Speaker 2: 0:04

Welcome back to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. This is a slightly different episode because this week Will and I were invited on the Marketing Room 101 podcast with Ben Norman. Ben's podcast focuses around a very similar theme to Room 101, where you can ditch one item, but the twist is this is something from the world of marketing. So in this episode, will and I make the case for authentic influence and why we need to do something about nasty fake followers and influencers backed by bots. I have a slight rant about pitching and Will craves company of some description and Ben seems to have a bit of an obsession with George Clooney.

Speaker 2: 0:42

I thought this chat was a fun interview where Will and I got to be the guests and talk about our views a bit more and have a bit of a laugh. And, kindly, ben offered us to share this episode with you guys on our podcast. I can't recommend Ben's podcast enough. It's brilliant and it's very different to ours. We've added a link to his pod in the show notes so you can definitely check that out. So, as always, sit back and relax and let's see how you can learn about the fake influencer industry. Enjoy.

Speaker 3: 1:14

Hello there and welcome to another episode of Marketing Room 101, the podcast where I invite marketers for a good old rant and give them the chance to banish one thing from the industry forever. I'm Ben Norman, your host and self-appointed guardian of Marketing Room 101. And in my day job, I head up Strategy at Principles, the longest running brand comms agency in Leeds, and I started this podcast because I both deeply love and occasionally loathe the marketing world, so I wanted to provide a safe space for those who feel the same to vent and banish their nemeses forever. In this episode, I chat to Chris Norton and Will Ockenden, who set up Prohibition PR in Leeds back in 2012. Fast forward to today and they employ almost 30 people and they've won over 35 awards, which the more mathematically astute listeners will have noticed is more than one per person. They sit in prolific North's top 10 PR agencies and they specialise in food and drink, retail, higher education and luxury sectors.

Speaker 3: 2:00

Now, prohibition is actually the first agency I ever came across in a professional capacity, back when I was a marketing intern and, technically, a client of theirs. Coming straight from an advertising degree, this was also my first real encounter with PR as a profession and the point, I became aware of the power PR can have for brands, which I fear many advertisers never fully appreciate or never fully understand. Since then, I've worked with Prohibition on plenty of projects over the years, including yes, you guessed it helping a client secure the Guinness World Record for virtual welly-wanging. I wanted to talk to Chris and Will because the energy they have for what they do is always inspiring. Whenever I've worked with them, I've always learned something and, most importantly, I really believe that the relationship between PR and advertising should be a close one Because, if done right, they can both make each other more powerful and make brands infinitely more visible.

Speaker 3: 2:40

So here's my conversation with Chris and Will Will visible. So here's my conversation with Chris and Will. Will and Chris, welcome to Marketing Room 101. Thank you, thank you. It's nice in here, isn't it? Yeah, could you just, for the sake of our listeners, could you just describe the room? What's it like down here in Marketing Room 101?

Speaker 1: 2:57

Well, it was quite a drive to get here, wasn't it? Through that horrible industrial estate. Yeah, we're in the room now and it's very low ceilings, those kind of polystyrene tiles. The lights are a bit yellowy and flickery.

Speaker 2: 3:08

Yeah, someone's smoking in the reception area, even though they're not allowed to.

Speaker 1: 3:11

There's a poster on the wall of an eagle and it says he who dares to soar dares to succeed.

Speaker 2: 3:18

And we're next door to Europe's largest haulage company. So you know, and there's a, hot dogs stand just outside.

Speaker 1: 3:28

If I peer through these sort of yellowing blinds, I think I can see an Undertaker's as well out there.

Speaker 3: 3:32

Is this the sort of place as well, where you don't trust the tea. You bring your Starbucks with you.

Speaker 1: 3:36

It's in the tea I think we asked for some earlier and it's in one of those really thin plastic cups.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Yeah, really dark thin plastic cups yeah, really dark, and the hot chocolate is like stuck to the bomb.

Speaker 1: 3:47

So you've got like little lumps in it. Yeah, I quite like that. Yeah, it's a bit cold as well and there's a little electric heater under the desk.

Speaker 2: 3:51

They don't do latte, so let's put it that way yeah, no, okay, all right.

Speaker 3: 3:55

Okay, let's, if we make this quick, we can get back out of here. That's awful. So you guys both run prohibition pr in leeds together, and you have done since 2012. Before that, you worked together. For how long? Four years, something like that. Yeah, four or five years. So you're getting on for potentially about 20 years of a relationship. Yes, mate.

Speaker 2: 4:17

That's what reminded us so.

Speaker 3: 4:18

I sort of wanted to know what is the secret to your lasting marriage.

Speaker 2: 4:23

It's never been called.

Speaker 1: 4:24

That I can tell you that, and that's assuming it is lasting. What is the secret to your lasting marriage? It's never been called that, I can tell you right now. And that's assuming it is lasting. It is lasting Exactly.

Speaker 2: 4:29

That's a good question, I think trust is important for a working all relationships, whether it's working or you know. Trust in every relationship. If you can't trust your business partner, you can't trust your girlfriend or you can't trust your wife, then it's not going to be long lasting. You've got to trust each other and you've also got to laugh a lot, I think, and see this funny side of shit situations, because business is not a fun scenario every day. Some days are brilliant. Other days are absolutely awful. This place has been open about 12, 30 years, so some days are brilliant and we're winning, winning, winning, purple patch. We've had one time where we won seven pitches in a row, and then you have some times where you lose four in a row or something like that. So you've got to, I think, if you don't let the highs get too high and the lows get too low, stay more in the middle, which is what will's good at, whereas I go with the highs and go with the lows, and for me it's.

Speaker 1: 5:17

This sounds like quite a boring response. Having complementary skills, you know, and it'd be easy to go into business with a mate and you're both really great at selling, for example but you need somebody. That Chris and I have very different skill sets and a lot of what we do doesn't cross over, and that means Chris can do his thing, I can do my thing and it just works. We're not butting heads the whole time and we can kind of work autonomously and it works. So absolutely don't go into business with someone who's got the same skill set as yourself. It would be crazy.

Speaker 3: 5:46

Yeah, I think it's about being able to notice that in each other as well, isn't it? You've worked together for so long that you can read what the other person's thinking. It becomes a bit instinctive, doesn't it? You know that, actually, if one person's feeling like that, but actually I need to maybe pull them back down again, or vice versa.

Speaker 2: 6:06

It's one of the things that in pitch situations with clients they always used to point out that if you don't have chemistry, you know if you work with someone, you work in chemistry and you know each other. Like you just said, there you've got you can tell what people are thinking before they've even said it or whatever, like the non-verbal cues. And if you cobble a pitch team, network PR agency, big national network one, and we used to put PR teams together and bring the offices together. But the problem with that was you had the core team and then you had people from the offices and they didn't really work directly day in, day out with the people in the pitch. I used to think that was weird for the chemistry with the client. The client can spot that sort of stuff. If you've got a work in chemistry, you need to have that as well.

Speaker 3: 6:42

I think having that core team of people that have been there long enough to bring other people on, isn't it? And have the people that you know. Actually, if I'm, if I'm going to be in the trenches, I want to be in with those people. Yeah, something else I wanted to sort of ask quickly is so you run prohibition pr together. You guys both run a podcast, you're both co-host, embracing marketing mistakes. Yeah, what inspired that and I think what I'm getting at here is you guys must have made some mistakes over the years and that presumably led to the creation of that podcast.

Speaker 1: 7:10

That's an interesting question actually. I mean, I think both of us share the feeling that if you're not making mistakes, you're not being daring or bold enough, and I think that's true. You can go through your whole career without ever making mistakes, but that basically means you're never taking any risks. The only way you can ever really do great challenging work that matters is by making mistakes, by pushing the boundaries, and then learning from those mistakes is really important as well, and we would always say to people it's okay to make a mistake. Don't make the same mistake twice, but it's okay to make mistakes. Just learn from it and do something differently as a result of it.

Speaker 2: 7:41

I think also mistakes is like a negative thing in the UK. Maybe in the US it's slightly different. People look at like businesses that fail and then entrepreneur like successful entrepreneurs are the ones that have failed several times and they learn like you should be making micro mistakes every day. If you're not doing, if you're not making mistakes in marketing, you're not pushing the boundaries of creativity and what you should be doing You'd be doing vanilla content.

Speaker 2: 8:03

I think one of the reasons why I thought it was good is I was at a conference the PR Week conference a few years ago and there was like eight keynote speakers and a couple of panels and things like that, and one person stepped up and presented a campaign. Everybody else was presenting these amazing purpose-led campaigns. You know the dove and everybody presenting all the great work they've done and they're really interesting. Then one guy got up and just presented a campaign that totally felt flat on its face and everybody was talking about it afterwards because it was so refreshing and honest and you were like that's the brilliant thing about failing is if someone shares it, everybody learns from it, and there's a famous quote, who I can't remember who said it, but it's from somebody far smarter than me. That is, smart people learn from their own mistakes, very smart people learn from other people's mistakes, and so that's sort of the theory behind it. Yeah, I like that, yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:19

I think it was Eddie Jones, did he say he likes to be hard in victory but soft in defeat? I think there's something in that where it's like, actually, yeah, you've made mistakes, you've not been at your absolute best, but we're going to embrace that and we're going to learn from it. But also, how many times have we been in pitches where you don't feel like you've done the best possible job, but you've won the pitch, and then everything's forgotten about. All of a sudden, you're like, oh, this is great, right, let's just move on, let's. Oh, that pitch was brilliant. Yeah, the other one. We might have done an amazing job, but it completely bombed and we didn't win. But we like to try and pick into the minute detail. So I think sometimes we can ignore the actions and just focus on the results, can't we?

Speaker 2: 9:53

Absolutely. It's the same as sport, isn't it? That's what you said. You're using rugby as an example, but managers that win, win, win, win, win. I'm sure they must overanalyze games where they lose much more than they do when they win. Well, pep, famously, you know, you get City winning 5-1, 5-0, and you can see him bollocking the players right up until the very end, can't you? Because it's that perfectionist mindset and it's you know. We have to keep learning from this yeah, 100%.

Speaker 3: 10:24

So you guys are both here because you want to banish something from the marketing industry forever. You want to put it down here in marketing room 101 in this industrial park. What would I ask? What would you? What do you want to get rid of, chris?

Speaker 2: 10:37

oh, this was so difficult, right, because there's so many things that I would like to get rid of, and I've got a couple of things and I'll raise. There's one throw away here, that you'll know.

Speaker 2: 10:46

I mean, you can have a dishonorable mention yeah, I'll have a couple of dishonorable mentions then yeah, and meetings that could be an email Yep, Definitely get rid of them, Like the ones where people want to hold a meeting and then you have a meeting for an hour and a half and you get to the end of it and you think you could have sent me an email there and that would have dealt with the situation straight away. Pitches Sorry, clients out there, Yep Clients that call for pitches of more than five agencies. Pitching of more than five agencies pitching you're wasting your own time, you're wasting the agency's time and we don't do it. So, anything more than three, we usually decline outright because we just think, unless it's something I mean I'm not saying absolutely everything, but often you can just review a situation and think if you've got five agencies pitching, how are you going to judge that? You need to shortlist a bit better.

Speaker 1: 11:32

On that. Actually, chris, do you remember? A few years ago, for a very, very well-known national, if not international, brand had a couple of chemistry meetings, one of 15, one of one of 50, and this was? This was a marketing director holding this and I thought how on earth have you got the time to meet, speak with and then receive pitches from 15 agencies? Do you not have a day job to do?

Speaker 3: 11:53

it's, it's max of just a lack of research up front, doesn't it? And agreeing, because when it comes to pitching, I'd really enjoy a good pitch. Yeah, and I really enjoy the buzz that you get of a pitch. I feel like you get the best out of teams when you're all clubbed together on a pitch. But, like you say, if you've got five agencies there or you've got 15 people in a chemistry session, do I know for sure that you really know what you want and therefore I'm able to pull together a proposal and come back? Or are you just fishing for as many ideas or as much input as possible to help you form your brief, almost?

Speaker 2: 12:20

but more than five. Like how do you even remember what they said or who they were?

Speaker 3: 12:26

yeah, I think we'll take them as dishonourable mentions. I think I've had quite a few people already queuing up to put pitching in there, so I'll get into that more in time.

Speaker 2: 12:39

I think two We've just been offered to be paid for by one. That's the first one in 14 years.

Speaker 1: 12:44

That's like hundreds. I mean it might even be a thousand pitches.

Speaker 3: 12:49

I've also never been paid We've never been paid at Principles to my knowledge for a pitch that's been profitable, like the actual pitch fee. It's kind of a token gesture to cover a bit of time. Yeah, you know, which I think is fair. I would accept that. I think there's something about paying a fee towards a pitch, even just a token gesture that helps the marketer. That's setting the brief to really consider what they want. Yeah, exactly. You know because you can just fire up to 15 agencies.

Speaker 1: 13:16

There's almost an idea of well, if all these agencies are going to come back, the waste. I mean, if we're honest about pitching, you're probably looking at 20,000 to 30,000 pounds in fees, aren't you? You could easily be on 20, 30 grand. In time? Yeah, definitely In time. You times that by five. I mean it's a shockingly inefficient and immoral actually way to operate isn't it, but that's the game we're in.

Speaker 2: 13:39

To add to that, though, and I feel like we've got to do a- shit, hot job now that we're getting paid, the work's going to be better the work is going to be really. We're not going to do a half-assed job if we're getting paid for it, which I think is a brilliant tactic, even if they've picked three and they pay all three, I would would have thought that that better commitment, like you're saying, from the client, but also from the agency.

Speaker 3: 13:58

So yeah, and you know it's going to have a real brief attached to it. Yeah, okay. So what would you like to they're your dishonorable mentions? We've got meetings that could have been an email and we've got pictures. They're on there, they're in limbo.

Speaker 2: 14:10

Well, ours are combined here. The first bit of this thing we'd like to throw away is fake social media followers buying Instagram followers, buying TikTok followers, buying Twitter followers. Fake bots basically, I wish that they didn't exist. They ruin social media. They're one of the things that have driven disinformation, misinformation, all over the Internet. Whether you're watching the American election or you're watching hacking going on, 90% of it is done and then fed by bots on social media. So, from a world marketing view, I'd love it if they could get rid of fake influencers. Fake social media followers will's got something else to add to that, don't you?

Speaker 1: 14:53

yeah, well, and and landing that in a kind of a practical level in terms of how it impacts us. We do an awful lot of influencer relations and influencer marketing at prohibition and working with influencers is brilliant. There's some amazing influencers out there with highly engaged audiences. They can drive real, demonstrable return for brands. Influencers are professional. They're skilled content creators. We're not slating influencers and we love working with skilled influencers. But what does happen is you inevitably get into conversations with influencers who have got a seemingly highly engaged audience. You start doing your digging and you realize it's all bots, it's all fake followers and it happens more often than you'd think and there's a lot of. I guess it needs a bit more regulation. I know the ASA have got now expanded their kind of reach to cover disclosing paid partnerships. If you're an influencer, that's great, but in terms of the integrity of the influencers themselves, that remains a little bit of a wild west in some cases. What we also see, which drives me wild.

Speaker 2: 15:53

I've got a few dishonorable I feel like this is just one big rant.

Speaker 3: 15:56

I like it. This is a safe space.

Speaker 1: 15:58

This is why we set this up so we regularly get approached at prohibition with, you know, requests from journalists or influencers for hotels to review products, to review um, you know I'm an influencer in this space. Have you got any food and drink experiences? The number of times we get emails usually around christmas actually from influencers saying I've started a blog that covers travel, food, fashion, all the good stuff basically everything, it covers everything have you got any hotel stays for families?

Speaker 1: 16:26

have you got any um gin and champagne products? I can try and they're just begging it. They're just begging it and and it's. Some of them have explicitly said I want a week's holiday in the sun for a family of five. Yeah, and it's like, do you think we're stupid?

Speaker 3: 16:40

none of them are wanting to review bleach and toilet roll, are they no?

Speaker 1: 16:43

they Nah Well, that would probably be quite a good thing to go somewhere with, wouldn't it? You know, and legit influencers don't necessarily operate like that. They will be much more professional. They'll give you full. They realize it's a quid pro quo, you know, and yes, in effect, you're buying their influence, which is how it should operate. But yeah, there's a lot of influencers who will just ask for stuff. Basically, I've got no idea whether they get it or not.

Speaker 2: 17:06

It must work for some More power to them if they're getting a week's holiday. I think they try it on. To be fair, I've seen some journalists do that before, though I work at the Telegraph. I'm looking to get a two-week holiday in Dubai.

Speaker 3: 17:25

And I've seen people, people put stuff like that out I very specifically want to do a review on a two-week trip in dubai for a family of five. Yeah, exactly in this specific area. On tuesday, the 24th of december.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Yes, yeah, um, I mean to be fair and that's how it works sometimes. I remember once we, um, we were working for a gardening brand and we had a tv celebrity gardener and the campaign was, or the tactical opportunity was, we would make over a journalist's back garden and demonstrate these, these products in use, and this journalist basically got about a 15 000 pound garden makeover. I'm not sure how that would even work with the, with the tax office, actually hmrc, that's absolutely a benefit in kind, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 17:59

this was about 15 years ago. It feels like, like.

Speaker 3: 18:02

I remember it Don't say a specific date or publication.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Yeah, I won't be specific because I know the journalist is still a journalist.

Speaker 2: 18:10

I'm loving it.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Yeah, I suppose it's not what you know, it's who you know, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 18:14

So how do you? Because there's an element of in that there's clearly value for that publication. There's clearly value if an influencer has that real following. So how do you draw the line? How do you sniff this out? I guess?

Speaker 2: 18:28

I mean, there's a lot of technical tools you can use to look at, depending on what platform it is. I mean, we worked with a well-known high street brand and they were doing something in London Fashion Week and they said we've just paid this ex-influencer 15,000 pounds and we're not very happy with the results. And they'd not run it past us. We were doing some other sort of social media strategy for them and I was like pass it here. And I ran it through a few of my tools and stuff and I was like this person had a load of bots as part of it. They had what looked like a bona fide following and they got some engagement, but it was much than than what you would think and it was. It was all paid partnerships, even though and then you know we're talking eight years ago you didn't have to do the hashtag ad or hashtag spawn or whatever you do. Now we have to declare it, and so just by doing a simple analysis within 30 minutes we could tell that they'd wasted quite a bit of money here.

Speaker 2: 19:18

And that's the problem with influences. As will says, we like to like to work with them. There is no proper like a journalist has got a code of practice to work to. You've got to be mindful that you do need a brief. You need a clear contract with them of what you want them to do. Don't be too restrictive, obviously, but you need to make sure you tell them what you want. You can't craft exactly what they've got to write You've got to use. You know you're basically buying into their audience, but sometimes that can be brought with danger.

Speaker 1: 19:44

Yeah, I mean, it's that due diligence ultimately, just in the way that if you're buying media you'd really dig into who the audience is, et cetera, et cetera. But inevitably you still have to take a bit of a risk sometimes, just as you do with mainstream media, you have to do your due diligence.

Speaker 2: 19:58

Just like you do with podcast guests.

Speaker 3: 20:04

You don't know what you're gonna get, do you? No, it's, it's. It's very much a mixed bag. Um, reading to that one no, I'm joking. Um, so you've got fake influencers, we've got fake followers. We've also did what you just mentioned there, which is almost whether it's a publication or whether it's an influencer. There's that aspect of them being genuine, isn't there? This is quite a broad question really, but what do you think makes a good influencer relationship for a client?

Speaker 1: 20:27

Longer term first thing, yes, the big shift we're seeing is a shift from influencer marketing ie one-off activities with somebody from TOWIE to promote teeth whitening for the sake of argument, through to influencer relations where you actually work with somebody on a more long-term basis. An organization might put them on an ambassador program, they might involve them in npd development, they might involve them at events, and I think those longer-term relationships is what we're seeing a lot more of now, and that's when you get real value. And how can you expect to get anything meaningful from kim kardashian treating something and charging a million dollars for it? Um, which famously happened, didn't it.

Speaker 1: 21:04

I'm sure you would, but yeah yeah, uh, yeah, it's that it's a more authentic relationship, and I think that works both ways, both the way the influencer kind of engages with your brand, but also the way your audience will see that relationship, and the smarter brands are are doing that now I think the other thing is is that marketing wanky word that we should probably chuck in there as well, which is synergy?

Speaker 2: 21:25

yeah, so like the influencer matches the brand values and, at the end of the day, like the best relationships that we've ever done in influencer marketing or influencer ambassador programs at willful is when the bloody influence themselves actually use the product and buys into it anyway. And then you say, oh, i've've seen that, so quite a bit of research, and then you found somebody that already uses it anyway. It's a much easier door to push open, so it needs to be something authentic.

Speaker 3: 21:51

I think it's that difference, isn't it, between what you're saying about Kim Kardashian doing a single tweet that will grab your awareness? People will know about that product or brand who didn't know about it before, but do they actually remember anything about it? Or are you just buying into awareness? Or are you buying, like you said, that longer term relationship? Are you wanting people to buy your product and buy into your brand or are you just wanting to slap it on an awareness list?

Speaker 2: 22:13

I guess and does this go to the difference between performance marketing and brand marketing? Performance marketing is very much now buy, buy, click, click, click, buy, buy, buy, turn. Marketing is very much now buy, buy, click, click, click, buy, buy, buy, turn off your Performance Marketing nothing, whereas Brand Marketing is more towards the Brand Ambassador program. Maybe your Brand Ambassador comes to three or four events a year. Maybe they're sharing stuff that they're using the products at home, maybe they're a VIP guest. You've got a special London launch. It's much more about the brand rather than just Performance. Now, click, click, click would get you.

Speaker 3: 22:43

You'd mentioned about chopping and changing all the time and actually build up a longer-term relationship rather than throwing someone else in all the time. Logically, you think, well, we'll access a different audience every single time. That's almost to assume that those 200,000 followers that that one person has are immediately hooked on your brand and now buying it forevermore because you put one tweet out with them. The example I would come to is if you think of George Clooney's relationship with Nespresso or any other famous long-term partnership of a celebrity with a brand. I almost think working with influencers. We can learn from what broadcast brand building advertising has done over the years. We know that sticking with George Clooney is the best thing to do. We know that he becomes synonymous with that brand. We know that over time, when people see that, they immediately go that's Nespresso, whereas if they'd have gone George Clooney in one ad, then thrown Brad Pitt in, then thrown someone else in, it wouldn't have that compound interest of that relationship.

Speaker 2: 23:31

Well, I say bring back Howard from Halifax. That's what.

Speaker 3: 23:33

I say yes.

Speaker 2: 23:34

But you're right, because it's the consistency of how many touch points it's supposed to be nine touch points in the B2B relationship before somebody buys where it's seven with the consumer, so that one update or whatever you see is not going to make you buy something, whereas if you see seven different versions of George Clooney on speedboats driving around drinking espresso, or that guy from the operatic singer from a certain insurance brand that we don't need to mention, you know what I mean. There's certain brands, isn't there? Or the meerkats, the meerkats.

Speaker 3: 24:05

So you guys are going to commit to Marketing Room 101. Fake bots slash fake followers We'll wrap it up as that and influencers that utilize those for their own personal gain so they can get a trip to Dubai for two weeks. Now is there anything you'd like to take with you when you go? Is there anything you'd like to take back into the industry that you think has died?

Speaker 2: 24:25

I've thought about this. I'm old school, right, I mean I've been in this industry for too long and I feel like the grey hairs are kicking in now. And before email marketing there was this thing called direct mail, and before that there was the personalised note. Now, if you're a marketer out there, if you want to get some sort of effective campaign and you've got a small audience, try the personal note, the actual handwritten personalized note, to market something. If you've got a tiny audience, so how would this work?

Speaker 2: 24:53

this is slightly before my time, sorry what you didn't write, you didn't use the right how many handwritten notes have you said?

Speaker 2: 24:59

um you've never sent me one. I have, but it's two words and it's on a poster. Uh, does it forgive me there, yeah, it begins and ends with that. Um, I mean the handwritten note, like the example.

Speaker 2: 25:14

We had someone on our podcast, um, who's behavioral science and he said I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2: 25:18

He said that there was, uh, somebody that wanted to live on a row of houses. There's a particular street in a particular city, right, there was only 25 houses and none of them was for sale and and they really wanted to live on that road. So the person that wanted this and this is part of the study as well they then wrote a handwritten note and posted it through every single house, expressing their interest in buying a house and would they be open to a conversation. But because it was handwritten to that particular person, they got I think it was something like seven inquiries for a second chat and then at the end, they got three different houses that were allowed to offer on and they bought a house on the street. So my point is they could have just given up from the outset. They could have sent 25 emails and I don't think that they got many replies, but a personalized handwritten note feels like an extra level of authenticity, an extra level of time and effort that's gone into it.

Speaker 3: 26:06

I think, right, it's sort of clicked. Now, Is it the perceived effort bias or something?

Speaker 2: 26:09

Yeah, yeah, that's right yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:10

Which is, essentially, you've written that by hand, which means you care more, which means I'm more likely to read it and listen rather than throw it, screw it up. Exactly that, and if I ever send any direct mail out to particular clients that I really want to work with, I've always instinctively made a writing, a compliment slip rather than sending a printed out it works because, it is more personal.

Speaker 2: 26:28

So, right, I'm with you, okay, yeah, we're bringing out the personal notes because people don't ring people and people don't write personalized notes anymore that everybody's scared to communicate william, I'm I'm struggling with this one.

Speaker 1: 26:40

I was gonna, um, don't say the conference phone. Can I? Um? Can I give an honorable mention to something you absolutely so? This makes me sound really old, but for all the benefits of remote working, I think I still miss the noise and the chaos and the creativity and the random conversations you have that spark ideas that you do get from being in a massive office with lots and lots of people. So I'm not going to dwell on that though, because it makes me sound like some sort of dinosaur.

Speaker 3: 27:04

So we'll move on from that You're absolutely right, because we, as you guys will know, we at principals do a four-day working week, but that is in exchange for everybody working in the office when they do work

Speaker 2: 27:15

those days because, like you say, being able to, work in the office.

Speaker 3: 27:16

We all work in the office, we all do a four-day working week. Oh so the exchange, obviously that that's a balance that seems to work for everybody, but the the idea being, if we're trying to bring through new talent, if we're trying to bring through new talent, if we're trying to bring through younger people, if you're similar to me, you'll remember when you were coming through. Most of what you learn, you learn in the gaps between the meetings. Yeah, absolutely, and I think there was something so important about that. The main reason why we moved to that was so that we could help to develop those younger people. Yeah, and also because if you're in a creative environment, it never works in a linear way, does it? Creative people aren't necessarily linear thinkers, so you have to have those tangents, you have to have those random conversations rather than just the planned in teams meeting.

Speaker 2: 27:53

I've got a question for you then, ben. So, during the COVID period, how did you find junior staff? Because we found that we lost a lot more junior staff because of exactly what you're just talking about. You don't realize how much mentor time you're giving Junior staff because of exactly what you're just talking about you don't realize how much mentor time you're giving.

Speaker 2: 28:13

Junior staff can talk to us whenever they need us us being the owners of the business, we've got a flat structure. Really, they can talk to whoever whenever they want. When you're a new starter, during covid and there was just teams calls, teams calls emails, teams call emails, team calls emails and one call a day. That was a fun call. I think it really affected stress and anxiety. It's just task, task, task task. They didn't get that bit in between and so we lost I mean double, I think the percentage of staff we'd normally lose in that, yeah, and the other.

Speaker 1: 28:35

I mean culture is everything, isn't it in an agency, particularly in agencies, actually, you know, when you get the culture right and guess what? The quality of work is brilliant. People put in the hours, they put in the effort, everything just flows from great culture. But maintaining great culture in a 100 remote environment is nigh on impossible unless you had a good culture.

Speaker 3: 28:53

People will argue it's possible. People will argue you can do it. And I I think obviously hybrid is much better than an entirely remote scenario. Obviously for some people it will work. But I think you both touched on interesting points.

Speaker 3: 29:03

When we went from working through covid, we did the same as everybody else. We adapted, we went to either an entirely remote or a hybrid model, but we had the same problems. We we couldn't retain people as well as we would like, we couldn't keep people as happy as we would like, we couldn't bring junior members of the team through as much as we would have liked to. So we knew that at that point we had to do something, because the amount of time and effort you try and put in to then lose somebody after a year or lose someone after six months, and it's just that constant thing. And we found that it was really hard to focus on the business and focus on the things that really matter, because you're spending all your time speaking to recruiters or replacing people or whatever you're doing. So that was actually what inspired the move.

Speaker 3: 29:39

It's something that our directors had really wanted to do for years, but I think COVID was like right if we're going to do it. We're going to do it now. We're coming out of COVID. We need to retain people. We need to provide a model that helps people to work in the office together, because that's what's going to grow people and grow talent. But trying to employ people five days a week in an office now is it's impossible.

Speaker 1: 29:57

I mean it's mad that it's only four years ago that was the reality and now it seems like it will never be like that again. And actually do I ever want it to be like that again? I probably don't really, because you know the amount of wasted time on commuting, coming in five days a week. But there's elements of it I miss I'm not going to lie, and I think it is that kind of camaraderie the Friday afternoon the fact that you can have these very spontaneous conversations that lead to brilliant ideas being formed.

Speaker 2: 30:24

Yeah, I think it was a really difficult time that lead to brilliant ideas being formed. Yeah, I think it was a really difficult time and I felt really sad for the juniors if they struggled with their mental health, because when I said people left. It's not like we weren't doing our job, because we've kept pretty much everyone we've had recently. It was like they were leaving the entire industry.

Speaker 2: 30:42

And it was just like the task, task, task, task, task. Even though we tried to make it fun during that period, I just think, at the end of the day, a job in marketing, it's not just task, task, task. There is a bit of fun, there is a bit getting together on a friday afternoon. We're not bloody robots, are we?

Speaker 1: 30:58

and the other, the other side of it actually. I mean, it's. Our job used to be a lot more meeting journalists, going out with journalists, heading down to london and getting 15 journalists in the room and briefing them, but they've all now moved out of london. They all live in kent. Yeah, yeah, it's email only. Generally they don't like to be spoken to on the phone too much. You don't really get to meet them like we used. You know, the whole human side of the industry is is shifting. It's how many pictures do you now do face to face? Is it? Is it shifting back?

Speaker 2: 31:26

now though. I mean I don't want to get into that whole issue too far, but amazon are now. They famously said they want everybody back. We don't believe that. I think we've got a. I think a hybrid approach is best. What we do say, that is, we realized that juniors really are the ones that. So we ask our juniors now to do their first. Is it two or three months in the office for five days a week, and then they go, go, go and hybrid, because sometimes you just want to lock yourself in a cave and work on your latest podcast, right?

Speaker 3: 31:52

yes, absolutely, although, to be clear, I do that on my, on my days off just before I get sacked is

Speaker 1: 31:57

this why your ceo is listening yes, definitely on your day off. Yes, so I am going to, I am going to bring that back okay.

Speaker 3: 32:04

So we've covered quite a lot of ground. I think we've solved solved a number of problems. I would say yeah, you guys are going to leave here today. You will have left with us fake influencers, and and by that we mean their followers are made up of bots, and bots is also the other side of this. So we're also going to put fake followers in. They're staying here. They're never going to be in, they're never going to be out of here again. You're going to take with you the personalized note, which is a niche one, but I like it.

Speaker 3: 32:30

I didn't see that I'm gonna write with a personalized note and I'm also maybe going to describe it as your office culture, the office environment. Yeah, being together in the office, we'll call it office culture. Yeah, um, and I think that's as good a place as any. To finish, last thing, I I suppose where can people find Embracing Marketing Mistakes? How can they get a hold of you guys? How can they find Prohibition?

Speaker 1: 32:51

Yeah, prohibitionprcouk is the good starting point for the agency we run.

Speaker 2: 32:57

And if you want to find the podcast, you can search Embracing Marketing Mistakes. Wherever you get podcasts we're on Spotify, apple, youtube We've got a big YouTube channel now so just look for Embracing Marketing Mistakes and try and learn from other people's fuck-ups, which is why we did it. Okay, thank you, can we? Leave this wretched room now, yeah, get out, go, go, go.

Speaker 3: 33:17

So that was my conversation in Marketing Room 101 with Chris Norton and Will Ockenden. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review. Wherever you usually get your podcasts. It's apparently really important for reasons I don't understand. It's something to do with algorithms. If you've really enjoyed it, please share it with other people, and if you've hated it, of course, just keep that to yourself.

Speaker 3: 33:38

This podcast is not sponsored by Principles Agency. If it was, I probably wouldn't have turned up to record this episode without a microphone, and I've had to plead with Will and Chris to use their recording equipment. However, as it's where I work and they give me a free day off every week which I spend doing this, I do feel obliged to give it a mention. At Principles, we're obsessed with the word unforgettable, meaning we help everyday brands come to mind quicker and stay there longer. We do this using a set of principles the team and I developed. This means making brands more distinctive, entertaining, visible and consistent. If you'd like to chat about how we can help you or learn more about the principles of unforgettable brands, just pop me, ben Norman or Principles Agency, a message on LinkedIn or head to principlesagencycouk.