Chris Norton: 0:56

Hi and welcome to a very special episode of Embracing Marketing Mistakes. I'm Chris Norton, and alongside me, as always, is the one and only Will Ockenden.

Will Ockenden: 1:03

Hi everyone. We're thrilled to have you with us for this milestone our 50th episode. Can you believe we've made it this far, chris?

Chris Norton: 1:10

Well, it has been quite the journey, William, hasn't it? We've had some incredible conversations, learned a lot and, let's be honest, shared more than a few laughs at our own and yours expenses along the way.

Will Ockenden: 1:22

Absolutely, and today we're doing something a little bit different. We've dug deep into the archives and picked out the 10 most memorable marketing mistakes from our past 50 episodes. We wanted to focus on some of the best lessons that have been shared, as well as some of the funnier mistakes we've had on the show.

Chris Norton: 1:37

This episode is our way of celebrating how far we've come, but, more importantly, it's a chance to reflect on the lessons we've all learned together. We've had a wide variety of guests on the show, and learning from each of our guests has been really special, and we've enjoyed being able to share this experience with you, our lovely listeners, your support has been absolutely incredible.

Chris Norton: 1:54

So thank you, we really mean it and if you've enjoyed the podcast so far, we'd love it if you'd follow the show. Drop us a like if you want, leave us a comment and let us know which of the top 10 is your favourite. You can let us know on X or anywhere, just send us a screen grab.

Will Ockenden: 2:07

Let's dive into those top 10 memorable mistakes. Trust me, you won't want to miss these. I bought your cake as well, Chris.

Chris Norton: 2:14

Did you? Yeah? What happened to the two?

Will Ockenden: 2:16

candles, they're all lit.

Chris Norton: 2:18

Do you want to blow the candles out? Is it 50? Because that's nearer your age.

Will Ockenden: 2:21

Well, we all know you're nearer to 50 than me but go on.

Chris Norton: 2:23

I knew you'd say that, Do I have to blow this out? There we go. This is a COVID nightmare. So yeah, thanks for 50 episodes, 50 hours of podcasting. Will, How's that felt?

Will Ockenden: 2:41

Tiring, isn't it? Quite honestly, if you could, just edit.

Chris Norton: 2:44

That Can we loop? That we just went, literally that's big for all of us.

Will Ockenden: 2:54

So at number 10, chris, we've got Lisa Thompson, who had a whole plethora of fuck-ups, including falling over in a pitch which I can't say I've ever done myself.

Chris Norton: 3:02

Let's hear what she has to say. The theme of the show is always about fuck-ups and we haven't asked you about yours yet. So our listeners like to hear where people have made a mistake and what they did wrong because they like to have a little giggle and what they've learned from it yeah, so I my attention to detail is not good.

Speaker 4: 3:17

There was two events that we were supporting, right where?

Chris Norton: 3:20

where were they?

Speaker 4: 3:21

one was in london and one was in manchester. They were. It was when we were working for the pbc and they was. It was for asian network, um and there was two um mellas so we were buying out of home around it about the coverage and all of the out of home had been booked in two cities but for the same dates.

Speaker 4: 3:40

And I remember having a stomach drop moment where I looked at it and was like I'd signed it off and was like, oh shit, it's not on the right dates. Things I've learned is um, always check your schedules or, if you're not very good at it, get someone else to check it. But also, actually it was completely fine. I actually think it ended up being really beneficial because the media owner sort of does that like value and was able to make it work and so always have good relationships with the people that you work with. I usually also other mistakes come from, like not learning how to like keep my gob shut.

Chris Norton: 4:12

Can't relate to that at all.

Speaker 4: 4:14

I also can't hide my face, so I think there's been lots of mistakes where I've said the wrong thing to the wrong people. The lesson from that is where you say the wrong thing to the wrong people and it gets back to people is actually think about who your people are at work, like there will be times where you need to have a run and like talk about something, but find people who you can trust with that information, like who can do it exactly oh, the other cat.

Speaker 4: 4:37

It's not a mistake, but I did once fall over in a picture please elaborate bad, bad.

Chris Norton: 4:43

Go on, explain this. What did you do? We?

Speaker 4: 4:45

were pitching for a fashion brand and I bought these like shoes from there that had a heel on. We were stood up presenting and we were in like a kind of quite a long room and I'd like I'd not got my space and I'd like stepped back and somehow got into the wall and properly went. Very lovely guy who we were pitching to was like can we just stop, are you okay? And in my head I was like I don't want you to stop, I want you to pretend you've never seen me fall over and did you seriously continue from the ground?

Speaker 4: 5:12

I was got back up. I was kind of half on the ground. I got back up and I was doing stuff. The lesson there is sometimes only wear a heel if you're going to be sat down to present. It doesn't work well. Did you win the pitch? Did? You win the pitch. I didn't think it was going to happen.

Will Ockenden: 5:28

Unless they really don't like clumsy people which, if they don't like clumsy people, which if they don't like clumsy people. I'm very clumsy, so it was right. But yeah, I I did spectacularly deck it in a pitch. So a whole, a whole menagerie of uh fuck ups there.

Speaker 4: 5:43

So, um, yeah, that was, uh, that was good. I actually think when you make those big mistakes, it's really important because you learn not to do it again, so it's actually really good to make mistakes. So, um, exactly you will if you've made an error with something like a schedule, you'll always check it.

Chris Norton: 5:55

I had a guest recently. They were quite a big guest and they were going to come on the show, and then she replied to me and said I've never made a mistake at work and I was like you definitely have.

Will Ockenden: 6:04

You're not trying hard enough. If you don't make mistakes, are you? You're not pushing hard enough.

Chris Norton: 6:08

No, who's never made a mistake.

Will Ockenden: 6:10

But you're right, you've got to be making mistakes to learn, haven't you? And that's the whole purpose of this show.

Chris Norton: 6:21

In. At number nine, we've got a story from Paul Sutton, who is the podcaster from Digital Download, who shared a fascinating and very emotional story about what happened when he tried to create an online pet store.

Will Ockenden: 6:36

And it was the first time he'd ever told the story, wasn't it? So let's listen to what he's got to say.

Chris Norton: 6:40

So why don't you tell us then? This is the bit that's quite interesting. So then you set up a luxury pet accessories business with your wife, a brand concept called, and you can tell us what it was called and what it was about. It was called the Pet Extraordinary Extraordinary. I can't even say that Extraordinary, imagine spelling that on a website wwwpetextraordinarycouk. Is that the first problem?

Speaker 8: 7:07

Do you know what it wasn't a? Well, do you know what it wasn't a problem? And the reason it wasn't the? The concept behind the thing was it was very brand led. It was in my background, like we talked about, was in creative and branding and stuff and we had this concept I don't know where, where this name came from just brainstorming weird stuff because we wanted something that was weird. Um, we just decided that we wanted to do something for ourselves. It was that simple. And you know, over the course of I don't know two or three months, we talked around this thing and decided just to go for it and then running this pet accessories business so what did?

Chris Norton: 7:41

what did? What sort of stuff did you sell and how did you set it up? Tell us a bit about what it what it was. Was it small rabbits or was it big?

Speaker 8: 7:49

elephant saddles.

Chris Norton: 7:50

What was it?

Speaker 8: 7:51

Yeah, it was your mainstream pets. Okay, so we focused on cats and dogs and rabbits, because we had rabbits and we knew that there was this market out there for rabbit stuff. But the idea behind it was that the products we would sell were not the sort of tat that you find in a standard pet shop, but everything we sold was stuff that was was. It might be a cat bowl, but it was designed. It looked good to have in your house. That was the idea is that everything we would sell would be stuff that you would be happy to have in your house.

Chris Norton: 8:22

That was the sort of concept behind it this is is this online purely, or is it in the real world?

Speaker 8: 8:27

to start with, it was real world. It was a real. It was a bricks and mortar store, right, um? But over the course of say, six months, it became very apparent that footfall on on high streets was falling down, you know, quite badly, and at this time as well. Another thing that went wrong, but the timing couldn't have been worse, because this just preempted the financial crash of 2008, and so the country was going through this real upheaval at that time financially. And there's us pops up with this very different thing that people have to sort of get their head around a bit.

Will Ockenden: 9:39

You obviously had um secure jobs, um or you did anyway and then um so at what? Point, you were obviously planning it. At what point did you kind of quit and think, right, we're going all in on this. Or did you have a bit of a an overlap period? Nope, we just went all in on it. And was it um self-funded, or did you have investment?

Speaker 8: 10:00

we it was self-funded. We took out a business loan, uh, to fund parts of it, which came back to bite us in the butt later, but so we had a business loan, but other than that, purely self-funded, yeah right, okay, we kind of realized that actually the store wasn't going to be what we hoped. Pretty quickly, within six months, I would say, and from six months onwards were, I wouldn't say, planning an exit from it. But we're aware that we might have to exit it, which sounds like way too early to be thinking that stuff. But to your point, why continue to do something if you know it's not working? That's just insane.

Will Ockenden: 10:41

So during that time, yes, then we set up a website, um, to sell e-commerce family business, self-funded business in the context of the global financial crisis good timing. What was your um, what's your state of mind like after kind of six to twelve months? It must have been enormously stressful for you guys, as you kind of realized it wasn't working.

Speaker 8: 11:04

And I do remember actually in that last quarter, before we shut the shop down, there was the odd week where we literally had 30 quid to buy groceries and stuff for the week for the two of us and that was it.

Speaker 8: 11:18

Um, it was, I mean, it was tough, it was really tough. We went through a a tough patch in the time before we closed that down and then, once we decided to close it, we had to try and negotiate our way out of the lease with the landlord who was having not a lot of it, um, standard landlord. I mean, looking back now, I learned so much in that and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now and wouldn't have won awards for it and all that sort of stuff if we hadn't done that business. But it's difficult. If I was to go back and say, would I change that? I don't know what the answer is, because the amount of stress and financial pressure that we felt for I said not just the time of running that business and running a failed business which was failing slowly, it wasn't it just even died, it failed slowly and I guess when, when we eventually decided, okay, enough's enough, we've got to close this down.

Speaker 8: 12:17

You're right. The bank manager's straight on you. Um, and we had to. Basically there was a, there was a time where we could have lost the house. That's because the bank manager was calling in the loan. We eventually, basically we had to take a loan from my mom and dad, uh, to pay the bank back so why was there one thing that made you pull the plug?

Will Ockenden: 12:42

or did it just get to the point when you thought this isn't working and could you have? Could you, and should you, have done that earlier, do you think?

Speaker 8: 12:48

interesting question. Um, I don't think there was one point. It was a a slow, creeping realization you know, all of those things together was just this dawning that we can't go on like this forever. Something's got to change. So eventually we just came to the decision that we've got to move on.

Will Ockenden: 13:07

We've got to put this behind us so number eight is our very own vicky murphy. Um. So she told us the? Um the story about an app she launched on a friday at 5 pm. Um, and then she went out to celebrate the launch of the app and something went terribly wrong.

Chris Norton: 13:27

Ouch so what we didn't cover, though, and what we would like to cover with you, vicky, is over the years, you've done various campaigns. What's your biggest professional fuck up, would you say?

Speaker 9: 13:38

yeah, I was thinking about this. I've had quite a few. I don't know how many I could admit to For legal reasons allegedly. I've got one that gives me trauma, so I thought I'd share that with the class today.

Speaker 9: 13:52

So we were running a campaign a couple of Christmases ago for a high street brand and it had been a fair few months of torture really. There was a lot of planning, a lot of traveling the UK filming different content. There was loads of different elements of the campaign, one of which was to develop this app that was going to go live just before Christmas. It was focused on product and so we'd worked with another company to develop that app and it had all been counting down to launch day. Got to the friday 4 pm launch. Everything went live on the website, um, the app was launched. All of the video content looked great. So, as a celebration with the team, we worked above a um indian restaurant at that time so we were like, right, we'll book, we'll go for a curry. Friday night campaigns launched, launched at four. Everything went well, went downstairs and everyone knows that I have one drink and that's it.

Chris Norton: 14:46

I can confirm that's true one drink, wonder.

Speaker 9: 14:49

So I started drinking, and at about 7 pm, when people were balls deep cani say balls deep- no, you can't say, balls deep in the chicken booner.

Speaker 9: 15:00

Um we, I just started getting message after message that the app wasn't working. It wasn't doing what it should supposed to be doing, and at this point I was really drunk, so and it all fell on on me. I don't know where you were actually. No, I often question where you are in my time of need and you were not there, okay, um, and I just remember I it was awful. I didn't know what to do and I had no one to help me and I ended up crying in the toilet and.

Speaker 9: 15:29

I think about it often.

Chris Norton: 15:30

I do think like you didn't feel that I was there to help you at seven o'clock drinking alcohol. I know was this on company expenses, by the way?

Speaker 7: 15:37

probably yeah that's why you were crying on company expenses.

Chris Norton: 15:40

So what did you learn from that then?

Speaker 9: 15:43

Probably don't celebrate too soon. You know it had been, like I say, tough few months. Everything was all pent up. We thought we'd launched and it was a success.

Chris Norton: 15:52

And how did you resolve it then, at seven o'clock, paralytic?

Speaker 9: 15:54

Oh no, it took all weekend it was a back and forth. You know it wasn't a one one like one solution, wonder.

Chris Norton: 16:04

it took a while so, monday morning, how did the app look?

Speaker 9: 16:06

great it sorted by then right yeah, it was great by then and we were at the countdown to christmas, so an awarded winning campaign. Yeah, in the end anyway, yeah, but that is probably one of the times that I think about often.

Chris Norton: 16:18

I actually thought that your biggest fuck up was going to be when you said to me um, you're going to help me move, and I said, can you just carry this? I knew you'd bring this up. I said, can you carry this screen? And she said, yes, I'm not a fucking idiot, chris, and then dropped it on the floor and it smashed into a million pieces and then again you started crying, didn't you? But I did support you there and I would support you every time.

Speaker 9: 16:38

Support me you bring it up all the time okay none of us are perfect, chris. You just need to remember that.

Chris Norton: 16:44

I realise that flying up the charts, in number 7, we've got a story from Gareth Turner, who created a coat made from human hair. Will has worn it, I have worn.

Will Ockenden: 16:57

I'm wearing it now actually okay. This segment of the show is about marketing fuck ups and chatting to you. Pre-show you've told us some absolutely horrific sounding campaigns absolutely horrific. I must admit the one. I'm not going to say what it is. When we mentioned it in the office, people were going what?

Speaker 10: 17:20

how did that work?

Will Ockenden: 17:23

that's great. Do you want to tell us about some of the campaigns that haven't perhaps worked as well?

Speaker 10: 17:27

you want to go there, do you? We do? We do um straight in there. So, uh, so I left heineken and I joined. I joined ala uh and I wanted to make a name for myself. So I I was tasked with launching this chocolate milkshake uh drink. And uh, I launched this chocolate milkshake drink. We had um, a campaign shot, we had uh outdoor and I need the pr, need the pr campaign here, right and okay, it sticks in my throat. You can see, you can see me hesitating to even say it right.

Chris Norton: 18:01

Sticking there, it's sticking there. I can't bring myself to it. This is why everyone's listening.

Speaker 10: 18:04

They want to hear this, so it was. The stunt was that we created a coat made out of human hair, made out of the sort of sweepings off a barbershop floor, and we got some London fashion students to make this thing and we PR some London fashion students to make this thing and we PR'd that, I repeat, to support the launch of a chocolate milkshake.

Chris Norton: 18:29

So okay, okay, let's just go back. We'll just wind back to the strategy.

Will Ockenden: 18:33

Well, yeah, there you go. It's all based on insight.

Chris Norton: 18:35

So the insight of having human hair onto a coat. Let's just go for the insight.

Speaker 10: 18:41

And there you go. There's the challenge, right. So the brand was it was a high protein sort of chocolate milk stream with added protein 25 grams of protein it was an amazing product and we were the sort of campaign idea.

Speaker 10: 18:55

We were sort of riffing on these ideas of overblown masculinity, like so the on my Facebook feed today I got the shoot was 11 years ago today and there's a picture of me. I can say I've never looked cooler than the moment of me in this coat and sort of big, long fur coat can we get that picture? It wasn't it wasn't in that coat, good lord is that picture on the internet?

Chris Norton: 19:19

it's not the hair coat we're going to get that. Oh the hair coat. I've given you a link to the hair coat oh, let's take a look at that, yeah but it's overblown.

Speaker 10: 19:25

Masculinity was the idea and we had like a guy like holding a lion looking strong, like this sort of like perfume ads and sort of there's a riff on those sort of things, right and it's like, um, yeah, it was, it was. We thought that was funny and so we just took it to the next level. So what, you know, what could be more manly than a coat made of man hair? And so that that was, that was the thought progression. But I I come back to your point there was no insight there. So why did that not work? Well, I think a number of different reasons. I think it was, um, I think it was overly complicated.

Speaker 10: 20:00

It was so many layers to that onion that you had to unpick to understand why we'd done that thing, it wasn't executing an idea, it was a thing that we thought was funny and I've since learned that's not probably good enough to put out in the real world. And finally, a fundamental of marketing is if you're talking about a food, it needs to be talking about taste. You or at least not going against taste and it's not undermining taste credentials. So you put all those things together I I didn't adhere to the fundamentals of marketing and that's why that thing hence the name of the show that you've given us.

Will Ockenden: 20:40

Yeah yeah, so, yeah that. So how has it met? So you know you used this as a PR hook did you so what? Was it met with indifference or confusion, or no, no, it was what was the title?

Chris Norton: 20:51

that was my question, similar to what we were saying what was the title of the release? I can't.

Speaker 10: 20:56

I can't remember. I'm trying to connect the two dots like human hair. I'm just looking here. The news article from 2013 was manly milk company creates human hair fur coat that's a very functional headline, isn't it? But there was a guy in this hair coat, but it got some traction, so so it worked then well not, but it's so complicated. You're right about the link. It was discussed.

Will Ockenden: 21:25

The moment you've got to explain an idea. It's too complicated.

Speaker 10: 21:29

So I'm there the first, however many months six, seven months I'm into my job at Arla and I get a call from the global head of PR. He goes Gareth, I've got CNN from Japan on the line. I go, oh my God, the line. And I go, oh my god, what have I done? What have I done? I'm just trying to do good stuff here. And he goes yeah, don't worry, mate, I'll sort this out. They want an interview, cnn want an interview with you. Okay, I can't. I can't do this.

Will Ockenden: 21:59

So number six, a personal favorite of mine was Greg Matusky, who was a great raconteur, wasn't he Absolutely brilliant to talk to, and he told us the story about his client that went on national TV in America and revealed a jaw-dropping secret that left him reeling.

Speaker 5: 22:16

This gave me personal nightmares head in hands, moments when I heard this Enjoy Years ago, as a young man, I get a call there's a new business in Lancaster Pennsylvania Lancaster, pennsylvania is the epicenter of the Amish sect and a business has found a recipe for a hand rolled soft pretzel and they need PR because they're franchising. So I get on my horse and I go out and I meet with the marketing director which just tired, and I was joking about my horse but, I go and he's from the regular world and he sits me down and goes.

Speaker 5: 22:59

Now you're going to meet Ann Ann Beiler, who owns the business, and Ann's story is simple. She's very religious, she's a former Amish person. She left, she didn't join the sect Right, very connected to the community, and she's an evangelistic Christian, evangelist right, which is the path often for those who leave Amish. And she's going to meet with her. If she likes you, you're on board. So we go to the meeting, we talk a little bit and you know this is a whole different world because the Amish never want to come forward, right, they're not evangelistic, they don't want you to join them, they don't have any, any kind of propaganda, they're just a quiet people, confident in what they believe, and they don't really care about the rest of the world. And so she's explaining you know, I I really don't want this, I don't want to be. You know they believe that the, the nail that sticks up the highest, is knocked down the hardest. So you know, I'm a pr guy and I'm supposed to promote her and I go well, and we'll be caught, we'll be sensitive to that, and she's like great, great.

Speaker 5: 24:03

So then she goes all right, we have to go to lunch, so I figure we're going to go to a restaurant somewhere. We get in our cars and she takes us down this country lane on a farm where her mother, who is amish and still lives on the farm, has been making us what they call supper is their lunch all day long and there's all these Amish. I mean it was some of the heaviest food I ever I could not consume. All those are carrots and butter and there was beef and there was poultry, right. So I come on board and she calls me in and says I got. I have a favor to ask before we get started and I go sure what she goes.

Speaker 5: 24:42

I would like to appear on the 700 Club. The 700 Club was run by a guy named Pat Robertson, who was a big-time Christian evangelist who ran for president of the United States, and this show was over the top, but it was her dream and she was going to come out with her story was over the top, but it was her dream and she was going to come out with her story. Her story is that she was working in a booth one day and she got a flower delivery and it's the wrong flower and magically, spiritually, this was the perfect ingredient. It made the perfect pretzel and there are lines out the door and people wanting to franchise her business, and she was touched by god at this moment that's's her story right, and that's the purpose of the 700 Club.

Chris Norton: 25:24

It's a nice story as well.

Speaker 5: 25:25

Well, that's great, ann. It's a wholesome story, isn't it? So I go yeah, I think I can do that. I mean, everything seems to align. That's what they cover. Pat Robinson's running for president. I have no doubt he'd like to get into your checking account, so I think I can make this happen.

Speaker 5: 25:41

So, sure enough, we secure an appearance on Pat Robertson and I go down and she has her whole crew come down in a black van, because the Amish well, those who've left the Amish don't even show chrome on their cars sometimes. We go down, I'm in the audience and beforehand she goes. Now, greg, I have tell you I'm going to give testimony today and I go testimony. We didn't talk about that in media training, but I figured that's her telling her story. I go well, you have a great story. She goes no, I'm going to give testimony. I have no idea what this means, right? So I'm sitting in the audience and I'm all excited. You know, this is a big score for me. I'm a young guy and I'm all full of myself. And so they come back to the show and pat robinson does a preview before the commercials and he goes next up. A miraculous story of a woman who was given a recipe that has launched an empire and how she walked away from the devil. I'm like the devil. What, what's? The devil.

Speaker 5: 26:40

I'm like the devil, what's the devil? There was no devil. I'm looking around like what's the devil. So they come back and they start the story. And she tells I've been very fortunate. God gave me this recipe for hand-rolled soft pretzels. I have 100 franchises now. And he goes that's a miraculous story. And now tell us about how you walked away from the temptation of the devil. And I'm like the temptation of the devil has no place in this story, right?

Speaker 5: 27:09

So Anne goes on to tell the story of how she had moved to Texas and become involved with a church and that church had a pastor who she had an affair with when she was married and he defrauded the entire parish of everything they had. And I'm sitting there like this was my shot and it's totally destroyed, like why? Why, you didn't know why. So she comes up after the fact and she goes how'd it go? Why, you did not why. So she comes up after the fact and she goes how'd it go? I go Ann, I thought you did good, but the whole back story of the frauding parishioners and sleeping with the pastor, we didn't what. She looks at me and she goes Greg, I'm going to tell you something. Five years from now, a publication like Forbes will come to call on me and this is public record and they will think they have something salacious and I will say, oh, that's an old story, I've already told that story. You should watch the Pat Robinson episode.

Speaker 5: 28:13

So I learned that she took the air out of the balloon and protected herself when I was. Just, I couldn't even put it together at that point. So is that a fuck-up? It was on my part because I didn't know what she was doing and I didn't understand the value right of putting bad news out sometimes. And I think that's the takeaway that if you put bad news out it can never be used against you in the future. And that's what I learned from Annie Ann's hand-rolled soft pretzels.

Chris Norton: 28:47

She sort of schooled you in how to do PR there. She sort of took the worst thing possible and shared it first, so nobody can ever come back like you're saying and get her again.

Will Ockenden: 28:56

Brilliant move and it's a hugely. I mean. I was looking up the company. There's something like 1,200 franchises now isn't there globally? It's a hugely successful business isn't it. Yeah, it's just.

Chris Norton: 29:10

In. At number five we have Megan Williamson, who told us all about her mistake when she hired a Facebook meta expert and invested $25,000. The result wasn't quite what she was after. This show is all about marketing mistakes.

Speaker 12: 29:27

So I made a huge financial mistake, but it was also a bad. I lost $25,000 early on in my business running hiring a Facebook ads expert I'll do air quotes around the word expert and we ran ads to a brand new funnel that we had never tested, that had not been tested organically. So from a coaching perspective, but also about my own business, I think it was really embarrassing for me because I think I know a lot and I generally make very I make risky decisions that are safe. You know, like losing $25,000 in three months. You know, thankfully I was in a position. I didn't, you know, it's not like I couldn't afford to pay our mortgage or we didn't lose anything, but it, you know it was.

Speaker 12: 30:17

I was licking my wounds after that and I realized, like the biggest thing I learned was like don't run paid advertising to a funnel you haven't tested organically. Do not outsource something until you have enough understanding of it to ask the right questions. Warning flags my husband and I both picked up on them, but we kept thinking well, they charge so much. Like clearly, when you're paying someone thousands of dollars a month to manage ads, they clearly must know what they're doing. And that person did not know what they were doing, and it was an expensive mistake.

Will Ockenden: 30:57

So you're saying you basically burnt the budget, yeah, didn't get any results for you, and you just you spent 25 grand in three months and realized that's right, so yeah we were spending about like seven to ten thousand dollars a month on the ad spend, you know, usd.

Speaker 12: 31:14

We were paying the person between 2500 and 3000 usd a and we did get some like freebie opt-ins One person purchased. So during that 90 day period one person bought my offer. It was only $67.

Will Ockenden: 31:35

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, it gets better.

Speaker 12: 31:39

So, the person that purchased emailed me and said I just had a baby four days ago. I should not have spent the money. I'm so sorry to do this. I'm asking for a refund and honestly, I think I laughed until I cried and I thought so. We had one purchase in the three 90 day time period. They asked for a refund after four days because they had just literally she got out of the hospital and asked for the refund and um you know it was, but now I run my own Facebook ads.

Speaker 12: 32:16

I you know like I, I've learned a lot We've. Now, when I hire you know, my husband and I, we have a lot of questions, we ask. We love outsourcing and hiring but we scrutinize. I I took this person as a referral. I thought if my friends are doing well with them, well, I love some of my friends, but they don't know as much as my husband and I do about conversions, events, about ad spend, so so anyways, that definitely led to some major trust issues.

Will Ockenden: 32:46

I'm not surprised, but you're still standing. You survived it.

Speaker 12: 32:50

I did, and now it's like you know I'm I never. I always do things myself. First learn, learn enough to be dangerous, and then I look to outsource.

Will Ockenden: 33:08

So at number four, Anil Manji, who told us there's something about Mary moment while shooting an advert. I'll leave it at that.

Chris Norton: 33:12

Enjoy. You've put down a mistake here about a TV ad which has made us laugh.

Speaker 6: 33:16

I'm very interested in this. Yeah, this one's a little bit gross.

Chris Norton: 33:19

So so apologies.

Speaker 7: 33:20

I was working in the world of hair care, um, and we're launching a new conditioner campaign. You'll often take a shot from another tv ad or an older tv app, so you don't need to reshoot everything. So if I've got a new advert with a brunette, I might talk to my american team and say, okay, do you guys have anything that we could use? And you would just chuck it in. We did this with a new conditioner campaign. We used an older advert that featured eddie goulding. It was a close-up of her hair. You couldn't see her face at all. We took that particular shot and we needed to turn it into conditioner. So we spent a huge amount of money on cgi and we saw that iterative process. So you know, every few hours we'd see it in CGI and then a few days later we have the final product so how long did it take to do that, that process?

Speaker 7: 34:06

I think maybe just under a week okay it's a. It's really. It's a long time, really long time, yeah. And then finally patched it up, put it into the main tv ad and sent it off to the client for their review. We had nothing back, chased a few times and then a few days later I get a call and he just wouldn't tell me for a while. I finally got out of him and he says it looks like cum. And I was like what? Sorry, it looks like cum, it looks like semen.

Speaker 9: 34:35

Uh, I'm not putting this on tv I can kind of see how I mean I want to see the video now.

Speaker 7: 34:43

Yeah, it was such an awful moment and the worst thing is you look at it and when someone says that it clicks, there's such a worry there when you're like, oh gosh, if this goes out on tv with the right editing it could become a terrible but hilarious meme. You've got to keep a little bit of distance. I think if we had shown that, because we were all part of that iterative process, we'd seen each stage. But if we had shown it to anyone else who wasn't part of the team in a moment, they would have been like, oh, not sure about that, looks a bit glistening in the wrong way.

Chris Norton: 35:21

In. At number three, the top three, we have Richard Noble, who tells us a story when he was working for Samsung and Wild Buffalo went crashing through Sydney. Tell me the story of how the hell Samsung was involved with a buffalo.

Speaker 13: 35:38

I still think back to whether this was me or whether I missed an email, but basically, I still think back to whether this was me or whether I missed an email.

Speaker 13: 35:48

It turned out that I think the global team at Samsung were doing a shoot for a global ad campaign in Sydney. No one at Samsung Australia sort of knew about it. I got a call from a journalist colleague well, a journalist friend. He called me and was like do you know anything about a Samsung video, like ad shoot that's gone wrong in in this park? And I was like what? No, what are you talking about? We're not doing any shoots at the moment. And like meanwhile, I was sort of like on the phone, like frantically, like gesturing to my Edelman colleagues, being like get on the news, like check the news, check everything. And he was like well, because basically there was an animal handler. There were two buffaloes in the park. Still to this day I have no idea what the creative was. I want to know what the link is with water buffaloes, uh, in the park, and still to this day, have no idea what the creative was the link is with water buffalo.

Speaker 13: 36:46

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, because, 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, um.

Speaker 13: 37:03

So, anyway, the animal handler lost control of the buffaloes that went charging off down uh the street and uh in sydney and into a suburb called newtown, which has like a you know a great high street, um, it's called king street in newtown, um, and so I mean, like shopkeepers were 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, uh, and.

Speaker 5: 37:38

I sort of said like like why do you?

Speaker 13: 37:42

I'm sweating. Yeah, I know. It was truly like. Yeah, I'm sort of sweating thinking about it. 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 like like pr manager to their hotel to sort of prevent them leaving because, like, 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 backyard, I think it was.

Chris Norton: 38:23

Oh my God we've got the actual clip.

Will Ockenden: 38:26

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

Speaker 13: 38:29

Okay, excellent. I'm not quite sure what the learning is, because sometimes in big organizations a lot of the times the left arm doesn't know what the right arm is doing.

Speaker 13: 38:41

Yeah, 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 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-informed. Don't just sort of assume, because that was an example.

Will Ockenden: 39:19

In at number two, another one that made me laugh and also made my blood run a little bit cold Ant Cousins, who told us a story involving Afghanistan, a press conference and ex-PM David Cameron.

Speaker 6: 39:32

At the time, right, everyone asked me what do you do for a living? I was like I work for the Ministry of Defence. Oh, so you're James Bond. It's like no One. He works for the Foreign Office. But two, I'm closer to Johnny English than James Bond, like none of my stories are cool, mr Bean.

Will Ockenden: 39:45

James Bond wasn't a PR man anyway, was he?

Speaker 6: 39:47

No, no, not really James Bond is.

Will Ockenden: 39:50

PR.

Chris Norton: 39:51

In Huntington yeah.

Speaker 6: 39:52

So one of the things was we had David Cameron coming out for a visit to Afghanistan and we booked a live satellite link up and we've got a load of journalists in from Kabul down to Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, which is where I was based, which is a long and arduous journey, a risky journey for those journalists to take. We had them coming down for a member of British Parliament because this was just before he was prime minister, so he's still a member of parliament at the time. So he comes out and we booked the slot, we got the tent, all the journalists are in there, they're ready to go. The satellite link up is booked for live broadcast across afghanistan. Um, and I'm walking with david cameron to the tent and, uh, about to brief him on like the lines, just to make sure he remembers it was all about civilian casualties.

Speaker 6: 40:32

it was a really serious topic yeah um, and then, on the way to the tent, he's like ah, you know, I haven't got time for this, I've got to do these other things instead. And I was like like um, okay, so what's a git? So I'm like, well, okay, how do I deal with that? How do I deal with that? So I walked into the tent and I call across the interpreter and I bring her across. I said like David Cameron isn't coming, and he's like looking at fear in my eyes because he's been dealing time yeah and then I, just because afghan journalists, they just rush from from the stations they're at, grab the cameras, grab the mics.

Speaker 6: 41:04

They come to the flap of the tent right and they're just, cameras are in my face, red lights are on, mics are in my face and and I'm like, oh, they think I'm david cameron. Um, and so I tell the interpreter, tell them I'm not david cameron. And he's like just no, just zero, like he just starts interpreting their questions. I'm like, so I've got two choices now, right, I either empty chair us and walk away, and the headline is david cameron walks away and and blanks a bunch of journalists asking difficult questions which is what he did, just to be clear, which is what I didn't do.

Speaker 6: 41:34

Um, so, uh, so. So what I made up for is just did the interview like, and I think I knew the lines you know so did they quote you.

Chris Norton: 41:42

As david cameron says um.

Speaker 6: 41:44

So when I got back to my desk, there were a few red lights on the phone. Um, so yeah, the, the, the ticker, david cameron was there.

Will Ockenden: 41:52

Um and how did you get? Did you just say terrible misunderstanding.

Speaker 6: 41:55

I did explain myself I think I just left it, you know, because I think we all kind of to afghans is kind of like the reason they thought I was. Even though I had a beard and a shaved head, they still thought I was david cameron. I'm like they're not gonna.

Will Ockenden: 42:07

It doesn't matter that's, that's the I delivered, the lines I delivered the lines so in his new role as foreign secretary, next time he goes out there, he's gonna be. There's gonna be a lot of confusion, there's gonna be.

Speaker 6: 42:17

He's gonna do an interview and everyone's gonna say this isn't david you've aged badly, david, anyway, okay so thanks for that great, great story.

Chris Norton: 42:28

Great story, and in at number one, ken robertson, formerly head of mischief at paddy power, and when he tried to organise a basketball game he got into trouble with the EU for organising it in the palace of a certain Kim Jong-un.

Will Ockenden: 42:48

And Kim was brilliant, wasn't he? The stories and the campaigns and the fun he had at Paddy Power, lots and lots of that.

Chris Norton: 42:55

That is a must-listen episode if you like Paddy Power?

Speaker 11: 42:58

And the guys ended up kind of celebrating the success with Robman in Rome that night and you could imagine how that turned out. But along the way Robman explained what he was up to in North Korea and anyway, quite quickly we realized there's a very big idea here. So Robman flew back, we flew over, we met him and his team a couple of weeks later in Chicago and we hatched a plan. Apparently Kim Jong-un wasn't a big fan of the Harlem Globetrotters. He thought it was not authentic basketball. He was a bit disappointed with it. So we came up with this idea jointly with Dennis Rodman, to actually bring a US team to play a North Korean team. It would happen the following January in Pyongyang, which tied in with Kim Jong-un's 30th birthday. Paddy Power would sponsor it, paddy Power would bankroll it. Everything was on course until December the same year.

Speaker 11: 43:54

So the month before the event was supposed to happen, kim Jong-un just went on a very unexpected purge of his government. Now, usually a purge ends up in people losing their jobs. Unfortunately, in North Korea a purge means people lose their lives and he essentially killed half his government cabinet. This was reported around the world and suddenly there was a big spotlight on Paddy Power supporting this regime, in which multiple people had been killed in the government and big questions were asked. The UN got involved.

Speaker 11: 44:32

We became under massive pressure to withdraw our sponsorship, which we had to do literally the week before the event was due to happen, but the event still happened. We just took our branding off the jerseys and, but the event still went ahead, was a huge success. The match actually ended up legitimately being a draw, which was quite fitting, and, and you know, six months later a couple of american hostages who had been imprisoned in North Korea were released. So, in a very unlikely set of circumstances, I would like to think that Paddy Power in some way set in motion a chain of events that actually led to something quite good and quite positive in terms of prisoner release.

Will Ockenden: 45:17

Is there a stage in a campaign like that when you think, s***, this has got out of control, and you know? I mean, were you worried? You know the UN getting involved, are you thinking we have gone too far now?

Speaker 11: 45:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one of the few that I literally lost a lot of sleep over.

Will Ockenden: 45:39

That was a good mix of fuck-ups, wasn't it? I mean, one thing worth mentioning we love people to be kind of candid and share their real sort of terrible mistakes when they come on the show, don't we?

Chris Norton: 45:49

Yeah, and I think we've had 50 guests, so to pick a top 10 has been really difficult. We've had some from funny, some are really amusing and some are quite serious, and so the honesty are the ones that I really enjoy, where people are open. Um, I love the story from aunt cousins, um, when he he just basically had to do the press conference in afghanistan. That was horrendous. Like fair play to him, um. But there's so many stories in there that are quite entertaining and you can learn a lot, and if you don't learn a lot, at least you're entertained well, that's the thing, isn't it?

Will Ockenden: 46:20

the each of them has got specific lessons I think, that our listeners can can learn from, and whether it's escaping water, buffalo in the sydney cbd or king john, and yeah, lessons all around.

Chris Norton: 46:31

I mean not everyone's organized a basketball game in the palace of kim jong-un, but if you have got a mistake, that you've done right into the show, because we want to hear from anybody who's got a mistake and they want to share it because it helps other people. As you've all listened to this and hopefully you found it interesting, what was yours favorite will, which was which was your favorite um?

Will Ockenden: 46:51

well, I liked megan's just because, um you know, while it's might maybe not as extravagant, spending 25 000 on on, uh, on meta ads mistakenly, we've all been there, haven't we and I? Think to a lesser degree.

Chris Norton: 47:04

We've all accidentally left ads running over a weekend or miscalculated the spend, and I think that rang true with me yeah, I quite like the idea of wild buffalo running through sydney though I mean, that is a quite a a bit of a problem and somebody from the press calling you and going is this your ad that you've been filming? Um, no, it's definitely not. Us it's it's definitely. Is this? No, definitely not, definitely not. That was, uh, there's been.

Chris Norton: 47:29

There's some moments in there that actually give you anxiety yeah, working in marketing, so yeah, thanks to all the guests that have shared it and thanks to everybody that's been listening. If you like the show, please give us a review. Everybody says that we really want to read your reviews and we'll read them out on the episodes. If you could leave us a review and tell us what you think, and if there's a subject you want us to cover, let us know, because we'd love to love to know.

Will Ockenden: 47:50

Um, and here's to another 50 well, and the bar is set high with the fuck ups, isn't it? So, yeah, we challenge you to top those you.