Mikey Dale - Vice President Purple PR

0:00Welcome back to Danceplaining. Today we have a super special guest. We have the Associate Director of Fashion of Purple UK. Mr Mikey Dale, how are we today? Hi, I'm very well, thank you. How are you? Basically, we had a 3am night out in Milan Fashion Week. When was this? Probably about two months ago, let's say? Yeah, June, Men's Fashion Week, Milan. And how long have you regretted saying yes since that moment? Oh, every day since then, to be honest. Yeah, not much sleep, tossing and turning, thinking about your biggest appearance on Dance Plain. in yeah so obviously this was uh devised on a drunken night without me um not that i'm you know jealous or anything but this relationship goes back further there's been many shots had before that yes when did you first discover this young man wait how long you been at purple for originally it's two thousand years six years six years about six years yeah yes i've seen you at events before but not properly chatted to you and then we met at alpha towery probably about yeah year and a half I forgot what I want to say.

1:03And then we have a mutual friend, Megumi. Can I just also cover off, before we get deep into this podcast, we are currently, for the first time ever, long overdue, having this podcast upstairs in the bricklayer's arms. So that is why you could just hear the hand dryer. It feels like a natural space for me and you because that's kind of how we bonded, right? We bonded over shots. We bonded over socializing. We did. And, you know. So I heard a lot about you through Meg and I'm guessing vice versa. She's my biggest fan. She is your biggest fan and she's actually sat about four metres away from us as well.

1:38Yeah, shout out to the studio audience. Give us a cheer, Meg. Nice. So just to give us some context, Meg also works at Purple. Meg does. And Meg's recently had a promotion as well so Meg's now a big dog at Purple. I don't know if you can call a woman a dog. Christ. Edit all this out. But yeah, you were on crud. You were on crud that night because I turned up, I'd been working, reporting on the show and I came over and you were giving out glasses of vodka not shots of vodka glasses of vodka for people to act like they were shots yeah yeah and then what I like is and this has happened a couple of times now when I've been with you you'll buy these glasses of shot we'll call it give it out to everyone and then piss off yeah where did you go at the end of that night well this is the thing I feel like what I you know as a you know I don't want to so early on sort of woe is me about the fact that I'm a 40 year old man but normally you know I like everyone else around me to be to be having fun and I think shots kind of lubricate that situation I think that's what Danny and I really really bonded over yeah it definitely was an introduction let's say well you were the first person actually certainly in fashion anyway where I've given him a shot and then they've asked for another one afterwards we had had maybe at least four or five shots before I left brilliant show yeah yeah brilliant show fantastic show we'll go back to the future we're going to come back to Charles Jeffery and all your achievements at Purple but we need to sort of rewind a little bit and work out how you got there how did you fall in love with fashion well it's a long because you are an esteemed member of a very very I forgot about this I put up what you're putting in there now the Sartorial 7 the original English influencers skinny suits big hats winkle pickers pity umo that was you the only S Club 7 that really matters to be fair that was Danny's background that's fine which for the listeners Danny has me and the other six of my esteemed collective as his phone wallpaper until you ditched us last night and then I actually have the other version as soon as Mikey left which is the same photo but make his face crossed out.

3:58I've got to say, you know, that does hurt. Cuts deep. So how did you become part of the seven? What was the, what was the training? Well, that was all by accident, to be honest. And like, that's certainly not, I didn't think I'd be talking about that this, this soon, this early in the podcast. That's all we want. That's all we want. That's the only reason I'm here. So that was through the Terry Donovan, who is head of marketing. I think these days for Percival. We were both him and another member of The Seven, Alfie Marcus, Alfie Lee Marcus, all worked for Topshop back in the day, worked for Topman 214, the OG store.

4:43And yeah, we've kind of always been mates since then. And then we kind of both happened to go off into PR. Basically, Terry was working for an agency at the time, Coughing on Cake, and they were doing a video. it was kind of really at the dawn of what you might call influencer culture as it is now yeah can you give us a time frame like what were the platforms at this point was it instagram or was it it was instagram it was instagram and you had if you had 5 000 followers you were an influencer because i think if you search sartorial 7 the first thing that comes up is a tumblr yeah it was big because that was tumblr days i remember sitting in the album sat on tumblr and probably seeing these guys' faces all over it.

5:23Yeah. Yeah, but I think our Instagram was kind of our biggest channel. We had 15 ,000 followers. Good, DL. Which was a big deal back in the day. Did you have any famous followers? Was there anyone that you thought, oh, shit, this is quite cool? Don't. No. No, it's a short answer. Incels. No, it kind of came about by accident. So Terry was doing this thing with some random jewellery brand. And no offense to this jewelry brand, but I can't remember the name of what it was now. But basically he was doing, it was one of his clients and they were doing a thing where they were, they did a video called the Sartorial 7.

6:01Yeah. Where they had seven guys that liked wearing tailoring, wearing this jewelry and doing very kind of what would be seen now or even at the time actually as very kind of cliche, kind of sitting around drinking whiskey around a table, playing cards. smoking cigars all that kind of you know base level kind of uh stuff you know hashtag menswear hashtag menswear yeah exactly but anyway we did that video and you might have to edit around this but because i'm going backwards and forwards but i i was kind of known as not known but like i used to wear suits a lot like at the time i was working for like a high street brand but I wore suits every day to the office just because I love tailoring like my kind of roots in PR my first job was working for Oswald Boateng yeah on Savile Row who's obviously uh you know an icon on that street and he was the first black tailor on Savile Row and that kind of really fed into like what what my kind of look was at the time yeah he reached out to me I got reached out to basically because I liked wearing suits and that's where it came from and then after that video i think it was hack it reached out to us and they were like we really want to do something with this artorial seven as if it was that video that gave you the name yeah yeah so you didn't plan to be like this it was almost like a one direction boy band where you went in individual and you got put together yeah and given the name and then forevermore you were satorial seven i have to say the concept was definitely birthed by uh terry donovan hashtag founder um But yeah, I mean, maybe if you have him on sometime, he can correct me.

7:43But to my memory, yeah, it was kind of all a little bit by accident. Yeah. And like, influences weren't really a thing then. I guess we were like, proto-influencers. Class. You're going to regret saying that. Jordan's shaking his head at me like, that's not, like, that's definitely not the first time I've said that. It was jealousy. It was jealousy from Jordan's. No, no, no. it's uh you know i've only is that full circle moment of now you have to get influencers and you're like oh i was that young buck once yeah you look at that in danny's eyes and you see a bit of yourself yeah that's it how many pairs of how many pairs of double monk straps did you own oh that's a big question yeah i mean at the time at the time well i got gifted a lot got gifted a lot from dr martins used to say yeah loads of dr martins those were one of my first and i can remember how excited it was to get sent something for free yeah um i'm sure you can relate to that first time do you think that that's all been like really diluted now because i remember like back then if it was such a weird thing to get given something for free and now it almost feels i don't know just every brand says it's so much to every single person whether they got followers or not but do you think we've lost a bit of that sort of specialness and like what made it feel a bit more personal i suppose like the gifting as well felt really curated like you know you said dr martin's yeah it wasn't like random humors getting sent to you you know it felt like oh we found something in our niche do you think we've lost that a little bit it's just becoming bland i would hope at least for brands that um in my personal opinion have credibility if you like i feel like it's going full circle i feel like there was a period of time for a few years where everyone was just like send it can i swear on it yeah sending shit out like yeah or just like willy nearly like all over the place um and just kind of hoping that it connects with someone yeah throwing a shit at the wall something will stick yeah yeah and i think now at least like how we work at purple anyway and how like i think a lot of brands that aren't in that very fast fashion kind of um cheap space if you like are you know make you you only want to gift something to someone if you think it's something that they're actually going to wear yeah do they actually want to do they actually want it yeah because these days i'm sure you can relate as a hashtag influence here he is hashtag way too much already um you know stuff just gets piled up and goes in boxes and gets gifted to assistants and whatever yeah so nowadays when we gift people we always like are careful to be like make sure they've chosen something they want that's it yeah and make sure it's something that you know they're actually because ultimately the the point is you want them to get seen in it you want them to post about it you want them to go to events about it tell their friends about it whatever it can always be more detrimental in a sense if you send something that someone doesn't want it's a little bit like oh i mean it loses its value and on top of that i don't really want it and it kind of cheapens it as well what is the etiquette around like posting so if someone gets sent something and they don't post it do you guys then like put them on a blacklist or because obviously it's not paid but if they're wearing out on a bell like what what is a metric of success there like basically if danny doesn't post is he getting blacklist is all i'm asking he's already on a lot of blacklist for us to be honest nothing's with posting yes i just hang out with him because i feel sorry for him exactly yeah thank you i appreciate that no mutual interest in shots yeah i mean obviously it's the same as it's the same as with like press coverage as well.

11:22Like, you know, you kind of, you try something if it works. Like, yeah, sure. If someone posts, if you send someone something and they post about it, they are more likely to then get sent something again. But at the same time, it's got to, you've got to make sure that it's going to actually be something that then connects with that end user, that person that's following them. Because if it also, if it's someone that just posts whatever, every single thing that they post, then that's not really going to get engaged with because people can tell that you're just like a gun for hire, as it were. That's it, because I'm quite bad for it.

11:57Where John always gives me shit for being like, you haven't posted this yet, and I'll be like, oh, I'll do it soon. He said, well, brands have got this metric where you have to post it within the first week because that's when they were doing the... Data capture, you guys keeping an eye on people. And then it was like seven months later, oh, cheers. Yeah, totally. I mean, that's the dream. is like, you know, if you gift 20 people, you know, 20 talent or 20 people of influence or whatever, you obviously would want all of them to post in that first week because that's when that product goes on sale.

12:27And that's the kind of difference with talent or with people with social media followings, et cetera, is that's actually trackable versus like press, for example. So you want it to come out that week and you want people to be directing people to buy that product. If you have influencers then, say you're gifting someone what would be the ideal thing that you'd see from them would it be just it laid on the table or something saying thank you at purple for x brand or would it be like a post of them wearing it but not tagging it what would you rather see i love how this is supposed to be a podcast about you but actually it's us trying to work out how to get more freestyle yeah how can i get the most product i mean like i feel like a degree of candidness goes a long way I think like nowadays people that follow people like you, Danny, and like, you know, people that they're interested in, in the kind of fashion space are like savvy to stuff.

13:23Like they can see. When they're being shoved and nabbed in the face. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's one thing for somebody to have like hashtag ad on it. Like I think no one's deaf. Like everyone knows that's how things work these days. Yeah. But if there's a clear, if you clearly are really into that brand and either you talk passionately about it or it's you wearing it out and like you wearing it kind of out and about or wearing it in like an event scenario yeah whereas like laying products out or just posting a picture of a gift bag yeah doesn't necessarily that's more like just showing oh look at this free shit that you haven't got yeah yeah back to back with seven other things like laid on the table exactly it doesn't entice someone to um okay so let's go back you're cutting around town you got your double monk straps on from granson yeah at least double maybe triple let's go wild

14:16if you could get those i would have i would have i would have worn them back in the day so boat hang river island top man what happens then no so i actually start i started out at top man before i was in pr like um i was working in personal shopping in there and then a stylist who has she been on your show Ayesha Kambi not yet but anyway stylist she and Andrew Davis who's now a creative director of the face recommended me for a job at Oswald Boateng and that's kind of how that came about it was kind of by accident because I was working there in personal shopping at the time 214 Topman was where all the kind of celebrities.

15:01So this is the big one on Oxford Street wasn't it? Yeah, and they had like a VIP dressing area and like One Direction used to go there and like the stroke, like I met Julian Casablanca, which was like a major moment. Our friend Scott got punched by Justin Bieber in there. Yeah. I really, he was in a personal shopper. Mike, you met Scott last night. Yeah, he was in VIP personal shopping and Justin Bieber punched him. Amazing. In the back. That was definitely post my time. I didn't punch him. Sorry. No, I wasn't the puncher. obviously i'm not just a bieber this is gonna do numbers um but yeah so uh i started off there and it was kind of by accident like i didn't really know what pr was i think it just naturally i naturally ended up in that world because i like socializing i like to think that i'm a people person um and i like going out but i also like clothes and it just kind of naturally things fell into place, you know, and someone was kind enough to be like, oh, you'd be good at PR, and they recommended me for this job at Oswald.

16:06And then after Oswald, I was there for like two years, then I went to River Island, then I went to Mr. Porter, and then now here I am at Purple, basically. So if we get this into like layman's terms, what does a PR do? So the kind of goalposts keep sort of moving on this, I would say. I think like back in the day, it was all about column inches and page space. And obviously nowadays, I think no one PR does the same job depending on who they work for. And like whether it's agency, whether you're in-house or whatever. But ultimately, I would say a PR's job is, you know, you're really about elevating the brand of that person or brand that you work for.

16:48whether that's through helping them get exposure, through tapping into your network, tapping into your relationships to help get them press coverage, to help get them, these days it might be getting them onto podcasts. Yeah. You know, it might be... Also, really quickly, we'll just shout out the fact that it was Mikey who sorted us out with representing Juga Dexter. Correct, it was. Yeah. Well, we've got to give a shout out to Meg for that as well. Give us a shout out, Meg. Well done, Meg. Give us another cheer, Meg. she's a she's a really happy mancunian that one she's the most yeah the most outgoing pr I've ever met does being like quite a party person a people person is that an important role in being a pr successful pr I think it's not I mean it's not essential everyone works in different ways I guess but that's what's always worked for work for me you know because people know you if you're out and about if you you know try and make a point of being a bit of a face i'll say it yeah yeah like if people know you um and you know like i don't do it as much anymore as you say i always buy the shots and then leave i always used to try and be you know the last man standing and people sort of remember you for that i'm not saying it's necessarily about booze culture but just like i think being out and about and put your face in it yeah and i think that's how i really sort of that was definitely how I got my job at Mr.

18:13Porter for example was people just knew me because I made a point of any party I could get into I was there even if I wasn't invited like I was always yeah exactly I was trying to blag my eye into everything to the point where then people start to know who you are and then you're on the radar and that then helps your brands as well because you then become a sort of ambassador for your brands because people are like oh that's Mikey from Mr. Porter or, you know. So how does it work where you're working for a brand, say Mr. Porter, which is its own standard brand versus, say, Purple, which represents multiple brands?

18:47How do those two roles differ? I think, well, with Mr. Porter, it was very much like... It's interesting. Mr. Porter was kind of similar to an agency in a way, but an agency where you've got 380 brands, yeah. But obviously, ultimately, the Mr. Porter brand was the most important thing and it was all about filtering all of the brands that they stopped through the Mr. Porter lens kind of thing but then it was a lot different working in-house for like River Island for example because you're solely you're solely kind of putting forward the vision of one thing yeah and you spend a lot more time it's all about relationships and any kind of PR area that you're in.

19:36But with River Island, it was much more about all the internal relationships with the buyers and the designers and all of that. I've lost track of what I was actually trying to say now. But yeah, I mean... Is it tougher working for one brand? Because I've been in this new role where PRs are reaching out to me and I'll get, say, one thing from, say, like, Jordan Luca. And it's brilliant. It's one press release for coverage and it's once every six weeks or two months. But then if you have, like, a brand, a big high street brand, say, like, Adidas, for example. I know they're a high street brand, but they have so many products, so many releases, I get, like, 20 things per week from them and you can't cover it all.

20:24Is it harder when you're doing that one brand for that reason? Like, you really have to, like, filter it out. Do you know what I mean? Like when you're working for someone like that, that might have 12 big things going on in the year, and they might have like four little things going on each month. It's like at the start of the year, you really have to sit down and go, okay, well, what's the, what are the major moments that we really want to talk about? Because if you try and push out everything, then no one cares about any of it. Yeah, yeah. Whereas if you just go, these are the two big launches that we've got for spring, summer, autumn, winter, then that's obviously going to get a lot more cut through.

21:02Is it hard though with the brands? Because obviously they think every moment is the most important moment for them. And you have to manage their expectations a bit. Yeah, totally. And that's the relationships you have to manage when you're in-house. Because the designers are passionate people, whoever they work for, even though River Island might not have the same credibility as creatives, as like a cool young designer like Jordan Luca. All those people that work there are very passionate about what they do. And like, they think that everything they're putting out is worthy of talking about. And it's your kind of quite hard job sometimes to explain like, I don't think anyone cares about this range of five white Polish shirts.

21:40Do you know what I mean? So before we go to the next section of your life, back to, well, back to purple, I guess. We do ask our guests one question between each section. for the past make a deal what is the worst outfit you've worn or worst trend you've been part of oh my god it's very well documented there is yeah I kid honestly just before you get in there I really like the Sartorial 7 and it was as I was growing up it weirdly was something I respected and admired and you were influenced I was hashtag influenced so you can't say that no I think well do you know what Sartorial 7 is definitely not the worst I think anyone that has me on Facebook, vintage reference, but anyone that adds me on Facebook will see that there's much worse times.

22:28I think during uni my kind of, god there's so many, there's so many. So one kind of well documented thing about me is that I used to be a club 18 to 30 rep. Wait, stop. Where were you doing this? Kavos. How grimy was it? oh it was it was grimy it was grimy see i was there for six months i came back and i was not brown i was green i could kind of look at you now i could kind of see you being 80 to 30 oh yeah well you might say those that was my uh kind of um way into pr if you like because that was where i really had to like you have to be like larger than life which is natural to me like natural i'm I can be quite awkward and a bit shy and stuff so like that kind of forced me to get out of myself a little bit let's let's talk about some real fashion yeah because you're one of the big dogs purple run us through some of the brands that you guys represent represent being one of them obviously Manchester's finest I mean we've got a real range from like commercial brands like Lacoste which is like you know definitely one of our biggest clients Casablanca you know I like to think that we have played a big part in really establishing them as a brand they are today.

23:50We've worked with them from the beginning, from when Sharaf, the founder, was hosting buyer's appointments in his mum's front room in Paris, through to now, where they've got hundreds of stockists and one of the most hype brands going. We work with a lot of young designers, Jordan Luca, who Meg works on. We'll watch it, Meg. Jordan and Luke obviously blew up because of the piss jeans. Yeah. But actually, I feel like they're probably the next to blow properly because they feel like they're really hitting that sort of Gen Z market in a really interesting way, but not being cheesy or inauthentic.

24:30It feels like the design process is still really great for them. Yeah. And I think what they've kind of done that's quite unique is I feel like they're quite sort of savvy as a duo. And, you know, a lot of the danger with a lot of designers are the biggest challenge for a lot of these young designers. They come straight out of college. They start a brand. They've got no business experience. They kind of, all the press and everything gets behind them. They have like a big blow-up moment, and then it kind of peters out. They don't manage to get to that next level, whereas their trajectory has been more steady, you know, over a few more years.

25:03And now they're really having, you know, they had that kind of viral moment, and I would say their show in Milan was one of the most exciting things to see. in June, just gone. And then, yeah, we work with, yeah, as I was saying, a lot of young designers. You know, we helped establish Bianca Saunders is what she is now. Who else? David Comer on the kind of women's wear scene. Chet Lowe, Charles Jeffrey. Chet Lowe, Charles Jeffrey. Both dance-playing alumni. Yeah, a lot of kind of young designers that have been... Now, those guys, they obviously can't... Purple, to me, is like, you know, again, one of the big PR companies.

25:41and you know you talk about people like Lacoste and actually there's a whole other side of purple which we're not going to cover which is food, drinks, hotels, everything like that. How does someone like Charles Jeffrey or Chet Lowe, Jordan Luka, Bianca Saunders then have the income of a Lacoste? Is there like do you guys make concessions if you really believe in something? How does that work? Yeah I mean there's a degree of obviously you know purple is a 26 year old 26 year old agency um you know and to really remain relevant um it is a little bit of a two-way street and we've got those we've got those big brands you know we work with Hugo Boss in the U.S.

26:21um and as as I mentioned Lacoste but then it's the kind of young designers that have that like cultural cachet you know we're helping them establish themselves but in And on the flip side, you know, they're really, it's cool for us to be working with these cool kids as well. And that's how you kind of remain relevant, I think, is to kind of try and be at the precipice of something new all the time. So how do Purple, like, choose a brand to represent? And if you're an existing brand, like, how can you impress Purple to be chosen? Or is it the other way around? Like, or does it happen both ways?

26:59Are you guys pitching on brands or do brands pitch to you? I think it goes both ways. So as I say, like young designers, you know, they don't have, they don't always have massive budgets and stuff. So for us, it's got to be like, is it worth it? Not just in the financial sense, like, can we help really make a difference to this brand? And then as well as PR in all of our brands, we're also doing the PR for Purple as an entity. Yeah. You know, so that's always a consideration. but then with the big the big boys like like a lacosta who i keep mentioning uh they're gonna love you for this yeah you know that is a pitch process normally you know and there'll be maybe two or three agencies that are in the running for that um and you know when they're kind of on the lookout for an agency then yeah then that is more of a kind of there's a competitive element to that and that's when we really have to showcase like this is what we can do for you and if a brand leaves you do you have to like burn all the free stuff you've got from them you're like no I can never wear that again no I think like generally we try and because brands can leave an agency for all kinds of reasons so I like to think hopefully that generally brands that have like moved on from us it's not necessarily because they've been like oh that was fucking shit or whatever it's normally because it just makes sense for them at the time it could be like a young brand that we're working with and they're just showing in London and then they move to Paris or they move to a different territory and they're like okay well we now we want to work with an agency from that territory or now you know there might be a different reason for that so we always try and maintain those relationships and try and like you know like take Bianca Saunders for example we used to work with her on an ongoing basis now we just work with her on projects and like yeah we've always kept that relationship and this is a real i can't be anka saunders is one of my kind of friends in the industry if you like like i worked with her from the very beginning like you know she lives like she lives down the road from me like you know it's like i think people don't really realize that as well about purple is it's not purely we have the brands and that's it you do work on um like project bases yeah take 10c how we came to Milan so you don't look after Tennessee per se but when it comes to some certain rollouts then people will take it how do you tailor strategies from a big dog like Lacoste to someone a bit smaller maybe like an independent designer yeah how do the strategies differ how involved are you personally in those so me personally it really depends brand to brand what do you do Mikey chief delegates because when you're not there all the staff are saying nothing so uh it really depends so obviously i would say like the more senior you get you're only you're only as good as the team around you so like i would say like with so with it kind of going back to like how we tailor the strategy to brand to brand a young brand we're much more involved in kind of everything from start to finish.

30:11So, you know, because when they come to us, they're really looking for us to help them. Grow, I guess. Help them grow and help them, you know, they don't know the ins and outs of how the agency, how the industry works. So we'll kind of be helping, you know, they might not even know how to like, how do we get on schedule at London Fashion Week? How do we... So for those listening, that means how do you put on a runway show? Exactly. presentation you know what's the you know how do we do that how do we find a production agency to help us uh put that to help us put this together how do we find the right makeup artist the right stylist you know 360 yeah i mean it really depends like brand to brand but like um you know they might be coming to us for that and that's kind of where having a great team as i say like it you're only as good as your team because like for example my strength is not necessarily in like knowing who the super niche like up and coming uh stylists and and hair and makeup artists are for example scott croft for those wondering but like i've got people on my team like andrew uh chichelliato shout out to him and and meg again hey wait cheer from meg you know they might be a bit more plugged into the zeitgeist they're they're the next generation and they kind of they know that stuff so it's knowing the right time for me to when i should hand over to those people and be like well what do you think yeah whereas i like to think that maybe my kind of experience is where it comes in handy with those bigger brands because like i've had more experience over the years of of kind of taking a step back and looking at the broader picture and like looking at what a brand strategy should be over the next five years for example and um with like bigger brands they'll already have a marketing calendar which kind of to kind of break that down uh for someone that doesn't uh know about that stuff internally it's just kind of you know more if a bigger brand will have their own marketing team that already has a series of activations or activity laid out for that year yeah so like in March we're going to release this collaboration with this designer in June we're doing a thing at London Fashion Week in September we're doing this thing for Pride whatever it is Pride isn't in September but you know what I mean and then that's where we have to like plug in and be we have to adapt to their schedule and then they will kind of put a calendar forward to us and then we plug in our ideas that would make sense around that and kind of build it around an existing structure that yeah it's not too waffly what has been purple's most successful campaign and like how do you measure success is there anything that you've turned around being like that was insane and we can turn around and say us as purple made that happen yeah i mean i think again personally anyway like one specific campaign is hard to call out because we do there's so many things that we're doing like every day we're At any one time, how many do you think you're working on?

33:23Well, so for example, I personally, technically I'm across 17 brands. Wow. But obviously, you know. Not in the nitty gritty, you're like overseeing everything. Exactly, yeah. So, you know, especially with like the young designers, I'm more there as kind of a check-in. And really, actually, it's the teams that are leading day-to-day on that strategy. and I'm just kind of there to lend an ear if there's any huge dramas, which hopefully there isn't generally. Whereas the bigger brands, I'll be more involved in day-to-day because there's an expectation for them to have the kind of, in quotation marks, top dog, have more face time with that person, especially the Italians, there's a real expectation.

34:10They're quite old school. I don't want to generalize, but Italian brands are quite old school in that respect. and they always want to kind of deal with the top guys. Which Italian brands are you working with then? So Santoni is probably like one of the biggest kind of luxury brands that we have, as well as D Squared, obviously. So when you're doing D Squared, obviously it's such a massive company. Are you dealing, do you have face on like Dean and Dan at all? Is it just like, it's the teams? So D Squared, I should say, is not me personally on that account, but D Squared is managed by Purple. but yeah no that's the kind of so the the top guy on d squared is a guy called beniamino um our kind of italian italian stallion a very high energy pocket rocket that works in the office he is he's very much like in charge of being like managing those two and managing the profile of those two and he would probably be the only person that they would really deal with directly and you know when it comes to like shows for example he'll be he'll be the dedicated point person for them you know so if anyone wants to speak to the designer after the show or before the show it's got to go through benyamino and just talking about that i was thinking about like profile here you know you you work with brands say like a lacoste but even smaller ones that are just are a brand versus like designers what's easier to work with like to pr is it because you know you're talking about bianca as a person and almost you combine to bianca without buying instead of clothes is that an easier sell to sort of sell a sort of that a face yeah just a black a brand definitely it's definitely easier and it's definitely you know it's one of the things that we always communicate to a brand is like who is your who is your ambassador who's going to be the face and voice of your brand because with a designer it's very clear like Jordan Luca is Jordan and Luca yeah Bianca Saunders is Bianca Saunders Daniel Fletcher is Daniel Fletcher etc um you know um so with those bigger kind of slightly more corporate brands if you like Like we're always keen, especially when we start working with the brand to be like, okay, well, who's going to be the person that you're going to put forward as your spokesperson?

36:31Because ultimately people respond to people, you know, like ultimately, like if a journalist is doing a piece on sportswear, for example, I don't want to keep talking about the cost. They're going to try and change it up. Make it snappy. They're a good example. Oh, did you hear that? Hey, that was good. Terrible joke. That was good. But, you know, they don't want, they say we need a quote from Lacoste. Like, it's not the crocodile giving them a quote. Do you know what I mean? How has PR changed in the last 10 years with the introduction of influencers being the norm and social media, really? What has changed in PR?

37:13Well, as a person at the vanguard of the influencer movement... It was you! patient zero yeah we have to blame you for this no I think basically it's interesting like it's interesting to think what's going to be 10 years from now and I think that like you know when people that don't have any clue about how this industry works or about PR ask me what a PR does I think like that's it's like a completely fluid concept and it's going to complete keep changing because like it's it has really ultimately our goal as a PR agency or my goal as a PR is still the same and it's still about um getting getting exposure for that brand and like um leveraging the kind of tools that you have from that brand um to help get them out there as much as possible you know back in the day that was like a double page spread in the FT whereas these days it's much more um there's so many more elements to it yeah press coverage is almost like the cherry on the cake these days like these days it's also about you know uh it's also about who's wearing it yeah so it's so much more and it's so much more trackable and there's so many more kind of metrics to be considered i think like um you know i keep saying back in the day which is making me sound 100 years old um but yeah i think you know now it's much more measurable yeah um and now there's always return on investment like i can remember like click through and back back in uh my days of river island you know i used to get given like 20 grand for a press trip to take six editors to berlin yeah and you know just like party for two days and that was purely for relationship building and that was there was no like you know it wasn't like when I was putting that idea forward the return on investment was just like well they're going to be then you're going to be really in bed so to speak with those journalists yeah they're going to want to cover you more and it's going to strengthen that bond whereas now it would be like how many posts are we getting out of that yeah how many trackable links what's their retention like what's their attention what their analytics i guess i kind of want to rephrase that as well instead of saying what's the difference between then and now what was the transition period like when was the point when you kind of realized oh shit this is not the traditional form anymore this is now moving into the future let's say yeah i don't know if there was a particular moment like i can remember like speaking of river island press trips you know i remember those became quite infamous because they were always quite deborahed.

40:05Yeah. You know, and like, I can remember going to, we were going to Berlin one season and the marketing director being like, well, what's going to be the ROI on that? Like, have you got any influencers going? And that was the first time I was like, I can invite some of the influencers out to Ariel 7 if you want. I suppose that's the thing though, it just happens. Like you, because it doesn't happen overnight, it's a gradual thing. And then one day it's just the norm. It's like, for example, TikTok a year, even like a year ago, a year and a half ago, you didn't really consider TikTokers in that influencer world.

40:39And now it is just the norm to have TikTokers at every event. Yeah. Part of your press trips on your gifting day, stuff like that. And it just sort of, it wasn't like, oh, guys, we need to make this big switch to TikTok. It just gradually happens. And then you're like, oh, we're here. There's one creator. And then you realize now you've got 10 Instagram, one TikTok. and then the next few events it goes 6-3, well 6-4, 5-5 and I think it kind of swung like a pendulum I think there was a moment there was a time where for a long time it was really scoffed at especially by by traditional journalists and by that kind of world as well people kind of scoffed at these people because a lot of people from that world, there are ones obviously that really know their stuff.

41:25Yeah. But there were a lot of influencers that came through and were just like posing with a bag and didn't really talk the talk. Yeah. And I guess my point is like now the pendulum I think is kind of swinging back where I think he's got to be a happy medium of the two and the people that are really getting pick up. Take Tom Chamberlain again. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen his TikTok. Obviously you have. I'm not a massive TikTok guy. I have. Yeah. But I know the content he does and it's fascinating. It's incredible and like, you know, like, obviously there's still an audience. Long form content.

41:59Yeah. There's obviously still an audience for people doing stupid dances or whatever the thing is or it's, you know, Brat Summer or whatever. That's the real question. Are we having a Brat Summer? Well, Brat Summer is already going to be so over by the time this is recorded. And it's already on the way up. Once Caval Harris picked up on it, it was game over. Okay, very quick. we'll come back to carrying what you're saying sorry because i want to ask you yeah no i guess the point the point is now i think it's kind of somewhere in the middle where there's a new generation of people that are coming through that are that do have those kind of profiles but also kind of really know their stuff and like a lot of journalists as well are now becoming influencers their own right so the two worlds are kind of merging and it's not these kind of a bunch of like noob influencers that don't know anything about fashion and they just ponds surrounding clothes um and then these really these journalists that really know their stuff now it's kind of it's a real mishmash what you're saying is it was instagram then it was tiktok and now it's podcast horse exactly yeah sweet so we're ahead of the trajectory we're riding that wave let's go jods just on that kamala harris thing because i saw i saw all that uh where she sort of like went part of the brat trend and but then i was reading about donald trump spent like 68 million dollars in a week on like tick tock and instagram uh advertisements something like that it was big um like with your clients how do you try to get them away from trends like say this whole the whole brat thing or yeah or do you go quick lean into it but or is the machine so big that you're like by the time we can actually affect something and do something it's already gone i mean a lot of the time like obviously the challenge sometimes with like a bigger brand is getting something over the line while something is still hot do you know i mean because a lot of the time with a bigger brand you know probably used to have a lot with river island or mr porter is you've got to get something signed off by 12 people before anything happens and by that point everyone's forgot about it yeah and i think that's why people love i don't know take like Like Marc Jacobs content, for example, is because he's just like...

44:10Super reactive. Is super reactive and is straight on it and it's just like fun content. It's when people think about it too much and then dilute the idea and then it's over. I mean, this kind of leads into it. I have a question that I wrote down. How does a PR help mitigate the challenges brands are facing today then? um well you can't be you can't be one pr you can't be the same pr to every client like you've got to really like adapt your approach really the biggest problem in any market is saturation so many brands and there's so many people trying to talk to the same people so like the biggest thing is finding is finding your audience and i think like what we probably try and do at least and help a brand find is like who their audience is, who's their community.

44:59Because, you know, a long time ago, we realized that someone posting something to 5 million followers that don't care doesn't cut through. Whereas if you give it to someone that's got 15 ,000 followers, but they've got a really engaged audience and they're going to go out and buy it, like that's much more effective. And that's, we try and like help people steer the narrative and like make sure they're speaking to the right people, basically. like because he's saying you can't be every man to every brand but with purple is there a purple twist that you guys offer which is kind of like linear through everyone that you work with or is it completely like have you got like a a DNA I don't know how to word this there you go you're really good at this yeah thank you I should surprise myself sometimes my genius frightens me oh mate you're so amazing fucks it call that Josh don't what is the purple DNA What is a Pebble DNA?