This week I'm chatting to my old boss, Clif Collier, and he's the chairman of BBN international, fantastic global network of agencies, which is the biggest network of B2B agencies in the world.
We are in the golden age of marketing for most of my life in this business. It's been a bit Cinderella. How do you know that this ad is going to work? Because you can track through technology the results that you're getting. That should move the needle over that. Our industry as a whole should be attracting a far higher level of respect. So you say, well, hang on, there's something wrong here. The technology is great and used properly. It's effective. But combined with creativity and memorability and likeability, you get into transformational results. When that balance is found.
Okay, we're back with Digital Marketing From The Coalface. And this week I'm chatting to my old boss, Clif Collier. Um, I worked at yeah, I worked at Fifth Ring back in two thousand, two thousand and one, two thousand and two ish, maybe two thousand and three, I can't remember thereabouts. And my boss what boss was Clif Collier. And Clif is still a mentor to me to this day. And he now lives in France and he's the chairman of BBN international, fantastic global network of agencies, which is what Clif. The biggest network of B2B agencies in the world by by a margin, I would imagine.
It's the biggest. Yeah. Partnership of, of B2B agencies in the world, twelve hundred odd people, uh, sixty one offices, thirty two countries. Yeah. Big figures.
Yeah, absolutely. And, and a group turnover, which would be a silly number, probably.
Oh one hundred and eighty two thousand dollars, one hundred and eighty two thousand million dollars.
one hundred and eighty two million dollars got there in the end.
Eighty million. The figures even surprise me.
That's right. Now, recently, BBN ran a series of well, it was it was a one day event, a virtual event which was called Face the Face of the future. And there was the main thrust of the topics were around the value of brand and how we might have lost that. So we're going to talk about that a little bit today. But before we do, um, as we always do with our guests, and thanks again for coming on. Just a bit of background agency background, just, just whatever you feel is appropriate to share with people about your journey to get to where you are today as chairman of BBN.
Yeah. Well, it's, uh, it's kind of worrying how long I've been in this business. You know, when I say to the people, I come from the Mad Men era, you know, they, they they kind of look at me a little aghast, but certainly did. And, um, you know, started in the I never wanted to do anything else. Start in the advertising business.
A proper ad man.
Yeah. Mhm. And and, and I've gotta say those were the most exciting years. Um, you know, the Saatchi years, the Alan Brady Marsh, uh, BBDO you know, it and of course campaign was the, the, the industry oracle and it was, it was like when you were a kid waiting for the, the Eagle comic to come in, come campaign, replace that. And you know, you, you, you looked forward to the, the latest thing coming out of it. And, um, and then of course, built, built businesses for other people, built businesses for myself. Um, laterally. Fifth string where you and I fortunately came together and we did. And that's really where the technology journey journey started, because as you recall, I mean, we were one of the very first totally digital agencies. Yeah. Um, you know, in that era, which was of course called desktop publishing. It started off as, but, you know, when we started Fifth Ring, that was, that was it. It was all going to be, um, computer based and the Apple mantra as well of an apple on every desk. So, you know, we, we, we genuinely migrated into the technology era. So despite the fact that, um, you know, my original background, I'm certainly totally committed to the, the, the technology journey.
Yeah. And obviously, as you know, the main thrust of, uh, from the coalface is to talk about, um, digital marketing and really the, the reason I'm interested in this chat today, which I guess takes me out of my real area of expertise. So I, I expect I'm going to learn stuff as well. But as we said before we started recording the, the idea of, um, of the seminar and by the way, we'll put some details in the show notes and links to, to the event, which is now available. I think it's free of charge on demand or is it, is there a.
Yeah, yeah, on demand, free of charge.
Yeah. And I would certainly recommend anyone listening to this goes and gets it. We'll put the links in the show notes. But the thrust of it was with everything that's been going on with all the MarTech that's available, all of the the kind of work that we do as digital marketers or marketing in general, because I think it's marketing now. It's not digital marketing. You don't really do anything other than digital marketing really is that we've lost sight of the value of, of brand. We've stopped starting with why we do what we do, and why our customers do what they do. And trying to dig into that a little bit. Now, like I said, I'm maybe starting to go slightly out of my comfort zone, but I'm I broadly in the right area with that.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, um, and again, I, I really do hasten to add, I mean, you know, me, Dave, and, you know, I'm not a technophobe. Quite, quite the opposite.
Quite the opposite. Yeah.
Yeah. In recent years, it's just like um something not right here, you know, and um, I think, and I hate talking about implications of Covid because everybody's got their implications, you know, but, but that there's no question it is accelerated the, the technology, um, journey. Mhm. Um, and being that it's kind of been the only game in town, You know, I mean, we've not had face to face sales teams haven't been in front of customers. Uh, agencies haven't been presenting to prospects, you know, across a desk. Um, you know, it dramatically accelerated. And I, and I think a lot of, uh, management of companies have gone, oh, this is great. You know, we can do everything with technology. What, what do we need this airy fairy marketing stuff for these days, you know?
Yeah. Um, and even and even more rarefied area, if you like, of brand, you know, because, you know, to me that's, that's where, you know, when I, when I listen to brand, when I, you know, listen to brand experts, um, in my very simple mind, part of me thinks they're full of shit and part of me thinks and part of me thinks, wow, uh, these guys are on another planet. I don't really understand what they're talking about. I mean, and, you know, somewhere in between is maybe the truth.
Yeah. Well, I, you know, I don't know where we'll go with the conversation today, but it's something I want to say up front is I don't see this being anybody's fault, you know. No, it's not that the sales guys are beating the marketing guys or the finance guys beating the CMO or, or whatever. It is a set of circumstances that that's come about. And, um, you know, it's, you know, you talk about, um, some be foolish. It, I, it depresses me that I don't think we're training marketing people as much as, as we did in the past. Mhm. Um, and, and I think there's this, um, attitude that grasps a little concept. You know, I kind of sound bite. You know, the one that always troubles me is that when we talk about emotion now, emotion is an incredibly powerful part of this. But if you're talking to a C-suite of saying, oh, you know, we need to be a lot more emotional, you're talking about guys who are buried in figures buried in, you know, business plans and whatnot. And that sounds like an alien language. And if it's not presented properly, if it's not explained properly as to what's meant by that, um, you can see why credibility falls away. Certainly, um, you know, it's interesting because of course, you know, um BBN is, is business to business. It's not business to consumer. I mean, some of our partners have consumer business. We're seeing a lot more business to business to consumer business. Mhm. Um, but another offshoot of, of Covid is that, you know, people are looking at companies and how they operate, you know, what their values are, what their principles are. They're delving more below the surface. And that's stuff that, you know, business to business companies have not been good at in the past. So, so the whole thing a brand is, is grown in the business, a business side of B2C. It's always been there. Yeah. Um, but, but, you know, it's, it's, it's what sets you apart that, you know, when people are going to make their buying decision, which companies do they pick? Yeah.
And I suppose in the B2B space, when it comes to, to brand and messaging and the, and the, and the, the use of emotional language, um, mediocrity is, is pretty much the game, isn't it?
Absolutely. Because B2B companies are fundamentally uncomfortable about taking risks. You know, the you it's interesting you you look at different parts of the world and I mean, I'm going to overgeneralise here, but, you know, in in the Americas or America in particularly, you know, the CEO often comes from a sales background.
Sure.
You look at, um, Germany and the CEO often comes from an engineering background. Yep. Um UK it's often a financial background. So these, you know, it doesn't make them bad people. But, but you know, they, they, they have their comfort zone of what they understand, you know, the engineer guys and you know, this always want to be selling the, the, um, the features and not the benefits. And they are uncomfortable when you start to make justifiable claims about the product and whatnot.
That's right. I mean, the idea of, of bravery came out very strongly in the face of future seminars. And I think that's where there's a, you know, you have an energy industry background. And so, you know, the race to be second is, is kind of a commonly rolled out, uh, turn of phrase, isn't it? You know, like, we don't want to be brave. We don't, you know, we, and, you know, broadly speaking, across B2B, I think it's fair to say that this lack of bravery, um, and yet there are shining examples of businesses that are brave and benefit from it. So I don't know what we need to do. And I think, again, going back to the first, first of future, the, the, there's a lot of great stuff in there about what we have to do. And there's no need for us to go like over that in, in great detail because it's all there. And there are even sort of follow up sessions. There's one tomorrow I think, isn't it? Yeah, there's follow up sessions going on right now. Yeah. Which is good. So yeah, a lack of bravery, a lack of vision, a lack of recognising that just because it's B2B doesn't mean it has to be dry, doesn't mean has to be boring. Doesn't mean you're not dealing with people, which you are still.
Well, that's the thing. You know, somehow we think that the brain that, um, people use in their, their office life is, is different to that and their home life. And it isn't. Um, you know, and it's, there's some staggering statistics now out there about, um, the influence of, of emotion, you know, that, um, it, it's truthfully, even in the B2B side is the decision gets made for not entirely rational reasons. Not, not always, of course, but, you know, they like the people they're dealing with, they like the sound of the product, they like the presentation. And, and quite often we'll then retrofit the justification after the event to, to underpin their decision and whatnot. Um, so, you know, there's a lot of emotion comes into decision making and whatnot. And, you know, it's a noisy landscape out there. It's gotten even noisier. And you just have to ask the question, why is somebody going to spend time reading your, um, features list as opposed to ten other companies who are offering the same kind of product for similar money with the same kind of functionality. What is going to set that apart? Um, and you know, again, and this is not opinion. I mean, this is research based that there will be three companies in your head when you're going out to, to, to look for a service, a product, a tool, a whatever. Um, and if you're not in those three, the first one in your head is going to be like about sixty percent of the chance that they'll get the final sale. The other two divide the balance almost equally, and everybody else is scrabbling about in single figure percentages that they're going to win your business. So, you know, you want to be one of these three up top, top of mine companies. And if you're not, you just ain't at the races. It's as simple as that.
And to be one of those companies, um, are we talking about calculated risk taking? I'm not talking about irresponsible risk taking, like coming away with some, you know, borderline offensive messaging just to get people's attention. I'm not talking about stupid things like that, but there's, there's a calculated risk that businesses take in order to be different just to, to be, to rob, to rob Apple of one of their previous, um, um, you know, uh, hero texts.
Yeah. It's um. Yeah. You, you have to take the risk that there's. There's no question about that because. And it's it's this subtle difference between, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're very obsessed with ROI on, on everything that moves. And, and I'll come back to that because I think done properly, that's a good thing. Um, but, uh, it, at the end of the day, um, it's still going to be that idea that resonates in people's minds and sticks in their head. And, and yeah, there is an element, a bravery needed to, to do that because, you know, and I think this is where the cmo's job is really difficult these days because, you know, he is going into alien territory with many of his colleagues that they just, you know, don't get that kind of stuff yet when you see it done well, um, you, you know, I think you're familiar with the micro focus case. History is important that the the elephant on the trampoline, you know, it was phenomenally successful, you know, because it just it was branded into people's heads. It was a very complex message that was being sold. Um, and that encouraged people to delve deeper into the subject, you know.
And taking that risk is exactly what helped them to stand out and help them to be, to become what they are now.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So how I mean, taking some of the takeaways from from the sessions, I mean, what, what are what are you guys saying to businesses who are wanting to be me to wanting to be safe, don't want to take these risks. I mean, it's not surely as blunt as well if you don't, you're dead in the water. There's, there's, there's more to it than that when it comes to having conversations to try and take people on a journey. What story are you guys telling people in order to get them on board with this, this idea?
Well, I mean, that was really the, the, the, the basis of the face of the future, uh, conference that, um, yeah, I, I, I genuinely believe, Dave, that, that we, we are in the golden age of marketing, you know, what do I mean by that? That for most of my life in this business as, as indeed yours as well, um, it's been a bit Cinderella, you know that. How do you know that this ad is going to work? How do you know that this, um, you know, catchy phrase is going to resonate with people and, and it's back to the, the classic John Wanamaker, um, quote, which says, I knew half of my advertising budgets wasted. I just don't know which half. Yeah. I mean, that's that's more than a hundred years ago that that statement was made. And naively I have felt, um, you know, let's say since the turn of the century for, for just a plot in the calendar, um, that because you can track through technology, what people are reading, what they're responding to, the results that you're getting that should have moved the needle over that. Our industry as a whole should, uh, be attracting a far higher level of, of, of respect. Yet when you again, look at the statistics, um, the role of the CMO in the C-suite is, is depreciating, um, the turnover of, of CMU is the highest it's ever been.
Yeah. And it's way out of kilter with everybody else on the C suite.
I'm sorry.
It's way out of kilter with everybody else on the C suite in terms of the, the length of tenure.
Yeah. Um, so you, you say, well, hang on, there's something wrong here. You know, and, and, and what, what's causing it? And yeah, I'm sure some of these marketing directors, Martin managers are, you know, they, they're authors of their own fate because they, you know, they either don't present it properly or they don't put forward a compelling argument. Um, but I, you can see why, particularly looking at the last two years where people have been looking for every crumb of, uh, good news that they can get that, you know, using technology, buying a bit of software, putting messages out there. Um, you know, seemed an awfully good way to go, you know, and, and, uh, and you can understand that, but we're coming out of that hopefully. Um, and, you know, the world is a different place. Yeah. Um, so, so when we were looking at Face the Future and back to your question, we said, well, what do we do? You know, we, we, we researched all our partners to start with, and I've got to be honest and say, I thought we would get a mixed response. And we put out four or five quite heavy questions, um, you know, to the partners and said, you know, do you resonate with this? Do you agree with these? Um, and I mean, there's things like tactics or superseding strategy now. Mhm. Um, and, uh, the, the sales and marketing departments still don't work as a team and even down to the, the agency client relationship of, of how often dysfunctional it's become. And I thought we'd get a kind of mix. I mean, we got like ninety percent plus. Yeah, that's exactly how we see it. You know, that's what we're experiencing. And it quite took me aback. Yeah. And, and that gave us, well, not just the confidence, but gave us the impetus to say, um, what, what do we do? Uh, and, and we looked at this idea of, uh, an international conference that, um, and we went out to find people who, um, had as much empirical evidence as we could find. And of course, Peter Field is the guru of this, um, you know, has, has decades plus of, of, of evidence. And, and of course we be to be there is not as much of it going about as be to see. Um but it's done um in research and um, uh, you know, various other IP and as well coming up with the evidence that the technology is great and used properly, it's effective, but combined with the other things of creativity and memorability and likability, you know, you get into transformational results. You don't, you don't just double your response rate. You know, there are companies quoting eight and ten times the response rate when these that balance is found. So we went out and found three great speakers, I think, um, Peter Field, Christine Bailey and Mark who, who all came at it from a different angle. Peter, very much the evidential statistics and empirical evidence based side. Christine very much front line CMO up and emphasising the importance of sticking with basics, understanding that you need a clear strategy. You can't just, you know, constantly go to the, the price reduction one off event and expect that's going to solve everything. And Mark, bless him, great guy, huge experience of the industry, ex editor of Martin week and extremely passionate. Um, and give some great examples of how, you know, companies and individuals have taken on, you know, uh, you know, potentially from their own career point of view, high risk, uh, approaches to things. Um, but the results bearing out that that's, um, that's delivered, you know, huge response to the, the companies that they work for. So answering your question is like, let's, let's try and give people not my rant about this. And I do tend to rant about because I, you know, I.
Like a good.
Run. This is.
A.
I'm sorry.
I like a good rant as well.
Oh, good. Okay, so yeah, but in terms of passion for the business, you know, and yeah, I'm, it's an inordinately amazing business to advertising marketing business. The people are amongst the hardest working conscientious people I know, you know, and, and now having all this technology or disposal and, you know, just desperate to try and say, look, let's manage this. Well, let's, let's be very candid with, with our clients and prospective clients. Um, but, you know, here's, here's evidential stuff that you can, you can put in front of them. So it's, it's, it's not snake oil or, you know, clever salesman speak and whatnot. This, this is absolutely rooted in, in fact, and, and as you remember, uh, Dave as well, you know, we, we always used to, to, to develop a strong relationship with the, the, um, financial director in, in any of the companies that we work with to, to explain to him, look, this is what you, you can expect to get out of this, you know, and, and I've got to say, often they became our greatest ally because, you know, they could see that that was a route to more sales or a route to higher profitability. And, um, you know, I think the combined events of the last couple of years, we've just kind of lost that thread, um, and need to pull it back. So that was why we did the event in in terms of doing something, not just sitting moaning about it or be moaning about it, but doing something hopefully positive.
Yeah. And one of the, you know, the strong messages coming out because we talk about the risks involved in being brave, in being different, etc.. But being mediocre is in itself high risk. Because if you're not going to be taking these risks, then other businesses are. So the, you know, convincing the C-suite, convincing the people, making the decisions to be brave is actually now the task of marketing. Because if you're if you're not going to do this, then you're going to fail.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this, this is a sad truth. I mean, there are very, very few absolutely differentiated services or products in the marketplace, whatever market you're in. You know, there's somebody will do it quicker. Somebody will do it cheaper. Somebody will, you know. And if that's the battleground you're on, it's it's keep your head above water. It's not it's not building a business. It's not expanding and whatnot.
What do you think this this what you're saying now, do you think this comes down to to a certain extent, um, the difference between short term thinking and long term thinking. So short term, it's like, well, I can spin up a, a paid search campaign. I can, I can drive some traffic at a landing page. I can do all this stuff. I can, I can make, I can use that for my budget and, you know, be very literal about it. Just find people who are searching for the stuff we do. Or you can look at, I'm not saying it's an either or, but, or you can look at the long term effects, building your brand and getting the right messaging and really appealing to people on a different level is going to do to your business.
It's a combination. It is a combination of both because companies have short term requirements. Um, and, uh, but without the longer term strategic side, you know, each time you, you're climbing a mountain and then we drop back and then you climb it again and drop back and climb it again. Um, and that's the nature of the short term thinking side of it. Um, and, and you need both, um, there are various opinions as to the percentage here, I emphasise that, but there is research that says at any given time there's only three percent a year market, uh, that's for your industry is, is, is in the buy in mode at that particular point in time. So anything you're doing short term is only going to hit you assuming it's done pretty well. U l three percent of the market. So what happens about the other ninety seven percent? So unless you're addressing them. So when they get to the point of wanting to, oh, we need a new widget that, oh, there was those guys that said ABC. Um, you know, just as I say, replicating and, and building from scratch every time. So there's an interesting graph that shows this sort of almost heartbeat thing of short term peak trough peak trough, peak trough. But you know, over time and I, it's a minimum of six months. And, and it's probably to be wholly effective, I think needs to be a two year commitment to brand building stuff. Yeah. And that puts, puts you in the mind of that other ninety seven percent, um, uh, along the line. So it's not overnight. And you can understand companies at the moment who are many, you know, fighting for survival. And if somebody says to you, well, you know, use this bit of technology and fire this out and you get a few more sales out of it, why wouldn't you do it? Of course you would. You know. That's right. Um, and it is, it's a difficult decision because it requires investment whereas cash. Um but you know, as I say, the evidence is, is, is there. This is not, um, this is not conceptual. This is, this is factual stuff that, um, uh, that, you know, the management, any organisation needs to be looking at very seriously and more so in the B2B community.
So this need to invest in brand is this is almost like the, the consequence, if you like, of all the years of being seduced into the technology and the immediacy of running very specific digital marketing campaigns and ignoring what people actually think about us. I mean, my, the way that my simple mind understands brand is it's what people think about you. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. I mean, a lot of people think the brand is their logo, the visual, that's a visual representation of brand. But you know, what are people saying about your business? Um, when you're not there. And I guess that is the concept that the, if you like the hard asses in on the C-suite struggle, struggle with, I don't know if I mean, you guys at BBN are going to be speaking to, to businesses a lot, you know, much larger businesses than we're speaking to, by and large. And do you come up against that kind of, you know, just people just not getting. Getting.
Absolutely. And, and it's, you know, sometimes, um, it's, it's an ego driven position. You know, it's I know best. You know, I've I've, I've read an article on this and I tell you what the worst one is, is where, yeah, we want to do something different like company Y and you say, well, you've already, you've already shot yourself in the foot because you're only going to, you know. Yeah. Imitate them. So where does that differentiate you? Yeah. Um, but again, you can understand that the people are trying to find this point of reference. Oh, you know, this emotional stuff and this memorability and, um, you know, the effectiveness and these are big terms to, to people who, who, who don't necessarily, in fact, for the majority do not come from a marketing background. You know, so they want to find reference points that they can contextualise that in their our minds. You know, say, oh, yeah. So if we did something like that and then that becomes the, the, you know, the, the placebo for all ills, you know. Yeah.
And the thing is, these people, whether they realise it or not, and this isn't an original thought of mine, it was actually, uh, Peter at fifth Ring, uh, one of the, uh, one of the BBN podcasts actually, uh, I was listening to, which I really enjoyed, um, if you're in a c suite talking to people and their brand is nonsense. Like we just, we just need to do X, we just need to do Y. Very sort of transactional thinking. You've only to say, well, you know. All right, John, um, what time is it? Oh it's half past three. It's a nice watch. What's that? Oh, it's an Omega Seamaster. Well, why have you got that? That was three, four thousand quid. You know you didn't need it. You know what? What car do you drive? Oh, BMW. It's a lovely car. And why have you got a BMW? You could have got a car. So you can start to get through to people because they are being affected by other people's branding without realising it. And so how do they not get that? It's the same with the way that people are perceiving their business. Why do they not see that?
Yeah, it's as I say. Think a lot of it is to do with the, you know, what journey those people have gone through to get there, you know, and yeah. And, and again, look, you know, I think engineers are amazing people, the things they come up with and whatnot, but then they get into this mode that it's all about the, the, the features, you know? Yeah. Um, and it's very difficult to shift that when you, when you're trying to say, yeah, but the thing that will resonate with people is this image or this idea and whatnot. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, the fact that this thing rotates at twice the speed of anything else. Well, great, but who's going to remember that?
That's right. I mean, in the last, uh, in the previous podcast or one of the, one of the podcasts previous to this, um, we did a session with, with Bob Keiller around business storytelling. And one of the stories that he related was the whole messaging around Apple's iPod when they brought the iPod out and it was all about feature this, feature that feature this, and I assume it was jobs, but somebody certainly at some point said A thousand songs in your pocket, you know, forty million units later. That was kind of successful. Nothing to do with the features, nothing to do with the engineering, arguably nothing to do with the design. Although I would say when you when, you know, in the days when the iPod first came out, you saw those things and you just wanted one, didn't you? You just wanted one. It was a thing of beauty.
And the irony is that Apple has invented virtually none of the technology that it uses in its products itself, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah. Um, most successful company, arguably in the world kind of thing.
Exactly that. I mean, the only thing I'm not using at the moment, I've got a recording device which isn't Apple and a microphone that isn't Apple. I've got an Apple Pencil in my hand, an iPad I'm scribbling on as we're talking, and a MacBook that I'm using to talk to you. I mean, I'm an Apple fanboy and I'm not really sure why. I mean, from an engineer's point of view, because I'm an engineer, you know, it does work. It I'm not talking about I'm not talking about, you know, thinking about it from a highly technical point of view. I'm talking about I flip it open, I get on with my job and the damn thing just does it. And it's beautiful and it's great. And that's lovely. But it's not the only reason that I'm also wearing an Apple Watch right now as well. So, you know, completely seduced by the brand. I just love it. I love the products. I love how they work. And I guess though I hate to say it, I guess I like what it says to the outside world about me. You know, that's very, it's a vain thing to say, but there's an element of that, isn't there? Yeah.
But you know, the That's really interesting what you're saying about Bob Keiller and storytelling. See, there's another soundbite. I'm not I'm not suggesting that Bob's picked it out as a son, but he clearly has understood what's meant by that. But again, you know, imagine the, you know, um, not even a CMO or a marketing manager go into a room full of, you know, heavyweight guys and say, oh, the future for this company is in storytelling. You know, like, oh, you know, um, but, you know, you look at things the British Navy in all its history has, has depended on storytelling to motivate to, uh, you know, generate, um, loyalty, people going next. And, you know, it's built into their training. You know, they tell stories of the great things that the British Navy had done. And then people start to identify, you know, so you look at Apple and look at the stories behind it. It's a phenomenal thing. I mean, I, we, we bought Macs, as I say, early early days. I mean, the original Macs, gosh, I think if we'd kept them, um, we probably could have retired on the proceeds for sure because I think they sell for about ten grand these days, you know? Yeah. Um, but when did you ever see or hear anybody say, oh, I love my PC? Mhm. I've never heard anybody, you know, but people quite openly as you do. And I mean, you're, you're a tech guy. I mean, goodness sake. Mhm. Um, and, and I love, you know, the, the, and if, if, if, if that's the kind of dialogue that you can start to hold with your customers. Yeah. How much more powerful can that be?
I mean, the example you gave there, which is fantastic. I mean, the Royal Navy just now are running a lot of ads over here in the UK. And I think I've got the place wrong. But basically what I take away from that is they tell in the advert, they tell a fantastic story. And it's, it's a story of a guy who was maybe going to go off the rails and he joins the Navy. But the snapshot of it at the end is born in Tyneside, made in the Royal Navy. And you know, when I watched that advert, I'm fifty eight and I watched that advert and I think I wish I was twenty two, I'd love to join the Navy. There's just such an amazing story. Yeah. And you know, that's an armed service. And they're telling us that. And and so how brands don't realise how businesses rather don't realise, um, you know, the, the power of storytelling and, and how it feeds into the whole brand story and the and the evolution of a brand is. Yeah, it's a surprise to me. And like I say, I'm coming at it as an engineer. I'm coming at it. And yet I get it. I totally get it.
Yeah. Well, as I say, I mean, there's no rights and wrongs about this whole thing. But you know, if, if, if we get our, our act together as an industry, as clients and agencies and the potential for results is, is, is phenomenal. And I think this is the difficult bit that, you know, going to come across a bit cynical here, you know, so it's some companies, they, so they, they put in the, the, the killer app, the bit of software, the whatever, and start sending this out and they see results. And it's probably because they were doing it pretty poorly beforehand, you know, and what was the, what was their customer management system. Like, you know, how was the, the, the follow up and, and whatnot? And, and because there has been a level of discipline put into that. And, and I do stress the word level because regretfully, again, you know, we don't see as much as we should, the commitment from the, the company itself to, you know, make sure the follow ups are there to make sure they are interpreting the data that they get back. And this is gold stuff, and it should be gold dust stuff. And it's the stuff that, you know, when I was a boy in this business, you would have killed for where's where's the replies coming from? What's, you know, is that more effective than this ad and what and you and you are constantly scratching your head trying to, to, to find that out. Whereas now that that's there for the asking, the.
Guesswork.
Is gone. Yeah. And it's fantastic, but it will only be so much so. I mean, you know, if you put out something, you get one hundred and fifty responses to it. And it's, it's more than whatever it was last week. People. This is where talking about ROI, um, you know, regard that as, as, as a success, but, you know, it's just part of the story. Um, and, uh, you know, the thing about likes. Well, um, okay, but the big question is, is it likability? You know, maybe somebody responds to that particular piece of information, but are they really connecting with the company because they see something there that appeals to them, um, and resonates with them. Um, um, and, and that's the bit and, and when you, when you make that connection, that's where transformational results. And I mean, that's not an exaggeration word. It's transformational. Results come about. You know, it's not an extra fifty. It's five hundred. It's a thousand. Your sale sales going up, your ability to maintain your margin because people see something in you, your organisation, your product that they like and, and, and want to own it. You know, just what you were saying about Apple.
I mean, what I would say to people, I mean, it's a very simple exercise is, is go and look at your website analytics. Go and go and look in Google Search Console and see how often people are arriving at your website by typing in your company name, your brand, you know, your how often are they looking for you by name? I mean, it's a very basic metric, but if, if you're starting to work on brand and you see more and more branded search coming in, then that's at least a, you know, a rudimentary metric that the names out there people are now thinking, they're not thinking. You know, we need to speak to an agency. They're, they're thinking we need to speak to read evolution or true agency, one of your guys or, or any of this ring or any of these people that they're actually thinking that instead of, we need a digital marketing agency or something.
Well, it's interesting, you know, the mantra always was, was share a voice. Yeah. Um, and, and, and again, still a totally legitimate measurement, but there are again, a huge amount of research showing that share of search actually is, is more talent because as you rightly say, that that person has made a commitment to go out and look for you and, you know, feed in three versions of the name until they find the right one or whatever, you know, which share a search, um, that there is a huge growth in opinion that, um, that's, that's a key metric that you should be measuring. I mean, how do you, I'll probably put you on the spot here because I mean, how, what do you think your clients generally are they really, you know, exploiting the data that's available to them or do they dip into it or what?
It's a great question. And I think there's an element of vanity. Um, when, when they look at data. I think we are presented these days, we're presented with a lot of data and how much of it we're using to any great extent is, is, is questionable. I think large organisations that are making serious investment in data because they've got so much of it. But a lot of the businesses we do, the smaller businesses, you know, we're not talking about massive amounts of data and generally speaking, when I specifically when I work with, um, start working with a new business and we start looking at, we start, you know, we might say, for example, we're going to do a discovery session with somebody. So we'll say like, you know, as part of that discovery session, we will want access to your Google Search Console so we can get a snapshot of where you are just now. Right. What's that? No idea. You know, and, and it's, it's, it's a source of incredible, incredible, an incredible source of information. And they're not really aware of it. Whereas if, if you said to them, they might say, maybe I'm being unkind, but they might say, oh, you know, we've, we've got a website counter. We've had, we've had two thousand visitors to our website. Well, okay, so what you know what I mean? That's, that's not really telling me anything at all. I want to know how people are finding you. What are they searching for? I mean, what are the areas of your website that are that are gaining traction and yeah, what are people sticking at? Absolutely. Yeah. So the short answer is no. I don't think people are using the data effectively.
I don't know what the you know, there's so many contradictions in this thing. I genuinely believe that we as an industry really do need to work harder to, to, to educate people. And that, you know, that sounds patronising and it's not meant to be at all. But, you know, when, when you have these tools and opportunities at your disposal and not to use them. Um, and then to make sort of sweeping decisions that, you know, well, um, we, we don't need a marketing department anymore. We need an information technology department. Oh my God. You know, um, it, and yet I fundamentally, I don't believe the majority of companies are really using the, the, the, the magic that is, is available to. And there's two kinds of magic. There's the magic of the technology. And it is it's staggeringly, you know, what's what's the current count on. Oh, what's the guy's name? But he does the the, the software, he produces that map thing. And like five years ago, there was like twelve hundred companies producing software related to Martin. I think the last time I saw it, it's probably a year or eighteen months ago was like nine thousand.
Yeah.
Companies producing bits of software that you can use to track, to chase, to find, to analyse. And I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's fantastic. And the other magic is that thing that addresses this also serious minded B to B thinking that says, no, there's a, there's an idea there that just changes the, the whole attitude of your potential, um, your potential customer to look at you in a, in a different way and put the two together. I, you know, the world's your lobster, you know.
So it's an interesting point that you make. So you said that we could be doing more. And I don't disagree with that at all. But the way that we talk about brand is, is, is that is that not particularly useful to the people that we want to talk about brand with? If that makes sense.
Yeah, that's an interesting, interesting question.
It did come up. I mean, when I was looking at, uh, I was looking at the face of the future and it came up and I can't remember which of the panelists said it, but they, they said something along the lines of, you know, we need to change the way we talk about brand. And, you know, I made some examples earlier, some very basic stuff. Like if we say to a customer, well, you know, we want we want to look at your brand, they would say, well, our logo is fine. We don't want to touch our logo, you know, because and why should they? Why should they understand it in a deeper level if we're if we're not educating them well enough?
I mean, it's another thing that we are brilliant at doing is coming up with phrases. And it's about saying, you know, okay, if you're going to say it's all about storytelling, you got to present what that means because that's just a, an airy fairy subject, you know, storytelling. Oh, what little Red Riding Hood or the Three Pigs or I mean, you know, you, you've got to explain what that means. And, you know, I think we're great at coming up with, with, with catchy things and whatnot. And I think unfortunately, a lot of people in the marketing business are great at latching on to the, the soundbite and not investing the time to say, okay, so the guy I'm going to be presenting, this is, is the, the, uh, the CFO or, or the, the accountant of the company. What, how do I translate that into a language that he, he understands, you know? Yeah. And, and the language to him, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's what we're seeing about the technology using you can address, you know, very, very discrete parts of the whole marketplace with their own tailored message. Yeah. Well, why, why aren't we doing that within our company? Well, the CEO is going to have a different set of motivations that, you know, we need to find the trigger for the CFO is going to have a different one. The, the, the chief technical officer, the guy that builds things he's going to want. And, and that takes work and it takes time. But, you know, turning up at a meeting and say, aha, it's all about storytelling.
Mhm.
And then we're surprised that the room goes quiet, you know?
Yeah. That's right. Okay.
Um, we're great at inventing stuff.
We are. That's right. And I think we one of the reasons we do this podcast is to try and demystify digital marketing. We want people to see this is, you know, talk about the stuff we do from the coalface to help our customers get people on like yourself to talk about different aspects of it and, and try and draw people into our world. But we always have to, we always have to remember that their own world is pretty full on and pretty complicated as well, isn't it? I mean, we talk about like, we've got to get this message across the CFO. The CFO has got a head full of numbers, and they're looking at this problem and that problem and trying to address how they're going to get finance to do this new product and all this. And there's a million things going on. And then we waltz in and say, hey, we want to talk about storytelling. And you can imagine why we get the response we get sometimes. Yeah, yeah. So we're not telling a very good story, are we? That's the problem.
It's, uh, we do we need to get better at it. And, and, and I think, um, you know, we need to be training our people better. Um, and, you know, when you show people compelling evidence and explain clearly in their language, uh, what is meant by that? Um, yeah, you will get results. It, but it's tough. It requires work. It requires, um, a bit of bravery to take on people as well. Because, you know, I mean, particularly in the oil industry, you alluded to yesterday. Well, you know, if you want an industry of big personalities, that's one, you know, and, and having to take on some of these people and say, look, you maybe understand how to extract oil out of the ground, but, you know, if you want to, um, you know, be a better company in, in this whole industry, and there are things you need to do differently, but you really do have to invest the time, um, in, in that to, and expect to take on some grief in the process as well. You know.
And get it wrong as well.
Well, yeah. Um, absolutely. Yeah. On occasion. That's that's true. Yeah.
Okay. Um, right. So I'm going to put the, uh, details of the face of the future event into the show notes so people can go there, go along and look at these stuff that's available on demand. Um, and BBN has also got a great podcast. What's the, I can't remember the name of the BBN podcast. It's in my list. So I just get told when there's an update goes out. What's it called again? Can you remember?
Oh gosh.
Um, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. Anyway. Yeah, I'll put it. I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. There's a BBN podcast, which is, uh, which I found really interesting and I'm really enjoying it the quite often like, you know, shorter the the format seems to be sort of twenty, twenty minutes ish sort of format, which, which is lovely. Um, you know, a nice length of time if you're, uh, if you're going out for a walk or something. And they are the great, the great podcasts. Um, I don't think there's anything that we haven't covered that we were gonna, that we wanted to talk about. Obviously we're talking about a big subject. We're more or less putting ideas out there rather than saying, you know, here's a solution to a problem. And this is exactly what you need to do to fix it. I mean, that isn't what we're saying.
No, absolutely not. I mean, it's, it is not a simple, um, and it's the result of, you know, seismic changes as well, you know, the, um, you know, the last ten years have just been phenomenal, um, and accelerated over the last two years. Yeah. Um, so it's, um, yeah, uh, I mean, you don't change people's habits of a lifetime over night. And and you don't change it with, you know, one clever article or whatever. There's a lot more to it than that.
Excellent. Okay, so you've been listening to Digital Marketing From The Coalface. If you want to come on the show, we'd be delighted to have you on. Just get in touch with us at redevolution.com/digital-marketing-from-the-coalface or redevolution.com. If you've got any questions about digital marketing, something you want us to cover in a future show, don't hesitate to send them in and we'll be delighted to do a show. Or maybe just feature. Feature the questions in a show and give you some answers. In the meantime, uh, Clif, it's always a pleasure chatting with you. We we chat on a regular basis. I like to think of you as a mentor, and you've certainly been a mentor to me over the years, which is fantastic. And that's not meant to make you feel old. It's just meant to point out that you know a lot about this business.
Um, but conversely, Dave, you, you know that when I'm struggling with something of a technology because I'm not digitally native. Mhm. And that's another point. Just, just kind of finally, we need to remember that the vast majority of people that work in this industry have no reference point of the, the, the, the core principles. You know, what they know is, is, is digitally based. And yeah, again, it's not a criticism that's in the same way as I'm not digitally native. And sometimes I struggle and I phone you and say, explain that to me because I can't get my head around it. So I think a good, good example of the two working together to, to, to get a better result for sure.
That's right. Clif, it's been a pleasure. Appreciate it.
Uh, you too. Dave. Good to speak.
And of course, as soon as, uh, the interview with Clif, uh, ended, we both remembered that the BBN podcast is called the BBN Mix tape. So if you go into whatever you use for your podcasts and search for the BBN mix tape, you'll find it. It's a great listen.