Darren O’Meara, Growth Director, and Troy Graham, Group Creative Director, experience marketing agency GPJ, also known as George P Johnson, share the state of play in the experience marketing industry.
In a world where communication channels are increasingly fragmented, engaging an audience in brand communications is becoming more challenging, so more brands are turning to creating brand experiences.
For years, experiential marketing was seen as the tricks, stunts and novelties of the marketing world, often associated with sponsorships and B2B sales expos. But today, this is where brands of all types and sizes engage with their customers and future customers memorably and effectively.
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Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I am Darren Woolley, Founder and CEO of Trinity P3 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.
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In a world where communication channels are increasingly fragmented, engaging an audience in brand communications is becoming more challenging, which is why more brands are turning to creating brand experiences.
For years, experienced marketing was seen as the trick, stunts, and novelty of the marketing world, often associated with sponsorships and B2B expos. But today, this is where brands of all types and sizes are engaging their customers and future customers in deep and effective ways.
To discuss experience marketing, please welcome to the Managing Marketing Podcast from the Experience Marketing Agency, GPJ, also known as George P. Johnson, the Group Creative Director Troy Graham. Welcome Troy.
Troy:
Thank you, Darren.
Darren:
And the growth director Darren O’Meara. Hi, Darren.
O’Meara:
Hey, Darren. Good to be here.
Darren:
It’s a terrific topic to talk about because I think experience just from a psychological or behavioral economics perspective has been shown that when someone experiences something and there’s emotions attached to it, it has a much greater impact than just hearing something.
I remember Nick Law, when he was at RGA, was often talking about how agencies play in the storytelling area, and he related it to cavemen. You could tell the story about catching the woolly mammoth. You could even do a demonstration to show how you threw the spear that killed the woolly mammoth. But there was nothing like actually going on the woolly mammoth hunt to actually understand and really feel what that experience is like.
And I think it was a really powerful way of showing the differences between experience and just merely communicating or telling a story. What do you think particularly Troy, from your perspective creatively?
Troy:
A hundred percent. I mean, memory making is what experiences are all about. And I think especially now where we’re finding digital overstimulation is happening everywhere, and there’s so much media we’re bombarded all the time. Stopping and having that sort of tangible sensory experience is invaluable.
This is how people remember things, how people are remembering brands, how people are remembering the message that people are trying to get across, is to go and immerse themselves in it and experience it almost on a one-to-one level or in a group level. And then you’ve just got something completely new that sticks with people long-term.
Darren:
Yeah, I noticed, because people talk about social media and how there’s such high levels of engagement, but why do we call it doom scrolling when someone’s sitting there on a social platform just flick, flick, flicking? I mean, I know personally, half an hour can disappear, and you can’t remember a single thing you’ve looked at.
Troy:
A hundred percent. I often refer to I think it’s the term eyeballs, and I think a lot of these things are measured in eyeballs. And for me, that’s just means someone saw it. But I see a million messages and ads and products and things every day, and yeah, they don’t stick with you necessarily unless for some reason, there’s something in there, a little nugget of truth or something, but so much of it just goes past you.
So, you’re also being bombarded with it. I think this is the key point to experiences. You’re been bombarded all the time, and it’s interrupted quite often. If it’s a brand or anything like that, it’s invading your time while you’re engaging with something else. Whereas a brand experience, you’ve bought the ticket. You are there intentionally.
So, you’ve opened the conversation already and you are there to have that conversation, to learn, to discover, to be immersed. And it’s a completely … the experience is the main show. The brand is the main show. It’s not the interruption that’s breaking into people’s lives and actually annoying a lot of people most of the time. They want to be there, they want to engage. That’s a completely different level of marketing.
Darren:
Darren, it is very true, isn’t it? That the perception of experience marketing has changed rapidly over the last decade. I remember when it was sort of the afterthought in most creative agencies: “Oh, do we have to put money towards the trick stunts and novelty department,” which I mentioned in the introduction. But it has become much more front and center strategically, hasn’t it?
O’Meara:
Yeah, absolutely. I think also previously, sometimes it was just seen as a sales initiative. Go out and create a target list of who you want to meet on ground and network and give us feedback. But the way the industry has changed now, and sometimes, I think it’s also because of economic pressures as well. Like people know that deals are made on the ground. We know that it accelerates pipeline as well.
So, experience is not only being looked at from a brand perspective when we hear so much about home ports and brand is to B2B and creating memorable moments that last, but it’s also important to accelerating your pipeline because buy inertia is so slow in a market where everyone’s cautious on how to move forward.
So, now, experiences are being looked at from both ends, and that’s fascinating because you’re getting a bigger seat at the table. And there’s loads of case studies out there that’s representing this as well.
I mean, Dreamforce in San Francisco is such a massive flagship event. You’ve seen the power of community, you’ve seen how a CEO address can affect brand shares and prices in market. So, the way that experiences are being approached now, so much more than just another trade show or sponsorship level.
And to the creative point, if we are thinking about engaging with people, you are engaging with so many more senses that would leave a lasting, memorable impression. You’re not just looking at something through your phone or it’s an interesting ad that creates some emotion, but you have smell, you have touch, you have engagement with people, there’s so many more areas that you can influence.
And with that again, cautious not to be salesy, but if I’m thinking about the struggle with dirty data in targeting B2B, we hear about this all the time and media’s like, “Oh, we are reaching 40 to 70% of our audience — oh no, we found a new way to address this.”
As Troy said, there’s an intention to arrive in an experience. You’re buying that ticket either to network, to connect with another brand, to increase your awareness around your profile, or discuss some meaningful topics. So, that presence of mind is already there.
I think how we communicate that value back up to business leaders or marketers or even people on the C-suite level, so they can understand what that difference of investment looks like because If you compare it on cost per person or cost per interaction, it can look quite intense and quite heavy, but if you understand the value behind it, then-
Darren:
Well, it’s not really a fair benchmark, is it? It’s not comparing a like for like. You’re sort of comparing apples with apple strudel, you could say. There’s a lot more effort to turn an apple into a strudel.
But there’s an important part, both of you have raised that issue about the customer, the consumer, the audience has chosen to be there. And with that, comes a much higher demand or responsibility for making that experience, one that they feel they’re getting value out of.
We talk about, and I mentioned doom scrolling — in some ways social media, much of the advertising that appears there is like traditional advertising. It feels like the thing that fills up the space between the content I really want, whereas with a brand experience, you can’t just interrupt, you actually do have to engage and reward the customer or participant for their time and attention, don’t you?
Troy:
A hundred percent. They need to walk away feeling like they also got something really valuable out of that. Again, we say they’re showing up and they’ve signed or they’ve bought the ticket or whatever, but with that, there is a transaction in place where they’re expecting to get something in return. They’ve given you their time.
So, you do have to make it memorable, you have to provide I guess information. So, they need to be able to learn something and walk away with something new. They need to either be able to engage with the brand or the product. So, that might be a demo or any other way they can do it. And also, those opportunities, I guess for them to further their own positioning.
So, that could be either having a one-to-one with the delegates from that particular brand or anything like that, or with other people in this community, so that they don’t walk away thinking, “Well, I’ve been to one of these experiences and now, I don’t need to go to another one.” There always has to be that next level of something else that they’re walking away from the experience with.
I think that’s really important, is understanding the two-way agreement, the unwritten agreement of experiences, which is provide value to the people who have said, “I’m here, I’m open to this conversation, make it worth my while.” So, I think there is a two-way agreement in place there.
O’Meara:
And there’s a bit of friction as well. Isn’t it Troy? It’s funny, I sit with some clients who have discussions, and their objective is to make sure that they get a lot of people through the experience, so they’ll be like, oh-
Darren:
Quantity over quality. Yeah, the old conundrum.
O’Meara:
Oh, we need leads, we need leads. So, there’s design saying, “Oh, the experience that Troy has developed is a bit too difficult, we are asking the audience to do too much.” But if you don’t give them enough of a challenge, then what’s the reward? We still think like that as human beings.
So, we also need to make sure that the experiences that we create, there is that reward experience, there is that challenge that we want people to move through. It’s not just about passing numbers through a lead scanner, making sure we hit target so you can pass numbers back up.
And I think that’s why the industry is so interesting now because I feel like we had this inflection point where … obviously, we had COVID, we came out, everything was digital hybrid, and we are thinking about how we reshape experiences, is it back? And then last year, we had this whole, well, we did this event calendar, so now we repeat in the event calendar, how do we choose quality over quantity?
And we have to go back to them and say, “Well, now, you actually really need to be intentional about your experiences. You need to think of value-based engagements. And you need to think about what you really looking to achieve.” Is it raising up a community of influencers to drive perspective? Is it targeting C-suites around a specific industry? And how are we shaping experiences to do that?
And I think those are the types of conversations where we see real impact coming across and ensuring that you’re getting cut through instead of just attending them and being another number, because we have the same challenges even within the experience space as well.
Darren:
Darren, do you think that is because traditionally, a lot of experience marketing was based around riding on the back of some sort of event sponsorship? We saw that change happen where it was enough just to throw a large amount of money to sponsor an event and stick your logo on there or get naming rights and pretty much, that was job done, tick the box and off you went.
And then we started to see more and more experience type or activations where, oh hang on, we’ve got a large audience here, particularly for B2C, let’s see if we can find a way of engaging them and perhaps find out more about who they are, to the point where it was, how can we add value to that sponsorship that they’re already attending?
And I remember a guy, Carl Gardner who used to work at Mushroom, and he said, “The best sponsorships are the ones where you create an experience that money can’t buy.” And he remembered his favorite was … and it was targeting CEOs of major companies because he said what most people didn’t realize is many of them from that era grew up playing a guitar either in their bedroom.
And so, he would create opportunities for them to get up on stage and play with their favorite Australian band that was part of the Mushroom thing. And he said, “That’s something money can’t buy.” And it would get a huge level of engagement, a huge amount of talkability. And the brand that made that happen was the one that suddenly just shot to the top of their consideration list because it was something that no one else could have done.
What I love about that example is it came from a deep like personal insight into CEOs that most of them had a sort of, let’s say performance, music interest that it allowed them to amplify without looking like egomaniacs.
Troy:
I think there’s two parts to that that I just want to address. I mean, the first part there is exactly almost what we were talking about before. It’s a memorable experience … I mean, you say it’s a money can’t buy experience, it’s great.
But they built a community there also, they’ve got those people now on board for life. Those people say you made my dreams come true, you gave me the most memorable experience, I’m going to tell everyone about it. And that is how you build community out.
I think the other part to that is that … I’ve lost my thought.
Darren:
That’s alright.
Troy:
Oh, so I think the other part to that is that insight, that strategy, that level of stepping back at the start of a brief, at the start of an opportunity at the start of any of this experience and making sure you have the strategy and the insights in place first, because that is where the really valuable stuff happens.
That is where you can really tap in and personalize an experience, make sure people are getting the most out of it, and rewarding people who show up. And without that you are really just putting on a stage and a screen or whatever it is, and so what? Anyone can almost do that. It has to be something really personalized and really engaging that makes people go, “I’ll never forget that and I’m going to tell everyone about your brand.”
Darren:
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s an example of where there was an existing sponsorship, but this was the opportunity to lift the experience and really make it part of that.
Darren, I think what you are talking about is also look at breaking out of your roster or program or schedule of events that you’re sponsoring, and look for the opportunities that are more strategic and also, ones that you can own and own alone, rather than being constantly relying on others to get the audience there in the first place. Is that right?
O’Meara:
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think there’s actually probably a challenge to the industry as well because now that experienced marketers are getting more of a seat at the table, those skillsets then to think integrated and to think how your experience tactic ladders up to the other tactics that you’re utilizing, how do you take one impactful moment in time and make sure that it’s a series of connected moments that elevates your activity.
It’s a totally different approach. And the natural nature and events and experiences is the massive rush in Boulder to this big event. You deliver it, then afterwards, you want to go on vacation, go for a massage because you’re exhausted.
So, there’s also that human nature behind the approach as well. But to sit back and reflect on it and truly think about how is this supporting some of the broader tactics. And then measurements are totally another area where you need to rally up and think about how we’re supporting brand measurements and sales measurements along with those experiences as well.
And technology is allowing us to do fantastic things. We have a client recently where … and Troy will tell you more about it, we had facial tracking and use artificial intelligence to determine people’s responses through different content and keynote sessions in the full day conference.
So, afterwards, we could go back, and we could highlight where there were critical important moments or where there were lulls in energy and audience time, and how we can then improve that experience and think about how we reshare content afterwards.
Because then, we’re not just thinking about recording what we’ve done on the ground and share it afterwards as a recap, you and I don’t want that, we’ve already attended it.
Darren:
And also, everyone else is sort of like, “Well, I missed out so why would I want to watch it?”
O’Meara:
The highlights video, you have that information, you can really think now about your experience in the event being a strategic content maker. So, you can think about how you’re disseminating that content in interesting ways. Post that, to then think about how you’re connecting other experiences.
And this is where now, events and experiences start to become interesting, because now you’re laddering into other areas and how you’re collaborating in organizations to do that. And we won’t go into the walls behind, “Oh, I run corporate and brand, and I run performance, and I run content.”
Darren:
I love that because one of the things that does drive me crazy about events is where the organizers send you those damn surveys afterwards.
Now, first of all, they either send it to you as you’re walking out the door and you haven’t even had time to reflect on it. But the other thing is, even when you give them constructive feedback, you never hear anything again. They never close the loop. They never come back and go, “Well, that’s really interesting, what could we do about it?”
So, you always feel like it’s ticking boxes, and yet there’s so much that could be achieved, isn’t there Troy? Like it is more than just the event. It’s actually the start of an ongoing engagement, isn’t it?
Troy:
Absolutely. I mean, there’s nothing more important. It couldn’t be more accurate. The engagement starts way before the event itself. And to just end an event and be like, as Darren said, “Here’s the highlights reel, thanks for your time,” that’s almost insane. You started the conversation, you started that relationship and that abrupt end of we gave you the event, now come to us for all future things, it just doesn’t make sense.
You open the door for that conversation, as I said before — they open the door to the conversation by attending, and then you close it, it’s illogical. There has to be that ongoing journey that continues long after the event and perhaps into the next one.
You want to keep that conversation going. And that’s again, how I guess handshakes are done and deals are done on the B2B side of things. And for consumers, that’s how they start to build a community. They start to love your brand, and they start to tell other people, bring them to your next event. And that’s how you start to build up that engagement. It’s absolutely vital.
O’Meara:
It’s really difficult as well. I know it’s easy on our side to be like, oh, we need to consider these things, but measurements in the physical is really expensive, it’s notoriously expensive. So, there’s obviously a model that’s been developed that’s been accepted by the industry as a way to capture information and post-event survey that goes out to the [inaudible 00:19:42].
Darren:
Or put your business card in the fishbowl or let us scan your barcode that’s on your event pass and things like that.
But what you mentioned before was really interesting because with permission of course, but being able to capture, and I remember a retail store that used those like almost antenna pods because every time a new mobile phone entered the store, they could actually track that unique phone around the store. And it was really interesting what they learned about store layout, for instance.
So, this is where technology is — as long as you’re not breaching the person’s individual privacy but being able to see that a certain percentage engaged or the dwell time at a particular area as part of the event was longer than others. These are all incredibly valuable pieces of information, not only to make the future events more effective, but also see what it is that your community, your audience is actually engaging in.
O’Meara:
Yeah. Off the back of the example, there’s a retailer that would’ve used that information to realize that people walk into small stores, and they don’t pick up baskets because they think they wouldn’t be picking up much and they find themselves juggling with it.
So, you want to increase sales, you put the baskets in the center of the store, and you see sales increasing. It’s only through that information — that’s how you can use it in experience environments as well. There’s so many opportunities to think about how we shape it.
I think again, that the challenge on that then is now there’s an expectation on the marketer side to have the skillset to start to think about pre and post, and how you’re approaching that, and then how that experience ladders up to your other activities that you’re doing. That’s a new pressure that’s coming through.
Now, how do you do that when you have a smaller team perhaps maybe because of the economic situation? Do you have the experience of thinking in that manner and develop those integrated approaches, you need experience working in other different formats to make sure that you tailor that across?
And that’s where experience is really interesting to be working in now because it’s no longer, as you said, just a physical event or an expo, it ladders up to so many different things. It’s a great time to be in the industry. Really, it’s dynamic and changing.
Darren:
It’s also interesting you mentioned before that people within organizations responsible for experience, because with the fragmentation of marketing externally, and we talk about paid, owned, earned and shared. So, first of all, where would you classify experience marketing on the paid, owned, earned and shared? Is it earned or shared?
O’Meara:
Oh, it depends on your strategy. Your proprietary events would probably be earned, and you’d bring certain audiences across, and your third-party sponsorships would be paid where you’re looking to potentially capture your markets at a wider level. It’s how are you balancing those across that area?
I think what would we’d like to see more of, and we are starting to see a lot more of it is more interconnectedness between departments on the role that these experiences are playing within your wider strategy.
It’s not just a matter of creating a landing page before your big impact and then wonder why the thought leadership you work so hard to publish, it’s not being read by people if it’s not tailored towards a bigger campaign. As much impact as it has on the ground, if you’re not rallying around that …
And then even from when you’re thinking about measuring it and the importance of it, instead of looking at it as a single moment in time, and we specialize in B2B, the cycles are 12 to 18 months sometimes — and that brings a discussion versus, okay, we are not looking at lead scanning or potential in moment tactical measurements, you’re looking at marketing engage pipeline.
And now, if you’re looking at your experience as a long form of activity that’s linking particular moments in the journey, then when you’re measuring that, you’re looking at it as your team, as marketing engage pipeline.
Therefore, you’re experiencing now as a seat at the table talking to your performance and acquisition team. Do they have that? Oh, that’s very difficult, much easier said than done to change rigid structures around measurements.
You have people talking about more marketing mix modeling, you have people talking about SQLs and MQLs dying, and there’s the experience team coming up and saying, “Hey, can we talk about marketing engage pipeline” where they’ve never sat there before. So, it’s really interesting to see that panic in the room.
Darren:
Now, the reason I ask is many organizations internally are actually structured around those pillars. There’s the paid media team, and then there’s the social media team that are doing largely the shared, then there’s the often IT or digital team that’s doing the owned media. It becomes fragmented internally; no wonder it becomes incredibly difficult to coordinate that externally as well.
And I just want to move on because one of the issues is for marketers that are looking to up their brand experience game, how do they then go about choosing the right partners, the right vendors, the right agencies to do that?
Because I did a small experiment. I typed into Google the experience marketing agency Sydney, and all the usual suspects turned up that do all of the advertising type work, but they’re also doing experience type work. And yet you would have to say that in many cases, it would be an afterthought rather than a leading solution.
So, how do marketers have to go about that? Because from a pitch consultant perspective, if I could see the attractiveness of having a one stop shop, but I’m not sure that’s necessarily the best place to invest a experience budget.
Troy:
I think you’d want a specialist in the experience field, to be blunt about it. I think-
Darren:
You’d have to say that, wouldn’t you? But why? The better question is why though? Because some people might define experience marketing as just organizing a stunt. You mentioned B2B before, and I said B2B expos in the opening because I’m sick of going to events where here is our trade … and South by Southwest is like that. I don’t know if you’ve attended it.
There’s a whole floor with these little stands. You’re given four meters by four meters, now give me a brand experience inside four meters by four meters. That is a prevailing attitude to what brand experience is about when it comes to B2B.
Troy:
Absolutely. And I can understand that. And they’re basically given a small area to not only give you experience, but really deeply engaged with what they’re capable of. And that can be almost impossible — not impossible, but it can be very challenging, especially when you’re competing with everyone else in the room.
That’s why I think you do need a specialist agency for those sorts of things, and for your larger, certainly like B2B conference or anything like that. Because what we do, and what my background in understanding, is those key touch points in that entire journey.
The key touch points, even on let’s say one of those little stands, you can’t just step back and say, “Well, we’ve done the entire campaign as an agency, we’ve done all the elements, and now, we’ll put a stand up with the same advertising that we’ve got on our TV and the billboards, and that’ll do the job because everyone’s been on the journey with us” and they haven’t.
What you really need to do is engage people quite deeply and quite personally, and make sure that every single touch point, even if it is on a small stand, but then in a much bigger environment as well, it’s great. Make sure all of that is really targeted and really specific to the people you’re going to talk to, because you’re not going to talk to everyone.
You talk about South By or anything like that, which are great events. I’ve got nothing against South By, I’ve got nothing against those stands. But people coming in there aren’t all your target audience. Not everyone walking through that space is your target audience.
So, everyone’s walking across your stand, you’re offering a free coffee, fantastic. They’re going to grab a free coffee, but what are they really getting out of that experience and how do you seize that moment to really engage them, inform them, and as we said before, walk away feeling like they’ve learned something, feeling like they’ve actually had an experience, which as you say, is very hard to do on a small stand. But we look at scaling those things up as well.
So, looking at it from a big B2B conference event for a specific brand, again, every touch point, it’s the same format. Every single touch point and every single immersive moment has to mean something to these people. That has to mean something to the people you are trying to talk to.
Personalization’s a big thing, making sure you speak to the right audience is a really big thing. Otherwise, you are potentially wasting money. There’s no catchall, you can’t have thousands of people walking through an expo and expect every one of them to go, “Yep, I’m going to come to your stand and engage with your brand,” it just doesn’t happen. They’re not the right people.
You’re never going to get a hundred percent of that audience. You’re going to get a hundred percent of the audience that has signed up to your particular event and your particular experience, and they’re the ones that you want to target.
Darren:
Yes, even if you have a stand that says free money, a hundred percent of the people are not going to turn up for it.
Darren, it must be an interesting conversation when you’re engaging with a client as to what their expectations are of an experiential marketing or experience marketing process is. Because there would be some that only know what they know, and then how do you take them down that path of what is actually possible.
O’Meara:
And referring back to your earlier questions, it might be a political response and sound like I’m sitting on the fence, but I feel from the time that I’ve worked in the industry that you go through cycles. You have everyone talking about integration and how important it is, then you have the birth of independence and smaller specialized agencies that sort of come through. Then it cycles back to big and integrated, and everyone’s buying up and swallowing agencies and it goes back to specialism.
And I think the duty on the client’s side, based on how they’ve structured their marketing operations will be dependent on how we choose to engage with them. We have different clients where we’ve got really set clear agency villages and everyone has their own responsible areas, and we collaborate really effectively. In Australia, sometimes it’s four to five players. Globally at some of our large-scale events, there’re like a hundred agencies, 150 different partners.
So, I think those grounds and how they sit will be determined on finding mutually valuable relationships. And that’s how agency client partnerships work, is when there’s clear understanding, clear R&R, and we know how to provide value.
So, if we are sitting there and we hear that the brands are already being developed, they’ve already moved it forward, and now we have a tactic within experience marketing to bring that to life, we weren’t at that table when a lot of that strategy was being developed and some of the plans that are being executed. So, we have limited amounts of influence within that.
We’re not oblivious to that, but we’ll shape our response and the way that we approach that experience and make sure that we’re effective within that, providing the right support to other partners.
So, that means instead of us coming back and talking about marketing engaged pipeline, let’s talk about the likelihood to return. If this is a set experience that you’re doing year on year, it’s proprietary in nature and it has certain value with retaining customers for you and increasing their lifetime value.
So, as an agency, we find the right approach to working and respond to that. And I think that’s where specialism does work, because you’d start to make sure that you get the most impact out of that. A generalist approach will always give you a generalist response. And I think there’s specific skill sets that you need to be able to bring that to life.
So, it’s not just insights and a strong value proposition and a great creative that gives you something that’s impactful and memorable, but it’s a creative that has the ability to do that, but also work within space design and think about human behavior and interaction, think about the additional sensors and how that’s then being tailored into a creative response.
In the same way, instead of just creating content that’s new and impactful, that works on TikTok or other platforms, how are you then approaching the content that’s being created for that one-to-one engagements or one to many engagements, and thinking strategically about how you disseminate that to support your other campaigns.
Only a specialist could come in and do that. Someone who’s been delivering experience for a long time. An integrated agency would struggle to bring in some of those unless they invest quite heavily within their departments. And where do you take the investment from? Other areas?
Darren:
Yeah, and Troy, I’d be really interested in your perspective, particularly from a creative perspective. I think there’s a dynamic or a mechanism that happens in an integrated agency, which is coming up with the big idea, as they call it, and it’s usually executed in some sort of paid media, whether it’s television or out of home or whatever.
And then, as you go down through the other channels, the lazy thinking is to then just take that idea and replicate it into the channel without really a lot of thought about the way those channels are engaged or even the audience that will change depending on those channels.
And I find it always interesting when you look at examples where, yes, a big idea, communication idea started, but then when specialist agencies have come in and that unique ability to really interrogate beyond the execution into what is the core idea, and how can you then execute that core idea?
I mean, God forbid, a radio specialist that doesn’t just sort of take the TV script, the audio and put it on radio, but in a digital world, making something that’s much more interactive because you can be interactive.
And then in experiential, what is the core of that brand proposition that needs to then be executed in experiential way and not just cover the booth at the B2B summit with a whole lot of images of the advertising? Because all that does is remind people of the advertising if they saw it.
Do you think that part of that is that sort of difficulty, that creatively when you create something, it is very different to then trying to take a different perspective on it?
Troy:
Absolutely. The interesting thing that you say there, I mean, that approach of, there’s a big idea. Now, I’ve heard that all my career, we’ve got a big idea, and a big idea should translate (this is what always gets said) from a giant TV ad right down to a postage stand. That’s true, but not as replicated all the way through all those stages.
So, it does need to evolve for the audience, for the messaging for … that doesn’t mean that that big idea gets lost, but it’s not just taking it and sticking it on a billboard, and then you stick it on, as you say, a radio ad, the experience or anything like that. It doesn’t work like that because you are talking to different people. You lose personalization, you lose those beautiful touch points. It’s just a whole different journey.
You still need to interrogate the brief, you still need to really have a look at what the core essence of the messaging is you’re trying to get across, and what it is that you are trying to do with these people, how you’re trying to engage them, and then what’s the outcome of that engagement. I mean, it’s usually a sales or it’s usually some sort of handshake agreement for B2B, but really taking that apart and then seeing how you can translate that into something special.
And I think the specialism discussion there is understanding how to do that in that space. So, it isn’t just one size fits all, here’s our campaign and we just slap it everywhere else — it’s understanding how to take that, translate that, and then make sure it resonates at every touch point.
And one of the key things also, I think about specialism, we’re a global agency, so we get to share information all the time. We catch up all the time from a creative perspective, from things that are working, for things that aren’t.
So, we get to really focus on this space, focus on the experience space, see what works, see what doesn’t, learn from other regions, learn from around the world, and take that information and go, right, let’s apply that here, let’s use that here. So, that kind of specialism, we really do focus on the best possible experiences we can make.
Darren:
Yeah, absolutely. And to define that or make it very distinct, I think it’s where the idea becomes represented by the execution, rather than the idea itself. Because the idea is usually, and best comes from some consumer insight or some audience insight, and that’s the bit that you want to replicate.
It does make it interesting because I have this conversation with a lot of specialist agencies where they say, “Well, we just wish we were more involved in the creation of the big idea, because then we could have …” But I also think it works that if the big idea is created by say, the agency of record, bringing them in certainly earlier, but not necessarily at the time of creation, but bringing your specialist agencies into the mix so that they’ve got time to really understand what the underlying idea is, not the execution.
And then start working through how that can be executed in their particular area of specialism can work very well. Because one of the hardest things creatively is having lots of people there when the dish is being cooked and everyone having a point of view. I think every creative person will tell you that while it can be a collaborative process, ultimately, an idea appears in one person’s mind at any point in time, and it’s never created in a workshop of 30 people and a whiteboard.
So, it gives me an insight into why that works better sometimes than trying to get an idea that works across every channel. Because the best specialists will make the idea work in the channel that they know best.
O’Meara:
Yeah. That’s why I’m such a big fan of R&R, and sometimes our clients, they’ve got clear agency models because if we’ve worked collaboratively before. We’re at that stage and we understand boundaries through that process, so they invite you earlier.
I think this challenge is because the industry’s changing so much as well. So, if you’re having a blurb between digital and physical at the moment, and we’re starting to see new technologies that are changing the way people engage and interact, who’s the specialist then in that moment?
Darren:
I do have a problem with technology specialists because I think everything’s tech these days. It’s like you show me any execution that doesn’t rely on some sort of digital technology, and I’ll show you someone that’s cutting out potato stamps and putting them on income paper, even printing is largely technical or technology.
O’Meara:
I recall a client telling me once over lunch that if we have a tech department, they don’t want to work with us because technology should be in everything. It shouldn’t be a separate department just for tech.
Darren:
Exactly. As a pitch consultant, I’d really like to get some feedback from you about what works when someone comes to you inviting you to participate in a pitch. What are some of the things that they should be asking about? And what do they ask about that often just makes the whole process more obscure?
Like how could you do speculative creative, for instance, do you get asked to come up with an experiential and show us how that would work?
O’Meara:
Yeah. And this might be oversimplifying it, but I feel that one experience gets you in the room because you’ve had the ability to showcase that you know what you’re doing and you’ve been around enough to do it a few times.
Then the second key thing is then, finding that mutually valuable relationship and that’s chemistry. So, if those are my two measurements, we are going into an engagement, one, do I have the experience to be in this room and add you value? Two, can I look at your challenge and ensure that I’m providing the right insights and know how to be able to work together?
The challenge is in the pitch environments as we often get these briefs that are not detailed enough or don’t give you enough of a clear challenge. There’s lack of communication through the process because you have minimal interaction with the marketing team, sometimes procurements have a larger say in it.
Sometimes at a later stage, you find out it needs to go to another senior set of stakeholders that come in and the brief read changes. And often, most of the time, post the pitch process, you’re actually delivering something that’s totally different.
So, walking through that entire process can sometimes feel quite challenging. And I think we’ve had some great results, and I think when it works quite well is when you’re in a room, and whether it’s procurement led or the head client from marketing teams leading it, they’re very transparent in how they’re approaching this. That they’ve reached out to us because they wouldn’t have started this process if they weren’t serious about looking at other partners.
So, it’s not a costing exercise, which is massive in the experience of any industry because they want to see how you’re tailoring rates and how you’re teaming, where people are hiding money through third party costs and how you’re approaching this.
It’s a genuine, honest opportunity and discussion. And if it is, then what are you looking to change? What are you hoping through this new relationship to bring added value? And then let us have a discussion about that.
Now, whether that’s represented in a creative way, there are tools now that allow us to rapidly respond creatively. You could use image generators, copy generators to represent some of our thinking and what we are talking about. Or do we need to invest heavily even more so in the experience and events response.
You have to bring in CAD draws, you have to wrap a particular venue, you have to kit it out. So, that investment now needs to be warranted for us to see if we’re going to work together. So, at the outset, are you paying for that investment for us to go in, bring our 3D designers and do that? How much of a real opportunity is it then? Or are you looking for relationship?
So, again, I think that process needs to be interrogated and the way that it’s worked well before is when people are just honest and transparent throughout the entire process because then we know where we stand and what we should invest towards this opportunity. If that’s not clear to us, then again, we’re all just shooting fish in a barrel.
Darren:
Yeah … sorry.
Troy:
No, I was just going to say, I mean, it’s changed so much and I’m showing my age here, but the old days of, you’d go into a pitch and you’d have boards under your arm and it was all top secret ,and another agency might be waiting in the foyer and you couldn’t show them anything.
That was very, I think competitive and not open and honest like some of the pitches that we’ve been doing lately. And the open and honest ones, you just get that vibe in the room where it’s, we want to work together, we know we’d work great together. Even if the ideas maybe weren’t completely correct or that was something exciting, but it’s not something we’re going to execute.
Understanding each other, having that conversation and really just being open and honest and you suddenly break down those barriers. You go, “These are great people to work with.” Hopefully, we’re great people to work with as well. We all just get along and that rapport gets built. And more of the pitchers seem to get won in those conversations, in those moments.
Then, I mean, certainly, they love to see a great idea. Certainly, they love to hear some great strategy and all those important things that go behind it. But that rapport is more important than ever. It’s not the top secret, “Here are my boards under my arm; quick, here are my great ideas,” and out the door like it probably was 20, 30 years ago.
Darren:
But there is still a heavy component of actually needing to present ideas?
Troy:
Of course, and speculative ideas. I think ideas based on a brief and some of the briefs, as we say, probably aren’t the clearest or anything like that because it is meant to be top line, come back and show us your thoughts.
Speculative ideas based on nothing, not so much because any of those sorts of things. I mean, they’ll happen with our clients that we’ve had long-term that we’ve built a relationship with, so we know their pain points already and we want to go back and say, “Hey, here’s another way we could address one of your pain points over here. Here’s a way we can help you out. We understand your business and we have insights into your audience.”
I think the process of coming back with great ideas and all of that, it is important. They’re still happening, it is still part of the process, but I think it is much about the relationship building in those moments than it is about all the other elements that have to go into it.
Darren:
Do many clients come with a, “Here’s what we’re wanting to achieve, here’s a what we’re willing to invest to achieve that,” and then a property that they may have? Or is it pretty much more prescriptive, or does it vary the full range, I guess?
O’Meara:
I feel like you have moments where you have really clear specific briefs, and then you hope that you get enough interaction with the team to test litmus test and ask questions to bold upon it. Or are you MI6 in the background digging around to try and find those insights. So, in order to produce a response that is accurate and makes sense.
So, we’ve had some clients who’ve had some really loose briefs, and I think we’ve started to be a lot more clinical about what we are choosing to pursue and what we are not. And that can be difficult, because in an economic environment where there’s pressure, especially amongst agencies, and it’s highly competitive, increasing your pipeline value is really important versus your conversion number.
But I think now because of the states of play, I think agencies are starting to get a lot more clinical and brutal in our decision making where if we read a brief that we feel does not give us enough description or objective setting or clear challenges that we feel that we can answer, then why should we go after it, because there’s an investment from our side. So, I think that’s what we are all asking for and we are looking for now as well.
Darren:
Yeah. Because without some sort of objective, ultimately, how do you prove the value that was delivered? It’s not just doing the work, it’s actually what are the outcomes, and actually agreeing those would be so important, I imagine.
O’Meara:
Of course. And that’s where your specialism will come in because how are you reframing that objective within the context that you need to deliver? So, even if the objective is an overarching marketing objective or sales play business, it still can be reverse brief within a specific tactic to showcase how we’re really truly going to answer that within the realms of what we need to do.
But then we need to have conversations that bold upon that. And I think the problem is you get sometimes these one-page responses with the very high-level brand guideline, and you expect it to respond back with a campaign that an incumbent’s been working on for six years. Starting off on 10 back steps before you can even respond.
Darren:
Yeah. So, Darren, what would you see as a really successful outcome for a project with a client? What would be the types of things you’d personally look for as a measure of success? Happy client?
O’Meara:
Yeah. The first one, yes. But I always would like to think about the effort that we are taking and how it does ladder up to business impact. And how we phrase those measurements that we put in place and the impact it has, and more important business metrics is how do you create those frameworks for clients collaboratively?
Because I’m not sitting in the room when you’re having discussions with your counterparts in other areas within the business. I’ve obviously got an isolated view within my area when we’re delivering. So, how can I then develop frameworks that help you guys internally to determine how much value we’re sharing with the business.
Now, this is challenging because I think you have measurement teams, analytical teams that are small in some businesses that are being hounded on by earned, owned, paid teams to try pull out information. And then you have people trying to restructure the way that we are looking at how measurements are being done.
So, it’s a massive ask for a business, but I think being able to sit across the table and look at each other, and have honest conversations about some of the insights that we are sharing and some of the initiatives that we are trying to drive, whether it’s deeper engagement within a government audience, whether it’s increased community building with key developers for clients.
How are those tactics relating to what you’re trying to drive as a business. And let’s ensure that what we are doing against that is reflective of your performance. And we have some beautiful case studies where we see that happening because we’ve been in partnership 10, 20 years with this client, so we’ve had the opportunity to develop them, but that takes time.
So, I think at the outset ensuring that that’s the end goal. That’s where we’re working towards and how are we creating milestones within our engagements to ensure that we’re reflective of that movement when it comes to performance.
That’s a very serious discussion and sometimes it’s a difficult discussion. It’s much easier to say, “Hey, post-campaign reports said everyone thought the [inaudible 00:50:51] were tasty and it was warm, and we scanned lots of leads at the booth, so you guys did a great job.”
Darren:
Tick.
O’Meara:
Exactly. So, it’s a lot harder to have those conversations, but I think without those conversations, you won’t have long relationships with your clients, and you won’t really move forward together as a group.
Darren:
Yeah. Troy, what about your perspective from a creative perspective, what do you see as a successful outcome?
Troy:
Engagement and memorability. I think that’s for me, getting that message across and hearing, I guess from the client that the audience, it resonated with them, that they walked away and commented on it afterwards. And potentially, if this is an ongoing event and some of these experiences are, is having a bigger audience for the next one because they’ve heard about it, because they’ve heard about that last time.
And that raises challenges for us because then you’ve got a benchmark that you’ve got tap for this audience again, which is fine. It’s a fun challenge to have as a creative. But yeah, having that impact and hearing that people really resonated with the content or with the touch points or with that or something like that, that’s invaluable.
And we know then that it’s working, we know then that we’ve got the right insights, that we’re talking to the right people, and we know that that will allow the conversation to continue in the future.
Darren:
Well, look, this has been a fabulous experience, should I say, thank you both for your time, but time has got away from us. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you, Troy, and thank you Darren.
Before we finish up, I do have a question though, and that is from each of you: what is your favorite event?
