The Publisher Flywheel

Speaker 1: So I'm delighted to welcome to this episode of the Business Marketing recorded live here, uh, in the Dept Garden, um, deep in Cannes Lions 2026, Mallory Simmonds. Um, can I call you Mal? Do I call you Mallory, or do I call you-

Speaker 2: Uh, Mal

Speaker 1: ... Mal? Okay

Speaker 2: Yeah, people who like me call me Mal, so.

Speaker 1: Oh, I like you.

Speaker 2: Great.

Speaker 1: So thank you. Thank you for that. Um, you are c- the s- the n- relatively new.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I'm gonna say eight weeks in.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: A, a new, um... That's new, isn't it?

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Like, definitely.

Speaker 2: I, I'm still counting it in weeks like a newborn.

Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah

Speaker 2: So I think, I think it's pretty new.

Speaker 1: Um, of Jungle Creations.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker 1: Um, very much looking forward to this, uh, conversation.

Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: So why don't we kinda kick off with, um, give me a kind of, a, a kind of, a, a kind of plotted kind of career journey to date, and give me the kind of the moments that really mattered along the way.

Speaker 2: Okay. Um, I'll try to keep it as consolidated as possible. Um, you can probably tell from my accent that I'm originally American. Um-

Speaker 1: Originally

Speaker 2: ... originally, yes. Uh, born and raised in New York. Um, and so that's where I started my career. Um, I kind of dabbled in a little bit of everything, thought I wanted to do, uh, fin serve. I, I did not. It turned out, um, that world wasn't for me. Um, and I landed in a marketing consultancy, um, doing customer segmentation, really a sort of data analytics heavy, um, role, and that's how I got into marketing. Um, I went from there to a business called the Kepler Group, um, which is a paid performance agency. Um, and at the time there were 20 people, so I was the 21st employee, um, in a business that's now 900 almost, um, across the globe. And so joined at kind of a really exciting time. It was a complete rocket ship, um, and I got a lot of really great experience there. Um, I launched Kepler's marketing analytics practice in New York, um, and grew that, uh, over the course of a, a few years. And then, uh, I came over here to London, um, in 2018 to open Kepler's, uh, London offices and their first international, um, presence. So, uh, landed in London, literally just me, uh, not a single client, uh, just a few contacts that I knew through friends or, or, uh, business partners. Um, and spent really the next kind of 18 months, uh, just hitting the streets, um, meeting people, talking to people. I spent a lot of time walking the halls at Amazon, um, because Kepler has a, a strong Amazon proposition, and, uh, grew the business to a point where it was profitable within, uh, 18, uh, 19 months. Um, and then from there continued to grow it. So, um, by 2025, uh, we were about 100 people, um, in London and overseeing clients across EMEA. Um, and that was a really great experience for me. I think I got all of the excitement of a startup with none of the, the risk, um, because I was backed by the US headquarters. Um, but really sort of left to my own devices, um, which was really but really, really awesome. So, um, I moved to Jungle, uh, in April of this year. Um, obviously a decision that was made, you know, about six months before that. Um, and, uh, it's been a really, really, uh, interesting sort of shift in my career. So coming from a very data analytics heavy background and a paid performance focus to an agency that's much more creative, um, Jungle is a full service social agency, um, and a publisher. Um, and so very different environment, but a lot of the same principles apply from an agency perspective. So I'm really enjoying kind of applying my, uh, background to a new environment and, uh, yeah, getting to know a whole new corner of the industry.

Speaker 1: What attracted you to the business?

Speaker 2: So many things. Um, I wasn't actively looking.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: Um, and, uh, I will always kind of take the conversation. So I had, had a couple conversations, and I remember coming home from, uh, meeting the leadership team, um, we're an all-female leadership team, um, and I walked in the door and I looked at my husband, I said, "Oh, no, like, I think I really wanna do this." Um, and, uh, the energy was just palpable in the business. Everybody's so excited about it. The proposition is incredible. Um, we are... We call ourselves a publisher powered agency, um, and that's a real USP and we can talk about that, um, in, in a bit more detail later. But I think having a, a USP as an agency that's not just we have better people or-

Speaker 1: We're faster

Speaker 2: ... exactly.

Speaker 1: Whatever.

Speaker 2: We're faster, we're data enabled, whatever it is, um, is a great position to be in.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Um, and so I saw a ton of upside in the business, um, and, uh, I just wanted to be a part of the energy.

Speaker 1: That's a really clear answer. Um, and I don't know what, what you call this, but you also represent your country, uh, in sport. Uh, tell me more about that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, uh, I've always been an endurance athlete. Um, from about the age of 14 it's been kind of my meditation and, and my escape, so I ran competitively, competitively in the US. Um, I was, uh, what they call kind of like a sub-elite marathoner. So I ran in the elite fields and marathons in the US, um, but you're not quite good enough to do that as your full-time job. You have to have a day job. It's kind of this middle ground. Um, and when I moved to London, I started doing triathlon. Um, and I've now represented GB twice and qualified to represent GB, uh, four times in triathlon. It's a huge part of my life. Um, I think part of it is that it just provides me such a, um, such relief from sort of day-to-day stress. I love the meditative aspect of training. Um, I think I'm a much better employee and a much better person and a much better mom when I train in the morning. Um, but also I'm really competitive and so having a way to scratch that itch, um, is, is really fun.

Speaker 1: How do the two kind of, uh, support, uh, enhance each other? I mean, I talk to a number of very driven individuals-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... very successful individuals, and there, there, there is sometimes a, a common thread around kind of competitiveness, for example.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: But discipline.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Give me, give me a sense of kind of the overlap and the intersection between the two.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's massive overlap. Um, I am a very disciplined person. Um, have to be because I have a two-year-old, uh, and a, a pretty intense job. Um, and if I wanna fit my training in, I have to be really regimented about, um, when I'm gonna do that. So I'm up at, you know, 4:30 every morning. Um, I'll have coffee, read through my emails, uh, get out the door by 5:30 or 6:00 and, and do my training. Um, and it- like I was saying, I think it makes me a better employee to have let off a little bit of steam and to have achieved something by the time I get into the office. So, um, I'm much less manic. I'm a little bit more settled. I have a little bit better idea of, or clearer idea of what it is that I wanna achieve in the day. Um, so obviously I apply sort of that same discipline to the day, but I actually think more than anything it's, it's an outlet that allows me to be a little bit looser, um, throughout the workday, which you really need to be if you're in this kind of a role because your plan at 8:00 A.M. is not your plan at 9:00 A.M.

Speaker 1: I think that's, yeah, no plan survives-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... first contact, right? Um, so you're eight weeks in. Um, give me a sense of kind of where you feel you are on the journey as the new CEO of Jungle.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So I, I feel like I've been here for three years. Um, I really, like, immersed myself in the business. I spent a lot of time before I joined, um, meeting various team members. Um, so I took all of my vacation from Kepler to basically spend time in the Jungle office so that I wasn't hitting the ground at zero. Um, which was great, gave me a little bit of a leg up, but then I've probably spent four of the last eight weeks just listening, um, and spending time in various parts of the business, uh, understanding how things work, um, and getting very, very familiar with the P&L. Um, as I sort of mentioned, my, my background is in data, and for me, understanding the business is about two things. It's about spending time with the people, like I said, but also really interrogating the numbers. Um, and that's helped me to get a good understanding of where there is upside, where there's opportunity, where there's opportunity for efficiency, um, but I think in a business like Jungle, there's much more opportunity for growth. Um, and so I, I think I'm pretty settled in that. I would say over the last two to three weeks, my understanding of where those opportunities are, um, have kind of solidified, or at least the, the shifting sands are a little bit, a little bit less loose. Um, and we've made a ton of progress even in just the last four weeks against those. Um, so I would say I'm kind of shifting from that discovery phase to the, um, true sort of implementation phase, really starting to get my, my hands dirty. Um, I, I've been saying to people I'm in this sort of really comfortable spot right now where everything's my responsibility, but nothing's my fault, and I think over the-

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lux- it's a luxury, right?

Speaker 2: Yes. I think over the next-

Speaker 1: Declining

Speaker 2: ... you know, month or two, everything starts to become my fault. Um, and so yeah, really just starting to actually enact some of the things that I, I think we should be doing is, is where I'm sitting.

Speaker 1: And in terms of that listening, um, here you are in Cannes.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, what, what are you, what are you, what are you hearing in the conversations you're having?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure you've heard similar themes from everybody. Um, obviously AI is still a big topic. Um, I, I personally find conversations around sort of the philosophical, like, moral quandaries as it relates to AI to be kind of exhausting. Um, and so I'm really pleased to see that the conversation has shifted much more into, like, operational-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... use of AI and interesting, uh, ways that brands are using it, success stories, um, and we're spending, like, less time on the whether or not we should because we are. Um, and so that's been kind of a nice shift, but it obviously is, is still a really dominating part of the conversation. Um, I've also spent a lot of time talking about, um, performance and what performance means, especially for social. Um, obviously, that's where we sit. Um, we sort of anchor ourselves around business impact and the belief that social should be driving real business impact, and that brands should care about that, um, not just from a paid perspective, but also from an organic perspective. And so participating in the sort of ever-changing conversation around performance, um, is definitely a big part of what we're doing from an agency, uh, side here in Cannes. Whole different world on the publishing side-

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm

Speaker 2: ... which is totally new to me. Um, so I've been spending time talking to our, the various, uh, platform partners as well. Um, we have eight brands across, uh, social platforms, 165 million followers, um, and we monetize on those platforms. And so, uh, being really in tune with, uh, what's coming down the pipe, uh, with those, with those partners and, uh, working with them to produce kind of the best, most engaging content is, is really key for us as a business, not just from a revenue perspective, but also because it strengthens our agency proposition.

Speaker 1: 100%, and I, I think there's also a really interesting kind of, you know, link between what you were doing at Kepler, you know, and what you're doing there. I mean, I'd imagine the data lake, um-

Speaker 2: Yes

Speaker 1: ... from that 165 million follower-

Speaker 2: Yes

Speaker 1: ... base is, is, uh, just waiting to be, uh, dipped in and, um, and swum in.

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So this is kind of what I meant when I said that we have an actual USP.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Um, we have us- we have tangible benefits that we can provide to clients. Um, and, and obviously some of, some of that is in our processes, in our tech and our tooling and all of that. But we do have 13 years of, uh, performance data across our social media brands. Um, and we have built a system called Jungle IQ on top of that, and that allows us to look at what's working, why it's working, um, across any sort of number of audiences, um, you know, data timeframes, uh, uh, timeframes and all, and all that. So leveraging that for our agency clients is really, really important, but also leveraging our active audiences. So we can test against our audiences. We can use our money to test and not yours. Um, we can put sort of content ideas out there and see what- What comes back, um, because we have access to these audiences. Um, and so leveraging both the historical data, but also our sort of live, uh, media brands is a really big part of what we can offer clients.

Speaker 1: Do clients kinda get that joined-up kind of like, uh, proposition that you're able to kind of offer?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Great question. Um, so when I talked about, uh, the opportunities and the upside within the business, this is a, a huge part of it. Um, I think we have historically done an okay job marketing ourselves. Um, and I think if we can really land our proposition in market, um, that's how we'll scale. We, we call ourselves, like I said, a publisher-powered agency. Um, but if we just say that, that doesn't really mean anything to a brand. Um, you know, I know before I joined Jungle, if someone had said, uh, you know, "Hey, here's someone from a publisher-powered agency," I would say, "What do you mean, and why is that good for me?" Um, and so we're really focusing on explaining to clients in really clear, straightforward ways why that is a benefit. So like I said, our data is really important there, our audiences and our ability to use them. But also the fact that all of our, uh, our culture, but also our processes and our tooling, um, and we, like everyone else, have a suite of AI-powered tools, they're all centered around driving real business impact. Um, we leverage social platforms on a day-to-day basis to make money for ourselves, and so all of our processes are centered around that.

Speaker 1: Love it.

Speaker 2: Um, and applying that in those, those ways of working, that culture, that data, and those measurement infrastructures most importantly to our clients, um, is the way that we can separate ourselves from, I think, the rest of the noise in, uh, the social space.

Speaker 1: You're practicing what you preach, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: And that's a great sort of message to take to the market.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: You know, if you think about, I suppose, that kind of publisher-powered, um, agency or an agency-powered publisher-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... there've been various kind of iterations of that sort of over the last 25, 30 years or whatever it is in kind of digital and so forth. What is it y- you think that kind of makes this kind of a, a particularly kind of, I suppose, sort of unique moment where you bring all of the different kind of factors together-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... uh, and then you apply them to kind of what Jungle has?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think there's a lot, um, there's a lot going on in the industry right now that necessitates an agency like us. Um, I mean, first, if you just, uh, look at what the platform algorithms are doing, um, brands are having a har- really hard time keeping up with that, particularly the creative requirements, and that's exactly where we sit. We sit around reactivity. We sit around speed. We completely understand how to take a hero creative idea and to translate it into volume and variation on social, um, for paid assets, but also for organic and organic reactivity. Um, and brands are really struggling with that, uh, sort of balance between basically generating mass volume of creative for the algorithms to learn from, and, uh, quality, and trying not to lose their ability to engage audiences because you need that in order to scale the, um, the ads anyways. And the, everything that we bring to the table from a data perspective but also from a process perspective from a, a publisher, the publisher side, um, enhances that and allows our clients to do that in, in an easier way. So I think this moment is, it's, it's particularly good, um, for an agency like ours, and if we can sort of find the right clients in that, that sort of right level of social maturity, we can be really additive.

Speaker 1: And when you look inside right now, you know, and you f- you, that there's gonna be some nuggets and, and, you know, and maybe s- uh, a few that need polishing and whatever else, right? But-

Speaker 2: You'd hope, or else-

Speaker 1: Well, you know

Speaker 2: ... or else I wouldn't have a role.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. Um, kind of bring it to life for me a little bit. Like, what, you know, give me kind of some kind of exemplars or some kind of like, you know, kind of brilliant kind of examples of what you've kind of, you know, where, where does theory hit practice kinda thing from, from a Jungle point of view?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, um, on the, the agency side, um, uh, one of our bigger clients is DFS, and they are an incredible example of how all of this can come together.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Um, we've been working with them for a number of years now, um, and they are historically an, um, heavy above-the-line spender, um, and with a really sort of clear idea of who they wanna be from a, um, hero creative perspective, and we've worked really closely with their brilliant team over there to bring that to social over the last few years, and to build a real sort of social personality and a social presence for them in a way that actually drives business. Um, and so that means that we are really hooked in with their performance media agency. We're really hooked in with their above-the-line creative agency, and the, um, we sort of act as the glue between that sort of ATL hero creative idea and the, you know, operational, executional, um, side of paid media from a, a social perspective. Um, I think if we can, if we can sort of use that as a model for, um, other clients, uh, that would be really great both for us and, and for the clients. They're the perfect example of where, like I said, we can-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... we can be really additive.

Speaker 1: When you were talking about sort of outcomes and impact, um, yeah, there's been a lot of conversation I've been having to add to your brilliant examples of what you've been talking and hearing about is, you know, outcome-based pricing, value-based pricing, and, and sort of, you know, the shift- the shifting kind of, you know, kinda commercial kinda models. You know, obviously, you've got that brilliant kinda like performance marketing kinda background-

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm

Speaker 1: ... that real discipline-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... to use that word again, uh, in that regard. Um, how do you think about kind of like where we're going when we talk about measurement and metrics?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, I, uh, I think from a social perspective and particularly from an organic social perspective and a creative perspective, it's obviously much harder than from a paid performance perspective, so I had the luxury at Coupler of being able to point to-

Speaker 1: The transactional-

Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, very clear transactional data, and obviously, it's not as, as clear as people want, uh, thought it was. You know, platform conversions are-

Speaker 1: Automation

Speaker 2: ... not a, not an incredible, um, indicator of what it's actually driving for your business, but it's something. It's a, it's a metric that you can look at and you can track the progress. Um, and it's much harder to do that on, uh, the organic side. It's also much harder to do that in terms of, um, creative. And so, uh, what we sort of en- encourage our clients to do is to, uh, take a step back from, you know, these vanity metrics, um, particularly in organic social, followers, um, views, reach, that sort of thing- Um, and to think about what they're trying to drive, and then to approximate ways to measure that. Um, and that's difficult to do. It requires a level of comfortability with, um, with estimations, uh, which is difficult for a business. Um, but you can triangulate impact using platform metrics, um, using econometrics, using lift testing, using, uh, brand lift studies. You need to combine all of those things together to get an indication of, um, what your creative and, and what your social strategy is doing for you, and we really push our clients to think like that, um, and to goal us against that. Because if we're being targeted against things like increasing followers, um, that's not doing anything for the business. We can, we can do that. It's, it's actually relatively easy. It's pretty formulaic. Um, but it's not necessarily gonna drive y- anything in the bottom line. Um, and so we kind of push back on those sorts of briefs and, and try to get our clients to, um, dig into a little bit what they're actually trying to achieve, whether that's conversions or shifting a brand perception or reaching a new audience or shifting their audience profile, or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1: And do you think the briefs themselves are kind of evolving, or do we aspire that they evolve? Is it always the same question around, oh, we don't, only we had this brief?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, we, we still get a lot of, um, briefs that are, uh, what I would maybe call co- like, content for content's sake. Um, you know, we'll, we'll get briefs in that say, "We want 20 TikToks a month." Um, and, uh, we're quite happy to take those briefs, but what we do is we, like I said, interrogate the why. Um, because depending on what you're trying to achieve, you might not actually want 20 TikToks a month. Um, or maybe you do, but what do you wanna be saying and who do you wanna be reaching and what do you wanna be doing, um, with those TikToks? And so, you know, I think we'd love to see many more strategic briefs. Um, and, and we do see those too, sort of brands looking for full service strategic partners, um, a- across social, and that's really our ideal space. But if we're getting sort of the one-off project based, campaign based, or platform based briefs, we respond to them with a little bit of a broader lens on what the platform or social as a whole could be doing for you, and try to sort of stimulate some of that conversation.

Speaker 1: When you look at the kind of the current, you know, org structure and the team, like obviously again, you know, on, with the, with the lens of eight weeks, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, what does kind of like the, the kind of the structure need to move to look like? Like, what, how do you like to kind of structure your teams?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, we... So on the agency side, we have moved to, in the last year, to a pod-based structure, which I really like. It's the way that we were organized at Kepler. Um, so pods centered around clients, where team members spend kind of the whole day immersed in the client with other people that are working on the client rather than separated by function. I think that works really, really well.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: So, uh, no interest in, in changing that.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: I think where there's opportunity is in bringing the publishing and the agency side of the business even closer together.

Speaker 1: That's what, that's what I was getting at, yeah.

Speaker 2: So there is quite a lot of collaboration. Um, there's a lot of overlap in production obviously. Um, we have in-house studios, which is another great benefit for our clients. Um, we do a lot of our filming, uh, in-house, particularly for food brands because we have two kitchen studios and we have in-house chefs. And so there's quite a lot of overlap between agency and publishing in sort of the production of, um, uh, those sorts of assets. Um, and obviously we're sort of feeding from the publishing side into the agency. Um, but I think there could, that could be much more of a full circle-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... um, uh, proposition.

Speaker 1: Almost a real time kind of-

Speaker 2: Exactly

Speaker 1: ... flywheel.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Um, and so we're making strides to basically bring those teams, uh, closer together, whether that's just through, uh, things like process, um, and meetings and connections of people, um, or even, or things that are a little bit more structural.

Speaker 1: And then maybe a bit of a boring question for you, but not for me. Um, like tell me about kind of the actual kind of roles inside the pods. Like, you know, like literally kind of like what do, what do the, what do the kind of the roles of, you know-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... 21st century Jungle, you know, look, what does that look like?

Speaker 2: So we have, uh, every, every client pod is led by an account lead, so account management. Um, and they're the first stop for the client. They're very informed on the day-to-day and what's going on with the team, whether that's from a production perspective, a performance perspective, paid media perspective. Um, so clients aren't coming to that account lead and then getting a, a, "Hold on, let me call, let me call someone who knows and get back to you." Um, basically around that account lead are, uh, fun- the various sort of, uh, team members from each of the functions. So we'll have, uh, someone from, or multiple people, people from the creative team working on that client. We'll have social strategists working on that client. We'll have, uh, paid executioners on that client if that's part of the, uh, scope. And then we'll have the production team. And so that team is meeting on a daily basis, um, keeping up to date on everything that's going on across the board, but also feeding back how performance is looking so that we're able to make adjustments, uh, in sort of the next round of shooting.

Speaker 1: Um, and what sort of, you know, from a, from a, I guess from a kind of culture and kind of leadership kind of perspective, are you looking to kind of, um, you know, um, deploy, um, recognize, reward, instill?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I said, I think we have a really, really great culture. It was the, the main thing that-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... attracted me to the business, just the energy and the excitement from bottom to top. Everybody's really bought into the business. I think maybe the thing that I can bring to the business is a little bit more of this, um, yeah, sort of like an analytical mindset. Um, I think, I think I'm probably, uh, a little bit less cool than most of the people in the business um, in a good way. So, um, although I did, uh, tell my husband I think I need a new wardrobe because, uh, everyone has, like, enormous pants and platform sneakers, and they look so cool. And I come in in my button down and my, you know, dark jeans, and I think Maybe I need to spice this up. Um, but from a sort of a personality perspective, but also a background perspective, I think I am slightly more corporate, um, and, and definitely more sort of math and science oriented. And I think combining that with the creative energy of the business, um, can, can hopefully be really powerful, and that's sort of how I hope to be additive, both, you know, from a leadership perspective, but also from a culture perspective.

Speaker 1: Another thing that's been talked about somewhat to death, but is still very interesting, I think is, you know, is, is the kind of the continued rise of the creator.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, I'd love to kinda get your take on kind of where that fits in, in your, in your kind of proposition.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Creator is a, is a really big part of social strategy for almost any client. Um, so it's usually a part of the plan. If we are running, you know, social across the board for a client, it, it almost definitely includes some level of creator. Um, we actually built a tool called Pollinate, um, a few years ago, which is essentially a network of creators. So it's not a roster, but what it does is it connects, uh, various influencers and creators, uh, to each other based on their overlapping audiences, um, because what we all know, uh, is that it takes multiple touch points for somebody to convert, even based on an influencer or creator. And so if they're seeing multiple of their sort of trusted, uh, people that they follow promoting the same brand, they're much, much more likely to buy it. And so what this tool does is basically help to match those creators who you might not necessarily think of as having overlapping audiences-

Speaker 1: Right

Speaker 2: ... because they're not necessarily in the same niche or talking about the same content, um, and then sort of get them on the same plan so that you're creating this network effect, um, when you go out to market.

Speaker 1: And do you see a sort of, a, you know, a kind of an opportunity and connection between the creators wi- with the, with the publishing side of the business?

Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, absolutely. Um, so we work with, uh, creators right now basically to enhance our own offering and build their own brands. Um, so-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... um, a great example is, uh, Dani DMC, uh, who's, uh, an influencer, a, uh, plus-size model, and a sort of confidence, uh, basically guru. Um, and we have partnered with her, uh, and our brand IV NINES, women as- women in li- lifestyle brand, and, uh, we do a podcast with her called The Confidence Hour, um, that sits on IV NINES. So that's a really good example-

Speaker 1: Right

Speaker 2: ... of sort of how we're integrating-

Speaker 1: Love it

Speaker 2: ... creators into, uh, into what we do. We think it's, it's completely, uh, additive. There are things that they can bring to, um, to our brands that we don't have, uh, innately in-house, uh, so massive part of the strategy on, on both sides of the business.

Speaker 1: And as we get to, I think, the midpoint of Cannes, I'm not sure exactly where we are-

Speaker 2: I'm going home tonight.

Speaker 1: You're lucky.

Speaker 2: So I'm, I'm going to the end.

Speaker 1: I'll swap. Um-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... um-

Speaker 2: I ch- I did change my flight to go home early, but it's because I had a lot of work to do, not because I-

Speaker 1: That's-

Speaker 2: ... you know, wasn't enjoying myself.

Speaker 1: Commendable. Um, what, um, has been your kind of key takeaway, I suppose, in a sense? What have you been most inspired by that you're gonna kinda br- you know, bring back to kind of the team?

Speaker 2: I have, I have pretty strong opinions about Cannes.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Um, it's... I don't love it. Um-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... it's, it's not my favorite week of the year. I think it's, it's really, really taxing. Um, I think it can be really productive, which is why we're here, obviously, but, um, I'm not, I'm not sort of here on a jolly-

Speaker 1: No

Speaker 2: ... and, and none of my team is. I think, uh, sort of sitting around in 40-degree heat and, you know, talking about business is, uh, much less enjoyable than sitting in air con in London and having the same meeting. Um, and so what I try to do is, is exactly the opposite. I wanna meet with people that I can't meet wi- meet with in London, and I wanna be having conversations that I might not otherwise have. And so there's a fair amount of just exploring, um, and, uh, you know, meeting potential clients or potential partners, um, in settings where they maybe are a little bit looser because they're at the beach. Um, and I really sort of stack that. Um, and I, I, I guess I would say that my, that is kind of my takeaway to the team, which is that, um, the way to make Cannes work for you is to, is by-

Speaker 1: Totally

Speaker 2: ... coming, coming in kind of late, leaving kind of early, and stacking it in the middle, um, and just making sure that what you're doing is not something that you could be doing in your normal day-to-day, or else, you know, why have you gotten on a plane and-

Speaker 1: And-

Speaker 2: ... bought a, bought a whole new wardrobe?

Speaker 1: If you could, um, go back in time and give Mal one piece of advice, uh, what would it be?

Speaker 2: How far back are we going?

Speaker 1: What do you wanna do? I don't know. Um, maybe kind of, like, uh, sort of, like, late teens, maybe graduating. I don't know.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 1: How's that?

Speaker 2: Um, I think the advice that I would give myself is to relax a little bit. Um, I think I was really, uh, really high-strung. Like I said, I'm, I'm kind of this, like, it's, innately disciplined person, and that can really tip over into, into high-strung and overstressed. And, you know, I was entering a workforce in New York where that's the baseline culture, and it really sort of feeds itself. And I think I, I got really sort of caught in this rat race, which can be, uh, really productive and, and it can... you can absolutely end up on a rocket ship, which, which I did. Um, but I think I wasted a lot of energy and, and a lot of time on, on panic and on overstressing about things that almost always resolved themselves. Um, and so I would probably tell myself to relax a little bit. Um, I've learned over the last probably six years that it's possible to be productive without being manic. Um, and if I'd learned that maybe six years before that, I think I might've been e- even more productive and probably a lot more happy.

Speaker 1: You're eight weeks in. Um, if we were having a conversation, uh, maybe in an air-conditioned office in London or, uh, similar temperature here in Cannes next year, what would we be talking about?

Speaker 2: Um, I hope we'd be talking about a whole host of new clients, uh, that we've won in the last year. Uh, surely that's the a- the answer that, uh, every agency should be giving. Um, I'd love to be talking about our advancements in our technology. Um, that's a, a huge focus for us from a strategic perspective. Like I said, we sit on this incredible data, um, and we have built some tooling on top of it, but there is massive opportunity to do more. I think we're really sort of just scratching the surface on the tooling that we can use internally, but also the tooling we can expose to our clients and exposing some of the tools that we've already built internally to our, um, existing client load. And so if we are not talking about that next year, I think it will have been a little bit of a failure, so let's hope. Let's hope we can have that conversation.

Speaker 1: It's now on record.

Speaker 2: Here we go.

Speaker 1: Now-

Speaker 2: Write it down.

Speaker 1: It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for joining us on The Business Marketing.