that we're going after. It's almost such a Yorkshire thing that we throw away the celebrity in the spot. You know, it's a menial task that they're doing or whatever. So I think that has been really good that we've held on to this properness and where everything's done proper as the red thread and, you know, look and feel and tone and all of these really good things that do keep it consistent, but not try and say everything's got to absolutely match. And I think that's where the real magic has come in. Other channels where we've made things like the social distancing teapot or pack your bags or even when we do sustainability comms, where a lot of other brands go very dry or very serious. We've had a lot of laughter there too, with tone of voice and how to get proper into that. So I think that's where it's been really fun to be consistent, but not in the way that you might imagine. It means that everything looks exactly.
- [42:05]
John Evans
I think you're right. And that's. I mean, the study Andrew did, that was absolutely. Part of it is there's consistent execution, but even consistent execution can be your tone of voice, the idea, the branding, the humor. The accents. There's so much that actually does carry through, even though you're bouncing from an induction to an in job interview to, you know, filling the warehouse kind of thing. You talked about collaboration a bit before, so one thing I'm keen to find out is how you work together, what gets the most out of the kind of clients and agency relationship. Because that's a conversation I have quite a lot.
- [42:40]
Dom Dwight
Trust, probably, and I think that's grown more and more over the years, but trust with challenge. So it's not just trusting each other and saying, yeah, you're probably right there. It's really pushing each other and saying, I think we could go further. Or actually, I was thinking this way, and just that openness and honest sort of honesty with each other and also just having a laugh. I think that has been, you know, as we've gone through the relationship, it's become more efficient, for one, because you know how each other work and you know, what makes someone angry or happy or sad or scared or. But also just getting to know each other properly and having a lot of fun while we're doing it. And I think that really comes through in the work, if you can see that. It's been an enjoyable process for everyone. But, yeah, I think pushing and never settling, like, we've had a lot of success over the years and there could have been points where we sort of kick back and say, well, let's just stick to. Because it seems to be working, but we're always looking for how do we make it better, how do we push it on and make sure that it's feeling fresh? And I think that's something that's been very helpful.
- [43:35]
Vicky Ridley
I think there's. I'm totally with you on the trust thing. There's a kind of like relationship rapport thing, which that takes me back to the pitch, where the more I reflect on the pitch, the more I think in my head, I think these guys won at the chemistry stage, even though the more things happened after that that were really crucial. There was just something about the chemistry stage where just the fit between what Lucky's were all about, what you wanted and also the kind of passion that you displayed for the Yorkshire team mission. And then what we were looking for, we just felt like this could work and then that turned out to be true. But the second thing alongside the chemistry is longevity. So this is, you know, all kind of fits into the theme of the moment. But there are loads of people on Vicky's side who are still on the team, who are there at from the pitch. And there are loads of people on my side who are still there and, you know, so there's probably two people I really want to give a shout out to, actually, if that's okay. So Ben Newberry and Lucy Hoyle, that's the head of brand and the senior brand manager for Yorkshire Tea now, like, in different forms, they've been working on the brand all this time. And there are other people in the business, not just in the marketing team, because I know this a marketing podcast, but, like, we wouldn't be anywhere if the sales folk weren't able to get it listed. You know, a huge part of how Yorkshire Tea has been able to grow is that we have got amazing physical availability compared to where we were 20 years ago. And many members of the sales team, which is probably even more unusual than the, you know, having a long tenure as a cmo. They're still there, the category guys. And you mentioned at the beginning the leadership team. So, you know, lots of my peers in the leadership team, we've been. The leadership team has kind of been the same for about eight years. So the level of stability, because we've got to know each other, we've got to know, like, how to challenge each other and things just means that I think it doesn't become, at least I'm not experiencing it, becomes stale. Because I think what happens is the world challenges us, so we can't be stale. We have to keep responding. But what we're able to do is we're able to be sort of slightly telepathic to start to understand, like, what. Where can we push, where can we just absolutely rely that that person's going to do that thing? So. And then. I'm sorry if I'm ranting on now, but just one last aspect of longevity that would be remiss if I didn't say it. But also our media agency, Good stuff.
- [45:51]
Dom Dwight
Yeah.
- [45:51]
Vicky Ridley
Remember, good stuff since I think, 2012. And I just think you put all that together and you've got a product that haven't. That hasn't changed, that's still great, you've got an idea that's still effective, that's still relevant and you've got a bunch of people that still really like working with each other. So, yes, you know, long, long. May that continue.
- [46:09]
John Evans
Yeah, I mean, Andrew, Andrew mentioned in his bit as well, that in the study, I think 56 odd brands in the study, you had the longest gap between making new things. Now, in my experience, that's a bit of a challenge for an agency because I've had conversation about, okay, right, new budget year, what we making together sort of thing. So is there a challenge in terms of, like, your success almost means that you, you know, it takes longer to crazy new things. How do you sort of approach that?
- [46:33]
Dom Dwight
Oh, well, I guess it's all about being good partners now. We will never sort of push to do new things just for our own benefit. And if we're seeing things working, obviously we've got to keep pushing it. And hence Kaiser Chiefs has been on for seven years. But I think there's sort of the way the account runs, there's always a slightly bigger year and then a smaller year and that's just the rhythm of the account. But I think sort of our approach to it is that there should never be a year where we're not making anything that we are so proud of and that is really setting the standard creatively. And that could be a big TV ad or it could be something a reactive piece of social or, you know, a piece of comms for the, for a sub brand. So although it's not TV every year, it's hopefully phenomenal creative every year. And it's always an account that people are queuing up to work with, work on at the agency. You know, it's, it's an account, you know, the clients want to buy good work. There's, you know, not always huge budgets, but there is enough budget to make something good normally. And yeah, the ambition's there, so it's, it's always a good time on Yorkshire Tea, but it's not always huge money each year.
- [47:31]
John Evans
And that's whenever I've been in these conversations, I've always said, look, the more successful we are together, the more that's going to create the budget in the future to do some interesting things. The moment we take our eye off the ball and we produce something average, that's the moment budgets get cut.
- [47:44]
Dom Dwight
Yeah, or trust is lost, isn't it? If we're pushing them to make work when they don't need to and it's going to come through in the tracking, then the trust is broken and we may not be working together for the next eight years.
- [47:54]
Vicky Ridley
So, yeah, I can imagine that. I can imagine having such a strong relationship that the agency could convince the marketing director or the marketing team to go for something that's not in the brand's real best interests. And while that might lead to the agency getting to do a next piece of work that won't last for very long, so there is also this kind of long Game way of thinking, which is it's better to do what works and what makes sense because then we'll stick together because it's going to work.
- [48:20]
John Evans
This is amazing from the research is literally the compounding effects. So the longer you give an idea that the greater the multiplier. I think Andrew was saying that he looked at non consistent brands every five years versus consistent. There's a two times difference return once you get into the kind of fourth and fifth years. So literally the compound interest kind of goes up over time, which I think you've demonstrated very well. But to talk about results, though, so where were you when you started this journey and where are you now in terms of whichever the business metrics are? I mean, how do you measure like turnover, market share? What have been the main measures that you've tracked this against?
- [48:52]
Vicky Ridley
So originally, although we were never particularly greedy about share, it was our best kind of metric. So. And we were talking value share because I think the problem sometimes with volume share is you kind of hiding the fact that you're not actually making as much profit as you were. So we wanted profitable growth. So when we first started working together, I think Yorkshire Tea was kind of in third position with, I think it was around like maybe 6, 16% value share of the British tea market. But then PG Tips and Tetley were kind of up in the stratosphere with like nearly a third of the market each. That's. That's sort of where this part of the story started. And we'd been doing pretty well before then. But actually when you look at some of the metrics, we had started to slow because we essentially done a really good job of selling Yorkshire Tea to the people that were already predisposed to light Yorkshire tea. So this key thing for us was like, how do you get through that? How'd you get to a point where you're starting to reach the PG Tips and Tetley drinkers who don't even know that York City exists? So that's where we were. Whereas now our value share is 40.
- [49:52]
John Evans
40? Really? It's gone up since we spoke last time.
- [49:55]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah, yeah. Which is nice.
- [49:58]
John Evans
I'm sure it was 30 when we last chatted.
- [50:00]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah. And. Well, I think for a while we've been kind of hovering around like 38, 39 and all that, but we've just recently started to tip into 40 more and more consistently. Whereas meanwhile, our competitors have dropped down to more like the kind of high teens or low 20s, which has been. We could not have predicted that. So we're in like really quite uncharted territory for us and not entirely sure like how much further we can keep pushing it. But at the moment, like all signs point to this is working, keep going.
- [50:30]
John Evans
That's incredible. I mean, I'm assuming as well from a trade perspective as well, having the great creative that lucky generals are creating for you also gives you a credible story to trade about how you're investing and rejuvenating the market itself as well.
- [50:43]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah, and that is not actually that common. I mean, the tea market is really heavily commoditized and it's done it to itself, you know, by sort of discounting primarily and making tea too cheap and then making people believe that tea should be cheap. And we've been going in completely the other direction, but on a bit of solo mission to do that. So at the moment I think that's worked very well for Yorkshire tea. But it's, it's the category that needs that help. And obviously now that we're the clear number one, that sort of responsibility resides mainly with us. So that's probably where it starts to connect with. My new role actually is thinking about the longer term future is just what do you do about the fact that like this category is just in inexorable decline? Like I think in the last 25 years it's declined by about 20%, about 20, 25%. And it's, we tend to blame younger people. We tend to say, oh, younger people too busy drinking turmeric lattes and all that stuff. But actually those Gen Z, yeah, they.
- [51:39]
John Evans
Got a lot to answer.
- [51:41]
Vicky Ridley
But actually the truth is, yes, that is part of it. Young people don't drink tea as often as their, you know, equivalent generation, 20, 30 years ago. But also older people, older people are drinking lots of different things. You know, coffee, tap water is one of our big competitors. So there is something there around. Sorry, I feel like I've gone off on one. But just to say, like, I guess I feel like there's, there's still plenty of challenge out there for us and maybe we can carry on doing what we've been doing, but we've also got to keep an eye on like, okay, if we, if the rules of the game change and the ambition is now not just to kind of win this battle between these brands, but also to think how do we make this category more appealing to more people then. Well, I find that really exciting because it means rather than trying to like tinker with our creative work when it doesn't need to be tinkered with, you can Start to apply that kind of different thinking into the new spaces.
- [52:34]
John Evans
Yeah, I think I'm getting insight into his strategy plan. You mentioned our biggest competitors. Water. I think we're going to Yorkshire Tea does water. Liquid death style.
- [52:43]
Vicky Ridley
Water done proper.
- [52:44]
John Evans
Water done proper. I can see it all there. Well, I mean, in all seriousness, so the lovely thing with the position you come up with is it does stretch into all sorts of places. So you can imagine how that might carry through to innovation and, you know, trade, communicate, all sorts of stuff, you know, kind of carries through very well. Maybe to end on. Maybe I'll go to you, Vicky, to just say, so looking back over what, seven years as a relationship, what would be your advice to clients listening, sort of CMOs that may be starting the journey? So for an agency point of view, what advice would you give to a client to foster the kind of relationship that gives us something as special as this?
- [53:18]
Dom Dwight
Oh, I think time really, I think it's been. We commit, we both committed a huge amount of time to the relationship at the very, very start and throughout. And I think that's been absolutely crucial. You know, you don't build these kind of relationships by checking in every so often or sort of waiting between big presentations for this tada moment. You know, it really comes from knowing each other, knowing the business and, you know, knowing where you want to go and sharing that goal, I think. And I think if you're really clear on that ambition from the outset, you kind of go on that journey together. But I think time is a thing and no one has enough of it. And it's really hard to put it in. But I think nurturing it has been so, so key. And then I think when things go wrong, not to panic and not to think, gosh, we've got to change everything and throw it all in the bin. You know, really take the time to think about what is wrong there. And a lot of the time it might not be the agency, it might be in your own team, it might be the product, it might be the media spend or it might be a different creative is needed, but it might not be, let's throw everything in the bin and panic and start from scratch. So I think it's just really sort of taking the time together to analyze that. And I think partnerships can get over when things go wrong rather than thinking, well, that's the end.
- [54:28]
John Evans
It's a good point actually. I mean, a lot of agencies I talk to, they're upset about having to pitch. I often say it's often not about you, it could be a change personnel, it could be looking for a scapegoat, it could be the strategy is just not clear enough. There's a myriad of reasons why brands make decisions they do, and it's not always down to whether they think the creative is creative agency is the right partner or not. And the other thing is, I think as a client, there's as much onus on us to give you the conditions to be successful and come up with ideas as well. You know, it's a.
- [55:00]
Vicky Ridley
Well, I was going to say that. John, I think I totally agree with you, Vicki, about the time thing, but so often people use time as like, the issue and you think, well, you could make the time. It's the choices you're making that mean you don't have the time. And the reason why you would put the time into the relationship is because you value it. So that's the real thing, isn't it? It's like you believe it's of value, therefore you're going to put the time in. And I think that's the thing that's.
- [55:24]
John Evans
I've had this with briefs, actually, where I did some coaching for agencies a while ago on kind of approaching pitches and stuff like that. And they often said when they got the brief, they sort of went dark for two weeks to go away and come up with the ideas and work on it sort of thing. And I said, why didn't you just phone the clients, have a chat? Like, what's the context? Can we find out more? How does the decision get made? Under what circumstances would you think our idea would be an amazing success? You know, how does decision, how do decisions get made, all that kind of thing. So, yeah, spending time together uncovers the real brief, the real motivation.
- [55:55]
Dom Dwight
It saves you time in the long run.
- [55:56]
John Evans
It does. And that's what I say, because the reaction I got was, well, we can't bother the client because then, you know, they're very busy. And I said, they'll be more busy. If you get it wrong, I'd say.
- [56:04]
Vicky Ridley
That'S true, that's true. And we've definitely had quite a few sleeves rolled up moments. Whether it's like when you're on set for a shoot, I mean, that is one of the best times, isn't it? Because there's a lot of downtime in a shoot where you can just hang out and chat. But I also have just suddenly remembered one of the other ones was we did a domino rally of biscuits in our factory, as you do. Yeah, obviously, with that, like, who hasn't done one of those. But there was to launch Biscuit Brew. To launch Biscuit Brew. Oh, good.
- [56:30]
John Evans
There was a purpose. Okay, good. I was just hanging out, trying to join the dots.
- [56:34]
Vicky Ridley
I realized that's what it was for.
- [56:35]
Andrew Tindall
But.
- [56:35]
Vicky Ridley
Yeah, but I just remember that there was a point where, you know, you had members of the marketing team and members of the agency team that were just all getting together, just like arranging custard creams. And remember, like, the thing about sanding the bottom of the biscuits so they stood up straight. And I just think these quirky little things that happen in the moments of activation are also a really important part of, I don't know, just building that chemistry between everybody involved.
- [56:59]
John Evans
I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's Oglevy quote, I'll probably misquote it, but there's something like, you know, make your thinking as funny as possible, which I think is great because it's interesting, isn't it, in this. I mean, I can see the chemistry as you talk about it and reminisce on the moment, but sometimes having fun, relaxing, and a bit of a joke is actually where a lot of the ideas come from. It's when we're forcing ourselves think of an idea that becomes very challenging.
- [57:19]
Andrew Tindall
Yeah.
- [57:19]
Dom Dwight
And I think big presentations don't feel like scary big presentations, which is a big milestone. We've got to get through. It's. I can't wait to talk to the guy, you know, Dom, and the guys about this and see what they think and let's build it together. It becomes much sort of less pressured and more enjoyable. And I think that's where the work gets really, really good.
- [57:36]
John Evans
Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Okay, so thank you so much, both of you, for coming on and talking this through. It's great to do it. In addition with Andrew, because we talk about the theory and I love the fact we talk about the practice as well. Excited to see what happens next, both from a advertising and an innovation point of view. So, yeah, watch your space. Whatever happens, I know it's going to be done properly. So well done. Thanks for coming on.
- [57:56]
Dom Dwight
Thank you very much.
- [57:57]
John Evans
Thank you. 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.