Vicki Murphy: 1:08

Welcome to Socially Unacceptable. From F***ups to Fame, the marketing podcast that celebrates the professional mishaps, mistakes and misjudgments, while delivering valuable marketing and life lessons in the time it takes you to eat your lunch.

Richard Noble: 1:25

I mean like shopkeepers were like. Why are the two buffalo like charging down?

Will Ockenden: 1:31

I suppose it's the democratization of creativity, isn't it? You know? Why should the leaders in the company be the ones that have the democratization?

Chris Norton: 1:40

Do you like that? Yeah, he's written that down somewhere, hasn't he no one's got?

Will Ockenden: 1:44

the monopoly on a good idea, have they? You might be a gen-ed who's? Just entered the workforce but actually they've been to a gig. They understand youth culture, they understand whatever it might be in a way that I couldn't possibly understand. So that's a fascinating point.

Chris Norton: 1:57

What does a head of European public relations do for Audible, then?

Will Ockenden: 2:00

Yeah, it must be quite a big job, is it?

Chris Norton: 2:02

lots of fancy flying around and drinking champagne in foreign countries.

Will Ockenden: 2:09

I mean when I can. I mean, I would be absolutely up for that.

Chris Norton: 2:14

Hi everybody, welcome back to Socially Unacceptable. This week on the show we have the lovely Richard Noble who is Head of European Public Relations at Audible Is that right, richard, have I introduced you properly?

Richard Noble: 2:28

That is a perfect introduction, yeah that's exactly what I am Great.

Chris Norton: 2:35

So do you want to tell us a little bit about what you do at Audible, because it's a cool company? And well, tell us a bit about Audible and what they do and what you do for Audible, if that's all right.

Richard Noble: 2:42

Yeah, that's right. I work for Audible, which is part of the Amazon group. We're a leading provider and producer of spoken word audio, so audio books and podcasts we make a lot of those in-house. We have our own studios and, as I said, we're part of the Amazon network so we have a lot of customers through Amazon. I have been at Audible for eight years as UK head of public relations and in January I recently took on our other four marketplaces around Europe, so it's been a busy 2024.

Will Ockenden: 3:18

I bet it has. So talk to us for a moment about the kind of the audiobook market then. So I was reading has Audible got? Is it $200 million revenue and something like 63% of market share in the US? I mean, that's a huge reach, isn't it?

Richard Noble: 3:33

We have millions of members around the world. I can't speak specifically to revenue numbers, but yeah, we're a big part of the audio ecosystem and, again, we're a producer, so we produce our own stuff, but we also, like Amazon does, with books. We're also a retailer, so we work really closely with publishers Penguin, random House, hachette to make sure their audio books are all up on our website. So, yeah, hopefully we're like a one-stop shop for audio book listening and, yeah, our members pay $ 7.99 a month membership and that's for an audiobook and then a range of all of our podcasts and um what?

Will Ockenden: 4:17

what's the demographic of audiobook? Um, consumers, like then. So I mean I would. I would assume it's a young, slightly younger demographic. Is that fair to say?

Richard Noble: 4:27

yeah, that's a really interesting question. Like when I first started I which again, like I said, it was eight years ago, quite a while ago I think it skewed a little bit older um. So I think there was a bit of a perception around audiobooks that they were sort of for older people and came on a lot of cds. But obviously with a digital devices penetration with amazon, alex, alexa in a lot of people's homes, we've definitely seen the age group skewing younger and as podcasts have become even more part of younger people's day-to-day media diet, that has led a lot of people to audiobooks as well. So, yeah, it's definitely getting younger and certainly there's certain like young men tend to skew higher, uh, than the general population in listening to audio books. So, yeah, it's. I mean when we're in marketing and doing our pr we target pretty wide um. But yes, we've definitely found um, the age group um sort of getting lower. Nielsen does research um every year into that and we see it getting younger.

Richard Noble: 5:32

Sorry go on.

Will Ockenden: 5:33

I was going to say, is the rise in audiobooks cannibalising traditional book sales?

Richard Noble: 5:40

Research. I don't have anything to hand, but no, it seems to benefit it. I mean, certainly audio has been the fastest growing part of publishing for many years. Um, but from the research that we undertake with our members and, like I said, that nielsen undertakes, we see like, like it hasn't been cannibalizing print books. I think people find different opportunities to like certain books they would prefer to take on holiday and read by the pool, but at the same time, if you're, you know, like commuting or out for a walk or doing other things, people tend to turn to audiobooks. So so yeah, like I think they've been quite complementary, uh, to each other, as opposed to sort of competitive I wonder how many?

Chris Norton: 6:24

how many audiobooks does the average consumer, average audible member consume then?

Richard Noble: 6:30

Oh, good question. I don't have that figure. I mean we definitely people have like widely differing consumption rates. Some people I don't know if I have an average I mean when we're marketing and doing PR we look at heavy buyers and more occasional users and more occasional users. But again, like our membership includes sort of one, one main audio book a month, like we give, we give a credit and they can use that for any audio book on the on our site. But then also, you know if they've listened to that in the first week of their membership? We have thousands upon thousands of titles and podcasts on our site of their membership. We have thousands upon thousands of titles and podcasts on our site until their membership renews and they get a new credit and what?

Chris Norton: 7:15

what do people do with podcasts that are audible, because it's not a platform that I mean? I've used it for audiobooks. I'm a bit of a star wars geek and I uh I don't know, yeah me too.

Richard Noble: 7:24

Yeah, I'll download the darth vader oh, there we go yeah, yeah, yeah, I not going to go down a road at all. I downloaded the.

Chris Norton: 7:30

Darth Vader book, which was quite fascinating with the backstory and everything. But how do people use it for podcasts and do podcasts? Is it a paid section of it?

Richard Noble: 7:43

Or how does that work then? No, it's not like. So like we make a lot of our own podcasts but we also have the traditional RSS podcast feed. So you can not everything, but you can get the similar things that you can get on like a cast and BBC sounds, etc. So we see our podcast as a member benefit. So we we really curate them. They tend to be, like you know, either big comedy like Alan Partridge or French and Saunders. We do a lot of like documentaries, often with like BBC studios. We've done a couple of big like investigative podcasts. So we like that they are exclusive to the audible ecosystem. So, yeah, it's the kind of like once you're in the once you're a listener and a member, you can access all of our podcasts for free.

Richard Noble: 9:03

But, yeah, it's a curated experience.

Chris Norton: 9:06

What does the head of European public relations do for Audible then?

Will Ockenden: 9:11

It must be quite a big job, is it?

Chris Norton: 9:13

lots of fancy flying around and drinking champagne in foreign countries.

Richard Noble: 9:17

I mean, when I can, I mean I would be absolutely up for that. Um, well, I'm still sort of finding my feet in the european element of it. Um, it's super, it's super interesting. We have four uh countries that we, that we have our own services in, which are france it's the least spain and germany, um, all it's sort of like different stages. Uh, so, like fr France has like a relatively small catalog and it's quite new, but Germany has been, um, we've had Germany about the same time as the UK, which is like around 20 years.

Richard Noble: 9:49

Um, so I, I have like a small team um with people in in country, um, and we look at kind of um, you know, often we're content driven. So our German, we have studios in London and Germany and Paris and so we make our own content. So a lot of it is around doing public relations work for our content. So we will try and hire the best talent that we can, whether it's in Germany or the UK, to narrate an audio book or do a full cast recording, and that will come with press interview time in the same way. So we'll do little mini press junkets in the different marketplaces but also talk about Audible as a brand and a service. You know the size of the German catalogue, what German audiobook listeners love compared to like UK listeners. So yeah, so it's a range of things.

Will Ockenden: 10:48

So when you talk about your own content, is that narrating existing IP, or would you actually produce an original book in the way that Netflix might produce an original series, or is it a mixture of both?

Richard Noble: 11:05

It's a mixture of both, but that's a really great question. So, like sometimes we partner with IPs, so in Europe, so in Germany, france, for example, we partnered with Marvel and have been doing like a Marvel series called Marvel Wastelanders In the UK and the US in English language. We did a new take on by the vampire slayer last year with a lot of the original cast from the early orcs tv show. So those are sort of ip plays.

Richard Noble: 11:37

But we'll develop original stories, but you will also, we have a commissioning team who are always looking for new and up-and-coming writers from backgrounds. So we often fund programs to find, say, working class writers from the North. I'm involved with an organization called New Writing North at the moment and we're doing a program to find working class writers there. It was founded by the actor Michael Sheen, so we're always on the lookout for new original stories. And, yeah, so our commissioning team will, you know, they'll go to book fairs and they'll look for rights for things that they think would be really interesting in audio. Some things work, like, brilliantly in audio. Some things are a bit different. So we're always on the lookout for new things.

Richard Noble: 12:30

But we're always interested in partnering, like video, like we, we've done a lot of work with ubisoft, the video game company. We did an assassin's creed story, an original assassin's creed story, in that, um, in that world, uh, far cry. So yeah, it's, it's a real mix of both it's. I think that's one of the things that, from a pr perspective, has been so interesting, because I've worked with, you know, teams at Marvel, teams at Ubisoft, along with, like, writers who've never been published before and this is their sort of first work. So you have to spend a lot of time, you know, making sure that they're really comfortable about how you're marketing or PRing something. You know making sure that they're really comfortable about how you're marketing or PRing something. And then again you're also working with some big celebrities and big like amazing actors, who often you see coming to and from our office where we've got studios.

Will Ockenden: 13:19

I mean, it's a PR dream, isn't it? I mean, one of the questions when we're kind of preparing for the episode was you know, do you focus on the platform or the authors and I was thinking it's existing authors. So naturally you'd be in competition against or not competition, you'd have to work with the publishers. But the fact that you're you've got this huge production arm where you're producing and collaborating and, you know, creating all this new content, the challenge must become where do you focus your time and effort?

Richard Noble: 13:47

because there's so much amazing ip uh coming out from yeah, thousands of books, yeah, that is the challenge yeah, I think, like in the uk, we have over 750 000 titles in the uk catalog, for instance, and we do launch a lot, certainly like. If it's something that's sort of like not produced by audible but is like retailed on audible, we'd be very up for working with one of our publishing colleagues to help promote it if we thought, you know it would it had a really, really interesting story. Uh, do we tend to focus on our own productions? Like recently, in fact last week I think, or a couple of weeks ago, we launched like an adaptation of george orwell's 1984 that had Andrew Garfield in the cast, andrew Scott, cynthia Erivo, tom Hardy.

Richard Noble: 14:37

So we had like a really, really big cast. We had a really like Matt Bellamy from Muse had done the music, so we had like that. So that became like we knew that was like a primary PR focus for, like you know, for April and even in the run up. So, yeah, so we definitely, like you know, the year before, we look at what we call our slate same as TV stations would do, and be like you know, we'll be mentioning this title in our newsletter.

Richard Noble: 15:07

This one's a bit more focused on, on, on on social media, this one's perfect social media story, but actually this one is a bit more like mainstream media.

Richard Noble: 15:17

So we think it will get great reviews and great coverage in the guardian, um, like mail online, wherever that may be, um, and so, yeah, we kind of like work out in a rolling sense what we think our big hitters will be that also the ones that will bring people to audible for the first time. Uh, but that, yeah, that's a real ongoing job and that's in discussion with, you know, the casting team, the marketing team. If it's an international production, like 1984 launched in the us, so we'll kind of liaise with them to find the right date to make sure it doesn't clash with you know, like that, like something that our us colleagues are doing with the obamas, because we we do things with higher ground, the obamas um media, arm, um over there. So there's a lot of there's a lot of moving pieces to try and work out when to do things at the right moment, not to clash and to give it the most success so talk us through um a kind of a tentpole launch then.

Will Ockenden: 16:15

So there's 1984 sounds. Did I hear tom?

Chris Norton: 16:19

hardy, that's a good example.

Will Ockenden: 16:20

Yeah so let you know, how would you typically kind of take that to market? And, and the second part of that question, which you can decide to answer or not, is have you ever been savaged by the critics as well after you've gone to market?

Richard Noble: 16:30

with um. So so, yeah, I think I could do both of those like um. So 1984, um, like the pr team and the marketing team would be, we have incredible casting and and executive producers. But we like it's great because we are consulted on casting, for example, like, so you know, like my, my colleague Camilla and I will get sort of from casting a list of like these are the potentials for this production, be it 1984, be it like whatever we're sort of working on, and so, like, marketing will have some feedback into that, pr will have some feedback into that being like, oh, this person is super hot right now. We should push for like more PR interviews.

Richard Noble: 17:12

So then, like, depending on the size of the project, we might do an announcement release. So you know, entertainment media probably the biggest ones, that what we call the Hollywood press, the Hollywood reports of variety and deadline they all have, like you know, the UK is a big entertainment ecosystem, so they all have big. Like you know, they have UK reporters. So if it's a really, really big project, we would speak to, we would speak to one of their reporters and see if they wanted to have an exclusive announcement. Usually that would be when we would announce the cast if it was big enough, but then at the same time maybe there's a smaller investigative true crime podcast um, and we might just start the public relations on the day it drops on the website, because we don't, we, we really want our customers and our members uh, to find it that day. So some some projects like you start announcing in advance to build industry buzz, like, for instance, others.

Will Ockenden: 18:15

You know it's more like targeted um at the consumer, so you kind of want to just make sure the consumer finds it immediately is there such a thing as a premiere then would you do a premiere or a kind of a launch event for for a bigger production?

Richard Noble: 18:28

yeah, we have done, I mean we've.

Richard Noble: 18:29

We always wrestle with it because it's a strange one with audio.

Richard Noble: 18:32

But, um, like we with the bigger cast ones, we haven't done for a while but like a few years ago we did like an x-files production.

Richard Noble: 18:41

We, uh, we did an alien story and we were kind of like we would never like premiere the whole thing, which could be like four hours, eight hours. But for instance, when, like not far from when I started, we did, we did like we didn't have like any major talent but we took over the London Planetarium at Greenwich and invited media there, had like a sort of premier drinks party and sort of played some of the audio as, like you know, we were listening to, as we were sort of played some of the audio as, like you know, we were listening to as we were sort of sitting in the planetarium. So, yeah, I mean increasingly, I like I think um, audio entertainment sort of sits alongside um, some of our you know, our partners at amazon, prime video and uh and other entertainment things. You know, I don't think we haven't done like a red carpet premiere for the whole thing, but we've definitely done events, um to celebrate the launches of certain projects.

Richard Noble: 19:35

Yeah, so you came to audible, but before that you worked at samsung right, but you worked in australia in australia that you worked for samsung yeah, my partner's australian, so we've kind of like moved backwards and forwards between australia um and london um over the years and so, yeah, um, I was in australia for for about 10 years, okay, mostly, and so, yeah, I was working at samsung before before I came to audible and I was head of uh, head of corporate affairs for samsung australia for about four years right, okay, and before and this show is obviously all about fuck-ups and you've sent one through about when you were working for Samsung, although you did say you have quite a few for Samsung, so this was quite interesting.

Chris Norton: 20:17

So tell me the story of how the hell Samsung was involved with a buffalo.

Richard Noble: 20:25

Yeah, when I was kind of racking my brains when we were talking about kind of what we would sort of talk about in the kind of fuck up the PR, fuck up thing, I was like, yeah, I was really racking my brains and there was like working, working in Australia for a big tech company could be pretty crazy. Like you know, you're making really like cutting edge products. You're getting them out all the time. Like you know, there was a lot of experiential marketing and things so like. So basically I I mean this is a kind of like a general fuck up. I I still think back to whether this was me or whether I missed an email, but basically yeah, yeah, I, I honestly don't think I I don't think I was told this is what I.

Richard Noble: 21:21

I went, I went back through my emails but basically it turned out that our and and it turned out that I think the global team at Samsung were doing a shoot for a global ad campaign in Sydney in a like it was like Centennial Park maybe. And like, yeah, like myself and my team and, in fairness, like our marketing team, like no one at Samsung Australia sort of knew about it. I happened to be at our PR agency, the brilliant sort of Edelman in the in the center of Sydney, and how I found out about it was I got a call from a journalist colleague well, a journalist friend or someone I'd like that certainly worked with and and traveled with a bit on junkets since I'd been there. It's called daniel from channel 10. He called me and was like do you know anything about a samsung uh video, like ad shoot that's gone wrong in uh, in this park?

Richard Noble: 22:19

And I was like what? No, what are you talking about? We're not doing any shoots, uh, at the moment. Um and like. Meanwhile, I was sort of like on the phone, like frantically, like like uh, gesturing to my edelman colleagues being like get on the new, like check the news, check everything. And he was like well, because, um, basically, there was an animal handler, there were two buffaloes, uh, in the park, and still, to this day, have no idea what the creative was the park and still, to this day, have no idea what the creative was.

Chris Norton: 22:52

And you know they have. The link is with water buff.

Richard Noble: 22:53

Yeah, I know, I, I still, I still, to this day, don't know what it was. I assume it never. I assume it never went to market in korea, um, I guess. So, yeah, it was for the korean market and I mean, if you, if you're ever in korea, the ads are like incredibly creative but like pretty wild.

Richard Noble: 23:08

Um, so anyway, the animal handler lost control of the buffaloes that went charging off down the street in Sydney and into a suburb called Newtown, which has like a great high street, it's called King Street in Newtown, and so I mean, like shopkeepers were like like why are the two fucking buffalo like charging down? So anyway, this was being recounted to me. The television was going on in the meeting room that I was in while I was on the phone to the journalist and like there was like a helicopter shot.

Chris Norton: 23:43

uh and I, I sort of said like it's like why do you?

Richard Noble: 23:48

I'm sweating, yeah, I know. It was truly like, yeah, I'm sort of sweating thinking about it. And I was like why do you? I don't know anything about this. And I genuinely didn't. I was like I don't know anything about this, I don't think this is Samsung. What has even made you call me? And he was like, well, I kind of, like you know, made you call me. And he was like well, I kind of like you know, we saw a group of um, you know, asian, uh, like the like a lot of the crew who were sort of asian, and they were last seen fleeing the park in a golf buggy.

Richard Noble: 24:22

Um, and I was, I know. Again, I was a bit like you know, like with the southeast asia is a big area, you know. Know, we're talking Japan, it could be anyone. Anyway, if I hear anything I'll let you know. And I put the phone down. I was like this has this, has our company hallmarks all over it. So in the end we just formed a room. I spoke to our head of marketing. We were on the phone to Korea. I spoke to our head of marketing, we were on the phone to Korea. In the end we started to kind of like track down the people who were involved in the shoot, who'd kind of like fled the scene, and I sent my PR manager to their hotel to sort of prevent them leaving, because the media were like scouring the neighborhood to try and find anyone uh involved. Eventually, the fire brigade were called uh and the buffaloes were cornered um in someone's like backyard, I think it was um so it's dangerous.

Chris Norton: 25:21

They're like really aggressive.

Richard Noble: 25:23

It could have, it could have been, it could have been really nobody was hurt no one was hurt.

Richard Noble: 25:30

Um, like I do you know what I like I can't even remember it was like 10 years ago now, like whether, like, we ended up sort of like issuing a like a statement about I'm sure we must have done in terms of like, um, accepting responsibility. But there is something about australia, like doing PR and white marketing in Australia, it's quite. They call themselves larrikins, they're quite. It's like quite a funny media market. You can have a lot of fun with Australian journalists and you know, like, as long as no one's hurt.

Richard Noble: 26:02

And so it sort of became like quite a memeable story. It became the sort of like piece at the end end, like at the end of the like the news that was like and what else happened in sydney today, kind of thing. So it was, I mean, it was certainly, it was certainly a lucky escape. But, um, you know, even like, whenever you work at like, as I've done for a couple now for big organizations, it is amazing how like teams don't talk to each other. I guess I'd like I was trying to when I when I was like thinking about what to talk about. I'm not quite sure what the learning is like, because sometimes in big organizations, a lot of the times the left arm doesn't know what the right arm is doing?

Richard Noble: 26:48

Yeah, it can. It can be a bit siloed just from the sheer size, but certainly my personal learning that I've taken on is, like you know, if I'm doing anything in France, the local team in France have to know about it. Like don't ever do anything in a town. Or if you have, like you know, a sales team in and that could work in even a UK business, If you've got like a sales team based in Leicester, like make sure they know if you're in Leicester, Like it really yeah, it really is like over inform. Don't just sort of assume because that was an example of, like you know, they were korean speakers that like there was no connection. So my team managed to pick it up and handle it and and sort of deal with the media. But we were starting from such a position of like, is this us? Could we have done this? Could could this have happened?

Will Ockenden: 27:47

I love the way it's the animal handler. The animal handler lost control. It's like you've got one jaw.

Chris Norton: 27:52

Literally, you've got one jaw. Hold on to the wild buffalo.

Richard Noble: 27:58

Yeah, exactly. But as you say yeah, what on earth was that mobile phone ad going to? What was the mobile phone ad featuring buffaloes.

Will Ockenden: 28:08

It's probably on YouTube somewhere. Zach, you've got to find that for YouTube somewhere.

Richard Noble: 28:10

We've got to find that. Zach, you've got to find that for the video.

Chris Norton: 28:12

You've got to cut it in Like a water buffalo goes crazy through Sydney. And what the hell was the link to the product?

Will Ockenden: 28:19

I mean we've worked with the. I'm trying to think of the animals we've worked with. We've done wolves, haven't we? Wolves around central Leeds Wolves we had a black sheep called batman. Yeah, so the black sheep we used um was he's been in mission impossible and peaky blinders. And he had an agent and he's a total pro actually we've done a camel, does he come?

Richard Noble: 28:42

with a rider of like certain kinds of like grass that he yeah, you're not allowed to look him in the eye. That was that, that's like photographing on the left side.

Chris Norton: 28:55

Yeah, exactly, he didn't escape, you see richard, you're working with tom hardy, we're working with batman the sheep.

Will Ockenden: 29:01

That's the level, yeah oh, we found it on video oh my god, we've got the actual clip I think we'll um, I think we'll cut that into the edit.

Chris Norton: 29:10

Stick that in the video yeah.

Richard Noble: 29:11

Oh, you found the clip of the buffalo trudging down King Street. Okay, excellent.

Will Ockenden: 29:15

You're right about Australian media, because I've spent some time in Australia and they do have a bit more fun with it and I can imagine you know Channel 9 or whatever. Or Channel 10, following the buffalo in a helicopter and people ringing in yeah, the buffalo in a helicopter and people ringing in.

Chris Norton: 29:35

Yeah, I can absolutely imagine that. Can you imagine that in camden town, just near the near the london zoo, if two buffaloes escaped so you're filming it? Yeah, the media wouldn't be quite as friendly, would they? It'd be tasty?

Richard Noble: 29:39

I don't think so either. And and also I do remember that call with daniel from channel 10 where he's like this is samsung, isn't it? And I was like mate, how dare you suggest that it would be ours? And I feel like we both knew I'm sure I'm sure we had drinks about that, like that later. And like again, working in pr in australia was so fun because I had like such great even look, even when you were working for like a really complex business like samsung, I had like such great mates I'm still in touch with today from the tech journalists in Australia. They were like such a great group who always like respected what you could and couldn't tell them and you know, as long as you were as like honest as you could be and you know, have a point afterwards they were, they were a great bunch.

Will Ockenden: 30:28

So that leads. I've got a question on that actually, and again, you mentioned this in the in the pre-show briefing. So obviously you know media relationships so, so important and you know that can be the difference between you know a positive story, a negative story and, as you said, in australia, great relationships. Um so what's your view of the kind of the landscape in the uk, particularly post-pandemic, where you know there's less journalists in news? People don't meet for long lunches, unfortunately, as they used to. You know people work remotely so you can't even go for a coffee with them, you know what's the landscape?

Will Ockenden: 30:59

right now when it comes to building those relationships.

Richard Noble: 31:02

Yeah, I think it's tougher. I tend to do it less in London because I have a brilliant colleague and a brilliant agency, like yourselves, who do a lot of that. I mean, like we do try and do it as a team, like these days, as much as we possibly can in terms of yeah, you're right, the timings there. I think. I think it's pretty beneficial sort of being audible and being in being in like the entertainment industry, because it is inherently a bit more social. So you know, like you say, even if audible isn't having a premiere, a lot of brands are having premieres. There's, you know, the Sundance film festival. There's a lot of book festivals, you know Audible's like we're hosting a party for the Women's Prize for Fiction, we're a sponsor next week. So I think, like I've like maybe I'm not representative of the sort of wider industry because I've been pretty fortunate to work in an industry where that sort of thing does still happen to a degree um, so there is a bit more um face-to-face. But even regardless of face-to-face, I do think, um, the times I've had the most respect from journalists is like I don't know, I I feel like I, you know, and this can be with stakeholders at your company or or whoever it is.

Richard Noble: 32:31

I just always try and just be like as I. I don't like I. I would hate to be thought of as a pr person that spins stuff. I think that's why I like government like government, like pr would never government communications would never have been for me.

Richard Noble: 32:45

Like you know, I understand like the need for confidentiality and sticking to a key message, but I also think like sort of like off the record, like you can have a conversation that is like you know me. I would tell you this if I could Like you know you've got to respect that Like I might. Either myself or my spokespeople can't like can't answer this question and like I don't know. I don't know whether it's like personal style, but like I've always just like like hope to like be able to have a journalist to be call me, be like mate. I don't think you're going to be able to tell me this, are you? And I'm like probably not, but hit me anyway like um. So yeah, I think like it's hard to have sometimes trust between pr and journalists, but by, I don't know, being as like, authentic and honest as possible within the, the restraints of your job has always like served me well so we've talked a little bit about a big fuck-up with the Buffalos.

Chris Norton: 33:49

What kind of crises have you been involved in then before? Because Samsung's had quite a few, hasn't it?

Will Ockenden: 33:56

I mean was it.

Chris Norton: 33:57

Samsung that set on fire the products kept setting on fire. Or was that the Google Pixel?

Richard Noble: 34:03

In Australia. There was a product recall that I was involved with at the time when I first joined Samsungsung, because I'd always worked in consumer. I think that samsung was really like my first proper in-house job, um, and and really the role I covered consumer communications, but then there was so much kind of like issues and crisis, um, and corporate communications. I just sort of like fell into it. It was never really sort of like a planned part of my career journey and the things I'm talking about are like completely like in the public record. But yeah, like when I first joined it was at the time I don't know if you remember there was a big litigation between Samsung and Apple over patents for the iPhone and the sort of Galaxy series. So I went up very soon after I joined. That Australia was actually like a like a test market, like we were. It was like we, like Samsung, had been sued by Apple in that market. I think we've been accounted, but there were only like four countries in the world. They were sort of almost like steering steering clear of some of the bigger markets like the uk and the us, and we're sort of testing out litigation, um, in some of the smaller markets. So, um, you know that that was kind of like my first experience of like being in court.

Richard Noble: 35:25

I remember kind of like going to like um, like going to the courtroom, uh, when it was on in the mornings, and then, when it would break, I would like have a quick meeting with the barrister, um, that was working for Samsung, who would sort of like explain what had just happened and and things, and, and then it would be about kind of communicating that back to our headquarters in Korea and we had a regional headquarters in Singapore and sort of working out kind of what you know, what you can and what you can't say, and then like also obviously like looping in just the most extensive legal you could imagine in order to and I think probably in most cases, like we we didn't anything but as a corporate comms person, it was like the kind of the need to understand what the issue is before you could then kind of communicate the right advice to the managing director or the C-suite who were looking to you.

Richard Noble: 36:23

And then, yes, like you said, there was in I can't remember the exact date 2012, 2013. Yeah, a product recall for washing machines in New South Wales, in Australia, around like house fires, or not house fires but like washing machines right now. That was a New South Wales government recall and yeah, so there was a big piece of like managing the comms for that, working with the regulators and, again, like it was, you know, working in hand in hand with the legal team so that yeah that was, that was a very, that was a very, very serious situation.

Richard Noble: 37:05

And again, like, just in those cases, even though you're like you know there will be different parts of a company that might be like, why do we need to put this information out? Why do we like and and again, I think sometimes there is a role of a crisis comms person to protect a company from themselves. Um, as well, to be like you know, it's not always about the legal like. Oh, you know, sometimes it can be a design I don't think samsung was particularly like this. So you have discussions which is like, should we do the legal bear? You know, legally we're required to do x, whereas I think what a comms person can do is like, yeah, but have you actually considered doing x plus y plus z?

Richard Noble: 37:49

Because this isn't just a legal case, this is also a reputational case and actually, you know like, while no one ever wants this kind of thing to happen, there is a potential to come out like, if we behave in the right way and do the right thing, by our customers and you know lots of electric, like electrical brands over the years, you know, have have had issues, but by ensuring up, you know, the best customer service, immediate replacements, like you know being very open and transparent, uh, mainly more so than the law requires you you're building up your, you know, a damaged customer reputation and could maybe come out, if not looking like the good guys, at least not looking like a, you know, cynical corporate, um conglomerate that doesn't care about its customers. So in some, in sometimes, you know, I think there are like, I think corporate comms or pr can be seen as like spinning the bad away, but sometimes, like you can be the person within a company being like let's do more and put that out and not be the bad guy.

Chris Norton: 38:57

Be transparent.

Richard Noble: 38:59

Yeah, be transparent and sometimes like, yeah, PR and comms can be misunderstood and I think that's a way internally that you can influence or I have been able to influence like doing the right thing, I think.

Chris Norton: 39:12

A product recall with a product as big as a washing machine is not an easy thing either. Is it Because if there's a product recall on anything, you normally take it back.

Richard Noble: 39:20

How the hell do you?

Chris Norton: 39:20

take a washing machine that's plumbed in in your house. That's been delivered.

Will Ockenden: 39:24

That is not an easy thing to return is it Sounds like an expensive um product recall? Yeah, yeah it was.

Richard Noble: 39:29

It was huge. And I mean, obviously you don't like, you can't expect a customer to take it like take it back.

Richard Noble: 39:36

You had, like you know, again, it was quite a while ago, but I mean that was like having like full teams of people traveling the country and even contacting people, um, because you know, like it was, yeah, it like it wasn't like a low, it was like a relatively like mid low to mid range uh cost. But, like you know, they would have been sold through different retailers, some like sold through us. So even I think we worked out there were 200 or maybe 180 000 like in the like, like uh in like around australia, again, geographically, quite some quite complex places to get to. But I mean it was really like we did a lot of work, um, in having teams going to people's houses. The marketing campaign, again that was that was about trying to go above and beyond and making sure they were sort of out of people's houses.

Richard Noble: 40:29

But I mean it was going on like way after I I think I left in 2015, maybe like seven or so years ago, eight years ago, more than that, but yeah, it was going on long after I left because you just had to get it right. By then the comms element of it had gone. But yeah, the media, I think I was like, yeah, at the heart of the when the news broke so, um, I've got a question slightly different.

Will Ockenden: 40:58

Um, you know, you've obviously, you've obviously kind of had a range of comms jobs. Now you're obviously in-house. You must have worked with an awful lot of different agencies. Um, now you seem like you'd be quite a good client.

Chris Norton: 41:11

You seem quite uh is this where you're pitching for business.

Will Ockenden: 41:14

Yeah, that's later what's your um, you know what, what, the way you see it, what's your kind of um, what's your view on what makes the most kind of productive client agency relationship, then? Because it's so important for that to be a great relationship, isn't it? It has to get off on the right yeah, yeah, I mean it's like it.

Richard Noble: 41:35

It's been my favorite thing about working in-house. I've been like so fortunate to work with like brilliant agencies both at samsung, um and audible, and now audible like I've been introduced to agencies in fr and Italy and Spain and Germany, which has been like a really, really fantastic experience. So I mean I like I mean the way I approach it as a client is like I can't remember what the brand is. It's just like I don't think that. I mean I try and come up things with like just don't be a dick. Like we all fuck up and agency fucks up, I fuck up, you know like.

Chris Norton: 42:17

I've made a podcast out of it. What have you given it?

Richard Noble: 42:19

Yeah, I mean I've done like a product recall. I've like I had a Buffalo charging down King Street. You know I've said the wrong thing to a client when I was agency side or sent the. I kind of remember sending an email, a cross email, and not thinking about it. Now I always have a delay on my emails, like so so I can pull back from the brink. For me it's just like. I mean, what I want is like a real extension of my team. Um, you know, at audible we're like a relatively small team in-house so we like really rely um on our agencies small team.

Chris Norton: 42:58

How big is a small team?

Richard Noble: 43:01

uh. So I have like, uh, there's like four of us around, like around europe, I think, in the PR team and then I'll have some corporate comms colleagues as well. But yeah, so the agencies are really, really important and again, I think, the best clients and hopefully I am a good client I look for advice. I also look for pushback. I like having a real laugh with my agencies. I want it. I want to work with people that sort of share my values and share like share a vibe.

Richard Noble: 43:33

Um, so my colleague, camilla and I, who, like I work with in London, um, she came from the. I hired her into Audible, um, from the agency. Um, you know we she was a brilliant, a brilliant account director at the agency and that wasn't a weird. You know, I spoke to the agency about it that they're still our agency, but that was and I think I've done that a couple of times over the years like so it's that kind of I don't really mind whether you're working at this desk next to me at Audible or you're at one of our agencies. It's like you have to be able to stop me making a mistake or like you know, and I think if something goes wrong at the agency. You can have that conversation, you just don't have to be a dick about it at the agency. You can have that conversation, you just don't have to be a dick about it.

Richard Noble: 44:30

Um, so I just I that's kind of what I really really value a sort of like open um and and like and consultation, like you know, having someone at the agency I can call and be like I don't know about this, I've been told to do this, I don't know. Say like you know, a regional leader or or someone senior wants to do x and they want to put a press release about it. I, you know, I I'm pretty experienced, so I I'm okay saying no, but sometimes it really helps me to go to my agency and and to speak to someone there who I really trust and just be like can you just validate this for me and can I just get your advice? I think this is a terrible idea, but I could be wrong and and sometimes and I really appreciate being disagreed with like so that, yeah, that's what I love most about agency relationships and and again, having a face to face going for a beer, like through COVID, my UK agency, we had socials um and kept like as well as like sort of we did like a gin tasting session, like when we were all sort of locked down and like I, I don't know, I, yeah, I I if not see them as friends, like they're definitely people I really enjoy hanging out with and I think that's only made our relationship, our professional relationship, better so I like it, don't be a dick extension of your team and um true, true collaboration.

Will Ockenden: 45:52

I like it, yeah encouraging, like, um, like constructive uh criticism as well, like because yeah you know, having ideas broken down and rebuilt back up again sometimes is some of the best to do, yeah, and you're so right about that collaboration, you know, and it sounds like a cliche and we often speak to our clients in this way extension of your team. But when that genuinely works, it really is an extension of your team, isn't it? And you know you've got their back, they've got your back. You seamlessly work together. You might work from each other's offices at times. I think that's a really, really, um, you know, effective way to work together yeah, yeah, yeah, me too.

Richard Noble: 46:32

Um, yeah, like one of my, one of the agencies around europe, like that we gave them a really difficult brief recently, like it wasn't quite right when they came back and I and I I wasn't, I was, if I was in your position, I don't know how I would have answered this brief thinking about that.

Richard Noble: 46:51

And so, yeah, we're just like, should we all just get in a room and I can talk about what the challenges are and not be like agency just presenting to client? Maybe we can create something and let's get us all together in one room and have like an old fashioned, like collaborative brainstorm, because sometimes in-house you miss that Like you do do a lot of you know a lot of admin or stakeholder management with all the different departments and sometimes you know again one of the reasons I love being part of an agency and you miss that sort of vibey. Let's have a creative session. So, yeah, I would encourage people who go from agency to in-house to try and keep that sort of um yeah, part of themselves, that the the sort of creative brainstorm kind of um approach do you remember when you weren't allowed to say brainstorm, it's allowed.

Chris Norton: 47:43

It's allowed again now, isn't it?

Richard Noble: 47:53

brainstorm. It's a lot. It's loud again now, isn't it? Is it? I don't know, I don't know, I I'm never going to be involved in a thought shower?

Will Ockenden: 47:56

no, I'm not.

Chris Norton: 47:56

I don't like the sound of that one bit will's often asking me to get involved in a thought show. All right well yeah, that's something so if, if richard could meet 20 years ago, richard, what advice would you give him to get into, you know, marketing or comms? Today, in 2024, what's the big hot tip you'd give to somebody that's thinking about getting into marketing and pr?

Richard Noble: 48:22

um, that's a really good question. I mean I kind of I don't know about you two. I sort of didn't. I didn't do like a journalism or a public relations like degree. I really I went to work for a company in a different role that had a PR team that I was like what they seem to do seems interesting. So I kind of like organically found, found it. So it's like tough for me to give advice.

Richard Noble: 48:51

I guess one thing I think that I really and again going back to like enjoying working with agencies and and like colleagues at agencies is like be really culturally connected like I I think like um, you know this is particularly true for audible because we're sort of like part of the entertainment industry.

Richard Noble: 49:13

But, um, this is a bit more like advice for people like my age is like never to underestimate like gen z and how great young people are, like like having creative ideas for being connected, for being more connected socially than like I am or some of my colleagues are.

Richard Noble: 49:32

So I I think if it was like someone like like looking to get into the profession, something I definitely kind of look for in an interview candidate is someone who can, who knows more than me about like their own demographic or has that creativity, who is like really open to the world. I mean I remember like when I first moved to London and was like working in comms, I read everything. I mean this was like real print magazine days. But I was conscious that I'd been like at university in Leicester, not doing anything related to media or entertainment, and I remember being like shit. I need to go to the theatre, I need to be going to gigs, I need to be like like. I really really like went through a bit of like a. I need to immerse myself in culture in order to be able to have the ideas that you need to have in in PR that was kind of so.

Will Ockenden: 50:30

So, so true, isn't it? And and the second point to break out from that is the idea that no one's got you know. Um, I suppose it's the democratization of creativity, isn't it? You know, why should the leaders in the company be the ones that have the democratization?

Chris Norton: 50:45

do you like that? Yeah, yeah, he's writing that down somewhere, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 50:50

no one's got the monopoly on a good idea, have they? You might be a gen ed who's just entered the workforce but actually they've been to a gig. They understand youth culture, they understand whatever it might yeah, yeah, yeah, in a way, that I couldn't possibly understand. So that's a that's a fascinating point yeah, yeah, like so.

Richard Noble: 51:04

So that that's their, that that, to me, is their greatest skill and it's for us to make sure like that, that's like added to the mix when it comes to and that's whether you're in house or agency. Audible is a pretty young, uh, company and has a lot of, like you know, producers and like a lot of really, really cool people that I have learned like a lot from um. It's one of the reasons I think I've stayed as as long as I have, because I've been like kind of like checked in in certain way or or I've had a creative idea. If I isn't, wouldn't this be cool and like my colleague would be like all right, grandpa, no, that's not, that's not that great.

Will Ockenden: 51:41

That sounds familiar.

Chris Norton: 51:41

It's like whenever we get an idea, I've got gen z tester all the time, even our producer, um richard, thanks for coming on the show. Um, you've been on the show. Now we've asked you if you've felt the format. If you were us, who would be the one person that you would interview next on the show, and why?

Richard Noble: 52:04

oh um interesting, mr andy island no, miss sandy island I don't know, I like, I mean like you, you look, I mean like, have you, do you ever sort of speak to like anyone from like your, like other agencies, or like an agency from a different region, or like yeah, yeah, I'm not sure who it would be, but like someone we we do.

Chris Norton: 52:29

We tend to speak to a lot of people in-house because they've got stories to tell and but we have had agency people on as well. Um, and it's our audience. You know, people listening are mainly marketers and comms people, so we're trying to make it sure that the guest adds the most value you know to the acting people basically or a journalist like oh yeah, that'd be good.

Richard Noble: 52:49

That would be good yeah, yeah, I'm not sure who it would be. I I'll have a thing, but yeah, like if there's a sort of, uh, an interesting journalist, oh yeah, yeah, I'm not about to shout that now um, richard, if people want to connect with you, um, after listening to the show, what's the best place for them to uh track you down?

Will Ockenden: 53:05

uh, richard j noble on linkedin.

Richard Noble: 53:06

I think is's the best place for them to track you down. Richard J Noble on LinkedIn. I think is probably the best. I'm still experimenting with threads. I'm not there yet so I'm not sharing. I'm not sharing my threads account, but, yeah, linkedin. Find me on LinkedIn.

Chris Norton: 53:19

Yeah, so thanks for coming on the show, richard. Thanks for joining us and sharing your expertise, and particularly your buffalo story. I love that.

Will Ockenden: 53:28

The buffalo, your expertise and particularly your buffalo story I loved that.

Chris Norton: 53:30

Um the buffalo episode that's their working title. Yeah, yeah, wild buffaloes wouldn't hold me back is maybe something I don't know. Back over the title.

Richard Noble: 53:37

You do brainstorm the title of the show but, thanks, it's been great. I've really enjoyed talking to you by for a thought shower.

Vicki Murphy: 53:43

Thanks, richard thank you for listening to socially unacceptable. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a five star review. Don't forget to follow us on social media on Instagram, tiktok and LinkedIn at Prohibition PR, and Twitter at Socially UA. We would love to hear some of your career fuck ups so we can share them on the show. For more information on the show, search Prohibition PR in your search engine and click on podcasts. Until next time, please keep pushing the boundaries and embracing the socially unacceptable.