How Brompton Built One of the Biggest Brands In Cycling

0:02I'm Eric Fulweiler and this is Scratch bringing you marketing lessons from the leading brands and brands rewriting the rule book from scratch for the world of today. Hey everyone, big interview today. We have Chris Willingham who is the CMO of Brompton Bikes, but it's not only his experience and what he's doing at Brompton, which is super exciting. That is a big part of this conversation, but also Chris's background. He has been behind many of the most iconic brand campaigns that I'm sure you already know, but probably didn't know that he was involved in Nike, Dream Crazy, PlayStation, Sony Balls, Cadbury Gorilla, and many others.

0:44So he's been brand side CMO. He's also been agency CEO and is truly one of the great creative visionaries out there. So we were really excited to have him on the podcast because I actually interviewed him at Madfest over the summer. So much good stuff in here. We talk about Brompton and this kind of cult-like British brand that has successfully gone global. How do you think about the global platform of the brand? And Chris really stresses the importance of consistency while also having a brand that speaks to the regional and the local nuances and culture. So he gets into that and how they are doing that.

1:23We talk a lot about the new brand platform that Chris launched at Brompton, which I love and also talk about the process of how we got there, how he selected an agency partner, which is not what you would think of. He goes to the people that he used to work with. He actually ran a proper process and found a really interesting solution for it. And also how, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, you know, he's not working with Nike budgets or PlayStation budgets. How do you actually go about chunking out as he calls it a new brand platform and actually rolling it out. And we have a great conversation.

1:56This is one of my favorite stories of this year that he actually told at one of our CMO roundtables, but I would really encourage you to hang on and listen to it. He kind of tells the behind-the-scenes story of how the Cadbury Gorilla campaign came to be and that it almost didn't. And the importance of, as he stresses at the end, bravery and fighting for great ideas and great work because that really is what creates the breakthrough for these brands within these crowded categories. So amazing conversation with Chris. I'm so glad that we got a chance to record it, that he would come back on to do so.

2:29Without further ado, I'll leave you to it. Chris, thank you so much for joining. How are you doing? Hey, Eric. I am very well and really happy to be here. I've really been looking forward to this. So it's funny, Art, the brief that I'm looking at says Madfest, July 2nd, because of course we had a conversation on stage at Madfest. And after we did it, I was like, we got to get this recorded. And since then, we've spent some more time together. You came to one of our Ravel roundtables recently, so I'm really looking forward to putting it on tape for everybody today. Awesome. And I really enjoyed that session at MADFest, and the roundtable was wonderful, too.

3:08Some great guests you had at that event. So, yeah, this is the hat trick. We're three for three. Perfect. All right. Well, let's get into it. So before we talk about Brompton, the icebreaker question that we ask every guest is what is a challenger brand that you're particularly passionate about right now and why? Well, I thought long and hard about this one. And I spent quite a lot of time in a previous life working in the sneaker industry with Nike or at Wyden Kennedy, who are Nike's global agency. And so I've retained a really strong interest in that sector. and I've recently been wearing on shoes and I have just found them to be quite dramatically different and in a very good way and it's it was a brand I didn't really go close to for a while because I wasn't sure about the aesthetic and I wasn't sure if you know if it was a suitable running brand for me but i am all in now um and i and i really respect the way that they built that brand um it was what nearly 10 years ago i was i was at the nike campus when roger federer i wasn't in the room unfortunately but he turned up and said look guys um i've got another idea i want to go off and do this thing with some swiss um uh friends or or associates and everyone was like what do you what do you think you're doing you're walking away from nike and this huge this huge check that we're about to give you to renew the the deal with nike and wow has he made the right call um i mean it's it's it's becoming a a global phenomenon i think that you know that the branding's really strong um the aesthetic is really strong the product design i think it really helps it stand apart.

5:12And performance-wise, I've been really impressed as I've been using them, not just for running, but just for sort of, you know, riding. I ride bikes a lot, as you can imagine. Yeah, so On has really come good. Marketing can feel lonely at the top unless you're in the right room. That's what Rivalamp is, a global community built for senior marketers and brand leaders. Inside our private WhatsApp group, You'll find unfiltered conversations, sharp insights, and bold ideas you won't see on LinkedIn. Straight from some of the brightest minds in marketing. It's exclusive. It's application only. And it's designed for challenger marketers who want to push boundaries together.

5:54Apply now at wearerival.com and join the marketers rewriting the rules. I love it. Yeah, they're one that obviously we've been tracking for a while. We actually did a CMO roundtable in Zurich, tried to get the CMO, Avant, to come there. but um he hasn't gotten back to us at least not yet maybe we'll get him on the podcast at some point um i was just thinking like somebody maybe it's us i don't know but there's something to the story of these kind of challenger brands that i think would be really interesting to tell as like a documentary or a video like i think that would be really interesting to go back to but also i always think about on similar to kind of blank street coffee actually where it's like who thought there was space for something like this you know who thought there was space for another shoe brand next to Nike and Adidas and Puma and everybody else who thought there was space for another coffee shop brands.

6:44Yeah. Um, you know, next to Starbucks and Costa and Pratt and all that. I'd be curious if we just stay on, on for a second, having you here, you know, you spent a lot of time brand side, but also agency side. And you mentioned Widening Kennedy and you were behind some of the great iconic work coming out of Nike dream crazy, nothing beats a Londoner, et cetera. So you probably have a unique point of view, not just on the product, but also on how they built the brand. What do you think they've done so well when it comes to how they positioned and how they promoted the brands over the last few years?

7:17You mean on? Yes. Yeah. Well, look, I think the way that they've showed up in retail has been has been really impressive i think the um the the whole thing is just really dialed i think they've really understood the need to to to be consistent and distinctive and i i think that's what's really stood out they've built the story but with you know they're playing the same notes uh time and time again but you know that the the product aesthetic is is really central to it uh that logo i think is is is really cool and distinctive but they found a way to um and this you know i think nike gave them an opportunity when nike cut a lot of its wholesale um uh arrangements back in um you know about seven or eight years ago and went it's really focused on d2c and uh and i rather uh naively thought that that everyone would just follow but i think you know that opened up an opportunity for brands like on but also hocker and ubalance to to fill the void that nike left with those wholesalers and the you know it's this basic understanding of the the customer the customer doesn't always want just the choice of, you know, a range within one brand.

8:43They want to see several brands in one place. And, uh, and that really, that really gave, um, those, those smaller brands an opportunity to, to, to really scale up, um, at the expense of Nike. And, you know, it's, uh, and on, uh, have really taken that opportunity, I feel. What does the future of the CMO really look like? Does the role still belong in the C-suite or is it about to be replaced by AI? And if you're just a creative, should you be worried about your job? In the future of the CMO documentary presented by Rival, Eric talks with leaders from Mastercard, Shell, Dr. Schall's and more to unpack what tomorrow's marketing leaders need to know today.

9:26Together, they explore the future of the role, what will be expected and what you need to know to stay relevant as a marketing professional. So what does the future of the CMO actually look like? Watch the full documentary through the link in the show notes. And now back to the episode. Yeah, New Balance is another great call out. And I have a special place always for challenger brands that have become challenger brands after they've kind of been the uncool incumbent brands, like I would argue New Balance and also, of course, my favorite Crocs. um yeah all right so brompton so of course everybody listening here in the uk and i'm sure folks abroad have heard of brompton but maybe for those who haven't or are not as close to kind of where the business and the brand is today can you give us a brief overview sure and i think i perhaps again naively came into the brand thinking more people have heard of it than than actually have it's a brand that's been around for 50 years it's a very ingenious folding bicycle um and that is the the the you know the unique sort of design that uh that that was invented back in 1975 by a guy called Andrew Ritchie um in his his his apartment overlooking the Brompton Oratory in southwest London, hence the name.

10:50And he spent like five years just tinkering on the design, tried to sell it to a couple of big bike brands who weren't interested and eventually decided with a bit of help from a couple of friends of his to just take it to market himself. Hence, you know, the establishment of Brompton. And honestly, the design of the product has barely changed in in that 50 years it's still you know beautifully simple um really intuitive um you know it's three moves really to to fold and unfold the bike and the portability that that provides versus you know the the fixed wheel bikes that um that that Brompton competes against is is the the the killer app i mean that's we're allowed to take the bike on trains planes you can put it in the the trunk of your your car um and that portability is is is what has made Bromson such a popular choice but we are very much a city brand uh it's always been a you know when Andrew initially envisaged it it was about beating the congestion in London which which is bad now but it was even worse in the 1970s and uh and it's it's evolved since then And particularly in China, in the East, much more as a sort of lifestyle accessory.

12:17So people aren't using it to ride to work. They're using it at weekends to ride out to various places with their friends. And, you know, it's something that they enjoy the community of. We've got these incredible communities of people that come together around the brand. So, yeah, it's really evolved in ways that I don't think Andrew could ever imagine when he first drew it up in 1975. Yeah. And I think I didn't realize the global scale that you all have accomplished at Brompton. You know, I thought it was kind of mostly a UK thing. But you are in China. It's the fastest growing market for you.

12:58Japan and Korea, as well as other European markets, US business starting to take off. And I'd love to maybe just spend a minute kind of understanding how you think about that, how you think about a brand that needs to stand for something globally, but also be relevant locally. And I know that your experience, you've spent a lot of time in global roles, but also living in Asia, Singapore and New Zealand. so how do you think about that balancing and establishing kind of that global you mentioned on and consistency that global consistency of what the brand is but at the same time making it relevant to the regions that you need to invest and grow in yeah i mean it's a it's a great question i i've been i think when i first came into the industry that the thing that really excited me was working with with global brands and it's it still does and so I kind of cut my teeth with with Sony and PlayStation and then Nike and and a couple of other brands as well Cadbury which had a global presence and I think what I learned along the way was that you know you need a degree of strategic consistency, some glue that enables you to stand for something that is meaningful to human beings everywhere, something big and something that is durable and sustainable over the course of several years.

14:31So it's finding a human truth that can connect with a product truth uh and and that's the the the simple sort of equation i think and um you know the way to the way to go about that is well the way i went about it and it is to spend three months um listening to a lot of people uh people inside the business to to to loyal customers who are especially valuable uh in terms of their their opinions about the brand going back through the archives um spending a lot of time online just just searching just filling filling the tank with knowledge and and slowly you start to see some truths emerging some big kind of human truths emerging and the thing for me that that really landed was that for Brompton you know the the whole time that that the brand has been in existence the story's always been the folded bike um and rightly so in some ways because that back in the 1970s was super distinctive this this this thing that folds down into a very neat little package and you can put it under your desk or under a cafe table and you know it stores really easily but when you start talking to people about why they love Brompton, they talk about the way that Brompton helps them to see their world differently, because it can take them places that other modes of transport can't take people, because it is so portable, and you can take it on planes, trains, and automobiles.

16:16And they started to talk about how it sort of expanded the view they have of their city and so that was really the turning point for me and i started to think about hang on you know that the hero really is the unfolded version of the bike i mean that's when the joy happens that's when the magic happens when you you unfold it and that last click which is a very distinctive sound once that clicks into place that's when you that's when the smile begins and that's when you get on the bike and that's when you you know you you start to go places that perhaps you haven't been before and meet people you haven't met before and see things you haven't seen before um and that multi-modality is you know it's it's it's got a very functional uh benefit but it's also got a very emotional benefit in in that you know it opens up the city uh for you to see it differently and so where we landed for brompton was around this idea of living life unfolded which obviously talks to a product truth but also a human truth about how we as humans when we unfold ourselves uh we free ourselves up mentally and physically you know that's when we're probably most true to ourselves and and who we are and that's when you start to sort of you know at the end of a day you kind of unfold yourself from a desk and a laptop and you get on the bike you kind of unfold onto the bike and you sort of ride off and the sort of mental shackles just kind of um disappear uh and you find yourself just in a in a different mind space and a very healthy one and so it made just so much sense um you know from that it's a product truth and a human truth just just coming together in a really neat neat way yeah i love that because there's yeah the other way of thinking about it product human is also to me where my mind went is it's rational and emotional you know there's the rational like it folds and then there's the emotional living life unfolded i really like that and also it kind of answers the question i was i was thinking about which is um you know a lot of our research on challenger brands really points to the importance of differentiation and obviously your category is not just other folding bikes It's other bicycles.

18:38And I know we talked a bit at Madfest about the rise of kind of like on-demand bikes and line bike and all that stuff. But I can see now, you know, how you are differentiating by not just talking about mobility or opening up the city because any bike in theory could do that. But the specific way that you go about doing that, that ties to the product truth that is a differentiator. um yeah i'd love to add you know you obviously spent a lot of time on the agency side which is something i'm fascinated by in our industry and i think we need to do some content about next year did you work with an agency for that work we did yeah really interesting agency called liberty guild whose whose premise is that they are a very small group of people based in london like there's only like seven or eight of them but they've got 450 freelance talent around the world, strategists and creatives.

19:33So we, we tapped into a really cool strategist in Shanghai, China's being, being such an important market for us, um, and, and European and U S sort of creative talent. And it, it worked really well. It was kind of, uh, exactly what we needed. Fascinating. And so how did you go about, um, this is the thing I'm fascinated by just the matchmaking process between brands and agencies. How did you go about that process? Like, Did you put out an RFP? Did you invite people that you knew? How did you start it? How did you run it? How did you make the decision? Yeah. I mean, it was an interesting one because it was quite early in my tenure.

20:13And there is a temptation to go with people you know because you trust them. And honestly, I did ask a couple of people that I knew to pitch in. But I think where it got to was there were two big factors. One was, I think, working. we're a small brand with a relatively small budget and working with an agency that would have you probably in its top three clients because you can get lost inside an agency and having been on both sides of the fence I've seen it you know that you if you're an important client within that agency you do get more of the the senior resource on your account you you know when when you need the creative talent you you you have that um uh allocated to you and that was that was important um but the other thing and the thing that liberty guild's model really delivers is that sort of global perspective and the ability to sort of snap together a a team that is optimized for the brief in the it's not it's you know it's not based on who's available it's based on who is the right person to work on this.

21:31And as I say, a Shanghai-based strategist who happens to be American, but she's lived in Shanghai for 10 years. She's married to a Brit who rides Bronson. It couldn't have been a better fit. And she just got the brand and she got the need to be able to resonate in China and in Europe and in North America very, very quickly. Kate Minns is her name. I should call her out because she's awesome. Yeah, and then the creative talent sort of picked up that brief and we got to Life Unfolded, which was very cool. Do you see any trade-offs with that model? Because obviously it's something that we see and even considered in the very early days of Rival, in many ways it would be a lot easier than trying to build out a full-time team.

22:23But from your CMO seat, and I guess also from your agency CEO seat, do you see a trade-off to that model? Or do you think that's kind of where the agency is going to go with like a small core team and a big network of freelancers? Well, I think that is happening. I mean, you can see the collapse of some of the big agencies, the big kind of legacy agencies. but there are there are there's still something to be said for for the clients who've got bigger budgets um and who need agency um expertise across a year or you know a long period of time having a a group of people around you who are familiar with your brand your people the challenges of your organization to act as your sort of allies.

23:11And that's also really valuable. You know, and having worked with brands like Sony and Cadbury and Nike on the agency side, you know, the value, the disproportionate value that that relatively small group of people can bring, the fresh perspective that they can bring to a client, asking difficult questions, you know, really sort of sometimes being quite difficult deliberately, you know, in order to just challenge the status quo with inside an organization. It's really valuable. It's really valuable. So where are you now in terms of rolling out this brand platform? So you ran the pitch, you selected the agency, developed the platform.

24:03I know you mentioned before we press record that i forget the words you use but you know you're kind of um the launch is coming in phases so how did you go about laying out that plan for revealing and eventually fully rolling out this new brand platform yeah i mean it's um it's we have to do it in chunks we're not we're not blessed with budgets that allow us to just turn up overnight and there's a big moment you know it's everything's changed so um yeah we're very focused on you know internally driving the story uh through our through our own organization and ensuring that everyone's on board with it which thankfully they are um and then you know the key touch points that we're working with at the moment are uh are you know our owned and operated stores um our our digital presence um and we're just starting to look at things like packaging just take a much longer time than than than than i had uh perhaps understood so yeah we've just got a we've got a timeline and it's chunk by chunk by chunk.

25:12Um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's going to take probably a year to, to, to get it to where we, we, we're going to be really happy. Um, there's a whole new brand identity that comes with this, of course. So, you know, getting that out into the world is, um, is, is, is, is, is difficult when you're, you're limited. So I think the place I I want to go next. I'm viewing this chapter three in our brief and the overview starts with Brompton. There's quite a cult-like following. And I guess I do agree with that. You know, I'm an expat. I've been here for 10 years, so I feel like I have a bit of an understanding of British culture.

25:51But it does seem like, you know, if I could make a list of brands that are, you know, truly and quintessentially British, like really ingrained in the culture for whatever reason, although I'm sure it has to do with the marketing over the years, Brompton, I think, would be there. I'd be curious if you agree that Brompton is a cult-like following. And then where I'd love to go with that question is you've, you know, been part of many famous and successful campaigns. I mentioned the Nike work before, but also the Sony work, Cadbury Gorilla, of course, and it was amazing hearing you talk about that, you know, a little behind the scenes view of how that came together at our dinner.

26:28How were you going about taking your learnings from being part of these big iconic brands to the state that Brompton is right now and trying to, I assume, get it there, if that makes sense as a question. Yeah, I think so. I mean, we've talked about the brand platform and how we got that. And that was very much part of the learning that I got from working with with with those big brands that you just mentioned um i think another thing that i've really learned to do is is be very singular about the objective and be very focused on how being distinctive uh is such a massive um advantage for a brand there's so much sameness now in terms of marketing.

27:29And the Cadbury Gorilla one is a really good example of that, because, I mean, just to give me, if you can give me a couple of minutes, maybe just to talk to that one. When Fallon, the agency I was at, picked up the Cadbury account back in 2005, I think it was, they were just coming out of a salmonella crisis. And, you know, it was at an all-time low. Sales were on a three-year decline and there was there was this very traditional sort of team of people within the business who you know it was all about the chocolate we would just you know just just show the chocolate and everything will be fine um you know that there was there was it was very set in its ways but there was a guy there called called phil rumble um who was the the the cmo and he had a vision which was you know we're never gonna we're never going to win and never going to sort of regain our um our primacy in this category if we just keep playing the same notes and so we went to him with this idea um around uh representing the the joy that you get when you eat the chocolate in a form of branded entertainment.

28:45So it was totally different to the very sort of functional and quite sort of old school persuasion method that most brands were using back then. And the first iteration of that was a gorilla who had waited all of his life to play the drum solo to In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins, of course. uh but it was it was so outrageously different that it took it it took six months to get that through the organization and phil put his job on the line to to get it through um and we i think we were we were asked several times you know you need to put some chocolate shots in there you you've got a you've got a you know you've got a step back from this very principled sort of approach that you've got you know and we didn't we we stood our ground and we said if we do that it'll be you know 50 less good uh and in the end we we we managed to persuade the powers that be that we could run the commercial and it was just an instant sort of iconic piece of work that that just blew up culturally and even today you know i get asked questions about it and And when you ask British consumers their favorite ad of all time, quite often Cadbury Gorilla comes out number one.

30:14And so that single-mindedness and that grit and that resilience to sort of stick with what's really good and really sharp and not to distill it. And that's something that I try and take with me everywhere I go. So, you know, it's not always possible. Compromise is part of business. And, you know, we don't always have a guy like Phil Rumble to put his job on the line for something as amazing as Cadbury Gorilla. But, yeah, and that became a cult piece of work. And Sony Balls became a cult piece of work. And, you know, those two things, they're just ads. but they entered the fabric of culture and 20 years later, people are still talking about them.

31:07So there's something to be said for that, that very single-minded approach. Yeah, it's an amazing story. And I remember, I think it came up because I went on my rant about like, why is there so much bad advertising? And really my takeaway, and people would have heard this before, but it's, there's just so many things and so many people that get involved who are not thinking about and single-mindedly focused on what's going to add value to the customer you know and sometimes they need to be there oftentimes they need to be there legal finance whatever um but i but but sometimes in order to do great things you kind of need to have that single-minded it not minded drive and determination and appetite for risk to take a swing that might be a home run and it might be a strikeout because i'm always so conscious of survivorship bias because for every phil rumble that we talk about on a podcast like this there's a phil schmumble somewhere that did the same thing and the ad sucked and he got fired and we don't talk about it um but that's you know that's true you know to break through in a crowded category you have to be willing to one know what the right thing is um which can be as much art as it is science although i do want to ask you about kind of data and ai in the world of storytelling with what we're going into now.

32:24And you have to be able to fight for it and kind of push it through. So I still think about that story from when you told that at dinner. So I'm really glad that we were able to get it on tape now. Before we go to the data piece, you know, you mentioned kind of it's become more than an ad. It's become kind of part of the cultural zeitgeist. And obviously that is the holy grail for many brands, right? Like a lot of this research that we do on challenger brands, the rival 50 list, microcultures, a lot of it has to do with how do you become culturally relevant? Because it's always been true that brands that are seen as more culturally relevant grow faster than those that aren't.

32:59I'd love to hear the strategy that you're taking at Brompton to do that, specifically for younger audiences. I know you've done some collaborations, Palace Skateboards, which I thought was really cool, Barber. So what's your approach or thinking around creating cultural relevance and how have you done it or planning to do it at Brompton? It's a good one. And there are many different approaches I think you can take. I mean, first of all, I think you've got to listen really hard. And Brompton has been traditionally an engineer it's an engineering business started by an engineer um you know not especially customer centric um you know it and we're trying to sort of switch that now and and slowly but surely it's happening um but i i think listening is is by far the most important thing listening to uh to customers listening to to the people who you want to become your customers and understanding how the brand can actually play a meaningful role in their lives.

34:19I mean, one thing that Brompton has about it, which really lends itself, is the fact that it's very easy to personalize it. I mean, we have so much P &A and so many ways in which you can make your Brompton very distinctive and almost a reflection of your own sort of personality, which this has taken off massively in Asia, by the way. um uh i was out in shanghai last week and at a an event called the bronx and world championships in shanghai and it just the the the range of products that people turned up with and the way that they personalize them whether that be through um you know uh different different bike parts or different you know paint paint jobs that they've applied to it or you know um other decoration it it just blew my mind um and we see it in the west as well it's it's happening more and more um so opening opening yourself up and allowing you know people to to take your product and and facilitate that personalization i i think is is really important so you know you're not you're not kind of forcing your way into people's lives you're you're giving them this option and allowing them to sort of pick it up and take it and do what they want with it um that's been that's been a really important part of of the success that we've had um and communities come together around it we again in shanghai i met i met the i met the green team and i met the the the blue crew um who which are big communities of brompton owners and riders who just happened to sort of create this identity around the color of the product and then the clothes that they'll wear when they're riding the product so you know it it's sort of just taken on its own its own life and then that sort of spins off and yes it is a bit eccentric and it's it's a bit unusual but people love that i mean that's that's what people gravitate towards i think i mean one one community because people want to find community and like-minded souls that do things that they're interested in.

36:42But also just things that are just a bit eccentric. I think that's attractive to so many people, things that are beyond the norm. So yeah, I mean, hopefully that gives you some sort of answer to the question. Yep. And I'd be curious, actually, I think we talked about this at the dinner, but I can't remember. Although it's been interesting, the last three dinners, London, New York, and Amsterdam, I feel like there's a bit of a red thread that's building in my mind around budgets and focus shifting more to experiential and analog as, you know, there's so much more kind of digital content and experiences out there.

37:20And arguably a lot of it is kind of getting worse in terms of quality and people looking for kind of like real life and human connection. Is that something on your mind? I just thought of it because you mentioned the event in Shanghai like is that something that's factoring into how you're thinking about the strategy oh for sure I mean I think we're gonna we are an in real life brand and we are about people moving around a city in you know in real time uh or or beyond the city now that we've got a product that called the g-line which is all-terrain but um it's uh it's really interesting when you look at where the next sort of chapter is around agentic AI and how, you know, my agent as a consumer is going to, you know, I'm going to brief it and it's going to go out into the world and it's going to talk to a load of brand agents and then it's going to come back with a recommendation.

38:17You know, it's just another layer that's perhaps been removed of sort of human interaction. um and so for me i i think that's inevitable and we will we will work within that world and hopefully win within that world but my my counterpoint to that is we've got to do more in the experiential space we've we've already got something that people love and that is a sort of lightning rod for for for brompton fans um but we only do it in london and and shanghai at the moment. And there is so much more opportunity to bring people together around this sort of common love for a product. So that's very much on our agenda over the next couple of years.

39:04So probably the last thing I wanted to touch on, and then we can go to the lightning round. You mentioned it a couple of times now, so we can just unpack it a bit, but data, technology, AI, You know, if, as I'm kind of interpreting it, a big part of your foundation as a CMO is brand storytelling, that clarity, differentiation, consistency, those experiences that you're building. What do you see as the role of data technology and AI in enabling that? um well i mean in terms of data i mean i think data is you know it's we've always had data to be honest with you and i've been in the industry for over 30 years and data's always underpinned decision making in in certainly in the agencies i've worked in um and it's you know you just got much better data now and it's possible to synthesize it in a way that you couldn't necessarily do before.

40:03So, you know, in the year that I've been at Brompton, we've been able to create a single customer view, you know, by pulling data from lots of different sources. And we've just got to where we, you know, we need to get to now. And of course, that opens up wonderful opportunities to understand customers on an individual basis in a far deeper and richer way. and hopefully provide them with content that is just super relevant to them. So yes, that's of great value. From an AI perspective, I still think AI, I don't want to pontificate about what the more distant future looks like, but I think AI will be a very valuable tool in enabling us to tell stories in more imaginative ways because we won't need to spend a shit ton of money to create a piece of content we can do it in in ai and hopefully you know bring a story to life that we couldn't have to bring to life three years ago um and that's really exciting i i mean i see it as a creative tool and an opportunity to just enrich the storytelling that we're already doing.

41:31Love it. All right. Chris, quick lightning round for you before I let you go. If Shurampton were a pizza, what type of pizza would it be?