Espresso: Rory Sutherland & The Devonshire Founder... How To Nail Influencer Marketing

0:00James Hoffman is the, he was, I think, world barista champion, wasn't he, about a few years ago. And he's one of these absolute coffee influencer gurus on YouTube. And it's incredibly compelling. It's the coffee equivalent of Matt's RV reviews. Have you ever watched that American guy? Matt Foxworthy. You've got too much time on your hands, man. This was lockdown. This was lockdown, literally. Four of us as a family sitting at home. We must have spent something like 60 hours watching this guy review different American giant motorhomes. Anyway, but it's absolutely fascinating. I was talking about this, about the power of influencer marketing, which is those people are highly credible because they have reputational skin in the game.

0:43Yeah. OK. In other words, this isn't the influencer marketing where you pay someone irrelevant who happens to be famous to talk shit about something. this is where fundamentally two things okay which make it a reliable source of recommendation one of which is they have skin in the game secondly you know that in amongst their audience are people more expert than you so this is a wonderful guy called don marty who used to work for um firefox and he he has a model it's actually he came and presented it to us once of advertising, which is, in other words, how you optimise for credibility. Now, if you read a magazine, Woodworkers Monthly, say, one of the things you know is that lots of people reading that magazine know a lot about woodworking.

1:30So the information in that, if it's bullshit, will get called out by people who know more than you. The problem with digital advertising is you don't know who else is seeing it. Not at all. You could be the sucker who's been singled out by the Nigerian prince, for all you know. In a mass medium, you know that it's... This is why when we make our wedding vows, we make them in church in front of 200 people who know us simultaneously, we don't do it door to door. Because a promise made in public, for all kinds of reasons, is more compelling and carries more conviction than a promise made in private, fundamentally.

2:04And actually, that's what the digital marketing people haven't fully understood. Because they think it's all about who we reach, one at a time. But there's a very fundamental extra bit that you need to do before you get involved in any of that. And that is be good in the first place. You have to have a really good experience for people coming in in order for that marketing to stick at all. So, you know, when someone asks me for advice about running their pub is be there. Make sure your pints are nice. Make sure the place is clean. Watch out for those silent irritants. Make sure that when the guests do come in, and they will, that they have a wonderful time.

2:42And if you're not doing that, you might as well not bother. and I think some people are out do a lot of publicans just not are not there because I think one they said I think it was our first pod mate you're like when you walk into into a great pub you can sort of feel the omnipresence of the owner and the publican there I think that's that's true and that's one of the reasons why I don't want to do another one because I can't be in two places at the same time of course yeah and I think show me a good pub or a good restaurant and I'll show you a figurehead who runs it and has been there and is that person I'm looking over at that, at the French house.

3:15By the way, scope for a mad pub is underexplored. Did you ever go to the Tickle Arms outside Cambridge? Mad, what do you mean by mad pub? I don't know about that. Kim de Kelle, flamboyant opera-loving homosexual. OK. Who basically ran this... It was an extraordinary pub, which his obituary must have been about, God, 15 years ago, 10 years ago now. But the Tickle Arms, it was... There's a famous thing called Innkeeper's Diary, isn't there, by a guy called Goldsworthy, who took over the spread eagle at Tame in the 1930s. And Tickell had these unbelievable eccentricities, OK? So a friend of mine was there.

3:56For example, I always dick around with candle wax, OK? There were candles on the table. Lovely pun. And shouting right across the pub was, don't play with the candles, this isn't a nunnery. It came from Tickell, OK? A friend of mine was there, and he read out a list of car registration numbers and made the owners of those cars go out into the car park and re-park so that all the cars were facing the same way. And yet what was bizarre, it was an extraordinary pub. There was always Wagner playing. I mean, completely bonkers. And actually, I think the potential for that, I think, is underexplored.

4:32Just be a really cussied bastard. If you were to trade the Rory Sutherland pub, what does that look like in your head? God, he'd go bankrupt very quickly. I'd be terrible. The administration would be catastrophic. But no, I mean, there's a great Orwell thing, The Moon Underwater, isn't it? He writes his piece about what defines the perfect pub. There are a few things we can take issue with, but it's still not bad. It's lovely. It's lovely. Do you tell that a bit more? I have to remember it. It's only a short piece. I think it's just literally, it might have been a journalistic piece. Yeah, it was a piece of the times.

5:03A piece of the times. Yeah. Yeah, he spoke about the landlady, he spoke about open heart. He spoke about, you know, the place feeling wonderful. But I think the thing I keep thinking about now, and when I say that thing about show me a really great pub and I'll show you a landlord who runs it. Sure. You know, you go back and, you know... Kim Tickell was always there. We touched on Kevin Moran as well earlier on, and Leslie from the French House as well. And I think it's absolutely key. And that's something that has been kind of partially erased from a lot of posts because of the fact that they're owned by big firms who just put managers in, who don't live there and only do 40 hours a week.

5:45And most of that's paperwork. So, you know, that takes a bit of the soul out of it. Hi there, guys. Thank you so much for listening. As always means the absolute world to me. I need a really big favor. Please, please, please just hit the subscribe button on Apple or Spotify or follow. Ultimately, it helps all of us. bigger guests equals better conversations equals hopefully better insights for you, which means you can scale hopefully faster with a little less stress as well. So please hit that subscribe button and yeah, enjoy this episode.