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IPA Podcast
The IPA Making Sense Podcast: Sarah Gale
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The IPA Making Sense Podcast: Sarah Gale by Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is the show where we make these complicated things in the industry seem nice and simple, and we've got a fantastic lineup of guests coming over the next few weeks. Now I'm thrilled today to be welcoming Sarah Gale, who's an absolute industry hero of mine. She's director of insight, data and outcomes at Global Media. And what we're going to be talking about, we're going to be getting into loads of things related to you know new innovative things that are going on within Global's portfolio, what's going on in the industry, and how we can make things a little bit more understandable. So welcome Sarah. Thank you very much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure. So, Sarah, tell me a bit, I I mean, I've known you for years uh in various different or in various different guises in the roles that you've had over the years. Um, of course, you've been an absolute cornerstone of touch points and and the IPA's touch points project. You started um, I mean, my my awareness of you first started when you were working at Ipsos, and then you moved into um you moved into an agency role within OMD and then now into the media or inside. So you've kind of covered off all sorts of angles. So, how did you get started in the industry?
SPEAKER_02What was the thing that that kind of inspired you to Oh blind me, that that's that's a long time ago now. I worked out the other day, it was like 29 years. 29 years I've been working in in Insight. And I did I did a psychology degree. Um and I think like lots of people, I finished university and didn't really know what I was gonna do. Um and I got a job at a university and it was for a research officer. And I I really straight away, I really loved it. I really loved being curious, understanding people, working out what made them tick. Um, and I stayed there for a couple of years. I did a master's at the same time in marketing. And I got to the end of two years and I realized that I was it was a bit like doing a PhD. You research really granular stuff and you don't get to see what happens with it afterwards. So it was at that point I decided to to move on and to go into the the commercial world. And after that, I spent a couple of years at a company that were called Thompson Intermedia at the time, and they did media monitoring. They've now uh merged in and become ubiquity. So it's oh yes, very, very grown up. Um, and I stayed there for a couple of years and then uh moved on to Ipsos, where I was there for 13 years, and of course, touch points and the field work sat within my team at Ipsos. So I I know the I know the difficulty of getting that brilliant sample you get firsthand. Um uh because because we had to do it within the team. So I I I I love the survey. I and I think I probably am very privileged to have that understanding of exactly how it's made up, exactly how the field work is done, exactly how much effort goes into making it as representative as we possibly can. So yeah, did that for 13 years and then almost got to stage I had a very big team there, and all of a sudden I realised I didn't know everyone's name and I find it quite upsetting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I decided to to move on and and got a job at OMD, which I adored. Yeah, absolutely. I loved OMD. Uh, it was really great to see again to see what we were doing at Ipsos and how it was used, um, and how it was used with it with agencies and clients. And then after five years there, Stuart Mays came to me from Global and said, Would you would you like to do you fancy a move? And it it was a big it was difficult because I loved OMD, I loved the work, I loved the people, there was nothing wrong there at all. Um, but it just seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. And and Global is one of those brilliant companies that moves very quickly. Yeah, it's it does stuff at speed, and I love that. I love the fact that now we can I have the opportunity to work on the brands and the commercial side and the planning side. So it brings together almost everything that I love.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I mean it's interesting that, and the thing that's I mean, from our perspective, always been like a fantastic endorsement, really, that we're doing a good thing is, you know, I I remember like years ago when I was much younger, and people would say like they'd work in a restaurant, and after they've worked there, they go, I'd never eat there again. And but it's the complete opposite, the fact that you know you've you've worked on touch points behind the scenes, so you know like you've been involved in the kind of the creation of it, and every single role you've done new and innovative things with touch points that makes us go, you know, this is a real endorsement of of this thing that we've created as an industry and how it how vital and important it is. And that's you know, that's something that we're certainly very proud of.
SPEAKER_02And so you should be. I mean, it's su it's so rich, and I still don't think we've got done everything we can with it because you every day you're thinking, oh, maybe I could layer up that, that, and that. And I think since we've had um the the API of the data, and uh that has been a game changer for us. So being able to kind of manipulate it as we need and and build it into different systems has absolutely been revolutionary for us.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's something that's so important in um, you know, quality of data is so important, especially as we move on into kind of the world of AI and and how things are changing. You know, it's very easy to get an outcome from an AI system where you where you just believe what it says, and then you know, having that curiosity, but also knowing that the data that's powering whatever systems that you're working with, I know you're you you've got huge amounts of data from all of the different um all of the different platforms you have, and also with the uh the TFL sort of side of things as well. There's so much going into that, and knowing that that quality is there kind of really uh informs the way that those um outcomes are able to be made. So I remember back uh I mean back in 2019, one of the things that we did, we launched obviously the first making sense report back then. Um and it was a sort of a thing where we we started to I we kind of started to go, or people started to go, well, there's so much going on, the world of big data's taking over, nobody really knows what's happening. Is there a way that we can kind of make everything understandable? Um and I remember I did the first edition of that report, didn't go down too well in the out-of-home industry, and that was purely down to me. I and the embarrassment, I always tell this story that kind of makes people laugh within the industry, is that at that time I was on the technical committee of route. And so I was sitting there in in meetings about out-of-home, and I knew about out-of-home, and I but actually we had a challenge within touch points that was that out of home wasn't kind of accurately being measured, and I made assumptions, um, which you know there's a there's an act there's a thing about you should never assume, I won't say on the uh on the podcast, but you know, and and and I made I made certain assumptions that actually made uh you know didn't really fully understand the way in which out of home worked. And I remember the the following day uh getting phone, my my boss at the time getting phone calls saying, you know, this you've decimated the out-of-home industry in this country. And I was like, Blimey, you know, that report must have gone to a powerful person if that's what's happening as a result of it. But the great thing off the back of that, and I think that the the the really for me it really cemented the idea of why testing and learning is so important, because off the back of that you know, difficulty that we faced in the first edition, we kind of collaboratively came together with the out-of-home industry, and you were certainly a big part of that, and created a new definition of out of home, which actually really helped align all of the media. And is now we're now at a point where you know, through seven editions of that report, but we're now at a stage where you know it's constantly learning, it's constantly evolving, and and certainly constantly changing, but where we we can be absolutely sure that the you know it doesn't do everything, but it gives it gives you that good kind of baseline of understanding of what's going on within media. I mean it has it it it's um you've mentioned a few times, and you've certainly been name-checked a number of times within that report, and uh and and it and things that you've said are often often kind of I will quote within there. How how has it sort of changed things or how do you use it at global?
SPEAKER_02Um, well, I I I think if we just start with the Making Sense report and and we all read it, it's uh and and actually, do you know what? Thank you for making it so readable because it's it's actually a joy to read. And sometimes you read these things and you think, I can't get past this. But it's it's a joy to read and it's entertaining, and it's almost like reading an a normal book, rather than a textbook. So thank you for making it so accessible. And also, I I do think it's worth just picking up on your out-of-home point because isn't it brilliant that touch points can be flexible like that and can be tweaked and can move at the times even after the event? It it it wasn't and and that's the brilliance about having control over your data and collecting it yourself and not just getting data that's been collected somewhere else. And in that we can tweak it and we can change it, and it can be amended after the event, and I think that's a brilliant, brilliant thing. So thank you for that. Um, I think the Making Sense report, I think the one thing that really stood out for me this time is my word, I wouldn't like to be a planner or a strategist at the moment. It's hard work, isn't it? It's difficult, and I think that's where TouchPoints is brilliant because it helps to simplify and look across channel. And I think quite often in media at the moment we go so far down into granular detail, and it's a bit like that hyper-personalisation thing. Yeah, and data is hyper-personalised, but actually, touch points is brilliant because it allows you to rise above that and look across the whole landscape. And I think that's where the report makes it even more accessible because you don't have to dive into the data, it can give you inspiration about where to where to look. And I think that one thing that came out for me this time is that as I say, I wouldn't like to be a planner or a strategy at the moment. It's complicated. I mean, and one thing that really struck me is we've talked about fragmentation for years and years and years, and we meant fragmentation in terms of people spending different amounts of time with more media channels, but actually it's gone even more complicated than that now, isn't it? Because I was thinking about podcasts the other day, and we're move Global is moving into video podcasts now. And quite interestingly, I was talking to somebody in their 20s the other day, and she said, Oh, I love podcasts. And I said, Do you? What which which ones do you like? And she said, I like to watch this, this, and this. And I thought that was really interesting because I think traditionally we've always thought of podcasts as listening, but Global's moving making a big move into video podcasts at the moment, and making sure that our content is available across different platforms. So now it's not just a case of people spending different time with different channels, yeah, it's also a case of the same content is now available on video, on podcasts, on 15 apps on your mobile phone, on your laptop. And I think it's not just a case of measuring reach, the context of all of those is so different, and watching something on YouTube is different from going for a walk and listening to a podcast, which is so it just means that within channel there's fragmentation now, and I think, and that the context of each of those is really different, and I think that's where touch points is brilliant because you you don't necessarily look say, okay, here's this podcast, here's how it was listened to, but you can build those contexts and look to see what people are doing and how they're feeling and kind of understand them in more detail. So it's not necessarily just about going media channel, time of day, this, it's about saying, and we've built as part of some of the systems we were talking about. One of the things we've built is almost a context planner.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Where we layer up, we layer up time and location and who you're with and how you're listening to something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then we look at what people, what the media choices are there and how they're feeling. And that that's really interesting because you can start to look at creative, you can start to look at what brands will fit there, you can start to look at what categories might fit. And I think that's that's it's quite hard to do. And I don't know whether many people are doing that. And as I say, being a planner and having to unpick that and untangle it. I think anything we get as media owners can do that helps to simplify that and touch points is a is a big part in how we try and simplify that.
SPEAKER_00It's such a like the complexity of the landscape now is yeah, as I just said, it makes it so much more difficult, but also it makes it so much more uh exciting to do innovative things, you know. I mean, I was talking to somebody recently about um you know the the fragmentation of like the video landscape, and and you know, I remember like uh back in back in like sort of the early 90s, you know, Friday night, Saturday night, it was all the family in the front room, and we were watching what dad wanted to watch, which is normally like Beatles about or something like that, you know. That was a good show. That was a good show. I don't they must have had huge budgets on that show because they used to do some quite like there was one show I was watching, and they took somebody's windows completely out of their house. This lady came home and was like, Where's my window? You know, random stuff. But they but obviously the audience must have been phenomenal for that. And not only that, you were hitting kind of all all kinds of age brackets in one single room. And then as time went on, as time's gone on now, you know, video is is used in so many different ways. You've still got those big screen video family viewing occasions, but you've also got that on mobile experience of like TV content, a mobile short-form video, you know, and and the the rise as well of things like commercial subscription video on demand, free ad supported TV. Yeah, there's so many great things that that are going on in that video space. And the idea of kind of, well, if you look at it if you look at it in in isolation, you'll say, oh, well, this media's gone down, or that's a negative, we can't reach as many. But actually, if we view it through that kind of fragmented lens of, well, there's more opportunities in different places in that video space. And when we look at things like the share of time within video, the share of time within audio, actually they're occupying pretty much exactly the same proportions they were 10, 15, even longer years ago. I mean, a a a stat that I love and that I that came out in the most recent making sense report, when I looked at the audio landscape of uh 35 to 54 of the 35 to 54 audience bracket, the their actual share of total media time in audio has grown um in the last 10 years quite quite I can't remember the exact percentage, but it's a good percentage of a proportion of media which is now consumed consumed in that in that audio space. And the opening up of you know, even thinking back like you know, uh 10, 15 years ago when I was when I started commuting, you know, uh uh you had the metro and then you know, I had a I had an old phone that was I don't even I don't think I even had a smartphone. You might have had an iPod, but the battery wasn't that good on it, and things like that. But now, like those commuting times, you can be, all right, I'll watch my favourite TV show, I'll listen to a podcast, get news content, and so many things are going on. So it's a really um really exciting space. And obviously with Global in the in you know, as as time's gone on, you're your the organization has constantly evolved. You had the acquisition of a large number of out-of-home um out-of-home companies, and then the growth of that. How do you find kind of managing the interplay between all of those different media together?
SPEAKER_02It's tricky, right? It it is tricky. Um but I mean, we're relatively lucky in that out of home and audio are quite good bedfellows. And and there was there was a reason why we moved into Out of Home because they work so brilliantly together. It's sound and vision. It's if you combine them, it has a multiplier effect. Um but it it's I'm a big believer at the moment. I think the industry's gone far too far too in the direction of it's this or this. It's performance or brand, it's this channel or this channel. And actually, it should be it's it's this and this. And we need to understand how things work together. Because I mean, you and I have talked a lot about diversity of media plans, and I think that's true now more than ever. And and blending and understanding and the role of insight in how channels work together is incredibly important because we too often we we set things up in competition and it's bonkers because it's the blend that results in brilliance, it's the blend of different channels of of different contexts, of different ways of reaching audiences that works brilliantly because it's not just a case of reach. Reach is important, and of course, scale is important, but it's it's a case of blending those contexts and those experiences because they are all very different. I mean, you've just talked about commuting and watching something versus watching something at home with your family. They're all really different, and your response to advertising in those will be really different, and it's really important that we take that into account and understand to develop the strongest media plans because if we don't, you you have a really one-dimensional plan that will stunt your growth of a brand. So it and I don't think that we quite have got a handle on all of that understanding yet. So it it's it there's I think there's still a lot of work to do because everything changes every week, and it's tricky.
SPEAKER_00And I think one of the things that that you know it's been talked about quite a lot in the industry at the minute is that that focus on sometimes like short-term metrics, like short-term, you know, how what what what are the what are the metrics that can justify the decision that you know that we've made on this particular plan, you know, in terms of the short-term performance. I mean Rory Sutherland he gave a good example recently um on a podcast, and he said, Oh, uh Rory, you'll be surprised you won't be surprised now. I bought a new car, and Rory said to the guy, Oh, what car was it? And he said, Oh, I can't remember what exact brand it was. Uh and he said, Oh, why did you choose to buy it? He said, Funny enough, I chose to buy it because of advertising. He said, The thing that is quite strange though, is I saw that advert 50 years ago, you know, and that is what you know, it's that that thing when you're when you're kind of in your formative years, when you're younger, you know, that aspirational thing. And it may be actually through all throughout the points in your career, your lifetime, you may not necessarily be able to you know financial family commitments and things like that. But at a certain point when that when you've built that brand um affinity, like so much it's you know, the di the journey between actually being aware of the brand and then when you actually that path to purchase can sometimes be much, much longer than short-term metrics are allowing for.
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely. And it's I think sometimes we plan for what's easy to measure. So things go on a plan that gives us an easy measurement, and that's bonkers. Um because as you say, we we don't just catch people when they're on a purchase journey. And we shouldn't just be catching people when they're on a purchase journey, and it all comes back to the Byron Sharp kind of mental availability. You you and I think too often we think of and it it's quite an old term now, but wastage. And and there's lots of wastage in this plan where it's like, well, is it or are you just finding people that aren't in market right now but will be in the future? And if you don't build that brand, I mean we all have brands that we love and we don't really know why we love them. Yeah, we just do, and brands we don't love, and and we think, why why why don't I love that brand? That's built up over years and years and years. And if you don't build that, you're not gonna pop into somebody's head when they're and have those great feelings towards that brand when you do come into market. So it's really that that kind of big advertising is still incredibly important in brand building to make sure that we are top of mind when when we come into purchase and and just focusing on that very short-term purchase is very short-sighted and actually really hard work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because you're constantly doing it, you constantly have to be on, you constantly have to be there rather than just being somebody in somebody's awareness when they're they're thinking, Oh, I I like that brand, I'd no idea why. I just do. And that doesn't mean that that's one channel does one thing and one channel does another. They can all do all do lots of them. And I think audio is a great example of that, and that you can be very brand builder, you can be very top of the funnel and raising awareness and changing perceptions, but also because of the way digital audio works now, you can also be in that moment. You can put ads in podcasts around specific areas that people are interested in. You can do loads of brilliant stuff now, and I think that we need to it it comes back to that. We didn't need to stop saying this or this, it's this and this. And I think that's really important.
SPEAKER_00Because I wanted to come back to actually the um to the the work you did for LBC. That would be really good to uh to understand because I've got to I've got to be honest, I hadn't really listened to talk to talk radio before, and I hadn't really listened in my global player. It's basically just all of the smooth iterations and a bit heart nineties, because you know that's a that's always a people pleaser. Um I love heart nineties, it's my absolute favourite. Yeah. What a time that the late 90s. There was some fantastic, you know, whatever it was, it was great stuff. But um, sorry, I'll go off at a tangent there. But with with regards to the obvious, I found it fascinating because you know, I had pre-existing perceptions around you know, the types of uh conversations that were had on there, and that it was all very, very political and it was all very serious and things like that. And actually, I've as since I've been listening, it's just great to get an understanding of like multiple viewpoints because so often with news content it's not it can be quite polarized in a particular sort of way of working, and it's great to hear that. So, can you tell us a bit about how you know how did that come about that and how did you really bring that work to life? Because it is fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, it's exactly as you've just described. When we when we talk to people about LBC, they were kind of going, Well, it it's it it it has one viewpoint on it, and and actually we're we're really proud of the fact that that's exactly what we don't do. Yeah, and actually, people want to hear from people that they disagree with, so we really try and be rounded on it, but the Perception is that it's one type of content, one type of view. So we knew we had to do lots of work on this, but we also knew we've been doing research on it for years and years and years. We had we had a lot of ammunition to kind of go, no, this is what it is. And actually, when you speak to people that listen to it, one of the key reasons that people love LBC is because it lets them hear from people that aren't like them. And people like that. And I think we we often talk about well, we used to talk about echo chambers and things like that. Actually, I think people got fed up of echo chambers and realized that if you go on social media, you are part of an echo chamber because it is your choice of what you do, and you're unlikely to go and follow people you you disagree with. But actually, LBC brings that to you, and it brings that those voices to you that you can hear. So we knew we had to do a lot of research, we knew we had to understand all of this. But actually, one of the key things that really resonated with people is letting them hear from their presenters about what they think. Because actually, there's a huge, hugely diverse mix of presenters on LBC as well, with different political viewpoints, with different social backgrounds, and actually just seeing that that continuum of of different presenters, different viewpoints made everyone think, oh, actually, this and that and that all comes alongside the with the growth of LBC. And that particularly since COVID, we saw huge growth during COVID because people wanted to feel connected to the news, and radio is a really nice way of doing that that feels quite safe as well. Um but those audience sizes didn't drop off once COVID ended, because people realized that it was a really nice way. So I think it was a case of the media industry saw LBC in one way. We knew our listeners, and we knew we didn't see them LBC in that way. So it was a case of how do we bring these two things together? And actually, real people, real voices, bringing it to life was the way to do it, and and it worked brilliantly. It was a lovely research project and worked really well. And we also did some neuroscience stuff as well about people's brains when they were listening to it and how how they felt and what that meant for advertising. So there were there, it was a really rich research project.
SPEAKER_00Because it's quite interesting in regards to that, because as you said, like having or having different viewpoints or being exposed, if you're only ever kind of see this, you know, if you went to see a film and your emotional state was just neutral throughout, you'd be like, Yes, yes, but actually when you go, oh, I feel elated, oh I feel angry, oh I feel you know, I feel you know, questioning, or you know, and all of those sorts of that emotional ride and roller coaster, it it kind of takes you on a journey, doesn't it? And it makes you in it and I think interesting, like that can probably, I'm sure you'll have so much more uh knowledge and and research sort of on this on this area, but also for kind of brand affinity and and for brands that are advertising within that space. Um, you know, it gives to you the if you know it doesn't necessarily and Newsworks did some great work on you know the power of hard news and advertising against hard news and actually emotional um context and and things like that being really, really, um really important. But yeah, I think it's I think it's fantastic in terms of yeah, in terms of that re-evaluation. Because often and and I and I think you know, sorry to quote Rory again, um but a thing that he talks about in terms of like within your supermarket, uh or within the supermarket, the idea of kind of thin or fat-tailed distributions and the idea that kind of on the supermarket shelves mainly you're in the thin-tailed space where there's very little likelihood of new innovation and there's very little likelihood of breakthroughs. But actually, if you look at the supermarkets that are doing really well, your Aldi and Lidl, it's that middle aisle where there's the fat-tailed distribution where they may have one specific thing that is just completely bonkers but absolutely takes off.
SPEAKER_02I came out with a sewing machine once.
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_00Nobody goes that's the great thing, is it's those things that you don't realize that you need until you see it in the middle aisle. But it has, you know, that those weird and wonderful things that are kind of experimental. I love that I love the way that yeah, the way that they that that's done. Because if you try to justify that, if you said, right, we're gonna buy 50,000 sewing machines, you know, within and we're gonna put them in Asda, there were, you know, or whatever supermarket it might be, there'll be a you know a cost-benefit analysis where they say well, actually it's very unlikely, you know, that here's the here's the data which tells us what's going on within sewing, and actually, you know, maybe that's not a particular particularly good idea. But those breakthrough, you know, what are those that kind of out there thinking and out there approaches that are really, really important.
SPEAKER_02And that actually takes us kind of to that AI discussion, right? In that if you rely on AI for those things, you're unlikely to get to where the interesting stuff is, because it's it's those very human connections and very bonkers ideas that don't come out of patterns necessarily, but come out of somebody just having an idea that we we don't necessarily get from AI. And I'm a big fan of AI, and and so we we've just launched our our global IQ product, which is our data platform that contains all of our new planning products, and it's it's brilliant and it's quite revolutionary, and touch points is absolutely the core of our planning tool there. Um, and I'm gonna come back to that, but I I think we use AI to find patterns in there, but it's not it's not the case that that can replace human thought. It it might help you to get somewhere more quickly, it might give you ideas you hadn't thought of, actually. But I don't think at the moment that it it's in a place where it can replace, and particularly in the area that we work in, which is very human and about human connections and connecting with people, whether they're out of home or listening to the the radio or a podcast, uh those connections are very personal and very human, and everyone feels like they have their own connection. If we try and go too formulaic and too patterned about that, it won't work. It won't work because it's the human that makes it brilliant.
SPEAKER_00And it and it kind of I guess pushes everyone. If everybody's using AI systems and asking fairly similar questions to do the same thing, you end up in this kind of just or you haven't raised the bar at all. You've kind of just lowered the bar to that is the just the established standard. And actually that's you never get innovation or in or exciting thinking if you're just trying to kind of just you know level out, oh well the g I we need to do what the competitors are doing, and then oh well everybody else is just doing this, so we'll just do that much. Because the that's the the um and it brings me on to the kind of a question I wanted to ask you. I mean, I I think as as times as you know, as as we've seen the rise of AI, as you said, the value of like human interpretation of data, human connection, and also, you know, if somebody if somebody said to you uh you know, I'm I'm gonna come to you with an argument and I'm not gonna base it on necessarily that much information, but I'm gonna say it with a hundred percent assurance that it's the right way of doing, you'd be like, Yeah, I don't think that's a very good idea.
SPEAKER_02But we we all know people like that, right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But we but with the with AI things, it you know, it's it's the I've never experienced something where something is so confidently wrong. But that confidence, you know, is something, you know, the the the idea that that I think makes great insights professional and the the sort of thing is that constantly questioning and slightly cynical mindset of just being like, mm, I'm not quite sure about that. And that, but that that's that's something that's worrying. I mean, I wanted to ask you, Sarah, because as somebody who who's worked in such a variety of roles and worked on some some fantastically innovative work, particularly in the insights, what does insight mean to you today? Oh, blind. There's a question. That is a tough one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02But it it is a tough one, but I think sometimes we try and make it sound too clever. And insight can be really simple sometimes, and I think it's it's not always really difficult and involves loads of data collection. And I was thinking about this this morning, and I was thinking, what's one of the most simple insights? But that actually has been most impactful. And and one project we did at OMD was for a children's charity, and they were targeting people after they've had their first child, thinking that that was the time when they were more likely to be open to um donating to a children's charity. And actually, what we found, and this was through touch points in looking at life events and charity donations, that actually people are more likely to have a higher propensity to donate to a children's charity after the birth of their second child or their grandchild. And we thought that's really interesting. I wonder why that is, and that's where we come to the why. And actually, what we found is that people are so traumatized after the birth of their first child that they just don't have the headspace to be thinking about things like that. Really simple insight, really simple to get to, but actually changed a strategy and a targeting strategy and made a massive difference. So I think sometimes we make insight into this kind of very big, very important thing that we would that takes hours with hot towels over our heads thinking about it. It's not always like that. Sometimes it can be like that. But actually, it's something that gives you a simple human truth, but that can then be used because we get lots of insights and go, that's interesting, got no idea how we use it though. Um, and so it has to lead to a change in in what we do as an industry. Um and thereof I I have whole pots of insights that I go, can't use that for that, but I'm gonna put it in the pot over there because I'm sure at some point it will be useful. Um, and I think it it's it is about and and we make it we make it sound very hard to get to an insight. It's not always very hard because it's about simple human truths. And and I think that we we just need to be more curious and ask more questions and make less assumptions, and there are so many tools out there at the moment, and touch points is one of them, but there are so many different ways of trying to uncover the truth and a human truth, and one of those is just going and talking to people, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and I think that we get so hung up on data at the moment, and I keep seeing, have we got this insight from this data? No, that's not really, that's just a fact. How are you going to use that? Um, and and I think that we it's something you said earlier, actually, that I'd like to just touch upon that we quite often just use any old data set and go, Oh, I've got this out of the data, and you go, What it what is that based on?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Who are you who is that mobile data set based on? And I've I've told you the story before, but the story about um when we were doing a a plan for a a brand that was targeting children, um, and it it's um children and their parents. And we used some mobile data to see where we were most likely to find our audience and um children and their parents on days out and who were using mobile data, and it kept it it kept coming out with SOHO. And SOHO was really over-indexing, more than you'd expect. And I dug into it and dug into it, and I kept going back and saying, who is the sample? Yeah, and how how do you get the data? And it ended up, and this was years and years ago, and I'm sure it's not the case anymore. Um, it was years and years ago, and we found that 90% of the location data was pinged from Grinder.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02So brilliant for some brands, absolutely amazing, but for the brands we were working with, yeah, not necessarily the right audience. So it's a case of, I think we need to question data and where we're getting it from much more because we just blindly go, oh, I've got data, lovely, I've got loads of it, that's brilliant. And it's not always brilliant if we don't understand where it's coming from. So everything we do at Global starts with kind of that gold standard planning data, and then we layer on top of it. So we start with touch points, TGI, you go brand index, we start with all those big surveys where we know who the sample is, we know who we're talking to, we know it's representative, and then we layer and join instead of starting with the one that we don't know where the sample is coming from. And again, it's not that it comes back again to not the this or this, it's this and this and this and this, and it's blends. It it's blends and layering and and triangulation. And it does come back to your initial question in the sense that I think insight often comes when you join things together. Yeah, and and it's about joining the dots between different different data sources, different insights, and going, oh, that's interesting. We found that in this category. I wonder whether that's the same in this category. So it's about making those leaps, and AI will not be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I am such a huge believer that that foundation is absolutely key because if you don't start with the right foundation, particularly when we're building audiences and trying to understand the audience at a very fundamental level. Who are they? How many? Where do we find them? If you don't start with a representative sample of people and build that audience, nothing else is gonna make any sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that house is going to crumble pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes, and and quite often we I see people starting with a data set where I'm like, that's not representative. That's you have got the wrong audience size. You're gonna be missing opportunities. Um, and that's probably best case scenario. Worst case scenario, you're gonna get it wrong for your existing audience. So it's it's a case of understanding and making sure that that we are and uh I don't like the type term triangulation because it makes sense as if it's three bits. It's not, it's layering.
SPEAKER_00And one of the things I wanted to kind of touch on with it, especially in working in such um such a like big big organization such as Global, you know, how how do you because sometimes, for example, like strategies in any organization may come kind of top down and then the and the and I'm not saying this is happening in any or any specific organization, but where they'll say, Here's here's what we want to do, can you find me data to back that up? Now, as an insight professional, that's counterintuitive to everything that you've ever learned, because actually you go, well, no, what we need to do is we need to find out what we what you know what's going on, and then we build the strategy from that. How do you balance those two things, would you say, or or kind of key tips that you give anyone?
SPEAKER_02Do you know what? We're quite lucky at Global in that things come top down, but they also come bottom up and they kind of meet in the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think my one tip is don't just sit around waiting for someone to give you the strategy. Start to think about what you would do because I I think that's really important. And some of the best things we've done have been because within my brilliant Insight Data and Outcomes team, we've started to work on stuff where we just go, this could be really interesting. And all of a sudden, someone will have the kernel of the idea higher up, and you'll be able to go in with a, yeah, we've started to do this and it's brilliant. And we we've just done lots of work on outcomes using third party data to model outcomes for linear audio. So basically saying, Oh, like hey, let's use Ipsosiris data for web visits, let's use uh brand index for brand metrics, let's use spend mapper data which collects um transactions and number of customers across, I think it's 180,000 people. And using those as proxies for outcomes and then modelling, almost taking the best bits of MMM modelling and modelling what uplift we get when global was on, but across the whole funnel. And it came from the radio center work where they did this for web visits, and I went, oh, that's really interesting. But the biggest problem they had was getting data, yeah, and so we went, we've got proxies for all of this. Shall we try it? Shall we just see what happens? So in the background, we were trying it and playing around, and and then all of a sudden, Simon Pitts came in, our new CEO, and said, I'm really interested in outcomes. And because we'd been thinking about what what the industry was doing, what was coming next, and and and my my chief commercial officer calls it Sarah's play money. We have budget set aside to to kind of innovate and do different things. And I think that's really important. And if you if anyone does get the opportunity to make an argument for that, there are so many cases of where actually that kind of it doesn't cost that much. That kind of experimentation budget is really, really important, and you should protect it at all costs because it that's where the real gems come. They're not in the day-to-day, they come in the things we go, shall we try this? Let's not let's keep it fairly quiet at the moment because it might not work, but let's go. Um, and another one is creative optimization. We've just put all of our historical effectiveness work through a language model that allows us to say, well, okay, if you've got a radio ad and you want it to shift um intention to purchase, or you want it to shift consideration, these are the this is the language that will help to shift that. And then these are the creative attributes. So you need a jingle, you need a famous voice, you need so it enables us not to just optimize and make a better radio commercial, but it allows us to say this is how you optimise to achieve this outcome. And that's really interesting as well. And it all comes from those 500 studies that we had in a vault, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just sit sitting around, cat how can we use that? And again, that comes from that experimentation budget that we have that we're really lucky to have at Global. And we can start to do new stuff that we wouldn't get to if we were just being briefed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes that experimentation doesn't necessarily, you know, it's not necessarily logical, is it? It's not something where you can, yeah, it's something that may, may, I guess, just resonate in the short term.
SPEAKER_02I think the way I try and do it is just to always keep asking questions. Look around you, learn, read, go to conferences, pick up on those little breadcrumbs that might give you ideas, and that's really, really important because if you're if you're just sitting head down in the office or at home, which I think is probably even worse because you're not talking to people, um, then you're not going to get to those things. You need to be out there and thinking and being curious and making leaps and going, okay, that is totally irrelevant to what I do right now, but actually, could we tweak it? Could we could we make it a bit different? And I think that's so important, and I think we forget about it far too often.
SPEAKER_00And I think one thing that I've obviously having known you for years in in the various roles that you've been in and all of the the great teams that you've put together is uh you know, one of the things that really stands out to me about the way that you work is you know, you you you you have a very um a good eye for when people are really passionate about something, and then you put and then like you know, you you give them the freedom and the support to be able to do something amazing with that. And it doesn't necessarily matter about how long they've been in the organization, just that level of passion and interest and excitement, and that really comes through whenever you see people um, you know, people from global talking about the work that's going on or the work, the the initiatives that you're doing, that energy and excitement is something that you just can't you can't kind of teach that you have that kind of built through.
SPEAKER_02That makes me so happy to hear you say that because it's something I'm really, really, I'm really proud of that too. They are absolutely brilliant, they make going into work an absolute joy every day. Um, they all really care about what they do, they all work really hard, and I think that's something that throughout my whole career I've and I I've got friends still from every every job I've ever been in. I stay in contact with people because I one of the things that really motivates me is building a team that work well together. And I think in Insight, if you want a really powerful insight team, it is about combining different skills, different personality types. Sometimes it makes things harder because we disagree.
SPEAKER_01Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but I'm really proud of the fact we can disagree. We can all disagree. They argue with me, I argue with them. We kind of go, no, it's not that, it's this. Um, but they all have a point of view, they're all passionate, they're all given the freedom to do what they need to do. There's no everyone gets involved with everything. And I I think in terms of insight teams, it's very easy to get one kind of person and just have them have the same person replicated 20 times. And what I'm really proud of that people come from different backgrounds, they come from different um professional backgrounds and personal backgrounds, they have different points of view, they have different perspectives. And as I said, it doesn't always make for the easiest life, but it makes for a better work and a more fun environment.
SPEAKER_00And and I guess innovative and like like that sort of outside of the box thinking that that you get from just different approaches.
SPEAKER_02And I think you have to encourage that, and you have to get encourage people to disagree with you and disagree with the way things are done and disagree with findings because I think then you get to really interesting places.
SPEAKER_00Because the assumption that that that that knowledge comes with necessarily or with experience, for example, or time in the industry is not necessarily always true. Because I know, like for example, with within the IPA and the work that I that that I do in my day to day role, you know, I know a reasonable amount about certain things and media and things uh uh in relation to media and and um kind of planning strategy. But if somebody says, oh, you know, what's going on in the world of you know influencer marketing, you know, the first port of call is the people who are actually living that experience. It's the insight teams. You know, they're the people where the where you go to like look, this is way out of my world, but but actually there's those kind of insights that come from that kind of that kind of space there. I wanted to just double back a little bit on um you know the interesting thing about um about the the work that you did for LBC because if you like whatever if ever you're in a London cab you can guarantee there will be LBC on there. And what makes me quite what's quite interesting is I think so often um you know the the some of the some of the most pivotal people in understanding kind of in understanding kind of society and and and changes and getting insight is the people who are talking to so many different people across so many different backgrounds. Yeah. Because you know a cab driver will speak to every single type of person throughout the day. You know it might be a barber like universally um universally accept uh universally required roles within the industry there's that there's that very unique capability that people have who speak to so many different people in so many and I think that that's uh yeah really a fantastic thing like encompassing that in the way in which uh you know LBC has been built into into being a brand absolutely and I think that's and it there's also a parallel with why insight is so important because I think we I mean there's been so much work about the the media bubble and the London bubble and every kind of bubble you can think of but actually that's why insight is so important because we shouldn't just be relying on what we think because London is so different from anywhere else we all know that that's not that's not new yeah but actually it's really important that we go and talk to lots of different people and get lots of different views and and understand what what's going on from lots of different perspectives because there is there is when when you get to a certain well well when you get into intermediate we tend to be middle class which I think is is is is a big issue.
SPEAKER_02You might not started middle class and I didn't start middle class but I am now and so are most of the people that I work with just by the nature of where we work and I think understanding different perspectives is really important and don't look to the edges look to the the places that aren't necessarily the mainstream and it it is really important. So I kind of see all the work about London bubble and I think yeah it's great I get it but actually that's why insight is there. That's the point of insight and and actually just assuming that we're we're all working on these assumptions and not questioning is not really fair for because planners are also brilliant insight people and they will be asking questions and they and just because they believe something it doesn't mean that that comes through in the plan. A good planner will go and question those those things. So I I think I think you're entirely right but I think that's why we're there as insight yeah yeah professionals.
SPEAKER_00And and the um like those interesting things that you say as you said outside of London uh kind of mindsets and thinking particularly when we had things like the pandemic going on you know there was this automatic assumption that everybody was working from home that everybody gets the train to work you know these sorts of things when actually if you start looking at it by region even if you go to say greater Manchester most people are likely driving to work uh or wherever it may be a lot of so many roles weren't really changed. And you notice that really you saw uh in like the patterns of audio listening there were some shifts that occurred you you would notice like more more listening around the around the kind of the midday period but people were like oh but there's still a there's still a massive peak in the morning time. Well yeah because people are probably driving to work you know yeah anyone that did a job that wasn't in an office was probably still going to work all those supermarket workers all those other people there were I mean I I I can't remember what the figure was but it people were astounded when we looked at people who were still the proportion of people that were still going out kind of every day to go to work people in the media industry were like what yes yeah because there were times then I mean this the sphere of uh of kind of movement around that time was much much smaller but actually you know you were spending much more time in you know uh in an out of home environment I remember like skewing up outside the supermarket and they had a digital digital screen outside of the local supermarket and it was off yeah bonkers this is insane like I was just thinking you know this is the most captive I would have loved a nice bit of animated out of home there just to make it a little bit more interesting because you can't we're all standing like with you know with the understandably like the social distancing so you can't talk talk to anyone really so you're just like you know just an ad just for you know Elmly or some sort of like product or something like that.
SPEAKER_02And and everyone was much more aware of their surroundings right during the pandemic. They were much more aware firstly because they were a little bit worried about what was going on around them but actually they were just making the most of being out especially at that time when we were only allowed out for an hour a day. And actually worked brilliantly.
SPEAKER_00Oh it did and it but I guess it was some s like the perceptions I think influenced more than actually the the reality of what was going on. Because the um one thing that I really like you know particularly in like in what's going on we say talk radio podcasting you know my personal affinities to smooth it feels like you're part of something bigger even if you're in an isolated moment. And I think one of the uh one of the shows that to me has been really really interesting and I st I still think is fantastic conceptually is Goggles. You know that idea of you know if you are say say if you were self-isolating there or if maybe you lived on your own and you couldn't really see people or or even for say some people who might be uh you know older and not really be able to get out too much like that idea of like that shared viewing experience just having those characters almost like that you that you have that affinity to and I think what's quite striking for me is I I could you know I could go on to say Spotify and I could say right okay play me a playlist or you know create me a playlist but actually I what I really like within within within the like the radio experience is that I don't need to I don't need to think and I've freed up my mind like your brain is so much more free and actually it's just that kind of like it's almost like a wash over over you in a way. But having the presenters there it feels like you're part of you know you're part of something bigger when they're talking about oh you know oh it's a Sunday oh I've just got my aunt and they'll talk about their personal Angie Greaves for example she'll talk about say oh I've got the kids coming around I've got family coming around and we've got to do you know make dela and it really feels that you're part of something so you know having that connection I think is so vital and I think the human element of that is what's so important.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and I think radio does that right it bring it brings you in and I I that's why radio is so trusted. Yeah and that's why we have to treat it so carefully as well and be very responsible with that. But I think that that trust makes a massive difference. And it's a quite a big social responsibility as well because actually there are a lot of people that are a little bit lonely or on their own and actually radio is really important for them and I I think we should never forget that and treat that really carefully because it is it is while it while it's great to kind of feel like you know the presenters and and I I also think socially it's it's a really it performs a really important function radio within society. And I I I'm really proud of the fact we do that actually and and where when when you hear those stories it's it's really lovely. I mean we we uh we had an email within the the insight team just yesterday from um one of our suppliers who who um has lots of contacts in Russia and the Ukraine and he was saying how important LBC was and that it makes you feel really proud of what we do that we make a difference and that what we do has an impact. And so that that connection is great but I think sometimes we forget how important that connection is um and you're right it it can it builds that emotional response and and and not to take it back to too commercial but but for advertisers that's massive so being able to transfer that feeling onto your brand um is really really important and I mean and you talk about smooth and we we also have gold we I I did some work a a couple of weeks ago about nostalgia and the joy that can come from nostalgia. And it was really interesting because the first thing we asked in in our survey was what brings you the most joy in life and music food being with the people you love obviously but music food travel yeah all came out as really important. Scrolling through your phone nobody's there I've only had more time to scroll through my phone um and I think that bringing that joy is really important but where it helps for advertisers is actually music can trigger a whole feeling of nostalgia whether it's that holiday you went to or whether it was a time when you had something big going on in your life actually linking to that nostalgia can be quite powerful because you're rather than trying to find someone it comes back to that that hyper personalization thing rather than trying to find someone when they're at the stage where they're thinking about booking a holiday you can find them when you've they've just been triggered into it through a song and and all those brilliant nostalgic songs that come unsmooth are a great place to be. They call it um prestian memories prestian moments that in and that's a feeling that's triggered by a sense but that gives you that rush of feeling that you don't even know where it's come from and it's very emotional and that's kind of what that music and also food actually interestingly music and food have the power and smells yeah and we we ask people in this survey what what things get you in the mood for a holiday and actually it was their sense of it was hearing a song smelling a smell suntan lotion or hearing a sound sound of the sea more than seeing a picture. So we all look at pictures but actually it's those other senses that are more likely to trigger us into that holidays and move so rather than trying to find people when they're on that holiday journey and looking for signals actually think about other senses think about other things and and BA have done some work where they put the smell of sunsan lotion on um tube advertising as you walk past to try and trigger you into but I those kind of things are really interesting. I and I think they're a little bit overlooked sometimes. Oh certainly yeah that's the great thing I think about good advertising is that it is that it it it really um elicits that kind of feeling radio is brilliant in that right because it we did some work a little while ago where we we measured whether people were aware of advertising when they were listening to the radio but then did some recall questions and and brand questions and actually when people were not even aware they'd heard that advertising they processed it in the same way to the same levels of recall from people that were told to listen to the advertising. So you don't even have to be aware you've heard it for it it's being coded somewhere into your memory and when we talk about attention I think all the attention stuff is really important and particularly in digital but actually we miss a trick because we don't think about hearing we don't think about sounds and when you think about TV advertising a lot of the time I think I saw something on the IPA website this morning that said that music was incredibly important in them recently yeah yeah and and I think sometimes we forget that that music can make us pay attention and years and years ago we did it when I was at Ipsos we did a study um for a big advertiser that was basically a goggle box before goggle box so we watched people watching tell yeah yeah and what would be interesting is that people would be sitting there they'd be looking at their phone reading a book not watching the telly and all of a sudden music would come on and you'd see their foot start to tap and then all of a sudden they'd look up and then they'd be looking at the ad but it was the music that got them to pay the attention and I think quite often we we forget about sound and sound or any other senses actually and we forget about other senses when we're when we're thinking about attention and advertising it's all about visual and eye tracking and and that's not necessarily how advertising always works and we need to be be careful that we're thinking about these things.
SPEAKER_00So Gloria was right sooner or later the rhythm is going to get you you see that tapping of the feet there um but that's quite interesting because um you know in terms of like attention I think that there's some interesting stuff and the Lumen have done some really interesting work in this space around kind of active or passive attention and understanding actually you might be say for I know Radio Centre have done some really interesting stuff around say when you're doing uh housework when you're doing um all those sorts of things and the raid and kind of radio and the and and the connections that that can build between those activities is really fascinating.
SPEAKER_02And that's what I meant about context earlier context makes a massive difference. So if someone is listening to a podcast and they're on a dog walk and they're paying lots of attention to this podcast give them a rational advert give them information because then they're more likely to process it and take it in. If somebody has capital on in the background while they're doing something else and they're cooking put on a food advert but there's a big brand advert that might be more likely to be processed kind of subconsciously. So it's about context and it's about making sure you've got the right ad. I mean it comes back I don't this came out in making sense a lot right in it particularly in your contributors where it's about putting the right ad in front of the right person at the right time in the right context and that's never changed. It's still the same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah that that that kind of fundamental rule because that's that's the thing it can often seem like oh well the industry's shifted so much or the the opportunities have shifted so much maybe the you know oh the old rules don't apply we need new rules now but actually a lot of those things a lot of those patterns and and things that occur don't really change all that much.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and they're they're enduring because they're true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah absolutely I wanted to just come back to um some of the things we were talking about a little bit earlier um is in terms of you know particularly like you know going back to in in the pandemic and things uh like that is the is invariably the first things to be cut in uh uh when you know say economic circumstances are difficult um are the things that can't have can't be easily directly attributed to sales or revenue revenue acquisition and um you know the I think uh there was some work I think Bernette Fields uh did a roundabout I know Les Burnett did around that time talking about actually the most important you know businesses that recover quickest after periods of financial uncertainty are the ones who invest more heavily in advertising rather than cut back. I mean how do you balance how you know what what would you say are your kind of keys key things that you've learned across your career for really reinforcing the value of of marketing and insight in you know when say for example it might be more difficult to attribute direct return on investment in the short term.
SPEAKER_02What would what what's your key it's so hard right because everyone knows that you should invest more when times are hard. All the evidence tells us that still every single time research goes first then advertising um in terms of budgets because they're the things that aren't seen as having a short term impact on sales. You can still sell stuff without them in the short term and oh we'll put it back in when things get a bit better. And all the evidence in the world doesn't seem to make much difference. I think where what I try and do is make hay while the sun shines actually so you prove the value when times are good. Good yeah so that when times are not so good you you can point to that evidence and say well look this is here this is what happens when we do this and and because I I think it's really hard when it gets to that CFO level and he is having a tough or he or she sorry is having a tough time and it's so easy for them just to cut those things at that point. But actually if you've got evidence that you've been building up over a period of time and also it's about making sure that the insight and data is actually really really ingrained in day-to-day operations it's not a m it's not a nice to have on the outside and the same with advertising it needs to be really really firmly entrenched into everything your organization does and I fight really hard for this and so hard people get irritated with me because it's if if we're not included in something I go well why aren't we on this why why why is insight not on it and the same goes for advertising you have to really you can't just be left to the side you can't be in the back room you have to fight your way forwards and demonstrate why you should be there and it's it's not always easy and actually I think particularly on the insight side the personality of researchers isn't one that is going to do that and it it's it's quite hard to find people that are willing to kind of go no not that me and I remember when I when I was at OMD Dan Clays used to do these big announcements and every single time he used to have to come and find me and he's go what did insight do on this because I can't have you in the middle of my speech going and us Dan and us because quite often we're we are 10 steps removed away from that sale and when we do big shout outs it's kind of you it's like last click attribution yeah it's it's the the person that made the sale gets the credit but actually there were probably 15 people behind that who were who were doing all of that and you need to make sure that's recognised every single time at the risk of people getting really quite annoyed with you and going oh there she is again but you have to because if not you are in the back room and you do not have a seat at the table and you be get forgotten but you are the absolute foundation of why that sale was made.
SPEAKER_00Because I guess in that situation if you're if you're not kind of involved in those decisions being made you will certainly end up being involved in how the fallout of a bad decision is cleared up and invariably it's that kind of it's the sort of thing where sometimes you'll find you know nobody nobody says well done when you do a good job because that's expected but if something goes wrong then immediately it's like ah well you know here's some blame for you know that kind of challenging sort of situation goes on there. One of the uh I'm just trying to think of one of the some of the other sorts of things that I just want to touch on um was around you know where do you you know where we are now in terms of AI we we've probably had about a year and a half of quite heavy ingraining of AI. And I think you know if we think of it in terms of that Gartner hype cycle I'd say we're kind of around about that trough of disillusionment at the moment because you know the belief the belief of you know this is going to do amazing things for us. And then we're in that kind of period where we're where I think that there's that reflectivity on you know is occurring. Where where do you think the where do you think we'll be going in the next few years and also what do you think what do you think are the vital skills that we need to be you know honing now in order in order for those things to be better in the in the years to come?
SPEAKER_02It's really interesting and and I struggle with this a bit because of course as insight people we go can't know better than me but actually when you do stuff and you go oh that's pretty good it's not perfect but it's pretty it's got me to a pretty good place pretty quickly. And we've been doing lots of work where we're asking it questions that we know the answers to so it's a case of okay is this giving us the answers that we know are the right answers um it gets you to places more quickly it gets you to the ground floor more quickly we talked about earlier how everything needs to be checked though because there is just so much stuff there where you go that's not just not true and we've had quotes that come out and we go where did this quote come from and it just goes oh I just made it the style of that person. Yeah um so everything needs to be checked um I I think that it's brilliant for looking at patterns and data it's absolutely brilliant for looking at patterns and data that could have taken forever before and so actually it can help to give you that inspiration by looking at patterns and data it can help you get to an answer more quickly. I still think there's a lot of work to do in the middle of that process in checking in refining in asking different questions in putting different prompts in and then it can help you at the back end where you go okay I've now got this have you got anything to add and it can sometimes give you some gems that can just add a little bit of something that you might not have. But I think asking the right questions is really important. I think that being a master of those prompts is really important. I'd love to know actually we talked about this yesterday I would love to know that if different people put in the same question, do they get the same answer Or does it learn from you? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00That's a very good question.
SPEAKER_02But it it would be quite interesting to look at that, right? So if if you put the same question as me, would we get exactly the same response?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I wonder. We'll have to see.
SPEAKER_02Maybe we'll try it. So I think there's lots of stuff about prompts. There's lots of stuff about building agents and things like that. That I think there's going to be a whole generation of people that are going to be able to build these agents that query things that we are going to have now. I'm hoping I'll be retired by then, quite frankly. But they're going to be brilliant at it. And it's about asking the right questions. It's about knowing when it's going to work, when it's not going to work. And actually, one thing that does really bother me is that if we're not fueling everything with new data, new understanding, new insight, we're going to go backwards eventually. So we need to, it's not just a case of recycling all the knowledge that we need isn't out there. We need to be filling the top of this funnel up and making sure that we always have new stuff that can feed AI models. We can't, we're going to end up to the in a diminishing return situation if we're not careful with it, with with the same old things coming out. And I I always think it's the case that, and I always say this that if if what we did was formulaic, we would have one template for a media plan for category. But we don't have that.
SPEAKER_03And that would be a terrible thing.
SPEAKER_02We'd have one answer. There is no one answer because what we do is an art as well as a science. It's both. It needs a human brain on it. And it it needs the brilliance of those planners that can kind of make those leaps and and think about the brand and think about the audience and think about culture and all of those other things. Because there is not one template per category that works. They all work differently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's really interesting actually, because I think that's quite interesting in the in the role that I have, and I've able to kind of end up working across so many different areas of the industry. And I'm very privileged that I I get to see a bit of behind the scenes of what all the different agency networks are doing. And what's really interesting is just the difference in the approaches of different agency groups and the way in which they're all doing things. And equally within media owners, obviously there's knowledge that's shared within the within that grouping or that category, but there is like totally different approaches to solving the same problem, which is what makes it exciting. Because if you know, if it was a situation where every agency did the same thing, you know, it where's the differentiation? Where's the where's the possibility of those really unique breakthroughs?
SPEAKER_02It's really interesting where we're going to net at, right? Because they are so different from kind of publicism epsilon and and audience-based and person-based through to WPP's own pen, which is much more probabilistic and and and insight-led. My guess would be that they'll all end up in the middle somewhere. And we'll knit together ideas where we can and where it's appropriate, but use probabilities in other times. But I do think it's it's really interesting where we're going to end up. And I I I think that that whole planning thing, I think we're going to end up coming back to the thing as well as we still need really good planners because there is not one answer. Um, there is not one answer that is correct. Yes, yeah. Um, and if there was an answer that was correct, I think we'd have found it before now. It's there are a hundred answers that are correct, some more correct than others, some differently correct, some that give you more opportunity in the long term. And it's it's I I'm really interested to see where everything goes. And as global, we're we're trying to kind of go, okay, we need to be in a position where we have the right tools and data that we can work with any agency, no matter what their model is. And that's tricky because we can't have a one-size-fits all anymore either. We need to we need to be um doing probabilistic work, doing data work, making sure that we are top of mind, because of course we're linear as well, we've got no return path, so it makes it really hard in audio, in linear audio and outdoor to get into these planning systems because we don't have that tons and tons of data, and we don't want to be in advance because we think we offer something really brilliant. So it's how how can we be part of those conversations, and that's why we're doing all this work on planning systems and data and all of that.
SPEAKER_00And it is so complicated and so complex. I mean, the work that I've I've been privileged to see some of the stuff that you've been doing in recent years, like the integration of those data. It it for us as as the like the touch points team uh here, you know, it makes us just go, wow, you know, this is really cool. You know, that like seeing seeing how you're using that respondent because we we had a bit of a challenge with the respondent level data because what we did is we started, we had to kind of make a use case for it before anybody really was used using it. And before really anybody had requested to use it, because by the time people were requesting it, if we hadn't already started, we'd be too late. And then they would go, actually, well, this other provider's got this API and they can feed directly into it. So we had to do it, build it on kind of a speculative approach where it was quite new. And it was, and I'll be honest, it was quite a tough thing to get across the line because in terms of you know how we invest in touch points and and how it and how everything kind of works together. And you know, and it was and it was always, I was thinking, you know, maybe I got this wrong, you know, maybe you know, maybe things maybe we didn't quite do this the right way. And then when you s when suddenly, you know, I know the the fantastic work, particularly that that Global have done as a res with that respondent level data, you go, thank goodness you were certainly ahead of the curve.
SPEAKER_02Because I mean, most of the big data sets we get now, we we won't buy them unless we can have respondent level data because we've seen how powerful that can be. Once you find ways to join them up, and once you find ways to to make them work together, they are incredibly powerful. And I think people often think that more data is better. Actually, no, we don't think that's true. We we think that layering the right data is is better, yeah. And joining touch points with all of the TFL data, for example, so we can see where the TFL data that we get because we we uh sell the TFL estate, the advertising on the estate. We had so much inform, brilliant information from TFL. It was where people tap in, where they tap out, where they interchange across the whole network for every day of the year. It's amazing, amazing data. Didn't tell us anything about who the people were. Of course. So the reason why we did this is that we then took TGI and touch points respondent level data sets and fused them using geodemographics.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, and what that meant is that we can build any audience and work out where we come most likely to find them across the network at any right down to individual hours. So it can be used for programmatic uh out of home as well. And that's really powerful. And my my concern was are you going to end up with the same stations coming up over and over again? But actually, once we started to play with it and look at you can look at um penetration levels, so what percentage of of your audience in that station come from your um target audience. Once you start to look at that, we were having you get some brilliant, brilliant plans out, and you get some brilliant, brilliant insights out into um the very first one I ran when I was worried about it was action films compared to art house films. So people that say the action films are their favourite genre compared to people that say that art house films are their favourite genre. And what we found is that you are more likely to find those art house film lovers, it was Ballum, Richmond, Wimbledon, places that had an everyman cinema near them, interestingly. Action films was Canningtown, East Ham. It was just that it was quite stereotypical, but it just went, oh thank goodness, we're getting different, different stations out for different audiences. And we can go right down to brand level. So Boots, for example, could say, I we want digital creative outside, outside um station or in stations that have a boots nearby. And we can go down to Liver and say, Well, okay, if you're in Hampstead, you want to be putting NYX and Bobby Brown on that creative. If you're in this station, you want to be putting Maybelline and L'Oreal. So we can go even go down to the the because we've got brand index data in there as well. We can we can start to go. These are these are the brand affinities that people that use that station, not just live around there, the people that use that station, yeah, have with your different brands. So it's it's really powerful, and that the kind of touch point stuff allows us to also contextualise it all right and go, you should be using Outdoor because this is the reason. So we have your lovely making sense scatter plots in um in our tools. So we can build those. I reckon it takes about 30 seconds for any audience to build your lovely time spent and uh reach.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, that's that's wonderful to hear. I just that the just the thing because with those that makes it I I just love writing, I love I love the the concept of just getting into the data every year, seeing what's going on. And I um I like the the the the fundamental principle that I try with that because if you're reading a heavy report of data, it can be quite boring. And actually, I I like my thing about it is um I mean my favourite film of all time is Mrs. Doubtfire. Of course it is. Of course it is, and there's a scene in there where um where you know you s you see there's a uh guy who's doing a dinosaur program, and he's really like he's bored, the audience is bored, the viewing figures are going down, and and Robin Williams said, you know, don't talk down to an audience, just play to them. And and actually, you you kind of if you can stumble onto those universal things of just going, you know what, a lot of stuff that's data heavy can be quite boring. So you know, we'll try and put some context in it and try and make it more approachable. You know, that that's what the fun part is for me. And then just even if even if one person, you know, if one person says to me, ah, that was helpful in one, you know, in this situation, that that like that means so much that that that that's that you're you know, it's a very privileged position to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and it is it is beautifully written, and as I said earlier, a joy to read. It it does it is quite often we get these things in, and I think I can't, I can't do this. My life is too short to do this. I'll tell you what you should do. You you need to make it into an audiobook.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you need I want to hear Simon reading the making sentence.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow, that's very good. Yeah, oh you know, maybe maybe maybe it was well I learn I learn by listening, not by reading.
SPEAKER_02Like the way I learn, the way I understand is is listening, and that makes a big difference for me. And I think everyone's learning style is different, right? But for me, I love listening to stuff. And I I I get through three audiobooks a week. I know, I'm terrible. I constantly have an audiobook.
SPEAKER_00Oh fantastic. No, but that's it is a great way to l to because you know, read I because I I always find that if I'm reading, then it reading a book, I get tired because I associate reading with the I fall asleep instantly. But actually listening to it, you can probably be looking out the window or doing whatever you might be doing throughout the day and just Oh yeah, well I turned 50 this year and I I fall asleep at the drop of a hat now.
SPEAKER_02So speaking of actually, I loved your over 55 stuff, and I think it's really, really important that we we we miss over 55. So it's something that you know I've been talking about for years and years and years. This um and uh a global very few briefs, unless they're specifically for an older brand, yeah. Older brand come in that and actually sometimes it's just a case of don't put an upper age limit, just put an audience that you want to find. Don't worry about age, just put it in. One thing I will say is please can we stop lumping in a 55-year-old with a 90-year-old.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Do you know, funnily enough, so uh from next year, because that that's the you know, it's that approach where you go, well, I've always done it this way. And then why I why I originally did that was I was just like, right, well, let's just have some understanding, rather than just looking at all adults, we'll just put some sort of key uh age categorizations in there. What we're gonna do, but what I'm gonna do for for kind of the years ahead, and and as kind of advances in data have made it easier for me to run the data behind it, I you know, I really want to start breaking out because even say 55 to 65, 65, 75, and then 75 plus is probably.
SPEAKER_02I think 75 people are retiring about 70 now, aren't they? And I do think the life stage changes, but I think maybe it's because I turned 50 this year that I'm like I'm nearly in that age right now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is so interesting because I think one of the things that strikes me about audiences like that that are overlooked is it's very much, it seems to be that that it's very much, well, this audience can only be or will only bother targeting this audience or communicate to this audience if it's a brand that is a hundred percent perceived as being relevant to them. But actually, like for example, if you're going off to university and you're or say you're moving out of your parents' house and you're going to the people that you ask for, ask the opinion of is invariably your parents or your grandparents, the people who you know what if you if you you know starting out and you go, apparently I need you know house insurance. Yeah, then what do I do about that?
SPEAKER_02It's mortgages, um all of that finances, cars, because we did some work on it at RMD. All of those big category, big decisions, you go to someone older and you trust their advice more. So it's it's we need to make sure because they're the ones making the brand recommendations.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. And invariably they'll also be you know, if you're buying your first house, they're gonna be hugely influential in that. Because who are you gonna trust, you know, is the person who's well, you know, we've bought houses before, we know how the market works, but also they're the they're generally gonna be the people who are focusing more on that constant kind of thirst for knowledge of what's going on with the economy or things that might be important to you that you know when you're 25 you might not be necessarily worried about.
SPEAKER_02And in their own right as well. I mean, we are now spending more on holidays, more on leisure, more on the kid, my my boys are now nearly 17 and and 20, and they're they're fairly self-sufficient. They don't really need us around. So actually, particularly in that leisure area, we go to see more bands, we go to see comedy, we go, we travel more, and it's I I th I I don't think we're alone. I think that lots of people are doing this, and we just overlook, and it's it's bonkers, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bonkers position to be in. I don't understand why you would cut off an eight-ish limit. No, yeah. I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00And and also the um in terms of like influencing or or amplification factors of of advertising communications, uh that you know, audiences uh you know, as as audiences get invariably the the amplification capabilities of the audience are much, much higher. Like I um like certain products, like my I remember my Nan would have a particular, like she might get a new whatever it might be, pro household product or something. She would tell every single person she had about how wonderful this product was. She was more valuable to you live than you know than whatever whatever marks you can make. Because the amplification is so, and then you build those positive that those brand affinities are you know intergenerational. I still use Wright's coal tar soap at home because my nano is used, my nan used. Yes, and it kind of passes. Is it the smell of it that takes you back to your Nancy? It takes it takes you back to the thing, and you can get and it's and it's a great, it's ATP. It's ATP a bar. That is that is quite interesting. But one of the things that I think that sometimes I overlooked, and I think this is in terms of like the idea that we hear about is a lot, it's like the idea of like shrinkflation.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Actually, in terms of like certain, I think that there should be kind of more work done real in relation to understanding the quality of brand affinity. And actually, for people who have a very strong affinity to the brand, they won't mind spending an extra 20 pence on that particular thing, but they would mind, you know, it's it's the idea of well, you know what, uh this this brand has served me well and I'll and I'll happily pay that premium. What they won't be happy about is where the product gets smaller and the price stays the same. And they go, well, it's the same price, but it's a smaller price.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and now I don't trust you quite as much as I thought I did. Hang on a minute.
SPEAKER_00What's going on like you know, and I and uh one of the things I always I always respect Coca-Cola for the fact that they haven't just gone for say Coke Zero or those other ones that could what that that that come in under lower kind of tax categorizations, they've carried on with that original product and it's a slight premium on it, understandably because of the the nature of the tax and things like that. But it makes it it's that you know, do you know our core offering is what people are is is you know means a lot to people and we we're not going to kind of mess about with that.
SPEAKER_02No, I agree.
SPEAKER_00Um so, in terms of other things that I'd like to just quickly cover off before we finish up, I mean it's been fantastic talking to you, Sarah, like it's really, really inspiring and inspirational stuff that you've been talking about.
SPEAKER_02Oh, don't stop it, Simon. Oh, yeah. Big head. Not at all.
SPEAKER_00Not at all. I mean, I one thing I wanted to um to just touch on because it's something that people often will talk about um as a kind of a key area where they they could do with a bit of help. And I think this is something that all people who are working in in uh within the insight uh profession or within planning strategy, etc., it seems to be a common thing where they'll say a client will come to us and they'll say, This is our customer, but we'll go and do all the research and say this is not your customer. But it's how do you have that difficult conversation where you can sort of say you know, your idea of your aspiration for what your customer is versus the reality of what your customer is, you know, there's a disconnect there. And actually, I guess encouraging within within that sort of client client um agency or client media owner relationship of saying, you know, we can do a huge amount with who your customer actually is rather than worrying about who you want your customer to be, you know, in terms of how what what would you be a key thing that you would take away, like yeah, uh it is a tricky one, right?
SPEAKER_02Because it and it also drives me bonkers because all customers are valuable and and it's kind of stop being snobbish about this. That they're brilliant, though your customers respect them and love them because they're the ones that are making you money. Um but I think we we would we would shy away from that your customer isn't like that, it's like this. It's a I think it's a case of going, okay, you want to make sure your heartland is here, but actually, if you want to grow into these areas, this is how we can help you grow into these areas. But that's you have to be careful, right? Because you need to work out what what the financial payback is of going after that customer they think they want.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And actually, sometimes you can prove that the customers they have got and finding more of those can actually be more profitable. Um, and actually, that again we come right back to that's where you need really robust research and samples because if you are sizing a market and sizing a segment and you haven't got robust data, you are gonna get the wrong numbers out of the back end. So I think that there's lots of stuff you can do. I think you have to respect the fact that you you might be going against what a client loves and do it softly and gently. And don't say what I said at the beginning, you're bonkers. Yeah. But I think it's I think also it's a case of going, your customers are brilliant. Look at them. They're great, they love you. They actually there are more of them, or we could try and move into these segments, and this is how we do it. So I think it's just putting positive spin on it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I guess it it also comes down to building that trusting relationship of where where you can where you know they'll believe that they'll believe in your capabilities and your expertise and getting and getting I guess a communication channel where you can be adjustable and and and you can uh kind of uh be responsive and also re not just uh you know proactive and reactive in terms of the the the difficulties that are going on. So just one last thing that I'd like to I'd like to ask you, and we're gonna be asking all of our guests this. You know, if there was one thing, Sarah, that you could change in the industry today, you know, for a for a for a for the future, what would that be?
SPEAKER_02I think we've touched on this quite a lot as we've gone through. I think it's the moving away from that dichotomy of it's this or this, it's brand or its performance, it's TV or it's social. I think we're far too black and white. And I think as as we saw in Making Sense, the world is really complicated now and and and quite fragmented. So let's work out how it's this and this, because we can we can do it all. It just takes a little bit of effort and thought and the right data and the right people analyzing it, and we can create brilliant, brilliant advertising campaigns, but they need to be diverse. I mean, I don't think anyone would would argue with the fact that having something that's diverse is stronger than having something that's that's one or two dimensional. So I think that it's a case of working out how things work together, how context works, it's thinking, it's understanding, it's and it's really putting the effort in. It's not easy, it's difficult. But I think once you start to move into that blended, interesting, layered, nuanced world of planning, rather. Than just you push a button, you get an answer at the back end, then I think the world becomes much more interesting and and advertising becomes much more effective. We know it does when you we know when you combine channels, you get multiplier effects because seeing something, hearing something, watching something with your family, watching something around, listening to it on your own, all of that adds up to the and it the it's greater than some of the parts. And and and blend and work out how they work together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean it's I guess it's evolution, not revolution, in terms of like we know that the that the fundamental uh not necessarily need states, but the the patterns of media consumption and the fragmentation of of those into you know a variety of different audio listening platforms, different viewing ways and things like that is not necessarily something we need to worry about. Because there was always that that kind of dichotomy of saying, well, well, how much is delivered traditionally and how much is delivered digitally? Oh, traditional is always in decline, but then it's like but there was never a thing of saying, well, actually the need state and the mindsets haven't changed, but it's just evolving in line with kind of tech revolution.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and we just need to understand that and and meet people where they are with the right creative, and and that needs a bit of understanding, but it will create better work and it will be more effective in terms of campaigns. It'll be harder to measure, which is another issue altogether, but I think that we we need to stop this pitting one thing against another thing and thinking because one thing is good, something else has to be bad. It's it yeah, it it's a crazy way to be, and I'd love to see much more work about. And and we're about to start a big program of work that is called Works With. Um so it's how does how do podcasts work with TV? How do pod it's not it's not about stealing money and stealing share, it's about working out how they work together.
SPEAKER_00It's it's that kind of thing, I guess, like you know, in in it as you mentioned, bands earlier, you know, you know, it's the sum of the parts is greater than the individual, uh than the in than what the individuals bring. And interestingly, I think just one final thing I want to sort of say on the um in regards to what you said, like I guess the dive the diversity of media plans, it kind of aligns with uh something that another big hero of mine, Deborah Meaden, always talks about, is she'll say something she'll say, well, how how much of your business is based around this this relationship that you have or this product that you have, and they'll go, 90%. And Deborah will kind of tap her fingers together and go, you know, that worries me. Because actually, if that 90% goes wrong, or if that single exclusivity agreement that you've got there falls apart, you haven't got a business. But actually, as time's gone on and the and the uh the media landscape has become fraught more fragmented, actually segmenting, but but uh allotting investment across more touch points, and I don't mean that in terms of touch points, IPA touch points, but I mean media contact touch points. It kind of gives you that ability to reduce the overall risk whilst also but not reducing overall risk in terms of like efficiency or just making things boring, but actually whilst also making things more exciting, because you can do innovative and weird and wonderful things in media that in the in the diversity of media offerings that enable you to do things that you couldn't do, things that you can do on mobile that you couldn't perhaps do in TV, things that you can do in cinema, you know, and and with four uh with four, is it four D cinema and those sorts of is there a 5D now? Probably is probably is like all of those sorts of things, but like those, you know, and and that's a pretty good example of how you can mer you can you can bring together things like other sensory emotions and how and other sensory effects.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and tweak your creative across all of them to to make sure you're got the right creative in the right context. It's brilliant. There's so much opportunity to kind of build a beautiful advertising campaign that that takes account of all the brilliance in media, and because every every channel is brilliant, right? Every channel is that it's a great idea. And they need to work together, and we can make them work together, but let's just stop the awe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's the industry is like an orchestra, if you will, and everybody's bringing that that thing. And then I guess the planners and the strategists, the instant, you know, they're the conductors and the composers of the thing, and it's uh you know a fantastic, a lot of responsibility, but it's a very, very exciting place to be in today. So, Sarah, I can't thank you enough for coming onto the onto the podcast today. It's been an absolutely fascinating talking to you.
SPEAKER_02I've loved it. Thank you for inviting me.
SPEAKER_00I really, really appreciate it. I know you've got lots of exciting things coming up, and we'll we can share some of the links to some of the work that you've mentioned uh throughout. So, all that remains to say is massive, massive thank you to you, Sarah, and we'll hope to see you again soon.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.