Welcome and introductions

Chris Norton 0:06

hi everybody, welcome back to embracing marketing mistakes. This week we are chatting to my colleague and lovely pod friend um rebecca quinlan. Hi becca, welcome to the show.

Becca Quinlan 0:18

That was professional. It was rebecca quinlan well, rebecca, I never called you, yeah, yeah but rebecca or becca I'm a becca, but I do like rebecca professionally.

Chris Norton 0:28

Who calls you rebecca, my?

Becca Quinlan 0:30

mum and who else, anyone else? Uh, my grandma, okay, but then it's weird because we had, we've had a becky but this I don't like this so when people say becky, yeah, that's just, that's like calling me paul, like it's just not, it's just not my name you're not becky, okay, no, okay, so don't call you.

Chris Norton 0:48

Well, I've never called you becky, so that's good, right, let's get. So why? Why are you on the show today, then? What are you here to talk about? Well, it's been a big week okay it's been a really big week a big week in terms of mission impossible, new film coming out, yeah yeah but I think it's a bit bigger than that. Prohibition company day.

Becca Quinlan 1:06

Hazelwood castle throwing axes yeah, um doing archery yeah, that was an incredible day um nearly the end of the premier league yeah, there is that as well, but it's even bigger if they could, if they could being won by crystal palace, yeah I mean that actually was crazy, but it's even bigger than that even bigger than that?

The birth of Evie Pig

Chris Norton 1:25

um, okay, so tell us what you're here to talk about so we've had a new birth okay, okay not me, we being who um evie pig has been born, so evie pig.

Becca Quinlan 1:38

Evie pig so for all those pepper pig Pig fans yeah, mummy Pig, yeah. Announced her pregnancy in February.

Chris Norton 1:47

Now, the announcement was interesting within itself. Did you see the?

Becca Quinlan 1:51

announcement the whole campaign is really cool and I think it's so. I think how they've done it isn't necessarily a new concept, introducing a character sort of in this PR capacity, but just the levels they've gone to have we mentioned it's Peppa.

Becca Quinlan 2:07

Pig, so it's Peppa Pig. Yeah, it's Peppa Pig. So there's a new pig on the scene. They wanted to introduce a new pig. Yeah to Peppa Pig. Um to like the cartoon everyone knows, and they've done that through um, just this really great campaign. That I think is really clever because it's reached it's obviously not aimed at children how they've done it, which I think is super clever and it's reached parents in a new sort of modern um pregnancy traditions to do that.

Chris Norton 2:37

It was announced like a royal birth, wasn't it? Yeah, so they did so. For those of you that haven't seen it, it was on good morning, brit. The announcement was on good morning.

Becca Quinlan 2:44

Britain, wasn't it? Yeah, in February it was announced on Good Morning Britain that Mummy Pig is pregnant.

Chris Norton 2:48

But the way it was done as well is quite unique. Yeah, so when you say it's kind of like, I'm trying to think of other cartoons, but I can't think of any sort of cartoon where they've added a character and it's become like a national news story.

Pregnancy announcement PR campaign

Becca Quinlan 3:06

Yeah, not to this extent. I mean, you've seen before with characters on like the sofa, like fireman sam's been on like the breakfast sofa before, and I think it was at christmas when the new gavin and stacy came out, the christmas special, uh-huh, um, do you remember seeing the premiere in campaign the occurring? Oh, and they use like a current exactly that's my impression of nessa that's quite good actually thank you and they used sort of a fake nessa right to do that.

Chris Norton 3:27

So they've sort of yeah so they've.

Becca Quinlan 3:29

I feel like it's. Yeah, it's not a new concept, but just the levels that they've gone to at each sort of campaign spike. But what got me?

Chris Norton 3:36

was um when they announced so obviously the announcer, she was pregnant in february, right, yeah. But the the fascinating thing was, obviously it's a cartoon show, right, so it's for kids for any parent out there.

Chris Norton 3:48

I mean, you haven't been through this yet, but you will go through the pain of having to watch every pepper pig back to. But pepper pig at some point will come into your life for and you'll watch it back to, back to back, and it goes. It sends you slightly nuts, and so when I stared at the I was doing, I was doing something. I turned around on gmtv. They had the showbiz editor is he richard somebody? Yeah, and then he was interviewing mummy pig. Yeah, and it was done like, genuinely like she was on the show and they were chatting about a new addition to the family.

Becca Quinlan 4:16

Yeah, it was the exclusive interview to announce her pregnancy which then became like international which became huge, and from there, um, mummy pig was on the cover of gracia magazine doing like an actual pregnancy shoot with the bump, which I thought was amazing. Actually, it looked really cool. How have they done this? Yeah, um, it's loads of broadcast national. It's all over the nationals print online, genius, yeah.

Chris Norton 4:41

What else have they done then? So they got Mummy Pig on the front cover of Grazia, yeah, for the interviewer then, as if it's her.

Becca Quinlan 4:46

Yeah, so they interviewed as if it was Mummy Pig so it wasn't like the people behind it.

Chris Norton 4:51

Yeah.

Becca Quinlan 4:52

And it was Battersea Power Station launched the official VIP launch party for the gender reveal.

Chris Norton 4:59

What so? They released like pink into the air.

Becca Quinlan 5:02

The actual like towers were pink.

Chris Norton 5:04

They painted them, or did they no?

Gender reveal and media coverage

Becca Quinlan 5:06

they lit them up all right, okay, yeah, nice um for a stunt right nice yeah for a stunt, and then yeah, so they had the official gender launch party in there. So that was in collaboration with nct. Okay, um, which is the official partner with pepper pig as well, so that's national children's trust and so obviously like a perfect partner as well, wow I mean.

Chris Norton 5:30

So they've really thought obviously, yeah, it's not just sort of a fluffy campaign, there's obviously some but all it is is a new character to a tv show and they've got all this pr coverage about uh. It's basically transcended from TV, which is weird. It's transcended into stunts, experiential stunts, like at Battersea Power Station TV. They've got organic interviews on the national broadcast, which is really clever.

Becca Quinlan 5:57

Yes, after Evie was born, which was on Tuesday as of this week when this had been recorded from there they'll do an official sort of cinema launch of that as well. On the 13th of may it'll be in cinemas across um the uk and you can basically see the introduction of evie pig into the pepper pig community.

Chris Norton 6:20

I wonder if she's gonna speak, because joe, joe, how old's george? Then george is two. Is george driving now?

Becca Quinlan 6:27

no, unfortunately not, he's still still two so because george can talk.

Chris Norton 6:32

But then if evie's younger than george, then surely evie can't talk. Yeah, like, maggie.

Becca Quinlan 6:37

It'll be like maggie. She might say one, one word every like 10 episodes. Okay, as she's learning um yeah, so that'll be um an hour long and that's what they've built up to and so the show's worth a million pounds.

Chris Norton 6:52

What sort of a billion? A bit sorry. A billion pounds, what? What coverage have they had about the campaign then?

Becca Quinlan 7:00

coverage has been. It's literally been everywhere. It's been obviously good morning britain. Um, it's been in every single national print, online. It's been everywhere and I think the news just keeps growing because there's been. It's been well received, I'd say generally, I think people are like what is this? This is crazy. Um, there's been a bit of controversy among the farming community, I'd say since Evie's been born why the way she was born wasn't suitable to farming regulations.

Becca Quinlan 7:30

I think, yeah, a few, a few things. A pig wouldn't usually have one, just one pig in a so she wouldn't just be born on her own?

Farm community controversy and campaign impact

Chris Norton 7:39

yeah, so what happens to the rest of them?

Becca Quinlan 7:41

exactly where are the rest of them? It's not.

Chris Norton 7:43

It's not accurate it's a serious question. For the farmer's guardian it's a serious yeah, they've yeah we'll hand, we'll leave it to hard-hitting news there it's hard news, yeah and what are the tv shows? I can't think of another tv show where they've added a character that's been transcended like that yeah, not to this extent.

Becca Quinlan 7:59

The only example I can think of is when ned flanders wife died in the simpsons.

Chris Norton 8:04

That's very niche, is it ned? What, um, what's what does he highly hope? What does he say? What does ned flanders always say to me? So we'll say oh, clearly, don't clean ably, don't. I can't remember what he says.

Becca Quinlan 8:16

I can't remember what he says but, but yeah, I feel like this is the biggest character introduction into a TV show, into a children's TV show.

Chris Norton 8:27

Yeah, I'm trying to think of any TV show that has had that same sort of introduction.

Becca Quinlan 8:32

So when they did the official launch picture, when Evie was born, it was outside St Mary's Hospital, where Kate and Will have had their babies. Really, yeah, okay. So that was the official picture right.

Chris Norton 8:44

I mean hats off to the agency and asbro for doing a great campaign to get you to get a cartoon tv show, to get some pr. I don't know what the budget for this was, but it's um, it's, it's done a great job and it's become like the nation's conversation.

Becca Quinlan 8:59

Yeah and I think, more than anything, it's fun and it's become like the nation's conversation. Yeah, and I think more than anything, it's fun and it's it is silly, and now the news agenda is well, it's, it's wild. So I think it's good to inject a bit of fun into it sometimes and it does get you to stop and think have I just read that? Have I? Yeah, is she pregnant? Becca?

Marketing mistakes and embarrassing moments

Chris Norton 9:20

what mistakes have you made in your career?

Becca Quinlan 9:21

you're gonna ask me this. I was thinking about this yesterday when I was just a young, young ae back in the day many years ago not progression. To be clear, um, I was emailing um a client in a very specific sector and accidentally, a well-known client, a very well-known client, high street brand, high street brand. Yeah, who? Um, I accidentally cc'd in their competitor into the email, who we were working with at the time so you're working for two competitors, but they didn't know that's not your fault right.

Becca Quinlan 9:53

One of one of them knew, but not not that oh, right, yeah, so it wasn't my it wasn't your fault.

Chris Norton 9:59

You weren't making those decisions. No, but the email was. But you accidentally copied in the wrong person and they all found out. Yeah, and it went down well I just yeah, it's fine.

Becca Quinlan 10:09

What can you do?

Chris Norton 10:11

did the client go off the red or?

Becca Quinlan 10:13

um, yeah, they were. They weren't happy, but I mean it was, it was bound to happen, it was inevitable. They would have had to have found out, I think eventually anyway. So I just sort of, you know, fast-tracked that a little bit.

Chris Norton 10:24

Everyone's copied in the wrong person.

Becca Quinlan 10:26

Yeah.

Chris Norton 10:27

Everybody's like done that. Everybody's done that.

Becca Quinlan 10:29

Or calling you know misspelling names. I hate that.

Chris Norton 10:33

We've just had a. We did an interview earlier about somebody being come on the show and they they miswrote a word software, mr mr t, and so it was software, but it was all over their exhibition stand. Now that you think you copying in them's bad? Okay, yeah, that's, that's worse.

Becca Quinlan 10:50

So, yeah, that's not great, oh well you know, I think it could have been worse I think copying people in has happened.

Chris Norton 10:55

Everybody, everybody's done that. And if you have done that, drop me a line, because I'd love to hear what you've screwed up.

Chris Norton 11:00

You'll keep it anonymous. I love, I love a good mistake story to send them in. I haven't told this story on the podcast. So before I was in pr, I was at university, right, and as part of the university degree we had to go into um. I like this. This is a story I'm told. Uh, we had to go into the um department of work in pensions and um I was. I did a pr degree and we had it was.

Chris Norton 11:23

Websites were pretty new actually it was like 2000 so and I was just it was my final year and we had to look at a real life business and assess a particular problem, a crisis or a situation. And our job was to look at the department of work in pensensions website to analyse it as a group of students, as an agency. We became an agency as a group of students and analyse this website and tell them what was wrong with it. Right, and it was a pretty boring dull website and we had to then go and present the findings. So we had to do all the research academically as well as you know, practically, and present the findings. So we had to do all the research academically as well as you know, practically. So there's a team of about eight of us and we went off and did the research and everything.

Chris Norton 12:10

I prepared all my slides. I think it was acetates back then, I can't remember. Anyway, we were doing a presentation and we had cue cards and I was a little bit nervous because it was the first proper real life presentation I've done. Um, and my opening line was um, what do we actually think of your website? And you can't.

Becca Quinlan 12:33

There's no coming back from that.

Chris Norton 12:34

That's awful as a, as a? Yeah, I was old. Was that 19? Honestly, that's, yeah, that's, and then it. Then all I could think of as I said it was you've just said shite. You've just said shite. You've said what you think. Did you acknowledge it or did you just? Oh, I went site, website, website, and then my mind was just going.

Becca Quinlan 12:51

Your mind was just saying shite.

Episode wrap-up

Chris Norton 12:53

Website, website, website All the way through. I don noticed, but it was yeah, everyone will have noticed yeah everybody will have noticed. So they knew what I actually think. I do remember one, a couple of the clients smirking at the comment, um, but we actually got a really good grade for the piece of work because what we'd assessed, they'd had a professional company do analysis and we did an analysis and ours was apparently better. So, um, apart from my comment of it being a website and our website, there's at least you got them engaged.

Chris Norton 13:21

They were listening after that oh, I just wanted to die. But anyway, there we go. I don't know where that came from, but uh, tune in next week. Uh, thanks for coming on the show, becca, and thanks for sharing your story of pepper pig, and I'm sure we'll get you back on soon, thank you. Thank you very much, everybody, and see you soon ciao.