Managing Marketing: Creativity In Brand Purpose

Shyaire Ganglani and Seamus Fagan are Associate Creative Directors of the creative leadership team at All of Nothing. This B-Corp-certified advertising agency creates the big ideas for people and brands the world needs. They share their creative approach to purpose marketing, going beyond authentic, sincere, earnest and good to engage communities in the underlying issue and positive purpose of the brand. It is an approach that created their Good Buy World website, using humour and classic advertising approaches to engage their audience in the issues at www.goodbuyworld.com.au

You can listen to the podcast here:

Follow Managing Marketing on SoundcloudPodbean, Google Podcasts, TuneInStitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Amazon Podcasts.

If we can make them laugh first then we can make them gasp. And that’s where my hard-hitting impact comes through, where I’m kind of like, make them gasp or make them realize something’s really, really wrong.

Transcription:

Darren:

Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, Founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management Consultancy. And welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.

Today, I’m chatting with a pair of associate creative directors. Now, I guess the collective noun would be a team. This team is part of the creative leadership at an agency that creates big ideas for people and brands that the world needs.

It’s also an agency that holds itself, its employees, and its clients to those principles, being a certified B Corp and an active member for the Comms Declare. But when creating purpose-driven work, is it enough to be authentic, sincere, earnest, and good? Or does it require more?

Please welcome to Managing Marketing from the agency, All or Nothing, associate creative directors Shy Ganglani and Seamus Fagan to discuss what you need to make purpose work. Welcome, Shy.

Shy:

Hi, Darren. Thanks for that novel intro.

Darren:

Well, my pleasure because it’s great to have a creative team, and especially a leadership team in an agency willing to step up and talk about this. But let me introduce your partner, Seamus, welcome to Managing Marketing.

Seamus:

Hi, Darren, great to be here.

Darren:

So, as I was saying, great to have a creative team because there’s lots of conversations that go on about purpose marketing, and yet, I think that often, that’s where the whole thing sort of gets off the rails.

I’m happy one of you to jump in, but what do you think of when you’re working and thinking about purpose marketing?

Shy:

I’ll go. I think purpose marketing has changed completely in the last decade. I think when you used to say purpose marketing 10 years ago, it used to mean charities and NGOs and United Nations and UNICEF, and those were the dream creative briefs that would win you the Cannes Lions.

And now, when we say purpose, I just think it’s across everything we do. A McDonald’s could be involved in purpose and so could a CommBank, so could a Woolworths, but so could all of the B Corp brands we know.

I think purpose marketing today means that a brand finds an authentic way to make a meaningful purpose from the things that they’re selling or from the audience that they’ve got using part of their budget to sell something with purpose rather than just for profit.

Darren:

So, it’s going beyond profit because I remember a great quote in Built to Last was profit for business is like oxygen for humans. We don’t live to breathe, but without it, we don’t live.

Shy:

Yeah, and I think that that’s kind of flipped on its head a bit. Maybe I’m being a little idealistic, but I do think that you can’t live without purpose anymore. If you do, your audience is probably going to end up boycotting you.

Seamus:

Yeah, and I would say that-

Darren:

So, Seamus, do you think … sorry, yeah, go ahead.

Seamus:

Oh no, I was just going to say that I think a lot of times now customers are trying to see do they align with that business? Like does that purpose align with my purpose? And I know it sounds really random, but if Coke’s out in the world saying a certain thing, does it align with me? You want it always to align.

And it’s such a random thing for a company these days to have to think about that. It used to be, “Do I have the best product in the market?” Now, it’s “Do I believe the same things as my consumers?”

Darren:

So, it’s interesting from my perspective to see big corporations that have lots of shareholders, their stock price is published daily around the world, and they’re trying to embrace purpose as part of their organization when it’s so obvious that the one thing that they’re being judged by is how much profit they’re making.

First of all, compared to some of the great companies that we’ve seen (and people will call them startups) that have actually started from a position of identifying a purpose. Like Who Gives A Crap, you know, there’s an organization that the whole business is based on the purpose.

Do you feel it’s a real corporate challenge for those big companies? And how would you approach it?

Shy:

That’s a big question, Darren. I feel like if I had the answer, the perfect answer to that, I would probably be sitting at a C-suite level at one of these companies. But I’ll give it a go anyway.

I think that they don’t really have a choice but to create purpose in those businesses. When we talk about businesses like Who Gives A Crap and SANE Australia, and other companies that have come up from purpose, they’ve essentially come at it from the world has a problem, or this audience has a problem, and our product is going to solve that problem.

Now, the other businesses we talk to are talking about are very much, how do we turn a profit with this product we’re selling? And then they retrofit the purpose by going, how do we fit a problem into this and try to solve that with maybe not our product, but some ads that we’re running.

The answer is, you can’t solve a problem when you’re retrofitting it like that. You can genuinely create an impact. If we look at some brands like controversial Coca-Cola and Macca’s and stuff — if we talk about Coca-Cola, they do a lot of bad in the world and they cause a lot of pollution and cans, and they have a sea full of issues.

But they use some of their profit to turn around some pretty impactful campaigns, maybe not year on year, but once in a while. I was working at Ogilvy in Dubai when they decided to run a Ramadan campaign trying to break down stereotypes and take the labels off cans and say that labels were for cans, not people.

And that got over 10 million views in just three days and spoke to Muslims from around the world. And I was on that campaign, and I was on the back end of that campaign when Muslims were reaching out to us and having video calls and crying, saying how it really meant the world to them.

So, you can make a difference. You just actually have to put people in a room together who care and use your profit wisely.

Darren:

So, what you’re saying is that being willing to invest in supporting these issues or purposes, is as important as actually having it as core to the purpose of the organization.

Shy:

Absolutely.

Darren:

Because cynically, some people would say, isn’t it a bit like selecting a purpose or selecting an issue. This week, we’re going to support pride, next week we’ll support people of colour. The week after that, let’s have a whole program of purpose.

Seamus:

I think I’ll jump in on this one. I’ve been in the back room when those decisions are happening sometimes, and it’s exactly actually how it happens.

They do sometimes go, “We’re tackling this cause or that cause, and the thing I find the most with those situations are the people pick up on it, people who are viewing it, the BS meters go off and they go they’re just trying to do something for a token reason.

But I find the ones that actually do come from a place where they’re trying to make a difference, they seem to do the best, they seem to make the biggest difference. So, I think yeah, you’re a hundred per cent right, like people’s BS meters go off as soon as people start doing this tokenistic kind of approach.

Darren:

Yeah, because I’m wondering if you are working with a client that comes in and says we’re really wanting to communicate purpose, how do you talk about words like authenticity and sincerity, because they’re important, aren’t they? As part of a purpose marketing strategy?

Shy:

I’d say they’re not just important, they’re necessary. You can’t have purpose without authenticity. And like Seamus just said, people’s BS meters will go right off when you have an unauthentic person standing in front of a room trying to sell a rainbow-painted campaign or a greenwash campaign.

And I think the answer to that question is you put people like who authentically care about that purpose as the spokespeople of that campaign. And you make sure that those were the people in the room coming up with the thing.

Because as bad as it sounds, like who cares what your intent was? Who cares if you just thought that as Coca-Cola or whatever, BP you were going to reach a new audience? It’s okay.

Darren:

Let’s not just pick on Coca-Cola because Pepsi-

Shy:

No, let’s not pick on Coca-Cola.

Darren:

Pepsi did a terrible ad with-

Seamus:

With Kendall, yeah.

Darren:

Kendall Jenner. Yes, Seamus.

Seamus:

Oh, I was going to build on what Shy said there, it was perfect. What government did it? When they did the milkshake ad, and it was all around consent. And it was one of those situations where they probably didn’t have the right people in the room to talk about consent. And even flipping the narrative that the woman in the situation was the one who was forcing the milkshake on people, it was just so insensitive.

And you could just tell that like what Shy was just saying, that the wrong people were in the room. So, I think if you want to try and make some purpose driven work, it’s getting the right people in the room to have those ideas and sense check it.

Darren:

Well, and that’s right. You can’t communicate with an audience unless you understand the audience themselves. This is not about preaching to the masses, it’s about actually genuinely engaging communities of people around the issues.

I love Shy, the story you told just a moment ago about Coca-Cola labels for cans, not people; is such a powerful message. It would then be interesting, okay, how do you take that idea creatively and extend it beyond that one-off? Because that’s a message that applies to all sorts of people in the world.

It’s not just Muslims, it could be based on color, race, age — there’s so many things in the world that people are getting stereotyped and classified based on that. But you don’t see that coming from big corporates. It always feels like it’s a one-off great idea that never seems to extend anywhere.

Shy:

Darren, I completely agree. And I think going back to that question of authenticity, the corporations who get it, the people who understand this, they know that if a campaign really kicks off, even if it was a fluke or intended, and it takes off and it’s really well, let’s say labels are for cans and not people, the smart people in the room or the people who care go, “This made a really big impact. This is no longer a campaign. This is our purpose. This is our mission.”

Think of Patagonia. Patagonia started definitely in that world, but like as they went further and further and saw how much their audience cared, that turned into their whole thing. That was their brand. And they run with that as their absolute mission.

Darren:

Even to the point of putting the company into a trust so that all future profits continue that mission. I mean, it’s the poster child of purpose marketing, isn’t it?

Shy:

Absolutely.

Darren:

But so many other companies, Seamus, struggle with this. And we’ve seen it recently. There’s a meme doing the rounds on LinkedIn of all of the companies that supported Pride Month, and then immediately, were also sponsoring the World Cup where homosexuality and gay relationships are illegal. They’re outlawed, and immediately dropped it.

It’s like how can you have your cake and eat it too? How can you stand for something and immediately support for commercial reasons, the very antithesis of what you’re supporting?

Seamus:

Yeah, and I think we’ll see next year that the next time they run a campaign or they do that little jump, people are going to be like, “Hmm, I don’t know. I think last year, you didn’t stand by that belief or purpose.”

So, I think, yeah, I want to keep talking about this BS meter, but it’ll start going off because yeah, once again … and I think it’s what you were saying before. It’s like if you stand for something and you have a purpose, then it shouldn’t just be a one-off campaign. It should become this thing that is just woven into your brand and you keep seeing it pop up.

I know Skittles as an example every year they do something for pride and it kind of fits really nice hand in hand because they’re all about taste the rainbow. So, then every year in America, they give up their colors and it becomes black and white packaging and black and white Skittles. But they do it every year. They do something with it every year.

And that’s something where it’s becoming a part of a DNA and it’s not just being this one-off, let’s just do it cause it’s Pride Week and you’re right, the next day, it just switches straight off.

Darren:

And every day they’re producing a product that reminds you of the rainbow.

Seamus:

Exactly.

Darren:

And that’s what I like. Earlier, Shy, you said that maybe you’re being optimistic. I think that maybe my problem is I’m too demanding in my optimism. I want someone to actually embrace this as a strategy and not just as a tactic. Do you think that’s the problem, that they never get their head around the strategy?

Shy:

Absolutely. I think it’s completely obvious when brands jump the bandwagon from cause to cause like you were saying, marketing calendar, what’s going to work? Change the tagline a hundred times, rainbow, paint it, next minute, something else. It’s so obvious.

But just like Seamus was saying, when it’s Skittles or it’s Patagonia, whatever it is — when it’s your brand and that purpose so beautifully matches, marries your brand together and that turns into your long-term strategy, and it’s consistency. I think what irritates people is the lack of consistency just makes it obvious that it’s just all lip service.

But when you can put everything into this one cause and purpose and believe in it and make that match your brand, then you have a much better chance at succeeding at what we’re calling purpose-based marketing.

Darren:

Yeah. Seamus, do you think that part of the issue as well is that sometimes, companies can make these purposes so intense, like the attitude is so righteous and whereas, I imagine creatively you’d want to have fun with it a bit, wouldn’t you?

Seamus:

Yeah, that is something we’ve noticed. And it’s something we do at All or Nothing a lot of the time. We focus on sometimes, the lighthearted side of things. And I know we’re talking about purpose, but at the end of the day, as soon as we start talking about the doom and gloom, it’s just the normal thing for people just to shut off.

So, when we’re looking at messaging, we look at what’s a more lighthearted way we can open the door, talk about it, rather than just people closing off straight away. And that’s something that some brands do have some trouble with. They sometimes just go doom and gloom and there’s no solution, there’s nothing to talk about, what the positive outcomes can be.

So, that’s something we focus on, is what’s the positives? Maybe there’s a lighthearted way to talk about it.

Darren:

Yeah. Very hard to sell things when someone’s scared, isn’t it?

Shy:

Yeah, I mean I’d say that we have very similar views on this, but kind of different approaches. I think it is hard to sell things, Darren, to your point. That when people are scared, it’s hard to sell them things. But often, I think I just get really tired of people not listening. And I say we hit them over the head with it.

Especially the people who already understand that there’s an issue and they’re just trying to get into the details, I think we can do that in a less serious fashion and use humor. But if someone has no clue what’s going on and they choose to have no clue what’s going on, then I’m kind of like, we just yell it out and say, “Hey you, the world is ending.” And like we get them to pay attention to it. At least that’s my view.

Darren:

It is interesting that corporations, because they’re risk adverse, are inclined to not pick certain topics because they can be maybe too polarizing.

Like the climate crisis is now something that’s acceptable. So, you’re seeing a lot more companies jumping on board. But in Iran, the social abreast in Iran and the way that the people are being treated, executing protestors, is just outrageous. And yet, it’s not an issue beyond the sort of social media support of individuals. I haven’t heard or seen any brands jumping on board in support, have you?

Shy:

I don’t think I’ve seen a single brand either. I think they’re probably terrified is what’s happening.

Seamus:

Yeah, totally terrified.

Darren:

Yeah, if you’re not selling product in Iran, what do you care?

Seamus:

Yeah, exactly. I mean the same thing happened in Russia. So many brands pulled out because of the optics. And you’re right, at the end of the day, that’s probably one of the tougher things, is that when you stand for a purpose, sometimes you have to like stick to the guns.

Where a lot of brands won’t, they’ll just go, “Oh crap, we better drop that, or we better pull out or …” But in the Russian example, it’s actually kind of good. It’s like these brands saying we don’t support Russia and what it’s doing to Ukraine, so we’re going to pull out of that country.

Although, right now, I remember there being a brand that’s still stuck around and it’s getting a lot of flak for it. And I can’t remember the name of it right now.

Darren:

Well, look, to be honest, a lot of them also waited until the point when financially, it was no longer a viable solution. Certainly, the story is that they were in support of the Ukrainian people, but there’s also an underlying financial component.

And we saw Adidas ran into some trouble with … well, I’ll call him Kanye, but I think his name’s Yay? Ye … sorry.

Seamus:

It’s alright.

Darren:

I’m just not hip enough to keep up with people’s names. But Ye, suddenly, came out with incredible anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic language. And yet people I saw online and I think Mark Ritson took to LinkedIn to support Adidas. People were complaining because it took them 12 days to make the decision to drop him from their celebrity roster.

We seem to forget that this is a German company and probably, the founders were Nazis or least their families were probably parts of the Nazi party. So, 12 days is actually fairly quick for a big corporate, isn’t it?

Shy:

I mean, yes and no. I mean, controversial opinion, but this is why Adidas will never be Nike. Nike would’ve had that handled in 12 hours. It would’ve got a crack squad together, they would’ve sat in a room, they would’ve come up with 15 different responses, and they wouldn’t have just pulled Kanye or Ye.

They would’ve written a response to it just like they did with Kaepernick. And I think the thing is that everyone wants to be a challenger brand, but no one wants to take the lead. They just want to follow when it’s safe.

Darren:

That’s a great point. And perhaps, we started earlier talking about how startups in a way, if your whole existence is predicated on believing something, then you’re more likely to operate within that framework, aren’t you?

Shy:

Yeah. I mean, if we shameless plug, but if we come back to All or Nothing, the whole business that has started on a point of purpose and wanting to do good for the world, and that’s an easier point to start from because you go, “I’m not even really going to entertain the rest of the things that I would’ve entertained. I’m just going to work towards these brands and making the world a better place.”

And all the conversations we have behind closed doors are usually about our small talk isn’t usually about the weather or like people’s weekends. Of course, we have that, but it’s usually like, “Did you guys see the news? And what do you think of like the sea level has risen by this much?” Like the small talk is in itself intrinsically more valuable.

Darren:

Shy, I think that’s really interesting because both of you have experience in big corporate agencies and now, you’re senior creative people. And I’ll start with you Shy because you raised it, but what is it that attracted you to the agency, the All or Nothing?

Shy:

I came from-

Darren:

Don’t say the money because that’ll be the end of the conversation.

Shy:

It was the money, I’m gonna be … no, I joking. I’m absolutely joking. I’ve had a very huge or very quick growth curve when it comes to values and cognitive dissonance in the gap closing. I moved from Dubai, and we don’t … we’re a barren desert and I will probably get deported if I ever go back.

But we don’t believe in recycling, and we litter still. And things aren’t great there for the planet. And I had a lot of ignorance and not a lot of s spatial awareness about any of these things when I came here.

And as I started to learn more or see things with like people who had keep cups or learned about sorting my recycling properly, I knew something was wrong and I knew something inside me was stirring, and I got far into many diversity and inclusion conversations, and I knew I wanted to do more for everyone and for the planet, but I just didn’t know how.

And the more I kind of worked at these big corporations, even my last job at Thinkerbell, there were some really satisfying projects with them, whether it was violence against women or it was an anti-bullying or Vic Police.

And every time I was done with one of those projects versus the other projects I worked on, I was able to sleep better at night as much as a cliche as that sounds. And I knew that I had to switch fields and do something better.

Darren:

So, I’m wearing my Spider Man t-shirt because actually, one of my favorite quotes is the Peter Parker principle: “With great power comes great responsibility,” and people often in the industry forget that advertising does have an incredibly persuasive power to change opinions.

So, with that comes great responsibility. So, thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate you sharing it. Seamus, what attracted you? What intrinsically that is appealing about working for a company? Because I have to say All or Nothing really does live the principles that it was founded on, doesn’t it?

Seamus:

Yeah, exactly. And I’m in a similar boat to Shy, where every time you worked on a brief that was in this realm that we always work on, I feel really good about it. And I won’t name brands, but you probably can look at my LinkedIn and find out who they were.

But when you’ve sold so much fried chicken and you’ve sold so much beer, you kind of get to a stage where you’re like “How can I use my creative powers for good?” And that’s where I was approached by All or Nothing and I’m like, “Yeah, this is perfect.” This is a place where all those briefs that I was getting excited about and feeling good about, were all kind of under one roof.

And so, it was a no-brainer. I was like I’m done selling fried chicken and beer for now. Maybe in the future, but for now, let’s work on some purpose-driven brands.

Darren:

So, when you’re saying maybe down the track, is that after you’ve been beaten to the point of cynical surrender?

Seamus:

Well, maybe that could be a positive influence on these brands? I know in the past now … but I know in the past, I’ve tried to turn creative briefs that weren’t about purpose work into purpose work. And sometimes, it works, sometimes it doesn’t. As I was saying earlier, when you force it in a certain way, it doesn’t really work.

But sometimes, we’ve steered it in a good way, and we’ve come at some good results that actually have made some nice purpose work. So, yeah, that’s what-

Darren:

Sorry, Seamus. It’s interesting because a lot of people in the industry will say that, well, purpose work is really not selling, is it? And ultimately, the role of advertising is to sell, but that’s not true, is it?

Shy:

No, I mean, not at all. I was listening to something recently about diversity and inclusion and businesses and bottom line, and I think it was Brené Brown, and she said I have given up on the argument of the bottom line. I’m done going into leadership teams and telling them that they have to care for the bottom line and like diversity is going to affect their bottom line.

Diversity is going to affect you being better people. Do it to be better people. Don’t do it for your bottom line. And it’s the same thing in advertising. Just put profit aside because if you’ve been selling in supermarkets and whatever, or restaurants or whatever you’ve been selling, like if it’s been working, then it’s time to put that aside because that’s a well-oiled machine.

It’s time to oil a different machine, and that’s like the planet we live on and all the causes we care for.

Darren:

I have a slightly different perspective, which is … and I alluded to it earlier with oxygen is for people what profit is for companies. And that is, I think purpose marketing works very well, where the purpose success is measured by the impact that it has on the company.

If it makes a company more successful and the only measure of success we have is consumers and customers spending more money with it, then it’s achieved its objective. I think where people are getting cynical is where there’s advertising that is all about purpose, but without any obvious purpose to the organization.

In some ways what I was talking about before where it’s just embraced and stuck on as a tactic rather than becoming part of an overall strategy. Does that resonate with you guys?

Seamus:

No, totally, totally, totally resonates. I think it’s kind of back to what we’re saying before where you can tell when it’s almost becoming part of that brand DNA. Like when the purpose doesn’t have a substance behind it, it just as you say, it kind of just gets lost. It happens once, it never happens again.

But something with a bit more substance that a brand does create a bit more of a brand DNA like Patagonia, as we keep mentioning, it’s become part of its brand DNA. And that’s where you start to see the purpose actually has a reason to be and to belong.

You’re exactly right. When a brand just comes out with a campaign that is just pride washing, then it’s not going to really land and it’s not going to do anything. And there’s no reason for it other than to say, “Us too. We also believe that,” and then the next day, they don’t.

Darren:

I mean, if your audience or your employee base or your shareholder base has a large proportion of people from the LBGTQI+ (I think I got all the letters in there).

Shy:

You could just say queer.

Darren:

The queer community; that then there’s a definite reason to support the community that supports you. And this is what I guess I’m looking for, is in your approach, is that the meaningfulness of it — it must be so important, that having a reason for doing this.

But that sounds quite intense and I know we’re talking about your approaches to have fun. Can we talk a little bit about the Good Buy World, the website that you guys have created? Because it looks like a lot of fun can look. I don’t mind who explains the purpose of that.

Shy:

I will start happily. I think earlier when we were talking, Seamus and I, were discussing how we had a bit of a different approach on some things. And his was kind of make them laugh and then I said, “No, I agree with them. I just think if we can make them laugh first and then we can make them gasp.”

And that’s where my hard-hitting impact comes through, where I’m kind of like, make them gasp or make them realize something’s really, really wrong. And Good Buy World has been like a really nice mishmash behind both our mindsets because it’s got humor, it’s got that satirical element right up front, and then you’re kind of scrolling and it hits you over the head with some pretty serious issues.

Essentially, what it is, is we know the world is on fire and capitalism as we’ve been talking, got us here. These initiatives that we’ve all just been discussing have been commercialized so that the same corporations who invented the issues are now profiting on these issues. And we just thought that’s absurd.

And we talk about Mardi Gras and rainbow painting, and then they don’t go do any more rain rainbow things for the other days of the year. We discussed how BP coined the concept of carbon footprint when they basically invented pollution. And Good Buy World was kind of our parody response to, I guess, a society that doesn’t seem to be able to take the issues seriously unless it’s in front of them in a product form.

And we’re hoping that Good Buy World can stop us from saying “Goodbye world.” So, it’s a little bit of fun, a little bit of a pun, but of course, everyone isn’t really as cynical as me and we think it’s important to make people laugh a little. I mean, since I moved here, I learned that Australians love to laugh. Did you guys know that?

Darren:

Yes. A lot. We’ve laughed a lot during this conversation. Seamus, what was the inspiration?

Seamus:

So, it was companies like Best Buys or Good Guys, we wanted to do something like that and plan that kind of big corporation company. And Good Buy World was just so perfect. When you read it, you go, “Oh, okay, it’s says Good Buy World.” But when you say it out loud, you realize you’re saying goodbye to the world.

And there’s something kind of nice in that. And then some inspiration behind it was we were like, let’s not create products that let’s say, fix a problem because that’s not going to really do anything. There’s not going to be a vacuum cleaner that pulls up smog. We wanted to get people talking about these issues in a fun way.

So, if it’s ice cream that talks about the melting ice caps, we called it melty caps and it’s like sea salt flavored. We wanted to get people like interested at first with these flashy designs, which most corporations use. And then when they start looking at this in more detail, they go, “Oh crap, it’s actually about the rising sea levels.”

Darren:

Yeah, it does lure you in because you go to it. And I love … we’ll spell it out for those that still haven’t got it. The buy is B-U-Y, not B-Y-E. So, I think it’s interesting, Shy, what you said about making people laugh because Mel Brooks, who was the creative genius behind Blazing Saddles and the producers and things like that, he was asked once, why do you have Adolf Hitler in a cameo in every film he made?

And he said, “Well, you’ll notice that the cameo, he’s always being an idiot and we’re always laughing at him. And my belief is that if you’re laughing at someone, you can’t take them seriously.” And I think it’s really interesting that in some ways, if we are laughing at these companies that are greenwashing, whitewashing, rainbow washing or whatever else, then hopefully, we won’t take them seriously.

Shy:

Yeah, I think that the thing was to take some brands apart or some serious issues kind of take it down a notch, whether it was in people’s heads as a big issue or a brand that was exactly like you say, how do we kind of just laugh at it, and think this is a bit ridiculous. And if we take a step back and look at just how ridiculous it is, then greenwashing could perhaps be a detergent.

And if everyone had this detergent, it would be bloody funny because it would be so easy. Or rainbow paint, it should be a paint tin and everyone can basically just have this and paint over their logo for one day of the year.

And I think the approach we very much took was everyone is just a bit tired of being shouted at. And as the person who often does the shouting at people, I can tell you that people are tired of me.

Darren:

Well, I think also, cancel culture, keyboard worries — all of this is outrage. People are outraged by what’s going on. But I think comedians and comedy has that ability to cut through because in some ways, if people are laughing and get the message, I think it’s really clever. I’d absolutely recommend that people check that out. What’s the url?

Shy:

It’s www.goodbuyworld.com.au, and buy is B-U-Y.

Darren:

Fantastic. I think it’s a fantastic initiative because it’s talking about putting creativity to work around really addressing some of these issues in a very different way.

I want to just explore that a little bit with you because you both said how much better you feel working on projects that actually leave the world a better place. Do you find that the creative process itself, of getting inspiration is exactly the same, it’s just a different context? Or is there a different approach you use?

Seamus:

I think it’s the same. I think at the end of the day, whether you’re selling a product or selling an idea or a purpose, you’re selling something. So, we do tackle it probably the same way, but maybe for lack of a better word, we don’t use as many underhanded tactics.

Like we can’t use the same tactics you’d use on Coke, which we’ve brought up a billion times today. But you can’t use that same tactic. It tastes better than the rest, or you’re opening happiness. We can’t use the same tactic for a good purpose kind of idea. We have to have some sort of truth behind it.

It’s just saying your product tastes better isn’t really a truth unless it is amazing. But yeah, at the end of the day, having that truth behind the purpose is what really makes it work.

Darren:

Shy?

Shy:

I mean, Darren, I think if you were in some of these brainstorms in the room when we were coming up with whether it was Good Buy World or another one of these things, I think personally, I think it’s very different. I think the first 10 or 15 minutes goes with us kind of ranting about like how this issue is cooked and how does no one care about it. And like we’ll throw every censored-censored brand that we can think of under the bus.

And there’ll be a lot of ranting and there’s a lot of passion and a lot of research and a lot of learning before we get anywhere. And we’re not talking learning about the horsepower of a car that’s never going to help us in our life. We’re talking about learning valuable things that are going to help us not just as social currency, but as people grow.

And I think that really helps, at least me, it really helps me want to do better for the project and want to inject what I call objective creativity into something rather than that very same, let’s just repurpose the idea that didn’t … exactly what Seamus was saying; the idea that didn’t work for the other client, that we couldn’t sell to that other three clients, let’s just sell it again.

It’s like, no, let’s just try and actually solve the issue. And often, we have to ask ourselves like forget the client name, and what their logo is, what is the issue we’re trying to solve, and how do we solve that issue? And then we can think about the client brand later. And that’s the key difference for me.

Darren:

Yeah, what I’m hearing from you both is, if you get this right, it can be an incredibly powerful competitive advantage. That if you’re able to tap into purpose in that way that’s intrinsically and strategically part of the brand, then communicating it creatively can actually give them the advantage to actually outperform much larger brands.

And that’s ultimately, what capitalism is about, is creating choice, but then outperforming your competition, not just by on size, but outthinking them and outmaneuvering them as well.

Shy:

Yeah. If you put five people in a room together and you say, “Hey, can you sell this chocolate bar?” They might get excited if it’s a popular chocolate bar brand.

But if you put those same five people in a room together and you say, “Hey, we are trying to solve homophobia in this one suburb in Victoria where this crime just happened,” maybe I have too much faith in the world, but I truly believe those five people will be way more motivated to come up with creative ideas for that and solve it.

Darren:

Fantastic. Look, time’s just flown by. Really appreciate you both taking the time and having this conversation because as I said at the start, it’s great to get a creative perspective on this because too often, we are hearing it from strategists and account people and marketers.

But I think creativity is where the insights and the power come from. So, just remember that Peter Parker principle.

So, I’d like to thank you both. So, Shy Ganglani and Seamus Fagan, from All or Nothing, thank you for being on Managing Marketing.

Seamus:

Thank you.

Shy:

Thank you so much, Darren.

Darren:

Now, before you go; what would your ideal client be like?