TikTok sensation Rob Mayhew on turning his passion into a business

0:06Welcome back everybody to the Uncensored CMO. Now, this edition is a little bit special. It is my 100th episode. I know, time has flown. I can't actually believe I've done 100 episodes, but here we are on episode number 100. I thought long and hard about who should I have on as my guest this episode. Now, someone that makes me laugh, makes me cry, and also has a real ability to put the finger on something in marketing that, you know, we all know and love, is Rob Mayhew, the legend that is the TikTok influencer himself. I asked Rob if he'd come on and share some of the stories about Wynoth. He does this, you know, his background in stand-up comedy and how he makes a business out of being funny.

0:50It's a really cool episode, this. We have a lot of fun and we also have a special guest that we dial in. I won't break the surprise, but I'm sure you might be able to guess who that is. But we had a real blast doing this. It's a great episode to mark 100 episodes of the Uncensored CMO. So here it is, Rob Mayhew. This is the 100th episode of the podcast. Happy birthday. Thank you, mate. And I'm joined by the one and only, impossible to miss. If anyone's listening, I should introduce you, Rob Mayhew. You may have seen him, and you've certainly seen his jumper. And in honour of this fact, I mean, in fact, he's donated the original jumper for me.

1:26So anyone on YouTube can see. It's the long-sleeve, warm-and-wonderful-slash-rowing-blazer-cheep jumper. You've had a few nights out, right? It's been with me everywhere, this one. Kid's been all over this, maybe? Yeah, on the sleeve there. It's been, it's just, it's lost its shape a little bit, but it's a classic, a timeless classic. It's seen from action, right? Yeah, it has, actually. And it's made famous once by Lady Diana. That's what she wore on a date in the 80s when she was hanging out at Prince Charles at the polo. Wow. Makes me sound quite rare, doesn't it? It does, yeah. I'm not rare.

1:57Far from it. Your jumper has become quite famous. You've got a collection of jumpers. I'm trying to take it from Lady Diana. I want to modernize this jumper. But I've got, yeah, I've got a bunch. I'd say it's funny because I bumped into you in Cannes, right? And it was about 35 degrees Celsius. I was in a T-shirt dripping with sweat. There's you, down the closet, full jumper attire. How'd you do that? I must have just been filming something and I just keep it on because I'm inherently lazy. But it was too hot. You have kept this one on quite a lot. I have, yeah. You've probably ruined it now. You probably need to be in a museum, I think.

2:29but um i love it as a jumper i think it's brilliant and i i there's something about it this wasn't like i i wore this jumper in like these little collection of jumpers i wear for my sketches and the reason why i did that was because i love the brand and i thought you know if i wear these jumpers enough um maybe they'll give me some free jumpers and have they yeah six months in it took six months and i got an email the base in new york got an email like three in the morning going, Rob, we love what you're doing. Do you want some free jumpers? And I literally fell off the bed. It was amazing. I was so happy.

3:03It's why I did it. How many have you got now? Probably about 20 something jumpers. I love jumpers. Have you got like a special wardrobe for the special jumpers? I do have a lot of drawers. I have to roll them all out, my wife says. But I love them. And they're just, they're proper. It's not fast fashion. They're proper. They're quite expensive as well. I can feel it, actually. They're a nice wall. It's weighty. It's a nice weighty wall. um so i i love my jumpers and this is what i wear though this isn't like a a branding thing this is how i dress anyone who's worked with me over the years knows that i dress a bit odd uh eclectic anyway um so yeah this is me there you go well let's um i'd love to find out how you got here today because um you know we're of a similar ish age i think and i think so yeah yeah but um 43 yeah uh yeah uh 42 are you no no no 49 but um are you 49 it was my birthday yesterday right and my i know happy birthday thank you and i i think i turned 46 and i was a bit upset like you know 45 seems sort of on the right side and 46 like nearer 50 than 40 and my daughter lilia she says to me she goes daddy from this day from this year onwards i'm going to start counting backwards so my birthday yesterday she goes happy 42nd daddy oh so you go so according to lilia we're the same age perfect there you go that's nice nice to celebrate it um how do you end up doing what you're doing now because um you weren't always doing this were you no i mean i've worked in marketing and advertising pr you know for sort of 20 years i was born in felixstow the sunny capital of suffolk and went to university and studied like business studies and i basically a generic I was quite sheltered living in Felixstowe so I wanted to go I wanted to go to university just for that reason uh to actually see some people outside of the area and going I went to Nottingham Traitor University did business studies and uh because it was the most generic thing I could find because I wasn't particularly I wasn't particularly academic I did okay in my school but I wasn't particularly smart during the university placement so I did a four-year course where one year you have to go and do a year's placement and everyone wants to go and work at boots the big kind of businesses that's what I thought you'd go and do and then and I couldn't get a placement no one would have me and then someone at the university oh there's an agency in London called Team LGM who you should go and talk to because they're a bit more marketing I was like okay that should be quite fun and then I ended up there for a year and it was absolutely fantastic i loved it and that was my first taste of what an agency could be like and this was a below the line agency do people still talk below the line above the line i think i think so it was always growing up at i say growing up as in like early in my career it's always like above the lines the sexy bit and below the lines the sort of slightly dirty making cardboard to go into the corner shop to flog an extra can of tango type exactly i remember my clients were um rjo wiggins paper and I don't remember what the other clients were but it was just it was fun uh the people were young and it was kind of exciting it was in London uh they're based in Marlborough and I just got that itch for it and I thought this is what I want to do I remember reading that yeah I read uh eating the big fish eat the big fish oh yes Adam Morgan Adam Morgan one of your previous guests and that changed everything for me I was like oh it's not it can be see there's even a wider world of advertising and brands out there and and so i went back to university and yeah the rest is history really i kind of came back to london um started working in sort of sales promotion agencies and uh bd network was my first agency job in london and i just loved it and i've always loved it so for 20 years not sorry let me rephrase i haven't always loved it but for 20 years it's kind of just kept me sort of I still wanted to be within this world and I've had ups and downs I'm definitely on an up right now though I love I just love what's been happening and yeah I've worked as I said I've worked from sales promotion agencies I've worked for PR agencies advertising agencies you know big networks independence I think that in itself has given me real exposure to the things that are the same in all the different agencies and things that are slightly different and what I like in an agency what I don't like in an agency and yeah it's kind of been a wild ride the last few years and where does the comedy so you I think you've done stand-up haven't you or you do stand-up I started doing a side thing or I just made me just made me think of something actually so my first ever stand-up gig uh Simon Massey who runs Neverland has a who founded Neverland agency uh was working with me at Exposure at the time and he had a festival called leaning stock still does actually and so i thought i'm gonna do stand up i didn't prepare anything i got really drunk and he gave me a 20 minute slot which is sort of something you might give jerry seinfeld like you don't give that to a first person so you can blame him uh and i bombed i mean it was horrific i think there was video footage of it somewhere but i've never seen it uh it was horrific and i didn't do it again for sort of 10 years that was in like 2005 and then yeah didn't do it again for 10 15 years and then I've done it for so about four or five years before lockdown and just loved it I love doing stand-up it was just something that I enjoyed the kind of freedom of it like you can just come up with an idea and go up on stage and stay at that night I never really got beyond 10 minutes sort of you have to really work the circuit you have to be up every night doing it and I'm not in well I'd say I'm a bit inherently lazy in essence it's like it's difficult it really takes motivation you want to go out every night to be doing stand-up and it's a lot of work to do that and have a full-time job i mean how much do you have to prepare for stand-up because obviously it's made to look like i just turned up and you know took the piss out of the audience at the start you prepare everything um as you get a bit more experienced and you kind of find your voice you can be more flexible and then you but you get it gets to a point when you do it enough you you kind of can have fun with it you know what you've got to say you know where's the laughs are going to be and you can try the key is to kind of find your own voice and to find what you can talk about comfortably or that gets just you know that's exciting to talk about and to write and I enjoyed the writing process of it all and then lockdown happened so there was no more stage time and by this point in my career I was sort of head of social so I'd moved over from kind of account handling I'd become quite sort of senior in digital and social so I've always been really curious in my job and that's one I think why I'm still in the job itself is because I might not be the smartest account handler, but I was always probably one of the most curious.

9:51So thinking what's going to be the next big thing that got me into digital, got me into social. And then, uh, when TikTok came along, I'd, by that point, I'd kind of fallen out of love with social media. You post something and onto Instagram and 25 % of your audience might see it. Or was it 5 % of your audience might see it. I can't but very low and then unless you paid just to get your pace boosted and you know the whole process of writing a content calendar briefing the studio and all of that it's just it was such a long winding process that it was just kind of boring and then you're kind of creating all these different boring high production content for these brands that's never seen and then tiktok came along and like everything changed number one uh the content could be lo-fi number two anyone can just all you need is a phone and a ring light so immediately uh anyone you don't have to be designed to have production skills and so it changed i thought you know what i'm going to learn about tiktok i'm become a tiktok expert the best way of doing that because i thought this is a bit part of the job i want to be focusing on so i was freelancing at the time i i didn't have work i couldn't get a job so I decided to kind of why don't I start posting content for myself I've done stand-up I can create some characters I can just take some of my jokes I've written some stories and I'd go around I'd post eight times a day when I first started eight eight times a day um and just figuring stuff out and it took six months I was getting like maybe a hundred views 200 views 300 views occasionally a thousand views and then i did a sketch about uh what happens when someone's in the meeting room when you've booked it and i just used so this was one of the first sketches i did where i filmed at home with a green screen um so not with a physical green scene but just using the green screen app on the on the tiktok app and it it changed everything for me because oh i i can film everything at home so i don't have to go out and walk the streets um i can come up but then I can be anywhere with a green screen.

12:04So I can be on a beach, I can be in a meeting room, I can be in a taxi. And I thought, do you know what, I've got 20 years of experience of just being in office culture. So I started doing kind of office culture type relatable content and then it just flew immediately. And then I'd say a few months into that, I just got more confident thinking, do you know what, why don't I be more specific about agency and a bit more specific about kind of the things that I wish I could say in a meeting or have the confidence to talk to highlight some of the things in the job that I think are ridiculous that actually a lot of people might not understand sort of timesheets or showing a mood video or just some of the nuances in pitching the only people who have really experienced it will kind of get so I'm sort of and this isn't necessarily a great tip for brands but I was I was narrowing my audience somewhat and I got to 150 ,000 followers which is someone today and so that's not like a huge amount really but I've got 150 ,000 followers of people who work in agency work in small business work in branding and just are in this kind of world that we're in so I'm happy with that but I love how you pick on what seems to be very very small mundane things and just make them funny it's that that's the thing so I always what I do is I'll get my phone out and I'll, I'll, during the week, I'll write down little premises, things I'll notice.

13:29And again, this is, it tends to be me just going in my mind thinking, you know, 15 years ago, I'll put myself in one of my agents, like what was weird about what was happening. But you take like a meet a client meeting, you've got, you're, you're preparing for the meeting, you're getting the pastries, you're meeting the client down in reception, you're, you're bringing them up in the lift, you're getting the IT ready, you're bringing them in, when do you eat the pastries? Is the tech working just from that there's like a thousand sketch ideas and then even within that you can start picking up on little things that happen about you know you haven't got a pen in the meeting and you know you need to be making notes so you're sort of looking around trying to think like i can't really ask for a pen and then you're sort of stuck and it's just those little moments that i find really interesting and then the heart the easiest bit is writing relatable content i think the hardest bit is trying to stick a joke in there and especially on tiktok you can hook them in but i think the what the content i do that does well is when there's a payoff so there's a surprise or a joke or something that elevates it and i've always found that the more kind of agent the more i'd really dig into the kind of the agency kind of uh if you know you know jokes they're the ones that do great and especially on linkedin one of my favorite ones is that is is meeting the meeting the team at the pitch and he got oh hi i'm the business owner uh you won't see me again yeah and then he got like the strategist yeah i i had two weeks to do this i did it the last half and the creative is going well i you know and it's funny that's exactly as a great example of one that i you sit down you just write you think oh this is going to do great because you think it's exactly right you know the c the cmo will come into the pitch or whoever the founder will come into the pitch and they won't see him again they'll see him at the awards do uh when they won't know what award they're up for uh then meet the client and they'll be like thank you so much all of that uh then you've got the strategist had no time you've got the counter handler who's been working all night and maybe a creative creative director but who's just angry uh and so it's kind of things like that write themselves and it's i i love i love it and it is it's focusing on those moments the moments i get into that world i'll think of that idea and then off that there'll be like another 20 it's like stripping back the veneer and looking at the kind of honesty and another favorite of mine is a receptionist kind of like if the receptionist told you know and this is that's great yeah so what the receptionist sees basically and no the receptionist we all know this is like the pinnacle of every agency so they're so important they're so vital they keep the things going basically and they also i've had really good friends who are receptionists when i've worked at agencies and they you know i'd go and hang out there and i just see some of the rubbish they'd get briefed to do and like go and run errands and uh they also get all the gossip and they get to see who's coming in with who and what time they're coming in so they're always a gold mine i always think that's always quite rich and and so i thought that's a great kind of uh point of view as well uh of just seeing what okay what would the receptionist say like what are the things if you're an honest receptionist what would you just wouldn't want to book meeting rooms for people just book your own meeting room please and like what are the things they'd say so that's that's interesting putting myself into other positions i think just being in on different types of agencies, independent, big network agencies, like you all, they're all different experiences.

16:50So I can tap into all of that. So what's been your most successful, most viewed TikTok of all time? What topic was it? The most successful ones are probably the honest. So the honest handover, the honest leaving speech. I think because the i'm saying things people wish they could say or highlight it sort of exaggerating the things that you know sometimes happen um and so i think people are drawn to that to see where i'm taking it when i want to so that does really well they do really well on on tiktok and linkedin as well so i'd love so i'd say i was probably about a year two year and a half into making my tiktoks before i realized i should be posting them on linkedin i thought i wanted to build up like a bank of content get good at it I I wanted to get really good at it before I kind of started showing my peers even though they'd started to discover it themselves but not all not not not to the level it is now and so I um started posting on LinkedIn I didn't know followers were it was a thing on LinkedIn that you could get followers I thought was just connection so I went from like 200 followers to like 50 ,000 followers in like a month and I was posting three or four times a day because I had a two-year back catalogue or, you know, I had thousands of sketches pretty much ready to go.

18:11So I was posting my best of, you know, so I could just spam LinkedIn with my sketch. And after like a couple of weeks, it just kind of blew up. And the engagement levels on LinkedIn have just gone, continue to be crazy. Because that's really interesting because the advice tends to be on LinkedIn, don't post every day because otherwise the algorithm, you know, doesn't reward you. I've not seen that at all, yeah. But that's the opposite, isn't it? It's the opposite. And people use LinkedIn for different reasons, job hunting and networking and just keeping up on what's going on in the industry. And I think actually just, it's quite refreshing to see a video, maybe something a bit funny, but actually does speak to them as a marketeer.

18:49So that's why it does so well. But people, I mean, the comments I get, I'll get hundreds of thousands of views every day on LinkedIn and hundreds of comments on each post. and I can see where all of them work. And also, like, if I want to get a deal with, I don't know, Heinz Salad Cream, what I'll do is I'll follow all the brand marketing team at Heinz. I'll follow the agency people who work on the Heinz account and then I'll slowly, Mike, throw in a couple of Heinz references in my sketches, post them. Don't tag them or anything and then let them discover the fact that I'm a fan of Heinz Salad Cream and hopefully they'll reach out.

19:26I did that with Pratt. I mean, I was going to Pratt anyway, because everyone does at work. And it just felt like a real, like, I don't know why Pratt haven't reached out to me. Because I'll always be talking about like Pratt pastries, Pratt, you know, going out for, one of my funniest ones I really enjoy doing is, I hate, for some reason, I'm a very sociable person, but I'm also quite shy. So when I leave the office, it's headphones on, podcast on, like your own podcast. and I don't want to walk with people to the station and if I go out for lunch, I kind of want to go by myself. So I'd be like, oh, does anybody want a different lunch?

20:05I'm just popping out. The worst thing people can say to me is, yes, I'll come with you. That just drives me mad. I'm like, oh, God. I'm trying to get away from you. Yeah, I'm trying to get away from you. Then this is just me for all the years, not now. Or they'll be like, oh, can you get me a sandwich? But I don't want this, this. And you're like, please. And you have to start writing it down. Then you have to take it. And so I'd do those sketches. I'd actually use a Pratt background and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, and then Pratt, I've reached out and I'm now sort of doing content for them about their membership.

20:34And it's great. And it's almost like it just feels like a natural fit because that's where I find it really interesting. I never went into this thinking I would be sort of creating content with brands and stuff. I think quite quickly I realised there was an opportunity, but I always thought I'd be a TikTok expert. working at agency rather than a content creator that agencies work would work with so it's only recently that i really have had the confidence to sort of that is my reality yeah and i'd love to dig into that a little bit because i think that's something that a lot of people won't you know understand about how how that how that industry works before doing that though um so if you could dream up the ultimate sponsor for you who would it be like who's the next prep that you're going to just drop those little crumbs it's a really good question so i i do genuinely uh have a very immature palate so um everything i eat is beiged it's better now i'm married because my wife keeps track of what i eat she's like come on let's have some salad this evening but i always have salad cream salad cream salad cream with my high salad cream and they've reached that a couple of times but come on Heinz I mean I am literally a walking ambassador for Heinz salad cream my wife made me a tray that says there's a Heinz salad cream so if I sit and I eat in front of the tv which obviously we try not to do uh but it's a Heinz salad cream tray and I got a valentine's day this year she got me a bespoke uh had my name on it bottle of hindsight cream wow this is that's the ultimate expression of love yeah is that that's fandom yeah that's what's very skein was talking about me that's that's exactly it i've got my i love my i love my hindsight cream but but in all seriousness there's i love working with brands who are a little bit left field as well.

22:41So I love, for instance, Sitecore or, so Sitecore is like Adobe basically, and who want to illustrate how their products can work in business. So I love something like that where I have to really go away and think about how this can be. There's some that have real natural fits and then some that have to go out and really write something that can work. And there are some brands who, I just love the brands who want to do some interesting stuff. uh and you know my audience i can be in a workplace but also i can i can be working from home it can you know i can write create any world basically and so i really love a challenge and so i'm trying to think of some i'll think of some more brands as we're talking let's i really should thought yeah let's drop them into conversation exactly then as the as the new sponsorship yeah there you go exactly yeah which you get a sponsor for the show at the same time yeah exactly exactly win win win there you go one of my favorites actually in terms of your kind of collaboration content wise was pitch because like everybody's got a pitch story haven't they like whether you're client or agency you've always got that horror story about a pitch where you turned up or i mean the one that i'll why don't you just literally made me shiver was um i went to do a pitch to sainsbury's yeah and i had the tesco logo i had actually pitched to tesco the week before and honestly she was a scary buyer i mean buyers are scary anyway but she is like badass you know i mean she can't go with the test she just literally said what yeah it's over then you can't are you doing yeah and is them and i'm on a college she's right by the way wasn't she yeah i know and you're just mortified and you're just like how on earth and like the next six emails to her work to you know dear sarah to you know sort of like you know eventually i think i got a listing like nine months later and we never forgot about it it's funny actually i think i'm we did something outside of work at one point and then turns out she's got a wicked sense of humor and she was just playing with me but you know i mean i i like jeez like for weeks i was just horrifying yeah but those things happen you know just seeing your post that feeling came back i was like shit it's i hold the mirror up to the industry and you know it's i i it's all a love letter i love i love the industry but there are there are some serious topics within there but and pitching is one of them and so partnering with pitch was sort of so pitch.com kind of create these templates to you can basically for someone like me who can't format slides it's perfect um which is why again this perfect collaboration and it's about they wanted to highlight some of the issues with pitching and and rather than just go can you do a tiktok for us they were like let's do a campaign so i did a a kind of a call to arms asking people for their pitching stories.

25:26And then I got like over 400 entries in my DMs and in the comments. So I went through all of them and then created a one big sketch of the best of pitch horror stories. And yeah, I posted that this week. And again, it's got like 250 ,000 views on LinkedIn alone and over 300 comments. And that's amazing. And it's because people can relate to it and they've all got their own stories. They're sharing their lists. And if you read the comments of that post alone, it's terrifying. But it's because there's a serious topic there as well, which is about, you know, pitching hasn't changed over the years.

26:05Not really. It has at times, but it's still the stresses, the late nights, the free pizza you get if you're working late, the weekend work and all that. That still goes on. and you know what pitching and you're not getting paid for pitching um clients have you know and it's not easy for them they've seen four agencies already and they've got another agency it's four o 'clock and you know just it's so the those parts of the job i i like to kind of feel like i can be a voice for those because um i've got an audience and i don't have the answers i don't know what the solution is there but i can start the conversation totally and i think that's something i think it's a genius move of pitch as well because it's much better for someone else to tell your story isn't it right so pitch could go sponsored post you know this is what we know about pitching or whatever and you'd be the sort of thing you just scroll past right yeah but you pop up with some hilarious kind of take on pitching that everyone kind of like laughs at and then in the comments then people don't mind being sold to if there's some value being created at the same time and that is exactly the secret when i do my sketches with brands you know it used to be that you'd need to get the brand in there the first three seconds otherwise you know that's no one you know it doesn't count as a brand thing but now it's almost like how can i bring a brand into the sketch isn't going to alienate my followers uh has to feel natural and it has to feel like they're not being sold there has to be added value uh of course there's a bit of selling going on there but majority of the time the comments are always really great and they engage with it and i love that challenge because that's where i really i enjoy about being a one-man advertising agency because i get to sit there and write these things and remember i'm an account handler or i have been by trade an account handler who you know you wouldn't give the copy to me you wouldn't but actually i've been a i've always wanted to be a creative and that's what that's what's changed in the last few years is that i can you know realize that actually i why can't i be um why can't i be creative i think you're writing this book actually called the subtle art of never having to sell because i i think like there's so much particularly in b2b right there's so much like hard sell isn't it like you know here are the five reasons why you should kind of subscribe to our you know whatever whatever and like you know like doing this podcast for example i'm trying to try and find ways of adding value to other people and then then they discover whatever it is you're selling rather than having to sort of push the message, let the audience come to you.

28:34And I think what brands, when they work with me, they're getting my 4 ,000 sketches I've done previously. They're getting all that experience, like all the mistakes I've made, all the ways I've worked out how I can bring a brand into a sketch. And so when they pay me to work with me, they're buying all that experience that I've, all that time I've worked for free for a few years, my poor wife having to suffer through me with my you know filming telling her to not bang the pots while she's doing the washing up and that sounds terrible that we should do we share the washing up as an example she's banging the pots that would annoy me um and don't get cancelled

29:16but yeah she might be doing fixing the car uh and uh just make any making of what i mean is that she's long suffering but she's always been like do you know what you love this you love she could tell immediately i started on tiktok that i loved it and i found it's it's it's taken me 20 years to find something but that's all i want to do like there's not a minute where i'm thinking i'd much rather be you know making a sketch right now or filming and like and the good thing is like my being in the job is it just all feeds into this you know kind of conveyor belt of ideas that i have and so that's why i was posting eight times a day because i wanted to learn about it because i had so many ideas i was bursting with things to do and that's what keeps me going and i absolutely love it at what point did you obviously you're working in agency world for 20 odd years at what point were you able to turn this prep by the way yeah we need to think of some more uh sponsors i'm gonna british airways presumably you must travel around the world i do travel and i often travel british airways because i'm trying to collect the points yes business travel just just for the avoidance of business travel uh is incredible it is isn't it yeah the lounges are great just access to the lounges and when they send you a car you know sending you a car to pick you up isn't that lovely and if you go first class then yeah i think this is actually virgin but let's not talk about let's talk about for baa i've done but baa could experiment with it they could they could try you know you could be their first i don't know why they haven't asked me for a series i know on business travel yeah right but actually filmed on the flight How to get an upgrade.

30:51Exactly. Everyone wants to know how to get an upgrade. I don't think you can now. No. Do people get upgraded? I did actually. I did the other day. But I didn't even know. So I just got the ticket and I'm like, 4F. Oh, that's good, isn't it? And going to New York as well. Because those planes have quite a few business. I'm like, 4F, is this a printing error? I don't know. I've got a great idea for BA. I think you need to get Neil's on comment on the phone. We need to get Neil's on the phone, right? Should we get Neil's on the phone right now? I think we should. Let's call him in. Because I've got a great idea.

31:20that i want to pitch for him right let's give this a go come on are you hello john hello mate how you doing i'm very good how are you i'm good mate i'm imagining you're in some swanky first class lounge with your your ba client am i right no not quite right no i don't want to ask any expressions on that but that isn't really the vibe is it more partridge oh there he is you two locking around we we are basically yeah my goal is for this podcast to be longer than your one so even though yours was a two-parter last time yeah i mean the side effects of that is that you have to be flawlessly interesting rob i know but i've just been quoting you in cindy gallop the last hour so it's fine a lot of talk of cheese and uh yeah yeah um um i've got all right okay are you ready for this you're going to be annoyed that i'm even telling this publicly but this is your next big ba campaign okay right okay you can have this this is as me telling you this right you should try nothing's free so but you can have this i won't go into the data too many details the insights because i haven't bothered with that but one big thing when you go on a plane it's romantic isn't it you're going on a holiday there's something about it and i was thinking rather than doing a tv ad or outdoor and all that bullshit that neils loves to do um why don't you make a film okay which we also know neils likes to do but why don't you make a christmas film okay so why don't you let's not everyone talking about the john lewis christmas ad let's talk about the ba christmas film that you can only watch on the flight okay and then you're out of home is a is the trailer for the film uh the advert is the trailer for the film on the tv but it's available for three months on the flight or maybe a year who knows you can go into the detail neils but it's a it's based on travel it's a rom-com it's a beautiful christmas film based on travel emotions it's got some big hitters in it all financed by ba it's product placement but it's beautiful and you can only watch it on the flight yeah i'm into it man we've got some work a bit like that that we might be cooking up it's not a rom-com Christmas ad rob as we speak, but the idea that there's limited content on the plane, that's fun.

33:37I have to say, did you do the safety video? We did. Did you? Like, the safety video, how long is the safety video? It's amazing, you've got all these celebrities in there. Sorry, can Neil sound less underwhelmed, more underwhelmed than my idea? Yeah, sorry, was that a brilliant idea, Neil? I mean honestly that idea put the hairs up on my arms raw by you know I'm going to brief everyone now on it and make sure that by the way I'm the one that has to write the film so that's great as well yeah and it won't be a short film because no one likes short films no how long is it going to be like before it's three hours no six hours maybe New York to London as long as the flight is I have to be in the film as well and it'll be me and I don't know Hayley Bieber or someone yeah exactly Exactly.

34:2724 hours of content. Never sleep. Because people would be excited to watch that on the flight. But anyway, Neil, so how are you, buddy? I'm very good, mate. I'm very good. There's lots going on, lots of sort of stateside stuff happening and some big work about to drop there, which is fun. And yeah, we're having lots of fun, man. When are you going to let me come over to your office? Whenever you want to come over to our office and hang out. Okay. Can I just come and hang out? At what point would that be irritating, though? You'd tell me, wouldn't you? Just really. Okay. All right. what's a review with you like and what a review uh yeah good you thought he'd left all that stuff yeah i asked him i asked neils not long ago i said is it true you don't have account handers i don't know why i got in my head that it was an office full of creatives i don't know he's never said that i just thought that that's sort of something that neils would probably do yeah exactly and then he was like what do you think what do you think what how does anything get done And then he was like, no, it's still a structural agency.

35:27We still have to finance. We still have... You have to bill a bill. Yeah, exactly. We still have to have financial goals. Otherwise, it's just going to go chaos. But congratulations on everything. And we love... And continue to admire your work, Nils. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Madden. Congrats to you guys, too. You're both smashing it, basically, aren't you? You're like sort of pod voice influencer celebrities. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you're right there. but we'll come over we'll come over one Thursday are you in the office how often are you in the office that's a big question I'm in quite a lot I mean lately there's been quite a bit of travel but I'm in quite a lot just text next time and we'll just make sure you get in and we have a few beers or whatever it'll be fine there he is let's do it there we go we set it up done alright Nils good things happen go knock them dead feel free just to work my idea into your next idea it's good that you caveated with we've got something similar in the pipeline so when this comes out you've kind of done that You know what you're doing.

36:21This is why he's the best. This is why he's the best, isn't it? That's right, you're up. All right, cool. See you later. Take care, man. See you, bye. Bye, guys. Bye. Lovely. Look at that. I think he quite... I think he... Okay, let's just dissect that. Yeah, deconstruct that. I thought he'd be more excited about it, but I didn't know what I was expecting. But then at the same time, to say that he's got something similar and then he said we're doing some exclusive content on the flight. That's not really similar. but in the same essence of the idea. Yeah, I think he's quickly briefing the creatives to mock it up and reverse the date, put a couple of months back on the date.

36:57Exactly, I think this is going to happen. If there is a film... Oh, funnily enough, Rob, we had this idea last year. I wouldn't, and I shouldn't say Christmas film because he'll just do a Valentine's film, Neil. He will. Love that man, though. Love it. Let's try and do the whole tour. So, okay, so you've got your flight sorted out with BA, right? Yeah. Where are you going to stay when you land? Do you know what? I have done a partnership with Corporate Traveller who book corporate travel for businesses. So they were one of my first long-term partners. Free holidays? No. Because they do corporate travel.

37:31So I did actually ask them to help me book something once. But that's great. So that was a good example of, right, how can I bring my characters into like Jenny and Gavin and Simon and those people? well, how can we get them to go to New York? What could possibly go wrong that will then highlight the features of corporate traveller? And so again, they came to me. It's so great. I love it when marketeers see what I'm doing and kind of think, do you know what? Let's work with him. I feel like I'm seeing behind the curtain now. So I'm going to go, Rob's just posted a spoof of Rolex. But this is it.

38:07But I can, like, it's true. I'll think of what would be a great partner and I'll talk about them a bit. A lot of people do that. A little tease. And I think it's a good way to kind of manifest partnership deals. And, you know, especially on LinkedIn, because you can have all the brand managers. Just copy the entire, like, senior marketing team in, can't you? Exactly, exactly. Oh, by the way. And the Merlin team follow me. Do they? Yeah, so Alton Towers tickets, all of that. Oh, perfect. I can't remember who it was I spoke to. So I keep having to mention Merlin in my sketches. hoping that the person will reach out to me.

38:44Yeah, Merlin, if you're listening. Merlin Entertainment, yeah. I'm sure I was at Cannes with the CMO at some round table at Campaign. They're a lovely bunch. They're really nice. Very, very nice. I thoroughly recommend Merlin. Did you enjoy Cannes? I love Cannes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so great. It feels like the thing with Cannes, I was a bit too busy, I think. I felt like I could have done a bit more of the turn up to the party and talk my way in and, you know, see who I meet. I find it's so, I feel so lucky. Like, I want to just paint a picture five years ago of where I was in my career and like what's happened so you can just see the sense of the differences I was I've I've always been a bit lost I think in marketing I've always been an account handler who's good but never you know people I my peers are now like running sort of Samson and there's and there's loads of amazing they're like very senior like and I was never that I don't know if I wasn't hungry.

39:39I wasn't good enough. I was competent. I was curious and those and things. And, and, you know, I got to sort of a head of social, head of digital kind of level or, you know, senior director, client comms or level, but I was kind of lost. And I think it, it took something like this when, when I, I think in this job, you've got to find it, like, what's your role in it? Like, what is it that you enjoy about it? And for me, it was when TikTok came along and it just changed everything for me. And so when I get invited to something like Can, I would never have got invited to Can off the merit of being an account handler.

40:16And now I'm a creative director at Gravity Road. That's unthinkable to like five years ago. So it's a strange industry that like, and I think it comes a lot down to your own confidence in knowing what you're good at and what your ability is. I've always been good at creative ideas. I've always been good at, well, that writing and all those things. But I never thought, oh, that's not my job, though. My job is account handling. And I never thought I could make a switch. I've never heard of an account handle becoming a creative at 40 years old. This is the thing I don't teach you in school, though, isn't it?

40:51Like when you're at school, you think you have to be a doctor, a teacher, a scientist, engineer, whatever. But the idea that you could actually earn a decent living out of something that is just a lot of fun, right? it's amazing exactly that and i remember i was working at exposure there's a wonderful founder there called timbourne who said to me once and he meant this in the nicest possible way he's like um do what you're really good at he's like you're funny and people love you and and i thought that's a really nice thing to say at the time i was like that feels a bit rude but he was absolutely right and actually now i look back at that and it's almost like it's kind of where i'm at now it's kind of do making people laugh uh i'm very good at like noticing what's going on around me so it's almost like i was always meant to be doing this but it's taken what 23 years i love the fact you did that in your early 40s that's just yeah and that's another thing like i i've never been one about like what age you are and all of that and I'm so glad I waited till I was this age anyway because I'm just more sensible I am at a stage now where I I could work hard at something and I had the I was able to kind of freelance take time off to kind of focus on something like this so that's not always available to everyone but I've also really put the graft in it wasn't an overnight thing I was making you know I was probably spending eight hours a day filming, making sketches, doing all that writing.

42:22And then, you know, my wife would go to bed. I'd film. I'd be first up in the morning, like getting up at like six and filming and writing and doing all that stuff, like the work. But if you love it, it can be one of the hardest things actually is because I love it so much is turning it off at weekends and finding that balance. Because if you love what you do, it's all you think about. I always think it's nice when you do something. I mean, it's also why I do this podcast because I actually get so much energy from it and it doesn't feel like hard work. It doesn't feel like work. I look forward to it.

42:51Oh, this is great. I'm going to have a chat with someone I really like. I'm going to learn loads. I'm part-time. Exactly that. And I'm part-time at Gravity Road. So I spend two days working there and then two days just doing it. I feel like I've got a job for two days. The other days where I'm doing my create, create my content, I don't see as real days like work. But people are paying you good money for you to create content. exactly right this is insane so when you know you talked about all the you know long days up early up late to try and make it work how long does it take you till you could actually make a living out of doing this okay so i'd say my first partnership was with get it and that was about seven months in and that i wrote on a post-it note okay and i've still got it i wrote i'd love to make 3 500 pounds a month from comedy from uh this world of like performance and writing and that sort of thing and i had it i've had it on the in a bedroom and thinking okay what can i do with that and it took about my first partnership with get here i didn't know how to cost stuff and i mean i i was at that point uh work a head of influence so i should know all of that but you you kind of you don't want to overcharge too much at the start anyway and they don't have the budgets but it made me realize oh i can do these brands i can work you know how can i get a delivery into my world so i wasn't even doing necessarily office-based stuff particularly i was doing more relatable just being at home stuff sketches so it took about probably took about a year and a half two years before i was making a living from it and even now i've still got work at gravity road so even though uh i'm making more for my comedy my my sketches and being a content creator than i am working with them i still like to i because i love the job and i love what i do so i still want to work in agency isn't that crazy and i also think that comes down to you real though doesn't it it keeps you connected also i feel like there's also part of me that's like it could it all just come crumbling down tomorrow and that's that you can't live that way you know for me it's this is just the beginning in terms of what I want to do but there's still that I still battle with that confidence as well about um you know is this as good as it's going to get what where can I take it what just keeping working hard at it but I always thought you know if you're good at something and you work really hard at something you put that grind in you'll always come to the top and I and it took me that sort of year of kind of grinding away at TikTok to really sort of find what I wanted to do with it find what what made me special at it and and and then to sort of how I can turn it into a business uh and even still it still surprised me like getting invited to go to Cannes with TikTok uh the people I get to meet um it's just incredible I get to award um host award shows as well now I've got a live performance that I do at the minute which is a fake spoof pitch called the frack uh the agency's called the frack pack and um i basically am dunning kruger creative services uh studio and i am the ceo and i'm pitching for this fracking company because we're desperate for the work so we work with anyone uh and they're called the frack pack and i basically take i perform this whole pitch as a one-man show for like 20 minutes of I go for the strategy, the creative ideas, the build up towards them, client arriving, it's a bit of audience interaction.

46:25And I love that's the kind of stand up side of me where I really wanted to start bringing, how can I, when award shows or conferences like come and talk, do a Q &A, I'd rather do a performance. And that's gone down a storm. People are loving that. I mean, I've done it a few times and I'm going to expand on that. So how can I bring more live performance into what I'm doing and kind of edge back into kind of that sort of stand-up. And you mentioned your new agency, Dunning-Kruger, as well. Congratulations on the launch of that. Yeah, Dunning-Kruger Creative Studio is my agency. I'm the founder of it.

47:01It's the name of my business. And Dunning-Kruger is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which I think is when you think your ability is more than it is, basically. And I thought, what a great name for an agency. um so i want to build out this network of like everything i do will be under dunning kruger so now dunning kruger is the agency in all my sketches um there's a whole raft of possibilities of what i can do with that as an idea why can't it be its own agency and real you know why why isn't it and it is in a way because that's what my business name is so i i heard this little rumor going around that the reason have a sport on common was they couldn't afford you this is absolutely true yeah they wanted me and i said look no you should try and comment yeah they're doing their best uh they've got a few little clients only fair right it's only fair there's three of them so they do need more money they do need more yeah i'd take i would have taken uh 30 60 less money than them yeah but um so yeah no i think look the industry it's really exciting and i i can't tell you how grateful i am every day and people talk to me about how much they enjoy the sketches i do and i love getting that feedback because i sometimes when i create them i don't think about people watching them i think about my mates watching them but it's like i'm shocked sometimes when people kind of refer like you talk about your favorite ones i think oh my god i literally thought about that when i was on the toilet coming up with the idea so it's it's kind of crazy that's the best way though isn't it that's always the case and like with with what i do because i've got the green screen i've got my ring light and my phone and my green screen there's no overheads there's no barriers to entry there's i don't have to leave the house and I feel like that all helps me because it's like it makes it so easy I think if you want to do something like become a content creator or you do something similar to me it's like you want to remove those barriers so that there's nothing stopping you because I see it happen all the time someone would join TikTok and they're you know it's a lot of work and so if you can make it as easy as possible a simple niche find a nice simple niche that you don't have to do a lot of work to do it but you can just do a lot of and then you'll get better you'll find interesting ways to make it more unique and that's what kind of one of the interesting things you talked about actually that i wanted to pick up on is is confidence and i think that for most people is what holds them back i mean even i mean i've had a reasonably decent career but i remember when i went freelance and not knowing the work was going to come in was really scary i remember i like like you i had the post-it note and i said it was a small bit more than yours but it's like I got to get that in every month right yeah and at the beginning of the month I never knew whether I was going to get to it and it was really scary freelancing and I think that that is there is a confidence to that and I remember freelancing is probably something I haven't done enough sketches about that but the the fear of just the work coming it's great when you've got a gig in a few weeks but you're not you don't choose to be sat at home playing your playstation it's kind of terrifying yeah as good as that is yes um it's like it is yeah it can really it's terrifying sometimes yeah it really is now there's a few people that keep coming up in your sketches uh you know we've mentioned nils uh rory cindy yeah have you got some heroes who are your heroes i okay cindy gallop if people who don't know she is uh she founded or she she opened up new york's BBH office.

50:23She's like a strategic powerhouse, basically. She's also a female business owner, female founder. So she's got her Make Love Not Porn site. And so she's a big spokeswoman, a big character within industry. And I've always been a fan of hers. And just the way she gives female founders a voice and she doesn't put up with any shit. She'll call people out. And there's not many of them in the industry so she always rose to the top of like conversations all the time and and one of the great things about my position is i i get to meet some amazing people and i met cindy quite early on and i was just blown away by her just as a character she's so smart in fact i bought she's a life's coach as well i like a business coach so for valentine's day this year i bought my wife an hour life uh business coaching with cindy how cool and and And because she's just incredible.

51:17And I love, I want people, everyone to know, most people know about Cindy, the industry, but the more people that know about it, the better. She is formidable, isn't she? She's formidable, but there's people like her and people like Rory and everyone knows Rory. But I just, those people can be really inspiring to like junior people when they hear that interesting take on insights and stuff. It kind of, it always is the thing that kind of made me really excited about the industry because they're curious. and that kind of really helps. And there's people like Zoe Skamen as well who just does all this work.

51:50She makes me so much smarter every day when she posts these links about fans, you know, these original thoughts she's had as well as look at what Nike are doing over here, look at what these brands are. She spends the time doing all that research so that you don't have to and you can just absorb all this knowledge. And I think people like that should be shouted out because, I mean, they're incredible and they're the sort of people you'd want on your team or if you're going into a pitch room going to a pitch meeting i don't know why you're right one of one of the advantages today versus you know when you and i were kind of cutting our teeth as young lads was is you there's so much access to real amazing insight talent content out there i think you know almost any subject you can kind of get experts talking to you about it yeah you know for free and i again it's the confidence it's like now because of what's happened to me and i get to go to can like a meet interesting people it's just you suddenly realize oh anyone can meet these people and i think linkedin's great for that you people love to talk about themselves and so it's just ask them can you have like 10 minute coffee or i'd love to pick your brains on this i don't want a job don't say you want a job because i'll stress them out but it's like you can have access to these people and so uh yeah it's amazing that you can and that's what's great about podcasts this is where your podcast and linkedin are just absolutely insane because you can get to meet people that in any other scenario you'd have no chance whatsoever of getting time with in fact people in their team probably get less chance of getting hold of them and sometimes you can get you know and i think you can see like now what as i said about being curious and i became a tiktok expert and you know there's so much that's happening with the industry now of ai and uh just where the creativity is going it's like i hope people junior people like can look up at those people think oh i can do that i can become an expert i can i can be the next voices like that um it shouldn't just be dominated by the rories and all of that there's there's room for everyone and i think that i hope people feel the confidence to go out and explore how they can be a voice like that as well definitely you must get like so many messages and approaches a day given where you've got your linkedin how do you cope with the volume of like people um so tapping you up this i got an agent and i'm almost again this is a confidence thing i was almost embarrassed to say that like i've got an agent but why wouldn't i because it's like you know it basically allows me to focus on i i wanted to get someone who wasn't just you know uh worked an influencer agency i wasn't particularly interested in that i wanted someone who's more commercial so i got like he's the ex-commercial director his name's raf mcdonald who's the ex-commercial director of coca-cola so he knows the industry he used to work with bd network with my coke music so he knows all the people i know it's how i was recommended him and so he he takes on all the all the work that isn't just making the content he gets all the brand approaches he goes and finds the brands um i'm bringing out a book you're bringing out a book i'm bringing out a book seriously yeah breaking news breaking news actually does anyone know that no one knows this is a so right this is the idea okay pitch it everyone in the agency world uh has a notebook okay you've got one right here on the desk uh i was like why isn't it made specifically for agency people so i'm bringing out an agency specific day book uh that will have uh fun things in it like finance meeting bingo uh where to sit in a meeting so you don't have to do any work um what else is in there uh a page of notes so you can leave it on your desk so you look busy even though uh and just where to keep your job numbers and all of that sort of stuff so it's useful as well so i'm bringing out a little day book that's so cool a rob mayhew day book a dunning kruger rob mayhew day book so that's coming out soon and so yeah so he'll he'll help me with those ideas and that's what's given me the freedom so that's what all but at the same time if anyone dms me i'll try and get back to everyone it's not always possible that's what's really nice is about the community uh talking about zoe skamen here it's about the community that i've built is true it's like a niche community uh it's paying me a living and it's allowing me to be really creative and i love it and i get to meet amazing people and uh have a lot of fun with it and hopefully make some positive changes i think i'm only just getting going so hopefully i'll think of a way that we can improve the pitch system i'm kidding i won't um but like you know i want to another thing that was really important to me was the pregnant then screwed campaign so the whole you know we've had a baby um me and my wife so it's going back to work as a woman or even as a dad you know it's really difficult so there are things i'm interested in getting more involved with uh that i think really mean something to me but at the same time you There's lots I want to do, doing more performance stuff.