Effective storytelling on any budget

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[0:00] you’re never going to have a successful piece of content if you’re just slapping something on the Internet or you rarely will um it still has to have the same layers of thought and strategy that you would do if you were doing a higher end piece of content you just don’t have that same production value sitting on you know the cost center of it hello and welcome back to the Alchemists a limited series podcast you’ll come to think of soon as your lovable know-it-all friend for State of Social 2024 my name is Andrés López-Varela but you can call me a it’s not often anyone uses my full name except if I’m in trouble or you’re a parent of mine so I’ll know what you think of me if you use my full name uh today we’re recording on the traditional LS of the

[0:38] Whadjuk Noongar people live at State of Social 2024 and I’m joined by three of uh our brightest Alchemists here at State of Social to uh have a conversation about how to execute effective storytelling on any budget so no pressure guys before we dive in let me remind you the whole series of the Alchemists is now available uh wherever you get your podcasts on Apple podcast or Spotify so make sure you subscribe to see all the episodes in your feed and with that it’s time to make the magic happen joining me in the studio today is uh Bec Smith the CMO of Sea to Summit Beck hello how are you hello good thanks for having me ah so good to have you

[1:16] here thank you uh Josh Gurgiel the head of POLY, oOh Media’s content and creative Hub hello Josh how are you H good how are you very good thank you very good and last but not least Dave uh Jorgenson senior video reporter at the Washington Post Dave hi how are from Washington DC all the way to Perth I am it’s you know just the traditional route everyone takes Trad rout you made it you made it absolutely welcome to the show um and actually what I love about this combination is um that the three of you have lots of experience with getting you know Big Ideas to work or experimental ideas to work on tight budgets and kind of having to prove yourself prove the ideas I should say um you know regardless of the circumstances and so I

[1:54] was really happy to be able to put you all in a room together to have this conversation because I mean there’s a lot to learn OB VI L you know we’ve heard like about Nike today and about you know Oreo and you know other big Brands but I think there just as much to gain from understanding how these kind of small Scrappy creative ideas and organizations um you know can tell stories in a way that creates an impact for an audience and a brand so I want to start by asking each of you um to share the biggest lesson that you’ve learned from executing an idea that had only a small budget attached to it cool well I’ve um had the privilege of working on a lot of different sized Brands um but

[2:31] one of the ones I think is probably the most famous I suppose is Frank green so their reusable bottle and cup um company that essentially now has almost a cult product for Australia which is a one liter water bottle so we went through a huge growth Journey while I worked there it’s it’s Australia’s answer to the Stanley Cup it yeah it is it is before the Stanley Cup became the Stanley Cup but you know we won’t argue um but yeah so and we had a very interesting campaign there which um actually like to remove the veil we didn’t create in order to deliver what it delivered but um it had some really exciting outcomes I think from a budget perspective so um

[3:09] we launched a a campaign called lucky bag which um at the time was just due to solent operational problem which was to move some older colors and some older stocks because we were doing a big transition of the brand um but what we did I think um through that so we created a product that was called the lucky bag which is a big thing in Japan it’s a concept called fuku Buu which a lot of the big brands do over there um and what you do is um essentially have a a product bag full of certain value you sell it for cheaper value and then every every now there there’s a lucky bag so um you get a special prize in some of the bags and it’s a bit of a gamble what you’re going to get right um and so we copied that concept thinking

[3:47] we’re going to move through about a thousand bags and we ended up um being much much more successful than that mainly because we kind of inspired this generation of content creators to create content for their audiences so we were lucky our target market and content creators were probably very aligned um but what I loved about that campaign is that these content creators just wanted something really cool and fun to engage their audiences with so unboxing this lucky bag which either had you know an amazing lucky outcome or you got the ugliest front green bottle that you’d ever seen in your entire life was equally entertaining to their audiences

[4:22] right so I just thought that was such a good learning and something that I’ve thought a lot about in campaigns after is thinking about my target mark Market not just as my consumer but also as this sort of generation of content creators that are looking for things that they want to they want to share and we know that as Brands it’s hard to be content creators all the time so if you can make their lives easier and they can create content for you it’s a really good budget hack I like that that’s a great idea that’s a very very good idea what about you Josh well I’m going to answer your question with probably the worst answer possible because I’m I’m going to answer with the most expensive campaign just about possible which was actually for Barbie uh so just a call 15

[5:01] just a real small no I mean that was obviously Global ridiculous Global marke SP but um obviously working in the out of home space what we found what was interesting yes they had a you know huge presence so it was it was ever present from an outdoor perspective but it was actually uh one piece of content they created in particular that I think you know which was not expensive which really uh shifted the dial which did a lot of heavy lifting and that was they just did a single bus shelter sort of rap in Brisbane right in in um Brisbane sort of city center and it was not a particularly elaborate crazy shelter but wrapping that shelter in pink in the way that they did it and speaking so strongly to their brand codes and tapping into the moment the social

[5:37] amplification of that we had Tik Tok and Instagram influencers and people and they’re also people by the way um going down there shooting specifically you know that bus shelter to capture for their socials to amplify so we had a stream of people capturing that content and amplifying which really you know for for the budget that was spent on that single one bu shelter right the online the virality but the the reach and the amplification and the celebration that tapping into that moment and bringing that moment to a physical space in the public domain right that’s where we see when we talk about alchemy like that’s where we see huge power for Brands you

[6:13] don’t need huge budgets to be able to activate effectively and essentially bring a piece of public space art to the public domain and the audience will come down right and essentially do p you know do that marketing or do that celebration that earned celebration for you so we saw that yes part of a 150 mil Global campaign but it was interesting what was the real kind of Lynch pin of that campaign was a humble bu shelter that really took off yeah I like that that’s that’s a great way to put it yeah and you Dave what about you well I’m coming at it from a very different angle abut video journalist you know I I was hired at the Washington post about seven years ago um and I was doing a lot what these

[6:51] guys are doing I was just making and making like really high quality videos that took weeks to make and then we put them on YouTube and it’s like this beautiful three minute sh with Sony fs7 it’s amazing and it gets like like 300 views I’m like what am I doing uh and then Tik Tok came along and uh this is about five years ago where I said I’m okay I’m going to try this and luckily no one really stopped me I sort of tricked my managers into letting me do it you know that’s basically just shooting with my phone and sometimes with nice audio but for the most part you know with zero budget making these videos and all of a sudden we have millions of followers off of that and so I guess the lesson I’ve learned for me

[7:27] is like it it’s very useful to have really high quality Clips videos as well and all that kind of thing but sometimes creatively to be put in a box so for us it was like especially at the start of the pandemic was like I’m in my stuck in my apartment what can I do that box I was trapped in made our videos much more interesting so it was like how many ridiculous things can I do from this very small space to the point where everyone knew every corner of our apartment which was kind of terrifying but uh still really fun yeah do you think that’s Chang things a lot like we’ve almost shifted more so to a lowii you know and I’m hearing that word a lot this this at this uh want to say why do I keep calling it convention my brain is

[8:04] in like Democratic Republican conven right now cannot get out ofnc sure yeah whatever you want to call it and I’m running that’s why I’m running for president um but uh i’ definitely have heard that a lot recently and I think that that is true and funnily enough I’ve been trying to kind of go sort of merge the two uh types of video I’ve made in the past so more recently our audio has been much better we have been trying to shoot on cameras when we can that aren’t just our phones but we’re still trying to make it feel natural and so it fits the app because um the worst thing you can do is just have something where someone scrolling and go I take this is an ad I don’t want to see it um so yeah anyway I

[8:42] I think that that whole lowii angle does help in sort of just kind of endearing yourself to the audience so I mean that’s a great example it’s very experimental at the time right and certainly for a news organization to be doing that and going oh it’s not going to be a Polish 3 minute sort of like right you know Green Screen graphic situation it’s going to be something quick and and janky maybe um comes with a lot of reputational or organizational risk attached right um I mean I’m sure there was some very kind of cautious looks around the room when you were like we’re going to put we’re going to film this on our phone and put on Tik Tok maybe some eye rolling as well you know you guys might have experience the same thing how do you kind of um in those

[9:19] situations Elevate the conversation from just being about budget and return so oh you know this is a small risk because we’re only going to spend you know a th000 bucks on it or whatever um how elevated it from that to maybe make it more Mission based or Purpose Driven to say this idea connects to our broader purpose and it’s important that we executed because of that not because it’s cheap and it may may not work yeah I think a lot of it is this it’s kind of cheesy but it is about building trust um and so I had already again I’d been at the post about two years when I started this so I I built the trust Across The

[9:53] Newsroom with people and so people were like I don’t know what like I mean part of the reason we got away with it cuz no one had even their phones yet know what we were doing he doesn’t yeah he just movies yeah and um so that helped but also the other thing I did which was part of the trust building was I started putting it as many people in the videos as possible including like the time our executive editor who’s like a world famous executive Ed since retired uh but putting him in early on was great for many reasons because one actually he was way funnier than anyone knew but two I could be like well Marty did it last week so you want to do it like can we keep so it built some momentum and it

[10:28] basically it was about building the trust but also getting people excited about it and that was the big thing and I think just to add to that like sometimes I think people think that lowfire content which is cheap is also not thought through that’s such a misconception and the best lowii content still has important groundings of consumer Insight it’s actually has to almost be the most thought through in order for it to nail its purpose I suppose for being and so um yeah you can’t you know you’re never going to have a successful piece of content if you’re just slapping something on the Internet or you rarely will um it still

[11:03] has to have the same layers of thought and strategy that you would do if you are doing a higher end piece of content you just don’t have that same production value sitting on you know the cost center of it it’s so much harder to make something simple isn’t it you know write a thousand page you know novel but to make that into you know a 10 page synthesis is really difficult you know and I think for for us when it when it comes to you know pushing Big Ideas or or EXC or getting Brands to exercise a certain level of bravery we really just lean into the power and importance of creativity you know in order to help I mean what a Brand’s trying to do right through any form of coms they’re just trying to cut through capture mental availability and really you know kind of

[11:40] resonate with the consumer so I we know from an out of home perspective 41% of Roi comes from the creative right so it’s not just about the where and the who you’re reaching but you you know almost 50% is from what you’re putting there so if you want to stand out the more creative the more bravery you exercise right the more you are willing to put yourself out there to be noticed ultimately well that’s an easy equation I mean that really should be you know pretty no-brainer so of course Washington Post Tik Tok big success lots of other channels like you know and likewise I think the Frank gr example is a great example right where something unexpected comes off um even if it’s your first idea and it comes off it’s a

[12:17] big hit you may feel it’s a little bit of a fluke um but there might be desire from your boss to go again or go bigger go really hard very fast um and that’s uh it’s a different kind of pressure right and so I think the fear of like the marketing sort of sophomore slump is very real you know people like oh I did this great thing and then it’s my next thing going to be any good you know when it comes to content creation as well um and you know we we’ve all seen a bunch of you know so many content creators who like flashes in pan that do really well but then it’s hard to kind of carry on so but people you know in this case where we’ve got stakeholders and bosses and clients you know people are really

[12:53] being asked to then very quickly replicate that success again so what’s some advice you would give to people who are kind of like enjoying that warm glow of success uh and are being pushed to create something bigger better maybe faster than they want to or faster than they know is actually safe or or useful to do what would you say to them to kind of like manage that situation so you know you don’t have that second album syndrome oh that’s a good question I think um there’s a couple of sort of thoughts that come into my mind one is um that when you I think um part of the

[13:30] benefit of creating this type of content is that sometimes you don’t really know what’s going to land so I think setting up a culture of going this is a little bit of risk-taking but it’s low level risk-taking so we try this and we sort of see what type of reception that we get and if we start to see that it’s getting a bit of traction we can start to put a little bit more behind that so um being open I think to creating different types of content and being open to the fact that some of that content is going to work and being able to respond really quickly to that is really beneficial so um yeah that’s probably where my mind goes is less about kind of the bask of the glow and more going just keep pushing keep trying

[14:08] things and try and create that culture that that’s that’s okay make it something that’s kind of accepted rather than than a fluke I guess yeah 100% what do you guys think would you agree with that yeah I think you just kind of landed or maybe you were maybe you weren’t I don’t know but part of that for me is that like knowing that it’s almost inevitable to have a follow-up video at one point that’s not going to do as well and like being okay with that both the everyone involved understanding that that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad it’s just like you’re trying new thing it allows you to keep trying new things because if you go oh we tried this other thing and that didn’t work let’s go back to what we did the first time that’s not necessarily the move you want to just keep not

[14:45] literally just throwing stuff at a wall necessarily but at least like being open to evolving it because that’s that’s been the big thing for us is like how can we evolve this content to something new and different to the point where now the stuff we did 5 years ago is almost completely different from what we’re doing today and that’s a good thing I would say if you want to avoid second album syndrome just listen to Metallica’s Ride the Lightning that is a damn good second album but more so you know I think um that’s good advice it’s about you know what did they do well well and I think you know the the key actually is always and here they are no the key I think is always also just back

[15:20] to the objectives because at the end if you’re always anchored in the objective of the content in what you’re trying to achieve and the objectives typically if you have seen TR you have seen success well those objectives are possibly shifting as a result of that success so you have to always be anchored in what you’re going for not looking backwards but continually moving forwards I think that’s a really good point and also that D tell us nasty with what you said Dave that the you know if you’re still creating the same thing then you are going to have that’s often where the where the pressure comes right where it’s like we want you to do the same thing and do it again like you know like if if there’s a Barbie sequel you can’t

[15:54] wrap the same bus shelter you know you can’t do that again you know like it’s it’s about moving on from that in a constructive and creative way because you may also have other priorities that are competing as well so you know being realistic about that I think is important right yeah absolutely I mean yeah it’s funny that’s a really now I’m just thinking about different media movie sequels and things where the best ones are the ones that yeah there’s a little bit of like almost a Nostalgia factor maybe but that is not the point the point is that you’re it’s totally different and it’s a continuation not just a you know remember that thing we did before let’s do it again to yeah yeah so the other thing I

[16:30] would add to that speak thought that for a long time oh what was you know K Red Bullet sorry back that’s okay speed too I’m happy to have that Patrick is carrying a movie not good um no the other thing I was just going to say is uh that can really help is U listening to the to the feedback into your community as well so whenever you launch this type of content read the comments see what type of content is kind of Rippling out from the content that you’ve created because I think um often people will tell you what they want to see next in a way you’ve just got to be really receptive to listening to your community and the

[17:09] feedback they’re giving you so that’s another way to I suppose hope that you’re kind of moving in the right direction even if it’s not 100% I I agree I think that’s a really interesting way also to make sure you don’t you know misspend your budget as well you know by just sort of because if they’re asking for something different than you can take that evidence back and say look we know we only got 12 bucks to Rob together here so let’s let’s do I love that concept because I know last year at set of social there was a lot of talk about listening to the core right if you if you’re kind of going to the core those you know real kind of the heartland of your audience they will often give you the gold and you build outward because you secure those

[17:44] Loyalists and that then kind of Cascades out and especially on a budget if you can secure I mean there’s obviously different schools of thoughts you know there’s a school of thought of you got to go abroad and like ceg buyers But ultimately if you can iterate based on the call with that yeah I love that that’s a it’s a great call good point um so let’s tackle the other end of that idea Spectrum Now sort of the bigger budget the Barbie style budget right when you have a big bucket of cash to to Splash till story or a particular moment where it’s strategically valuable for you know for the brand or the audience uh I think in some cases there’s a temptation to stretch yourself across as many touch points as possible especially if you’ve been quite Niche to your point

[18:21] Josh um you know the lucky bag example if you’ve been quite Niche with a specific execution and then all of a sudden you get a lot of money then you sort of feel like okay I’ve succeeded here now really what I have to do is I have to be in as many places as possible for as many people as possible uh and make that work like I guess you know I guess what I want to ask is how do you make the argument to your stakeholders your bosses your editors agencies whatever that maybe that’s the wrong approach that you know more money doesn’t mean we have to abandon the same kind of principles and values that we

[18:54] had with smaller ideas how does that feel Mr Mr Bobby buelter oh well again I’m I’m again certainly working out of home we’re so aware that like out of home never exists just in a vacuum it’s always part of a wider media mix and I think that’s really important always to be conscious right of again back to the objectives but also you know what media are we using and why you know because that that then comes down to it but then more than that I’m passionately a Believer on how how are those media channels working together and telling a consistent story and how we actually leveraging them actually to kind of even create episodic type you know creative episodic storytelling that works through

[19:32] multimedia Channels cuz we know like the fresher the more extensive you know the touch points with a brand right the greater the salience the more it’s going to resonate the more it’s going to be there when we want consumers to consume but it’s how that consistent stories told through media it doesn’t mean spray and you know just kind of being every but it means that whatever channels you’re choosing through good consistent you know uh data informed media planning then creatively are being executed um you know in tandem to tell consistory andure to kind reinforcing aent mess yeah that makes sense that Mak sense I

[20:06] me I guess like um you know Dave in your line of work oh you know we’ we’ve conquered Tik Tok or you know we’ve conquered YouTube let’s move on to the next thing at some point you go we are spread this is ridiculous way and then someone say oh just put the take the Tik Tok video put on YouTube like no it’s not how it like how do you kind of create that balance I think again like yeah through like the Creator lens it is sort of knowing your limits and knowing that limits are good things so for instance somewhat recently there was this idea of like hey do you want to like manage a team and I was like I think it’d be great to have a team but I

[20:39] think if I were managing the team I wouldn’t get to do what I’m really good at yeah and I think so it was this really kind of difficult conversation of like let’s do what we can but also I I want to make sure that what I’m good at I keep doing that versus this is a very common thing also in journalism that once someone’s really good to somebody you they get promoted to editor and in fact then they’re just miserable they can be and uh and I don’t think that I think it’s again I think limits are a good thing and so we are on YouTube now but we took a long time until we started doing that and then we did that we were very deliberate and we were very slow with it and we waited until and then once we got that success we’re like okay great we can kind of roll with this now but we didn’t want to

[21:17] you know we can really just dip our toes in because the thing is that we don’t want to be risk averse but at the same time like we already have something that’s working so we want to like make sure that we don’t hurt that by throwing everything you don’t want to leave behind the community and the audience being served we want to build the audience but we don’t want to suddenly yeah get rid of the people that made us like made us popular yeah yeah I think that makes sense back I mean you know I know you’ve worked at uh a few different places that you know have not had ginormous Nike siiz budgets um but surely there been

[21:49] examples where you’ve you know there’s been an opportunity to sort of go we’re going we’re going to tip a lot of money into this um we expect it to be everywhere for everyone how do you respond that do you like that is that like are you like yeah let’s do it thumbs up or do you go I’m not quite sure um I want to obviously sell a lot of products so I’m happy with that but no I think um for me it comes back to really understanding more the brand and the business strategy so what am I trying to achieve over time is it just about selling the same product to a wider audience of people um it was quite interesting from a sustainability perspective we used to have that debate all the time how many bottles is too many bottles where we’re not living out

[22:24] our purpose of driving sustainable Behavior anymore so we don’t want just be contributing to materialism all the time 10 Frank green bottles in your maybe you got too many and a lot of people would so yeah so you know no offense to them you know keep using them thank thank you um no but like as an example with Frank green right like what was the journey that we wanted to take people on so we had quite a large suite of different products different types of reusables some that were easier to engage with than others so everyone’s used to these days having a reusable cup and a water bottle maybe but what’s the transition beyond that is that food containing or is it other types of

[22:59] products and what am I trying to drive as a marketing team over time is it or might be Global expansion so great I’ve got a good audience now in Australia but you know what am I trying to achieve in Southeast Asia or us or wherever it might be so I think for me it was less about when the money starts to roll in um it’s about growth and where is that growth coming from is it cross shopping and cross selling or is it expansion and how am I putting my money down in the right places to do that and that often kind of means that although you feel like you’ve got more money you’re trying to do more with not as much money and so like the budget doesn’t stretch you

[23:35] always feel like you’re chasing the budget if that makes sense because you’re trying to stretch beyond your means um consistently and I actually love that as a challenge that’s something I find really in interesting as a marketer so um I love to kind of play in that space it’s interesting to think about the fact like then if you’re present with that opportunity not just be like dazzled by like someone giving you a team or giving you like hundreds of millions of dollars or shitload of money but actually go this is great I love enthusiasm but could we redirect it into this particular way because that’s going to be more effective way to tell our story and also not just jumping on the the the next hottest thing you know the next hottest Shin exactly the shiny new thing you making sure that there’s

[24:12] always a reason to engage or a reason to be dipping toes in new platforms or in new channels right and again does it serve the metrics of success because only then is it going to marry up otherwise it it will either be wasted money or worse you know the brand comes off looking really bad that’s part that and my personal biggest fear I’m very I’m much because again I don’t have to worry about money in the same way where I’m just like I do not want someone to go oh they’ve fallen off like that that would break my heart if I saw that and I don’t think if I have or luckily have avoided if it’s happened but guess you know yeah well there still time yeah this is the

[24:47] moment um I think this interesting this conversation’s really made me realize that that old adage of like the execution of the idea is like 90% of its success like that’s actually very true um there’s a lot of chat in our industry about the creative nature of ideas and stories and like you know ideas seem though to be like a dime a dozen really and even you know obviously this is naturally the case of a marketing conference event convention even yes um thank you maybe it’s the MNC Mar um like naturally sort of you know these these conversations about great ideas quite unite really float to the surface uh but

[25:24] it’s not until that idea is brought into the world that it actually has an impct you know the lucky bag is a great example I think of like an idea not even an original idea but idea then adapted actually in the right way has a giant impact like do you think we’re fetishizing do you guys think we’re fetishizing creativity too much are we sort of you know should we we be heaping more praise on the execution of the idea rather than like you know the the germ or the seed of an idea Josh is nodding violently so yeah it’s something I think about all the time I think yeah to your point you know there’s the ex or the craft right which is as powerful as the

[26:00] idea itself but I think also for me you know you come to conventions such as this and naturally you know there’s there’s a myriad of case study videos that are shown right and you know great ex and and we all get really excited right you know and obviously all talking about the KH winners and all this stuff right it’s all part of it but I don’t know maybe I’m just a skeptic but you know when it comes to Awards and that sort of thing for me the true success of an idea is did it work did it actually do the job it was meant did it reach the audience it was needed to reach and and um essentially prompt the behavior it was looking to prompt and you know so the idea in of itself and a beautifully cut case study video that you know has a

[26:39] great soundtrack you know and all that is great right and yes we get excited about the idea but I’m much more interested essentially in the fees right in the you know the the awards that are for actual effective you know marketing because for me creativity should be used as a solution to a problem to meet a core brand objective and if it’s not doing that then all the other stuff is to be honest it’s it’s fluff and it’s wasted so no it’s absolutely as much about the craft but and the execution of that idea to the end you know of what it’s trying to achieve I mean the lucky bag was not that creative at all really no no it existed in Japan like we just copied an idea and and brought it to

[27:15] life here and I think it really resonated with our consumer which was good but yeah probably the layer I want to add to that is just really having a strong consumer Insight is important and I think not just an Insight that has existed for your brand forever over time but really understanding what people are going through in the moment in time you’re looking to create that content is important um and that’s been a big learning actually um working at Brown’s Dairy which like is a real like you can imagine milk is a commodity product essentially I can’t imagine any of you going into your local grocery and think a lot about the milk that you’re picking up you’re wrong tell me more about

[27:51] that um but that’s been quite fascinating for us because um as a marketer I obviously want to do some beautiful campaigns about connection to whatever Farmers or families or whatever it might be but at the moment people are going through such a tough economic time every dollar that’s going into that grocery trolley um is thought about and important and really considered and so what we need to be as a brand you know for Brown’s Dairy that’s been with wa consumers all the time through the highs and lows of 138 years is a brand that is with them in this economic time and that is making them sure they can have their milk in the most affordable way possible

[28:28] it’s a they always had in their fridge and a they still want to have in their fridge if they can to have it in their fridge and so where’s my dollar better spent as a marketer is it to keep that price as low as possible for our families that need it in this moment in time or is it on a flashy above the line campaign that tries to connect with them and feels maybe quite disconnected because that’s not actually what they’re going through I would say a flashy above the Shel in milk yeah wrap it in milk WP it in milk yeah that’s that’s for you to

[29:02] figure out that’s not for me to figure out I would have another part I was also noding violently um I I think a big thing from like the sort of Video Creator perspective here is is the a lot of what we make is meant to look and feel effortless but it’s not at all yes because I mean maybe 20 30% of what I’m doing is creative but the other seven is like really hard work that we’re putting in to the point where it’s sort of there was this period where a lot of other news media companies in particular were trying to copy what we were doing and they found it quite difficult I’m like yeah it’s really hard and they would and they were coming like how how do you do this I’m like well like there’s there’s not just we had this idea and we

[29:38] executed it like we had there was a lot of work and a lot of people and thought and a lot of approval processes and all these things that I think it’s meant to feel effortless but it’s not at all I think in many ways maybe journalism is the best example of that because the idea of all the store if you like you know it’s supposed to be very digestible we’ve done all the research we’ve done resch you’ve done the interviews done the you know somebody sub editing somebody’s factchecking like all that stuff 90% of the journalism is in is in the leg work is in the of a friend who who had an old who’s journalist had an old editor used to call it shoe leather work um and which didn’t I’m too young

[30:13] to understand that but like it’s like it’s like it’s in the it’s in the doing I guess which is really quite valuable so that makes a lot of sense now we I running out of time before we we wrap up um we have just enough time for you to for me to ask you to play fast and loose with opinions so ask some questions that are going to make you meant to make you feel a little bit uncomfortable a little bit clammy maybe but the whole point is you can play fast and loose your Alchemists to Safe space okay none of your actions have consequences right so I’m going to pick one of you randomly to answer each question and the rest of you you’re picking us up random I’ll just look at one of you I’ll choose you yeah

[30:47] and then and then everyone else can then just you know agree disagree fall off their chairs whatever feels right you great um congratulations you’re going to go first oh thanks can’t wait so um as an alchemist M you rewrite the laws of the universe with your new discoveries everything you learn it’s like new knowledge right MH what’s the latest new thing that you’ve learned that you want people listening to know about so we’ve just launched this really cool campaign uh for Browns which is the dirt dessert campaign I don’t know if anyone’s a dirt dessert fan but it’s a very nostalgic West Australian product and it’s a really exciting launch for the dairy because it’s something our consumers

[31:24] have asked us for for 12 years um and it’s been really ult to bring back and I think a big learning from that um for me has been kind of actually coming back to um the communication earlier about those Sub sub communities and really like listening to that sub community and using them as this powerful force to drive the foundation of a campaign in a really authentic way um and that’s been a really cool um cool opportunity and cool learning is sort of listening and um and listening to that sub community and just giving them what they want and allowing some really fun um joyful marketing to come out of that and that’s probably my other piece of that is marketing I think sometimes we feel like it needs to be serious and insightful

[32:05] and like you know but sometimes people just want a little bit of joy and a bit of fun and a bit of a laugh and we should be taking it that seriously yeah seriously a good and I think you know if I can give that to you in a you know a nice little tub of dirt dessert Yogo then happy days we will so yeah that’s probably just in I think I saw an ad in the airport uh and I googled that immediately to figure out what it was strange things it is a weird wa thing yeah I I would say just on exactly that point Joy at the end of the day comedy comedy works right humor works I think my favorite ad of all time it’s a it’s an ad on a on a train it’s a Bible app

[32:41] and it just says zero Stars would not recommend it’s Satan it’s genius it is genius right like so just having fun irreverence irreverence for me is the key right I mean certainly in my space which is we’re in the public domain so make people laugh give them a reason to care but I think across all media across all coms like life is hectic right so the more we can give audiences a reason to care and maybe a reason a slight escapism because at its core advertising should just be entertainment right and entertainment’s escapism so the more we give them that I think the more power that’s good that’s good you’ve just nominated yourself for the second question oh here we go yeah oh goodness

[33:18] so uh as an alchemist you understand the important relationship the delicate balance between humanity and the natural world so who runs the natural world is it cats or dogs see oh okay I to be honest I have to say I have to say cats to be honest um yep yeah and and the reason for that I’ll tell you the reason for that what made you yeah yeah that’s right I’m primed no no the reason for that is um my daughter my oldest daughter Maisy hates dogs uh and is a cat like she’s a human cat like and she runs the house so she runs the world true like that thank you yeah that’s the first right answer we’ve had on that

[33:55] question I’m glad me as a as an alchemist you make a magical compound in your Apothecary that can wipe out one of the social mediums just like that oh which one do you use it on and why wow just a social meaning like a platform an app you’ve got enough you got a dose that wipes out one that’s it yeah oh my goodness reals reals inst Instagram Instagram Instagram we’re on it all of it just all of it hate it we’re on it I hate it um don’t tell anyone but tell everyone I don’t like it um it dries it’s not for us specifically every

[34:29] decision they make is the wrong decision um I I mean so you and merer are not best of friends love that no no I yeah who’s the yeah is is that his name every time I see his face pop I’m like oh they’ve done something terrible um my my last point I would make the my main Chism which they did with threads and I think they should have done is that real should have been a separate app um I think right now it’s too much happening I could talk forever about this but that’s what I would do my that’s that’s a fair anal situation yeah yeah yeah um very IV I really appreciate this conversation uh Josh Dave Beck thank you for joining us get back out there and

[35:04] enjoy State of Social we’re going to go watch yeah speed two speed two do it there is plenty more to wrap your ears around on the Alchemists including heaps of in-depth chats with this year’s State of Social speakers so make sure you follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and if you like what you heard give us a five-star review and tell them mate or two or three tell your mom the Alchemists is a co-production of State of Social and Creative Fix the show is produced by me Andrés López-Varela and Aaron Matthews from Creative Fix with additional production support by Cal McClain Meg Coffey is our executive producer on behalf of all the Alchemists

[35:45] I’m AO I’ll catch you next time