#EP161 - The Scale Up Season: What is Brand? With Arafa Heneghan - AO

Welcome back to episode 161 of the Marketing Freaks Podcast and the 4th episode in the Scale Up Season.

In this episode, Jon is joined by Arafa Heneghan, Director of Brand at AO to discuss the impact of brand investment and strategy in AO's growth. From creating a unified customer experience across all touchpoints to finding the perfect balance between brand building and performance marketing, Arafa shares insights into the tactics that senior marketers need to stay ahead. 

Discover how AO stays relevant with even the most functional products and learn why simplicity in messaging and internal brand alignment are critical for scaling success. If you're a senior marketer looking for actionable strategies to elevate your brand, this is a must-listen!

Key Takeaways:

• Gain insight into how AO uses a unified brand strategy across every customer touchpoint to build a consistent and memorable experience.
• Understand the distinction between brand building and performance marketing and how both are essential for driving long-term business success.
• Learn how to leverage simple, clear messaging to communicate the value of functional products without overwhelming customers with technical details.
• Discover how to measure success.
• Understand how to put the customers needs first to make even functional products seem more appealing. 
• The value in understanding the "so what"?

Transcript

0:10: Hello and welcome back to the marketing freaks podcast. 
 0:13: In this episode, we go behind the scenes of one of the U. 
 0:17: K's biggest E-commerce brands, A O. 
 0:21: Joining me is Arafa Hennigan, director of Brand at a O, and we talk about how their brand investment and brand strategy has been an integral part of their scale and growth. 
 0:32: So if you'd like to know a little bit more about how to invest in your brand over the long term from someone who's definitely been there and done it, and this is really the episode for you as always, if you enjoy it, please do come and subscribe. 
 0:44: Spotify Apple podcast. 
 0:46: Wherever you listen to your podcast, we are there, and you can also find the video version of this episode on YouTube. 
 0:53: All right, let's go. 
 0:57: a r thank thank you. 
 1:00: Thanks so much for having me. 
 1:02: , welcome to the marketing freaks podcast. 
 1:05: We're at your London HQ in Hatton Garden, surrounded by diamonds and jewellery, and, , we're gonna be talking about brand. 
 1:16: which I think is going to be a great chat, because actually we are. 
 1:19: Hang on a minute, about 100 and 60 episodes in on the podcast, and I don't think we've really talked properly about brand investment. 
 1:30: often it's performance, performance, marketing, and I think a lot of people who listen to the podcast will probably be a lot more familiar with that. 
 1:37: So I'm really interested to talk, talk to you about brand and how that contributes to scale and growth. 
 1:44: before we dive in. 
 1:45: What? 
 1:45: Tell us your background. 
 1:47: That would be a really good place to start. 
 1:49: , so my background is pure brand and marketing. 
 1:52: I have never done anything else. 
 1:54: I went to university with zero idea of what I wanted to be, but so I'll go and hang out in Leicester with some good people. 
 2:02: , and one of the courses that we had to do was so I did English, , and a humanities degree. 
 2:10: One of the things we had to do was put on this arts and cultural event, and part of your grade was to pick a job, to go down this list of jobs and pick a job that you wanted to do. 
 2:20: And you'd get a grade essentially from participating. 
 2:24: I looked on this long list of, like accountancy, health and safety, finance. 
 2:29: A lot of maths jobs. 
 2:31: Got to, , marketing and PR and kind of went Oh, this sounds like this might be an easy thing for me to do. 
 2:40: , so I went and did it. 
 2:42: We were kind of mentored by someone who was in the faculty who knew what they were doing and completely fell in love with it. 
 2:50: It was like, Oh, my God. 
 2:52: I did not know this was a job. 
 2:54: I come from a family that there is no marketing, no advertising that doesn't exist. 
 2:58: , and just fell in love with it. 
 3:00: And then from there on, it was 100% focused on that as my career. 
 3:03: So did internships. 
 3:04: Did work experiences, did it for nothing. 
 3:08: , came out of uni. 
 3:10: Did my C i. 
 3:11: M. 
 3:11: Qualifications straight away, which, thank God I did. 
 3:15: , and I've been doing it ever since. 
 3:17: So I give my edge away. 
 3:18: We're nearly 25 years in, like, yeah. 
 3:21: What was it? 
 3:22: Do you think that made you fall in love with it at the beginning? 
 3:25: Like you mentioned? 
 3:26: Not really knowing what it was looking at a list of jobs and going. 
 3:29: That's the I'll try that and then suddenly you fall in something that you absolutely love. 
 3:36: What is it you love? 
 3:38: my world. 
 3:40: Marketing is very much a balance between commercial and and the maths and making success and seeing success. 
 3:49: It's creative, so you have the ability to go on shoots. 
 3:52: You know you can work with creatives and pull things together. 
 3:56: And actually, especially a lot of the time when you start off, there's a lot of writing involved, you know, and writing catchy headlines and writing some decent copy. 
 4:03: And I think there's someone who has a creative eye but isn't a creative or a designer who likes business but doesn't really want to do accountancy that likes variety and the ability to do your days are completely different in whatever marketing role you were written from day Monday to Friday, your days are really different. 
 4:23: , and the different challenges are thrown at you, and I just think for someone like me, I thrived on that. 
 4:29: That's amazing. 
 4:30: Yeah, yeah, it is. 
 4:32: You're right. 
 4:32: It's just well, marketing in general. 
 4:34: Such a mix of disciplines and the variety on offer is is amazing. 
 4:40: That's I love that. 
 4:42: So if we're talking about brand and scale, I think a lot of the conversations that I have bearing in mind. 
 4:51: Normally these conversations with performance marketers, right? 
 4:54: So normally it's the well, how do you How do you plan your investment and know when you're going to get your return? 
 5:02: And how should all of that work? 
 5:04: So when you're starting to the business goes, we need to grow. 
 5:08: We've got a growth plan. 
 5:09: Hey, brand, let's do it. 
 5:12: Where do you start? 
 5:13: And how do you start to plan out what that investment path looks like? 
 5:17: Yeah, I think I think there's a bit of a misnomer about brand as well. 
 5:21: So I I've been in brand and marketing for near on 25 years. 
 5:25: I've been doing it a really long time. 
 5:27: , brand is more than advertising Brand is more than marketing. 
 5:32: So while it's marketing, I always talked around. 
 5:33: Marketing is my best friend, not my only friend. 
 5:37: So, actually, especially when you're in a pure brand role, I'm in a slightly different role now, actually, where I do marketing as well. 
 5:44: But But when you're in a pure brand world and you're thinking about your brand strategy, the first thing to define is what is my brand? 
 5:51: Who am I? 
 5:52: Why am I here? 
 5:54: What? 
 5:54: What am I doing for customers? 
 5:56: What problem am I solving for customers? 
 5:58: Because we're all here because we're trying to solve problems for customers. 
 6:01: Regardless of what business you're in. 
 6:03: You're trying to solve a problem. 
 6:05: A customer has a has an issue, and your company can step in and they can buy that from you. 
 6:10: That's why we're all here. 
 6:12: , and an important part of that is to understand what that is. 
 6:16: And look, you can get you can. 
 6:18: Most brand people can get really fluffy about this stuff, and we can talk about the essence of our brand and our purpose and why we're here. 
 6:24: But essentially, it's why am I here? 
 6:26: What am I doing and being really clear on what makes you different again? 
 6:30: People call it U SPS and blah blah. 
 6:32: But essentially, why are you here and what you're doing? 
 6:34: Being really clear about that, understanding your customer journey and obsessing over it and fixing all of the bits that are broken, that is the essence of your brand and then making sure that you are consistent across all of the touch points. 
 6:48: So, like I said, marketing is a key part of that, but it's not the only bit you should be, just as we I always talk about. 
 6:55: I'm just as weird about the whole music when you call our call centre, as I am a bar, the music that plays on an advert and when you are pure brand, that's what your focus should be. 
 7:06: You are. 
 7:06: You are weird about every single tiny interaction to make sure it's consistent across every single touch point like I obsess around driver uniforms about what our vans look like, about what our advertising is about, what the copy is on recruitment and job ads around. 
 7:26: What what words are on our website, about how we describe our products, the whole thing, the whole shebang. 
 7:31: Get weird about everything. 
 7:33: Obsess about everything every single, tiny detail. 
 7:37: , once you have that, once you're comfortable with it. 
 7:40: Once you think you've got a good product or a service, then you can talk to marketing about how to explode it out. 
 7:46: So it's fascinating going back. 
 7:49: This is probably an episode in itself, but you mentioned First off you need to understand who it is, what you do, who are Sorry what you do and why you do it. 
 7:59: I think when you're running a business or you're in a business, that can sound simple, but it's actually very difficult to articulate. 
 8:07: without going into loads of detail because we could probably talk about this for hours. 
 8:10: What would your advice be for someone who's trying to answer that question? 
 8:14: The simplest thing. 
 8:16: So how we started it is it's an exercise that that a lot of marketing people and a lot of brand people use. 
 8:20: I definitely didn't invent it, , but if someone's willing to pay me to write a book about it, then I'll say it's mine. 
 8:28: , is the the So what ladder? 
 8:30: So I was taught this years ago. 
 8:32: So you start at the top with the with your line with the proposition, which what you think your business is here for. 
 8:38: And then you keep saying So what? 
 8:41: So what? 
 8:41: So what? 
 8:42: So what? 
 8:42: So what? 
 8:43: So what? 
 8:43: And it removes all of the BS that exists in your head about why you're so important. 
 8:48: So you might say, you know, we we offer the the quickest, best bread so what? 
 8:56: Well, that's because our bread is delicious. 
 8:59: So what? 
 9:00: And you get you get to the core of of why you exist all the way down at the bottom and look at the likelihood is that it'll never be a customer facing line, but it'll make everyone internally understand why you exist. 
 9:12: But if you get to the core of the so what at the end until it's so basic, you should be able to distil it into a sentence, remove all the bullshit and stop it being navel gazing. 
 9:21: No, I love that. 
 9:22: That's great advice. 
 9:24: You also touched on something there, which I think there is a confusion around, and that is brand and marketing. 
 9:31: So, you know, most people we were talking before, weren't we about how a lot of people look at brand brand marketing or brand building goes TV. 
 9:41: It's billboards, It's posters. 
 9:43: It's tube takeovers. 
 9:46: That's the amplification, isn't it? 
 9:48: So can you explain the relationship brand marketing brand advertising brand performance? 
 9:55: I think that would be really interesting. 
 9:56: So brand strategy. 
 9:58: So I I have all of these disciplines within my world now, so brand strategy is the core of your brand why you exist in the consistency of that across all customer across. 
 10:06: Sorry across all touch points. 
 10:08: Not just customer internal as well. 
 10:10: , investor the whole lot. 
 10:13: , they obsess about every single part of your brand. 
 10:16: We kind of focus on it from, , what we call an intimacy circle. 
 10:21: So at the middle of your circle, you have your customers. 
 10:25: And then if you imagine a circle on the outside of that, that's what we call the intimate zone. 
 10:30: So that's a space where you can really own the brand. 
 10:34: That is a space where as a as a as a as a guys, as a retailer, we can and make sure that you're really going to understand what the brand is. 
 10:43: So that's everything from how call centre handles, , complaints through to U X through to,  gosh, I'm trying to think of something else. 
 10:53: Call music when you when you call in and then you go out into a wider circle. 
 10:58: And that's called, interestingly, a less intimate space, which is where a customer doesn't really know that they're being advertised to. 
 11:07: You don't really get that, , from a brand point of view that we have sort of our fingers and all these pies, and this is things like PR. 
 11:14: This is things like coms. 
 11:16: It's things like, , investor relations. 
 11:19: It's things like fans that are running around. 
 11:23: There's a group of people that work for businesses that know the inside out of that and then on the outside, the wide is the least intimate zone and is a space where consumers can 100% know that they're being advertised to. 
 11:36: And that is where you have TV, radio, press, digital and all of your advertising channels. 
 11:42: But be under no illusions a customer gets that they 100% understand that they're being marketed to, and they understand that you that that that you're controlling all of those bits. 
 11:52: So the link between all of that is the outside space is very much driven by the marketing team or the marketing team because you give a marketeers, , guidelines, playbooks, principles. 
 12:03: They will nail your brand inside out where you need to focus a lot as a brand function and a brand strategy function is those two more inner circles. 
 12:11: It's really interesting that you talk about customer interactions. 
 12:16: I actually think the the detail is so important for, , enhancing your brand experience protecting your brand. 
 12:27: Right? 
 12:27: So look at,  it's probably an extreme, massively off tangent example, but you look at the oasis and the Ticketmaster fiasco. 
 12:37: Ticketmaster spent years and years and years building up their brand to be the place to go for easy, convenient ticket boxes and suddenly bang. 
 12:49: Yeah. 
 12:49: So how do you given that everyone's human mistakes happen, every brand, at some point in its life, will have something that happens that they have to get around. 
 13:04: can you talk a little bit about brand protection and how you adapt when something unexpected happens? 
 13:12: protecting your brand and ensuring consistency is really important, but you can do as many playbooks and guidelines and principles as you want. 
 13:19: But if the people that don't work for your brand don't believe in what you're doing, they will make mistakes and they will make wrong decisions. 
 13:25: So the first thing to do is to make sure that everyone that works for you gets it. 
 13:29: They understand why you exist, why you're here. 
 13:32: Once they kind of get that and it's in them and they're making decisions aligned with that, it will be very, very clear when they're not because it will feel odd. 
 13:43: There will be other people around them going that just feels off or you'll have people going. 
 13:49: I don't quite like that. 
 13:51: It feels a little. 
 13:52: And actually, if you you if your business is focused on your brand that has to thrive. 
 13:58: You have to have people questioning and poking and prodding around the decisions that you're making internally. 
 14:04: , Ticketmaster would have known what they were doing, but they have done it anyway, But it depends on what their brand was. 
 14:10: I'm not entirely sure I would have seen Ticketmaster as a brand that acted with integrity, who was always giving the customers the best value. 
 14:18: I you know, I probably not overly surprised on what has happened with those guys. 
 14:24: I think if you'd had a if you'd had a brand that I don't know, had a brand that was aligned with caring and value for customers and champion of the customers, then I think you'd be overly surprised. 
 14:34: So is it Is that scenario actually a brand problem? 
 14:39: Possibly not. 
 14:40: Possibly not possibly not for them. 
 14:43: I I don't know a huge amount about Ticketmaster's brand, but I I do not think I would have thought of those guys as massively champion for the customer value for money. 
 14:53: That's a very good point, but I guess it's you're right with the whole. 
 14:58: This is the internal aspect, isn't it? 
 15:00: And making sure that everyone's completely aligned, which it's so interesting. 
 15:05: You're talking about how that AIDS decision making across the business and will It's a, you know, prevent stuff going wrong. 
 15:14: Right? 
 15:15: , so back to let's talk about a O. 
 15:19: Because we're here. 
 15:21: , obviously a OS growth trajectory has been really interesting. 
 15:28: It's been long term. 
 15:30: , but if you were, if you were to plot it like this versus really pinning down the brand and really kind of amplifying the brand in the right way, Like, how has that Can you talk a little bit about how that process is aligned with the growth trajectory? 
 15:47: Yeah. 
 15:48: So I've been so a o has been around for 20 odd years, and I have not,  I've been around for about seven. 
 15:55: Odd, , and being in the world, I'm doing a few. 
 15:59: , so brand has always played a really important part of of brand of a OS sort of growth. 
 16:06: , we work for our chief exec. 
 16:09: John Roberts is the founder of the business, which is extremely helpful because you sit down with him for five minutes and you get our brand. 
 16:14: You understand it. 
 16:15: You understand what he's trying to do, So that kind of internal manifestation of our brand exists every single day within our business. 
 16:22: , which is a joy when you're a brand person because you're not trying to transform a business, it's done. 
 16:28: I just have to codify it. 
 16:29: I just have to write it down and which is so it's relatively simple for us to do that. 
 16:34: But so Brand has always been a core focus of a O, definitely headed up by John and making decisions, , that have always aligned with that. 
 16:44: So, , that's always worked, I suppose. 
 16:48: What what a o has done. 
 16:49: If we're talking about sort of brand investment and the growth of a O alongside that alongside a O, you know it's long term. 
 17:00: It's not happened overnight for a O. 
 17:02: They've been going 20 years kind of good at it, and we dial up and dial down the brand investment as and when required. 
 17:09: And for when, , when we really need to activate the brand and get more what we call fame internally. 
 17:18: And we use channels appropriately. 
 17:20: So our brand investment that we do is long term, definitely. 
 17:25: So you'll know we do things like the A O Arena. 
 17:28: It's a 10 year sponsorship that ain't happening overnight. 
 17:32: I mean, we have seen some decent results, But it's not an overnight thing. 
 17:36: So trying to think the brand investment will catapult your brand to be famous within a week is a misnomer. 
 17:43: You know there are. 
 17:44: I mean, there's lots of, , academic marketing books out there that talk about your share of voice versus your share in market, and that you have to be above that to be to have a decent share of voice and to grow your market share. 
 17:57: And that's definitely something that you have to do. 
 17:58: But there aren't many businesses that can overinvest like that. 
 18:02: So I think cutting your cloth accordingly is also really good. 
 18:05: But when it comes to brand investment, it's long term. 
 18:08: It's always on, and then you flex the other channels, depending on what your business objectives are that year. 
 18:13: So given that it's long term, how do you know you're on the right track? 
 18:17: So the the A O arena sponsorship, , TV campaigns big brand campaigns. 
 18:25: I don't know. 
 18:26: Let's imagine a scenario where you've tweaked the positioning or you've done something you need to amplify the brand. 
 18:32: One of the moments that you've mentioned come up go for it like you say you're not gonna do that now and see the results tomorrow at all. 
 18:44: So how in that gap? 
 18:46: How do you know that you're on the right path? 
 18:48: Like, how do you How do you hold your nerve? 
 18:50: Like, what does that What does the gap look like? 
 18:53: The gap can be long. 
 18:54: The gap can be short. 
 18:56: , and there are a few techniques that that we use. 
 18:59: It's not. 
 18:59: There's no golden bullet. 
 19:01: There's not one measure that you go. 
 19:02: There you go and nailed it. 
 19:04: If there was, someone would have done it already. 
 19:06: But we use a suite of K P. 
 19:09: I s metrics to give us confidence that we're heading in the right direction. 
 19:13: So we have and always on and most businesses do. 
 19:16: Most larger businesses have an always on brand tracking, so that's measuring your awareness amongst UK consumers. 
 19:25: It's it's not a cheap thing to do, so it's only for sort of larger businesses. 
 19:30: It only tends to work for businesses that are already on that trajectory of being famous anyway, , but it's a good measure that gives people like me confidence that my brand isn't going backwards. 
 19:41: that we're moving forwards. 
 19:42: That's a long term measure again, though, So although we do dips every month, we only look at it every quarterly. 
 19:49: And actually, you probably only really report on it every six months to know that you're doing it. 
 19:54: But there are other measures. 
 19:55: So another one I love is that the number of direct visitors to site. 
 19:59: So that is people typing in a o dot com rather than typing in washing machine. 
 20:05: That is a key indicator for me on how famous we are, , and that will give you the green shoots as well, especially when you're doing brand campaigns. 
 20:13: So if you imagine we're doing one of these spikes around, we're spending some money on brand campaigns. 
 20:17: That's the kind of stuff that gives you confidence because all of a sudden you're thinking I am in someone's brain. 
 20:22: Someone is thinking of me first rather than just typing in the product that they want So interesting. 
 20:28: Do you look at other signals as well? 
 20:30: So I don't know growth in social audience growth in brand search growth, those types of things that I love, that phrase of like being in someone's brain that you can tell, can't you? 
 20:42: I guess. 
 20:43: Yeah. 
 20:43: Yeah, definitely. 
 20:44: And so social is also a really interesting one, isn't it? 
 20:47: Because years ago absolutely would have put all your money in the fact that you'd grown a tonne of social followers. 
 20:52: But again, customers have got wise to the fact that brands are on there now. 
 20:56: And we're paying for a load of stuff. 
 20:58: So yes, it is, I suppose what I look at more from a social point of view is more to do with the engagement more to do with. 
 21:05: Are we creating content that people are interacting with rather than a massive growth in followers? 
 21:12: Although some of the channels we are seeing huge growth in. 
 21:14: But you know, your likes of Facebook and Instagram and things, for example, they're just studying along, , and and and and doing fine. 
 21:23: But it's more for me for those bits. 
 21:25: The the How can we get customers to interact with us? 
 21:29: How can we get them to comment? 
 21:30: How can we get them to have conversations with us online about? 
 21:34: I don't know. 
 21:35: What's your favourite cup of coffee? 
 21:38: How do you like your coffee? 
 21:40: I like that. 
 21:41: It's,  do you look at in terms of activations or, like, tactical opportunities? 
 21:49: How much does what other? 
 21:51: What competitors? 
 21:52: What your comp competition are doing come into that? 
 21:55: So, like, do you look at what people are doing for inspiration? 
 21:59: Do you look at what they're not doing for inspiration? 
 22:03: Do you care like when you're so strong on kind of? 
 22:07: This is what we are. 
 22:08: This is why we exist. 
 22:09: How much does the competition come into that when you're looking at what I mean all of the above? 
 22:13: I try not to care. 
 22:14: I look intently. 
 22:17: all of the above. 
 22:18: I think, , look, we we have to know what our competitors are doing. 
 22:24: We have to know how they're operating, what campaigns they're doing, you know, and I'll be the first to congratulate one of our competitors on on a cracking campaign that they do. 
 22:33: But I'll also do it with a wider market. 
 22:35: You know, Let's not Let's not get it twisted. 
 22:38: Consumers are not existing in a world to do with washing machines and TV s. 
 22:42: Their world is much larger than that. 
 22:44: You know, you can look at all kinds of industries to get examples of, of cracking campaigns of things that make them happy of things that have really driven emotion for them. 
 22:56: We have a competition and not competition. 
 22:57: We have a voting thing internally around the Christmas campaigns around how well all of the other retailers are doing with that. 
 23:05: Electrical businesses don't tend to do, , Christmas campaigns, so we we can see some of the inspiration from other markets. 
 23:13: So So whilst we absolutely keep an eye, I keep an eye on loads of brands. 
 23:17: I keep an eye on brands that I think are doing exciting stuff. 
 23:19: Interesting stuff that a UK consumer will be interested in. 
 23:24: You can't get too bogged down in your own market in your own your own tiny ecosystem. 
 23:29: That's not a thing. 
 23:30: Consumers don't operate in that way. 
 23:32: Yeah, and I guess it's a mass market offering as well, right? 
 23:35: It's, you know,  thinking about when I shopped with a hope it was good. 
 23:43: It was It was very good it was. 
 23:47: , and how, Like how it felt like just an obvious choice. 
 23:52: So, , you know, you mentioned the brand's been going 20 years. 
 23:57: This isn't an overnight thing. 
 23:59: Yet here we are and a O if you're looking for an appliance, if you're looking for some, you know, whatever it is, it's an obvious choice. 
 24:07: Even though we Currys is down the road, you know there's someone else down there and there's something else over there, and there's something else over there. 
 24:14: But A O is an obvious choice. 
 24:17: Like, how do you? 
 24:19: I mean, this is a massive question like, How do you go from a to B like how? 
 24:25: How do you start that process of kind of making sure you're an obvious choice? 
 24:30: You've mentioned the word fame a lot in this episode, but there's also the not just It's not just how loud you say it, but it's what you say as well. 
 24:40: And how do you do that? 
 24:43: I think the consistency is key. 
 24:46: I think again, like I've said, knowing who you are is key, so knowing who you are and then yelling it loudly. 
 24:52: So we are a brand that acts with integrity keeps our promises. 
 24:58: We're a trusted brand, so we say it. 
 25:00: We make sure people understand that. 
 25:03: And I think one of the things and and kind of going back to, , growth of a brand. 
 25:08: And what you've done is that, you know, your customers can also be in two buckets. 
 25:13: It isn't when you talk about growth, it isn't necessarily just about bringing in brand new customers. 
 25:18: It's about making sure that the customers who have used you have a cracking experience so they can go off and do a job for you as well. 
 25:25: So your brand new customers come in, they have the service, and then they go and tell people that they really like the service that you had. 
 25:32: And guess what? 
 25:33: They also come back to you again, and then they've returned twice, and then they have another cracking experience and they go well, you should probably use a O, and then they come back again. 
 25:42: So I think it's that evolving cycle of This isn't about acquiring brand new customers all the time, although you know, you definitely do. 
 25:48: It's about making sure that your service is actually good. 
 25:51: So that when they use you, they they use you again and tell other people that's the circle that you need to get into. 
 25:57: That's the focus that you need to get into and again go back to brand. 
 26:01: If you're not weird about your service, If you're not focused on who you are and what you do, you can get You can get a little bit disconnected with that because the cash has come in and you just kind of, Oh, someone else will deliver that. 
 26:12: But actually, we're we We make sure that when the when you placed that order, that you will get that product. 
 26:18: When we said we were going to deliver it and the people are going to rock up to your door are going to be a couple of nice people and they're going to be friendly and they're going to be nice. 
 26:25: And they may even give you a teddy bear and then they'll go away. 
 26:29: And then then you know that our chief exec talks a lot about the best. 
 26:33: Service is no service, you know. 
 26:35: It should go through just smooth. 
 26:36: You should be able to just buy something and it rock up on time and work. 
 26:41: That's it. 
 26:42: And not really even notice. 
 26:43: It's happened. 
 26:45: Yeah, and then you kind of it's if you look at what you're selling right, it's not. 
 26:53: Washing machines aren't the most exciting things. 
 26:59: How dare you? 
 27:00: You notice when they're gone, though? 
 27:02: 100%. 
 27:03: Right? 
 27:04: So how do you make an everyday item interesting? 
 27:09: Because you look at a O is not a boring brand, right? 
 27:14: But some of the products, this functional products, right? 
 27:19: So how do you go about that? 
 27:21: I think I think like you mentioned that the especially the big products that we sell are a core part of our customers lives. 
 27:31: If your TV stops working, if your hair dryer stops working, if your fridge stops working, you know about it. 
 27:38:  and you quickly want to want to replace it. 
 27:42: , how we talk around,  those appliances is using those customer stories and helping our customers use the product that they want to use. 
 27:51: So when we had the hike in energy prices, for example, and actually that's a core problem that our customers are facing, How am I going to pay my electricity and gas bill because it's gone up significantly in price? 
 28:06: We spent quite a lot of time talking to our customers around, you know, energy efficient appliances around what spin cycles to put them in around, you know, and that was if you kind of look at our social, , during that time, we were doing that a lot, , 100%. 
 28:24: When you think about the air fryer craze that happened, you know, it's about being there about creating content that makes our customers quite excited about their air fryer. 
 28:34: So it's Yeah, we did one that was like, how to cook your Christmas dinner in the air fryer. 
 28:38: Brilliant, , about quick and fast recipes. 
 28:42: So I I think the core of us is that that we make all of that tech quite simple, and we put it into normal human language. 
 28:52: So this isn't about bamboozling customers with spin cycles, and you know Q l and no LTV s. 
 28:57: It's about Look at this cracking TV. 
 28:59: It's an amazing picture that you can watch sport on it or look at this TV. 
 29:04: It's an amazing one for gaming. 
 29:05: So it's about taking all of that stuff that manufacturers do and and that the brands do and making it mega, mega simple and helping a customer get the right product for them. 
 29:15: , regardless of their budget, regardless of the space that they have in the home and helping them get the right product. 
 29:20: Yeah, it's really interesting as well. 
 29:22: You've got, like, a different emotional states to deal with. 
 29:26: Right? 
 29:26: So, , something like an air fryer. 
 29:31: it could be an emotional purchase that I want one. 
 29:34: I've got to jump on the back of this craze. 
 29:36: It's going to be amazing. 
 29:38: I really want to add one to my kitchen. 
 29:40: Like quite an exciting purchase, actually, , whereas, , yeah, a dishwasher. 
 29:49: I've never planned to buy one. 
 29:51: They've just broken on me and then I've gone. 
 29:54: Oh, my goodness, I need to replace this quickly and it's much more of a not a panic purchase, but or like a fridge goes, You got to get one in quick. 
 30:03: Yeah, so we call them distress purchases. 
 30:05: So how can you help a customer quite quickly get over that distress purchase that's helping them find the right product and it's been able to deliver it, make a quick like nailed and also we'll install it for you. 
 30:17: And also we'll take away your old one. 
 30:19: So actually, from an a o point of view when you're in that distress purchase, we make it quite simple for you to get over that distress purchase quite quickly with a bunch of people who will do it in a really nice way. 
 30:29: But you're right when it comes to things like gaming or even perhaps TV s Or I don't know, , hair care products or or that actually that's more of a one state. 
 30:39: So, actually, how can you make sure that you're getting the best brands at the best price? 
 30:44: And actually, it should be quite an exciting purchase all the way through to like gifting. 
 30:48: You know, when you come to Christmas and you need to buy the kids a new gaming console, how can we help you make the right decision so that during that gifting process, actually, that's quite mega exciting, Knowing that you're going to be giving the kids a brilliant present to Christmas and you're right, our brand is on our on our website, and our coms are able to flex depending on the customer problem and how we can solve it. 
 31:11: Yeah, that's I think it is so interesting when you start to dig into those different scenarios and what people, I guess what people come to you for. 
 31:21: And, , and how you adapt to that is is really, really cool to wrap up. 
 31:27: Let's say you parachuted into a business doing an OK job. 
 31:33: It's got a customer base. 
 31:34: Everything's kind of all right, but there's no brand awareness. 
 31:39: There's no brand fame. 
 31:41: People outside the circle don't really know who they are. 
 31:45: if you got, like one, maybe two big pieces of advice for someone in that situation. 
 31:51: Like getting started getting the amplification going, getting a little bit of fame, what would you recommend? 
 31:57: I mean, the first thing is, know who you are, understand what your brand is. 
 32:03: fix all of the problems that you know exist within your business. 
 32:06: Don't don't hide them because they're going to be exposed. 
 32:09: The more famous you are we you know, we talk about shining a light on this stuff That will happen if you get famous. 
 32:15: People will see your mistakes and your faults even louder than before. 
 32:19: So fix them. 
 32:20: And then the second one is understand how your customers are consuming media and be there so whether they're out of market, depending on what you can afford. 
 32:28: But if you're out of market, if you're close to purchase and when you're in market, make sure you are in every single space. 
 32:35: Make sure from top to bottom they can see you and recognise you. 
 32:39: So again, consistency is key. 
 32:41: Make sure that your expression is on point and be in all of those places and connect all the dots for the customers. 
 32:48: Amazing. 
 32:50: Thank you so much for joining. 
 32:51: And that was really interesting. 
 32:53: Thank you to everyone for listening in. 
 32:54: We see you next time Thank you so much for listening to this episode. 
 32:59: I very much hope you found this useful. 
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 33:08: I very much hope to see you on the next episode.