SLG Agency: The Importance of Positioning, Strategy & Bold Ideas in Construction Marketing
In this episode of The Build Up Podcast, host Dan Moore, Creative Director at dissident creative agency, sits down with Ryan Jones, Managing Director of SLG Agency, to explore the evolving landscape of marketing in the construction industry. With over 12 years of experience at SLG, Ryan shares how his background in PR has influenced his approach to brand strategy and client services, emphasising the importance of positioning and audience understanding.
Dan and Ryan dive into the value of research and data-driven strategies to inform creative decisions, the challenges of navigating client expectations, and the significance of brand guardianship. They also discuss the need for adapting to modern marketing practices in a traditionally conservative industry, while celebrating the potential for innovation and creativity in construction marketing. Together, they encourage listeners to embrace bold ideas and strive for excellence in their campaigns.
Ryan Jones' Socials
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanjonesslg/
SLG Agency Website
Dissident links
Transcript
So welcome to the Build Up. We're calling it the Build Up podcast,
Speaker:I think, unless we get any kind of copyright issues and stuff like that. I'm
Speaker:Dan, I'm the creative director at Disson. We're a social first creative agency. I've
Speaker:never actually done that either before in the podcast. I've never introduced who we are
Speaker:as a company. And
Speaker:I'm joined by Ryan Jones. who is the Managing
Speaker:Director of SLG Agency. And welcome,
Speaker:first of all. Thank you for having me. Thank you. You've come dressed
Speaker:This is colourful for me today. I'm really,
Speaker:really excited to have you. We had a great conversation. Thank
Speaker:God for LinkedIn because if I wasn't just randomly kind of researching
Speaker:other people in the industry and construction industry and marketers, I
Speaker:never found SLG. And then we had a conversation over
Speaker:LinkedIn and I had a quick call and we
Speaker:were both like a million miles an hour talking about the industry.
Speaker:I was really, really excited because when you a lot of time when you speak to
Speaker:marketers in brand, they're never as
Speaker:enthusiastic as we are. So I'm really, really excited to
Speaker:have you. But before we get into like today's topics and stuff,
Speaker:can you tell us a little bit about kind of who you are, your kind of backstory in
Speaker:Yeah, of course. I've been, LinkedIn, funnily enough, reminded me
Speaker:this week that I've been at SLG for 12 years now. Prior
Speaker:to that, I started my career off in PR. I worked across a
Speaker:pretty diverse mix of sectors from kind of sport, food and beverage, hotel
Speaker:and leisure, and loved it as a kind of a, as
Speaker:a means of learning to be on that many different sectors to hone your skills. I
Speaker:absolutely loved it. But just found as I was getting slightly more
Speaker:mature in my career that I wanted one area that I could genuinely
Speaker:experts, maybe a bit highfalutin, but, but one area that I could own and again, kind of
Speaker:sort of build a career behind. And just through, through
Speaker:happenstance, a colleague of mine was working on a social housing firm
Speaker:and then just needed some support. And then could I get involved in it? And I had some capacity and
Speaker:Yeah, it was genuinely life-changing. I mean, when I, when I think back to
Speaker:that, that kind of moment as a pebble in the water and then the way that that's kind of rippled out
Speaker:from there to where I am now and where my career is heading, it's a strange
Speaker:how these things happen. But yeah, the more I speak to
Speaker:people in construction, actually, the more that someone has that kind of that
Speaker:sliding doors moment of someone's referred them in, or someone's made the recommendation, or
Speaker:they've just happened to have taken a chance on something. And yeah, so
Speaker:that was that. I then came across SLG, obviously being in the
Speaker:Northwest helped, but really good reputation within the construction
Speaker:sector. So the agency started in 1980, so heading into our
Speaker:not far off. Yeah. I think one of the earliest clients was, um, was Marshall's paving. Um,
Speaker:so it's, they kind of helped them, um, develop the block paving market in the
Speaker:UK. And then just from there by reputation, by referral, it's just kind
Speaker:of grown and grown. And that is, that is very much our vertical now. So I guess construction,
Speaker:a lot of, um, you know, product manufacturers, I guess is, is a large
Speaker:part of the sector anyway. Uh, but yeah, construct, uh, construction and industrial, I
Speaker:would say probably where we, where we focus down and, um, And so, yeah,
Speaker:that's for me. I jumped across to SLG within the PR team, then moved
Speaker:into sort of client services more generally as I got more senior in
Speaker:my career and headed up that part of the offer. And yeah, for the last
Speaker:And you can, like, I think we're both
Speaker:roughly the same age, like it was, is that quite young for
Speaker:a managing director, do you think, of a large agency like that? Do you know many other people
Speaker:Increasingly so, which is, which is really nice actually. I kind
Speaker:of, you know, people like yourself, the more I used to, the idea of
Speaker:personal brand and the idea that really made me feel a bit icky and
Speaker:a bit cold, but the last couple of years kind of just appreciating that, you know, time to
Speaker:grow, you're leading this thing and therefore you have to do it. But really glad that I have, because
Speaker:you kind of meet your tribe on the way, I guess, as you go. So, But
Speaker:yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're building quite a nice network of kind of similar
Speaker:minded people that can like you and I can talk about this stuff for hours and
Speaker:really nerd out on this sort of stuff. But people of a similar age and similar life
Speaker:experience as well, which is a, it's really exciting. Actually, you kind
Speaker:of, you build a picture in your head of what you think, you know, an
Speaker:it's just normal people that are as passionate about this thing as uh as you are so absolutely
Speaker:i think you know i think there is still a little a little bit of a
Speaker:stereotype of the you know the construction in general being still
Speaker:a little bit old school um but it is shifting i
Speaker:think and and um and that's where you're starting to see the the
Speaker:um evolution of marketing especially and just in
Speaker:general and construction of brands getting more uh
Speaker:modern um it's it's through through the people that are coming in like the MDs are
Speaker:coming in and going right okay I've I've worked at all these other different sectors
Speaker:for certain and then I'm looking at this this brand I'm going you we're
Speaker:I think the thing you learn other than the people are learning the kind of lateral
Speaker:movement of people into sector I think is is absolutely accelerating that
Speaker:I think broader macro things, but I think, you know, to, you know, COVID
Speaker:as an accelerant for things like hybrid working, for example, just wouldn't have
Speaker:happened. You know, we are manufacturers or, you know, we have to be on site and
Speaker:that is correct in a lot of roles, but do those support roles
Speaker:have to be? Do the marketing team have to be? Would they be a better place doing this? So I
Speaker:think things like that have really, really improved things. Technology as an accelerant, I
Speaker:think is, is really pushing things on. And necessity. I mean, it's been such a
Speaker:tough couple of years for, for certain parts of, of, you know, the, the
Speaker:supply chain for myriad reasons that I
Speaker:think people are having to be inventive and are having to, you know, think about new ways.
Speaker:And, you know, one of the things that, that is true
Speaker:for all of us is that the rules apply. What makes good
Speaker:marketing is true in any sector. You have a choice
Speaker:whether you follow that or not. But there's implications for your business whether
Speaker:I think there was an argument that we don't need to. We're
Speaker:doing OK based on the relationships that we've already got from
Speaker:a brand's perspective. And our audience
Speaker:aren't on the things that you're trying to push
Speaker:Yeah. And risk aversion is always going to drive things to a certain degree. We
Speaker:can, I find myself doing it a lot. There was a, I think I
Speaker:heard a couple of years back that I've stolen and kind of co-opted about casino chips.
Speaker:You only get to cash them in so many times over your career when you care about something more
Speaker:than client does. So we can, we can tub-thump all we want about, you
Speaker:know, this piece of research says this, and you know, this is best practice. And at
Speaker:certain points, what is practical? If you're making that person's life more difficult because
Speaker:they now have to go and have a horrible conversation internally, you know,
Speaker:do we want to kind of pacify people and just do the easy thing, kind of like
Speaker:giving a toddler sweets? No, we don't. You kind of have to
Speaker:eat your greens before you get to the good stuff. But yeah, there
Speaker:has to be a trade-off and there has to be a certain point where it's like, okay, we just have to do the job now.
Speaker:So yeah, it's always an interesting balance. But I do find that people are,
Speaker:investing a lot more of their own time in understanding what that best practice looks like,
Speaker:whether it's, you know, through additional training or whether it's through kind of attending things again.
Speaker:technology accelerating things, but the ability now to attend, you know, seminars without
Speaker:having to leave the room. It's amazing. Yeah. We can see that in
Speaker:marketing a lot that people are acquiring new skills and are keen to be seen to
Speaker:You mentioned that it triggered me, um, you know, like taking
Speaker:the easy road and it's, and it's so tempting in construction because,
Speaker:uh, the, for, for creatives and marketers, the
Speaker:expectation is actually really low for a lot of brands that
Speaker:they just, they don't know what's achievable and what's available. And
Speaker:it would be so easy to just go, I'm going to have an
Speaker:easy life here. I'm going to just take them just one step further. And
Speaker:that would be enough for them. That would blow a lot of brands' minds
Speaker:and stuff like that. scope
Speaker:for growth in the industry as a whole is massive. And it's
Speaker:something that we try and push a lot in the agency is don't take the easy road.
Speaker:Like if there's an option to do something wild and interesting and it's going to
Speaker:make a huge difference, it might be tough, but let's give
Speaker:my natural instincts, it's confession time now, but my natural instincts is
Speaker:kind of to problem solve. It's always to kind of jump to the end, like if this is the thing, then
Speaker:you know, time served, it kind of tells me that this broadly speaking
Speaker:is going to be the thing. You might end up being right, but what I find particularly whether
Speaker:this is unique to construction or it's just something that I've noticed a lot, but it's less
Speaker:so about the marketing team and more who do they need to influence behind
Speaker:them? Because a lot of the time to jump to that creative thing, it's
Speaker:fine. You'll get people that will get excited and will support it. That's not to say that we
Speaker:are the only creative people and everyone else aren't interested in that sort of thing. They 100% are.
Speaker:But ultimately, when times are hard, what's the, what's the case for doing so? It's
Speaker:your point on, you know, if we're going to knock this on a couple of steps, how
Speaker:do we demonstrate that we've done that beyond gut feel? I've had my heart broken
Speaker:with it several times, but particularly in the PR days, you kind of rock up to
Speaker:a meeting with a load of coverage to drop on the table, kind of expecting to be carried around and
Speaker:tip a tape parade. And it's like, well, me what that's
Speaker:done. Show me the bottom line impact on that, show me materially how that's in." And they're
Speaker:correct, but it took me a long time to learn that. But
Speaker:they're absolutely right. Ultimately, we are in the business of
Speaker:helping their business to grow commercially. This isn't a
Speaker:sponsored art project. There has to be some sort of outcome to
Speaker:that. So Yeah, absolutely. We've been very good, I think, at becoming increasingly
Speaker:process driven and making sure that the fundamentals are right at the start of that. We
Speaker:will get to the fun stuff against that Eat Your Greens analogy again, but we're
Speaker:The sponsored art project analogy is absolutely perfect.
Speaker:Like, I can think of so many times early on in my career where
Speaker:I've just, you know, I've just been a creative. Like, marketing came
Speaker:quite late in my career, or my interest in marketing. I don't really class myself as
Speaker:a marketer, but I'm a nerd for it. uh
Speaker:and I remember like some of some of the earlier project stuff that we did with
Speaker:with our clients this is perhaps even before construction for us
Speaker:um I'm like this would be cool to do with no knowledge
Speaker:of whether that would be successful or whatever I was just like this is a cool project
Speaker:let's just give that a go and see see how it lands let's just drop a load of money on
Speaker:But we were talking about this before we started recording I think that's cool where you
Speaker:know the brand and the sector well enough and have that little bit of kind
Speaker:of sandbox money to go and have a little bit of a play and an experiment, because there will be
Speaker:some of that that will really, really work well. If you can learn the lessons from that
Speaker:and then bake that into strategy going forward. It's important to test. Absolutely
Speaker:This was way before that, though. This was just fun. Yeah. One-off
Speaker:project. I'm like, okay, let's do this. I've
Speaker:got no idea whether that's a good idea or not,
Speaker:but let's just give it a go. But that's what you do in early career, isn't it? You just
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I
Speaker:mean, we've heard a little bit
Speaker:about you, but I want to hear a little bit more about SLG because it's, I'm
Speaker:always impressed with agencies and marketers
Speaker:who are essentially, I always call them the top-down marketers. Like
Speaker:we're the guys that come in quite late on in the sort
Speaker:of planning and the goals and stuff. We're typically the
Speaker:guys that do all the implementation of like assets and creative
Speaker:and things like that. And we heavily rely on
Speaker:clever people telling us what to do. So
Speaker:I'm always in awe of the clever people and
Speaker:hearing all of the mad stuff that you guys do to get
Speaker:to the point where you're like, here's what we're going to do, you know. So can you
Speaker:tell us a little bit more about SLG, the kind of people that you work with and kind
Speaker:of like your sort of your most common sort of deliverables, like what you
Speaker:So that'll be the first thing. So keep that up. You look pretty clever as
Speaker:a company. No, thank you. As
Speaker:I said, we've been around for a good old while now, we're coming on 45 years. I
Speaker:think historically we'd have sold ourselves as a full service marketing agency, but
Speaker:I hate, that's just a personal aversion. Everyone has to try it once.
Speaker:So I would say we are multi-service, but that kind of top-down approach,
Speaker:I would say we have three main routes into the business. So
Speaker:those would be kind of brand strategy in a whole, which is probably something we'll
Speaker:touch on later, but in a wholesale sense, either repositioning piece
Speaker:or a rebrand piece or just a realignment job, which is something
Speaker:we do fairly often. That will then usually,
Speaker:you know, we'll be the people that nine times out of 10, we'll do the implementation off
Speaker:the back end of that. That would be then move on to kind of marketing strategy. How
Speaker:is that going to be seen in the world and how are we going to deliver on that? And
Speaker:then into what we call our creative effectiveness piece, which we're doing
Speaker:increasingly, which obviously creative development as far
Speaker:as kind of concept, also increasingly creative
Speaker:testing. And again, to that point of who are the influences internally
Speaker:that we need to come back with and making sure that we are being market oriented and customer
Speaker:centric with what we do, that this has been tested. Not so it becomes paint by
Speaker:numbers and, you know, this focus group has said, you know, we
Speaker:must do X and Y and Z, but just to get a feel for, are we in the, are we in the right
Speaker:spot? So those would be the kind of, when we engage with people, those are the
Speaker:three typical routes in, but then beneath that we have, as you'd expect, our
Speaker:kind of creative offer, art direction,
Speaker:copywriters, et cetera, that do a lot of the ideation work and
Speaker:then the implementation work, plus our PR on digital offer beyond that. So
Speaker:not quite full service. There's a lot that we are you know, we don't do, we would
Speaker:partner with other people on the sort of very specialist implementation stuff. But yeah,
Speaker:But other guys that could potentially, you know, like influence how,
Speaker:you know, how to go about those kind of the, even like the services that
Speaker:you guys don't offer, you need this, go and see these guys, or we'll
Speaker:bring this in as a project and we'll kind of like, we can bring up third parties
Speaker:We, I guess we term it brand guardianship more often
Speaker:than not, that what we don't want to do is kind of, do that consultancy piece
Speaker:and then, you know, off you go and enjoy yourself. We have a personal
Speaker:interest in making sure that the brand is. consistently replicated
Speaker:wherever it needs to live. And part of that is working with the right partners, is making sure
Speaker:that, you know, guidelines are adhered to and that, you know, there's not something
Speaker:happening. And one of the things that it used to be social media used
Speaker:to be the one that was just a tweet or it's just a whatever. That has
Speaker:to work within the context of our broader strategy. It's not
Speaker:that we can't test things and we can't have that fun, but let's understand why we're doing
Speaker:that, what we're learning from it. So yeah, we're not so controlling
Speaker:that this is all ours and we will do it. Cause again, service
Speaker:to the client and the quality of the work is the paramount thing. And if there is someone better
Speaker:placed for that particular thing, again, we'll have an
Speaker:interest. We'll manage the brief. We'll make sure that quality is upheld and
Speaker:But, um, you guys can speak the lingo, can't you? I think that that's the
Speaker:So you've got like a company that's got an
Speaker:MD, maybe they've got a marketing manager, but they, you know, they're busy and
Speaker:they don't know production. They don't know media and all that kind of
Speaker:thing. You've delivered them a strategy and a lot of documentation and
Speaker:stuff like that. And you go, right, what you need to do is get a load of assets. Good luck.
Speaker:And then so that company's then got to go and find a videographer, a photographer, a
Speaker:graphic designer, whatever, any service
Speaker:that you guys actually physically don't deliver. And go, hey, we need video. And
Speaker:we're like, cool, what do you need? Maybe this stuff. It
Speaker:needs to be kind of like a, first of all, great brief.
Speaker:It's a consistent messaging. And you can talk about
Speaker:the points that a creative will understand. Because we're
Speaker:looking for certain, certain aspects. We're looking for
Speaker:Yeah. Well, there's absolutely that. And there's also the accountability piece of,
Speaker:again, how do we loop this back to results? How
Speaker:do we demonstrate value for that? You know, if we're working on that broader,
Speaker:less of the brand strategy stuff, but more so on the marketing strategy where, you know,
Speaker:we know you need to achieve these things. We know this budget's available. and
Speaker:we'll have tested it with audience and grounded ourselves in market. So
Speaker:we know broadly what channel plans are going to look like. Then it becomes on
Speaker:the executional element of it. Again, how do we maintain quality? How
Speaker:do we make sure that brand is lived through and how do we make sure that there's some value for money on this? It
Speaker:doesn't mean cheap, but it means that if we are spending X, then we're
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah. And where I was, which
Speaker:is why I love working with marketers, and why very
Speaker:rarely do we work direct with founders or like managing directors of
Speaker:brands of the manufacturers is because they know how long
Speaker:it takes for stuff to work, they know how to
Speaker:get the best out of a particular thing and just to gauge expectations. If
Speaker:you make a piece of content for social media,
Speaker:It's such a tough, I don't know if you've come across the work of a guy called Thomas Barter previously.
Speaker:So he's done a lot of work with, I think it's the largest
Speaker:survey of CMOs and marketing directors globally and
Speaker:found that of all of the C-suite positions, that's the most endangered.
Speaker:The shortest time in role is chief marketing officer because
Speaker:what will typically happen is they'll be outlasted by the chief exec that hired
Speaker:them. And as soon as sales don't have that immediacy or don't do, again,
Speaker:it's that sort of expectations and agreements kind of a thing. If those aren't aligned,
Speaker:if we're not clear on it's going to take this long, if those expectations aren't
Speaker:managed. Unfortunately, CMO is normally the one that would
Speaker:get the bullet first when numbers don't start to do that. So, so
Speaker:yeah, that expectations management piece. And again, there's been
Speaker:a lot of, I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but quite a binary discussion about
Speaker:performance marketing versus brand strategy or brand,
Speaker:you need both of those things. So the most famous work on the subject is
Speaker:the long and the short of it for a reason. But people get so impassioned
Speaker:about one or the other that It's, yeah,
Speaker:And in the industry as well, I won't get too deep into this, but there will
Speaker:be people speaking on these kinds of things with absolutely no research. They're
Speaker:rehashing stuff that they've seen on a YouTube video or
Speaker:something that Seth Godin said, and they've not
Speaker:really thought about it too much. And one of the most important things when you're
Speaker:speaking about marketing is, first of all, the experience. and
Speaker:also just having the research to sort of back it up, which we'll go into in
Speaker:a minute, because I think research is something that a lot of
Speaker:brands and marketers don't utilise enough, and it's something that we certainly
Speaker:don't utilise enough. which is why we heavily rely on clever
Speaker:people to do that kind of stuff for us so they can tell us exactly what
Speaker:they need and we can then make that idea into something tangible.
Speaker:But in terms of like the marketing sort of landscape as
Speaker:a whole for construction, broad thoughts on that compared
Speaker:to the perhaps other sectors and stuff like that. Like what do you come across the most when
Speaker:That's really interesting though. I think improving at a rate of knots
Speaker:is my honest sort of assessment of it. I think again I'm 12 years
Speaker:wholesaling construction and the industry
Speaker:now isn't the one that I came into in terms of willingness to
Speaker:sort of look at best practice to kind of understand what things are. And I think
Speaker:that's especially impressive given just how tough things have been for the sector, particularly
Speaker:the last couple of years. But if you follow it right away back to
Speaker:kind of 2008, 2009, you've got the fallout of all of that stuff plus
Speaker:Brexit. I can't think of many other sectors that
Speaker:get hit quite as hard as construction when there is some sort of economic downturn. And
Speaker:it's just been this, it has been incredibly
Speaker:up and down with not too many ups. So I think there
Speaker:is a, an understandable temptation for brands and
Speaker:marketers by virtue of that to have to pull back and do the bare minimum. I
Speaker:think we've seen a big trend last couple of years for in-housing stuff,
Speaker:which anecdotally, but it feels like that's starting to be
Speaker:undone now. But I think even that was reasonably well-intentioned
Speaker:that if we can do this stuff and manage this here, then we will use
Speaker:our excess budget to do this stuff. So Yeah.
Speaker:I think that's starting to roll back a little bit now, but I think, um, are
Speaker:we on a par? I don't know. Um, I think,
Speaker:see, my thing is not to go too wild on the theory stuff. I can bore people with it for hours, but
Speaker:at a certain point that has to get into the practical, I think observing all
Speaker:the sectors, I'll be, I'm probably not qualified cause I'm not part of them, but just as an anecdotal
Speaker:observer of sort of the sectors. I've seen the debate around brand purpose,
Speaker:for example, in other markets where people have gone wild with that. And then all
Speaker:of the data suggests that that isn't that beneficial from a commercial point
Speaker:of view. I think we generally speaking are a bit more grounded
Speaker:and a bit more earthy perhaps than that. And that's probably to our, whether that's a
Speaker:deliberate thing or not, I don't know, but I would say that's probably to our benefit. I
Speaker:look at our peers actually, I look at kind of other agencies and kind of
Speaker:network with people. You'll come back to that point of meeting sort of similar MDs and
Speaker:there is a want to follow the best practice. There's a want to give the best guidance possible. I
Speaker:don't meet many people that I think are, again, remember when I started
Speaker:off in PR, there was a lot of negativity around sort of snake oil salesmen and
Speaker:non-manipulation of media and spin doctors and so on. do
Speaker:not get that vibe from people that I meet in our sector. I don't meet many people that are
Speaker:here for a quick book. Frankly, you'd probably find something else
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think you'd target construction specifically
Speaker:I suspect not. I suspect not. So generally, I think people understand
Speaker:the issues that the sector has more broadly away from marketing. Frustratingly,
Speaker:I guess, are the same issues that it's had for some time. But again,
Speaker:in like finding your tribe and sort of meeting like-minded people. I
Speaker:meet people that want to do something about that stuff, whether it is just produce better
Speaker:work, you know, people like yourself that ultimately want to. you
Speaker:know, yes, it's for your business and yes, it's for your clients, but there is a, there's
Speaker:kind of a halo effect for the industry at large, that the better work
Speaker:that we all collectively can do, it's better for everyone. I heard,
Speaker:I was terrified at the time, but I heard a Rory Sutherland interview where
Speaker:he was talking, funnily enough, about construction being one of the last sectors, perhaps, that
Speaker:the big network agencies need to look at in terms of where they can make an impact
Speaker:and generate profit. And at first, single bead of sweat, here they
Speaker:come. But actually, I welcome it. I think the more better practitioners
Speaker:that we've got in this space, the more better work the sector produces, then it
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Because you get success stories for
Speaker:brands. That means more brands, more work for marketers, more
Speaker:work for creatives, better for the economy in general. Completely.
Speaker:Perhaps a little bit more manufacturing in the UK, which would be cool. And
Speaker:yeah, it's one of those things. And it was like back in
Speaker:the day when it's funny isn't it
Speaker:thinking about 10 years ago when people were like are you concerned about the
Speaker:fact that camera phones are getting better
Speaker:and I'm like there's a lot of people being like yes and I'm like no no
Speaker:absolutely not and then but then also like making things
Speaker:like photography and video production more accessible I'm like is
Speaker:that a concern for you that like people are coming in that you know perhaps wouldn't have
Speaker:had the more traditional methods of education these kind of things I'm like um
Speaker:there's a part part of me is like yes i don't i'd rather not have to
Speaker:deal with it but also at the same time i know because everybody as
Speaker:soon as it gets competitive everybody wins and um
Speaker:it's only the the sort of people anyone anyone
Speaker:that's being lazy they're the ones that kind of get left behind you
Speaker:know i think if you're ready to fight and if you're ready to be passionate and
Speaker:and um and sort of raise the bar you're always going to come out
Speaker:I completely agree. And in that kind of commoditized market, where do you add value? Where
Speaker:can you add value? I think it's a really interesting challenge. Again, it's something that we've
Speaker:been through, is if you can't add value, why are we doing
Speaker:it? Does that not weaken our offer more broadly if we are seen to
Speaker:not be particularly great at this thing here? Absolutely. And I think that's true
Speaker:across the sector. But I think the marketing landscape seems to be getting
Speaker:better at that. If I look at the construction marketing awards
Speaker:and the league table there, there are a lot of, not quite single service
Speaker:agencies, but agencies that I would say have a particular skill in a particular area
Speaker:that are kind of making up that rather than just general marketing agencies.
Speaker:And I think, again, I think the agency landscape in the vertical is
Speaker:Definitely. Do you ever go to any other agency awards or
Speaker:Yeah, so we've been, CMAs is
Speaker:kind of, that's, that's where we, that said we've had,
Speaker:we've had work recognized by the drum, uh, campaign, uh,
Speaker:last couple of years. And we were the only, um, we
Speaker:were the only construction specialist agency. And by virtue of that, our clients were the only
Speaker:construction brands, but we were, it was brilliant actually. Um, Brett
Speaker:Landscape in particular to have those guys competing with the likes of Meta
Speaker:and Vodafone and Virgin and others to kind of see our names coming up in
Speaker:category was, was phenomenal. In fact, there was, um, it was
Speaker:last year actually, the drum live broadcast. So we all sat in the office, you
Speaker:know, watching the ceremony and watching this stuff come through and just, it's
Speaker:never a name in itself, just like fame for fame's sake, but the
Speaker:results on the work were incredible. The creative was really strong. So enter
Speaker:it, give it a chance, let's see how it goes. And to be there was really,
Speaker:really fulfilling. And I think, you know, for a lot of the guys, what
Speaker:are awards? They're a signifier, I guess. You know, they kind of signpost to other people. You
Speaker:care about this stuff and the standard of your work. But I think for
Speaker:a lot of our guys that the level of pride in being nominated and being seen there, we
Speaker:always talk about, you know, could we turn our hand to other sectors and
Speaker:could we handle a brief from here? I think the answer is yes, but it's choiceful. We
Speaker:don't want to, we want to specialize here, but yeah, it is quite nice for
Speaker:us and I guess the sector at large to see construction be
Speaker:Yeah, I think the reason why I asked that, and I'd be interested in
Speaker:your honest opinion on this, is when you go, when you're at these, the
Speaker:Drum Awards, which is like, you know, multi-industry awards, and
Speaker:then you go to the CMAs, What's
Speaker:your sort of view on the quality and the level of creativity and
Speaker:work in comparison to each other? The
Speaker:reason why I ask that is, I don't really do a lot of awards, and it's something I
Speaker:really want to push going forwards, and it's always just
Speaker:been a budget thing for us, is that I'm
Speaker:under the impression there's still quite a long way to go, and there's still a lot
Speaker:of room for creative to get more interesting.
Speaker:It's a tricky one, because I would, I'm going to do the boring thing now
Speaker:of kind of slightly manipulating the question a little bit more. I think when
Speaker:you look at it from an effectiveness point of view, I
Speaker:think we're, we're, we're on a par. Then there might be certain
Speaker:application bits, or again, that sandbox of they have bigger budgets
Speaker:and therefore can try certain things. When you actually look at,
Speaker:particularly where you get away from the craft and look at where the work has
Speaker:seen the light of day, because that's obviously, that's a biggie as well, how much of this has been done
Speaker:just for an award entry. But real world, this
Speaker:has had this impact. I think we're not far off. And I think there's
Speaker:a confidence thing in the sector more broadly, I think, of just, we
Speaker:are as good. Yeah, that's so cool to hear. From a recruitment point
Speaker:of view, let's be telling the graduating class this
Speaker:year that A, construction marketing is a thing, because how many of
Speaker:them, when they're looking at brands they want to work for or agencies they want to
Speaker:join... They don't think of brick manufacturers. I wouldn't have thought so. No.
Speaker:I don't have the data. They should do though. I don't have the data. I wouldn't have thought so. But
Speaker:yeah, I think we're only ever going to get there. I think the image of
Speaker:the sector, we'd be here for days, but I
Speaker:think the image of the sector is something that it's incumbent on all of us to
Speaker:do something about. And I think we don't have to we
Speaker:don't have to shape the narrative and we don't, the story is there. We just
Speaker:need to get more confident in, in telling it. So it's not be frivolous and
Speaker:you know, we, we, we don't need to win awards for the sake of winning awards, but
Speaker:yeah, where, where the work is good enough, I think it does all of us good to
Speaker:kind of be seen in those places and to, to stand tall. So, and I think to go back to your question, I
Speaker:really, really think we can. There might be some creative bits, as I say, know
Speaker:budget was much higher and therefore they got to do x and y and z but when you actually look at
Speaker:what's been achieved and impact had I would think we're not a million miles
Speaker:That's really interesting and and again it goes back to
Speaker:the fact that you know I came at that purely from a point of view of like what's what's
Speaker:had the most impact on me visually and creatively um when
Speaker:when observing like work and again I haven't really got a lot of experience in
Speaker:this because um I've not I've not had, certainly
Speaker:the CMAs and stuff, I'm like, we're not there yet, that's another year,
Speaker:let's figure some stuff out. But I
Speaker:don't go to any other kind of awards. So I'm all, you know, when people have
Speaker:been like the CMAs, and then they go to like, you know, other awards
Speaker:that are like multi discipline, multi industry, And I'd be interested to
Speaker:see like, you know, again, from my own personal view, like how do they compare
Speaker:in terms of the quality of work and things like that. I've never even factored budget
Speaker:into it, of course. There are some great budgets knocking about in construction, but
Speaker:And so my thing is, or maybe this is the PR background, but when I
Speaker:look at Cannes Lions and the things that have won there, the
Speaker:case studies that really, really stick out to me over the years. they're
Speaker:the ones where you kick yourself going, how
Speaker:has no one thought of that? And they're not necessarily someone had
Speaker:the money for this, this TV spot or this, you know, big experiential piece.
Speaker:Just some really, there was one for WaterAid where, obviously you
Speaker:know, water aid do, they provide wells in Africa. One of the things that
Speaker:they have at their disposal isn't budget, but they do have entries for
Speaker:things like marathons and so on as a charitable thing. So they had a
Speaker:woman from Africa that walks 26 miles a day to get her
Speaker:water, walk the Paris marathon with her water jug on
Speaker:her head and sponsor me. how has no one thought of
Speaker:that to that point, that there is that kind of lateral thinking of 26 miles for
Speaker:water to 26 miles marathon distance. And that's what I love. And
Speaker:I think that doesn't require a big budget that requires knowing
Speaker:your brand well enough, knowing your customer and your audience well enough.
Speaker:And then being able to someone, I can't remember who it was to
Speaker:credit them, but I heard the phrase that creativity is being able to see around corners.
Speaker:And it's just that little nugget of insight that
Speaker:I love to be in that meeting. Yeah. That penny drops. Yeah. So cool.
Speaker:You know, when you just like, you're in with your team and there's a whiteboard
Speaker:I bet it's not. That's a snap awake 3am iPhone note.
Speaker:That's really, I mean, it's good to hear your views on the landscape of
Speaker:construction, especially from the point of view of social media,
Speaker:which is kind of our area. We, you know, the brands
Speaker:that we look at, we see huge opportunities that
Speaker:aren't being picked up when it comes to marketing. and
Speaker:brand positioning and that was something that we discussed like
Speaker:our fair like positioning is it's kind of like our thing to
Speaker:some extent when we when it completely by accident what's what's happened
Speaker:when we've worked with some of the bigger brands is they've
Speaker:come to us and they're like We don't like how we look at
Speaker:the moment, uh, purely from a visual point of view and also how we're communicating with
Speaker:our audience. And, uh, a lot of the time we're sort of, uh,
Speaker:we're working with brands who are potentially like, um, international,
Speaker:so like German typically or Swiss. Um, and so they've got
Speaker:the, the, the sort of head office content and, um, brand
Speaker:strategy and stuff like that, but it's very much tailored to a German market,
Speaker:which is very different to the UK. So when
Speaker:those assets typically don't work as well over here, because you're just
Speaker:very obviously foreign, and they're not relatable as much. Some
Speaker:brands do okay, but most of the time it's just a bit off. So
Speaker:we're working with these brands to create visuals that
Speaker:help position them in a particular viewpoint
Speaker:to their audience and their target market and things like
Speaker:that. But it's something that you and I both really geeked out about
Speaker:on the call previously. So can you talk us through
Speaker:how important positioning is and how often that comes up in
Speaker:It's massive and frequently. I think the thing you said
Speaker:there on sort of audience is the absolute crucial thing.
Speaker:Like pulling it back to social media, when I first came into the
Speaker:construction sector proper, there was kind of a feeling of, you
Speaker:know, it was still not quite in its infancy, but it hadn't matured certainly
Speaker:to the extent that it is now. There was a feeling of, you know, we need
Speaker:to be there. Well, why? Just because we do. And
Speaker:it always started with the brand themselves or competitor,
Speaker:typically, you know, we've seen the competitor X or Y is there. to
Speaker:me, never felt like a good enough reason to invest in something or to do
Speaker:something. And it missed out that keyword that you've
Speaker:said there on audience. Well, what do they want from us? What are they doing
Speaker:in this space? Do we have a reason and a right to be invading people
Speaker:within this space with our brand messaging? So
Speaker:for us, I mentioned it earlier, there's typically three ways into engaging with
Speaker:the business, but they will all start with positioning. Either
Speaker:we will help you define that or you will have defined that yourself and sort of make
Speaker:that part of the mix. But I think it's, it's
Speaker:one of those things, a little challenge for you. next time you're motorway
Speaker:driving and you're stuck behind people, just watch how many vans or vehicles
Speaker:have livery of the experts in or the leaders in. It's
Speaker:a real ick of mine. It's a real aversion that I've got. And again, back to the PR
Speaker:days of every press release starting with, it was that as a subordinate clause
Speaker:and I really, really hate it. So that's a big thing. Cause I think a
Speaker:lot of it, it's, it feels very insular, very inward looking, very
Speaker:selfish. I think it's, it's often very highfalutin. you
Speaker:need to focus on customer. You need to start with what the market, you
Speaker:know, needs and expects from your business and then find a way to service that and have
Speaker:Really, really cool. And so, and you're
Speaker:right, like positioning is typically, it's not the first thing that
Speaker:you need to be thinking about. Anytime you think about marketing, it
Speaker:always goes back to who we position this for, how is the brand positioned in
Speaker:the eyes of the target market. It's
Speaker:absolutely massive. How do you guys go about speaking
Speaker:to brands about positioning? Like, because we've touched on like the importance
Speaker:Yeah, massively. So we had, we've been good at over the last couple
Speaker:of years is, is taking more stock of the way that we're, we're
Speaker:doing things. So we, we're very sort of productized. I
Speaker:sound like we're horrible people here and you will work this way, but just, we, we've just
Speaker:found that this is, it's not reinventing the wheel, but
Speaker:there's a very linear process and a very set way of working,
Speaker:but it always starts with, with grounding yourself in market. We've
Speaker:got, as a tool that we launched a little while back, just the
Speaker:thing that kept coming up anecdotally was lack of research and
Speaker:lack of brand tracking and lack of I think, again,
Speaker:pressures have been so high and people wanting a return on marketing investment that everything's
Speaker:been focused on more. More stuff, more kind
Speaker:of, I guess, forgetting all of what marketing is meant to
Speaker:be and kind of focusing on the promotions and the thing that if we're not talking to
Speaker:market, then we're not doing marketing. But then forgetting positioning, forgetting
Speaker:pricing, forgetting all of the other stuff that we need to be doing behind the scenes. So
Speaker:that's always starting point. And again, that's not to say you must commission us to do
Speaker:research projects, if you have that and you know audience and you're already tracking that
Speaker:stuff. great, just give us the information, let's try and work through it. But what
Speaker:we're finding increasingly is that that's not the case or it's
Speaker:patchy. So what we'll always do is kind of start with, and
Speaker:it could be as simple as a
Speaker:piece of market orientation, just to go and just Go
Speaker:and speak to your customers. Go and observe people. You know, if you're selling through
Speaker:that merchant channel, you know, to just go and observe people, how
Speaker:do they actually, because again, there's that famous Ogilvy phrase about, you know, people
Speaker:don't think what they feel and so on. What do they actually do when they're
Speaker:in that space? How do they interact with your brand without you kind of influencing what
Speaker:they do and making them too conscious about what they're doing? It can be as base as that. It
Speaker:could be NPS. It could be brand health trackers. Just
Speaker:go and speak to your customers and understand what they think about you, what they think about
Speaker:the market, ask them some prompted and unprompted questions about the category. Let's
Speaker:see who and what they recall. Because sometimes a lot
Speaker:of the time, if you've been doing this long enough and your brand has been in market long
Speaker:enough, it should just give you a little bit more confidence
Speaker:and a bit more validation of what you assume to be right anyway. Going back to
Speaker:what we were saying earlier on, gut feel being a useful thing. It
Speaker:just validates some of that and gives you something that you can work with. But
Speaker:in some cases they'll, again, that was little, little
Speaker:slivers of gold that you wouldn't have got otherwise had you not gone and
Speaker:asked. And I get, you know, the classic
Speaker:three Cs, you know, customer, competition and company, like, yes, there will
Speaker:be elements of commercially we are doing this and therefore you're going to have to shape your
Speaker:positioning in this way. but orienting, orienting
Speaker:that to, um, to your audience and understanding how that might fit and
Speaker:historically where we've been and how we can make that part of our broader story. So it feels, um,
Speaker:complimentary rather than jarring. It's massive, but it has to
Speaker:start with customer. I think, I think sometimes either out
Speaker:of panic because you know, we, we
Speaker:need sales and we need to do this thing or giddiness out the size of
Speaker:this particular opportunity. We sometimes, I think, are guilty of forgetting
Speaker:the most important audience in there. And it can feel,
Speaker:again, my budgets are tight. I need to be doing all of this exciting stuff with
Speaker:it. It's not the most exciting thing in the world to say, I'm going to commit to
Speaker:this research, but I think it's crucial. And I think that's a big thing for marketers as
Speaker:well, is not to feel cowed or intimidated by
Speaker:that. Like, oh, we should know the brand well enough. Or what's the client going to think if
Speaker:we tell them that they need to do this? I would put our expertise
Speaker:in the construction sector up against any other marketing agency within our vertical. we're
Speaker:still not so arrogant to think that you just sit down with us and we'll diagnose you
Speaker:straight away. If you went to see a doctor without giving them any symptoms or
Speaker:any kind of information, they just went, this is the problem. You, you would question that. You
Speaker:would go somewhere else. Um, it's exactly the same thing. So yeah, I
Speaker:would, I would say always, always, it starts with, with better understanding your
Speaker:And then when you do the research on the audience or, you know, like
Speaker:the current sort of customer base, and
Speaker:you're looking to figure out positioning, is it the
Speaker:audience that manipulates the positioning? Or is it often the case that
Speaker:we're looking to either reposition and therefore we need to
Speaker:change the audience's perspective? Are these separate
Speaker:No, I think they come into play, but it's a combination of all. I mean, these
Speaker:things are always unique depending on the sort of position that the brand currently
Speaker:finds itself in. But I think it's almost not
Speaker:so much, you don't want too much data, but it's that kind of, well,
Speaker:we use a model that's very sort of converging and then diverging. We
Speaker:want to go as, as broad as possible to understand the context as
Speaker:well as possible. Always within those three C's, but then ultimately distill
Speaker:this down to its most simple, simple point that
Speaker:we can do. I think, again, as, as, as
Speaker:Mark said, I think particularly agents on the agencies on the consultancy side of
Speaker:things in an attempt to justify fee for that kind of work. more
Speaker:models, more stuff, more things. And it becomes so complex that
Speaker:it's a lovely presentation, but then how useful is that at the end of it?
Speaker:And I think if you're doing your job properly, it's
Speaker:about, you know, even for people like yourselves, you know, this is the one
Speaker:line thing I want people to recall about that brand. Again, for all
Speaker:of our different models and so on, you know, realistically, how
Speaker:many things are your audience going to retain about you within category?
Speaker:And we've got clients that sell into the
Speaker:specification side of things. If they're selling into an architect that's responsible for
Speaker:commercial projects, if you say a hospital, that architect, we
Speaker:know with the, with the people that they work with might be responsible for hundreds of
Speaker:different products decisions. How much time are they
Speaker:going to spend thinking about your category, the brands within that category, the
Speaker:different product SKUs that each of those brands. it's not many. And
Speaker:most of us, again, that'd be another challenge for you is that, you know, as you go about
Speaker:your week, how many purchasing decisions in your personal and professional life do
Speaker:you make on instinct or without that level of kind of cognitive
Speaker:load to really consider this decision? Price point might be a
Speaker:factor, you know, perceived risk might be a factor, but generally speaking, we're
Speaker:looking for codes, we're looking for familiarity and that's what you're there to
Speaker:do. And it feels counterintuitive because we're going to invest all
Speaker:of this time to do this complex thing with a goal to make it as simple as
Speaker:possible at the end of it. But that is absolutely what you need to be
Speaker:100%. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to spend money on your particular product.
Speaker:But I find the
Speaker:concept of a brand doing this research, thinking
Speaker:that they're one thing, And that's where they need to be. And that's
Speaker:where they need to be aiming for. Finding out the research from
Speaker:their audience and their customer base is actually that they perceive them
Speaker:differently. And what, you know, in what situation you go, well,
Speaker:actually, we don't want to be here, we want to be over here. So what do we do
Speaker:at that point? Do we reposition? Or do we just focus on
Speaker:these guys that are already buying the products? And do we accept the fact that that's not
Speaker:Um, well, I think the biggie with that is, um, I don't know
Speaker:if you've read any of the, the sort of work out of the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, I mean, how brands
Speaker:grow is kind of like the most favorite famous piece of work out of there. A
Speaker:lot of the research that they've done there, the advice would be markets a
Speaker:whole of category. Um, that brand love and
Speaker:brand loyalty and love marks, you know, with respect to anyone that enjoys that
Speaker:stuff. doesn't really exist all that often. There aren't many brands
Speaker:that, that will just get complete blind loyalty from people. You
Speaker:know, if you think of most, again, most categories that you will purchase, you'll
Speaker:have what they describe as a repertoire of brands within that particular category. If
Speaker:you, and if you're a beer drinker, but you know, you walk into a pub, there
Speaker:might be a particular brand of lager that you like, but if you're with friends and you're having
Speaker:a good time, if they don't happen to have that one, you'll pick another
Speaker:rather than say, right, we are leaving. It doesn't happen
Speaker:all that often. Um, and it'll be the same, you know, when you think about, you know, a contractor
Speaker:audience, for example, we're talking about similar kind of client types earlier, they
Speaker:might have a brand they prefer. And given the option, I would always pick brand
Speaker:X, but they're not going to lose a sale because they are so indignant that
Speaker:they will only work with this is path of least resistance a lot of the time,
Speaker:as long as it's an appropriate alternative. Um, so, so
Speaker:yeah, so consequently I think, you know, trying to cut the market too much
Speaker:to say that we will only sell to these people or this is our audience type becomes
Speaker:a dangerous game after a bit. I think there are, there are things you can do
Speaker:within brand development to give a feel for, you
Speaker:know, price point, um, or for quality or the,
Speaker:you know, little, little clues and little indicators that might make people
Speaker:think about where you live relative to other brands. Again, one of those three C's
Speaker:is understanding where you sit currently relative to
Speaker:competition and where you'd like to sit relative to competition. So there
Speaker:are things you can do once you've established that, but you also got to bear in mind that
Speaker:the commercial element has to come in as well. This isn't just an
Speaker:academic exercise that from just the marketers are having fun and we're going
Speaker:to decide this is where's the most commercial advantageous place for us to play. But
Speaker:again, I will say going back to that point on the things the sector does well,
Speaker:And the sector does those last, the last two seasons in terms of company
Speaker:and competition. I see that done well a lot, but there's sometimes
Speaker:that, that customer centricity pieces is missing. So it's not,
Speaker:it's not letting the customers kind of dictate direction in that respect, but
Speaker:it is understanding how your brand can be seen as meaningfully different to
Speaker:competition in the eyes of customer and making sure that I think that
Speaker:the bigger thing is making sure that you're tracking that in the medium term. Go back
Speaker:to the earlier part of this conversation, these things don't change overnight. So
Speaker:we need to understand what the commercial impact of that change is going to be. And
Speaker:then we need to commit to tracking that over a period. You know, we talk about it
Speaker:from a campaign point of view, but I think positioning, if you get your positioning right, leave
Speaker:it alone. Because that's the other thing that we as marketers tend to do is that we'll
Speaker:over-engineer or we'll get bored of it before the market's even got used to
Speaker:what we're trying to communicate. You know, we talk about it with clients that, you know, a good
Speaker:brand campaign, you'll forget your positioning, but a campaign should live in market for
Speaker:a decade if you can. If
Speaker:you've gotten that right, just leave it alone, invest in
Speaker:it. But in terms of tweaking the creative, all that needs to change. leave
Speaker:it alone. Leave it alone and let it do its thing. You know, you can do your
Speaker:products and service lines beneath that and kind of support that
Speaker:as long as they're consistent and as long as they sort of tie in within brand. But yeah,
Speaker:with brand positioning, if you get it right once, you never need to
Speaker:It's so refreshing to hear stuff like that because, you know, most
Speaker:of the stuff that we're working on so fast paced, we're doing it, we're doing a month
Speaker:at a time campaigns, you know, for a lot of our clients. We're
Speaker:revisiting them a lot of the time. And
Speaker:again, we're very much driven by marketing managers, because we're essentially
Speaker:just the guys that create the stuff. But we'll do a
Speaker:campaign on a particular product. OK, next month we're doing this product and stuff. That would be so nice
Speaker:to be able to just go, right, six months, a year, one
Speaker:campaign. We'll be doing multiple campaigns at the same time, but with different brands
Speaker:and things like that. But essentially, just like, let's continue on this thread.
Speaker:But in fairness, the stuff that you guys do is essential to that. You're going back again,
Speaker:referencing back to what we were talking earlier, the long and the short of it. You
Speaker:need both of those things. They're the kind of, the brand positioning that we're talking about,
Speaker:that's your long-term conditioning and that still needs investment and
Speaker:that needs reinforcement, but you still need the short. You still need
Speaker:those conversion pieces. You know, we're here, we have this particular thing.
Speaker:Oh, you have the famous figure from the Field and
Speaker:Burnett work was 60-40, you know, brand investment versus sales
Speaker:activation or performance marketing as they term it. the best
Speaker:brands will have both of those things going. Again, get your positioning
Speaker:right and set. You can almost leave that alone to do its thing and then invest
Speaker:I love this. We're in danger of getting too
Speaker:deep in the weeds, especially for like founders and influencers
Speaker:and stuff that perhaps aren't that learned on marketing
Speaker:activation and stuff like that. But to summarize, positioning's
Speaker:crucial. And to get positioning right, you need research. So
Speaker:research should come first. But that can, of course, lead to
Speaker:lots of other areas of brand and
Speaker:marketing. But positioning is crucial. And yeah,
Speaker:like I say, one of our favorite things is repositioning. So finding out that a
Speaker:brand used to do this, and it used to look like this, and it used to sound
Speaker:like this. And now we're going in this direction. And the reason why
Speaker:we want to do that is because we want to appeal more to a particular
Speaker:area of customer base. We want to be seen as more sort
Speaker:of in the community as opposed to just supplying it.
Speaker:All these kinds of interesting things. And then from a creative point of
Speaker:view, we go, yes, we can do this. Okay. Thought leadership pieces,
Speaker:interesting documentaries, you know, all of a sudden the artist comes out,
Speaker:we can do some really, really creative stuff. But you
Speaker:guys have got a really cool tool that can kind of help start this
Speaker:Okay. Yeah. So it's just basically, it's a very quick sort
Speaker:of 12 question assessment. I think the average time to complete is about two minutes.
Speaker:So it's not an academic exercise. You won't be there for hours, but
Speaker:just to, even if you do this stuff, just as a little bit of a refresher of
Speaker:the things that you've got available to you as a starting point on brand. And
Speaker:so, you know, how do we track our brand currently? You know, do we understand our
Speaker:customers? Do we have something of a pen profile drawn out? Do we understand our own
Speaker:positioning? You know, could my, I think one of the questions is about internal audiences, you
Speaker:know, could my colleagues sum up, you know, our positioning statement in, in
Speaker:one line. But then, you know, the conversation that we
Speaker:had earlier, you know, do we regularly get asked to contribute thought
Speaker:leadership pieces to trade media? Do we regularly get recognized at awards, et
Speaker:cetera? So it's kind of the internal to the external, the sort of
Speaker:micro to the macro. But just to give a really quick snapshot of, have
Speaker:we got the fundamentals in place? And we've been using it, you
Speaker:know, where we've been engaged with people. That'll be the first thing is just like, invest two
Speaker:minutes of your time into that. We will understand what's available to us. And then, you know,
Speaker:to your point earlier, you know, do we need to commission research or is it that you guys are
Speaker:It's such an amazing tool. And perfect
Speaker:for that initial sort of broad diagnosis of just like okay you
Speaker:feel like you've got these kind of areas set um that sounds good
Speaker:there's a couple of key areas here that you feel like you're not um familiar
Speaker:with and and that aren't being tracked don't don't worry most people
Speaker:aren't doing this exactly that you know there's and there'll be situations where I
Speaker:bet you I could go to my team of with a team of five and
Speaker:um if I asked each of those individual if you asked those individually what
Speaker:we do they would have completely different answers. I
Speaker:have a different answer every time I um you know sort of
Speaker:get asked this yeah um and that's that's cool because if
Speaker:your team you know you can have the the broad strokes of kind of
Speaker:like what you do but your actual positioning statement is
Speaker:crucial, right? And it's one of those things that even marketers
Speaker:No, it's completely that. And some of the findings from it to this point
Speaker:have been really, really interesting. Again, that lack of grounding
Speaker:in market and an understanding audience. When you ask questions about research available,
Speaker:I find it really interesting that it was like something north of
Speaker:80% of respondents to this point believe they have a
Speaker:clear brand positioning. And we're not testing them where it's like, well, submit your positioning here
Speaker:and we'll judge it. It's just self-declared. 80% have
Speaker:a defined sort of position that they believe. But then when you ask them about,
Speaker:you know, audience profiling and sort of specific groups that they speak to, and
Speaker:I know slight irony in that I said, you need to market whole of category, but
Speaker:understanding your core, fairly fundamental or understanding what that category
Speaker:looks like is fairly fundamental. that number, absolutely. It
Speaker:goes off a cliff. So again, that's the reason that I say, I think that as
Speaker:Marcus is in the sector, the data that we have kind of says that that market
Speaker:orientation piece is probably where we're a little bit weak at the minute. But
Speaker:again, looking at some of the answers there, people are starting to get the fundamentals right.
Speaker:I think that the final piece, once that market orientation you
Speaker:know, the corner starts to turn on that. It's not a difficult thing to get right. And
Speaker:there's economies of scale to how you'd approach it. The final piece
Speaker:will be that medium term tracking and having brand as
Speaker:part of that, not just here's how our campaigns performed, or here's how this piece of
Speaker:content performed, but step back, look at the bigger picture. This
Speaker:is the impact that that's had. But yeah, the starting point
Speaker:to all of this is having the data in the first place to understand
Speaker:exciting it would be like for a brand to be like right okay like
Speaker:we've never, we've had a good go, we've got some budget, we've got some
Speaker:success, now we'll do all these kind of exercises,
Speaker:we'll figure out our positioning, we'll get loads of research, get loads
Speaker:of data and then you go look at all this ammunition we can use to just
Speaker:fire out amazing campaigns. Completely that. Because a lot of the time
Speaker:you know we're all guilty of like in some
Speaker:of the work that we do, guessing. Best guess. And
Speaker:go, well, that kind of worked. That didn't work. And obviously,
Speaker:testing is important. But if you've got the data to go,
Speaker:And listen, we want to keep the fun element. We want to keep the creativity. I think it's about guardrails.
Speaker:They're important. Because again, I have the thing with SLG where
Speaker:in briefing work internally and developing our stuff, even like the tour, I'm
Speaker:the world's worst client. The kind of things that we're talking about now
Speaker:in terms of following best practice, I don't do that. My briefs are just
Speaker:really not well written. I will, I will circumvent process. I'll cut corners, um,
Speaker:based on gut feel or based on immediate needs. So I'm a massive, massive hypocrite when
Speaker:it comes to this stuff. Um, so yeah, so this isn't about getting rid of that, that creative element.
Speaker:It's about making that as effective as possible. and making the argument for
Speaker:this stuff as compelling as possible internally. One of the sort of
Speaker:favorite phrases that a former client of mine used to talk about a lot was marketing
Speaker:being the coloring in department and not being taken seriously within
Speaker:the walls of their business. And that was part of the challenge for us was that, you
Speaker:know, without blinding people with zeros and ones, like how do we, and because that's
Speaker:the other challenge is how do you make that data worthwhile and relatable to
Speaker:people internally. How do you make that matter to their day to day? And yeah,
Speaker:it was to the benefit of marketing to be able to show
Speaker:that as a grown up function within the business and to have that better integrated with
Speaker:other business functions and understand that everyone's on the same team here.
Speaker:I think to your point about the fact that you don't want to be hampering creativity
Speaker:by having these kind of set rules and guardrails, but I think every creative,
Speaker:like not every creative, most creatives are terrified of
Speaker:a white piece of paper. Unless you're, maybe the designers are a
Speaker:bit different. Like from a point of view of like a production company
Speaker:and image makers and anyone working on
Speaker:campaigns and stuff, I'm like, give me restrictions because otherwise I can go wild.
Speaker:Completely. And I can get like decision fatigue. But if you give me a strict
Speaker:set of guidelines, and I've always worked well with these kinds of things of just like, OK,
Speaker:it's for these people. Great. That means I don't have to make too many
Speaker:decisions on the kinds of people I need in the frame. Who it's for. Like,
Speaker:OK, we've got like age groups. And like, you know, what do they sound like? What do
Speaker:they look like? Where are they? Um, where do they
Speaker:live? Where are they positioned? And all these kinds of things. I'm just like, okay, that makes my
Speaker:life so much easier. So I can focus on other creative elements rather than just like
Speaker:the whole, the whole thing. Um, and it, so you can have this, like,
Speaker:you know, not only have you got, um, a great opportunity to, to
Speaker:be creative, like in, in elements that you've got freedom in,
Speaker:in certain elements of a, of a production, but other things are kind of
Speaker:set, which, which makes your life a bit easier. but you know it's going to
Speaker:Well, there's that. I think the other, because all of that is absolutely true. The other
Speaker:side of that is removing subjectivity as much as possible. You're
Speaker:never going to wholesale. There will be personal bias brought to it and personal taste
Speaker:and so on. But if the brand, you know, it's from
Speaker:positioning through to everything else says that this is appropriate, I
Speaker:don't need you to be in love with it. I don't need you to personally tell me your
Speaker:opinion on it. What we need to, again, that, that market orientation, but we, is
Speaker:this right for the audience that we are trying to speak to? Is it appropriate for the broader brand
Speaker:story that we're trying to tell? And is it going to help us achieve what our overarching comms
Speaker:aims are? And if you can tick those boxes, it just removes some of that, um,
Speaker:I don't like, again, it's one of the things that we find is like, you know, do you take
Speaker:things like SCAMP conceptual level, AI now is helping
Speaker:us get much quicker to, you know, not finished article, but being able to
Speaker:sort of ideate much faster and much more accurately. Does
Speaker:that then scare people because that looks like the finished thing and do people struggle then to think conceptually?
Speaker:So it's something we're wrestling with, but, but yeah, that's, that's a big part of
Speaker:all of this is that, and again, I have it a lot with SLG's own work is that
Speaker:this isn't the Ryan Jones show and this isn't about what my personal taste is, it's
Speaker:what is appropriate for what we're trying to do with that business and that brand. So
Speaker:What was the tool, the truth score? And
Speaker:people can just find that out and is it like, is that something they can get that for
Speaker:Yeah, they absolutely can. If you, the easiest way is our website is
Speaker:slg.agency. As soon as you jump on there, you will be accosted
Speaker:Oh, amazing. If not, I'll do the typical podcast thing and say it's in
Speaker:the show notes. Yeah. Link in the show notes, whatever show notes are. That's
Speaker:really cool. We've talked about, so we talked about positioning, we talked about research
Speaker:and the importance of
Speaker:that. We talked before the
Speaker:podcast about, I don't want to go too deep into this, but
Speaker:I think it's important conversation to have about the
Speaker:brand issue with the construction industry as a whole. We
Speaker:kind of talked about, and you sort of blew my mind a little bit into like, because I,
Speaker:you know, we're all guilty of like thinking that
Speaker:when you think about construction, you think about a tradesperson. And
Speaker:that's part of the problem with the brand issue. But
Speaker:what's your thoughts on that? Because we were talking about the fact that, you know, it's not sexy
Speaker:Yeah. It's phenomenally misunderstood. I
Speaker:think, well, there was a famous piece, and not to go too far down into
Speaker:it, but, um, the farmer report. I don't know if you've come across that, but that's 10 years old
Speaker:next year, year after. Um, so that was Mark Farmer kind of did a
Speaker:review, um, requested by the government on the state of the construction sector
Speaker:across the piece, number of recommendations, but, but interestingly, one
Speaker:of them was the, the sector's image, um, and its impacts then
Speaker:on recruitment, its impacts on, on your talent pool, not just from a numbers
Speaker:point of view, but the types of talent we're able to recruit. Um, and
Speaker:it's, it's just not an improving picture. If you look at, you know, the CITBs data,
Speaker:the numbers that we're chasing of new entrants into market just does not move year
Speaker:on year. It's been again, compounded by things like, um, the Brexit vote
Speaker:has meant we've lost a lot of talent, you know, people going back to, to Europe to apply
Speaker:their trade over there. We've had a lot of retiring, um, sort of aging
Speaker:workforce, aging population, and that's now catching up with us. it's
Speaker:pretty scary to look at it. And it was something that I kept seeing in trade press
Speaker:and couldn't get my head into. And then I attended, it was construction week a
Speaker:couple of years back and listened to a debate. It's the thing you were asking earlier on
Speaker:how I got into the sector. pretty much seemingly everyone else
Speaker:seems to have fallen by accident. Yeah. It's circumstance, it's accident. Um,
Speaker:so, so that was fascinating, but then to also hear the image of the sector reframed as
Speaker:a brand issue appropriately enough that if we can crack that,
Speaker:that goes a long way towards solving all of these other problems. So, so in fact, what
Speaker:we did was, was we took that back and we've created, um, a not-for-profit called deconstruction
Speaker:to do exactly that. We're trying to work with as many people across
Speaker:the sector as possible to sort of share the load, basically. I
Speaker:think, again, there's a lot of parallels to be drawn here, but that
Speaker:customer orientation point, I appreciate the irony given what we're doing
Speaker:here, but I think the sector is very good at talking amongst itself and identifying these
Speaker:problems. And even identifying solutions in a lot of cases, but we're
Speaker:less good at taking that final step of actually going speaking to the people that
Speaker:we need to influence. So. Exactly that. So again, being consistent with
Speaker:our own process, the first thing that we did, and we're about to repeat
Speaker:the process, is we ran a 2000 person nationally
Speaker:representative survey with YouGov, just to understand, you
Speaker:know, attitudes to the sector. Would you ever consider working in it? Would you recommend it
Speaker:to others? Some sort of word association, you know, what do you
Speaker:think of the sector? And everything that you've just described. I think more
Speaker:than two thirds of adult respondents said, no, I
Speaker:wouldn't work in the sector. It was interesting. They won't,
Speaker:but they're happy to recommend it to other people. So it's a recognition that
Speaker:it's important, but not for me. But then when
Speaker:you follow the data further down into the word association stuff, everything you've just
Speaker:said there, it's dirty, strenuous, laborious, doesn't
Speaker:pay well, which is completely incorrect. And then you step
Speaker:back and you look at that. And the scariest look at the data first off, you
Speaker:interpret that, you kind of understand that they're not seeing construction. As
Speaker:you and I know, if you think of the kinds of people that we have conversations with, I would consider myself
Speaker:to be, you know, within the construction sector as well as in marketing. Um,
Speaker:our roles just are invisible. Like they just do not exist as far as
Speaker:the, and that's fine. But how many others are there? If you think
Speaker:of every business function that exists within, take a tier one contractor or
Speaker:a house builder, every other business function that you would expect to any other
Speaker:similar sized organization exists. Absolutely. It just happens to exist within
Speaker:construction. That's before you get to things like, you know, modern methods and offsite construction
Speaker:and all these other things that are now starting to come into the sector. If
Speaker:you look at, you know, the application of BIM, the possibilities for AI
Speaker:and what that might mean within the sector. Yes, we are. That's not to say that we don't need
Speaker:practical hands-on contracting roles and that the high-vis,
Speaker:you know, hard hats thing is yesterday's news. Not
Speaker:the case. We are, in many ways, we are always going to build in the way
Speaker:that we have built and are building. But there is a
Speaker:much broader sector. And I kind of feel that until we can, until
Speaker:we can showcase the sector as a whole, people aren't going to voluntarily
Speaker:find their way into it, we'll still be relying on people like you and I that are referred
Speaker:into it or that happen to fall into it. Stumbling backwards into the construction industry. And
Speaker:it's fine, it makes for some lovely anecdotes, but if that was the way to solve
Speaker:And you know, I see this in marketing, I see this in
Speaker:mostly in the people that we speak with, is these
Speaker:guys are reluctant construction industry
Speaker:workers. Thankfully it's such a good industry that
Speaker:most people actually end up in in kind of enjoying it and doing a good job
Speaker:of it depending on the type of manufacturing you
Speaker:do it because I've seen some pretty broken marketers
Speaker:for like copper pipe companies and stuff like
Speaker:that. I get it. You know, you maybe you wanted to work in
Speaker:fashion or something like that or in beverages and stuff. But
Speaker:most of the guys that we speak to in marketing, they're
Speaker:really good at their job. They're doing a fantastic job of it. But
Speaker:Completely that. And again, I'm I am nerdy for this stuff anyway, so let's
Speaker:get my biases out on the table before we even get into it. But having worked
Speaker:in, as I mentioned before, sport and food and beverage and stuff like
Speaker:that, I find part of my love for construction, the
Speaker:reason that I've chosen this will be my career now for the
Speaker:foreseeable. And it's consequential. If
Speaker:you think of the homes that we live in, the roads that we drive on, the hospitals that
Speaker:our kids are born in and so on, this stuff matters. And even if
Speaker:it is copper piping, the impact of that and what that will do
Speaker:within that building versus with respect to anyone that works in any of those sectors, but
Speaker:to fragrances or alcohol or whatever else, it just
Speaker:feels to me, it feels much more substantive and much more
Speaker:important. And I think, again, that meeting your tribe and meeting like-minded people,
Speaker:I'm increasingly finding people that see it in the same way that it's
Speaker:maybe not the most exciting icebreaker at a dinner party, but when
Speaker:you get into the impact of the work, it's, yeah, for
Speaker:And it's not to shit on other industries for the, you know, for the types of
Speaker:people that are in there, but we've, you know, and this is my broad overview
Speaker:of other sectors that are considered to be a little bit more sexy, so
Speaker:fashion, lifestyle brands, sports, cosmetics
Speaker:and stuff like that. um most of
Speaker:the time if I put the guys that we hang around with
Speaker:in construction against those guys I'm having better conversations, they're
Speaker:nicer people, they're more genuine um and uh the
Speaker:briefs are better and the budgets are better. Couldn't possibly comment
Speaker:on that. Yeah honestly that's that that's my it's my honest opinion
Speaker:and whenever I speak because you know we hire people creatives
Speaker:who wanted to get into fashion, I wanted to be in fashion we did work in
Speaker:fashion, we were like, this is horrible. I don't want to be with these people. Like
Speaker:But I love that as well, that kind of the lateral thinking and again, the
Speaker:best practice that comes with people making those moves into the sector. What worked
Speaker:there and what did I learn there that I can apply in this market? So
Speaker:yeah, I go right the way back to it. I think we've got a really, really
Speaker:good story to tell as a sector. And I think doesn't
Speaker:mean being arrogant, but I think it means kind of, you know, being proud of
Speaker:what we've got and actually going telling that story in a way that connects
Speaker:Also, from the point of view of the creatives as well, you know, like, you know, me, me
Speaker:and my, you know, my guys, you know, when we were in
Speaker:college, when we were university or whatever, we're like, yes, we're going to be fashion photographers, we're
Speaker:going to be making cool promo videos for Boohoo and stuff like
Speaker:that. And now we find ourselves in the construction sector, thankfully loving
Speaker:it. But also, there are parallels to that. Like, you know, we
Speaker:were working the other day with a safety boot brand that do that. And
Speaker:because construction's getting cool. It's getting
Speaker:there, especially from a from a trade point of view. We were doing some mad stuff
Speaker:on there. They were like, this is this is what we wanted to do, except we're
Speaker:working with like a construction brand and the brief's easy and the pay's good
Speaker:To give a little shout out to someone, Mark Southgate at Moby gave
Speaker:a little quote that stuck with me was that the best advert for the built environment is
Speaker:the built environment. Like once you get into kind of looking at
Speaker:you know, we're lucky enough to work in the center of Manchester, you know, the changing skyline there
Speaker:and new buildings that are going up and, you know, some of the architectural photography and
Speaker:what that will mean as an amenity to that place. It's
Speaker:down this rabbit hole that is just, for me, it's endlessly fascinating. And
Speaker:if we, again, if we can better use that to tell that story, I think we're,
Speaker:I think we're waiting for someone that's into photography and
Speaker:into that kind of things. it's, yeah, it's an easy sell, I think to
Speaker:kind of look at the changing skyline, to look at the architecture and
Speaker:Absolutely. So we want, we want to, we want to change the brand image of
Speaker:construction. We can go, people can go
Speaker:check out Deconstructed and get involved. And,
Speaker:you know, let's, let's have a look at, construction as
Speaker:an industry that's, you know, more appealing to a
Speaker:broader audience. And, you know, I guess I imagine there's
Speaker:going to be, it goes all the way throughout. I mean, I think, I think we've
Speaker:had, I've had this discussion multiple times that, you know, when I
Speaker:Oh, completely, completely. I think I mentioned to you, we had a, a
Speaker:client where their factory, the biggest employer in the area,
Speaker:should be celebrated as such and everything else. But their factory
Speaker:was used as a threat to people at the local secondary school because it was visible from
Speaker:the window that if you don't knuckle down, that's what's there for
Speaker:you. Um, it's, it's, it's absolutely, it's crazy that
Speaker:that is the, that is the case, but hopefully again, that, that, that's part of
Speaker:what, what is happening and what we, we can hopefully help to do is
Speaker:to start to turn those narratives around and, and have the sector seen in the
Speaker:I love that. next five years predictions for the
Speaker:landscape of construction as a whole. I mean,
Speaker:I'm seeing a lot of brands almost
Speaker:like sprinting at the moment where like, they've been on a steady
Speaker:pace. And all of a sudden, I feel like there's an urgency around around
Speaker:So I think it's a really interesting one. If we start with the UK, we're recording this the day
Speaker:before the King's speech, but I've been writing a lot about it.
Speaker:And by the time people hear this, there'll be blog pieces galore, I
Speaker:would think, out of SLG on this topic. But we've been keeping an eye on the
Speaker:manifestos. Obviously, it looked likely there was going to be a Labour government, so
Speaker:that won't be in a particular interest. went back to
Speaker:1997 when the Blair government came in and the first thing they did was to focus on
Speaker:the Bank of England and that, you know, making that independent was going to be the kickstarter for
Speaker:moving the economy. So I love that this time the house
Speaker:building, the infrastructure, the construction more generally is at the heart
Speaker:of what the Chancellor is talking about in terms of getting the economy moving. So for
Speaker:a sector that has been, you know, it's been tough, we,
Speaker:you know, we won't get into detail what myriad reasons for that having been the case, to
Speaker:have a new government coming in, to remove some of the stasis that was there anyway, I
Speaker:think it's fair to say from There was comments from,
Speaker:who's it now? Was it Mace and a couple of others that were saying that, yeah,
Speaker:basically the money's in the system, but everyone's waiting for either inflation to drop or
Speaker:for an election. Well, we've had that now. So what happens next? So
Speaker:I sense some excitement within the system. I think it'd
Speaker:be interesting to see what the King's speech entails, but I'm expecting construction and manufacturing
Speaker:to be at the heart of that. I know it's slightly old fashioned, but I'm expecting an
Speaker:industrial strategy that gives the sector, to that point on, do
Speaker:we do with this blank sheet of paper? To have those guardrails that economically, this
Speaker:is where we're going to, and here's how we contribute. So
Speaker:I think that's going to free up some money. I think what we're
Speaker:seeing from a marketing point of view, brands now understanding that
Speaker:we can opt to stand still, but the market won't. So what do we want
Speaker:to do? We want to get competitive. And if so, how are we going to do that? I think you're seeing more
Speaker:sophisticated marketers. I think it all makes
Speaker:for a really exciting time. I'm fascinated to see what
Speaker:happens and how it plays out. But I think, you know, for some of the
Speaker:great work that's happened in the sector in the last few years, when things maybe have been a bit
Speaker:more defensive and a bit more uncertain, once that starts
Speaker:Same here. I'm really excited for the next five years. I think there's,
Speaker:like I said, I think brands are sprinting. I think that's going to, there's
Speaker:going to be more There's going to be more competition. There's
Speaker:been more competition. Brands are modernizing, they're
Speaker:digitizing. It still baffles me
Speaker:that some of the biggest brands that are out in your
Speaker:local builders merchants have got websites from
Speaker:what looks like 2001. And it's nuts. Because
Speaker:they've relied on relationship, they've relied on handshakes in the pub and all that
Speaker:kind of thing. Things are changing and moving, and the
Speaker:MDs and the sales directors and stuff are picking up
Speaker:on that. They're hiring really good internal marketers. I'm seeing
Speaker:loads of that. They're hiring great agencies because, in
Speaker:my opinion, if you haven't got the resource to hire internally, then agency is the best way
Speaker:to go anyway. Especially even creative. I
Speaker:don't see a lot of in-house brands hiring
Speaker:in-house creatives effectively. I
Speaker:see a lot of juniors knocking about. You know, a lot of junior photographers having
Speaker:a go, doing a bit of TikTok and stuff like that. But not, like, real
Speaker:powerful creative teams that are making a huge difference. There's
Speaker:a couple that spring to mind. I'm like, these guys are doing all right, but it's a hell of
Speaker:an investment. Yeah. And you've got to utilize them incredibly well.
Speaker:Whereas, you know, hiring agencies and people like SLG,
Speaker:they've got, you've got, what, 50? How many people are in there? 20. 20? OK. And out of interest, of
Speaker:those 20, what's the, what's the ratios of the kinds of work that,
Speaker:So we create a team of, I think, five or six of
Speaker:that. We've got our account handling side of things where
Speaker:we've got, again, probably about the same number again, and then sort of
Speaker:shared services in between there, or we've got PR specialists, digital specialists, but
Speaker:yeah, in terms of weighting, probably third strategic account
Speaker:handling, a third creative, and then the rest
Speaker:split across PR, digital, shared services, et cetera. Yeah,
Speaker:we're trying to. I think it's better than it has been. We're
Speaker:kind of much more spread out on that front now. I think historically folks
Speaker:have been very much on the creative side of things from a buildings point
Speaker:of view and a workload point of view. But yeah, we've, again, as we've pivoted and
Speaker:as we've leaned more into the strategic side of things, that's now, I think it's just
Speaker:naturally kind of evened itself out based on where, based on where the work is.
Speaker:I think that's a natural progression, isn't it? Eventually, you know, when you're doing creative
Speaker:work, Depending on the kinds of
Speaker:businesses you're working with, eventually you stop
Speaker:getting answers to your questions and you go, okay, I need to figure, I need to help you guys
Speaker:out with this. You know, there'll be strategic questions
Speaker:that you need to be asking or there's answers that you aren't getting from the brand.
Speaker:that you are required, and you're like, okay, we need
Speaker:Well, I think we spoke about it off mic, but again, being consistent with
Speaker:our own rules. A big part of it for us was going speaking to clients and
Speaker:just having, we've got some brilliant relationships with people where we've been able to
Speaker:just kind of sit down over a beer and just ask, you know, not
Speaker:that we don't want to work with you, but why us? Why us? Yeah, exactly that. You know, there are
Speaker:so many other, at the time, at least comparable agencies that
Speaker:you could opt to go to. So, what
Speaker:is it? You know, I'm comfortable with whatever the answer is that comes back. And, and
Speaker:nine times out of 10, it was, you know, the, the, the creative work was mentioned. So
Speaker:this isn't to denigrate any of my creative colleagues, but it was the
Speaker:work that went into developing the creative in the first place. So actually writing the brief. 100% that.
Speaker:And, you know, a lot of the time we were, we
Speaker:were kind of baking that in, or we were kind of hiding that stuff back or not even charging
Speaker:for it in a lot of cases, because the, the goal was to sell the creative as
Speaker:opposed to that stuff. So once we understood that and became more
Speaker:bold on that footing, we, and we've invested in it, we've, we've, we've done a lot of work on
Speaker:our own processes and so on. And our positioning now is built off that.
Speaker:So we talk about strategic rather than strategy and
Speaker:it's a subtle kind of a thing, but regardless of the output and
Speaker:how we implement the work, there has to be an element of strategic thinking
Speaker:that goes into it. So someone might come with a pure play PR brief, for
Speaker:instance, that their other needs are met, their positioning is all sorted, everything else.
Speaker:And we still don't want to just jump into implementation land and just start having fun. And
Speaker:we still want to have that strategic input. And, you know, nine times out
Speaker:of 10, we will be the kind of, you know, frontline agency in
Speaker:Yeah. I think, yeah, like it's, it's massive,
Speaker:isn't it? I think having, again, speaking from our point of
Speaker:view, the fact that we can have clear
Speaker:rules of engagement for for creative projects is hugely
Speaker:down to the fact that we've got someone above us telling us
Speaker:exactly what's going on and why that why we're doing this um and
Speaker:and that's massive and sometimes we've had to do that for our clients and kind of figure
Speaker:out especially early days kind of figure out why why we
Speaker:yeah yeah creative but the fact that you would even ask that question i think speaks to
Speaker:you've got those long-term retained relationships that you know the personalities, you know
Speaker:the brand. So yeah, I'm sure you'd always benefit from,
Speaker:you know, having a tighter brief to work to, to your white page comment
Speaker:earlier. You guys know a lot of that stuff anyway. You're not just, you're
Speaker:doing the work unquestioningly and just then just, you know, here's the bill for it. You are at least
Speaker:Even, even if, even if we're not getting a great deal from the client, we're
Speaker:asking our marketing, our marketing team to write us a brief, you
Speaker:know, because We just need that. Sometimes as a creative, we're just like, I
Speaker:can't think. I've got too much stuff on. Just give me some stuff to
Speaker:do, and I can at least some guidelines. And that's absolutely massive
Speaker:for us. I think it's been a
Speaker:really, really valuable insight into marketing,
Speaker:especially, like I said, what I keep calling a top-down marketing for
Speaker:the construction industry. Is there anything that you
Speaker:want to talk about that you feel like I should have mentioned, or is there any last sort
Speaker:No, I've probably done it to death, but I think if
Speaker:there's one kind of takeaway from this for me, it's go
Speaker:and figure out what's important to your audience and have some evidence to back that stuff
Speaker:up. Again, it's not as exciting perhaps as some of the other work, but
Speaker:it will pay dividends for you down the track, just to give you a starting point,
Speaker:to give you something to build from and something to discuss internally. I think, yeah,
Speaker:don't lose sight of what's important to your customer and make
Speaker:And if they want to, they can come and see you guys for all of that information. They can,
Speaker:you know, cause even just a word research scares people. Well,
Speaker:how do I get it? Where do I look? Am I going to people's houses?
Speaker:Yeah, for sure. But listen, if it is going to people's houses, that is
Speaker:a really, really good point, actually, Dan. But you talk about brand health tracking
Speaker:and things like that. And it can really terrify people, particularly if
Speaker:you've never done that kind of thing before. If you're a marketer that's been focused on the implementation
Speaker:side of things, to have to learn some of that stuff is
Speaker:enormous. It can be embarrassing, can't it? Of course it can. Of course, and
Speaker:particularly as I have to put your hand up internally to say, I think
Speaker:we need this, but it's not within my gift to be able to do it. You will get, and you
Speaker:will have seen this before, I'm sure, you will get some less understanding people
Speaker:within that client organization that, well, I thought this was marketing, isn't that what
Speaker:we pay you to do? So yeah, it can be really
Speaker:intimidating. And yes, you can go to, and if you have the means to,
Speaker:of course you should go to that end of things. But like I said before, just,
Speaker:that, that ethnographic element of things, just go, and that's a
Speaker:highfalutin name for just go and speak to some people. If,
Speaker:if we, if we want to sell this product or service to this group of people, probably
Speaker:a good idea to go and speak to said group of people and understand what they might
Speaker:want from an organization like ours. And just in doing that, speak
Speaker:to your sales team, speak to the guys that are on the road that are having that client interface, get some
Speaker:honest feedback from them, just find whatever ways you can to be more
Speaker:customer oriented. And that I think will start to identify what other
Speaker:gaps you have or don't have as the case may be. But you are always
Speaker:going to have a stronger brand if you understand how you are seen
Speaker:That's massive. And like you say, like implementing it
Speaker:across like things like a sales team makes it way less daunting because
Speaker:you can, you can put some stuff in place where at the end of it, like all our conversations, and
Speaker:we're not saying give them a form to fill out or whatever, but just have some
Speaker:loaded, loaded questions, you know, just that they can put in and we can get
Speaker:that data. Even if it's kind of like very broad
Speaker:Completely. And I would say in summing up one final thing to do that is, is
Speaker:make sure that close the loop for another marketing phrase, but double
Speaker:back to said sales team when you've developed that plan. You know, I've
Speaker:synthesized all of your notes. Does this broadly look comfortable? Let
Speaker:them know what's happening. Don't let them dictate strategy on marketing necessarily. Always
Speaker:better to have those guys involved, have them comfortable with what's coming down the track,
Speaker:keep them informed on implementation and tactics that they're ahead of that
Speaker:Oh you got to keep them on side of the sales team because they are they are literally the bread
Speaker:and butter of the of the organization and we have um you know we make films
Speaker:purely for the sales guys just to get them on board with a new project a
Speaker:new product sorry yeah uh you know it's just like we're just we're only doing this
Speaker:internally we're launching this i'm thinking all right it's going to be some amazing like
Speaker:awards or something like that no no we're just launching it to our sales team so
Speaker:they can understand why we're doing this and and and what this new product
Speaker:But that's insane. Perfect. That someone's thinking at that level
Speaker:and making sure those guys are involved to that degree, I think is phenomenal. So
Speaker:I'm really excited for this episode to come out. I'm really excited for the
Speaker:comments and the value that not only brands are going to get, but also
Speaker:other marketers. I think people should go and
Speaker:check you guys out on your website. They should go
Speaker:and speak to you on LinkedIn. And there'll
Speaker:be some great conversations there. I'm going to finish it
Speaker:there. Ryan, thank you so much for coming. You've been an amazing guest. Thank you, Dan. Thank
