Speaker 1: 0:57

So this show is all about fuck-ups. As we've said, it's from called from fuck-ups to fame, and you've given me a few things in your responses to the questionnaire. We asked you a few questions, um, and you you wanted to talk about when you opened an office for Frank in New York. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, andrew? I didn't want to talk about it, you asked me what my fuck up now?

Speaker 2: 1:22

I think, look, I mean, people always say you've got to kind of fail to learn and if you know, if you learn, it's not a failure, and to an extent that's true. But I think anyone who's running an agency, you don't really want to fail, you want to get it right every time. Um, and I think you know I was very blessed with Frank. We had, oh, not an easy journey but we had. It seemed to be that everything we did worked and we always we'd had sort of our London office which was going great, and we'd opened up in Manchester, we'd opened up in Glasgow, we'd opened up in Sydney. We were always of the view like it's sort of easier to open in an office where they speak the same language as you. Culturally it would be more similar, just felt like I don't know, felt like an easy thing to do. America was the dream Big market, but there'd been so many failures in America, so many great, great ad agencies, pr agencies. There was that quote. I have no idea who said it, but the streets of Madison Avenue are littered with dead agencies and it wasn't cockiness that we thought would be different, but we had a self-belief and Frank was flying and we thought, yeah, let's give it a go. We had a self-belief and frank was flying and we thought, yeah, let's give it a go. Um, we found an md. Um, actually, the md was quite interesting. He did donald trump's pr for the apprentice, so it was. I got on very well with him. Sadly he died not whilst at frank's a few years ago, but he was a lovely guy.

Speaker 2: 3:04

We put a lot of effort into it. I used to go out for a week every single month and I don't know. We were achieving what I would call moderate success. The agency was running, it was profitable, just but it was having a really detrimental effect on the rest of the business and I personally found it really hard to focus on those two things at once. And the London office, which was our biggest office by a long way, was beginning to suffer.

Speaker 2: 3:39

And with one client, I think I didn't realize the scale you need in america, and part of the reason we sat up there was because we had clients that were american clients or international clients, people like disney and we were looking after hotelscom at the time and stuff like that. They all had operations in america and they all liked us. We were smashing it for them in terms of the work we're doing in the uk or elsewhere. I don't realize that. I think it was hotelscom when they started talking to us about, okay, you know, we, we would consider using fram, and so I'm like well, who are you working with at the moment? Oh, we're working with a small boutique agency out there. Okay, what's your team structure look like? Oh, we've got 35 people work on our account. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know the team's 35 people and it wasn't impossible for us to scale to that level. But when you have a big account there, it's a big account. So we were winning kind of like boutique-y small clients and I was spending way too much time.

Speaker 2: 4:51

The culture there is very different. You could email anyone at any level and they would meet you for a coffee. I couldn't believe my luck. I was like I'm going to be in new york next week. You fancy meeting up for a coffee to the ceo of this, the marketing director of that? Yeah, sure, and you'd meet them and they'd be full of enthusiasm. Every american knows how to speak, how to conduct themselves, and I'd leave the meeting. I'd phone graham back in london. Oh my god, I just met the marketing director like I'll be amazed if we don't have their business in a week. And he's like, wow, this is incredible. And I don't think I'm. I'm a relatively good judge of character. Um, we all get it wrong sometimes, but I'd have quite a good instinct for it. And then they'd ghost you or they'd sort of give you some sort of bluster, like it was the best meeting of my life. You know, I was so inspired by you. I'm like, yep, well, when can we start? And then it just things didn't happen. And the staff were amazing at presenting.

Speaker 2: 5:54

And you know, when we went out to interview for people, everyone that came in, it was so different to uk culture. They had researched you, they knew everything about you. They'd sent you an email in advance, um, telling you all about your career and what they were looking forward to talking to you about. You'd meet them. They'd talk like they were a-list hollywood actors. Um, you'd finish the meeting, they'd send you a summary of what they learned, what they liked, why they're excited. Wow, who do we choose? They're all brilliant. I like this. And then someone said to me you know, you could go into Starbucks, take the barista from behind the counter who doesn't even know what PR is and they would interview better than someone from anywhere else in the world, and it's so true. So there was all these like cultural nuances. That it was, you know, same language but entirely different in terms of their approach.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Plus, the Frank style was quite disruptive and challenging and didn't really resonate with the US market, where PR was a lot safer, I would say, and we were sort of moving along and I was pitching and pitching and we'd win little things and, as I said, it wasn't a disaster because we weren't loss making, we were making a moderate amount of profit, but things were suffering and we had we made the decision to shut it down and it was. You know, we felt like we were a little bit at the casino, sort of kept putting chips on, hoping that we're going to get the big win and that the wins just didn't come and we were just going. You have to know when to stop and that was really tough for me. I think it was my first experience of failure at Frank and I can dress it up and say it wasn't a failure, because it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't.

Speaker 2: 7:49

It depends what way you look at it, but if I'm being honest with myself. Of course it was a failure because otherwise I'd have hugely successful US operation and I don't. So it was a failure. But I was also as tough as it was, quite proud that we made that decision. It was a strong decision to know when to throw the towel in, because otherwise I think we would have had real problems. But that was tough. I was probably. Is it a fuck up? Yeah, I guess, guess. So, certainly one of the toughest things I've had to deal with.