Video - Back to Basics, Running a Digital Agency in 2022 with Simon Akers
VIDEO: 50.01 mins
AUTHOR: Simon Akers and Robert Craven
In this GYDA Talks, Robert talks to Simon Akers. Simon is Founder of Archmon, a growth marketing consultancy that delivers actionable media strategies that deliver performance and new customers. Simon is a regular contributor to the industry press and events, and is also author of the book Back to Basics. He documents his experiences from 15+ years working performance-first campaigns to some of the UK & world’s leading brands.
Simon gives his insight into the agency world and how to market a digital agency in 2022.
Robert and Simon discuss:
Back to Basics: 21 ways to increase marketing performance and success – Simons new book
Partnering with specialists
Running an agency – why are you doing it?
Why there is no silver bullet for growing an agency
Entrepreneurial Mindset – why it agency owners loose it over time
Utilising video for performance and engagement
Simon’s insight into the future agency model
To download a free copy of Simons book Back to Basics, click here.
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:38
Hello, and welcome to GYDA Talks and today I'm absolutely delighted to have with me Simon Akers from Archmon. Hello, Simon, how are you?
Simon Akers 00:47
Hello, Robert. I'm great. How are you?
Robert Craven 00:49
Fine. There's a bit of hesitancy though. It's just you're getting ready for a bit of a fight, which is good, because I like it.
Simon Akers 00:56
I'm just reeling from the bank holiday weekend. My cognitive. I think I need to fire my brain up again for this conversation, Roberts.
Robert Craven 01:03
Absolutely. I mean, it's fine. For those listening to this later on in the year, it is the last day in August or the first day in September of everyone's kind of comatose into a sort of holiday mode. So let's get straight into this. Firstly, could you just give us a quick introduction to Archmon, what Archmon is and what it does, so that people get an idea about who you are and where you're coming from.
Simon Akers 01:26
So I set up Archmon to be a growth marketing consultancy. So what that means is, with my background in performance, marketing and performance planning, I wanted to create a shop, if you like, that does marketing plans and strategies for clients. And then I like to focus on that bit. And then that means I have to do the actual execution in terms of government ads manager, that's where my nose profusely bleeds. And that's a foreign place. So what I do, I've worked with partners who bring those plans to life. So it's essentially a sort of an agile way of working, I sort of project management lead on the planning side, and I work with partners who deliver for my clients, and I have a number of clients who, I would say, are their marketing director on demand, and it's quite nice.
Robert Craven 02:13
So you've got a book and that's my original introduction to you called back to back deep, deep voice Back to basics.
Simon Akers 02:25
When I do a radio ad, you can do the voice.
Robert Craven 02:27
Okay, Back to basics, 21 ways to increase marketing performance and success, which it's actually a good read, which I was surprised by because I get lots of books thrown at me. And what you've succeeded in doing here is getting a whole bunch of very wise people to do the hard work and the heavy lifting. And then you've got in behind taking a good quote, and made yourself look really intelligent. I mean, seriously speaking, I would really like to understand the kind of the who, what, why, where, why, when and how of doing the book, I'll tell you why. I have somewhere in this office, about a dozen books have been given to me by agency owner founders in the last six or nine months. Clearly people have had free time on their hands. And people have donated books for 100 Different reasons, everything from being a pure lead magnet all the way through to showing their ology all the way through to creating an authority for themselves. Be just really curious, the who, what, where, why and how of doing that book.
Simon Akers 03:40
Get Started in full candour. I think I had a harebrained idea to do some sort of writing down of all my thoughts anyway, because things were really starting to irritate me some of the stories and the nonsense that was being peddled on LinkedIn every day. And I'd like to my whole brand is quite fresh and quiet the way I am and the way I'm with people and people who've worked with me down the years will know that I'm, you know, I like to speak, honestly, and hopefully, and I just like to almost take the mickey out of all the BS, that's always the way I have been. So I wanted to create, initially, it was kind of like a league math net. To be fully honest, I thought, this might be a good way to generate leads, because I see people do ebooks to download that sort of thing. That probably within the first couple of hours of writing it, I'm thinking, I'm not getting any leads, they're not a plant and by design, I'm actually going to be writing my thoughts and I really started to break it down into different sections, you know, the real basics of like, what are we selling? How are we positioning in the market? Who are our audience? What's the message of the creative, where are we distributing it and how are we measuring it pretty much, you know, fundamental tenets of marketing. And then I started doing it and I wrote, I basically spent my whole Christmas writing and wrote probably 30,000 words, whatever. And then I thought, how can I make this even better and add rigour to it? And I realised that what was in front of me was my own collective of partners and a lot of the partners. A lot of the people in the book are actually partners in my business as well. And suppliers as well. So I thought to myself, why don't I showcase the reasons why I outsource and why I defer to a particular channel and technical expertise from them, and actually get them to talk about their part in their book. So someone who does conversion rate optimization, why would I not get her to write it over me because she's better at it than I am. Since pretty much how I thought I had my evidence, my idea and my thoughts on a way to stress test that with evidence and rigour of third parties who validated what I was thinking basically came about.
Robert Craven 05:48
But it's a nice book, because it's actually a bit of a it's kind of a drop in book as opposed to you don't have to read it from cover to cover, you can go straight to the bit on, you know, one thing, it's not 50 pages of heavyweight stuff, it's quite a high level, but it's kind of written by intelligent people, you know, they're talking about who gives you the pointers give you the direction, and then you go up. Okay, now I understand, I know what I need to do. And in this world, we've either incredibly techno speak, or incredibly bland, it's kind of you've actually kind of hit a really nice sort of middle point of intelligence without freaking people out with endless detail. I think that's a really, really quite a cut if you've done. Certainly not either, and also correct, corralling all those people to at least create some kind of a common format. And for it to flow, I mean that, you know.
Simon Akers 06:50
I was in the shower, right? One day, I mean, I won't tell you too much about that moment, but I was in my shower, and the shower thoughts. And I was thinking of all these things. And I realised hang on a minute, I've got an agile marketing thing I was speaking to someone the other day, Stefan is one of the things about that, and I thought when I step onto contribute, and then I realised holy nuts, what I could do, I could just do 21 for 21, cuz I've got about 18-19. So I can get to 21. Because a couple needs to break out more. And I've got about probably 30 people I can ask to do what I did, I kind of did a quick spreadsheet, I mapped out the chapters I don't really see and then asked to put their little two cents in there. And, you know, I was, you know, I had to basically sometimes double up at times, because often you have people who they work for Spotify or Facebook, and they weren't allowed to, for the marketing teams weren't allowed to sign off people commenting or something in industry, grass. And obviously, I've got my own view on that. But you know, I think it was good. In the end, it worked really well.
Robert Craven 07:54
So just for those who don't come across, you can download the book and the link at the end of the interview. The chapter titles are the basics positioning and other piece messaging and comms branding and design creative the advertising itself, traditional media, broadcast media, working harder content search optimization, partnerships, influence and authority conversion optimization, paid search affiliates, you get the sense of what is conscious advertising. That's quite an interesting one. I thought, What's that about?
Simon Akers 08:27
Yeah, So I think that was very much about random time I wrote it, I joined the conscious advertising network. Because a lot of that is about creating all sorts of things. It could be equity of employees and opportunities and communication and advertising, ensuring that audiences are being represented, there's no hate speech, we're not funding, or for websites, all those different things. And it's sort of an element of message being the medium and context there. And how important it is to actually, you know, I guess associate yourselves with the right areas as well, especially if you're gonna be doing brand marketing. And that was the basis of that. Also, I'd be working with, on my sort of one of my little, I guess, projects when I spent half a day a week working and volunteering with Brixton finishing school, and they're really big on providing access to underrepresented groups. It could be anything from you know, people of colour to the neurodiverse and giving them an option and education seat at the table. So I'd like to have an argument is and I said to someone the other day, how can you advertise to everyone if you are yourself, not everyone? I think you just have to have that diversity in communication and ultimately think about and be conscientious with your marketing too as well.
Robert Craven 09:47
Yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna I won't name names, but I worked with a bank trying to reach diverse communities. Right now the language is a nightmare. Try not to upset anyone. And they were trying to talk to an audience that they had no experience of. So they just wandered around with size 12 producing pork Somoza through it for a community that doesn't need and all that are all the apps out, it's actually 101 mistakes. They all have fatigue, because people didn't turn up at nine o'clock. And they all have fatigue because people brought their family and we had a natural ethnic speaker from that community. And she was saying, this is how it works. And then let's do it in the Hilton. No, we're gonna do it at the mosque, you can't do it at the mosque. Why not? That is where these people hang out. And that's where they feel comfortable. So that's where we're gonna go? I mean, it's gotten better now, but I still think we are the dominant brand in business, and therefore, our customers should come to us. Things still kind of exist. Even though you know, there's some stats today about the number of kids. English, the first language, is now less than 50% of kids in schools. You know, that's been the Turner. And of course, if you don't live in London, you think that's rubbish. We live in Gloucestershire, you know, everyone here apart from that one family. But that's the reality of the diverse country that we live in.
Simon Akers 11:43
The best case scenario, it's cringe, cringe worthy, and embarrassing and awkward and corny, but worst case, and probably the most proliferate thing is, it's just going to alienate your brand from the dangerous thing.
Robert Craven 11:57
Absolutely, it's just an entirely backward step. And so How does the book fit in with Archmon? How does the book fit in with the rest of what you do? Or was it just kind of like a one off project?
Simon Akers 12:14
Okay. That's a good question. It's a one off project, I thought, but I'm also thinking of maybe doing, potentially don't hold me to this, maybe delete this after the podcast, maybe doing an advanced marketing strategy, or advanced marketing modules, or considerations down the line maybe in a couple of years time. Because there's a lot of things I didn't put in there, a lot of things I left out and had to head down to not bore myself and others. So I feel like some stuff when we start talking about, you know, data driven attribution.
Robert Craven 12:49
Your mic's gone funny, your mic's gone funny with us.
Simon Akers 12:56
Sorry. Yeah. So I think, you know, there's a lot of technical stuff like growing up programmatic stuff, a lot of things that are quiet, they're not back to basics, they are serious things, because you got to bear in mind, the audience. They're not just, you know, bigger agencies and stuff like that. I know a lot of inboxes, from my old clients in bigger agencies and brands, who, you know, thanked me for the work but the real audiences, the smaller brands who they're like, right, we've made some cloths, let's sell cloths, right? Literally, it's bad. It literally is back to basics. Like, here's your marketing spend, here's your sales that come do a little graph, there's a simple bit of measurement. You know, he's really getting back to basics.
Robert Craven 13:38
So the books have been out for six months or so. Have people contacted you and given you work, as a result of the book, people said, Oh, we read this book. It's amazing. Can you come in? And can you rescue us?
Simon Akers 13:50
Yeah, I've got one client, who has Yeah, so you know that a lot of it has been great for sort of the brand awareness. I've built up the CRM base I've had, I've sent emails, and thanks for downloading. You know, people from all over the world came back from major brands saying thank you, it's really helpful. There's someone who's running a conference service over in Asia, a video conferencing service. And I've always been sort of mentoring her as a result, which is quite an I call that an unintended consequence. But it's been great, you know, and I'd say it wasn't, I had a very clear goal going into it, it was going to be a lead magnet, but then it became so much more incomprehensive than that, and more sort of more of a manifesto, to myself and others how I want to do it. And going back to your original question about how it ties in with arch, but ultimates about sort of getting back to basics with clients. And because I do have partners who do SEO, Content influence, whatever. It's a great way to map to my services as well. So there is that. But yeah, that's kind of in a nutshell.
Robert Craven 14:50
I think the beauty of it is that it'll just go on forever. I mean, I wrote my first book in 2001. And I don't think a week doesn't go by when I come across someone who says, Oh, I read the book. And that really changed the case study in the book about this out of the other. And of course, it's stuff that I can't remember at all, you know, if you got your head going, but isn't it amazing, I would argue that a print version is an amazing calling card. When I was a serious additive aversion business guide. And my object was to sell 25,000 copies to get all my ideas out to the outside world. So everyone knew my thinking. But there was a guy called Tim. And his thing was quite the reverse, which was, I actually only want 25 copies. Because in the next three years, I'll probably do 25 important big proposals and big pitches, where I want at the end of the pitch to say, and here's a copy of my book with four by Sir Richard Branson. So there's lots of different reasons why people write a book.
Simon Akers 16:05
When I registered on Nielsen, I self published, I got it as an ebook. Because of the print one, that was a lot of other facets of business. And it's another goal to get out on the 11th. And I did it. But yeah, I mean, I'm not against I'm thinking that very carve way between you and the other chap, it's more about having it as a is a great of course, from a marketing perspective, a great brand awareness tool, it's a great way to grow my business, but I don't need to create loads of copies and get into, you know, Waterstones, with either it's just something to have, which would be nice.
Robert Craven 16:39
But there are places that, you know, I saw when I did a gig in Kuala lumper for the Global marketing Summit. And they wanted copies of the books, I had to go when I got there are 500 copies of whatever the book was. And I had to sit there an hour signing every single one of these because as far as they were concerned, they dragged me over there first class put me in a five star hotel 500 copies of the book, whatever it was 10 quid to them was no big deal. It was money for me. And for them were the things of authority, like being a professor or having written a book are really, really important. And boom, probably got me the gig, the fact that I'd written the book, and that I could just give them 500 copies of the book. So you can get them printed on demand.
Simon Akers 17:40
I mean, I'll be honest, there have been times where I've said, Oh, look, I actually wrote about it in my book. And I found myself saying, I almost hate myself from my book. Because I don't like saying it because I'm 21 But now I can't really, it was such an honest thing. I just said, Oh, my God, that sounds so bad. So I actually wrote about that in chapter five, whatever in my book, but, you know, it has been useful for some contexts. And like you say, these little examples that people come back to you with, you know, I love an analogy, and I'll talk about, you know, it's not very well, having, you know, all the nice gear, but the craves like bad ingredients, you know, the chicken will taste off, you know, if you don't, I mean, that comes out better. But I do have different analogies and people say I love that analogy. And I'm thinking I do. I can't remember which one that was.
Robert Craven 18:29
I think it's a really good tool to have. And I think that your attitude to it's great. So I think a lot of the other books that I've read, and I've spoken to some of the web say that oh, I've written a book because it's what we do. And it's like, okay, So did you actually have a target customer in mind? No, it's just stuff that I wanted to communicate. So this is almost like a vanity project.
Simon Akers 18:49
What I do is to be honest, I mean, that's what agencies, brands, consultants do, we do what we do, we do it our way, we think about the best way. But ultimately, all the customer as in brand usually cares about is someone that they can work with. It's not a total loss, you can get stuff done and help them so it's kind of like what can you do for them? It's such an obvious thing, but I know there's no someone again, I won't name names like yourself, but there's someone who wrote a book recently, and it's just like, it's just a pithy title, which sounds on call it's just almost Garner engagement and likes and provocative content, but it's kind of meaningless. So why was I'm not interested in that I'm not interested in becoming a celebrity or making a name? I just want to say what I think is the right way to do it. And if people like that, great, you know.
Robert Craven 19:36
So let's get on to art from so I think we're two things right. The first thing is, I think we're agreed that we both hate this whole facebook, follow these five secrets and you'll be richer than your wildest dreams. Okay, so that's the first thing that we agree on. So that's simple. Second thing, which is actually a slightly complicated question, but I'll try On PPOs, at certain accents, the fundamental principles I would argue of how you grow a business are pretty straightforward. You need something that people want and you'd be able to communicate it, you need to sell to them, you need to be able to deliver it. It's not actually rocket science. And in fact, most of the things you actually want to understand how to do in business, like how to put up price, how to pitch how to close how to write a contract, how to deal with difficult clients, most of that stuff is available, you just bloody Google it, you don't need to write, read a book on it, you can find most of that stuff. So I'm saying that most of the stuff is actually out there, of how to do it. In the same way. If I want to lose weight, I know I need to go to the fat club and at the Fat club, they'll tell me to exercise more and eat less. Okay, so it's not difficult. And running an agency isn't difficult. It's the same task done a number of times. One, and secondly, it's not very complex. It's just a number of moving parts put together. It's not a bloody nuclear power station, you know. And yet, I'm constantly surprised how people fail to actually run and grow a good business. I'd be really interested in what your thoughts are about that.
Simon Akers 21:28
Yeah, actually, Google thing, I think a lot of people, I think there's a vernacular problem. Yeah. So for example, a marketing manager, for example, would be someone who helps manage different cohorts of marketing. So it could be advertising, it could be the packaging, whatever, it's a different thing. Now, there's been the proliferation of the digital marketing manager and the digital marketing strategy. Now, these are led by Google search ads and Facebook Ads Manager and not No Taboo, right? People can go onto these platforms, they can self-serve, they can log on to Google now and go native ads, click on the link, sign up, create an account, Verify Email. And they are linked through the now the bastions of their advertising future. But there are a couple of JPEGs and pithy lines away from delivering a campaign, right? Now that's where I say, look, the agency, I mean, I don't call it consultancy, because I actually do buying and selling but I coordinate kind of an agency solution. But I think either way, it's all about tapping into those who know how to do it. And they, you're buying into 10-15 years experience of different people doing different things, who know how to do it. They're not just going on Google. Do you see what I mean? I think it's a very important piece around why you're doing it. And I read a really interesting article from someone I also write with in the New Digital Age. And he said this morning about AI and how people are talking about AI overall having all these brilliant technologies, but you need to know the raison d'etre of why you press the buttons. And my worry is with googling things, that sort of thing is, you know, you've got to give people the why they're doing it as well, which is where I think the planning piece becomes very valuable for me and says, and that's where value can be kind of added as well.
Robert Craven 23:21
So I go back to my original argument, I agree that maybe I go back to my original argument, which is, most people know what they should do, but they're not able to do it. So if you go into most marketing departments, they know they should have a marketing plan. They know they should have some kind of a value proposition. They brackets, they should have a quantifiable value proposition. They know they should understand who their markets are, they know that they should be they know, marketing, bloody 101 1961, Harvard Business Review, they know that it's all about segmentation and differentiation. They know it's all about unique ish selling propositions. They know they should have all that kind of stuff in place. And yet what they end up doing is they end up cutting and pasting something they got somewhere else kind of filling in the boxes. And then wondering why it doesn't work. It's like they know what they should be doing. But they don't do the heavy lifting. They don't go why is it that people want what is a big problem that our products really solve and what is really what is the big problem that the rate who is the biases and why when they buy it, how they feel and what they instead what they end up doing is saying, oh we sell to marketing and sales directors of companies that blah blah, they just don't do the bloody heavy lifting. And that's the thing that kind of puzzles me. Is it because they're not bright? Is it because they think that there's a shortcut? Surely they realise that the first answer that they come up with is going to be the wrong answer. Because everyone comes up with that answer first, the answer is going to be right. It's the 20th of the 21st answer, which they're not going to get by having seven machines all turned on, and seven screens around, and it's going to be, you know, on the fourth hour of that walk in the woods, where they suddenly go, Oh, my God, I had never seen it that way. Or oh, my God, by thinking about the dog food industry, I now realise we could apply the same model or whatever it is. And I'm just wondering why people think there is a quick fix answer that they then don't even follow through on.
Simon Akers 25:56
I mean, that's the thing. I mean, a lot of the stuff you'll hear you go back to the whole nice five secret tips on Facebook, everyone seems to want to have the bullet, the silver bullet, the answer. But the reality is these things take time and craft, nothing happens overnight. And I'm worried that the ability to get instant measurement and gratification and instantaneous setup is seen as some proxy for instant outcome and solution. It isn't it's, you know, like, for example, Facebook might have the targeting tool of target, you know, mother's in Manchester because we want to target something product in that area for those people. But it might be a case actually, with a bit more craft and strategy, they might realise that people who attend the Trafford Centre, who had that experiential event that they went to are the perfect audience. Do you see what I mean? What I'm saying is it's not as always a binary as of the audience that's that. And I think, sometimes like saying that kind of mindset of longer term thinking and planning and iterating is sometimes lost on the kind of the one clickers.
Robert Craven 27:05
But that's the fault of the marketing industry for over-selling performance marketing. Yeah, well, I believe each but I mean, when we went into lockdown, everyone, you know, I was screaming, everyone, now's the time to do more marketing, and oh, no, no, we're gonna cut back and cut back on my budget. Okay, let's just dig out the research. Here's Harvard Business Review. Here's Yale. Here's the centre. Here's Ernst and Young. This is all the research from the last recession. And it's mapping out really clearly those that chose to batten down the hatches and wait for it to come pass versus those that invested. And even now you look at the difference in the businesses that have invested against those who haven't. And it's just because investing in a brand is difficult to measure. Doesn't mean it's not a good thing.
Simon Akers 28:04
Yeah. Now if you've got it, I wrote about something the other day, because Channel Four, ha now doing RTB programmatic advertising for a debt addressable TV app. Now, my issue with that is that it's built on the same technology as programmatic display, which is used for CPA advertising, okay. So this is what I mean about technology can be a problem, because I always say just because you can measure it doesn't mean it matters. So you might look at a CTR or something crazy on programmatic. And that's almost meaningful in the right, guys, if it's an engagement company, but if it's brand, what matters is probably reach or the impressions. But there's certain things that are irrelevant on that dashboard. Now, my worry is, does the user see that? And they don't, they will sometimes not think about why TV is there to create fame and reach and although things don't really grow that, you know, it's not just there to drive clicks. And I just think sometimes there's that missing piece that with a lot of the platforms, and as a result of more people in housing, as a result of agencies putting more pressure on eight brands, and agencies, there's more junior staff doing more stuff to drive down to a CPA. It's a race to the bottom. And that's my worry about a lot of the tech stuff, even Digital Home, they'll have the same problem probably as well. We've got to remember what certain things do I think.
Robert Craven 29:32
Yeah, I mean, I've just run a big programme. Helping people become video ready. And it was a bunch of established, large, independent agencies that were a really great bunch of people, and a lot of them really struggled. You know, we are a performance agency. Yeah, well, the video performs really, really well. I'm sorry, I don't Understand how we sell videos to clients. We know how to sell performance. We don't know how to sell videos. How do we do it? You know, and for me, you know, again, going back to the COVID, the larger agencies that have what I would call like a plug and play mentality, oh, we need to be able to do do email marketing, what would we need to do to have a department that does email marketing, we need to have a sponsor on the board, tick, we need to have a head of, tick, they need to have a team of three or four, tick that needs to be fed into the marketing and sales team tick away, we go out. But a lot of agencies had real difficulties. Moving on to video is like, do you understand that video? Is video good, and pretty cheap for the client? Yeah. Do you understand that it's relatively easy to deliver? Yeah. Do you understand that it will help you grow your agency? Yeah. Do you understand why it's profitable? Yeah. What's the problem? Can't do it? Why not? Well, how do you sell something that you can't sell on the ROI? How do you think every bloody branding agency in the world survives with a black polar tops going, Oh, give us 2 million pounds and we'll change your logo and make it more switch. You know, Everyone's doing it. You know, so why aren't you doing it? Why can't you do it? And I think there's a problem with the platforms who are demanding spreadsheet responses from the agencies. I think there's a problem with the agencies because, you know, they, you know, the wonderful thing about agency people is they've got quite pointy heads, performance agency people. And the problem with the agency people is because they've got quite pointy heads. And they're very, very good at doing what we do, they sometimes find it quite difficult to go. It's a business, which is a black box with inputs and outputs. And this is just a different business with inputs and outputs. And there's just slightly different stuff going on. On inside of instead, what you get is you get agency people saying, You taught me how to drive a car, I know how to drive a car, you're telling me a motorbikes more exciting, but actually only know how to drive a car, I think I'll just stick with a car because it's safer. So there's something about the entrepreneur mindset that the agencies have lost, having had 10 good years of just selling Google ads, you know.
Simon Akers 32:29
Interesting. I like that. So the car at the moment by analogy on that, because there's two sides to that, of course, because if you're a big Lagarde company that struggles to make changes, you've always driven your TV buying car, because you know, generates, you know, the good campaign. And for them, the shiny new motorbike, the Harley Davidson coming on the inside is either noTik Tok, right. And it's like, oh, we don't know, this new thing. But at the same time, there's always gonna be an element of now and then at the weekend to try the bike, you know, put 50% of your budget. And I think it's finding that sweet spot. But I think you're right, I think the way things are set up as well. I mean, some of the larger agencies I've worked in, they've got performance teams, activation teams, brand teams, comm teams, AV, how the hell are they gonna buy design and culture and employee incentive, celebrate and promote and endorse the overall holistic piece of marketing? That's the challenge.
Robert Craven 33:28
And also good. And also, I think that agencies have this problem of saying, Yeah, you have to believe in us, because you need to give us this budget, we need $50,000 A month, that 50,000 needs to be distributed in different ways, and different leaves will be pulled at different times. And you need to trust in us that we will respond to what the market says, and some of you will be quick wins, and some of it will be long term win, some of it will be difficult, but we just need to do that. So if you're making that pitch versus someone who says, For every dollar you give us we're gonna give you $3 in sales. It feels a bit woolly.
Simon Akers 34:16
It's tough. I think, like going back to your evidential thing. I mean, you know, I've recently helped to have creative agency. So one of the things I do for my consulting, I also help some creative agencies with their pitch work. Because often, if you think about the dichotomy of media and creative, creative roles, like we have two big ideas where the advertisers and the media are like, You guys just do like couriers were the ones with the data, right? But it's bringing together that divide, and you know, talking about you call us and you talk about research, you look at, you know, feel binaire launch or their grey sky, whatever, all these there's some really good people out there doing some good stuff with econometric data, and it's almost like bringing that to the fore is not just some pipe dream read in half and 20 years ago, you It's not just something where you've got a couple of guys in the IPA talking about Procter and Gamble, you've got more money. It's actually about reality of these TNT three brands, how they can actually, you know, provide the evidence of, you know, oh yeah, they did this, they did drop from three to one to two to one, but it's okay, because their revenue was higher, because they spent more so they drove more revenue and to grow, that needs to make a cut of the row as KPI evolved the KPI. And actually, they get more revenue was decreasing the rollout. And it's almost taking people on a bit of an education, isn't it?
Robert Craven 35:34
So, do the agencies need cating? In a different way of seeing things or do the brands? Or both? And if so, who does that?
Simon Akers 35:49
I mean, I'd say the brands because I'm interested in working with the brands. So, of course, I mean, I'm I think the agencies on a bigger step scale, would do well to educate themselves, because they think, if they've got the keys to the dashboard of, you know, these big advertisers who are spending millions every year, it'd be interesting to see how they spend their money. You know, they see smaller, smaller companies see small to medium companies, represented by the Omni comms and WPP of the world started advertising TV and radio and addressable media on Spotify. And to go, they're gonna look us up and think, hang on a minute, I'm interested in this, maybe we could do this. Why are we doing it? And I'll go, Yeah, fine, David, but there is no straight ROI on that, right? You're gonna have to take a hit on that. Oh, okay. Fair enough. I've seen it, I like it. So I think there's going to be an element of there needs to be something in that sort of tier two agency space, where they really start to help along those innovations, and, you know, challenging the status quo, because otherwise, it's just gonna be the same old conversations with everybody all the time, forever, and ever.
Robert Craven 36:56
You're always gonna get that that argument of, well, you know, Coca Cola employee, intelligent people, McDonald's employee, intelligent people, apart from the obvious case studies where they, they didn't, but on the whole, they do and they advertise on TV, so therefore, TV safe, it's like the, you never got sacked for hiring IBM type mentality, right? Plus, I think you're absolutely right, that when you are a Procter and Gamble, and you've got 50 years of brand, and you've got 50 years of advertising, and you've got a new, every bloody product and several lanes of the supermarket. You are, it's not normal, you know, and most business school type stuff is based on stories about the not normal, trying to be applied to the normal, you know, so it's yes, it'd be fantastic if I was the marketing director of McDonald's, or Coca Cola or Procter and Gamble and maybe 200 other brands, but that's it. And then the rest of the world keeps reading bloody case studies about them. As if we are like them, and we're not, you know, I'm not Ronaldo, you know, I'd kick a football round on a Sunday afternoon.
Simon Akers 38:18
Yeah, exactly. I'm not even two runners. But yeah, like the saying goes, it's like the pilot, I'm doing a lot of stuff with my clients. I've helped launch a mental health brand. I'm working with a wine brand. Now we're doing a lot with affiliates and partners, because there's a conversation around a lot of these people. When they come to me, they go, Oh, Simon, yeah, we want to do it, we've seen a good ad. Let's do that on TV. But then. Yeah, I would. But you know, that requires a different level of investment. And I think it's to understand that level, you've got to understand as well, a lot of these brands are, you know, well coming out of a recession? Well, COVID. And I do think people are still quite prudent with their investment. They do want to focus on ROI. But I think people are starting to understand that, hopefully, I mean, I don't want to date myself too much on this, but a lot of my clients are starting to understand the point about diminishing returns, and you could optimise to death, everything until you get nothing. So you need to top up the funnel. But it is hard, it's a hard challenge for them. And for me and for everyone ready to actually excel Because It's, um, you mentioned a video, which is interesting. And that's almost like a gateway drug for brand marketing. Because it's got to be for the big do you see what I mean? It's got that kind of like, the non skippable, big brand format, native YouTube, non skid, all that sort of stuff where you can sort of have some big brand films at night and can do a minute video, and it's all good. Then you've got your true view, you know, tales.com Sign up 10 seconds skip. And they The point is video is one of those where you can have different types. You can have more performance II focused, I sort of double action immediately. And then there's the bigger brands, salience pieces. So what I'm finding is that sort of people are looking at things like A video and digital audio as these kinds of, I guess, Gateway Skow have their, you know, empower machine model, if that makes sense.
Robert Craven 40:08
Yeah. And I think that it's also really understanding that you were actually back to my bank thing, you know, being based on being a 55 year old man, being a banker who's always worked for the bank is the same as being a 55 year old marketing executive. Trying to get down with the people, you know. And, you know, you only need Well, I feel my age, I feel it. Yeah. You know, when people write single letters as replies to things on LinkedIn, and you go, what does that mean? Yeah, but there is a gap, but as always has been between you know, the advertising exact, predominantly male, and white, and the direct selling to predominantly white and male again, selling to women, or Africa.
Simon Akers 41:09
You've got a woman of colour living in the northwest of England, I'm pretty sure you know, Rupert went to Cambridge, right? Soho isn't the best person to speak to her tongue in cheek, but we know it how there's gonna be a bit more devastating. And also talking about the other day about geography, you know, someone who's a former Chief of growth guy, and at the other day, and he was telling me that, you know, when they did a pet for one of the sort of the wider sort of sub primary brands, you know, market across the UK, and like, one of the execs have their picture taken next to a train sign up in Bradford or something to prove they've done their, like, research in the field. And it's just like, um, but it's almost like they're trying to make that leap of geography. But I think the London centric thing has been a problem for a lot of brands. And I think that's something where procurement has squeezed a lot of brands as well. And I think there's a lot of brand side education that needs to go back to the education point, Robert, because procurement sees the one in five outlaws for TV or out of home. But, you know, again, where's the education there? I don't I don't know. It depends on the brand, I guess, and how closely the marketing function works. I mean, you know, Pete Marquis, who forwarded my book, said, The Bombay cmo needs to be a CTO or CFO, or chief people officer and have to integrate, you know, like, across the groups and the bigger businesses. I imagine that's the case on the brand side as well.
Robert Craven 42:41
It is tough. Two questions: the first one, How do you see certainly on the performance side? How do you see agencies in a year or 18 months ? Five years ago, Google was the only gig in town, we needed to worry about getting on the Google bus. I don't know why that is no longer the case. So you've got a proliferation of platforms we can reach people on, we've got a changing culture of people coming through both as staff and as customers. We've got aI coming through, we've got work from home, we've got agencies saying we must niche or we must focus on one specific product. And then we've got agencies saying we need to be a full service agency. And everything in between me, how do you see the damage? Do you see that being a model of what an agency should look like in the year 18 months time?
Simon Akers 43:53
You know, some of the bigger agencies have done some great stuff to be fair, I mean, my old colleagues essence, for example, they've just started a consulting division. So they know how it's gonna go. They know they can use their planning and strategy talent to create it. Yeah. And I think that's good. And I've also seen that they beat the time lapse in the day with L'Oreal, where they almost have a hybrid team of in-house brand and agency people working together. So I think there needs to be two things, two long answers to your question. The collaboration needs to be there. So more integrated teams, but also like, agencies need to prove that their understanding of cross advertiser insight can't be replayed to the advertiser. Because, you know, the trouble is a lot of the housing people I mean, people who've got, you know, they've got a log on in Kansans. Well, I could do it myself, right. So I think the way agencies are going to, I guess, fight that good fight and continue their leasehold, and their growth trajectory is to charge and type time for the VA value that they offer. Now how does that work into the value based pricing and value FTA? I mean, I'm not the guy for those conversations anymore. But look, it's gonna be more focused on the why and the what. Not, not necessarily the how you know.
Robert Craven 45:13
I'm actually going to go back to Theodore Levitt in 1961. And third good old Theo, Theo, my mate, Theo good old Theo said, it's, I got to get this, right. It's not about strategy, and everyone goes. Oh, yeah, of course, you're right. It's not my strategy. It must be about tactics, about tactics, because it's not about tactics. And they go on, everyone goes, Oh, yeah, yeah, it's not about strategy. It's not about tactics. What could it be? What could it be? And he says, it's about customers. That's all just about customers. And this whole kind of marketing myopia thing appeared, and it's, nothing has changed. You know, everyone always talks about tactics. I mean, Tik Tok, we've done it Tik Tok versus, you know, I mean, it must be about it's not it's about understanding the hurts needed scratches, wants of customers and how we can help them. And so in some senses, you know, marketing hasn't changed. Because we're still in these old agencies that think tactics are sexy. You and I know, it's obviously a strategy that actually it's not just about strategy.
Simon Akers 46:32
Why do people employee consultants, agencies, marketing, I suppose because they just want to help people to love their brand, so they buy more of their stuff, right? That's basically, that's back to the basics.
Robert Craven 46:45
That's it. You're just trying to help people buy. That was my daughter said she worked in Farrington. We help people buy shit they don't really want, which I think is a bit cynical.
Simon Akers 46:57
Well, I actually also worked at an agency and firing during but said something similar. So I don't know if it's the same one. But I would ask any more about the family tree. But you're right, it shouldn't be back to that kind of level of, you know what you're here for, you're not here to do a really cool slide on innovation and share what you learn to your free press or Mangione from the media. Genuinely help them sell more. It's as simple as that.
Robert Craven 47:21
So the final question definitely got run out of time. One of the things that you hear yourself saying an awful lot, what are the pithy pearls of wisdom, either from the book or in your general phone?
Simon Akers 47:36
It was my birthday last week, and I was with my mother and father and they said, I'm using the phrase line in the sand a lot at the moment. Now I use that line, because I know it's a really important, and I'm gonna double down on it justify this use that line in the sand, because when you plan, I tell my clients onto a playbooks as long as I do like a three month project or plan, and I'll go away, whatever. But I say, look, I want this to be out of date in two years time, I tell them that right? Because I believe that line in the sand you plan based on the data you have based on the market based on the audience based on interests, all these different things, the line in the sand, that's the right thing to do. But then you should always challenge yourself, six months, nine months, three months down the line, to look at the line in the sand and go right, where are we? How are we getting on against objectives? Are we achieving it? I just think that keeps me honest as well, because I had a great answer for our brand two months ago, it's probably rubbish now. Do you see what I mean? You've got to be really, really, really honest with yourself. And I think brands should challenge themselves to get out of that kind of inertia of Oh, we did TV three years ago, and it didn't work. You know, because the important thing is that things have changed and are more addressable, there's a lower barrier to entry. Now you look at the Thinkbox stars is like 50,000 advertisers, you spend a lot less than 100k on there, you've got like all these different people a lot less barriers to entry, more data points, more sophisticated use of the first party and need to grow the first party base. So that will be my thought. Definitely.
Robert Craven 49:06
Brilliant. And your final words of wisdom to share with the world would be watched.
Simon Akers 49:12
There's so much more to ROI than short term ROI on a spreadsheet, because you know what looks good there on the day will diminish over time if you don't top up the pot. So that would be my thoughts.
Robert Craven 49:28
Perfect. What a great place to finish. It's been an absolute pleasure. Talking with you, Mr. Akes, I really enjoyed it.
Simon Akers 49:34
Thank you, Mr. Craven.
Robert Craven 49:35
And I hope we have a conversation again. And all I can say is thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much indeed.
Simon Akers 49:45
Thank you, Robert.