The real 4 P's of the CMO with Susan O'Brien (Just Eat)

0:00Hey everyone, just before we get into the show, I just wanted to give a really big shout out to my founding sponsor, System One. As many of you know, I worked at System One and before that, I was actually a client of theirs. Now, the thing I love about System One is when I need to make a big decision, they have been there to help me. Because what System One does is use the power of emotion to help predict the likely impact of my innovation or advertising. So when I've been stuck in the boardroom needing to justify why we're going to pick one creative route over another or launch this innovation over that one, it has been indispensable.

0:33It's also really simple to use, very actionable, and incredibly good value too. So if you want to find out more about System 1's Test Your Ad or Test Your Innovation, simply go over to system1group.com and find out more. Okay, without further ado, let's go on with the show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now, one thing people often ask me is what is it actually like to be a CMO and how do you become successful? And I was asked that question late last year and I replied with a rather different answer which is you'd be surprised that great CMOs don't do much marketing. In fact they have a completely different set of 4Ps and that led to TikTok asking me to write a report called The Real 4Ps for CMO and to discuss this report I got together with one of the most fantastic most experienced CMOs on the planet Susan O 'Brien who was formerly the CMO of Just Eat to talk through the report's findings and get her particularly to share her experience of managing at the top.

1:30There are loads of fascinating insights in the report and we are discussing why they matter and what you can learn from them. Here we go.

1:43Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now we have a returning guest in this episode, none other than Susa O 'Brien, the former CMO of Just Eat. And we're here to talk about all things CMO related.

1:55Suso O'Brien:Wow. Listen, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me, John. It's good to have you back. Yeah, it's great. It feels like yesterday. It does, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's weird, but it's not yesterday because it was 2023, I can remember. End of 2023, yes. Okay, okay. Yeah, where we're talking about all the amazing work you did on Just Eat. The amazing work that I did with the team. Of course. You're very good at that, Susan, I have to say. You're very, very good. I know. I know. Share the love. for anyone who doesn't know about your tenure so you were CMO for about nine years I think I'm right in saying well it's fair to say when I when I joined Just Eat back in 2016 I was a freelance consultant working on a rebrand and then fast forward nine years I left and my role then was the global CMO so yeah I was the global CMO for a couple of years prior to that I was VP of global brand yeah and fifth chief exec by the time I left oh wow so you out you outlasted five chief execs yeah that's impressive so just take us back to um the beginning then because a lot changed in the category between when you started when you left so what was happening in the category when you started well it is a long time ago and in fact I was talking to someone about this the other day saying oh you know it's kind of what you do it's part of how people live their lives and I said Yeah, but it wasn't like that.

3:12Suso O'Brien:Not at all. Back in 2016, it was, you know, your classic Friday or Saturday night treat. It was primarily those restaurants who had their own delivery capability. And then the whole world changed, of course. But yeah, now it's a thing and people kind of demand what they want, when they want it. And so the category responded and lots of competition came in. Yeah, and that category was born and then almost reborn during COVID when everything took off. When lots of people were concerned about their own businesses, our business was flying. That proper hockey stick opportunity for us because, you know, people were looking for things to be delivered to their home and kind of contact free.

3:55Suso O'Brien:So, yeah, it changed massively. And I was part of all of that. So, yeah, kind of humble beginnings into kind of global brand by the time that I left. So, yeah. That's amazing. And what role did the marketing play in it? Because obviously, did somebody say has become very quickly, I think, one of the most iconic kind of platforms any brand has done. How did that come about? Where did that originate from? That came about when we decided to move from a essentially hybrid operating model where all the markets had their own marketing directors and were running with their own agencies, etc. into that understandably desire to be able to scale and drive some efficiencies by doing things once wherever you could.

4:42Suso O'Brien:So it wasn't about global tidiness. It was just about being sensible as we were growing as an organisation. Can we create playbooks that can be better articulated locally in Spain or in Italy or whatever? But yeah, that came about in 2018. And we launched in 2019, the brand platform. And then it kind of really blew up during COVID with when we launched in May 2020 with Snoop and the work that we did with Snoop. So, yeah, it came about through that kind of desire to be a bit smarter about how he operated in terms of level of investment and also making sure that, you know, we're kind of building off the fact that there are more similarities and dissimilarities between people who happen to live in different countries.

5:31Suso O'Brien:So that's where it came from under a new chief exec who'd just come in, actually. And that was Peter Duffy. So, yeah, under Peter's remit, we kind of went through a pitch process where we appointed McCann and then ran with the work that they pitched with, which is also very, very rare, I believe, to launch work that they presented at the pitch. So, yeah, it takes me back. It does. Now, did somebody say, does that translate globally into lots of different languages? Or did you run the English, did somebody say? Was it the same? It's a great question, John. And three little words. It does transcreate, yes, sometimes really simplistically, sometimes literally, sometimes with quite a little bit of local nuance, which is where you have to lean into the local markets.

6:22Suso O'Brien:I don't speak Danish. I don't speak Dutch. We transcreated it for all those markets where we didn't run it in English. And then in some markets where, you know, we didn't go with the local language, it sounded better, more modern, more relevant to go with the English language version. But yeah, when we launched it, we were in 22 markets. When I left in 2025, we were in 18 markets, 17, 18 markets. So, so yeah, some markets we were language specific and other markets we kept it in English. But the idea of, oh, did somebody say, does that insight translate into many cultures? Do they have that kind of moment?

6:59Suso O'Brien:So, for example, in Germany, and my pronunciation, sorry for anyone who's listening who speaks German, is, which means, did I hear, did I hear, and then it would be finished with liefrando, which is what we were called in that local market. So that's what I mean. It's not a straight translation. it's a trans creation of the meaning and the sentiment of what that indirect call to action was all about with did somebody say yeah and what's the thought behind having so many celebrities i think you had snoop you had christina and latto you had katie perry even craig david makes an appearance craig david the most recent one yeah in the uk market only and in ireland so so what's with the celebrities look there was there was a a need and part of the brief was about becoming famous.

7:48Suso O'Brien:And so the way to fast track that is by cheating a little bit and using some of the halo effect of some of those, you know, celebrity individuals to help elevate the brand into a different stratosphere. And so yeah, you do lots of research and work out which one of these celebrities is recognised and relevant across various markets. And of course, in some markets, It was greater or lesser than. But on the whole, that's why we launched with Snoop. And then when you find that magic source, when you've got something that seems to be working and resonating and people are talking about, then you go, OK, you've got that universality of music that transcends generations, cultures, markets, etc.

8:36Suso O'Brien:You go, let's go again. And who else can we go again with? And that's when we went with Katie. So Katie was up second. And she was incredible to work with, actually, kind of relaunching her kind of European status and fame. And then my kind of last iteration with the team was all about Christina and Lato. And again, you can see straight through the strategy in terms of appealing to different generations. But, you know, I don't mind. I don't mind if you can see through that. But that's why we went with it. It was kind of music became became a universal language. we were able to create lyrics that basically delivered on our commercial requirements and what we were trying to get known for out in the marketplace.

9:18Suso O'Brien:And they delivered that with aplomb in their own little way that was very relevant and real and authentically them. And we were able to ride off the coattails. Amazing. There's some really good system on research called the long and the short form of it done with TikTok. and it showed that sonic devices are the most effective in short form content the most effective way to get branding across and create a memory and um i also came across i know we had a bit of laugh about this as well itv did some research with uh i was gonna say goggle box sorry i mean think box yeah it was like goggle box yeah it was they um they were filming people yeah yeah They were filming people watching the ads.

10:04It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. I mean, the first insight, which won't surprise anyone, is the amount of people that aren't watching the ads during the break. I think it was about 30 % of people were actually watching the ads during the break. But 70 % of people were listening to the ads. And then they had this brilliant moment. And it happened quite a few times in the research, where people would be sat on the couch going, no one watches the ads. And then there's this guy.

10:26Suso O'Brien:I'm on my phone. I'm not watching it yet. No one watches the ads. There's this guy with his girlfriend. And then Just Eat comes on. and he literally looks around and goes, did somebody say? And they go on the app and they order their dinner. And they carry on talking about no one watches the ads these days. Yeah, the power of advertising. It is incredible. But there's something, isn't there? I think, you know, you're one of the case studies in creating a sonic device that gets in people's head and creates branding in all sorts of different moments. Yeah, and look, the sonic piece and the audio, we knew it was powerful because we worked with you guys that were then, you know, system one.

11:02Suso O'Brien:to see whether, you know, we could, you know, whether we had something that people could, you know, annoyingly became an earworm for good and bad, you know. So we were both an irritant and a joy. And then getting something that kids were singing about in playgrounds and what have you was, you know, magic. You know, we never anticipated that. But the key to that then was making sure that you repeat repeat repeat and hold your nerve and don't change and don't fiddle with it and just keep it you know consistent that whole bit around consistency yeah that was really important for us and we did variations of that you know Just Eat Takeaway were sponsors of UEFA and Champions League and so we created with the did somebody say line and audio a different version that was taken into the world of football, which was, again, slightly tongue-in-cheek.

11:57Suso O'Brien:But we had the creative licence to do that, so we did, and we played around with it. But on the whole, it was kind of the same beats, the same words, and the same, you know, ultimate intonation of the sound of the music that was going alongside it. So, yeah, it's all about repetition. Yeah. Now, when the category's growing as fast as it did, how do you identify the contribution that the campaign made to... Because presumably, because of COVID and everything else, you know people are ordering more you know at home how do you measure what impact the campaign had versus the other levers in terms of drivers and pricing well it's like anything isn't it so marketing exists as the growth engine to deliver the numbers to deliver the business plan and so it's the sum of the parts john is what i'd say so is there any point looking at what did that marketing do in total isolation because the business was there humming together to do that making sure that we had the right level of couriers that we've got the right level of supply that that everyone's open at the right time and then amplifying it through advertising communications and what have you um but it's the sum of the part making sure that the pricing's right for people at that time during covid so so it was a difficult one if i'm going to completely put it but you know we're able to quantify differences in the brand tracker in terms of our top of mind awareness numbers you know what did that what happened to that in cities and in markets you know countries overall what happened in terms of you know kind of the organic reach that we got with people sharing the content that we were creating that we hadn't had before so it's kind of all the pieces of if you like of the marketing jigsaw all working together to deliver ultimately what was going on to capitalize to be blunt what was going on in the marketplace the demand for sure was there would it have been as good for us in terms of people thinking about us first when it came to making that buying decision I don't know we were it was fiercely competitive so we were up against that you know we wanted to be the number one you know go-to platform that people thought about when they wanted to order something to be delivered at home so it's difficult to isolate it I mean we do lots of you know incrementality testing when it comes to stuff like that but you know it was all systems go everybody was pushing hard business was flying I mentioned the hockey stick in terms of what was going on in the category and for us overall so difficult to isolate you know was it the snoop campaign that helped do it again I would say of course it helped but it it was definitely what everything else that was going on in the you know in the economic environment around us at the time now one misnomer I think a lot of people have about CMOs and I know back in the day when I used to be one long time ago now it's having spent the last seven years working research and doing podcasts but i remember people being really shocked at how little time i personally spent on campaigns i remember working with the uh gray i think we were working at the time and um i remember saying to them you do realize that about five percent of my time is actually spent doing what you do like if i spend five percent of my week on the creative work that's a good week for me like the rest of time I'm doing you know people planning all sorts of other things it's true it's true it's true well I mean I think you know you spend time kind of client for want of a better word climbing the ladder as a marketer you're really good in that function in fact you're brilliant in that then you have to become that t-shaped leader where you have to spread yourself quite thin across different subject matter because it's about the overall business and so yes when you talk about campaigns or marketing per se it becomes really reduced as you the higher you get so you spend a lot more time doing people reviews uh purchase orders um compliance staff governance risk assessment all those things that actually aren't within the true marketing remit and so so yeah I would often walk around the floor of the creative studio for example and say oh show me what you're working on and they go oh no no I can't show you that because you know the head of design hasn't seen it and she doesn't want I'm like I'm stuck in my office like signing off budgets or re-forecasting um so yeah you're absolutely right John that the kind of higher you get as a marketer the less marketing weirdly it is weird yeah and it's a completely different skill set as well isn't it you know in terms of like leading people and organizations and managing risk and shareholders and all those kind of things it's a very different skill set it is a different skill set and and I can hold my hand up saying I hadn't completely appreciated how broad you need to be I mean I love leading people I love all that side of the business I love marketing that's why I've been working in it fascinated with customers and why people do what they do but yeah all of those other things that I wasn't completely cognizant that that is going to play a really really important role in how you are appreciated and how you need to operate you know successfully in a business so yeah that came to me a little bit late so that's um if anyone is listening which I'm sure they are John uh yeah that take heed of that as you climb that ladder it's probably the uh the old phrase of what got you here won't get you there is so true in this particular aspect and it really does flip because you get promoted by being good at marketing and then you get to the top by being good as a leader yeah and that's the challenge it came to light actually so last um i think it was november december last year i had lunch with kate and izzy from tiktok and they were picking my brains going we're going to do our first ever cmo event and john we'd like we'd like your input because you know cmos what marketing topics should we cover and i went back to them and said none they're like what do you mean what do you mean thanks i said i said honestly do you know like um cmos rarely do any marketing i kind of gave the example of like maybe five percent of my week might be spent with the creative agency but most of it is doing other things they say oh that's interesting so what were you doing and i said well it's the i called it the real four p's of the cmo um you know people planning persuasion and performance right i said these are things you have to do you have to basically manage your people You have to create a plan that everyone can follow.

18:16You need to persuade a lot of other functions who do not understand what you do. And you're on the hook for performance, not your own performance, everyone else's performance, which is really hard. So if the business goes up, everyone's a winner. If it goes down, we've got a marketing problem, right? That's how it is. And I said, if you really want to be useful to CMOs, they're your four Ps. Anyway, I didn't think anything of it. And then I got a call from them a couple of weeks later going, Yeah, we love what you said. Let's do an event around the four Ps.

18:45Suso O'Brien:John's new four Ps. There we go. So not only did it inspire an event, but it also inspired a report, which is launching today on the day this episode goes out. Oh, wow. Congratulations. So I thought, as you've so kindly helped me do this report, we can come on to that. Yeah, come on to that. Yeah. I can pick your brains because you're a real CMO here. So I can get you to comment on it. So let me give you some background or everyone listening, a bit of background into what we discovered, because what TikTok said, which I respect them for, is that's great, John. That's your opinion. But can you give us some data?

19:18Yeah. Right.

19:19Suso O'Brien:Give me the data points to back it up. So being good students of kind of marketing science, that's what we did. So went and got 65, which doesn't sound many, but it was quite hard to get 65 very busy CMOs to give us their time to fill in the survey. Right. So we got that. And what did it tell us? Well, some great quotes and some great data. Interestingly, just to illustrate the challenge, I was shocked about this because talking about marketing representation at the top of organizations, you would think that every organization has a CMO on the executive team. Well, our survey suggested that was true of 66%.

19:55So for one in three companies, now these are the CMOs of the best companies in the world. And they're talking about that in their organizations, a third of them don't have marketing representation on the exec. We then asked, what about the board? Now, for the board, we asked a softer question. Is there anybody with any marketing experience? And more than 50 % said, there's no one with marketing experience on the board.

20:18Suso O'Brien:Wow. So the first challenge was, we talk about marketing influence in the organization, but we're not often represented at the top. And then really where the four Ps idea came from, because I asked actually, who has control of the four Ps? Promotion, 92%. place 48%, price 25%, product 23%. So three quarters of senior marketers don't even control their product. Or their price. Or their price. Half of them have got control over where it's sold and most of them have control over how it's promoted. But we're accountable, aren't we, for the result, but we're not in control of the input leaders. Well, yeah, and if you go back to the original four pieces, you said the product price place promotion piece, which is why that is quite a staggering number, isn't it?

21:06Suso O'Brien:75 % plus not involved in pricing. I'm not massively surprised. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but I'm not massively surprised with that number. But the representation or the lack of representation on the board is worrying. The board and the exec is really worrying because, yeah, where's your voice? where do you counter decisions that are being taken that you then are going to have to execute or implement within the marketing world? So, yeah, that's a bit worrying. We need to do something about that. We do. And also, these are the best companies that I'm talking to. Sure, 65 are the best.

21:47These are the kind of people that have been on this show that are representing. The best are saying a third of them are going their representation on the exact. It was quite surprising. A great quote that came out of the survey as well. Marketing is just seen as the comms department, not the strategy department and it's interesting actually because one one um question we asked what skills do you think are lacking in your organization now i was thinking maybe it's media planning maybe it's creativity some of the levers we normally talk about here's from the bottom up uh six percent said media planning six percent said creativity i thought that would be higher because i think everyone wants to be more creative 12 said a lack of insight 12 a lack of measurement But number one, by far, with 28 % of people said strategic ability in the marketing department in terms of skills that we're lacking.

22:35Suso O'Brien:So CMOs are saying that more than a quarter are lacking the strategic capability within the marketing function. That's the number one skill they want to add more of into their team. yeah and that might also then play out in terms of where are we putting our energy in terms of you know where's the marketing energy and the marketing budget going if there is a lack of overall strategy that ties in with a business strategy so yeah well i think this is the thing isn't it because what what also came out is there's more pressure to do more with less so what we found is i think 75 percent of uh people we surveyed grew revenue last year yeah Only 45 % saw an increase in budget.

23:17So there's definitely a squeeze. And we also found that over 75 % of people were spending more than half their budget on short-term over long. So there's a real short-term imbalance going on.

23:30Suso O'Brien:Yeah, I mean, I'd comment a couple of things on that. One would be, you know, sometimes, you know, when you are tasked with doing more with less, you get very focused. And that's a good thing because you have to really interrogate what you're doing and is it driving business growth, which is what we're ultimately there to do. But it is very worrying about the kind of complete obsession with the short term, which is obviously linked to, you know, business performance and shareholder return on investment, etc, etc. But, you know, as marketeers, we have to build that demand for the future. And you can't do that if you are, you know, just in the tactics every day, all day, you know, you are going to get superseded by other people who understand the bothism to quote to quote ritson the bothism of kind of long and short and the importance of that to grow the business and to grow the brand that you're looking to develop and you know the short babysitting period we have as leaders to look after those brands so yeah it it is a concern john the energy that goes into that short term now so probably the number one question i get asked uh by people that listen to podcast is how do you make the case to shift investment into the long term like because so many people will say we get the data we've heard you talk about it on the podcast how do you make but we're dealing with an organization that's so short term and they see marketing as a effectively a add-on to the sales function how would you make the case well I've written a few white papers in my time um I think look there's a lot of education that one needs to do and a lot of corridor conversations that you need to have and to be able to demonstrate the impact that marketing has on the business long term.

25:14Suso O'Brien:But it's not easy. When people are under pressure, it's the first thing. Let's cut the media budget. Let's cut the marketing budget. Let's just, you know, we're living, you know, hand to mouth. So it is difficult. And people, it isn't necessarily that they don't believe in marketing or the brand. They're just under that extreme pressure. And yes, you've got to continue to make the business case to say it's got to be more than just short-term performance marketing it's got to be as I said building that demand for tomorrow and you've given us the stats many times about people are only in the market x percent a very tiny percent single digit percent of the time when you are there when they're ready to buy you know whether that be you know food delivery or whether it be an insurance policy you know and so you've got to be relevant to people which is why we talk about you know the always on strategy or the pulse strategy what's your kind of media plan there to make sure that you are top of mind that you are out there and people because the minute you go dark we're all very fickle we have very short short memories and you're just not relevant you're not there you're not top of mind so it's it's a tough one but there is a lot around that education sharing paper and also bringing other brands in I used to do that with the marketing team you know bring other brands in to tell you their stories as well so it's not all very self-serving you know it's like this is what we did and this is this is the good and the bad you know when you switch things off or when you are doing only near-term stuff so yeah it's having that open perspective and kind of constantly educating and doing it in a way that is as compelling as possible so marketeers are storytellers so we have to use that power and that capability to help us but it's i'm not saying it's easy it's tough and changing the time horizon upon which you measure things isn't it because i found it les bonnet did this study with meta and i think he found even with meta that more than half the return of a campaign in in six weeks happen outside of the window of measurement yeah the moment you change your time horizon suddenly you change your decisions you know and i think we need as marketers we need to start presenting three five ten year plans rather than six month plans it's easier said than done though john it is yeah yeah i mean again i get that because it's often like we may not be here in three years if we don't do this in the near term because we've got to show that return for shareholders and it is very tricky and it's frustrating and a whole heap of things but but yeah I think the other thing to say and I think it was Lucas that said it formerly of wise is that you can get real really really good short-term results with brand work that you do but it's all around being present being consistent and just being out there.

28:03Suso O'Brien:So, yeah, I think it's going to be an ongoing challenge for marketers to look to solve, but working with your peers around the business who back it and who understand the value, as I said, the value that marketing can bring to deliver the commercial business plan. I mean, you touched on, I think, a really important principle earlier with your Did Somebody Say campaign, which is how it compounds over time. so you get this increased return on investment the more you stick to a winning kind of formula so it's find the winning formula and then once you've got it then you make the case to double down then there's no risk because you're doubling down on something you can prove yeah for sure I think the challenge is and I've you may have heard me say this before the challenge is that we're all very guilty of running off and trying to do new things and keep fiddling with stuff you know there might be a slight blip and oh we've got to change it it's like no no no now is exactly to use your language when you need to really double down, stop fiddling with it, be consistent, repeat, repeat, repeat.

29:00Suso O'Brien:Because as you said, that compound over time, that's the magic. That's the joy. There's this lovely quote that came through in the performance section. The CMO job is mostly managing expectations, not growing brands. Yeah. Well, that never changes, does it? You know, and whose expectations are you managing? Yeah. The customers. Well, I often ask the question. One should be, one should be. Where is your customer? Is your customer outside the building or inside the building? That'll tell you everything. Yeah, well, we know the importance of that and kind of that. Corey talked about it, didn't she?

29:33Suso O'Brien:You know, kind of a zero distance to the customer. And at Just Eat Takeaway, we had a customer closeness program, which keeps it very, very real that, you know, the customers aren't on the whole inside the building and you need to listen to them. And, you know, you need to be, you know, everyone uses this language, but you need to be absolutely obsessed with what the customer is telling you. And that might differ from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year to the end of the year. You need to be aware of everything that's going on in the environment. But customers will tell you what you need to know and you need to listen.

30:05Suso O'Brien:I think that's the key thing. 100%. Now, one of the Ps, which I think builds on what we just said there, is persuasion. I love the quote here, which everyone will relate to. Everyone thinks they're a marketer. and this is a stat actually that i i think this is the most shocking stat in the whole report the question we asked is could your ceo clearly articulate your marketing strategy 75 said no wow now we're in the business of communication we are the should be the best communicators in the organization otherwise what we're doing in marketing and they're saying your boss three quarters can't articulate your own strategy oh we have a massive job to do that don't we and these are the best cmos in the world by the way you know just to put that caveat yeah it's not any old random sample of junior marketers this is like really good ones yeah and uh i love your story of can uh do you remember the one i'm talking about i think i think you mean jen do you mean jen from sass yeah yeah it literally is i mean it's it's fantastic and maybe there's a lesson there for for that you know the the 75 who who can't like there's 25 who know how to do it so can we learn from that 25 and i think she's one that you could learn from a brave move by the way a jedi move this one i think i i mean again i was so it was maybe can a couple years ago i was at linkedin uh there's a number of talks there and then uh jen chase from sass was getting up now Now, SaaS hadn't done a brand campaign for 25 years.

31:40Suso O'Brien:Wow, okay. So big deal. So, you know, this is a big, big decision. SaaS is one of those companies that powers every IT system and every top 100, top 500, you know, company in the world. You just don't realize, but they're embedded in all the systems. You know, so it's a brand everyone, you know, relies on. But they haven't talked about their brand for 25 years. So she tried to sell this in, and it was an absolute stroke of genius because she didn't sell it in. Her CFO sold it in. And I sat there and watched Peter, the CFO, talk passionately about Ehrenberg Bass principles. I'm like, what have I just listened to?

32:18And you know, CFOs are very to the point. And he talked enthusiastically about why brand investment mattered. I thought I was a stroke of genius. Absolute stroke of genius. So the principle of always get other people to tell your story is kind of classic PR move, isn't it? is that you'll believe somebody else that says it. As a marketer, we're paid to say this, right? Everyone assumes we're going to say it.

32:40Suso O'Brien:Yeah, but also we like saying it. But I think why that is so unique and special is it goes back to the point that we said earlier around what your role is as a senior marketer. It's getting people on your side. It's socialising your ideas. It's navigating that kind of peer group in the boardroom. And clearly she'd done this brilliantly because she's partnered with her main guy in this instance in the finance department, which is always kind of a, you know, it can be quite an interesting relationship, shall we say. And she's got him to deliver the work, which he has to believe in if he's going to stand up and say it.

33:21Suso O'Brien:So she's clearly done that background work of saying, I need you to help me do this. And so that sense of partnership, that sense of relationship and connection, she's obviously done that brilliantly and I think there's something in that for us all to learn yeah it might I did um not quite as Jedi level as her I mean I have to say that is right up there um similarly I remember I was doing a relaunch on Lucas 8 and I was selling in a pretty bold idea and I went back to the exec and I sold the idea in and everyone is like taking the mickey out of the idea and giving me their opinions and like literally laughing about what I was presenting and I'm like, this isn't good.

33:57And then I remembered, I'd met the founder of System One. This was before I started working with them. And I remember him, we both taught at Ashish Business School together. We did kind of back-to-back lectures. And I remember him talking about how behavioral science could predict behavior in advance. And he had a way of kind of predicting how things are going to work. I thought, oh, that's interesting. So I phoned him up and said, can you come and do a talk on behavioral science and how you can predict how advertising might work in the marketplace? so anyway i got him in they were captivated yeah by what he said and then i and then i didn't present the idea i presented the results from the test that he performed for me and he just put the test in the context of right you know on our system we have a five star scale what john's done here is three and a half and it was in development as well this is in the top 15 of ads and the entire room was literally applauding the very same ad they're taking the piss out like a week before but because it was presented as hard data yeah rather than you know john's uh here's john with a few mood boards and a rousing speech but i think this again there's a lesson in that isn't

35:05Suso O'Brien:that you know it's kind of sometimes you do have to get other people to speak on your behalf because you know here is an individual that's an outsider coming in you know you've got the attention in a slightly different way with those data points and then you know that's why a lot of us have used system one to be able to come out of that your point there around everyone thinks they're a marketer it's like give them the data points behind particularly behind creative that this is what we believe it's going to do and this is how it features alongside other stuff that you will as a consumer you'll be familiar with so it's kind of you know that is the lesson around you know using others sometimes to tell your story but making sure that everything's backed up as much as you can with future predictions or data points based on a pilot or a test which is why that kind of test and learn mentality which is familiar with most marketers is really helpful because you can show and look often you can show data and it's like i don't believe the data yeah and then if you haven't got the data i need the data so yeah you're sometimes caught between a rock and a hard place to be honest but but yeah now when we were at the uh tiktok events uh in february uh you and i did a particular session on the people we did section for a reason by the way so in the survey we asked people to tell us the number one challenge that they face now i'll go from the bottom up here so it wasn't talent four percent it wasn't speed to market that was six percent It wasn't even investment levels.