This week’s podcast is the second instalment with Jen Swian, MD of Beatfreeks, a creative insight-led engagement agency specialising in scaling brand relevance for clients.
In this episode, Yiuwin Tsang and Jen Swain explore the power of data insights for businesses and why leaders need the pieces between the data to make better decisions. Jen describes how they use insights to create more meaningful campaigns for their clients and deliver better results.
About Jen Swain
Jen is currently the managing director of Beatfreeks and has previously run her own business focusing on coaching and consulting to empower female leaders.
Prior to that she has been in the software and creative agency world for more than 12 years, most recently as Operations Director for a global Tech for Good agency.
This week’s podcast is the second instalment with Jen Swian, MD of Beatfreeks, a creative insight-led engagement agency specialising in scaling brand relevance for clients.
In this episode, Yiuwin Tsang and Jen Swain explore the power of data insights for businesses and why leaders need the pieces between the data to make better decisions. Jen describes how they use insights to create more meaningful campaigns for their clients and deliver better results.
About Jen Swain
Jen is currently the managing director of Beatfreeks and has previously run her own business focusing on coaching and consulting to empower female leaders.
Prior to that she has been in the software and creative agency world for more than 12 years, most recently as Operations Director for a global Tech for Good agency.
Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.
Yiuwin Tsang 0:00
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. Hello, folks, welcome to this week's episode of the beautiful business podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the Beautiful Business team and in this episode, I was joined by Jen Swain. Jen is currently the managing director of BeatFreeks and has previously run her own business focusing on coaching and consulting to empower female leaders. Prior to that she has been in the software and creative agency world for more than 12 years, most recently as Operations Director for global tech for good agency. Jen's work at Beatfreeks taps into her passion to platform the next generation so they can help clients shape a better future Beat Freaks as a youthful and creative insight led engagement agency specialising in scaling brand relevance for clients through young and diverse audiences between 16 and 35, the services span research and insight consultancy and activations their work. They build agile communities of 16 to 35 year olds to understand them as citizens, consumers and workers for the likes of Coca Cola, Google tick tock, and DCMS amongst others, they packaged up their knowledge of these audiences into an insights platform called National Youth trends, which has recently been launched and tells you the mood of now so you can predict the trends of tomorrow. I really enjoyed this interview agenda, some super interesting things in there about engaging Gen Zed hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Yiuwin Tsang 1:33
Let's talk about how businesses should be thinking about insights and engagement. Insight and engagement are two words that either make you really excited, or they'll make you kind of sigh. Well, you know, here we go again. So tell us why you folks would be fixed or firmly camped in that form? And why think business leaders should be as well? Why should they pay attention to and get better into an engagement?
Jen Swain 1:56
Yeah. And so ultimately, I mentioned before, we specialise in that kind of 16 to 35 age range. And one of the main things that gets me so excited about working in the Insight space with particularly that audience, is that insight around what their ideas are their creativity and their innovation. Because, you know, we know that they're setting trends, and they're creating trends. And essentially, they're telling us what's coming down the tracks. So, for me, that's one of the really exciting parts of what we get to do Beat Freaks. But the reason that insight and engagement as a package of work is really important is because it's what taps you into what's going on in the world around you in the mood of the people that you want to be speaking to, in, you know, ultimately, our belief is that any great strategy or planning and execution, the precursor to that has got to be insight. Otherwise, you know, you mentioned groupthink earlier, you know, where are those decisions? And where is that direction coming from if it's not coming from the people who are ultimately going to receive or consume that product or service? So yeah, that's why for me, the work that we do is really, really important right now,
Yiuwin Tsang 2:57
indeed, right? I allowed that kind of right now, but because you know, we're going to it's like any state of change, right? When things on you can't just follow the norm, as it were. And there are kind of changes coming down the road. And I guess that's the leads me on the next question, I suppose I mean, personally, with the work that we do massive fans of data driven decision making, but there are some times when you don't have all the data that you need. And I guess that's where insight and engagement comes in. I mean, how do you see with the work that you've done, briefly how insight and engagement comes in to help make those informed decisions,
Speaker 2 3:26
I guess a bit of a plug here. So we are releasing a product in January called National Youth trends. And essentially, what that does is taps into the mood of now across 16, to 30, fives across the UK. And the great thing about that product is that it's exploiting the gaps in that data. So where we don't have a full picture, or where there's been a piece of research that's already been done, but we know that there are some voices in there who are maybe underrepresented, or who haven't been asked, we get to do the insight into those gaps, and then report on that. And it's an incredibly powerful piece of work that we're doing, because ultimately, that insight stuff is allowing the deeper dive into those kinds of pockets of society or demographics, that ultimately you need to see the full picture. And we love our stats. We love our quantitative research and Beat Freaks too. But you know, what really gets us excited is understanding the context behind the numbers. So to me, that's really why the Insight piece makes such a powerful addition to any sort of quantitative work you might be doing as well.
Yiuwin Tsang 4:24
Yeah, 100%, I guess there must be countless examples of where decisions have been made just on the kind of raw data alone rather than the story behind the data. And I guess what I'm getting from you is that in order for business leaders to make decisions, better informed decisions, they kind of need the pieces in between the data is going to give you the what right it's going to tell you what people think, and how many people think it but it's not going to tell you why. And so that contextualising piece is really possibly one of the most key parts to have in terms of decision making. And I think it was Jeff Bezos who said relatively recently, something around the data is great, but actually When you look at some of the quotes and the insights, that's the goal, that's the stuff that's really telling you what's going on. And that's exactly the space that we play in.
Yiuwin Tsang 5:07
Fantastic. And I guess from a client perspective, then for the people that you do the work, undertake the work for, for example, what do you advise to business leaders to encourage them to build that kind of insight into the way that they work? Because much like anything, it feels like there's a bit of a behavioural shift that needs to happen. If you don't currently look at insight and engagement, if you're just looking at raw data, and then thinking, well, it didn't work out the way we thought the person has to be bit of a shift around. And certainly speaking, as somebody who's very used to working in that world of spreadsheets and numbers, what can you do? What could somebody like me do to try and move more towards that kind of insight piece and thinking more about insights? What changes can we make?
Jen Swain 5:45
It's a really tough one, actually. And I think part of that is because it comes from usually quite a cultural place from an organisation point of view. You know, not everyone is open to the expansive thinking parts of what research and insight can unlock. So I think there's a few aspects, I think there's the cultural piece, which is do your leadership value, that kind of information? And are there ways that they could so being presented with let's say, a top level spreadsheet that shows them these great numbers? What value do you think they would get from having some contextualised insight that sits alongside to build a bigger picture, I think some of the other parts are around speed, because your access to numbers and data can be lightning fast in this current age. And, you know, with the internet at our fingertips, we can all do a lot more than we used to be able to, but I think taking the opportunity to maybe slow down and do that insight piece properly. First, to inform your strategy and your planning. Is there the appetite to do that? And I think you know, those are the two sort of key areas where I think there needs to probably be a bit of shift in order to accommodate that more sort of data and insight driven decision making.
Yiuwin Tsang 6:46
That is really exciting. Yeah, absolutely. I remember doing a presentation about how the world has changed. And you look at the two pitches I used to use was of the stock markets, and you'd see like the old one when on the phones. And then nowadays, it just big screens and just happening in front of a computer and just how transactions happen so quickly, because they can, but the way that you just spoke there about the need to slow things down sometimes to really understand the context of the data that's coming through. And the insights and those anecdotes, it comes back to many senses, the humanity of it, the human elements of it, which can't be told in bar charts and graphs and things as you say the stories are kind of come through behind the numbers.
Jen Swain 7:22
That's it thinking back to a piece of research we did probably a year or so ago now where we looked at across Gen Z people's dietary and eating habits. And it really sort of showed how many of Gen Z are vegan compared to meat eaters, vegetarians, etc. And we were having a conversation with this sort of Big Blue Chip food manufacturer at the time, they were completely blown away, they thought all Gen Z were vegan. So to be able to see that number, and to see that sort of surprising stat, but then also understand the behaviours that sit alongside that. So you know, okay, if this proportion of people are vegan, what's leading them to make that decision and lifestyle choice? And what are their purchasing habits going to be because of that, that together is a really, really powerful set of information that somebody can then action and think about in terms of new product development and pricing strategies and pieces. So yeah, exactly. To your point.
Yiuwin Tsang 8:09
Yeah, that is interesting. And that's a really brilliant kind of real world example, I suppose in terms of not only the numbers, but while the insights have come off the back of it, I'm not sure if it's gonna be relevant or not. But I remember speaking with somebody who worked in supermarket supply, I think there was and there's just how there are so many interdependencies that you need to look up beyond so during the summertime, if disposable barbecues, which obviously horrible, but if they sold out, then they knew that they had to order more baps because they knew that people are going to be ordering, and things like this. And I suppose there's going to be, as you said, the stories behind the data, which is going to be absolutely game changing for brands for big businesses, if they can understand they can almost kind of predict the different trends that are coming through based on the data of now's as quite nicely kind of put it. So I just want to kind of round off, we've mentioned a couple of times there. But one thing that came through from when we spoke previously, Jim was about challenging the norms. And speaking about real kind of insight, I just wanted to delve a little bit deeper. I know you've spoken a bit about it already, but just looking at, you know, what is actually behind the number. And to your mind, why it's so powerful for businesses and leaders to look beyond you know, the number of data and to truly look at insights.
Jen Swain 9:13
If you think about that great phrase that we've all heard at some point in our lives have, we've always done it this way. You know, I think that's so dangerous when it comes to operating now because of the pace of change. Because we all need to be interrogating our assumptions and our biases by actually working with the people who have the real lived experiences that you as an organisation or a brand need to know about, you're going to be getting better insight. You're going to be therefore getting better products and you're going to be building more empathy into how you're designing, developing, you know, whether that's somebody who's running a global HR team or whether it's designing a tech product or a trainer brand wanting to understand why people aren't buying as many of their trainers, it can be so key to answering so many questions and really giving you direction in terms of where to step next. So really for me That's why it's a really powerful thing to do. And I think in terms of challenging the norms, you know, research and insight isn't a new thing. But I think in terms of how we particularly do it, our flavour of it Beat Freaks Is that coming back to your point, you know, that I've been quoted as saying the future of insight is human. Because ultimately, we need to hear more from the people who are on the end of our services on the end of our products on the end of our brands, consuming them, and living with them, and you know, working in these organisations in order to truly understand what they think, and then tailor our offerings and our services towards that, because ultimately, that is continuous improvement right there. And I think that's where insight can play a really, really valuable part. I
Yiuwin Tsang 10:39
couldn't agree with you more. And it's really interesting how it ties back to Gen Zed, and the work that you guys have done with that kind of generation and the integrity puller from our previous conversations talking about how agenda will have the greatest possible income, the record represent 30% of the workforce pretty soon, getting that kind of insight just seems so critical for most brands and businesses these days, be it from a consumer perspective, or indeed from an employer's perspective. So understanding the data and understanding what's behind that data becomes all the more important.
Unknown Speaker 11:10
Absolutely agree. Yeah.
Yiuwin Tsang 11:12
I guess just kind of finish it off, then I suppose a bonus question. I suppose it comes off. This is what's been one of the most interesting projects that you've worked on are Beat Freaks when it comes to insight and engagement. Which one kind of stands out in your mind? And why?
Jen Swain 11:24
That's a really tricky question. First of all, because I know so many amazing projects that we've done, having been with the organisation since July, I think one of the standout pieces for me is one of the ones that we're working on at the moment, actually, we're doing an amazing piece of work with Aston Villa, women's football team, this has kind of come out of us, funnily enough doing exactly the process that we've just talked about, which is some insight led strategy. So we went out and spoke to a bunch of people around Aston and the local area to find out what would get them more engaged in the women's game that has therefore informed villas strategy for how they do that outreach and engagement with the community that they already have. And off the back of that, we've been able to do it brilliant campaign, which is all user generated content. So we've recruited some great young content creators, they've been invited to a kind of behind the scenes experience at Aston Villa, watching a women's game and then kind of reporting back about it in order to get some, hopefully future engagement for one of their upcoming games as well. So, you know, it really does show the power of starting from a place of insight, building it into strategy, and then using some of the insights to essentially develop a content campaign that can do that amazing activation piece towards the end. That sounds absolutely brilliant. I love to go to the game, actually.
Yiuwin Tsang 12:36
I bet and the passion that you just use to kind of put that across as well, it sounds incredible. And I love the fact they've engaged with younger content writers who I guess are aligned with the target market and trying to reach as well. So you get that connection coming through
Jen Swain 12:49
the brilliant thing about a couple of ways that we work. So first of all, the young creators and we call them young disruptors, because we know that they're disrupting the world for the better, we always make sure that we give them access to influence creativity, and we reward them for their time, too. So we believe that those things combined get them access to power. And hopefully that means that they can shape the world for the better. And then the other piece of it is exactly what you just spoke to. So the user generated content is again, not a new thing. We're actually seeing a load of brands taking that up of late to name a couple, lush Clark's are doing it really well. But the concept of it is that you are inviting people who perhaps aren't your traditional audience, to create content on behalf of your brand and post it through their own social media platforms and channels, in order to resonate with people who would see their content as authentic. And it's that authentic word that's really important there. So yeah, user generated content campaigns is a real part of our service suite. And we're seeing loads of value in it for brand awareness.
Yiuwin Tsang 13:43
That's interesting, that bit around the way that you engage with these content creators with these young disruptors, as you kind of put through it says to me, you're kind of achieving that balance that we talked about earlier around giving them work that they enjoy that they kind of read or see and feel part of that kind of goes beyond a very much notice that you mentioned kind of rewarded them almost as the last thing and I assumed, you know, that might be through renumeration, or might be through, you know, privileges or bonus whatever it might be. But it's almost kind of the engagement that they have doing the work, which is what leads on it. And it certainly sounds like a project that is really kind of sparked the flame in you.
Jen Swain 14:18
Oh, definitely. Yeah. It's great to see the team kind of galvanised around something and as you say, that is our purpose. Really, you know, our whole reason for being is to help young people get their fair share of power and bringing them into the work that we do and spotlighting them so they're front and centre is super key to that.
Yiuwin Tsang 14:32
Fabulous, yeah, your workforce is going to be the one to be envious of in a few years time. If you're building this level of engagement so early on in their careers, it's going to be really exciting. So I hope so. Thank you so much Jen Swain from Beatfreeks for taking the time to interview and sharing your advice, insights and experience. Thank you for joining us for this week's beautiful business podcast. Beautiful business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to to business join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change helping communities building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet you can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk