Jamie Oliver's PR Guru: How To Unleash Marketing Campaigns That Actually Work

0:00And the food industry is massive, so much brilliance about it, but also there is a problem with it, you know. You have to be single-minded about painting. You have to make the general public care about something. Entertainment is also how you make issues come to life and make people understand it. It ain't something that makes people laugh or cry. Two things about Jamie makes him quite different as a celebrity. He's completely neurally diverse. Yes, and so he sees things that other people don't see. A young student posted on Twitter, Fuck off Jamie Oliver, you salad shagger. We understand food trends in the minutiae of detail.

0:39We're putting truth out into the marketplace. There is general principles that I think work for all the audiences. Like if you want to change something, find a solution and then make an entertaining way of showing people that the solution is something they should get behind. the tenacity and the pressure that you have to consistently build and that single-mindedness about argument is by far and away the most important. So Al, what I'd love to start with is, so you were cabin crew for Virgin. I was. You've now built this amazing career in sort of, you know, media strategy campaigns planning. What were the unique and surprising lessons you took from that period of time?

1:22What, from serving chicken, beef or fish? Yes, exactly that. Because I think ultimately when you're doing marketing, you're dealing with humans. Yeah. What interesting surprising lessons did you pick up? Completely. I mean, I'd say this job and that job are my two favorite jobs in my whole career. Amazing. And, you know, being cabin crew was just super fun. And I left school at 16 with no qualifications. I definitely you know getting into the whole Virgin world completely saved me and it's like at that time it was like such a long time ago but I was 21 and Virgin only had about 10 aircraft and 800 cabin crew so it was quite a small little family of this thing but at that particular time Virgin was you know at the peak of its brand powers and you know Richard was so rigorous around only entering into markets when you could really offer something to the consumer.

2:19And that's what you super felt like at the airline. So it was like, as you're walking through the airport, you know, you felt like the girls on Catch Me If You Can. Wow. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As you come through, there we are with, you know, your high heels, your American tan tights, your Flash Gordon outfit. Wow. It was like powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, and then people were, people came onto the planes and, you know, traveling can be people you know some people are really into it but lots of people find it obviously quite stressful and you know with kids and all that sort of stuff and it's like people came onto virgin planes happy because they were like happy to be there you know in that sense it was like oh look at this and what's this and what's the funny little touches that you know virgin are going to give me today and you know all of that sort of stuff and that i that definitely resonated with me from the first few weeks of working there that it was just like every little detail was looked after Like there was this brilliant moment where we started serving ice creams on the flights for when the movies were on.

3:17And we had this idea to put dry ice in the bottom of the boxes. So it would come out and it'd be like this thing. Obviously on an aircraft that was stopped quite quickly. Yes. And those sorts of things. But it was just like the magic of the Virgin brand at that time. Just completely, I was fascinated with it. it's like why do people feel so utterly different being on a british airways flight to a virgin flight when fundamentally they are the same i love you know this is like yeah so if we were to go into the apex of why that virgin brand was just this kind of yeah pulsating kind of energy like if you could boil that into some sort of principles yeah you said like you know the details the god is in the details the little things like what else was why was that such a brand at that point yeah Yeah, Richard was absolutely fastidious about answering a consumer need.

4:11So, you know, like when it's like, you know, sort of Stalios' model at Easy is like, you know, Stalios EasyJet. Then in that sense, it would be like, OK, we can go into everything and we can sort of, you know, paint it orange. It would be OK. And that's obviously being a bit disingenuous to them. But it's like in the sense of it's Virgin, they answered a consumer need, whichever industry they went into. So it was like Virgin Upper Class was emerging between the business class offering that was just inaccessible for some people into this kind of magical world. at the end of that so it was like on a flight you could get a massage when it first you know launched it was like um all the lovely detail of um the accessibility of getting to new york basically was just like we're going to get we're going to let you arrive at a price that you can afford but also it's going to be a really great experience so from the price which is obviously super important the whole concept of that business class area being opened up to a wider consumer and then also the small little details like you pick up the salt and pepper and it says on the bottom stolen from virgin or nicked from virgin atlantic you know i mean it's like from bookend to bookend they thought about it yeah and it's like in that sense it was like so you know the mobile phone company it was like they launched because tariffs were ripping people off that in so it was just like so you know richard set up an mvno like a virtual network which he answering a consumer need it's just like i find when brands say when you say consumer need like what's what's it's like a gap in the market yeah it's like something that you can do differently better yeah something that disrupts the market you know in that sense it's like virgin businesses at their best have always been massive disruptors yeah how would he find that untapped need or you in general i think it's because he's completely neurally diverse yes and so he sees things that other people don't see yes much like Jamie so they are they are immensely similar in the way that their brains work um and obviously at that time I was you know 21 and a lot further from the throne than I am here um but he was always very involved in things and uh people you know and never you know you never go into a meeting with Richard and he spouts sort of corporate strategy at you he's like but what do the people want what do consumers want how can we delight people how can we differentiate from our competitors like properly you know I'm not sure there's enough of that about these days how would you say Richard and Jamie are different I mean one's one's a billionaire one's not one lives on an island one lives in Essex exactly that's hilarious and so in terms of the neurodiversity piece because I think it's really that's a really interesting thread to pull on especially now it's more talked about yeah i think what the dyslexia was it dyslexia revolution yeah like the so so what do you think are some of the unfair advantages with with working with a leader with those um like the neurodiverse divergent yeah piece jamie's dyslexia there's two different parts to it it says one of his neurodiverse brain allows him to be extraordinary creative.

7:35Yeah. And I think that's a product of all neurodiversity. It just happens to be the way that his presents. Yes. But I think what's much more interesting about Jamie and his dyslexia is that it allows him to ask for help. So I think two things about Jamie makes him quite different as a celebrity. One is he is discovered rather than he seeks it. So he is discovered in the back of a kitchen in the River Cafe by Pat Llewellyn, who's a BBC producer. And she's like, oh, look at that kid. He's quite interesting in the back there. Whereas most people who are embarking on a career to be front of camera, you know what I mean?

8:12They want that. And I'm not suggesting that all celebrities are narcissists, but maybe some of them in that respect. So it's like, in that sense, it's like Jamie has this differentiation in the sense of like, he falls into this sort of quite extraordinary life in that respect. And then with his dyslexia, he then has the innate ability to ask for help. So he is a collaborator in that respect. So whereas lots of entrepreneurs are sort of like, you know, this is my, you know, I want to, you know, get there quicker and faster. And that's obviously lots of founders are like that as a successful model.

8:51But that is not what Jamie he does so he because he realizes that there are some things that he can't do and he's always realized that because of his dyslexia and so therefore he builds much more of a team around him a multidisciplinary team around him and I think that's what makes him I think that's what makes him last within the marketplace because he is not a lone wolf we speak to a lot of founders on the podcast and there's yes you know there is definitely the archetype of i'm gonna bludgeon my way through this sure they're almost a bit there's a bit of hubris there i'd love to get into like taking sort of jamie's creative kind of energy and go specifically into one of the campaigns you guys built together uh again i ask all these questions selfishly we're trying to build this thing called uh club hungry oh yeah off the back of the pod kind of uh monetizing all the content we've been doing for six years.

9:49It's like a subscription model. Subscription model. But I think the point of difference is, so bonus content one, but two is we can put on these sick events and be like, right, you know, we're doing a live podcast here. And if you pay for subscription, I've got no idea what I'm doing. I don't think that's true, Dan. Yeah, but as in like how to campaign, how to get people to bloody sign up for it. Yeah. So I think maybe exploring one of the campaigns you've done and bringing how Jamie's creative kind of energy went into that would be really interesting for me. Whether it was the dyslexia revolution or the advertising one.

10:27When I worked for a company, we got hit by that, the HFSS stuff. Yeah. I think that would be really interesting. Yeah, of course. Let's talk about it in the general principle of who he is as a campaigner, right? So that's why I work for him. Do you know what I mean? Because to me, he is the campaigner of his generation. so it's like there's lots of people that do wonderful things like you know i think davina's done amazing things for menopause you know matt damon's done amazing things for water it's just like but jamie is different in the sense of he doesn't attach himself to be like a unicef ambassador which is a great thing to do yep and those he has over the last 20 years employed people lots of people spent lots of his own money trying to make societal change and I can't think of anyone else who's done that in that respect it's like Richard Curtis has sort of done it from a different point of view you know in that sense but it's like with Jamie so we've got six full-time people that sit in the office looking at this stuff all the time it's unusual right yeah in that sense it's not out of a foundation it's not you know like a charity in that sense it's six people on the payroll permanently where he's going I would like to change things yes help me do it yeah yeah yeah so I think that that's what's really interesting about him yeah and then I think it's like his his personality his neural diversity if you want to call it that but I think it was just let's talk about him as a person and his personality is just like he is so tenacious he's like 20 years of sticking with the same issue it's just like you know 20 years ago he makes school dinners and I think that that I think he was like I think it was at your stage in the sense when he made school dinners that he's like I feel like I don't really know what I'm doing but I know I want to get to something big and you know those sorts of things and then because he made such profound change through that tv program I think he thinks oh okay we could do that again yeah do I mean in that respect you know what I mean he was like okay I've unpicked this sort of you know political world, unpick the sort of corporate world.

12:37And he's like, OK, I can see ways that I can make change. So I think what he thinks and what we think as a campaigning team here is that you have to make the general public care about something. And that's with any content, isn't it? It's like an episode of Coronation Street, a movie. Yes. I mean, an Instagram post, a TikTok dance, a new song, anything. It has to connect with a volume of people to do something. So obviously it can be, you know, niche knitting on Pinterest or it can be, do you know what I mean, mass market song that everybody's doing the dance and that's it. It has to be that it's just like it's either content that you make people care about or they're laughing at.

13:21Entertainment is also how you make issues, you know, come to life and make people understand it. so it's like in school dinners it's like you know characters like Nora you know in the tv show it's like the general public just became to love Nora don't I mean and love the the tension between Jamie and Nora's relationship and this whole heroic you know um uh policy change that they made with Tony Blair so I think that's the first and foremost thing about any campaign it's just like you have to create content that make people care about it don't mean in whatever way you're trying to do and then it's like from there and do you sorry to interrupt so and do you think about that like about creating the content for a mass market i.e the nora thing or is it creating specific content to the policy makers or is it both it's both yeah so i think it's like a policy maker you know leaves number 10 or whitehall yeah and goes back home to their own house they're just a person that's consuming media in the same way right yeah and politicians are just you know in the same way that they are they are also constantly looking at their you know at their at the society as voters don't i mean in that sense it's like you often i often feel like when you speak to bad governments as we have over the years and lots of good lots of good people and lots of bad people everywhere in that sense in the sense of how they carry out their job sure sure it's like when you speak to uh you know spad special advisors to ministers and they and they refer to the general public as voters you know that they're not looking in the right direction yeah you know what i mean yeah yeah when they're referring to people about how they can change things to make people's lives better they're the people they're the policymakers that you want to work with yes i mean it's two quite different things but you have to have a multi-disciplinary disciplinary campaign you know you have to have your big media you have to big you have your big hero pieces it's like so you know the big societal changes that Jamie has made have always had a big media vehicle to start off with so let's yeah I want to get really into this so like say take me into one of the yeah meeting rooms here the Keith Floyd Floyd Floyd Floyd meeting right what does this plan look like yeah so you have so Jamie will usually say he'll usually say okay what can we do ourselves and what do we need government to change so if it falls on the other side of the page where it's something we need government to change he's like okay how do we most creatively build the argument so for sugar rush for instance a documentary that he did so jamie was like all all uh you know foods that have a really high sugar content should have a sugar tax on them and he's like not for the companies to pay the tax but because we industrial reformulation he thinks is quite easy for the food companies to do and so he's like by putting a tax on foods you're like making the companies bring down that sugar level within foods and then across the shelves things are just more healthy for you so he was like i just can't stand it that the sugar aisle the cereal aisle is like you know that like the cake aisle there's more you know what i mean the same thing yeah you've got the effort they're all the displays on them what are they yeah like the gondolas yeah the names and retailers so yeah yeah totally i always thought it was like one of those things you get in the alps but yeah it's my weird brain and so he's like so we're in you know keith floyd and he's like yeah i want to put this all across sugar and then we're like okay well we think maybe the argument to build is the biggest you know the largest concentration of sugar is in fizzy carbonated drinks so let's do that as a story to show that it's you know what i mean that that sort of thing so we went to mexico and showed how coca-cola was coming into towns and uh putting their you know their tribes branding onto coca-cola products we showed the amount that was in in the products you know when things you drink a can of coke and you don't realize how many spoons full of sugars in it we went to a select committee in parliament to show their bit all the time it's like stunts information all the information is hopefully um portrayed in the most entertaining way possible and then behind the scenes we're talking to george osborne and his team about yeah how he can implement the sugar tax yes and those and it's just like and actually on the day when george stood up in um parliament and announced the sugar tax um he only told us like a half an hour before and so jamie went down i think there's an iconic moment of jamie in double dip denim outside uh outside westminster celebrating that and the sugar tax is now in 73 countries you know and the amount of sugar that has been taken out of children's diets is just epic long may it continue it's like it's fascinating um trying to change things so have you read uh do you know henry dimbleby wrote ravenous i do i know he well he came on the podcast and he talked about you know he talked about the obesity crisis in finland yeah and how i think he was basically you've got to attack this thing from all different angles.

18:24So I think they did a marathon, basically like Great British Bake Off, but for walking or something like that. They reduced the, gave everyone like ski poles and basically just this nudging theory, just attacking the motherfucker from all different angles. Totally. And then it changes. Exactly. And the food industry is massive and there's so many things, you know what I mean? So much brilliance about it. But also there is a problem with it. You know, big food is inflating us and big pharma is deflating us now. yeah but in that sense and i feel like that's really not the way that life should be in that sense and jamie's just that's where he fundamentally comes from he's like he understands growing up with his mom and dad in a pub yeah how you can how you can eat quite cheaply really well in that sense and he what that's his fundamental message is about that like you know food is a joyful thing and we should be able to feed ourselves um that gives us health and happiness yes in that way and it says and so all of his campaigns all of his cookbooks all of his food content in general it comes from that place it's like how do you connect people with food that in that sense in a in the most positive way so on the one side it's to sort of attack the problem from loads of different angles yeah and then on the other side which i find really interesting is is what is the one message to get into people's heads yeah so you know this whole that's the problem thing yeah uh i was speaking to um my friend laura who runs caravan and they're they're really like she's basically saying hospitality's really struggling now and the issue is they're like okay what and all these people are coming together to invoke some change and they're like well we we can't go with a myriad of messages because it's not going to go through no totally and so they're like let's spearhead this one thing so how do you think about that of like just just nailing the absolute no is that exactly i think it's just like so you know you have to be single-minded about campaigning it's like people have got you know i mean you're competing for people's you know like ears yes i mean and eyes i mean they're busy and they're also very discerning do you mean people and so it's just like you have to be you have to be like okay this is the one thing that we want to change come along and help us you know in that sense and the whole sort of you know way that you know i remember kind of growing up and you felt like every four years you'd have a vote and in between that you might be able to write to your MP and you might be able to go on a demonstration now it's like I can pick up my phone I can get involved in anything that I want to I mean it's a sort of democratization of campaigning is super interesting to me you know in how we how people can really how's it like obviously with the voting stuff but why else does it fascinate you well because I think it's like Andy Burnham comes in as PM isn't it it's like what are people most interested in what his social media channels look like because that's where the eyeballs are isn't it and it's like that so it's like now i feel like on andy's channels in that sense if i i could i could leave a comment on andy's um channels today do you mean that could pick up national media and that's what jamie certainly could but you know in the sense of like everybody has their voice yeah and that says it's like you know players like Mondami, you know, he is in power because of social media.

21:35I mean, that feels powerful to me. And that feels interesting. It feels like that everybody has more of a voice. And I think you can also within social media, you obviously you end up down rabbit holes of, you know, where your algorithms taking you, where your interests are taking you. But I feel like you can learn so much more now. We used to, you know, I grew up in a broad broadcast system, you know, where you're watching the news at six o 'clock, you're reading a paper that wants to tell you its owner's point of view it's not that way anymore and if in that sense it's like creators have become super powerful and that makes it very very exciting yeah there's i always say there's there's like doom scrolling or explore scrolling yeah so like doom scrolling is if i'm hung over probably with sure a bit of both is great a bit of both and you're just like okay this is i know this is just junk food for my nut but like i'll just keep consuming it but then the explore scrolling which is more like youtube is when you can get down a rabbit hole of like Like, but you've got this huge multimedia business, but you're actually going to, well, Jamie's doing stuff like vertically.

22:37I've seen it with the sub-sex stuff. Like that to me blows my mind. Like, and I do feel like that's where it's moving. It's just people want to see stuff on the street. People want to see just people just talking authentically to camera. Yeah. Why, what's the thought process behind, what's the why behind going into that now? Yeah. kind of well i think that's where the eyeballs are isn't it and yet in that sense it's like we we operate pretty much on every platform yeah you've got you know you've got going there we've got linear tv with streamers across all you know 36 million people across social media fast channels everything there it's just like so the vertical thing is just like in the sense of we are jamie was one of the first people to post on instagram he was really early to it yeah and i think he loves the connection with the audience he says to me all the time i work for the public don't in i'm in this to put useful things into the market for them don't in that sense so it's just like he's like i want to make sure that they're able to create the best roast possible on a sunday make the best pizza dough you know we have four and a half million people organically sitting on our websites at 10 to 12 every saturday as you go around the world wherever it is at 10 to 12 looking for pizza a day recipes really 10 to 12 on a on a sunday you can see the nations in the world that cook yorkshire puddings because they'll be sitting at 10 to 12 looking for a yorkshire pudding recipe yeah into 12 yeah and we've got this sort of enormous listening bag what other weird facts have you got from that listening bag now you're going down that rapid no i just i just think it's interesting like because ira is an ai communication booking platform where restaurants can manage all inquiries, bookings.

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25:25It's so simple. Click the link in the show notes to book a demo. You're going to love it. Yeah. Well, of course, we like we understand food trends in the minutiae of detail, right? Don't I mean? Because we've got so many things. So we've got this. What I like to think of this is this massive post bag. Don't I mean where we're listening to people? So people are like, you know, DMing us and putting comments on recipes. is it's like, I would like this. I don't like that. I would like help with this. How can you, do you know what I mean? Create content that helps you more of that. So we're looking at that all the time, as is Jamie.

25:58And he is, you know, he loves Instagram. He loves Facebook. He's really getting into TikTok. It's like those sorts of things. So with the new Life360 work, so that came about that Jamie has used the product for years. What is the, just for listening to the product is? Yeah, so the product Life360, it's like a it's like a family location app service um so one in eight families use it in the uk there's 100 million users around the world they're a big global company i've used it for years as well um and jamie has obviously got an interesting family you know he's got five kids and so there's seven of them in total and conquer the dog is now on 360 as well and they they use it as their communications tool yeah so you know like they're not they don't have a whatsapp group they communicate through life 360 anyway jamie has talked organically about the life 360 and how much she loves the product and so life 360 contacted us and they are a pretty cool company yeah so some of their advertising so you can imagine like location services for your kids brings you down to a sort of quite a negative place isn't it where are they where are they you know in that sense i could not give it to my mother i mean like what i've been trying to get my mother on my circle she'd be like i'd be in ibiza and she'd be like what the fuck are you doing darling she has enough anxiety as it is but like yeah i don't think that would be she'd be like following me like what is he doing no sorry but when we started talking to them we were like we'd seen some of their previous creative work so their super bowl ad is so funny yeah look at it it's great we were like okay this is an opportunity to do something really spectacular with them so hopefully by the time people are listening to this um this podcast that's out in the ether but we've made a six-part micro drama with them which i think you've just seen which is quite funny hilarious yeah it's a cephalets yeah that's guy yeah yeah it is yeah that's one of the funniest programs yeah it's the office it's yeah so jokes tom kingsley and with will hislock yeah starring it with jamie and jules and buddy um they really they've really done an amazing job but i think it's like that thing where jamie's like he loved the product so he's like make this campaign as creative as possible and obviously we've got a partnership with baby teeth um so rebecca lewis and lindsey aiken there and then chris whatlin the team there they are brilliantly creative and so we were able to put together three things that i think would make this campaign you know what it is one is a client that wants to do things that are groundbreaking that in that sense and be brave creatively creative properly creative minds who also have a network of people that are super creative so when they bring on tom kingsley's director will his lop an actor that they understand you know where creatively they want to go and then jamie who wants to do i mean as his enormous platform and credibility with the product an authentic connection with the product i think hopefully we've created something that consumers will really like and the reason for the vertical stuff is that like that's where that audience is so that's where we're creating the content yeah it's interesting because i think there's there's there's changing with the times yeah purely because but then actually you're just you're not you're never doing one thing and becoming one thing so with this we do long form conversations yeah so suddenly me doing one minute walking interviews outside it's just that you can't get into any nuance so that's not really but that's where the eyeballs are so i always find there's this tension between yeah doing what is core to you your creative dna but then not being stuck in the past and moving with that moving to the vertical format do you know what i mean and i do and i think what you said there you've got the creative energy of jamie you know what your values are dna is and then it's kind of following where the eyeballs are yeah and i think it's the authenticity of those partnerships as well yeah you know like it's like you know you want you want you know jamie the biggest thing about jamie and about our brand is that jamie is trusted yeah and he's worked really hard for that over the last 25 years you know so every recipe that leaves this building is tested to within an inch of its life and that costs a lot of money to do that but he's like i'm not going to put a recipe in the ether that doesn't work because his thing is i was like i don't want someone to go to the supermarket spend their hard-earned cash on ingredients and then have a lasagna at the end of it that they're not proud of he's like that that he sees the end game all the time of you know what happens in people's homes people's special occasions and he wants you know the trust that he puts into the marketplace is important for him so with the brand partnerships that's also really important to him so we don't work with brands that you know don't don't fit with us um like hand in glove really of those sorts of things so we've got lots of so we work we work with a supermarket in South Africa, Checkers, and they are a brilliant, brilliant, really progressive supermarket.

30:58They've got, so Jamie's like, I think that when you leave work, he was like, if you're a young mum, you've got three kids and you think, oh my God, what the bloody hell is for dinner tonight? He's like, I want to help. So he's like, with Checkers, how do we help her? And then we say with them, we develop this whole concept around Jamie he provides the recipe the recipe is easily accessible with ingredients that are affordable and easy to get on checkers and that those ingredients can be delivered to you within 60 minutes it's like that feels to me like that's beneficial to that mum who's leaving work you know in that sense and so therefore the partnership has been really successful because it's authentic it all starts with that being of what you said about being in service to the public exactly interesting exactly because actually i think a lot of people want to go and be like look at me but yeah but actually if you're just in service to people it will come as you say he'll never be he was never sought he was seeked yeah people people came to him totally i mean people are people are absolutely i know in my life i'm correct i'm absolutely craving authenticity all the time isn't it i think when you see you know like you know like on channel four at the moment like truly precious you know she's just come into my life and i say she's truly precious I mean, she is so authentic.

32:16I don't even know if migrants are so truly precious. She's just got a new series on Channel 4. It's called The Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives. Right. And she's a young TikToker that lives along the South Coast. And she's trying to show that if you are brought up, you know, with difficult circumstances, you are able to do something else rather than become a young mum. And I think her conversation is so authentic. Yes. And I think that's what, you know, that's why people like Jamie, because he is utterly himself in almost all circumstances. And also I think authenticity will always be relevant. Because you can't fake it.

33:01Yeah. And also because that is human interaction, isn't it? It's like people know when people are faking it. People know when people are on the make. People know when people are being nasty for no reason. Do you know what I mean? it's just like that is human interaction so in that sense so it's just like it's no different in the way that a celebrity or a platform or a brand interact with each other there has to be a degree of authenticity to it what's the art of get like getting big sponsorship deals like or and like sort of painting the vision if that makes sense and then getting the sign off because that's a whole new world to me and it's like all these you need buying from this person that person yeah don't do a deal just because the money's good yeah do a deal because it works for that for who you're trying to reach how can you give benefits to your audience about with what why we're working with that brand you know i mean are there you know we're when we do when we do things with brands it's like often we're giving discounts to our audiences or you know things like that about what's the tie-ups with it but yeah i think it's i think you know in your gut when a partnership is right yeah when we were when we were a bit desperate for money i started reaching i reached out to an ice bath company i was like this is a bit tenuous but i was like yeah chefs are stressed so they just plop in an ice bath but i was they never went anywhere but yeah no that's so fascinating so it's yeah it's almost having that fit isn't it that thread of authenticity yeah it's like the tinder isn't it of like dating isn't it it's like the same thing isn't it it's like who's for you and who's not for you in that sense it's just like everybody doesn't fit together yeah but you know those sort of things and it's just like you have to find the partners where you know you need something they need something you know together it's just like you're reaching different audiences but you're fundamentally pushing in the same direction in terms of um planning these campaigns right so you basically said you have you kind of know who you're trying to uh speak to the change you're seeking to make how you're going to do it through entertainment entertainment authenticity right brand partnerships yeah and pressure it's pressure in that as well isn't it it's like how do you put you know pressure groups are called pressure groups for a reason so it's like the campaigns have to build enough that the policy makers and the people who can make decisions feel the pressure it's just like you know jamie often talks about uh you know a conversation that he had with Tony Blair, it was about like, build the argument, make me feel the pressure, because that's the way I can get it over the line.

35:30Don't I mean, it's like politicians need to feel that the public is behind what they are implementing. You know, things like the social media ban recently, it's like, you know, all the things that Jamie's done, the sugar tax, you know, hfss advertising um school food they've all been implemented because the public wants them energy drinks all of those sorts of things it's just like politicians aren't going to do anything that they don't think is going to be popular unless it's to put money in the treasury and they say so you have to build the pressure to allow them to bat it over the line for you build a pressure build the pressure through a strong argument let's get into the strong argument Yeah.

36:13And then you have politicians, though, then like George Osborne. Yeah. He's like he he often says on his podcast on political currency. It's like, you know, the sugar tax is the proudest moment of his political career. You know, in that sense, whatever, you know, whatever your politics are, however, you know, things. It's just like George did a good thing that day and it wasn't easy to do. And now he's like, it's the proudest thing I've done, you know, because these things are very difficult to all stitch together. the legislation is super hard to get across the line yeah you know the energy drinks conversation is like you know we started it in 2018 you know as our conversation with the mirror it is still not done that i mean the under 16s when it says not for children not on the side of an energy drink it is still not done that those those energy drinks are not bought by kids that's sort of madness to me but that is the world of legislation and so it's like the tenacity and the pressure that you have to consistently build.

37:13And that single-mindedness about argument is by far and away the most important. And with the argument piece, is that, so like add enough, like there's a, I think having a pithy one-liner, which is easily shareable is like one element of it. Like what other elements are making a really strong, persuasive, pressurizing argument? Yeah, I mean, you have to make it. So I always think when I say to the teams, it's just like, make me something it makes people laugh or cry. In that sense, it's always like there is the emotional argument of it. I mean, we're talking about, you know, Jamie had a throwaway comment this week about an interview with The Telegraph, I think, two weeks ago, where they asked him a question of, you know, what's the one thing that you'd like to do in a throwaway comment?

38:00He was like, oh, I quite like to. I was walking down the street the other day and I quite like to not have chewing gum all over the street, quite like to ban that. They've done it in Singapore. Seems to work out really well. often with Jamie those things then create national news yeah and then there's a whole debate around you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah should we or should we not you know yeah but you know like this use of banning you know like stopping the thing it's just like well ultimately that's what policy usually is stop funding something or stopping or starting something do you know I mean there's not a lot of other policies that do anything like that so this whole concept of banning And it's just like also it's just like about how we start to talk about building those intellectual and emotional arguments around an issue.

38:43Before I started working for Jamie, I knew nothing about the food industry. And it's like how it operates, where the money flows through it, who are the ownership. You know, there's 10 big companies that produce 95 percent of our food. I mean, that's wild. Yeah, it's mad. in that sense so it's just like so it's also it's like how do you get the education out how do you be single-minded about it as you said it's like add enough how do you be pithy about and single-minded about the argument but it's how do you weave in the full education around the campaign to stop people going rightly because i understand it's like oh does jamie want to ban everything you know all that it's like on our feeds every day is every single day we have a jamie you took my turkey Twizzlers away you know brilliant it's quite fun you know yeah yeah yeah like how a 54 year old a 44 year old think completely differently to how a 24 year old thinks about Jamie that's all quite fascinating but but that that argument that piece of entertainment what you build around it that's important about like how you place your argument down because ultimately you're trying to do something that's quite that's quite interventionist mainly around you know um child health so it's like how do you take the public along with you and not piss them off you know those sorts of things so it's like but i think um i think with jamie it's like he starts from a he starts from a really good place and i mean that in not in a in a good or bad person i mean like from what he's trying to achieve he always sort of understands where he's trying to get to and i think he's not worried if that takes him five months or 15 years the piece about like the intellectual and the emotional argument yeah and the kind of getting them to co-alise yeah because i think yeah intellectual is is hard for a lot of especially if you need mass market for people to understand can be it's kind of hard like i think people are much cleverer than everyone gives a bit of credit for i think it's just i feel like to you know like that what my point was like how do you get it to land not not they don't understand it it's like how to make something intellectual emotional at the same time yeah no definitely definitely i think it's like he comes back to the places now i think that jamie's like you know he he's like cooking saved me right sure he's like you know this is who i cooking saved me i'm in my pub i then go to school it's like you know school's a hard place for him and then he gets an opportunity to do a cookbook right and he's like I'm dyslexic things dance around the page for me I really find it easy to cook myself my ideas super flow but how do I get other people to be involved in this and it's like the cookbook sort of no different you know the recipe books that he's produced over the years are no different to a social you know a societal change campaign that he's putting together because he's trying to allow as many people as possible access to the content that he's producing so it's like cookbooks used to be more like sort of manuals didn't they like you know and and lots of lots of instructions and obviously there's a super place for those books as well but what jamie's trying to do is if you're really trying to give it a go don't you mean you want to do something that's amazing for your family on a saturday night I'm going to make it as easy as possible for you and I think in the same way that's what he's trying to do with the campaigns so there's a big marketing guy called Dave Trott who we interviewed the other week and he was the guy who did he was doing a Toshiba campaign and he came up with an hello Tosh got a Toshiba and it was just that simple pithy language and I think the market share of Toshiba went up and it's the same with add enough it's that something simple but profound and shareable totally it's how we'd like you know have ad lines in our like general everyday vernacular isn't it it's just yes you know and mine will be different to yours yeah because i don't know i mean i just i'm only suggesting than i am but i think that the see it say it's sorted one is really interesting see it say it's sorted totally when that first came out i i thought what why was i now i'm like totally on it yeah because i thought it should be it should be like uh rhymes so see it say it sort it yeah but then i spoke to this guy who runs a big agency he was like the sorted means that the problem's solved without you having to yeah yeah yeah and it's like really clever yeah it's um completely i love all those things i want to talk about the which you briefly touched on now is that like um different audiences yeah so youngsters coming into the jamie orbit yeah the people still being satiated with everything jamie's done in the past yeah again from this creative If core nucleus, how do you think about that?

43:33I think about it, to me, I think about it in three different audiences that we have. So we have a program called 10 Skills, which is now in half of all secondary schools in the UK. And we've just launched a primary school program and we've got thousands of schools signing up for it. And it's like a 10 Skills. And so Jamie's like, if you can do 10 skills, he calls it 10 recipes to save your life. And these 10 skills are like chopping and baking and frying and these things. And once you finish the course, he's like, you can cook. And it's been evaluated by Leeds University. And it's really amazing.

44:12So we've got all of this young audience that are accessing Jamie through school in that sense. And we're starting to see them really emerge because we're three to four years into the program now. we're starting to see them pop out leaving school at 16, 18. Do you know what I mean in that sense? It's like, so that's one audience that I have there. Then the secondary, second audience is those 24 year olds, right? Who are like, he took my turkey to his love. In that sense. And they are, and they like, they sort of have fun with him, right? You know what I mean? It's just like, they're like, it's part, it's part fun.

44:46It's part sort of like that he's just part of that big moment in their lives and now they are coming into having longer term relationships having families and they're accessing jamie in a different way and now there's i feel like that group are like sort of you took my turkey twizzlers but have you got a recipe for saturday night yeah yeah yeah those days and then there's our you know our our absolute sort of uh long-term traditional audience that we've been talking to since the beginning so it's that growing up then so these are you know people that are you know 40 to you know 70 yeah that in that sense and that people and there's you know people are they they he is beloved to some of that you know audience you have different formats formats to meet those different audiences i i like would my my mum would probably use a jamie's cookbook yeah i remember i was saying this lydia when i was at uni was was 2013 was when the food tube yeah yeah and i'll just voraciously inhale that thing like exactly i wasn't even watching just jamie it was dj barbecue genaro totally um but like all of us this is wicked yeah um so yeah that's right i think you've answered your own question in that sense it's just like we have we operate you know i mean this is a this is a food brand and a you you know, a place where we connect people with food wherever they are, you know, in that sense.

46:11So obviously, if we're making a TikTok series, in which we are at the moment, in conjunction with TikTok, it's like we're making it for the people who are on TikTok. If we're making a cookbook, we're making it for people who are buying cookbooks. In that sense, it's like there is general principles that I think work for all the audiences. What are they? Which is, well, this content has to work. do you know what I mean ultimately we're like we're putting truth out into the marketplace these are recipes that work these are affordable recipes in most cases that in that sense these are recipes that really will help you for your health um so it's like if we put a cookbook out it's like usually 65 percent of it is vegetarian but we don't put that on the front of the book We're just, we're stealth, like stealthily trying to look after your health within the content that we're putting out there.

47:09We're surfacing recipes on our website that are more healthier for you, that you're served in that sense. It's like in that way. So we're really trying to just help. And it's like, and so I would say that he is in the service of people, them to how they eat and how to make them happier and healthier in that way and enjoy it in that sense. And then that's the trust with the audience. It's just like, we're not going to do anything that's not, you know, that doesn't feel like it's exactly from Jamie. It's just like, we're not going to have anybody else writing the recipes. We're not going to use AI tools to create recipes.

47:50Those are things. AI tools are using our recipes to create their content. But the other way around doesn't work for us. it's um the truth thing is very interesting yeah and we were talking lydia and i were talking about before we hit well before we whilst we're setting up and i've written this thing about like how the algorithm is is killing brand yeah the algorithm's tangible views brand is a feeling it's intangible yeah and you're seeing this in food reviewers you're seeing this in some podcasters where the views are going like yeah but actually when you if you're down the pub or in a cafe you're talking about i won't say they are but then the the general zeitgeist conversation isn't exactly glowing do you know what i mean yeah and i think there's this whole thing of being so obsessed with the views yeah that because the views kind of erode truth in my opinion i if you go and slag off a burger it might you might actually really like that burger but it'll bang the algo do you how how do you i like i like the use of algo oh sorry yeah yeah yeah it's about australian yeah I'll go mate bang the algo mate but so so what's the yeah how do you deal with that tension of like putting out truth versus reach yeah I mean I we're lucky enough to almost already have enormous reach okay dead in that sense so we're not a we're not a brand and he's not a person that's at that stage in his career yes in that sense so it's just like for us it's like we're only putting out trusted content in whatever whatever platform but I totally agree with you It's just like, I mean, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of trolling on accounts.

49:22You know what I mean? There's a lot of nastiness out there. It's just like, it's not our game and we try to swerve away from it. But agreed, it's much easier to slag off something than it is to talk about something. Well, I even did like, the point of what I was writing is that the algorithm obsession slowly creeps into you without even, you're not even conscious of it. and I you know after the World Cup when we lost to Argentina yeah and Enzo Fernandez did that thing yeah and everyone went ballistic yeah there was a so we played Argentina on the Friday whatever England played in the rugby played them on the Saturday and our big player Henry Pollock was doing that to them and I said look well look pot kettle black yeah yeah you know like are you yeah their villain yeah uh sorry yeah their villain is our hero and their their uh their villain as their hero yeah anyway so i posted it saying you know people need to stop complaining about argentina you know kicking us out anyway i've got rage baited like hell yeah yeah you need to delete this this is clickbait i'm still back at that point i have the courage of my convictions but it's just it's interesting how when everything's looked through a lens of numbers views virality i think that can be quite nefarious to like truth if you're a smaller creator like me Yeah, yeah.

50:40I'll tell you a good story about it over the Adanaf campaign. So on the Adanaf campaign, we was right at the sort of pinnacle of there was like over 200 sort of famous faces had joined the campaign and the newspapers were really starting to write about it, really starting to get some traction with it. and there was a I'd subsequently found out a young student um posted on twitter um fuck off Jamie Oliver you salad shagger um and it got retweeted because it was twitter at the time over a hundred thousand times and at 10 o 'clock in the evening Jamie phoned me and was like have you seen on twitter I was like I have in that set and then salad shagger and he was like And obviously we're debating, do you know what I mean?

51:29Are we replying or those sorts of things? Anyway, we left it, we decided to leave it overnight. The next day, the student tweeted, I can't remember exactly, but it says, oh my God, I just didn't realise that would go so violent. I actually really liked Jamie Oliver. And that was retweeted about 20 times. in that sense because it's like these this negativity negativity i'll give her i'll give her it was a great lie yeah you know what i mean pithy little slogans in that sense but it's just you know in that sense it's just like you know that that there therein lies exactly the problem to me you know in that sense that obviously the algorithms will help just if content is starting to travel then they're helping and negativity spreads faster yeah yeah but i think it's like I think people are like, you know, we've just done a really lovely partnership with Pinterest.

52:25We absolutely love Pinterest. We have a massive engaged audience on Pinterest. And I love the fact that Pinterest are like, you know, come to us for inspiration to then do something in real life. That's so cool. You know, isn't it cool? It's really cool. I think they're an amazing brand. And we've just put together all loads of recipes. there's nearly 300 of them that are on Pinterest um in relation to trends that are happening on Pinterest so you know matcha and uh uh picnics that you can move about all sorts of different things it's really fun what are your as as a as a as the sort of Jamie Oliver group what are your thoughts on trends because like it's interesting there's um there's a Jeff Bezos quote which is everyone asks him what's going to change in the next 10 years yeah it's a better question to ask is what's not going to change in the next 10 years.

53:17Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see the capricious nature of like, you know, I think it was oat milk one minute, then it was avocado. Now it's matcha and everyone piles in. Yeah. And how do you guys think about that? Is it? Well, I think we love new things, right? Yes. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We love new things. We love new things. We love, you know, so it's like, was it great for Jamie and the food team to create some amazing matcha recipes? Absolutely. Yes. I mean, in that sense, it's like those. but if we were like oh we saw that there was a trend to create you know chicken drumsticks that were covered in um uh what's that cereal crunching up cornflakes that i saw are we going to get on that trend probably not yeah yeah yeah yeah in that sense so it's just like of those things it's just like there's the trends that suit us as an organization and obviously jamie has created trends as well you know it's like and created big things it's like you know when we had our um our partnership with sainsbury's over 10 years ago he posted a lasagna recipe that had nutmeg in it it's that that they sold out of nutmeg nationally now i never not put nutmeg in my yeah yeah yeah don't mean in that sense it's like there's a he's creating some of those trends he's following some of them and that says but i think new things are good people like new exciting things in the kitchen don't they try new stuff and we're constantly evolving isn't it as a as humans into what's good for us what's not what's you know what are hacks what are tips we can do it's a fun place to be yeah no 100 what would you say if like you boil it into sort of two three four principles of like really if people listening to this want to nail a campaign and it could be something super small or something really big yeah what would you boil that down into i think the first and foremost thing is the thing that we've been talking about don't just tell people that something's wrong do you know what i mean like find a solution for it you know what i mean in that sense so it's just like jamie's like it's wrong that there's so much sugar in carbonated drinks for kids i think there should be a sugar tax and i think that's going to reformulate drinks that's what happened do you know what i mean what he didn't say was i hate big i hate coca-cola and pepsi because they produce sugary drinks you know it's not enough to get to the point where you're like, you have to say, if you want to change something, find a solution and then make an entertaining way of showing people that the solution is something they should get behind.

55:39Next thing is just like, do it in an entertaining way. Do you know what I mean? People aren't going to listen to you if you're boring, banging on about nothing. Do you know what I mean? It's just like, not getting to places. And the third thing is, it's like, talk to people where they are. Do you know what I mean? It's just like, if you want to change people's minds that are 16, they're on TikTok. Talk to people where they are. Yeah, it's like wherever they are in that sense, it's just like, Jamie's not going to change policy by writing a cookbook that is bought by 35-year-olds. You know what I mean?