Shiny New Object

I finally get to interview my old pal Russell Goldsmith about how brands can use podcasting in their marketing. Russell is the host of the brilliant www.csuitepodcast.com.

“I had a love affair with radio from an early age” There’s not many people who know more about voice tech than James - this episode will get you up to speed on all things voice based. If you agree with James that “voice is the first line of defence for most businesses” and you’re a brand experimenting in voice - there’s a lot to learn from this man. James Poulter is the recently departed Head of Emerging Platforms and Partnerships @Lego. It’s been a while since I recorded this podcast and since then James has announced the launch of Vixen Labs a Voice strategy, experience and marketing. Good luck to him.

When I asked Tony how he wants the industry to look back on his career he told me - “I don’t want people to remember my career.” This is typical of an incredibly senior yet down-to-earth marketer who has only great intentions for Domino’s - “I want to leave the brand in a better state than when I came, stick to its roots - make it more exciting, appealing and relevant.” Bravo.

“We are on a mission to make banking cool, unofficially” this quote comes from Tristan Thomas, Marketing Director of Monzo this week on the #ShinyNewObject podcast. Today Monzo are launching their third round of crowdfunding. To put this in context their first round raised £1M in ninety seconds and their second raise of £2.5M was oversubscribed by around £10M. As of 3pm today, if you are Monzo customer you can invest between £10 and £2K in Monzo - all via the app. Tristan is crazily ambitious, bold and humble stating that “every prediction I make is wrong” but my bet with today’s announcement he’s most certainly going to be right.

Marco’s shiny new object is “Marketing in a Screenless World” - and he’s on a mission to draw marketers attention away from visual marketing. He claims that “The marketing world is obsessed with video” and tells us of the seismic changes in the industry that Voice Tech and Audio will bring.

‘The potential for programmatic is so ripe but it is yet to be fulfilled’ - this quote comes from Gerry D’Angelo - Global Media Director at P&G this week on the #ShinyNewObject podcast. We discuss how the rate of innovation in marketing technology is so fast that the creatives in the industry are slow to keep up. Despite his passion for new marketing tech he believes that “there is something special in the shared experience” like the Tide Superbowl ad. Gerry is passionate that creatives should be briefed on where the media placement will be. If the billboard is going to be next to a motorway then the creative should know that before they start coming up with ideas. Gerry is an optimist and is excited about guiding P&G into the future with the belief that “technology could take us anywhere”. Thanks so much to London’s most lovable strategic communications agency Bluestripemedia.co.uk and @Andyoakes for sponsoring the podcast.

“When I take risks they are positive, even if they fail” this quote comes from Seb Bardin the Head of Digital at Sony Mobile Europe - this week on the #ShinyNewObject podcast. This interview is is a teaser ahead of Seb’s presentation at MadFestLondon.com on the 28th of November. Seb is successful marketer but one of his secrets is that he’s a keen gamer. Despite holding an influential role he plays every night from 10pm at night to 1am in the morning - and he still gets up at 6am to be the first in the office. Trust in his agency and trust in his team is central to Seb’s work. This belief has taken him from Shell to Symantec to Sony and he tells us “every morning I’m happy to go to work”. Shout outs to @jerrydaykin @DanBrain @madfestlondon @Tonoir @HelloMrMatthew   Pre-podcast drinks were sponsored by London’s most lovable strategic comms agency bluestripemedia.co.uk and @AndyOakes #innovation #tech #google #marketing #advertising #AI #artificial #intelligence #brands #comms #agencies #creativity #strategy #v

“Saying you are “busy” is a humble brag and a mental illness at the same time.” This quote is from my interview with Rosie and Faris Yakob this week on the #ShinyNewObject podcast. Rosie and Faris run the “nomadic creative consultancy” Genius Steals that “advise creative businesses about their businesses.” But the real creativity is their lifestyle - they don’t have a home. They have spent the last five years wandering the planet helping creative businesses refine their propositions travelling from country to country following the work. Their capacity to wrap up an insight into a soundbite is remarkable: “Originality is a myth. You can’t invent without inventory.” “Things have to get cheap before it is innovation and stops just being technology” “Distracting ourselves from ourselves is what reality is all about” “When you are used to constant stimulus you go crazy when it stops” “Gratitude is the foundation of joy and happiness” Things get weird when we discuss how CRISPR the gene editing technology could be

“I didn’t see how Google was going to make any money” this quote comes from the brutally honest Andy Oakes - Managing Director of Blue Stripe - this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Andy has been one of the most influential figures in British marketing in the last fifteen years; starting with New Media Age magazine and then growing The Drum in London from one person to fifty. He now runs the strategic communication agency - Blue Stripe. Andy’s passion is working with disruptive tech businesses who need help making themselves more famous. He always asks his clients “what makes you good?” not “what makes you different?” Andy’s shiny new object is Tech Spin. He gives us an outsider’s perspective on how the industry gets caught up in new headline grabbing tech. His advice is to brands is to try out the new marketing tech for themselves. Don’t outsource your innovation. Andy is smart, funny and as honest as they come. And has built his businesses ethos around trust and integrity and isn’t ashamed to admit his

“If you think you’re a marketer that has all the answers - you have a problem” this quote is from a double header episode of the #ShinyNewObject podcast between Charlotte Mceleny - Publisher, APAC at The Drum and Simon Kemp CEO and Founder at Kepios. The purpose of the discussion was to work out the main difference between marketing between the east and the west. Apparently it’s not as simple as picking a cool bit of tech in Asia and porting it over to the west. A lot of digital business in the East have developed due to the physicality of the countries themselves. One example is the Grab App in Singapore which is a mix of Uber and Apple Pay - “it’s an OS for city” says Mceleny. We also cover cultural anomalies such as Singles Day which Simon tells us is a “Valentines Day for the Self.” It’s not so hard to imagine that one coming to the west. Charlotte tells us that “UK has a strong creative aesthetic” and that the East doesn’t see the West’s marketing as old school. So there’s hope as well as inspiration to

“No matter how you understand your content, your users will tell you how well you don’t understand it” this quote is from Andy Hunt, Manager, Digital Innovation Lab at the Hershey Company - this week on the #ShinyNewObject podcast. Andy is making innovation happen at Hershey with his own hands - telling us that “I build things.” His advice to those getting into the innovation game is that we should learn to make things ourselves - “all the tools are out there.” But it’s not all nuts and bolts for Andy. He is adamant that the role of the innovation person is to make technology “relatable”. Talking about innovation is not enough. His view is that “PowerPoint decks don’t do it - we are in a show and tell environment.” Andy’s shiny new object is ‘AI for Internal Comms’ and Hershey have explored this through voice and chatbots. These projects have taught him not to assume how his audience thinks. He tells us that “you can’t schedule enough user testing periods.” Andy’s innovation mission at Hershey’s is create a “

“The best marketing books aren’t about marketing - they just have some marketing stuff in them.” This quote comes from Dan Calladine Head of Media Futures at Carat this week on the Shiny New Object Podcast. This insight is typical of Dan who has a knack of telling us something obvious that we hadn’t realised. In the course of an hour we find out that “older people are the most valuable marketing audience” and that “you can read any marketing book in four hours.” But it’s not all high-level stuff. As well as being one of the most influential innovation people in town he’s also influential in food. His @londonpopups profiles on instagram and twitter are sizeable audiences. What makes Dan so intriguing is his interest in the nuances of the social platforms but also the mastery of the macro. Dan’s shiny new object is ‘programmatic’ which he manages to beautifully describes without using any TLAs (three letter acronyms). There’s a lot to learn in this podcast from this articulate and engaging thinker and doer that

“We need to get pissed before we open up, this is terrible for creativity” this quote comes from Marc Lewis, Dean at the School of Communication Arts - this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Marc is a maverick and true creative innovator who admits that “our school is often described as a cult”. In this interview Marc reveals the tools and techniques he uses to train the next generation of ad creatives. He tells us that “poetry, improv and mindfulness releases people” and reveals his excel spreadsheet technique for creating better ideas. His shiny new object is “hacking flow”. Marc’s definition of flow “is where accelerated learning takes place” and that “the expectation of an education designer should be to get students in ‘flow’ most of the time.” There is also a weird, special guest appearance that gives this episode an improvised and unusual twist - but I’ll let you work this out for yourself. Thanks Marc, the industry owes you big time.

“You could say I’m the father of AR marketing” this (tongue in cheek) quote comes from Jerry Daykin Head of Digital Media Partnerships at Diageo. Jerry works at a brand, he talks about innovation AND gets innovation projects live - how often does that happen? He did the first Shazamable ad in the UK and the ran first brand campaign on Blippar. And he’s not just a new platform junkie, his marketing knowledge is wide and deep. If you follow #digitalsense you will find a global marketing conversation that centres around him. Jerry’s shiny new object is Augmented Reality because “if AR becomes the OS of the future - Facebook becomes obsolete.” This is punchy stuff from a man who knows his onions. And he doesn’t stop there as he tells us “there’s a battle going on to be the AR operating system.” It was a rare treat to get Jerry’s undivided attention for an hour and there’s a lot to learn in this interview especially why he gets asked if he “feels feel morally responsible for the state of social.” #TV #twitter #dat

“I don’t want to work with an influencer that’s fourteen years old” this quote comes from Lauren Spearman Digital Manager at Benefit Cosmetics this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Lauren hates the use of the word “authentic” when talking about influencers and rolls her eyes at the industry that lazily relies on it. Lauren is a micro-influencer in her own right and prepared for the podcast by running a poll about influencers with her own instagram followers. Lauren warns us about working with influencers who ditch their credibility for dollars by becoming “an advert machine”. I’m sceptical about the creative possibilities of influencer marketing and grill Lauren on how whether it should be the brand or the agency who should find the talent. We get into the future of this discipline and discuss the role of AI influencers. We also get into Yin Yoga, emotional intelligence training and her experience of career coaching. Lauren is an inspirational character who is brutally open and honest about her weaknesse

“95% of marketers are afraid of tech and don’t know how to use it properly” this quote comes from Julie Woods-Moss the ex CMO and Innovation Officer at TATA Communications. In 2017 Julie was named the 17th most influential CMO globally by Forbes. She tells us that “agility and speed are the holy grail of marketing” and that “being quick is better than being perfect.” In this candid interview Julie talks about how she was fired by her agency how that feels and why that was a good thing. We get into detail on networking and how it “is joyful if it is in the service of others.” Julie researches all the speakers she is interested in before she goes to conference and introduces herself. She calls this “putting in the hard miles” of conferencing. Her shiny new object is “The Stackies..” Which is an award ceremony focussed on brand’s tech stacks. Honestly. WTF. Well I’m not sure I totally get it but in essence Julie talks about how brands can bring storytelling to their tech stack to help explain it to the C-Suite.

“Creatives see brands as the modern day Medicis” this quote is from Maya Bogle Co-Founder of Talenthouse this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Maya has spent the last eight years or so building Talenthouse into a global platform of crowdsourced creativity. But it hasn’t been easy - “I’ve made more mistakes than you can possibly imagine” but her “belief, passion and hardwork” are what have made this a hugely successful business. We hear how Talenthouse was started as a tech-only business until they realised that the ad game is still fundamentally a human one. It was fascinating to me to hear the view that “tech is not defensible - someone will always be able to do it better than you.” Maya’s shiny new object is Creativity at Scale and how the industry needs a solution that delivers on the fact that “advertising is still all about the work, you just need a lot more of it.” She reveals how they are experimenting with AI to sift through their communities creative to work out which ads are most likely to deli

“Technology hasn’t overtaken storytelling” this quote comes from Adam Boita Head of Marketing at Pernod Ricard UK - this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Adam’s interview notes read like an inspirational instagram posts: “Invest in yourself, always be restless” / “You can only focus on three big goals at any one time” / “I’m a marketer that blends culture and technology.” But it’s far from being all talk. Adam realised at 15 that he wanted to get into advertising and spent his summer holidays as a teen interning at big London ad agencies. Adam’s Shiny New Object is the ‘Digification of TV’. His view is that music, radio, out-of-home and print have been drastically disrupted by digital but TV has mostly resisted. We go into detail about Sky’s new tech that allows TV ads to be aimed at specific individuals based on their viewing habits and to measure impressions and not use TVR. Adam is a true brand innovator who embraces new technology but in the end he reminds us that “everything starts with the consumer

“People who take lunch enjoy their weekend more.” This quote comes from Bruce Daisley VP EMEA at Twitter this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Outside of his Twitter gig Bruce is the host of the #1 Business podcast - Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat. The podcast is an investigation into happiness in the workplace. And with stats like “The average person has 16 hours of meetings per week” and “meetings have 0% effect on creativity” - then the ad industry needs to listen up. Bruce is also a self confessed “laughter enthusiast” and is fixated about it’s positive impact in the workplace. He tells us that there have been 50,000 papers written about anxiety but only about 17 about laughter. Stress kills creativity and laughter kills stress - is the message. Bruce’s shiny new object is ‘Work Tech’ which is the technology behind tracking the movement, mood and creative health in the workplace. If you want to be part of one of our industry’s true leaders journey to reinvent modern work - then this podcast is a great firs

‘Be clear about what you are good at, and stick up for yourself’ this quote comes from Lawrence Weber Managing Partner at Karmarama this week on the Shiny New Object podcast. Lawrence is one of the most successful innovation people in town. He was a key player in the development of Unilever’s Foundry - one of the most successful and celebrated brand-led startup programs anywhere. He did this by fighting the ‘Tech Tourism’ of agencies and has done the right thing by giving adtech startups the time, money and attention of brands - not just parading them to make his agency look cool. His shiny new object is ‘Voice’ technology such as Amazon Echo and Google Home. He tells us that there’s “a magic in it – that is quite accessible”. He concedes that Voice doesn’t have a place for every brand in the same way years ago that people on social “didn’t want a relationship with their toothpaste”. Lawrence is a lovely chap and it was a huge privilege to pick his brain for an hour.