Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi everyone, welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. So today we've got one of our mini episodes called Campaign Crunch and I'm joined by my not-so-usual. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? My special guest co-host are you happy with that, vicky Murphy?

Speaker 2: 0:18

Whatever you say, hi.

Speaker 1: 0:20

So this week we have got our very own Sadie on the show who's going to talk to us about a very interesting health and fitness campaign from Joe Wicks.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Yeah, Joe Wicks. So he's got a company called the Body Coach and he basically did a campaign this year called the Movement Hour, which encouraged employers to get each of their employees to have an extra hour off work every day to go take part in some movement.

Speaker 3: 0:50

So every day every day.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Wow, yeah, so that's quite a big ask is that, in addition to lunch breaks, in addition to a lunch break.

Speaker 2: 0:58

So he was basically calling on people to not have lunch at their desk, have an hour out, a full hour out, for lunch and also, between three and four, go and have an hour to go on a walk or do a workout. Obviously the body coach like sell nutrition plans and fitness plans anyway and they give out weekly workout videos, but, um, so one of those was focused around the movement hour, but that's what he was kind of trying to promote, which I thought was quite interesting well, we'll dive into the campaign in a moment, the specifics.

Speaker 1: 1:27

So I was gonna. My first question was going to be what's his objective in? Is it a purely self? Clearly it's not a purely selfless ask, is it? I mean no, so he's trying to kind of cross sell his content and cross sell yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2: 1:40

And something else I thought was quite interesting was that in December he was in the news a lot saying that he would be interested in being like the health secretary role in the government.

Speaker 1: 1:50

So there's a possible health minister. Yeah, yeah, so essentially it's about awareness and about engagement with his content and his products and services. So OK, let's break it down then. So he's asking employers to give an hour a day.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Yeah, every day, every day, throughout March.

Speaker 1: 2:08

For 20 hours For the month was the first initial movement. I was thinking, God, I'm going to get some emails after this.

Speaker 2: 2:16

That was the first initial movement and it was to hope that people would see a difference pretty much straight away and then from there it would be like kind of brought out more long term. But it's part of the body coach, which is his company. All employees have a Monday to Thursday, no extra hours, just Monday to Thursday hours, and then they have an extra hour a day on top of that. So it started off what he does at the body coach and then it moved on to what he wanted to do for over 600 other companies which took the pledge.

Speaker 3: 2:47

He has lunch break at his company body coach and then one hour, three till four, every day, where you exercise.

Speaker 1: 2:53

And they don't work Fridays. And they don't work Fridays.

Speaker 3: 2:55

Sign me up Easy life.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Is Joe Wick still relevant? So I know during lockdown he was in everyone's living rooms doing the workout, wasn't it, and everyone was talking about him. And then I felt like there was a little bit of backlash when he basically took his kids to la, took him out, didn't he pull them out of school and basically say we're going to go and live in la and everyone thought you're just living in a dream world, you're not one of us. Yeah, is he. Is he still kind of much loved and relevant?

Speaker 2: 3:21

I think he is from looking at like the social content and the, the comments that he gets on socials, he's definitely still relevant, but I do see every year it gets around this time and it's around the time of it's the anniversary of lockdown. This year it's been five years of lockdown around that March time and that's when he started those PE lessons and that obviously blew up and I feel like each year from that they're trying to reincarnate this thing again and it's just not really hitting as much as the as the pe hour did brought out a new cookbook as well, hasn't he all around protein?

Speaker 1: 3:54

yeah, I almost feel like he's trying to inhabit a sort of jamie oliver campaigning. Yeah, he's actually.

Speaker 2: 3:59

He's done a lot with jamie oliver actually yeah, so I think maybe something to do with the cookbook. It might be in cooperation with him, but on his socials they're collaborating a lot Interesting.

Speaker 1: 4:09

So yeah, so let's dive back into the campaign then. So how did he sort of launch this? And presumably he was trying to engage with business owners or business decision makers, was he?

Speaker 2: 4:20

Yeah, so there was obviously a lot of press around it. The Times picked it up, a lot of trade news for employability picked it up, which I thought was quite interesting, and then it was just on socials and on the website. They had a pledge. So once you entered into this pledge you got some downloadable assets for social and then you also got a chance to have a visit from Pete Wicks. Assets for social and then you also got a chance to have a visit from Pete Wicks. So the original um, like the original call out for this, got 10,000 applications for like workplaces to get a personal visit from Pete Wicks, but only 600 companies signed up to actually give their staff the extra hour yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1: 4:59

And is that a success or a failure? How would you analyze that?

Speaker 2: 5:04

I think that's probably a bit of a failure. We haven't got the most recent stats about how many people actually did do the pledge and how many people continued it past March. But yeah, I think it's a little bit of a ago when people were just prioritising going out for a drink.

Speaker 3: 5:33

I wonder whether, because that's taking it probably from one extreme to a totally other extreme, isn't it An hour a day, like for a lot of companies? That's quite a big hit financially. Other extreme isn't it an hour a day, like for a lot of?

Speaker 1: 5:45

companies. That's a quite a big hit. It's prohibitive, isn't it? And actually, um, I feel, I mean, I don't want to be overly critical with this campaign, but um, how much was it down to the fact that Pete Wicks and Joe Wicks Did you say Pete Wicks?

Speaker 2: 5:58

It's Joe Wicks.

Speaker 1: 5:59

You said a visit from Pete oh no, I meant Joe Wicks.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Sorry that was on me. Well, did I say that? Pete Wicks from TOWIE, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:06

I was going to ask why the fuck.

Speaker 3: 6:09

Why is he?

Speaker 2: 6:10

involved? I don't know.

Speaker 1: 6:12

That can be the fuck up of the year. That can be the fuck up of the year. So I wonder how much Joe Wicks' involvement has catapulted this into the media, as opposed to it actually being a clever, interesting initiative. I mean, a few years ago we worked with a bed company called Sealy and we did a campaign about the financial impact that lack of sleep is costing employers and we worked out that it's something like six out of 10 staff members are turning up for work at least once a week exhausted and it's impacting their work. And we worked out it's possibly costing the economy trillions of pounds. And we did a bit of an outreach campaign to businesses to sign up to a load of kind of sleep-related resources and stuff and I'm sure we got more than 600 respondents from that. So I almost feel like it's not particularly new campaign.

Speaker 3: 7:00

but it is a quite a big commitment from the employee employer's point of view. I mean, I think, the because, as our resident wellness expert, I was going to say that segues perfectly into yeah, so we obviously you deal with all our wellness um activity and we usually have a focus once or twice a month on a specific wellness activity that the team will get involved in. Yeah, but last a couple of weeks ago, um, you ran a pilates session for us.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah, you are qualified, I am qualified, you can give your hand on a plug if you like well, it's just game.

Speaker 3: 7:34

I just my normal instagram at sadie straw, but yeah but we went as a team and I had such a pep in my step after that session like, yeah, I do think you know that afternoon kind of slump. You know that bit of exercise in the day. You come back and you are ready to get back to work, but you just feel more energized.

Speaker 2: 7:53

It's also with the endorphins, isn't it? And everyone feels that after at least an hour of exercise that kind of like get up and ready to go you feel that sense of achievement and great team building as well.

Speaker 3: 8:03

Yeah, and the endorphins are real.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Aren't they so real when I've been for a lunchtime run. I just feel in a sense of zen all afternoon, as opposed to stressed out.

Speaker 3: 8:12

So I do understand why, you know, this kind of wellness has such an impact like this. Focus on wellness has such an impact on people's work-life balance. You know mental health, but for me that campaign went too far.

Speaker 1: 8:26

What could you have done differently then do you think, because you know campaign crunches, it doesn't have to be an analysis of wildly successful campaigns. I think it's quite useful to kind of dive in and look at how campaigns could have been run differently. What?

Speaker 2: 8:38

I think it would have been interesting to see sort of like any case studies of it actually really making a proper difference so it had that kind of like tangible stat to say, yeah, this is really working like I mean, some of the companies that signed up was like Ladbible Boots, the London Fire Brigade, so there was quite like big names, like going and pledging. But I feel like if to make it a bit better, I also think March is Move it In March, classic Move it In March. We did that initiative here and it is quite oversaturated in terms of everyone saying we're doing walking, we're doing walking this March and that kind of thing. So maybe if they did it in summer, where people are more inclined to be outside anyway, it could have been a more natural fit that people are kind of wanting to do it. But I do think an hour a day, every day people might want to do, people do their own things. I think it's a huge commitment that that would have possibly been.

Speaker 1: 9:34

It would have possibly been more interesting if it's about micro adjustments, yeah, so things like taking the stairs, getting off the bus one step sorry, one stop before your normal bus stop, you know, there's like micro adjustments which actually add no time really, but add up to 10 or 15 000 steps a day yeah what about ugc then? So for me I would have thought right, you know these great, I know there's only 600 companies signing up. There's some great companies there. Did they leverage the UGC of the companies doing this kind of challenge?

Speaker 2: 10:03

not necessarily that I've seen, I mean, like a classic company strategies. They put a blog on the website saying we've done this couple of pictures, that kind of thing. So I did see quite a bit of that um, but there wasn't massive like shouting about it, like no kind of campaigns which coincided with this campaign, so did he set up his own, a separate social channel for this campaign.

Speaker 2: 10:26

No, it was just part of Joe Wick's just part of his like normal channel and there was only one post about it on his channel. I thought there'd maybe be a bit more shouting about that yeah, for me, this is about storytelling, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 10:36

And having, let's say, a branded hashtag, maybe even putting some paid spend behind those companies shouting about their own initiatives, you know in the way that. So a brand I always quote to clients is Farrah Ball, and they've got a branded hashtag where they show people's home interior projects. You know their room transformations and they've got this kind of dynamic feed on their home page of all these amazing aspirational kind of home. Uh, you know um renovation projects. So I feel like there could have been more of a ugc piece, because if you get that right, yeah it starts to become much bigger than the sum of its parts, doesn't it?

Speaker 2: 11:11

yeah, and I think there was maybe not enough of a focus on the lunchtime hour. Like that is something that all companies do most companies do anyway. Give it like a full dedicated hour to lunch, but a lot of people will find themselves having a sandwich at their desk and I think that could have been really easily utilized as like get outside, like do something with that hour.

Speaker 1: 11:30

It doesn't have to just be sat looking at a laptop when you're doing that for eight hours a day anyway we did a campaign once called lunch al desco, which was all about that kind of the sad sandwiches that you have at your lunch rather than rather than going out. Um, another observation then. So you, you touched on earlier the kind of the tangible benefits of employers doing this. So there must be some sort of productivity gains of company, you know, if you've got, like you said, everyone kind of bounded back into the office, didn't they? After sadie's outstanding 10 out of 10 five star pilate masterclass sadie straw.

Speaker 3: 12:02

Bookings were available um was there any? Yeah, so graphics or yeah yeah, so did they.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Did they go into that because that feels like a big opportunity as well?

Speaker 2: 12:11

no, but I mean joe did a tour up and down the uk which visited the different workplaces and throughout doing that he said that he'd noticed some things and there was like they had a videography team that went around with them so they had some nice assets with that, but there wasn't anything like hard stats. There wasn't anything to definitely say this works so well, but obviously we know firsthand that it does.

Speaker 1: 12:34

But maybe not all companies understand that yeah, it feels like a really nice campaign. It's worthy, it's not overly commercial, it's got someone super famous, pete wicks. And next, year.

Speaker 3: 12:50

They go with case studies, they go with the stats around productivity increase, etc yeah, that's the goal steam ahead for march next year because it feels anecdotal at best, doesn't it? We need.

Speaker 1: 12:59

We need the kind of the but why, you know? And if we can land on that kind of tangible benefit of doing it, productivity gains, happiness, more engagement, whatever it might be less illness. In fact, we should do it more often, shouldn't we? We'll do it every week, all right okay 3 pm sadie so what is that? Is there a phase two of it or anything, or is it?

Speaker 2: 13:23

not that we know of at the minute, but obviously I think it probably will come around and next year, like as we've seen with um joe wicks, not pete wicks, um the, every year he's trying to bring something out to try and replicate this PE hour thing. So I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back next year and they might have a bit more to stand behind it and make it a bit more tangible.

Speaker 1: 13:46

It almost feels like he's on the back foot, trying to kind of recreate this, because he really kind of captured the zeitgeist, didn't he? Yeah, and he absolutely flew. And he's kind of captured the zeitgeist, didn't he? Yeah, and he absolutely flew. And he's sort of. I mean, jamie Oliver doesn't tend to struggle with it, does he? He always manages to get. You know, he did the Turkey Twizzlers campaign, but then since then he's landed on two or three other big campaigning issues. Yeah, it's an interesting one.

Speaker 3: 14:09

But, to be fair, probably the COVID hype around the workouts at home was a one-off, wasn't it? It's not, you're not going to be able to replicate that it was a you know, a standout moment for everyone, and people like courtney black like blew up he blew up, but obviously we're hopefully never going to be in that situation.

Speaker 1: 14:27

It's like zoom socializing do. Yeah, I don't know if anyone remembers doing that.

Speaker 3: 14:30

It was zoom quizzes we did?

Speaker 1: 14:32

we did a work christmas party once. We sent everyone a bottle of champagne and basically it was 30 people sat at home having our christmas party alone at home, shouting into a laptop getting progressively drunker, and it was the most surreal thing.

Speaker 3: 14:47

Um yeah that was good.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Thank you, sadie so, um, sadie, you're not. You look worried by this. I'm wondering what we're going to hear here. So, um, every episode of the podcast it is called embracing marketing mistakes, and we'd love to kind of embrace and celebrate the mistakes we make along the way. So can you think of a professional or personal fuck up that you've made um in the last few years that you'd like to share with the class?

Speaker 2: 15:10

honestly, how long have you got? I could literally be here all day, I think, but I think I try and learn from all of the mistakes, clearly, um, but probably one of the ones that really springs to mind is having and I bet you guys have probably had this as well where you've had two clients with the same name, like two people clients, and they've both got the same name, and I just like had this other woman from a totally different company copied into a full email chain about a really sensitive campaign that wasn't live yet. That wasn't at this agency though.

Speaker 3: 15:44

Oh, there's no judgment here. There's no judgment here at all.

Speaker 2: 15:47

But yeah, that was one of those times I was like oh no, and you just realise it, and it's maybe like five emails down You're like oh no, did she not flag? Yeah, she did. Oh, just realize it, and it's maybe like five emails down.

Speaker 1: 15:55

You're like, oh no, okay, a massively flag.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Yeah, she did, oh yeah after.

Speaker 3: 15:59

After the fifth email, she flagged it yeah, yeah after enjoying this is not for me, yeah, okay, oh, that's not too bad well, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:08

So what's the lesson? Always, uh always, double check. I always double check everything that ever goes to a client. Now, like, I will reread my emails at least twice just to double check.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Well, I mean, firing off quick emails is a dangerous game, isn't?

Speaker 3: 16:22

it? Oh, definitely.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Accidentally CCing someone in. I've actually got a confession in this respect. I was looped into an email thread with another agency and we do play nicely with other agencies, by the way but this was many, many years ago, when sometimes agencies get a bit aggy, don't they? With other agencies. Anyway, this guy was a bit upset with the fact that we were dealing with their client and I emailed the team. I'm trying to think why I did this. Anyway, I emailed the team saying looks like, think why I did this. Anyway, I emailed the team saying looks like I've upset this fucker. And then I immediately got out of office back from this account director at this other agency and I realised I'd actually sent it to him and I was like and nothing, because really.

Speaker 1: 17:10

I think he'd just gone on holiday for like a week, so I assume my email was just kind of deleted in the mass of emails that get deleted when you come back from holiday. But you know, when you see that out of office, fuck. I've sent it to him. Looks like I've upset this fucker.

Speaker 3: 17:25

We've had a few of them. I remember when someone that used to work here thought she was replying to the team about a journalist response and called the journalist. It wasn't like a swit, it was like, oh god, think of annoyed georgie boy. But then sent it back to the journalist.

Speaker 1: 17:40

I've actually had that the other way around, though, when a journalist has emailed like the business editor and they've emailed it and that accidentally copied us in and they said here's a story for you. I don't really like it and I don't really give a shit if you publish it either way hi let me know if you need more information would you like an image with that I? Think they ended up covering it as well, probably because they felt so bad. So thank you very much, thank you thank you guys.