Nobody In Marketing Will Say This Outloud

0:00The industry has been swamped with data and fear and we really want to bring the humanity back. John and Rory can't be everywhere. But managing Mr Rory Sutherland and then he'll relate it to KFC. None of them are looking really to hang up their boots but they are amazing but only one human. More and more data came into the organisation and more and more fear came with it. People seem to abdicate any form of responsibility. There was cat litter in a classroom because everyone identified as cats in this classroom in America. £4 ,000 a month, literally just clipping other people's contents. The creators wouldn't be there because their job was to be out in culture.

0:38You know, the thing that's missing from Cannes is the consumer. How do I cut through the layers of bullshit? My daughter came down once and told me Elvis was still alive because she'd seen it on TikTok. It's fear. You know, it's hard to put your head above the parapet. There are CEOs and CMOs that we can't talk about that are coming to us saying... Kerry, Anna, we have a meeting. We do. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Very excited to be here. It's so good to have us. I think this is the first time we've done four around the table. Wow. Wow. There we go. So let's get into it.

1:11We always start with a big open question. I'll come to you first. Who are you and what problem do you solve? I am Kerry Collinge. I am many things. I am a mother. I'm a brand manager. I'm the chief connectologist and founder of The Illuminari and I'm also managing director for Uncensored CMO podcast. The problem that we solve is around connection. Ultimately, we believe that the industry has been swamped with data and fear and we really want to bring the humanity back. So we founded The Illuminari, which is a collective of the best brains in the business that we believe are strong enough, confident enough, courageous enough to say what they actually think and to make a difference to brands, businesses and therefore the economy and the world.

2:06I love that. Anna, same question to you. Who are you and what problem do you solve? Same. I am Anna, Anna Cairns. I'm also a mother and I'm also founder and chief of Illuminari. The same really, we are bringing light to sort of all the chaos and the problems in the world and having a collective of amazing thought leaders who can be really honest and speak their truth and how do we move on and fix those problems. I wonder if you'd be able to kind of give us a little temperature check on there's this opportunity at the moment with AI that maybe everyone's talking about, but it feels like you're more leaning into there's also an opportunity on the human side.

2:57So what do you think we get that's fundamentally different on the human side that we're not getting from the AI argument? I'm a huge AI optimist. I fundamentally believe and love and talk to AI all the time. I have a brain that's like a popcorn machine. So I find the ability of AI to condense a lot of thinking very quickly and take away some of the things that would take hours. Amazing. We are building, blows me away this statement in some ways, considering our background and our ages. We are building a full tech stack business for Illuminari. We are trying to work out as much as possible how we can automate the elements of it that we don't want to do, that don't interest us.

3:36and what we believe is that frees us up and therefore hopefully frees up the work that we do to really focus more on the humans the creativity the better thinking the curiosity the real problems some space you know ultimately I've been working in marketing and sales a little bit for nearly 30 years and there was a time when I first started that and I first I'm very lucky I first started in working in big organizations like Cosbog and InBev and there just wasn't the amount of data swamp in the industry. There weren't the amount of media options. So we really did lean a lot more into how does it feel?

4:15You know, what's your gut? You know, jokes as I worked on Stella Artois for many years and we used to hold hands and listen to scripts and close our eyes and work out how we felt about whether a script touches us. And my job as a brand manager, I was trained that you are the lightning rod between what your brand stands for, what culture, how culture is evolving, and what your audience or audiences want. And it's your job and your responsibility to almost sit at the decision making through your instinct and brain and everything you compute yourself and make great work. And then over time, it just seemed that more and more data came into the organization.

5:00and more and more fear came with it. I don't know if they're related or not related, but people seem to abdicate any form of responsibility for like, yeah, I've listened to this, this and this. I believe this, I'm going for it. And the best work that I've worked on is because somebody stood up and gone, I really believe in this. You know, the data might tell us something completely different, but actually the data only can tell us what's gone. I believe as a marketing leader that this is going to make a difference to my brand and that will move the dial. And the biggest shifts I've seen on brands over the years is where people have taken that leap of faith.

5:37So with Illuminari, I think what we, the gap, I guess, in the market that we saw, and Illuminari emerged from different angles, I'm sure we'll come into, some of it being a very boozy lunch one day. But, you know, Illuminari, all of the talent, and it's almost a prerequisite for being one of the talent, is that they are confident enough or have got to a stage in their career that they're prepared to say, I think this, and I'm happy that's different to what you think. And I'm happy that it might be different to what the sway or the weight of the data says. I'm confident to stand up and say this.

6:11I'm confident you can disagree with me as well. And that's good because in that debate is where the difference will come. Can you think of an interesting example, maybe between you, of where that's taken place? Someone's kind of pushed back against the narrative a little bit? Well, I think we have several speakers, sort of talent speakers, or in part of the community. Humans. Humans, I don't know how to say it, call them. So I think, you know, listening to the Unsensitive MO earlier with Tom Goodwin and Rory sort of chewing the fat, and I think Tom Goodwin is a perfect example of that. He's, he doesn't, I thought it was interesting what he said, he doesn't think differently, but he's just curious.

6:50And actually he just goes and asks the questions. And I think in a culture, in a big companies anyway, people are sitting around sort of boardrooms and were too scared to ask, to kick back and ask those questions and challenge it. And so, you know, we hopefully have formed this amazing group of people, humans, who are curious enough and are willing to, you know, ask those questions and challenge people and therefore make really creative, interesting work. When you think about like the catalyst for why people are now afraid to stand up, speak their own opinions and drive change. What between you, what do you think the catalyst has been?

7:33Many things. I mean, data I talked about. I think data gives you something to hide behind, to abdicate opinions to. The economy, particularly at the moment, you know, when people are afraid for their jobs, you know, it's hard to put your head above the parapet, even though that's the thing that probably would save your job. and then the culture we were talking about this over lunch weren't we just the the general wokeness in society we're our girls are of a similar age we were actually talking about politics which we won't go into but i was sharing with anna a story from the weekend of where something had come up and and everyone was closing each other down what we really want to encourage in our children and through the illuminari is actually proper conversations where people open it up there's so much psychological safety that you're happy to go I really don't believe this but I'm really appreciative and curious of why you do and I think especially with our children especially with AI and the algorithms these days people are getting this their certain news that they think they want to hear and so they're very siloed into that whereas so actually you know especially our kids I mean my daughter came down once and told me Elvis was still alive because she'd seen it on TikTok so you know

8:52but yeah no just I think that the fact that people are so kind of like believing what they see because TikTok and all this fake news and all the rest of it and actually you know I would say people within the Illuminaria are probably sort of more wisdom and more sort of open to so it's opening up those chats and actually um you know listening to each other i suppose is the best way to put it or like and that's where Illuminaria started Illuminaria started as a dinner party idea um it was five years ago in Cannes i i'd moved from b2c marketing into b2b and one of the things at a research company of all things which is a whole other story and i couldn't believe the way that these great thought leaders were almost in a purist way sort of pitting themselves against each other as if there was some sort of sense of right and wrong and I've worked with all of them individually I think they're all brilliant and I've come from Brownside where you I mean quite frankly I'd say I believe this find me the data to match it so I pull from you know lots of different sources and also happy to be proved wrong at points I prove that or disprove that I would say to my research team but I just thought they're all such brilliant brains you know coming at you know different data and research angles within the industry I was like let's all have dinner and be friends and actually have a proper conversation and it became one of the favorite events for all of them you know within the kind of Cannes calendar we're doing it again on the Sunday this year when we arrive in Cannes and it will be a lovely evening of curiosity healthy debates a few beers probably but you know it's that confidence when you've got to that level in your career where you've done deep research in something, but you can appreciate that you haven't got time to do deep research into everything.

10:42And therefore, you want to hear from other people that do have a similar, potentially different understanding. It's fascinating. So if I was a fly on the wall at this dinner that's coming up at Cannes, Anna, what are going to be the hot topics for debate that I'm going to hear? I'm sure AI will come into it, although we've just done a broadcast with Karen Blackett and Nishma and Tom, and it wasn't supposed to be about AI. And they didn't want it to be about a panel, but ended up being about AI. I think that is the hot topic. And I think probably sort of what's going on in these. I mean, Cannes obviously is full of sort of marketing agents and stuff.

11:22And I think what is going on in the advertising world at the moment. and uh uh and the probably the data question and i think um and and the brands of the culture and stuff and what's happening because i think obviously what's going on in the big agencies lots of redundancies and what have you yeah um you know i think all of that is a hot topic and sort of and and how do we change that i think you know how does it get rebuilt because you know we want it to survive and we want advertising to survive so how do we all help come together um and uh move it along two other big topics i think will come up perennially is the thing that's missing from can is the consumer you know there will be a lot of panels about ai and it is important and people almost don't want to get dragged back to it all the time it's sort of omnipresent in our lives and in our heads so um it will be that we could spend all our time talking about these tools They're effectively tools that should make marketing better or should make sales better or business better.

12:25But they're getting in the way of the humanity. They're getting in the way of actually, great if we've got these tools that allow us to move away from getting back to understanding or getting a deeper understanding of who the consumer is. But you can't ask a synth to give me a version of who my consumer is. You've got to kind of really understand who they are at a human level. that's something you feel viscerally you know it's something that i believe you can never replace with a bot so i hope you never replace the bot because you can't see you can't you can't predict you can't connect and you're not living that experience through culture and so therefore how on earth can you talk about what will move them into the future so i think where are the where are the humans where are the consumers in can will come up i think tom goodwin said in our broadcast it'd be great if you just went down the croissette and actually rather than noticing all of the kind of ad tech chaos you know you actually go who are the real because it's weird in can there are people on holiday you know so you'd be better off probably it's a great great podcast that you're actually better probably going and interviewing the actual real people there to find out what culture is doing what brands are doing and how you can move that forward and listen to any of the myriad ai panels so that will come up and then the other thing we're doing in a event with Roy Sutherland and Karen Nelson-Phil with Pinterest on the Tuesday night, the beautiful can-esque villa.

13:50And we're going to talk about the new architecture of the brain. So in, I can't say this word, cocotinous world. Very good. A chaotic world. Nice. What's that doing, back to our kids, what's that doing to how attention evolves, if anything? What does that mean in terms of how marketers should be thinking about the kind of media, the kind of creative that they do what connects in that world so they're two other big topics i think will come up across that table oh god i'm so tired i've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time how have you been doing it because i've been cold calling people on my mobile and i reckon i've spoke to one person no no no stop that right now and use nooks.ai why what what what does nooks do it finds me the right people to call and it calls them and it connects with them over and over and over again.

14:43So you're saying it's Nooks.ai and I can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time? No other better connection, right? Wow, Nooks.ai. There was a documentary, a podcast documentary called Things Fell Apart. I don't know if either of you... No. It's a John Ronson one. He's like another Louis Theroux type of guy, but he basically did a podcast all about how misinformation has happened for a really, really long time. And one of the interesting parts was about how Joe Rogan has said things on his podcast and not fact check them and then people have believed that that's true there was a thing famously about he told people in his podcast that there was cat litter in a classroom because everyone identified as cats in this classroom in america and then when they went down the rabbit hole with it it was it was for a terror attack they had that there in case people got trapped in the classroom we hadn't said that anyway interesting but my point being that within thought leadership and the ability to kind of clip things up and put them into nice tidy clips is there sometimes a risk of people pushing out here is the truth on this subject and then 30 000 30 million people going bang that's my idea now i'm going to die on that hill absolutely i think a very definite danger of that happening and this is back to the tiktok politics conversation we were just having i think that is our role as marketers you know and as humans and as parents you know to make sure that you're seeing that there is a broader thing than just the clip because you're just scrolling is that that's true that's true that's true the clipping thing's insane like i was reading a um a very boring document about it the day um about how you know basic people are making people are obviously making probably normally between 19 and 26 year olds but they're making about 4 000 pounds a month literally just clipping other people's contents and spewing it out there wow and as you say like if you're not taking that and this is where like news and everything you're you're taking that you can clip it where you want to clip it so it sounds more clickbaity and then you know you're pushing out all sorts of stuff you could get people cancelled you can get because actually to say how many people are listening to the long form about the attention and stuff how many people are um yeah i'm just literally doom scrolling i think the hope is and this is these are the pinterest thought leadership pieces is that in a world where people are you know we see it in our kids don't we i was watching i i rarely do this but i was watching these pop-up houses that you can get on legs that are 15 000 pounds and i and it's for their daughter and i thought i could buy a house for my daughter and you know my daughter would pass and said why are you watching that shit and they can spot things you know this is one of the kind of trends they can spot things we can't everybody knows like i was i was talking to someone the day he was telling me the stats of um like 71 percent of all sort of images now on on social media, AI'd, 50 % of copy is all AI'd, which I argue because I would say there's a lot more on LinkedIn than it's all AI'd.

17:39You can tell it from a mile off. And as you say, like the next generation, because they've grown up with this, where it's sort of new to us and what have you, but it'd be so they can tell. And so I think actually there will be a revolt and they'll go, do you know what? Actually, we want real. We want, you know, and I said, for instance, that sort of, I mean, Rory's daughters are really sort of excited by direct mail. So that's going to have its time again, because it's something tangible, it's something to touch. So I think, whereas everyone is really excited and the AI definitely has its place, I think to say people will actually want the real, they'll want the human.

18:14So, you know, sort of what we are trying to achieve with Illuminari, of having these real conversations, that's going to have its day. you know people want that because they want it to be they want to know that what they're listening to is is real and truthful and that's born out in the the data and the research isn't it that there is a return to baking and crafting and you know being out in nature so i mean that that is the great there's always a pendulum swing isn't there there's always uh whatever's happening that's the job of youth isn't it to push against what's happening yeah we've created this world for you kids right i don't want that i'm gonna be i want something else different instead you know so that's the hope my oldest boy is 13 and i've noticed with him he's kind of got like some words that are american that i think's really terrifying that you think you've obviously not been raised in an american house but you're almost raised by this alien my kids are candy for ages and i was like no stop saying it it's sweet yeah and you can't have any yeah exactly exactly um i wanted to come back to that new kind of brain architecture piece like what are we seeing in the studies what's kind of interesting about the way people are maybe now emerging as newly programmed in their in their minds the most terrifying thing is what the platforms are doing and we've all seen the news in the last two weeks what meta are doing to cull people within the organization tracking people's time on screen as if that is efficiency or effectiveness and using that to make their culls a lot of that is going on in terms of how the algorithms are being used to segment and sell advertising space and I think you know there is going to be because of this demand for transparency and a demand for the real a real backlash against those kind of behaviors because everyone's aware of them so that's the that's the downside I think that the hope in the trends report Opera is coming through.

20:17We're having an opera singer at our dinner. You know, people are... And cabbage, apparently. Cabbage? Cabbage? Apparently cabbage is having its day. Cabbage is having its day. Cabbage is having its day again. That was one of the Pinterest predictions this year. Cabbage? Yeah. Well, shout out to cabbage. We'll put the Instagram handle in the comments. Cabbage shoot when we get home. The basics. Yeah. Meat and potatoes. Yeah. So, yeah, that is the hopeful thing. that people are actually pushing against and going back into into humanity and the reality is the brain doesn't have a new architecture the brain fundamentally hasn't changed as much I mean our ability to take in more messages has but the actual physiology of a brain hasn't changed very much at all Orlando Woods one of our thought leaders one of our Illuminaria one of our humans talks a lot about this and the whole-brained marketer.

21:12And the reality is that in a world where there is so much chaos and so many messages, the best way to cut through to the brain is still the really emotional messages that kind of pull on the heartstrings. You know, the Guardian work we all loved that came out in the last couple of weeks, you know, using an ad, I think it was 30 years old, Kathy Burke, yeah, yeah. But those kind of older values and older films, that the eye and therefore the brain is more drawn to them because they speak of a time that was simpler and that's what humans audiences are craving is actually a simplicity and those kind of images therefore can cut through much more than the kind of split screen vignetti spaghetti stuff that we've had going on it's just like oh we can do all these cuts let's just do them well no, the brain can't cope with it.

22:05And actually the heart certainly can't cope with that. And that's where brands are made. And that's where they'll continue to have a place. You've spoken a few times about this like visceral feeling. And I think The Guardian is a great example of that. If we were thinking about like the key ingredients that are winning with brands today, what do you think needs to be happening for a brand to win and have that visceral reaction with an audience? You need a team that is human. You need a team that has joy as a strategic decision at the heart of it. Again, we've talked about this at length with Illuminari this week.

22:41It came up on our broadcast last week. But ultimately, what's been lost in this multimedia, complex, data-driven world is, you know, what used to happen when we all started out in marketing many years ago. you know you would have fun together you would understand each other you would have each other's backs you would trust each other there'd be a sense of belonging there'd be a sense of it's okay to fail and learn from those failures and those the teams if you look at the mns work or adidas for example i haven't been in those teams i know some of their leaders but they they imbue a sense of it's really important that at least we connect and understand have joy and celebrate as a team because otherwise how do we understand what feeling is and then how do I get that into the heart of my brand so obviously through Uncensored CMO my job is scouring the world's best CMOs and the very best CMOs are those that invest in the values and their team first because those teams that play together have joy together as a strategic choice are the ones that are genuinely winning in terms of the work and in terms of their commercial results as well so if anna if if a brand leader or a cmo is listening to this and they're thinking how do i inject joy into the culture are there any things that you would advise them or guide them to do that would help kind of create that that environment i can't go what kerry said it's all down to the culture it's gone down to wanting to be there um and um yeah probably not to be so timesheet led I would say kind of everything in this day is a timesheet led that there is as Tom said in the broadcast so sweet there's no time there's no job number for to joy um and let people what's the word I can think of um autonomy I think autonomy is kind of so important um and what a lot of people want and in doing that um as you say you get your team to work really hard for you and um and create amazing amazing work it's the three martini the three martini lunch bring back have you seen this petition no bring back the three martini lunch so basically we've got a lunch actually with the eliminar in a couple of weeks time and i banned all meetings afterwards you know back in the day back in the noughties you would you know your agency team your internal team you would go for lunch on a friday and you would never come back because the point of that lunch was you know you'd be drinking quite a few stellar hours but you're connecting you're understanding who you are as the whole human outside of the kind of functional stuff that you need to do and sadly and you've talked about this a lot on this podcast you know what happened through lockdown and that kind of 2d version of people you know it means you don't understand the whole human as a marketeer our joy and our great privilege is to understand whole humans and their complexity how you can possibly do that through a teams meeting i i do not know because if you can't understand your own team how can you understand your audience so yeah bring back the three martini lunch you know at least three martinis needs to be had can we get a couple of martinis yes but then they say like you know creatives and stuff kind of they have a few beers that's when the creative juices get running they kind of you know that's when the more ridiculous ideas come up you know but you can't put that on a time sheet you can't put that on a time sheet and actually probably can't afford it these days because it's too expensive but you know and budgets have been cut yeah all budgets have been cut yeah we had a psychologist on once who said you get your best ideas in the shower famously but it's just because there's nothing else going on there's no no you're not on your phone in the shower or like maybe you're watching tv if you if you're particularly posh but you know that's probably one of the only moments now where there's no major distractions i have this huge thing called dog working like i don't know if you have a dog anna doesn't she has a cat i have a dog he's called eric and i walk in every morning and you why do we feel guilty that we walk the dog at 7 30 or 8 a.m because all of that walk will be probably me talking to claude about work or being in nature and having ideas and having space and letting your brain your brain absorb and and think about the most important things you need to achieve that day so why almost is it not dog working because you are working you know you were very lucky to work in this industry what we do is very interesting and all absorbing and therefore from the minute you wake up until me go to bed you are working so it could be on your bike or with your dog or if you walk your cat i don't know but yeah i think the behavioral science team at ogilvy they used to have a thing i'm not sure if they still do but um whereby they would um set the brief and it was when probably during covid times they were working from home they would set the brief they would discuss it very briefly and then they would say right go and put your washing on go and you know walk the dog go for some go for a walk whatever um come back in an hour and then we'll start working because it just sort of they could ingest the brief really go away and just sort of you know think about it but in a sort of whilst doing mundane things what have you and then come come with ideas yeah we don't want to harp on about about the noughties all the time But in the days when I was lucky enough to be working on Stella Artois, when it was not even AB InBev, it was Interbrew back in those days.

28:08I'd go to the ad agency. It was low, God rest, low soul. And the creators wouldn't be there because their job was to be out in culture, you know, probably down the pub. But, you know, they'd be there magpying, whatever was going on. and then probably about 10 years later I was group account director at an agency called 101 on the Diageo account for launching Bailey's Chocolate Luxe and I walked in and I was where are all the creatives you know they are sat at their desk staring at computers because the world had become what you could find within the internet but obviously the internet only can serve you up what you're searching for obviously different in the world and that's probably a whole different conversation but it's really interesting those shifts when you've been in the industry as long as you know we have to look at how culture has changed what the impact of that cultural change is on the brands and the work that we do but specifically the joy that we have in doing that work so if you don't have the joy of not loving what you do then how can you produce great work do you feel like there's there's maybe an interesting thing of you used to be able to kind of retreat from society a bit so if we take your example of being in the noughties I'm in the city I'm having a beer I'm maybe with clients but then I go home and I can kind of retreat from it a little bit and re-incubate myself but now it's kind of it grabs me all the time doesn't it so I can't really have that time unless I seek it to kind of right let me just gather myself what's really going on here and does that present something for the brand managers and the people you work with that's maybe making them vulnerable I'm terrible at this I mean I listened to a podcast recently Squiggly Careers they were talking about the seven types of rest oh wow I don't do any of those things exactly I mean and I sort of stopped beating myself and stuff up because I love my job and I love what I do but you're right it's really important that you do have a way of stopping I mean people talk about touching something at the door but a way of stopping and going this is the end of the work day and this is where my you know my evening time stops and I was a single mother for many years and I felt this relentless pressure to be on particularly after lockdown I lost my job in lockdown and therefore I felt grateful to have a job and therefore I felt like I always need to be on that was the same time that I took on a role that was marketing and partnerships and new business we have a whole different world when you've been a b2c marketer and you're quite removed almost from the point of sale and suddenly you're working in I'd always been client side you're working in an agency and you've got to earn you know four times your salary you've got an actual I felt like I had a post-it note on my head with a number with a number I loved it because I love learning new things but it was impossible to not not stop thinking about I haven't got back to that person I haven't re you know reconnected with them in three days you know it's really hard to stop when you love what you do but it's really important to remember that you've got to be a whole person at home and I probably feel like I and I noticed this in our business partnership I feel like I haven't been as great a mother as you have been I think that's true I think that's true I don't think it's different but yeah I think I've found it personally really hard to stop and I think it's a really strong discipline in this day and age to go no these people are just as important as everything that's going on at work I think what I found sort of going from sort of the big corporate world of Ogilvy and then running your own thing and realizing there isn't a finance department or a marketing department or what have you so it's all on you or us and um and just the list and and because we're so passionate about it we're you know extraordinarily passionate why we're doing this um and so therefore yeah you it is really hard to sort of say right now you need to stop or you know take a day off or what have you because the list is in your head and that ain't going away so again I think you know we've just bought you haven't opened yours yet but I have tried to start mine of the Grace Beverly's the product productivity method and it's all about sort of each day actually spending eight minutes to sort of plan your day and work out the tasks of things that take five minutes things that take 30 minutes things that take you know over and out our view and then the three non-negotiables and I think that's really helped in sort of measuring the sort of the day and how to kind of then keep it and then and one of those being work out or go and see my child I spend time yes although at the moment sometimes I'm like geez I haven't got those eight minutes to fill that bloody thing in but when I do it really works and so I think it's sort of yeah it's uh it's harder when you're on your own not in an office and you know haven't got the big team to sort of uh take take things off you I think when all these sort of new founders entrepreneurs it's very hard to um to switch off you know all these conversations you you're you're having so many interesting conversations and so many um conversations that need to be had if I was a fly on the wall when you're having these conversations with your children how are you finding because because the message I'm getting here and we've got young children but the message I'm getting is like you need to play even for children which is obvious but like you know you need to have that time to be creative you need to rest you need to come away from it you need to think and have these different mental models what what would I hear if you were speaking to your children about these kind of things or is it mum leave me alone i want to go on tiktok well katherine ryan has to i've got a 15 year old and a 12 year old girl and katherine ryan did describe having teenage girls as giving birth to your school bully and i would say that's pretty accurate um so but no i think uh yeah well it is the whole creative rest it's kind of we still need to make sure that our children are having the seventh creative rest so uh the seventh yeah and um and so making sure that But yeah, they're not on their phone the whole time.

34:09They're kind of, they are getting out and, you know, exploring the world and doing things. Yeah, I mean, almost by accident, because of the single mothering, my kids are very self-sufficient. I think, obviously, there's been a lot written about the helicopter parenting and the kind of feeling of you have to manage these things for your kids. I've run a bit of a social experiment for you, if you like. If you leave them to it, they'll work it out for themselves. I genuinely think that. like I genuinely think we were talking about growing up in the 80s just like you know Anna nearly got drowned by her brother back in the 1980s and we were talking about the fact that your your parents wouldn't even be watching you you know it's like whatever you know I put a roof over your head what more do you want so that kind of pendulum swing I think well I was a latchdoor kid they called them back then because my mum was a single mother and uh yeah we basically our Our dinner was based on what ready, steady cook.

35:07We would go and just make food up or we'd have Angel Delight and it would be twos on Angel Delight. And the other one had to have, you know, crispy pancakes and chips from the freezer. So it's kind of, yeah, we cooked. Paked beans, vegetables. Yeah, I notice in my girls, they are incredibly unneedy of me. there was a conversation even yesterday that I was like great you know everything so I'm guessing you're moving out then you know I mean to be fair she is 18 she probably in olden days would have been moving out I don't want to move out but yeah they're very self-sufficient and that hasn't come from any form of time quite frankly to think about it you know it's it was a you know a tough old past five years when they were between you know the ages of sort of one would have been 15 when that started and the other would have been 12, you know.

36:00And because they weren't so little, you didn't get on with the homeschooling, which I'm sure you guys tried to do. I was like, I'm a single parent. I can't even get to that. It was horrible. I've got no respect for teachers after that. Yeah. I'd be the worst teacher. Interestingly, my youngest said to me the day, I really miss COVID because we did actually so much together because you had to, because you kind of, we had fun and we sort of, you know, I remember making up times table dances to teach them that i'm trying to be creative and uh or you know we went on bike rides together or we just hung out we ate dinners together you know and i think um she remembers that she must have been you get because you work for an organization and i didn't that's the main difference in our parenting experience that time you was a little bit younger than mine so did you all get told to go home and do nothing no i worked did you i did nudge talk okay wow yeah how did that work virtual nudge talk i did a 15 hours worth of virtual nudge talk uh in my slippers okay we're the best guests that year okay interesting but how do you try and find time to play and do all that kind of um i don't actually know okay i think i got up very early she was winning eight minutes yeah um and you were talking earlier about the new business and partnerships kind of things and moving from b2c b2b we are as you know sales geeks we love everything from picking up the phone and cold calling and everything sales what what have you what have you learned from that move from b2c to b2b as a marketeer there's different parts of this question as a marketeer i've learned that you can be brilliant in b2b you say the most simple things and people think you're an absolute genius like have we thought about thinking about the audience and this isn't all organizations now by the way but you know it's it's definitely when I joined the company that I joined during lockdown the marketing team previously didn't exist but it was seen as the coloring in department just produces a nice sales deck and obviously when you come from b2c very an fmcd as well very customer-centric organizations where marketing you know you as the brand team you're the gods in that organization everything sort of flows from the strategy that sits in that team it's really weird to come and join and you're the weird kids in the corner you know who's talking about kind of stretching other things because there's so much focus on product and trying to explain the intricacies of product so I think the amazing job that my boss John Evans and I was his first marketing employee into that organization did is is and this is a lot credit to the founder john kieran who is a visionary understanding that actually feeling ironically because system one is business about feeling connecting with the audience in a different way is a better way to make people understand what that business is about so a lot of the business in system one came from the uncensored cma podcast i mean that isn't something that would have got funded unless you had marketing vision visionaries within that organization so there's the marketing side of it and that team i believe is at 20 people now across across the world um from a new business perspective what i learned is and and this i believe is actually working agency side more generally i had a little stint as i said working in an advertising agency is you're just much closer to the pnl you know even though as a btc marketer in theory you're responsible for the P &L when you're managing a portfolio of 300 million pounds you know as I was in my last role at Mondelez you're just nudging the dial kind of slightly on a very big pot of money and you can make a mistake you can make a terrible flake ad and I did and it doesn't really kind of make a dent in anything whereas everything is a lot more hand-to-mouth you know there's a real sense of you know unless we drive these numbers people are losing jobs and what happens in that fear is that people think the best way to sell things is to talk about product benefits and it's like no relation you know i'm interested in listening to you guys about cold calling i don't think i've ever made any sale through a cold call for me all of my best sales at system one were through relationships with through out there networking i think what you guys doing here is brilliant it's similar to what we do at system one knowing people them understanding what you're about who you are as humans, what you believe in as humans.

40:32And then you can get into the nitty gritty much further down the funnel if you believe in that in terms of, okay, well, my product technically does this. So I think that was the main difference. You know, when you work on beer, which is where I started, there is nothing rational about that at all. You can line up 10 beers blind. No one will tell you the difference at all. They can't. They think they can, but they can't. you know that entire can or pint or bottle is pure emotion so when you come from an emotional brand building background and you come into you know a very rational left-brained organization and then you go on a journey that is actually there is a different way and that's about connection that's about really going to people the reason why you should love what we do is because of who we are as humans and that's where people buy first that's what made the big changes at system one but wow I'm actually saying respect for teachers I had so much respect you know really people that work in at the hard face of sales because it's exhilarating but it's hard you know it's a really hard environment so yeah it was fascinating a lot of the time I felt like you know an organ transplant I thought I read this great article from Eat Big Fish Adam Morgan's one of our Illuminari this week and we were talking about it was talking about culture and how you know if you are the change maker in an organization you are literally an organ transplant and the organization is trying to force you out that's what it felt like most of the time I was at Sister One it was like you just looked at like you're the weird kid in the really weird kid in the corner which is hard because you know belonging is one of my core values one of our values um so yeah it was interesting i would say great experience i think you two have some unique insight on this it felt like like i can remember a time saturday night michael parkinson was on interviewing people and that was the opportunity right to be on michael parkinson and peter k is on there telling you about his next tour and you're like oh yeah i'll follow him and you know i'll see what he's up to and now it feels like podcast is almost like the mainstream media like podcast informs everything everything down from podcast what do you two think maybe the future is of podcast as a medium if we start with you i think you know i mean i've worked with rory for years and actually rory famously does say that actually when people thought first sort of saying you know podcasting was a thing he said it would never work you know he was wrong um i think there's the future in podcasting i think um again it's that human connection isn't it it you know you've got you can go for a walk get the train do you cleaning i like to listen to podcasts then um and you've got actual real conversation going on in who is i think obviously the way forward is now obviously netflix are buying up they've done um uh goal hanger i think i've made a deal with them and uh and so yeah we'll eventually go into your tvs you can now be on planes and there's you know podcast content um to watch on your planes and stuff so i think it is the whole human connection it's people having real conversations with real people um that yeah you can just dip in and dip out to i wasn't i feel like i'm name dropping left right i was um very privileged to be at a breakfast event with gary v uh the other day and you will love this stat uh he said that podcasting is the most undervalued media that there is and you know in terms of the ad revenue that you should be getting um the challenge in b2b obviously sometimes that's measured in cost per mile and it's just actually the quality of conversations that are hard to get across in a data kind of driven environment um i have a theory that podcasting exploded because of lockdown screens do you want to spend any more time on screens no do I want to be in my garden doing the cleaning listening to something yeah absolutely and there's an intimacy about podcasting I kind of rawness that I think people really enjoy but I think in b2b you know what you guys are doing it's just it's just genius because you know there aren't that many places to hear honest conversations you know about what humans are doing on uncensored cmo we always try and find the real human story and people that are vulnerable enough to tell those stories and the most vulnerable episodes again listening back to your show saying the most vulnerable episodes the ones that really connect back to what we're saying about humanity people want to believe or see other humans they want to see themselves and there's an intimacy about a podcast you can never get from tv yeah i i agree if if if someone's listened this far and maybe they're people that are in branding and marketing right now i almost want to think of what you do as if you're the doctor and they're the patient what are maybe some of the symptoms that they might be experiencing that make it worthwhile having a conversation what might they be struggling with right now that's top of their top of their agenda for the Illuminari i guess it's what have been the biggest of questions we've come up with

45:47how do i cut through the layers of bullshit my organization and get to some proper thinking there are ceos and cmos that we can't talk about that are coming to us saying i would love to buy some of your talent around a table for a day i can't talk about it but i cannot i can't cut through my organization so the ability to say that i've had karen nelson phil warree warree sutherland initial robert l working on this and go to my team going i've had a crack team working on this the a team whatever we call them it's almost a way of um it's the consultant model isn't it we don't want the consultancy why do people listen to consultants more than they listen to their own teams it's fear that it's hard to stand up in in a particularly a blue chip corporate kind of environment and put your head above the parapets i said this earlier so i think the biggest problem that we will solve all the conversations the the doctor's surgery is that they know the answers actually but the ability to buy in a brain's trust that gives them permission to say i had rory sutherland tell me this oh well it must be right there you know it's all misunfair and then there is obviously a lot of tangential thinking that will come from that and they again these CMOs and CEOs they're quite lonely I don't know if you have this this podcast one of the things we have CMOs tell us all the time is what a lonely place it is to be so to be able to bounce around actual problems in a psychologically safe environment just around a table like a dinner party probably with a few martinis is like the olden days but problems used to get cracked in the pub that's probably the biggest thing we're seeing for Illuminari is they want help with with cutting through and with different avenues for thinking different paradigms for creativity and then chief connectologist yeah we made that up that is brilliant why i think we looked about actually kerry kerry did come up with it she was coming up lots of different uh we were coming up with different titles to be like what obviously founder is kind of what we but actually what else do we do and I think more so so I don't have a marketing background as such I've worked in agency but managing Mr Rory Sutherland and and various other amazing marketeer people over the years and actually through that I've you know met some amazing people and uh and connected and this has built this network as has Kerry on the brand side I say more and actually what brings us joy which is a sort of massive value of our sort of the Illuminari is we love connecting people and we love connecting the right people to right people and sort of and their whole idea of connecting the right people to answer that question you know so that actually we can find we might if they're not in the Illuminari probably know somebody who knows somebody that has that you know sort of in their black book kind of knows that person and so then we can sort of connect them and you know the brands or the cmos or what have you get their get their questions answered or get their sort of problem solved it was the start point so it's always been my superpower if you ask john evans how to describe me he said carrie straight to the answer college you know i i have ability to walk work into walk into a room and know kind of who should know who and work the room and interesting we work very john and i work very symbiotically together I mean he famously he talks with a podcast is an introvert and started the podcast because he didn't know how to talk to people I'm the opposite Anna's the opposite we'll go into any room and talk to anybody about anything and as Anna said absolutely love that thrill of you should know this person you should know this person you know we don't use any tech to do this any form of Miro whiteboard we should but we often say if somehow we could take our brains and map across the room of how we know people there would only be one degree you know at least half a degree probably of separation so people can come to us and we will know very quickly who can help them unlock that problem and connection is one of our core values we did a lot of work when we founded the business on this is probably our last hopefully our last hurrah not not and we wanted to make sure that we were clear on what our joint values were and how we're going to grow our business together.

50:20And connection came through very strongly, as did joy, as did belonging, as did freedom, fun. Fun was a big one. Fun was a big one. So yeah, connection is the truth of who we are and it's our value and our passion. And it's why both the alumni came to us and it's also why clients are coming to us now. it feels like a real powerful mission there'll be people at home because the way the way it sounds like you describe it is it's the avengers of critical thinking marketing like it's brilliant there'll be people that want to join the avengers but as you know you don't ask to join the avengers the avengers come to you i've never seen the avengers film but i hope it works i think yeah it says you don't need to invite for you don't need to ask for an invite to the party if you're invited you'll be invited yeah um if i was sat here in a decade with you both what what impact on the world do you think that the illuminari would have that would make you both feel like mission done we did it this is really important so this luminary started with the dinner party in can um and a lunch with anna and i and rory and john actually on his 50th birthday not worries and two massive balloons we thought this started with john and rory can't be everywhere so the simple business idea is what do you do with the kind of opportunities that come work for Rory or John that they just can't get to they are amazing but only one human so Illuminari was pretty much born born to sister brand to rory sutherland.com and and sent to cmo.com to kind of almost extend the brand out in that way and we thought it would be just about stages when we spoke to all of the Illuminari what they really wanted was the legacy they've all pretty much in a stage of their careers where they're not looking to make you know to be clear there is a fee if you want them on stage but they're not looking to make millions from being on stages you know what they really want is to sit around that table and crack problems of brands and businesses and move the dial in that way and do it together yeah you know as as sort of mates sort of sit together and crack those problems um yeah you know it's the stimulation it's the mental stimulation so for us I think bringing that for the existing OG Illuminari but then seeing and helping the new generation come through so obviously some of them Rory has just turned 60 you know they're there none of them are looking really to hang up their boots but there are new emerging thinkers coming through and we will be you're right not waiting for them to call us we'll be looking out for them and bringing them up so some of the Illuminari want to do some mentorship around sort of thought leadership which is interesting so then to answer your question the difference i would like to see and we haven't sat down and had this question together have we the difference i would like to see in 10 years is that we've genuinely brought humanity and connection back in a way that people can find psychological safety to talk to people to get a better place for brands businesses and therefore therefore the economy and also i think another sort of where it came out of was the fact that um we were going looking at sort of going to sort of big events and what have you and it was you know some of the content wasn't great um another boring panel and yeah another boring panel or you know we actually just you know having i've run events and what have the last 10 years or so really understanding what makes good content and understanding that with our Illuminari or helping stages find outside of the Illuminari just essentially sort of bringing great content to stages um so people walk away from like oh that was a nice day and I got a free goodie bag to actually you know oh I'm gonna go home and think about that and write that down and actually you know go into the office tomorrow and change something and what have you just actually make it something more interesting yeah they're not getting on stages and just entertaining they are transforming the room they're genuinely going in and delivering something that makes people feel differently and they're going to change up their monday as a result of it what what do you think that like the amount of comments we've got on say like a rory interview when we've interviewed him and people actually don't know what's happened to them they're like i have no idea what's just happened to me that was the most interesting what do you think it is like you've been around rory so much like what is that bit that makes people go oh i need to know more about what that guy thinks i think with rory i mean especially when he's on stage i think sort of why he's such a you know very very highly in demand is because yes he sort of has this amazing brain and thinks differently but he is an entertainer as well like he could easily be you know go to a comedy club and so they're getting that sort of entertainment but at the same time i think you know i think we were saying you were saying at school run people say oh rory Southerns what have you I think about him is the fact that um he really simplifies stuff so actually what could be really boring and sort of sciencey and sort of psychology actually because he has this amazing brain of these sort of he calls them pdfs of the mind sort of stories that he can relate something so he'll be talking about some sort of bias or what have you and then he'll relate it to KFC or some sort of some sort of story and then you go I get it now I understand and so therefore and he takes you and you've obviously interviewed a couple of times he will just go off and you'll go oh and he will bring it back and I think that um yeah I think his thinking is different and uh and he um sees the world in a sort of a very sort of different way and isn't afraid to be honest you know even though he does still work at Ogrevy um I'm very proud to be there and 38 years or what have you but he will challenge you know the timesheets the finance department the HR our department you know he's not afraid to um you know speak speak what you think but say what you think i remember um being sat here with someone once who said in marketing you have to be prepared to piss off 30 percent of your audience like you have to kind of shake the tree sometimes where have you maybe both seen that be effective for me this goes back to the teams where great work was being quoted because there was that i love that shaking the tree you know the people were encouraged to shake the tree i used to have behind me when i was head of marketing at imbev we used to have the wall of shame you know we used to put up like the shit things that we did like you know because it's like you've got to learn you know from those mistakes and know that in shaking the tree sometimes you're going to pull the whole thing down right you know it's not always but that's okay it's not shaking the tree that's not okay it's the person that's there at the bottom like you know hugging it so the great work I fundamentally believe comes from the people that are willing to shake the tree and be sort of their whole full self and that's what I love about everybody that we work with on Luminary they literally it's not they don't give a shit but they know who they are and they genuinely are happy to be in the arena and say what they think because that will get everybody to a much better place.

57:51And that's what, we're so privileged, right? That's the joy of what we do. We work with humans that, humans that, you know. Humans with brilliant brains. Brilliant brains. Curious minds. They're very comfortable in their own skin. Yeah. Yeah. And probably have lived it and, yeah, come outside and say, are very comfortable in saying what they want to say, you know. But for the good. They're not just doing it to be cantankerous or annoying or, you know, difficult. it's because they really believe you know and they want to see this industry or sort of you know marketing whatever be better right you could learn something from that you said it earlier but it's that pushback on the pendulum and i think from this conversation um that feels like where we all need to be and like not being afraid to like stand up i think i think like us working together being friends for 15 years we we learned what's wrong with friends more than 15 years it feels like feels like 15 and it feels like that there's that ability to like challenge each other and and not just put up with the beliefs and be like i think this and i think that and i think that too many organizations from from what you're saying as well just want to play it safe because there's this era of uncertainty and it's like i'd rather keep my head down and and survival so thank you both so much for coming on today I've really really enjoyed this it's been such an open conversation we always say to our guests so maybe you can do a conjoined or a separate one what's one question you'd like to leave the audience with that they should ask themselves that was in sync that that was girl band news it's funny we were talking this morning I was saying there was something about an opening question something about a closing question so I listened to your episode this morning with holly and i was like no it's not a great closing question i got that wrong and now you've said that yes they definitely said that was the closing question i guess how can you be more back to the program how can you something about human connection ask the question again what's one question that you would like to leave the audience with that they should ask themselves are you bringing your whole self to work are you raising the bar are you surrounding yourself with people that are going to challenge you to be more to to lift to to lift the level of what we see within within marketing or are you just adding to the dross because otherwise what's the point and i think are you having fun yeah and how do you and if you're not having fun don't rely on someone else to bring that fun to you you know you can you can be the fun fun police the fun sponge you can bring the fun sometimes if people want to bring in the Avengers and work with the Illuminary how do they go about that?

1:00:40I would say connect with us on LinkedIn we do have an Illuminari page but also yeah or either of us on Anna or Kerry at theilluminari.com amazing thank you so so much thank you thank you

1:01:00I'll see you next time.