How Monzo used emotional advertising, a hot coral card & customer obsession to become Britain's best bank - AJ Coyne

0:29Welcome back everybody to Uncensored CMO. We talk about not only that, but also what he's learned throughout his career working both agency side and in fintech as well. And what he can pass on out of the tips and tricks for being a great marketeer. It's a lot of fun. Here's my conversation with AJ Coyne. Welcome, AJ. Thank you for having me. It is great to be here. So how does a guy called Coyne end up at Monzo Bank? Obvious question, I suppose. I mean, I think, you know, proof's in the name, hey? but Monzo is one of those companies that when they come calling and when they're looking for it it's a dream gig like yeah it's one of those brands that you just don't say no to well it's a quickly becoming iconic brand isn't it but before we talk about that take us a bit on the journey to Monzo and where you started out as well and because you've got some fantastic agency experience along the way as well haven't you and then a few years at Klarna yeah exactly I mean I started my career very much in in in the agency side uh creative um working across ogilvy mccann bbdo and in my opinion getting to one of the highest jobs you can get in an agency my last job was gm at clemenger bbdo in australia across sydney and melbourne and um it gives you a great learning ground right it gives you a good training you are multi-category i worked on everything from xbox through to pandora jewelry mars fmcg different tech companies and so you sort of learn what you like and what you don't like and without trying to discredit agency land because there are some fantastic agencies out there and i'm really proud of our partners but i was sort of sick and tired of like constantly talking about transformation and constantly chasing a pnl and then really really really annoyed at the volume of brilliant work that just wasn't ever getting made and so decided to make a bit of a transition.

2:14It's really interesting that it was funny I interviewed Mike Cesaria from Liquid Death actually the very reason he created Liquid Death is he was sick and tired of coming up with really cool ideas that never saw the light of day that you thought I'm going to actually execute one of these ideas you know was that a frustration you felt? 100 % that's exactly why I left Adland with no disrespect to anyone that's there but but I'm sure everyone would resonate to that bottom drawer full of great work that there isn't a brave client or a company or a budget to be able to make it happen so i decided the only way to do that was to get into the driving seat to be able to do just that and so yeah and with all your experience on agencies like what can you know someone client side like myself who's been on the other side what can we learn from you know from agencies you know flipping it the other way yeah i think the power of creativity like it can't be underestimated and And any good agency is what they live for.

3:07It's in their DNA. It's the product, right? The product is creative and the job that can do. It's firmly my belief in any role that I take that creativity is the ultimate multiplier for performance and for business. I think there's a benefit in agencies for the talent that you develop having that multi-category background, being able to not only understand different businesses, different categories, different strategies, but also understand how to present to them, how to bring to life work. And in marketing, it's very important to strategically know what you're doing, but it's also very important to bring people on that journey to understand what you're going to be doing as well.

3:44I think one of my biggest learnings is like creativity is more than the creative. Yes. And we get them confused, don't we? But actually, creativity should be how you approach a business problem, how you think about your route to market, you know, how you come up with a new idea. You know, it can be so much more than we focus often with our age relationships on the creative, the end thing. Yeah. And I found the best relationship I have where I've taken the team and brought them in really early. Yeah. And said, solve my business problem. Right. Before we get to whatever the communication might look like.

4:11And I think sometimes, I mean, you and I have got a great friend in common, Lil, who I work with at LucasAid, actually, and the team at Gray. And I had a great experience then because actually when I had a real chunky business problem, she was incredible. Like, you know, having her in the room where we're talking about the reformulation we were doing and how we win back our consumer. You know, it wasn't to do with what the poster might look like. It was to do with the business problem. And you've got such creative people out there who think differently and can come up with ideas. A hundred percent.

4:39It's involving them early, isn't it? And Lily's like, she's got superpowers. So everyone needs a little in the room without a doubt. The other thing that I mean, so one of the things I've adopted that I did actually do in agency side that I brought to client side roles. We used to call them top to tops when I worked at BBDO. I call them a strategic council, which is bringing in. So I work closely with 21st century Browns, Uncommon. I work with PhD, bringing in the most senior leaders that are close to my business on a quarterly basis and setting them exactly that what's the biggest problem i'm facing at monzo today and how can you help and it's sort of pointless for me to write a brief because there might not be a target audience there might not be a proposition for it but it's really needs to be solved and then the collective minds can can come together yeah and can share that back which is really really helpful and flipping actually when i had a short period of time where i was kind of freelancing and what i found interesting is that all my freelancing gigs came from agencies i'd work with not uh it won't line aside their agencies asking me help us understand the cmo help us get get under the you know get into their into their minds and how do you pitch and all that kind of thing yeah and what's very interesting is that the first question i asked them and none of them had really thought about this is just phone them up and say what's the biggest thing keeping you awake at night yeah solve that everything else follows that's so simple but it's you i think we're so used to transactional relationship where it's about here's the brief give me the answer yeah this is my comms you're there just to do this bit of the comms process sort of thing start way out start way earlier and the other thing that is um a big misconception in in agencies is that the brief is a finite document that you get to this point where what ta-da we've got a business problem here's the brief and then we do brief an agency and they may go off for two weeks of strategy or whatever and then go to creative but the likelihood of that brief is the same by the time they present a creative idea is very slim yeah and the amount of conversations that will have happened about that problem prior to that moment so the key thing is to immerse yourself in in our business like not just from a in a meeting like presenting responding but actually get to know your clients get to know those people be on slack be where the conversation is happening and be in the moment because otherwise whatever you present will definitely be out of date by the time you present that's brilliant brilliant advice that is in fact you give me a bit of deja vu because when i was doing this freelancing thing uh working for a number of different agencies i wrote one presentation which is 10 things you should know about a cmo yeah point number one was the brief is never the brief yeah right because like you say it changes like the moment ink's dry yeah but secondly it's not usually written by the cmo no and it's usually written to a template that has a set load of questions which may be the right there may be the wrong questions and it doesn't guide you to actually what the business needs you to do so So my top advice was when you get the brief, immediately phone up the client, spend some time with them and go, what are you really trying to solve?

7:34Who makes the decision? How will it be made? All those kind of things. There's a lot of questions you need to get under the skin of. Let's move on to, before we jump into Monzo, which I'm looking forward to doing, you had a stint at Klarna, didn't you? So what is Klarna and what was your role there and what are you most proud of? Yeah, of course. So Klarna is a buy and appellator company. You see them and check out. I joined them at the start of lockdown. So I was there for three, four years, initially as their UK CMO, head of marketing. And at that time, very much responsible for changing behavior.

8:05Like there was a big misconception that buy now, pay later equals bad. Lots of headlines of like payday loan sharks in disguise. And so my job was really to come in and fix that. And super proud, built out our public affairs offering, built out our sort of like lobbying of government and press to allow a big shift in perception. And also the problem didn't exist with the Klana's consumers. It only existed with people that didn't use the product. I then had two other roles in that company. One was head of brand globally, very much responsible for codifying all of the things that worked, what made Klana Klana, and essentially centralizing that and being able to deploy that to 35 markets.

8:46And then the last job, which was the one where I didn't really sleep because I was responsible for 35 markets. So massive growth in those four years that I was there, right? So from UK, Europe to US, parts of Eastern Europe, Australia. And so for want of a better term, the throat to choke for 35 markets equals no sleep. Yeah, I've done a kind of global role for the last four years. I totally know what you mean. It's like you get up and basically Australia is going just about finishing their day. By the end of the day, the US is waking up and about to start their day. So you have this really busy beginning of the day and end of the day and in the middle, you've got Europe.

9:20You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, it's a bit of a challenge. A hundred percent. But, you know, it was a great learning ground and I can't speak more fondly of my time there and the people that I worked with. It was a superb company and they're, you know, they're continuing to do their thing. But when Monzo comes calling, you don't not pick up the phone. like Monzo is one of those brands, an iconic British institution that I'm super proud of and an early adopter and early user of and just couldn't not take that call. Before you took the job then, you were already a customer of Monzo. So you already had that affinity with it and you talked about being an early adopter.

9:54What is it about that experience with Monzo that gets you so passionate? Like nine years ago as Monzo launched, I was living in London. I was a lot younger and And this hot coral car just kept popping up. And there was this FOMO that I felt. Certain friends were getting it, sort of like a membership in a club that you weren't part of yet. And they had such a smart go-to-market strategy. And so from that point, I was addicted. As a marketer, you just want to be part of that. Especially at that time, there was no Pink Klarna. There was no finance brand doing this differently. Monzo were the first.

10:31And so they had this hot coral, amazing, distinctive asset. amazing attitude and tone of voice and so became a user stayed a user until i ended up moving to australia and then as soon as i came back to the uk i reinstated my account um and i've been yeah a user ever since well you loved it so much you joined the company correct yes um i want to talk about the emotion of money because actually i think sometimes when we look at if i take the system one database and we look at most financial services communication it's pretty dull and functional. And yet, if you think money is the source of stress, anxiety, fear, it can also be the source of joy, of course, you know, nothing like a, you know, you discover a five pound note in your pocket, you've forgotten about the night before or whatever, or, you know, you get a bonus in the year on these kind of things.

11:16So it's, you know, our relationship with money determines how we feel. It determines whether we can do something or not do something. It can constrain us. It can set us free. There's so much wrapped up in money. It's a very emotional thing, but why is it that the finance industry seemed to make it so much about the percentage APRs rather than what money does for you? It's baffling, to be honest. Money is such a taboo. There's so many stats and data about friends or family members that owe each other money, and you just don't want to ask for it back because it's awkward. It's just that thing that we don't really learn in school.

11:54We learn economics, we learn maths, we don't learn financial well-being or financial wellness and as a result of that there's all these feelings avoidance like anxiety stress like literally putting your head in the sand because you don't want to deal with the bill that is like the default for most people because you don't feel equipped and i think that you know a lot of the incumbents a lot of the category they benefit from that that lack of engagement and that lack of involvement like if you don't care and you're not involved you're sort of happy with the status quo and so that's a great way for them to continue to make money whereas you know we know at monzo that we want to set people up to really go on a journey through their financial life to help them go from like small wins to being able to you know not just open account but maybe try a savings a savings product through to a you know a life leap where you can get a mortgage whatever it might be and so much so that for us we know that when you get that progress when you have that momentum money feels different like money does feel better and there is joy there is joy to your point in the moment of being paid or that that sneaky i don't know a friend sending back the fiver they owed you but yeah and so for us it's all about that it's all about the other side and making sure that people know that money can be can be better yeah and and small little things so every time we go on a holiday we always use our monzo card because it's the one that doesn't charge you yeah you know there's little things like that isn't it that actually adding all the three or five percent that you get charged by other cars that sort of add up on the holiday and it's even there might not be that much overall it just feels like you're getting ripped off why am i getting like this big charge every time i go out for a pizza you know completely and i think the other thing that's that's i guess evident in the world that we live in where everything needs to be easy we just want experiences you know our companies that we invest our time with to know us and then when we do invest our time that that you know if you're opening your phone you're opening an app that experience is just seamless that's not the case for a lot of the other category it's actually quite difficult it's quite complex t's and c's are incredibly lengthy and confusing um and so we pride ourselves on being incredibly magically simple and making sure it's as intuitive as possible and if you bother to share information with us then we're going to use it appropriately and properly to make your experience better yeah now i want to talk about experience because there's probably nothing that gets me more emotional than bad customer service right but but let me talk about the stats so i did dig out the okay i did dig out your stats on uh to see how you're doing and i think this is an ipsos survey wasn't it of customer satisfaction so overall customer service quality monzo number one at 80 percent starting number two at 76 and nationwide at 67 then the rest of the banks follow from there online banking experience as well monzo number one 88 starting about 86 tied at 77 and the rest of them in the sort of 60s off there so both the overall quality and online quality coming out number one so congratulations on that thank Thank you very much.

14:42I think it's no surprise hearing that, that when it comes to our consumers, they're more likely to, seven times more likely to use the word love when talking about Monzo than any other bank, which is mad. That is incredible, isn't it? Yeah. That is a lot. I mean, that's not a small difference. That's a very big difference. Big difference. And also like emotion in banking, like you get emotion and money, right? But like thinking about throwing emotion at some of the other companies you just mentioned on that list, doesn't really, love is not the word that would come to mind. and so I'm super proud and super lucky, right, that we have that with our community of users that really care about not just their bank, but Monzo.

15:16But I think it's a juxtaposition because, I mean, if you take that tax return when you have to do that, I really fear it and it's like, oh, intimidating. But the kind of, almost the satisfaction you feel when it's done is equally as great, isn't it? And if you're making it easy for people, then I can see why people might kind of use those kind of words. People just want to feel capable and confident, right? So like if you can help them feel more capable with their money, they'll get more confident over time. And so everything we do is designed to help bring them on that journey. Now, one of the challenges I think that you and other banks like you face is the change from, I guess, what we used to call bricks and mortar industry phrase.

15:55But, you know, the local branch where you just pop in, you can see somebody, you could resolve it in a conversation. Or I've been a First Direct customer for many years. I was one of the early adopters of First Directs. And the fact that you didn't have to wait, you just went straight through to someone there, always helpful. I mean, I had an amazing experience with them for many, many years. But now we've automated things. I think we have to work much harder on the humanity. And I know we were sharing a bit of experience earlier. And so I had this awful experience recently with one of your competitor banks that begins with T and ends in I.

16:28But anyway, I got a transaction in, a foreign transaction into my account. and um they suddenly they they i got this email going uh you haven't responded to our messages i'm like oh no what's happened and what i discovered is in the app buried about three or four clicks like you had to go to support messages to the chat buried in there was this request for me to provide a whole list of evidence to support a transaction i've gone through you know in terms of they wanted emails contacts contracts a whole lot of stuff right there's a whole lot of thing yeah i was like oh my god what's this i and it was all couched in this very financial language like well you know we're approved by the financial services thing as as per the terms conditions you signed we have the right to ask you for all this you know the whole thing right yeah i and it also the bit that made it worse actually interestingly it said we value the safety and security of all our members and therefore we're investigating you and i just thought well hang on i'm a member right yeah i'm a member and now you're investigating me suddenly make me feel like i've done something wrong yeah it's quite scary language and you know and anyway so i said oh no and i was packing for holiday as well just to make it worse on the night exactly right so i was up till midnight i was yeah i was copy the other thing that made it quite funny is he said please provide everything in pdf format because that's the only format our system will accept i'm like oh okay let me work a little bit harder to make your life easy shall i you know i'll go like translate everything i know so i had to put this little dossier together did little pdfs uploaded it sent it in anyway went on holiday quite relieved so oh phew panic over yeah yeah anyway so i think it was like a wednesday night we flew out to lanserotti and on the saturday i thought oh uh i wonder if i got a reply to that message so i went into the app and then i saw you've done all that work yeah exactly like sending like pdf to pdf okay exactly i got i was just celebrating that i got on the plane you know i mean it's all fixed yeah yeah i I thought, oh, nothing to worry about.

18:21And I saw this string of messages. And again, you had to go deep into the app to find them. And it asked me for two more documents. I think it asked me for a tax return and something else like SEC. And then 13 hours after the first message, the second message said, we're suspending your account with immediate effect. I'm like, what? This is crazy. That's bonkers. And I went into the account and it was shut. I couldn't get into it. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't do anything. and then um and then and then and then i and then to upload the two extra things i wanted to upload i got on my laptop and went to my account to upload them i couldn't get in because i've been blocked so the only thing i could use was the chat function which i couldn't upload the documents i'd asked for so i got in this like trapped world yeah do you know i mean it's it's painful that is wild and then so i you know i was like really quite stressful and i thought now fortunately as it happened i didn't happen to have any transactions going in and out of the account at that point so nothing got stopped but i thought what if i had employees like what if i was little business and had employees what if i had a supplier to pay what if i was waiting on a big payment to come in to pay off my mortgage there's all manner of things that could happen anyway the irony of it was um i was obviously a bit upset at this point and i said please send me your complaints procedure yeah right and didn't hear anything right and then i got this email right a couple of days later going thank you for your complaints uh we've we've sent it off and you'll hear back in 72 hours and i'm I haven't complained yet.

19:45That is wild. What's going on? And then I got a couple of those later again and said, here is our decision on your complaint. And I'm like, well, this is going to be interesting. The complaint I've not yet made. And it was a long message about how right they were to ask all these questions. And at the end it said, however, you know, we do think we're a little bit speedy in shutting down your account. Please accept our apologies and we're going to open it back up again. Wow. I thought I couldn't even get the complaint right. How long did that take? You know, that took, I'd say, 10 days. It was the whole holiday and about three or four days.

20:19So it's about 10 days from beginning to end. So it was suspended for 10 days. And are you going to stay a customer? No way. Oh, come on. No way at all. Okay. Oh, hang on. There's another irony. This will really make you laugh. So like two days after that, I got an email saying, we'd like you to be part of an advertising campaign for the bank. Okay. Perfect. okay which i part of me was going oh yes please like in a way i was like i yes yeah that'll be funny yeah right yeah also awkward yeah and i can't i don't know what i'd say no i mean but like if you'd asked me three weeks ago i'd have been yeah yeah of course i'm a podcast host right 100 i'd love to be in an advert talking about like how the banks of course young creators young creators yeah i wish you know i mean but as it is emerging you know what is honestly bonkers but like interestingly so we have obviously uh 400 000 business banking customers hopefully 400 000 after that experience it's coming in it's coming in this afternoon it's good um and typically people open a business bank account because you're creating a business right yeah yeah or they switch because their current provider has pissed them off yeah and so you have to know when things like that happen to be able to acquire those new users yeah that is a very good they're an advert for you right completely completely um but yeah that is honestly mental yeah but customer service is so important isn't it and and it's just a little example but it just shows how important that is volumes that some organizations don't appreciate their every touch point's a marketing asset yeah as down to your staff that are speaking to your customers right your customer service people are as important as the advertising you put out as the content you put into your product so So, yeah, it's, yeah.

22:01Wow. Thanks to us. So we've got a new customer. Indeed, you have done. You have done. Exactly. I mean, the funny thing is, I mean, you'll feel my pain here. But as a marketer, it's funny, actually, when something like that happens, I go into my marketing brain spins around. So I stop thinking like a customer. And I just go, right, what you need to do is, I haven't said this, but I was going to go, right, first of all, make sure your customer reaches the audience, right? Don't assume. Pick up the phone or whatever, you know. Secondly, design the process to make it easy to complete, not make it hard.

22:29Because if you make it hard, you're less likely to do it, right? Yeah. It's obvious. If you need to escalate, be more and more human in your escalation, not more and more robotic, right? So if something goes wrong or if there's something complex, don't use the chat bot. No. Pick up the phone, right? Obviously. And the old thing my dad used to say when I was a lad is the customer's always right. And I used to think, of course, customers are not always right, are they? But you need to have that assumption because the customer might be on holiday. The customer might be up till midnight packing. 100%.

22:55The customer might have other things going on. Do you know what I mean? Having to PDF documents and send them in. Yeah. I mean, yeah, customer centricity is like, I guess, the modern day version of customer is always right. But as long as you put the customer at the heart of everything you do, that shouldn't happen. But anyway, let's come back to Monzo because you're on a mission and you've also been thinking about the positioning of Monzo, haven't you? So how do you position yourself as an online bank compared to other online banks? Yeah, of course. I mean, we are on a mission to make money work for everyone.

23:24fundamentally we believe that you know we win when our consumers win which is very very uh important statement after the story we just talked about we started this brand strategy work probably or like i guess summer last year and it's not like designed to bring brand new information right like any good brand strategy should be codifying everything brilliant about what makes monzo monzo and just distilling that into such a succinct way that everyone can celebrate and use to drive the business forward so that's been the job that's been the task and and i've been taking one of the team taking the company on that journey and super excited about that especially as you think about growing with new product offerings thinking about growing in new markets that brand strategy piece is going to be super fundamental to allow us to do that without losing what makes monzo monzo and how and how's that going to come to life you've been working on a launch of it yes um i mean i think we're going out the same week as our new big brand campaign so So this podcast, we should have got out on Sunday during Britain's Got Talent.

24:24But yeah, we have a massive, big, bold brand campaign. We worked with Uncommon on it. And back to that conversation we're talking about earlier of like all of the feels about money, all of those anxious, avoidance, stress versus the fact that on one's own, money just feels different. Money never felt like this. That is the big brand platform we've worked on. And I'm super excited for everyone to see it. I don't think any, not even banking category competitor, I don't think anything's like it in advertising in the market at the moment. Can we expect some hot coral in amongst it all? A hundred percent.

25:00The strategy coming in is to paint the UK hot coral this year, and, you know, next is the world. But very much so, like, you know, you'll know this, and as we're most listeners, but it takes most companies, what, 70 years to get a distinctive asset. Monzo's been around for nine, and we've already got two, the hot coral and the card. so hot coral is is very important to me but most organizations can get quite i guess tired of things and so my job in marketing is to make people know that that's the most important asset we have when it comes to making sure that we imprint monzo in consumers hearts and minds yeah and how do you make sure the campaign is going to actually resonate with your with your audience yeah i mean we've we've uh testing uh well research up front i should say um first and foremost um back to that point i mean one of the best data points i found out during our initial research on that like what does money feel like is that one in three would prefer to deep scrub their bathroom than look at their savings account no um that's quite that's quite a mental picture 100 who wants to get a toothbrush out and start scrubbing time like what like versus is that from focus group did that come out as does that all piece of like no a thousand study research so like it's a big piece of uh research we looked into as part of the i guess the the data research at the start but always get people with choices deep scrub your bathroom or check a savings account right which would you do and people would prefer to get around that toilet seat so so partly that in terms of making sure that the work is going to work and you're developing a brand platform and create a platform that you know resonates to like true human insight and then now we've had the the campaign edit locked for for some time we tested it with system one very delighted to say that I think we tested our first offline without any amends and we're in the top 10 % of the banking category already which is pretty good um there's always a sweat moment where you're like waiting for that video to go through unclear direction of what needed to be changed so I'm really confident that we've made some amends to actually even get higher than that right so yeah oh that's super exciting yeah well hopefully anyone watching and listening at this point will have seen the campaign as well we're recording this a little bit before it goes live but uh hopefully they can see yeah and expect to see it over the next couple of months as well and you know not just we're talking about the tv ad here though there's not going to be lots of interesting things to really paint the uk hot coral lots of moments to embed monzo in culture and to truly do things that hopefully help break the internet for for a minute or two nice i i interesting your phrase embedding culture and uncommon a very you know that's one of the things they stand for doesn't it having conversations in culture or or as neils might say dancing on a fault line in culture this kind of thing so that's very much what they're about is you know uh doing that what does that mean and how do you do that because i think it's one of those things that often people aspire to do yeah not often do do but yeah what's your advice on that so from from my perspective lots of brands and companies hijack culture um very often there's traditional sponsorship is a very good example of like hijack hijacking like fandom for example very few contribute to culture and find ways to meaningfully add value to a community so for me monzo is built from a community right we started co-creating our product with our users nine years ago so it's very important that whatever we do whatever community we start to speak to or culture we want to get involved in that we haven't have a meaningful role and then you can spark a conversation you can find that thing that's either you know annoying them or that gets them excited and find a way to like truly add value both for them and also for for for monzo as well so i'm very excited about our we do something called year in monzo it's uh an end of year data wrap story and within that you get lots of richness of data about how people use their money what they spend it on the best part of of that for me is knowing that the uk predominantly are massive fans of greg's the bakery oh right oh yeah london is prayer everywhere else is greg's um and so the spoiler is to expect some very exciting things coming out with us and Greg's over the course of the next few weeks and months.

29:01I wasn't expecting that. I like it. That's really good. That's proper customer insight, isn't it? Yeah, 100%. And I mean, you know, anyone that, I mean, I grew up in, outside of London, so I was a big Greg's fan. Yeah, it's no surprise. London and the rest of the country are like two different places. 100%. Yeah, mate, that's really good. I wanted, last week we had Craig Ingalls on the Blipcast having a chat about what it takes to be a CMO. He's got, you know, he's been at the top of his game for many, many years. You're very much on the rise and working up, which is so exciting. I'd love to know what you've learned in your career so far.

29:35What are the guiding principles that have got you to where you are today? One thing I know you mentioned to me, which resonated a lot with me, is not asking for permission. I remember when I was a young lad just cutting my teeth in brand management, you very much felt I had to tick all the boxes. I have to be a brand manager. Then a senior brand manager. I have to work on a big account and a small account. And, you know, I have to kind of complete my PDP. You know, it's the old model of structure and like you have to earn your spurs and stuff. You know, I love the little phrases, you know, stop asking for permission when you tell me about that.

30:11Ask for forgiveness, don't ask for permission. A hundred percent. I think that's, no one ever taught me that. But like a hundred percent, that's one of the things that has led me to be where I am is very much applying that into my daily life. like you'll quickly learn that no matter what room you're in someone's always starting out whether that's starting out as a ceo starting out as a cmo or starting out as an account executive or a marketing manager it's day one for somebody some sometime and so not everyone always knows what they're doing everyone always has a little bit of their own internal monologue their own internal anxiety and so never wait like if you've got an idea if you've you know if you've believed that you need to do something i think my best example it's a really weird one was like I wasn't advertising.

30:53I knew that I needed to go to New York and run a workshop for this big client. I think I was 24, 25. And I could tell that my boss at the time wasn't going to tell me to go or didn't know if he should. And so I just was like, I need to book these flights. I need to get to this workshop. And I just did it. And there was no scolding. There was no like, I made the company money, but it taught me very at that point that permission doesn't really get given very often so go get yeah do right and and hopefully you'll you know you'll learn a lot on the way so that's one of my main things i think you know as a leader i'm someone that very much believes in i mean i'm quite calm i'm as a my default sort of energy is quite like relaxed i don't really get like touch wood very stressed very often but i believe in i guess empowering my leadership team and empowering those people to have a safe space to think to truly ideate and and supporting them to really drive um drive home their kpis and their goals so like while i might work with them very clearly on the strategy on the on the frameworks of where they need to get to how they get there all on them and i support and champion them along the way to make sure that they can experiment have fun bring their team on our journey um and so that's another sort of that's a really nice style it's interesting because i'd always knit the two things together because what one thing I found when I started leading people is how much I valued them being proactive.

32:19There's nothing more exciting than when they come to you and go, I've booked the flight to New York. I'm going to do the facilitation with the client. This is what we're going to achieve. It's going to lead to this. I'm like, yes, brilliant. You know, don't, don't wait for me to tell you because, you know, I've got all my things to deal with. It's like, you know, just step into it. It's incredible. And it's like, be like, like care. Like there's so many great people in our team at Monson. And I'm so proud to be working with all of the marketing people there. But there's lots of things that are like learning, like just because they want to learn and they want to experiment and try things.

32:53And they come to me with like, hey, I've tried this thing with AI and I want to show you. And that contagiousness to learn and to experiment and to do different is so important. And I think that will only set everyone off on a really strong trajectory. It does. Now with do differently, of course, comes might go wrong as well. Yes, 100%. How do you deal with that? fundamentally any good leader is in it with their team there's like there's never a like a moment where any of my team would feel that i am not by their side whilst i might not be in the execution always if things go right we celebrate together if things go wrong i'm standing in front of them to help protect and you know ensure that they know that you know everything i don't even think wrong is the right term i prefer more like learning yeah what happened we you know i believe if we did something that's a success right we did something that didn't work okay well what did we learn that's fine but we did it remember that we did it like a lot of companies swirling like trying to get to that perfect perfect perfect thing where actually if you just did 10 things that were probably 80 percent there yeah you'd be far better totally totally i wish i remembered this story more accurately but a few years ago i was doing a session on failure and someone told me about i think it was in a big car company where this guy had basically cost the like 20 million dollars i think it was to the company yeah and he went to resign to his boss and the boss turned around and said i didn't spend 20 million in education to waste it yeah now go and put it to good use that's insane i thought wow i'm like that's amazing that's actually just gave me shivers i know that's great just like how powerful is that i mean the the the payback on that is gonna be just immense but it's true isn't it like you've learned so much yeah and and like people aren't like no one's ever ever always going to get it right like that is just not how the world works and so especially in marketing where we need to look at growth performance crm life cycle brand media like media comms community social like the list goes on and on and changes every day so like there is no world in which everything's always going to be right so providing that psychological safety net and that proper culture where people feel heard valued and supported yeah absolutely it is like non-negotiable for me human first is like fundamentally the most important thing that anyone should be doing and no one's got a crystal ball we forget this because obviously people look back at it go oh yes i always plan this amazing success you know like you know success has many fathers and failures and orphan or whatever the phrase is you know but it makes decision making hard though doesn't it and this is something i've struggled with i I think in my career is like when to make a decision and how to make a decision.

35:31Cause particularly the further you go up in your career, the more decisions get pushed to you and you don't have certainty to you. And sometimes things are 51, 49 in each, you know, in each favor. How do you approach decision-making? Yeah, I think incredibly practically, um, like definitely look at the science, definitely look at the, if it's, I guess I see work and I'm doing it myself, like spend the time to do it. but if it's been presented to me read the science read the strategy read the hypothesis and then trust your gut like ultimately your gut will tell you if you feel like it's the right thing to do and like i trust my gut over my brain any day of the week and you know it will get you so far yeah it might be wrong but but absolutely when your stomach goes and you're excited you know yeah like like back to the work when the team uncommon presented three routes and i was like you just get the feels and you just know you go for it like and we did research and the research worked fantastic if it didn't come back as well i still think we would have just gone with the the actually believe in it so much brilliant love it um now you're talking about creativity as well how do you foster creativity in organization because it can be difficult right because often organizations have processes they're they're often designed to go you know managed by data or by committee and process creativity rarely works in a kind of linear fashion like that but how have you because you've got a very creative role and you come from a creative background so how do you foster creativity in monzo in a few ways and i'm on a journey right so it's not fully there yet but but certainly by bringing the brand to the heart of the company by embedding the brand in the business strategy and in every part of the business's roadmap and kpi that's a way in which people can start to understand the importance and the value when it comes to creative like i believe that the best companies around the world have creative cultures you walk into a a nike office or an apple office uh or even disney right and you know where you are instantly yeah so my my big thing that i'm working at the moment is to do that for monzo right we've got all of the ingredients there we've got all of the magic of what makes monzo monzo we've got that beautiful hot coral now my job is to really bring that into the heartland of every office and every remote worker in the company right how do you actually make everything feel like truly monzo truly coral truly making people's lives better like because we're here to make consumers lives better that's why we're here and so you creativity is a way for us to unlock that when you said you know you think of apple thinking i i can imagine exactly what you're talking about in terms of culture i could write the culture down in my as i perceive it i've not worked at either place but i could do that so if i asked you in five years time what is the monzo culture how would you describe the Monzo culture that you're going to create?

38:14I would describe it as incredibly human and consumer first, both human in terms of the people that work in the company and the people that we have the privilege of having as our customers. I would describe it as fundamentally it's a place where we build things to help people win and will win with you. And ultimately where we will put creativity first and we will look at ways in which we can spark and use ideas to really ignite conversation both within our community our 9 million users but also the broader world yeah maybe maybe a question to round up with then so someone listening now really inspired by your journey inspired by the kind of what you're doing in the work and who you work with who you work with as well what would be your advice let's go back maybe 10 years or something what would be he talks about your 24 year old self on the plane.

39:03So I love that story. It's like, take the jump and it will appear. So what are the, um, reflections or advice to the people that maybe sat there going, do you know what? I want a bit of what AJ is doing. Yeah. I think no one knows that 20 what they like, really, if you do know what you want to do, well done. Cause I definitely didn't. Um, so I think don't be afraid of that. Like lean into the fact that most people don't know and, and don't feel like you have to have it worked out by a certain date or a certain time in your life. Cause trust me, it gets better it gets worse it gets better it gets better so have that mentality and know that you know your mate might be doing x but you'll be doing y um so be kind to yourself is the first most important thing i would say and then back to our conversation on don't ask for permission go get like if you want to go work at a company email their ceo pick up the phone and get through like don't just wait for a job application to arrive submit it on linkedin and then expect magic to happen make your own magic happen i love that that's really good very similar actually feelings for me actually because i i i wish i'd jumped earlier because i i think i i felt when i was maybe in my 20s i didn't have the experience i didn't have the complete you know top trump set of skills and and and experience whatever but actually as you go through life you you take on you know beautifully more responsibility families and mortgages all that kind of thing but also you have a bit less freedom actually so so early you can take a few bets and and see how they go and the other thing i i think i i don't know i probably tried and failed at three or four things but yeah you learn so much and it's like don't assume the first thing is going to be a roaring success it might be the third or fourth thing so the sooner you get on that journey yeah the sooner you're going to get to the sort of uh the the you know breakout success that a million you hope for you know to start now right completely and start small as well and if you if it doesn't work out treat it as a learning not a failure yeah i i think that's the secret to actually because if you're worried about failure you'll never take the jump and you've got to go it doesn't matter if it fails right and it you know it's like the uh daniel kahneman bless him who passed away recently there's one of his phrases that which is nothing is as important as it feels when you're thinking about it sort of thing and when you're thinking about doing something you can end up being really anxious and you can kind of talk yourself out of it can't you yeah yeah yeah so um I think that's a lovely place to end, actually.

41:22So take the jump, everybody, if you're listening to this, and then message us with what you end up doing. And AJ, thank you, mate. Thank you so much. It's been so cool. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to contact me, you can do.

41:51I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn, where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.